Eps 233: Solo with Casey exploring awareness and learning to let go of the beat up

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Ahhh, hello.

It’s been a couple weeks and I am so glad to be here with you, just the two of us. Life keeps lifing….  If you are in the US, quarantine keeps quarantining….  I have personally been in the practice of riding the waves of all the things over here…

Before I get into content over here… I want to shout out to my daughter Rowan! She is learning about coding and social media management and will be doing more of my Instagram posts in the future – be sure to head over there and show her a little love.

I also want to highlight my VERY FIRST REVIEW on itunes!!! A little over FIVE YEARS AGO I started this show (can you believe it’s been that long??) And my very first review came from a fellow podcaster – Lauren Fire. She wrote:

Lauren Fire, 05/29/2015Passionate and inspiring podcast!

I love your passion for this topic, thanks for creating such great content and helping out parents! Welcome to the podcasting world! -Lauren Fire, Inspiring Mama Podcast

I am sharing this because I remember reading this review and it meant the world to me. Singe Lauren chimed in, over 100 of you have let me know what you think about the show through rating and reviewing on iTunes. I am really hoping that more of you write in. Reviews support the show in triggering iTunes to make it visible to ever more people looking for parenting support and inspiration. If you aren’t sure HOW to leave a review, head over to www.joyfulcourage.com/itunesreview and see a tutorial there to help you out.

Also, we have moved to Wednesday for release day!! Woohoo! Those of you on my email list were informed last week about this change. With all going on with my husbands health, this was a move I needed to make, thank you for understanding.

The last time I was solo with you all, I spoke into respect, and lid flipping, and striving for  doing what is effective, rather than thinking there is a right and wrong way….

Today I want to talk about beat up.

There tend to be two extreme ends of the spectrum…. THre are those of us who have a crazy ideal that we are trying to live up to – typically one where we don’t make any mistakes and show up perfect in all the roles we play. None of us can ever really get there, but we are striving for it. The self talk may sound like:

“I have to be more present with the kids.”

“I need to make more homecooked meals.”

“I’ve got to catch up on housecleaning/laundry/yardwork….”

“I’ve GOT to loose some weight…”

We are AWARE that there are steps we can take to move in the direction of the life we want to create, AND, when we aren’t taking the steps, or aren’t creating this perfect life, we collapse into defeat. Awareness is high, beat up is high. It’s a tough place to find ourselves.

Or there is the opposite extreme. There are those of us that are shooting from the hip all the time and if everyone else can’t get with the program, that is there problem. We don’t see why anyone needs to be in a parenting class, or read a book, or doing any of the self help stuff, because we see the world clearly through our lens and know what to do in any given situation.

We are the people who don’t take any ownership of our kids behavior. The question when our kids get into mischief is often “what do I have to do to you to get you to behave?”

Personal awareness is low. Beat up is low, unless you count the beat up we do to others who make life hard for us.

Now, I don’t imagine that there are a lot of people in the second group listening to my podcast, because you all know how invested I am in personal growth and how passionately I believe in the ways parents influence the behavior they see from their kids. But I think it is valuable to consider those two extremes.

I think MOST of us fall in the middle.

We might have an ideal when it comes to parenting and how we shoe up in the world, but it is more of a compass for the direction we want to be headed, not necessarily a destination that we can ever arrive at.

We get that life is uncertain and unpredictable, and how we respond to what shows up matters and influences the unfolding.

We see our kids as their own separate entities, yes, and when things start going sideways we take a step back to consider what we may be doing to contribute to how they are behaving. We try to remember that our children are on their own journey, that they belong to themselves, first and foremost, and we get to caretake for the first part.

We do the best we can, AND, we get that the house isn’t going to always be clean (and oh man it is so nice when it is), meals aren’t always perfect (yeah for take-out and meal kits), AND it is impossible to be present for our family 24/7.

We do the best we can.

Awareness is high, most of the time, and beat up?  Beat up is something that lives inside of awareness, meaning, when we go there, WE WORK TOWARDS RECOGNIZING THAT IT ISN’T USEFUL OR TRUE. We let go of the beat up. We move on. We make it right. We try something new next time.

I am going to give you an example of this….  Last night I became aware of something my husband did that sent me right into judgement and a feeling of loss of control. My experience first was surprise, then disappointment, then fear. My tummy was tight, my jaw was clenched, my shoulders became rigid, and I did what I always do when I feel that way. I went on attack.

What I wanted from my husband, if I am honest, was for him to tell me I was right. I was looking for some groveling, the kind of apology that sounds like, “babe, I am so sorry…” And if I am totally honest, I just wanted that so that I would know that he felt BAD and I still would have been angry.

The family was getting ready to take an evening walk, something that has only JUST started happening and I love it – love being together exploring the neighborhood – but I was too busy wanting to make my husband feel bad so I said, “I’m not going.”

For real. I had my own little teenage tantrum.

I was aware of what was happening. I was even aware that if I took the walk I would probably shift how I felt and get over it, but gosh darn it, I didn’t want to get over it. I needed him to KNOW the seriousness of his “mistake” and feel the pain.

So lame, I know, but I just couldn’t let it go. My ego mind was in control, egging me on, encouraging me to hold out —- for what??? I don’t know, for someone to tell me I was right and he was wrong.

They got home and I was still in my room. I barely spoke to my husband, wouldn’t look at him, yelled at my son….  GAH. It was embarrassing, and yet I was totally swept up.

And when I look at it now, I wonder if holding on to the anger kept me from feeling the embarrassment of how I was acting? Maybe? By the time I woke up this morning I was totally over it. I thought about how I had behaved and I gave myself a huge eye roll.  I got up and made a warm drink and wrote in my journal on the patio. I wrote all about the experience of last night. And what I noticed was there was no beat up.

I was not beating myself up for letting my human-ness fly. Instead, I am aware that I could nave done better. I could have made a different choice. I could have let my anger go, joined my family on the walk, and released the grip my ego had on me. And I didn’t. And I now have the chance to make things right with my peeps. In fact, I already started.

My point is that we can have ideals to move towards, but the process of heading in their direction is messy. We are spiritual beings having a human experience and we will make lots of mistakes. Lets just settle into that reality. We will make lots of mistakes. Not because we are bad or worthless – but because we are HUMAN.

And what a gift to model this healthy messiness to our kids. They get to witness and learn from how we own and navigate our mistakes.

Lets keep our awareness high, friends, and the beat up low. Lets strive to be better, and embrace our imperfection. Let’s be ok with two steps forward, one step back – this is the dance of life. <3::::

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