Eps 171: Solo Show – Being the calm INSIDE the storm

Transcription

Casey O'Roarty 0:04
Hey, what is up podcast, listeners, I am so glad that you have found yourself at the joyful courage podcast. This is a place where we celebrate real and raw conversations about raising kids with conscious parenting and positive discipline. I'm your host. Casey o'rourdy, I'm a facilitator. I'm a parent coach. Most importantly, I am a mom of two teenagers, and I am walking the path of more mindful, intentional parenting right alongside of you. Please know that this podcast is created for you. I create it for you and for our community. And if you love it, feel free to share it with all of your family and friends over social media. Let's spread the word. Let's get as many people as possible listening to this show. Please write a review on Apple's podcast, formerly known as iTunes, and join the Patreon community, where parents, just like you are contributing just a small little amount each month to the show and enjoying perks like monthly webinars and community conversations about the content you hear on this podcast. Check the show notes for links and more details on all of that. I am so, so grateful that you are here and now. Enjoy the show. Hey. Hey everybody. Welcome to a solo show. It's just you and me. It's just you and me, my friend. We're gonna be chatting it up today, just the two of us. Just the two of us. Don't worry, I'm just gonna sing that one song. Okay, hi, how are you? How are you? What did you think about last week's show with Sarah? Did you listen the energy of emotion I heard from a few of you that you really appreciated it a lot, and that it was useful in relationships that weren't even with your kids, with partners and colleagues. That makes me so happy. I love, love, love hearing about that. So keep sharing with me what you think. And one of the ways, one of the places that you can share what you think about podcast is going directly into iTunes and leaving a review. My first show of the year, I read a couple reviews, and now I'm going to read a couple more. So I'm going back. I'm going back to October. October. Steph cleaves left a review of the show. She wrote so blessed. Gave it five stars. I love, love. Love your podcast. It brings me so much joy and inspiration when listening. Thank you for sharing so much of your life. You're welcome. You're welcome. I don't know how else to do it. I don't know how to talk about parenting without being really transparent and authentic about my own experience. So Steph, I'm just super stoked that you listen and find it useful. Yay. Also from October, there is a review titled Super advice, five stars. And this is by Asian biker. Asian biker left the review. And what Asian bikers review states is, I stumbled onto Casey's parenting podcast when I was in a bad place of non stop yelling and irritation. Casey's positive parenting advice and tips about mindful parenting really helped me make a change in how I parent. My son has ADHD and is a handful. If you're struggling with the same thing, I really recommend you take time to listen to this podcast, because there's so much great advice on how to reset you and your child's mood when you go over the edge. Oh yeah. Thank you Asian biker. Thanks for writing in and hey, guess what, peeps, if you write in a review to iTunes about the podcast. One, you're doing me a great service, because the more reviews I get, the more likely it is that the show will be presented to more parents and the more listeners there are. And ultimately, that's a win for society, right? Because if we were all on the joyful courage slash positive parenting Party Express, well, then the world would just be a better place if we were all working on our own personal growth and development. That's like my dream, right? That's not everybody's dream, but, oh man, it just gets me real excited to think that we could all. Be on the path of growth together, right? And what a generation of kids we'd be raising so and you know, I might read your review, so jump on over to iTunes, rate and review. If you're not into the public display of love, that's okay. Shoot me an email, or you can leave a post. If you listen to the podcast through the website, there's always a place for leaving comments down at the bottom of the actual post. So there's lots of ways to give feedback or give feedback on social media, whatever works for you. But thank you. Thank you. Thank you, because I do it for you, man, and for myself. Not gonna lie, this is a win, win, but ultimately, knowing that what I have to say is landing for others and useful and making you laugh and making you think and making you just really step into practicing being a better version of yourself. I mean, yay. That is exactly what I do this for. So thank you for letting me know. Today, today, I want to talk a little bit about being the calm inside the storm. On February, no, sorry, January 28 I will be in Ballard. The Ballard is an area in Seattle, for those of you that are like, we have no idea what Ballard is. It's a part of Seattle, Washington, and I have the Pacific Northwest parent group has hired me to come out and talk and speak, and it's free. There'll be a link in the show notes on how you can get in on that. If you are local and would like to come see me speak. And it took me a long time to decide on the title of the presentation and what I wanted to bring. Most of the parents are parents with kids that are young, and so they started to promote the talk. And I was like, you know, I don't really know what, where I'm going here, but I'll be there and I'll speak, and it'll be great. Yay for self confidence. And then finally, it just kind of landed for me through a few different experiences that I've been having and conversations that I've been having. So, you know, being the calm inside the storm, right? Being the common side. The storm last night, I