Eps 148: Solo Show – Teasing Apart the External experience from the Internal Experience

Transcription

Casey O'Roarty 0:00
Music. Hey everybody. Welcome to the joyful courage podcast, a place for information and inspiration on the conscious parenting journey. I am Casey l Rorty, positive discipline trainer, parent coach, and honored to be your guide in the work of showing up as your best for yourself and your family. If you feel as though parenting is one long personal growth and development workshop, you have come to the right place. The conversations you will hear on this podcast are all intended to offer you tools for moving forward, for expanding your lens, for shifting your narrative to one of possibility, connection and empowerment. You can be the parent you want to be. We are influencing the world with how we raise our children. When we bring deep, listening, acceptance and courage to our relationships, we are doing our part to evoke it in the world. I am thrilled to partner with you on this path. I hope you enjoy the show. Hey everybody. 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It's a new week, and I am thrilled to be showing up for you, as I do. Today's a solo show, so you get me and my thoughts on the current situation. And the current situation is, oh my gosh, raising a teenager, actually raising all kids. And actually, it's not even really about the teenager. What I want to dig into today is our ability, our quest, our need to wade through the experience that we're having so that we can be present and available for our kids. As many of you know, I am writing a book, and let me just tell you where I am in the writing process. So I wrote it, and then I sent it to the editors, and the lady that edited my book is like the Hermione Granger of editors. She's super nitpicky, which is great, right? And she's reading what I'm writing and asking questions like, What do you mean by this and and I'm not really getting the vibe that you're offering any sort of useful information to parents, which is kind of hard to hear, but it allows me to go deeper in what It is that I am really trying to help parents to uncover and discover for themselves, which is we have this external experience of raising kids, right? So by external experience, I mean everything that happens outside of us. So the tantrums, the meltdowns, the eye rolling, the experience that our kids are having and acting on that we also live inside of, right? We're there. We receive the brunt of their angst. We get to hear them and navigate whatever is happening wherever we might be at the moment, right? So there's the out side, the external experience, you know? And it's not just about our kids, it's how are our partners showing up, what happened at work that day? Did we get cut off on our way home? Was the grocery store checker a jerk? You know, all of these things happen outside of us, right? They are all the events and experiences of our life, and that's just what it is, right? And a lot of that we do not have control over, you know, especially when we're talking about the mood that our child might be in, or our partner, or, you know, the world in general, we don't have a lot of control over that. What is happening simultaneously is we're having an internal experience, and our internal experience has to do with the ways that our our body, our physical body, feels right, so the sensations of our physical body, our emotional experience. So excuse me. So what gets brought up when we are experiencing all of those external stimuli, right? What gets brought up emotionally? Are we feeling do we feel irritated? Do we feel annoyed? Do we feel sad or embarrassed? Are we feeling resentful, right? Do we want to help? Do we want to fix? Are we afraid? Are we disgusted? Are we angry? So these are all internal experiences, and we're always, you know, we're always having both of these things happen, like the life happens externally, and then it comes and into our internal experience. And you know? And I said this a lot, I know, but based on what our experiences have been in life, right? Depending on the ways that our relationships have played out in life, we have this lens, right? We have a lens that we see the world out of. And so because of that, the external happens, and we have this internal response, right? And sometimes our, you know, sometimes our internal response really works for us, like, you know, when you might be crossing the street and a car that clearly doesn't see you is whipping around the corner, you get out of the way really fast, your fight or flight, your that survival instinct kicks in, and without even Thinking, you get out of the way, right? Or maybe you see your toddler put something hazardous in their mouth, and you just swoop in and take care of that, right? So there is that fight or flight, that survival instinct that kicks into gear before you're even thinking, and you take care of what needs to be taken care of? Well, we have a really well wired survival system, right? And this is documented in brain science, like our amygdala, which is our safety radar, works really well, but because we no longer like have to stay alive out in the world because of threats of wild animals and crazy external factors like that, like cave days, we continue to tap into that survival instinct, and even when it's not necessarily you,

