Eps 220: SOLO SHOW digging into strategies for creating space for emotional safety

Transcription

Casey O'Roarty 0:00
Go, Hello and welcome. Welcome to the joyful courage podcast, a place where we tease apart what it means to be a conscious parent and aren't afraid of getting super messy with it. I'm your host, Casey awardee, positive discipline trainer, parent coach, and in the trenches of the parenting journey with my own two teenagers, each week, I come at you with a solo show or an interview. You can be sure that the guests on the podcast have something important to say, and I am honored to have you listen in as I pick their brains about what it is that they are passionate about. If you are a parent looking to grow while walking the path of parenting. If you're open to learning new things, if your relationship with yourself and your kids is something you are interested in diving deeper into, then this is the place for you. After you listen, I would love to hear from you. Head over to iTunes and leave a five star review, letting others know what you love about the show, or feel free to shoot me an email at Casey, at joyful courage.com, I love hearing from listeners, and am always quick to respond if you want to be sure not to miss any of the happenings going on with joyful courage. Join my list. You'll stay updated on the podcast and events that are happening for parents, both online and live, you can join the list at WWW dot joyful courage.com/join. Yay. So glad you're here. Enjoy the show. This podcast is supported by better help online counseling. Listen This parenting journey is full of unexpected twists and turns, and there is no shame in recognizing that you could use some extra support. Therapy is a powerful tool for digging into those places that you thought you dealt with right you thought you put them away, but then here they are coming to the surface as you walk the parenting path, those things that trigger you the most, right? Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. For me, I get really spun out when plans change or the response from my family isn't what I expect it to be. I get rigid. My feelings get hurt, and then I'm responding to them from that place, that rigid, hurt place, it's ugly. Turns out, this has more to do with experiences I had growing up than the actual humans in front of me. Therapy's helping me to rewire my brain so that I can find more flexibility and not take things so dang personally, not to mention those micromanaging tendencies that I seem to have. Yeah, those aren't useful either. And something that I'm focused on in therapy, your triggers are different than my triggers, and when you're ready to admit that there's possibly things getting in the way of you showing up the way you want to with your family, therapy can really help better. Help is really cool because it is affordable and available anytime, anywhere. They offer confidential counseling with licensed practitioners specializing in stress, depression, anxiety, relationship, anger, grief and so much more. And there are a variety of ways you can interact with your therapist, texts, phone calls, video conferencing, whatever works for you. They really meet you where you're at. An added bonus is that joyful courage podcast listeners get 10% off their first month when they use the promo code joyful courage. So go to www.betterhelp.com www.betterhelp.com/joyful, courage. That's www.betterhelp.com/joyful, courage to get started today. Better help you deserve to be happy and to find some joy on the parenting journey. Hi, listeners, Hi friends. Oh my gosh, this is round two. This is round two right now, because I recorded this show last week, I did. I recorded this show last week, and it was so good, and I was so excited, I light a little candle honoring the fact that I, I uh, recorded the show last week, and what happened to it, what happened to that file? I do not know. I do not know. All I know is that my guy, Chris Mann, my Podcast Producer, sent me a text this morning and said, Okay, where's the show? And then I searched my computer and I couldn't find it. It was tragic, so I'm re recording it this morning. It's Monday morning, and part of the reason that I lost that file is because I spent much of last week in the weekend. Not scrambling, but really working hard to get the Adolescent Mental Health Mini summit package together and ready for people to purchase. So, yeah, so where did my podcast file go? I don't know that's okay. I'm a re recording. I'm rerecorded. So yeah, I'm coming off of the Mental Health Mini Summit. Oh my gosh. For those of you that listened, thank you. For those of you that participated in discussions on the Facebook page, oh my gosh, thank you. I mean, I don't even know where to start, the content, the interviews, the guests, the knowledge and the wisdom of the guests was off the charts. So powerful. I'm so grateful that all of those people were a yes to these conversations, to coming on and talking to me and letting me use my platform to share the information. Because, I mean, it's, I said it a million times, right? Yes, it's for the parents of kids that are struggling, but really it's for all of us to understand better. My mom actually listened to all the summit interviews, which is really special. And you know, a couple of those topics are things that we're handling and navigating here at our house. And so knowing that she listened and got deeper, more extensive knowledge and information, you know, she's going to be that, that much better of a supporter of me and my family. So, so so exciting, and then the conversations, right, the conversations and the space and the vulnerability and the sharing of the people who were listening in, in the joyful