Eps 245: Solo Show- Teasing Apart Vulnerability In the Present Moment

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Casey O'Roarty 0:05
Music. Hello, hello. Welcome to joyful courage, the conscious parenting podcast where we tease apart being parents and humans in the world and that wild adventure that ensues, I am your host. Casey o'rourdy, I'm a positive discipline trainer. I'm a parent coach and speaker writer, also the parent of two teenagers trying to embrace my imperfection as I raise them to be functioning, contributing members of society. One day, I'm super glad that you're here. Welcome. If you're a new listener, hi, welcome. What you will find in the upcoming show is what is pretty typical around here. I of course, went into the episode thinking I was going to talk about one thing, but because of events and experiences, the morning of the recording, I really had to speak into what was on my heart. And that's really what you get with joyful courage. Yes, you get the parenting tools and strategies. But even deeper than that, you get a really raw, candid experience. And my goal is always for my listeners to feel seen and heard and felt right. I want my listeners to feel like when they're listening, especially to the solo shows that there's an experience of, oh yes, you are speaking into the experience that I am also having, and so I don't think this week will be any different. I really hope that you enjoy the show. I also want to encourage you, if you have any questions or feedback for me, you can always email me at Casey, at joyful courage.com, I respond to all the emails that I get from fans and listeners. Another thing that would be hugely beneficial to the podcast is if you jump into iTunes and you'd leave a review, a five star review would be fantastic. Let me know and let others know what you love about the show. The more reviews the show gets, the more it is shown to other people who are looking for shows on parenting and the parenting journey. So if you could do those things, that would be fantastic. We're moving into the fall, and I'm just really, as usual, humbled and honored to get to serve you, to be in relationship with you and to share the podcast with you. So enjoy the show.

Hi, friends. Oh man, I am in a hotel room trying to position myself well to the mic so that the sound is good. Hi. I'm so glad to be with you today. I'm so glad to be with you today. I have some life updates, two major things that are very exciting to share, yeah, and kind of dive into content for this week. So my husband, my husband, is on the other side of the stem cell transplant. If you've been listening to me for a while, you know that back in April, my husband was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, which is a blood cancer. And today, as I record today, is Tuesday the 13th, and it is called day one. Yesterday was his day zero. They he had a whole bunch of stuff go down the last couple weeks they had they took all of not all, but he had to grow an obnoxious amount of stem cells. You know, they used medication to elevate the growth of the stem cells in his body. So they did that for a week, and then they took a bunch of stem cells out, and then last weekend, he had chemo, which pretty much wiped out his immune system, so that yesterday they could put the stem cells back into his body. And the stem cells are like parent cells that grow all the other cells that he needs to have a healthy immune system with very little cancer in it. So yeah, it's been a pretty major couple of weeks over here in the overardie family, and now my man is sleeping in the other room and starting to feel the effects of. All the craziness that the last couple weeks His body has been through. And really what we're going to do now is we wait, we watch the new system. He's new baby Ben. That's what we call him, new baby Ben, because he has, like, a new baby immune system, so he'll be growing all the things that he needs the next couple weeks feeling pretty crappy. And then about day 10 or 11 after the transplant, he starts feeling better. So we're on day one. Huge shout out to every person that works at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, oh my gosh, that place has the most amazing people who work there and have been taking care of us. We just are so so grateful, and so so grateful for all of you and the messages of love and support via email or through social media. I'm receiving it. I am receiving all of your love. So thank you. I gotta say the lessons of all of this, the lessons so far, self care matters. I know I've said this a bunch over the last six months. But man, nothing like this kind of health crisis to really teach that self care matters. Surrender matters like I have very little control over

what is happening to my husband and I get to surrender over and over and over again. And even as my kids, you know, navigate the new normal and make sense of it, you know, I get to surrender to the fact that this is a part of their experience. It It just is. I don't need to be attached or give that, you know, negative meaning or positive meaning. It

just is. It just is. It's the the turn of our life right now. And letting go matters right? Letting Go matters. There is so much I want to control. Those of you that know me know that I tend to be a little micromanagey. And you know, there's the things that I can control, like writing down what time my husband takes medication, and there are things I cannot control, like how his body responds to chemotherapy so and how my kids are making sense of things, right? I just have to trust that we're all growing. And I believe this, it's not that hard. It's been evident every day with just the way that our family has risen to the occasion. I mean, we still have moments of like but, man, I'm pretty amazed. You know it takes something like this, and I know that those of you that have lived through tragedy know this, it takes some pretty intense life experience to show you just how resilient and strong and committed and connected you are. So for that, I'm grateful. I'm grateful.

