Eps 106: Becoming Calm Responders with Alexandra Hughes

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Casey O'Roarty 0:00
Joyful courage parenting podcast episode 106

Hey friends, welcome back to the joyful courage podcast, a place for information and inspiration on the parenting journey. I am your host, Casey o'rourdy, positive discipline trainer and parent coach, as always, I am so grateful that you're listening in be sure to listen after the interview. I have some really special offers and calls to action that I do not want you to miss out on. If you find yourself laughing, taking notes or excited about what you hear on the show today, do me a favor and pay it forward. Share this episode with your friends, families, neighbors, if you are in Facebook groups for your school district or mom's groups, pass it on your sharing is the reason that I'm able to show up for you each week, and I am so deeply honored to do so. My guest today is Alexandra Hughes. Alex is an entrepreneur, transformational mom, coach, writer, mindfulness teacher, eternal life student, mother of three and house manager for five. She is founder of calm, joyful mom.com where her online presence specifically supports busy mothers to get their shit together, navigate the messy and stressy motherhood journey and find calm in their daily chaos. Yay. Her mission is to empower mothers to find their authentic voice and inner strength, facilitating them to create the lives, the lives that are aligned with their values, lives they love. Alex hosts a free five day Stress Less love, more challenge for busy mothers suffering from overwhelm, runs the calm mom project for mothers who lose their cool, just a little too often, for comfort, and I am so excited to introduce her and have her on my show. Hi Alex, welcome to the podcast.

Alexandra Hughes 1:57
Casey. Wow, that's one great bio. You're

Casey O'Roarty 2:02
not the first person that said that. That's funny, right? That's your bio. Nice. It's a nice one.

Alexandra Hughes 2:10
Yeah? Somebody read it back to you.

Casey O'Roarty 2:13
You're welcome. Will you please fill in the gaps and share a little bit about your journey of doing all of that, and those amazing things,

Alexandra Hughes 2:21
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'd love to do that. So, so, you know, I kind of stuck in towards the end of that bio that I've got three kids, but really that's where the story all begins, and that's really the center of my universe, which I know will resonate completely with you. So I've got three kids, and my experience as a mother has been sort of from day one, quite stressful. We lived in we used to live in Southern Africa, in Mozambique. We were there, posted for about four and a half years, and we decided to start a family there. And my husband had always wanted to adopt, and I didn't know, but anyway, we, I thought, if we're going to adopt, but let's do it here, where there are lots of kids that could really, you know, benefit. And so we, we adopted our first child, Mia, she's now 12, but she was adopted. She's two and a half. Anyway, I was kind of the mindset that I just be able to seek my kids on my back in one of those little, you know, ergo carriers or whatever, and keep on living at the same pace. And that, that was my plan. Talk about being kind of naive. And so we adopted Mia. And once we got the paperwork, not once Mia arrived, but we got the paperwork from the government saying that we could adopt her. I found out 10 days after that paperwork landed that I was pregnant with number what would be number two. So we had Mia, she came to us in February, and then my first birth boy was born in August. So we had a toddler who had been in an institution for the first two and a half years of her life, and a newborn within a six month period. And I very quickly learned that that vision I'd had of, you know, one kid in my backpack, another kid in my husband's backpack, and keeping on trekking at the same pace was just not gonna work. And so in addition to all of that. When my my boy was born, my middle boy, who was now nine, we moved. We did international move. My husband had been offered a job in the UK. So we moved from this really sort of nice, you know, two professional salary lifestyle in a warm country, where you can have help in the house, where we had a social network and everything, to the UK, where we didn't have any family, and where the weather was crap and where life was super expensive and one one salary. Because by that point, and it comes to the realization that I needed to dedicate myself to being a mother, you know, completely. And. Okay, and, and, and that's a whole other story. You know, I just remember that moment when my husband in his suit first day at work, me with one baby on my boob and the other little toddler running around and boxes everywhere because we'd shipped all our stuff. And I just sat there, and I looked at him, and he looked at me, and there's this look of fear, like, oh my god, you know, what am I doing to my wife? And me looking at you would think, Oh my god, what am I doing? What have I done? You know, where do I go? Just total, how am I going to do this? And I reached out at that point to lots of different, you know, well, books, of course, and podcast. There weren't any podcasts at that time, or at least that I knew of. But, you know, I was really sort of searching for groups, support groups, and everything and and it was really, I was away from family. We didn't have very many friends, like I said, it wasn't, you know, finances were an issue, because I've taken this twice, and so there was lots of stress from the very, very beginning. So anyway, after a little bit of time, I went back to work because I thought, Okay, this stay at home parenting thing, you know, been there, done that. Can't do it anymore. I'm going insane. And so I put and I had a very nice mom, generous, sort of, well, it wasn't an official maternity leave. We started running out of money, and so that's another reason I went back to work. And so then I was doing the whole working mom thing, and that was just as stressful like when I was a stay at home mom. I was because I'm sort of, I call myself a recovering type A, you know, I'm a real box ticker achiever, you know, go, go, go, somebody. If I'm left to my own devices, I just plod along. And when you have kids and you're a stay at home mom or stay at home parent, taking those boxes and feeling that sense of achievement doesn't always happen, and you feel isolated a lot of the time. You feel frustrated a lot of the time, those rational conversations that you're used to having, the kind of stable emotional interactions that you're used to having, they don't happen. You know, you're dealing with two little emotional beings, crazy you know, because it's kind of negative. You know, there's no judgment there. It's just that's where you're at developmentally. And you know, you really want you seek control. You you yearn for some sense of control, or, you know, and it can be a control over your body, control over the house, control over their behavior, whatever you know you yearn for that. And so I thought, Okay, well, you know, next step, the obvious next step, we're running out of money. I'm going to tell is to get a job. And then, and I thought, This is great. I'll be able to speak with adults, and then see my kids in the evening. I'll have nicer wardrobe, crazy things. And then, and it was like this hamster wheel. It ended up feeling like I was ticking the boxes. I wasn't connecting with my kids. I was getting sick a lot of the time, so my kids were getting sick more often. So I feel, I felt as though, when I learned that baby number three, who was a surprise, had come along, that something needed to shift, and that's when I I retrained to be a life coach. I used to work in the world of international development, and I retrained to be a life coach, and I fell in love with it, and somehow I ended up, you know how you teach what you need to learn most? Yes, absolutely, yeah. So I ended up coaching other mothers in similar situations, and, and, and that's how my business was born, because, and then when I came from the so now I live in Washington, DC, and when we came here, I realized that this, this mom, what I what I've come to term mom stress is so prevalent that it's really getting in the way not only of relationships between mothers and their children, but also relationship between mothers and themselves and their own health and their own well being. And I started to observe this in the women around me, the mothers around me, and became very concerned, because I had been there, you know, I had been through the self doubt. I had been through the regular kind of coughs and colds and illnesses that are just telling you that your system isn't working the way it should be working. I had been that explosive mother who just couldn't keep it together because she was so stressed and so tired and so annoyed and so and so that that is when my focus was not just, you know, coaching and supporting my. It became specifically about helping them to, I'm not even going to say manage stress, because it's a little bit more than that. It's about but it is, you know, at a basic level, sort of step one, learning to manage stress and learning to manage anger. But it's more about teaching mothers to create lives for themselves, that that are more, that are aligned with their values, yes, and that are self loving, that are self loving. So, yeah, so that's my story. It's really all you know about me taking my pain and suffering, packaging it up and and then teaching other people how to deal with similar situations so they can skip the X number of years of frustration. Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 10:58
well, and I think it's so powerful I mean that I am fueled by my own story as well, and my passion comes from, you know, the story of wanting to be a different kind of mother to my kids, and then having kids and realizing easier said than done, that models and patterns Live deep inside of me, yes, you know, based on my own childhood and my own experiences. And so that was like, wow. And finding that be, I love to be in conversation with other mothers about that because, you know, you see their eyes get big, and I feel like there's a release of, you know, when you figure out where you know the why you know, and it's not blaming. We don't need to blame anybody. But just like, well, of course, you're responding that way. That's what was modeled for you, and and that model lives inside of you. And so it's not so much, let's get rid of the model as much as let's, let's, let's love her, right? Because she's doing the best she can with the tools she has. And rather than letting her sit in the driver's seat, why don't we just put her in the passenger seat? Yeah, yeah,

