Doing Hard Things Without Suffering

In honor of our Summer Sabbath Challenge, we are taking time to invest in rest. To give us more space and time we are rebroadcasting previous episodes for June & July. Stick around! I am bringing back some really well received episodes that I know you'll enjoy!

This is a rebroadcast of Episode 164 that aired in September of 2023. 

In this episode of the Special Needs Mom Podcast, we delve into distinguishing between ‘hard things’ and ‘suffering.’ It’s a journey of resilience, a shift from suffering to self-compassion, from being mired in guilt, judgment, shame, and resistance to steering clear of them. We’re called to face difficult and often unpleasant emotions, but suffering doesn’t have to be our default response.

Connect with Kara, host of The Special Needs Mom Podcast:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thespecialneedsmompodcast/
Website: https://www.kararyska.com/

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Transcript

Kara: 0:05

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 going 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. Hello and welcome to the special needs mom podcast. This is the, I guess, informally second episode of this summer series. So welcome to the summer Sabbath series. I'll explain a little bit more about that in a second. The time of this recording, I am personally just four days into my kid's summer break. And it's off to a wonky start. We are still very much in the trying to figure it out phase, which I'm really hoping does end. I think it will. My oldest son had his wisdom teeth removed on Monday. So that's how we started. It's added an additional complexity to my caregiving life, because now I have two teenagers to care for. And so we've been a little bit more homebound than I'd like. we're still very much figuring out how to balance, you know, doing stuff at the house and going out of the house. And I mean, it seems like every time we leave the house, we're spending at least a hundred dollars. So I'm trying to kind of find, okay, how do we leave the house in a way that we all enjoy it? I don't lose my mind and we don't spend hundreds of dollars every time. So this is the life of having four kids with such a variety of wants and needs. And one thing I'm like, okay, well, we have the beach like that is a huge asset. Let's capitalize on that yet. I'm a little timid. I'm like, okay, last summer, Levi was pretty much unable to get to the beach without like really significant help. I mean, cause picture it like, you know, to get to the water. There's sand everywhere, and he was really only able to walk, short distances and with a lot of pain. So sand was not our friend this year. I'm so thankful that we are in such a different place yet. Sand is still a little bit of a challenge. And so, I think it's time to push yourself. So next week we're going to have a little bit warmer weather and I'm going to rip off the bandaid, I think. So stay tuned. Additionally, I've been, we'll say inspired much to my children's disdain, by the book, The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. I don't know how to say his last name is H A I D T. How would you say that? And, it's about, you know, what's happening, as a result of the changes in society. Basically based on, the influence and the introduction of so much technology and specifically screens and smartphones. And so I am determined to reduce screen time in our family. And so we're in the early phases where nothing's figured out yet, and my kids are all really unhappy about it. Although I will say my, 12 year old was like, okay, I'm willing to try this mom. but then he had a bunch of like parameters, which I really appreciated that he was open to the concept. But what he's not open to is really doing anything else but screen time. Like he's like, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. Okay, well, we're gonna have to open up our options here, buddy. Cuz you know, I need to figure out how to not do the screen the whole time. Okay. That's what's going on in my mind and in the conversations in our home. now moving on to kind of what's going to happen today in this episode, you may or may not have listened to the episode titled something like summer Sabbath, and it's just a quick episode where I am talking about. My plan and intention for the summer, how I'm creating a rest for myself and really good content for you. And so this episode, that's going to be re airing today, originally aired last fall. So it's actually not, too old. And so you might've been around, during that time, if you're, not. Super new. And yeah, I'd like to encourage you to revisit the conversation. Why? Because there's so many different aspects, in something that you might see now that you didn't see back then based on your personal growth and all that you've experienced. And just this week in the Pathway to Peace coaching program, the concept came up. One of our amazing members, was sharing a little bit about, some complexities and hardships with the nursing and supply company. That she uses for her daughter and I mean, I'm sure at the mention of this, if you know, you know, that there are a lot of hard things, a lot when it comes to managing this aspect of caregiving. And I don't personally, manage nursing care. I've heard enough from all of you to, get a glimpse of it. but I think all of us have aspects of our life that fall under this category of hard. Okay. very hard and you all are very smart and smart enough to know that coaching doesn't take away the hard things. Wouldn't that be great? No, it doesn't take the hard things away, but what it does do and what it is a tool that can be very, very helpful in is helping you realize the options you have to not suffer through the hard. So it's like you're going to experience hard, right, and there's emotions and experiences and grief and anger and a lot of things that come