had a night one of a seven week parenting class. Last night was the first night here locally in my town, at the local Montessori School, I have six couples. Shout out to all of you. I hope you're listening. Super fun group, really excited. You know, the connection in the community that I felt night one is really encouraging for the rest of the class. And we focused mostly last night on the kindness and firmness pillar of positive discipline, right? Being kind and firm at the same time, most of us are really good at kind alone, and we're really good at firm alone, but putting those two things together is where it feels really wobbly, right, especially because typically, when we need kind and firm the most is when we're inside that storm, right? We're in overwhelm. There's too many things going on, too many people that need us. Perhaps there's some auditory clutter, right, which is like screaming, yelling, fighting the things, and, you know, kind and firm in that moment. That is the moment, usually when we snap or just completely withdraw and go into the fetal position. No, I'm not. I'm guessing most of you don't do that. Typically, where we move to is that's when we snap, that's when we yell, that's when we blame or shame. That's when we pull those tools I'm doing air quotes, tools that are actually more hurtful than they are helpful tools like sending them to their room, taking away beloved devices or toys,

you know, punishment or we bribe. We can show up in bribery, right there as well. Now I'm calling these tools because they are tools, right? You've heard me talk about this before. They are short term tools. They might be tools to create silence, but is the tactic the tool itself and how we feel after using the tool? Is that really what we want? I'm going to tell you, No, it's not, because I know this to be true based on how many people come to me, email me and reach out to me who say, I just don't want to yell anymore, right? I don't want to yell anymore. And also, you know, I'm doing this teen parenting Summit. It parenting teens with positive discipline summit that starts January 28 that's completely free for parents for that week 15 interviews. It's going to be fantastic if you haven't signed up and you have a teenager, or if you have friends with teens and you haven't told them about it, please do so. It's just joyful courage.com/teen Summit. That's the link you need. But one of the themes that rises up in the in almost every conversation is that the teen years are messy, right? There's all sorts of things happening. It's a transitional period between our kids being kids and really needing us to being adults and leaving us so they have this weird period of time where they have to, like, leave, come back, leave, come back, practice, come back right. They have to make mistakes and feel the consequences of their mistakes, the natural consequences of their mistakes. They have to be uncomfortable and stretch and grow and trust and they need us to support them along the way, and supporting them, meaning being present and available and loving right, not supporting them in smoothing everything out in front of them so that they don't feel the discomfort we get to be witness to them and love them and encourage them. And the messiness of it all is not an indication of us being bad parents, just like a toddler who has temper tantrums. That is not an indication of bad parenting. Toddlers have tantrums. They're fully in their bodies, right? They're having these highly emotional experiences. Disappointment shows up to a toddler like a bonfire under his feet, right? Not literally, but, you know, disappointment, fear, anger, all of those emotions show up like a rogue wave to young kids, right? They show up like rogue waves for us, and we've had, how many years I've had 45 years of life experience, and I still get caught off guard. And so we can be with that overwhelm. We can be with we can be inside of what's happening for our kids, and we can be responsible for how we experience it, right? It's also come up a bunch in some of the podcast interviews that are coming up down the line where the conversation is about parenting. Actually, the conversation is about our own self regulation so that we can be the parent our kid needs when they're having the hardest time. And isn't that? Isn't that, that place that is the trickiest for all of us? 100% so some of you who have worked with me before, I'm sure I've talked about it on the podcast too. I love this formula, and I've learned it from my dear friend Krista petty Ramer, who is a master coach and facilitator. She runs a company with her team called boldly embody life. I'm on the team. I get to coach for one of her programs, and she talks about this formula, e plus r equals o, e plus r equals O. What the E stands for is events or experiences. So there's events and experiences in our life, right? That just happen. Somebody cuts us off, somebody throws us a birthday party, our child melts down at the grocery store, our teenager rolls their eyes at us, right? We're misunderstood by someone. We're fired. All sorts of things fall under the events and experiences, right? So events and experiences plus R. R stands for response. So an event or an experience happens, then plus we respond, our response, and those two things together create an outcome, a possible outcome, right? So let's take, for instance, the melting down child at the grocery store. So you run in there, you just got to get a couple things, right your kids, like, I don't want to, I know, I know. I'm sorry. Let's go though. We're just gonna be really quick. And you're doing your thing. You know how it is. You've got your list, your short list, if you're smart. Yeah, and you're on a mission, grab those things, get out, because you probably got dinner to cook later. Maybe you have to pick up another kid from another event, like Time is of the essence.