Alexandra Hughes 12:09
yeah. Here's what she has to say, yeah. And then create a new best friend voice that's going to support us in terms of the choices and the actions that we're going to take. Oh, we could talk for a very long time. That's exactly what my calm mom project is about

Casey O'Roarty 12:25
11. Alexander, I have to tell you, when I was on your website and exploring your work and preparing for this conversation, I was reading your blog posts, and I was like, Oh my gosh, this sounds like me, even where you've decided on caps, all caps, and where you decided to bold print. I was like, Oh my gosh, this is totally a kindred spirit. Thank you. Thank you both for what you just shared here in the in the podcast. But also, you know the way that you put your work in the world, it's so lovely and candid and transparent. Today we're going to talk about what you call being a calm responder. So will you tell us a little bit about what that means to you

Alexandra Hughes 13:08
So, and I'm gonna link it up. I'm gonna, you know, circle back to what you were saying about the pattern and this, this, you know, which are their unconscious patterns and models based on models, I should say that that we learned and observed, or that maybe are just stress related, and that is really the opposite of the calm responder. That's kind of the unconscious pattern based. I call it, you know, Hot Head nuclear sort of reactor,

Casey O'Roarty 13:44
yeah. I sometimes just call it the autopilot, yeah,

Alexandra Hughes 13:49
yeah, yeah. You just, you just, kind of, there's no, there's not really much thought put into it so, but really, from a biological perspective, it's a response when that happens, when your frontal cortex is functioning so you're able to empathize, you're able to rationalize, and you're conscious in the way you respond to a challenge or a situation. So you find your child. I have this funny story. Actually, one of my clients, they their child had overheard them say that they wanted to redecorate the bathroom to one of their friends or something, and so the child got really excited about helping, and got their markers and went into the bathroom and redecorated the entire bathroom. And the obviously, the mother walked in and freaked out, you know, freaked out as would most, right, right? There's like markers all over the wall. And so in that situation, you can freak out, and you can start yelling and screaming and thinking, Oh my God, how much money is this going to cost us? And they ruin this, and now we have to repay the whole thing. And what a, you know, what a bratty kid, and they're just looking for attention, and all these sort of self talk can take over. And you can just, or you can take your deep breath, count to 500 or whatever you need to count to and put yourself, you know, hear all of that, hear all of those voices, but, but kind of ground yourself and put yourself into a different place and respond from an empathetic place, like, what, where was my child? You know, mentally, what? What were they thinking and why? And become sort of curious about it and and more learning oriented, like, okay, so what was going on with you when you decided to do this, and then all of a sudden you realize that this was the intention, was a gift to you, you know? And and it changes everything. But right? So that's, that's, and I'm not saying that you 123, you can become a corresponder because you can't. It's a lot of work actually, like those path changing those patterns and those models and being able to respond from a conscious place. It is a lot of internal work, but that's what it does that make Do you think that answers the question for any of your listeners about what a calm responder is?

