A Conversation about Emotional Triggers with Andy Smithson of TRU Parenting

Resources

Resources mentioned during the podcast:

Childbirth: My Journey from Fear to Peace

The Quick Calm Toolkit

How to Stop Yelling in 21 Days

Get Off That Train!

 

TRU Calm: Parent Relaxation and Self-Renewal Series

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Transcription

Casey O'Roarty 0:07
Hey there. This is Casey o'rourdy from joyful courage and welcome to the joyful courage podcast, a place for inspiration and information on the parenting journey. Today is the very first episode of the joyful courage podcast. I will be interviewing Andy Smithson from true parenting. Andy is a licensed clinical social worker and has been in the social services and mental health field for the past 11 years. He's a trusted voice in the parent education community. He's a dad and a husband as well. He writes a blog and shares incredibly applicable and practical tips and tools for parents, and is a strong voice for building relationships with our kids. Be sure to stay tuned till the very end of the podcast. I get to share a special offer for our listeners from Andy

Andy, tell us a little bit more about yourself. Tell us about that big, delicious family of yours. Okay,

Andy Smithson 1:13
thank you so much for having me, Casey, I actually grew up in Portland, Oregon, and I had grew up in a family of six kids, and so I'm kind of a transplant to the current rural life that I live in now. But I married my wife about 10 and a half years ago, and she is an amazing stay at home mom of our five kids, and we actually just had our fifth child on January 5, so it's just over a week ago that he was born. And yeah, so we're we're one of those weird families, too, that has had all of our children at home, and it's been a wonderful experience for us. And I actually just published a post about it today, about my, my kind of journey to home birth and just childbirth in general, because that's I didn't start out wanting to go that direction. And there was kind of a whole story there that went with that. But have you ever heard the Jim Gaffigan comedy bit about home birth?

Casey O'Roarty 2:24
I haven't, but I'm a home birther too, so I love and it's really fabulous to hear the voice of a father talking about home birth. So but tell us about that. But

Andy Smithson 2:34
Jim Gaffigan, you've got to just look it up on YouTube, because it's hilarious. And if, if you come from a place of home birth, like I died, I was laughing hysterically the whole time because it, it just feels so real to you, yeah? But you'll have to check that out. Anyway. Everybody else, check that out as well.

Casey O'Roarty 2:53
Yeah, I'm excited for a day that home birth doesn't, isn't the weird alternative, but kind of the normal alternative, right? Yeah, so on this journey with your five kids now, congratulations. What's been the most surprising thing you have learned about being a parent?

Andy Smithson 3:12
Well, the let me tell you a story, and then I'll tell you what I learned from this. And it was a few years back, my son Kyler, he's my oldest son. He's almost nine now, and at the time, he was about seven, and we had gotten the family together, and we were trying to get our chores done on a Saturday morning so that we could go out and take a trip up into the mountains here in Idaho and and we were all excited. Everybody was pretty locked into this idea, but we started getting into it. And my oldest son kept going and trying to derail his his siblings from from finishing their chores. And so we were just kind of we couldn't get him back on track, and we couldn't figure out how to do it. And eventually my wife just said to me, Andy, you've got to take care of this. And I went into his room, and I was there, and I was completely baffled. And at this point, I had worked in counseling and all these, you know, top parenting classes and all these types of things, and thought I had all the answers and and all this type of stuff, but I just realized at that moment that I didn't know what to do to help him move beyond where he was at that moment. And so what I actually ended up doing is just surrendering to that idea that I didn't know, and I sat down on the floor, Indian style in the middle of his room. And I just sat there, and he looked at me, and he was like, What are you doing, dad? And I just said to him, I said, You know what, Kyler, I don't know what to do, right? So, you know, I want everybody to be happy in our home, and I want to have a peaceful. Place that we can all be, and I want to go and do our our fun activity this afternoon, but we've got to get these things done, and I don't know what to do. And I just sat there, and about a minute later, after he just stared at me, he came and he sat down on my knee, and he just looked at me, and he's like, Well, Dad, maybe we could do this and and he gave us this whole plan of how we could make it work. And I just realized at that moment that not knowing is one of the most powerful tools and skills that we have as parents. And it keeps us, I feel like it keeps us curious, and it makes us let our children guide the process. And so realizing that we're not always going to know what to do, and that's okay, and that that's probably been the most surprising thing to me is that that not knowing what to do has actually been one of the most powerful, powerful things that I could do.

