 How can you keep your cool when you're faced with a situation that makes you feel like you're going to explode? We're going to explore some ideas for that in today's podcast, so keep listening and we'll dive straight in. Okay, so one of the things that I often talk about in my work is the need for us to be a calm adult. So when we're faced with a child who is anxious, angry or otherwise distressed, one of the most helpful things that we can be is calm. That's fantastic, but what about when we feel like we're going to lose it? When the things that we're seeing in them challenges us internally somehow too, or we've got other stuff going on and we're just finding it really, really, really hard to be that cool, calm, collected adult that this child needs right now. How do we be the adult they need in those moments? So we're going to explore a few ideas today for just keeping calm when you don't feel calm at all. So number one, the old favorite, slow, low, low. This is adapting how we speak, how the sound of our speech is, in order to make us sound and seem and start to feel calmer. We slow down the pace of our speech, we lower the volume, we lower the pitch, so we speak a little bit more deeply. This is because when we are anxious or angry, we tend to speak fast and loud and shrill, and we're trying to do the opposite of that. Imagine your favorite bedtime story being read to you really calmly and slowly, with a nice, deep voice as you speak. When we speak in this way, it tends to really calm things down, both for the child and also for us. So you can consciously step into that slow, low, low mode of speaking. You can say pretty much anything, but when you say it in that slow, low, low voice, it's really reassuring and calming for everybody. And when you speak like that for a while, it will help you to calm as well. It's kind of a fake it till you make it, tricking your body into responding in a calmer way, sort of a thing. Surprisingly effective. I do it all the time. Next is reminding yourself that you've got this. So a little bit of positive self-talk, to be quite honest. I will sometimes find this, if I'm entering a situation that I know I'm going to find challenging, perhaps my kids are arguing, and all I want to do is shout at them. Pretty confident that's not actually going to help. And so I'll just seal myself and be like, come on, you've got this. And that reminder, as you're entering into a situation that you feel that you might find stressful, that reminder that you can do this, you've done it before, you can do it again, keep your cool. Whatever it is you feel you need to hear, and it can be helpful just to take a moment to reflect on what are the words that you need to hear in those situations. So you can tell them to yourself when you need to hear them. I mean, I know some people think talking to yourself first sign of madness and all that, but sometimes you're the only person you're going to get any sense from. And you know what you need to hear. So tell yourself you've got this, or whatever it is you need to hear right now. Remind yourself, build yourself up. It can make a difference. Number three is really simply just take a breath. So when the situation feels overwhelming, when we begin to feel our feelings, get to the point where they might erupt and get messy, just noticing that, checking in with ourselves, taking a big breath. I will often turn away from the situation if I can do so without kind of triggering other feelings from other people. Look at a blank wall, close my eyes. Just remove myself for a moment from the sensory overwhelm of the situation. You may or may not need to do that. I think that's because I'm autistic and overwhelmed by everything, but turn away from the situation or close my eyes and take a really deep centering breath. Much like you might do if you're someone who doesn't love public speaking, and I know lots of you don't, if you were going to go and step on stage and you were going to be faced by hundreds of people in the audience, as you were doing that, you might just, as you approach the stage, just take a moment and take a really deep centering breath. And you might say to yourself, right, so it's taking that breath. And a big deep breath like that, and just a moment's pause, rather than barreling straight in, can make all the difference to our ability to respond in the way that we'd like to, rather than the way that our feelings are trying to overtake us into responding. You can build on that with idea number four, which is about using an actual breathing strategy. So today I was thinking about the five in seven out breathing strategy, but you can use whichever you prefer. So the five in seven out breathing strategy is where we breathe in for the count of five, and then we breathe out for the count of seven. There's a whole bunch of science about why the fact that you're breathing out longer than you're breathing in affects your parasympathetic nervous system, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Actually, right now what we care about is it works. So we're taking a nice deep breath in for the count of five, and then we're breathing out, we're exhaling until we're really, really, really empty. So for the count of seven. But any breathing exercise where you're checking in with your breath, you're just taking control for a moment. This sends really strong messages through your body and your brain that it's okay, I've got this, I'm in control. Taking control of your breathing is one of the most