Casey O'Roarty 16:16
Oh, definitely. Yeah, definitely. And I appreciate you saying it takes work that it's an internal it's, you know, and I often will say, Alex, that our children come to us as our teachers. And I think this work that you're talking about right now, this internal work, is exactly what they've shown up to highlight for us, exactly, right? And I, and I also appreciated, like, that shift right from going, like, look what my child has done to me in that particular story, to look at what my child is is doing for me. You know, because I feel like we're so good at making everything about us, and it sounds like, how could you do this to me, or you're embarrassing me, or you're pushing my buttons. It's like, sometimes I laugh at myself, like, Oh my gosh. Actually, the 14 year old does not care as much about me as I think that she does. I mean, she loves me, but you know what I mean? Like, her life mission is not to ruin my life. She's got other things going on, yeah, and over myself.

Alexandra Hughes 17:20
It's so funny, you know, like I am, and in a way, it's a bit like it's been a bit of a victim, yeah, totally coming at it from a from a victim place, or from for me, yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely.

Casey O'Roarty 17:34
And you've written, I'm going to quote you from your website, and while I don't necessarily advocate or believe that 100% no yelling is possible because we are human and being a mom is super hard. I do believe that we can teach ourselves, rewire ourselves to respond to our mom's stress triggers in a common way. I'm so I was so excited when I saw this, because I think that if there is this goal, this place where it's, oh, I don't yell ever anymore, we really are setting ourselves up for failure. And we're really like, you know, the landscape becomes toxic because we go into that beat up because, like you said, we're human, like we're human and our children are human, and stuff gets real and challenging, and we're not always going to be our best selves. Can we dig in a little bit here? Why did you find it important to highlight why do you find that that it's important to highlight this parents? Yeah,

Alexandra Hughes 18:38
I think you know. I mean, women are hard on themselves. Mothers are like, you know, you are really hard on themselves. Yeah, we live. We live in a place or in a society or in a world where the state, you know, equals failure and where stri nothing is as good, nothing is good enough. And perfectionism is like where we're aiming for, right? You know, we're aiming for the perfect, everything. We're aiming to be. We're aiming to have, I don't know how this happened, you know, but we're aiming to have Angelina Jolie's body. We're aiming to have the perfectly like interior design in our house. We're aiming to, you know, organic whole foods, right? Every single day, you know,

Casey O'Roarty 19:33
packaging, yeah,

Alexandra Hughes 19:36
exactly, yeah, with no environmental footprint, you know, and we're, or, you know, our, I'm just trying to think of other examples, you know, our kids going to school isn't enough. They've got to get the good marks, and then they've got to do the enrich, enrichment activities afterwards. And so then get into the Ivy League school, and, you know, and then on top of that, the the professional, your professional tree. Trajectories, you know, it's just on the up and up and and your hair has to be perfect and like, unless where, how, and your parenting has to be perfect, right? So there's so much pressure here, and then when we lose it, which, of course, in this kind of a pressure cooker, you're gonna lose it, because perfection is not real, and it means something different for everybody we we it's just like you said, you set yourself up for failure. If we can switch from from that and seeing these mistakes, these blow ups, as opportunities to kind of connect, reconnect with your kid, teach your kid, learn yourself, and you start to see things in a cyclical way. This is what I'm what I'm totally into right now, instead of looking at time and learning and journeys in a linear way, so that you're just, you know, you're just moving forward on this one straight path. Let's look at life in a cyclical way. So you're kind of moving forward. You take two steps forward, then you see that's not quite working out. Let's tweak it. You take a step back, and then you do it again, you know? And then you tweak it. And the world it taught, you know, the moon is cycles. Our menstrual cycle is cycles. Nature is cycles, like we live in a world of cycles. So why are we trying to kind of, you know, bulldoze our way forward on this linear path and get it right every single time? Or else, yeah, we, if we can just maybe, you know, baby steps and our baby cycles, you know, and we're just going up and okay, you know, this morning, I kept my cool a little bit longer than I usually do baby step, yay. And when I lost it, okay, how am I going to reconnect? How am I going to learn from that opportunity? We just, first of all, it will be easier, because we'll be less stressed about it. It's just kinder,

