Eps 492: Exploring inspiration and soul care on the journey of parenting teens

Today Joyful Courage is presence and patience and trust.  It is a practice of noticing when I am out of energetic alignment and working to come back to the ways of being that serve me most.

Transcription

Casey O'Roarty 00:05
Hello, Welcome back. 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 people. 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. My name is Casey O'Roarty, I am your fearless host. I'm a positive discipline trainer, spaceholder, coach, and the adolescent lead at Sproutable. Also mama to a 20 year old daughter and a 17 year old son I am walking right beside you on the path of raising our kids with positive discipline and conscious parenting. This show is meant to be a resource to you and I work really hard to keep it really real, transparent and authentic so that you feel seen and supported. Today is a solo show and I'm confident that what I share will be useful to you. Please don't forget sharing truly is caring. If you love today's show, please please pass the link around snap a screenshot posted on your socials or texted to your friends. Together we can make an even bigger impact on families around the globe. If you're feeling extra special, you can rate and review us over in Apple podcasts. I'm so glad that you're here. Welcome. Welcome, welcome. Enjoy the show.

Casey O'Roarty 01:32
Hi, hi, everybody. It's Thursday again, it's you and me again. It's a big day. It's the last Thursday in May 2024. That feels crazy pants. This weekend. My son has prom. Today, as maybe as you're listening to this, depending on what time of day you're listening to this, I've taken my husband in to have a procedure done, I'm doing a training for the next five week days for parent educators about facilitation. There's a lot, there's a lot of prep for the summer so that I can take some time off but still have content that serves you by the way, you will see that beginning in July, July and August, the Thursday shows are going to be revisits of solo shows that I've done in the past, because I'm taking some time off. So I would love to hear from you what have been your favourite solo shows? And I'm going to ask this in the Facebook group and in other places on social media and through my newsletter, I would love to know what are the shows that you go back to and listen to again, you can help me compile the best scenario for revisiting solo shows this summer. I would love your help with that. So please help me out. That'd be amazing. Although I've really enjoyed I feel like the last few months of solo shows have been really fun. I've really enjoyed showing up for you and creating content. And today is no exception I'm excited about today. I'm a little nervous, I'm going to be honest, because normally, I have an outline and kind of a plan. And today I don't I rarely do this, I like to have something written out. It helps me anchor in to, you know, showing up for you. So it feels a little untethered to not have that but I do actually I have a plan. And here's the plan. So I talk a lot with my clients and my members and my membership about having a practice of self care practice. And sometimes I will post on Instagram about my own self care practice. And what it looks like for me is in the mornings in the wee hours in the early mornings, I get up and I make myself some coffee, and I wash my face and I brush my teeth and I get dressed and I come up into my space and I sit on my cosy cushion. And I have I call it just my soul care time. And sometimes I will listen to an inspirational audio. Sometimes I will listen to a guided meditation. Sometimes I love Insight Timer. By the way, I would love for them to be a sponsor of the podcast. But they're not but I do use Insight Timer a lot. And the cool thing about Insight Timer is it's a huge bank of guided meditations and courses. I think a while back I shared that I did this like 30 Day intro to Buddhism course which I loved. I've done 21 Day manifestation courses, there's all sorts of things Inside timer that you can sign up for that are really cool. And there's also a place where you can create your own. They call it a timer. And what that looks like is you decide how long the timer is going