Parenting Hack: Finding Release Through “Willing Hands”
Tomorrow marks the beginning of the 10th week, at least where I live. It’s the 10th week of distance learning. It’s the 10th week of two parents working from home. I don’t remember when the official Shelter-in-Place order was issued in response to COVID-19, but it’s been a long time of that, too. And while we’re starting to get a peek around the curtain, with some parts of life-as-we-knew-it starting to come back, we are not out of this moment yet, and may not be for a while.
There is gratitude to be felt, for sure, and we’re all trying our best to access that when the emotional going gets tough. But for so many of us, the stress of this moment – of distance learning, of working and parenting and teaching and being the new IT Helpdesk guy, of worrying about jobs and finances in a whole new way, of missing family and friends – the stress of this moment is really hard to shake.
That low hum of stress that we’re living with makes it easier than usual for our emotions to get the better of us. Many parents have felt themselves flying around that emotional corner more often than usual. You know that corner: the one where you feel yourself lose emotional control, but not in a good way?
- It can be born of the frustration you feel when you have to repeat yourself way too many times before your kids respond, even though you know your kids are distracted right now, too.
- It can be born of the worry you feel about one of your kids, whether it’s about how they’re doing in school or something to do with their social or emotional development.
- It can be born of the impossibility of focusing on work and parenting simultaneously – something so many of us are being forced to do right now.
When we, as parents, go screeching around that emotional corner it can be hard to pull ourselves back. Once we’ve made that turn our sympathetic nervous systems – home of the “fight or flight” response – have kicked into gear. Our bodies tense up, our jaws clench, and our vision becomes restricted, meaning we don’t see the broader picture: we become hyper-focused on whatever triggered our emotional state and the emotional state itself. We know we need to calm down. We know we need to take a few deep breaths. We know we need to step away from the moment. But once we’re that fired up, it can be hard to reverse course. Our nervous systems are primed for action.
What our brains need in that moment is a quick signal that there actually isn’t a true emergency – that the “fight or flight” response has been misapplied. What if there were a simple gesture we could make in the moment that might do just that: signal to our nervous systems that there is no emergency, that it’s safe to calm down?
Turns out, there is.
It’s called “Willing Hands,” a technique associated with a treatment known as Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), developed by Dr. Marsha Linehan. The technique could not be simpler. If standing, just turn your palms outward, in a receiving posture. (For anyone reading who practices yoga, this position will feel similar to Tadasana, Mountain Pose.) If sitting, place the palms face-up on your lap, again in a receiving position. This palms-up, receptive gesture is, to a certain extent, the opposite of the tensed up, clenched posture we inevitably (and inadvertently) assume when our frustration, or anger, or worry takes over. When we use “Willing Hands,” we are sending a signal to our brains that we’re open, that we can take in information, that we’re receptive. It can be just enough to help you regain emotional control so you can think a little more clearly and make better decisions in the moment as to how you want to react.
Let’s be clear: this technique, “Willing Hands,” is no silver bullet. If you’ve gone from 0 to 60, it’s not going to take you right back down to 0 again. But it has been found to help diffuse hot emotions in the moment.
A quick tip: don’t try this out for the first time the next time you’ve already careened around that emotional corner. Practice a little bit during some lower-stress (but not no-stress…) moments. See what happens when you physically place your hands into an accepting position. Give it a few seconds. Maybe some of the tension that’s starting to build up in your muscles and in your jaw starts to slacken a little. Maybe you find that in that moment, you can take one deep breath and bring yourself back to a place where you feel more in control. Then, you’ll have a better shot of managing the situation – whether it’s a cranky, whining child or a child asking for the 5th time if it’s time yet to get back on the X-box – in a way that you’ll feel good about when it’s over: with some degree of calm, patience, and empathy.
If you’d like to see Dr. Linehan talk about “Willing Hands” herself, check out this short video.