Isa sa mga pinakaimportanteng aspeto ng trabaho namin sa We Thrive ay ang
pagsuporta sa sa mga indibidwal at mga organisasyon para mas mabuo ang kanilang kakayahang intindihin, himayin, at isakatuparan ang kanilang mga layunin.
Lahat tayo ay may sarili nating layunin, at lahat tayo ay may sarili nating paglalakbay patungo kung saan-man tayo pinapadala ng layunin na ‘to. Ang pagtuklas nito ay pwedeng mangyayari sa pagsusuri sa kung ano ba talaga ang mahalaga sa sarili nating buhay; sa pag-unawa ng ating mga kakayahan natin, at kung para saan ba talaga yung mga nasasabing “skills” and “talents” na ‘yon; at sa pagbibigay ng oras at lakas sa serbisyo ng tinatawag na “greater cause”, katulad ng relihyon, kabansaan, at iba pa (Suttie, 2020). Kung anuman yan, alam natin na yung pagkilala ng ating layunin sa buhay — or sa ibang salita, “sense of purpose” — ay nakabuti sa ating kabuoang kalusugan (Whitbourne, 2023). Sa sarili nating salita: ang “sense of purpose” ay nakakabuti sa ating “pagkatao”, o ang pagkakila at pag-isabuhay ng ating “shared humanity”; at ang ating “pakikipagkapwatao”, o ang pagpapakita ng ating pag-unawa ng pagkatao ng iba sa ating pakikipag-ugnayan sa kanila (Lagdameo-Santillan, 2018). Sa ating kultura, importante ang dalawang aspeto na ito sa ating pang-araw-araw na pagbubunyag ng ating layunin sa buhay.
Ang kagandahan sa ating wika ay pwede pa nating mas laliman ang ideya na ito. Sa mga pag-aaral sa Sikolohiyang Pilipino, isa sa mga natunan natin ay kayang ibuod ang usapan tungkol sa layunin sa buhay sa ating karanasan ng pagkatao at pakikipagkapwatao. Sa kulturang Pilipino, ang “shared humanity” — ang ideya na nakasalalay ang ating karanasan bilang indibidwal sa konsepto na tayo ay isang bahagi na bumubuo sa isang mas malaking nilalang — ay hindi lamang natutunan pero sinasabuhay. Isa pang tawag sa oryentasyon ng isang kultura tungo sa pangkalahatan ay “collectivist” (Suh and Lee, 2020). At kitang-kita ito sa wika natin mismo. Sa isang pag-aaral na sinulat ng propesor ng pilosopiya na si Jacklyn Cleofas: “The focus on kápuwâ is so important that it is a central feature of the language; the prefix ka- specifically derives from kápuwâ and is used to form nouns that denote companion or fellow in some specific domain or activity” (Cleofas, 2016). Ka-patid, ka-klase, ka-biyak, ka-irog, — ang aspeto ng “kapwa” o “kapuwa” ay isa sa mga nagbubuo ng konsepto natin ng ating mga kaugnayan sa iba at sa ating sarili. Karagdagan sa puntong ito, sinipi ni propesor Jacklyn Cleofas sa kanyang pag-aral ang iba pang mga sikolohista na umakda sa librong “Social Psychology in the Philippine Context”, kung saan sinabi na: “the core descriptive concept for Filipino psychology is relational rather than personality or value-laden” (Macapagal et al. 2013, 13). Sa ibang salita: ang puso ng sikolohiya ng Pilipino ay nasa ating pakikipag-ugnayan sa iba.
Maliban sa paghatid at pagtanggap ng impormasyon, isa sa mga pinakaimportanteng tungkulin ng wika ay bilang instrumento sa pagkikilala sa ating sarili at sa ibang tao — sa ating pagkatao at sa pagkatao ng iba (Britannica, 2023). Kung makikinig tayo sa bigat na binibigay nito sa konsepto at karanasan ng “kapwa”, ano kaya ang pwede natin matunan sa sarili nating wika tungkol sa ating layunin sa buhay at yung bumubuo sa ating “pagkatao”? Para sa Buwan ng Wika, magbibigay tayo ng tatlong maiikling pagninilayan ukol sa ating mga “paninindigan” o “convictions” na inilista ng tinatawag na “Father of Filipino Psychology” na si Dr. Virgilio Enriquez sa isang papel na pinamagatan “Filipino Psychology in the Third World” na inilathala nuong 1977 (Enriquez, 1977):
“Paggalang” o respect
Sa pang-araw-araw, tayo ay nagbibigay-galang sa mga iba’t ibang mga tao (katulad sa mga mas nakakatanda sa atin sa pamilya), mga bagay (katulad ng mga mana’t manang gamit o “heirloom”), at mga pinaniniwalaan (katulad ng relihiyon). Ginagalang natin ang mga ito kasi, sa iba’t ibang paraan, importante sila. Kaya gusto natin siyang ingatan, ayaw natin siyang sayangin, at iba pa. Pwede natin tanungin ang ating mga sarili kung bakit nga ba natin ginagalang ang mga ito. Bakit nga ba sila importante? Paano ba natin ito ginagalang? At ang paggalang ba natin sa mga ito ay nakakabuti sa ating buhay, o kaya’y ang ating paggalang ay posibleng humahadlang sa ating tunay na layunin sa buhay?
“Pagdamay” o helping
Sa orihinal na papel ni Enriquez, ang pagsasalin sa “pagdamay” ay “helping”. At totoo naman na ang pagtulong ay isang aspeto ng pakikiramay. Pero sa ating wika, pag sinasabi na “damay” tayo sa isang tao o sitwasyon, hindi lang ibig-sabihin na nagbibigay tayo ng suporta sa usapan ng pera o gamit lamang. Ang pagdamay ay mas malalim pa dun, sapagkat ang binibigay natin ay ang ating oras at lakas — ang ating pagkatao. Pwede natin tanungin ang ating mga sarili kung paano ba tayo nakikiramay. Bakit ba tayo nakikiramay, at paano ba natin pinagdedesisyunan kung kanino tayo makikiramay? At anong mga aspeto ng ating pagkatao ba yung ating inaalok pag tayo ay nakikiramay?
“Pagpuno sa kakulangan” o understanding limitations
Isa sa mga punto ng ating pagkatao ay meron tayong mga limitasyon. May mga limitasyon tayo sa ating mga kakayahan, kaalaman, at kagalawan. Meron din tayong mga limitasyon sa atin kaisipan, karamdaman, at kiling. At siguro ang pinakaimportanteng limitasyon: balang araw, magtatapos ang ating buhay. May hangganan hindi lamang ang mga bagay na kaya nating baguhin o likhain, pero pati na rin ang ating oras mismo sa mundo. Pwede natin tanungin ang ating mga sarili kung paano ba natin nauunawan ang ating mga kakulangan. Ano ang mga kakulangan sa ating buhay na pwede nating asikasuhin tungo sa ating layunin? Paano natin malalaman kung anong mga kakulangan sa atin ay dapat sikapin nating ibago, o dapat sikapin nating tanggapin? At ano nga ba ang kailangan nating maranasan at matupad sa buhay nating may hangganan?
