7 Ways to a Happy & Stress Free Home

If what I am about to explain sounds like a typical evening at your place, then read on. The baby is on your hip, whilst you hurriedly put the Take Away out for dinner, the cat is throwing up on the bathroom mat, the hubby’s feet are up and TV on full-blast, and your teenager just angrily slammed his bedroom door because his washing is still on the line….

Sadly, this is not an exclusive club. However, the good news is that we don’t necessarily have to live this way. There are, in fact, things you can do to ease this stress and create a more harmonious home life so that you and your family can look forward to and enjoy being all home together.

A certain degree of stress is inherent as you deal with the varying phases of your precious-yes they are precious, family members. You must strive to uphold a core set of values and go with the flow to a degree. This ensures you can maintain a happy and healthy home.

There are some specific ways though that you can reduce stress, in turn creating harmony at home:

1. Be organized. Life can quickly become chaotic when you do not maintain organization. An organized home just flows, but disorganization will be full of ebbs and very little flow.

* A good tip is to start small, trying to organize the whole house at once becomes overwhelmingly difficult to achieve. Start small, one room at a time, and see how pleasing the task becomes.

2. Communicate. Your family will find it extremely beneficial to be actively working on communication skills. When you fail to do this effectively, you may not get what you want and may even lead to upsetting misunderstandings. Working on communication skills will in turn, allow all family members to feel loved and appreciated, create harmony and allow the household to run efficiently.

3. Always have your evening meal together. Everyone in your family likely has a full agenda of their own. You may even start to realize that you have no idea what’s going on with your spouse or child. When you make the time to have dinner together, you really start to relax and open up to each other, despite all having a busy lifestyle.

4. Enjoy each other’s company. It is important to schedule time to have fun together as a family, even starting with one night a week. This will take some advance planning, choosing an activity. You need to allow each family member a chance to pick an activity to their liking.

5. Show unconditional love, fill each other’s cup of love to the brim! Be sure to encourage unconditional love with your family. This leads to secure attachments and will in turn keep all of your family happy and stress-free.

* We all need to know that, when we make mistakes,which we all do at times,we have a loving family who will back us up and forgive us, no matter what.

6. Show support and go out of your way for your family members. It might not be your idea on a Friday night to go to your daughter’s ballet concert but just think of how she will feel when she sees your smiling face, knowing that she has your love and support. Express your love and support by really being there , no matter what or how difficult it seems. They can not read your mind, so just thinking about how much you love them is not enough!

7.Every family needs rules. Having a set of family rules will help with keeping organization, letting everyone know what is expected of them to create harmony for all.

* You will need to plan a family meeting to establish the house rules. Let everyone have a chance to participate and share his or her concerns. You will more than likely find a compromise that allows everyone a chance to feel happy and satisfied.

A home that is built on love will be happy and stress free. Don’t be too hard on yourself and others, and you will have the foundations for creating an excellent home life.

By MaryAnn Roche.

Insecurity in Relationships….

I am sure at some stage or another in our many relationships that mould us into the person we are today, we have at some point suffered feelings of doubt and insecurity. Unfortunately, this can wreak havoc not only on your intimate relationships, but our whole world in general. There are so many different things that influence us into believing we are “Not Good Enough”. If only we all realized how full of worth and beauty each and every one of us are.

I think the best way to explain this is to give you some real insight into someone who has repeated this pattern over and over, throughout their whole life.

Boys and relationships start earlier for some people and later for others, but our pattern of feelings and actions start from the very beginning. Bearing in mind, the early partners we choose, and the way they treat us can lead us into a lifetime pattern, of insecurity and self doubt. Other times I think it is something in our make-up that we can only strive to conquer and improve.

I started my very first long term serious relationship at the tender age of 15, and it lasted until just before my 19^th birthday. I remember from the start being very needy and seeking constant reassurance. He was very devoted, spoilt me and paid me so much attention, so why did I still feel like I wasn’t good enough, that every girl that walked past was better. Why did I always think there was something better out there for me but yet try so hard to have his approval. I was so sure when we dined out or went to public places that people were thinking I looked silly and wasn’t cool enough to be there. I am still working on conquering these feelings today. It would turn out to be something I repeated in most of my intimate relationships.

I married at 20, happy but not quite as in love as I knew I should be, but once again tried to make sure I looked perfect all the time so he couldn’t possibly desire anyone else. I had felt from an early age that I would be “Left on the Shelf”, so in all reality I had everything I had thought I had wanted. A man totally devoted to me, so why did I always think I wasn’t good enough. My marriage ended when I was 39, again I found myself searching for that elusive relationship I was sure I could find.

Insecurity comes and rears it’s ugly head, no matter how perfect you think you are being, and you find yourself wondering how you can make this person want you more than life itself. You can throw yourself into their life to a point where you feel you are indispensible to this person. Insecurity drove me to do things that I would be appalled at if my daughter was doing them. I cooked meals and delivered them, picked up children and baby-sat, formed relationships with family members carefully placing myself at the centre of his world. How could he live without me, I was charming, witty, attractive, yet so desperately seeking approval. Unfortunately this type of behavior eventually drives a person away, in turn achieving the exact opposite of what we so desperately desire. A person who is strong, confident and independent is so much more attractive to other person, which in turn leads to the very thing we are striving for. But how do we find this? What can we do to get to this point…….It takes time and hard work to find that true inner strength, which believe me is in all of us.