uh, needed, right? So if you think about it like this, I was just reading an article yesterday about this, but, like, think about a fire alarm, right? The first fire alarms, fire alarms are important, right? They keep us safe, but a fire alarm can't differentiate between an actual house fire and, you know, burning cookies in the oven like they can't differentiate between the smoke that's going to burn down the house. Get everybody out and, oh, shoot, we burnt the cookies. So the fire alarm is going to go off no matter what. So the same thing can happen with our internal survival system. And so the way that it looks is something happens with our children and our internal fire alarm is like what you know. And we go into rigidity, we move into action. We respond before we actually think about how we're responding. And this is zoo so alive for me right now. I've you know you, you all hear me talk about my teenage. Sure, if you've been following me on social media, you see that I recently posted a little bit just about that pendulum swing right? And it can happen. And I don't think it's just teenagers. I think it happens with a lot of kids, where within the same hour, you know, everything is great until it's not, and it swings into, you know, emotional fall apart, and meanwhile, we are this anchor for them. We are the people. We are there to witness and interact and hold space. And it's really hard, right? It's hard to remember that it is a pendulum swing, right? It is a pendulum swing. And while, you know, our kids spend a lot of time in that connected, loving place, they also swing into dysregulation, you know, discouragement, disconnection, place, and when we can remember, like, Okay, we're here right now, we're gonna swing out of this, right versus this is an emergency and I gotta nip it in the butt, or I gotta fix it, or I gotta whatever fill in the blank. That's when we the parent get into trouble. That's where I get into trouble. And so today I just wanted to highlight that, because I think a lot of us experience this. And again, if you're like me, you want to, you want to solve the problem and and sometimes, you know, lately, I just want to talk about something lately that's been working, that's been helpful. I'm not going to say working, because that's a weird word, and what does it even mean? Something that's been helpful in my relationship with my daughter is I am learning to recognize when I'm in a place where I simply cannot engage in the conversation when I and it's and it is, it's, it's, it's recognizing what's happening physically in my body. It's recognizing what might come from is in the moment. And by come from, I mean, am I operating out of fear, or am I operating out of love. Is my lens? I'm worried, I'm hurt, I'm freaking out, or is my lens? I'm present, I'm available, I'm non judgmental. When I recognize ooh, I am in fear right now, it's because I notice that tension comes into my body, mostly it's held in my belly and my jaw. So that's a big indicator for me, is I'm in fear. I'm in worry, when the inside of my body tells me, Hey, girl, you're in fight or flight. We are we are tensing up. We are preparing you, you know, to fight the bear again. Not helpful, because the bear is simply my teenage daughter who's having a moment of discouragement and throwing things at me. Because, yes, discouragement is a can be a lonely place, and often there is this pull towards I feel discouraged. I want you to feel discouraged, right? I feel discouraged. I want you to feel discouraged too, because then it's less lonely, plus, then she has someone to blame, right? Then it becomes her against me, instead of her inside of her discouragement. And, you know, when I think about it, it makes sense, because we're at the end of freshman year for her, right? And, and it's, you know, it's, it's go time, it's projects and makeup assignments and hard work, right? She is is coming up against that last day of school, and this is really the first time she's had to really pull it together and hustle and put in the time. And it's annoying, I know, because this was pretty much my operating system all through high school and college. I was a last minute kind of gal, and so anyway, so she is feeling discouraged, and I'm available to her and and I've been supportive. And just yesterday, though, you know, she was finishing up a Spanish project and just launched into something that had nothing to do with school and the stress that she's feeling, but everything to do with something that we've agreed on that is useful to her, that she knows I'm highly invested in. And that was where she went. She and and. I had to say to her, I felt that fear, I felt that grip. I felt that it's like a loss of control. And I don't mean like I'm out of control, like arms and legs going crazy. I just mean like I have these moments where I realize, Oh God, it's really this is what happens in my mind. I think to myself, oh my god, am I gonna have to force her? Like both of my kids are getting sealants today at the dentist, and a couple days ago, I reminded them that we were doing this, and my daughter was like, I'm not doing that. I'm not going to the dentist. I'm not going. And I