Eps 466: Consciously practicing connection, curiosity, and presence with ourselves and others

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What does Joyful Courage mean to me today?

Oh man….. This question this week feels slippery to me… Joyful Courage is tuning in to the moment you’re in and being deeply honest with yourself about what is coming up. Joyful Courage is a place of clarity, or at least the willingness to keep working to create some clarity, about what we ultimately want to create in our lives, and then the actions we take to get there.

Transcription

Casey O'Roarty 00:05
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 01:31
All right. Hey. Hi. Welcome. Welcome to a solo podcast episode here. Joyful courage parents, teens. So glad that you are tuning in. Is it your first time? Have you listened to before? I hope it's your first time. Welcome. If it is, I am Casey. I'm the host here. I'm the space holder. You heard all about me in the intro. So I won't get into that. But, you know, my goal is always to grow, grow, grow the reach of this show, because from what I hear, it's really useful for parents of teens to listen in.

And as I've said, and I'm going to continue to say, I really need your help to spread the word about the pod. I am so grateful to those of you that, you know, took my request and went into action. So there's a couple of lovely reviews on Apple podcasts that I just want to share. One says Do you have a challenging teen and all your parenting tactics aren't working. Casey is here to save your day and teach you a different approach. I've been listening to Casey for two years now and I've joined her membership this year so supportive. My relationship with my team has completely changed. And we've developed a closeness that I never thought possible since I started the positive discipline technique. I totally recommend this podcast five stars. Thank you. Thank you so much for that another review came in that simply says thanks, Casey is a lifesaver if you have a teen also heard I love this one. This is from last week healing me and my daughter's relationship. Every time I listened to an episode of joyful courage podcast, I feel like I grow a deeper understanding of myself and my child. As a woman of colour the series still resonates with me and the intention I have with my parenting style. I'm so grateful. I came across this podcast, I will always look to it for guidance on my parenting journey. Oh my gosh, that makes me feel so good. And finally I heard KY C's podcasts have given me a framework to parent my teens, that really resonates with me, my relationship with my teen has improved immensely because of her encouragement and expertise. You guys, oh my gosh, the fact that I get to read those reviews, that they come from real people, listeners like you, it means everything to me to know that this is helpful. There's a lot of podcasts out there. There's a lot of people talking about parenting a lot, as you know, and the idea that all of you are tuning in here and finding value here. It's everything. So thank you to those of you that left reviews. And if you're sitting there like oh, right, I was gonna do that thing. For Casey, do that thing. And really, it's not for me, it's for the whole world, right? Because the more reviews that show up for the show and Apple podcast, the more likely it is that it gets shown to ever more parents that don't know about it, right? Like that's when we talk about when you hear people like me talking about growing my reach or growing my platform. It's really how can I get ever more people tuned in so that they can and also be practising these tools and being in their own personal growth and shifting their relationship with their kiddos. Because their shift and relationship with kiddos shifts how their kiddos show up in the world, in the classroom in, you know, at their jobs on the sports teams like it's this ripple effect. It's for all of us. It's not just for me, my family, you your family, it is truly for the world. Right? When we raise a generation of kids who grow up feeling a healthy sense of belonging and significance, meaning connection and personal responsibility. We are contributing to the health and well being of the planet, right and right now the planet. It needs that support. God damn, it is crazy out there. And it matters. It matters what we do. It matters how we show up for our kids. It matters how we show up for all kids, right? Just because you don't belong to a certain marginalised community or your child doesn't express, you know, in certain ways. All kids need our love and support all kids need us to be thoughtful in how we're raising our own kids and how we're showing up for the All right, yes. Great. Okay, today.

Today, I want to talk a little bit about Monday's show. I want to talk about I'm kind of off the cuff today. Okay, I'm just going to be honest, I've got a plane to catch in a few hours, I wanted to get this recording in. There's some things that have shown up with clients and in the Facebook group that I want to talk about. So yeah, if it gets a little rambley, you know why, but some of my best shows are the ones where I haven't scripted the whole thing out. So we're just going to hold that this is going to be one of those shows. All right, who's with me? So Monday art of connected parenting? Are you enjoying that? I mean, I know that it's not specifically designed for parents of teens, but we're really working on making sure that those conversations are expansive enough to include everyone. And I think, really, we're talking about personal growth and inter personal relationship. And it doesn't really matter how old your kids are, or which relationship you're even referring to. I think at one point, we're talking about being intentional on Monday, and you might have caught me saying something like, this reminds me of marriage counselling.