And speaking of self care, so I love this is kind of, we're getting into the content, and then I'll tell you the second thing, kind of towards the end that I wanted to share, but I love the Insight Timer app. Have I talked about it on here before I feel like I have? I love the Insight Timer meditation app, because there's like a bazillion different meditations to choose from. You can filter it by how long they are by the focus, by, you know, a male or a female voice. Typically, I choose a female voice, like, there's just a million ways to filter. And so the other day, I was looking for, like, a 10 minute morning, kind of just being with the morning meditation. And I saw this meditation called surrender to wholeness. I think I might have even tapped in surrender as the key word. And it's a meditation from the hero's journey Foundation. And person that led the meditation was a man. And like I said, I don't know, for some reason, I just always kind of veer towards female voices. But I thought, You know what, I'm gonna give this a try. I I really liked the picture that went along with it this big like forest and a person standing in front of a huge tree. And I just was like, yeah, and shout out to my brother in law, Brandon. In he went through the hero's journey workshop, and so I just kind of, I'm always intrigued by their work and the conversations that I've been able to have with Brandon over the years. And I thought I'm gonna try this out.

Oh my gosh, you guys. It was so good. It was so good that I sat for the 10 minute meditation. And just like it was so good, and then I listened to it again, and I took notes, because the messaging and the insights, everything that the guide was sharing, was so profound, and I just wanted to capture it, and I really wanted to bring it here to the podcast as a way of just kind of looking at being in the present moment, which I know I talk about it a lot, but guess what? It's because it's super important, and I don't think we can hear things like be in the present moment often enough. So some of the highlights, some of like the direct quotes that I took from the meditation, one of the things that the guide says is we enter wholeness by being present to the moment and being sensitive to what is being asked of us. So I love this sentence, because I often think about how when we're in conflict, especially with our kids, we get so caught up in the emotion of the conflict that we are often not open to receiving what it is that's being asked of us, like, what is the way of being that's being called for in the moment? What do our kids actually need from us? Who do they need us to be?

That the all these things happen at once, right? Like we're we're having a moment our kids say something that triggers us. Hello, parent, educators. They're just like you. Our child says something that triggers us, and then all of a sudden, we're spun out into this story about how they're so disrespectful, and they just don't care, and they're doing it on purpose, and they're gonna be dead in a ditch, like we always end up there, right? Well, when we're caught up in all of that, we are not able

to be sensitive to what it is that our kids need in that moment, or our partner or our friend, right, because we're too spun out into either future, tripping or regret from the past, or our own fear, our own stuff that has nothing to do with our kids. To be whole in the moment is to be present and to be aware and to be conscious, right? And it's a practice. I'm going to talk about that in a little bit. Another thing that is a quote from the meditation that I love. He says being grounded. She's talking about being grounded, grounding into something solid, but being on the edge of your vulnerability. I just I love that play in words and for me breath, when he talks about grounding into something solid, to me, it reminds me of like an anchor, right, and and, and breath is always, for me personally, the anchor

that brings me back to the present moment right when I can recognize that I'm spinning out. Those of you that have read my book recognize that I'm on the freight train, and I come back to breath, that first step in the three B's breath, right. Breath is the anchor breath, breathing grounding into something solid, right, while also being on the edge of your vulnerability. I love this, because how many times have you been in that situation where, again, you're triggered, you're angry, you're scared, you're you feel out of control, but you're aware, right? You know that you're in this mindset. And you know you might think to yourself, I gotta breathe, right? I gotta calm down, but something is keeping you from calming down. And when I heard this languaging, grounding into something solid, but being on the edge of your vulnerability, I thought about how often we get we have this like internal conflict of calming, of coming down. We want to calm down, but there's this idea that if we calm down, the other person is somehow getting away with something, or the other, or we appear weak or and maybe what that is is just wanting to avoid vulnerability. Isn't that crazy? Like maybe it's hard. For us to practice calming down because it feels vulnerable to be open. It feels vulnerable to be willing to take a look at ourselves, to be willing to allow the other person's space, to really open up to us. It feels vulnerable and people don't like vulnerability, you know, vulnerability? I mean, I do. I'm kind of a vulnerability junkie, but I realize that that is not the norm. And there's definitely times where I'm not really stoked about vulnerability, like I don't love to hear my teenage daughter

