Being apart is an emotional rollercoaster for the children you love, for the caregiver/s left behind and, often exacerbated by these facts, for you. As such, you’ve got to find a way to keep yourself together. This is one of the most important things you can do to make the experience of being apart a positive one for all. Keeping your cool won’t be easy, and at times you’ll crack under the pressure. The APART model doesn’t encourage you to be an emotionless rock, or some constantly tranquil Zen master. Rather, APART simply recognizes that we all have emotions, and encourages you to manage them, in a way that fosters healthy, loving connections between you and the children you love, and your broader family, while you’re apart. In essence, when it comes to Anchor, your primary focus should be to stay calm, find your center and get clear on your ‘vision’ for the ‘Away’ phase.
Ideas For Action
- Get clear on your vision for being apart: great athletes envision themselves winning; successful private sector corporations adopt a clear picture of success. If its worth making a vision for the olympics, or for profit, its surely worth making one for your time apart from the children you love. So, close your eyes and picture success in each of the three stages of being apart: Leaving, Away and Returning. Once you’re clear on the vision for each stage, write it down, in clear and simple terms. Then put it somewhere safe; you’ll need it in Commitment Two, Prepare.
- Identify one (or a few) practical, healthy, stress management techniques, which you can do with little preparation and, preferably, in your immediate location: for example, in your hotel room if you’re travelling on business; in your bunk-room or ‘container’ if you’re deployed on a long ‘tour of duty’ with a national defence force or a long-term ‘mission’ with an international organization; or in your living room at home, if you live apart from the children you love. Here’s ConnectedApart’s top ten:
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- Pilates, yoga and stretching. For some excellent basic yoga postures, the book Yoga for Beginners is a good place to start. You might also consider investing in a highly portable pilates/yoga/stretching mat;
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- Breathing exercises. Its not all huffing, puffing and hyperventilation! Breathing really does work – ask fighter pilots, top athletes, business executives and other high performers. Andrew Weil’s Breathing is a good place to start, one breath at a time;
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- ‘On-screen’ work-outs. My all time favourite provider is Hasfit.com (note: ConnectedApart/its founder is neither affiliated with Hasfit nor receiving a reimbursement for this referral). Both Coach Kozak and Claudia deliver a huge range of high-quality, motivational training sessions, which can be undertaken anywhere. Coach Kozak also has a new book on the market: Stay Fit for Life: More than 60 Exercises to Restore Your Strength and Future-Proof Your Body;
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- Tune-in to your favourite music and get moving. Prepare your favourite playlist, or a few playlists for different occasions, chose your preferred form/s of exercise (dancing, yoga, aerobics, resistance work, martial arts, whatever) and put the two together. The science is clear, you’ll benefit – and, therefore, so will the children you love;
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- Give yourself a ‘home/on-the-road’ spa. Get in a workout, relax in a bath, give yourself a facial – and a manicure – and finish off with some meditation – and maybe some heart-healing, mood boosting, dark chocolate! Pamper yourself, you deserve it. And when you’re away from the children you love, and find your heart strings strummed, you might need a little retreat to find your anchor;
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- Watch or read something funny. Research has shown that laughter can drive away anxiety, anger and depression by stimulating the flow of happy-making endorphins and by reducing the levels of cortisol, one of the chemicals released by your body when you’re under stress. As one 1997 study in the ‘Journal of Personality and Social Psychology’ stated “laughter facilitates the adaptive response to stress” and as another, more recent, article in 2017 concluded, laughter works as a social glue. When considering how to stay connected with the children you love when you’re apart, this recent finding is particularly important. As they say, laughter really is the best medicine – including for staying connected (or ‘glued’) with the children we love when we’re apart;
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- Focus on what you have, not what you don’t – keep a ‘gratitude journal’. Check out this excellent idea, grounded in hard science, from the team at the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley;
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- Keep a diary/journal. Don’t under-estimate this idea, the science is out: keeping a diary/journal is an excellent, highly constructive ‘coping strategy’, for life’s ups and downs, including when you’re apart from the children you love. Check out this great advice, again from the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley. Basically, pick up your pen and start writing. If you feel insecure about what you’ve written, no worries, just rip out the page and tear it up! What’s important isn’t the record (unless you plan on selling your memoires at some stage!); what matters more is finding a constructive vent for your feelings and thoughts;
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- Make a plan for tomorrow. Take off some pressure, by planning out the day, and ‘gaming’ (or running through) certain meetings if need be. A 2011 survey by the internationally recognised psychologist Robert Epstein noted that planning (“your day, your year and your life”) is one of the best stress management techniques out there. As Epstein noted, its all about “fighting stress before it even starts, planning things rather than letting them happen”. Want to start planning? Excellent!
- Start a ten-minute stress management routine: using one or many of the above, before you leave the children you love. It will serve as an anchoring routine, when the stormy waters come. Involve the children you love and try to help them to find a few techniques, which might work for them. At the very least, you will model one of the most important life skills of all, which is seldom the focus of dedicated courses in primary, secondary and/or tertiary institutions: stress management’.
- Leverage your network, as well as the ConnectedApart community: talk to others who have been/are currently apart from the children they love. As this article from the American Psychological Association attests, a problem shared, is truly a problem halved.
Related References
- Biringen, Z., Seng, S. and Altenhofen, S. (2005). Babies, toddlers, and coping with military deployments: Ensuring emotional security and remaining emotionally available. Colorado State University
- Cohen, S. A., Gössling, S. (2015). A darker side of hypermobility. Environment and Planning A, 47.
- Flake E. M., Davis B. E., Johnson P. L., Middleton L. S. (2010). The psychological effects of deployment on military children. Journal of Behavioral and Developmental Pediatrics. 30 (4): 271 – 278
- Gustafson, P. (2006). Work-related travel, gender and family obligations. Work, Employment and Society, 20 (3), 513 – 530.
- Striker, J., Luippold, R., Nagy, L., et al. (1999). Risk factors for psychological stress among international business travellers. Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 56: 245 – 52.
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