Casey O'Roarty 07:29
And you hear me say that a lot on this podcast. Because really, what we're centering is like how we relate to each other, whether it's our kids, or our partner, or our boss, or our friends, this is all about the tools and strategies and way of being to relate in a way that really allows us to be clear, to be seen, to be heard, and also to be received by the other person. Right and to be received by the other person. They also have to feel seen and heard, right and understood space for listening, all those things. So yeah, Monday was all about being intentional and really like what is our why, with what we say and what we do with our kids. And I think that is such a big opportunity to start to recognise the places where, you know, we're spending our time in shooting from the hip in reaction mode. Right? I've been talking a lot about this. I have a couple of families that are new to my membership, and are new to positive discipline. And you know, when you get to midlife, right, and I also have a couple clients like this I've mentioned before, when you get to midlife, you do things the way you do things, right, the whole you can teach an old dog new tricks is everything. I'm not calling us old dogs. But you know, the essence behind that statement is like we have had many, many years of being in response to life unfolding. Right? Many, many years, we had that whole first part of our life where things were conditioned by our parents and our experiences and our beliefs were formed, right? We had, you know, that period of time between childhood adolescence and becoming parents ourselves. Some of us that was a very short time, some of us it was a little longer, but we got to kind of be recognised like Oh, I am my own person. I am separate from this family of origin. Who am I and what perhaps, what do I want to unlearn? Where do I want to grow? Right maybe. I mean, I think about my own 20s I definitely wasn't in the practice of hmm, I'm going to take a look at my beliefs and my conditioning. What do I want to unlearn? For me that really showed up in my 30s when I had small children and I started to really be confronted by that reactive nature that lived inside of me that came from beliefs and conditioning that were leftover from my childhood. And that for me is when I deep dove into, okay, I want to do things differently. Right. And that was 20 years ago, 20 ish years ago. And I am still in the practice of unlearning, of relearning, of trying to do things differently. Now, over time, have there been places that maybe at the start were really wobbly? For me that have become easier? Yes, absolutely. Because I've made a committed, you know, decision to practice showing up differently over time again, and again, and again, not perfect by any means. But that commitment, right to be more intentional in my relationship with my kids specifically, has helped to feel less wobbly, right? In this mindset of belonging and significance, as I work to leave the old paradigm of punishment and reward behind, we know the things, right, we know the things, putting them into practice is tricky. And so that's what's coming up with some of my newer members. They're really recognising like, okay, I get it, I get it, I know what I'm supposed to do. I know how I can show up differently. And then the moments come up, and I'm back at the old way of being. And that makes perfect sense. I'm going to remind you of an analogy that I love to share. If you've been listening for any length of time, you've heard this. So I'm gonna say it again, because it's a good one. I'm proud of it. I live in the Pacific Northwest, it is very foresty bright, I live in the woods. And when you decide to go hiking, if it's a popular hiking trail, you know, it's pretty well maintained. I mean, all of the foot traffic over time, has created a path that's easy to follow, right? It's easy to follow, you don't have to think much about it, you just carry on there's the path, right? Here we go.

Casey O'Roarty 12:17
The cool thing about Pacific Northwest is because the forest is so dense, you can look around, and you can start to notice in dents, in the underbrush. And that's where the game trails are, those are the trails that the deer take that the Cougars take that the animals that live in the forest take they have not like I'm going to follow the humans path, they're like now I'm gonna pick a different path than the humans. And, you know, if you're paying attention, when you're hiking, you'll see these game trails. And if you decided, You know what, today, instead of following this path that's really well laid that's really maintained, I'm going to take the game trail, you're gonna struggle, right, you're gonna struggle, you're gonna trip, there's going to be unseen obstacles, you'll probably fall and have to get up, you might need a machete or a tool, it's going to be really uncomfortable, and awkward to walk the game trail. However, if you walk the game trail again, and again and again and again, and you learn that game trail and you practice it slowly after time that game trail wears down and becomes easier to walk. And the same is true when you decide to be different to work on showing up with curiosity instead of judgement, to work on noticing what your hooks and triggers are. And working towards pulling your shoulders back and letting them go. Right whatever the practice is for you. That's tricky, where you say, Ah, I missed that opportunity. That's the game trail, right? And even recognising, I just said this to a client, even recognising Gosh, darn it, I missed the opportunity is a win, because you're starting to see where those opportunities are. Right, you're starting to see where those opportunities are. And the important thing to something that I hear from clients too, is when you move towards a new way of being or a new tool or strategy or a conversation that maybe you've had before that hasn't gone well. But you know, like, Okay, I have to have this conversation with my kiddo. I'm going to try it a new way. I'm going to be vulnerable, I'm going to be authentic. I'm going to start off by saying this is a hard conversation. And sometimes we get into it, you know, in a way that feels hurtful and really I want to have this conversation from a very non judgmental place. Right? When we show up authentically and open and trying to do something different. It can feel awkward and wobbly. Right and that doesn't mean it's not for you Oh, it doesn't mean that it's not going to be useful. I mean, it's so important for us to be transparent with our teens and tweens, like, oh my gosh, I've never had a middle schooler before. Right? You're my first middle schooler, I didn't know what was going to come up. I kind of knew, but I wasn't sure. And now, here we are.

