Harmony in the Home

Our dog Maggie is incredibly protective! When she detects a strange person (like the Amazon delivery person, for example), she goes on high alert. THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG! This is (sometimes) endearing with pets, but less so when our own brain does this. Let me explain.

The ego is part of the inner Self. It’s usually formed at a young age. It carries around a lot of weight. Sometimes our perception of our person-ness, our worthiness, is not great. This distorted version of reality might’ve come from school, peers, or our parents, but in any case, it’s not aligned with objective truth.

When we undertake any difficult work - a diet, therapy, anything that involves real change - the brain goes into protective Maggie mode and says SOMETHING IS WRONG! You don’t want to be vulnerable, because you could get hurt, right? And you want to wait for the ego to calm down before you start trying to do hard stuff, right? Wrong and wrong!

Listen, here’s a secret. Your ego is never going to go away. It’s part of you, and as a human being you are designed to protect yourself from harm and mitigate risk. The ego actually does do a pretty good job when it’s not sabotaging the things you WANT to do. As always, the key to understanding yourself and finding fulfillment is having grace and compassion for yourself. And when you’re trying to do a hard thing and the ego flares up … do the hard thing anyway. ;)

2021 Oola goal sheet: https://tinyurl.com/GoalsForNextYear2021

Our viral TikTok: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMJtB8Qsg/

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As 2020 draws to a close, I’ve been reflecting on all the wild things that have happened this year! One fun twist to this unprecedented year happened just a couple weeks ago. My editor posted a video to TikTok where he reacts to my description of how unhealed childhood trauma manifests. That video has now been viewed 241 THOUSAND times, and it’s brought new listenership to the podcast! How wild is that?!

Over a thousand people have also made side-by-side reactions to this video. The put-a-finger-down reactions of many viewers lead me to believe that the takeaway is, look at all the possible ways in which people are broken.

To listeners both old and new: you had the childhood that you needed to grow. - Now first off, I cannot stress enough the reality of bad situations. Neglectful, abusive, and purposefully mean parents and guardians exist. Horrible things happen to people who don’t deserve it. Let’s unpack what I mean when I say your childhood was “the childhood you needed.”

Know that you are NOT broken. Know that everything in your past, whether good or bad, has been done. Make peace with that. Loving “what is,” as I say when quoting Byron Katie, begins with acknowledging all the things we cannot change. The universe has dealt you the hand you have, and you are not EVER to blame for other people's hurtful actions.

Fortunately, the future is much brighter. As you become conscious of your wounded inner child, the power to move forward is in your hands. Your childhood memories and experiences, no matter how beautiful or terrible they were, are the tools you need AT PRESENT to move forward, heal, grow, and live a conscious life, so that the wrongs of the past are not repeated.

Eventually, we must all individually level with the responsibility of attending to our own lives. That means a lot of things: getting professional therapy(!!!), talking to a life coach, or maybe even just going to bed at a consistent hour. That responsibility includes learning from the entirety of our childhood. It also includes setting goals and growing!

This year, I invite you to join me in setting goals for the seven Fs of Oola: Fitness, Finance, Family, Field, Faith, Friends, and Fun. I’ve linked you to a goal sheet you can fill out. Reach out to me at [email protected] to get my address, send me your goals for 2021, and I’ll hold onto them for a year and mail them back to you at the end of next December so you can look back and calibrate your vision for the next year!

2021 Oola goal sheet: https://tinyurl.com/GoalsForNextYear2021

Our viral TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@msld_sound/video/6903609484506172678

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Technology surrounds us. Everyone has to have a phone so parents can keep track of their children, video game systems are everywhere - and with the pandemic, tablets and computers now play a major role in our kids’ education. Many parents are confused as to what the correct amount of screen time is for their children. Well, I’m here to demystify that for you, because I asked all the experts and pediatricians and made polls in parenting groups and asked a bunch of you.

Guess what transcendent truth I uncovered? I know EXACTLY how much screen time kids can have, by age. Here it is. Are you ready? The correct amount of screen time … will vary from child to child! Ha! Gotcha, didn’t I?! But it’s true, you and you alone have that stewardship, that responsibility, to determine what works for your kids.

The thing is, everybody’s “Goldilocks” style of parenting tailored to the needs of their kid(s) will look different. You have to (you GET to) choose how much time your kids are on devices, and you should love your reason for it or make whatever modifications you feel are necessary. You get to choose whether and how extra time is given. You get to choose SO. MANY. THINGS. Moral agency for parents AND children is the power to experiment (and even make mistakes sometimes). It's a gift, so don’t waste it. :)

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I recently cleaned out my closet. I donated and threw out years’ worth of buildup. All those clothes, personal effects, and trinkets that were causing me stress are (for the time being) under control! And WOW, it feels great. Life can be like that too. We get buried under tasks and appointments and literal physical stuff just like in my closet. If we don’t know how to get out from under the pile, it’s scary.