courage, parents of teens Facebook group, I'm just so honored and grateful and humbled really, by people's willingness to be open. I think that part of the reason that the mental health conversation and the mental health experience with our kids feels so scary and so isolating is because we think we're the only ones that are navigating it right, or even without the mental health stuff, just with like the typical teen challenges. You know, it feels really isolating. You feel alone. You feel like it looks like everybody else's kid has it together. Because, guess what, we're only sharing the wins, right? We don't go on there and share about how our teen got drunk last night and, you know, threw up when they walked in the house. That didn't happen in my house last night. But, I mean, you know that does happen places. I know I was that teen. My parents weren't, like, waving the flag of like, oh yeah, our kid, you know. And we just we get to find spaces where we can share. We get to join spaces where we can feel seen and heard and understood and loved and supported. And I'm just really honored that I have created a space that feels like that for people. Yay. And as we come off this mini summit, I am reminded, and I was reminded over and over again about how important it is, not only like I just said, was creating an environment for parents to feel like they can share, but creating an environment in our homes that supports our teens in being who they are, right a space that feels emotionally safe. So that's the topic today on the podcast, is really strategies and ideas around creating a home environment that nurtures safety. Because we're holding the container right. We are setting the tone we are, you know, padding the surface and creating the space that our kids live in. Now, granted, they influence the space, right? We they influence the space with how they show up. But ultimately, we are the container we are holding it, and before we can do that really well and intentionally, we need to decide, what is it that we want to create inside of that container, right? What do we want to do?

What are the qualities that we want to bring to the space that we're holding for our kids? And I talk a lot with clients about this, you know, if they're getting ready to have a tough conversation with their child, or if there's a. Event or a transition that's coming up, I will ask the client, the parent, you know, what do you want to create? Before we talk about, how do I say? What do I say? What do I do? My first question. Question is, what do you want to create? What do you want to bring. And when I say this, I mean, like the quality, right? What quality, what vibe, what energy do you want to bring that, you know, to the container that you're having this conversation in? What is the most important for you, for your child to receive? Does that make sense? And recently, in some of the conversations that I've had, you know what parents will talk about is what I want them to feel connected. I want there to be connection. I want there to be non judgment. I want them to know that I'm available. I want them to feel the love that I have for them, right? Those are just some of the things that that parents and clients of mine will talk about. What do you want to create in the container. So ultimately, you know, we all want our kids. We want them to talk to us that we want them to be able to come to us and to share when they're hurting, to share when they're struggling, to share when they're navigating something that feels really challenging. Now, here's the deal with teens, you know, temperamentally, we might have a kid who's an open book, right, who wants to share, who actually, you know, feels that sense of relief when they fold us into the loop. And some of our kids temperamentally, that is not their go to they don't want to share. And as they get older, I think there's this idea that they should be able to figure things out for themselves, or they feel like we can't handle their what's happening for them, or they feel like I don't, you know, they they don't trust our us to listen, non judgmentally. They Don't Want our advice or opinion. It doesn't feel safe to just speak, to be listened and heard. So there's a lot of reasons why our kids don't, don't come to us, and sometimes it's just that that's who they are, you know, they're not big external processors. And if you're someone like me, who is very, very, very much an external processor, and then you've got a child or a partner who is not an external part processor, it can be really challenging, right? It can be really challenging. And then if you're also on top of that, kind of like a fixer or a micromanager, you know, then it becomes really the space just isn't safe for them. And so we get to recognize that, first of all, we get to do that soul searching and recognizing that we are holding the container, how we show up matters and and some of our well intentioned practices are actually not creating safety, right? Not creating safety. So yeah, and not, you know? And plus that whole layer of when we're talking about teenagers, this is a period of their life where they're pulling away. This is a period of life where they're individuating and trying things on and trying to figure out who they are, separate from us. And so there's a conflict, right? There's a conflict. If they're really trying to figure out who they are, separate from us, and they're going through something, and we want them, we want to be supports for them, there can be a conflict there, right? It just simply in that they're in this period of life where they want to fly, they want to be on their own. So yeah, it's wild, and it's amazing. And of course, like the other thing too, is we want them to be