Eps 382: Solo Show – Meeting and creating life as it unfolds

Today Joyful Courage is taking care of myself every day. It’s going to bed early to get up early and hitting the gym. It is digging deep and listening to my desire to feel strong, even when I want to sleep in. Joyful Courage is being satisfied with myself today while also working towards a goal to meet in the future.

Transcription

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
unfolding, learning, cards, responsibility, kids, recognise, generate, relationship, life, work, connection, listening, people, beliefs, control, choices, create, hard, experience, family
SPEAKERS
Casey O'Roarty

Casey O'Roarty 00:04
Hello, Welcome back. Welcome to the joyful courage podcast, a place for inspiration and transformation as we work to keep it together. While parenting our tweens and teens. This is real work people. And when we can focus on our own growth and nurturing the connection with our kids, we can move through the turbulence in a way that allows for relationships to remain intact. My name is Casey already, I am your fearless host. I'm a positive discipline trainer, space holder coach and the adolescent lead. It's browseable. Also mama to a 20 year old daughter and a 17 year old son, I am walking right beside you on the path of raising our kids with positive discipline and conscious parenting. This show is meant to be a resource to you and I work really hard to keep it really real, transparent and authentic so that you feel seen and supported. Today is a solo show, and I'm confident that what I share will be useful to you. Please don't forget sharing truly is caring. If you love today's show, please please pass the link around snap a screenshot posted on your socials or texted to your friends. Together, we can make an even bigger impact on families around the globe. If you're feeling extra special, you can rate and review us over in Apple podcasts. I'm so glad that you're here. Welcome. Welcome, welcome. Enjoy the show.

Casey O'Roarty 01:36
Listeners, it's Casey, how are you? I am so glad to be here with you today for this solo adventure that we're gonna go on. So lately, I've really been enjoying my morning, meditation and journaling routines so much that it is inspiring me to bring parts of what's coming up for me here to the podcast and to share what is alive and kind of being downloaded. For me while I'm meditating or journaling, or even pulling my cards, as many of you know, maybe I have this deck of cards that I love. They're called Soul navigation cards. And the reason that I love them is because there's no book to translate what the cards mean, there is one word on each card, I have a particular spread that I like to use. And then I get to make sense of the cards, I get to make sense of the cards, which is really fun because I get to decide what they mean. And that works for me, that works for me. And today I pulled some cards, I'm making my way through this art of manifesting and Law of Attraction course on Insight Timer. I'm not doing it daily, but I'm doing it pretty regularly. And I got to just kind of reflect on what is current in my life, right, like part of the idea of living in abundance, from my understanding is to recognise where abundance already exists. And so I was writing about that in my journal, and I thought, You know what, I want to pull some cards, I want to see what the cards have to say. And anything that you know is showing up that could be useful in this practice of recognising the abundance that already exists in my life. And so I pulled my cards. And typically I do three cards. They're kind of past present future ish, but not really like they just kind of, to me the first three cards, I pull, you know, generate a story, basically generate a message. And then the fourth card I pick is an ally card, which means something that's going to support me inside of this story, or this message that came up with the first three cards. And then the fifth card that I pick is a hidden ally card and I learned this spread from my friend, Eva bunker, the ally card part and I just really like it. And so this fifth card, this hidden ally card is something that comes up that is an ally that may not present as that so I don't overthink it. Okay, so I'm encouraging you not to overthink it either. I pull out these three cards so I'm shuffling my deck and I'm Just kind of thinking about life. And what it is that would be useful for me to hear right now. Like, that's really what I'm thinking about as I'm shuffling my deck. And thinking about the relationships in my life, thinking about all of you, the clients that I serve my work kind of this holistic thought, right, including all the things, my kids, where we're at what we're trying to do with our family. Yeah, shuffling the cards, and then I cut the deck. This is how I do it. Other people do it differently. But I cut the deck. And then I draw the top three cards. And today, the top three cards were the first one was responsibility. The second one was joy. And the third one was unfolding. And they loved these three cards, responsibility Joy unfolding. To me, this was a super on brand message, just like confirmation, right? I get to take responsibility to generate the joy, the connection, the love, the abundance that I want in my life. As life unfolds, right? We don't have any control over how life unfolds in a lot of ways, right? Because, you know, maybe someone in your family gets sick, or you've got a teenager making tough choices, or, you know, somebody gets mad at you for something that perhaps is valid or invalid. We don't have control over the unfolding. Right. But we absolutely can be empowered with what we take responsibility for. And not only like, taking responsibility in the context of like, what's mine, what's yours, I'm going to take responsibility for what's mine. But even taking responsibility over how we intersect, respond to experience make meaning of the unfolding. Does that make sense? So things are going to happen, shits gonna hit the fan, things are going to be hard, we're going to lose people, we're going to experience a lot of things in the unfolding of life. Plans change. Contracts are cancelled, flights are cancelled, like things happen, right? We get in car accidents, we get parking tickets, the unfolding is always occurring. How are we responding to the unfolding? And are we being responsible of what we want what I want in my life, kindness, and joy, and freedom and commitment. These are things that I want in my life, and creating those things in my life starts with me, and how I am generating those things inside of the relationship I have with myself and with my family, with my friends, and like strangers on the street, bank tellers, grocery store clerks, right, like that responsibility piece to me, is an invitation to generate what I want, inside of me. And with how I show up to the relationships in my life, I get to take a look at how I am bringing what I want into the world. Or am I waiting for these things to just happen? Am I waiting for the unfolding of life? To feel like joy, kindness, freedom, commitment, right in the context of parenting teenagers? Am I waiting for my teenager to make good decisions? For us to have connection? Am I waiting for my teenager to come to me and say, Hey, Mom, I feel disconnected. Can we have some one on one time? Well, I mean, you can wait for that if you want to. It's always up to you. Or you can decide I want more love and connection with this person. How can I generate that myself? How can I bring that to life? How can I create openings and opportunities for what I want to be in my life? Right.

