Eps 629: Revisiting gratitude and finding acceptance

Today Joyful Courage is being an active participant in how I am feeling – it is taking responsibility for how I am experiencing my experiences and being intentional about my where my thoughts are leading me.

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. 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. Hey, hello. Hello and happy Thanksgiving. Happy. Indigenous people Day to friends in the United States. While this holiday has some incredibly problematic history, I am holding it as a time where we get to really take stock in what is important, not what tradition tells us.
[00:01:44] Is important, but actually being with ourselves in a way that explores what truly matters, what's truly important to us. So yeah, that's what I want for all of you today is that exploration and that landing in what's important to you. Last week's solo show was a new show and I focused on how we are.
[00:02:10] Always influencing and creating our experience of the present moment. This week, I am offering up a replay. Because I'm on, you know, taking some time off, as is my editor. So we decided let's do a replay. So this week's replay comes from 2020. Isn't that so crazy to think about? 2020? Thanksgiving is, and it's about gratitude and acceptance for what is showing up in the here and now, which I find fascinating because.
[00:02:41] 2020. 2020. Ben, we were just a few weeks home. After spending a few months in Seattle while he got his stem cell transplant, we moved through that process, which really brought him to the brink of death. It was. Just gnarly. My kids were 15 and 18. Rowan was out of school and just kind of in limbo. Ian was starting his freshman year on his own like Crazy Pants and Global Pandemic.
[00:03:13] And then here I showed up to the podcast talking about gratitude and acceptance for the here and now. As you listen to the show, you're gonna hear me talk about the Seven Days of Joyful Courage program that I did. Can't even remember it now, but I love to hear. Myself, talk about the things that I've created in the past and really recognizing that I'm always in this creation mode, wanting to create value for you all.
[00:03:41] And in that theme, and in that spirit, I wanna remind you, living joyful Courage Coaching Week is starting with a live stream. Welcome. On Sunday, so this is happening next week. If you are not yet signed up, there is still time. Go to uh, b SPR audible.com/ljc. Coach week. The value is on steroids. Okay, high, high value, low, low cost.
[00:04:11] And I just really want to break down any barriers and have you come. So the link for information and to enroll will be in the show notes. You also in this episode will hear me talk for the first time about my friend Jeanette, and what she taught me about being with the spiral of Life. Sweet, Jeanette.
[00:04:31] She gets a shout out. Last week and this week. 'cause I mentioned her last week, and then as I was re-listening to this show, I was like, oh, this is the first time I actually talk about Jeanette. You're also gonna hear me mention an interview I did. Or not that I did, I wish I did, that I listened to on armchair expert with the singer Jewel and something that she said that really blew my mind.
[00:04:55] So listen in for that. Basically there's a lot of nuggets in this replay. I always listen, like I said, to be sure it's something that I wanna bring back, and I think it's significant that I recorded it from the days of COVID and that here we are. Five years later, and man, oh man, what a massive adventure.
[00:05:14] What a big old spiral, right? The last five years have been for all of us. The content remains relevant, which is why I'm here introducing it and inviting you to re-listen to it. So yeah, enjoy. Have a beautiful holiday weekend if you're here in the States, and if not, just have a beautiful weekend. And enjoy the show.
[00:05:41] Hello. Hello. So happy to be here. So happy to be talking to all of you right now. So as I record this, it is the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. And I spent most of the day taking my husband to Seattle for a follow-up appointment to see his doctor. I have been in a deep creative work. Zone. My kids are amazing and we've played more board games in the last two weeks than we've probably played in the last two years, and there's just a lot.
[00:06:24] There's a lot going on and there's a lot to be grateful for on this week of Thanksgiving here in the States. And so, shocker, I'm gonna talk about. Gratitude today. Yes. Yes, yes. And I'm gonna start with some gratitude.
