• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Tara Cousineau, PhD

Clinical Psychologist, Kindness Warrior

  • About
    • Bio
    • Press
    • Research
  • Book
    • Book
    • Cards
    • The Kindness Cure Manifesto
  • Blog
  • Meditations
  • Spread the Love
  • Services
    • Coaching
    • Consulting
    • Speaking
  • Contact
  • Discover Your Kindness Quotient!

Mothers & Daughters

Rx when Parenting a Child with a Chronic Condition

August 16, 2019 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

Heavy Doses of Compassion

A dear friend from ages past texted me that his son, who just graduated from high school, has cancer. My heart broke open in a millisecond. I was standing in a Sunday morning line for coffee. The news about his son stopped me cold. Life is so unfair. I couldn’t stop shaking my head in disbelief. The poor barista thought I was complaining about the service.

I met Tom when we were 17 on a school program to the United Nations. I like to joke that he was on the bus of smart Canadians and I somehow sneaked into the program. To apply to the program I wrote an essay about the former UN Secretary Dag Hammarskjöld, with a quote I found in a library book. I’m fairly certain that I was the only one in my town who applied. Now I find it interesting that the chosen quote conjures up the timeless suffering of mothers (of which I still have written out in my neat teenage handwriting). For a whole week we visited New York City, the UN, and went to the top of the World Trade Center for a view of Lady Liberty. The towers no longer exist, of course, and yet they will always be tied in some small measure to that adolescent flirtation, the ideals of humanitarian efforts, and the fragility of life.


It is said that the tears of one mother are the tears of all and the glory of one man is the glory of all men…

Dag Hammarskjöld, 1953

We now are parents and professionals living full lives in different countries marked by the trials and triumphs of being mere humans—we share the main headlines that might fit in a text message or over an occasional phone call. He’s a school principal. I’m a psychologist. He has boys. I have girls. And I wholeheartedly share in his current optimism: his son has a highly curable form of cancer.

I don’t want to offer up a cliché but I will: Perhaps there are few comparable experiences that collect the kind of battle wounds like the scars you get from child rearing. At the same time, there is nothing like the joy and pride that arise in the smallest of moments in watching your children thrive. You never think your heart can crack open wider and then it just does. It’s that very vulnerability that exposes us to the abyss that is human suffering. Deep love. Deep pain. 

A child’s cancer diagnosis is a shot to the heart.

I sat with my cup of my tea thinking about Tom and his son when I saw a family stroll in. They pushed a daughter, now a young adult, in a wheelchair. I wondered about her. A spinal injury? A congenital condition? Hard to say. Her hair was neatly brushed. She wore a shimmering cherry lipstick. It was carefully and lovingly applied. I was overcome with emotion.

I began to count. 

In my mind I lined up a dozen random parents I know in my community. How many had a child with a chronic or serious illness or condition? I summoned up a list of their children’s conditions: anxiety, addiction, ADD, autism spectrum, clinical depression, cerebral palsy, a congenital heart condition, kidney disease, and post concussion syndrome, including two deaths due to chronic childhood illnesses. That our community has been spared a youth suicide or fatal car accident or death by gun violence seems—statistically—a stroke of luck. I included myself in the line up of parents. We have a daughter with potentially lethal food allergies. Sophie is now 21 and has not outgrown them. I’m only mildly relieved that her boyfriend is an EMT.

How many of these parents suffer quietly with the plight of their child’s condition, or keep to themselves for the sake of privacy, or simply are heads down with caregiving that others don’t even know to reach out? I also imagine parents in other communities who don’t have the privilege of a well-resourced school system or medical access or aren’t able to rally funds for research or costs of care. The bottom line is that more needs to be done for families to foster the kind of resilience that may be needed for a long haul. Two colleagues (Lorraine Hobbs and Kimberly Arthur) and I recently published a journal article about the need to support parents with children with chronic conditions: The Role of Compassion and Mindfulness in Building Parental Resilience When Caring for Children With Chronic Conditions: A Conceptual Model. (Please read and share it. E-Book here.)


…both mindfulness and compassion have significant potential to support this process of working through adversity and finding ways to develop inner resources to cultivate acceptance, find meaning in the context of complex parenting challenges, and respond to the child and oneself with kindness in the face of persistent stressors associated with children’s chronic conditions.

Cousineau, Hobbs & Arthur, 2019

A Silent Suffering

We couldn’t write about our personal experiences in this kind of academic platform yet our hearts were totally in it. We have children with various conditions requiring different levels of care and attention. So we try to walk the talk and wrote the article. Here’s why: 

Parenting a child with an illness or disability is very common yet remains a silent plight for many. 

Close to 20% of parents have a child with a chronic condition or disability, which is defined as any condition that has lasted or is expected to last for at least 12 months. Personally, I think this is an underestimate due to under reporting and stigma. But let’s just say that 1 in 5 parents/families has a child with some sort of chronic affliction. (There are 83M families in the US and 15M single mothers.) Assume for the sake of my argument that you are in a room full of parents. The next time you are in a meeting at work or a school PTA meeting, or at a place of worship, or on a commuter train imagine that for every 4 seats the 5th seat has a parent facing a difficult illness challenge with a child—no matter the age of a child. Imagine yourself in his or her shoes. 

One memory that comes to mind is when my daughter Sophie was three years old and at preschool. She took a cracker out of a snack jar. Apparently another child with sticky peanut butter fingers had also done so. Her face blew up like a balloon immediately. The EMTs were called. She chugged some liquid Benadryl. She recovered. The school eventually became “peanut/nut free” to the chagrin of other parents. It was a common battle cry across American schools: “Why should my child give up his PB&J?” “That’s the only thing he eats and he has the right to have peanut butter.”  “Why should my kid starve?” Parents of the afflicted child would counter, “This could be a life or death situation. Surely you can see that?” “You’d rather see a child risk her life than to find something else for your kid to eat?” “Try carrots instead.”