And while you're racing around with child, small child Intel, they catch sight of something shiny, right? And they say, Ooh, can I get this? I want this. And you just quickly say, no, let's go. And for whatever reason, your child, in that moment, does not have the tools that they need to accept that no and the disappointment or the challenge or the the anger that shows up for them and they fall apart. Now that's the event or experience, right? That's where we're at now we have two choices for responding, right? We can get triggered by mirror neurons, which are real things. By watching somebody melt down, it's really hard for you not to melt down. So we can get pulled into that, and it can become something like, you get up right now, this is not okay. We got to do this thing. Come on. Let's go. What do I gotta you know, this is no, you're not going to get to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know I'm talking about right? When we're when we are irritated, we snap, we show up, right? We meet them where they're at in that we're now we're both having a meltdown, right? We slog our way through the store. We make our way through the line, we get in the car. How do we feel? Well, I'm guessing that the majority of you, after these kinds of situations, feel kind of bad, right? It feels crappy, like, damn it, why? I could have handled that differently, you know, or perhaps you feel justified, and you get in the car, and it's just more Wah wah wah from you to your kid. Then you get home and it's time to make dinner, and you got, God, that grocery store trip, and you're feeling angry. And, you know, other things show up, and it can be a snowball effect, right? Well, there is another option, way back after the events and experience, way back to when you responded to them. The response could have just simply been pause, right? I see you're having a hard time. It's really frustrating when you want something and you don't get to have it, isn't it? I know there's things that I would like to have that I can't get today at the store, but I would love for you to help me find these last two items. Let's go. I'd love to hold hands, right? So there's that response that is connected and de escalating. I was just listening to a podcast. I've become totally obsessed with DAX Shepard's armchair expert podcast. And if you look it up and listen to it and get sucked into the vortex, don't blame me. Just know going in that it's a vortex. But anyway, he was talking, he was referencing somebody else, and he was saying, you know, we're always either escalating or de escalating any situation. I wonder, could we put in we're either supporting regulation or deregulation, right? And how we respond to the events and experiences of our life that influences the outcome that we then experience, that the escalation, or the de escalation, and so, yeah, I mean, I just it's so simple, and yet it's profound. And when I think about the word response. Krista again, she pointed out in some in a workshop that I was at, response lives inside of the word responsibility, being able to respond, response, this is the place where we take responsibility. You go to bed at night and you decide, I'm not going to yell. I'm going to be more present. I'm going to keep my phone put away more of the day you wake up the next morning, it is absolutely personal responsibility that you are invited to lean into, to actually follow through with what you said. You're going to do right, being response, able, being able to respond personal responsibility. And some of you like, if you listen to the podcast all the way to the end of the episode, you hear my little outro, and what I what do I always say? I say, take a deep breath, go into your body, find the balcony seats and trust that everybody's going to be okay. So the three B's. I call those the three B's. It's what my entire book is about that comes out in March. Oh my gosh, you guys. And I just saw the some covers, some possible covers, and we made some changes, and it's really happening. Oh my god, so exciting. Anyway, the three bee. Strategies are designed to support you in tapping into that response and being personally responsible, because this is what I know to be true for myself and for others, it's all good and easy to use the tools and strategies to be the person that you want to be when everybody around you is doing what they're supposed to do. It's when the external environment starts to fall apart that we jump on that emotional freight train when we flip our lids right. And so the goal becomes either one, recognize you're about to get on the train, recognize you're about to flip your lid, so that requires us to pay attention below the neck, right? What are the indications that our body is giving us, that we're about to not be our best selves, right? What is the emotion that typically shows up? What's the story that shows up? Growing our observer of ourself is so powerful, right? And or sometimes what happens is we miss it. We miss the build up, and we realize, instead, oh, I'm, I am flipped. I am on the train. I'm I'm here now and again, simply recognizing like, Oh, this is where I am right now. That is a choice point that is a little bit of space for us to say, am