Eps 519: Finding flow in the current of parenting teens

Joyful courage today is about being in acceptance of what is unfolding and trusting that everything is going to work out the way it’s meant to work out.

Transcription

Casey O'Roarty 00:04
Music, 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 or Rorty. I am your fearless host. I'm a positive discipline trainer, space holder, 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, post it on your socials, or text it 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 01:33
Hello everybody, Hi. Welcome back to another solo show. I'm so glad to be here with you. I feel like I have a lot to share. There's a lot going on, and it's that time of year right where I feel like we're gathering things up, getting ready for the winter, getting ready to hunker down, if you're somewhere where the weather keeps you inside and yeah, I'm just really feeling the runway towards the holiday and the new year, and it feels good. Feels good to be on the runway beginning of October, right mid October, it's like, okay, it's happening. We're getting there. And I wanted to let you know something really specific that I am working on that has to do with you and the podcast. So I am planning to relaunch the show, relaunch the Show in January of 2025, and why would I want to do that? Well, I have been podcasting for 10 years coming up, coming on to 10 years. I think I started in 2014 or 2015 I'm not sure definitely know that I'm over 500 episodes in I know that the show offers you all value because you tell me, you send me emails and messages, and you share with me the ways that the podcast has really supported you in your parenting of your kiddos, and it's such a lovely creative place for me. I love coming in here and creating content for you and paying attention to the things that are showing up in the private communities that I run, as well as the public communities. And so relaunching is really about expansion. For me, it's about growing the listenership, growing the impact. You know, behind the scenes, I'll let you know that the growth of the podcast has really plateaued, and what I want is to see ever more listeners tuning in, and so we're going to do this relaunch, really, to create that expansion and create that growth in the platform, and hopefully bring in lots more listeners to the podcast, which is awesome because it is useful. I believe that it is useful, and really what it means to relaunch is just updating some logistical things, like the artwork and how I speak about the podcast. We're going to update the formatting and bring in some segments so how the podcast is delivered, as far as the you know, Apple podcasts and Spotify and Amazon podcasts, all that stays the same, but the structure of the show will change slightly right, streamline it a little bit more and bring in some new pieces, and it's all good. It's all gonna be the same quality content, the same focus on adolescents, right? This is what we're doing here. We're focusing on the messy terrain of adolescents. And there's gonna be ways this fall that. You can really help in the launch, and one of the ways would be to join the launch team. So I'm going to have a Facebook group. I think, I think it's going to be a Facebook group that is going to be a place where you can find out how to support, how to help with the launch. More on that to come. I'm going to have a listener survey that I'm going to be sending out all throughout the fall to gather information from you about how you're experiencing the podcast, what you'd like to see more of, what you'd like to see less of. So this is our space, right? This is something that is for all of us, and your input and your feedback will really be so helpful as I look ahead at as I wrap up the first decade of the joyful courage podcast, and look ahead at what I want to create for you and what you want me to create for you. So yeah, I just wanted to give you a little heads up about that. It's super exciting, super exciting, and I have some really fun ideas that will be revealed soon, right? So yay for podcast growth, and thank you. Thank you so much for being on this ride with me and supporting my growth and the growth of the pod. I so appreciate each and every one of you. Thank you for the reviews that you've left on Apple podcast. Please keep those coming. Thank you to those of you that are rating me on Spotify. Thank you for the personal notes and emails and messages it is so useful for me to hear from you, because, like, right now I'm literally sitting at my desk with my laptop and my mic talking into the void right trusting that you are on the other side with your Airpods, in your earbuds, in listening and appreciating what you're hearing. So I only know that when you reach out and tell me, so thanks for that. All right, so the next piece that I want to talk about is, oh my gosh, the Emily Klein interview. I know it was a re listen. It was a re published podcast, and I shared it with you because it's such a useful conversation, and so many of you are in that place with your kids not loving what's showing up in their choices and their behavior. And motivational interviewing is such a useful tool for being with our kids in a really useful way, right? And Emily talks about ambivalence, and listening for ambivalence, listening for those moments where our kids are sharing you know about what they're doing and how it's maybe negatively affecting their life. I love that you know what she brought and remember Emily, if you haven't listened to Monday's interview, Emily, you know really works with kids on the edge, right with psychosis, who are dealing with really intense mental health disorders. She's navigating spaces where kids are in active addiction or recovery, and you know, I really appreciate that she was willing to remind all of us that it's not really about having the exact answers or the exact right formula for getting your kids to do what you want, because that doesn't exist, and we talk about that a lot here on this podcast. I love that she offers up tools around reflecting, repeating what they're saying back to them. So I'm hearing you say, you know that this is really hard for you and you're really unsure of what to do. What I love about that. I mean, it's so powerful to feel seen and heard in our experiences, whether it's our experiences with our kids, our parents, our partners, our friends, it's so powerful to feel seen and heard, which I think is different than understood. That's something that's come up recently in one of my membership calls. Is, you know, when we say, like, I understand how you're feeling, it can feel really dismissive to the other person, right? And I know that it comes from a place of love and wanting to connect and support, but it can feel really dismissive. So instead just reflecting back what you've heard can be a different way of being with and seeing our kids. And I love that Emily talked about like our kids know how we feel about things. They know that we want them to do well in school. They know that they that we don't want them to experiment or use substances. They know that we want them to be on time and do what they say they're gonna do. We don't have to continuously remind them of what it is that we're feeling or believing or wanting, right? And you know, I think that this interview was a really. Rate lead in to something that I talk a lot about, which is how to be with our kids even when their behavior isn't necessarily changing, right? How to be in the both and of relationship and mischief, right? And again, this is something that has come up in my membership space, right?