Later the solution in the elementary school was to separate the food allergy kids from the others at lunch time, leaving Sophie at a table all by herself. She became a pariah, a social outcast. The social stigma was an unintended consequence, of course. And it was unacceptable.

BFFs on a Hot Summer Day

Then guess what happened? God bless the children to find solutions that parents or administrators can’t see. Her friends began to sit with her. Over time they became little vigilantes monitoring who had what in their lunch boxes. The girls made sure their parents knew about Sophie’s food allergies for birthday parties and sports events. They educated themselves. They watched the Epi-pen injection video and practiced puncturing an orange with a plastic model pen. Although we were all in a state of anticipatory anxiety, organically we cultivated a “community watch.”  Eventually, we all relaxed. When a local 15-year old girl died from anaphylaxis after a severe allergic reaction just days before her 16th birthday, despite the family’s careful precautions, the threat became all too real once again. (See Project Abbie at Harvard.)

Compassionate Action

My daughter’s situation may not compare to the plight of others. A food allergy is an episodic condition that is largely reliant on prevention and avoidance, yet can have a fatal outcome. Yet that’s not my point. Millions of parents are managing some sort of childhood condition every single day. Of course, the medical conditions and potential outcomes vary among children: Children may be hospitalized for depression or suicidal ideation, or suffer a physical illness or condition; or a child may be contending with developmental delays, mobility issues, aggressive outbursts, or chronic pain. There are IEPs and accommodations, specialists, and regular medical monitoring, and concerns about independent living in adulthood. It can be all consuming at times.

What is common is the persistent fear and distress felt by a mom, dad or caregiver. Whenever a child needs specialized care or attention, there is a slow wear-and-tear in the fabric of parenting. An unraveling may occur in parallel with a kind of constant mending, in attempts to emotionally or pragmatically hold it together. There is also the mental “code switching” between taking care of a child’s current needs and the anticipation or planning for the future “what ifs.”  It’s hard to be present when the mind is in a ricochet of tending tasks. Let’s not forget that many parents inevitably put their personal needs and goals on hold and may also be economically impacted. Even the most optimistic or well-resourced parents will find themselves in moments of despair or panic. That’s the only natural response. 

What I love about compassion-focused approaches to parenting is the recognition that biologically we are wired to protect and ward off threat. That basic understanding can begin to shift how we communicate and respond. I can’t blame the pro-PB&J parents. They want their children to have what they need to survive. They aren’t thinking about the other tribe of parents who also want their children to survive by avoiding PB&J at all costs. Our perspective narrows when we are threatened. The single focus is on survival. The emotions that drive defensive behavior include anger, anxiety, fear, or disgust. As I wrote in my last post, Lead with Love, when we notice which emotion regulation systems are activated (threat, thrive, care/connect), we can begin to respond to life’s experiences in more beneficial and grounded ways. We can respond in a more balanced way.  This is where mindfulness and compassion comes in. 

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01602/full

The approach we proposed in the article emphasizes relational compassion and self-compassion. All too often the sole or primary focus is on child medical outcomes rather than parental resilience. This is understandable but to use another cliché—the one about the oxygen mask on a flight—we have to help the caregivers put on the oxygen mask first. The point in our article is we believe that cultivation of safety, connection, and caring is essential in any communication, intervention, or resource created to support parents when caring for a child with a chronic condition. This helps to get parents out of the constant threat/survival mode and offer relief from the exhaustion that can come from empathy fatigue, persistent uncertainty, constant caregiving, or social isolation. This means growing both inner strengths and outer strengths.

We consider the mindfulness and compassion skills as a way to “bounce forward” rather than “bounce back”—because life will never revert to a previous way of parenting. Resilience is inherently about caring, connection and community. It also requires a kind of deep knowing that we all belong to one another. In this way we are responsible for the welfare of the collective “we.”  Parenting is hard under optimal circumstances. No family is immune from threat, loss, or disappointment. It can take some emotional courage to turn toward what is difficult and reach out to a family in helpful ways—especially when vulnerable children face challenges. The default is to respect privacy, or not impose, or keep a safe distance, or drop off casseroles. I get it. But we also have to stretch ourselves and connect with parents. We don’t know what we don’t know.

Take the risk: Ask them.

How may I be of help? Is there something specific I can do? What is important for us to know? Is it Ok if I check in every once in a while? We are here for you.


Interested in more? Watch this beautiful Ted Talk. Heather Lanier tells her story of having a daughter with Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome, a genetic condition that results in developmental delays.


My colleague and friend Susan Pollak, EdD, just published a beautiful book called Self Compassion for Parents: Nurture Your Child By Caring for Yourself (The Guilford Press, 2019).  What’s on the cover? Two slices of PB&J!  That got me hooked. She wrote it for every parent, of course, who deals with the ordinary and extraordinary challenges of parenting. I particularly love the “Fierce Compassion” meditation and “Soothing Touch in the Heat of the Moment.”  I highly recommend it.  


Photo by Thais Morais on Unsplash


Filed Under: Books, Compassion, Courage, Empathy, Meditation, Mothers & Daughters, Parenting Tagged With: childhood illness, compassion, disability, empathy, family, parenting, resilience, Self-Compassion

I shall not be moved

July 9, 2018 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

I shall not be moved.

