Lily has been sick since Sunday. She had a raging fever most of the day, seemed fine on Monday, but then the head cold hit on Tuesday. Last night, we spent most of the night miserable, neither she nor I getting much sleep. I finally managed to get her propped up enough, and managed to get her to stay propped up, that her coughing subsided enough that she could sleep. Lily is so rarely sick that the concept of “stand by” treatment for her doesn’t exist. I’m flying on instinct almost exclusively for this one… trying to keep her something short of completely miserable.
Russ and I were also exposed and spent our weekend juicing through the virus. I thought Lily had managed to overcome it after the day long fever, but not quite. He’s a bit run down after shoveling all the snow off the top of the RV, and I’m still dealing with cramping and discomfort, but otherwise he and I are well. Time for more juice (I ran out of carrots after the weekend) for Lils however. Her system needs a major boost. Tea tree, castor, and carrots!
Ok, on to the post.
Last night, Russ was really struggling with being overly swamped by expectations for Commnet, so I offered to help him with some of his tasks. It’s rare that I can really do much to assist but once in a while, he has admin related stuff that doesn’t require knowledge of the cryptic language of TeleComTLA. So, after dinner, I sat down with my laptop and Russ headed for the keyboards. Lily was busy doing something in the area near Russ and the music, and so I got to work. Within a few moments, however, she appeared, looking for a lap.
She was pretty yucky most of the day with the usual head cold stuff, but she had quite a bit of energy last night, for a while. Up and down. At her request, I set my laptop aside to hold her for a few moments, when she asked me what I was working on. She’s accustomed to me using an hour or so in the first/morning to work, but I don’t typically work at night. She seems to also have a pretty good idea of what it is I’m working on usually. I suppose observation of habit is rather effective… This time, it looked different to her, so she inquired. I explained to her that I was working on something for Russ.
“What?”, she wanted to know what I was doing.
“I’m doing some of Papa’s Commnet work for him because he has too much and is tired. I’m taking care of this for him this time.”
“YOU?? You are doing Papa’s work?? You can do that? Really? You’re doing Papa’s work for him?”, she was either amazed, shocked, or confused, I’m not sure which.
At this point, she got up and disappeared for about 5 minutes. I resumed working, and Russ continued to play keys. When she returned, she presented me with the following, after having stopped by Russ to confirm, “Papa, did you know Mama is doing your work for you?”
This speaks with more understanding, compassion, gentleness, empathy, grace, and empathic awareness than I can fathom. Can you grasp the enormity of this? I love that my little bug is so everything that she is. 🙂
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Skip ahead 30 minutes, after a while of working a while on the aforementioned task for Russ, I decided to join him for a bit of music. We played a bit with some holiday stuff, struggled with a wifi jam, and finally managed to obtain a recording of one particular song I was after, “Wexford Carol”. This is a super simple song, but it’s one that eludes my “memory of the music from thin air” function. I don’t know why, but it has this frustrating quality for me, and in that same quality, it possesses a haunting simplicity that is irresistible.
I found a recording and we started to play, but of course, instead of a non-brain damaging key, the recording was done in B major. This key is fine on the piano and guitar, but not so the violin (or the flute for that matter). In this key, the song requires either playing in a position on the violin that is a 1/2 step in between what my fingers easily find (with almost no open strings), or modifying the tuning across the entire instrument.
It’s annoying to play in B. F# minor and C# are no better, and Russ writes in these keys all the time.
I complain.
Lily goes into “solve mode”.
This is how it unfolded, this time.
Lily didn’t really want to talk a lot last night, her throat hurt. There was also the volume of the music factor… So, she resorted to signing. She started to spell out her thought, and I made a quick assumption that she was trying to tell me that my playing was out of tune. She was signing something about tuning and referring to my violin’s pegs.
I laughed and concurred, that I wasn’t playing very well in tune, and explained to her that I didn’t like the key the song was in.
She countered… Signing, “That’s not what I meant.”
??
I pondered. I assumed she didn’t like the sound, as she hears tones as well as Russ does, as far as we can tell. And while that may have been part of her thinking, it wasn’t her focus. She realized I was struggling with something that was frustrating, and she is driven to remedy discomfort.
I asked her to clarify, she tried to sign her answer, but it was too complex. (We need to renew our fluency of words/sentence structure of Sign, I think). She asked for the music to be paused and then went on to explain, “Mama, just turn your pegs a tiny bit, all of them. Then you can play it without it being so hard.”
I was dumbfounded.
Again.
This kid…
Knowing that she has received no formal training in anything musical, instruments or otherwise… Knowing that what she does and knows musically is a direct result of curiosity led exploration on her part, and observing me and her Papa… And not knowing the extent of her knowledge or understanding until it becomes ridiculously obvious…
This child demonstrated a comprehension of something that many adults only grasp after much academic instruction. She was telling me to just detune my instrument, 1/2 step up, so that I could play with the song, in the key it was recorded in, without the annoyance.
Her awareness of this, and her reasoning and offering of this solution to my dilemma, is HUGE. Profoundly huge!
Ah, the beauty of the natural progression and development of the mind in an environment that supports confidence, curiosity, and individual thought.
