Eps 115: Solo show – Exploring trust and surrender as I navigate all there is to learn while raising a teen

Transcription

Casey O'Roarty 0:00
Before I start, I just want to dedicate this show to four mamas that have made a big difference in the last couple of days for me, in the way that they have shown up and loved and supported me. So this show is dedicated to Jessica, Mickey Stephanie and Jeanette. I love the four of you so much, and I'm so grateful for our friendship. Joyful courage parenting podcast episode 115

Hey everybody. Welcome back to the joyful courage podcast, a place for information and inspiration on the conscious parenting journey. I'm your host. Casey obrty, positive discipline trainer, parent, coach and Mom, I am thrilled that you are listening in. Thank you so much for your continued support. If you find yourself taking notes, laughing or excited about what you hear on the show today, if you find yourself nodding your head, yes, yes, yes, I get what you're saying. I appreciate where you're coming from, do me a favor and pay it forward. Share this episode with that friend that you know is struggling or with a family member who just might might really appreciate a new perspective. Share it with your neighbors. Share it with strangers at the grocery store. Your sharing is the reason that I'm able to show up for you each week, and I am so deeply honored that I get to do that today's show is a solo episode. It is a solo episode, and it comes straight from the trenches, straight from my trenches, straight from the experience of the parent educator who is simultaneously raising two adolescent children. I know that my story is not unique to me, and I am showing up today in a very raw and transparent way so that we can pull the curtain back and really see and feel and experience what it means to truly trust the process to truly surrender to the journey. I'm really excited to share my story, and I'm really, really excited that you are here to listen. But before I get started on the content, I want to share about today's sponsor. So today's sponsor is our x bar. I know that all of you out there are always looking for a quick and healthy snack for your kids, right? Like, healthier than, you know, goldfish or whatever else comes in a small bag and is easy to grab and share. We're always looking for healthy snacks. And, you know, funny thing, my daughter recently informed me that she'd no longer be eating meat, right? Except for, she says, except for orange chicken and the yummy breakfast sausage that you serve up every day, mom and I'm like, okay, that's random. It's not really vegetarian. But, you know, the struggle is real when it comes to food and health and kids. We are talking about it in the membership program. We're talking about it in the live in love with joyful courage page on Facebook. The struggle is real and the power struggle is definitely real, right? So RX bars is a company that makes protein bars, and they generously sent me two boxes of their product to try and I have to tell you, they are super yummy. They are a whole food protein bar, and what that means is that they're made with 100% whole ingredients. The core ingredients of every bar are egg whites, dates and nuts, and on the very front of each package, they ID the core ingredients, and they taste really good. They taste really good. And of course, they add things like fruit and cocoa powder and different things for texture and keeping it all together. But what they don't add are weird fillers, additives, chemicals or added sugars. Rowan really liked the chocolate chip kids bar, yay. They're great for breakfast on the go. They're great to keep in the glove compartment when you feel hungry, or the kids are, you know, whining and complaining about being hungry, stashing in the backpack for a quick, energizing snack when you're on hikes or at school. I love the fruity bars. They are just super tasty. You can find these at Target. They sell them at Target. And who doesn't want a reason to go to target, or for 25% off your first order, you can visit their website. RX bar one. Com, RX b, a, r.com, backslash joyful, and enter the promo code joyful at checkout, and you'll get a discounted price, 25% off. So check it out and again, RX bar, thank you so much for being a supporter and a sponsor of this show. All right friends. So I have a lot on my mind right now, a lot, and it's really an interesting experience to be to have my job right the job that I do, supporting parents, sharing about positive discipline, putting myself out there as a voice on the parenting journey, while also being on my own parenting journey and raising my kids and bumping up against all The things that all of you are bumping up against as well. I mean, I'm not immune to the challenges, the events, the experiences that you are also facing. And if you've been listening for a long time, you know that I found positive discipline when my kids were three and one, and they are now 14. She'll be 15 in January, and my son will be 12 in a couple weeks. And you know, we've spent a lot of time practicing tools and modeling and, supporting the kids and ourselves in the development of the life skills, right, that we want them to one day embody. And it's a long term focus. You know, it's not 123, magic, it's, it's really considering the long term, it's keeping in mind that the brain takes 25 years to be fully developed, and that mistakes are opportunities to learn, and that everyone should have a voice, and that relationship is The most powerful tool that we have for influencing behavior.

