Eps 247: Solo Show About Dealing With Our Triggers

Subscribe to the Podcast

Transcription

Casey O'Roarty 0:06
Kay, hello, hello, hello, hello. Welcome to joyful courage, a conscious parenting podcast and conscious humaning Podcast. I am your host, Casey overti. I am a positive discipline trainer and parent coach, so grateful to show up each and every week for you here on the podcast, I am walking the parenting path and the humaning path right next to you with my own two teenagers and wonderful husband who teach me each and every day what it takes to step into personal growth and being my declared best self. It's not always easy to do. You will find tips and tools and inspiration. Hopefully you'll be entertained as you listen in on the show. I am so, so grateful to have you enjoy.

Hello, listeners, hello, hello, it's me, Casey, and as I was just saying to my Patreon community, I'm coming to you live from a hotel room in Seattle. That is right, I am in Seattle caregiving my husband, although I just basically was like, get out. I don't know, I don't know how caregivery that was, but caregiving my husband, who's doing so much better, and I'm so glad, but yeah, so I get to come to you and record from a hotel room in Seattle. I am grateful to be here. I am recording this on october 26 2020 the year of the show. Basically, yeah, and I am also live streaming, as I've been doing my solo shows to my Patreon community. So right now, I've got my friend Simone watching alongside, and we'll see if anyone else shows up. But that is one of the perks to being a patron of the joyful courage podcast, beyond knowing that you are supporting this show coming at you every week, some of the perks are you get to be invited to the live stream of when I Record solo shows, if you are a five or $10 level monthly patron, you are also invited to a monthly facilitated call, which are always useful and just awesome connection and community. And if you are a $10 patron, you also get discounts on one on one coaching. So there's a lot of benefits to becoming a patron, beyond just knowing that you are giving back to a show that weekly pours out to you. So check it out. Go to patreon.com/joyful, courage. That's P, A, T, R, E, O n.com/joyful, courage. And look at all the tears. You can become a patron for as little as $1 a month, and it all matters. It all matters. So check it out. I asked my Patreon community last week as I prepped for being here today, if there were any things that were on their mind, struggles they were having that they would like me to speak into today. A lot of my solo shows have just kind of been like journal entries and reflections of what is currently alive for me, but today, I really am excited to focus on a challenge that one of the patrons, one of our new patrons, Carrie, brought to the group. And I'm excited because it is not something that is unique to her. So when I asked, she shared, I'm new here after joining for the teens and screen Summit, which, by the way, everyone oh my gosh, it was so awesome. Carrie says I'd love to hear about how to get past a teen's attitude and connect my daughter's attitude triggers me, and I find myself getting emotional in saying things I don't want to first of all, let's all raise our hand if we've ever gotten emotional because of our child's behavior and said things that we wish we hadn't have said. So yeah, everybody. Hand is up, I'm pretty sure right now, right? We've all been there. We all go there. We will all go there again, right? It's the human experience. We are emotional beings, living in close proximity and in relationship with other emotional beings, parents, you know, we have as many tools as we have our kids, their tools are in development, right? So they might have some tools, but, you know, they're in development. They come and they go, they come and they go. So this is a very common experience, which is why I chose it to focus in on for today's show, I am going to share some things that you've heard me talk about before on the podcast. So as you listen, I just really encourage you to sit with a deepening sense of understanding. So sometimes when we hear things that we've heard before, we think, Oh, I know this. Oh, I get this. And then we kind of tune out. So I challenge you to not tune out. Those of you that have been listening to me for a long time and are really familiar with my work, don't tune out. Let's just make sure we're recording. Ah yes, we are. Don't tune out. Stay with me. All right, so the first thing I want to start with is the word trigger. Right? Trigger? You know, there's a difference between, I was reading some stuff on the web, you know, there's a difference between being uncomfortable and being triggered. And a lot of people say, well, triggers are really like traumatic PTSD being kind of reactivated traumas, past traumas being reactivated. Yes, and I think that we're going to use trigger in a more broader sense, because, you know, it's more of a mainstream word right now. I think a lot of us talk about trigger being triggered.

