Eps 239: The podcast is BACK and it’s a brave new world…

Transcription

Casey O'Roarty 0:04
Music. Hello listeners, welcome to joyful courage, a conscious parenting and conscious humaning podcast, a place where we get real about the messy adventure of parenting and growing ourselves as human beings along the way. I am your host. Casey overti, I am a positive discipline trainer and facilitator, parent coach and humbly walking right next to you, working always to be a partner to my very best friend Ben and parent who is always on the learning curve to my beautiful teenage son and daughter. This is a place where we celebrate the process and always show up with transparency and authenticity. I am so glad that you're here as the host of the show. It is my pleasure to explore the internal as well as the external experience of not only parenting but also humaning. You will hear reference to current events and my own process of unpacking and learning about what it means to be someone who creates space for all voices to be heard and cherished. I don't believe that we could be conscious in our parenting and not be conscious in how we interact and intersect with people out in the world. If you are open and curious about what that means, you are in the right place, and I am thrilled, thrilled, thrilled to have you here. If you are interested in having more conversation with the joyful courage community, please join one of my two groups, you can find us on Facebook at live and love with joyful courage, or joyful courage parents of teens group, we would love to have you there. And now let's get on with the show.

Okay, yes, I see the little indication that it is recording, hello, hello, hello. I am so happy to be back here with you all. What a summer, right? Oh, my goodness, what a summer we have had. I'm so excited to reconnect and reset for the coming months here on the podcast and let you know what to expect from me, the community and the podcast. Hi, yay. I've missed you all so much over the summer, I've stayed connected with the community through Facebook, and did. I'll talk a little bit about the risky behavior and teen summit that happened in July, but as far as the podcast goes, we have been quiet, haven't we? Well, that is about to change before I get into today's show, I just want to give a shout out to my Patreon community. My Patreon community, one of the new things that I have included in being a patron of joyful courage is that I will be live streaming my solo shows. So right now I have on my computer screen, I've got GarageBand open, which is where I record myself talking to you. I've got word open, because I have a outline that I'm going to draw from as I talk to you today. And I have my Patreon community screen open. Actually, I'm on Crowdcast, and I am I'm looking at myself, which is always weird, talking into my mic and also offering myself up to my patrons who registered to watch me record the podcast live, and there's a chat and a place for them to come and ask questions. And I'm super excited twice a month when I do do my solo shows, I'm going to be live streaming them in my Patreon community, and that's really, really fun. I'm also adding a monthly group call to the Patreon group, and, yeah, it's just gonna, I'm developing it into a hub of connection and community, and I'm really, really excited about that. If you, if that sounds interesting to you, if that sounds like the kind of support that you would like go to patreon.com/joyful, courage. That's P, A, T, R, E, o, n.com/joyful, courage. There's different tiers that you can join. You can give $1 you can give $5 you can give $10 and it's like a monthly membership. Ship, but a really, you know, pretty low price point. So if you want to check out what else is offered on Patreon, I want you to get over there and check it out. Okay, so hello to all my live watchers. Actually, I have no live watchers yet. Part of this work, when we change things up with technology, is really training everybody on how to do something different. Ah, Simone is here. Yay. I'm so glad that you're here, Simone. I did a couple practice rounds over the weekend, and I'm trying to teach my patrons how to connect over this new platform. And I'm learning too. And so as we go, there will be even more fun pieces to this situation, yeah, oh, and I mentioned the risky behavior in teen Summit, so that was something that happened this summer, and, uh, wasn't it amazing? Super grateful to all of you that showed up there and were a part of the conversation. The guests were so good. The conversation in the parenting teens with joyful courage. That is not what it's called joyful courage for parents of teens group, there was fascinating conversations there. If you missed it, if you were like, oh shoot, I'm not on Facebook. I didn't get the email. Whatever your reason, it's all good. Maybe you're new. If you missed it, you can still access the risky behavior and teen Summit, as well as all the other summits that I've done by going to joyful courage.com/summit-shop joyful courage.com/summit-shop.