Para sa mga serbisyo ukol sa ating mental health at pangkabuoang kalusugan, mag-email sa resilientteams@wethrivewellbeing.com at kausapin para makilahok sa aming mga aktibidad kasama ang aming mga mental health clinicians.
“Itao mo nga ‘ka ko ro tubig, Mi– ayy… Joshua!” [in Kinaray-a] (“Can you please pass the water, Mi- ayyy… Joshua!?”)
“Ayy, pasensya na nakalimutan kong idaan yung tubig kanina.”(“Ayy, apologies, I forgot to [have the store refill the water] earlier.”)
I’ve heard my grandparents say these things in different variations and in many situations. In my experience thus far, my grandparents tend to forget about what to say next, where they placed their own belongings, or even remembering a conversation that ended just hours before. The funniest thing I’ve encountered is when my lola would mistake my name for a different family member’s. I’ve been called “Miggy” (my older brother), “Gaby” (my female cousin), “Jojo” (my uncle) or some other name. Others may find this annoying, but I fully understand.
At a certain age, it is no surprise that there are things that the elderly in our families can no longer do, at least the way they used to when they were younger. We can easily overlook this fact because we may have our own things going on for us – work, school, personal lives, stress, responsibilities, goals, you name it. But for most, if not all, of us, we may be placed in the position or an expectation to provide support and care for our elderly loved ones at home.
How does aging affect us in late adulthood?
Aging is a natural process in our lives. It involves a considerable amount of changes that occur in ourselves in different aspects such as: changes in the body, our cognitive abilities, our emotional experiences, our social life, and our overall lifestyle.
Particularly, for our lolos, lolas, and all our other elderly loved ones – like, partners, relatives, friends, peers, and colleagues – these changes can look like (DiLonardo, 2023):
Cognitive functions are not as sharp as before. You may notice that lolo and lola may sometimes have bouts of forgetfulness, like where they put their belongings or what day of the week it is. They may also have moments when they have tip-of-the-tongue instances as they talk. Perhaps, they may have trouble learning or remembering pieces of information, like what was said in a conversation or what they heard from the TV. Whatever the case, their abilities to process, store, and retrieve information may be impaired or declined compared to their younger selves. However, while memory and cognitive abilities may not be as sharp, it is not to say that we cannot provide them with tools to optimize and mitigate the decline of these functions.
Their physical health may be more prone to illness. Because our bodily and organ functions naturally change over time, there is an increased tendency for sickness and other medical conditions. For example, the common health concerns among the elderly include cardiovascular concerns, like changes in blood pressure or in blood sugar levels. We may even notice that they might need to have more check-ups with their doctors, or have medications that they regularly intake, especially when it comes to maintaining their health optimally.
Their bodily functions and movements may be different than before. Some bodily movements may not be the same as they were. They may have trouble maintaining their balance and gait, or carrying heavier objects is much more difficult. Perhaps, their eyesight and hearing is much weaker. Or that once active lifestyle, like working, traveling, or playing sports, may not be so active anymore. Whatever the case, the body tends to gradually slow down into lesser intensities or frequencies of activity at an old age.
Maintaining relationships with their loved ones, friends, and peers. At late adulthood, we can expect that there will be changes to how their social spheres are like. They may have maintained some connections with lifelong friends and peers, while other connections may have been cut off or inactive. They may also experience frequent losses, like death of a loved one or friend, but perhaps some gains are there too. At late adulthood, we tend to seek value in the relationships we have maintained, as well as the emotional experiences that come along with it.
And lastly, they focus on embracing and appreciating what time they perceive to have left. It may not be expressed explicitly for some, but late adulthood often entails a change in priorities of what experiences we prefer to go through and how we make sense of them. Longstanding research works have shown that as we age, our goals and priorities shift from wanting to explore, gain knowledge, and grow to wanting to find emotional meaning behind our experiences.
We may not notice these changes right away, but there will be certain points that become critical for us to mindfully pay attention to when and how they unfold. Some impacts of these changes could be negative, some positive, and even some neutral. But, the next step to noticing these changes is to maintain whatever positive aspects in an elderly’s life and, more importantly, manage the negative ones.
What challenges does aging bring to the elderly and their families?
Because of these multifactorial changes in the lives of the elderly, we can keep in mind that there are things that challenge our elderly loved ones in this stage of their lives. Some common examples of these are (Rodriguez, 2022):
Basic tasks and activities for daily living become much more difficult to do independently.
Taking care of one’s health and wellbeing can become challenging, overwhelming, or stressful.
Managing one’s own responsibilities, roles, and contributions to the family is a lot more exhausting or difficult than before.
Not being able to do any pleasurable activities as frequently or intensely as they were once were engaged in.
Becoming easily irritable, agitated, or worried, perhaps with the smallest of things (e.g., having a clean house) or bigger ones (e.g., their health or illness).
Having tendencies to feel left out, misunderstood, lonely, isolated, or a “burden” to others, which may cause tensions and rifts in their relationships (i.e., in the family).
This is why it is important to provide them with support and care in dealing with these challenges and difficulties. Whether or not we are motivated by our values, culture, and our familial roles, it is important for us to recognize what influences us to care for our elderly. We can keep in mind that these values could help us understand and appreciate the changes and the lived experiences of our elderly loved ones – which is an essential step to providing genuine care.
What gets in the way of caring for my elderly loved one?
Caring for an elderly loved one can be challenging for the caregivers at times. You may notice that there were moments that your lolo or lola asked for something from you suddenly, especially when you’re not prepared for it. Or perhaps you also found it difficult to fulfill that request because it was too difficult or was not possible at the moment.
It is helpful to acknowledge that, in these situations, there are factors that are within your control that can help facilitate providing care more effectively for your elderly loved ones. But there are also barriers that may get in the way of these. And so, what are these?
We don’t have enough resources, skills, and support to provide care for the elderly. (e.g., not knowing what to say or do in return when they’re unexpectedly upset, etc.)
We have negative biases and assumptions about the elderly. (e.g., “Kapag matanda, mahirap umintindi.”, feelings of helplessness, etc.)
We’re unaware of how our emotional responses to the elderly affect us and them altogether. (e.g., lashing out instead of calmly responding to their requests, etc.)
We have unmet needs that get in the way of attending to another’s needs. (e.g., needing rest after a long day of work, etc.)
We do not remind ourselves of our own limits and boundaries as a person. (e.g., giving all our time and energy to providing care to them; not allowing time for self-care and recreation, etc.)
When these barriers are present, it becomes more difficult for us to attune and respond to our elderly loved one’s needs. Sometimes it can cause a strain into our relationship with them, which can perpetuate tension and emotional distress (Perez et al., 2022). This is what we call compassion fatigue. When we don’t pay attention to these barriers, compassion fatigue can show up as:
Having frequent arguments or disagreements with our elderly loved ones;
Become less patient or unforgiving towards their behaviors and attitudes;
Neglect roles or responsibilities we committed to them and ourselves as a family member;
Automatically labeling their needs as a burden rather than seeing something valid in them;
Being critical about ourselves and who we are as caregivers or family members;
Becoming tired or burned out, or even neglecting our own personal needs.
Pause, step back, and observe
How can we manage and remove these barriers towards caring for our elderly? One of the best ways we can explore and answer these questions is to apply a bit of mindfulness – which is the capacity to notice our thoughts and feelings without judgment – in our approach. Try this out:
Pay attention to your emotional and bodily response. Notice what parts of you feel tense and relaxed.