Casey O'Roarty 09:57
I get to bring an emotion really honest, lends to my part of the interpersonal relationships that I am engaged in. Right. And you've heard me talk about this before. But for me, like sticking with this responsibility piece, I get to be vulnerable and humble and honest with myself by looking inward and recognising where what I want to create for someone else, right? Because we want to do things for people for sure. Is that something that we're already creating inside of ourselves? Right. And, you know, it can be as like surfacey. As, you know, I think I talked about this somewhere. But I really want my kids to learn financial literacy. And when they are being, in my opinion, financially irresponsible, meaning not paying attention to where they're spending money, not using this really awesome app that I'm trying to teach them to use. When they're not doing that, my feathers get ruffled, I get really agitated, and I get kind of fearful and stressed out. And when I lift up and out of that, I can also recognise, I have not developed a seamless system. I'm pretty good at money management. And I'm always getting better. And I'm always learning. And I wish that I could be a little bit better. Same is true with, like the phone, right? And screentime. I noticed when my screentime is beyond what it needs to be, I get agitated with my kids about their screentime. Or like, How dare you not, you know, if I don't feel listened to or if I feel like my kids are back talking a lot or being disrespectful, you know, I get to take a look inward and really get curious about how have I been treating them? What have I been bringing to the relationship? How are they experiencing me as far as their lens, right. And this is that moment where we really get to recognise and acknowledge where we have control. Right, because we don't have control over other people, we might have some short term influence by you're grounded, or give me your phone or go to bed without dinner, right. But ultimately, thinking that we can control someone else and change their behaviour and change their mind and force them to value what we value. Like. It's just bullshit and it's not real, and we can't actually control another person, what we can control is ourselves again, how we are creating meaning from the relationships we're in, we can control how we're showing up to those relationships, we can control how we are holding space for the other person, whether or not were listening to them, how hard we are gripping, being right, or having all the answers, how deeply we believe that we know best, we can control all of that. And I'll tell you what, when we start to pay attention to those places, where we're hanging on to control like that, and we release the reins a little bit. And we open up to the possibility that the person in front of us also might have some ideas and thoughts that the person in front of us whether it's our partner, or our friend, or our teen actually wants to be living a good life. When we can let go of the idea that we know best, and really open up to learning more about their experience dropping our assumptions, dropping the idea that we already know, how they feel and what they think, and what they're going to say when we can let all that go and show up to learn and to understand and to be curious. Well, then it's not about control. But what we're doing is we're opening the door to connection, real connection, relationship and in relationship. That's where we have influence.