I look back now and see all the wonderful promise I had, but never believed in. When I found myself alone, for the first time since I was fourteen, I was devastated and was sure I couldn’t go on. A very dear Uncle of mine said to me at the time-What don’t you get Lisa-You are the catch now, you have your own home, a great job, nice car and are great company. I smiled and agreed, but inside was that nagging insecurity again. It was only eight years ago that these words were spoken to me, and to this day I wished I had the strength back then to believe I was worthy of a great relationship. You can have so much if you can fight your way out of your inner most self doubt.

Today I know that I am a ‘Catch’ and that I will find that true happy relationship. I urge all of you to fight back against these awful feelings of doubt after all, we, each and every one of us has something to offer the world that is truly unique and beautiful…….Ourselves!

By MaryAnn Roche

How Could She Not Know Her 2 Year Old Was Missing?

Earlier this week my daughter and I were returning home from our usual early morning coffee run, when she saw a young child wandering down the street alone, who couldn’t have been more than 3 years old.  As we live about 500 metres from the river, it was quite disturbing to see what appeared to be, a young toddler wandering toward the river and the main street in our suburb.

I pulled the car over as Steph jumped out and stopped this little boy in his tracks.  Wearing his older sister’s shoes, on the wrong feet no less, he tried to tell us his name.  Judging by his height and size I guessed he was about 2 years old.

Trying to find out how and why he was wondering the streets was near to impossible due to his inability to communicate.  After many attempts to find out where his Mummy lived we began asking locals who were scurrying off to catch the ferry in their suits and carrying their briefcases.   Luckily where we live is a relatively peaceful suburb in Brisbane Australia, and I managed to stop a gentleman in a suit who had just come from a nearby apartment complex and he was kind enough to accompany my daughter back into the building in an attempt to find this little boy’s mother.  While they did their investigating I again sat with this dear little boy in an attempt to have him “point out” where he lived.  The man in the suit emerged; he had done all he could, and went on his merry way, unfortunately no luck there.

The little boy was pointing to the top of an apartment complex and as he did so a young man approached us and asked us if we needed help.  He lived in the complex so was more than happy to let us into this gated complex.  We did so, and holding this little boy’s hand in mine, walked past the swimming pool to the other side of the complex, up one flight of stairs to the first floor where he hesitated and looked at each apartment door.  He decided none of these was home to him, and took us up yet another flight of stairs where miraculously he walked right up to the front door and said “Mummy”.

As my daughter knocked on the door we truly believed this could not be home to this little boy.  When the woman opened the door we asked if she had been missing her son, and as we did so she fell to the floor sobbing uncontrollably.  Her two older children who couldn’t have been more than 4 and 6 years old stood by the door, failing to understand the enormity of what could have happened to their little brother. She explained that she put the TV on for them to watch as she took a shower.

I explained to her that we had been searching for someone to claim him for over 25 minutes and could not comprehend that she didn’t know he was missing.  This 2 year old had managed to open the apartment door, walk down 3 flights of stairs, past a swimming pool, get through the incoming gate to the complex (I still don’t know how or whether someone let him out) and headed off down the street.  Another 3 minutes and he would have ended up in the river or run over by someone in the main street.

What started out as an ordinary day for us became something that quite honestly distressed me more as the day progressed.  As a parent myself, I know I took showers every morning when my children were small, but would I not have checked for safety first?  The child was missing for over 25 minutes, how long does a shower take?  As a parent, wouldn’t you leave the shower door open and perhaps have the little 2 year old in the bathroom with you.  As a parent wouldn’t you attend to the basics of safety?  Can the child get out of the apartment and if so how?

Honestly as parents we are horrified when a little child goes missing, but to be frank I can now see how easily this can happen.   As parents we really do need to treasure our babies and understand they rely on us for their complete safety.

The most astonishing thing of all???  The family only just moved from New Zealand to Australia less than 5 days prior.  What an incredible little boy to be able to find his way home….

By MaryAnn Roche.

7 Anger Management  Exercises to Help you Remain Calm

Mastering anger management is about being in charge of your emotions and taking the time to stop and think prior to speaking out. If you fail to control your anger you may very well destroy important relationships with those around you leading possibly to physical and certainly emotional damage and you will undoubtedly, harm yourself in the process.

Before looking at 7 Anger management exercises lets take a look at anger and what is represents.  Always reported to be a “bad” or “wrong” emotion we need to understand that anger does in fact serve a purpose, and is there to tell us that something is really wrong. Anger really is a failure to express one’s emotions in an appropriate and productive manner and outlined below are some anger management exercises designed to help you keep a cool head.

