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Parenting: The Best “How to Grow Yourself Up” experience ever!

Carrie* walks into her daughter’s bedroom to wake her up for school because once again she’s slept through her alarm. Trying to sound cheerful, she gently rubs her sixteen-year-old’s arm and says, “Bridget,* it’s time to get moving honey.” Immediately Bridget begins to bark her usual response, “God Mom, why do you have to wake me up like that I HATE it when you touch me! Leave me alone!” Carrie’s body goes stiff, the back of her neck begins to tingle…this is what she expected, but not what she wanted to start her day with again. Triggered, she retorts in a condescending tone, “Well Bridget, if you were a little more responsible you’d be able to get yourself up and moving without my having to come in here every damn day!”

You may initially want to slap me for saying this but…Nobody tells you how much motherhood will be the best way to grow yourself up. No one talks about what you can really learn in the years between your child’s arrival and their launch.

And, nobody (before me, before today) shares the true secret to motherhood: raising human beings is our greatest opportunity to identify and work through the limiting beliefs we unconsciously took on as children.

And these beliefs will be triggered at any given moment by our kid’s behavior.

Say what?!?!?!?!

What the hell is a limiting belief?

When you were a child you picked up subtle cues from your parents, grandparents, siblings, teachers (all of the important people in your world) about how to act and what you should say in order to feel their love. Even if they said they loved you unconditionally. Most of us spent a lot of our childhood performing to get our parent’s love and acceptance.

At our core, we do not want to be abandoned by the people we love the most. And every human born comes into the world with six basic emotional needs. We work hard to get those met through our words and behavior. What are our basic emotional needs? They are acceptance, affection, appreciation, attention, autonomy, and what Dr. Brené Brown says we’re all wired for…connection.

Every one of us has limiting beliefs. Even if you had the most woke, present, emotionally intelligent parents! The question is whether or not you are aware of them and then, taking it another step, if you decide to do anything about shifting the ones that are triggering you.

What’s a trigger?

An emotional trigger is anything — including memories, experiences, or events — that spark an intense emotional reaction, regardless of your current mood.

Many moms know they are being triggered by the people they love the most, but they don’t ever take the time or invest the energy to question and then to create new, more accurate beliefs to better serve themselves and their kids. 

The women I work with have found the courage to look at the beliefs they hold about themselves because they know those beliefs are blocking their full potential and they’re tired of it; they want more from their lives.

As Carrie and I worked together she was able to understand her value as a person and become less reactive to Bridget. When that happened (by becoming the calm in Bridget’s storm) her daughter learned how to regulate her emotions as well.

*These are not their real names.

What do limiting beliefs look and feel like in parenting?

Some typical triggers: feeling disrespected when your son doesn’t obey curfew (tripping the deeper need in you to feel seen/heard/accepted). Becoming deeply hurt when your daughter rolls her eyes at you for the first time (on the surface you may feel or say you’re annoyed but below the surface is your desire for appreciation and connection).

Think about the frustration coursing through your body every time the door to their room slams because you’ve doled out another rule in an effort to protect your teenager…if not from others, then certainly from themselves. That anxiety is a surface reaction to a deeper trigger of [as a parent] you are not enough or the job you’re doing as a parent is not good enough.

Evading curfew, the eye rolls, wearing a revealing tube top, door slamming, and dying one’s hair blue are examples of our teenager’s attempts to individuate and build autonomy (it could also very well be a way to seek attention or affection). As the parent, this behavior is an assault on our desire to feel seen and heard. We equate the way our kids show up in the world as a direct reflection of how good a parent we are, in other words, how valuable we are as a human being.

Our deep need to be seen and heard comes from not having had enough of that experience as a child. Let’s face it, even if our parents doted on us they didn’t get it right 100% of the time. I know my parents didn’t. They did the best they could with what they knew and based on their own growing up experience. This is why we react now by feeling angry, disappointed, and/or disrespected when our kids trigger us.

But it doesn’t have to stay that way.

So, how can you stop getting triggered by your kid’s behavior?

Personally join me for my 8-week online course Becoming Me While Raising You, A Mother’s Journey to Self. Together, in a small group of women (think handful) we will uncover your limiting beliefs and shift them into healthier ones! We’ll also look at consistent boundary setting, building trust with your teen, creating open communication at home, how to know when to lean in and fix something in your teen’s life and when to let the natural consequences of their choices teach them.

We meet on Zoom either Tuesday mornings (10 a.m. CST) or Thursday evenings (7:30 p.m. CST). Eight weeks to new beliefs, confident parenting skills, sharper intuition, and a more peaceful home life. I’ll be right there to guide you every step of the way. Text me at 972-689-0250 or sign up through the link above to grab your spot. This is an ongoing enrollment so any week you want to begin you can, you just have to commit for 8 straight weeks.

 

 

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I found the courage to iFly Dallas, and so can you!

I am a chicken shit.

