3 Ways to Reduce Parenting Stress Without Doing More

As a parent, you know it's important to have clear boundaries, but you also want to be caring and compassionate, right? Well, I'm Camilla McGill, and as a seasoned parenting coach and mom of 4, I'm excited to give you the principles, tools, and inspiration you need to raise amazing kids. Welcome to Raising Kids with Love and Boundaries. So I'm thrilled today that I'm joined by Emma Watkins, the founder of Into the Fold. Emma works with yoga, breathwork, and nervous system regulation, supporting people to feel calmer, safer, and more grounded in their bodies. And what I really love about Emma's approach is how accessible it is. It's not about adding more to our to-do lists. It's about how we can make small shifts, and Emma's going to tell you about this, that calm our nervous system and make everything else feel just that bit more manageable, or even a lot more manageable. And this conversation links so closely with the work I do as a parenting coach, because when we're better supported ourselves, staying calm and holding boundaries and responding rather than reacting becomes so much easier. I just wanted to say that the waitlist is currently open for my new course, Parenting with Love and Boundaries, which begins on the 6th of March. So do go to myparentingsolutions.com www.emmawheatley.com/waitlist or see the show notes below. So Emma, when parents tell you that they feel constantly stressed or on edge, what's usually going on in their body, not just in their head?

Thank you so much for that introduction, Camilla. It was really well put. So I always talk about it as us as humans, we, we hold the stories of our lives. We are the sum of our parts. Because if you think about it, when we're going about our day, we live in a very fast-paced, highly sophisticated, very tech-advanced world, and we're constantly experiencing life. We're like little antennae constantly scanning our environment. And whether it be tiny little environmental stresses, stresses from our children, from our relationship, from ourselves, from an internal thought— because the A stress is external, but it can also be internal, and it can also be our reaction to an external, if that makes sense. So stress is a very interesting one. An animal gets attacked, it escapes, it shakes itself down, and it goes on about its day. So it's rounded off the experience and what happened. So we will experience something that we perceive to be a stress, be it in our mind, in our body, or externally. And in that moment, we don't necessarily have an avenue to be able to release or process it. So sometimes it gets held in our muscles. Sometimes it becomes a stress pattern within our fascias, which wraps around all our joints. Sometimes it becomes stuck as rumination in our mind. So there's an energetic pattern, a muscle pattern, a thought, a neurobiological pattern. And all of this, when it comes together, what it can mean is that our bodies can get a bit stuck in what's called fight or flight, so in that very heightened vigilance state. And that just simply builds up. And when it starts to build up, the very simple way of looking at it is everything starts to run a bit amok. And if you think about it with your kids, la la la la la, and they won't put their shoe on, they won't put their shoe on, you explode. Yes.

And you think, where did that come from?

And they do something that isn't a big thing at all and you explode. And that's a real sign that everything's just like bottling up.

Yes, it makes complete sense. And we're just, we're trying to hold the boundaries and we're managing these big emotions. We've often got very little downtime or release. And, and you're absolutely right. Parents say to me, and I know I've completely experienced this, they just said, uh, when we had told them that it was going to be pasta tonight. And we can literally scream, right, that's it, go, there's nothing for you, go to bed without having any supper. And we think, where did that come from? So there are the obvious ones where, like you said, the shoe thing where you repeat, repeat, repeat, but actually parents that follow my great method know that we don't have to do that. But anyway, then, you know, there is a sort of an obvious buildup because we just feel we've been patient, we've been patient. But there are times, like you say, when you just think that's come from nowhere. So yeah, no, I completely see what you're talking about and it makes complete sense. So the parents want to know now, what do I do? So I know you've got your first suggestion, finding a safety bubble. So let's hear about that. How's that going to help?

So safety bubble taps into two, if not three, of what I call our mini superpowers, which are all resources that we have at our fingertips are free and they're accessible.

Yeah.

And they enable rapid physiological shifts, which we love. Everyone needs a safety bubble, so you can do this anywhere. It just requires you to be— so ideally seated, but if you can't, if you're standing, that is fine. If you just need to do it in the moment, you can. You get one hand onto your heart and one hand onto your belly.

Yeah.

And you close your eyes and you notice Notice, noticing an observation, what that helps to do is immediately creates a buffer and it creates space away from what you're experiencing or this, the sensation, that moment of, and then you come to your breath and all you do is you'll move your awareness from your belly to your heart as you inhale. Yeah. And as you exhale from your heart to your belly. And you keep doing that for 1, 2, 3 minutes. You don't need long. You can of course do it longer.

