Hello,
I'm Nikki Rhodes and this is a meditation for parents of teenagers.
This is an especially exciting time,
Yet one that certainly has its challenges.
This is a short meditation designed to re-send to you.
The teenage years are designed to test boundaries,
To push limits and to feel their way into life as an experience.
As a parent of a teenager,
Your job is to both provide them with reminders of the roots that they come from and also to supply them with the wings to help them fly.
Teenagers long for that from us,
Their parents.
Yet these two things can be difficult for us to provide,
Especially if we weren't given them or weren't modelled this type of parenting when we were teenagers.
However it's definitely not too late to become the parent of a teenager that you always wished that you had.
This short exercise that will re-send to you and give you a visual reference for which you to come back to will assist during times of trigger.
Find a space for you to sit down where you won't be interrupted.
Make sure you're comfortable,
Perhaps sitting up or lying down,
Closing down your eyes.
Allow your arms to rest on your lap or have them alongside you and start to feel into your breath.
Coming back to the breath is an excellent way to immediately pause before reacting in a time of stress to our teenagers.
So let's start with some breathing exercises before we begin our visualisation.
Take a deep inhale and send the breath right down to your stomach and now exhale.
And again take a deep breath and exhale.
Envisioning our belly blowing up like a balloon and then deflating again on the exhale is a way to drive the breath down into the lowest parts of our lungs,
Ensuring oxygen is reaching all throughout our body.
When we breathe deeper we activate certain parts of the brain that help us to calm down so we're less likely to overreact and to regret saying something or doing something that doesn't help our relationship with our teenager.
Take another deep breath and place your hands on your stomach,
Feeling your belly blowing up like a balloon and release.
Belly breathing is an excellent way to immediately return to our centre.
Now closing down the eyes and taking the focus to the place between our eyebrows.
This is a central point that helps to centre us,
To calm us and to focus on something other than often the turmoil or the confusion or the trigger that's circling within us.
See if you can envision a wall.
It is a brick wall that's strong and sturdy and made well.
It has been crafted over time through many experiences and tells the type of a story.
This brick wall symbolises our relationship with our teenager and we are weaved through it.
All the energy and time,
All the love,
The care,
The worry of our years parenting the small child to school child to now teenager have gone into this wall.
And when we are triggered the wall can do one of two things.
When we are prompted to react by our teenager as we inevitably will be,
The wall can either crumble forwards,
Pushing forwards and knocking our teenager down metaphorically.
Feeling like any expansion that our teenager wants to experience,
Any pushing of the boundaries,
The wall can crush forward and over stopping this from happening.
And we know those times when they push our boundaries and we react with dominance,
With shutting them down.
The wall can also do the opposite and that is fall the opposite way.
Fall down and be boundaryless,
Enabling our teenagers total free range with no guidance,
Boundary or sense of a container.
Although this can sound better than the first example,
Both are equally as problematic.
The wall that tumbles forward onto the teenager and the wall that falls back enabling a lack of boundaries and a lack of focus.
Teenagers desire the wall to stand upright and to stay how it was continuing to build the experiences of the relationship just as it has done their whole childhood.
Don't be the wall that crushes forward and don't be the wall that falls backwards.
Stand upright and continue building and interweaving experience after experience,
Brick after brick into the wall.
Envision yourself sitting in front of this wall and envision your teenager standing beside the wall when they are acting with rage,
With sadness,
With threats,
With terror,
With stress,
With anxiety,
With pressure,
With bullying,
Whatever comes their way.
See if you can envision being the strength of that wall,
Not overpowering and not falling backwards.
This is the most beneficial way to view parenting our teenagers,
Staying true to our beliefs yet still enabling them to breathe without squashing any desire for safe exploration and safe experience which is so needed and so natural for their age group.
And as you envision this wall and you continue to breathe deeply to your belly,
Feel the sense of pride,
Of gratitude for this beautiful human you've created,
Gratitude for the journey so far that you both have been on.
And see the light at the end of the tunnel that if you can remain upright,
Honest,
Truthful,
Strong yet soft at the same time,
You will get to that light and this will be a distant memory.
The triggers will pass,
These experiences that are challenging will pass and you'll be able to enjoy the next stage with your teenager.
Return to this image whenever you feel triggered by your teenager and return to the deep belly breaths whenever you feel like reacting before thinking to your teenager.
You are doing a superb job.
