Eps 179: SOLO show about trusting relationship and encouragement

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.

Hi, listeners. Hello, it's friend Casey and back in the closet, I'm actually getting, I'm getting really used to saying that. I like saying that. I think it's really fun to say that. Say I'm in the closet talking to you. I've actually had listeners message me saying, Do you have a really big closet? And the answer is, embarrassingly, yes, I have a huge closet. I It could be a bedroom. I mean, not really. You'd have to be a small person, but I could probably fit a twin size bed in this closet. It's pretty crazy, but the sound is just so good. With all these things that are hanging around me, the sound is good. So I've started to podcast in the closet. Plus I'm hiding from my kids, and there's more layers for them to get to me if I'm deep in the closet. Anyway. Hi, how are you? Oh my gosh. What did you think of last week's show with Bonnie talking about sex and relationships? And I know these are hard conversations to have that's hard to think about. It's funny because I have started to re watch parenthood, the show. Do you all watch that show? It's on Netflix, which is super satisfying, because there's no commercials. Oh my gosh, it is the best show. It's a drama, and I watched it years ago, and I'm rewatching it, and two of the families on so it's a story about a family, and there's the grandparents, there's the four siblings, who are all adults and parents, and then there's the kid the grandkids, and two of the siblings have teenage daughters. And I watched the show years ago, watching it now, oh my gosh. Can I just say that? It is super real, like it's so real and it's wild. Anyway, why am I talking about that? I don't remember why I'm talking about that, except for that, I've been watching it lately, and it's been really good, and I'm podcasting in the closet. So what I wanted to talk about today is something that I know I've talked about before, but I don't know if this happens to you. I am going to trust that it does, because it happens to me. Do you ever feel like you hear a concept, or you hear some content, and and you feel like you get it, you understand it, you have a you have a connection to it, and then you hear it again, or you hear it in a different way, and in it, the feeling is like, Oh, now I really get it right. Or maybe you have a conversation with somebody, and you look at it from a whole new angle, and then again, you're like, oh, wow, I get this at a much deeper level. So I feel like that's happening right now, non stop, as I parent through the teen years. And the concept that I really want to talk about is one that we say almost like a mantra in the positive discipline world, which is trust the process, trust the process. And I feel like on the surface level, it can become kind of like cliche, like, I don't know what's happening. And you know, we can just say, well, just trust the process. You know, just trust the process. And it's a way of just getting out of our heads and. Like, okay, I'm going to trust the process and let go or surrender on a surface level. And as you you know, really dive into it, trusting the process in the context of parenting with positive discipline, or even parenting underneath this positive parenting umbrella, to me, you could replace process with the word relationship. You could replace process with the word yourself. Well, trusting the yourself sounds weird, but trusting yourself, trusting the process, trusting the relationship, trusting our kids ability to have experiences and learn from them, trusting our Kids ability to be critical about like critical thinkers about their experiences and to learn some lessons when we get out of the way, trusting the process is also having faith in our kids and that they will get to the other side of things. You know, I think we can break it down. I was reading something somewhere. I can't really remember, where about kids that hit? And meaning, like little kids, little kids that hit. And when we say that, Oh, my child's going through a hitting stage. And I've worked with parents where, you know aggressive behavior is one of their challenges, and we talk about how kids have very limited skills and abilities to self regulate. We don't come out as self regulated machines. We have to learn through experience what it means to self regulate and be with disappointment, be with anger, be with a changing agenda, and not feel like we want to hit somebody the hitting stage. And we also, I think when our kids go through this or biting or kicking or whatever the aggressive behavior is, it feels like, oh my gosh, I have that kid, right? And so we have our own internal experience with it, plus there's this idea that if we say we don't hit in our family, that somehow making that declaration means that our children won't hit. And anyone who has a child who's struggled with this. Knows that you can say we don't hit in this family 5 billion different ways, and they're still going to go through this stage right? And so in that context, trusting the process is about, yeah, it is about declaring hitting is not okay, like hitting