Harmony in the Home

As a follow-up to last week’s episode regarding imago theory and therapy, I wanted to talk a little bit about what Brooke Castillo calls “emotional childhood.” It’s the stage we’re in before we arrive at “emotional adulthood,” which is balanced, rational, guided by the prefrontal cortex and the conscious mind at all times. Incidentally, it’s also the state we will revert to given negative stimuli, if we are not practicing conscious thought.

When I was teaching elementary school, I might sometimes see a student hitting another student, and when I confronted them, the response usually went to the tune of “well, they hit me first!” It seems wholly irrational, and yet I was able to exercise patience with the student and explain how our actions can hurt others. Even if the other student hit first, the reaction was wrong.

Well, separating the ego is easy when it’s not your own child! Before I undertook the journey toward truly conscious living, if my kids would act out or do something I didn’t like, I’d react with a proportionately negative response. If they threw a tantrum, I threw a tantrum too. David saw the danger in this, but — like a child myself — I would say, “well, they did it first.” This was a regression, a reversion to that less evolved emotional state.

Emotional adulthood demands that we, the adults, behave as adults — and that we offer grace and compassion to our children and to ourselves, because believe me, we’re all going to mess up. AND THAT’S OKAY. Everybody is learning, and we get to learn how to step into emotional adulthood together!

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As you

You’ve got this!

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This week I thought I’d touch very briefly on a concept that helped me understand a LOT of things about my romantic relationships and my marriage to David. The “imago” relationship theory developed by Dr. Harville Hendrix and Dr. Helen LaKelly Hunt appears in their joint-authored book “Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples,” and it’s been formally codified as IRT, Imago Relationship Therapy.

The word “imago” is derived from the Latin for “image,” referring to the unconscious image of “similar love,” or love that recreates early childhood experiences. If people in love say to each other, “it’s like I’ve known you forever,” it’s because, in a way, they do. Hendrix and Hunt found that when people seek romantic partners, they unconsciously recreate their childhood scenarios and the relationship they had with their parents. This often leads to unconsciously attempting to fix in their present relationship the things that were lacking in their past as a child (see episode 78) — not necessarily because they enjoy being attracted to people who are like one or the other of their parents or caregivers, but because it’s familiar.

As we recognize that our unconscious mind, informed by past relationships, is partially responsible for determining who we’re attracted to and why, we should both be aware and beware of unconscious roadblocks in our relationship path. I realized early on that if my siblings or friends suggested I do this or that thing, I could do it with no sweat — but if David asked me to do the same thing the same way, I felt reprimanded! I felt not-good-enough! It was like I was a child again, and it wasn’t even David’s doing!

Says psychologist Carl Jung (and I’m loosely paraphrasing here), “until we know our unconscious mind, it will direct our life and we will call it fate.” Remember that what your parents said and did in their interactions with you and how they treated you was not a reflection of your worth but a projection of their own insecurities upon you (see episode 45).

As you become aware of this and aware of your own imago dynamic in your relationship, you will be able to more clearly see and meet your own needs, which in turn will help you meet your spouse’s needs and your children’s needs. You’ve got this!

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Today marks our ONE-HUNDREDTH EPISODE! WOOOOOOOO!

Parenting is an incredibly difficult task even under the best circumstances. I’m blessed to have the support of my husband David. Together, as we’ve adopted the conscious parenting model, we’ve been able to give more to parenting where it matters.

We’re learning to accept the inevitable truth of our children eventually leaving home to be adults. We’re learning that our responsibility is to give them grace and compassion while their brains are developing. We’re learning to be realistic in our expectations as they learn LITERALLY EVERYTHING for the first time, including failing at it frequently (see previous episode).

Most importantly, I believe, we’re learning to give ourselves the same abundance of kindness that we give our kids. We aren’t a perfect couple or perfect parents. We came to parenthood laden with baggage from growing up, as everyone does. We have had to learn about our and each other’s baggage. We’ve also had to unlearn many conscious and unconscious “parenting from fear and / or lack” behaviors rooted in our pasts. These behaviors hindered us in our divine stewardship as parents. They continue to hinder us, BUT it’s a lot easier now that we are CONSCIOUS of them.