Unknown Speaker 22:08
yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 22:16
well, and I love that. It's, it's, we're, we're modeling something different to our kids. I mean, life is messy. We get triggered. They get triggered. There's emotions that are that come on really strong, and we lose it, and we get to model what it looks like to be responsible for our actions, to be accountable for our actions, to make things right, which is all things that we want from our kids, and because they're going to, you know, move through life and have all these experiences and not get it right, you know, and or not Not, not get it right, but, you know, have an emotional experience. And it's, it's always interesting to me when, like, the resistance that can show up. I've had in my classes where a parent will say, Well, I'm the parent. I don't have to apologize. And it's like, Well, okay. And when we look over at this list of life skills that you hope that your child one day learns to embody, I see responsibility. I see accountability. And how do they learn? They learn through the example that is set before them. And we, you know, we're we get the charge. We get to do that. And the other thing that I love about talking about cycles that feels really that feels really feminine to me, yes, versus like full speed ahead. Take no prisoners, linear, masculine way of doing things. And I mean, look at the state of the world. Like, clearly, I mean, that's all another podcast, and probably not appropriate for joyful courage, but it's like, gosh, can we just pull back and like, find, find the nurture, find the connection. Start to see things like moving ourselves from the our lens into the lens of the other person, growing perspective in a way that we all fit into, versus just me alone. I think it's so powerful to give permission to parents to say, you know, let's go for 75% no yelling, yeah, that, and that's something we can really then it becomes, oh, I just lost it. How awesome that I get to now model what it looks like to make it right. And I have stories listeners have heard before. I've written blog posts about it where actually the aftermath of me falling apart and the connection in the end, yeah, I actually was closer and more connected to my child, yeah, because of that little journey we took through mom's emotional triggers than I had been had I not had them. So i just i. I always want to make sure that listeners are really hearing that

Alexandra Hughes 25:03
yes, yes. And isn't it wonderful? Then when a child comes back to you and say and says something like, Wow, sounds like you're having a really hard time. Or, you know, you know, like, okay, that volcano thing's happening again, isn't it? Mom or something, right? Right feeling. Or they are. They start to talk about what's going on inside of them, and then you're like, oh, wow, they were, you know. Yeah, they're learning this stuff.

Casey O'Roarty 25:31
They're learning, yeah, we talk about Dan Siegel's brain in the palm of the hand. I don't know if you're familiar with that, but so we talked about lid flipping, you know. And the kids will show me their hand and be like, Ma, you know. And they kind of show up like a little nervous, like, uh, Mom, I think you might be here. I get to say, you know, you're right. I'm gonna go take care of myself, versus, well, if you would, only that's where I get to check myself, right? And, yeah, me too.

Alexandra Hughes 26:03
Like, monkey, see, monkey do, yeah, you know, you know, you know how they used well. And some parents still do say, like, in the kind of old paradigm, you do say, What I What is it do? What I say, right? That's right, how humans, that's all, no, you know, so, so, and it is that wonderful opportunity to reconnect. And like you say, it's a deeper connection, because it's a human, totally real connection, yeah, because both of you have seen what it is to be humans. And also, I think, you know, we also live, especially, I think, here in North America, in a world where the kind of happy face emoticon is what is celebrated and what is considered okay, but you know, like, Okay, I'm sort of walking into politics as well. But you know, like, smile Hillary, you know, so you know, but you know, smile, especially for little girls, or mothers who used to be little girls. You know, you know it's, it's not that bad. Don't cry. You know, be careful that. Be careful of that expression on your face. It's gonna stay there forever. You know, like those kinds of messages that say that certain feelings are not okay, and those are the harder feelings that make other people uncomfortable. So really, what we

Casey O'Roarty 27:26
do to our boys, I mean, right now we have a hot conversation going on in my membership program around what we're what we're doing to our boys, around like, Don't baby them. Man up, shake it off.

Alexandra Hughes 27:40
Yeah, you know, I

Casey O'Roarty 27:41
mean, it just, it gives me the chills and hurts my heart, because the, you know, we're not developing our in the whole boy is we're, what are we are? What are we afraid of? That somehow, if boys are in touch with their emotions, they what will be better humans, better husbands?

Alexandra Hughes 27:59
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. So some kind of the toughness, the roughness, is celebrated and vulnerability, which is where the courage lies, is hidden, or, you know,

Casey O'Roarty 28:15
suppressed. So I'm going to rein us in. I'm reigning us in now, reigning us back in. So calm responding. What do you start like when you're working with the parents in your community? Where do you where do you start in the process of of baby steps towards developing their calm responder?

Alexandra Hughes 28:35
Well, you know there too. So there's the external work and there's in the internal work. And I usually start with the internal work, which is all really about self awareness and becoming and observing, observing oneself. So for example, you start to I share with them in the very first module, where we work together in the common project, a chart where they can monitor their hot head moments. Basically, it's called the mom stress observation chart. And so they look at what happens to them. Well, they look at the time of day. So they do an external sort of assessment, so the time of day, location, what child is doing, basically, and then they look at kind of your they look at their physical, what happens to them physically. And that's really hard in that moment to figure out what's going on with you physically. You're almost usually always in your completely in your head. That's not to say that your body isn't doing but you get that, you know, fight, flight, freeze, response, where you're you're like, you're ready to do that fight finder, please, because you're stressing and so but then also go a little bit deeper into the feelings, can they acknowledge or label the feelings that they have? And then a little bit deeper into what's the self talk that's going on? You know? They brought home a report card, and it's not the marks you anticipated. And then your self talk is like, Oh my God. They're not going to get into university, they're going to end up on welfare. They're going to, you know, like, like, what is going down? Like, so, so really sort of assessing that, and then once they've kind of got to grips with whether or not the remedy is a simple one, like, is it about low blood sugar in that moment or fatigue in that moment, or connection in that moment? And the response, the calm response, just requires that you eat your protein bar at a particular time of the day, and your child has their snack at a particular time of the day. Once you've determined whether it's simple or it's about the patterns and the models, or the MA, you know, the model that you talked about, before you can decide how to kind of respond in that how to support yourself in that situation. And if it's about the patterns, and if it's about, you know, having to rewire a little bit, then you start to dive a bit deeper into, what are the core beliefs that sit underneath the self talk? That is, that is in the driver's seat, right? Sure.

