How Meditation Keeps Me From Reacting to My Kids: A Conversation with Lori Petro
If I skip my own practice, everything unravels. Meditation has worked its way into the center of my days, partly because I carry generalized anxiety and partly because the family I grew up in handed me a generous supply of it, along with a set of patterns that came with. Sitting quietly is what lets me rework those patterns inside the relationship I have with my daughter. It keeps me from getting triggered by her, from firing back harder than the moment calls for.
Once you've tended to that part of yourself, the work shifts to how you actually sound to your kids. I try to catch myself. Am I forever narrating what my child ought to be doing, or am I opening a door for her to tell me what's wrong? Am I nudging her toward solving the problem, or just issuing instructions? Most of us, I think, fall into the instruction trap more than we'd like to admit. So the sequence goes: steady yourself first, then look closely. What is it I'm actually trying to fix, and what's my reflexive move when I walk into the room?
Kids are going to be frustrated, furious, in tears, whining, sometimes swinging. That's not a malfunction. That's childhood. No kid is going to nod along to your limits and decide they're wonderful. None of them says, "Sure, I'll put my shoes on this second, because I've made my peace with leaving you for six hours at school and I feel great about it." Their brains aren't built to produce that sentence. They live in an emotional register, and if we want to reach them, we have to go into that register with them. Doing so means borrowing a perspective that isn't our default one.
Eric: That's wonderful. So it sounds like meditation is your main way of looking after yourself and getting ready for whatever your kids throw at you. Could you walk us through a normal day and how you handle the back-and-forth with them?
Lori: Happily, though I want to clear something up about the meditation side of it first. I'm no serene expert with it all figured out. I really want this to feel within reach for regular people. Plenty of days my version of meditation is nothing more than sitting still and watching the trees out the window. No closed eyes, no mantra required, although sometimes that's exactly what it is. There's a whole trove of good teachers and recordings on YouTube if you want structure. And other mornings it amounts to paying full attention while I steep my tea.