with that, but it's a distinctly different experience than suffering through something. And in the episode, I go into more detail about what I mean by that. I'm going to just leave that there for now. But the thing I really want you to consider is that a lot of times, and this is where coaching is a really, really good tool that there is more options than we realize, especially when we step just a step or two back from, being real close to our personal situation. When we take a little bit of step back, we have a different vantage point, which can make all the difference in the world. My goal for this episode is for you to kind of tilt your head. and thoughtful curiosity and kind of think, okay, huh, what areas or area am I unknowingly adding or experiencing suffering in the hard parts of my life? Okay, so listen through that lens. And with that, we're going to get into the episode. Let's talk about what I'm calling doing hard things without suffering. This is yet another conversation or topic that was inspired by various conversations inside of different coaching conversations that I have. And I thought, you know what, this is a great concept to highlight and bring to you as a podcast episode. And so first let's say, well, what do I mean by hard things without suffering? And we're going to start by distinguishing the difference between a hard thing and suffering. I think when you hear the distinguishment or the difference, you're going to realize, Oh my gosh, I'm doing a lot of hard things. It's really safe to assume that in our role as special needs mothers, we do really hard things. I actually don't know if there are that many hard things beyond. Like harder things, I should say, and you know, I'm not a fan of comparison, but in this case, I actually think it's valuable to really recognize, wow, there are not a lot of things that are harder in our life, more emotionally confronting than what we're being asked to do as special needs parents. I mean, think about what you go through in sicknesses and surgeries and hospitalizations, navigating like growing to a new phase, like moving from like, I don't know, tween hood to adolescence. What's before adolescence? I don't know. But like going into teen years, that's a hard thing. I'm living that one firsthand. It's hard. The list goes on, right? We can have the threat of harm or death to our child. I think we all know financial strain. That's hard. There's physical exhaustion. There's living traumatized. There's social alienation. I mean, I could go on, but I think you get the point. These are hard things. They require us to be with, like I was saying, some of those most extreme and unpleasant emotions that we face as human beings. And my belief, my personal belief is that as special needs moms, we are called to, I don't want to say a higher calling, but we're called to live with a very high gradient of needing to feel these unpleasant emotions. And we're not going to talk about that piece today. There's other episodes I have about feeling and processing emotions. So I want you just to acknowledge, wow, you do a lot of healing and a lot of it is very hard. So that's doing hard things. Now let's talk about suffering. Here's where the suffering comes in. It's the guilt, it's the resistance, it's the shame, it's the judgment. And so you're like, Oh yeah, I have all those things too. Yeah, probably. I think we all do. So let's just all raise our hands. Like we are all technically guilty of this is something that many of us do. So there's nothing wrong with you. You're not not doing this well enough if this is happening to you, but the value in like slowing it down. inspecting it, evaluating it, observing it is very valuable. That's what we're doing today. So this guilt, this resistance, like, Oh, I can't ask for help, or I should be able to do this and I can't. This is where the suffering comes in. And I think a clear distinguishment here is a hard thing you generally don't have a choice in. These are things that happen even When in all of our might, in all of our efforts, we try to prevent them, like I could have done nothing to prevent the tumors that my son has had. So that I think is a clear thing that recognizing a hard thing or what we're calling a hard thing, we're naming it. is something that we cannot prevent and or control. So I think the first error that we get into is when we try to control something that's not controllable, but we're not going to talk about that today either. We're going to really focus on this piece. So that's a hard thing, something we do not have control of, something that happens even when we don't want it to, and we try not for it to happen. But suffering, I want to say is optional. Now, don't you go turning this on yourself, don't you say, Oh, well, now bad for me for doing this. No, no, no. This is the start of bringing kindness and compassion, because that is where we have a turning point. We can continue on the road of judgment and creating guilt, or we can stop, drop and evaluate. And recognize that this is the time where we have an option to bring in just 1 percent more kindness and compassion. So first, you obviously have to notice that you're doing this, but you have to notice that the experience that you're having is as a result of what we're calling suffering. And maybe we can even summarize it to say the turning on yourself. And this noticing can be the hardest part because when we're in our own heads, like it feels very real. It feels very factual. It doesn't feel like something we're making up. It feels like This is the truth. And just to give some tangible examples, the suffering flows out of thoughts like I should have. If only I, I can't. I'm not strong enough. I shouldn't have to ask for help. I'm just not working hard enough. This is a good one. Other people, other moms could do this better than I can. I want to just walk away and never come back. And gosh, that is a tough