Eps 641: Well being is an inside job

Oof… today Joyful Courage is about listening to my higher self and trusting her. Joyful Courage is wading through the very human experience of this lifetime and anchoring into the spiritual journey that it really is… Its about releasing the ego and choosing love – again and again and again.

Resources Mentioned

Personal Growth & Soul Care:

• Soul Navigation Cards (used in Casey’s daily practice)
• Casey’s 2026 anchor words: Ease, Trust, Connection, Joy

Be Sprout­able Programs & Services:

• Living Joyful Courage Inner Circle (membership program)
• 6-Week Positive Discipline for Teens Class (available inside membership)
• One-on-one parent coaching
• Explore Call: BeSprout­able.com/explore

Frameworks & Concepts:

• House of Connected Parenting (Casey’s framework)
• Five Principles of Positive Discipline:
  1. Kind and firm at the same time
  2. Helps others feel belonging and significance
  3. Effective long-term
  4. Teaches valuable social and life skills
  5. Invites others to discover their capability
• Emotional Honesty Practice

Connect with Casey:

• Website: BeSprout­able.com
• Joyful Courage Podcast (subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify)
• Newsletter sign-up at BeSprout­able.com

Transcription

JC Ep 641 (2.10.26) - Final
[00:00:00] Casey O'Roarty: Welcome, welcome, welcome to the Joyful Courage Podcast. This is a place where parents of tweens and teens come to find inspiration, information, and encouragement in the messy terrain of adolescents this season of parenting. Is no joke. And while the details of what we're all moving through might be slightly different, we are indeed having a very collective experience.
[00:00:30] This is a space where we center building, relationship, nurturing life skills, and leaning into our own personal growth and man. The opportunities abound, right. My name is Casey Ody. I am a parent coach, positive discipline lead trainer, and captain of the adolescent ship over at Sprout Bowl. I'm also a speaker and a published author.
[00:00:53] I've been working with parents and families for over 20 years. And continue to navigate my own experience of being a mom with my two young adult kids. I'm so honored that you're here and listening. Please give back to the podcast by sharing it with friends or on social media rate and review us on Apple or Spotify.
[00:01:13] Word of mouth is how we grow. Thank you so, so much. Enjoy the show.
[00:01:22] Hi friends. Hello. Today is another solo show. I'll have some interviews for you later this month, but today we're hanging out together and today I wanna continue with this theme that I'm really appreciating. Around thinking about and leaning into what we wanna create in our lives and relationships.
[00:01:50] Here's what I keep bumping up against, and I'm guessing I'm not alone. We hang on so tight and in doing so, we generate more of what we're resisting. What we resist persists. So what happens when we practice releasing others to their own journey? To their own path, right? What happens when we do that and how to be with questions like, what if their path seems self-destructive or relationally destructive?
[00:02:27] It's a lot to hold and I know it. I feel it. I'm in it too, and I just keep coming back to personal growth being such a foundation. Right now in my membership program, we're moving through the positive discipline six week class, which is the first time I've done it just as a private internal offering inside of the membership.
[00:02:55] And what I'm finding shocker is that it is so powerful to create and reset the foundation of the principles of positive discipline in our community. And what we started with the very first week was what I call the House of Connected Parenting. And I've done whole podcasts about this concept. The foundation of that house is personal growth.
[00:03:23] The personal growth work of the parent and what I experience as that is a deep dive into who we are and how we are. What we're hanging on to, what we can let go of and, ugh, this is so big. The beliefs and the thoughts that are getting in the way of our teens feeling seen, felt, and accepted. And that's in the context of parenting.
[00:03:55] But really the deep dive is an invitation for any of our relationships, right? It's major. Over and over again. I'm fielding questions with my one-on-one clients and in the Facebook group and the membership questions that are so focused on what our kids are getting into that we miss how we're contributing to the experience that we're having.
[00:04:20] Personal growth is growing awareness around how we are contributing to the experience that we're having. And I'm here today to really lean into this idea for myself, for you, that our wellbeing is an inside job, and I am in this work alongside you. I'm moving through some shit right now, yet again in one of my most primary relationships.
[00:04:48] And again, I'm fucking being asked to surrender. To let go of the idea that I'm in control of somebody else's journey, letting go of the idea that if I just say or do this thing or that thing, that the other person will change and do what I think they should do. Do what I think will make me happy and make me feel.