Take a deep breath, and mentally step back from the situation. Notice what thoughts were factual (ex. “Lola, needs me to lift up the laundry basket.”) and what were judgments (ex. “Lola is being loud and annoying.”).
For the factual thoughts, ask and briefly answer: “What is being asked of me? And how can I provide that with the resources and energy I have right now?”
For the judgments, ask and briefly answer: “Where is this coming from? What barriers are up right now and what can I do about them?”
After reflecting on these questions, apply mindfulness – which is just noticing your thoughts and feelings without judgment. Then, decide on the best course of action to respond to your lolo or lola’s needs, ex. “Which actions will make it better or worse?”: “What actions can improve or worsen the situation?”
You may not get the hang of it right away – and that’s okay! Constantly and mindfully practicing this skill can help you navigate through caregiving decisions, especially when they become immediate, unexpected, or stressful (Perez et al., 2022). What’s just as important is that you remind yourself why you care for your lolo and lola and help yourself find a way to take down your barriers.
Adopting a lovingkindness approach to our elderly loved ones
In many studies, it has proven mindfulness has improved outcomes for both the elderly, who receive care, and the caregiver. Constant practice of mindfulness that incorporates a sense of compassion, kindness, and gratitude has shown to reduce compassion fatigue and create a nonjudgmental space for us to explore our own emotional and behavioral responses towards our elderly loved ones. In this way, we can cultivate within ourselves a sense of lovingkindness, or the feeling of tenderness and consideration towards other people – not just towards our lolos and lolas – but to ourselves as well (Hoffman, Grossman, & Hinton, 2011). We can learn to validate that our relationship with our elderly loved ones holds space for all of our needs – because, as caregivers, we have them too.
So try this. Whenever you are in a tough situation or having difficulties attuning to your elderly’s needs, say these to yourself as a reminder:
May I be safe.
May I be well.
May I be happy.
May I be loved.
Likewise, we can remind ourselves about the care we are capable of giving to our lolos and lolas:
May they be safe.
May they be well.
May they be happy.
May they be loved.
Ultimately, the best kind of care we can give to them is a sense that, despite the imperfections and challenges of caregiving, we can look towards ourselves and to them as humans who deserve safety, wellness, and compassion.
—
References
Carstensen, L. & Hershfield, H. (2021). Beyond stereotypes: Using socioemotional selectivity theory to improve messaging to older adults. Current Direction in Psychological Science, 30(4), 327-334. doi:10.1177/09637214211011468. [Retrieved from
Hofmann, S. G., Grossman, P., & Hinton, D. E. (2011). Loving-kindness and compassion meditation: Potential for psychological interventions. Clinical Psychology Review, 31(7), 1126-1132. doi: 10.1016/j.cpr.2011.07.003
Pérez, V., Menéndez-Crispín, E. J., Sarabia-Cobo, C., de Lorena, P., Fernández-Rodríguez, A., & González-Vaca, J. (2022). Mindfulness-based intervention for the reduction of compassion fatigue and burnout in nurse caregivers of institutionalized older persons with dementia: a randomized controlled trial. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(18), 11441. 1441. doi:10.3390/ijerph191811441
In We Thrive, we work with people becoming their best selves by working with different aspects of who they are. There are the big-picture things: our sense of purpose, for example, which in Dr. Gabrielle Pfund’s research is composed of things such as how our future plans match our interests, how engaging we feel life is as a whole, and so on (Psychology Today, 2023). But there are also the big things when you zoom into that picture: the finer details of life, emerging from moment to moment, which compose the movements towards what we want life to be. These include the patterns of our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, but also the things which give us the energy to, well, move. Specifically, we get this energy through food, “a fundamental human need that influences both physiological and emotional states” (Hamburg, Finkenauer, & Schuengel, 2014). Nutrition looks different from person to person, but generally speaking, the task of ascertaining life’s movement can be more difficult than it has to be when our bodies aren’t getting the food and drink it needs (MSD Manual, 2023). And as we’ve probably all experienced, those aforementioned patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior can lead us into patterns of eating that can deprive rather than enrich us. In this article, we will talk a bit about what such a pattern of eating is; how we might end up moving in this direction; and what we can do to direct, rather than be directed by, our eating habits.
What is “emotional eating”?
Eating is, as nutritionist Amelia R. Sherry puts it, “an intrinsically emotional experience” (Psychology Today, 2022). Hamburg, Finkenauer, & Schuengel expressed this intuition in concrete terms: “eating behavior goes beyond nutrition and alleviating hunger; family, friends, and cultural heritage shape individual food preferences” (Hamburg, Finkenauer, & Schuengel, 2014). All of life, both the pleasant and the unpleasant, is threaded with the experience of eating. So the term “emotional eating”, while widely used, does not necessarily give us the clearest idea, and might also give the wrong impression that eating in response to our feelings is necessarily a bad thing. Choosing to eat can be a perfectly reasonable way of grounding us, whether by supplementing our present positive emotional states, reliving a positive memory associated with certain foods, or dealing with the occasional difficulty (Rachael Hartley Nutrition, 2016).
The difference between “good” or “bad” emotional eating is in the word “choice”. Whether responding to our emotions by eating deprives or nourishes us depends on the intentions we have (or haven’t) set when we eat. Besides determining how nutrient-dense our diets are, how do we clarify our intentions with eating? Here are some helpful guide questions:
How aware are we of the reasons why we choose a particular food at a particular time?
Are we eating in a way that aligns with a particular goal we have, such as a health goal?
When faced with stressful situations, have we considered whether there may be better ways of coping or resolving these situations other than with food?
To what extent do we actually savor or enjoy the food we are eating, when we do choose to eat at that moment?
As a whole, does our experience of eating delight us, or leave us with a lingering sense that something is not quite right?
What moves us towards “eating emotionally”?
“Emotional eating” is also known by at least two other names: “stress eating”, and “comfort eating”. These terms might be preferable, because it gives a better sense of the context in which these patterns of eating emerge. At the minimum, when people use the term “emotional eating”, they are generally referring to food intake as a means of grounding us when we feel overwhelmed, disrupted, or out-of-balance — in other words, eating as self-soothing (Psychology Today, 2023). If, while going through the guide questions, you realize that the intent of your emotional eating appears to be mostly about self-soothing, then you may be emotional eating in a way that might not be serving your best interests long-term. But this happens to almost everyone, and it is not necessarily about willpower. The research of Dr. Tatjana Van Strien found at least three determinants for emotional eating (van Strien, 2018):
Poor interoceptive awareness. This means a person has difficulty distinguishing feelings of hunger and satiety, which can lead to difficulties with determining whether one has eaten too little or too much. For example, this can be due to dietary factors such as regularly eating foods that are high in sugar, which can exacerbate hunger because of the rapid increases in blood glucose (Penaforte et al., 2013).
Poor emotion regulation strategies. This means, for example, thata person becomes over-reliant on a particular coping mechanism (in this case, food) to deal with stressful situations. It can also mean that emotional eating becomes the result of an inappropriate coping mechanism, such as when avoidance of stressful situations ultimately leads to more of the stress occurring later on, making one more likely to rely on emotional eating.