to take, you know, so I have a couple of preset timers, I've got a five minute timer 1015 13, I have a bunch of random numbers, and you can choose an ambient sound. If you want an ambient sound during that period of time, you can choose to use bells at intervals, which I really like because sometimes when I'm meditating, now, when I'm working on meditating, when I am meditating, I like you, like everyone have a monkey mind, which means I find myself thinking about things, thinking about groceries, thinking about my kids, my husband, my marriage, what I got going on that day, my clients, you know, all sorts of things. And when I have that timer setup with interval bells, the bells remind me to come back to breath to anchoring in on something a sound or a sensation that takes me out of my head and into my body. And that's to me, that's one of the purposes of meditation is to grow in your awareness. So the interval bells support me in that and coming back to the breath. I also realise and recognise and grow in my awareness between the bells, because, you know, there's not always a bell in our life that's like, Hey, pay attention to what's in your present moment. So it's also an opportunity to just have that high repetition of shifting from, you know, the monkey mind the past, regrets, the future stress, and to be in the present moment, right. So I do that, I take out my journal, and I free write a lot of random stuff. And sometimes it has to do with what is going on with me in a variety of areas of my life. Sometimes I write about work. Sometimes I write about family. Sometimes I write about my spiritual experience in that moment. Another tool that I use that I've posted about on social media, maybe you've seen it, they're called Soul navigation cards. It's a deck of cards that I love. And recently at our in person spreadable retreat, it was every parent that came to the retreat was gifted a deck of these cards, I love these cards. And you know, there's people, I guess I should give a disclaimer, this episode is going to be a little woowoo. So if you're not into it, that's fine. But I encourage you to stay and listen and be open minded because there's a lot of different avenues to personal growth and development and tools that we can access that support us in broadening our perspective. And that's really what it's all about. So, yeah, we're gonna get a little woowoo maybe. So I use soul navigation cards, you might have decks of tarot cards, or moon cards or other decks, there's a million different decks of cards that you can get that can support you in what I use them for, which is simply taking a new perspective on an ongoing challenge. And the thing that I love about the deck that I have is that it doesn't come with a book. So it's not like I pull a card, and then I have to read about somebody else's interpretation of that card, I pull the card and I get to interpret it, as it makes sense to me. And there's a lot of freedom in that for some people, it's almost easier to have the book because then it is a perspective and you don't have to, you know, explore what the card means to you. But for me, I really like the freedom of making my own interpretation. And the other cool thing about this deck, it's really straightforward. So each card has a different word on it. And their words like structure and courage, freedom, universe, obstacles, harmony, Completion, gratitude, there's, I don't know how many cards there are. I'm guessing there's 50 do. I've never actually counted I have no idea how many cards are in this deck, but they shuffle nicely. So it's just the right amount. And the way that I use these cards and I'm actually going to do it with you. The way that I do these cards I have my own spread So that has been developed with support of others who have enjoyed my deck with me. But it's not about like, what's my future, right? It's more about how can I look at this in a new way? How can I hold this challenge or this time of life or this relationship or this thing that I'm working through, in a new way. And it's really just an invitation, right? It's really just an invitation to consider what we're going through from different perspectives, right, from different spots in the energetic room, right from different angles.