[00:05:14] Safe and secure and happiness and security. They're inside jobs. They aren't dependent on external conditions, although there is for sure influence, right? We're all influencing each other, but our wellbeing is an inside job. We get to. Create our own peace and faith and joy and possibility. And if I, I feel like if I say this enough times, if I journal enough, if I meditate on it enough, it will land for me.
[00:05:51] Right? And it's tough. Personal growth isn't a destination where you arrive and declare, awesome, I did the work and now I'm grown and I'm done. That's not what it's about. We get better at it over time, feeling better about our practice and how we're navigating things. And then the door opens and another challenge comes up to knock us around.
[00:06:19] And the universe is like, here you go. Here's another opportunity to get better at being. The bullshit and allowing and letting go and generating your own peace. And this is, I think, my personal life's work. And I think for many of us, it's our life's work generating our own peace regardless of what's happening around us.
[00:06:44] You know? And there's lots of things. There's aging parents and. Siblings that are struggling and kids that are struggling and partnerships that feel hard. And there's plenty to give us opportunities to generate our own peace. And it's simple and not easy, right? It's simple, it's not easy. And when we move from personal growth and into the power of relationship and systems and tools, still in this like.
[00:07:14] House of connected parenting, personal growth, relationship systems and tools. When we do this, as we move into these other places, we bump up against what's hard and what we're resisting, and we have to go back into that personal growth, that awareness, curiosity about what it is that we're being so activated by recognizing when we are holding others.
[00:07:41] As responsible for our wellbeing again, even as they are definitely influencing it, right? It's so easy to blame others. It's easy to blame our kids, but you know, they're on their own journey. They are on their own journey, and so are our partners and siblings and colleagues, and friends ends. We get to release them to work out their shit.
[00:08:05] They get to do that on their own. And this is really hard for me. I'm not gonna lie. It's hard for me to do this, and it's important and I know that it's important and I know that it's real. I know that it's real human work, it's real soul, spiritual work.
[00:08:32] The other thing that we've been working through in the membership is the five principles of positive discipline. We talk about this in the first week of the positive discipline class, but I'm gonna talk about it now, walk through it now, from where I'm standing in the messy middle of my own growth. So that first principle is kindness and firmness at the same time.
[00:08:54] This is mutual respect. I get to be respectful of you and your experience. I get to honor that you're on your own journey, while also respecting myself and the situation. I get to set personal boundaries and tend to my own wellbeing. I get to release others from responsibility. For me, I get to take responsibility for me.
[00:09:19] I get to follow through on that. And when you're in the muck, we get to ask ourselves, okay, how am I tending to myself? How am I taking responsibility for my experience, even as it is so enticing to stay focused on the other person and on blame and on criticism and judgment. The real growth is in the letting go of that, releasing that, and instead focusing inward.
[00:09:46] Focusing inward, what do I wanna create for myself? In my contribution to this relationship. The second principle is that we wanna help others feel a sense of belonging and significance, how we respond. We want it to be in contribution to the people around us, feeling that sense of connection and responsibility.
[00:10:08] So when it goes down, how are we maintaining connection? Are we validating the experience of the other person? This experience is real and true for them, right? Is their work making their way through and it gets to look however it looks. I don't need to judge how someone else is making sense of and experiencing their choices.
[00:10:33] I also think this is where we get to bring in emotional honesty because my experience also matters. Your experience matters. Emotional honesty is the practice of recognizing, accepting, and accurately accepting one's true feelings rather than suppressing, ignoring or hiding them. It isn't a tool for getting people to do what you want.
[00:10:58] It's an opportunity for you to share vulnerably about your experience so that in the container of relationship, we're both aware of each other. We can't really be aware of each other if we're not sharing. What is our truth? What is active? And you know, it's hard to do. It's hard to do, and it's important and it's what generates connection and responsibility, right?