Disruption of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Among other things, the HPA axis is responsible for regulating appetite. Under normal circumstances, the stress response would be a loss of appetite, but due to various factors (e.g. incredibly stressful experiences, childhood trauma, abuse, or other underlying health conditions affecting the HPA axis), this is reversed and the stress response instead leads to increased appetite.
Keeping these three in mind, we can reflect on a few more questions:
What might be causing your urge to eat at a particular time? Is it because of what or how you may be used to eating?
What difficult or stressful situations are you currently experiencing that may be better served by something other than food?
Aside from providing nutrition or sustenance, in what ways has food been present in your life growing up? Did you have an abundance of food or a scarcity of it?
When you think of food, what memories are usually associated with it? Were there certain negative and possibly intense experiences in your life which food used to help you get through?
How do we direct our eating?
Eating plays a vital role, not just in the maintenance of regular bodily functioning, but in our journey towards living a purpose-driven life. But eating can either deprive us or enrich us with the energies, both physiological and psychological, necessary to live out such a life. So how do we eat in a way that is more enriching? Depending on your answers to the questions mentioned earlier, co-authors Dr. Gia Marson and Dr. Danielle Keenan-Miller offers some ideas for how best you can set the direction for the way food moves your life (Psychology Today, 2023):
Acceptance. This means becoming more accepting of your body and how it reacts to food. This means less judgment, which often leads to guilt and shame, and more kindness, which can lead you to a better sense of how the food actually feels for you.
Awareness. This means tuning into the emotional nature of eating and noticing what kinds of emotions emerge alongside the desire to eat.
Avoid reacting impulsively. This means when difficult and negative emotions emerge, as they do in emotional eating, we take a pause rather than immediately reaching out to food as we have habituated ourselves. This will give you some room to consider how else you might be able to respond to these emotions.
For mental health support services, email us at resilientteams@wethrivewellbeing.com or sign-up for sessions with our mental health clinicians.
It has been such a delight to take part in the #PwCACManila‘s Pride Month celebration!
We Thrive consultants Jan Castañeda and Mike Shimamoto sat down with KC Cadiz (PwC Talent Development for Emotional Intelligence Leader) and Ronnel Franco (Shine member) for a wellness session entitled Cultivating a Culture of Care for LGBTQ+ People in our Families.
It was a meaningful session with some psychoeducation, sharing of insights and communal singing.
The past three years of pandemic have been quite challenging for children and adults alike. As students adjusted to online classes and distance learning modalities, parents adjusted to work from home settings where the lines between work and home were blurred in a sea of online meetings in shared spaces at home, while juggling work, parenting and multiple responsibilities. Many parents were thrust into an extra role of being their children’s “home schooling teacher” – supervising their children’s learning, troubleshooting tech issues during online classes, being the videographer + editor for their children’s video recorded homework, picking up and submitting modules from school, on top of the stress of working from home, and coping with their own personal concerns – health, uncertainties in the midst of a pandemic. Parents had to grapple with their overwhelming worries and fluctuating emotions, as they tried to support their children’s academic and socio-emotional needs.
This is to acknowledge that parents pour out their time and effort, their heart, mind and soul into raising their children: It is never easy – during pre-pandemic, pandemic, and “next normal” times – the range of emotions both parents and children face in these disruptions and transitions shifts from day to day, sometimes hour to hour.
Next Normal Parenting
After these past three years of lockdowns, quarantines and limited movements, we are all finally taking steps forward in this “next normal”. Students are returning to full face to face or hybrid (face to face + online) learning modes. Parents can breathe a bit easier with our “homeschooling” load lightened, although we may have some concerns or fears about the adjustments our children have to go through – “This will increase my child’s exposure to Covid and other viruses.”; “After these years of being stuck at home, will my child be able to re-adjust to interacting with other kids again?”; “After all these years of online classes, are there learning gaps in my child’s education? Can they readapt again to regular in-person classes?” These fears are valid and understandable. As parents, you can process these fears when you tap into your social and emotional skills, and you can also model these skills for your children to use as they navigate this transition.
SEL approach – Practicing SEL Parenting Skills
According to the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL), “social and emotional learning (SEL) is an integral part of education and human development. SEL is the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.”
We can learn, and practice social emotional knowledge, attitudes, skills and strategies together with our children. This can pave the way for positive life experiences, with many benefits to practicing social emotional learning (SEL) – improved performance in school and work, better management of emotional distress, fostering healthy relationships with one’s self and others.
FOSTERING SELF AWARENESS
Being a parent is a journey of self-discovery – we come face to face with our own emotions, beliefs, strengths and weaknesses as we raise our children. By recognizing and acknowledging how thoughts, feelings and actions are interconnected in a healthy way, within ourselves, and within our own children – – this guides us in the way we make decisions, and helps our children to develop more insights into their internal experiences and external actions. When we encourage our children to share about their day, and actively listen to them, children will open up to share their feelings and thoughts. When they encounter some awkwardness as they move from online interactions with friends to face-to-face interactions, we can support them by teaching them to use “I” statements as they identify feelings (“I felt shy when I met my classmates again.” ; “I felt weird seeing a big classroom filled with people again, I miss being by myself in a quiet room” ; “I felt happy to see all my friends and to talk with them after these years of just chatting or video calls online.”).
You can encourage them to share about their feelings by opening up the conversations with some “kumustahan” questions: “Would you like to share about how school has been today?”; “Would you like to talk about how your day went today?”. This approach will help them to understand and unpack what feeling excited, happy, worried or sad is about, and they are better able to manage their emotions. We can also encourage them to engage in activities that promote self-reflection – such as journaling or sharing the highs and lows of their day – “What is one thing you are thankful for today? What is one thing that you felt could have been better today?”. The more our children discover their sense of self, the more this nurtures their self-esteem.
ENHANCING SELF-MANAGEMENT
Understanding the interrelations of feelings, thoughts and actions can lead parents and children to regulating these through self-management. During changes and transitions, there will be a lot of mixed emotions that our children may go through. When our children are feeling overwhelmed and emotionally upset (dysregulated), we can try practicing co-regulation with them. Co-regulation, sometimes called mutual regulation, involves a parent or caregiver stepping in to help a child to identify, manage and process their intense emotions. When a child’s emotions are fueled by high energies, we avoid matching their high energy, and try to do emotional modeling – we model the calm behavior we would like to see in our child, by using a warm, soothing tone of voice, instead of mirroring their upset emotions.
We can share emotional regulation strategies with them – such as relaxation breathing exercises, mindfulness exercises – quiet time, focusing on the present moment, muscle relaxation, body scan, five senses exercise, using the “feelings wheel” (a tool used to help us define specific emotions we are feeling – for kids age 4-11), and for teens and adults). We can also use mobile apps: Headspace and Insight Timer have a number of tracks that can help you and your child practice mindful breathing. These emotional regulation strategies help children and adults regain control when they’re feeling upset or overwhelmed.