powerful things you can do and a great way to stop that big red panic button in your head being hit and you losing control of the situation. Take control of your breathing to keep control of the situation. Number five is about building a bubble. So just sometimes when we are working with somebody, they're going to trigger tricky stuff in us, whether that is a child or an adult. And it can begin to feel really personal. And when things begin to feel really personal, we sure as hell are going to respond in quite a personal, emotional way. And it's not likely to get the outcome that we want, and we want to try if we can to keep things calm to take the high road here to be calm and in control of the situation so we can have a reason discussion or so we can bookmark it and have a reason discussion later. But that can be hard if it's gotten kind of personal. So what we can do here is build a bubble. And I literally do this sometimes, I can imagine a force field around me and allow those unpleasant words, thoughts, feelings that are being directed our way to just bounce off and remind ourselves that those things that are being thrown at us, sometimes literally, they're not really about us. This is about what's happened to the person who's doing the hurting. Hurt people hurt people is always a really important thing to remember. And sometimes the people who need us the most, who love us the most, who are most keen to test whether we're going to continue to be there for them when they need us are the ones who will do and say the things that seem the most hurtful of all. So we need to, if we can, try and build that force field. And there are other times when we want to let that down and we want to be vulnerable and we want to allow that relationship to develop. But when there's a lot of hurt being hurled your way, actually imagining that force field reminding ourselves this is about them. It's not about me and trying to allow that to somewhat sort of bounce off and stay in our bubble and try to stay calm and not latch onto those things that are being said or done to us. That's really difficult to master, but if you can, it makes a fundamental difference to your ability to deal with really challenging situations. And then finally, the final idea is just thinking about our body language. So when we are in a situation where we're beginning to feel anxious, angry or otherwise whelmed, overwhelmed, then our body language will tend to reflect that. So in the same way that our voice will get kind of loud and shrill and fast, our body language will tend to get quite sort of defensive or offensive where we're kind of almost ready for the fight. And you can begin to feel this happen in your body. Your muscles will tense. You might find that your hands are clenched and that perhaps your arms are crossed and your jaw is set. And there's all sorts going on that's basically like, yeah, come on, I'm ready for a fight. And that's not really what we want right now. What we want is open, calm, loving, caring, nurturing body language because that's what the child or the adult that you're supporting right now probably really needs. And again, we can hack this a little bit by consciously thinking about how we're holding ourselves, what our body language is like and changing that from what has come naturally, which might be our fight, flight type responses and kind of overriding that with what we would like which will be our open body language so sort of palms up, arms uncrossed consciously thinking about relaxing our muscles and trying to have a more open, soft posture. And when we do that, when we think consciously about the way that we're holding our body and we change that body language, that changes how it feels not only for the person with whom we're interacting who will see a very different you in front of them but it also begins to change how things feel for us because we're overriding the response that our body was trying to give and going, no, no, it's okay, I've got this, I'm calm, I'm in control. And again, this will send strong messages to your body and to your brain which will in turn begin to kick up. So when we do this, when we think about our breathing we think about our body, we think about what we're saying and we consciously try to do what we would do if we were calm quite soon often our body and our brain will catch up with that idea and we will begin to feel more calm. When you're just thinking about it, just listening to be blabbering on a podcast it probably seems really unlikely but honestly, try it. Have a think, plan ahead for what you would do next time you began to feel like you were going to lose it in this type of situation have a little plan for yourself, maybe even write it down and just experiment with it and see if it makes a difference. Okay, I'm going to try and take control of what my voice sounds like. Okay, I'm going to try and think about my breathing a bit more and try to regulate that and take control of it and I'm going to try and change what my body language looks like and feels like and then I'll see how that impacts on the situation whether it actually makes any difference and maybe I'm wrong, maybe it won't for you but for many people it really does. As with all things, this stuff takes practice and the more that you do it, the more able you will be to do it. So have a think, have a go and see if it works for you. I really, really hope that it does. I hope these ideas were helpful. 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