[00:06:43] Big thanks to everyone who went through the seven days of Joyful Courage. Live program. So it's funny, I'm recording this on Tuesday, which was day one, and this is gonna come out on Monday, which is day seven. But yesterday, Monday the 23rd, I was just feeling like I wanted to throw something out there and really kind of drum up some connection inside of the community.
[00:07:12] So I decided to put together really quick the seven Days of Joyful Courage and what it is, is seven days of me showing up on Facebook Live and on Instagram tv live, leading a grounding, and guiding everyone who shows up through the experience of bringing more attention to the upcoming holiday season.
[00:07:37] And the cool thing when you do programs like this and film them live and all that stuff, is the videos will live on, they live on, you can check this out. If you missed it, you can check out. Seven Days of Joyful Courage by heading over to the Joyful Courage page on Instagram or on Facebook and finding those live videos.
[00:08:01] Super exciting. And finally just really the last couple of weeks inside of both the live and love with joyful Courage community, as well as the joyful courage for parents of teens community, there's just been some really special. Support, celebration, connecting. I am just always so honored to hold a space for all of you, and by the way that you show up in the space, so just feeling really grateful for you.
[00:08:31] And how you show up for me and the community. Okay, so content gratitude, right? I said I was gonna talk about gratitude. I am talking about gratitude. Uh, week of Thanksgiving, again, us friends. I know it's not the same Thanksgiving that it's been in previous years. We are moving through some tough times.
[00:08:56] I have had multiple conversations with many friends, who are really struggling right now for a variety of reasons. And one friend in particular, um, shared very candidly and openly with me recently just about what she's going through. With past experiences and past relationships, and I could just feel and experience the hurt and the resentment and I very gently reminded her that she is the amazing person that she is because of
[00:09:37] her choice to grow through what she's been through. And I think that that's something to be really grateful for. When we have really tough experiences, we have an opportunity and the, and when we choose to healing from those tough experiences, we are molding and developing who we are in that process and.
[00:10:04] I just, if life is really easy and really happy, go lucky. You know, I'm not really sure or convinced that there's a lot of personal growth happening, and it isn't because, oh, well, if you have a really easy life, you don't need personal growth. I think that's a load of crap. I think we all are here on this planet, in these bodies.
[00:10:27] To be in personal growth. And so some of us are handed a heavy dose of opportunity to heal and to grow. And what happens when we shift into gratitude for that? I'm not saying gratitude for the people that hurt us. I'm not saying gratitude for the adversity that. We live with that is unjust or unfair. I'm saying what happens when we turn our lens inward and we recognize there is something here for me and I am grateful that I get to grow?
[00:11:07] Shed evolve inside of this experience.
[00:11:21] Right. I also have some clients that I've been working with and often this comes up when I work with new clients where, you know, we have a list of things that are, are bothersome, that aren't working, and our family and the expectation, and I go there too. It's like, okay, how do we solve, okay, how are we gonna solve these problems?
[00:11:40] But when we start peeling back the layers and we start to see. What the actual problems are, right? Because we think we know what the problem is. But so much of the time, the biggest problem that we're struggling with is a lack of skills around self-regulation. Our kids, us, right? How many of you out there are like, I don't wanna yell anymore.
[00:12:04] I don't wanna be grumpy, I don't wanna be mean. That's a self-regulation thing, right? And I think even in our worst moments there is. Reason to be grateful because one awareness, which can be a double-edged sword, right? Like there's a reason that there's the saying ignorance is bliss, but awareness is something to celebrate, right?
[00:12:28] When we know we could do better, we're one step ahead of the people who just are flying by the seat of their pants. So celebrating awareness around, I could do better. And celebrating the opportunity, and you guys have heard me say this before, celebrating the opportunity to model what it looks like to model what it looks like to take personal responsibility of your behavior and to model what it looks like to say, you know what?