Casey O'Roarty 14:51
When the other person feels seen and heard and listened to when the other person feels valued and validated and understood, that's when they're more able to now hear what it is that I have to say. Right? We get to take responsibility for what we're generating, how we're intersecting how we're responding to the unfolding of life, we get to take responsibility for generating, animating, and bringing in that joy and connection and love and freedom and commitment, or whatever it is for you, that you want more of, in your life. And I, I love that. I recently had a client who has teens. And it's just coming into positive discipline, just coming into joyful courage and the work that we do here on the pod and in the communities that I lead. And she said a couple pretty profound things yesterday on our call, but one of the things she said is, you know, I'm learning this, and I'm practising it imperfectly, but I'm practising it and seeing what happens when I'm choosing to practice. And it just feels like it's not going fast enough. Right, it feels like it's not going fast enough. And it feels hard sometimes. And, you know, as I sit here and talk about taking responsibility, right, and kind of making our way through the muck of our limited beliefs and our conditioning and like our habitual thinking, because that's a part of this, it's really easy to be like, Oh, think about that differently, right. And then we're in the moment and thinking about it differently is not easily accessible, because we have these familiar paths that take us right back to particular thought patterns. And it's also negativity bias, right? It goes right back to see, it's him. See, it's her, see, if that just wouldn't have unfolded that way that I wouldn't have to be resentful, or angry or sad, or here we go, again, something else that's happening in my life, that's making life difficult for me. And I'm not negating the big life experiences that show up, that are really messed up, that are really hard to move through. I mean, I am in full awareness of that experience, right? Sometimes it does feel like the inner work that we're doing is slow, right, the results that we want to be seeing whether it's in relationship with our kids, or our own choices that we're making for our bodies, or our minds, or our emotional experiences. Yeah, it can feel slow. And we're really primed for instant gratification. Like, of course, if I'm eating really well for a week and going to the gym, five times, like I want to lose 10 pounds. Come on, I want to see a difference. Right? If I'm choosing curiosity, and trying to create special time and deeply listening to my teens for a whole week, why are they still pushing me away? I've been doing it for a week, right? And we have to remember that change happens over time. Change happens over time. And I want to encourage you to do whatever you need to do to feel empowered, inside of the experience you're having with the relationships in your life. And sometimes it's listening to a podcast and sitting down and writing down useful nuggets and putting them on post. It's and you know, sometimes that's enough, sometimes it's asking for help, right, reaching out to me reaching out to a friend reaching out to somebody else and saying, this makes sense to me, and I'm struggling. And I'm wondering if you can be some accountability for me. Sometimes it's going to therapy, you know, based on our upbringing, right, based on the experiences and the events in our life. We have created beliefs about ourselves and beliefs about the world, and valid or invalid, those are real for us. And sometimes it takes a professional supporter to help us dismantle those beliefs because sometimes those beliefs aren't actually serving us. They're getting in the way. Right? If you live with a lot of resentment, a lot of blame, a lot of anger, a lot of sadness, a lot of fear and worry. My guess is you probably have some beliefs, some learned beliefs that are getting in your way that could be dismantled, that could be dissected and explored and questioned And right therapy coaching, those are both really solid ways of getting help for that or finding a support group, live or online free or paid for, you get to decide. Again, this comes back to responsibility, you get to if you want your life to be different, you get to do things differently, you get to be curious about your own beliefs and thoughts and feelings. Right? No one else can do this for you that same client who was saying like, it's just, I feel like it's slow, I wanted to go faster. That same client turned to her husband, who came to our call a little bit late and said, Babe, there is no formula, there's no perfect statement, there's no perfect thing to do, that's going to change the dynamic we have. In our households, we've got to do the work. And for them, the work was really being willing to humbly lean in and create more one on one time with their teenage son, who was really pushing them away. Right? Because again, without relationship, as you all know, because you listen, without relationship, we're gonna have a really hard time with our teens and whoever in our life, we have a really hard time influencing behaviour, having hard conversations, expecting cooperation, and contribution without relationship. There's just this gap that feels like a brick wall that keeps us from that thread of connection that binds us together and offers this foundation around, you know, here's how we treat each other because we love each other. Here's how we support each other because we're connected, we're a part of a family. Right? I care about you, I care more about you than I do, about the fact that you walked in, you know, swearing and having a hard time. Right? Our kids aren't being problems, they're having problems. So easy when they're little to remember that little mantra, we get to take responsibility to generate connection, by paying attention to the unfolding. And instead of getting trapped in that old pattern of I gotta shut this down. Right? Or that hurt my feelings? Or how could you How dare you? We get to go deeper and say, Okay, I want to generate connection, love, kindness, freedom, commitment. What does that look like in this heart moment? Yeah. And, you know, sometimes things happen in life, like I said, I mean, it's valid to feel grief, or deep anger, disbelief, right? Things are happening every day, in this world, that leave us feeling dumbfounded, right, it's valid. And we get to decide how long we want to sit inside of those feelings. And if we want those feelings to become our truth, and become our lens, or if we want to get curious about those feelings about that resentment about that sadness, explore it. Right? explore it, make sense of it, process it, and shift into something different, something more empowered, or more encouraged, or just more open to possibility. Right? This is that opportunity for personal growth and development that I love to talk about. It's always available, personal growth and development. We never get to a place in life, where the personal growth and development journey is over. Right? I mean, unless we're dead, then it's over. And now we get to move on to the next realm. personal growth and development is always standing right outside the door. Right. And like I said, earlier, you can either sit inside of I know this, I'm right about this, which I mean, honestly, I do that a lot. I feel like for my family, it's like I know what you should do. You should listen to me because it's clear as day the steps you should be taking right now.