Casey O'Roarty 15:20
So we do have to have a conversation around limits on screens or limits, you know, on your level of freedom out in the world, or we get to have conversations around, you know, what our family values are around, you know, friendships or relationships or family time, right? Like, you get to be transparent. You get to be transparent. And sometimes that means that you're exposing that you feel a little wobbly, right? Like, I don't know, I'm not sure what the answer. I don't know how I feel about this. My kids have heard me say this, like, wow, I'm going to need some time with this. Because I don't know. I'm not really sure. Like, I've even said before, everything inside me wants to be a hard. No. So let me sit with it. Right, or let's keep talking about it helped me see this as something that you can navigate, right? The human experience is messy, you guys, as you know, right. And if you're in it, like the messiness is not Oh, I'm a mess. The process of being a human in the world, in relationship with other humans is messy. Okay, so can we just like, Yeah, can we just be with that, we just be with that I'm definitely in my own mess. And working through my own experiences, as we all are. And something that's really important, is to remember that your experience is real and valid for you. Right? This work of being human, let alone the work of being a human raising adolescent humans. It's hard work. And I see you in your experience, and I see all the different layers that can come up. Right? Are you also moving through divorce? Are you also dealing with addiction in your family? Are you also is their mental health showing up? Right? Have you gotten to a place in your relationship where communication is stunted? Is there a parent of yours that is ailing? Who was pulling you away from your little nuclear family? Are you struggling in your job and your work, like all of these things are happening simultaneously, to us, raising teenagers and trying to show up well for our teens, and navigating whatever they're getting into, right, and I just want to say that all of that is really real, and adds to the work and I see you, right, and I see you in that experience. For me lately. There's been you've heard me, perhaps talk about it here. But lately, I'm really working through how to let go of attachment, right attachment to the narrative attachment to what my people are going through attachment to how they're showing up for me. And I find it really hard to let go of attachment, while also acknowledging and honouring my needs, right, like being non attached. And you've heard me say, fiercely committed lovingly detached, like, it's almost an impossible mantra, right? Being fiercely committed to the people that I love. Absolutely, I want what's best for them. And it's their journey, right? I'm not the script writer for them, I don't get to decide what their life looks like, whether it's my teenager or my partner, or my brother, sister, mom, like, I don't get to decide that I can love them. I can make requests around my own needs. And then the work is letting go of the choices that they make. Right? And letting go isn't the same as not caring. I don't think anyway, I'm going back to therapy to sort all this out. So I just think it's really useful not to have the answers because I don't have the answers on this. But to at least be in the question and kind of roll around in it because I do believe there's something to this non attachment piece. And like giving our people space to sort through their own shit. I was listening to a teaching today I'm doing this little 30 Day Buddhist teaching course on Insight Timer, and the speaker was talking about one of the eightfold path, the Eightfold Path to move us towards letting go of suffering. I am not a Buddhist, nor am I a Buddhist teacher. So I might butcher this, but there's the eightfold path that moves us in the direction away from suffering. And the first piece of that is right view, it's called right view. And as I was listening today, what it reminded me of is just the practice of recognising of dropping into the present moment and noticing our feelings, our thoughts, you know, our physical experience, which I really connected with, because in positive discipline, when I'm teaching a class, if you've taken classes with me, you know, we'll do an experiential activity, and we process the experience by asking the parents and the participants, what were you thinking, in that experience? What were you feeling emotion? And what were you deciding to do? Right, and so I was recognising how that fit in with this Buddhist teaching this morning around right view. And one of the things that really struck me today is he was saying, you know, throughout the day, take a moment to pause and recognise, what are my feelings? Emotions? What are my thoughts right now? And how is my state of being, in this moment, going to influence the next moment, the rest of the day, this relationship, the next year, the next two years, the next five years? Like,