Casey O'Roarty 10:46
So today, what I was thinking is that we would do this together, that we would do this together, and what its gonna look like so well, I was thinking, maybe I would guide you in some meditation, but I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to play with the cards. And I don't know what cards are going to come up, I'm going to do my process and like speak into it. And you get to make sense of it as you make sense of it and find the nuggets that are useful to you. And I'm going to trust that what comes out of this time that we share together here on this particular podcast episode will be useful to you. All right. So I've got my deck in my hand, I have my deck in my hand, and I'm holding it, I'm going to hold it right at my heart centre, and I'm closing my eyes. And I'm not really thinking I'm inviting in whatever it is, that would be useful for me in considering my present, right and considering this time, and for me, this time is a time of change and transition. As we approach the end of the school year. It's a time of change and transition as I approach empty nest with my son, and all of his, you know, lasts his last prom, last things. I mean, he's moving out, you guys, he's moving out and moving on, and he's my baby, he's my baby. So I'm just thinking about that transition, I'm thinking about moving into a spaciousness in the summertime, I'm thinking about, you know, the things that are building up that are piling up building up to be with everything that's coming, the celebrations, the family visits, the trips, the work that I'm doing the trainings that I'm doing, so you can take your own time and think about, what do you got going on right now? What's building for you? What are your transitions, and just, you know, take a few moments and sit with that. And open up, we're going to do this collectively open up to inviting in exactly what you need to be in this time in a more expansive way. Right, like, that's what I'm calling it, I want some support around being inside of all of the amazing transition, all of the abundance of things to do in the most expansive way as I can. So that's what I'm thinking about as I hold these cards to my chest to My Heart Centre, inviting in whatever Whoo, oh, universal, higher power that's out there to support in bringing me that expansion. And so now what I'm going to do is I'm going to shuffle my deck. I'm going to shuffle my deck of cards. And when I shuffle my deck, I just do it for a while. I do it for as long as feels good to me. And some days there's more shuffling than others. I get to practice being with my intuition and trusting my intuition and trusting that I'll know when is the right time to pause and pull the cards that are going to inspire and inform me so I'm gonna do this one more time. There we go. Okay, did you hear me shuffling Can you hear I'm gonna put it by the mic. Does that called mdsr or whatever when you hear the fun sounds. Okay, so now I've got my deck and how I do it is I cut the deck wherever I cut the deck, and I start from the top and I pull three cards to begin. So 123 Okay, so the three cards I polled were community, inspiration and water. Love that and I put those three cards in a row and then I'm going to pull another card, put it on top of the community and inspiration card, and then I'm going to pull a fifth card now, and put it down below the three that I pulled. So the fourth card I pulled was clarity. And the fifth card that I pulled was purification. And so when I think about these cards when I make sense of these cards, I'm going to start with that those first three, because to me, that's kind of like the journey that I'm on right, it kind of represents past present, future ish, right ish holding that lately. So community inspiration water. When I think about everything that is right here, right now, transition, something, I think we're all moving through as transition, as well as, like I said, the piling up, or the abundance of the things that we need to do. So yeah, the transition, the pull in multiple directions, that's really what I'm gonna hold as what I want to kind of read into with these cards. So when I think about transition, and stress, and things to do, you know, and that community card, I get to remember that I'm not alone in this. And I was having a conversation just today with Yolanda Williams, who you will hear in July shall be a guest on the podcast. And we are talking about how grateful we are, how powerful it is how important it is to remember that while we are both space holders while I hold space for community, I also am a member of the community. And so this card coming up for me reminds me that I also get to be supported and held by community. As I move through this transition, I know that I'm not the only mama heading into, you know, watching our kids, our sons specifically move into the fall into something different. I'm thinking about some of my favourite members in my community. So shout out to Robin and Kimber and Edie. And I know there's others who have kiddos that are off to college in the fall. So yeah, so just remembering that I get to lean on community, that community exists, right. And I want you to think about what you're moving through right now. And how is community, something that exists to support you, right, and you get to recognise the power of this reminder, that community exists, right. And it might be that you are searching for community, maybe that's something that you are seeking out, in which case you should join the living joyful courage membership programme, because we have an amazing community, there are the parents of teens, the joyful courage Facebook group, there are communities that exist for you in whatever you're moving through, right. And then the second card that I pulled was inspiration, I've been pulling this card a lot, actually. And I'm cracking up because at our retreat, I pulled this card and it was right smack in the middle just like it is today. And at that time on that day, inspiration really showed up as you know what, Gosh, darn it, I'm inspiring myself. And you know, I get to hold that right. And I get to invite you, what are the ways that you are inspiring yourself? You listen to this podcast? Are you putting the practices, you know, and the tools? are you integrating it into your relationship with your teams? And what are you noticing? And who are you out in the world? And how are you living in a way that not only inspires others, but inspires yourself? Like? I mean, that's a win. Right? You can say, You know what, I'm inspiring myself today. I think that's a pretty powerful way of being in place to come from, and where are you seeking out inspiration? I know, for me, I've got a couple channels that I really lean into a couple of thought leaders and books, and even you know, people on social media that really inspire me with their words with what they're putting out in the world with how they're showing up in the world. And I think it's important for us to remember to make a point of seeking out inspiration, right, because we're in such a beautifully creative space and open and expansive space. When we are feeling inspired. Right when we are feeling inspired and noticing to what gets in the way of inspiration. I know. There are definitely people in places where I've had to unfollow because while I appreciate what they're bringing to the world, what it triggers in me is comparison and my own negative self talk so we get to be choosy to around how we lean into inspiration. Right and sometimes, sometimes that means you You know that we get to curate a feed? Right? Or a library that really speaks to us and we don't have to, you know, explain that to anybody, because it's for us. Right. So, inspiration, what are the things the people, the books, the music that are inspiring you right now, as you are with whatever is alive with this transition, the newness, maybe you're, you know, just kind of recognising that you're landing in midlife. And I love midlife. I'm gonna say that now for the next however many years, yeah, how