[00:11:28] The third principle of positive discipline is that it's effective in the long term. Right. Ugh. Meaning, however, we're handling what is in front of us right now has the potential to grow more skills and possibility for a future unfolding that, you know, we want to be helpful and not hurtful. A future unfolding that is healthy and forwarding and connecting.
[00:11:59] And we get to let go of the idea that we can control the long term. The idea behind all of this work is really about increasing the likelihood of goodness, connection, love God. I wanna control so bad, and for me, it can feel so intense that my nervous system actively goes into survival mode. The physical sensations, the emotions, the thoughts, especially when new.
[00:12:27] Unfortunate information is introduced and I have to be with it. I know it's the same for you, that's why I'm sharing. Right. And again, we get to come back to that question of what do I wanna create for the long term? What do I wanna create in this relationship? What do I wanna build and forward this relationship with?
[00:12:49] Love, trust, connection, safety. Those are. True for me. Right? What do you wanna create in your relationships for the long term? Name it. Identify those qualities and then be in the question is how I'm responding to whatever's in front of me, moving me towards or away from what I've declared I wanted to create.
[00:13:13] How can I shift? Into that space of creating love, trust, connection, and safety. How can I shift? For me, it starts with that nervous system work. It is my daily soul care practice where I'm actively pouring out into my journal where I'm asking for. You know, reflection and, and lenses to look through from the universe where I'm listening to inspiring audio that's just reminding me of what I want most.
[00:13:49] Right. For you. And you know, you might be moving through things like. Your teen getting into trouble, pushing you away, hurting someone. I mean, fill in the blank. There's plenty of things that the people in our lives that we love get into, right? There's endless things that others do that can knock us over.
[00:14:11] And is how we're responding, supporting the long-term outcomes of what we want most. And yeah, you know, you might be really committed to your kiddos excellence, their achievements, their happiness. Of course, all of these things matter. We wanna be supportive, we wanna be encouraging. Do you also want a relationship with them?
[00:14:34] Do you want them to feel like they can continue to turn towards you? They will turn towards you when they don't have to, or do you want them to keep things from you? I was talking to a client today about their relationship with their 12-year-old, and I spoke into how early adolescents can feel very jarring and potent with the pulling away and the shedding us out.
[00:14:57] But our teens, they do come around like there's this intensity around early adolescence and then. You know, there can be a shift and how we respond to the shutting us out matters. You know, if we want them to eventually let us in and confide in us and share with us how we respond when they are, you know, in that tough space matters, can our people trust us with their true, authentic stuff?
[00:15:33] Do they believe we can handle it? Right, and if not, then we have some work to do. And it's not so much, I know this in my head and my heart has a hard time with this. It's not so much saying that it's true, but it's really being. It's a being, love and trust and safety and possibility, and I am thinking about this current situation that I'm navigating.
[00:15:59] Am I responding in a way that fosters a long-term sense of safety and trust? Does what I am creating? Foster a space of real sharing and open dialogue. And if I'm being honest, no. I'm in a lot of judgment. I'm in a lot of fear, and that is what is driving how I'm showing up. Coupled with desperation for connection and external validation of okayness doesn't feel great.
[00:16:29] I'm not gonna lie, but I'm keeping it real here as I do. Our wellbeing is an inside job. What's effective in the long term? What keeps us connected? What is sustainable, right? There's so much here to dig into. And the fourth principle of positive discipline is that it teaches valuable social and life skills for good character.
[00:16:51] And yeah, I mean, what about in adult relationships? What does it mean in marriage, right? For me, right now, what am I modeling? How am I living my life? What am I inviting my husband into? Am I stepping into what I want? Am I generating peace and love and faith in us and what we're moving through? Am I sharing power and responsibility?
[00:17:13] Am I in blame? Am I holding that I have all the answers and my way is the only way wanting to be right? Yep. This is a real place for me and it creates distance and disconnection and you know, it happens with our teens too. It maintains this space where instead of. Everyone kind of looking at their own stuff.
[00:17:38] They get to marinate in how annoying the other person is or how the other person doesn't get it, or how the other person is, whatever, fill in the blank. They get to maintain this focus outside of self, right? And social and life skills are developed through experience and reflection and awareness and looking at ourselves.