[00:12:54] The next time I feel like that I'm gonna try something different, I'm gonna help myself so that we can solve problems in a more respectful way. Gratitude. Gratitude, and I mean, this is coming from a girl who, A girl. I am not a girl. This is coming from a woman who you know, probably is moving through the biggest challenge, the biggest opportunity that I've ever had to practice.
[00:13:25] Gratitude, presence, surrender, acceptance. You guys know it's not about COVID. COVID is its own special layer to this, but our family, is going through some huge transformation right now, and my transformation isn't better or worse or easier or harder than whatever you're going through. It's mine.
[00:13:49] I'm living with it. I'm living through it, right? And. It's weird, but on so many levels, I'm grateful for it because I didn't know what it would be like to go through a crisis like this until I got to go through a crisis like this and practice my skills and recognize how strong my kids are and know how deep my love is for my husband.
[00:14:16] So gratitude, man, it's just really a powerful. Way of being. It's a powerful way to embody. The life that we're living. And this week, just today, I listened to Armchair Expert. Do you guys listen to that podcast? I kind of love it. Dak Shepherd, armchair expert. He had Jewel, the singer on who? I mean, everybody loves Jewel.
[00:14:43] She's an amazing songwriter and a beautiful singer and oh my gosh, turns out there is so much more to Juul than any of us ever knew. Or maybe you knew, but I definitely didn't know. I mean, she has her own story of deep trauma and poverty and like her life, just her memoir of, you know, childhood into Young Adulthood is unreal.
[00:15:08] I. But then the conversation started turning to the work that she does with youth and her own work and her own practice of mindfulness, which she calls conscious presence. And she shares a couple things on the podcast that are just like, Ugh, Juul, we should be best friends. How can I get Juul on here? I don't know.
[00:15:30] Anybody have any connections to Juul? Let's bring her on the podcast. One of the things that she said that I loved. And brought me to tears was, and I'm gonna butcher it 'cause I, I don't know exactly how she said it, but basically she said, you know, it's not what happens to you, but how you allow it to change you.
[00:15:54] That matters how you allow it to change you. Right? And there's things that happen to us in life that change us into fear, towards fear. Being bitter, being resentful, and there are those very same things can change us if we allow it into being grateful and strong. Right. And encouraged. So I just, and I've heard, I mean, not what happens to you, but how you respond to it, that matters.
[00:16:27] I've heard that. But the way that she said, how you allow it to change you, that was really. Powerful and it may have had something to do that I, with that I was listening to it with my husband and of course I was thinking to myself like, what do you think about that, babe? My sweet stoic doesn't talk about much husband, you know?
[00:16:48] It just really moved me. It really moved me. And listen, everyone, we are in a ginormous opportunity for. Responding to life in a new way. We are getting daily downloads for how we can allow life to change us. Um, COVID-19 Politics. Um, whatever your personal struggle is. I don't, I can't, I've got multiple friends who are, you know, whose relationships have fallen apart and friends that are single parents that are struggling in the quarantine and, you know, other friends that it's financial struggles and friends that are healthcare workers, nurses.
[00:17:34] I mean, it's just, we all have our personal struggles, right. I had this great conversation with my super awesome soul sister Jeanette. Shout out to Jeanette. She is brilliant. Everyone, if you wanna check her out, you can find [email protected]. She is someone who I learned so much about myself through being in relationship with her because.
[00:17:59] God for the last 15 years that we've known each other, she's always pushed me, um, to be a better version of myself, to be more curious. Um, her work is really around healing her own trauma, and I mean so much more than that. But she's a maker and she has a business called Make to Mend where she is just a crafty lady.
[00:18:24] And, um. Anyway, we were talking and you know, the topic came up of like, oh my gosh, when is it over? When are we like done? Like, okay, we've done all this work. You know, when do we get to be the gurus? When do we get to be the ones that are like, okay, great. Now I can kind of ride through life. And I was cracking up as we were exchanging thoughts about this because.
