Eps 647: Returning to our soul care

Joyful Courage means recognizing when I am out of alignment with my higher self and stepping in to do what I know supports me in finding my feet again. Remembering that it is a process and over time, with my willingness and commitment, I can shift my experience to one of centered empowerment. The trust and the faith I have in my practices is an act of courage. Knowing I can change my experience is powerful.

ESOURCES MENTIONED

• Soul Navigation Cards — https://www.fuzionhealingarts.com/soul-navigation-cards 
• Living Joyful Courage Inner Circle — monthly workshops, group coaching, and weekly Soul Care calls
• Tending the Garden of Adolescence (new on-demand workshop) — besproutable.com/garden
• 15-Minute Explore Call with Casey — besproutable.com/explore
• Sproutable Newsletter — besproutable.com

Transcription

[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.
[00:01:23] Hey everybody. Hi. How are you? I've missed you. We've had a couple of weeks of interview shows, which have been amazing and I've had such a great time meeting new people and having new conversations to share with all of you. And I find that when I'm not creating these solo shows. I miss the connection with all of you, with you listeners, with the audience.
[00:01:54] So, hi, how are you? We're nearly done with the first quarter of the year. How are you finding yourself? Ah. Maybe you've found a nice rhythm in 2026. Maybe you're doing a little treading of water. Maybe you're waiting for things to calm down. Maybe you're excited about all that's happening in your life and with your family.
[00:02:23] Maybe you're wondering if things will ever feel okay again. I'm here for all of it, and as we move into the spring, and if you're listening to this when it comes out and are in the Northern Hemisphere, we're moving towards the spring right now as we move towards and into this time of year. Yeah, I get really excited.
[00:02:50] I get really excited about nature, about all the signs of new growth, the buds on the trees, the daffodils. I saw like so many daffodils blooming. It's like, whoa, I didn't even see you come through and now you're just full of magic in full bloom. They broke through the surface. There is this. Sense of possibility of new life, right?
[00:03:17] So much has been happening under the surface. We can't see the development and the growth in the soil, but we trust that the plants will come back, that the buds will bloom, the foliage will return. Summer will come. We know this to be true. We believe it. And guess what? It happens every year. It happens.
[00:03:41] There's something about spring and the believing in it and in the growth and expansion. That feels a lot like what we're doing here in the joyful courage community, right? The positive discipline tools and strategies of encouragement and curiosity, natural consequences, agreements, family meetings, all these tools that we talk about, the pruning.
[00:04:10] Right. The trellising, the cultivating, the fertilizing, right? It's all the things we do to optimize and increase the likelihood that our garden, also known as our family is. Healthy and abundant. Well, maybe it's not our family, but the environment, the conditions, right? The space that we're holding is healthy and abundant, and there's also beliefs that we're doing enough, right?
[00:04:42] We're doing enough. We're showing up each day. We're tending. We're noticing we're seating and sewing. It reminds me so much, right? The way that we tend to our yards, our gardens, reminds me so much of how we show up in our relationship with others and ourselves. It is obvious out in the yard when we're not tending, right?
[00:05:10] We get weeds, we get overgrowth, but when we can remember to take the time to do the work to create what we want. We like what we see right This morning. This morning I had a really profound soul care session. I've been feeling a little bit off. I don't know about you, but I've been feeling a little out of routine and I know when I'm feeling off it's, you know.
[00:05:41] Because internally for me, off feels like a feeling of insecurity. There's fear and doubt. Sometimes it feels center stage, like I'm really spun out in this. But other times it's like sneaky, right? It's like lingering this outskirt. Experience that is just ready to step in and take control right when the door opens.
[00:06:16] So lately I've been noticing my dance with insecurity and fear and doubt. And yesterday I was really noticing how I was feeling. The disconnection and neediness were really present for me. Ugh. And I was like, okay, what's going on? I looked inward and that's when I realized, because that's the tool, right?
[00:06:40] Like that's the first step, is looking inward, leaning into awareness. And this is when I realized, okay, life has been really busy with a spring break trip. With my son, followed by him being here at the house. I gotten behind on some of my work. I noticed I was really distractible and distracted by thoughts and beliefs that were not in alignment with what I hold.