Yes.

But what that's doing— hands on body is safety, soothing. So there's feedback from the body to the mind that everything is safe, quiet, calm. So it influences the mind as well via the vagus nerve. Also the skin.

Yes.

Having the hands on the heart and the belly deepens the breath, so you're expanding the breath in deeper part of the chest, which is going to help to soothe as well. And then by the inhale and exhale, you're also balancing the breath. You're bringing it to an even inhale and exhale, so you're helping to calm the nervous system.

Love it. And that's so simple.

Counting is very good at overriding thoughts. Yeah, but you— but just naturally, by inhaling from belly to heart, heart to belly, that will bring the breath quite naturally to an even inhale and exhale, and it just slows everything down.

I just, I love the simplicity of that. I mean, you know, your children can be at the kitchen table throwing potato at each other or doing those sort of awful things that children will do, and you could just literally turn around and do that for a minute. You could also do it in front of them because it models it for them. Because, you know, obviously we know that our children's nervous systems, that they find it very difficult to regulate. So even if they kind of look out of the corner of their eye and think, what's mommy doing? It could just be helpful, or we could explicitly model it. So I love the fact that it's this safety bubble and that you're able to do something so small but so proactive for yourself. And the touch as well, which helps us to just feel kind of loved a bit and grounded.

Yeah. And I actually, because I teach this to children and for them I call it teddy bear. So if your children do happen to see you doing it and if it works, they see you catch yourself and just calm, then you can, if you want to give it a word, then teddy bear breath because you're sort of holding like a teddy bear. Cute. Okay.

Oh, that's an extra bonus. I hadn't, I thought this episode was going to be all about the parents, but actually that's an extra bonus. I love that. That's brilliant.

Okay. And then once you finish that, just to add, like, even if you're just like shaking your shoulders, just lifting them up and down.

Yes.

And just moving from side to side, like movement, just adding an extra little mini superpower, just those tiny shifts. Yeah. Again, just helps you move from where you were in a place of stuckness, just shifts you out of it.

I often say to parents, I used to imagine myself on a kind of ledge and one way could tip into just steering it to the positive. And the other could tip into that sort of horrible abyss of me screaming, losing it, all the rest of it. So I, I like this because this is the way to help us tip into the positive. So that's brilliant. That's brilliant. So you said you've got another mini superpower, safety rituals.

Yes. So I love a ritual.

Yeah.

Real person for rituals and safety rituals. All tap into our senses, which is another one of our many superpowers. So our senses, as I touched on before, we are like super scanners. We're constantly scanning our environment, and sometimes that's helpful, sometimes it actually isn't so helpful because they can be a little bit like hyper-scanny. However, we can use our senses to our advantage. Our incredibly powerful— our smell, Bypasses wherever you are straight and transports you.

Yeah.

Our smell, our sight, hearing, our touch. You know, as we were just talking about a touch on our skin. So I have created my own safety rituals, which I would encourage you to be playful with and have fun and think about what it is that is within arm's reach or within your home that's very easy and accessible and already there. That helps to bring you back, recenter you. It's also about getting to know what makes you tick as well. For me, as I did when I sat down, spritz— I sprayed, it was a room mist. But whether it be an essential, I have my diffuser in the kitchen. Yeah, I have my room spray here. So for me, smell is incredibly soothing. Music. Music's a huge part of my life, so playing music Yeah. Songs that I know. I come in, I go to my yoga mat. You don't need a yoga mat because what the body and the mind also are really good at doing is being trained. Yes.

Making associations.

Yeah. So you're building without telling it.

Yeah.

Building a little association. Your safety rituals. My body now knows when I spritz, when I put my playlist on, I have my diffuser, I have my blanket that I put over myself. Props helps deep sense of deep relaxation, the body to feel safe. I have very simply, very quickly, so that my mind and body knows, okay, I know what you're doing here. But there are others. Hot bath, you know, but with all the goodies in, you know, treat yourself. My slippers, my hot water bottle. Whatever it is that nourishes and nurtures. This is not rocket science, but it really, it's incredibly powerful. Photos that you hold, very powerful.

Linking in with, with the recommendations I give to parents, I'll often say if your child is getting really agitated or wound up, you can shift the mood by pulling up their baby photos. And it's amazing how that can shift things. And, or literally kittens and pop, look at Google Images or something on YouTube or Instagram. It just, something like that can really shift. My cat is such a placid, sweet, adorable cat. And I know that if I'm feeling wound up and I see her, it's like it all melts away, but I'd never associated that with a safety ritual. So sensory, so we're talking smell, feeling, listening.