We take note that what works for us as adults may not always work for our children. We need to match the emotional regulation strategy with the needs and developmental age and stage of our child. It might be hard to get a 2-3 year old toddler to do meditation, but maybe we can try practicing mindfulness of the 5 senses with them: “What do you see? What do you hear? What do you smell? What do you taste? What do you feel in your hands? in your feet? How does your body feel right now?”. By understanding one’s emotional triggers, more impulse control can be practiced. Practicing these self-management skills can help us and our children to evaluate our decisions and actions in challenging situations. We can ask our children to share about their concerns, or problems they may be experiencing – we can also encourage them to think of possible solutions to their problems, the pros and cons, as well as the impact of these on people they deal with day to day.
MAKING RESPONSIBLE CHOICES
When parents assess their goals, social situation, and foster understanding of self, they are able to develop responsible decision making skills, which leads to positive choices. Our actions as parents have an impact on our children; children are very observant and they can pick up on our behavior. When we are mindful of the modeling they see in us, and in our pro-active choices, our children develop an innate sense of taking ownership of choices they make. Sometimes, our children may approach us and ask us – “Mom / Ma / Dad / Pa, what would you do in this situation?” While our tendency as parents oftentimes is to give them advice on what to do, we can consider pausing for a while and giving them the space to come up with their own decision.
The “stop light approach” can be helpful here – Red = stop and pause, Yellow = take a breath, Green = think through the options and make your decision. “I hear you have this situation right now – what are the things that need to be worked out? What options or choices do you have right now? How do you think you can help in this situation?”. This nurtures in them the ability to take some time to slow down, think through different options, consider the consequences of their actions, and make decisions based on positive values, empathy and fairness. This empowers our children to make responsible choices that consider their well-being and the well-being of others.
DEVELOPING SOCIAL AWARENESS
We live in communities, cultures, and societies, and we share this social setting with our children. With a return to in-person school settings, they develop a keen awareness of the need to build relationships and strong friendships. Part of our community fabric includes weaving an understanding of various races, genders, cultures, ages, religions – cultivating in our children a respectful approach towards differences, and empathic understanding of the world we live in today. When students return to in-person classes, they will be sharing stories of their pandemic experiences with their classmates, and while there are many common experiences, they may have to confront different realities and socio-economic difficulties that many people endured.
As your child shares with you these stories, this can be a conversation prompt to promote perspective taking: “How do you think that felt like for your friend?”, to promote showing concern for others’ feelings: “You sound happy to know your friend felt excited to be with classmates again.”, to promote empathy and compassion: “You feel sad when you heard about your friend’s troubles.”. This can also open exploration of opportunities for serving the community in their own small ways, and doing their part in creating healthy, safe and positive spaces in the community.
NAVIGATING RELATIONSHIPS
As we build relationships in our families and communities, our children are learning from us, and along with us, how to act in varying social situations.
Seclusion from their friends and classmates during the pandemic can take its toll on our children, as they ease back into being with friends, we can support them by checking-in daily on how they are coping with this resumption of in-person interactions, and actively listening to their concerns, worries and feelings.
We can nurture open communication by being fully present and paying full attention to our children when they are talking with us – this will help them feel that we care about what they have to say, and make them feel heard and understood. “I hear that you enjoyed school time today.” or “I hear that you felt sad today.” are some sample responses of how to apply listening skills that encourage our children to share more openly with us. This helps us to better understand their thoughts, feelings and experiences. Nurturing this open communication with our children can create that space where they are able to process relationships and friendships – enhance cooperation, fairness, kindness, and helpfulness towards others, develop empathic listening, manage opposing views and conflicts, and recognize and regulate emotions. This strengthens our relationships in the family, maintains healthy friendships in the school, and deepens their sense of community.
Although this “next normal” is still full of uncertainty – and we can expect that there will be bumps, twists and turns this transition brings, we can lean on these social emotional skills to help us respond to the call of these ever-changing times. By opening up our emotions, thoughts, and incorporating social emotional learning into our daily practice, with intentionality, we model these skills that our children will gain through observation and active engagement; this empowers them to establish self-awareness, emotional regulation, empathy, positive communication in their interactions with others. We continue to build their resilience, and to create a nurturing environment that supports their growth, development, and well-being throughout the different stages and challenges that life brings.
SOURCES:
Agaton, C. B., & Cueto, L. J. (2021). Learning at home: Parents’ lived experiences on distance learning during COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines. International Journal of Evaluation and Research in Education (IJERE), 10(3), 901-911. https://doi.org/ 10.11591/ijere.v10i3.21136
Collaborative for Academic Social and Emotional Learning (n.d.). Collaborative for Academic Social and Emotional Learning. Https://CASEL.org. Retrieved July 5, 2023, from https://CASEL.org/
Stoian, C. E., Fărcașiu, M. A., Dragomir, G.-M., & Gherheș, V. (2022). Transition from Online to Face-to-Face Education after COVID-19: The Benefits of Online Education from Students’ Perspective. Sustainability, 14(19), 12812. MDPI AG. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su141912812
Mother’s Day is right around the corner so we rounded up the best advice that the moms from our We Thrive team could share and here’s what they had to say:
Raise the child you have, not the child you or others think you should have.
See your children for who they are and for their strengths, gifts and capabilities. See the best things about and make them feel really seen and heard. Rather than looking at what they are not doing, or are doing wrong, or belaboring who they are not, the invitation is to accept and celebrate our children for who they are. In so doing, hopefully our children learn to appreciate and value themselves the way we as loving parents, try to see them.
As a first time mom, it helps me to remember that just like my baby, I am growing and learning too. It makes sense that I’m still figuring things out. Acknowledging my own development as a mother gives me more self compassion and gratitude for the gift of growing with my baby everyday.
There’s a lot of unsolicited advice, but the best I got were random advice after I gave birth to my first child – Sleep while your baby sleeps; At night, breastfeed in side-lying position, roll your baby to your other side when changing sides; and other breastfeeding-related concerns.
Most moms would say that the first months are the hardest, but going through it all with 3 kids, I must say that the hardest is keeping your identity in place while finding the balance between being a mother, wife, a house manager, and a career woman all at the same time. Most will ask how to balance time from all the responsibilities, but what I usually say is, you can’t. You can’t do all things in one sitting, some things just have to wait. And as much as possible, ask for help. Other responsiblities such as housework and teaching the kids can be better done by other people, like a househelp and a tutor. What matters most is the quality of time you give to your kids.
I only have 2 simple advice – enjoy the mealtimes with your family, and sleep well.
A dear friend once told me “Remember to give yourself as much love and compassion as you give your child.”
I’ve had to keep this advice in mind everyday especially knowing that moms (actually women in general), have a greater tendency to put the needs of others ahead of themselves. In order for me to show up at my best and be truly present as a mom, I have to ensure that I take care of myself too. That means being okay with taking breaks, making room for mistakes, asking for help, saying ‘no’ to a lot of things, sitting with a lot of discomfort and trusting that it’ll be okay despite the uncertainties.
Best advice I got in my later years as a mom: 😂 If you hate yourself, you probably need rest.❤️ If you hate everyone else, you probably need a snack.🥰
Advise i can give to other moms: “Ni calvo, ni con dos pelucas.” ( Not bald, no wigs) Which means balance, equanimity, equilibrium and not to sweat the small stuff.❤️
Everyday we make choices—from the most mundane to possibly life changing. While some decisions are easier to make than others, some require that we take time and consider all of our options. When things don’t turn out the way we want them, we sometimes get this sinking feeling when thinking of what we could’ve done differently or the opportunity that may have been lost because of our decision. When things don’t go as we expected we may feel disappointed and even regret.