said, Yeah, you're going, we're going, we're doing this. I'm not. No, I'm not. And again, it was one of those things, like, where my head instead of, okay, she's not excited about this. Like, this isn't really her saying I'm not gonna leave the house and go to the dentist. It was really translated into, I'm uncomfortable with this. I don't really know what it's about. I don't want to, right? And in my mind, I immediately go to, oh my gosh. Am I gonna have to, like, physically drag her into the car? Like, what is that even gonna look like? I go there, and it's so not useful. And in the end, I never have to do that. And really, it's this little it's like, she's cast the bait, right? She's cast the bait, and then it becomes an argument about whether or not she's actually going to go to the dentist. And so I'm learning, I'm learning that there are these places where, you know, stress and overwhelm show up for my child, discouragement shows up for my child, and she looks for a place where she has some perceived control, right? And says, No, I'm not going to do that. And I'm noticing I'm learning also about myself, is I go into this, how am I going to make her right? And neither of those things are useful, right? Neither of those things are useful. And, you know, I've talked a lot about, you know, the iceberg, right? In fact, I'm going to look it up right now. Joyful courage, iceberg. Yeah, episode 129, I did a, I did a whole episode on using the iceberg metaphor to understand behavior right to get below the surface. Um, in episode 103 I did a solo show that was all about digging under the surface of bedtime challenges. I also did a show, and I want to just make sure to talk about it with Alison Smith that was really popular. You all really loved it again, finding the need beneath the behavior with Alison Smith, episode 110, all of these things, all of these shows, all of these conversations were are really about how we have this tendency, you know, when you think about the iceberg, we have this tendency to focus on what's at the tip. And I'm saying we, because I'm including myself in this group. This is not me saying you all do this. This is me saying, hey, as humans, as human parents, in 2018

we tend to look at the tip of the iceberg right, the refusal, the back talk, the resistance, the bedtime challenge, the you know, fill in the blank, getting out of the house, silliness, whatever, right? The misbehavior, the mischief, is the tip of the iceberg, and then we forget, or we don't trust, or we just aren't getting curious about what's happening under the surface for our kids. So you know yesterday, when my daughter, you know, was feeling discouraged and launched into yet another thing that she has committed to that she doesn't want to do, blah, blah, blah, and I got into my fear. I recognized where I was at, and I said, I love you, and I'm not going to have this conversation right now. She was super annoyed, which is okay, but I just said, I can't, I can't talk about this right now because I'm having an emotional experience, and I don't think the outcome of the conversation is going to be useful for either of us. And I walked out. I

Yeah, so that has been really useful to me to recognize where I'm at, to share with her this is where I'm at. And. And to walk out, because I need to come back to a place where I can be curious, I can listen, I can see what's happening. What was happening was she was feeling stressed and overwhelmed about the project she was working on. She is completely over school right now. They've got two more weeks. She's over it. All of this is alive for her, and she just wants to figure out how to get in a fight with me so that, you know, to give her an outlet, to let her express the discouragement. And I noticed, I didn't know that in the moment. What I noticed in the moment was the way that I went into fight or flight and fear and for lack of control, and because I was there, I really knew that there was really nowhere our conversation could go in that moment that was going to be useful for her, and I wanted it to I wanted to support her. And sometimes I think supporting, especially our teenagers, is not taking the bait, right? Is simply saying, I love you. You've got this I am going to leave now. At the end of the day, she was up, she worked for hours yesterday on the Spanish project. I really just stayed I decided, You know what, if she wants me, she knows where I am. I am available to her. She did not reach out to me throughout the night. She worked her little tail off, and this morning was my awesome teen daughter again. So, yeah, the pendulum swing is real and it's and I posted something about this. So I posted on my Instagram, which you can follow. It joyful courage. I posted on my Instagram last night, and I had was digging. I was looking at pictures that I had, and I remembered that a couple of days ago I went to I went, I had a great evening at the mall, actually, with my daughter, and we went and got some food, and I got a fortune cookie. And my fortune was, many people are seeking you for your sound advice. And I wrote, Oh, great. I'm so glad the universe sent me this message to remind me I am indeed on my life's path. However, what about the advice that I need? Raising a teenager is no