Casey O'Roarty 10:18
I think that, and I've talked about it on the podcast a lot, but I'm going to talk about it again. I'm going to talk about it again because it's something that I get to continue to work on, being more explicit about sharing. And you know, there's no end to how many times we can hear this right, being with our kids, even when their behavior isn't changing, not having our relationship depend on, you know, whether or not they're making good or bad choices, right? And it's hard, and so, you know, I want to talk a little bit about there was a post in the Facebook community recently that I want to share with you, and it was from a parent who has a 17 year old who is really struggles with getting to school, the 17 year old ends up being absent or not going to school most days. It's unclear what the underlying problem is, but the parent has a feeling that it's a combination of, you know, anxiety, maybe some add and then just this mystery piece they've been through counseling, the child won't go medication, psychiatrists. It's not a new thing that's just come up. It's something that's been kind of popping up all along since seventh grade. The parent is in this space of really reconciling that the child might not graduate from high school in the traditional way. And what I love is this parent says, I'm not looking for recommendations on how to discipline as we've been through everything. So it sounds like they've been down that road, but they were really looking to see if anyone else had been through this, and sharing what had happened in the end and how you personally accept living in this natural consequences every day, the parents shared that they go to counseling with their husband, and have had to live with this over and over. We come to the conclusion that natural consequences will need to play out, but it's still so hard to deal with the day to day when I feel like I'm failing.