Casey O'Roarty 31:14
And those core beliefs being, you know, like, when I think about, when I think about my like, one place that I go that is not helpful is when I feel out of control. I get ever more rigid, yeah? And I think that there's when I really look at that and unpack that. I think it has to do with safety and feeling safe. Yeah, yeah. And, and, because there was a lot of times where I didn't feel safe, yeah, it felt out of control, yeah, the my model was out of control, for sure. And, and so now, when I, when I experienced that with the kids, when the self talk becomes, you know, I can't, I gotta, I throw out it. Iron Fist this, like it's just, I get super rigid in the moment, and that's when I call it her, the mean mom. When mean mom shows up, and it's, you know, language, like you always, you never. And, yeah, hurtful, yeah,

Alexandra Hughes 32:16
hurtful, yeah. And it's scary not to be in control, or maybe for some people, it's scary not to get it perfect, you know. Yeah, so it varies, but yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about. So the first real step is one of observing oneself in that particular hothead moment. And you can go pretty deep. Sometimes the solution is a simple one, but sometimes if you find that it's recurring, you know, and then it's probably part of the pattern,

Casey O'Roarty 32:46
yeah, well, and I appreciate that, because I also will tell talk to parents about, you know, looking over the course of the week and finding when, when are the hardest moments, like, is it getting out the door? Is it the coming home from school transition? Is it winding down for bedtime? And once you really start to pinpoint it, then it's exciting, because you can be proactive, and oh my gosh, you can actually invite your children into finding a solution for that time. You don't want to have all the answers, which I love to coupling that with that internal work of what's happening on your

Alexandra Hughes 33:26
yes, the internal work invites either conversations about, you know, with your family, about the external work that needs to happen, or if it's something as simple as you needing to boost your or you needing to work with your self talk or your core beliefs? Are you needing to boost your your whatever your sugar levels? Then? Then it can be your own external work. And maybe it looks like, you know, external work can be, you know, looking at your calendar and thinking like, now's a great time to do this, for example. Well, now being spring, when this is being recorded, but anytime it's time to do this, but I still look at your calendar and think, you know, my kids are it's impossible to get one kid to piano and it's impossible to get the other kid to soccer, and nobody wants to do any of this, all right? And so then it causes stress, and the transitions are so have a look at your calendar. Are they exhausted? You know, Are you exhausted? Is there's like too much stimulation going on here? You know? Is there a downtime that needs to happen? So that's the external work. Figure out what you can take off your list? Yeah, you know, that's where the external work comes in. But the internal work gets funny, because people say, you know, you tidy up the outside space and then the inside space will follow. But sometimes you need to learn about where you need to focus in the external by looking in

Casey O'Roarty 34:48
definitely, because I don't think that there's ever a point like there's no end point, right? I mean, you get it together with the preschoolers, and then. 678, and you're it's just a whole new kind of development that they're in versus 1112, 13, versus 1516, oh my gosh, that's ahead of me. I might totally I've been in conversations the last couple days about my daughter driving and, like, teen drivers and, oh man, talk about and talk about physical sensations, followed by deep emotions and self talk. Holy cow. Yeah, right. But I think that if we're going for everything being super smooth and the external, we're going to be fighting an uphill battle, because

Alexandra Hughes 35:38
again, yeah, setting yourself up for value. Yeah right, because

Casey O'Roarty 35:42
challenges happen, meltdowns happen. Kids get into push boundaries because that is what they do. Otherwise we never would have left the cave. Yeah right. Thank God for adolescence. Yeah and, and so, you know, however, tidying up the the kitchen always makes me feel a little calmer, but like, in the big picture of things, yeah, knowing, like, right? You know, being it like thinking about river. I live up in the Pacific Northwest, so there's a lot of I have a lot of boater friends who ride the river a lot, and, you know, the rapids are there. You know, it's how you are in the boat that is going to determine your experience. Yes,

Alexandra Hughes 36:22
yes, that was, that

Casey O'Roarty 36:24
was a good one. Yes, I love it. Oh, and that

Alexandra Hughes 36:27
is, it's like, it's like, what does that expression? It's like, it's not something about, it's not about stopping the storm. It's about learning how to dance in the rain. Yes,

Casey O'Roarty 36:36
yes, yeah. And so how, what are some tips that you have, and I'm sure that you've had parents as well say, Well, I go and you, I think you might have even mentioned it, like going from zero to 60, like feeling like there's no space between the event or experience and the reaction, and then they're in it, right? So they're having that emotional moment. What kinds of tips do you share with parents around when they find themselves in it?