joke. It's hard. I want to snuggle her up and love her, and then within minutes, I want to scream at her and find myself leaving the room before screaming. So yay me. I know I'm not alone. I love all you parents of teens out there. Advice to myself right now, deep breaths, don't talk, retreat. So I post stuff like this because I feel like there isn't a lot of sharing by parents of teenagers that is useful. And I feel like I want to show up really authentically for my community and for other parents, and to give permission for us to say, this is hard, right? And there's, you know, there's plenty of families where the teen years, you know, are, you know, relatively easy breezy, and then there's a lot of us where the teen years are not and I think that there is a there's this absence of voices, of teen parents, of teenagers. And I just want to say I'm with you, right? This is hard, and it is amazing personal growth when we can really acknowledge when fear is getting in the way, when rigidity is getting in the way, when we're too focused on the tip of the iceberg, and there is plenty at the tip of the iceberg. I mean, let's be real about teenagers, vaping, smoking, pot, other drugs and alcohol, sex, all the things, all the freaking things that happen in the teen years, right? That happened in perhaps in our teen years, and now we're on the other side of it, not to mention social media. Oh my gosh, I can't even imagine growing up with social media. School shootings, right? The things in the news, the climate of the country, there is a lot that's stressing out our kids and all of their behavior. Is that tip of the iceberg stuff? So today, I just want to remind all of us that there is so much going on under the surface. I want to say thank you to my friend Carrie foreman. She commented on my Facebook page and said, you know, reminded me how powerful curiosity is as a guide when our kids are really in the muck, yes, yes, yes. Love curiosity, especially when it comes from a really genuine place of non judgment. And I also want to say it's okay. Right? And it's important to recognize where you're at, physically, emotionally, and to take a pause and to pull yourself together and to take care of what you need so that you can really be there for your child. And sometimes being there for your child is simply not engaging and allowing them to be in their discouragement and be in whatever it is that they're dealing with, while they also know you are available. But we don't always have to launch in, which is something that I have to remember all the time, because I'm like, what's going on? Let's talk about it. How can I help you? How can I support you? And she's like, you can get away from me. You can't support me. There's no cure, you know, and oh my gosh. Anyway, I hope that you all have a beautiful week this week. I hope that you heard nuggets inside of this sharing that are useful to you. I am getting really excited for the summer. So this show is going live today should be June 12, which gives one more week until the end of the school year for my kids and the kids in my local area, something that I'm excited to be offering here shortly are group coaching calls. So my plan is to offer up some times and to do four weeks, four participants total. There will be the first part of the call will be a little bit of content and context setting by me, and then each person is going to have their chance to share and get feedback around challenges that they're currently having, and a short closing. And we're going to just do groups of four. My hope. I just really want to make myself as available as possible for the community. I want it to be cost effective for you, these four weeks of group coaching is $99 which you know, considering that one on one coaching is $150 an hour. This is a really great way to test out, feel out the group coaching. Yeah, and I just, I want to be in relationship with you. I want to support you. We're all in this together, right? So let's really solidify and continue to be in community and in collaboration and in celebration and and see each other. So the small group coaching is coming really soon. Excited. Let me know if you have any questions. And yeah, loving all of you. Have a beautiful, beautiful week, and I'll talk to you soon. Joyful courage community, you're amazing. Big thanks and love to my team, including my producer, Chris Mann at pod shaper. Be sure to join in the discussion over at the live in love with joyful courage group page, as well as the joyful courage business page on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to the show through Apple podcasts, or really, anywhere you find your favorite podcasts, you can view the current joyful courage swag over at the webpage, intention, cards, bracelets. Ecourse offers the membership program, one on one, coaching. It's all waiting for you to take a look. Simply head to www dot joyful courage.com/yes. That's joyful courage.com/y. E s to find more support for your conscious parenting journey. Any comments or feedback about this show or any others can be sent to [email protected] I personally read and respond to all the emails that come my way. Reach out, take a breath, drop into your body, find the balcony seat and trust that everyone is going to be okay.