Join us on this historic occasion as David, normally a man of few words, speaks on his side of the parenting process. We’ll talk about the importance of mutual rapport between spouses and how together we support our kids as they grow. I know my podcast isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, so I hope that if you’re trying to parent consciously, this second perspective can help win your spouse to your cause. And believe me, it’s worth all the effort if you can. Team work makes the dream work!

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Is it bad to fail at something? Does it mean anything about us or about or worthiness or good-enough-ness? The answer to these questions is a resounding NO, and I want to talk about how failure is an important process you should be undergoing on the regular.

As children in our natural developmental process, we try to walk, talk, eat, play sports or musical instruments, and so on. We generally fail the first few times — the first MANY times, actually. But eventually, with careful guidance from our parents, mentors, teachers, and coaches, we start to understand how to accomplish The Task, whatever The Task is, and we slowly get better at doing it. We never stop failing, we just fail less and less.

It’s odd, then, that as adults most people are terrified of failure. In my own life, I notice that my own apprehension about not being able to do The Task is what sabotages my ability to perform The Task, and in fact that’s how it is for many people. Creativity especially suffers; I spent two years agonizing over whether to begin my podcast before I finally started.

In this episode, I’ll discuss why it’s important to fail as part of the process of growth and why children need to fail. I’ll touch on what many great minds including Brené Brown, Brooke Castillo, and Sara Blakely have to say about reframing the meaning of failure. Last but certainly not least, I’ll remind you why it’s okay for YOU to fail. In this giant podcast family, we support each other and give each other (and ourselves) a heaping serving of grace and compassion. Failure doesn’t need to mean regression. It’s part of the path FORWARD, and we’re all on that path together.

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Do you ever feel like you don’t measure up to the ideal? What can you do about that?

The axiom “comparison is the thief of joy” is attributed to Theodore Roosevelt. Regardless of its origin, it rings true for me and many other parents struggling to cultivate harmony in the home. When I was just beginning my parent journey, I compared my circumstances and my children to those of other parents far too often. I often used others’ successes in home and family life as a measuring stick. When I didn’t measure up, I whipped myself with that stick. (In this episode, I’ll talk about why this is always the WRONG reaction.)

Iyanla Vanzant says: “Comparison is an act of violence against the self. It also leads to judgments and jealousy of those we deem “better off” than we are.” Iyanla is spot-on here. Not only can our habit of comparing ourselves make us feel inferior, it can cause cankers of resentment to fester in our soul as our self-flagellation for not being “good enough” leads us down the familiar road to a martyrdom complex.

The long and the short of it: stop whipping yourself with your measuring stick! Instead, focus on giving yourself grace and compassion to do your personal best. This includes making mistakes along the way! As you do this, you will regain the joy you have lost to endless comparisons.

My favorite coaches and teachers who pushed me the furthest toward excellence were kind and compassionate to me. As you take care of yourself and speak kindly to yourself the way a good teacher or coach would do, you will feel refreshed and liberated, and you’ll discover that you have always measured up.

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Last week, we talked about how other people’s opinions of you are basically always their opinions about themselves, projected onto you. This episode is the natural follow-up to that one. We all know at least one “people-pleaser” in our life: somebody who’s spread themselves just a little too thin between work, their kids’ extracurricular activities, the PTA, their church and community groups, and so on. Maybe YOU’RE the people-pleaser in your circle.

The condition of people-pleasing is a result of seeking substantial emotional connections unmet in childhood. It’s natural, just like the brain’s threefold tendency to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and maximize its efficiency in doing so. It doesn’t mean that you’re irreparably broken or a bad person. What it does mean is that you have a special opportunity to learn to internalize your self-worth and set boundaries so you are giving the people closest to you the BEST of you instead of the REST of you.

In this episode, I’ll talk about meaningful steps you can take to break yourself of people-pleasing and codependent attachment, and (perhaps more importantly) I’ll talk about modeling healthy emotional behavior for your children so they can have what you might not have had.

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How important is an opinion? Specifically, how important is an opinion about YOU? Some questions that come up a lot with my clients include: what do other people think about me? Am I good enough? Am I worthy? So this brings up an excellent question: why the fixation on other people’s opinions?

Now, before we even begin, let’s get one thing clear: the vast majority of people are not silently judging you. They are worried about what YOU think of THEM. That’s just how everybody is. So WHY is that the case?