is not something that we do in our family. It's okay to say that, but coupling it with, you know, here's something else you can do when you feel angry. And coupling it with, Wow, you're so angry right now, and it's really hard to keep it in your body. Tell me about that. So having conversations, letting them express what their experience is. Looking under the iceberg, trusting the process in that context is trusting that all of those things are going to, over time, support your child in moving through the hitting stage right. Moving through the hitting stage they get a little bit older. Maybe the maybe the challenge is that homework time is a nightmare at your house, right? Homework time is a nightmare. Nobody wants to do it. They slog through it. They whine and complain. They get defiant. It's a power struggle. Fill in the blank, right? Trusting the process. You know, we can talk till we're blue in the face about how important homework is, which is funny, because so many of us are like, homework sucks and it's not important and it's not proven to be useful. Yes, we're going to hold that while also recognizing that sometimes it's required, right? Sometimes there is work at home that we need to do, that our kids are being asked to do. And so again, it's the same as like the hitting stage. Tell me about that. Tell me about how you're feeling right now. Tell me about what's discouraging to you. You know, what do you like about this subject? What do you not like about it? How does it feel when it's time to do it. What do you notice about me? Right? Let's create a plan. What might your plan look like? Let's try it for a week and see how it goes. So trusting the process with that also like the hitting stage, is really trusting that all of these little pieces that we put into place with our kids will. Over time, support them in moving through whatever the current challenges that is happening, right? And I feel like trusting the process is also a journey of building relationship and developing life skills. So there's that piece right, trusting the process. I think that the process includes nurturing our relationship with our kids and keeping life skill development top of mind. I think it's also really easy. And as you guys know, I mean, I'm, I'm always, I'm always working with clients. I have one on one clients. I currently have a fantastic group of parents of teenagers. Shout out to my parents, teenagers, and I'm really enjoying getting to know them through the joyful courage Academy parenting teens program. Right now, it's been we're just as I record, finishing up our first week.

It starts to get and I think it happens when they're younger too. But you know, trusting the process can feel like a tall order, because things start to feel urgent, right? And when we are stuck in a place with our kids, it's easy to believe, it's easy to our, have our come from be well, it's always going to be like this now, or

they're never going to get through this, or we're always going to be dealing with this. And, you know, I mean, how many of us look at toddlers that are so cute, they're so cute and funny and fun to be around and remember fondly the toddler, stage right? How quickly we forget those long days of meltdowns of, you know, quote, not listening, of being picky about eating and throwing themselves on the floor, right? We forget that the idea that it's always going to be like. This is not based in reality, because it's not even if we just look at like one day they will be adults. They will be adults living their life. They will have to take care of themselves, right? They will need to be on time to work and get up without us inviting them to get up in the morning, right? We get stuck in that place, and it feels sorrowful, it feels hopeless, it feels we feel defeated and discouraged, and I'm just going to invite us to remember that chances are, if we're feeling like that about our kids, they're feeling those same things. And so instead of continuing that dance, we can remember that change happens over time. We can remember that there is a process to trust. And if we want something to be different with our children, with our partners and our relationships and our friendships, if we want something to be different, we have to be different. You know, because the dance that we do with our kids have the dance has explicit steps, like it's well choreographed, you know, and and you know that you are in a dance when you have thoughts that or even words that come out of your mouth that sounds like every morning, it looks like this. Or every day, this is how homework is. Or, you know, you're always, we never, every day, every time I try to, every time you need to, like any sentence that starts like that, you can know that that is a place where you and your child, or you and the other human are in a well choreographed dance, and you both have your parts, right? You both have your steps, and you engage in them, and you engage in them, and it's annoying, and it's frustrating, and yet, there you are in that same dance. And guess what's so exciting about this one is awareness about being in the dance. Because once you have awareness, like, Oh, we're