The Therapy Edit - On making a big difference to your relationships in 9 minutes

Episode Date: September 9, 2024

In this ten minute THROWBACK solo episode of The Therapy Edit, Anna offers listeners advice on how they can make positive changes to their relationships in just 9 minutes! Listen in and let this advice help on your road to living a happier life.

Hello and welcome to the Therapy Edit podcast with me, psychotherapist Anna Martha. I'll be bringing you weekly 10 minute episodes to encourage and support your emotional well-being. Hello, I hope you're good as you listen to this little super short podcast from me. I'm going to share with you something that I've absolutely loved learning about. If you want to see, it was just something I scrolled across on social media and then I did a bit of Googling. and I just thought this is really cool. So I'm going to share it with you. And it's all about how to make a difference in your relationships in nine minutes a day.

And basically, it's this little concept by Dr. Jack Panskep. I had to just record that about five different times because I'm not even sure if I got his name white. I'm sorry if I didn't, but he is basically an Estonian American neuroscientist. And he suggested that the most important time in a child's day was, the three minute blocks. And there are three of them. And he said that a parent interacting with a child for three minutes at these times would help make them feel happier and more secure. So these three minutes are in the morning just after they wake up when they come home from childcare or school and just before they go to bed. And I absolutely love this. And I must say, I shared this on

Instagram and we had some conversation about these three minutes, these three blocks of three minutes and then there were loads of people saying, but what do you do if your kid wakes up at 5 o'clock? What do you do if they come home from school and they're in a stay and it's just all chaos and you're in survival mode? What do you do if before bed they just ask you back 5,000 times for 5,000 different things and 5,000 kisses and glasses of water and all of those things? And in reality, I must say when I learn and I see and I come across these little lovely things, I take them as intentions. I think, oh, that's really nice. I'm going to add that to my toolbox. And I must admit, I've forgotten it many, many times, but there are moments in the last week or two where it's come to mind,

and I've thought, oh, here we go. I'm going to do that right now. And the kids are just about to get out. And I'm going to stay in my room for three more minutes just to welcome them and to hug them and to say hi and to ask them if they had any fun dreams. Or, you know, I picked them up from school, and it's absolutely chaos of bags and snacks and all of these things. But maybe I think I'm just going to take a couple of minutes before we drive off. And I'm going to let everyone settle in the car slowly and I'm going to give them their snacks. And I'm going to just look them in the eye and ask them how their day was and take any answer for the answer. And so I always say when you hear these little things, like don't be staunch about it because then it just adds stress and it kind of takes the loveliness.

away from it all for me as I share this with you. It's just a lovely thought that I would hold loosely and maybe just bring in as and when you remember. So I've tried this recently and I've had some really, really lovely moments. So those little three minute time slots, Dr. Jacques Panksep suggested was that these three minutes in the morning when they come home from childcare or school and just before they go to bed. Now I kind of have the just before they go to bed down because when I put them to bed, it's often just me and I just spend a few minutes with each of them reading a little story or one of my favorite things that I do with the boys at the minute is they've got a Guinness Book of World Records book. Some of the records in there

absolutely wild. I don't even know how they come up with them. And then what we do is I set a little one minute time out on my watch and we try and find like the funnest, funniest, cutest, world record was the other person has their eyes shut and then we share it with them. So that's a really cute little game that I share with that I do with each of the boys and then I might read them a little devotional, just lie with them for a couple of minutes, say a little prayer, do that. And I love those moments. So the moments before bed, we kind of have figured out, although bedtime often doesn't end a bedtime, does it? There's normally in our household another half an hour that goes on where people are coming in and out and I'm being called.

you know, it's just those moments for me when I'm in their rooms and I think I'm going to be really intentional about this. I want them to have my full attention and I want them to feel that I'm really present in those moments. And another little way that I've done this recently is in the morning just after they wake up and my daughter, she came upstairs the other day and she was like, oh, I want to cuddle in your bed. And my first thought is, oh my gosh, I'm just getting dressed. like I've made the bed. I really don't want to get back in. But I thought of this little three minute thing, three minute theory, as it's called. And I thought, you know what? So did it. So I took the cushions off. I got into bed half dressed. I kind of her in her pajamas. And it was

really, really cute. We had that little moment. And then my boys, they came in and jumped in bed. So we ended up having five minutes, just in bed with my kids. cuddled up, and it was just really, really sweet. And that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't come across this little theory. And it hasn't been like that since. It hasn't, but I think these things just open you up, don't they? They just open you up to being a little bit more intentional with your presence, because these points of the day, let's face it, in the morning when they wake up when they come home from child care or school and just before they go to bed they are often oh the pinch points of the day where who knows what mood they're going to be in

who knows what mood you're going to be in and what fuel you've got in the tank to journey through those moments and to yeah to hold them but I think it's just super helpful as that little prompts to remind you to drop the anchor in that moment because at the end of the day we were not late for the sake of those three, three minutes in bed. But they were just lovely little moments of connections. So maybe you want to try that. And also I encourage you perhaps to try this with your partner as well. My husband in the morning, so often we're just jumping out of bed, maybe quickly doing a workout or whatever it is. Perhaps we, you know, it's, we, we forget to connect and say, hi. Do you sleep all right? Or when my husband comes home,

from work last night he came home from work my autistic son it was really hard there was lots of banging there's also screaming and you know we didn't even say hi to each other he just had to launch in and get involved and and help me out because i was reaching the end of myself so but there are also times when he comes home from work and perhaps on cooking dinner and i could just turn my attention to him when he could turn his attention to me and we could just have that little moment of connection with each other. And I just find these moments that are really grounding. And sometimes they set the tone for the moments that followed. I feel like my morning, when I snuggled all the kids in bed, I feel like it set the tone for the moments to follow. It's not to say that it all went smoothly and we

had the most chilled morning. It definitely wasn't like that. But I feel like it was that little moment of connection where we could drop the anchor and we could say hi. We're here. We're together. And that, I think, is the power of it. So yeah, don't be staunch about it. Just hold it as a little theory, a little idea, a little tool for when you remember. And yeah, let me know what comes a bit. And I hope there are some really lovely moments that can be that parenting caffeine that we hold onto that fuels us through some of the more challenging ones. But yeah, sending you love in those moments. And yeah, let me know how it goes. I am so excited to announce that my brand new book, The Uncomfortable Truth,

Change Your Life by Taming Ten of Your Mind's Greatest Fears, is available for pre-order now and is out on the 8th of August. And in this book, we tackle some of life's big, unavoidable, uncomfortable truths, such as some people don't like me. I am going to fail. Life isn't fair. Bad things will happen. And in this book, we tackle these big, uncomfortable truths that,

that rob us of so much headspace and energy as we try and control and avoid them. And as we move into a place of radical acceptance of these truths, you will find yourself living more freely and intentionally with more presence and confidence than ever before. So come on this journey with me and pre-order now at Wardstones in Amazon and we can celebrate together.