let me know that the way that I'm responding to her is not useful, or that when I think I'm validating and being supportive, I'm actually hurting her

in some way. That feels awful, right? And so I just, I just got really stoked when I heard when I listened again. And I've listened to this meditation a few more times since then, grounding into something solid, but being on the edge of your vulnerability, grounding into your breath and being willing, being willing to be a bit vulnerable for the sake of the present moment for the sake of being whole and fully with the people around us and with ourselves, right so good. Another quote from the meditation attune to right now discover step beyond the obstacles that get in the way of recognizing our ability to feel into the unknown. Oh, my God, step beyond the obstacles that get in the way of recognizing our ability to feel into the unknown, right? How many of us have stories that are like, Oh no, I'm afraid of the unknown. I don't want to think about the unknown. I don't like the unknown. There's so many things that we do. I mean, hello, covid, 19, quarantine.

There's so many things that we do to create this sense of security, right? Like a sense of knowing, like, Okay, I know how things are going to happen because I've done X, Y and Z, and the results should be ABC or whatever, right? And this meditation, this idea of attuning to right now, which is the same as like being in the present moment, like really landing in the present moment and getting beyond the obstacles. When I think about the obstacles that get in our way, I think about all of our human tendencies, right, our meaning making, our judgments, our fears, our need for control, they get in the way of our ability to be okay with the unknown, and maybe we could even be kind of excited about the unknown, like,

there's a lot of possibilities friends, there's a lot of ways that life can go, and they're not all terrible. Some of them are pretty amazing, right? Oh, my God. So yeah, I discovered this meditation. I listened to it twice the morning that I found it, and then I've listened to it a bunch of other times. Some of the thoughts that came up for me,

one being how powerful it is to let like I was saying about the unknown, letting go of the narrative we hold about how things should look, how things should be. I've talked about this before on the podcast, and even though I just want to be really transparent here, even though I've talked about it a lot, I still hold narratives. I still, you know, and it's funny, because narratives are so confining, right? If we've decided already how things should look and should be,

where's like possibility, where's spontaneity, where's, you know, twists and turns in the road. It's confining, you know, and oftentimes, right, especially when it's a narrative about how things should look for our kids or our partners or our friends. Like, who the hell are we to decide that? Who the hell are we to decide that we know how things should be and that there's only one way, right? It's so insulting to our kids, you know, and I, I've had to learn this, you guys, know, I've had to learn this the hard way I have my oldest child is, you know, completely on a different narrative than I ever even would have thought of. And as soon as I let go and just recognized that. That I could trust her and that she was going to be okay. It's she's just blossomed inside of of her narrative, inside of her path. And, you know, especially lately, I really am seeing over and over again that she's good and she's got dreams and she's got hopes and she's, you know, got places to go and things to learn, and she's excited, and that's really all I want, right? That's really all I want. I don't need. Yeah, we don't realize that we have a narrative until something interrupts it, right? The other thing that came up as I was listening to this meditation again, and I already said this, but the letting go of the idea of control, yeah, and right now I'm going to talk more about this, but I'm in the this the beginning, the second day of the teens and screens mini Summit, and it's been really awesome to welcome so many new members into the joyful courage parents of teens group. And it's always fascinating to witness as people first come into the group and they they're hot about the challenge that's brought them to the group. And, you know, I think when we first come into positive discipline or or really focusing in on, like there might be parent support available, I should find out the focus of the questioning really is like, how can I get my kid to do what I want? And I don't mean that in a terrible way I mean that it's just, you know, like, it's pretty mainstream, like, how do we get our kids to do what we want? I wish I knew the answer, but really slowly, as the community shows up and their support, the theme of, like, hey, you know, we got to meet our kids where we're at. It's about relationship. Control is an illusion, you know? How can we create connection that is influential? Yeah, so that I was reminded of that listening to this meditation and also letting go and this is vulnerable. I think letting go of the idea that the future can be manipulated by how you show up today. And by that I mean I think all of us want hope, that we remain close to our kids that they want to have relationships with us. If people are listening who might have a strange relationship with their parents, I'm guessing you might have a little bit of fear or trepidation about you know, or at least motivation of wanting to know and make sure that that's not your experience with your kids. And we get kind of, it gets kind of wild, right? Like, we get a little obsessed with that. Well, what if you know, what if our What if we, we can't control that. Like, ultimately, our kids are going to grow into young adults and full adults and have their own kids, and they're going to decide, just like we've decided what kind of relationship they want to have with us. I mean, of course, how we respond makes a difference, and what if our what if? What if we have no control over that? What if we get to just be in this moment, in this moment and in this moment again and again and again? What if we just worry about this moment and choose into this moment? Because, my friends, the future is uncertain. With a husband who has a cancer diagnosis that will be with him for the rest of his life and the rest of our lives, I am now intimately aware of the uncertainty of the future. All we have is the present moment. This is where wholeness lives. You don't accumulate positives. Well, accumulating positives is actually a really good tool. We learned that in DPT, but wholeness isn't a destination. It's not a place that you'll get to one day. Wholeness is right now. Wholeness exists in this moment when we're tuned into ourselves. Right when we're tuned into ourselves, we are whole, and right now is where we get to love our kids and connect and men. And repair relationship right now, in this, in this moment towards the end of the meditation, the guide said, I love this too, staying with breath, staying with the ground underneath you, which is to me, right here, right now, allows you to accept the world as it is, and makes you less numb and reactive to it. I'm going to say that again, staying with the breath, staying with the ground underneath you, allows you to accept the world as it is, and makes you less numb and reactive to it.

