Free Guide to Overcoming Dysregulation in Parenting

You want to spend more time connecting with your kids and less time feeling triggered by life.

If you don't address the dysregulation that has been wired into your nervous system across the span of decades, you will continue to see the same patterns play out between you and your kids.

If you do address the dysregulation that has been wired into your nervous system, you will see a shift. You will be equipped with skills that last a lifetime to address what is standing between you and connection with those you love.

There are 4 Sources of Dysregulation in the nervous system.

#1: Not Having a Felt Sense of Safety

When your nervous system doesn't feel safe, you may struggle with reactions that are common to the fight, flight, or freeze responses of the nervous system: annoyed, angry, irritable, avoiding, procrastinating, picking or biting nails, feeling hopeless, overwhelmed, dreading something, rushed, impatient, ruminating thoughts, would rather just stare at my phone or TV, etc. Even if you feel intellectually safe, your nervous system may be experiencing something else.

But in the back of your head you would rather be enjoying life and connecting more meaningfully with your kids.

So the first thing standing in our way of happier, more meaningful connection is how safe our nervous system feels. Because when we do feel safe, we show up more present, patient, and playful with those around us.

The Promise of Parenting Program helps you identify when your nervous system does not feel safe and what steps you can take to regulate it.

#2: Attachment Patterns

Love is extremely regulating to the nervous system and a fundamental need we all have, though we don't always like to admit it. You may have felt like you didn't get all the love and support you needed when you were younger, or had memories surface on occasion of when this was the case for you. You may understand why your caretakers were the way they were or feel like it was just necessary. Or a part of you may feel avoidant of it or annoyed, angry, or upset about it.

The fact of the matter is that the earliest dynamics we had with our caregivers follow us long into adulthood and affect not only the relationship we have with our children, but with our spouse and others that are significant in our lives as well. These dynamics cause most of the turmoil we experience with others because we may be bringing the anxiety or avoidance baggage we picked up in early childhood into our present day relationships.

This baggage is known as our "attachment patterning" and is a crucial part of the puzzle that must be addressed in order to show up more present, patient, and playful with our kids and with less of our old baggage in hand. It is never too late to work on rewiring these patterns so that you can connect with your kids and others more authentically.

The Promise of Parenting Program helps you identify what attachment pattern you may have and provides exercises to help rewire it.

#3: Imbalanced Biology

How often have you felt out of battery, at the end of your rope, "hangry", or like you didn't have the capacity for something that was being thrown at you while other times you did? Like, yesterday the kids running around screaming and playing wasn't bothersome, but today it is just way too loud. Or, sometimes you are able to show up with a lot of energy at playtime while other times you just don't have it in you.

Our biology has a huge impact on how much capacity we have for stress before we snap or get overwhelmed. Does our body have the resources it needs to make as much energy as it can and therefore give us as much energy as possible to deal with the challenges of the day? There are numerous common biochemical imbalances that on any given day are sapping our body's ability to make its optimal amount of energy that an energy supplement or stimulant is not going to address and will probably just make worse. When we get to the root of what is sapping our life force, we can grow our capacity to stay present, patient, and playful in the face of life's stressors.

The Promise of Parenting Program helps you work through four different biological factors that need to be addressed to increase your battery so you have the resiliency to show up more loving.

#4: Misguided Expansion

The nervous system needs challenge to be able to expand against and grow from. But there are often two problems with the expansion we provide ourselves:

1) It is too much too fast: we may push ourselves too hard based on a goal or agenda that we have. Instead of growing from an appropriate level of challenge, we end up overwhelming ourselves instead. For example, we may want to put on the perfect kids event, or be a super mom, and we end up taking on too much. Instead of coming out the other end stronger, we come out feeling battered and exhausted.

2) It is misdirected: we may be focusing on goals that do not really matter, like an exaggerated concern for what others will think of us based off the type of kids event we organize. Or, we may be trying to change our parenting using steps that ignore what is causing dysregulation in the nervous system in the first place. We may be trying to force ourselves to show up in a new way by using "parenting tips and tricks" instead of addressing those things that are getting in our way of being our most authentic, loving selves.

The Promise of Parenting Program expands upon what drives too much too fast behavior and lists five skills to practice that can help you show up more authentically loving with your kids.