While regret and disappointment at times can look the same, we experience them differently. Regret is this feeling of “I should’ve known better”. It makes us think of what we could’ve done to prevent the outcome. Disappointment is when the outcome is less favorable than what we had originally thought.
Unlike regret, disappointment is a more general emotion as we can still feel disappointed of outcomes that are outside of our control. To give an example:
Disappointment: I was disappointed when the film I wanted to see didn’t live up to my expectations. Regret: I regret spending so much money on meaningless things.
With regret, we are focused on our role in the decision making process whereas in disappointment we can feel disappointed in the outcome regardless of our role in the situation. Feelings of regret and disappointment can be overwhelming. The following are some ways that we can do to handle these emotions:
1. Acknowledge that you are feeling these emotions.
Think of your emotions as a compass to how you feel in a given situation. Regret and disappointment are uncomfortable emotions, but they are not bad. It’s easy for us to get stuck in our head thinking of what could’ve been or just ignore these emotions altogether. But, ignoring these emotions can make us feel lost and it leaves us not knowing what to do next.
In contrast, acknowledging our emotions can give us a clearer picture of the situation. As uncomfortable as it may be, it’s our body communicating to us how we feel at that moment. By acknowledging these emotions without judgment, we allow ourselves to view things more objectively. Not only will it help us in the decision making process, but it also gives information on what we can do when we are faced with a similar situation.
2. Forgive yourself for your decisions when things don’t go as expected.
We make choices based on what we know at a given time. Nobody is perfect — we make mistakes, we fall, we have shortcomings. It may be difficult to forgive yourself when things don’t turn out as you expected, but just as you had a choice in the past, you can still make better choices moving forward.
3. Apologize to other people who may be affected.
Sometimes the consequences of our decisions not only affect us, but it also affects other people. Making amends with other people can be difficult at times, but we can start with acknowledging that we have caused pain to someone because of our actions, and letting them know that we feel remorse about what happened.
4. Take it as an opportunity to learn
It’s easy to fall into the “would’ve, could’ve, should’ve’s” knowing what we know now. Instead of ruminating on what we could’ve done differently, we can use the knowledge that we know now and make different choices when we are faced with a similar situation in the future.
It’s a daunting realization to have that in every decision we make, we somehow let go of all the other possibilities that may happen. It’s even more daunting when we think about what could’ve happened if we chose differently — especially when the outcome isn’t what we wanted. Our reality may be different than what we had hoped but we can make better choices moving forward.
References:
Cherry, K. (2022, February 14). How to cope with regret. Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/how-to-cope-with-regret-5218665
Neff, K. (2015, February 21). Embracing our common humanity with self-compassion. Self-Compassion. https://self-compassion.org/embracing-our-common-humanit y-with-self-compassion/
What self-compassion is not: Self-esteem, self-pity, indulgence. (2021, July 26). Self-Compassion. https://self-compassion.org/what-self-compassion-is-not-2/
Roese, N. J., & Vohs, K. D. (2012). Hindsight bias. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7(5), 411-426. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691612454303
Zeelenberg, M., van Dijk, W. W., S.R.Manstead, A., & Der Pligt, J. (1998). The experience of regret and disappointment. Cognition and Emotion, 12(2), 221-230.https://doi.org/10.1080/026999398379727
Have you ever heard of the statement “That’s what friends are for”? It implies the role of a friend as someone you can count on to help you out. So when a friend reaches out and opens up about a problem, it seems natural to listen, comfort, and support them as best as you can. But there are times when you may not feel confident enough to help them. You may feel like you don’t understand the problem very well because you have not experienced it, or you have probably dealt with a similar problem before but could not understand why your friend is struggling with it. Sometimes, the idea of saying something wrong and making things worse for your friend is daunting in and of itself. Fortunately, there is one way for you to help your friend in times of mental distress.
So how can I help my friend out?
Like with medical concerns, you can provide first aid for mental health concerns.
Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) is done to help someone experiencing a mental health crisis when professional help is not yet available. ALGEE is a tool that is used to provide MHFA. It won’t teach you how to become your friend’s personal therapist, but it will help you provide them with the support they need to cope with what they are going through in that moment of crisis.
ALGEE is an acronym that stands for the following: Assess for risks of suicide or harm; Listen without judgment; Give reassurance and information; Encourage appropriate professional help; and Encourage self-help and other support strategies.
How do you use ALGEE?
ALGEE can be done in any order, depending on what you think your friend needs at the moment. Below is an overview of how you can approach and what you can expect to happen in each step.
1. ASSESS for risk of suicide and harm
This step involves observing for any signs that would tell that a person is in distress. Such signs can be a sudden change in behavior or an unusual reaction to a particular topic or situation. You should also be alert to mentions or jokes of your friend contemplating suicide, as well as self-harm behaviors such as cutting, engaging in excessive substance use (such as alcohol, cigarettes, or drugs), or doing risky activities that can harm them physically.
If you find out that your friend is actively hurting themself or has plans to commit suicide, then it is important to persuade them to get help as soon as possible.
2. LISTEN without judgment
People who are in distress want to be heard. That’s why it is important to give them the opportunity to say what they want to say uninterrupted. Keep an open mind about what they are saying, even when you do not agree with them. Avoid making speculations or giving advice, unless your friend specifically asks for your opinion on the matter.
Show that you are actively listening by keeping an open and receptive body posture (that is, arms and legs uncrossed and palms resting comfortably on the lap or desk) and maintaining eye contact. You can also make appropriate verbal responses to show that you understand and follow what they are saying. Responses may be in the form of reinforcements (“I see.” or “Uh-huh.”), acknowledgements (“That’s tough.” or “I can imagine how confusing it is to be in that situation.”), questions (“What did you do to cope with that situation?”), and reflections (“This is what I heard from you. Am I understanding it correctly?”). If you’re talking with your friend through text or chat, you may need to rely more on verbal responses to better understand each other.
3. GIVE reassurance and information
In an effort to cheer your friend, you may sometimes find yourself telling them that everything will be okay or that they can do things if they only believe in themselves. However, people in distress may feel so overwhelmed and hopeless that they cannot see their situation improving or believe that they can act on their problems. To give reassurance, you need to make them see the possibility. You can do this by providing evidence and information. Are there ways to deal with their problem that they may not have thought of? Have there been situations that contradict a negative thought that’s been running through their mind? Helping them find evidence that there are things that can be done is an effective way of instilling hope in them.
There may be times when your friend thinks that undesired feelings or behaviors, such as lashing out at other people or being too afraid to speak in public, are their fault. However, such feelings or behaviors may actually be symptoms of a particular mental illness or of significant distress that could lead to a mental illness if untreated. Thus, it is important to emphasize that mental illness is real and the symptoms they are experiencing can be treated with the right help.
4. ENCOURAGE appropriate professional help
The earlier your friend gets help, the more likely they can recover. Find out what kind of support your friend needs at the moment and help them find professionals, agencies, organizations, or institutions that can make things a little easier for them.