I going to carry on in this direction, typically, of escalation, or am I going to make a different choice? And so the three B's really become that place where we can, okay, yes, I want to make a different choice, but first, before I can make a different choice, I need to just take a few moments and arrive again into the present moment, right? So we use our breath, bringing your attention to your breath, feeling it move in your body, feeling your belly and chest expand, right? And then, then you're in your body. Okay, great. What's the sensations that are happening? Where is there tension that you can let go of, noticing your feet on the floor? All of this breath and body work, it's all really designed for you to be in your present moment and realize that you have influence on it. You can release tension. Do you believe me? It's true. You can release tension, right? I mean, granted, you know, there's nothing like a massage. But we hold our shoulders high. We clench our butts like there's places in our face, our little muscles in our face. There's places in our body that are so tight. And shifting our experience of our physical body is often just what we need to get some perspective, and that's the balcony seat. So we use the breath to come into the body, shift the experience that we're having in the body, notice the experience that we're having in the body, so that we can then see with an a more expanded lens right, see from the balcony seat, see from the bird's eye, view from 10,000 feet. And what if nothing changes? What if? What if nothing changes? What if we do our work, and we still have kids that have meltdowns and roll their eyes at us, well, you are living a normal life, if that is your experience, right? There's no magic wand. There's no magic wand that takes away our kids response to their discomfort. They're in the learning process people, right? They are in the learning process. They are going to make mistakes. They are going to fall apart, and actually, we want them to, because falling apart and getting to the other side of it is a really important muscle building skill right, knowing that I can live through my anger and get to the other side of it, knowing that we can live through disappointment, embarrassment, sadness, grief and get to the other side of it, knowing that we can Find our courage try really hard, work really hard, take some deep breaths and step on that stage, right? All of and get to the other side of it, all of that is absolutely 100% important for our kids to experience, right? So we want them to experience that and when. So when I say, if nothing changes, you know, that's what I'm talking about. I promise you that when you start doing your own emotional regulation and getting more skilled at it and talking about it and modeling it and experiencing it, it will affect your external experience. Uh, it will. And, you know, what if and if it doesn't, well, what if all we really have is the internal experience of life. What if that's really all we have?

What if all we have is how we be, how we feel, how we respond, right? Because, how many times have you been in a situation that you know the event or experience happens, you respond and you think to yourself, I just responded with skill and articulation and courage and the other person's like, you're full of it, right? We can't control the other person, but we can recognize inside of ourselves and give ourselves some internal validation around I handled that. I was my best self, I was conscious and mindful and thoughtful, whether it's holding a boundary or giving a compliment or delivering bad news, right? We can't we cannot control how the other person experiences it, but we can absolutely learn to create some internal validation for ourselves, and that's not to mention, you know, that's not to say that feedback doesn't matter, right? If somebody's going to tell me, you know, hey, when you said this, this is how I experienced it, right? Or I didn't like that you said that, or I was offended by what you said and when you said it that way. So that's feedback. And I can either decide like, well, I am who I am, and it's too bad that you had that experience and I can't please everybody all the time. I can also respond with, huh? This is feedback. This is information that when I tell that story in that way with those words, there's going to be people who are going to get distracted by that and miss the point of, perhaps miss the point of the story. Or I can think I am a complete failure. This one person came to me, gave me this feedback, didn't like me, right? And I'm going to be honest with you, I tend to leave I get feedback is a learning edge for me, right? I'm constantly reminding myself that feedback is neutral and that feedback is simply information, and it's hard to get out of the emotional spiral that can show up with that too. So external feedback, you know, it's external validation is, is what it is, right? But without a healthy sense of of internal validation, of self worth, of worthiness, of knowing that I matter to the world, without having that, and when we're only seeking external validation, we're just at the mercy of the people and the events and experiences around us, right? And so