[00:07:06] To be true and how I wanna feel. I just felt off and it occurred to me that I've been totally out of my practice. I haven't been engaging in my morning routine. That is so important for me to maintain. The way of being that feels good and keeps me moving forward in my life and my relationships. And it's funny because lately, just in the last week, I've had two different clients ask me, how do you stay so positive all the time?
[00:07:45] And. When I hear that question or some iteration of that question, my initial reaction is always, oh man, I am not positive all the time. Like, just ask the people closest to me and they can tell you all about how I am showing up on the regular. But then. I release that kind of self-deprecation and I lean into the question, where does my positivity come from?
[00:08:16] Because I know, I'm aware that I show up to life in a way that keeps. Possibility and positivity at the forefront. When I'm at my best, and it's because I practice it, I center it. I commit to paying attention to how I'm feeling and to doing my best to lift into a place, like I said, of possibility. And you may be moving through really hard things right now, and hearing me say that might feel dismissive.
[00:08:52] You might think to yourself, well, it's easy for you to say you're not dealing with whatever is happening in your life, so I'm not dealing with what right. I think it's important to remember that we all have plenty to pull us under into despair. We like to think that what we are moving through is the hardest thing that no one can understand, that no one else has.
[00:09:19] Been challenged by it, but it's just not true. We all have kids that we worry about. We have parents that are getting older, or maybe we've lost parents. We might have a partner that's out of work or a health crisis in our family that's very real and alive. We all have bills to pay and calls to return and bullshit.
[00:09:42] That seems to never end. We all are moving through that. I am moving through all of those things. So all of that is true, right? And every moment is a new beginning to decide how we wanna be, how we wanna respond to whatever is currently in front of us. We do. All of us have that.
[00:10:18] So this morning I returned to my Soul Care practice and I pulled. Cards. You know, I love my cards, my soul navigation cards. I'll put a link in the show notes to those. So first thing that I did, I knew it would be important, is I took to my journal and I wrote out a list of 10 gratitudes. And you know, these gratitudes, I'm just gonna open my journal and find them.
[00:10:46] It wasn't like, I am grateful for my house, or I'm grateful for my car. It wasn't grateful for things. Instead, it was the grateful for. Parts of myself so grateful for my knowing. Grateful for my feeling, grateful for my spiritual practice. Grateful to have found my way back to love. Grateful for my ability to express myself, grateful for my physical practice and the strength of my body.
[00:11:18] Grateful for music, right? It was just a long list that sounded like that. Grateful to know when I need to return to my meditation cushion. So I started off with that gratitude practice, and then I moved into shifting. I shifted into affirmations, which start with I am. I am strong. I am kind. I am worthy. I am lovable.
[00:11:46] I am focused. I am capable. Right? I listed out a bunch of affirmations and I'll tell you what, they were all things that I believe. Right. They weren't stretchy. They were things that I believe about myself, and then I listened to a motivational audio and took notes. Some of what caught my attention that I believe, you know, are valuable, that's why I'm bringing 'em here.
[00:12:12] Included when you, and this is straight from my notes of my journal, so when you notice resistance to whatever is. Reach for thoughts that feel a little bit better again and again and again until you're in a better feeling place. Another thing that I wrote down. Consciously decide to stop the struggle, release the control of conditions and others actions, and start controlling the connection between me and me.
[00:12:44] As in finding my own inner alignment for my own benefit, my wellbeing is an inside job, obviously, a theme that I love as I did a whole show about that last month. Something else that I wrote turn towards what I want, which requires knowing what I want. And then finally I wrote down, bless my awareness of negative emotions.
[00:13:09] Relax in the middle of them, oof, loosen that grip, reach for a better feeling thought, and allow myself to turn towards the flow, the current of wellbeing. So you get me, you following. With me. How do I stay positive? I work for it. I'm happy to work for it. I'm super grateful that this is important enough to work for.
[00:13:35] That's what came to me this morning. That's what I remembered today as I returned to my practice that I've been neglecting the last few weeks, and then I pulled cards. Oh my gosh, they were so perfect. Of course, the first three were wisdom. Beginnings and courage beginnings really landed in that middle present moment space.
