Adoption Blog

Truly, I tell you. I feel like my heart has been split open- all its contents laid out on the ground.

As day one of the Empowered to Connect conference came to a close, we zombie-walked to the car feeling raw and tired.

(Right now, I’m questioning if I’m brave enough to write this post in its entirety for you all to read. Honestly, I’m not sure that I can. I have even deleted and retyped that last sentence about five times.)

I have been waiting to hear Dr. Karen Purvis speak since Chris and I missed her at the Together For Adoption Conference a couple of years back. We’ve been anxiously awaiting this day since September. We were thirty minutes early. In Dallas morning traffic. (I know, we shocked ourselves too) We took full advantage of this new arriving-somewhere-early-experience and strolled leisurely into the building sipping our coffee. I must have stepped into some kind of waiting-adoptive-parent-vortex the moment my boots crossed the threshold because the very second my body was in that building the tears came.

Y’all.

We weren’t even at the registration table. Seriously? I thought.

Every time I saw Dr. Purvis, I wanted to hurdle the auditorium chairs, wrap my arms around her neck, kiss her cheek and bawl like a baby out of admiration and gratitude.

Dr. Karen Purvis doesn’t know who the heck I am. But, she’s changing my life. Our life. She also happens to have my dream job and is spectacular at it. Through Dr. Purvis, God is putting together some major pieces in mine and Chris’ life, answering our cries (very specifically) and laying a tremendous foundation for our future children that we are overwhelmed with gratitude to receive.

“It’s human being at it’s most sacred” -Dr. Karen Purvis on the connected environment

But. This has been a long hard day. Honestly, my concern for what other people think of me is the thing that kept me from coming completely unraveled at this conference today. I wiped the tears away, attempting to leave the eyeshadow, mascara and powder untouched and wondered if everyone in the room was doing the same thing I was.

Are we all breathing slow deep breaths, quickly wiping tears and swallowing the lumps in our throats to avoid lookin’ a hot mess and snotting all over one another?

I’m sure the ones with children already in their homes had to feel like falling apart at the seams. I’m sure.

I apologize if this doesn’t make sense to you. I have plans to come back and more fully explain the things we’re learning. In the meantime, here’s a few bullet points from the day:

• When you {remove the violence}, organic (child/brain) development will begin.
• When a child feels {safe and connected} they are able to use their words. When they don’t feel safe and connected they are not able to use their words (this has been physiologically proven).
• There are two stages that MUST be reached/attained before a child can successfully self-regulate their emotions and behaviors. (1) Parent provides external regulation (meaning the child IS NOT responsible and SHOULD NOT be held responsible for regulating their emotions). This means if your child needs something, even if it is to be held, you say ‘yes’. (2) The parent and child co-regulate the child’s emotions and behaviors.
• The “trajectory” of mental illness begins when a child’s needs are not met the first few years of life.
• Enter: TBRI or Trust Based Relational Intervention. TBRI involves the mind (correcting), body (empowering) and soul (connecting) and if you are not connecting to your child- NO intervention matters. Nothing will work or help your child until you are connecting with them.

The last two hours of the day, we moved into “Adopting From The Inside Out”. And this was kind-of the beginning of the end for me today.

Making sense of your past and being realistic about the future, you can be freed to be fully present in each and every moment to help your children heal and become all that God has created them to be. -I don’t remember who said this and I didn’t write it down.

They discussed how very important it is to look back at your big and little traumas. Not to dwell. To address it (no, like, for real). Stare it in the face. Make sense of it.

You cannot lead your child to a place of healing if you do not know the way yourself. – Karen Purvis

We discussed the attachment dance between parents and their children, discovering a little bit about where we might fall in our parenting styles (Authoritarian, Neglectful, Permissive or Authoritative). After Dr. Purvis covered the four successful skills to relationships (things we need to be able to model that then become the goals for our children) she ended with some videos of some activities she did with some girls living in residential treatment for self mutilation.

Oh their scars. And my heart officially cracked open and spilled out.

Then, we zombie-walked to the car.

More soon…