On my wall hangs a signed copy of Dr. Maya Angelou’s poem Our Grandmothers. I bid on the 8×11” piece of paper at an auction at Boston’s Institute for Contemporary Art in 1993 when it was housed in an old fire station on Boylston Street. The ICA was raising funds for AIDS relief and research. I was a grad student living off loans and hardly in the position to bid on art.  But the Angelou poem on linen resume paper got my attention. A voice inside me said, “Hold up your auction number already!” Meekly, raised my paddle. To my surprise I kept poking up my hand. Do I hear $10? Do I hear $15? In the end I paid $100 (and twice that for the frame).

She gathered her babies,

Their tears slick as oil on black faces,

Their young eyes canvassing mornings of madness.

Momma, is Master going to sell you

from us tomorrow?

The poem is placed above my framed doctorate degree. After 25 years both documents are faded and musty. Whatever they are worth today, emotional or otherwise, they remain symbolic. Maybe more so today as a daughter of an immigrant mother from post WWII West Germany. I am a first generation college graduate. My husband and I are now launching our girls into the world. Not without some reservation, I might add. They are young women living in rather strange times in the very land of opportunity to which my mother fled and my husband’s French Canadian ancestors settled to farm or work in textile mills. I find myself apologizing for the burdens their generation will bear in spite of amazing progress. It seems we are taking some steps back. But what’s a mother to do?

So I turn to wise elders. Every once in a while I stand before Our Grandmothers with my chin angled and eyes squinting. Angelou’s poem is strangely beautiful, fierce, heartbreaking yet hopeful. (You can read it in full.) The poem was inspired  by an old spiritual turned into a protest song. I look up at Angelou’s words with a kind of reverence and also a basic incomprehension of the plight of slavery, of black women, and how history can’t help but repeat itself. Many images arise. The German holocaust. The Rwandan genocide. Syrian refugees. How dare I, however, relate to a poem about black women and generations of oppression. I will never pretend to know. Yet, a mother am I. Empathy, after all, enables us to imagine ourselves into the lives of others.

Yearning to Breath Free by Barry Blitt (c) The New Yorker July 2, 2018

As I watched the news about the children being separated from parents at the borderland, I am drawn to her poem again. In the haze of the summer heat, Angelou’s words mesmerize. Several stanzas scream out.

No angel stretched protecting wings

above the heads of her children,

fluttering and urging the winds of reason

into the confusions of their lives.

The sprouted like young weeds,

but she could not shield their growth

from the grinding blades of ignorance, nor

shape them into symbolic topiaries.

She sent them away,

underground, overland, in coaches and shoeless.

There was another line of text that moved me recently in a news story on the 4th of July: “Therese Patricia Okoumou, of Staten Island, was arrested after scaling the base of the statue and taking up temporary residence on Lady Liberty’s right foot.”

I clicked the news feed for more. Sure enough. Upon the grand topiary of New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty, was a small human figure seated at the folds of her green copper cloak.

I shall not be moved.

Captivated, I watched the footage. Who was this person? Here was someone who embodied the spirit of many people today, like me, resisting the irrational policies of our nation but with much more nerve. That she would not be moved was a thrilling example of compassion in action.

Just days before, like many others, I had joined in yet another protest march, #FamiliesBelongTogether. Volunteers were handing out bottles of water. Local leaders gave speeches. Chants of “This is what democracy looks like!” could be heard in waves. I held my worn out sign from previous marches.  I poked my arm up and down like an auction paddle. Be Kind, Be Brave. Dripping in sweat I lamented, Will this march make a damn difference? In the center of my poster board is image of a black girl under the title Women are Perfect. It was created by muralist Jessica Sabogal in partnership with Amplifier.org for the Women’s March in 2017. My husband had made easy-to-carry sign for me then.  It seems to have multiple lives.

Will this march make a difference? The lament circled in my mind. Maybe it was the heat. It’s exhausting to bear witness to the creepy erosion of basic liberties, the seeds of fascism finding root. Moving along the crowds I found myself behind a young man waving his poster, History Teachers Against Repeating History. Another sign appeared in the far distance: And then the children.

and I shall not, I shall not be moved.

I hopped on a concrete wall looking at the crowds. Impressed yet not quite hopeful. Then a mother with her daughter asked to take a photo of my sign. “Do you know the child in your poster is Maya? That’s her name and she’s seven years old. She’s a friend of ours. Her name is Maya.” The mother was insistent. “Her name is Maya. Maya.” Thank you for telling me.

Women Are Perfect (c) 2017 Jessica Sabogal

Back home I looked up at Our Grandmothers and wondered if the child depicted in Sabogal’s protest poster was named after the poet. The mother at the march really wanted me to know the girl had a name. It matters. At a poetry reading given by late Dr. Angelou she implored us to love our ancestors for they named us and loved us before we were even born.

Children behind wired fences have names, too.

Like the woman at the foot of Lady Liberty. Therese Patricia Okoumou. She was asking us to care. She was showing us that when people go low, we can go high.  Our grandmothers demand this of us.

The Divine upon my right

impels me to pull forever

at the latch of Freedom’s gate.

The Holy Spirit upon my left leads my

feet without ceasing into the camp of the

righteous and into the tents of the free.

I reconsidered my doubts. Every human has a name. Every step makes a difference. Every chant breaks the silence. Raising your hand up in protest matters. It’s what Dr. Maya Angelou called the nobleness of the human spirit. It’s what democracy looks like.

Lay aside your fears that I will be undone, for I shall not be moved.

 

 

Appreciation for Maya Angelou

 

Featured Image:
Luke Stackpoole

Filed Under: Compassion, Courage, Empathy, Inspirations, Kindness, Mothers & Daughters, Promises to Myself, Rants & Raves

Handprints in the Heart: A Reflection on Love and Loss

April 30, 2018 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

It’s been a raw, rainy and cold spring in New England.  An impatience for summer has taken hold as I feel vitamin D deprived. If anything, the slog of the last few months has been a time for quiet reflection.  