Casey O'Roarty 6:02
And I can totally imagine you on the floor just in bafflement, because I've been there too, you know, when you're asking for help, like, you know, help me out here, we all want to go and do X, Y or Z, and, you know? And I think it's really it, you know, it hands over some power, too. My guess is that we spend a lot of time figuring out schedules and deciding, you know what the families how the family is going to spend the day. And I think we forget that to a child, it feels like very little control from their point of view. And I think when we sit down and really just open up and and model what it looks like not to know what to do and but still in our calm, present way, you know, we're really handing over a lot of healthy power and control to our kids. Thank you.

Andy Smithson 6:53
You bet.

Casey O'Roarty 7:02
I So tell me about what you do with parents.

Andy Smithson 7:05
Well, I help parents be true. Parents true stands for Teach relationship and upgrade yourself and in In other words, I I help parents to learn true principles and patterns that not only improve kids behavior, but they create cycles of continuous growth and happiness, that they get better with time and even span generations. And I'm always seeing cycles, and everybody's always talking about, how do we break these cycles in our families? And and I often tell parents that I don't I don't necessarily think that we often need to break them, but we need to change them. Cycles are always going to be present, but, but they can either be positive cycles and be working towards something better, something more positive, changing us in positive ways, or they can be taking us down the other route and and so I try to help parents teach more intentionally and build more bulletproof relationships and and upgrade themselves in a way that will both allow them to cope more effectively with life and parenting, but also be A healthy model of successful living for their children.

Casey O'Roarty 8:24
I like that shift from breaking the cycle to changing the cycle. I don't know there's there's room. It seems like a much more moving forward kind of mentality to have around it, because we all have those. You know, what we've carried on from what was modeled for us. And you know the idea of breaking something I don't know. I appreciate your use of the word change there. And something that came to mind for me too is just evolving from where we're at to where we want to be and

Andy Smithson 8:55
right. And so I find so often that that we we always try to compartmentalize everything. And so when I talk about being a true parent, it's taking these three principles and putting them together into one thing, and so that we can simplify all of the skills and the techniques that we're learning as parents and put them into one action that's not only going to discipline the child or teach the child right now, but it's also that same action is going to work towards building the relationship and upgrading ourselves, improving ourselves as a person, not that Now is my time to discipline and now is my time to build a relationship with a child, and now is my my own personal time to improve myself, not that those things don't sometimes happen, but that each time, maybe something a big problem happens at home, or something like that, a disciplinary issue, most parents that come to pay. Running classes with me. The reason why they're there is because they want disciplinary techniques. That's what they came for. But I don't I believe that when we separate those three things, we're less effective in doing any of them. Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 10:15
for sure. It's funny, by week three, when I teach the positive discipline classes that I teach, the parents come in and say, Oh, this isn't even about my kids. This is about me. And I laugh, and I say, Yeah, you know, if I put that on the flyers, nobody really would sign up. So I kind of focus on like, hey, I'll give you some tools and techniques. But, you know, ultimately, yeah, it's this beautiful epiphany when that shows up, that we invite so much of what's happening in front of us and just small tweaks in our own, you know, in our own body and our own way of showing up. Can that ripple effect is so amazing. And you know, today we're going to talk about emotional triggers. And lately, when I've been working with families, more and more often, I'm, you know, I'll share. People will read my blog posts or come to my classes or or email me, just like you said, with questions about, How do I handle this particular behavior? And more and more often, I'm I'm recognizing that to be, to have those tools and techniques that we talk about with parents become available, the parent themselves has to be in a in a really, you know, peaceful, calm, connected state of mind and way of Being. So for me, an emotional trigger is, is about having that physical sensation that comes along with just being flat out mad, right? So, yes, I get so mad, or I get so frustrated and and what does that feel like? And so for me, it feels like, you know, even right now I'm sitting here and my my shoulders are up and forward, and there's tension in my chest and there's this tingling sensation in my body. I become really rigid when I'm emotionally triggered and I want to control things. And you know what happens then? Is you in? You know, then you find yourself in this power struggle, or you might not realize you're that you're there, but that's indeed where you are and and it's funny, because I'm so clearly out of control in those moments that I'm grasping for it. So what is it what is it like for you Andy, when you have these experiences of being emotionally triggered, because we are all human beings, right? So we all go here. What's it like for you?