able to move out into the world and feel confident and ready to solve problems. And the only way our kids become problem solvers is if we let them solve problems right and don't get in the way. And all of this comes back to creating that home environment that nurtures safety right, creating that home environment that nurtures safety so that when. Things get to be too much for our kids. They feel like they can come to us if they need to right, or if things go super sideways and we need to hold some firmness and some boundaries that that also feels safe. So the first thing, the first strategy that I would talk about for creating a home environment that nurtures safety, is routines, consistency, a dependable structure, right? Last week's last week, there was a comment about structure when I was recapping the podcast that I did with Sarah Dean last week, amazing podcast, one, you know, every Friday, every other Friday, I'm in the Patreon community and and we're recapping the podcast. And one of the Patreon subscribers said, Yeah, you know, sometimes with positive discipline, it feels like there's, you know, we always want to be supporting our kids and solving their own problems, so it can feel like there is no structure, and what she's finding with her teenager is that was not working for them, and creating more CO creating structure with her daughter has really supported her, and I want to emphasize that, like when we're talking about positive discipline, because a lot of people, that's hard to hold, right? We hear positive discipline, we hear kind and firm and it's really challenging to be both of those things at the same time. That kind and firm parent. It's not permissive, it's not you do you, and I'll be over here when you're ready. There is it's important that we have structure right, and then there's freedom within that structure, so creating routines and consistency and dependability inside of structure. So it sounds like things like you know that they know that they're expected to help out around the house, and what does that look like we have, my family. We've circled back around to family meetings. Finally, it's been a long time. We've been going through a lot of stuff. Last night, we had a family meeting, and it felt really good to be around the table, connecting the way that we did around we are, you know, the problem solving that we did last night is I invited the family, everyone else in the family, to pick a night where they were in charge of dinner, and that was really useful to me. We also talked about family fun and something that we're going to do together as a family. So knowing that that's coming every week is supportive. It creates an environment that nurtures safety. It creates the vibe that who we are together as a family, connected is important, right? People feel safe inside of structure. So that's one piece of the environment that nurtures safety. Another thing that nurtures safety is when our kids do come to us and share something that's going on, or we notice that's, you know, because they're kind of billboards, we notice that something's going on. The importance of asking permission before we launch into our opinion or advice. Asking permission, you know, can

I share, can I give you some feedback? Can I offer some support, and really, or even, like, can I ask some more questions? Can I ask a question and really, coming from that place of curiosity, because we listen to our kids and then, you know, just as they're filtering the world through their lens, we are filtering what we're seeing and hearing from our teens through our own lens, and we have a lot of life experience, right? And that life experience is kind of a double edged sword, because on one hand, right, it gives us perspective, which is great. On the other hand, we kind of cling to our experiences as you know the truth. So our kids are, you know, having a hard time or going through something that maybe we went through, and it turned out a certain way. And so we kind of get stuck in this place of, well, I know how this is going to turn out. I quote, know how this is going to turn out, so you should listen to me, right? And that is a great way to get the door slammed in your face, isn't it, because we don't know how it's going to turn out, and regardless of how anything turns out, the goal is always, oh, my dog's in the office. My the goal is always for our kids to learn through their experiences, right? We want them to continuously bank experiences, so that when they're confronted by a situation, they have this, this history, right, that they can say, oh, right, when that thing happened, and I chose to do that, the outcome was that. And do I want that? So, yeah, yeah. Noticing. And you're making assumptions like, leave the assumptions at the door absolutely and be explicit about it. You know, if you're someone, well, I'll get to that in a minute. Another strategy for creating a home, home environment that nurtures safety is being available. You know, being around, being non judgmental, putting the phone down, putting the laundry away, stopping what you're doing right, and turning your body towards your kids and being available when they come to you. And I know, I think a lot of us, especially as our kids become teenagers, we recognize the time is running out, and so it's really important to to be there, and sometimes that means we're listening to music that we don't love, or we're watching a show that we don't love, or maybe even a YouTube video that seems kind of stupid, except that it's not stupid to our kids, right? It's what they're into so so being there, being available, being curious, being non judgmental and full transparency, non judgmental can be a challenge for me, is a learning edge for