I went on my first 7-day retreat of “noble silence” at the Insight Meditation Society in March.  A week of nothing to do but meditate with 100 women, all strangers to me. No friends. No talking. No technology. No reading. No writing. No obligations.

My family and friends at home wondered:  Was it amazing? That must have been so relaxing! How nice to get away for a whole week.  As if I was napping and reading fashion magazines at a spa.

Not even close. It was a week of sitting in silence, walking in silence, sitting in silence, walking in silence, sitting in silence, walking in silence… in a snowbound building and in the most rural part of the state. It was so bleak that the warm glow of a sunset, like a cherry swirl popsicle, was a gift I didn’t know I desired until it appeared. A deep appreciation settled in.

But by the end of the week a sort of transformation took place—in part because of the contrast with what came after. The minute I left I was hit with a reality of life: the hustle and bustle, the noise, the demands for my attention, a work crisis. Perhaps most poignant were the looming changes ahead: My youngest was about to turn 18 and be off to a college far away. We had also decided to move out of our home after two decades. The proverbial emptying of the nest.

If anything, the week of silence helped me to be present with all the uncertainty, to be patient with discomfort, and to practice the deep work of befriending my own mind. This is not easy.

One evening at the retreat the master teacher, Christina Feldman, read one of my favorite poems, Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye.

Before you know what kindness really is

you must lose things,

feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,

what you counted and carefully saved,

all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be

between the regions of kindness.

Hearing the poem in the midst of such quietude was a comfort, like the tender hand of a grandmother resting on my shoulder. The young woman next to me began to weep and I wished I could have taken her hand in mine. We were alone, together. And yet the proximity, the felt sense of compassion, was enough for each of us to bear our own thoughts.

The opening lines of the poem linger with me as I clear out closets, discover remnants of child’s play, and make the donation rounds to Savers. Mostly achingly the words sear as I apply and reapply fresh coats of paint to the stair banisters, oily and stained by children’s hands. Covering up the proof of our lives.

The other day my college-bound child flounced on the couch in my home office. She looked up at the ceiling and noticed a dirty hand print. That’s yours, I told her.  “No way.” Yes. You tried on a new white dress for a banquet and twirled on the coffee table feeling so pretty and proud. She didn’t believe that she could have reached that high as a kid. She hopped up and realized that indeed her 11-year old agile self might very well have done just that. One of her nicknames was Jumping Josie after all.  We stared at the smudge for a long while.

…all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be

between the regions of kindness.

We both knew. Same time next year all this would be but a memory. Childhood is like that. It has a shape, many shapes, and then it’s gone. Even the dirty hand print.

 

Still.  I’m not painting over it.

Not as long as I live here anyway.

 

 


P.S. Hop on over my book page to sign-up for Kindness Cure goodies.

Notes: 

You can listen to the poet Naomi Shihab Nye read her poem Kindness at On Being radio.

Photo credits:

Stairs, Jumping Josie, Hand Print (c) Tara Cousineau, 2018

Sunset

Aaron Andary

Filed Under: Compassion, Kindness, Meditation, Mothers & Daughters, Self-Compassion Tagged With: kindness, meditation, Naomi Shihab Nye, reflection, Silent Retreat, The Kindness Cure

No More Guns and Roses

February 17, 2018 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

Embed from Getty Images

“Do you know that there have been 239 school shootings since Sandy Hook?”

“Mom.”  My younger daughter’s voice cracked, “One of the boys got his acceptance letter into a college the day before.”  

She stood in the shadow of a door in the one corner where she could charge her smartphone while scrolling the deluge of messages and postings from teens all over the country about Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. She will graduate in a few months.

We stared at each other. It’s hard to come up with words in such a moment. Sometimes there aren’t any. Her long hair was loose and wavy from a run in the rain. In the dim light she looked like one of those ephemeral paintings by J.W. Waterhouse. A mythological maiden. An image of worry and wonder. Fragile yet fierce.

She stomped off to study for a calc quiz in a flurry of anger—and I imagine also a wave of guilt and gratitude that she can even be angry about homework when 17 kids can’t. I’m with her. Those precious lives cut short. I think of the grieving father who couldn’t remember if he told his daughter “I love you” when he dropped her off at school that day.

No words.

I silently asked myself: What is the next best thing I can do right now? It seems that the grown ups are failing their children. Yet I sense a vibe. These kids won’t stand for it. This generation is going to do something about it. Two decades of a public health crisis in schools and they will use their common sense, pure and simple. They could care less about lobbyists and special interests. They care about each other.

But at 10 o’clock at night there is only so much a mom can do. There is an Eastern compassion practice called tonglen, which is a giving and receiving reflection to use in difficult times. As Rabbi Rami Shapiro writes in The Sacred Art of Loving Kindness, “It is a way to take upon oneself the pain of the world and transform it into love.” That’s what I choose to do in the moment.

Here is a simple version that I offer in my book.

Sit quietly and comfortably, perhaps with a hand on your heart. Breathe in and out in a comfortable way. As you breathe, bring to mind a sense of warmth, comfort, and ease, or whatever you need in the moment. Inhale this soothing feeling.

Bring to mind a person who is struggling and needs compassion. After you inhale a comforting breath for yourself, on the exhale offer the other person feelings of kindness, caring, comfort, and ease.

Then return to yourself, breathing in warm sensations. Switchback to the person you are visualizing. In an even flow of in- and out- breaths, receive and give warmth and kindness. Like a see-saw. Back and forth, back and forth. One breath in for me, one breath out for you.

It’s an uneven see-saw. All those kids. Parents. Friends.

Some say prayers are not enough. This feels true. But where would we be without them?