Casey O'Roarty 12:21
I love this post, because first of all, you know, just the request for is, has anybody else been here? Done that makes me realize, I think this parent's relatively new to the community and new to my work. Because, you know, if you are a longtime listener. You know how intimately familiar I am with this situation. So I jumped in and raised my hand and said, Hello, hi. I've definitely been here and done this and see you inside of it, I shared episode 252 which is the show that was my first interview with Rowan all those years ago, and our experience of her dropping out of school and yeah, I mean, on one hand, I think it's so powerful when we remember that whatever we're moving through, whatever you are moving through right now, you are not alone in it. You're not alone in it. There are communities and resources and people who are dedicating their life and their time to supporting and sharing and being with you as you walk through the tough challenges that can show up in adolescence. And there's something really powerful around being a part of a community that can say, yep, me too. I see you. I get it. I know that feeling, I know that fear. I know that experience of, like this parent said, feeling like you're feeling right, and having to wrap your head around, you know, letting go of the traditional narrative and embracing something different, and not just embracing something different, but trusting that a different narrative can lead towards an optimal outcome, right? Something really cool happened, like I said, I shared the interview, and I offered up an update about Rowan in where she's at at age 21 almost 22 in January, something really cool happened after that. It was a couple days later, and I got a text from Rowan, my daughter, letting me know that she'd like to come and be on the podcast again, that she thought it was time for another update. And she let me know that she saw the post, and she saw that I had shared our podcast interview, and she revisited the interview. She listened to it. She didn't listen to the whole thing, but she listened to part of it. And what she shared with me was how just how surprising it was for her to listen to herself from four years ago. She was 17 when. We recorded that episode, she had already dropped out of school. She was planning on going on getting her GED. She may have gotten it by that time, I think she had done her DBT program, and she was planning on doing Beauty School in the spring. So I think it was the fall of that year, and she just said how grateful she was that she no longer suffered from so much anxiety, and just reflecting on how far she'd come in four years. And it was such a beautiful I mean, it was all via text, but I got a chance to remind her, because she has some mixed emotions about all of her stuff being out on the internet when she Googles herself, and I've always told her, you know, if she ever wants to me to scrub as much as I can of that off the internet, I will, but I also let Her know again and again how her generous sharing has made such a huge impact on people that have listened to her story, because what you've told me, you listeners have told me, is that you hear your child in her sharing, right? I feel like it's such a gift that she's willing to offer up her experience when so many kids aren't necessarily articulating what's going on for them. And just to remind you, like this wasn't in the heat of the hard time, although we were still very much in it with her, but it was a little bit of time had passed and she was willing and able to share her experience. And you know, I think that when I reflect on that time, and I reflect on this parent that wrote in to the Facebook group, I think about how we can't know how things are going to work out, but we can trust that they will however. You know, life is continuously unfolding. You know, I've had, there's been a couple weeks now of me talking about, you know, trusting development, and we get to absolutely be guides, and, you know, be in our own personal responsibility of how we're showing up for our kids, but at the end of the day, you know, we don't know how things are going to work out. And I recently, I did a meditation this morning that invited me to really tune into that inner knowing, that inner wisdom that exists inside of me, that exists inside of you, and to really deeply listen to what my inner knowing wants me to know, right? What's the message there? And as I sat on my meditation cushion and just opened myself up, let go of distraction and really opened myself up, I had a vision of a river and being in a river and resisting the current right, and just trying to not be with the current and fighting it and trying to go upstream and, yeah, just being in resistance. And then in the vision, I leaned back, and I allowed the current carry me, and it was such a powerful message just around how I experience resistance in my life in a few different areas. And really was an invitation to remember that life is a river. It ebbs and it flows. It gets rough, it gets calm, and the rough times we can be in resistance, or we can soften and we can be with whatever's coming up and allow it to hold us and to carry us and to trust that the current is a part of the unfolding, right? Sometimes the rapids are big and the current is swift, sometimes it's calm. And I think it's really useful to pay attention and to really notice how we might be in resistance of our current, present moment, and what does it feel like to be in resistance? How do we know when we're in resistance? For me, resistance feels like fear and anxiety. It feels like tightness in the body, shortness of breath, projecting into a scary future. You know, that's definitely how I felt at the start of when we were moving through the hard time, when Rowan was dropping out of school and I was really being forced to pivot out of the traditional narrative. There was a lot of resistance there. There was a lot of resistance. Resistance there, and maybe resistance feels different for you, I would encourage you to explore it. For you. What does resistance feel like for you? Because when we're in resistance, it can invite feelings of judgment, like towards ourselves or others, criticism of ourselves or others, like even in that Mama's post, you know, she used the language around I feel like I'm failing, right? So resistance not only sets us up to criticize others, but also to be in a lot of self criticism and self doubt. Resistance is, you know, narrows our mind set. You know, there's limited outcomes. It's usually the only outcome is the worst case scenario. I remember that, how will she ever take care of herself? How will she ever be able to sustain a life that she wants? Right? We have limited perspective when we are in resistance, and it creates a lot of disconnection. Creates a lot of disconnection from ourselves and from others. So resistance sucks, like resistance is not useful, you know, and there's so many things that we resist. We resist, you know, the choices that our kids are making, the you know, the sometimes, how they present, how they show up in the world, what they're interested in, how they are intersecting with school or activities or music or whatever. Right? There's so many opportunities for us to be in resistance, and maybe you're not, I guess, as though there's probably some places where resistance is showing up for you. Or maybe it's even just, you know, you've gotten some news. You thought everything was going well, and you were feeling close and confident with your kid. And then you find out there's been, you know, substance use that you didn't know about, or there's been a secret, you know, phone or app that you didn't know about, and it levels us, right? What does this mean for our relationship? If our kids are keeping the secret, what does it mean? You know, how could they do this to us?