You know, by content, by media, by each other, by our children. I really appreciate this definition from Laura Markham, who's a clinical psychologist, parenting coach. You may have heard of her. She's author of peaceful parent, happy, happy kids. I love Laura Markham. She says that a trigger is anything you experience in the present moment that activates a feeling from the past. So we act in a way that's not necessarily keeping with the present, right? Oh my gosh, yes, I am deeply familiar with things, people, behaviors that invite, invoke, activate moments from my past, activate emotions, and then I move from that place, my behavior then comes from that place, and it is no longer am I dealing with what's right in front of me, what's right here, right now. Instead, I'm acting on hurt feelings from the past. And all of us do this, all of us

and considering that many of us come into parenting with this huge suitcase full of patterns and beliefs and experiences of Our zero to 18 years, how we were parented. Even when we declare we're going to be different, we're going to do it another way. All of that baggage is right there, waiting for that opportunity, for the door to crack open, so that it can leap out. Right? You know I'm talking about right? I know you do toddlers to teenagers, they all can trigger us.

I remember the first time I really lost it and realized, Oh, it is going to require me more to do, more than just decide I'm going to be a different kind of mom. And it was helping. I think my daughter was like three, and I was helping her, helping, quote, helping her clean her room, and she was kind of dawdling, and I just started to become overwhelmed by all of the clutter and all of the crap and all of the things, and it was like a full body experience, like from my feet, all. The way up to my face of tingling and heat. And it was as if I was, I mean it, when I think it back to it, it was like this experience of a beckoning, like, just give it to her. She was three. Okay, I'm not proud of this, but there was this like beckoning, like, just let her have it, just let loose, just explode. And it was such an interesting experience, because on one hand, I became very aware of what lives inside of me, right, and what I am capable of, and the choices that I had, and on the other hand, I developed that was the beginning of developing some really strong compassion for my mom's experience.

And then, you know, just considering how far back in the line of mothers raising daughters this intense, overwhelming, kind of explosive behavior came from so yeah, now there are plenty of you out there who have raised kids and who have had three year olds that don't clean up, that create messes and clutter, and you've helped them clean up, and you Haven't been triggered by it, right? But in my history, there are pretty dramatic experiences that I lived through where clutter and tidiness of my room kind of was a catalyst for some really dysregulated explosive behavior that I experienced from a parent so that lives inside of me, right? And, and there's different things for different people,

different things, you know? And this is interesting, like when I think about teenagers too, and I talk to parents of teens, especially parents of teens who might be experimenting with drugs and alcohol. You know, it's interesting to talk to the parents who have had have no history of drug or alcohol use themselves, and their perspective on their teens experimenting, right? And then talking to parents who maybe had some overkill drug and alcohol use as youth and their perspective of their kids and experimenting and you know, and then it's just fascinating to me how our perspective is is colored and developed over time through the experiences that we have, right through the experiences that we have, we all have different triggers, because we all have different histories. Being curious and getting to know who we are is key, right? Being curious and getting to know ourselves, right noticing those moments when we are feeling that like sense of overwhelm, that sense of fear, that sense of wanting to numb out or or wanting to lean in with anger,

starting to pay attention to that and really after the fact, reflecting on that experience and trying to connect some dots, like, where is it okay? So I got really upset just then. What? What in my history was pinged when my child gave me that attitude? Or what is it about my kids bickering that pings something? What? What? What in my history is being pinged because of the way my kids are treating each other? Or what is it about my child struggling in school or with friendships, or, you know, fill in the blank, right? What is it about it that is is prompting, triggering, bringing to the surface something from our history that is uncomfortable for us, right? And the only way that we can go there is to be willing to reflect and to recognize, right. And then also a piece of this too, is to make sure that when our triggers get the best of us, when we do say things that we didn't mean or maybe we meant them, but we didn't want to say them out loud. Right? What does it look like to go back to our kids and to make things right and to make amends? Um. Um, have a great podcast with Kristen huvios. I don't know what number it is, but we do. We did a whole interview around making amends that was really powerful.

