Eps 418: Joyful Courage Book Club – Chapter Nine

Episode 418

Join me in chapter NINE of Joyful Courage: Calming the drama and taking control of your parenting journey, the book I published back in 2019. I will be discussing what holds up and things I’ve learned during the wild years since it came out.

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Takeaways from the show

https://www.besproutable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Book-photo-for-podcast-series-1.png
  • The EFT is our survival instincts taking over 2:07
  • The majority of challenges that show up in parenting are not emergencies. 7:30
  • Why should I care about myself? 12:58
  • Exploring what’s familiar? 18:05
  • Practice trusting and not taking it personally. 22:21
  • Meditation and stillness. 27:27
  • Move your body and energy. 33:03

 

Today it’s about the feeling I get when I do the thing that I may not have wanted to do. Joyful Courage is that feeling of gratitude for choosing the healthy path, the one that is useful and gets me closer to what I want.

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Transcription

SPEAKERS
Casey O'Roarty

Casey O'Roarty 00:05
Hello, listeners. Welcome to the joyful courage podcast a place for inspiration and transformation as we work to keep it together while parenting our tweens and teens. This is real work. And when we can focus on our own growth and nurturing the connection with our kids, we can move through the turbulence in a way that allows for relationships to remain intact, and life skills to be developed. My name is Casey Oh Bertie, I am your fearless host, positive discipline trainer, space holder coach and the adolescent lead at Sproutsocial. Also mama to a 20 year old daughter and a 17 year old son, walking right beside you on this path of raising our kids with positive discipline and conscious parenting you are in for a treat. This episode is part of a 10 part series where I'm reading from my book, joyful courage, calming the drama and taking control of your parenting journey that was published in 2019. I'm sharing the book with you and reflecting on where it holds up, and how the work has been expanded in the four plus years after writing it. If you're finding the series in the middle, I encourage you to start at the first episode, joyful courage book club the intro so that you can follow along from start to finish. The series is meant to be a resource to you and I work hard with everything I put out in the world to keep it real transparent and authentic so that you feel seen and supported. Along with this series is a free companion guide designed to prompt you in reflecting on what you're hearing and taking steps to integrate it into your life. You can find the guide and buy your own copy of the book by going to www dot fece browsable.com/jc book. And please don't forget, sharing really is caring. If you love today's show, please pass the link around, snap a screenshot and post it on your socials or texted to your friends. Together we can make an even bigger impact on families around the globe. Enjoy.

