Sometimes You Have to Be Your Own Hero. Here’s How – And Why It’s So Important.

Adolescence can be fraught with difficult friendships and difficult people. Sometimes you’ll need to be your own hero – but that’s okay because you are brave, brilliant and you have everything you need to do that.

Transcript

During adolescence you might feel a real pull to experiment with your independence from your family. That doesn’t mean you wont’ need your family – you’ll always need them, but you will be looking at who you are as an independent adult, and you’ll start experimenting with that and exploring that. As you do that, you might start to feel the need to start looking for connections with a peer tribe. Social connection during adolescence feels really important, but it doesn’t always happen smoothly. Sometimes those friendships can be fraught with heartache, sadness, anger or grief.During adolescence you’ll be confronted with all sorts of challenges – and peer challenges can feel like some of the worst. You won’t even realise how strong or brave you’re being at the time because it will just feel normal. But through this, you will discover your own resilience and resourcefulness.What you need to remember is to take care of you. By that I mean inside all of us a small child – that part of us that just wants to be loved, reassured, nurtured and feel safe and secure. When friendships are tough, if you’re being teased or bullied, or finding yourself in these friendships that don’t make any sense and seem to change from one day to the next, try to keep that part of you safe and solid. Look after that small child in you. It needs to feel safe and protected.It’s one thing for bullies or people who don’t understand you to give you the messages that they’re giving you. Be really careful about picking up where those people leave off. You wouldn’t hurt a small child. You wouldn’t tell a small child that they’re fat or ugly or stupid. You wouldn’t tell a small child that they don’t deserve friends, or that there’s something wrong with them. You are brave and strong and resilient. Own that.Of course you get sad sometimes or exhausted, and of course you just wish sometimes it would be easier. It will get to that. People change. People grow up. But until then, there’s a part of you that really needs to feel the security of you, and that self-love, and that self-compassion. Because adolescence can be hard and sometimes they only way through is straight through the middle – and you’re doing that. In the meantime, keep that part of you safe – the curious, generous, exciting, resilient, part of you that looks at the world with an open heart and an open mind and is able to embrace things. Don’t let other people change you. Take that small child in you, and love it, nurture it, and be kind and gentle with it – because it will be an important part of the healthy, amazing adult that you will be one day.

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Sydney! We’re coming to you. The Resilient Kids Conference is a one day event for parents and professionals who live and work with kids and teens. 

Can’t make it? There’s now an ONLINE option so you can watch from anywhere in the world, with the recording available for 4 weeks after the conference. 

I’ll be talking about anxiety in young people, but this information is relevant for ALL OF US. We need to  change the way we think about anxiety and respond to it - so let’s talk about how. I’ll give you practical, meaningful ways to support and strengthen your kids and teens with in ways that will serve them not just for now, but for the rest of their lives. 

Two things I know for certain. 1. All kids have it in them to be brave and do the things that feel bigger than them sometimes. 2. Parents and their important adults have the most profound capacity to strengthen kids and teens against anxiety and build their confidence and courage. 

I love these conferences and I know parents walk out feeling excited and empowered. 

Since 2016, the Resilient Kids Conferences have attracted up to 800 attendees at a single event. It is beyond beautiful to see parents, educators, and many other professionals stream through the doors in anticipation of a soul fulfilling experience. By the end of the day their faces are beaming, and so is our teams. It’s a community of people, redefining resilience together.

I’ll be joining Maggie Dent, Michelle Mitchell, and Dr Justin Coulson. In person, online and group license tickets are available for this event.

Tickets (online and live). Link in bio.
When times feel uncertain or your own anxiety feels big, come home to the things that make sense. 

Come home to each other, to stillness, to play, to rest, and conversation. 

Come home to listening more openly and caring more deeply, to nature, and warm baths, and being more deliberate, to fighting for what we can control, and the soft surrender to what we can’t. 

Come home to stories, and music, and to the safety of your tribe. 

Come home to that part of you that is timeless, and strong, and still, and wise, and which knows that, like everything that has ever felt bigger than you for a while, you will get them and you through this.♥️
Separation anxiety can come with a tail whip - not only does it swipe at kids, but it will so often feel brutal for their important adults too.

If your child struggle to separate at school, or if bedtimes tougher than you’d like them to be, or if ‘goodbye’ often come with tears or pleas to stay, or the ‘fun’ from activities or play dates get lost in the anxiety of being away from you, I hear you.

There’s a really good reason for all of these, and none of them have anything to do with your parenting, or your child not being ‘brave enough’. Promise. And I have something for you. 

My 2 hour on-demand separation anxiety webinar is now available for purchase. 

This webinar is full of practical, powerful strategies and information to support your young person to feel safer, calmer, and braver when they are away from you. 

We’ll explore why separation anxiety happens and powerful strategies you can use straight away to support your child. Most importantly, you’ll be strengthening them in ways that serve them not just for now but for the rest of their lives.

Access to the recording will be available for 30 days from the date of purchase.

Link to shop in bio. 

https://www.heysigmund.com/products/separation-anxiety-how-to-build-their-brave/
The more we treat anxiety as a problem, or as something to be avoided, the more we inadvertently turn them away from the safe, growthful, brave things that drive it. 

On the other hand, when we make space for anxiety, let it in, welcome it, be with it, the more we make way for them to recognise that anxiety isn’t something they need to avoid. They can feel anxious and do brave. 

As long as they are safe, let them know this. Let them see you believing them that this feels big, and believing in them, that they can handle the big. 

‘Yes this feels scary. Of course it does - you’re doing something important/ new/ hard. I know you can do this. How can I help you feel brave?’♥️

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