How to meet everyone's connection needs without getting burnt out

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Full Transcript

As a conscious, loving mother you probably have the intention to meet all your children's needs, and your partners needs - everyone's needs.

And it can seem like a lot.

It can seem like so many needs, so many people all at once, and like you're never on top of it. Like, someone might always be missing out. And it can just feel really overwhelming.

So the practice we’re sharing with you today is how to meet everyone's needs realistically, and in a way that works for you. So you're not constantly giving out and of yourself. And you are meeting your own needs when that's needed as well, there's more balance and harmony in your family.

The technique is something that we call The Family Sweep.

It's an internal process that you do yourself mentally and we’ll take you through it in a minute so you can get a feel for it.

Basically what you’ll be doing is checking in and seeing where everyone's energy levels are, how close your connection is with them. And working out what's going on and who is the emptiest in the family on connection and on their ‘topped-upped-ness’, in terms of their love, satisfaction and contentment in life.

 

One thing to remember (mother's often forget) is you're going to include yourself in the family sweep. And this is really important, because quite often you might discover that you are the one who is the emptiest in the family. And then that's a great sign for you to acknowledge-

"Ok, well then, I need to top myself up here."

Or,

"I need to care for me first."

And it's vital that you do that because you can't give out to other people, you can't top them up when you're empty, you can only give as much as you've got within you.

 

As well as addressing your own connection needs, This family sweep can be be really, really helpful, when you have multiple children.

When we first started introducing this to mothers, we were coaching mothers that had a lot more than two children. They had four or five children, and they found it really helpful because it was quite overwhelming, they felt they had to meet all these connection needs.

How do they fit all that in?

Everyone might need them in the moment, but everyone's in different spaces!?

The sweep will help you with all of that too.

So, get comfortable, and we'll just take you through the sweep right now on your family.

 

Take a couple of deep breaths, and just relax.

Let your thoughts go, let your assumptions go, what you assume is going on in your family.

And just bring to mind one member of your family. You're going to go through each member, so just bring one to the forefront now. You might know where they are in the house, or wherever they are. Just kind of check in on them, just mentally check in.

Where are they at?

What's been going on for them today or the last few days?

What's being going on for them in the last hour?

Where do they feel like they're at on their emotional scale?

How do they feel?

Do they feel like they're needing space?

Are they on an exhalation, needing to relax?  

or do they feel to you like they need some engagement and energy and are on an inhalation?

How connected to you do they feel?

Do you feel really connected to them?

Do you feel a bit disconnected, like you're not really sure what's going on for them at the moment?

Tune into them.

Then move to the next member of your family and do the same.

So as you're going through and doing this, there's a few ways you can visualise it to help give you a more concrete shape of it.

You may imagine that each family member is a bowl of water-

How full is the bowl of water? How empty, how topped up are they?

You may prefer to use more of a measuring scale, like a thermometer and have the values moving up and down-

What connection and 'topped upness' reading are they at?

 

You should have one bowl or one visual representation for each family member, and you should be able to see which one feels more full and more empty as you go through, including yourself.

You're going to move through all your family members doing this. Checking in with where they’re at, what's been going on for them.

 

Have they been having a good day or not so good day?

What's been happening?

Are they needing engagement?

Are they needing space?

Are they needing to be topped up?

Or are they feeling pretty good?

And how connected do you feel to them right now?

Make sure as you go through it that you add your partner to the mix, and add yourself to the mix.

 

Don’t think too much about it, you’re getting an intuitive sense of what's going on for them.

And never discount your intuition as a mother, you are connected to all these members in your family. They're kind of orbiting around you.

 

Once you're at the end of this sweep, one of the bowls or one of the thermometers or whatever you used will be the emptiest. And that's the person that right now most needs your connection, most needs your time, most needs your energy and love.

That's how you decide. That's who you go to and give your attention to 

 

You could do this once a day and if there's one child who is feeling the emptiest for that day, you don't need to think of everyone's needs, just top that child up.

And the next day it's likely to be someone else, maybe it's yourself and then you don't need to constantly be worrying about everyone's needs, just focus on your own needs. And the more you do that, the more balance you'll bring to your family. More and more of everyone's needs will be met and no one will be left hanging and forgotten.

One of the best times to do this is in the early evening, that's a great time to do this check in, and just see-

Who actually needs me tonight?

Who can I top up?

Who needs my connection the most before the day ends?

You can also pick anytime to do it. And you might do it randomly throughout the day. Some mothers find when they get used to doing it, it only takes a few seconds, they can do it and then that's just how they decide who needs their attention next, at that moment.

The more you do it, it could just become a sense, a knowing when you bring your attention to it-

"I'm picturing all my family, I can sense who I'm being drawn to the most, and that's who I focus on."

 

So, that’s it, give it a go, take your own family through the sweep and let us know how it goes, what gifts you received from the process, how it supported you...

and we'll see you next time

 

Love Lisa and Kaya

xx