Now, I like to think of life as a school, an opportunity for me to become the best “me” I can be. My husband, my kids, everybody gets an opportunity to learn and grow. And luckily, lots of people have taken this test before, and they’re giving us their notes. What causes you agita? What stresses you out? There’s a book out there for that! And that’s because that author went on that journey and dealt with that struggle, and they know how to get their “closet” in order.

One of the greatest gifts we can give to our children is our example. I read self-help and personal development literature, and then I encourage my children to read books in the same genre that are appropriate for their age and will teach them lifelong lessons. In this episode, I’ll discuss how I’ve incentivized reading to help my kids grow and become the best “them” they can be.

Remember, the best way to teach your child a behavior or help them develop a trait is to model it yourself. This is especially true in reading books. I get distracted. I procrastinate. But I still do it, and you can too! You’ve got this!

ALL THE LINKS!

https://tinyurl.com/PDBooksKellyRecommends4Adults

https://tinyurl.com/PDForPrimaryKiddies

https://tinyurl.com/PDForIntermediateKiddies

https://tinyurl.com/PDContractSample

https://tinyurl.com/PDForTweensAndTeens

Remember, it's okay to be B- at parenting. The real grade is how much you love your children, and no report card can show that. You've got this!

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If you’ve ever felt the need to yell at your child over what your rational mind knows is something totally inconsequential, if you’ve had strong urges to “fix” something you dislike about your partner, or if you often feel like you didn’t get the childhood or the parents you needed to be successful, your mind is trying to heal wounds from your past in the now.

We begin our lives as children, and our brains are little blank slates. We observe the way our parents interact with each other and with us. As we grow and mature into adults, we look for interpersonal connections, whether friendships, work environments, or romantic relationships, that mirror what our unconscious minds thought was “natural” or “normal” in our household.

Being drawn towards narcissists or abusers is not something to beat yourself up over! It is part of your suffering, and there is no growth without suffering. However, you owe it to your future self, and to those around you, to become aware of those parts of your unconscious that draw you to bad people and bad situations and bad people, and to heal them outside of relationships. Having a spouse or a baby is not going to fix your problems.

And if, heaven forbid, you realize that you are the yeller or the name-caller or the spanker that you swore you would never be, your job is to become aware of whatever it is in your past that triggers bad behavior in you, and then to decondition yourself so you can ALWAYS respond with reason, love, and compassion to your triggers. This is hard work, but it’s worth it. I promise.

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We all have people in our lives, whether acquaintances, friends, or family, who (usually unwittingly) drain our batteries. One person is overbearing, one family member takes everything personally, somebody else wants to call you five times a week, or maybe even five times a day! It’s rough stuff!

So, on my social media I asked you all what you find difficult about setting boundaries. Unsurprisingly, most people said the hardest part is that you don’t want to hurt the other person’s feelings. That’s a genuine reason to be concerned … and here’s why you should do it anyway.

Personal autonomy and healthy interpersonal relationships are established around a framework of consent. I establish expectations (no smoking, no talking politics, et cetera). I allow people to be in my spaces. And then if they do something bad, it’s my right and prerogative to say no no, we’re not going to do this, and ask them to conform to the boundary or step outside.

Boundaries create a sense of honesty and clarity within any interpersonal relationship. If you are a people-pleaser, as I am, you may have trouble establishing boundaries. But remember, you can’t get everybody to like you. It’s impossible. And even if it could be done, you don’t WANT everybody to like you. There are people that don't like peaches, and it doesn't mean there's something wrong with the peach, it just means those people don't like peaches. Not all shoes fit, not all shoes match your outfit. You owe it to yourself and to the people with whom you interact to be authentic and honest.

Now, grown people may feel hurt or offended if you ask for space, but remember that just as you are in control of your thoughts, they are in control of theirs. If you come from kindness as you establish boundaries, you are in the right. As you lovingly establish and uphold boundaries, you will be able to be yourself, and that is the greatest gift you can give your nearest and dearest within your four walls.

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In the 1960s, Martin Seligman, PhD, and Steven Maier, PhD, made an important discovery during psychological experiments with animals. A behavior they called “learned helplessness” manifests when an animal (or a person) continuously faces a negative, seemingly uncontrollable situation, and stops trying to change their circumstances even when they have the ability to do so.

The prefrontal cortex, the “evolved brain,” is responsible for reason and rational decision-making, and it relays instructions to the back and bottom of the brain, the places of reflex and habit. If the “ancient brain” is not aware that it does have some control in a negative situation, it will fail to do its job, and if this happens regularly, its malfunction will become a habit that evades control if the brain’s owner is not conscious of it.

Parents often attach themselves to their children and become codependent, unconsciously hindering their child’s necessary development of independence and autonomy in order to satiate their inner child’s unmet need to feel loved and needed. Children are susceptible to learned helplessness in sports or academics, especially with a codependent parent. After several instances of hardship, and especially after receiving negative responses from parents, they may take an apathetic or negative stance toward the pursuit of excellence.

As parents, our task of raising kids is like gardening. We nourish our precious plants with water and nutrients, but we can’t grow for them. Sooner or later, they need independence. Ours is the privilege and responsibility to cultivate (first in ourselves and then in our children) a sense of Self and self-worth that transcends earthly achievements. Your children need to know that you would love them even if they got straight Fs.

