Blog by Self-Reg Learning Facilitator Certificate Program Alumni, Stela Haralala
After my dad passed away, my world changed in many ways but one of the most significant shifts came when my mother moved into my house. As a single mum, I initially felt incredibly supported. Having someone there to help with my daughter when I had to work late was a gift, and there was a deep sense of comfort.
But living as three generations under one roof was far from easy. Our roles as mother, daughter, grandmother blurred and sometimes collided. What began as support started to feel like pressure. What felt to her like tradition and care, felt to me like control. Over time, the emotional tension in the house built up limbic resonance, or in our case, limbic leakage where our unspoken stress and frustrations kept bouncing off each other.
My “aha” moment came in the middle of one of our tense episodes. I was consumed with frustration and it hit me that she was stressed. Not just irritated or nagging, but deeply dysregulated. She was displaced, lonely, and grieving. For so many years, her identity had been shaped around caring for others and now, without demands placed on her, my simple suggestion to “take care of yourself” sounded to her like “you don’t matter anymore.”
That moment of realization was pivotal. I stopped reacting and started observing. I shifted my focus from how she was behaving to why she was behaving that way. I began to co-regulate with her. I acknowledged her stressors, gave her space to explore her own interests, and slowly, she began to focus on herself.
This shift from mutual frustration to mutual understanding was only possible when I developed my own stress awareness. As Dr. Shanker explains, mindfulness begins with noticing what’s going on inside ourselves and in others.