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Associated Links:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120521115353.htm
The insular cortex, or simply insula, is a hidden cortical region folded and tucked away deep in the brain — an island within the cortex. Within the last decade, the insula has emerged from darkness as having a key role in diverse functions usually linked to our internal bodily states, to our emotions, to our self-awareness, and to our social interactions. The very anterior part of the insula in particular is where humans consciously sense subjective emotions, such as love, hate, resentment, self-confidence or embarrassment. In relation to these feelings, the anterior insula is involved in various psychopathologies. Damage of the insula leads to apathy, and to the inability to tell what feelings we or our conversational partner experience. These inabilities and alteration of the insula are also encountered in autism and other highly detrimental neuropsychiatric disorders including the behavioural variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD).
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http://www.positiveparentingafreechild.com/empathic-awareness.html
Empathic Awareness is being aware of intuitive messages you receive from yourself and others.
Empathic is different from empathetic in that it encompasses a high sensitivity for receiving information about oneself as well as about how someone else is doing physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
Empathetic is having Empathy: capturing and/or imagining what another person feels emotionally and what they may want, being considerate. I explain more about this vibrant social skill in a following page.
Empathic Awareness includes having empathetic awareness, empathy.
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Many parents believe they have to parent, educate, and raise their children first, in order to communicate what they want and understand what their child is after. You may say:
- “But how can I attend a communication class if my child does not speak yet and is too young to understand what I am saying?” or:
- “I cannot go into a discussion with my toddler!”
While other parents are eager to hear what is going on with the little being they express:
- “I can’t wait till my child speaks, so I can hear all the things he thinks!”
Science has discovered that the spoken word is only 7% of our communication system, which means that 93% is made up of other forms of communication humans use to understand each other and express themselves!
You can train yourselves in understanding the non-verbal messages that babies so generously provide you with. There is lots of information to understanding before they grow up and start using spoken language.
Most parents take early baby language very seriously. It is adaptable that you can start guessing if it is not immediately clear what the baby’s problem is.
Is the infant
- Hungry
- Sleepy
- Too hot or cold
- Is there a dirty diaper
- A burp
- A gas
- A discomfort in clothing
- Laying uncomfortable
- Light in the eyes
- Trouble breathing etc.
1. You can start with offering the solutions to different problems and find out which problem it was when the baby is relaxed again.
or
2. Start using your Empathic Awareness!
Parents who practice some or total attachment parenting develop a natural intuition of being connected to their child queues. They have an ‘inner-knowing’ on a high sensitive level. Breastfeeding, co-sleeping, carrying a child in arms and sling have the advantage of forging this strong connection in Empathic Awareness.
Every parent and care-giver however have a chance to open up their Empathic Awareness. It takes more aware effort, concentration, focus, and you probably start out with the ‘guessing-game’ but the joy of experiencing the Empathic Awareness is undeniable.
For Example:
My son and daughter in law will immediately know what their 2 month old needs, meanwhile I would need to use the ‘guessing-game’ first, as I have not yet had the time to really understand the baby’s personal language and he has not yet had the time to be certain that I will understand him. The moment I can focus on him, and make a bond, I will understand what he needs and I will be Empathic Aware of how he is doing.
1. Train your senses to become more aware
2. Listen to your intuition
Your senses get information that you can translate:
- Seeing: You see whether the baby is relaxed and comfortable or whether he looks stressed and uncomfortable.
- Hearing: You hear his sounds of peacefulness or her sounds of discomfort.
- Feeling (touch): By holding him you feel how the energy is in his body: relaxed, excited or stressed?
- Smelling: Yes with babies that is the easiest to develop your connection!
- Tasting: Taste her drink or food first before giving it to her
- Your intuition will give you clues.
- The clues will give you thoughts.
- The thoughts can bring associations and the message becomes clear to you.
- The thought can come directly with words and is then clear.
- Or you feel a strong wish to move yourself into action without knowing why and then afterwards you find out what the message was.
When my granddaughter was around 10 months old, she usually slept for 40-90 minutes, during which I did some work on the computer.
From my office I could see into the bedroom where she laid on the bed, but I sat with my back towards the door. She should be fine for at least 30 minutes.
I had just taken several pictures of her because the cat was sleeping so cozily with her. My camera was laying next to me, when I was drawn to take the camera in my hand. I tried to resist it at first, telling myself, “I should finish a certain email and that I had taken enough pictures, I should use the time to finish my work.
Then I felt the urge to turn around and look into the bedroom. She seemed still asleep. Again I felt drawn to the camera and I thought, okay, one more picture.
I grabbed the camera and started walking towards the bedroom. Then I saw that she was awake, sitting up, and with her most wonderful smile full of surprise and bliss she looked up at me, meanwhile holding her hand on the cat.
I received intuitively her message that she was waking up and ‘something’ told me to go to her, using taking a picture as understandable excuse.
When I looked at her I received another intuitive message about how blessed and surprised she felt that the cat had slept with her.
I took a picture of her ‘message’ and I have this photo up until today as my screen saver.
It is the most delightful reminder that I had bonded with her and that my Empathic Awareness was in complete communication with hers!
However when there is no conflict or no conflict yet you can use the
Three Step Empathic Communication system:
1. Be Empathic Aware of the situation in the here and now
- Open up your intuition
- Open up your senses. Look, feel, hear, smell,
- Have the intent to assist if necessary
2. Use Empathic Listening, get the gist with Active Listening
- Stop judgments and roadblock thoughts
- Feed back from what you hear, see, feel
- Be congruent
3. Change Complaints into wishes
- Be open to hearing complaints
- Formulate them into wishes
- Get to co-creating if wanted.
Thanks for sharing Angie…these little ones of ours amaze me every day.