A sacred pause. A deep breath. One for me, for you. An infusion of air inviting a sliver of hope. Maybe even a dose of faith. When we start from a place of loving awareness a smidge of space opens up. It’s here where we can discern the next best thing to do. It can reveal a path to compassionate action.

Call a congressperson. Support sensible gun policy. Vote at the midterms. Volunteer. Donate. Speak up. Say I love you.

Make every moment count.

Are you concerned about Gun Violence in Schools and communities?

  • Learn about Sandy Hook Promise 
  • Gun Violence: Get the Facts 
  • Another School Shooting—But Who’s Counting?
  • Stoneham Douglas Victims Fund (Go Fund Me)

It is time for a kindness revolution. Kindness Cure Sightings:

  • How to Start a Kindness Revolution (Book Review) by Greater Good Science Center 
  • Leading with a Kind Mind
  • Path2Empathy Our Shoes

 

 

Credits:

Getty Images, 2018

Tara Cousineau, 2018, Guns & Roses Multimedia

Filed Under: Compassion, Courage, Meditation, Mothers & Daughters, Rants & Raves Tagged With: compassion, gun violence, hope, meditation, prevention, school shootings

Being a Kindness Warrior

January 30, 2018 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

The world can at times feel like a very unkind place. The year my daughter, Josie, was twelve years old, three horrendous events occurred: the “Batman Shooting” at a movie theater where twelve people were killed and seventy wounded; the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School that left twenty- six children, teachers, and staff dead; and the Boston Marathon bombing that wounded hundreds of people and killed three. It was a year of extreme tragedy. Despite my efforts to minimize overexposure, Josie felt a real and strong fear that these things could happen to her. Lockdown drills were being done regularly at school, and she began imagining herself and her loved ones torn to bits. Josie’s heartbreaking response was to wonder aloud, “Why do people do this?” A basic dread took hold of her.

Then something sparked an awakening. In a long-jump sandpit, some kids discovered a pair of baby field mice. Josie became determined to rescue them, even though everyone knew it was a lost cause and coldly said as much. She declared, “I know they will die. At least I can give them comfort until they do.”

At her insistence, I drove Josie to the sports field as she clutched a bottle of Pedialyte and a dropper. She dashed across the track to be Nurse Nightingale. The mice were still alive, and she gently placed the pink creatures in a box of tissue. As I watched, it hit me: Josie was fully alive with her compassion for all living things. It was the act of caring itself that mattered to her. As if, by demonstrating the kindest way that she could possibly act, she could turn the world around. She gave them names as children do—Bradley and Charlotte—and carefully nursed them. One mouse died a few days later. Josie held out hope for the other but, in the end, she buried the pair in the garden. While she was frustrated that they hadn’t lived, she consoled herself with this: “At least I tried.” We were all moved by her efforts. At a time when the world felt burdened by grave issues, saddled with grief, frustration, and helplessness, Josie found healing and empowerment by demonstrating her own kindness. She showed a brutal world that she would care for the meekest of its creatures. And, in doing so, she discovered that what feels best is not evading harsh realities—it’s being kind along the way.

Excerpt from my book,  The Kindness Cure: How the Science of Compassion Can Heal Your Heart and Your World

Photo by Hanny Naibaho on Unsplash

 

If you like what you read, please consider getting The Kindness Cure book for you or a friends. It’s chock full of vignettes offered by people, scientific tidbits, and practices in kindness. Thanks for your support!

 

Filed Under: Compassion, Courage, friendships, Inspirations, Kindness, Mothers & Daughters, Role Models

It’s Not So Simple

November 13, 2016 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

Can true humility and compassion exist in our words and eyes unless we know we too are capable of any act? ~ St. Francis of Assisi

The recent outcome of the 2016 presidential election has unmoored me. I’m on the losing side. I sit in quiet contemplation in just how to respond. My childlike impulses are brimming. I want to erupt into a wailing temper tantrum. Instead I call to mind an old story.

 

tara-age-5-2-c-2016-tara-cousineau
A 5-year old Nazi

 

“Nazi. Nazi. You’re a Nazi.”

The little blond boy pointed at me. I was five years old, standing in the school yard, and very confused.

“Nazi! Your mother’s a Nazi.”

Part of me thought, what’s a notsie?

Is it shoe lace? Is it snot?

But the other part of me knew that he was judging me and I felt that red hot rush of shame.

I turned to him and said, “No she’s not,” and I ran away.

Everyone in our small town knew my mother. Yes, she was German.  She was beautiful, impossibly glamorous, with big sunglasses and fancy head scarves of the 1970s. She would spend her days going door to door visiting women at home. She was an Avon Lady.

She worked really hard at it. She had that German work ethic. “Arbeiten über alles.”

Work above all.

When we were little my sister and I would get to go with her. We would show up at people’s houses.  I remember sitting there at some lady’s kitchen table, the products spread out all over it, and my mother would take the woman’s hand, and look in her eyes, and softly say, “Your hand is so soft.” She really meant it. The woman would say, “Oh, really?” as if no one had ever said that to her before. Maybe nobody ever had. Then my mom would take the little sample lipsticks and start drawing them on the back of the lady’s hand to check if the shade fit with her complexion.

My mom wasn’t just a salesperson to these women. She was their confidant. She was their counselor. She was their aroma therapist. She talked with them without judgement and with sincerity. We even used to drive around with two boxes in the back of the car. One of them would be the blue Avon product case. Another box would be things that these women might need. A toy that we’d outgrown, an extra dish towel or hand me downs. My mom showed generosity without expectation of return and so people remembered and cherished her.

When I got a little older that bubble burst.

I’m 11 years old, sitting and watching TV and I am completely horrified by what I’m seeing.