in a dance here, you can then decide to change your steps. You know, I mean literally when you're dancing with someone, if you're dancing like a ballroom, dance like a waltz, and the person. Person that's leading the dance decides to move into the jive, chances are you're gonna follow, or definitely the dance itself will be influenced by the change up in the dance steps. All it takes is one person to change the dance, and that, my friend, is you, right? And it's appropriate that it's you, because you're the one who's the parent, you're the one with the fully developed brain, you're the one with the bigger toolbox of skills and strategies, right? You get to be the one that changes the dance, and sometimes changing the dance is simply being an acknowledgement that it exists. So depending on the age of your child, you could go to them and say, Wow, this is what I've noticed, and here's what I notice I do, and this is what I'm going to try to do differently, because what's been happening hasn't doesn't feel good, and I don't like it. And open the door like, what is your experience? How do you feel in the morning? What do you notice about homework time? Right? What do you notice about me? Do you feel loved? So when we can be really vulnerable and authentic and honest and curious with our kids, we can change the dance. And that's really exciting to me. I mean, I kind of love that, and I'm guessing that you know that I love that, because this is kind of my jam, right? This is what I like to talk about, and it's really cool when I get to experience groups of people connecting those dots between how their children are behaving and how they're showing up. And we can encourage our kids, or we can discourage our kids, and I think a lot of the things that we do as parents are in the name of love, in the name of wanting what's best for them, in the name of wanting to motivate them like we want all good things for our kids, and in that sometimes how we choose to show up actually is really discouraging. And there's, you know, there's a lot of reasons for that, but let's just play with this. And this is, and I want to, I'm going crazy here on the podcast today, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna lead you through an activity. It's one that I did this past Wednesday night with my fantastic group of Montessori parents that I met with for seven weeks. We finished our class. Miss you guys. Shout out to my Montessori families. And then I did it with the the teen parent, the parents of teens in that program, and both times, it was really powerful. So I'm going to do it here. I'm going to use the podcast, and here's, here's what I want you to do. I want you to imagine being a child. Okay? I want you to imagine being a child, and I want you to notice. I'm going to be the parent, and I want you to notice what comes up for you as you listen to me. Okay, notice what comes up for you as you listen to me. And I'm going to change it up a little bit because, yeah, I did this one way with the other people, I'm going to do it differently for you. So, okay, so you're the child, and again, I'm the parent. I want you to either physically or energetically move away from me when you're feeling discouraged, and then I want you to move towards me when you're feeling encouraged. Okay, you as the child. Here we go. So I got a call from the next door neighbor. She wants to talk to me about you. What did you do? What did you do? I don't want to hear any excuses about how it's hard to play with the neighbor kid. I am so done with hearing about your behavior and about you being mean and hurtful to other people. I'm so tired of it. I'm always hearing this. I don't understand what's wrong with you. I don't understand why we always have to have these kinds of problems. I'm just I'm done. Okay, so you now as the child, I want you to just sit with that, and I want you to notice in the. Moment, what are you feeling? What are you thinking or deciding about yourself? What are you thinking or deciding about me? And I also want you to notice, what are you being invited into? You know, is there like a gut response, perhaps that's coming up for you as you are the child listening to your parent talk to you that way. Just notice, take some notes if you want. And now we're gonna take a deep breath, let it out, and let's do that same thing again, same directions. You're the child, I'm the parent, and I just want you to move towards me if you feel encouraged, away from me if you feel discouraged. So I got a neighbor, or I'm sorry, let me try again. I got a phone call from the neighbor, and I'm really curious to know what's going on with you and the neighbor boy. It sounds like you were feeling really angry and embarrassed, and that must have been really hard. I know that it's been challenging for you to get along with the neighbor boy, and yet you also sometimes enjoy playing with him, and you know, we can't change who he is. So I'm wondering, what might you think about the next time you go over to play. And I'm also curious, is there anything that you feel like you could do

