Hi, friends 👋🏽. I’m Stacy Casson, Chief Play Officer at Things to Think About, LLC. Play is serious business and necessary for effective problem-solving. I’ve learned to be the calm in the chaos after having five kids attend three different schools. I’ve used process improvement techniques to successfully raise five kids. I can help you find manageable ways to empower your kids and move from overwhelm to action.
Celebrate Your Wins
Pause for a moment:
What’s one thing you accomplished this week—big or small?
Did you try the “Lay it down” challenge?
Finally join the gym?
Said no?
Drop your win in the comments or share it with a friend!
My wins: This week, I kicked off The Five Minute Club. It’s a group devoted to decluttering for five minutes daily. It doubled in size, and we are having great success with our daily decluttering practices. I volunteered in my community, which always boosts my spirits. Reflecting on my wins helps to keep the momentum when I’m down.
Every week, we explore a Tarot card because Tarot is rich in symbology and helps us to tap into our intuition. Reflecting on the card and noting what comes to mind is a form of metaphor brainstorming, which provides insights when problem-solving.
Card of the Week: The Hanged Man
A man is suspended from a tree branch, hanging upside-down. His expression is calm. My initial impressions are about surrender, and I think it’s a great follow-up to last week’s idea about laying down our burdens. His head is glowing with a halo, which leads me to believe he is receiving insights from this new perspective.
The Pattern It Reveals
I interpret this card as surrendering and not forcing outcomes. My kid told me that it’s no fun trying to get a rise out of me, because I don’t react. I feel like General Iroh from Avatar, who accepted the lightning strike and redirected it out of his body. Trying to control everything, especially how your child feels, leads to stress and burnout.
The Question Worth Asking
Merriam-Webster defines surrender as yielding to the power of another upon compulsion. Many people view surrender as failure. What if surrender was a tool to shift perspective?
One Small Experiment to Try This Week
My colleague and I used to lie on the carpet in our old office and have conversations. The literal shift in perspective helped us to gain new insights. When interacting with your child, try to physically lower yourself to their eye level. This shift helps you to see the world from their perspective.
If your tiny human is taller than you, try the yes-and game. Yes means we validate their feelings and experience and accept that two things can be true. For example, if you ask them to stop playing their game and take out the trash, you can validate that they don’t want to do it. Hold firm to your boundary of expectations about chores and accept that yes, they took out the trash, and they were upset while doing it.
Ready to move from overwhelm to action?
Book a Calm Down call with me and allow yourself to surrender to a peaceful moment. In that session, we get to know each other, and I walk you through a brief meditation. Then we can see how I can guide your parenting journey.