Andy Smithson 12:40
Well, when I'm emotionally triggered, it's funny, you use the word rigid, and that was one of the first things that came to my mind. I'm just more rigid in my body and my mind. I feel, I also thought of of this, this concept of potential energy. I felt, I feel like something's building up in my arms and chest, and I usually feel some tension in my neck and shoulders, and I feel like it's, it's this resistance that that almost feels like the opposing ends of a magnet. When you put the opposing ends of a magnet together, and you feel that that resistance that that's kind of what that feeling feels like inside of me.

Casey O'Roarty 13:25
Yeah, so when you work with parents, and you get here with them and you you help them emotionally tap into what's happening, what are you finding are the hot button topics that come up that are triggering the people that you work with? What are they talking about with you?

Andy Smithson 13:41
Okay, well, I find that that most of the time their hot buttons are not much different than my own, and although they are sometimes to differing degrees based on their life experience and all those types of things, but some of those things I would just say, are things like, like chores, like bedtime, like homework, struggles, sibling rivalry, things like whining, dinner table behavior, are some of the things that kind of come to my mind first, but, but I think that, I think we all experience that. I think that's a really one of the great things about teaching with parents, is is being able to relate so much. I mean, it is such a relatable thing that we can all we we've all experienced that, that emotional triggering at one point or another, and a lot of times our triggers are not really that different. Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 14:43
I noticed that too. When I teach and we generate lists of the things that are challenging in each home, and it's usually the very first thing we do in parent class, and at first, nobody really speaks up. And then slowly, the energy builds, and I'm, you know, you fill. This entire piece of chart paper with challenges, and they're laughing and nodding. And then I finish it off by saying, Oh, look, we don't live in our own private freak show, right, right? I mean, it's such a collective experience, you know, and it's so easy to feel like you're the only one, you know, having it like, Oh, my kids, this, this, or this, you know, or I'm just not good enough, or we're so prone to make it an individual, isolated experience when it's really, it's really quite collective. I love that. I love kind of exposing that to parents. I think it's really empowering for them to recognize that.

Andy Smithson 15:43
I totally agree.

Casey O'Roarty 15:45
So if you can help parents, and when you help parents to shift their mindset around their challenges and how they're reacting to those behaviors, what do you tell them? How do you help them?

Andy Smithson 15:58
It's okay, those two words, I just I feel like those are such powerful words, and I would tell them, It's okay and it will be okay. I find that that most hot button emotional triggers are founded in a couple things. First, unmet expectations. It's not supposed to be this loud, or I shouldn't have to, or they shouldn't do this, or second fear of some exaggerated, distorted belief or thought about something to come, something like, if he doesn't do his chores today, he'll never learn to work, and he'll be homeless and destitute. You know,

Casey O'Roarty 16:40
it's amazing where we go, right? It's so crazy

Andy Smithson 16:44
and and so I would just say to parents that behavior is not taught or changed in an instant, and this is a good thing, you know, we we make mistakes, and so do our kids, but it's okay. It's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to release those expectations and that fear and, and, you know, just things like, for instance, that that day that I told you about, about Kyler, you know, just refusing to do those chores. Not only was he refusing, but he was also interfering with his brothers and, and it's okay, you know, seven year olds do that sometimes. It doesn't mean that he is is going to be antisocial for the rest of his life or those sorts of things. And so, you know, I've just found that for me, in order to release that, that emotional trigger, to be able to release my body and all those types of things, those two words of it's okay really help me to just calmly let go. Oh,

Casey O'Roarty 17:49
I like that. And I mean, there just can't be enough said about that fear piece too. And that right? You know, even just this morning for me, I have a sixth grade daughter, and she was eating her breakfast, and I pulled her lunch, and that my kids make their own lunches, and I just popped in, looked in her lunch, and they're supposed to have, you know, a little serving of fruit and vegetables, which she had neither. And all of a sudden I am like, you know, personal responsibility and blah, blah, blah, and you're so worried about your skin. And, I mean, all of a sudden I am, mind you, there were no fruit or vegetable servings in my breakfast. I am working towards trying to bring that into my life. So there's that fear of like, oh my gosh, she's never gonna eat this. And maybe I'm a little mad at myself for not, you know, not even doing what I'm asking her to do. And it's so funny how quickly we can slide on into that trigger without being aware. Which takes me right to my next question, which is, how do you help yourself to become aware that you're living in the trigger? Because so often, you know, we're just there in the moment, and it's an afterthought, like, oh, maybe I got a little maybe that was a little overkill, you know, how do you how do you yourself notice when you're there?

