August 14, 2020. Today at Indian Lake, we went on a worry walk. Each night at bedtime worries bubble up for Elijah and Penelope. Worries like…Everyone I love with die from COVID…Someday somebody will kill me because I’m black….I’ll break my arm again and what if I’m not okay…I don’t feel like I belong anywhere…What if the virus doesn’t get better and I can never see my biological mom again…What if my friends never come back to school…What if I can never hug my friends again…What if the police kill my brother…What if we never have a woman president…
This is a short list of the MANY worries that bubble up for Elijah and Penelope in these times. Nick and I have a list equally as long.
Worry is a normal feeling. Sometimes, it camps out a bit longer than is helpful and sometimes that can be uncomfortable. Yet, the more we try to “fix” the worries or just shut them up, the louder they seem to get. Every single worry the kids feel (on this list and beyond) makes sense to me. The thoughts may not be super helpful but it makes a lot of sense why they’re happening. These are hard times.
While the worries tend to get loudest at bedtime, and then the worry about the worry ensues, Elijah and Penelope have such an incredible “tool box” of strategies to utilize late at night. Peaceful place…sending the light…cooking up connections…mind castle…5 senses in the moment…gratitude…belly breathing…rings of blue…peaceful pond…EFT tapping…words of affirmation…serenity prayer…and the list goes on. All of these things provide peace alongside the worry. Recently, we’ve added “daytime worries list” to our coping toolbox.
Each member of our family feels and processes things deeply. It is so important to leave space for the feelings (to welcome them in when they visit and hold a space until they pass). That said, sometimes, late at night when we’re really tired, we just can’t create a space for our feelings in the way they need and deserve. That’s where the daytime worries list comes in.
Now, at bedtime, when worries are keeping the kids up, they might say, “I have some daytime worries to talk about tomorrow, can you write them down for me?” We’ll jot them down, set them aside and then, at some point the next day, we’ll pull out the list and revisit those things. We’ll inquire about ways to think about it differently, fact check, consider the things we can change and that which we cannot, thank the worries for trying to keep us safe, and support each other in the process.
Today, we spent the vast majority of our 3 miles holding a space for our daytime worries list. One of the most powerful parts of the process was hearing some (or every) member of KNEP say things like, “Wow, that sounds really hard! I’ve worried about things like that too.” Sometimes worry can feel really lonely. Yet, today we realized, we really aren’t alone in it.
KNEP Hikes 