creating this internal experience, not only creating it, but recognizing that we're having it when we're having it, which is every moment of the day, can be really powerful, and it actually helps us to start to break the chains, right, the chains that are connecting us to this external world. I mean, some of the feedback we get. Do you ever get feedback from people where you're like, you don't even know me? How can you have an opinion, right? Right? Well, that's what we that's like, the healthy way of thinking about it, right? And otherwise, it's like, oh, I suck, because this person who doesn't even know me is showing up and telling me so, so parenting, right? Parenting is a part of our life. It can feel like our whole life, understandably so, especially when our kids are really young. I mean, I say that, but I'm also like, especially when they're teenagers, but at the end of the day, parenting is one part of our life, and I had a podcast interview this morning with this, what's his last name? Now, I can't think of his last name. Let me see his name is Sid and his last name is Garza Hillman. He has this. He's a podcaster and a YouTuber, and he has a whole program called Small steppers. And we talked about this, we talked about how powerful it can be when we remember that there were things about ourselves, things that we like to do, that perhaps we let go of before we became parents, right? And what happens when we allow for some of those things to come back in? I. Uh,

right, even if, oh my gosh, I'm so overwhelmed, my kids have these labels. They're this busy. We start to define ourselves by how busy our kids are, how needy our kids are, how much we are needed, so there can't possibly be time for us. And I just want you to check that. I want you to check that because family and parenting isn't our whole life. It's a part of our life. And when it becomes our whole life and our whole purpose, it's kind of like that same conversation as external validation, right? Then we become chained to, you know, how everybody's feeling, how everybody's performing the opinions and advice of others, like we have to remember that we are whole people. We have multiple roles in the world, and some of them, those roles might include, you know, knitter, crocheter, runner, podcaster, you know, other things, yoga, yo, Yogi, right? Meditator, long walking alone. Er, so it's really coming back to that and not, it's not an either or, right? And don't hear me telling you that your family shouldn't be important to you. But there is a tipping point where it is, it becomes impossible to find the calm inside of the storm, because we're so involved in the storm, right? And so, you know, like last week on the show, Sarah was on talking about the energy of emotion, right? And how to live through the energy of emotion and how to be willing to get to the other side of it. Because sometimes doesn't it feel like we just want to hang on. Sometimes it feels like that. Not useful, right? And so so much of what's coming up in my own personal work and the conversation with Sid, I did another interview today with Sarah Lewis Bergman. Sarah Bergman Lewis, oh, look, I think my son is home. And did you hear that in the background? Dog barking. Anyway, I'm gonna let them figure themselves out. With Sarah, we talked about adverse childhood experiences and how as parents who have been raised with any kind of trauma, how that can get in the way of what we can offer our kids. I had another conversation with a gal that founded unlearning super mom. These are all podcasts that are coming up, but in every conversation, what's happening is this place parents getting stuck, humans getting stuck in what it should look like. My life should look like this, and it doesn't. And so what does that mean? I'm a failure. I'm doing a bad job. I'm bad at this self doubt, unworthiness, all the things right? What about and what I really want to leave you with today is, what about acceptance of what is? What about surrendering to not knowing the outcome? What about being open to the idea that while life doesn't look the way we thought it would look, it looks just like it's meant to look, and we can influence it? Yes, yes. We can work hard. We can set goals. We can practice lots. Yes, and you decide how you want to respond to life, right? You decide how you want to respond to any current situation, if worry and fear are what you're feeling all the time, that is your present moment experience. I'm guessing you're probably pretty tense, and that's also what you create, right? If openness and love and connection is your present moment experience, guess what? Then that's what you get to create. Now, in the end, my kids could get in trouble, they could get in an accident, they could hurt themselves, something could go terribly wrong, but equally as likely is those things not happening. So in this moment, I'm going to be with love and excitement for them and trust, right? And hope, which people have interesting relationships with hope. But I'm just going to say hopes, HOPE school with me, because what we think about we bring about right. Energetically, we're always influencing our lives and our experience and so having a. Practice where you're in your body