SoMoms Session With Coach Pia: Creating Structure For Dialogue

There is always room for improvement. This I’ve come to know well as I journey deeper into motherhood and homemaking. But you know, sometimes we are so accustomed to what we’ve become and what we’re doing that we neglect finding room to grow. Thankfully, being a SoMom has given me great opportunities to further improve myself to become a better person, blogger, wife and mother. These roles may look easy but when juggled altogether can be quite challenging. We had our first SoMoms #sessions (I know the hashtag is irrelevant here but I’m loving it!) with Coach Pia last month. If you can recall, I’ve written a post about my previous session with her here. I was then pregnant with lil’ Mr. GJG! Now I’m glad to write again my learnings from our latest session with her which is about “creating structure for dialogue”.

I love our SoMoms binder. Lakas maka-highschool heehee.

Coach Pia

From what I’ve learned during the session, our past, particularly how we communicate with our family can influence and give an impact with our present. There is nothing we can do about that except to accept the fact that our past is indeed our past, we just have to make up for the present and live according to how we want to.

Did you know that the way we dialogue/communicate with our nuclear family (parents and siblings) greatly affects our parenting style? Whatever background you’ve come from and however you communicate with your family, it will always be evident to your own family one way or another. I had an unusual life growing up. We were a typical family and we don’t really talk heart to heart neither do we confront each other when it comes to the matters of the heart. We all know our place in the family and there was some sort of an unwritten agreement on that. Growing up in a very traditional way means as a kid, all you have to do is obey whatever your parents tell you. So to sum it up I wasn’t really good at communicating. I would rather keep it to myself or at least wait for the overwhelming emotion to subside before I even attempt to bring up an issue. I guess with my “training” or lack thereof somehow made me discover how I can really dialogue especially with the people that matter to me.

Confronting and dealing with family issues and situations aren’t always easy to do. The wave of emotions, the main issue that sometimes came from another issue or worse conceives and gives birth to multiple baby issues are just some of the reasons why most of us dislike confrontations. But you know, there’s something we can do about this and that is to have good communication within the family.

The key to every heavy, complicated and confusing situation is to SIMPLIFY. Narrow down the situation by disregarding the emotions for a second and focus on what’s really the issue.

How to simply:

1. Be accepting.

List down what you can control and what you can’t. Of course, focus on what you can control and as what I like to say, deadma-deadmadela LOL (never mind) those you can’t.

2. Choose to be present.

Stop being too busy planning for your & your family’s future that you’re missing out on today.

3. Choose to listen and take away the burden to respond.

Take the opportunity to just be a good listener. When someone asks for your ear, you are not obliged to respond and give your voice.

4. Expect your children to be children.

Yes, children need to be children. Let them experiment, inquire, explore and just be overly excited with the world.

My only advice for parents and would be parents is to never let your relationship with your family (parents and siblings) hinder you from raising and teaching your kids the way you want to. You can never change your past but you can definitely learn from it, so you and your own family can have a lovely present and bright future.

Thank you Coach Pia for a very enlightening session. Much thanks also to Unilab for sponsoring this event for SoMoms and to O’sonho Portuguese restaurant for sponsoring the venue and delicious food, your Peri-peri chicken is so goooood. Thank you Unilab for believing that a healthy relationship within a family is a crucial factor in one’s well-being. Your constant dedication in bringing Filipino families closer and your belief that caring starts within the family are clearly evident because of such events like this. Thank you for acknowledging that creating and having a dialogue within the family is just as important as physical health.

I am very much looking forward to the future sessions as I know these will greatly help me as a person, a wife, a mom and a homemaker. I am excited to share with you all my learnings too, just like I did in this post which I hope you find helpful.

By the way for those of you who have kids aged 9-16, The One Core headed by Coach Pia is having their summer workshop.

Visit www.theonecore.com for more information.

Have a great Tuesday everyone!