Smell. Touch, sight, hearing, looking. Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Brilliant.

They're little overriders.

And again, like I say, the added bonus that we could help our children with that. I know, you know, some children have their soft blanket or their jellycat toy. That's a sort of a link, a calming association, like you said.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Um, but, but pulling up the baby photos is a really good one.

I'm definitely going to take that one. You're right, actually, because they melt.

And so do we, you know. So do we. Yeah. Oh no, I've forgotten how small you were. So even, you know, keep it in an album on your phone so it's really easily accessible. That's wonderful. I love these because they're simple, like you say, you know, they, they don't cost anything and it's just a question of giving it that little bit more thought. But it doesn't necessarily take long. So, exactly. Perfect. So the, the third one I've got down, effortless test. So that's interesting.

Oh, effortless rest.

Rest. Sorry, you're right. So the third one is effortless rest.

I mean, we are really going simple now.

Yeah.

But I love— one of the things I do within Into the Fold is show people how much you can do with very little resource or time, etc. Um, shavasana, which may or may not be a term your listeners have heard of, but it's it's actually golden. What I call effortless rest, which kind of is like shavasana at the end of a yoga practice where you've created heat, you've created movement. And what effortless rest and shavasana does is it's a little reminder again, a little bit of training going on, reminder to mind-body to downregulate, to come back down. So there's a real window of recovery that can take place. In shavasana, or it is a window of recovery. So effortless rest can quite literally be you lying on the ground. Yeah, anywhere, quite literally anywhere. If you lie on the ground and put your legs up the wall, the upper wall, or on a chair, even better. But for a woman, depending on the time of the month, that might not feel good. It actually, depending on time, actually might, because it gives space to the lower back. But that's a kind of added layer to it. But essentially, effortless rest is when you are lying on the ground doing absolutely nothing. That is it. And the beauty of that is you're not focusing on thought, you're not focusing even on the breath. You were just reminding and teaching the body that you can come to a place of rest. And the body might fight it a little bit initially, and if it does, that's where you could use your safety bubble. And then and then give it another go because it might be like, oh, what are you doing? What are you doing? Not ready. I can't go from there to there. Something like a little bit of movement, you know, a little bit of shaking of the downward dog. What if you know what that is? Or just literally moving the body, shaking the body before you come down to the ground and just releasing that coming down.

Yes.

Um, but otherwise just incorporating 2, 3 times a week, 5 minutes of simply lying in effortless rest.

Yeah.

And that just brings the body, the mind, it just takes it back. Remind it not to be in your fight and flight, to kind of come back into the green zone or the calmer zone. And it's, it's so simple and it's free and it's—

Yeah. Yeah. I love it. And again, just thinking about modeling for children, you know, it could be that we feel like just tension's building up. We're all irritated with each other. And you could say, right, everyone on the floor, we're going to be sleeping lions and stare up at the ceiling. And it's about also, it's just about those little shifts, that kind of energetic shift that sometimes can really shift the moment. So yeah, very, very simple. Well, I really love that, Emma. So in a second, I want you to tell us how we can reach you. Just that reminder that the Parenting with Love and Boundaries course is opening up and right now there's a priority waitlist cuz it's going to be quite a small group. So just go to myparentingsolutions.com/waitlist and drop your name down there. No obligation, but it's just worth, worthwhile. And tell us how we can reach you.

So you can reach me via my website, um, www.intothefold.com, um, and also via Instagram, which is Into the Fold with Emma. Um, and I also have a YouTube channel which has plenty of loads of videos, right? You want to— so you can dip your toe there. Yes. Um, if you want to learn a bit more, or by my membership. So it'll all be in the show notes.

Yes. I was just gonna say, so, so people don't have to think they have to not note this down.

Yes.

I'm going to drop it in the show notes and with, I think, a special discount code for my listeners. So, Emma, it's been an absolute pleasure. I'm really excited for everybody to listen to this. It's been a little while since I've released an episode, so this is an exciting one to come back with. Thank you so much for your time. Please carry on, everybody, listening to Raising Kids with Love and Boundaries, and do rate me on Spotify and Apple and tell your friends, um, and tell your friends about Emma's wonderful Into the Fold. So thank you so much.

Thank you, Camilla.

Oh, it's been a real pleasure having you.