Casey O'Roarty 22:10
How can they be this way? And we have this resistance. And really, I think, when we lean into the flow, when we lean into acceptance and like curiosity and neutrality, we get to be in this place of ease and relaxation. There's room to breathe. It's really a space where we're less enmeshed, less entangled in what's going on for our kiddos. We can really be there in a much more useful way. When we're in the ride of the current, or in the flow or in acceptance of what is currently happening, there's a feeling of okayness, of buoyancy, of lightness, there's possibility, right? We get to trust that this is a piece of a bigger picture. We have a broader perspective. We aren't solely focused on the fight. We can see the terrain around us and ahead of us. We can be in the possibility that calm is will return, right? We can somehow be outside of the struggle. Does that make sense? And when we're outside of the struggle, you know, it means that we're not adding to it. We're not adding to the rough time that our kids are having. We're not adding our disappointment or our fear, our whatever is showing up, our tension, our resistance. We're not adding that to the experience that our kiddos are already having.

Casey O'Roarty 23:50
And it was cool because I did this meditation, and then I brought it to one of my clients that I had right after, and I said, Hey, can we play with this? And you know, for her being in the flow of the current right of the river. I love the word current right now. I love that. It's like the current of the river, or the current, as in the current situation. But she really experienced being in the flow as a softening, and she talked about how when we're working on being, you know, the best version of ourselves for our kids, that we may be doing the work, and then we experience a whole new layer, right? We bump up against something. We bump up against resistance. We realize, like, ah, there's more for me to learn. And it was so cool, because, as she was talking about it, she was saying, like, you know those moments when we realize, Ah, here's that lesson again. Here's more for me to learn again. We can either be inside of the negative mindset, like, it's a bad thing, like, Ah, I haven't gotten to where I want to be yet. There's more to learn. Or and I invited her into this, or we could meet it as, Oh, awesome. I met a new layer. I'm at a new place, a new level, a new depth of learning. And that can be a really beautiful thing, because there's no end point. There's no final destination. Life unfolds for us so that we can keep discovering new layers of understanding ourselves, of understanding others, new layers of being with the unfolding of life, right? And we don't know they're there until we bump up against them and we get to go deeper. And I love that. And you know, we can meet those moments in that kind of celebratory like, oh, here it is again, and hold it lightly, like, this is a part of the deal, right? I get to continue to grow and develop. Or we can hold it from that kind of wobbly, uncertain, oh, gosh, what's gonna happen place. And, you know, I just don't think it's useful to be worried about uncertainty, because uncertainty is constant. Uncertainty is the reality. We don't know how things are gonna play out. We don't know, right? So we can be in that uncertainty and be really afraid of it, or we can be in that uncertainty and we can be, I don't know, but if we're not afraid of it, we can be excited about it, like, who knows what's gonna happen? Who knows? Right? And there's something here as well, when we're holding it in the context of the parent child experience, where you know something that really gets in our way, something that is a constant unfolding and more and more layers, for me is like really recognizing my enmeshment, and I've already said this measurement or entanglement in my kids experience. I don't know if it's codependence. I don't know what it is, but it definitely exists for me, and I see it existing for most of the people that I work with. Well, all of them, really. And you know, I'm going to tell you a little story about how it showed up for me. So you all know, my son is away at college. That's still a new thing to say out loud, and it's pretty rad. He's been gone a couple months, almost a couple months, about six weeks. He twisted his ankle this weekend, and you know, as soon as I got the news, I was like, Gosh, darn it. I didn't literally say this out loud, but the energy was, how could you do this to me? Now I have to worry about you from afar. I can't show up and take care of you and make sure you have everything you need. Like, Gosh, darn it. What are you doing, kid, right? And I started off really like, oh, you know what? I know you're capable. Do you know how to get in touch with the health center? Who to ask for help? I offered up some resources, but I really stayed with I know you'll move through this. This is a drag. You're gonna be okay. And then as the time went by and I observed whatever I could observe from the amount of contact that I have with him, you know, I got a little micromanagey. I got a little controlling, got a little overkill in the text and the Snapchat. And I said, you know, Oh, it's this is so hard for me to be far away and not be able to be there for you, physically and in person. And as soon as I sent that, I was like Casey, rein it in. He doesn't need to now manage your, you know, worry. He just needs to deal with himself. So again, I jumped back in and said, oof, sorry, sorry. I made that about me. I trust that you're gonna reach out to me when you want my opinion. And then I've let it go. I've let it go. He's twisted his ankle. He's doing the Advil Tylenol every four hours, taking care of himself. He's icing. It probably not enough. He, you know, hasn't made an appointment at the health center. I don't know if he has or not. There is transportation service that will help him get to class if he does the things, and I get to trust that he wants the help, so he's gonna follow through and do the things, or maybe he won't. And guess what? Either way, it's on him. Welcome to adulting kid. Welcome to taking care of yourself like this is what it looks like. This is what it looks like, and he's gonna create the experience that he creates. And I'm gonna bite my tongue and trust that however it unfolds for him, will be a huge learning experience, right? I just really think there's something here, something really meaningful around that letting go and obviously me letting go of this, him in Arizona, me in Washington, and him being, you know, almost 19 years old, is. Than, you know, a kid in the House who's maybe 14 and doesn't have the developed skills yet and does need more scaffolding, but I don't know. I mean, and even thinking about Rowan and where she is right now, and you know, the things that she's navigated lately, and she's really shown a lot of skill and growth and development. And, you know, I wish I could go back in time and to me four years ago and say, like, literally, four years ago from today, it was pretty gnarly over here. And I wish I could tell myself, like, it's gonna be okay. There's gonna be some hard days and some hard weeks and months, she's gonna find her way, and you're gonna have a great relationship, right? I wish I could go back and tell myself that, but, you know, I can't, but what I can offer you is to think about your future self, and what do you want to know? What do you want to hear from your future self, and maybe even write yourself a letter. Imagine that it's four years from now, or five years from now, or 10 years from now, and you're writing yourself a letter. What are you hoping you'll be able to say? Everything's going to be okay. You don't need details. Yeah, it doesn't need to be details. Obviously, there's something beautiful about being in a new terrain with my kids. But I just want to offer up hope to those of you that are really in the trenches, because there is a sense of peace and calm and clarity that exists in the context of parenting and my kids right now, even as you know, Ian's Yes, he's in college, and there's so many things that can go down, you know, knock on wood, he's no angel, that's for sure. But I just really am in a place of trusting that everything's going to be okay, and what if we invite that in? And that's really what I share here on the pod, right like, inviting that peace and clarity in before you get to the new place. Like, how would you navigate right now, if you knew that everything would be okay, everything would work out. And this reminds me, I think I've shared this before. This reminds me of that exercise of thinking about our 80th birthday, or even our 60th when we're surrounded by people that we love, including our grown kids, and they share about how we showed up to their toughest time, right So Mama with the kiddo who posted in the Facebook group, if you're listening, think about that boy of yours at your 80th birthday, talking about how you showed up for him. Right now. What do you want them to say? What do we want our kids to say about how we showed up? How do we want them to remember us during that time? And I know for me what I want to hear. I want my kids to say, you know you were really there. You were present. You had faith in me. You let me figure things out for myself. You also helped me when I asked for it. I knew I could depend on you. You listened to me, you believed in me. You advocated for me when I couldn't advocate for myself,