But I'll tell you what, when we make things right with our kids like I think that so much of the angst that we feel raising, especially like middle schoolers high schoolers, is that we're not stepping into a human to human relationship. We really hold this power dynamic where I'm the parent, I'm the rational one, you're the child. You don't really get it, but we can have this conversation like that. You know what I'm talking about? You know that energy that I'm talking about? It creates a barrier, it makes it so and our kids are aware of it, right? But if we can kind of chip away at that and be really human to human, really authentic, really real with them, then we can move towards solutions that are useful. Our kids feel seen and heard and understood, or maybe, if they don't feel understood, they at least really get like, okay, Mom is values my opinion. She values my experience. You know, she might not get it, but at least she's showing up and validating that I am having the experience that I'm having,

yeah? So that's really important, yeah? And Simone just jumped into the chat and said, our kids totally read our hypocrisy. Yeah, they are not stupid. They're really smart, you guys. And we make it really easy because we're obvious. We're obvious. I want you, Carrie and everybody else who's listening who has this experience of being triggered. You know, one of the first things that we can do to start working on getting better at navigating our triggers is to really explore the experience, right? And the first thing that we have to do to explore the experience is have a willingness to let go of blame and find neutral, right? Letting go of blame and finding neutral. The reason that I'm starting with this is because it's really easy to sit with. Well, it's not my fault. I'm being triggered. My kids a pain in the neck, or they're so rude, or, you know, they're doing X, Y and Z, like they are the problem. So I just want to invite you, for the sake of relationship, for the sake of possibility, to let go of blame, right? Be willing to let go of the story about how it's your child's fault that you're being triggered, and find neutral, right? And finding neutral really just means letting go of tension, right? It can be a physical experience. It can be an emotional experience, and let's just talk about those things. So finding neutral in the physical experience is like, from a place of just calm, you know, no tension. Think about when you are triggered, and really pay attention to like, what happens to your physical body when your lid is flipped, when you get triggered, when you're feeling angry, when you slide into that not so great behavior of your own. I know for me, I've talked about it on the podcast before, but it's a heat and tingles from my feet to my face. My eyebrows go up, right? My face gets really tight and tense, and my jaw is just like locked, right? And I'm just in my shoulders, like, even as I talk about it, I can feel it. The tension in my shoulders is really, it really prominent. And I just yeah, that tightness, that feeling of tightness, right? The emotional experience of being triggered, and it's kind of hard to tease apart the emotional experience and the story that we tell ourselves, like, for me, it's usually a feeling of rejection that shows up when I'm triggered, like, you don't care about me. You don't care about what I need. You know, a lot of blame and selfishness thrown at the other like you're selfish. They're just selfish, and they don't care. But really it comes back to you don't care about me. And underneath that statement for me, is really rejection, right? And I have a whole story in history about rejection that I'm not going to get into, but it makes sense that that's where I go, right? It's really powerful to get intimate with this experience and to start connecting those dots, because my kids aren't rejecting me when they. Follow through with their chores, right? My kids aren't rejecting me. If they would rather stay in their rooms and watch Netflix than come and play a game, right? Not at the level that I'm experiencing the rejection, but I, but I, when I respond from that place, I can really do a number on our relationship, right? So starting to really pay attention to the deeper experience that we're having is gonna really help us tease it apart.

And again, you know, like I mentioned before, talking about my daughter and cleaning, and you know what, I noticed, I am, I have a clutter thing. And it's funny, because I don't necessarily, like, have a meticulous home, like, I'm not a crazy house cleaner, but if things start to go a little sideways and there's clutter around, I have a really hard time, like even noise clutter. When I drive into the city or into a parking lot or onto a busy freeway, I have to turn the radio down because I'm already dealing with, where do I where am I supposed to go? What's going on? Are there freaking bikers? You know, I can't also have this sound of the radio on, so I'll turn the radio off. So we all have those patterns. So start exploring that. If you have a therapist, you're probably already doing this. If you have a coach, you can do this. Or if you're just like, curious and ready to expand your understanding of self. Start to notice,

notice your own patterns, some of them we've inherited from our parents. Some of them we haven't but it's really interesting to notice, because what patterns start to become is they start to become dance moves, right? And when we're dancing, we kind of train the people around us to dance with us. And sometimes the dance becomes not really healthy or helpful, and then we're bugged about the dance. And really one place to start is just change up the dance moves. But if we're in a pattern, sometimes we don't always see that there are moves to change. Does that make sense?

