Happy Halloween! I thought it wildly appropriate to go with the theme of ‘fears’ this week, since it is Halloween after all! Everyone’s fears are different, but try this process of banishing your fears, whether it is related to parenting, child development, or personal growth. Many parents of children with autism spend a lot of time and energy on worrying and supporting their fears rather than beating them. This process will help you gain clarity and make progress towards your bigger vision and goals for you, your child and your family. 1. Identify your fears OK, this one is easy peasy, to address your fears you need to identify them first. What are they? Is there more than one? Is there one common theme through your fears when there is more than one? Take action: Make a list of your fears Identify common denominators (theme), you may be able to summarise it into one Example: Fears: My child won’t communicate, my child isn’t talking yet, my child doesn’t have friends, and I don’t know how to help him. Common denominator (what this boils down to): I worry about my child’s future quality of life Find evidence that doesn’t support this fear Your life experiences, conversations, interactions, what you have listened to, watch and read, childhood and upbringing have all contributed to how your subconscious mind perceives situations and ultimately created your limiting beliefs and your fears. You cant change what occurred in the past, and why would you want to anyway, it has made you who you are today and besides EVERYONE has something they need to work through – this doesn’t ever stop it is continuous but should be welcomed as a personal development opportunity and each time you work through this you make more progress and life gets more interesting, better and exciting. What you can do is decide how you want to be from this moment on. You can choose how to act and what decisions to take and how you want to respond in any given situation. You believe in those beliefs and feel the fear that you feel, because to you it is true; it is real. To reverse this you now need to find evidence that does not support those fears any longer to help squash them down. Take action: Take one fear and begin to collect evidence right now that doesn’t support that fear to give the fear less power and meaning. You may write down all of the people you know that this hasn’t happened to, all of the experiences you have had that go against this fear or any other supporting evidence that you can access from your existing mind state or from external resources. You may like to use The Focus Wheel Process youtube/watch?v=7B_UBW2MwAg, I find this very helpful in combating limiting beliefs. Example: I worry about my child’s future quality of life There are lots of people with autism that use their skills to make a living I am working on improving quality of life now so this wont be a problem Most children with autism eventually learn to speak There are programmes out there that work on this stuff There are children out there that have had their diagnosis removed and live normal happy lives. Don’t feed it Now you have done all of this work to crush the fear, DO NOT allow yourself to let the fear grow any stronger. Your mission from now on is to stamp on that fear as much as you can (and you can…. A lot). Take action: Every time you make a decision ask yourself is this supporting my fear or helping to eradicate it? Example: I worry about my child’s future quality of life Reading disaster stories and statistics that shatter your hope Vs Following a blog with a families work in progress, sharing and celebrating achievements Be present Most of the time we spend more time in our heads, worrying about something that hasn’t happened, or wont happen or is unlikely to happen. We fill our heads with ‘what ifs’ that just doesn’t help us. The fact of the matter is that if we were actually more present in the moment we would spend less time on these fears and more time enjoying the moment. Take action: Check yourself! Are you thinking negative things about the future? STOP IT right now and focus on what you are doing Example: I worry about my child’s future quality of life Lying in bed worrying if your child will ever make friends or be OK at school or find a job Vs Lying in bed being thankful that you have provided a safe place for your family to live, the comfort your bed will provide you to bring you more energy in your sleep for the next day and that your child is in the next room sound asleep. Hmm – a good time to think positive things, I would say! Make decisions based on faith, not fear Making decisions on fear doesn’t help you; it is playing safe (which tends to keep you static and in the same situation), it keeps you from playing big, from being your true self and making progress. When you make decisions based on faith you believe in your self, following your true path and you generally just feel so much better for doing so. Stop making excuses to strengthen your fear and instead follow your passion and faith. Take action: Ask yourself does this feel right? Is this leading to my bigger vision or goal? Example: I worry about my child’s future quality of life I wont start a new programme because we might not be able to commit to it, we might not be able to afford it, we might not make progress on it, it might be too hard, etc. Vs This programme will help my child communicate better, will help him make friends, will improve his quality of life, and feels like the right thing to do. Elisa x
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 19:00:02 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015