Casey O'Roarty 21:25
if we stay inside of how we are and who we be, in our less than conscious moments? How is that going to influence our life? How are we influencing our life when we live from a reactive state? And are we okay with that? Right. And so, to me, this teaching was really that invitation again, and again and again, to pause, to create something to interrupt the moment, just to check in and say, Okay, what's going on with me right now? How am I feeling? What's an emotion that's alive? What are the thoughts that are running through my head? And I also like to check in on my physical experience, like, how can I shift my posture? Where are my shoulders? Where are my feet? Where am I tense? Can I soften? And that, for me is a stepping stone towards, okay, who I am versus who I want to be like that movement towards? Who do I want to be? Is a moment by moment practice, right? And if I want to be less attached, which I do, because my people are doing fine. And even if they're not doing fine, again, it's their journey. And the less attached I can be to it, the better I can just show up as someone who loves them unconditionally. Right. And so when I can check in on what am I attached to right now, do I have an attachment going on right now? Is this emotion tied to an attachment? If I can kind of explore there, then I have a choice point, right? Am I going to carry on? Or am I going to shift into something different? And the more often, we check in with ourselves about that? The better. Right? So I love that. I love that. And that again, we talked about intentionality on Monday. That's really for me, a practice that is super helpful in wearing down the game trail, right in finding my feet and being ever more comfortable in a new way of being for myself, for my family, for the world. And, you know, we need to be curious about our experience, right? Something that came up in the Facebook group, joyful courage for parents of teens. If you're not in it yet, go check it out. There was an anonymous post by a parent who has a child who's a teen mom, and she was looking for support. The daughter was doing well. She was about to graduate from high school, right? The parents have offered tonnes of support around childcare for her baby. The daughter is graduating with great grades, but the moms a little concerned or the parents a little concerned about not really having much of a plan after graduation. And so she reached out to the Facebook group, and there was so much lovely support. And there was a little bit of not so lovely support, which is interesting, because that Facebook group, something I love about it is it tends to be insanely supportive, right?

