Managing Difficult Emotions As My Kids Move Away

I am working on managing my emotions as both my kids, who are Canadian, settle in London, England. I live in Canada.

The first things kind people might say to me is: “Oh, that must be hard having them both so far away,” or “You must miss them.” And both are true in moments.

Since I now have the skills/tools to manage my chronic illness, systemic lupus or SLE, I find this is a time in my life when again I can view the situation with fear – as a loss or as an opportunity for more love for myself, my kids, and the natural world.

Ellen Langer Havard, social psychologist, says in her book The Mindful Body: Thinking Your Way to Chronic Health that “every thought affects every part of the body.” Knowing this, I say to myself (and to my brain) that what matters most to me is that I want my kids (and me) to be happy.

To achieve this goal on my recent trip to England I packed this 5-point plan.

Take Back and Keep Close My Outside Mindset Wherever I Am

This is our family’s guiding star. Our best times are always outside in green/blue space in nature. We know this is where we are our best selves – smiling more, being more relaxed, and noticing new things to keep us in the present.

On my recent trip to England, my son Jesse and I took a train from London to Lulworth Cove, near Bournemouth and hiked together for four hours along the beautiful south coast of England. With my other son, Max, we spent an entire rainy day strolling around Hampstead Heath Park in London. And together with their partners, Sarah and Riely, we all spent two days roaming the grounds of Leeds Castle in Kent County.

Notice Difficult Emotions as They Arise

So here are my feelings: anger, fear, stress. Before I left, I had negative and fearful thoughts like “Why do I have to get on this plane to see my kids?” I do my best not to judge the emotions. Instead, I try to watch them come and go as if they are simply weather patterns.

Laugh

Dr Ellen Langer says that “when we are having fun, we are being mindful. And when we are mindful, we are attracted to others and they are attracted to us.” The poet John Keats must have known this too. When Max and I toured Keats’ house in Hampstead, we learned that when young, the handsome poet became very sick. Before his death in his early 20s, he was jealous of his lover and asked her, “Who have you smiled with today?”

When I moved back to my hometown of Pine Falls, I noticed that everyone liked to find humor – to laugh. You meet someone on the street, chat, and have a laugh about something (even if it is not that funny – together we take that risk). I believe this has something to do with the native community close by Sagkeeng and in Pine Falls where laughter is used often and beautifully to articulate and recognize loss. This laughing together helps us to deepen real connection.

Self-Compassion/Self-Soothing Your Heart Muscle and Heartbeat

My book Optimize Your Heart Rate: Balance Your Mind and Body with Green Space puts the focus on your heart as a muscle that you can learn to control. You can slow your resting heart rate and raise your heart rate variability with self-compassion and self-soothing techniques ideally practiced in green space.

Put your hand on your heart and say, “Good for you, you are doing the best you can.” Langer goes even further and tells us to “assume everything is going to be ok.” To this I add gratitude and the question, “What can I thank right now?” Maybe the answer is the fresh air, a tree, a bird, a garden… Notice how you feel.

Climate Action

I initially thought I might tag on a trip to Thailand since I was already over in Europe visiting the kids. But, being climate aware, I cancelled that trip and decided to keep more side trips into green space local. This small adjustment became my conscious climate action to spare the world more long-distance travel.

Next time I visit London, I plan to get a rail pass (Sarah’s suggestion) as an incentive to keep my travel to the UK countryside local. We are making adjustments with the climate in mind, and I will keep writing about talking about these with you, my kids, my friends to keep climate action close to and in our lives.

I am still in the process of reframing my emotional response to my kids both buying houses and settling in the UK. I am telling my brain what I want it to know: that this is an opportunity for more love for my expanding family and the natural world. When my mind goes to fear, loss or scarcity – I practice my 5-point plan.

So please join me in optimizing this 5-point plan in your life wherever you are and wherever you go.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

What difficult emotions have you been having lately? Do you have a plan to deal with them? Which areas do you find more difficult to manage?