As you learn to derive your sense of purpose from your own internal self-worth, and as you teach your children to value themselves and cultivate self-worth, you will find that life gets a lot more joyful.

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In this episode, I’ll dive into the concept of the “inner child” that resides within each of us. A child is living their life in realtime, but within every adult resides a little version of themselves, a child with specific unmet emotional needs in need of healing. Nicole LePera talks about three steps to healing your inner child: ACKNOWLEDGE your inner child’s pain and trauma, USE your triggers as a guide to your emotional childhood, and ASK your inner child what they need from you to heal.

First: acknowledgement. In episode 45, “Your Parents Lied to You,” I discuss how in every aspect — the way your parents thought about you and said about you, how they talked to you, how they showed (or didn’t show) love — their relationship to you was an outward projection of their own self-image. In one way or another, everyone has sustained emotional trauma from their childhood. As you recognize that you are not exempt from this axiom, you will be able to begin to heal and hopefully traumatize your children less.

Second: use your triggers as a guide. Brooke Castillo calls our broken ego absent a healthy internal guide to processing emotions an “emotional childhood.” That guide is developed by exposing yourself to circumstances that trigger your emotional response and then retaining your maturity despite these triggers. On the grand scale of catastrophic events, Dr. LePera says getting furious about her spouse’s undone dishes was an irrational response rooted in unresolved trauma. If we can say that of another adult’s foibles, we should be so much more forgiving if our children make mistakes!

You may lose your temper when your child forgets a library book, yelling almost to the point of blacking out. (Recognize that, again, this is an inappropriate response to a child’s behavior.) First, become conscious after you’ve been triggered. Observe yourself carefully. Plan ahead to rein in your reactions. Second, become conscious of the trigger while it’s happening, and check yourself immediately. Finally, after much practice, you will become conscious of a potential trigger before it’s happened. The goal is not to eliminate triggers, but to develop the emotional resilience to respond positively to triggers.

Third: ask your inner child what they need from you to heal. Tell your inner child, “now you're acknowledged. Now you're seen, now you're heard, now you're valued. I'm giving that responsibility to us.” I used to live in “emotional childhood,” and I was always super sensitive. But by affirming myself and showing kindness to my inner child, I have given her the grace and compassion that she needed and wanted when she was younger, and in turn I can give that to my kids.

Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t feel adequate to the task. Parents don’t intentionally hurt their kids, they just don’t have the tools they themselves need. But start learning that emotional literacy so you can tell your kids: “I'm going to make sure you feel valued, make sure you feel seen, make sure you feel heard.” If you didn't get it when you were growing up, the best way to heal that is to give it to your children now. Your child is here to remind you about your inner child. They are here to teach you where you need to grow, if you’re open to it.

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I’d like to talk about bids. No, I’m not talking about an auction! I’m talking about a frequent occurrence in your interpersonal relationships! The Gottman Institute defines a bid as “any attempt from one partner to another for attention, affirmation, affection, or any other positive connection.” Bids can be as simple as eye contact or a smile, but can also take the form of asking for advice or help, or may even manifest by the bidder overtly asking for attention.

Gottman Institute also says: “in the healthiest relationships, both partners are comfortable making all kinds of bids.” And while the verbiage in this concept of bids tends to denote romantic partnerships, your children will do the same thing, and it’s the parents’ job to figure out how to answer the children’s bids and connect with them.

One key to a successful spouse-spouse or parent-child relationship lies in making that connection because as we talked about in episode 72, making connections that match your partner’s or child’s love language will make a greater “deposit” into their “bank account.” Do they need quality time? Read with them. Do acts of service mean more? Empty the dishwasher together. Is physical touch important? Hold their hand while you walk together.

Grown-ups are children in adult bodies. Our fundamental needs don’t change! As you learn to meet these bids from your kids, you’ll connect more with your spouse, and vice-versa. And vulnerability breeds vulnerability, so you’ll get more connection, more community, and more love.More on John Gottman’s theory of bids: https://www.gottman.com/blog/turn-toward-instead-of-away/

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I get a lot of emails from people who are drained and frazzled, exhausted and overwhelmed, feeling anything but capable of taking on life. People can feel like they’re trying to run on a treadmill that’s going too fast for them. And I get it! I have those moments sometimes — not nearly as often as I used to, but I still have them! The question is: how do we get up to speed on the treadmill?

I’ve noticed in my own life that when I feel the drain, I’m either not devoting myself enough or devoting myself too much to one aspect of my life. I have found that Dave Braun and Troy Amdahl’s Oola method is particularly effective for me. The key lies in balancing seven critical aspects of personal life, the 7 Fs: Fitness, Finance, Family, Field, Faith, Friends, and Fun.

In this episode, I’ll walk you through my own process and help you leverage Oola to your advantage. As you seek to balance your life, you will feel infinitely more prepared and more happy as you experience the 50/50 mixture of your flawsome (flawed but awesome) life!

Take the Oola quiz here: https://www.oolalife.com/step1

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