Alexandra Hughes 37:08
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, a really good It depends how far along you're in it, and the Zero to 60. But different things that you can do. For instance, you can you find yourself heating up. You can explain things that articulate exactly what's happening. And this is that observation chart. And you said that you also, you know, help your parents to to identify those moments. So in that, in that moment, you know, you can start saying to yourself, to your kid, okay, I feel this happening in my body. I feel this happening in my body, I feel like, you know, the volcano, like you say, mean, Mom's coming,

Casey O'Roarty 37:46
you know, just I did say that media.

Alexandra Hughes 37:54
So, you know, to, like, sort of articulate what's going on with you. Again, fantastic learning opportunity, for the kids to kind of see you going through this it, you know, it takes a lot of courage to be vulnerable like that and be open and be honest and authentic in that kind of way, because you're not in control. You know, you're not but other little you know, let's say you have a I have a six year old who is really loud and into yelling. He's the youngest, and he feels that need to be heard and seen. And I sometimes, when he's really doing my head in, I get earplugs and I put them in. It doesn't mean I can't hear him. It means that it's muted, you know, I'm tired or I'm stressed about something or and it's just as, you know, and so I just put them in and I can respond or not respond, but I'm not. It's not like biologically driving me mental because I've got, like, a buffer. It's it is totally, I love the way you say, what if they don't see that space. It's about finding that space. Sometimes creating that space is a physical thing. Sometimes you just need to walk away and step into a closet and close the door. Sometimes you need to do that. Sometimes the space can look like you putting on a song. Have it ready, have it on your playlist, put it on and get into your body. Sometimes it's just about closing your eyes and getting into your body and taking those deep breaths. You know? I mean, there are different techniques that work for different people. I found my sometimes I'm like that deep breath thing that totally doesn't work for me. But then the other day, I found myself taking 10 deep breaths, and it really actually helped. So it is about that space. It is about creating that space between what's going on around you and yourself so that you can step back into consciousness. Now, if you explode, no problem. You explode. It's like you say, it's pretty. A 25% of the time that you're going to explode, right, right? Or more, you know, grant yourself some grace. And so you explode, and then you can, you know, say, oh, okay, sometimes it can take, I think there's some statistics that it will take 20 minutes for you to come back to your emotionally regulated state post explosion. So, you know, ask for space for those 20 minutes and bring your stuff down. And then when everybody's sort of calm, because usually when you explode them, they explode or, Oh

Casey O'Roarty 40:32
yeah, mirror neurons are real.

Alexandra Hughes 40:36
So, so, you know, then it's really about finding that moment to to reconnect in that honest way. You know, this is what happened to me, and it's not the way I want to be. It's not an emotionally smart or intelligent way to be. And but I want you to, you know, and then just talk it through, talk it through with them, what you felt, what you experienced, why you know, taking responsibility of it yourself. I can start with this I

Casey O'Roarty 41:14
well and what what's and I talk about that too, and what I always like to end with as well as and this is what I'm going to practice the next time I feel like that.

Alexandra Hughes 41:23
Oh, that's great, yeah, right, because

Casey O'Roarty 41:25
then I have a little accountability buddy, I've put it out there, yeah? And I think that so often we'll say we that's the question we ask our kids, right? Well, what are you going to do next time? Yeah, yeah, you know. And how are you

Alexandra Hughes 41:40
going to make it better, right? Yes,

Casey O'Roarty 41:43
so I love Yeah, yeah, and, and how important. I know what your I know what your answer is going to be, but self care, right? Like self care is not just a fluffy thing to aim for, right? It is like breathing. It's air, water, self care,

Alexandra Hughes 42:05
yeah, yeah. Have you read Danielle, the port's new book, white hot truth? No,

Casey O'Roarty 42:12
but I met her like a week ago at an event, and it was I, it was amazing,

Alexandra Hughes 42:19
yeah, yeah. I That's so weird. I met her in New York City, like, couple weeks ago. That's so weird. Our like, paths

Casey O'Roarty 42:26
are so dreamy. I know we're definitely She's

Alexandra Hughes 42:29
amazing. She's amazing. So anyway, in this book, one, one of the premises is, you know, to love yourself like it's your job. This isn't about self care. It's not about it's not about going and getting the pedicure and the manicure. It's not even about going to the gym, especially if you hate the gym, which I do, you know, it's about doing stuff that lights you up. It's about what makes you laugh, what give brings you joy, what lifts your energy. That's the stuff I'm talking about. What do you feel good doing while you're doing it, after you've done it, you know, it's not about sacrifice so that you've got the perfect body. It's so really and and it is your job. Why is it your job? It's your job to love yourself and to practice self care or self love, because your children are watching you, and you want them to do it, and you're a better everything when you do

Casey O'Roarty 43:26
it, yeah, you're a better everything when you do it. For sure, life is so much lighter. Life

Alexandra Hughes 43:34
is so much lighter, and life is short, yeah, we want it to be lighter, yeah. It's not about it's not selfish. It's the least selfish thing, actually, yeah, yeah.