And you'll see all the summits, and you can purchase if you'd like. And I just want to say thank you so so much. Another thing that happened this summer is I put on a fundraiser for Bellamy Schaffner. She is the founder of revolutionary humans, with everything that came out following George Floyd's death, I really wanted to explore some ways that I could use my privilege and my platform and my community to make a financial impact on a black business. And a good friend of mine, Antonia Montoya, she makes all of those really cool intention bracelets that I have sold in the past. I reached out to her and said, Hey, I want to do this thing. And her being a in the part of the Latinx community as well as part of the part of the queer community. I said, Do you Where would you like this funding to go if we do this fundraiser? What are your ideas around people who would be awesome people to receive it? And she connected me with Bellamy. I love her work. She's actually going to be a guest on the podcast sometime this fall, and yeah, and so Antonia made a bunch of bracelets for me, and I have put them up for sale through my website. And because of this community, I was able to send $800 to Bellamy for revolutionary humans and supporting her and her work. And I'm just it felt so good to be able to pass that on to her, because money, man, money matters. How we show up for each other matters, and it just made me so grateful to have a community that would show up that way. So if you were someone who bought a bracelet, know that your money has been sent to Bellamy, and there are a few bracelets left. So if you're interested in checking out what I still have in stock, go to joyful courage.com/blm. Joyful courage.com/b, L M,

yeah, okay, here we are. So I took a break from the podcast because I really there was personal things which I'll get into. But also just with everything that's been happening in the world, the racial unrest, the just the unknown of covid, the political nightmare, like all of it, just kind of neat. I needed a pause. I needed to take a pause and really evaluate what it was that I was contributing to the world, how authentically I was showing up to my work and to all of you. And I just really wanted to kind of do an inventory of of joyful courage. I. I really, you know, the podcast is really the kind of serves as an ecosystem, in my mind, to all the other pieces, you know, the classes that I put on the even the one on one coaching. So when I work one on one with clients, I often, after a call, we'll send, I always send a follow up email to my clients after we have a coaching call, and I will include prior previous podcast episodes that take the topic that we teased apart during our call and bring it a little bit deeper. I'm super grateful to have such a a large bank of conversations, as well as solo shows to offer to my clients. Yeah, and I feel like this is where you get to know who I am. The joyful courage philosophy, it really opens up the relationship in a really real and meaningful way. And so I wanted to just kind of take a step back and lift a little up and out of the show and really notice, you know, how far we've come together, like I listened and looked at some of my earlier shows and watched how things have evolved, not only in, you know, I started off talking more school age. I had conversations about younger kids, and then, you know, watching over time as my kids started to get older and my challenges really started to come to the surface. I can see in the podcast evolution, how the conversations I was having shifted, how this, you know, bringing in every other week the solo shows, how that is kind of also kind of nurtured this ecosystem that is being created every week and being contributed to every week through the shows, right? And so I imagined that I would look and that there would be all these changes that I'd want to make in the podcast. And really, you know, one thing that came out is I want to continue to pay attention to the guests that I'm bringing on the show. I want to continue to hold as an intention that it's important to me to bring on a diverse range of voices. So that done, yes, when I look back, I can see that there have been diverse voices on the show, and I have invited on a lot of different individuals who represent different communities. And so, you know, I'm going to keep doing that. It's important to me in my own personal growth, and I feel like I have a responsibility as a white woman who's leading mostly white women. You know, it's important to be transparent in my own stretching into learning about myself and broadening my understanding of other people's experience. And to you know, it's always about bringing you along with me, right? So I am going to continue to get ever better at vetting guests and seeking out more diverse voices. And I'm pretty proud of of how my track record right, especially the over the last year or two, and then just really sitting with what are the conversations that I want to be having and that I see as useful as you all know, especially those of you that have been following me for a long time, I see parenting as one long personal growth and development workshop without the personal growth. Parenting is really painful. It's really hard. It's like trying to run in mud right? Your feet are really heavy. Everything just feels hard. Now, even when we're in our personal growth, things can feel hard. It's not about things not being hard. It's about how can we get better at recognizing what we're resisting, what's getting in our way, and how do we get better at letting go, right letting go. So when I think about the conversations I want to be having on the podcast, I do see, you know, there's some great parenting people out there, and they're reaching out to me all the time, which is awesome and useful, and I also am going to bring in even more people who are talking about personal growth, because, you know, we are parents, we are mothers and fathers. We are also human beings. We are partners. Sisters. We are sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. We are humans out in the world, interacting with the world. You know, I see, if anything shifts in the podcast, I really just see an expansion of what it is that we're going to be playing with and and talking about here on the show, and it fits inside of parenting, how we interact with the world is how we interact with our kids, right? It's all connected and aligned. And I'm really excited about that. Are you excited about that? Simone? I'm reaching out to you because I know you're watching, and I'd love to hear, don't be afraid to offer up some feedback there in the chat box. Yay. So yes. So that's happening on a professional level, also on a professional level, I have been working on, I have been working on my next mini Summit. Oh my gosh, so good. I've done three of the five interviews, and the topic for this fourth quarter mini Summit is teens and screens. Hello. Oh my gosh, we are all in it, right? I'm sure of it. I mean, unless you're super off the grid, and you probably aren't listening to podcasts, if you're super off the grid, but you know, if you have a teenager right now, my guess is, or even a younger kid, if you have a child right now, my guess is, you are questioning their screen, use your limits. What's okay, what's not okay? How to monitor, when to monitor, how much monitoring, monitoring is too much, all the things, right? So I have five amazing guests, three of which I've already interviewed, and it's going to blow you away. We're talking about video gaming, we're talking about monitoring. We're talking about social media use and how to have conversations when the posting is feels inappropriate to you. We're talking I have a guest who's going to talk all about tech and the brain, so I am just really, really excited to bring that to you, and that's going to happen in the second week of October. Um, registration will open in a couple weeks, so stay tuned for that also. So appreciating my one on one clients right now. So you guys, I have amazing clients. I have amazing clients, and they are doing the work right now, and it's so powerful to just watch the unfolding of the what happens when we kind of reframe what is currently alive in our homes, and we really look at how to contribute, how to be in contribution to the climate of our homes in a way that really creates space for deeper, more connected relationships. And for the first time, I have a full practice. You guys. It's so exciting. I have a full practice. I know there's going to be openings later in the fall, but right now, I can't even take new clients, and that feels really, really good. So shout out to all my one on one clients. I am grateful, grateful. Grateful to you.