That's to me, that speaks into the dance between kind or firm, right, whether we either are like permissive or authoritarian, where we either get scared and we check out numb, or we get scared and we get rigid and controlling and demanding. Reactive right we grasp for that sense of control and dominance. Both of these responses come from fear, both in both responses we leave the present moment, both come from sliding out of conscious awareness and into an unconscious pattern,

right? Okay, great. So how do we how do we do this? Then, how

do we stay in the present moment all the time? Isn't that the goal? Casey like, How the heck are we supposed to do that? That's the million dollar question, my friends. And the answer is, we don't. We don't stay in the present moment all the time. We are not monks living in a monastery in the mountains of Tibet. We are human beings living in in in the world with other human beings. So we don't stay present all the time. What we do is we create a practice of returning to presence over and over and over and over again, all day long, as often as we can and and I know some of you have heard me talk about this before, and I'm going to invite you right now as you listen and you realize, like, oh, Casey's talking about that thing again, I want you to really tune in and to listen for something that's new to you listen to for something that is a nugget specific for you. All right? We practice. We practice when the stakes are low, right? We really want high reps, high repetitions coming back to the present moment, high reps when it isn't important, right? When

we're at the grocery store, when we're folding laundry, when we're watching a show, when we're driving, although I would say it's pretty important to be present while you're driving, when we're walking or exercising, we practice asking ourselves, what am I paying attention to right now?

Right? Or just checking in quickly with, oh, what's influencing my current emotional state right now? How does my body feel in this moment? What's the story I'm currently spinning right? Those are just a few questions. And catching yourself when you're not in the present moment, because all those things I was saying like, I mean, what do you think about when you're driving? Are you super alert and looking at everything and in the present moment? My guess is, no, are you super alert and in the present moment when you're standing in line at the grocery store or folding laundry or on the treadmill or out walking your dog, oh, your your mind is spinning. You're thinking about stuff. You might be feeling a certain way, depending on you know what recently happened. So let's start practicing noticing that. Because that's unconsciousness. Consciousness is when we can say, oh, man, I'm feeling kind of ragey right now. I'm really hanging on to that conversation I had earlier. And is this how I want to be feeling right now? And if not like, what do I need to do to let go of that? How can I actively let go of that so I can be in the present moment, right? Or noticing like worry, especially worrying about our kids, worrying about their future, and then asking the question, okay, what's the story I'm currently spinning? And finding some lightness and laughing at ourselves a little bit, because we can really go into the rabbit hole of future tripping. I. So let's catch yourself, catch ourselves when we're not in the present moment, and then drop into the present moment, return to breath, return to that anchor, come back again and again. Make it a practice, and you will start doing it more often. Make it a practice. I'm just going to share this. I know I've shared it before. I'm guessing many of you have phone alarms that I've said, Hey, set a phone alarm. I have phone alarms. They go off. I ignore them. So maybe it's time to set some new phone alarms. Friends, maybe it's time for some new post. It notes some new messaging in your world to remind you to drop in to the present moment, then when things are hard or heated, and it does matter, when You are really on fire and dysregulated, the practice outside of those hard more moments that practice is upping. The likelihood that you just might ask yourself, Wait, what am I paying attention to right now, before you say something hurtful, right to your child, to your partner, you might catch yourself and say, whoa, whoa. What's influencing my current emotional state right now? How does my body feel? What is the story I'm spinning, and is it true? Because all of that stuff that happens to us when