Casey O'Roarty 24:44
That's not really super useful to my family. Right? In fact, it's harmful. It harms my relationship, and when they don't do what I've said is the useful thing to do. I am left feeling resentful, which Again, is also not a place where I can generate quality, connection and kindness. So turning the lens inward seeing where we can shift our beliefs, thoughts, feelings, to create a different experience, and how life is unfolding. For us. This is a powerful practice. This is a powerful practice. And remember, I talked coming back to the cards, right? Responsibility, Joy unfolding, that first ally card for me, was learning. So I pulled the learning card, which that's why I'm talking about personal growth and development, like, always coming from a place of learning. And when I teach classes, whether it's a, you know, free workshop, or an ongoing class, I always want to invite people to notice when they move into the mindset of, Oh, I already know this, or this won't work for me, and to instead expand into what else is here? How can I make this work for me and my family and my circumstance?

Casey O'Roarty 26:21
Can you feel the difference between those two ways of being like, there's the close? Like, I already know, this. I'm tuning out this isn't for me, versus how might this be for me? How might this be showing up in my life? What is a different context that I can take this bit of information and put it inside of and learn from right learning as an ally learning as a tool to uncover new and different parts of ourselves? Right, that turning inward being willing to be in the mindset that I don't know everything about myself? There's always more to learn. So uncovering new and different parts of ourselves, as well as learning to understand others, better people that we're in relationship with being open to listening, being open, like I said earlier, to dropping assumption, and dropping the idea that we already know, well, I know what they're gonna say, I know, you might be right, they might respond, how you expect them to respond, because we are in well choreographed dances with each other. Okay, that's true. But perhaps there's something underneath that dance step. Right? And what if we can interrupt the dance? By taking responsibility for our dance steps and showing up differently? There's always more to learn and discover, especially when it comes to ourselves, right? And the layers that we peel back, we're always moving, you know, around the spiral of life, right? It's not linear. It's not like, okay, great. We figured that out. Moving on. Now, we might have a new person and new context and new unfolding. But it's the same lesson. I've talked about surrender before. For me, it's always a surrender lesson, let it go. Let it go. Let go of the idea that you know, and be curious, drop your assumptions. Like that's a big one. For me. That's a big one for me, what is here for me to learn? How can I listen better? How can I understand the experience of the other person in a new and different way, even if that other person like my husband, I mean, we've been together since 1995 people almost 30 years, I can make some guesses about how he feels and what he thinks, because we've been together for so long. But if I let those assumptions become truth, there are definitely things that I'm missing. And I'm not really understanding him as he continues to evolve. Right? So what is here for me to learn this requires humility, it requires the acceptance of the fact that we all have separate, equally valid realities. Right? We all your 15 year old, your partner, you, the person walking their dog outside, we all have separate, equally valid realities. And none of them are better or smarter or more in tuned than the others. They're just the realities that each person lives in. And we get to trust that other people want what's best for them. Right? It's kind of like assuming positive intent X Step four, the intention being what people want for themselves. And again, we got to drop those assumptions and truly get to know the other person. I mean, on a macro level, right? This is so being called for right now just in the United States, but in other places of the world, too. And how polarised everything is, right? We make assumptions about other people all day long. I do it. I'm sure you do it. And so how can we just become ever more aware of that, in an effort to not only understand the other person better, but also to generate more of what we want in our lives as it continues to unfold? So letting go of being right, and being more interested in building connection? I like that, what happens when we let go of being right and become more interested in building connection? I don't know the answer to that question. But I'm excited to explore it. And then finally, that fourth ally card, remember, I'm talking about my cards today, kind of going off on a soapbox. The second ally card, the hidden ally, doesn't always show up as like, Hey, I'm here to help. But it is here to help in this context that I'm using it in is the choices card. So I pulled choices, I pulled