Totally…

Anyone who knows me even somewhat well will tell you I hate heights, speed, and I definitely despise roller coasters.  (I had a near-death incident on The Demon at Six Flags in Gurnee, Illinois during my eighth grade field trip that changed my outlook about whether or not I should ever again hang upside down and spin around.)

But sometimes, in order to celebrate life, get the family to do something out of the ordinary, and to see how far you can push yourself, you will challenge yourself to things that are completely out of your comfort zone.

For me that was agreeing to be the first in line to go on our inaugural trip to a local indoor skydiving experience called, iFly Dallas.

It all started because Tom turned fifty this week, and I wanted to find something to commemorate that milestone with him.  He’s a fairly adventurous guy (unlike his wife), so a few weeks ago I thought of [what, to me at the time, was a] brilliant idea…Tom and the boys should go indoor skydiving while the grandmas (Tom’s mom came to town to celebrate with us), Mia and myself would make a nice dinner, maybe put up some streamers….you know, take care of all of the very safe, fun, festive birthday party preparations. 

Well, the plan I had in mind turned into “this should be a whole family adventure” and all of a sudden I learn we have purchased and booked a group package (for up to 6 people).

How convenient…

I have a couple of kids who, like me, hate taking any kind of risk.  So I know, as their mom, if I want them to be willing to leave their comfort zone, I have to be willing to do it FIRST.  Using the “I grow because you make me” manta that has come in handy during my 24-year marriage, I agree to going, and I even make sure I am the first in line when we head onto the flight deck.

Of course. long before we arrive at iFly I read all of the information on the website, investing in the “this is a “fun”…EASY experience”.

I think to myself, as long as it’s nothing like riding a roller coaster I’ll be fine.

And it was!

The first time out, that is.

We had paid for two, one-minute trips into the tunnel.  I know, this does not sound like much of a big deal at all, and that was the way I looked at it…surely I can do anything for two one-minute increments, right?!

All six of us took our initial flight round really well.  Even the two kids who wanted absolutely nothing to do with the experience.  

Round two was a different story…for me anyway.

I look Justin (our flight instructor…or tormentor, depending on who is viewing him) in the eyes as I enter the chamber, hoping it conveys everything I want to actually say, but he would never be able to hear…“go easy on me Justin, I HATE heights and even more than that I HATE to spin around”…he smiles and I pray he gets what I am thinking as we begin the second minute together.

To be honest, I think Justin totally understood what I was trying to let him know, but he thought he could convince me otherwise…you know, to release my fear of heights and spinning…

I am not going to lie, as we spun up the tunnel the first time I closed my eyes and of course my go-to word came to mind…

“Shit!”

Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit…

After opening my eyes briefly to see just how high we’d flown, I clamped them tightly shut just in time…I screamed (not that anyone heard me) as we plunged, SPINNING, down to the bottom of the tunnel.  

Repeat.

FIVE MORE TIMES!

before he had to take hold my fly suit from behind and direct me out the door because I was so dizzy I couldn’t take a straight step.

It was over, I lived through it, but NEVER again will I go indoor (or outdoor for that matter) skydiving.

The kids and Tom bought additional minutes and will return.

Good for them I say.

This family experience is one I am sure we will talk about for a long time.  I am happy I took part in it so that my kids could see (a) we can’t always predict what mom will do, and (b) mom can do things that cause her anxiety and take her out of her comfort zone, and so can I.

I found out later my husband had paid a little extra so I could have the second flight minute of my life.

Nice.

Can’t wait to see what he has in store for MY fiftieth birthday in a few years…

 

 

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Life’s greatest adventures are found in the twists and turns!

One day, many years ago, I received an envelope in my mailbox from the all-girls high school I had attended.  It didn’t look like the usual plea for money, so I opened it, to find a request for alums to consider speaking to the current student body about their chosen career.

At the time I was working as an intern at an interior design center, and I thought to myself, “maybe I could speak about this career to teenage girls, they might find this job interesting”.  There were several questions to be answered and submitted to the event organizer (a/k/a the school’s president) before actually being scheduled to be a presenter for the school day event.  

The questions she asked were pretty general, I think they were basically looking for an overall picture of how one’s time had been spent since graduating from the Christian, college-prep academy.

I’ll be the first to admit my high school years were not a favorite time in my life.  In fact, I hadn’t once returned for a reunion, yet something in me wanted to give this opportunity to return and speak a shot.  Maybe on some level I wanted to give the school a second chance to be a place that left a better taste in my mouth than the one so many years before when I had graduated.  After all, I had more to do with the result of my high school experience than the people who ran the school, right?  It was my fault, not theirs, if I couldn’t wait to get out of the place.

Of course my responses to the questions asked were truthful, I cited becoming a mother after my freshman year in college, my marriage a few years later, additional children who arrived after the big “I Do”, and I talked about my return to community college and my current desire to help others transform their living space from a house to a home they would love and create memories in.