Casey O'Roarty 43:47
I love self care. Thank you for that. Any final thoughts on calm responding for the listeners,

Alexandra Hughes 43:53
I guess, what I would really want you know every mother in the world to hear is that it's hard. You know, being a mother is hard. It brings up. It's like you say, our kids are these gifts, these teachers that come to us, but but not It's not easy learning. In fact, it can bring you to places that you've never felt before. So it's hard, and that's okay, because you're not alone, or at least you don't have to be, you know, you can join communities like Casey's. You can join communities like mine. We can do this together. In the olden days, there were tribes and communities that helped you and held your hand, and today there are Facebook groups. So, you know, you, you don't have to do this alone. It's difficult. You're not alone and it but it doesn't have to be you can. There are things you can do for yourself. So I really feel like and also in terms of calm, responding, you know, we get. But it's like, it's like, if you have insomnia, it's not only the fact that you're lying in bed unable to sleep, it's the fact that you're lying in bed unable to sleep, saying to yourself, oh my god, I can't believe I'm able to sleep. You get anxious about the insomnia instead of just suffering from the insomnia. So you get anxious about losing it or becoming being that hothead mom and having that like nuclear reactive response or reaction, but if we let up on that, then there's much more energy and space for you to rewire it. So, I mean, like we're just hard on ourselves, like we're feeling sometimes the way we yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 45:47
yes. People, knock it off. Quit being so hard on yourself. Yeah, yeah. I mean, really, it's not helpful. It's so not helpful. So in the context of all of this that we've talked about, and this is just, time has just flown by, I can't believe how long we've been talking for another hour. In the context of all this, what does joyful courage mean to you? Alex,

Alexandra Hughes 46:09
I love this. I love this question. Casey, and you have me thinking about it. I think that. And we, you know, we've talked a little bit about it in over the last little while. I think that joyful courage. I think that courage you need to be courageous, to be a conscious mom, or to be, you know, to practice positive parenting, or to to to take that journey towards calm, responding, because it's about opening yourself up to feelings. It's about treating those moments as learning opportunities. When you do, you know, make that mistake in quotation marks, and when you open yourself up and you and you're you're vulnerable, you need to be courageous to be vulnerable. But once you've done that, then it opens up this space for a connection, without which there would be no joy, right? Does that make sense?

Casey O'Roarty 47:12
Yeah, I love that. So

Alexandra Hughes 47:13
opening up to the learning and opening up to the connection bring brings you the joy, because really, otherwise you're disconnected,

Casey O'Roarty 47:23
Yep, totally Yeah, yep, love it. Where can listeners find you and follow your work?

Alexandra Hughes 47:31
You can find me, anybody listening, come find me at calm, joyful mom.com and if you want to sort of learn to kind of redesign your life in a way, or your relationship with yourself in a way where you're stressing less and loving more. There's an opt in on the page, I think it says five days to stressing less than loving more, something like that. And it's a five day challenge and a wonderful Facebook community that mothers can join. Yeah? So, yeah, I could go on about that, but

Casey O'Roarty 48:09
I won't. Well, do you have a Facebook so you have a Facebook group? Are you on Instagram or where else are you? Yeah, so

Alexandra Hughes 48:14
I'm also, I'm on Facebook. I've got a Facebook page, and then I have that particular Facebook group, which is open to all mothers, and it, I think the easiest way to find it is through the calm, joyful mom.com and then, and then you, you put in your email address and your name, and then from there, I'll send you the link, because it's one of these really long, convoluted, yeah, you know what? I mean, it's just nobody's gonna remember, and I haven't been organized enough to make it one of those, like, you know, really quick little pretty

Casey O'Roarty 48:44
links. Yeah, I know. But all about this, so I'm going to make sure that there's links, though, in the show notes, so that people can make it to make it really easy to find Joe. So fun. Yeah, thank you so much for coming on. Oh,

Alexandra Hughes 48:58
wow. I am so honored to be here. I am really, really, yeah, it's been just so easy and fun and it's yeah, it's great to talk to you.