It's a mindset that really leans into kindness and firmness, connected right connection and firmness and trust and really an encouragement and really shies away from using rewards and punishment as a way of manipulating behavior. And, you know, it's not, I think it's definitely a mindset that is more recognized and desired by parents today than 1020 years ago. However, it's still there is still this really mainstream idea that, you know, when kids are making bad choices, they need consequences, and when kids are, you know, you got to nip things in the bud and show them who's boss and and it's fascinating, even for me, in my practice, what you know in this practice that I trust and I believe in even in my experience, my most recent experience, I feel that pressure of, geez, What I maybe I should punish right now because I don't want to look back and think to myself that I did the wrong thing, right? So backstory, you all know that I have a new high schooler, and the new high schooler is amazing, amazing. She is funny and she's smart, and she definitely is in the exploration of, who am I, who am I at school? Who do I want to be? How am I perceived? Like? All of that is super alive right now, and she's making some very like typical choices and judgment calls. And recently, something has come up that is new and different, and she is being really honest and open with me about the judgments that she's making the calls, you know, like the the choices that are happening. Of course, it's after the fact, right? It's after the fact. And you know, it's nothing that didn't show up in my own teenage journey. But it's enough to where that grip of, oh God, fear, what does this mean? Is happening. And let me mention again. Again, she is being forthcoming, right? She is being honest with me about what's coming up for her and what she's doing after the fact again. And we've always, you know, like many of us will say, you know, you're never gonna get in trouble if you're being honest with us. And the whole in trouble thing like even that I'm making air quotes. I don't even really know what that means. I growing up as a teenager, was grounded a lot, a lot, especially my junior and senior year of high school. And when I was grounded, you know, the one thing that was really powerful is that after my parents were really mad and disappointed in me. We would then, you know, I was always grounded for like, weeks at a time. It was never like you're grounded this weekend, it was you're grounded for the next three months, seriously. And so there was that tense day or two, and then everybody seemed to get over it, and we would come back to relationship, but I would still be grounded. And when I was grounded, I'd have to go, like, bowling with the family. And you know, we did a lot of things together, so that relationship piece was still intact. Interestingly enough, I would always get grounded because I would sneak out. And guess what I would do, I would think that maybe I could get better at sneaking out. Like I never thought to myself, I better not sneak out, because I don't want to be grounded again. My mindset was always I got to get better at sneaking out. And so I'm really, I really come from this place of noticing that pressure, the societal pressure of something should happen. I should do something. She should pay for her mistakes. But then I'm noticing that we have a really like, we have a really good relationship, and we're talking about the choices that she's making, and we're, you know, exploring together what it could mean for her in the future, how things could go wrong or bad. You know, she's having experiences that are actually going to be informing future experiences, in a way that you know, getting all aggro and punishing her are not necessarily then it becomes like a battle with me versus navigating what's coming up for her. So, you know, judgment is really showing up for me. Because one of the things I said when she was when we were talking about what was going on, I said, Do you know, this looks really bad for me. I'm a parent educator, you know? And she laughed, and there was a lot of lightness around this. And she reminded me, you know, Mom, you've told me that there are other parent educators who have crazy teenagers. So she says, so maybe you all should look into that. And you know, I've always, I've always said, and you maybe have heard me say, like, all we can do is increase the likelihood that our children are going to grow to be responsible, respectful, cooperating members of society. And you know, it's all it's it's this process, right? And read anything about adolescence, and what you'll read is they're going to push boundaries, they're going to take risks, right? They're going to make mistakes and and it's so interesting to read about that, and then to be in it, and to really question my own judgment as a parent. You know, I feel so strongly about positive discipline, I feel so strongly about relationship based parenting, and I am definitely bumping up with that mainstream I gotta lock it down, right? But I also know that that is a fantasy. You know, it's a fantasy to think that I can keep her from hanging out with people. I mean, there's certain things that I can definitely pull in which I'm planning on it, but ultimately, I need her to to be practicing making choices out in the world, which isn't like, you know, kicking her out on the streets and just saying, Good luck, but recognizing that in the process of making choices out in the world, she's going to make bad choices. And right now, she's making a few bad choices, and then she's but she feels compelled to come to me and say to me, Mom, I have to tell you something, and I'm not sure how you're going to take it, to trust me enough that I can handle it even as she's tentative and not really sure that when I say, Hey, if you ever do that, you know, make feel free to tell me about it, right? So there's this, like, really crazy tension happening right now, and I don't think I'm alone. I think that any of you out there that are listening with teenagers who really subscribe to positive discipline, to peaceful parenting, to conscious parenting, you know this rub, right? I'm sure that there are those kids that never do anything wrong in high. School. I knew them. I was not them, and it's not looking like my oldest is going to be that kid. She wants to figure things out and check stuff out, and right now she's doing that while also using me as a safe harbor, right? And isn't that what we want? Don't they want, don't, don't we want them to feel like we are their safe harbor. I just love that. I love that. And, you know, trust