• Validate: Laura Roeven, a mentor and spiritual guru to me spend 10 minutes telling me how she also yelled, WHAT? AN EARTH MAMA, SAINT? Yes, it’s human, it’s part of our learning process, it happens. Even Saint Theresa thought God had forsaken her. Saints are human. Humanness is the condition. It’s part of our heavenly path to suffer. Hang in there and seek knowledge.
• Knowledge: Before it escalates: Give yourself 15 extra minutes to get in car. Time for redirection, and less pressure.Say very little in the morning.
• Stay calm, focused and give clear easy directions: “Please get your clothes on and meet me downstairs.”  Be kind, model the behavior.
• From my husband: Mornings are for routine, not discussion, give the direction nicely, then walk away.

From a Corrections Officer:

Me: How do you stay calm when you have someone out of control that you need to direct (i.e. kids)?

Advice from A Corrections Officer:   If I yell, I know that endgame is chaos. It is my job to prevent and control chaos, so I fast forward to what would happen if I lose my cool, two tempers do not lead to a resolution.  So I have learned to:

1. Talk low, quiet.  When someone is yelling, and the other person gets quiet, the yeller has to lean in and get quiet to hear me. That usually pulls the energy down a notch, and now I’ve got a listener instead of a yeller.
2. Think about the goal, if I want chaos, I should yell, but I never want that, so I never yell. Even if the situation devolves into chaos, I don’t have to go with it, I just put into protocol the steps, we need to de-escalate and return the inmate (my child) to where they need to be.
3. Kids need boundaries, rules and regulations. They need to hear no and have tolerance to deal with it. Instead of feeling bad about not giving your child everything, think of how each “no” is teaching them how to tolerate life’s normal disappointments with strength.

Advice from a Yogi:

1. Ask for help. My son and I were getting into a bad habit in the morning and I didn’t have any answers, the same cycle of not listening, devolving into yelling. I asked an earth mama for help, I asked a corrections officer for suggestions, it takes a village. I asked my husband for help and he took 2 weeks and put him on the bus every morning. That’s where he taught me to “Stay quiet in the morning, mornings are for routine, not discussion.”  This turned my life around! I followed this prescription and we are back to kind, simple, sweet, quiet mornings.
2. Practice being peaceful to yourself: peace comes from thoughts, which become words which become actions. This is the karma that keeps coming back to you. I took those mornings that my husband put my son on the bus and I went to yoga to practice peaceful body, peaceful mind, and when I came home, I had a well of practice to exercise.
3. In Yoga, Peace is the goal. Being a householder can often provide us challenges on the road to that goal. Yelling every once in a while is to be human, Ram Dass says we cannot are not here to escape our humanity, we should embrace the light and dark sides of it. Quite frankly, as my mom used to say, “sometimes people need their hair blown back.” Yet restriction of speech is a useful tool, as yogis of yore have told us for 5,000 years. We all know that person who never yells and when they do raise their voice, we stand up and listen.  Relative silence can be a tremendous tool.

We are human and it is equally part of our process of learning to fail, as it is to win. Life is a process of learning, not winning. Our collective goal is to live peaceful lives. What I learned from an Earthmama Saint, a Corrections Officer and the yogis is to give yourself time, talk less, model more, and finally, your personal practice of peace makes a world of peace for your children that ripples to the rest of us.

Much love to you!

Anne Adametz

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