There was a PBS special on the German holocaust with pictures of concentration camps. I had heard about the holocaust, of course, in vague bits and pieces.  But I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My child brain was trying to work it out. Piles and piles of skeletons. This happened in Germany where my mom came from? While she was there?

My mom came in and I turned to her. “Mommy, how could this happen? Did you know? Why didn’t you do anything?”

My mom was born in 1938. She was  only a toddler when all this happened. Her memories are of being shuttled into bomb shelters. But she didn’t tell me that. Instead she just said, “Darling, darling, don’t watch this. It’s too upsetting.” And she hurried out of the room.

I was left there thinking, “Wait? How can she ignore this?”

(Our poor mothers get blamed for everything…)

I thought, “If I learned about this and I lived there, I would have been fighting. It’s so simple.”

A few years after that I’m sitting nervously in social studies class. I’m carefully drawing lines and arrows and neatly writing names in the gaps underneath them. We’re creating our family trees and it was so confusing. My dad had left and was out of the picture. I didn’t know anything on his side other than they were a bunch of Scots and I knew about some cousins on the West coast. I try to fill in what I know from my mom’s side. Oma and Opa and Tantes and Onkels. I was the odd girl out. In my class there were Italian Americans and Irish Americans, but not a lot of German Americans. Then suddenly this one kid next to me pipes up and says,

Your family is German? Were they Nazis?

Immediately, I turn my back to him and say, “No!” But I feel that red hot rush of shame.  I knew my family members were not Nazis, but they were there at the time.

Later, I have a chance to go the source. In college I spent a work-study year in Germany, spending time with relatives and touring cities and villages with classmates. We visit Dachau, a concentration camp outside of Munich.

Tumbling out of the bus, I find myself  standing in this yard and looking at rows and rows of empty buildings. I feel almost frozen with inability to take in what is around me.

We moved inside and saw images of prisoners of war, of hair, and gold teeth fillings. If I had thought that it was shocking watching that PBS documentary that was nothing compared to the way I felt now. Dachau was this cavernous, quiet place. It was incomprehensible that so much killing had happened at this camp, tucked away in the beautiful Bavarian countryside.

Later, when I visited my aunts and my uncles, I would ask them, “What did you do when this was happening?” They would say to me, “It’s history. Leave it alone.” Then I would hang with my cousins and Deutsche friends in the pubs and biergartens and I would say,  “Ich kann es nicht verstehen.”  I just don’t understand it. 

We don’t want to talk about it. We weren’t there. It’s not our burden.

I felt angry. I judged them.  Because in my mind it was important not to forget history. Otherwise, it might happen again. This is so simple!

Eventually, I went to grad school, started a family, and I became a therapist. As with most therapists starting out, when you’re young and green, you get assigned to the most challenging patients and heartbreaking situations: people with psychiatric disorders and people who have experienced trauma beyond anything I could have previously imagined, things I don’t know if I could have survived. I was assigned to work with patients who were my own age with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or OCD.  I saw first hand that we’re thrown into lives and situations and we don’t get a choice about it. And I also saw that some patients began their healing in whatever ways they could. They showed resistance, courage, and traces of self-compassion and resilience — even in the face of things they could not entirely change. 

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. – Victor. E. Frankl

But it’s really not so simple, is it?

Not so long ago and many decades after first being called a Nazi in the playground, I visited the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC.  

I’m standing in front of a pile of shoes. Women’s shoes, men’s boots, children’s shoes. I look at faded photos of families on walls spanning a few stories high. There are passbooks. I read their names and where they lived. So many people.

It’s a walking timeline into catastrophe. It is like being trapped in a maze, a life-sized diorama cramped with other tourists where the air becomes increasingly thick and the mood ominous. I feel the weight, the enormity of it, but I feel something different as well.  It’s that Arbeiten uber alles thing — a work ethic gone entirely mad.

Unlike the eerie quiet of Dachau, this exhibit was designed with no way out but through and with eyes wide open. Here one is faced with the stunning capability of the human imagination to devise assembly lines of murder and orchestrate a culture of hate.

It’s odd how sometimes that there can be one detail that makes you crumble.  

For me it was seeing the illustrated children’s books, written for malleable minds. Children’s stories that planted seeds of  fear and disgust of the Jews, the gypsies, and the disabled.

By this time in my life I had plenty of knowledge of this scar in human history. I read books. I watched movies. My graduate colleagues had written dissertations about intergenerational effects of the German Holocaust.  I also devoured stories of resistance, abeit a weak salve. The story about Hans and Sophie Scholl and the White Rose Movement, gave me some hope. These brave souls chose to believe that the world could be a just, benevolent place, and they insisted on calling upon humankind’s better nature for compassion, kindness, morality, and hope. They were caught and executed. 

220px-stamps_of_germany_ddr_1961_minr_0852

For so many years I felt like I would have stood up. Yet, I wondered. Would I? Could I?   

Probably not. I think of my mother. A German immigrant, who fled her homeland at age 19 by herself (the very age my oldest daughter is now), carrying the weight of cultural shame, and all I had to contend with was schoolyard children who didn’t know any better.

I think about how she chose kindness and compassion. The items that she would give away when we went on those Avon house calls. It wasn’t because she was rich. It was just the opposite, we were on food stamps. My dad left us bankrupt. She was glamorous and lovely because she always worked so hard to make her secondhand clothes look good and sew dresses for us girls. To put food on the table. To make our life beautiful. To a make ladies feel beautiful by selling sweet scents door to door.

Maybe it’s that Arbeiten ethic after all. A work ethic fueled by fierce love.

We are all capable of love and hate, of kindness and cruelty. And we can go to great lengths for either.

The truth is: It does take work to be kind and compassionate. To nurture our better selves. Anything with a purpose takes effort. And as I have learned, a part of that also means to stop judging others.   To learn to accept that you can’t always see the reasons behind who people are, and why they do what they do, or don’t do… because those reasons aren’t always so simple.