Casey O'Roarty 24:45
There's a lot of big parenting groups that can get really ugly and judgy and that doesn't typically show up in my group. And there were a couple people with really strong opinions and you know, somebody mentioned something about out like, well, there's a place in between. And one of the commenters said, No, there is no in between here, this girl either needs to do X, Y, or Z done period. And it reminded me, because I then responded with like, actually, there's a lot of in between, there's a lot of both. And there are so many layers to any given dynamic to consider and to hold and to be curious about. And as parents, absolutely. Is it hard to know when to lean in and when to pull back? 100%? Right, are there times where we should lean in that we might be pulling back? Sure. Are there times where maybe we're, we err towards pulling back where we should be leaning in? Absolutely. Back to that whole conversation around. We're humans doing the best that we can with the tools we have. But we are also the experts on our family. Right? We have a parental instinct that we get to be curious about and consider, right? Absolutely. advice from others can be super helpful. It can also not be super helpful, especially because you're the only one that's really holding all the information. Right. And, you know, when I think about this, I think back to my own experience of having a kid out that went way off the rails and getting advice. It was really hard for you guys, because there was a lot of opinion around Rowan and her choice to drop out of high school. And there was also a lot of like, you can't let her do that. I love it. When people say why are you letting them? It's like, Do you have a teenager? Like, how's that going for you? Anyway? You know, I was the person that lived with my daughter. I saw her every day I saw her struggles? Was I super confident in that choice? Absolutely not. But once it was like, Okay, here's the direction we're going in, I got to be a cheerleader and encourage her, I also got to pull back and let her be in her experience. And my group of people who I would talk to about what was going on with her got very small. Right? I had to protect myself, because I was already in plenty of doubt. I didn't need other people's voices to make me feel worse about what was going on. Right. And again, there is an in between, right? There's an in between that exists. Parenting is not cut and dry. Parenting is relational. It's about the relationship that we have with our kids. So to assume somebody who doesn't know you, you know, for them to come in, and granite. She was asking for advice. She was asking for support. So this person came in, but then in the comments, as other people commented, this same commenter would come back and say, No, you're wrong. It's like this. There's no in between. And that's where things got a little dicey in the comment section. I did show up. But yeah, and again, it's that intentionality last week, right? What's the critical thinking that any given circumstance is offering your child to develop? Right? What's your intention around relationship with your child? What's that long term vision that you have for them? You know, those things, other people don't know those things about you. And so even when we get advice, it's important to measure that advice up against what are your intentions? What do you want for your child? And we get to trust our guts. I listened to Zen parenting radio last week, it was a great episode about a few different things. One of which was, you know, parents are ever more remaining really close with their adult children. And it's working out. It's not over parenting or controlling. But it is like a relationship with our grown kids that is really close and lovely. And it was nice to hear them talk about one particular article that came out about that. One of the things that Kathy who's the co host, Kathy and Todd Adams, one of the things she was talking about was like trusting our gut. And she gave the analogy of like, you know, when we cook, right, you might be someone who has enough experience cooking that you can trust your gut, you can trust the measurement. You can throw a little spice here, a little spice there. You know what something needs versus parenting. By the way, I'm not that person. I'm on Team Cathy because she was saying she follows the recipe. I am a total recipe follower. I do not have an instinct when it comes to cooking. Parenting though. Over time. I think the better we know our kids, the more we can trust our gut. Right it, the stronger the relationship is. And when I say stronger the relationship is I don't necessarily mean that you've got a kid that tells you everything that talks to you all the time, that's super open. Because that doesn't have to be what, quote, good relationship or strong relationship looks like. It can look a lot of different ways. But the better we know our kids and ourselves, the better we can trust our instinct and our gut. So, you know, it's all part of the soup, right of this work, this personal growth work, and this interpersonal relationship work, and it's messy. And the only thing that's certain is uncertainty, right? The only thing we can count on is things to change. Right. And I love that too, because this has come up in some conversations as well, whatever you're moving through right now, is a snapshot of the bigger picture, the bigger tapestry of your life and your kid's life. Right? I mean, can you go back to February 22? You know, 1989. And remember, I think I was like, I don't know how old I wasn't at 914 13. Anyway, can you remember what happened on February 22 of that year? I can't, right, and you and your kids are not going to be able to pinpoint February 22 of 2024, either, right? Whatever is hard today. Whatever's hard tomorrow, whatever's hard this year is going to change, it's going to move. And in the end, when you get through it. What do you want to be left with? Our relationship with your kiddo, right? I mean, I think that's what you want. Because that's what I talk about all the time. And you're listening to this podcast. So what can you do and all of these snapshot moments to ensure or to nurture that long term goal of connection and relationship? Right? You get to be in the in between, you get to be in the curiosity you get to be in the teasing apart of what's theirs, what's ours, where can I grow, you get to be in the possibility that you need to go back to therapy like me, because I've hit a block, right? I've hit a new place where I get to be the beginner again, right? I get to be the beginner again and learn more about myself and grow, for my own sake, but also for the sake of my marriage, the sake of my family, right? This is messy. This is messy. And shifting our mindsets is no easy thing. Right, we can do it in our brain, but it takes our heart a little while to catch up. We can choose the game trail, and it takes practice and a commitment to keep choosing the game trail before it gets worn down and becomes this space that is familiar to us. So Yeah. How's that? That useful? So my questions are one, what are your takeaways? What were those aha moments that you had to write down or capture in your phone? Or go back to in this conversation? Second question, what is a current challenge that you're moving through? That would be served by some compassion, and some curiosity around that feeling, thinking, deciding? And then finally, what can you do to practice interrupting your day on a regular basis, so that you can be more aware of your present moment so you can be more aware of when your thoughts feelings, decisions don't necessarily align with who you want to be? Right? What kind of practice can you have? What will you do to help yourself with that interruption? I'm really excited to hear what you have to say about this. I'm going to post those questions in the joyful courage for teens Facebook group, if you're not in that group, all you got to do is search joyful courage for parents of teens on Facebook, asked to join but answer the questions because I don't let anybody in if they don't answer the questions. And there's like three questions. They're not hard, but it's just kind of a filtering thing to keep the bots out. So yeah, that's what I have for you. That's what I have for you.

Casey O'Roarty 34:32
I am off leaving on a jet plane this afternoon. I get to go to one of my best friends from high schools, getting remarried, bringing the band back together, all the girls we get to play and enjoy each other and laugh about high school one day your kids too will be laughing about that period of time. So stay in perspective, everyone have a beautiful weekend. And yeah, I'll talk to you real soon. Bye. Hi

Casey O'Roarty 35:05
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.