[00:18:01] So. I think for me right now, this is a big modeling opportunity. This is a big leaning in and trust, trusting that that's enough.
[00:18:19] And then the fifth principle of positive discipline, right? And again, you know, I talk about positive discipline. It's this parenting philosophy, but it's also. You know, when we kind of lift up and out and look at it, it's, it's really a relational blueprint, how to relate with each other in a way that is mutually respectful and encouraging and connecting.
[00:18:43] So yeah, the fifth is inviting others to discover how capable they are. This is the fifth principle. Ah. Yeah, you do you, I believe in you. I believe that you want what is best for you and to create a life of good health and love and connection, right? What happens when we embody that energy, when we send that energetic message, when we believe in that trust that, you know, it's not necessarily a spoken invitation.
[00:19:13] It's not necessarily something we say out loud that we can. But it does live in how we're relating to and thinking about the people that we love. We can't control them. We can't control what they feel or think or decide, but we can believe in them. And you know, I believe that life is unfolding for me, right?
[00:19:34] For sure. Full of opportunities for growth. It's neutral, it's possibility, it's greater good. And I'm learning along the way. And I am in acceptance of my pace and my style. I know I'm growing and evolving. And if all of that is true for me, isn't it also true for others? Isn't it also true for the people that we love?
[00:19:58] And I know what gets in the way. 'cause it gets in my way too, right? Those questions. Yeah. But what if they're not paying attention? What if they're not self-reflective? What if they're living on the surface and not growing in their awareness or in denial of destructiveness on their path or down the road?
[00:20:17] You know what if they don't care about how we feel? These are all real questions and we can't control what other people do. We can live our own lives and hand over energetic responsibility to our loved ones, to live their own lives. And we can be responsible for ourselves. Again, all of this is true and yes, we are in relationship with others.
[00:20:42] Yes. What they do or don't do is gonna have an impact on us. There is influence inside of relationship for sure. And what if wellbeing is an inside job? What if that is our compass? What if that is what we are aiming for and moving towards, and it's not about perfection, okay? We are imperfect. Our human experience is a lot, and our human tendency towards, you know, a feeling of security and control is real.
[00:21:19] We still get to have our emotional experiences and our thoughts and our beliefs, but what if we hold them a little looser? And with curiosity, right? Like, isn't this interesting? What if we have some self-compassion and some empathy? Wow, it makes sense that I feel the way that I feel. What if we don't gaslight ourselves, you know, and say, I shouldn't feel this way, or whatever.
[00:21:40] Right? Like, what if we get to have self-compassion and empathy? How does that change our experience? And again. You know what gets in the way of the tools and strategies we talk about with positive discipline, which like I just said, is a parenting philosophy and also a way of being with all the relationships in our lives.
[00:22:00] What gets in the way is when we live on the surface, just with the tools, when we think that's enough, when we walk with positive discipline, as if it's a formula for getting what we want, which is compliance. Rather than a way of being that cultivates connection and mattering and responsibility qualities that support humans in being the best versions of themselves as they navigate their personal journeys in this life.
[00:22:32] So, you know, one of the things that I love to do, that I talk about a lot here on the pod is I have a very. Powerful soul care practice, and one of the things that I do is I pull cards, I pull soul navigation cards they're called, and the cards I pulled this morning were started off with responsibility, joy, and obstacles, and thank you.
[00:22:58] Sending me a very clear message about, yes, wellbeing is an inside job. I create my own joy. I generate joy. I animate joy. I get to be joy. I get to be intentional about joy in my life. The joy I feel is a product of taking responsibility for my wellbeing. And yeah. Obstacles are ahead. You know, the path is ripe with shit going down and growth opportunities and learning edges, they're all ahead of me.
[00:23:37] Just as I've moved through so many and I still get to be generating joy, I still get to be tending to my own wellbeing. We can't depend on others to be the creators of our wellbeing. We need to release them. You know, and don't think that, just 'cause I'm saying this out loud, it's easy for me to do. It is not, but I know that it is what I'm moving towards.