Yeah. So then on the personal front, some of you know that back in the spring, we had a pretty severe health crisis in our immediate in my immediate family, my husband had to go in for emergency spine surgery, and they found multiple myeloma, which is a blood cancer. So this summer, another reason I took time off from the podcast was that this summer was a summer of cancer treatment. We are really fortunate to live within an hour and a half of Seattle, and Seattle has a incredible clinic, the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, where he has been treated. And yeah, I mean, when I think about all the years of personal growth and development that I've done, like 1015, years of just really recognizing my own patterns and how to be with whatever's coming up and unfolding for me, I had no idea that I was in training for this great, big crisis that showed up in my family. And, you know, the nice thing has been, well, one my husband's body has just totally, you know, responded so well to the treatment. As it's been, he and I have also been really true and honest and authentic with the kids. I am an external processor, he is an internal processor. So there's some interesting dynamic there. But just checking in with each other on how we're doing, it's been pretty interesting how smooth things have felt inside of our family. There's been some, you know, there's been some stress and some flare ups, and we're also doing all of this inside of coronavirus, 2020, so it's not like super Zen all the time, but man, the kids have just really stepped up. We've had a lot of family time. There's been a lot of laughter. There's been some tension too, but you know, really feeling like everybody's super healthy around this family crisis that we're inside of. And I gotta tell you, that one thing that has really supported me is I have been relentless with my self care and my soul care, especially the last five or six weeks. Every morning I am on the patio meditating. You know, I love those soul navigation cards that I've talked about before. So I pull cards and I journal every single day. I've also started reading a book that's super inspirational to me, that I'm learning more and more about, that is really feeding my spirit and my sense of purpose. Inside of all of this meaning I see that I'm inside of something that is much bigger than I can understand right now, and that it's actually serving me. I've been pretty strict with how I'm eating and how I'm sleeping, and it's made such a difference, such a difference, and that's a theme that I've been seeing with my clients too, is, you know, when we start to really create boundaries around taking care of ourselves, that, in and of itself, is a powerful way to shift dynamic. It's it shifts how we experience our challenges, and then when we shift how we experience our challenges, that opens up new possibilities for how we can then respond to those challenges. So we're going to be talking a lot about self care and soul care as we move into the fall. I will say tomorrow we are headed down to Seattle, Ben and I, and it's the beginning of the next two and a half months, which is his kind of grand finale of treatment. He will be going through a stem cell transplant, which is no small thing, and I am his caregiver, and we have support from family. I'm bringing all my podcasting gear down with me. So some of these live solo shows, for those of you that are watching Simone, I'm looking at you, they will be happening from the residence in Marriott in Seattle, and I will no doubt, be influenced by what is my experience in the moment, so I'm going to kind of take you along with me. I hope that's okay, because I do feel like I feel pretty I feel really grateful for the skills that I have to show up to what I'm going through. And I I feel a call to invite you into my process, so as to show you just a different way to be with the random, fucked up challenges that the universe, slash God, slash higher power sends our way To grow us. I am putting surrender into practice in a deeply meaningful way, and I feel like it's an opportunity to also model that for all of you, right? Because, hello, covid 19. Covid 19 certainly is flushing up the uncertainty, right? I know last spring, I did a whole solo show around the uncertainty factor, and I mentioned that uncertainty is always with us. It's just whether or you know, whether or not we can conveniently disguise it because we have a predictable schedule and we feel like we know what's going to happen, and now it's like, no, we don't know what's going to happen. We don't know what's going to unfold. And coupled with that, we're all having this collective experience, right, of covid 19, and we're all meeting that with however we're meeting. That I am a supporter of wearing a mask. I think you everyone should be wearing a mask. My husband has high risk immunity, so wear your mask. And I also recognize that for some people, there's a limit to like their experience with having a mask on for whatever reason, physical or mental health gets in the way. So I'm learning to recognize when I'm in judgment and then sitting back and considering perhaps I don't know the story, perhaps this person not wearing a mask just has other needs that are met by not make wearing the mask that not everyone's just an asshole who doesn't want to wear a mask. So anyway, so there's the covid. And then, you know, I have more than just Ben. I have other friends who are dealing with some really phenomenal health issues. Shout out to my beautiful friend, Shayna, who is currently moving through treatment for Stage Three breast cancer. She's got two small kids loving her from afar. I can't even tell you how many of my friends are having relationship issues, people going through divorce, dissolving relationships, parenting issues, of course, trying to hold space for our kids to be inside of the fact that we can't give them any answers. Oh, right, it is all it's all right here, it's all right here at the surface. And it's like, we can't avoid it. We can't ignore it. We can try. And it just keeps coming up, right? It keeps coming up. And so some thoughts that I have around this, that I want to share with you is what happens when we start to acknowledge and explore our own relationship with uncertainty, right? We haven't, perhaps really had to look it in the face until now, because it's just right there, right? So what is your relationship with uncertainty? Can you surrender to not knowing the outcome? And I think on a macro level, right? It's like not knowing the outcome of this freaking virus, right? We don't know what the fall will look like. We don't know when things will move into a sense of normalcy, I guess. We don't know when or if there will ever be a time where we don't have to wear a mask, right? And can we surrender to that? Can we be with that? Can we be with the not knowing? And I think that when we bring it closer to our own experience, you know, we've talked about, I talk about this with my clients too, and I know I've talked about it here on the podcast, when our kids are having a hard time.