Andy Smithson 19:14
Practice, you know, practice. I always tell all the parents that I come into my counseling office, everybody that I ever work with, whenever I teach them a particular skill. I on my website, I have a free resource called the Quick calm toolkit that has a quick, calm technique. It's just a five step technique that takes less than two minutes for people to do, but I always tell them, It's like learning a sport or an instrument. You know at first you're not going to go out and. And and play Michael Jordan the first time you're on the court, you're not going to go and play at Carnegie Hall, you know, the first time you play your violin, but each time you do that, it's going to become easier. It's going to become more profound to you. And so I I really encourage in myself, as well as those that I work with, journaling, I think is an awesome way. I wrote a post a while back called How to Stop yelling in 21 days that has been really helpful to a lot of parents, and the first step of that is just journaling and being able to practice being aware of when those triggers start to come up. The second way is to meditate daily. And I really encourage people to meditate at least 10 minutes a day, and pick a time and stick to that time and realize that it is a practice thing in and it can be helpful. I also have a resource called the true calm series, which is a series of eight different meditations that are 10 minutes long and just kind of help parents to get in that habit of meditating daily, to become more aware of their bodies, those triggers that that come up, and all of those types of things. And then there's just, you know, other mindfulness types of exercises that I've found to be really, really helpful, just finding a calm place for yourself and attending to to any particular sense when you're just sitting in a room or something like that, and just practicing regularly and realizing that the a lot of times, what I find parents do is, is that you'll give them the quick calm or the quick calm technique, or you'll give them a relaxation technique, and they'll go and Do it when they're in the brunt of their emotional trigger, and they'll say, well, it didn't work because it didn't make it completely go away. But I'd like to share with you in a minute here, just how that kind of quick, calm technique works, because there's a couple steps that a lot of people miss, in that I that I feel like helps them to see that they are actually being effective, and that practice starts to come into into place. And so actually, maybe I'll just tell you what the steps of that quick, calm technique are, yeah, and the first step is just to to rate your emotion. If you're feeling anxiety or anger, rate on a scale from zero to 10, where are you? Zero being no no disturbance whatsoever, and 10 being like the highest that you could ever imagine. Do that within yourself. Second step is to just breathe. Just take some deep, slow, regulated breaths. The third step is to relax your body, do a quick body scan from head to toe, and just be able to release the tension from from your shoulders, from your hips, or wherever you're holding that tension. Fourth smile and think of some sort of predetermined positive thought, and then the fifth step is to re rate that emotion. And those rating steps of this, this quick, calm technique, are important because they they help us train our mind to realize that maybe when I I've never done this technique with anyone that has not received benefit from it, and so I, I've had people come into my office that are at a nine on their their anxiety scale, and by The end of that two minute exercise they're at, say, a six. And the the the funny thing to me is that when when someone that is at a nine comes in and they go down to a six, they say the six is manageable, but the nine wasn't. But another parent who comes in and they're at a six, and they go down to a four, they usually say that the six was unmanageable, but the four is now manageable. And so it's it's amazing to me to watch that. It gives them that, that sense of of encouragement and empowerment to know I have some some power here, in in what happens in my body, in my emotional state,