[00:13:59] And like I said, every new moment is a new beginning. It's an opportunity to start again, to pivot, to shift, to amend and aerate that internal garden. Right. And what is exciting about the beginning of the Pres? The beginnings inside of the present moment is they're always informed. By what's already existed, right?
[00:14:24] Wisdom. We gain wisdom throughout our life. There's no end point to the wisdom that we accrue through relationship and experience. Over and over again. Insight grows, perspective grows. We take that into each new moment, each present moment, each new beginning, and. For me, this is what gives me the courage to lean into positivity.
[00:14:57] To bring positivity into the present moment. Wisdom informs our present moment. Courage. Courage invites us to bring more of what we want. So it could sound like, okay, I've been here before. They've learned before and will learn some more, so will I. Right, everything's figureoutable. This is what wisdom and courage in the present moment sounds like.
[00:15:25] I've already done hard things. I can do them again. The sun will come up tomorrow. I know what to do. I know how to be. This isn't new. Wisdom informs our present moment, and then courage is what we lean on to create what we want. Courage is the tool that paves the way to positivity and possibility to contentment and to growth.
[00:15:53] And listen, I am fully intimately aware that it takes a tremendous amount of courage to let go, to let what is be what it is, and to trust that it will shift over time. It takes courage to believe in beauty and love and worthiness. It takes. Courage to quiet the monkey mind that is telling us to panic that keeps us insecure and in fear, and to move towards trust and faith and belief that everything is unfolding as it's meant to, and we get to be in the flow of life.
[00:16:45] These three cards, they hit hard for me this morning, and it was a powerful reminder of who is actually in control of my experience of life. Oh yeah, I am. I'm in control of my experience, how I'm experiencing my experience, and I have something to offer. Right. I have something to offer myself. The two other cards served as a powerful support for this, right?
[00:17:14] My two other cards this morning, so past, present, future Wisdom, beginnings, courage, and then my two support cards. Integration and passion integration. I love this word. I love this invitation. To me, integration is that willingness to practice, not only to practice each morning on my cushion with my journal and my sacred space, with my coffee and my incense burning.
[00:17:49] Not just that practice, but to also practice. In the moment when I feel doubt show up, when desperation and neediness creep in, I get to be willing in those moments to quiet the mind, to ask myself, what do I want? Is the monkey mind offering me the truth? Right? What is my truth? What are my beliefs? What do I want to believe?
[00:18:20] And you know, when I ask myself that I can look around and find security, right? I can feel secure in my relationships. I can, you know, I can absolutely make a list of things that others could do that would help me feel that way. But when I do that, I am succumbing to the idea that my wellbeing is dependent.
[00:18:46] On the actions of others. And it's not useful because I can't always control others. I can only control myself. So then I get to go inward. What does security feel like in my body? Eyes closed, hands on my heart, breath steady. What are the signals of my body when I'm feeling secure? And for me, I notice that my shoulders are down.
[00:19:14] I release tension. The small muscles on my face are relaxed. And again, like I said, my breath, it's intentional and it's steady. I can breathe in ease, a sense of ease, and for me, and I'm guessing for a lot of you. I have to start with my body. This is the easiest entry point because my mind can get stuck on loops that are tough to penetrate visuals and thoughts that.
[00:19:49] It's weird. It's like I am grasp, like I won't let go of them. And so I've gotta start by bringing ease to the body and then I can bring ease to my mind. And there are affirmations that also support with this, right, with this mind. Um, kind of like the, the breaking down of the loops, right? The affirmations that help me are I matter.
[00:20:16] My experience is real. I'm worthy. Everything is always working out for me. Everything is a possibility for growth and rebirth. I am rooted. I am grounded. The affirmations support me in quieting the mind and the stories that are showing up as beliefs and spinning me out. Yes, I could ask the people around me to be different.
[00:20:46] But really the real work and the real growth and the real like rooted, grounded work is me. With me. We don't know what the future holds, but it doesn't really matter because the only moment we are experiencing is the one that we're in. Can we be brave enough to bring our wisdom to this moment? And integrate a practice of tending to our own wellbeing.
[00:21:18] How might this influence the health of our internal garden as well as our external garden? Our relationships, our impact, and all of this is so important to me. This is my passion. Right? Of course. Of course I'm bringing it here. I'm here in this life to learn to surrender and be with it and be in the flow of it and meet it as it comes.