me, because I one of those people that definitely feels like I know everything about everything, and I like to give my opinion makes me good at what I do, right, but not useful in the relationship with my teenagers, right? Validate their experience. That's another strategy, validating their experience. When they do come to you, or not even coming to you, like, it's this big, like, Mom, Dad, I I have something I want to talk about, right? Sometimes it's really casual. Sometimes they're in the car and they're venting right about a person or an experience or a situation or a teacher or whatever they're venting, and rather than saying something like, Well, have you ever heard thought about their point of view or like, going into fix it, going into learning moment, just validating, like, yeah, that sounds frustrating, or That sounds hard, or that must have been embarrassing, and then zip it right, let them fill in the space. You don't need to let them fill in the space and just listen from a place of curiosity, right, validating their experience even when it is, you know, they come home drunk and throw up all over the place, even that experience can be validated. It can sound like, wow, I bet you really hung over right now, but you got a bad headache, right? Or that that was kind of tongue in cheek. Or it could sound like, you know, I'm, I'm wondering what's going on with you, right? Or I'm wondering about, you know, if they say, well, it's really hard everybody drinks. Yeah, it must be. It must be really hard to stand in your values when everyone around you is making risky behaviors, or even like, it must be really hard to be curious about something, and to know, on one hand that you know it's not something that we value as a family, but on the other hand, you're seeing all your peers do it, and you're kind of curious about it. Tell me about that, right? We're opening the door to an environment that nurtures safety and connection and love curiosity, right? Another strategy is owning your stuff, and I was going to say this earlier, right around assumptions. If you are listening to this and you're thinking yourself, oh yeah, ooh, yeah, gosh darn it, I give unsolicited advice. I make a lot of assumptions. I'm a Yeah, butter. If you're noticing that, like all the things that you do that are counter to this are coming up for you, that's okay. I have some ideas. And you know that first one is, okay, great, you're recognizing it. That's huge. Actually, that's the most important one. It means you're awake, you're aware, you know, you're willing to see that you are an active participant in the relationship that you're having with your teenager, yay. And the strategy for, you know, shifting up that home environment that feels safe instead of judgy is we get to own our stuff, right? We get to go to our kids and say to them, you know,

sometimes you share with me and I am really opinionated about what I think, or sometimes you share with me and I Well, that's pretty much it, right? I'm really opinionated about what I think, or I don't listen, right? Or I'm I'm sometimes thinking about how to fix it, and I just want to acknowledge that that's not helpful, and sometimes it might even feel hurtful. And I want you to know that I'm going to that I'm working on on doing it differently, right? So owning our stuff, being transparent, it is so important, and not because it's like and that's how you get them to share, but because human to human, right, we're in a relationship with other humans. I think that we forget that sometimes, and we get really manipulative, and we're looking for what works, and we forget that, you know, really, what this is all about is being in a human human experience, a human relationship with our kids, our teens, our partners, you know, the other people in our life, and our transparency and our vulnerability, right when we own our stuff, That's what it requires, is transparency and owner and vulnerability that really matters. It really matters something else to think about too, that I think is easy to forget or to not think about, is trusting that our kids are thinking about what is best for them, right? That they want belonging and significance and to be able to take care of themselves. They want to feel good right now, sometimes our kids get into mischief, right? They get mistaken ideas around how to feel connection and how to feel good, and that can lead them down paths that aren't so great, they might lean more into coping strategies versus coping mechanisms. Did you listen to that great conversation I had with Alyssa a few weeks back about this, about emotional processing? You know, sometimes what you're seeing on the surface doesn't feel, you know, makes you feel like there are kids just aren't thinking about what's best for them, and what if they are, you know, what if they are? What if they're doing the best they can with the tools they have in the moment? Right? Yes, hindsight is 2020, and yes, we learn powerful lessons from our mistakes, right? We learn powerful lessons from our mistakes. And when we come from this place of wanting to fix it or keeping them from making mistakes, you know it's just you're really interrupting their journey and also hurting the relationship that you have with them, right and hurting this this environment, this container that you're holding. Now, of course, when our kids are really engaging in risky behaviors, or we layer on mental health like there are caveats to all of these strategies. Please know that, of course, and you're the expert on your child, not me, so you know you do you, while also thinking about these strategies, thinking about the container you're holding, and thinking about your kid and what your kid needs, power of perspective