So all of this too, when we're talking about being triggered, it also comes back to self regulation, right? And again, self regulation requires our willingness, right? And I've worked with a lot of parents who come through my parenting class or do coaching with me, or listen to the podcast, and they are interested in learning about themselves, but then when it you know, they'll come back the next week to the class or to the session, and they'll say, Yeah, but I just get so mad that I keep doing the same thing, that I keep yelling, or I keep, you know, fill in the blank. We have to be willing to choose something different, right? So when I go back to Carrie's question around her teen daughter's attitude, and then her emotion around it and saying things she doesn't want to say. So the place we can't always change our teenagers attitudes, but we're going to talk a little bit about that in a minute, the place where we have power to create change is in our response. So that's why I'm talking about getting more intimate and familiar with our triggers and our experience and our own self regulation. Because as we notice this happening, right, as we notice it's happening events, the event and experience is my teenager has an attitude. I become triggered, right? I become triggered. I can feel the emotion. I can feel the tension. And here's the change point, here's the learning edge. Do I say things I don't want to? Or do I take care of myself, self regulate, maybe retreat, move away, to calm down, and then handle it a different way. That's the place where something new and different can occur, right?

And so that's why I say you have to be willing to try something new. You have to be willing to notice and pay attention to the experience you're having. You have to be willing to choose differently, over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, right? Right now, you already have a pattern. You already have dance moves that are so well worn down that you're not even thinking about it, right. So now I'm suggesting, hey, you know what? When your teenager. Has an attitude, or your three major has an attitude, pause, get yourself together and try something different. It's challenging to do, and at first you notice, in retrospect, it's like, Oh, yep, I did it, darn it, there's the dance move. So the first part of the learning is really noticing the dance and noticing how quickly the moves can play out. And then you'll start to pay attention. As you continue to pay attention, you'll see that there is a space, there is a gap, right? You've heard me talk about the emotional freight train. I write about it in my book. You know you might be on the train and get better at recognizing like, oh shoot, I'm on the train right now, and I need to get off of it, right? Or, oh man, I can feel the train showing up. What can I do for myself to calm down so that I can not get on the train? The real question is, Who do you want to be for your kids? Right? Who do you want to be? How do you want to show up for your children, your teens, your school agers, your young kids. Who do you want to be? Are you willing to show up that way no matter what, when they're falling apart at the grocery store or mouthing off at home angry about boundaries, or, you know, grumpy at the dinner table. Are you willing to still be the parent you want to be for your kids when they aren't being their best right heart? That's when it matters the most. And man, the teen years, the tween, pre teen. Teen years are tough. They you know, there's just craziness happening with their development. They're angsty, they're emotional. The intensity of what our teens and preteens once our kids are hitting puberty and adolescence, the intensity of what they're feeling is bigger than we can really understand or remember. Maybe you can remember, I can't really remember it. They're in this weird Limbo place, right? They're not little kids, they're not adults. There's something in the middle, and they are really, really wanting to pull away from us, which is appropriate, and yet, we're still their guardians. We're still their caregivers. We're still the, you know, the ones that are holding rules over their heads. So it's this really intense back and forth relationship, ups and downs, ebbs and flows. They're irritable. We're irritable, and we make it about us, right? Their behavior is triggering. Because really, how many of us would keep friends that treat us like crap all the time? Do you ever think about that with your teenagers, like, oh my god, if we were friends, I would break up with you, like, you're such a jerk. You know their behavior is triggering because we have self respect. We have self respect. We know that we deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and sometimes our teens or younger kids aren't treating us that way, and we hold them to that standard. Their behavior is triggering, because we haven't, like, we get into this mindset of, oh my gosh, haven't I taught them to be better? Like, where did I go wrong? Yes, and Simone says I would not be hanging out with them at all. I'm trying to set new boundaries for what I allow. Yeah, yeah. And it's tricky, right? And we get into our own self doubt too. Like, where did we go wrong? Right? Their behavior is triggering because we think, Oh, my God, don't they see how lucky they are? Like, I tell my kids you won the ovarian lottery. Like, do you know that this scenario would go a lot different if you had a different parent.