You know when our teenagers are struggling and we don't know the outcome, right? We don't know the outcome. We don't know, are they going to be okay? How are they going to learn life skills if they don't walk out of the house having perfected every life skill on the list. There's so much unknown that we pretend that we can make sense of but really building that muscle of surrender is really about like, okay, okay, I don't know, and I can be in this present moment, and I can move on to whatever the next thing is, right? So I'm really interested in that conversation around the relationship with the uncertainty and with the not knowing the unknown. Can we let it go? Right? Can we hold can we hold that we may just be in the birth canal of something new and different, if we trust this process, right? So Simone, not knowing, especially with my kids, makes me retreat into harsh judgment of them. Yes, Mama, the last 12 to 18 months have been a huge growing for me. Yeah, Simone, you are not alone with that, right? When we don't know, we become afraid, right? And fear creates like, either a response of like, super rigidity, or, you know, like that, super withdraw, denial, all that. So we get to look at our patterns, and like Simone, she recognizes that her patterns are that retreat into that harsh judgment, right? And that's not useful, nor is just throwing our hands in the air. So paying attention to. To our experience when we're having our experience is really, really powerful. And like, yeah, the birth canal. We're in the birth canal right now, and I don't know what it's going to be like when we get out of the birth canal, but what if there's like, there's endless possibilities of what's on the other side, right, endless, and so let's ride this out. Let's learn as much as we can about ourselves and grow and develop and show up to that other side, show up to that birth into the brave new world as an ever more thoughtful, reflective, powerful human being.