Casey O'Roarty 20:36
do we maintain inspiration? Through transition? How do we maintain inspiration? While we also need to make dinner again, fold the laundry, go to work, and do the things that maybe are less than inspiring? Right? How can inspiration be something that serves us? How can we seek it out?

Casey O'Roarty 21:02
And then that third card water, so if we're doing past present future, right community exists, inspiration, I'm inside of it, I get to seek it out water. When I think about water, and it's literally a card with a wave on it. I think about flow, I think about flow. And there is a scene in Finding Nemo that I love. And it's when Nemo swimmin swim and swim in so hard. I don't know if he's lost Dory or not. At this point, I think he's on his own. And he sees the turtle. Right? And the surfer guy turtle guy is like, Hey, man getting the current and Nemo gets in that current and he no longer has to swim so hard. So finding, creating, seeking out flow, finding the energetic current, you know, and maybe that is like dropping the resistance being with life as it is. We talk a lot about that here on the pod, don't we? You know, and that might be like being with the challenges that are showing up, right being with the kid that we have, instead of the kid that we wish we had, right being inside of the relationships as they are right now being in the flow of it, letting go of attachment, releasing resistance, finding that current finding that flow, right, I can't resist the fact that my kiddos are growing up their baby adults, right, you might be sitting inside of letting go of middle school this year entering high school, or you might have, you know, an elementary kiddo that's leaving Elementary and moving into middle school, you might be just dipping your toe in adolescence, and that's happening, whether or not you resist it, right? There might be some grief around that. That's okay, you get to feel it, you get to be with it. But you also get to find that flow be with what is and find a way to ride it. Right. I'm thinking about surfers now. And the way that they ride the waves and thinking about, you know, people in sailors, right and how they have to adjust and be with the wind and find that flow, we get to do the same thing in our practice of human being, whether it's with our kids or our partners, or, you know, with our job opportunities, I feel like there's a lot of people in my community who have are moving through transition with their jobs, maybe they lost their job, they're looking for a new job, and the experience of being in it when we can let go of resistance. And trust the flow. We're having a different experience. Right. And I've talked about this the last couple of weeks here on the pod, we get to decide how we're going to experience our experiences, right. And I think that water card is really an invitation for us to remember that and be with flow be with flow. Now the fourth card remember, I put it up above my three, and I have a good friend Eva bunker who taught me this spread. And these last two cards are ally cards. They're things that show up in service, right and one of them is clarity, right clarity card as the ally card like it serves me to be to seek out clarity. Well actually, I was just gonna say to be clear, actually, that is really alive and important for me right now in a few of my relationships. How can I be ever more clear with the people in my life, about things like Spending time together about tasks. You know, it's the mundane everyday things. But it's also bigger things like how do I want things to look. And as we move into summer, right, and this is something that's coming up with a lot of parents, they're kind of in fear around, oh, God, the long summer months, and my kids won't want to do anything. And all they're gonna want to do is sit on their phone all day in their room. And this is a place where a card like clarity and being clear, also, another word, to me would be explicit. being explicit in our communication, I think is really useful and powerful, right? We get to create routines, co create routines and agreements with the people that we live with, we get to ask questions and be curious, we get to also be really clear with what we want, what we notice, what we're experiencing clarity is so useful as a relationship tool, because I think I know for me, there's a lot of places where I'm not clear, explicitly out loud, clear. And then I get really irritated that the people in my life aren't showing up the way I want them to show up and resentful. Yeah, it's not a great situation when that happens, and it happens. And so