learning, I pulled choices. And I loved this. Because we are always at a choice point, we always are making decisions. We don't always realise we're making decisions. Because again, we get into these dance steps we get into this choreography, that is just who we are in the world and how we interact and where we park and who we talk to and the direction of the lap we take in the grocery store. There's so many habits that don't feel like choices. But when we drill down, we realise we're making choices all the time. And what happens when we start to train ourselves when we take responsibility for being more aware and conscious of our choice points. And choice. Also, you know, to me, is a conversation around willingness to so you know, a lot of people that learn listen to the pod and learn about positive discipline. You know, there's the reading of the blogs or reading of the book or listening to the show. And then there's the am I gonna put this into practice? Am I willing to not be attracted to the behaviour, the F bombs, the backtalk? The disrespect, that might be showing up? Am I willing to let that be and instead connect with? Wow, it sounds like you're having a really hard time. And I want you to know that I'm here for you. And I would be happy to listen, right? Am I willing to let go of that in the moment? Got response? Have I gotta shut this behaviour down this behaviour at the tip of the iceberg? I gotta get rid of that? Are we willing to let go of the idea that that's where our focus should be? And instead, go deeper into this kid? Is having a problem not being a problem? Or are we willing to choose to spend our time there? Are we willing? Right? Are we willing to choose into special one on one time with that kid who perhaps isn't showing up? Well in the family? By the way, those are the kids that need the one on one time the best? Are we willing to choose to be vulnerable and knock on the door? And perhaps hear some rejection? The first few times we ask about spending time together and hitting the coffee stand or taking a walk? Are we willing to see our kids in a new and different way? Are we willing to see our partners in a new and different way? Are we willing to consider that perhaps some of the dynamic that is currently alive in the relationships that we have. We are actively contributing to are we willing to take ownership? Are we willing to see those choice points and in the quest of doing better doing something different? Right, are we willing to let go of resentment and if Fear and open our hearts to the possibility of something new and different occurring, are we willing? Are we willing to make those choices? As long as we're tuned in and paying attention, we will begin to create a habit of intention around how we choose to be, how we choose to show up, how we choose to generate what we want in our lives. Right. And, yeah, willingness, man, willingness to take responsibility, responsibility, to create what we want, responsibility to generate animate, connection, joy, love, freedom, commitment, whatever you would bring to the unfolding of life, remembering that learning more about ourselves, always, and others will support us, and also being brave, and willing to choose something different. That's what I got for you today. Special thanks to my journal.

Casey O'Roarty 36:12
Special thanks to my journal, it always shows up for me, and my morning routine, and big, big encouragement to all of you if you don't have a morning routine, that allows you to sit and contemplate and feel inspired. I encourage you to figure that out, and to create one. And if you need support, reach out. And if journaling isn't your jam, something creative, write something where you can be in the consideration of what it is that you want in your life. All right. Thank you for hanging in there with me. I went to a lot of places today. And I hope that there were some nuggets of wisdom that felt useful to you right now. Thank you. Thank you for listening. Big, Big Love always. And if you're thinking to yourself, Wow, that was good. What can I do? Will you please go over to iTunes and leave a review, leave a five star review write it out. People are presented with this podcast this podcast gets recommended. More often, the more reviews that I can generate. So I would really appreciate it if

Casey O'Roarty 37:24
you'd go over to iTunes and leave a five star review. I love you. I love you. I know you're working hard for your family. I know you're taking good care of yourself. Make sure you're drinking lots of water, taking your vitamins getting plenty of rest. And

Casey O'Roarty 37:45
thank you so much for listening in today. Thank you so much to my spreadable partners, Julieta and Alana as well as Danielle and Chris Mann and the team at pod shaper for all the support with getting this show out there and helping it to sound so good. Check out our offers for parents with kids of all ages and sign up for our newsletter to stay better connected at B sprout double.com. Tune back in on Monday for a brand new interview and I will be back solo with you next Thursday. Have a great day.