This is particulary relevant this past week’s election results. I find myself on the side of a new form of resistance.  To be sure, there’s much work ahead. As George Saunders said, “Kindness, it turns out, is hard.”

 

Filed Under: Compassion, Courage, Inspirations, Mothers & Daughters, Self-Compassion

Picking Oneself Up: Rising Strong

September 30, 2015 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

Gum Boots in Rain Dreamstime (c) dreamstime

Watching Brené Brown talk on stage, in real time, reminds me of why I have been drinking the vulnerability Kool-Aid these last few years. Her latest book, Rising Strong: The Reckoning, The Rumble, The Revolution may be her most personal telling of her work, her family and her life. (God love her husband Steve.)

Rising-Strong Book ImageAt the Musical Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, a small intimate amphitheater, Brené Brown walks on stage, “Hello Portsmouth!”

We cheered when she strolled on stage in her vintage jeans and booties.

“You know I’m an introvert, don’t you? But this is my kind of theatre.”

Yet, I have no doubt that small or large, Brené Brown can captivate her audience precisely because she is so honest and personable. We might as well be sharing New England crab cakes together. As such, I refer to her as Brené, and not Dr. Brown, even though it’s not an easy name to type.

Brené began with a recent experience (not the Speedo story, told achingly in her book). “You know it’s been a crazy few years for me, right?”

“Of course we do, Brené!” We wanted to shout with a mix of awe and envy.

She began to tell a story about how overwhelmed she became this past summer prior to the launch of her new book and other ventures in courage.

Brené describes one particular evening drowning in paperwork that was strewn across the dining room table. Her husband, a pediatrician, arrived after a long workday and headed straight for the fridge. He was rummaging around for something, a cold cut slice perhaps, and quietly complained over the lack food. It’s a mundane moment that most of us can relate to. Who hasn’t heard the familiar “Isn’t there anything to eat in this house?” But it was her reaction to her poor husband that had the crowd roaring with laughter. She began to describe the wild eruption of crazy thoughts and feelings she was having as her internal siren belted out, “You’re a bad wife. You’re a bad mother!” This culminated in demanding her hubby to fess up on just what exactly he was saying.

“I’m hungry.”

I’ve read Rising Strong twice,: once for pleasure and again to study the teachings. As an extension of Daring Greatly, her last bestseller, Rising Strong tackles the tough question of what happens in the arenas of life, in those raw moments and enduring aftermath of failure, disappointment, or heartbreak. She writes:

While vulnerability is the birthplace of many of the fulfilling experiences we long for – love, belonging, joy, creativity and trust – to name a few – the process of regaining our emotional footing in the midst of struggle is where our courage is tested and our values are forged. Rising strong after a fall is how we cultivate wholeheartedness in our lives; it’s the process that teaches us the most about who we are.

The stories, the ones we tell ourselves over an over, tend to be the ones that keep us small, disappointed, angry or sad. It’s these personal narratives that Brené tackles head on. It’s how we can change the ending to those stories that lie at the heart of this book.

I’ve been practicing two of the skills with some unsuspecting guinea pigs: my family.

Stealing a page from Annie Lamott, Brené refers to “the shitty first draft” (SFD) when trying to make sense of a difficult story. It starts with a prompt: “The story I’m making up is…”

I love this strategy because it is about owning one’s crazy drama before blaming or shaming someone else.

For example, with my 17-year-old daughter I have found myself saying statements like:

The story I’m making up is that when I don’t’ hear from you for a few hours and it’s after curfew, that either your phone is on silent, you fell asleep watching a movie, or you are dead on the side of the road somewhere. So while I trust your judgment on most things, when it’s close to midnight my mind freaks out. I don’t like being in that place.

This leaves rooms for her to say, “I’m sorry, Mom. I wasn’t watching the time and I didn’t want to text you while driving.“

To which I can say, “Well, I’d appreciate if you safely pull over and call or text me next time. “ And so on.

I know it’s working because recently she had to tell me about a very upsetting exchange with a mean girl.

“Mom, I have something to tell you and don’t say anything until I’m done speaking.” (She knows me too well.)

She owned her story, what went through her mind, what she imagined I might say about it, and how she thought she could deal with it on her own. Admittedly, I sat on my hands and held my breath, but was impressed with her working things out. I refrained from knocking the door down at the girl’s house to give her mother a piece of my mind.

Another skill that Brené describes in her own stories and what I call the generosity query is: What’s the most generous thought I can have about this person/situation?

For instance, when a school bus driver flipped me the bird as he cut in front of my car (while I too had kids in tow) I paused before returning the gesture in kind: “Wow, that bus driver is having a really bad day, isn’t he? I bet those kids are really getting to him.”

On the deeper struggles – of failure, heartbreak or loss – Rising Strong holds our hand. The process is deep. It means squirming in the mud of the arena for a bit (long enough to feel the feelings and work them through) . It’s about vulnerability and courage, yes, but the process is also about grit. It’s about sticking with a hard process even though it’s really, really hard. It nets out to a brave story.

Yes, that’s where the reckoning, the rumble and the revolution will lead us.

*   *   *

Disclosure: I am a certified Daring Way™ Method Facilitator, based on the work of Dr. Brené Brown.

Checkout the Rising Strong Manifesto.

Rising Strong Manifesto image

Photo credits:
©2015 Dreamstime
©2015 Brene Brown

Filed Under: Books, Courage, Inspirations, Mothers & Daughters Tagged With: Brene Brown, courage, story, vulnerability

Body Image Dispatch: Dear Skinny Girl

July 21, 2015 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

I have a skinny daughter. She came out of the womb as a wiry, nimble sprite. For years she was in the 5th percentile for BMI on the pediatric charts. Her natural tendency for sprinting and jumping led her into a decade long love affair with competitive gymnastics. As I watched her tumble and fly, I teetered along with a low grade anxiety praying she wouldn’t break her neck. Then came the day she had to abruptly stop at age 13 as a result of impact related injuries to her elbows. Broken wings.