If they need psychological help, there are various mental health services and programs available. Some universities and organizations offer free therapy sessions, although they may be limited in terms of slots or the number of sessions that can be availed. For long-term and more intensive help, paid therapy sessions in clinics and hospitals may be necessary. You can check out the directory of mental health facilities in the country created by #MentalHealthPH here. Additionally, 24/7 crisis lines come in handy whenever there is a need to overcome a mental crisis or to prevent a suicide attempt. A list of these hotlines can be found here. Regardless of whether payment is involved, simply being able to attend therapy is already a huge step towards healing.
5. ENCOURAGE self-help and other support strategies
Mental health services aren’t always available, and this can be a problem when your friend experiences a panic attack or suddenly feels overwhelmed by suicidal thoughts. Knowing how to deal with these emergencies helps them develop the skills to cope with crises on their own. Coping strategies such as breathing, grounding, and self-soothing techniques are useful during panic attacks. Utilizing tools for mindfulness and emotion regulation also helps practice control and lessen chaotic situations caused by outbursts. Exercising, spending time with friends and families, and engaging in hobbies and other recreational activities can help improve one’s quality of life. For some mindfulness breathing exercises, you can check out Circle of Hope’s Hingalangin videos on their Facebook page.
To see a demonstration of ALGEE, you can watch this roleplay video on YouTube.
Are there things I should consider when using ALGEE?
As a mental health first aid tool, the main purpose of ALGEE is not to diagnose your friend or solve their problem, but to help determine their needs and provide appropriate support. While your closeness can help your friend be more comfortable opening up to you, it is important to always be objective, express empathy, and abide by the principle of “Do no harm.”
Here are ways that you can do this.
Keep what is said confidential, unless help from other people is necessary.
It takes courage for a person to open up about their struggles. Some people refuse to share what they are going through for fear of exposing themselves to the wrong people. Reaching out to you means that they trust you to keep what they have said only to yourself. Before going through ALGEE, it is best to set up a time and a place to talk to your friend privately. This will give your friend a chance to be vulnerable in a safe space. However, keep in mind that if there is a high risk that your friend would commit suicide, ensuring their safety by asking for help from other people and authorities is necessary.
Do not force your friend to share their problems with you.
Sometimes, people are just not ready to talk about their problems. If your friend outright tells you that they do not want to talk, do not force them to. Instead, encourage them to talk to someone that they trust or assure them that you are available to listen to them whenever they are ready. You can also simply ask them what they need at the moment. Show them that there is someone who is willing to listen and help, and they have the option to choose who or when they seek help.
Refrain from invalidating them or trivializing what your friend is going through.
Some people keep their worries to themselves because they believe that no one would hear them out or make the effort to understand them. When your friend opens up to you, listen well and try to see the situation from their perspective. If there are things they said that you do not agree with, do not reject or dismiss what they are feeling or thinking about. If you think that their problems are too simple, remember that every person is affected by situations differently. What may be easy for you may be too much for them. Likewise, if you have experienced a similar problem and have resolved it successfully, take note that what may have worked for you may not work for them. Thus, when providing help and support, consider their strengths and weaknesses.
Give your friend the control that they need through options.
One of the reasons why people usually feel distressed is because they feel that they cannot control their situation. Thus, if solutions are imposed on them, the feeling of having a lack of control will increase. If you have a solution in mind, ask first if they are open to hear advice. If they are, assure them that your advice is simply a suggestion and is open to modifications until they find one that they are comfortable with.
Improvise, adapt, and overcome.
There are times when it can’t be helped to expect something from your friend or from the situation. However, it is important to be open to the possibility that things may not go your way. Something may keep your friend from getting help despite your agreement or keep the situation from improving as you both hope. Identify the challenges, seek alternatives, and try again. And remember, it’s okay to make mistakes!
Watch out and prepare yourself for compassion fatigue.
While being there for a friend during their toughest times is admirable, there are times when their problems, emotions, and negative thoughts can get to you too. When you feel overwhelmed with helping your friend or are starting to feel affected by what they’re going through, you may be experiencing compassion fatigue. It is important to be mindful of the symptoms of compassion fatigue and to prepare yourself to prevent it or address it when it comes. Remember to take a break if you have to and to take care of yourself first every once in a while. It’s also important to not be too hard on yourself if things don’t go as well as you hope. If your friend deserves compassion, then don’t you deserve some as well? You can practice some self-compassion exercises to help you combat compassion fatigue.
Using ALGEE is a great way to create a mental checklist of what you can do to help out a friend during a mental crisis. However, this does not mean that you have to strictly abide by it or be overly concerned if you skip a step. The most important thing about helping a friend is being there for them and showing them that you care.
References:
Altta Wellbeing. (2019, September 30). ALGEE – 5 letters, 1 life saved every time. https://wellbeing.altta.co.uk/algee/
Jorm, A. (2016). Key Elements of Mental Health First Aid. Alan J Fisher Centre for Public Mental Health. http://cpmh.org.za/wmhd/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Key-Elements.pdf
Martinelli, K. (2023, February 20). How to Support a Friend With Mental Health Challenges. Child Mind Institute. https://childmind.org/article/support-friend-with-mental-health-challenges/
Mental Health Foundation. (n.d.). How to support someone with a mental health problem. https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/explore-mental-health/articles/how-support-someone-mental-health-problem
Thurrott, S. (2021, June 11). Watch for These Key Warning Signs of Compassion Fatigue. Banner Health. https://www.bannerhealth.com/healthcareblog/teach-me/watch-for-these-key-warning-signs-of-compassion-fatigue
“Perhaps the biggest tragedy of our lives is that freedom is possible.
Yet each day we listen to inner voices that keep our life small.”
Tara Brach
As we faced frightening and stressful times during the pandemic many of us became familiar with the vocabulary of fight, flight, and freeze responses to stress and trauma. When a threatening situation arises, our nervous system sets off an automatic response toward safety and protection. This process happens unconsciously, without us having to think or be intentional about it, with the goal of survival being the immediate priority. The brain prepares the body to deal with the threat in different ways: to engage with it aggressively (fight), to run away or avoid it (flight), or to shut-down and numb the pain if the danger is deemed to be insurmountable (freeze). In our modern world, these stress reactions are mostly triggered by emotional or social threats such as our fear of failure, loss of control, rejection, abandonment, and feelings of worthlessness. Although useful and necessary for coping with real danger, being chronically caught in the habit of these defensive responses severely compromises our physical and mental health.
The fawn response is a lesser known stress and trauma response mechanism that deserves much more attention than it gets. Natureza Gabriel Kram, in his book Restorative Practices of Wellbeing (2021), describes the fawn response as a survival structure that utilizes our capacity for connection to disarm a threat. It usually emerges in contexts where the source of danger is someone we are intimately connected with. In these circumstances fighting, fleeing, or freezing would not have achieved our adaptive goals either because the threatening figure is someone we depend on for our survival or that using a more overt defensive response would have worsened the potential harm. A lot of times the fawn response gets reinforced early in life as a way of coping with emotionally unavailable, critical, or abusive caregiving. In the absence of supportive and empowering connections, young children may become hyper-focused on pleasing parents and caregivers by being sensitive to their distress and taking care of their emotional needs.
