Hi Brooke
Feeling a feeling – I am really feeling angry right now. My son (eight years old) told me a month ago that some kids a grade older than him are picking on him on the bus. We created a strategy that apparently did not work as they are still picking on him and this makes me angry.
So…(where is this going), after listening to the February overview I started really trying to feel the feeling and not resist it (which is what I would have done before) or just try and make everything happy. What I found though is that I got really angry and I think I missed the part of breathing and just being with the emotion as I just got more and more angry…that just means that instead of feeling angry I had to have been thinking thoughts that would have made me more angry right?. So I have 2 questions:
1. To stay with the feeling I have to interrupt additional thoughts correct and then do models around all other thoughts to try and understand, correct?
2. How do I learn to let my son to feel his own emotions? It hurts me so I want to protect him but I want him to learn to deal with his emotions better than me. Or is it as simple as:
C Son being picked on
T It really hurt me and I don’t want him to be hurt like I was
F protective
A Create situation where son doesn’t learn to deal with his own situations
R Son is dependent on others

C Son is being picked on
T I wonder what strategies will best suit son to deal with situation
F collaborative
A Brainstorm ideas that best suit him
R Son learns productive way to deal with situation
Thanks so much for any insight!!!