I was candid about the twists and turns my road had taken since graduation.  I thought it was a well-written, honest account of how my life had progressed since walking down the church aisle on that May day in 1986 draped in my full-length white gown, complete with white gloves… 

I sealed the envelope, mailed it off, congratulating myself for having done something “out of my comfort zone”.  For me to decide to speak in front of a group, especially full of young women who may not care one iota about the design field, was a real stretch.  I’ll admit I mentally patted myself on the back for my effort as I dropped my response in the box outside of our home.

A few weeks later I, again, received a doesn’t-look-like-the-typical-alum-fundraiser-envelope in the mailbox.  Excited about the possibility of what the letter might bring, I opened the envelope to find a carefully worded decline of my offer to be a part of the career day.

The exact verbiage escapes me now, but the bottom line was they were not willing to include an alum who’d gotten pregnant out of high school, married, had more kids, then decided to go to community college and decorate people’s homes for a living.  The tone was along the lines of looking for speakers who made “healthy” choices and “had accomplished careers in keeping with the qualities of a graduate of the school.”

My initial reaction was anger, which is rare for me, then beyond the anger, I realized I was hurt.

How dare this woman tell me my story wasn’t worth sharing with the students?!  Did she live in a dream world where every graduate of this fine institution then went on to a four year university, bounce into a masters program, go on to find a wonderful husband, and after a satisfying career take a break to have a few well-behaved, beautiful children…all the while living behind a white picket fence? 

Bullshit.

My second written response to this woman was equally honest.  And in the many years since I wrote it, and she’s continued to be president, I have never received another request to help fund the education of the fine, young women who attend the beautiful walls of that Christian school.

Although initially angry and hurt, I realized something much more important… I wouldn’t change even ONE curve in my road.  In fact, I’d go so far as to preach that it’s the curves and that have created the woman I am as I embark on 2016. And, I won’t ever apologize, or spend another second feeling badly for not becoming “the ideal graduate”.  

This year I intend to grow in ways I cannot even imagine, despite the box someone wanted me to get into so many years ago.

I can’t visualize a more boring route then going from point A to point B on a straight road.  The twists and turns are where I slowed down, considered my options, made choices, and grew from the personal challenges of the events in my life.

Here’s to a year filled with all the adventure life’s twists and turns can bring!

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How to let go of any expectations for your kids

There was a time when, if someone had asked me what my expectations were for my kids, I would have said I had none.

But, it would have been a lie.

Because even though I didn’t consciously believe I had expectations for my kids, I did.  I expected they would (and, in some cases, will) grow up to graduate high school, go on to college, get a degree, get married, and have a family. 

There would obviously be some bumps/bruises along the road (after all, no one grows up without them).

This would all be based (loosely) on the course of my own life, on how my husband’s life has developed, on how my brothers and their wives walked a similar path, and how most, if not all, of my friends’ lives have progressed.

So, even though I would have said something like, “I don’t expect my kids grow up to become anything in particular, but I would like them to be happy people who find their path to contributing to the world in some positive way”, that statement would not have been completely true.

While I don’t yet know where my youngest three kids will cause me to grow (because kids are terrific at finding just the way to help you do that, if you let them), my oldest two sons are walking paths I wouldn’t have necessarily (a) chosen for them, or (b) would have guessed they’d take.

My oldest son, Nick, is soon to be twenty-eight.  He works full-time in the computer field, has been in the same relationship for five years with no immediate plan to marry, they have rescued a wonderful border collie whom I sometimes joke is my “grand dog”.  Nick started college, but hasn’t finished.  He may or may not decide to do so, nonetheless he’s been able to find employment in a field he enjoys, and he continues to be promoted to positions that personally challenge him.

Allen-Michael, twenty-two, is about to leave for his senior year of college.  He interrupted his education for a year in 2013 to spend time traveling the country with a van full of twenty-somethings on a mission to bring their love of the Catholic faith to middle school students.  He’s since spent a semester in Rome, and has been open about his discernment to the priesthood.  Knowing he is diligent about spending time with his younger siblings, he has worked many summers as a youth camp counselor and in teaching tennis to young people, I have had to adjust to the idea that even though I think he’d make a wonderful husband and father, he is feeling strongly called in a direction that would not allow either of those things to become a reality.  As my friend Katherine once said to me, “Kim, maybe he isn’t meant to be a dad to a few, but a father to many.”  (That statement still makes me tear up).

Often what we say as parents is that we want our kids to grow up to be “happy”.  You and I both know happiness is not a constant state of being, and we have to admit there is nothing we could ever do that would guarantee this for our offspring.  What we can do, instead of trying to “strongly suggest” (force) them into a place/profession/path we think is right for them, is to support and encourage them right where they are, so they know no matter what choice they make they will always have us by their sides.

I have used this video in a previous post, but think it really encapsulates the idea that as moms and dads our most important role is to love unconditionally and to know there is a bigger picture than what we might have planned, or expected…

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