And so when they're not in their best self, I can really slide into like, I'm like, the best mom. How can you treat me like this? Right? Again, making it about us, making it about us, making it about us, right? Making it about us. So we have to come back to the practice of recognizing our experience and the storytelling we are doing, and come back to the iceberg right? And you guys have heard me talk about the iceberg metaphor. If not check the show notes, I'll make sure that there's some links to the podcast where I've talked about it before, but remembering that the behavior we're seeing at the tip of the iceberg is often being influenced, more than often being influenced by what's happening under the surface. So again, like I said at the top, we have to be connecting with our kids, human to human.

Human to human. This came up actually in the master class I did on the 24 Worked after this teens and screen Summit, where we were talking about empowering responses to our kids and how they're using their their screens. And one of the participants said, Yeah, well, you better make sure that you are coming from a really authentic place. Otherwise it doesn't matter what you say, you know. And absolutely 100% like I mean, how much of all of life would be transformed if we were willing to expose our most authentic self to each other? I think this absolutely matters with our kids, right? Human to human. We have to open up the space for sharing if our teens have an attitude, our preteens, our tweens, our younger kids, get curious about that, because that's coming from some kind of discouragement. There's a level of discouragement that exists for our kids that is showing up as an attitude, and so I'm really curious about that. I'm really curious about that. And always, when we open up for this, we have to start with compassion and curiosity. So again, finding that neutral and starting with the body, starting with releasing the tension from the body, starting with letting go of preconceived notions. Like, oftentimes we think we know what's happening there, or they're just teenagers, like, God, it's so

like, what's the word? I can't think of dismissive. It's so dismissive. I I'm guessing for teenagers to have the adults in their lives roll their eyes and just say, well, you're just a teenager. You don't know it's going to change. It's going to be different. Because guess what? Right now, right here? Right now, their experience is their experience. So we have to start and find some compassion and some curiosity, stay non judgmental around what it is that they share and ask for help, right? So if you are like Carrie, and I know there's many people out there who and you have a child who's got a lot of attitude towards you, or in general, you know, open up the space, connect with them, human to human, and ask them like, you know, this is what I'm noticing. And I'm, I'm just, it's, it's tricky for me, it's hard for me to maintain the parent that I want to be for you, because I get caught up in in your discouragement, and then it makes me discouraged, and then I don't show up the way I want to show up. So I'm wondering a what's going on with you. You know, I'm here for you. I love you. I'm curious about your experience, but also, you know, are there other ways that you can let me know that you'd like time alone, or that you don't want to spend time with me. Um, let's practice, you know, let's try to to live, create an experience and a relationship where we can be emotionally honest with each other and not be hurtful to each other and understand each other even better, right? So that's another layer. So one layer is absolutely getting to know yourself, getting to know your own history and patterns, and connecting the dots between the behavior that you're navigating and then the history that it's triggering. So that is yours. That is your work, okay? And starting to work on your own self regulation and getting ever better at practicing the willingness to choose to respond differently and to show up the way that you want to show up for your kids. So those are yours. And then there's this piece where we get to bring them in, right and have conversation with them about their experience, kind of working to expose what it is that's going on for them, that's that's so discouraging that they kind of have this chip on their shoulder, or they are feeling and and let me just say, just because you're like, hey, human to human, I want to have this experience with you. Isn't like your kids are like, Oh, I've been waiting for this opportunity, you know. Like, right? I mean, there might be some resistance there, especially if you have kind of a tense relationship right now, there may be some pretty heavy resistance that you're going to get to navigate. And maybe that's what you make amends about. Maybe you start there like, Hey, I know for the past few weeks or the past few months, or that, you know, for a while now, I've really been getting on your case about your attitude, and I've been hurtful and and I recognize that it's not useful, and I'm really sorry about that, and I I'd really like to connect with you and try something different. And you know, using your own words and your own authenticity to really connect with your kids so that they can trust that they can open up to you. And this might take a few goes, right, might take a few times, but this is. Really important. This is really important.