to share what was hard for you and maybe make things right with him? I'm here for you, and I love you, and I'm absolutely happy to help and support you through this. So again, notice, how did that feel? What were you thinking or deciding about yourself? What were you thinking or deciding about me, your parent, and what were you being invited into? What were you thinking about doing? What was your gut response? It's amazing. It's amazing how the way that we respond to what's going on with our kids makes such a difference in how they internalize the experience, how they how open they are to looking at what is their responsibility, where they can be accountable, right? So trusting the process is in that moment when you get that phone call from the neighbor or a teacher or whomever, saying, Hey, this is what went down with your kid today, right? We have that experience of like, either again, or oh my gosh, or I'm so embarrassed, or, how could you we have that experience? And often all of that comes up through our bodies and then out of our mouths, right? And you just got to have the experience of being with that coming out of my mouth, does it move you towards life skills? Does it move you towards belonging, significance, knowing that you influence your world, being a critical thinker, taking personal responsibility? No, it just doesn't. It just doesn't. So trusting the process means that we get to notice the experience that we're having right, noticing that like moment and pausing, finding our breath right, and shifting out of that embarrassment, that personal experience that we're having and remembering that we get to support our kids, and trusting that being curious, being open, being encouraging to them, will support them the best, versus I just got To let them know how bad this is, right? Because when they are discouraged by our behavior, they shift out of taking responsibility or even thinking about their own behavior. It just becomes a battle of wills. It just becomes my mom's so mean, my dad's so unreasonable, right? So trusting the process is trusting our relationship with them, trusting that when they feel encouraged, they're going to learn the most, right? And guess what, when you do develop. I want to be really clear here, because just because we do a really good job of. Of developing an honest, open relationship with our kids doesn't mean that it's easy and they never do anything wrong, right? The dark side of that is that our kids are become really honest with us, right? They know we can handle it. Their own inner guidance system is connected to being connected to us, and that's such a great thing, and it becomes really challenging when they're sharing honestly what's going on for them, because sometimes it's easier not to know me as a parent. Sometimes it's like, wow, you could have lied about that totally pulled it off. And then I don't have to sit with knowing that this is an option that you're thinking about, right? And so sometimes this is totally real and relevant to me right now, sometimes that beautiful, open, honest relationship can bring up fear

and worry in us, and I'm just going to share with you something that was useful for me recently. Was really leaning into curiosity and stalling when I didn't know what to do. So not needing to say, No, you can't do that, or I won't allow you to do that. But instead saying, huh, that's a lot like I'm I'm curious about this, and I'm not really sure how I feel about it, noticing, for me, noticing when I was in fear, right? And instead of acting from that place, using it as an opportunity or even a red flag, like fears in the room. So let's just take a pause. Let's just find our feet and then really gathering your resources right, like not knowing what to do is okay, hear me, it's important not knowing what to do is okay. And you know, a lot of the decisions that we get to make as parents, you know there are those split second decisions. If your child is wandering out into the road, grab them, right? If you think that your child is in trouble, yes, make the decision. But a lot of our parenting decisions have space for us to be in the curiosity and be in the consideration of what is it that we want most, right? Where is my parenting community? Who are? Who's that short list? For me, it's a short list of people that I reach out to, and listening to your gut is super important, right? I think that sometimes our head gets in the way and we kind of override our gut instinct. I know that I do sometimes, but listening to our gut and again, all of this is trusting the process. And in a situation that I just had, there was an event that was coming up that my child was really honest about, and I was not comfortable with it, but I also wasn't comfortable being really a really rigid No. So I was kind of in this like, Hmm, I'm gonna need more information. I'm gonna gather my resources place. And because I stayed there, my child, came to me the next day and said, You know what? I'm actually I'm not going to I don't want to do that. I don't want to put myself in that position, in that space. And it was like, oh, right, this is what happens. This is what happens when we have these open, honest relationships where we don't make it about us