Adoption ReImagined Excerpt: Chapter 4 Brain Health (Part 1)

My goal in this chapter is to explain what might have contributed to shaping your brain’s pathways and give you strategies to repair the broken pathway between the automatic systems in your brain and the logical, thinking part that helps you respond appropriately to drama, stress and disrespect others exhibit. I want to give you coping skills that make the ‘jump’ from involuntary reactions to intentional actions that are shorter in duration and less intense.

The human brain is so much more complex than a computer because we can pull from the past while living in the present and it affects our future. That is why being content and settled is so hard, we can’t put aside those bad experiences in the past. They affect our thinking, our actions and reactions.

Adoption is one of those circumstances that can lead to so many feelings and questions. Many times, even the answers and facts can’t satisfy because they cannot erase the previous feelings and long held beliefs. Logic from our neocortex does not help override the emotions we have created.

I have a very wise friend who deals with several mental illnesses who said, “Prepare your mind in the stable times for the unstable moments. Fill your mind with good things like scripture, music with positive messages, books that encourage and TV shows with wholesome messages. What you put into your mind,” she says, “will come to the forefront in times of panic and mania.” She practices surrounding herself with good people she trusts that understand how to help, encourage and support. She is open and honest with those people. She spends time with them volunteering, eating, shopping and worshiping together.

Reimagine your adoption by saying this below. Write it. Post it on a sticky you can see easily. Take it to heart. If you have learned emotions from your previous experiences, whatever they are, you can also avert them, recreate them and refocus on different ones, too. Try it 30 days!!

Adoption is a fact in my life. Adoption is not a guide. Adoption is not an obstacle. Adoption only has the power I give it.

Adoption ReImagined

Peace, Hope & Healing for Woman in the Adoption Arena

Chapter One Summary: Goodness vs. Comparison Title: Hear Different Perspectives

It is important to hear different perspectives. Different perspectives are not wrong. They are just different. Showing grace towards other view points is a way to show goodness without comparing to show you have the best worst situation. Hearing someone else' perspective does not mean you also must agree with it. It does not mean you must incorporate their beliefs into your thoughts or actions. You don’t have to yield to their perspective to show decency towards them. Some perspectives may make your blood boil, but it is still 100% valid for the owner. Have you ever thought that your negative reaction to different perspectives is caused because you are subconsciously comparing their story to your own? Being able to show goodness to other perspectives without judgment and without trying to debate or change their perspective is a great sign of emotional maturity. Respecting without agreeing or comparing is possible. Being decent involves empathy and compassion in disagreement. Practicing empathy and compassion has to be intentional. Are you ready, to open up, to new perspectives about adoption issues without comparing or debating? Are you ready to learn to hear with no agenda for changing their perspective by comparing it to yours? Are you ready to try to hear from your heart and not from a place that compares?

If I asked 100 people to described adoption, I would get 100 different perspectives. There would be different details distinctly focused on a single theme. none are wrong. Each is explaining the same word from their vantage point. Because of past experiences, personalities and upbringing, all will focus on different aspects and how it shaped them.

That which ties us together is only a blip at the beginning, after that, so many factors mold us, change our trajectory and make us pivot to all have different stories and feelings about the same topic. There is not one aspect, emotion or characteristic of adoption that 100% of those dealing with adoption issues have in common, except for the word ADOPTION.

Being able to hear other perspectives, views and feelings about their story and at the same time not inserting yourself into their story, is the best thing people with a adoption stories can do for one another. Being able to say, “I hear you,”, “I empathize with you,” is hard for many.

The tendency is to compare by telling how your story is worse. This chapter focuses on responding with goodness and decency while discouraging comparison.

Comparison is detrimental to being good and decent. When you are able to hear another perspective about Adoption, even if you don’t agree, both can be important, valid and useful.

How can your story be useful? Being able to use your story to make you stronger is a mature emotional quality that many struggle with simply because they don’t try.

Having a comeback story where you have overcome many obstacles and help others do the same, is more useful than sitting in doubt, uselessness and undeveloped wisdom from your trials.

How can you use your story as a guide to show what is possible?

Adoption Reimagined: Intro

Purpose for this book is for 3-fold: understand all perspectives with compassion; accept without personal compromise; educate with boldness.

Adoptive Parents:

Adoption Reimagined offers hope to adoptive parents by encouraging them to instill their traditions and heritage in their child as they build a foundation on love, acceptance, honesty and trust. These ideals can help their child navigate feelings of abandonment, rejection and uncertainty as they learn about their beginning. It is important that parents realize all their child’s feelings are valid and can co-exist together. Parents can redirect children to learn to ‘camp out’ with the beneficial emotions that give hope and future while getting strength from the negative feelings to advance ahead.

Adoptees:

Adoption Reimagined offers healing to adoptees by inspiring them to adopt healthy strategies that reroute pain caused by adoption. While revisiting these painful areas is inevitable, strategies can help adoptees take back stolen power and control in their life as they decide to not ‘camping out’ in the past. One powerful tool is to boldly and kindly educate others about adoption issues.

"Use your past experiences to educate so someone else's future will be better." Erin E. McEndree

Birth Mothers:

Adoption Reimagined cultivates peace in birth mothers by helping them discern personal growth from the hard lessons in life. Lessons like grace and forgiveness can alleviate the pain of loss, guilt and shame.

Those Who Love Us:

Adoption Reimagined is also for those spectators who love someone in the adoption arena. Awareness and knowledge is the key to being able to have helpful dialog with someone you care about.