we ride the emotional freight train, when we really are in that emotional, flipped lid dysregulation, all of that is the unconsciousness like we aren't in charge. We are letting our emotional body and and dysregulated mind take us, and we're waiting around out there, reacting or going numb, just like the meditation said, and it's getting in the way of really being right here, right

now, being with the unfolding of life. Because listen, when we're in that craziness, when we're in that unconsciousness, it actually we're creating even more suffering for ourselves, right? It is hard having a hurting child. And by hurting child, I mean those of you with teens that are having a hard time, that seem to be angry or withdrawn, they're hurting, right? Our kids are hurting right now life is weird. Or maybe you have a sick husband or a sick wife or a sick family member, or there isn't enough money right now to pay the bills right like there's enough suffering. And then when we spin tales about it and really sit in it and and wade through it and allow all of that emotion to color the way we see everything. Pile on our own fears and judgments. We are just adding on to the pain. We are actually creating more pain for ourselves. So

how about we stop that? Because right here, right now, we're okay. As you hear my voice in this moment, you're okay.

My man's okay. He's in the other room. He's asleep. He feels kind of shitty, but He's okay. He's in the other room. I know, I know I'm kind of on this whole theme of

present moment and releasing control and stepping into the unknown, but I'm okay with that. I am called to continue to speak into it when I have these solo shows, because I am living through my own present moment, and this podcast is a place where I think that the humanness of life is really celebrated and highlighted. And yeah, humanness is really happening right now for me, and I know what's happening in the individual is happening in the collective. So the challenges that I'm going through right now might be of a different flavor than the challenges that you're going through, but I see you, and I know that you have your own challenges, and I'm hoping that speaking into what's alive for me, inside of what's hard, you're finding some parallel and some alignment. Yeah. Yeah, I'm guessing you are

okay. Thanks for hanging with me yet again this week, my friends, I sure do appreciate all of you listening and reaching out to me, patrons. I'm so sorry about the chaos of this week with my husband's treatment, I wasn't able to get it together to live stream this week, but I do want to shout out to the patrons who joined in the facilitated call last week. Last Thursday night, we took a good look at self care, made some quality connections. There were some small group discussions, some content. I love that every month in the Patreon community, we come together, live on a call. If you're interested in finding out more about becoming a joyful courage patron, you can go to www.patreon.com/joyful courage. That's P, A, T, R, E, O n.com/joyful, courage. As a patron, you enjoy knowing that you're supporting the podcast. You'll be invited to live streams twice a month when I typically when I do these solo shows, they are live streamed, and if you are a $5 or a $10 patron, you get an invitation to that monthly call. It's cool. You should check it out. Okay, I love you. I will be back next week with an interview till then. Stay cool, talk to you soon.

Thank you so much for listening. I am so incredibly grateful for the joyful courage community and the way that you show up for each other and for me, there are so many ways to stay connected. Beyond this podcast, you can follow joyful courage on Facebook and Instagram. You can join one of the Facebook discussion groups either live in love with joyful courage or joyful courage for parents of teens. Also remember, if you want to take it up a notch, you can join the Patreon community, where you can catch live streams of the solo shows we do, monthly group calls and so much more. Check that out at patreon.com/joyful.

Courage. P, A, T, R, E, O n.com/joyful, courage. Big thanks to my team for all the ways they support me with my work. My editor, Chris Mann from pod shaper, my coo Tay, who does more behind the scenes than you can ever imagine. My sweet daughter, Rowan, who's learning the ropes and supporting the publishing of the podcast. I will be back next week with a brand new interview. Until then, my friends, find your breath, release the tension in your body, move to the balcony seat and trust that everything's going to be okay.

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