Another question that I have for you is like, like looking at resistance, where is resistance adding to our current suffering now, when I think about my experience and my husband's cancer, or going back, you know, to the mental health experience that I've had over the last few years with my daughter, I can resist that I can sit inside of, why is this happening? Why me? What have I done wrong? How do I make this go away? How can I escape from this? And all of those questions really add to the suffering that's already there, right? I mean, I'm not completely deluded. We have an intense situation happening in our family, and there's not like, I can't, I can't, I can't not be inside of it. I can't make the cancer go away. I can recognize where I'm in resistance and let go and just be with what is in a way that allows me to notice where I'm afraid and notice where I'm okay, and just be present with where it is. And I think we can all do that. I don't think I'm a special person who is navigating this, my husband's cancer journey in a way that isn't available to everyone. And it doesn't have to be a cancer journey. It can be a divorce. It can be, you know, a tough experience with our teen. It can be a death of a family member. It can be, you know, fill in the blank, and we can meet it in a way that allows us to be present and in the flow of it so that we can get through it in a really healthy, positive way, allowing us to meet life as it unfolds. You know, that's really, that's really what I encourage you to do, and I don't think we can do that without a really powerful practice. Of building relationship with ourself and really exploring what it is that we need, right? Whoa, so, yeah, the that's happening, the other thing too that's happening right now, that's real and present in the world is the current political climate. Now I know that you are not here for politics. I know that you tell me, and I just want to be really clear, in case you haven't figured out kind of what my vibe is. I think most of you get what it is that I stand for, but I want to make it clear that I do identify as a Democrat. I believe that the strongest countries take care of their most disenfranchised people. It's like that quote, you know, a mom, a parent, is only as happy as their saddest child, or something like that. You know, that quote that I'm talking about? Well, I think the same is true at the higher level of the you know, the most powerful countries, the most stable, you know, I don't really like the word powerful, but the most well, the countries with the best well being, are the ones that take care of their most disenfranchised people, right? I believe that institutional racism is absolutely real and wreaking havoc on our country. I don't have solutions other than using my platform and speaking into it and not being silent. I believe that LGBTQ people deserve equal rights 100% and I hope for all of my listeners that are in you know that are same sex partners that are raising kids that are raising trans kids that are trans parents like I hope that you. Feel that and you feel seen. I believe in the importance and the urgency of slowing down climate change and thinking about future impact of how we treat and use our planet. I am disgusted by what is happening to families at the border. Yeah, not a fan of the President, and this podcast is going to reflect this, and that's okay, because guess what? It's my show. It's my show if you don't want to listen, if any of those things that I just mentioned kind of make your hackles go up and you don't you're not okay with it. That's okay with me, because there, I'm sure, are places and podcasts where you can go and hear from people that that have different views than mine. That's okay. You get to decide what you take away from this show and what you leave behind, and whether or not you want to listen. Know that my guests will always align with my internal compass. I will talk about my own learning and processing as a human as well as a parent, and a lot of it will have to do with, you know, those things that I just mentioned. So, yeah, this is not a politics show, and parenting is political, and how we treat our kids and how we show up for our families and how we show up for our community. It matters, and I think it's really reflective in who we are as humans. I can't tease apart, you know, my desire to be a conscious, loving parent with, you know, and ignore that families are being torn apart at the border. You know, I can't do that, so I'm not going to, and I'll be touching on some of those things as we move forward, and bringing those conversations into the podcast, because they're important, they're real, they're relevant. You get to decide whether or not you want to listen, and I'm okay with it. I'm okay with it. So my friends, that's what I've got for you today, just kind of a check in a reset, letting you know what's going on, what you can expect next week, there will be a solo show, or no, no, there will not be a solo show. It'll be an interview show, and I'm super excited to come in with my first interview of the fall. I invite you to share any feedback that you have with me. You can email me at Casey, at joyful courage.com, again, I invite you into the Patreon community. It's just a space where parents get together. You're going to get to watch these live streams. I'm going to get better at the live streaming. Thank you, Simone for being here on the live stream today, and those monthly group coaching calls are going to be really powerful. So just check out the page. P, A, T, R, E, O n.com/joyful, courage and be ready for some more regularity on my emails letting you know what's going on. But I'm so excited to be back. I've missed you all summer long, and I'm really excited to take you with me through the coming months. And yeah, you matter to me, so I hope you have a beautiful, beautiful day, and I will see you next week.

Thank you so much for showing up and listening in on another show. I'm so incredibly grateful for the joyful courage community. There are so many ways to stay connected. Beyond the podcast, you can follow joyful courage on Facebook and Instagram. You can join one of the Facebook groups live in love with joyful courage, or joyful courage for parents of teens, word is that both of these communities are some of the most compassionate and supportive spaces for parents to really show up in all of their authenticity and all of their vulnerability and feel seen and supported. I am incredibly proud of that. If you want to take it up a notch, you can join the Patreon community. There you get to catch live streams of the solo shows twice a month. We have monthly group calls and so much more. Check that out at patreon.com/joyful. Courage. That's P, A, T, R, E, O n.com/joyful, courage. Head over there. Check it out. And as always, you're welcome to offer thoughts and feedbacks directly to me at Casey, at joyful courage.com, I read and respond to all of my emails. Big thanks to my team for all the ways they support my work. My editor, Chris Mann from pod shaper, and my project manager, Tay, who does more behind the scenes than you can ever. Imagine I will be back next week with a brand new show. Until then, find your breath, release the tension in your body, move up and into the balcony seat and trust that everything is going to be okay.