Get it? Just a little mom humor with my Lego Movie reference. I couldn't help myself. 🙂
In this short episode I share my thoughts around a concept that keeps coming up, both in my life and the life of my coaching clients. We talk about what's it's like to have an experience with your child and to feel seemingly contrary emotions at the same time. We tend to label then "good" and "hard". I would like to present another perspective.
Get it? Just a little mom humor with my Lego Movie reference. I couldn't help myself. 🙂
In this short episode I share my thoughts around a concept that keeps coming up, both in my life and the life of my coaching clients. We talk about what's it's like to have an experience with your child and to feel seemingly contrary emotions at the same time. We tend to label then "good" and "hard". I would like to present another perspective.
Hi, I'm Kara, life coach, wife and mom to four incredible and unique children. It wasn't all that long ago that my son received a diagnosis that had my world come crashing down. I lacked the ability to see past the circumstances, which felt impossible. And the dreams I once had for my life and family felt destroyed. Fast forward past many years of surviving and not at all thriving, and you'll see a mom who trusts that she can handle anything that comes her way and has access to the power and confidence that once felt so lacking. I created the special needs mom podcast to create connection and community with moms who find themselves feeling trapped and with no one who really understands. My intention is to spark the flair of possibility. In your own life and rekindle your ability to dream. This isn't a podcast about your special needs child. This is a podcast about you. If you are a mom who feels anxious, alone, or stuck, then you are in the right place. Welcome.
Kara:
Hello, and welcome to the Special Needs Mom podcast. I'm glad you're here for the first time or you're back. I'm glad you're here. All right. Today is going to be what I'm going to title 10 minute something. I haven't decided yet. What I really kind of wanted to call it was 10 minute Tuesday, but on a Wednesday. And that will only be funny to you if you have seen and appreciate the humor of the Lego movie. They do Taco Tuesday on a Friday. I don't know why I think it's so funny. Okay, let's get started. So quick personal check in. I survived Mother's Day, and I say that mostly because it's also Levi's birthday. So Mother's Day and Levi's birthday fell on the exact same day this year, which is a lot. Just a lot. And actually, I had a lot of thoughts and feelings about my son Levi turning 15, and so I was just kind of processing a lot. The days and the celebration, because we did like Friday, Saturday, Sunday, like we had a lot of little, little celebrations mixed in there, they were actually really good. Also brings up a lot of hard stuff. So I survived that. Okay. Couple announcements. Then we're going to get into 10 minute Tuesday on a Wednesday. And obviously I know you're probably not listening to this on the Wednesday. It came out, but that's okay. Work with me. So the first thing it's a new announcement. I just enabled a feature. That I think is going to be really fun you can now text the show. That's right. Ladies and gentlemen, mostly ladies, we can text the show. So I think you'll just click on the show notes. It says text the show. Pretty clear and straightforward and you can text and, note, I will not be able to text you back unless you give me your contact information because, and nor can I promise to respond to everybody, but, it does protect your privacy. So I'll only get the last like four digits of your number, but I think it'll be really fun. So please experiment with it. And another thing that I realized. Oops a daisy, I haven't mentioned on the podcast is a book that I was a contributor for. It's a little like too much to say I wrote it because I didn't write it, but I wrote in it. That's what I did. if you're watching on YouTube, then you'll see me holding it up right now. It's called Becoming Brave Together. It's actually a book. amazing. And I say that because I think a lot of us were like, is this just going to be a bunch of sad stories, that depress us all? And it is the opposite of that. I find that because a lot of the moms are ahead of where I am in life. It was just, beautiful and encouraging. It's hope filled. You can get it on Amazon. I will have the link in the show notes. I recommend it. Okay. Next, this is our 100th and 99th episode right now. And so what does that mean? That means next week. I'm going to be releasing our 200th episode and we're doing something really fun called Ask Me Anything. So if you're listening to this right now, it is too late to submit your question, but it's going to be a really fun episode, so I, I just encourage you not to miss it. And then, I kind of alluded to it a second ago, but, I said, if you're watching like on YouTube, you can see me, which, is my sly way of saying we're now on YouTube on video. So. Kind of mostly, like we're still figuring it out. So some of our episodes are still catching up and some of them are going to still be audio only, but what is coming is consistency of having the video, which I think also we're going to figure out how to put on Spotify that's also on YouTube. And it's kind of fun. I mean, I don't know if I would watch it on YouTube, but some people do. So that's why I'm doing it. I'm doing it for you. Back to this quick episode. And this episode is, one of those ones where I was in, you know, whatever conversation in a coaching call and I got a post it note and I scribbled it down real quick and I said, episode on this because it keeps coming up. Or I should say it's something that's been coming up a lot recently. So I thought, you know what, let's talk about it. Let's. chat Also because it's come up in my own life. Like when I was coaching on it, I was like, Oh my gosh, even, I don't know if it was the same day or the next day that I had had this personal experience. Let's start with a story and then I'm going to break it down. I'm going to kind of highlight a little bit, of the, concept I want to point out here. Every other Monday Levi has, what's called late start. So like, instead of getting to school at eight 30, he has to get to school at nine 30, which really throws a wrench in my like morning routine, but we deal with it. And so this morning I was dropping him off just me and him. I was going to the front of the school, whereas normally I go to the back of the school because of dropping my other kids off. And, was going to insert a passive aggressive complaint here about the disabled parking being in the back of the school. you know, I guess it's less passive aggressive since I'm like blatantly saying it. Beyond that, I was at the front of the school and so, you know, kind of pull up on the curb. I'm starting to get his walker out, Levi's getting out, and his friend comes up to him and is just kind of there