is showing up. I mean, how long have you heard me talk about trust and surrender? I feel like it's been the theme of my life, oh my gosh, for the last three or four months, especially in the last six weeks. I mean, trust and surrender has shown up. If you follow me on Instagram, you've seen my posts. I mean, I am just like, oh, this is what Surrender means. And then a day later I realized, like, Oh, this is what Surrender means. It's, there's, it's so complex. Or maybe it's not, but it's just like the depth of it is profound. You know, trust. I was at a women's retreat. I was at Grace, which is a workshop through boldly embody life. I would definitely check them out, moms boldly and bodylife.com they do a three, two and a half day workshop called grace for women, and it's all about the embodiment of being who we are, who we are, meant to be, the embodiment of coming home to ourselves. And my intention for the weekend was surrendering to trust, and it was really powerful. And in this work of conscious parenting, you know, the first place we have to start is trusting ourselves, right? As we move into these teenage years with our kids, we have to trust ourselves, right? We can't be, oh, I'm not even going to go there. We We have to find a place inside of ourselves where we can trust our our judgment. Because when we come from a place of trusting our judgment, then we're opening the space of trust and evoking trust between ourselves and our and our teenagers. And when they feel that trust, then they, in turn, get to lean into and live into trusting themselves, right? And they're going to get it wrong some of the time, hopefully not all the time, geez, but

some of the time they're going to get it get it wrong, and they get to come back to this relationship, right, trusting that the relationship matters, right? Even as my daughter shared some pretty heavy stuff with me through it all, even as I kind of slipped and slapped and slid around in my own wobble of Oh God, how can I take in this information while still feeling my feet on the floor and showing up well and not freaking out, right? So that was messy, but I, you know, I figured it out, and I even went to her afterwards and acknowledged that, like, you know, I I let her know how, how profound it was to me, that that she was honest with me, and that she shared with me, and I also acknowledge that I'm going to do the best I can to be grounded and centered and available when she comes to me with information. I want to be a guide. I want to be, like I said, a safe harbor. And it's going to be hard for me, like sometimes it's going to take me a little while to process the information and show up in a way that's helpful to her, but, you know, trust also. So, you know, I did not grow up with a lot of religion. We went to church here and there, but, and I went to Catholic High School, but really it was more for me and my experience, it was more of college prep, and there was just this kind of Catholic theme. I don't have a lot of religion. I do feel like I have a lot of spirituality. And what I've learned over the last, what's becoming, what's starting to unfold, right for me in my life right now, is like an ever deeper sense of bigger purpose, higher purpose, right? God's plan, the design of the universe, and it's bigger than me, and it's bigger than her, and it's and it's something that I can learn to trust, right? We're all going to be okay, like, that's my mantra. We are we're all going to be okay. We are going to get through the teenage years. She will be a functioning adult on the other side of it. And my hope is that, you know, God, I mean, my hope is that any bad mistakes aren't life altering, right? I mean, that's, of course, That's every parent's hope, and I can trust like might as well trust the. Verse, right? Might as well trust that God has our back, and that in the you know, crazy experiences that she has in her life, that there is a higher power, a being, that is going to look out for her and protect her, and she's solid inside of relationship with me. So, you know, trusting what I don't know, what I can't know, what I'm still on my own path to understanding. And really that requires surrender and letting go and releasing. And you know, for me, what happens with fear is that it grips the inside of my body like, if any of you do know about the chakras, right? The seven chakras, it's like an energy column that goes from your your bottom all the way up through the top of your head. And I think of it as like this column of energy connecting me to the earth, connecting me to the universe. And when I'm in fear, I feel that column of energy like tighten up, and it's a shorter breath, and it's a tight belly and it's tense shoulders and a tight jaw. And you know, I love that meme that says, you know, that we can think about fear two ways. One is forget everything and run, or face everything and rise. And my good friend and mentor, Krista petty Ramer, who's actually the founder of boldly embodied life, she says, When fear is present, the teacher is in the room. So I do know that all of this stuff happening right now, and my relationship with my daughter is actually an opportunity for me to learn and grow and develop as a human she is my teacher. These events and experiences are an invitation for me to evoke what I want more of in my relationship with her, right. And something that I've talked about before, too, is the idea of thinking tree. Another way to think about that is finding neutral like finding a neutral body. Again, this is something that is shared and practiced in the grace workshop,

but it's a posture that really allows you to feel your feet on the floor. You know, when we talk about think tree, it's about connecting to our values and respect for ourselves and the situation top of our body is open and flexible and available. And the thing I love, and this is what the facilitator this last weekend, Mary Jo lorai, shout out to Mary Jo. Love her. She was on the show last February. One of the things that she said that really stuck with me this weekend was that finding neutral, right? Finding the pause, really, it's not about the absence of anything, but it's about the availability of everything, right? So when we find, so when we notice that fear, and this is this kind of a repeat of the show I did a few weeks ago about about using the body as a tool, but when we can find, when we feel that fear, when we notice that tightening, or whatever, whatever ways that you experience sphere. We notice that happening, and we find that neutral. And it's not so much like, Oh, I've got to find neutral. I've got to let go and get rid