My sewing room. That is the place where I can come back to myself, where I let the fabric run through my hands in silence and hear the scissors cut.
It was in that silence that I could hear again the words a 12-year-old girl spoke to her father during family therapy: “You don’t understand it at all.” Her father thought that by giving advice and offering help, he was expressing his love. Yet he completely missed the mark with his daughter.
How is that possible? It’s possible because, for all families and couples—for all people, really—the most difficult state of being is often simply this: just being there. Attuned.
Attunement
“Attunement describes how reactive a person is to another’s emotional needs and moods.” For the father to get in tune with his daughter, he first had to know what her underlying emotional needs were. So I asked her to place two chairs in the room, one symbolizing her father and one symbolizing herself. She placed the chairs very close together, the backs tied together with strips of fabric.
“What do you think your daughter is trying to say with this?” I asked.
“That I should just try to keep my mouth shut and try to be there,” was his tangible answer. Exactly, Dad.
Pause for a Moment
Just as this scene with father and daughter came alive in my mind, I was challenged to leave my ‘sacred’ space again.
My daughter was jumping up and down to show me one of her creations. There it was—the inner conflict: you want to finish something, stay in your moment, and you also want to give your child attention.
I looked at her and said, “I know you really want to tell me, but I want to finish this first.”
“But I really want to share it and tell you.”
I take a deep breath and pause for a moment with my own need and hers.
“I know, just a little bit longer, I know it’s hard.”
By slowing down, you can stay attuned. This won’t always work, but what matters is how you approach it. How do you want the relationship with your child to be? What do you want to teach your child? It can suddenly feel very stressful, but when presence becomes a regular part of the parent–child relationship—and I’m talking about two or three minutes—it cultivates so much understanding. So slow down, people, pause for a moment.
If we learn it, our children will learn it too—and they will benefit from it for the rest of their lives.