Dr. Arielle Schwartz characterizes the fawn response as a pattern of pleasing and appeasing behaviors aimed at taking care of the needs of the aggressor in order to diffuse danger. It’s a rather sophisticated process that taps into the social engagement system, manifesting in different forms of accommodation that serve to befriend an aggressor in order to ensure one’s safety. In a broader sense, we could be dealing not only with physical aggression but as is often the case, our safety could be undermined by emotional threats—being harshly criticized or put down, shamed, rejected, and dismissed. The fawn response gets activated to manage these threats. Fawning behaviors commonly manifest as being overly agreeable or helpful; never being able to say no; constantly prioritizing the needs and happiness of the other over one’s own; and forfeiting one’s boundaries, rights, and needs to avoid being attacked or shamed. Perhaps not surprisingly, the fawn response has been observed to be more common in women than in men. Evolutionarily, women have had to defend themselves against male aggressors. However, fighting, escaping, or shutting down might not have been viable responses because they had children to protect and care for. Therefore, it became a matter of necessity for women to engage in a survival strategy that disarms aggressive and controlling male figures by turning toward them and by being over-accommodating to their needs.
As we can see, the fawn response can become a very deeply embedded behavioral pattern which patriarchal societies have culturally entrained.
Pleasing and appeasing behaviors have become implicit expectations in females, preserving the status quo of inequitably distributed power and resources that favor men. The perpetuation of fawning patterns has immense ramifications on women’s lives. Being brought up in families and communities where females are rewarded for fawning has kept our lives smaller than the horizon of opportunities that we deserve.
Psychologically, the consequence of fawning is that it leads us to abandon ourselves. We lose clarity about who we are and disconnect from our truth. Although fawning behaviors may appear functional and even socially desirable from the outside, on the inside what is really going on is a persistent bypassing of our internal signals. While we can project an image of adapting well to external demands, our nervous system is actually in a vulnerable state of threat because we don’t feel safe to be our authentic self. Beneath the surface, we are constantly experiencing stress from the invalidation of our true needs and desires. Women’s physical and mental health are believed to be negatively impacted by the habituation of the fawn response. World-renowned physician and trauma expert Dr. Gabor Maté in his book The Myth of Normal (2022) makes the case that women’s acculturation into society to automatically and compulsively prioritize the emotional needs of others while ignoring one’s own is associated with the very high prevalence of autoimmune diseases and non-smoking related cancers among women. It could also help explain why women make up a vast majority of chronic migraine sufferers (Migraine Research Foundation) and take twice as much antidepressants and anxiety pills compared to men. This is not to say that fawning behaviors are biologically determined, but that a patriarchal society thrusts this predicament upon women.
Women’s pathways to wellness need to consider the role that fawn response patterns play in keeping us entrenched in toxic stress cycles. People around us, most of the time those who are close to us, have been accustomed to our dutiful yeses, complying so as not to disrupt the comfort of old ways. Continuing the fight for women’s liberation means challenging ourselves to pull away the curtain that keeps our needs out of sight and daring to listen to our real self. What would happen if we stepped boldly into directing more care and attention to ourselves, to giving voice to our truth, and to saying no to the inequities we experience at home and at work? Where would these acts of self-love take us? Quite simply, they would bring us home.
Unlearning our fawn response is a journey into embracing the freedom that comes from self-authenticity and in recognizing the one treasure that we really are. We are in different circumstances and indeed some women struggle with more severe threats to their safety. Acknowledging the ways we get hooked into fawning is not about self-blame but a compassionate awakening. We can practice and take everyday steps to turn our caring gaze toward ourselves, gradually exploring the new territory of taking action on our behalf and being immensely proud of the courage we’ve found.
Practices in Unlearning our Fawn Response
1. Connecting with our Safety Anchors
Psychotherapist and author Deb Dana espouses a nervous system approach to resilience and wellbeing that emphasizes anchoring on safety. Genuine safety means honoring our internal signals to tell us when are feeling safe or unsafe about different situations. To strengthen our safety ancbors, we are invited to notice WHO, WHAT, WHERE, and WHEN we feel safe. Who are the people who make us feel safe? In which relationships do we feel heard and validated? What activities bring us a sense of safety and calm when we’re feeling overwhelmed? Which physical spaces support our feelings of safety and ease? What moments allow us to listen deeply to ourselves?
2. Self-Compassion
Unlike self-criticism which asks if you’re good enough, self-compassion asks what’s good for you? This is according to Dr. Kristin Neff, pioneer researcher on self-compassion. The practice of self-compassion calls for the integration of tenderness and fierceness. We practice the tender side of self-compassion by being with ourselves in an accepting way, comforting and reassuring ourselves, being present to our moments of difficulty without self-judgment. On the other hand, we exercise the fierce side of self-compassion by standing up to protect ourselves, to provide ourselves what we need, and motivate ourselves toward committed action. Sometimes it means saying no, drawing boundaries, and fighting injustice. Speaking our truth can be a form of fierce self-compassion. Dr. Arielle Schwartz suggests exploring incomplete conversations or unfinished business by journaling about the following prompts:
When you hurt me I felt . . .
The worst thing that you said or did was . . .
What I was most afraid of was . . .
What I wish I had said to you then, but never told you was . . .
What you could never take from me is . . .
I know that I am strong because . . .
What I want you to know about me now is . . .
3. Boundary Clarity/Observing Limits
Natureza Gabriel Kram explains that “developing boundary clarity is about learning to tune into and experience, at a visceral level, the direct energy of the defensive responses.” Because fawning overrides the fight response, which is at times necessary for self-protection, practicing boundary clarity helps us reconnect with the limits that we’ve surrendered to accommodate others. One way to do this is to allow ourselves to experience and validate anger. Instead of automatically inhibiting anger, allow it, feel the biological energy of anger in the body, and invite it to take the form of an action toward assertive self-advocacy. It could mean expressing what we don’t feel good about, making a direct request to address our need, and perhaps sometimes pulling away from relationships that curtail our authenticity.
4. Allyship
We can draw strength and courage to end toxic stress cycles through the power of allyship. When we become aware of the cultural forces that shape the fawn response in females, it awakens us to the need for standing up together. Allyship means standing up for ourselves, for our mothers, our daughters, nieces, friends, co-workers and fully embracing our value. Allyship can be practiced in everyday life by assertively responding to micro-aggressions experienced by women. A Harvard Business Review article (2022) notes that most commonly, these micro-aggressions involve invalidation of competence, invalidation of physical presence, and diminishing or denying gender bias when it is brought up. It is important that we educate ourselves on what to look for, to speak up, and reach out to one another.
About the Author:
Dr. Joanna Herrera is a licensed psychologist in the Philippines and in California. She obtained Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Clinical Psychology from The Wright Institute in Berkeley, California and completed predoctoral and fellowship training at the UCSF-Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland. She has been a clinical supervisor for MA/PhD clinicians, developed mental health programs, and became the director of a community mental health program in the San Francisco-Bay Area. She currently holds practice as a clinical psychologist, provides services and consultation to organizations, and is involved in the training and supervision of mental health professionals in the Philippines. Dr. Herrera is President and Co-Founder of We Thrive Consultancy and Wellbeing Services, Inc. and the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Circle of Hope, a non-profit organization. She started formal mindfulness training in 2008 and is a mindfulness practitioner. She is intensively trained in DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy), trauma-informed treatment, early childhood mental health, clinical supervision, and mindfulness-based clinical interventions among others.