is big. And by power of perspective, I mean your perspective, right? Being able to nurture that outside observer. A few weeks ago, I did a show on the three B's. We went back to that idea of breath, body balcony as a practice, right? We have to practice and practice and practice to develop that outside observer so we can stop ourselves when our child, our teen, shares something and we want to give a big opinion about it, right? We want to be able to offer feedback that is useful, or we want to be able to recognize that in that moment, feedback isn't useful. The only way that we can see from that perspective is if we practice growing that outside observer, practice taking that balcony seat. Because remember, if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, remember the iceberg, right? The iceberg metaphor, meaning what we see at the surface is the behavior, right, the annoying behavior, the thing we want to change. But there's this huge, massive part going on under the surface, under the surface, right? And it's full of things like, you know, belong, perception of belonging and significance. It's full of things like, you know, insecurities, self esteem. It's full of any mental health challenges that are there, you know, what are the relationships that your team? Has with their peers and romantic relationships and body image, and there's so much happening under the surface that is feeding whatever that behavior is. So unless we're willing to really get outside of ourselves and become better observers of ourself, we miss we forget that there's a bigger picture going on. And by the way, therapy is useful. One of the things that has been really, really useful for me that I'm digging into through my therapy is, and this is also a place. This is also helping me to create a home environment that nurture safety. Is doing this. I've identified some key times in my life where I felt really lost and isolated and pulled away from my parents. I think I was one particular time as I was 12, and there were some messy, messy custody situation happening, and it was really hard time for me. Again, when I was 15, I actually moved out of my mom's house and in with my dad. When I was 15, that was a really challenging time for me. And then again, when I was 19, I was in college and kind of having a big identity crisis, or not a crisis, but, well, it was kind of crisis ish, if you really look at the behavior I was engaging in, but I was really changing, shifting from, you know, one kind of image, way of being into another, and I felt really disconnected to my parents, and at the time, you know, I was like, I don't care. And it wasn't like, Oh, I feel so disconnected. It was just, it was what was. But really I was, I was hurting. And so my therapist, we've identified these periods of time, and he said, If you know, if you could go back to that girl and tell her what she needed to hear. What would you say to her? And some of what has come up, what some of what came up when I did that practice is, what did I need to hear as that girl? And this is like the 12 year old, the 15 year old, the 19 year old, they all needed to hear the same thing, which was this must feel really hard right now, and confusing just acknowledgement of that. She needed to hear someone say, you're okay, just as you are, you're enough, you're worthy of love, you're okay. You can be you, and I'm here for you. I'm here for you. So that's that's really what I needed. And now, as the mother of a 14 and a 17 year old. I really want to bring that to the container and the space and the relationship that I'm holding with my kids, right? I mean, I'm sure they're going to need therapy and they can work out the things that took me too long to work out that I passed on to them. But this piece feels really big, right? It feels really big. So, yeah, I hope that's useful. I hope that's useful for all of you out there and parenting teenager land. It's not easy, is it? It's not easy and, and, and you're not alone. That's the biggest piece that I want you to take away is you're not alone, and we're all on a collective journey here. So big, big love. Big, big love to you. Grateful to be able to show up for you each week and I'll see you next week for an interview show. Have a beautiful day. Thank you so much for listening. It is my great honor to create this show for all of you. Big thanks to my producer, Chris Mann at pod shaper, for his work in making the podcast sound oh so good. If you're interested in continuing these powerful conversations that start on the podcast, become a patron by heading to www.patreon.com/joyful courage. That's www dot, P, A, T, R, E, O n.com/joyful,

courage. For $5 a month, you will have access to a private Facebook group where I do weekly Facebook lives on Mondays and interview recaps on Fridays. Plus it's a great way to give back to the show that gives you so much. Be sure to subscribe to the show. Head to Apple podcast, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Google Play, wherever you are listening to podcasts, and simply search for. The joyful courage podcast, and hit that subscribe button. Join our communities on Facebook, the live and love with joyful courage group and the joyful courage of parents of teens groups are both safe, supportive communities of like minded parents walking the path with you. If you're looking for even bigger, deeper support, please consider checking out my coaching offer. Www dot joyful courage.com/coaching. Is where to go to book a free explore. Call with me and we can see if we're a good fit. I'll be back next week. Can't wait until then. Big Love to you, remember to find your breath, ride it into your body, take the balcony seat and trust that everything is going to be okay.