The Conscious Family Team is a team of professionals in York Region who support, guide and aid those who want to do their best each day to love, cherish and respect their children, and who want to learn and grow from their roles.








Giving birth and raising a family consciously used to be a matter of instinct. We trusted our bodies and our feelings to do the right thing. We learned from our families, and our communities how to care for and raise our children, and we just knew it would be okay. We had the support of those close to us - the village helped us to raise our children. There was no internet, no 24 - hour medical centres or helplines, and no bookshelf stocked with 50 or so of the latest advice books from "the experts", usually celebrities. Mom was at home during the day to lend a hand with the washing, or your neighbour would pop by with a casserole when times were tough.

These days, we're lucky to know our neighbour's first name. And if we need advice, we're more likely to consult Google than our brother, sister or mother. The village is truly gone.

Here with the Conscious Family Team, we want to bring the good days back by being your village and helping your family and village grow.

We believe that in order to accomplish these tasks, parenting must be a conscious endeavour, meaning that we are willing to examine ourselves, our background, beliefs, motivations, behaviours, and how these aspects affect the way we parent. Let's find the positives in the way we were parented, recognize the lessons we learned and empower ourselves to trust our own intuition and emerge as the parents we want to be.

Decisions made prior to conception, during pregnancy and in baby's first year and beyond provide the foundation for the creation of a conscious family. By consulting with one or more of the Conscious Family Team members, you will be inspired to take initiative to choose the style of caring for yourself and your infant/child that resonates with you and you'll be connected to the tangible tools and resources to support you on your journey.







Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Energy Bank

Wouldn't it be nice if there was such thing as an "energy bank".  A place where we could go and make deposits on those extra energy days so that we could make a withdrawal on those "not so great" days?  We actually do have something that acts like our energy bank.  It is our adrenal glands.  We all have times where the bank feels empty.  Burnt out, exhausted, irritable.   Working as a Naturopathic Doctor I am well aware of adrenal insufficiency.  I see it almost everyday.  People who live most of their lives in the fight, flight or freeze state.  Cortisol surges through the body like we are being chased by a lion and need to escape but there is no lion.  Just a mountain of paperwork, unfinished jobs, or a boss (who perhaps could actually be a lion).  All of this stress response gets internalized and has an effect on our physical body.  We feel exhausted.  Our adrenals are working overtime to try to keep us running.  We need to cultivate the "off" switch - the relaxation response.  This is where we should be spending most of our lives. Think about a baby. Think about the time they spend in a "quiet, alert" state.  Calmly observing the world, absorbing and processing information. This is where we need to be.  Calm, alert and responsive not reactive.

 I was doing some reading the other day and a statement I came across really struck me. "When your body can't have a physical reaction to stress (like run away or fight) it can become internalized into emotion.  Emotions such as anger and fear".  Have you ever woken up in the morning and felt angry for no obvious reason?  I know I have.  There have been times I have woken up and felt like I could actually be a bear. I pick fights with my dear husband, people driving annoy me and little things down right drive me crazy.  I had never really thought of this as my stress response.  However when I look objectively back at the day I can almost always see a stress trigger.  My bank was not full enough to allow the withdrawal of energy.  Think about the amount of fear in your life? Or anger? What about our society in general?  This doesn't mean we should not care about safety, responsibility and common sense but perhaps we need to look at what else drives our fear.  When I am feeling energized and positive fear doesn't really enter into my thought process.  Neither does anger.  I can response to issues instead of react to them.

From this I have learned to pay attention to my emotions and my physical body.  Sometimes my adrenals need extra support.  Sometimes they need more than others.  I also try to remember to keep myself on the list.  To respect the times when I need to go to bed early to rest to make a deposit into the "energy bank".  Also the times when I need a more substantial break, to take a few days off, so that I can be fully energized and present with my patients. 

What about you? What are you doing to fill up your bank?

Tara Annesley is a Naturopathic Doctor for Rise Up For Health in Newmarket, Ontario.  Everyday she works to balance her "withdrawals" with her "deposits". 
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