[00:21:42] Positivity is a part of that passion. What's the alternative? Negativity. No thanks. That isn't the lens that I wanna see the world out of. I wanna be there. I want there to be possibility and growth. And love and connection. What do you want? What do you want more of? We get to generate what we want for ourselves and let it spill over out into the world, and we're not.
[00:22:09] Bypassing anything. This isn't about bypassing. You know what's hard? There is a ton of bullshit out there to wade through. I know this intimately in my macro, in my inner circle, as well as watching the news, listening to the news, paying attention to what's happening in our communities, in our government, and our world, right?
[00:22:31] And what happens? When we're wading through all of that and thinking, I've got this, yes, it's annoying and I'd rather be doing something else, but I know that being here in this struggle is leading me to a new beginning. What is here for me to learn and grow through, right? How can I tend to myself to be with this in a way that is more helpful and less hurtful versus.
[00:22:59] The mindset of, Ugh, this sucks. Everything sucks. It always sucks. Life will never get better. I'm always gonna feel this way. Everyone's out to get me. And I know these are two extremes, but can you hear the difference? Can you hear what's possible in each or not possible? So today I'm coming in here to the podcast in conversation with all of you, to invite you to be brave.
[00:23:27] The world needs you to be brave and to lean in your family and you. You need yourself to be brave and to lean in to create a practice for coming back to this present moment. Carve out time each day that's focused on this, however it looks, is up to you, but make it intentional. Bring intentionality to your life.
[00:23:52] To your work, to each new beginning. That every present moment is an offering of, because life is gonna keep lifeing each age and stage. It all comes with a new set of opportunities to grow through, right? You're not doing anything wrong. If you feel like things are hard, you're just paying attention. And in those moments where you're paying attention, you have a chance to shift if you're brave enough to try it.
[00:24:24] Right. Ah, so good. So good. I get so lit up talking about all of this clearly. Ah, it's just, it's such an important piece of my work and I feel evermore, like I wanna bring it to the forefront, right? Yes. Positive discipline. Yes. Parenting, but. Let's tend to ourselves so that we can be with parenting and positive discipline in a way that really makes a positive impact.
[00:24:56] And FYI, I wanna talk about, like, it's so important to me that I've brought in my, you've heard me talk about my membership program, living Joyful Courage. I have added a weekly Soul Care call to that program. So yes, we do monthly workshops. Content rich parenting focused workshops. Once a month and every month we have a group coaching call.
[00:25:24] Where parents get to bring their real challenge to the call and we support, and now every week there's an open invitation to join me in meditation, in the card pulling, and the journaling and the sharing, and it's so special, and it just feels like exactly what the program needed to go next level. And I love all of you that are showing up to that practice.
[00:25:54] And also, I am super close to releasing a brand new program called Tending the Garden of Adolescents. What every parent needs to know. And this is an on demand online workshop. It's short and sweet and designed to inform and inspire and support parents with finding who are finding themselves at a loss around what's happening to their child as they transition into and through the teen years.
[00:26:24] And as I prepare this podcast, I'm also, I'm working on all the final touches of launching that. In fact, this show, it may be launched, you can check it out and see for [email protected] slash garden. It is priced to be really affordable and accessible, and I made it for you. So go check that out. And you know, if this.
[00:26:49] Show. If the content I created for you today landed for you and you want more support, you know I've got you. I'm happy to hold your hand while you make your way back to your own practice of light and positivity and ease and security even. As life around you feels hard. Let's see how we can work together.
[00:27:10] You can book a 15 minute call with me at bes spreadable.com/explore. I'll put both of those links that I mentioned in the show notes. Okay? Lots of ways to continue to feel supported and connected with a Guide me a mentor. I've got you. We've got. Each other, right? We've got this. We are the designers of our lives, my friend.
[00:27:38] We get to be brave to grow through what we go through to bring our ever-growing wisdom into tending our internal gardens, our present moments, our new beginnings. So good to be with you like this, this week. Stay tuned for a few more interviews coming down the pipe, and I will see you soon. Bye.
[00:28:05] 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 this useful content.
[00:28:32] 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.