Casey O'Roarty 49:15
Such a great conversation with Alexandra. Hughes, thank you again for coming on and talking to me about what it means to be a calm responder. Yes, I mean lots in there people, lots in there to take away from, right? And I just really appreciate the way that Alexandra's work aligns with the work that I put out in the world, right? And the importance of naming feelings and feeling our feelings, and checking in on our self talk and really questioning that. So make sure that you check her out again. Links are in the show notes around how you can find more of Alexandra and the awesome work that she's doing out in the world. Yay. So I just want to remind you all that if you loved that conversation, you have a place to go and talk about it, right? You have a place to go and talk about what you're taking away from the podcast, and it's called the live and love with joyful courage Facebook group. That group is designed and held as a safe, supportive place for the listeners of the joyful courage podcast and the followers of joyful courage to come together and have really forwarding supportive conversations about their parenting journey. So if you are not already in the group, jump on into Facebook and request to join, and you will be accepted. Yay. I just want to give a quick shout out to my local friends, those of you that are listening in the Pacific Northwest, or not far from the Pacific Northwest, I have some really exciting dates to share with you. You've heard me in the last few weeks talk about the mother's journey to joyful courage in this new offer that I have that's happening in the fall. It's a live offer, meaning we're going to come together and be in real life together. So I'm doing three dates in the Pacific Northwest. I will be in Bellingham on September 24 I will be in Seattle at on October 7, and I will be in Portland october 22 and the mother's journey workshop is a six hour experiential workshop where you will discover and explore the places that you're currently feeling stuck in your life. Activities are designed to support you and not only broadening your perspective around behavior, but also in shifting your mindset around how to be in relationship with yourself and your family and really the world. We're going to create special focus on trust, encouragement, creating boundaries and self and soul care, we're gonna move and reflect and journal and role play and celebrate as we explore the purpose of our both our collective and our individual journeys, and all the parenting support will be offered through the lens of positive discipline. But it's not just parenting, right? You're catching that right? It's bigger than the parenting piece. It's the mothering and everything that comes with the mothering. Mamas will leave the workshop with tools and practices to aid you in applying your learning into real life and following the workshop. So it's the six weeks, I'm sorry, it's the six hour workshop in the room all together, and then it's followed by four weeks of facilitated group calls that are again designed to aid you in really integrating what you learn into your relationships, integrating the action steps, the practices, the yummy ahas that show up In the room. I want to support you in taking that out into your life. So you'll have the six hour experience with me. And then the four weeks that follow, we will have a call once a week that everyone will be on. It'll be facilitated by me. There will be an opportunity to get support to reflect and to declare practices and action steps that are going to continuously forward you in living the life that you want. It's going to be so awesome. I'm so excited for this model. It means that if you don't live in the Pacific Northwest, but you're really interested in working live with me, fly in, right? You can fly in if you're not too far, or if you're across the country, whatever you want to do. Fly in for the day, right? Make a weekend out of it, explore the area, come to the workshop, and then you get to fly home. And you can still participate in the follow up four weeks. Because it's on the phone. It's actually going to be on Zoom, which is a like a conference call kind of thing, and we'll use the computer so we can see everybody. I am really excited. I'm so excited to be ironing out the details. And you can head on over to www dot joyful courage.com/ mother's journey. All one word, joyful courage.com/ mother's journey, and on that page, you can actually all ready purchase your ticket, and there is a there's an early bird fee, and there's a regular fee. So head on over to the website, check it out, see if it fits for you, if it's something that you want to do and you're really ready to invest in this time for yourself and for your family, come and play with me. Come and play with me, right? Some other places you can find me all the time are joyful courage on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. I would love to have you pop in in any of those places, follow and interact with me. You can also. Be listening to this podcast through iTunes or Google Play. So what that means is, if you wait and you see the little link for the podcast on Facebook or in the newsletter that I send out each week, and you click on it, great, you're listening through the website, which is fine, but something that's even better, where you don't have to wait for me to post things. You don't have to worry about whether or not you see it is if you've subscribed. And what that means is simply picking up your smartphone searching for a podcast app. By the way, most new smartphones come with a podcast app, so yay, you get a podcast app. And then once you've got the app, you search for joyful courage, parenting podcast, and I will pop up, and you click on my little image, and there should be a button that says Subscribe. You subscribe. And then automatically, every time I publish a new show, it shows up on your phone. Super convenient. Plus, if you really are feeling extra special, like you want to give me feedback and let others know how much you enjoy the show. Feel free to leave a review on iTunes. That'd be great. I would love to hear from you, because I'm just kind of talking into the space, right? I'm kind of talking into the abyss. I do not know how you feel about my show unless you tell me, and I would love, love, love to hear from you. So send me your feedback. You can always email me at Casey, at joyful, courage.com, and finally, especially this week, you know, talking about being a calm responder. And I think that many of us, you know, that's the goal, right? Like, I don't want to yell. I don't want to feel angry all the time. And we learn these new tools, and we maybe read a blog post, or we read a book, or we listen to a podcast, and we're excited, right? Yes, yes, yes. And then we get in the moment with our kids, and we're full of that anger, we're full of frustration. We just can't seem to grasp any patience. It happens, right? It happens to the best of us, and sometimes we need a little extra support. So that's, you know, that's really why I offer one on one coaching. The one on one coaching offer is really to dig into that. It's to dig into what's blocking you to be able to access the tools and the advice that you get all around the world, right with on online and in books, you have to do the work internally to be able to navigate your own emotional experience, just like Alexander and I were talking about, you have to be able to do the work to navigate your own emotional experience so that you can remember, oh, right, I want to drop into curiosity and ask some questions. Or, yeah, I want to be really non judgmental right now as I talk to my teen, right? Or, I want to be really empathetic as I listen to my son talk about what it feels like to really have a hard time navigating his friends. So the one on one coaching is really gonna dig into that kind of stuff. Your own internal experience of parenting, and if you are into it, please shoot me an email, let me know we can see if we're the right fit and move forward. All right. Finally, special thanks to my team. First of all, the man with the plan, Chris Mann, my super amazing and hilarious producer. Who you? I'm sure you don't know this about him, but he can do a really sweet beatbox, and maybe when he's editing the show, Chris, why don't you give us a little bit of your beatbox for a minute.

Casey O'Roarty 58:54
and Anna Proctor, my behind the scenes mama, who is a supporter, promoter and cheerleader for me and my work. Love you. Go girls. So appreciate everything that you do for me and all of you listeners. Thank you. Thank you for showing up each week and enjoying the show and sharing it with others. I so appreciate you, and I will be back solo next week. Can't wait until then. Huge. Love you.

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