one. terrible thing to think. And I'm a terrible person and or mom. So I can go on and on on these two, right? There's so many thoughts that can pop up in our head that cause us to have an experience of shame, guilt, embarrassment, and all of those things. And this is what I call suffering. This is not. The part that you have to do. So let's actually look at two different examples to illustrate what it looks like to distinguish between doing hard things without suffering. So the first one is going to be totally unrelated to being a special needs mom. And the second one will be, and so the first one, I'm going to use myself as an example. I often do that the freshest in my mind, and I didn't update in this episode, but I'm sure you've heard me talking about my old remodel doing a little house remodel, which I feel super privileged to be able to do, but it doesn't make it easy. Okay. So as part of this remodel, we thought, let's do new floors. So our entire downstairs was like our whole house, basically, besides our bedrooms. Was removed, and we had new floors, and it looks gorgeous, and something's wrong with it. I don't know what it is exactly, but I do know that something's wrong with it. It sounds like you're walking on, like, crunching things when you're walking all over the floor. It's not just, like, one spot. It's, like, the whole thing. And it's very unpleasant. Like at night, I'm just like, Oh my gosh, like it feels like you're walking on like a board that has like sand underneath it. It's awful. So I have to figure out how to deal with this. That is what I'm calling the hard thing. And the thing I want to point out here is that back when I was getting bids and when I was considering who to hire and all the things that you do with remodel, I knew I was taking a little bit of a risk with this installer. Even though this person was referred to me, like my gut was like, no, I don't care. Like the communication is a little concerning. Like, do you really feel like he's going to do a great job? But I just said, nah, it's going to be fine. I chose to just kind of go on. Why? Cause I was trying to save some money. But I knew, I knew deep down, Hey, I'm taking a risk here. I have to own that. And you know, I used to be in contracting, so I know you guys are all like, here, I don't take the lowest bid. They're low for a reason. I know. I know. And so, like I said, the hard thing is that I have to remove my floors and reinstall them. And maybe in my time, if the contractor's not willing to fix them, and this is a lot of dimes adding up, I might, you know, have to have that whole new floor on me. So hard. Ouch. I can fully say this sucks. But what I also can say is I can't go back in time and change what happened. Like clearly I have floors now that are defective. And so this is, again, this is the hard thing. The suffering would be if I leaned into all the thoughts I could think about myself, man, you're so stupid for not listening to your gut. How could you let this happen? Other people don't let this happen. Who are you? Why does this always happen to you? And so that's where I could easily go and you can tell by my words, it would be easy for me to go there. It's not like I haven't gone there before. And so I could go and I could turn on myself. And this is what my friends, I would call suffering because I'm taking a hard thing and I'm making it even worse by turning on myself. Yeah, ladies, I am still left with this hard thing, but I don't have to suffer through it. And what this for me led is to just acceptance. Okay. It's money. It's money and inconvenience, but you know what, especially this community will understand and I've even told some friends, I'm like, you know what, with the perspective I have, like, this isn't brain cancer. Like, it's not that bad. It sucks. I really don't want to spend the money, but like, it is what it is. I can accept it. Don't get me wrong. There are certainly days where I'm like, Oh my gosh, like this feels so bad. But I allowed that and got through it. And now kind of on the other side, I'm like, okay, what needs to happen? And I want to point out the difference here between taking responsibility and blame, because you might've, you know, remembered me saying, yeah, like I knew this could happen. It's a risk I took, I chose, and I can see this part now. I'm like, okay, I knew this could happen and it, it didn't work. And I can look at that and also say, Hmm, also interesting. Like you didn't necessarily, Trust your gut. Okay. But I can bring curiosity and kindness and back to what I was saying about responsibility. I can look at that and be like, yeah, I own that part. I didn't listen to my gut, but that's different than blaming myself for what happened, like for what the contractor did or didn't do. We don't know yet. Okay, so blame is different than responsibility. And back to the opportunity here, like, certainly I have an opportunity to learn from this to really wonder like, Okay, you did not speak up when you saw some things you were concerned about. And for me, where I'm at in this process is, huh, like, That's not really like you, like wonder what was happening that had you so avoidant of conflict in this situation. And I don't know the answer to that yet. I'm still exploring it, but I hope you can hear in my voice, there's a kindness. There's not a condemnation or a judgment. It's a genuine curiosity of like, huh, this doesn't actually make sense. And probably would be helpful to kind of explore that a little bit. That is my non special needs example. And sometimes it's helpful to like go so far out of our world to like see the concept till we move into something that actually we're very close to. Because sometimes we're so attached to how we see something, it's hard to see. We're going to use a school example because, you know, we just started school and it's kind of likely that you might be having some things start