So, yeah, that is what I wanted to share today on the podcast, Carrie, you're not alone. I know that I, too, get totally triggered by teen angst. My work is always around not taking it personally. I am the queen of making everything about me. My daughter actually tells me that, like you're making it about you. But I also, I also want to say that I remember a few years ago, and you probably remember too, because I've been talking about it on the podcast where things got really challenging with my teenager, and I had a friend tell me, you know, case 1415, are the toughest years, and you feel like you're losing them, 16, 1718, eventually they come back around. And I gotta tell ya, I gotta tell you, I remember hearing that and being like, you know what? That's not useful, because right now, things are shit and painful, and I do feel like I'm losing my child and I'm scared and I don't know what to do, and I was really in that place. And as you've heard me share on the podcast, we've worked through a lot of stuff and lived through a lot of stuff, and done I've done my own continuous personal growth work. And for anyone you know, if you did the teens and screen Summit. You saw it. My child, who will be 18 in January, is now someone who I adore spending time with, like I love it when I get to hang out with my teen daughter. She is thoughtful and deep and humble and open, and someone who can reflect honestly on her own experiences. And three years ago, I could not have seen the relationship that we have now. So that's, that's the other thing that I want to say, is keep the faith all of you out there with young teens who are really in the in the muck, in the struggle, you know, like I said, decide who you want to be for your kids, and then as they pull and push and twist and do all the things that they do as teenagers, keep showing up that way, keep showing up that way, because they want to be in relationship with you. We all want that belonging and significance. We want to know that we matter and we want to feel connected. And they'll get back there. They'll get back there. And yeah, so Rowan did an Ask a teen post in the joyful courage for parents of teens Facebook group during the summit, and I just was so impressed by her candid sharing of her experience in the context of screens, but also context of mental health, and she was pretty candid with people who asked her questions. And so again, I'm just, I love humans. I love human evolution and maturity and the ways that we can grow and change and develop and and trust that your kids are also in the growth in the change in the development. What is challenging now is temporary. How you show up matters. Do your own work, big time. Do your own work. Take this opportunity in the gauntlet of parenting a teenager to really explore who it is that you want to be and how committed are you to that person, because you're going to have so many opportunities to veer off course raising those teenagers, and I just encourage you to stay the course. Stay the course. They need you. They love you, even if they're not like cuddly and showing you that right now. All right, okay, well, that's it. That's what I've got for you today. I hope that it's useful.

I hope that you all voted this podcast is going to go live the day before November. It'll go live November 2, which in the United States, day before election day,

although we've definitely been in a season. Yeah, I'm excited for the interviews that I have coming down the pike. I'm excited for my husband's case. Continuous increase in health and well being. Thank you to everybody who has reached out with love and support. He's doing better, yay. Thank god. Oh my god, this has been a crazy experience for my family. And I was just telling a friend of mine who was like, oh my god, 2020, you know, for you guys. And I said, You know what, this year has shown us who the arrodi family is, and I'm pretty damn proud of my family. So it takes a challenge like this to really test the strength and resiliency and endurance of a family. And I'm proud of us, I'm proud of us, and I'm proud of you. Thank you for listening. I'll be back next week with an interview. Big Love.

Thank you for listening, friends. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening. I am so grateful that I get to show up here for you every week and share my thoughts and guests and solo shows, all the things, as you heard me mention during this week's show, I really encourage you to check out the Patreon community. It is a powerful way of giving back to the podcast that gives you so much I am in love with putting this show together for you, and every little bit of support helps you. Can join the Patreon community for as little as $1 for $5 for $10 you get to decide what you can give, and in return, you get the podcast, but you also get perks like live streams and group calls and discount on coaching. So there's good things happening in the Patreon community. Go check it out now. Www dot P, A, T, R, e o n.com/joyful courage. Also, if you love today's show or any of the other shows, or just love the show in general, please head over to Apple podcasts and leave a five star review. Let other people know why you keep tuning into the show. This helps the show with visibility and reach and lets other people know that this is a super legit place to come and hang out. Thank you so much. Have a beautiful week. Don't forget. Find your breath. Let yourself travel into your body. Find the balcony seat and trust that everything's going to be okay. Big. Love you

See more