and our rules and my way or the highway, but we really stay in the curiosity and the trust. What happens then is our kids become critical thinkers, and they instead of thinking like my parents are so lame, they don't get it. They have space to say, is this something that I want to do? Is this something that is this something that I want to do? And, yeah, it was really powerful. So anyway, deep, deep thoughts from Casey this week. So yeah, trusting the process, peeps, getting the practice of it. You all with littles, you know it's it's not being permissive. It's not hands off. It's guidance, it's love, it's kindness and firmness. It's having boundaries while also recognizing, again, when we are leading a dance that isn't useful, we can step back. We can. Remember that relationship matters. We can look for life skills and trust again, that when we focus on that, things will look good in the end, right? Things will look good in the end. Everybody's going to be okay, and it's messy. So that's what I've got for you today. Yay. I'm also just gonna share with you that this week has been abundant for me being interviewed about my book. Oh my gosh, I'm so exciting. You're gonna hear me on tilt parenting podcast with Debbie Reber. You're gonna hear me on the authentic parenting podcast with Anna sewald. By the way, Anna sewald is running a conference, the authentic parenting conference in New Brunswick, New Jersey, may 18. So all of you east coasters, I want you to really think about heading to New Jersey. I'm going to be there. I'm not speaking or anything, but I'm going to be at the conference. I'm going to have some books. I may even plan some kind of book launch party that weekend in New Brunswick. Laura Markham is a keynote speaker, and Anna is so kind and generous that she has offered for the joyful courage community a discount code for $25 off the cost of the conference. So the code is joyful 25 and the link. Of course, I didn't plan well enough to be able to tell you the link right now, the link will be in the show notes. The link to the conference. Will be in the show notes. And again, you can use the discount code, joyful 25 and get $25 off. I would love, love, love to see you there. Plus I'm going to be on our podcast. That's going to be great. And then this morning, my good friend Kelly covert, who is the host of in her voice podcast, had me on and interviewed me this morning. So, yeah, I'm getting around people. I'm getting around in a good way, finally, not like the college days where I got around okay, sorry, DMI, but I'm just super excited to get the word out about the book, and first time ever, I'm just letting it be known right now to all of you that are listening, you're first to hear it if you order presale, the book, which goes on presale, April 10, presale orders will when you get the book, you will also get a companion guide, A PDF download, companion guide that will serve kind of like a workbook. I ask a lot of questions in the book. I invite you to reflect and to do things. The companion guide will kind of be like a workbook that goes along with the book, and it'll be free and available to everyone who is a part of the pre sale. And you know what? I'm looking for a book army. I'm looking for people that will be ambassadors who are going to spread the word. So if you're interested in that, Will you shoot me a message over Facebook or Instagram or via email, Casey at joyful courage.com and let you let me know. Yes, I want to be a part of your book army. And you can be involved in supporting with the book launch and getting the word out, and I would be so grateful. So if you're interested in that, that would be fantastic. Yay. The joyful courage community is the best community. Every day we're getting new and new people in the live in love with joyful courage, Facebook group loving that if you're not in there, ask to join. If you have a teenager and you're looking for an online group where you can be real and raw and authentic about your experience with your teenager and look for support under the umbrella of positive discipline, you can head over to joyful courage. Parents of teens on Facebook, trying to be more candid and showing up on Instagram. So if you're not following me on Instagram, will you get on over there, please? I'm joyful courage on Instagram. So anyway, big love to each and every one of you. I'm looking for more iTunes reviews to read as well. So if you haven't left an iTunes review, it's really helpful to head over to iTunes and leave rate and review the show. What happens when you do that is the show becomes more it's more promotable. I guess it shows up for more people, the more positive reviews I get. So if you haven't already, I would love it, love it, love it. And who knows, maybe your review will be read on my next solo show. That'd be pretty cool. All right, people, I love you. I appreciate you. I'm so grateful for you. I hope you have a beautiful week. Bye. Chris, joyful courage community, thank you so 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 to 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 biweekly 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.