Casey O'Roarty 24:57
I that is a great toolkit. I love that. And it was so interesting because I was doing, you know, following all your steps as you were saying them. And I'm feeling calm. I don't have a lot, you know, I was a zero as far as emotional disturbance. And when you said, smile, I smiled. And it was like, I became a negative five. I mean, it was, you know what? I mean. It just like, Isn't that awesome? Yeah, it's so amazing how just changing our face, you know, changing our expression, changes so much. I know that sometimes what I find in my own practice, and I'm, I was thrilled to hear you say all those things. I was like, I do that, and I do that. I think I'm okay there. So that was exciting, but also just, I talk a lot about what I do with my kids, and we talk about, you know, part of my practice when I am emotionally triggered, something really simple for me that is a step in the direction of finding my calm is pull, like really pulling down on my shoulders, down and back, and feeling that that pull is so helpful in shifting my emotional state and my son. If anybody out there follows my writing, my son is the one who's really willing to go there with me, my daughter, you know, she's more like whatever, Mom, this is just your thing, and I'm okay with that. I have peace with that. But Ian, my son, who's nine, really, you know, he will go there with me. And I talk to him a lot about self regulation through the body, and finding his calm and choosing, you know, to get off the, what we've now called the emotional freight train that so often can show up unexpectedly. And it's as if the metaphor, to me is just that we're hanging on and allowing it really, to dictate where we go. And so pulling back my shoulders, or, you know, one of the things that Ian does is he does jumping jacks, and that physical movement is enough for him to metaphorically get off the train. But sometimes it's so funny, though there's those times where it's all it almost feels good to just settle in right and and recognizing that too. You know, I've had conversations with my kids in the car where I am in full lecture mode, which I know is not helpful. And I will say out loud, I know that this isn't helpful, and I'm gonna say it anyway, you know, and letting them know this is where I'm at right now. I am settled into this. I am in my emotions. You got to give me some time, and I'll come find you, and we can make it right so, but it's all awareness. It all comes back to recognizing where you're at. And if we Andy, if you and I can, can take this idea and spread it to every parent on the planet. It would be such a huge shift for a whole generation of kids to be raised by parents who are aware, yeah,

Andy Smithson 28:08
well, I just really hope that that parents will will take that, that that challenge, I guess even I would say to really practice it. Because, you know, I, I just find that, you know, people think that, well, I'm just not that way, yeah, you know, or, you know, I just, this is part of my personality, or those types of things. And, and they think that if they do these things, that they should just start working and, and they will, to some degree, um, but they do. They really do take practice, yeah, and just like anything else we want to get good at,

Casey O'Roarty 28:47
yeah, for sure. And you what came up for me when you were talking was, it's really, you know, if you want to get scientific about it, it's really about, you know, creating new pathways in the brain, right? And our body is going to do what is familiar. Our body can't differentiate between helpful and hurtful. Our body just does what's familiar. And so, like you said, doing the practice, not in the moment, but throughout the day, or every morning, or picking. You know that's what I tell my clients too, pick two times a day where you can just you know where you're dropping your shoulders and grounding your feet and lengthening your spine, and you're coming into this dignified posture so that when you need it, it becomes more available to you. Your body knows where to go. So love it well. Thank you so much, Andy, this was so fun to talk to you and share ideas. Well, thank

Andy Smithson 29:45
you. It's been a pleasure. You can

Casey O'Roarty 29:48
find you listeners out there can find more about Andy and his amazing [email protected] or like true parenting on Facebook. Andy, what other social medias do? You do?

Andy Smithson 30:01
Well, I am on Twitter. I'm not as active on Twitter, but it's at the Andy Smithson, okay, on Twitter. And so I'm on Facebook a lot. So if you want to check me out at facebook.com/true, parenting, or if anyone is like I said before, if you want to get that quick calm toolkit that is free with your email, just come and enter your email at true parenting.net/quick, calm toolkit. Or if you're interested in the eight track series, the true calm series, which is a series of meditations, is true parenting.net/get, true. Calm and true is always without the E,

Casey O'Roarty 30:53
yes and those meditations, Andy, I've listened to most of your meditations, and you have the best voice for meditation. It's very so even and mellow. I love listening to those meditations, so thank you for putting them out there. And a quick promo for me. Registration is opened for the centered parenting e course, which we dive into a lot of this information and really start to look at patterns that are getting in the way of showing up as the parent you want to be, as well as videos full of positive discipline tools to use for those in the moment times where you need something to be helpful with the in the process of raising your kids. So thanks so much for listening, and we will be back next month with a brand new episode. Thank you for listening all the way to the very end of the podcast. I just want to mention that Andy is a host of his own podcast. You can find true parenting podcast on iTunes or Stitcher. He is also offering a $5 off discount to the true calm series that you can find on his website with the offer code, joyful courage, all lowercase, no Space. Thanks again, and we'll See you next month.

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