of all of this stuff. But instead, we can shift our mindset around that, and we can think, I've got to find neutral. I want to be in a place where everything is possible and everything is available, right? I love that. I love that because that's where we can be in relationship with another person. That's when we can be in relationship with our children. And again, I'm going to say it. I've said it a million times on this podcast. The most powerful tool we have for influencing our children is the relationship that we cultivate, that we nurture with them, and just when you think you know, just when you forget about it, you're reminded of it, you know like it's equally as important with our toddlers as it is with our teenagers, and there's tension there. Because just because we're in relationship doesn't mean that everything is rainbows and unicorns all the time, right? Because, holy cow, you guys the teen brain. You know, I was reading, I think I've shared this already, but I read untangled by Lisa demore, and she talks about the swimming pool analogy, where parents, you know, with, especially specifically with teen girls, teen girls. So the parent is the pool, right? We're the we're the container, and they're swimming around in the pool, out in the world, until they need to come and take a rest. So I'd say that that recently happened. She was out in the world, oh God. And then she came, and how. On and shared and was with me, and it felt really intimate and connected. And then she pushed off the side and went back out into the world. And sometimes that push off can feel like, Oh, I've lost her again. And remembering that it's an ebb and a flow, like right now, it feels like, in our family, it feels like we're in like this three week cycle of crisis, right? We're good for about three weeks, and then it's something else. And I have a feeling that that's kind of how it's going to be from here on out, as my kids grow and develop and explore and try on and make mistakes and all that stuff. It's just going to be this, this cycle of coming back to relationship and pushing off and separating themselves. And I don't think I'm not sharing because my experience is unique. Well, I think that the unique piece of my experience is that I have a platform to share really vulnerably and really honestly about my experience, while also holding the hat of being a coach and an educator of parents. So I do think that, I think that that's probably kind of unique, but yeah, just remembering that these moods, these cycles, like there's there's a flow, there's an impermanence, I know that it helps me when I remember, okay, tonight's tough, she's super moody, and tomorrow will be better, right? And what I've noticed in the last couple days, especially is, while I have a lot of friends, I have a lot of people that I know, the people that I'm really leaning on are really close friends that I know aren't gonna judge me, that I know will see me, that also have teenagers. Actually, those are kind of the ones that I'm reaching out to parents with teens as well and and that they have a similar parenting style, so I feel really safe in sharing some really vulnerable things. And I think that if you're out there listening and you're thinking, Yeah, I you know, I have really good friends, but they have a different style. I would really encourage you to seek out a community of like minded parents who have kids similar ages that you just really feel like you can cultivate a relationship to be really raw and vulnerable, because it is so powerful. I think often it can feel like we're the only ones with kids that are having a hard time, or kids that are making choices that are turning our hair prematurely gray, but we're not, you know? And as I reached out to a couple people over the last couple days, you know, we have really similar stories, and you can feel the energetic release amongst the group, and that's really powerful. And finally, I just want to talk about practice. Because, you know, it's they parenting requires us to practice how we want to be. And you have heard me talk about this, right, declaring who you want to be, right? I want to be playful. I want to be connected. I want to be loving. I want to be present. Whatever it is for you, decide it and declare it and practice it, right? We are always. We're practicing all the time. You know? We're either practicing our automatic pilot, reactive response, over and over and over, or we're practicing something new and different, and I choose as much as I can to practice the way that I want to be, to evoke the intention that I want to be alive in my relationships, right? I don't. I do not do it perfectly, or even, like, 50% of the time. My automatic pilot is on fire a lot of the time. And those are opportunities to then say, Whoa, I need to rein it in. I'm having a hard time here. So then there's an opportunity to make things right to model, accountability and responsibility, all that good stuff we are practicing all the time, intentional or not. So today, I would like to invite you into being intentional, into generating in your life what you want more of. And this is a great segue, because I have a new product for you. I'm super excited. I don't know, like I said, I don't know how many of you follow me on Instagram, but I've been talking about these cards, and I actually did a Facebook live about them last week. I'm calling them daily intention cards, and it's a deck of 31 cards because. Is typically 31 days in a month. And the idea is you can use these cards to set a daily intention, and the backs of the cards say things like, Be kind, be loving, surrender, release, let go. Be playful. Find humor. Find peace, be joyful. You know, there's 31 different messages in the deck, and you can use them however you want, but the the the intention behind creating the cards is just creating one more thing that's going to help you in your practice of being a conscious parent. They're reminders, right? I love post it notes. These are really cute little reminders, and I would love for you to check them out. So they are they went on sale yesterday on my website, and you can find them at www dot, joyful courage, J, o, y, f, U, L, C, O, U, R, A, G, e.com/intention, cards. Okay, and when you go in there, if you're going there from the podcast, you can use the coupon code podcast and get 10% off your first order, because I love my listeners, so go check that out, because I'm really, really excited. I'm really excited about that new support for people. I'd love to know what you think I'm really just feeling creative and wanting to do whatever I can to support you on your journey.