1. Don’t React. Take the time to think about any previous situations that have gotten you into trouble in the past. At the time you probably reacted immediately to the issue in an angry manner.  Remember that whenever you are presented with a situation that is stressful to you, do not react.  Stop and think through what is really happening, decide how you feel about it and then decide how you are going to act.

2. Breathe. If you are in a situation where you have let your emotions gain control and you are feeling extremely angry, then take the time to stop and breathe, slow breaths in and out until you are able to regain control and get back into this mindset of emotional control.

Try this “at home” study course – “Regaining Control of Your Anger“.

3. Don’t Worry quite so much about other people. Sometimes we get very caught up in how other people perceive us and what opinion they have of us. When this happens and we try to please everyone and make everyone happy, we tend to forget about ourselves which can in turn leave us feeling angry and resentful.

4. Include Exercise in your Life. A consistent and regular exercise routine can help you to release pent up emotions and frustrations. If you feel anger welling up inside, you can always take yourself for a walk or a run, or a game of golf, anything that is an avenue for releasing that anger in a healthy way.

5. Never Hold a Grudge. Holding a grudge against someone, even it is truly warranted, only ends up hurting you at the end of the day.  Try to practice the art of forgiving and forgetting. In some instances this may be very difficult to do, but will actually bring peace into your life.

6. Learn the Art of Relaxation. If you are tired and stressed, anger has a tendency to arise more often. Relaxation techniques such as meditation or yoga, soaking in a bath, deep breathing exercises, listening to music – are all strategies to help you to relax.

Pick up your copy of Deep Zen Meditation CD here..and begin learning the art of relaxation.

7. Learn How to Appropriately Express your Anger. When you feel anger, the trick is to try to identify why you are feeling it, what does it really mean?  Then you must quickly try to express this anger appropriately, causing minimal damage to yourself and to others. Remember suppressing your anger is not the answer, and this could over time, make things much worse and can lead to issues with depression and more.

I find that generally speaking, when I’m angry its more to do with fear than anything else.  So next time you feel angry STOP and try to identify with what the real issue is.

Children and Anger

I am sure we all from time to time have watched in horror at the degree to which our children young and old can display their anger.  I know my own children could get extremely angry and upset and throw tantrums when they were little.  It is very difficult to try to talk to and reason with a very young child and we have to rely upon their body language to try and assess the situation and determine what is causing the leve of anger they are experiencing.  Really easy to do isn’t it when you have a 2 year old SCREAMING THE HOUSE DOWN!

Likewise the same can be said of teenagers and young adults.  It is often very difficult to determine what is causing their anger and it could be any one of a thousand things.

The most important thing though is to teach our children appropriateness in terms of expressing their anger.  Yes it is perfectly normal healthy to experience anger as an emotion however it is not acceptable if that anger involves inflicting physical or emotional pain on another.

A really good resource that you can listen to in the comfort of your own home is a 75-minute audio recording by Parenting Expert Toni Schutta where she talks about the typical anger triggers for children, calming techniques to use and really understanding what anger is all about.  I would recommend you give it a try – “Children’s Anger: Triggers and Solutions for Coping.”-grab your copy here.

By MaryAnn Roche.

It is inevitable that at some point within our lives tragedy will strike.  When it does, it feels as though nothing will ever be the same again, and that there is nothing on earth that can help you come to terms with it.  Like it or not, life has a way of propelling us forward and generally speaking human nature is that over time we learn to live with and adjust to things.  Moving on from tragedy and feeling the grief is vital in the healing process.

As most of you reading this probably already know there are 5 stages of grief:

1. Denial.  Once tragedy strikes it may be so shocking to us that we actually deny that is it real.  It may be the only way our body and soul can avoid the pain. The problem with denial is its duration.  Largely dependant upon the tragedy and also the person, denial can last from days to weeks to months and sometimes even years. Someone once very dear to me has been in denial for over 3 years after learning that his adult son was a sex offender. The pain of having to face this reality is simply too much for him to bear.

2. Guilt.  We seem to suffer this emotion no matter what the situation. We tend to look for how we could have done things differently, what we should have said etc. Guilt will only keep you stuck and not allow you to move forward to the next stage.

3. Anger. Whilst I think this emotion is a difficult one, I know is is important to feel it and experience it. The reason for this emotion is because the situation is beyond our control and nothing we say or do will change the tragedy.  We are helpless and our only recourse is anger.

4. Depression. Often this lasts a considerable length of time. When we suffer depression we dont want to socialize or meet up with friends however this really is the time you need input from others. It is a time of looking within for sure, and there is no denying this step in the grieving process, however without any outside influence you may dwell on tragedy and sink further into depression.
5. Acceptance – When we reach the final realization that the tragedy happened,and that although it did you are able to go about your daily life, probably not the same, but you are able to, none the less.

Time is the important factor in dealing with grief.  Grieving cannot be rushed, it cannot be fast forwarded nor can any of the stages be skipped. The secret is not to get stuck

on a particular stage and not be able to move forward.  Tragedy is something that lives with us forever, but as time passes the pain becomes a little duller.

Take one day at a time, or an hour at a time if you have to, remembering professional help is always available if you need it.

By MaryAnn Roche.