Eline Snel - Breathe through This: Mindfulness for Parents of Teenagers

ABOUT THE BOOK

You try to be supportive through all the emotional ups and downs, but if youre too supportive, they feel smothered. You want to give them the freedom necessary to grow, but not so much that theyre left vulnerableand however you try to do it, you can count on being wrong. Parenting a teenager is a challenge, to be sure, but Eline Snel has some very good news for those facing that challenge: theres a way to stay mindful, present, and, yes, positive throughout it all by developing a base of mindful awareness as your resource. With her characteristic practical wisdom, Snel provides methods for developing that resource, along with strategies for forging a bond of courage, compassion, and trust with your teenagerand for making space for yourself within the process too. Mindfulness meditation helps us stay calm in tense moments and be less reactive with our children. It allows us to respond to them in ways that are most helpful and that promote dialogue rather than clashing. The practices that Snel teaches, developed in her clinical work and honed in her own experience as a parent, are supplemented with one audio download of guided meditations for parents and another one for teens. They will help you calm down during tense and heated moments and become a more focused and openhearted parent.

ELINE SNEL is a therapist and certified MBSR trainer and runs the Academy for Mindful Teaching in the Netherlands. She has been developing and teaching mindfulness-based courses for over twenty years and trains teachers to teach MBSR techniques to students. Her program has been used in numerous primary schools in the Netherlands. She has recently started a pilot project in various secondary schools to teach mindfulness practices to teenagers.

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Breathe through This

MINDFULNESS FOR PARENTS OF TEENAGERS

Eline Snel

SHAMBHALA

Boston & London

2015

Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Horticultural Hall

300 Massachusetts Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts 02115

www.shambhala.com

Cover design and illustration by Kathleen Lynch/Black Kat Design

2014 by Eline Snel

English translation 2015 by Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Ruimte geven en dichtbij zijn was originally published in the Netherlands by Uitgeverij Ten Have. www.uitgeverijtenhave.nl

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Snel, Eline.

Breathe through This: mindfulness for parents of teenagers/Eline Snel.First edition.

pages cm

eISBN 978-0-8348-3047-9

ISBN 978-1-61180-246-7 (paperback)

1. Parent and teenager. 2. ParentingPsychological aspects. 3. Meditation. 4. Mind and body. I. Title.

HQ799.15.S666 2015

306.874dc23

2014047503

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

Rumi

This book is dedicated to my five grandchildren: Finn, Bow, Noosa, Neel, and Nesta. Beautiful teenagers in the making!

All of us looking after and raising children know it is a big adventure in every way. And there is only one certainty: you never know what is going to happen. When you are looking after another person, you come up against the challenge of adjusting your own desires, expectations, strong emotions, and boundaries. Life with teenagers can be particularly stressful, because they do not always stick to our programs, forcing us to find a balance between their needs and our own.

This following scene may feel familiar to you:

One day, I notice my thirteen-year-old son is up surprisingly early. I usually have to drag him out of bed or encourage him by saying, Im driving past school anyway, would you like a lift? But today he emerges freshly showered and smelling of green apples (wrong shower gel, he mutters).

What are you up to? I ask cheerfully, but with a vague sense of unease about his fresh appearance at this early hour.

Im going to the doctor. Ive got an appointment at eight.

The doctor? What for? Theres nothing wrong, is there? I suddenly feel extremely anxious. Meanwhile my son eats his toast, quickly and without chewing.

Nothing wrong? Everythings wrong. His voice is loud and strident. You dont get it, as usual. Youre so stupid! Im going to the doctor to have my DNA tested, because I cant believe youre really my mother!

Shocked at this outright denial of my maternal love and our unmistakable shared DNA, I look at him. Youre going to do what?

See what I mean? Im not telling you again, because you never listen!

Before I have a chance to say something about the properties of DNA, he slams the kitchen door shut. He gets his bike out of the shed and jumps on. I watch his narrow back recede. The morning got off to such a peaceful start, but now suddenly I find myself in a maelstrom of unexpected emotions.

Here I am, surrounded by granola, yogurt, and peanut butter. I want to reactimmediately and impulsively. I want to tell him that I am going to the doctor too. The appointment was made a long time ago. I am also having my DNA tested, because I cannot believe he is my son. I feel like being unreasonable, like slamming the door, going after him, and yelling unashamedly: Hey you, stop right there! I want you to listen to me! But I dont. I stay where I am and take a time-out.

A time-out, or the ability to stop reacting right away, is the first step toward mindful living with teenagers. On so manyoccasions it has helped me avoid getting sucked into feelings of powerlessness, anger, or the fear that things will not work out. From time to time it has also allowed me to escape my weary maternal head. Instead of worrying about the rapid and sudden changes in my sons behavior, I allowed myself to reconnect with my body. Breathing in and breathing out, again and again, I continued to feel the familiar movement of the breath until I had calmed down and I could see more clearly what needed to be done.

The next step, tuning in, enables you to observe what is going on inside and to identify what you find difficult, tricky, or intolerable. It gives you an insight into yourself without having to react straightaway.

Friendly observation is the watchword.

For a brief moment I focus on the inner chaos, the heart palpitations, and the hot fury that is flaring up in me like a local wildfire. I almost fell for it again. I almost gave in to that nearly uncontrollable urge to give short shrift to what I do not want to hear, feel, or experience. This has happened to me before, but this time I notice it. I am aware of the anger and my tendency to vent this anger. It makes a world of difference.

The backyard fence squeaks. The bike is thrown into the hedge, the back wheel dangling precariously....

Hey mom, guess what!? Our bands playing the school prom. Cool! Im going to phone Jasper about that amp I told you about.

Thats great! I am genuinely pleased for him and ask him if he would like something to eat... and what the doctor said.