[00:18:48] Right. I mean, parenting is a great place to, it's like ripe for discouragement because we bump up against the same challenges again and again and again. Right? Like just today, got home from being in Seattle. Really glad the kids made dinner for themselves. But all the dishes were everywhere and the sink was full.
[00:19:11] And I was just like, you guys, here we are again. Right? So. We get discouraged when we find ourselves in front of the same challenges. But if we're doing our work, then we aren't the same person every time we meet those challenges. So something Jeanette said that really landed with me was, we forget that personal growth isn't linear.
[00:19:40] It's cyclical, right? And she described it as a spiral and. Those same challenges exist on the spiral, but as we're moving through the spiral, we get to respond differently when we bump up against those challenges, right? So rather than losing my mind and being super annoyed and super resentful, when I got home tonight, I felt it.
[00:20:07] I felt like the really you guys, and it was just like, Hey, come and do this. Take care of this. I gave some orders, not gonna lie. But what I didn't do was layer on top of the, you know, why can't you just do the, well, I might have done a little bit of that if I'm being honest, but it was a much less, um, intense.
[00:20:29] Interaction with mom as I kind of worked through my own self-regulation around like, why wouldn't you guys just take care of this before we got home, right? So I was on a different part of the spiral as I bumped up against that challenge. Each time we're confronted by a challenge, we have an opportunity to respond in a new way, a more conscious way, life.
[00:20:55] Likes to make us practice. Right? And so over and over and over again, we get to practice being present, being mindful, and I'm just so grateful for that reframe that she gave me. Love you, Jeanette, around the visual of the cycle. 'cause I think that's so important.
[00:21:24] And as we move into December, you know there's gonna be a lot of things that show up that are gonna be out of our control, that are gonna trigger us, that are gonna kind of. Tilt us off of our, that center point that we wanna maintain and we wanna hold, we wanna be patient, we wanna be calm, we wanna be loving, we wanna be connected.
[00:21:46] And then somebody's a big jerk to us, and then we're like, why do you gotta be such a jerk? Right? Things happen in our external environment. That knock us off of our internal, our in, I wanna say our internal pedestal, but that's not really it. Our internal meditation cushion, that's what we'll call it. We get knocked off that internal meditation cushion and where we land is in those old shoot-from-the-hip patterns.
[00:22:12] So starting helping ourselves by recognizing, oh, I just, I just fell off the meditation cushion and get back on. Find that center and interact with whatever it is in your external environment that is calling for you to be on another spot in the spiral. Does that make sense? I feel like it does. I feel like you get me, you know, you get me.
[00:22:38] Um, yeah. So here we go. Last month, 2020, full of opportunities and, uh, I told you about the joyful courage seven. Or the seven days of joyful courage already. So I'm not gonna mention that again, but you can check it out. If you go back and you can do it, you don't have to be live. It'll be there in the internets for you to check out.
[00:23:02] Um, and it will, it's exactly, this is what it's designed to do is move you further along on the spiral. Right, because you know those opportunities and those challenges are gonna keep coming.
[00:23:17] I'm really excited for December on the podcast because both of my children have agreed to come on as guests. So be excited about that. I'm gonna canvas the community to find out what you wanna know from them. So my son is a 15-year-old high school freshman boy. And any questions you have about that experience or how he experiences me, whatever.
[00:23:46] Up for grabs. I'm gonna reach out and ask you to support me in creating the outline. And again, my daughter who will be 18 in January, has had her own special experience, um, is gonna come on as well. So I, and I wanna know what are your questions for her? Yay. It's both exciting and terrify. Because I am not going to censor them.
[00:24:08] I'm going to encourage them to be as candid as I, and transparent as I, and as vulnerable as they wanna be in sharing with you their experience of being teenagers right here, right now. So looking forward to that in December. Really excited. For all that is to come.
[00:24:26] If you're not on my email list, go to joyful courage.com/join and you can join us. Alright, my friends, thank you so much for listening.
[00:24:42] 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 Pods 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.
[00:25:09] 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.