Casey O'Roarty 33:37
right? These are the things that I hope my kids reflect on me with right? So what are the answers for you? How do you want your kids to look back on their teen years? How do you want them to have experienced you, right? And really think about that. Think about that, and then, how can you bring that into right now, and how you are showing up for them? That's really the invitation for today's show. That's really the invitation for today's show is to really think about, you know, how are you navigating the river of adolescence, right? Are you fighting it? Are you in resistance? Is it scary? Or are you finding some flow? Are you finding a way to let go and be with it and sending the message of love and acceptance to your kiddos? Maybe take those questions to your journal or to your practice meditation or walking or whatever you do, to kind of tune into that inner knowing and ponder it. Consider it, because I think they're important questions to be asking, right? I think they're important questions to be asking our kids need. To us to show up as best we can, so that they can work out their life, right, so that they can work out their life. And that's what I have for you today. I hope that you find that meander useful. I'd love to hear from you what your takeaways are you can always email me at KC, at joyful courage.com if you feel like you'd like some extra support around being in the flow, being in the current of what's current, you can reach out to me. Casey at joyful courage.com you can book an explore call at besproutable.com/explore I am here for you, and we've got tons of resources for you, so show up. Let me know what you need, and let's move forward together. Have a beautiful, beautiful day, and I'll see you next week.

Casey O'Roarty 35:59
Thank you so much for listening in today. Thank you so much to my sproutable partners, Julietta 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 [email protected] tune back in on Monday for a brand new interview, and I will be back solo with you next Thursday. Have a great day. You.