and this particular friend is just, super supportive and very helpful. They're a great pair. And, I just had this like, wow, like that is so cool that his friend was out here and how did he know Levi was going to come to the front of the school? He was just there. And so, that was just something I observed. I noticed like, wow, this is really cool. And then, as I'm kind of getting back in the car and getting ready to drive off, I'm seeing Levi walk up the little bit of an incline towards the school with this friend and seeing Levi with his walker, with his different way of walking. And I felt, wow, my son is so different. He looks so vulnerable. I mean, he uses a walker that is more associated with people at their end of life rather than their teenage years. And not that it has to be that way, but that's just how I associate, right? Like I don't associate teenage boys to having walkers. And so it just like with this little like zing of a ouch, that is hard to see so in this brief moment, kind of breaking this down, I had these vastly different emotions. Exist at the same time, or like really more like close to each other, but they so close it almost felt like the same time grateful and grieved. And so our temptation, this is what we're all tempted to do. Not just me. I think it's a lot of us is to push away the feeling we don't want to feel that would usually be the grief. And we try to focus on the good one or what we call the good one, the gratitude. Let's just be grateful. And this is called resistance and resistance. I'll tell you, it takes up a lot of energy. It's the thing that spins you out that sticks with you it's like that cloud that lingers and it's heavy usually to carry resistance or to be, actively resisting, I guess that's a better way of it. And I want to do a side note, side note, yes, there is a place to put intention, do thought work and to like, be very intentional about generating how you feel. That's not this. And that will utterly fail. It will not work if you are trying to do that on top of, an unprocessed emotion or maybe several unprocessed emotions. It just won't work. We can't out-smart this stuff, ladies. And I'm going to break it down with another story. So this is shared with permission by a client. And, this is the coaching thing where I wrote the note. Talk about this in an episode. So her son's autistic and I think first grade, maybe kindergarten. And she was attending a school, assembly, you know, like one of those like Fridays, everyone let's, you know, cheer and celebrate, those kinds of things, our school doesn't do that, but, previously when my kids attended like a more traditional elementary school, we did that. And it was a lot. So she was attending this assembly and one of her son's like peers, friends, came up to her and said, I don't know how he addressed her. he said something of the sort of like, Hey, Your son can't, like, it's not good for him to be up front because it's going to be loud and he's not going to like that. And to be clear, this wasn't said as in like, you can't be part of this. That wasn't the sentiment that she was communicating to me. It was more of, Hey, like we know this. This guy, this kid's friend like doesn't like that. And so, Hey, let's make sure we put him in a place that is better for him. So she came to coaching like, this thing happened this morning. It's nice and fresh. I am trying to be grateful because he has a friend and his friend was looking out for him. And that is really good. Right. So she was sharing this and was having the experience of like, but something doesn't feel right, but something's missing. I, I, told her, I reflected to her that there might also be a lot of grief in this moment that needs some attention. And she was like, Oh yeah, yeah. That unlocked it for her. She was able to allow the impact of, yes, this kid is trying to help my son. And, doggone it, my son's different and he is vulnerable and there's a lot probably in there. I won't, you know, doesn't matter the details here, right? But really the experience of having this gratitude and this grief all in the same moment or having that be part of the experience. And so in other words, for her, this was opening to both the gratitude and the grief, but also It was allowing her to be honest with herself to feel all of it rather than selecting this particular feeling of let's say the gratitude of like, Oh, well, this is how I should be feeling. This is clearly the better choice or the right choice. But you see what that did. It created this resistance where something was missing in the, experience. it wasn't in integrity with where she was at and therefore she wasn't even able to access the gratitude. Okay. Okay. So. Many times when I start working with clients, they are so well practiced and when we practice something a lot, we get really, really good at it, at telling themselves what they think they should be thinking or feeling. And they're so good at that, that they can't even see or feel how they actually are. So you can imagine how confusing this is. It's disorienting, confusing, and it really does a great job of numbing you because if you are so focused on this resistance of like how I think I should feel, how I should feel, trying to jam that down your feeling tank, then it makes your actual feelings completely inaccessible to you. All of them, the hope, the joy and the sorrow and the suffering. Okay, I'm going to break it down and I'm going to sum it up, bottom line it so you can take it home and reflect on this. Use this to notice in those moments that you have these, experiences where you have a lot at one time. So part one is telling yourself the truth. Or said another way, being honest with yourself. Or said even another way, is not resisting or trying to tell yourself you should feel a different way. So that's the first part. So that's when you just get to observe how you actually are. To be curious with yourself. And second part, allowing it to be. Instead of resisting, allow, soften towards the grief, let it in a little bit. And for you, if it's like, Ooh, yeah, I don't know about that, Kara, that's going to be a no consider just like a little bit, just like crack the door open, like 1 percent allow a little bit what feels tolerable to you to make a little bit of room for the grief, all in service so that you can have. the full spectrum, which allows for more room for gratitude or whatever that thing is that, you would say, man, I'm missing this in my life, which I hear from a lot of you. I have no joy. I don't know who I am. I just feel so hopeless. And so that's the whole like tension here. it's like the opposite. you have to do the opposite thing that you would think to actually have the experience of more, more joy, more peace, more gratitude, all those things is actually leaning towards all the opposite or opening towards is a better way of saying it perhaps. Okay. Now, nice and short. Like I said, that's what we have today and I'll see you in the next episode.