[00:24:04] And the other two cards, I always pull five cards. So like a loosely, like a past, present, future card. And then two ally cards, two cards that are here to support. So the first one. With sensitivity. I am sensitive. I feel my senses, and I think anyone who has, you know, dove into personal growth work has cultivated sensitivity, right?
[00:24:31] Because as we make room for ongoing growth and our intuition, we feel things and it's a gift. I practice every morning feeling things. I wanna be feeling things. This is where I am alive, right? I want to be actively aware of how I feel because how we feel is an indicator of when we are in or out of alignment with what we want most.
[00:24:57] I don't remember if I shared my anchor words for 2026 already, but this year what I'm walking with. Or what I'm, you know, using as a lighthouse, as a compass, as a place to come back to is ease, trust, connection, and joy. So when I'm in fear or anger or stress or anxiety, I know that I'm not lined up with what I want most.
[00:25:24] I can feel it in my body, that discomfort, I feel it. I'm sensitive to it. I get to feel that and do what I need to do to come back to what I want most. Ease, trust, connection, joy. It's an inside job. No one's gonna get me there but me. And believe me, like I said, there is plenty of internal dialogue that keeps me in the well, yeah.
[00:25:49] But this is a really big deal. Yeah. But I can't let this go. Yeah. But you know. Not useful. So I'm celebrating my sensitivity. I'm celebrating my growing awareness and the work that takes me from living on the surface to living in the deep. I wanna be in the deep. This is what I'm here to do, right? We're all here to be in the deep, right, not on the surface.
[00:26:13] We are spiritual beings having a human experience, right? And so let's tap into that spiritual piece. That deep place, that inner knowing. And my second ally card was the fire card. And I thought this felt really supportive, right? Because it, to me, reflected passion, transformation moving through the fire as many of us do again and again and again.
[00:26:42] And it isn't something to avoid, it's something to embrace. We're new on the other side. We're transformed. We're evolved, we're elevated. If we're willing to move through the fire to break down, to break through to something bigger different, let those flames bring us to a new way of being, a new way of living, a new way of responding to life.
[00:27:09] 'cause life's gonna keep throwing us bullshit, right? So let's continue to transform through it. And here's my invitation and all of this to say, this podcast exists for you, for you to take a look at what you are resisting, right? Resisting hurts you. Resisting hurts me. Even when it feels like the opposite, right?
[00:27:35] Like the opposite. Okay, well, if I'm not resisting, then I'm accepting. And if I'm accepting, that feels like I'm enabling, it feels like I am giving permission. It feels counterintuitive. It's not okay being in acceptance, especially when it's radical acceptance is actually giving others the space to navigate their shit.
[00:28:00] It's radical living and loving and being, and we get to trust. We have to, I have to trust. That the people that I love want to be doing that work of understanding themselves better and growing through what they're going through, right? Radical living and loving and being, and it requires practice. And practice doesn't end in mastery because the universe is never done apparently delivering opportunities to be in the arena.
[00:28:34] Life, but practice helps us get better at being there and maybe doing less damage as we respond to what is real and alive. I believe we can all do better and I believe in us.
[00:28:55] Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate you and I see you in whatever you are moving through, and per usual, if you listen and what I'm talking about is resonating with you and you want more support with all of it, book an explore call with me. Go to bs spreadable.com/explore. And we can hop on the phone for 15 minutes and see what you need and what I can offer, what we can create together.
[00:29:23] So thank you for listening. Please, if you have friends in your life that are moving through some stuff, will you send them this podcast? Let them know that. They aren't alone, that this human messiness is a collective experience and there are others that are doing the deep work walking alongside them.
[00:29:46] Alright, have a beautiful day. Thanks.
[00:29:53] Thank you so much for listening. Thank you to my Sprout partners, Julietta and Alana. Thank you, Danielle for. Supporting with the show notes as well as Chris Mann and the team at Pod Shaper for all the support with getting the show out there and making it sound good. As I mentioned, sharing is caring. If you're willing to pass on this episode to others or take a few minutes to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, it helps other parents find.
[00:30:19] Useful content. Be sure to check out what we have going on for parents of kids of all ages and sign up for our newsletter to stay [email protected]. I see you doing all the things. I believe in you. See you next time.