In this episode, I’ll talk about the psychology of wanting to belong in the “in group”, the ways developmental trauma conditions us to look for external validation rather than internal motivation, and how as adults, we can exercise the mental muscle of spending our emotional energy worrying about what’s really important. Hint: what’s really important is NOT what other people think about you - not even your parents. (GASP!)

In addition, I’ll talk about the specific times and situations where you SHOULD care about other people’s opinions, and how to open a healthy, engaging dialogue with your partner, kids, and other important family members so you can have grace and compassion with each other as you grow together.

Here’s a link to the Wu Wei Wisdom Source video I reference in the episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uACgIJGrLPg

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What’s in a friend?

On social media I asked you about what attributes you look for in a friend. The biggest responses were LOYAL and HONEST. That’s no surprise. We have a natural instinct to surround ourselves with people who value us and tell the truth. In this episode, I want to encourage you to cultivate just such a friendship with your body.

Now, Byron Katie’s concept of loving “what is” applies here: as you come to love and accept your body, any changes you choose to make for your mental and physical health will be motivated in caring for your body rather than hating it.

Like last episode, I’ll be referring frequently to Brooke Castillo’s CTFAR model. Circumstances are the “as-is”, the objective reality from which your thoughts, feelings, actions, and results stem. The circumstances are what they are - but you have the privilege to choose your reaction. Take the reins.

Here is the link to all the goodies you need to dive into the A line, action. Message me and say “I’m in” and you can join our group to focus on the T line of the model with me for results to feel comfortable in your own skin. https://tinyurl.com/ALineOfTheModel

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In 2013, things were not great in Kelly land. I felt like I had lost my mojo. I felt stuck at the time. To be fair, there were a lot of stressors in my life: we were living in a house with a mold problem - we’re talking so much mold that living there was unsafe! - we were briefly homeless because of it, David didn’t like his job, my mom had a 15-pound tumor. Anyway, it was not great.

As I began to sink into despair for our family’s woes, I started to get very out of shape. I’m not just saying that, either. I was going to McDonald’s and getting a hot caramel sundae with extra nuts, a small fry, and a large Diet Coke and I was doing this order not one but TWO or even THREE times a day. I was so embarrassed thinking about the workers seeing me that I would drive to a different McDonald’s restaurant each time.

It came to a head when I was in the drive-through with Lily in the back seat, and she said “next window please” right in time with the cashier saying “next window please.” We had been to McDonald’s so many times that my child knew the cadence of buying food. I knew things had to change. I said to myself, I can't control what's happening outside of us, but I CAN control how I move my body, what I put in my body, and how I treat my body. That's one thing I can control when everything else is out of control.

As I started on the grueling journey up and out of my bad habits, I felt my excitement and passion for life return. I felt my dormant inner athlete come out. I felt like my inner child was being excited again, and I felt more zest for life overall. So I started helping people to lose weight, and that's how I started off in this journey of life coaching.

In this episode, I’ll explain a bit more about my process in terms of Brooke Castillo’s CTFAR model, which applies to any goal you intend to set, and the mission-critical mindset of mindfulness and persistence in your efforts to attain your goal. The circumstances are what they are - but your thoughts, feelings, and actions are a DRASTIC influence on the result you obtain.

Here is my diet supplement that helps me with my A-line in the model: https://tinyurl.com/ALineOfTheModel

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Would you like to help your kids stay clear of the dreaded red zone? Would you like to spend less time there yourself? Try HALTing!

People in addiction recovery learn the acronym H. A. L. T. to identify four triggers that exacerbate their cravings: hungry, angry, lonely, tired. The word “halt” literally means “to come to an abrupt stop,” and taking a quick personal H. A. L. T. inventory does just that: with practice, it can be used to derail your child’s temper tantrum train.

The ingenuity of H. A. L. T. is that these four simple descriptors account for a vast swath of negative human emotion. (Sometimes they don’t, but I’ll talk about that in this episode!) My point is that giving our kids words to describe their tricky emotions allows them to understand WHY they feel the way they do. It also helps them develop habits of healthy emotional management. Remember: if you can name it, you can tame it.

As you arm the people in your four walls with emotional knowledge, and as you continue to give yourself and others grace and compassion, you’ll be able to make sense of tricky emotions together. If my family and I can do it, you can do it too!

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