at So I'm going to use an example about Some behaviors. Let's just say the hard thing that you're going through is that your kids having some behaviors and they are hard to be with. They might be loud. They might be socially misunderstood. You know, you might feel embarrassed. You know, maybe they're like melting down every time you bring them to school and like they're hitting their teachers. Can you tell I've had all these things happen? Let's just acknowledge that's a hard thing. It is a hard thing when you get those emails or those calls from school and you don't have the answers. Hard thing. Yeah. But the suffering would be where you turn on yourself saying things, I should be able to control this and I can't, or deciding that your child's behavior, what they do is your fault, is your responsibility. Now, teaching them is your responsibility, but them learning is their responsibility. Trust me, if we could make our children learn, if we had control of that, all of our children would be experiencing very different lives. Because guess what? We've all tried, haven't we? I definitely tried to teach my child certain things that for whatever reason he has not learned yet. And what that doesn't mean is that I'm not trying hard enough. And what it doesn't mean is that you're not trying hard enough, or you're not competent enough that you haven't cracked the code yet. It just means it's outside of your control. And so good to separate the difference. Back to different examples of suffering, you know, feelings of guilt or fear of like, Oh, the staff is going to think something of me or they won't want to work with my child anymore. And this is where I think we really, we get fancy is we start thinking what I call unpermissible thoughts about ourselves, telling ourselves that we are. Don't want our children anymore, or we wish our child was different or really thinking some things that don't make us feel good as humans about our children and or teachers or anybody. And then we start to turn on ourselves like, Oh, what a terrible person that you had this thought. And so this suffering, my friends, is optional. And so that is the point of this episode. I want to help you learn the difference between hard thing and suffering. Because like I said, we cannot avoid these hard things, but we can avoid the suffering piece. And it's enough to deal with the hard things. So we don't, we don't need the suffering. And I do want to mention. that this is exactly the work that we do in Pathway to Peace. It is like so much more fun to do this together. And it takes the weight out, like the seriousness out of it, because it opens a space where like, we're all acknowledging, oh, we're all actually doing this. We all get stuck in our suffering. And we can kind of bring that collective kindness and compassion, which I don't know why, but it's so much more. palatable when you're in this setting to bring that kindness and curiosity to yourself and to others. And I think that's a big part of it. It's like, it's easy to give it to somebody else. Cause you like, look at their situation. You're like, of course they're having this thought. This is crazy hard. And then you realize, Oh, huh. That's funny. My life looks almost exactly like theirs. And so it's much easier to kind of mirror what you're feeling for them back on yourself. So if you find yourself suffering with these feelings of guilt and shame, exhaustion, dread, then just consider there's hope for you. Reach out to me. There's a lot of different ways. Instagram. You can find my information on the show notes. And certainly. I think y'all know we are in the season of enrolling for the fall cohort for pathway to peace. So if you're like, yeah, I actually want to learn the difference. I want to really be able to understand how to separate and how to slow this down and how to bring this kindness and compassion. Then. Yeah. Consider that you are a perfect fit for a pathway to peace. And as I leave you, as we wrap up this episode, I just want to kind of restate and re summarize how to take this episode and make it actionable and tangible. So the thing I would invite you to do is start to see if you can identify and name the hard thing. Just identify it. For me, I'll use the flooring thing. I have to replace my floors and I might have to financially pay for it. It's going to cost me a lot of money. That's the hard thing. And then notice the thoughts that come after that. Notice how you feel and start to question and push back a little bit. Like, is this absolutely true? Am I responsible for this thing? Do I have control over this thing? These are the kinds of questions that stem from this kindness and curiosity. First, the big step is distinguishing the hard thing and the optional thing. So that you can use that script to give it a start. I'm very proud of myself for keeping this concise. Next week, we're going to have the second part of a conversation with my dear friend Diane, and it's not a conversation you want to miss. So please tune back in. And you know what? Actually, I haven't asked this for a long time. What would really be appreciated if you listen to the show, if you love the show, even if you just like it, I would appreciate you taking just a second to rate and review. Go on either Spotify or Apple, give it however many stars you think it should have, but I do hope it's five. And if you have an extra second, just leave a quick little comment. It means so much to me when I get to hear back from y'all. And those ratings, what those ratings do is they just help other people find the podcast. So like you, if you're like, Oh my gosh, I'm so glad I found this podcast. Then let's help the other ladies find it. Let's be a light to others. All right. So go take a second, rate and review. I would very much appreciate it. And I do look forward to hearing from you and exploring Pathway to Peace with you. We will see you on the next episode.