and you're grounded and you are choosing into personal responsibility. You're choosing into what you said you would do, whether it's self care or mindfulness or being present or being connected, making more eye contact, breathing before responding right? The events and the experiences of your life are the opportunities for you to say, Okay, here's my here's my chance, here's my chance. And as you know, I like to say, when you can set yourself up for practicing that throughout the day, practicing the three B's throughout the day later on, when things are falling apart and things are really overwhelming, and you can feel yourself kind of getting pulled into the storm. But wait, that's a moment where it becomes easier, not easy, easier and more likely that you can choose in to wait a minute, I'm going to ground myself. I'm going to loosen up my body to get a bigger perspective and move from that place. Yes, awesome. I know I talk about this a lot. Is that a problem? I mean, how many times can you hear it? I don't know. I can't hear it enough. So my hope is that all of this is useful to you that you have landed on something new and exciting as you've listened. My hope is that you take away from this solo show, something that you can put into practice right now, right today, in this moment, even, where are your feet? Do you feel them? You feel your feet for me right now, noticing the sensations of your body right now, whatever you're doing, just pause if you're driving, keep driving. But in the driving, notice the scenery that's going around on around you. Notice the people in the other cars. Maybe smile at them, right? Because the present moment is really the only moment. It's the one that we're experiencing, and that's the one where we have any kind of influence over what lies ahead. So there you have it. Deep thoughts from Casey, yes, well, I love you. All sign up for the teen Summit. I'm super excited next week to have my super mom conversation with all and share it with all of you. Rachel Butler is the name of the gal that I'll be interviewing. I think you'll really like our conversation. She's so real and authentic and all the things that we love but. And I should say not but and yeah and we just, we get another week. Get another week. So Have a beautiful day and a beautiful weekend, and I will see you next Tuesday. Boo, Ooh, hey, I'm back. I just wanted to be sure again to say Register for the teen summit, the parenting teens with positive discipline. Audio summit starts January 28 last week in the podcast, I said it started the 18th. My superfan Lauren pointed that out to me, it does not start the 18th, it starts the 28th and it goes for five days. You have access to all the interviews for the course of the whole week. And I'm telling you, you want to listen. The people that I get to interview are educators, trainers and lead trainers whose jam is positive discipline. So if you felt like, Hey, I got the positive parenting thing down, everything's cool, and you swung into the teen years, and it feels like a show. This is what you want to listen to. We do not shy away from the messiness of parenting teenagers real, raw, authentic conversations about the topics that you want to hear about. Yes, brain development, yes, emotional development, yes, a deeper cut into what positive discipline is, but also things like teens and drugs and curfew and sex and relationship and body image and screens and getting them to be in contribution to the household, anxiety and depression, all the things we talk about. So head on over right now to joyful courage.com/teen, Summit. Joyful courage.com/teen, Summit, all one word, and register yourself. And if you're like, yeah, yeah, I already did, then I challenge you to find five, five friends and family members that you can also encourage to sign up, because it's important conversations that we need to be having about our teenagers. So check it out.

Joyful courage, community. Thank you so much. Much for tuning in each and every week. Big thanks and love to my team, including my producer, Chris Mann at pod shaper. Be sure to join the discussion over at the live and love with joyful courage group page, as well as the joyful courage business pages on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to the show through Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google Play. I Heart Radio, really, anywhere you find your favorite podcasts. Also, I mentioned Patreon at the beginning of the show. Check it out. Www.patreon.com/joyful courage. This is where you can contribute to the show and take advantage of patron perks like content rich monthly webinars and deeper discussions about what's being shared on the podcast. You will like it. Www. Dot P, A, T, R, E, O n.com/joyful. Courage. Any comments or feedback about this show or any others can be sent. Casey at joyful courage.com. I personally read and respond to all the emails that come my way, so reach out. You can also sign up for my bi weekly newsletter at joyful courage.com just go to the website. Sign up for that. Take a breath, drop into your body, find the balcony seat and trust that everyone is going to be okay. Big Love to each and every one of you have a beautiful rest of your day.