Casey O'Roarty 02:07
Okay, hi. Welcome back to the final episode of this limited series, the joyful courage book club. We are on chapter nine you all we started off this book, I started off with part one, which is titled All aboard. You found yourself on the emotional freight train. We went through part two, which was all about getting off the emotional freight train. And now we're wrapping up part three, which is staying off the emotional freight train. I'm so excited for chapter nine. Because it is full of tips and ideas for continuing the journey of joyful courage meaning sustainability, right sustainability man, I mean, we all myself included, we get excited about new things that we're learning. We read things and listen to things and watch things and we get all jazzed and we're ready to change our life. And then life keeps happening, right? And the hard stuff keeps showing up. And like I've said in this series, and in the podcast, so many times we move towards what's familiar, especially when we're not paying attention. We are always going to move to towards what's familiar, what is it that we know, you know, where have we been before. Even if it's not, you know, the most helpful way to respond. It is what is familiar. And so this chapter is all about tools and practices that you can put into place for walking that game trail. Remember, we talked about the game trail for creating a new pathway for elevating our response when things get sticky and slippery, which they do a lot during adolescence. Like they're always sticky and slippery. I just literally just got off a FaceTime with my son, and was in the sticky and slippery as I tried to have a conversation with him about his plans tomorrow night that I want to control and it's not useful. He's almost 18 It's important for him to make his own decisions. Right? Gosh, darn it. All right. So let's get into it. Chapter Nine, chapter nine, continuing the journey of joyful courage. All right. So maybe, maybe it's a stretch for you to consider that shifting your body is enough to get off the Crazy Train. Remember, that's what the last couple chapters have been about really paying attention to the physical experience that we're having, when we're having it right especially when we're triggered. dysregulated flipping out. Let's just remember what fight or flight or freeze or fun which is basically our response. When we're on the emotional freight train, what is that survival instinct good for? It's good for when someone's immediate safety is threatened. Yeah, that's pretty much all I've got safety. If your child is running out on the busy road, yes, please kick it into gear and save them. Or if your child's mental health is spiralling out of control, yes, please don't negotiate that, like, do what you need to do to get them help. Right, lean into that firmness doesn't mean that you become belligerent. But I think something that gets in the way for a lot of parents who want to parent with positive discipline, and positive parenting and gentle parenting is, it feels like, we can't be firm, because we'll ruin relationship. And I'm here to say that we have got to save our children's lives. Right. And this for me, I remember, the biggest test of this was when we were going to take Rowan, my daughter to an inpatient treatment centre for what we thought was an eating disorder. And she thought she was pissed, she did not want to go, she brought out everything, she had to try to convince me that it was the wrong choice. And all I did, I was like a broken record, you guys, I just said, this is bigger than our family. We've got to get you help. This is bigger than our family, we've got to get you help. And I stood my ground energetically, physically, I was committed to this is how it's going to be this is what's going to happen. And I feel like that energy that I brought was helped her finally come to a place of resignation. And then there were no beds. But that's a whole nother story. Anyway, we moved through it. We lived through it. And she's a healthy human being now anyway. That's a little side story. So sometimes, yeah, we've got to lean more into the firm and really be rock solid in taking a stand for our kids, when they're not, for whatever reason taking a stand for themselves. So yeah, if there's a wild animal coming after your family, please let that crazy train energy take over and do what you need to do to fight off the beast. But here's the deal. Most of the time, the challenges that show up in parenting are not emergencies. They feel like emergencies, but they're not. We just respond to them as if they were, you might be thinking but wait a minute, Casey, aren't some fights with our children worth having? I'm here to say that nothing can be accomplished when we are in fight or flight mode. Does that mean that we don't have heated discussions and disagreements? No, we would never get through our parenting journey without lively and sometimes tense conversations. But holding boundaries or standing up for your values are not the same thing as fighting. Do you understand that? Yes. And sometimes we start off strong, right. And we're having those tough conversations. And maybe that conversation does get heated, intense, but we can stay regulated, carry on. But as soon as we cross over into dysregulated, and fearful and hysterical and feeling out of control, or our child or teenager is there, it is time to put a pin in it. Put a pin in it because remember the brain in the palm of the hand, we are in the limbic system. And we don't have access to the tools that we need to have productive, useful solution focused conversations. So put a pin in it people. When asked about the challenges that trigger her emotional freight train, my friend Trisha, community member Tricia shared that it is often tied up with events where my kids are not listening to me, or not completing the tasks that need to be completed at a given time for a given activity. When my kids are excessively whiny, young kids and old, or sometimes even excessively exuberant when the kids make or have made a mess again, when we feel threatened or out of control, our ancient survival skills show up as the emotional freight train and we respond to our children and their behaviour as if they were the bear trying to kill us. Right like we flip. We flip when we're feeling threatened, or we've crossed over into that experience of feeling out of control. We flip most of what our children's behaviour It is, can be boiled down to two things, one, lacking skills to handle their situation, and two misinterpretation of connection, significance or influence over their life. Now, when I read this a little while ago, in preparation for this podcast, I was like, Oh, I think I might add a few things to this. But now that I'm reading it again, know, even our older kids, right, they get into mischief. And a lot of times, it's because they're missing the skills they need for handling a situation. Right? Sometimes that looks like trying to save face in front of their friends, how to say no in a way that, you know, continues to allow them to be a part of the group. Or were very quick to say, oh, you know, just go talk to your boss, just go talk to your teacher, just go talk to your coach, thinking that our kids know what to say, and how to approach that uncomfortable situation without, you know, practising it with them. So again, lacking skills to handle their situation, they look so big, right? I'm thinking about my 17 year old, it looks like he's 25. I mean, I forget that there are big gaps that he is continuously, even now, learning to bridge through experience, and practice and conversation and listening and using all my skills to help him bridge the gaps that he has, with interpersonal relationships with managing his, you know, time and schoolwork and all those things, lacking skills to handle their situation. And then number two, again, misinterpretation of connection significance or influence is a big misinterpretation of connection. So last week, the interview was with Erica Whitfield, and we talked about siblings, right, and how, if you have one of the kids in your family, or more, depending on your family, who are unkind to the other siblings, or just kind of the, quote, Problem Child, chances are that is a kid who does not feel like they fit in the family. And that is a very painful place to be. And like I said in my newsletter last week, you know, our kids care they do, they might act like they don't care, because that's a great way to protect themselves. But they want to feel connected to their family, it does matter to them.

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