As a registered and qualified counsellor and psychotherapist, I have seen and researched cases where parents have an enormous amount of stress built up and blame their children as a result.
When digging deeper, however, we have found that the root cause of parental stress is due to emotional wounds that are yet to be healed.
These emotional wounds vary, however, common cases are a result of financial stress, in-law problems, spousal conflict, or perhaps their environmental stressors that are exacerbated with children.
One way to consider parental stress is to think of stress as a good thing as we need a certain amount of stress in order to take action on things that may need to be addressed.
When stress becomes too much or overwhelming, this is when we need to avoid the stress of it becoming too much. Too much stress can impact our functioning in daily life.
To deal with the overwhelming stress is to take a deep breath and focus on each of the muscle groups in our body. Tensing each muscle at a time and then releasing it. Taking breaths in between can assist with our nervous system which is what needs to be calm.
When our nervous system is calm, we will be able to deal with the stressors at a rational level. For example, you could have an infant screaming and at first, it may stress you especially if you’re thinking of all the financial stress you may have and then all you hear is your screaming child and it all just becomes too much.
However, when we have calmed our nervous system, picking up the screaming baby will be in a more relaxed state. The baby will calm down and then at a rational level dealing with the financial stress will be more tolerable.
When we can deal with minor stressors in a calm manner, it will help us to deal with the major stressors or the root cause of how the stress began. For example, if the root cause is financial stress then again the screaming baby or even receiving a phone call over again in your day will feel super overwhelming.
On an Islamic level, I like to use this famous dua (supplication) for dealing with stress. ‘My Lord, indeed I am for whatever good you send down to me, in need.’ (Quran 28:24)
I like to reframe the minor stressors now as the things I needed in order to really deal with my actual stress as in the case of mentioning the financial stress.
A huge reason psychologically as to why we feel we cannot deal with our minor stress is due to pressure in our bodies. At that moment our bodies or our brain is trying so hard to focus on just surviving the stress.
So, to actually work on what is stressing us and find solutions to resolve it would be impractical at this point. Hence, it is crucial to engage in those relaxation techniques the moment our stress becomes too much.
Finding other ways to respond to stress is also significant. Relaxation techniques may be one. Other sensory inputs is another as it is another way our bodies need to respond to stress. This is in order to go back to that rational state in our minds to deal with as mentioned before again in regards to those major root causes of stress.
Islamically, we can discuss a sensory input such as the use of the mesbaha (Islamic) beads. They can assist an individual in feeling relaxed in their bodies through the use of touch and feel grounded on a psychological level.
Simultaneously in an Islamic sense, reminding ourselves of saying Allahu Akbar (Allah is the Most Great) with every movement of the beads. There are two things at this moment occurring as a way to respond to stress.
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