Devastated by the loss and plummeting endorphins, she redirected her energy bit by bit. My elfin child, made of delicate bones but thick skin, managed to focus on other sports by the time high school came around.

But the years of conditioning and the 20+ hours at the gym delayed her puberty. As a result some people think she’s a child. At 15 that really makes her mad. Yet to her delight she shot past her older sister by an inch or two – a seemingly unexpected reward of her retirement.

But she’s still skinny.

She recently participated in a study assessing lifestyle and body image concerns. She texted me, “Why are there all these questions about feeling fat? What if you feel too thin?” Of course, her observation was keen. (Science can be biased.) Weighing not more than 96 pounds throughout high school, I felt for her. She inherited my body type and could blame our lineage. Unconvincingly, I remarked that she would feel much happier about her body later in life.

But what about now? “I’m just an awkward person, mom.” 

“No you aren’t,” I tell her, “but I get that you feel that way.”

I’ve met countless girls and women over the years who feel badly about their bodies; they are often caught in a vicious cycle of negative social comparison. Some of them inflict self-harm and suffer greatly.

Maybe it’s a tired story. We are well aware that poor body image is an epidemic reinforced by social media, ratings and rankings, and cultural images of unnatural beauty standards. But we don’t do much to teach kids how to handle the onslaught. We fail to recognize that their exquisite, delicate brains are meticulously paving belief patterns and behaviors that shape their identities and experiences of the world. They can be brainwashed.

Sadly, many parents can be self-deprecating about their own appearance or critical of others. Friends can be over-invested in appearance and downright mean. One idiosyncratic physical flaw or mannerism can indict a kid to years of torment. Children can easily develop a habit of mind that is overly judgmental and disconnected from their bodies and inner spirits.

I’ve been thinking about what I wish for my daughter knowing that if I tried to have a conversation about body image she might roll her eyes at me. Or else she may quip, “I know I know, mom. Anyways, you are a psychologist. You are supposed to say that.”

But I have no script. The body image curriculums I know so well fall far short of what we really want our girls and boys to inhabit when it comes to body confidence. It’s not just knowledge, cognitive skills or empowerment. That’s too ephemeral.

I believe we need to be more, dare I say it, spiritual.

What do I wish that both my daughters understand – or embody – now? I’ve been reflecting on this for quite a while and what I have discovered is really a wish for all children. If I were to leave a letter under my awkward daughter’s pillow or whisper in her ear, here’s what I would say:

My Skinny Girl,

I have a secret to share. It may be hard to understand now, but trust me. 

Our bodies are simply physical vessels containing our expansive souls. With that said, your body is sacred so take gentle care of it.

You were born unto this world with a purpose you will yet discover. With that said, dig deep and let your spirit soar.

 The mind is both imaginative and tricky; it will tell you stories about who you are that aren’t true. With that said, listen to your heart more than your head. 

The crafted images we see of what we should look or be like are make-believe and can cause disconnection, shame and loneliness. With that said, don’t let others define you.

People can be kind and cruel; mostly they are trying to feel better about who they are.  With that said, mindfully gather your tribe of bravehearts. 

Don’t be someone else’s happy pill. Some friends aren’t worth the energy it takes to bolster their self-worth at the expense of your own. With that said, compassion is as much about good boundaries as it is about caring.

Being alive means having a fair share of suffering and joy. With that said, it’s good to have both thick skin and an open heart (as you do).

You are gifted with innate emotional intelligence radiating throughout your amazing body, head to toes. With that said, trust your vibes.

We are not confined to our physical bodies alone, but intimately connected to all of humanity and the planet we inhabit. With that said, go forth with fearless love and kindness.

While this may sound strange or unfamiliar, if you remember anything I say, know that you are a cherished angel. With that said, I love you – broken wings and all.

Daughter, Mother ©2015 Tara Cousineau

  * * *

This article originally appeared on Huff Post Parents, July 14, 2015

Photo Credits:

(c) 2015 Dreamstime.com; (c) 2015 TaraCousineau.com

Filed Under: Inspirations, Mothers & Daughters, Promises to Myself, Role Models, Self-Esteem, Teenagers Tagged With: body image, Daughters, girls, Mothers, spirituality

  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 6
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Follow Me

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Meet Dr. Tara

Meet Dr. Tara Cousineau

Short n’ Sweet: Sign Up Today!

Available Now

Limited Supply! Order Today.

Take my free quiz.

Matters in Kind by Dr. Tara

Weekly Wisdom on all matters related to kindness--

Straight to your inbox!

Tweets by taracousphd

Recent Posts

  • Igniting Wonder, Sparking Joy
  • RBG’s Shoulders
  • Commit to Being Calm and Connected
  • Little Wake Up Calls Everywhere
  • Unblocked: Seeing Clearly Our Structural Racism
  • No Time Like The Present

Search Blog Topics

Tags

apps body image boys brain Brene Brown coming of age compassion courage culture daughter Daughters Dr. Tara Cousineau empathy Empowerment Facebook friendship girls girls culture gratitude kindness leadership love media meditation mindfulness moms mother Mothers parenting parents PhD resilience Self-Care Self-Compassion Self Esteem social media social networks tara Cousineau technology teenagers teen brain teens texting The Kindness Cure tweens

Categories

Archives

  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2021 Tara Cousineau, PHD · Site by Design by Insight

Copyright © 2021 · Infinity Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in