And speaking of journeys, I just finished the most delicious day of workshopping with a group of mamas in Portland, Oregon, and we came together in a circle to celebrate the mother's journey. And it was beautiful and it was powerful, and it was emotional and it was fun, and I'm just so honored to get to stand for women, mothers, in all that shows up on the parent journey. I have one more mother's journey workshop in the books for 2017 and that is in Boise, Idaho. We have found a venue. We will be at Muse studio in downtown Boise. You can find out more about Mother's journey. Boise at WWW dot joyful courage.com/ mother's journey. I would love to see you there. You can fly in and stay the night. It's on a Saturday. It's from nine to three. Again, that's November 4. This is for all mothers. This is, you know, in Seattle, I had a pregnant mom, and in Portland, I have, you know, moms of teens. This is for every mom. This is about you, right? There are some, there's some parenting tools and tips, yes, as part of the workshop. But really, it's that internal work. It's that internal journey like, how do we surrender? How do we shift our self talk? How do we choose into neutral and into pausing long enough to have everything be that we want be available to us. So I would love to have you join us in Boise and stay tuned, because I'm already creating dates and locations in 2018 if you would like me to come to your town, shoot me an email at Casey at joyful courage com, and we can talk and see if there's demand there and make it happen. Mother's journey, it's awesome. I am so grateful that I get to show up for you each week, and I'm so so grateful that you tune in and listen. Next week, you will be hearing me speak with Ashley and Shannon from the mindful mama movement podcast about community and mindfulness on the parenting journey. You will love it. I love those gals. You will really like them too. So make sure you tune back in and are you listening to the podcast through the website, or are you a subscriber? So when you choose to subscribe through iTunes or Google Play, you get the shows that they magically show up on your device as soon as they're published. So you're just there's there for you. As soon as I publish them, you get access to all the shows. So there's a few shows early on that are bonus episodes that didn't necessarily get published onto the website, but they are subscribers can access them and you will feel super cool. All you can be like, Yeah, I'm subscribed, right? So if you are awesome, if you are subscribed, will you go find a friend that's not and show them how? Because not everybody knows about podcasts and how to subscribe and everything. And if you aren't subscribed, you know, do it, do it. Google. Google, how to do it. It's not hard. If you have an iPhone, you have a podcast app. So just go to the search bar on your phone and click on podcast, and you'll see the little purple icon, and you just search for joyful courage, and I'll show up. So, yeah, stay connected too, right? Join us over and live in love with joyful courage. It's so funny. I just got a message from someone who said, I'm finally joining you here. I don't know what's taken me so long. I keep hearing you talk about this on the podcast. So if you are not a member of the live in love with joyful courage group on Facebook, and you're on Facebook, join us there. I'm doing a takeaway Thursday post every Thursday to hold space for listeners and encourage you to share what your takeaways are from each week's show. I'm on Instagram at joyful underscore, courage. I don't always share. You know, I have kind of different things that I share on Instagram. So if you're on Instagram, follow me there. I have a business page on Facebook. I have a business page on Twitter. You can sign up for my newsletter at joyful courage.com the great thing about the newsletter is I always let you know when a new show comes. I talk about current offers, and it's just another great way to stay connected. And yeah, so check that out. I'm telling you a lot of stuff here. Sorry, this is a long list. I hope you have a pencil in your hand. And as always, thank you so much to Chris Mann from pod shape, where he's my editor, my producer, and I just appreciate him so so so much. And of course, you listeners, thank you again. Thank you for being here. Thank you for holding space for me to guide you and to share with you thank you for the ways that you support the show, and I'll See you next week.