I get to recognise like, Oh, of course, of course, I feel this way. Because I wasn't clear. I wasn't explicit about what I needed, and what I hoped for. And what I wanted. This happens a lot in my relationship with my husband, when we move into the weekend, I make a lot of assumptions about, oh, we'll spend time together. And we'll do this and we'll do that. But I'm not really clear, which might sound kind of uptight, but when we can plan and have a plan around, okay, these are the times that we're going to connect, this is what we're going to do together, this is the time that we're going to carve out and make sure that it's you and me, if that doesn't happen, then we can move through the weekend without hardly connecting at all. I can't depend on us to casually make time for each other at this point. I mean, you guys were 30 years in, so we're celebrating 25 years of marriage and August. So, you know, we're in a different place and our relationship. And so I know that clarity is really important in that space, as well as in the space with my kids with my work. Right? Yeah, for sure. Clarity as an ally, where we clarity support you, or clarity support you. And finally, my final card, this is gonna be tricky. You guys, purification, purification, when I think about this card as an ally as something that is going to support me right now. Purification what comes up for me, I mean, you know, when I think about purification, I think about clean, cleaning things up. And maybe that's it, maybe this is a good time for me. And maybe for you, maybe this is a card for you listener to think about where are the places in my life, that I can clean things up? Right? And by cleaning things up? Like yes, it can be literal, like I literally need to declutter, there are places in my physical space that could use some decluttering. And some simplifying, I think it would make a huge difference, especially as I think about my parents coming to visit in a couple of weeks. So yeah, purification decluttering, the physical space and I'm looking like on my desk and I've got all these post it notes, I've got my never ending, you know, checklists, how can I get ever better at streamlining and cleaning things up so that I can be in this transition time and be really present? Right, purification exists as something that is working for me? Also in my relationships? Yeah, there's definitely some places relationally that's that are a little murky, right, that are a little murky. That could use some purification, some clearing up some cleaning up and decluttering. So, yeah, purification that's useful. That's useful. Where are the places in your life that could use that? Are there relationships where there are things that aren't being said? That are murky, that feel a little wobbly? How can you clean that up? What does that look like for you? Right? It's an act of communication. And there that clarity card also supports? Right when we're clear, we've cleaned things up Man, doesn't that create so much space? Going back to inspiration and flow? Community? Yeah. So there you have it, my friends, we just soul navigated together, we just soul navigated together. I'm so curious to hear how this practice made sense for your life. It definitely made sense for mine. And I believe that these cards came up because they're going to be useful to you, too. So, community, inspiration, water, clarity, purification, how can those invitations impact how you're experiencing right now? How you're experiencing right now? I'd love to hear from you, your takeaways, what are your practices? How do you do some soul care? How do you broaden your perspective and change your lens or

Casey O'Roarty 30:56
expand your lens around? What's currently alive for you? Yeah, I'd love to hear what you think. Thank you so much for listening to me today. I know I kind of went off the rails a little bit trying something new. Again, I hope it was useful. And feel free to let me know offer up some feedback. Have a beautiful, beautiful weekend. Like I said, I'll be taking pictures of my boy going to prom. And I'll see you next week. Bye.

Casey O'Roarty 31:32
Thank you so much for listening in today. Thank you so much to my spreadable partners, Julieta and Alana as well as Danielle and Chris Mann and the team at pod shaper for all the support with getting this show out there and helping it to sound so good. Check out our offers for parents with kids of all ages and sign up for our newsletter to stay better connected at B sprout double.com. Tune back in on Monday for a brand new interview and I will be back solo with you next Thursday. Have a great day.