Unhelpful (and Sneaky) Habitual Thoughts of Special Needs Moms

Hello and welcome to the podcast. 
Transitioning back to work after a break can feel like an uphill battle, even when you love what you do. My personal strategy to overcome this, involves a trio of 'C's; method I delve into with heartfelt honesty. Join me as we navigate these waters together, finding strength in community and the shared quest for a year filled with intention and growth.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:54

Hi, I'm Cara, life coach, wife and mom to four incredible and unique children. It wasn't all that long ago that my son received a diagnosis that had my world come crashing down. I lacked the ability to see past the circumstances, which felt impossible, and the dreams I once had for my life and family felt destroyed. This forward has many years of surviving and not at all thriving, and you'll see a mom who trusts that she can handle anything that comes her way and has access to the power and confidence that once felt so lacking. I created this special needs mom podcast to create connection and community with moms who find themselves feeling trapped and with no one who really understands. My intention is to spark the flare of possibility in your own life and rekindle your ability to dream. This isn't a podcast about your special needs child. This is a podcast about you. If you are a mom who feels anxious, alone or stuck, then you are in the right place. Welcome, hello and welcome to the special needs mom podcast. Here we are.

Speaker 1: 3:07

We landed in January In the late 80s, we made it through the holiday season and I know for many of you, you're coming out depleted and not rested at all. Yet hopefully, some of you are feeling a little bit of rest and restoration and ready to start a new year. It's funny Over the years I've had different relationships with the new year and I remember last year I was kind of like over it. I wasn't having any of it. This year, I feel like I'm having a lot more positive energy around it and, in general, a lot of excitement about what is to come this year. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I took a really amazing trip with my husband at the very beginning of the year. Our anniversary is January 3rd and so we had decided many months ago okay, it's 20 years, we've got to do something. We've got to do something more than just a weekend away, and we both happen to not love the cold weather, although I'm sure some of you it's laughable, because we're in Southern California, it's not that cold. But the things we like to do are outdoors and, with the exception of going to the mountains to go skiing, it kind of doesn't give us very many options. So we decided we wanted to go to tropical, so we went down, we flew down to the coast of Mexico, in Playa del Carmen, and many of you probably have been there. It's a beautiful place and very warm and very humid, and someone asked did it ever feel uncomfortably hot? And I said no, I think it was in the mid-80s. It felt amazing.

Speaker 1: 4:43

So we went on this trip and I thought, oh gosh, I have to share this with my people because we left the 2nd of January and so January 1st we're preparing, we're packing, and I was picking up my friend who was flying in to watch our kids and both my husband and I kind of hit a panic. Maybe panic's not quite right, but both of us were like, without actually saying the words, I think we're like holy crap, what have we done? What have we done? Our friend who was coming in hadn't seen the kids for like six months and although she knows them very well, levi has changed a lot unfortunately not for the better in the last six months. So he's actually regressed in a lot of different areas and I'm like, oh my gosh, I've seen him naked all the time and now he's 14, and that feels like it's not going to work with another adult, and just all these little things that, for whatever reason, didn't pop into my head until the day before we're leaving, even though I had actually done significant work preparing for him to be supported by somebody else. It was just interesting to see both my husband and I's responses that we really kind of felt the gravity of all that we do for our children, but especially for Levi, and I guess I was glad I wasn't alone. I was glad it wasn't just me feeling this, I was glad he was there with me, although probably, you know, if one of us was there to like pull each other out, that might have been easier. But we got through it.

Speaker 1: 6:07

And I remember also being very thankful that this trip it was committed to Like we could have canceled but there would have obviously been some financial loss. But I was like no, like lights are booked, we're going. So I knew I had to work through the discomfort of leaving, but it was really uncomfortable. It kinda surprised me because we've left for weekends and really haven't had that level, I think, because we were going a little bit farther than normal, definitely out of country. It surprised me. So I think, as I mentioned, it was such a good trip.

Speaker 1: 6:41

Oh, my gosh, it was such a good trip and so I'm having a really good time now, kind of thinking back to just the fun adventures that we had as a couple, and there were many, many times that I thought to myself when we were down there and just reflected wow, we couldn't do this as a family. Like we were getting to do some snorkeling and we gotta go to some ruins. And we didn't do a lot of that. We actually spent most of the time just hanging out at a resort Cause funny story we get to this resort and we had wanted to book something that wasn't like low bar or we're like. You know, we're big kids now, we've been married long enough to like not go for the cheapest thing, so we wanted to book something pretty nice. And so we, you know, didn't go like cray-cray, but like we booked something that we thought was gonna be nice.

Speaker 1: 7:25

And we get there and we're both like, oh my gosh, like we're doing the peso to dollar translation and we're like, wait, what? How is it gonna be that much money? So, for instance, our sunscreen got taken by airport security Cause, yes, I was trying to sneak something in that was bigger than it was allowed. So, yay, they did a great job, but I lost my sunscreen and so we had to buy some sunscreen, and so there's a little store on the retreat. I'm like, okay, we'll just go get some sunscreen Like not a big deal.

Speaker 1: 7:54

You know, I like to get those natural sunscreens that are like high quality. So like I'm used to paying a pretty penny for sunscreen, I have no issues with that. But I was like I last the gown, okay sunscreen. And she pointed me to these three. I'm like, okay, like that one definitely gonna leave me white. I don't know if I want that one. The other one looked like it was gonna kill the Reeves, so I was like I don't like that one Anyhow. Like where else am I gonna get sunscreen? Had to buy one of them.

Speaker 1: 8:16

And so I was looking at the peso translation and I'm like, holy, what, that one's $30. Like why is this $30? That seems like too much money to me, especially in Mexico no offense from Mexico, but like usually things are a little cheaper there. So I'm like, okay, like kind of mulling it around my head. I'm like you just buy the sunscreen, don't make this an all day ordeal. I buy it. And then we know we're just talking about it and we're both kind of having to recalibrate our expectations to be like, okay, like we're gonna be sending more money than we thought, like that's just what's happening here, we're not gonna be getting out of this Like we're here, we have to eat. It's just gonna be more money than we thought. So we just kind of laughed at like okay, lesson learned, like maybe book a cheaper resort. But ultimately, looking back, I'm very glad that we had the experience that we did and it was just again. It was just so gorgeous. Hopefully by the time this comes out, I will have posted some pictures.

Speaker 1: 9:08

I've been a little slow to get back to Instagram because you know I had shared the last episode of the year, if you listen to that one just that I was tired, like I really realized I was. I was depleted and I was tired and I was aware of this and so very excited about getting this rest, and it was very intentional about really I guess the word is disengaging from many of the things that I ordinarily do. You know, instagram and freaking, my chart and all the management that we do daily, weekly, all that, and so really all I did on vacation was read books. We didn't even watch any TV, doug on it. I wanted to watch some TV.

Speaker 1: 9:46

It was just so nice just be there and present with my husband and with the leisure that we had, and it was also very interesting to come back and to kind of notice the experience I was having. I'm like wow, like I feel distinctly different than I did before. You know, nothing had changed in my life, right, like we still have all the things with all the kids and all the challenges with Levi, and actually we anticipate this to be a really important part of Levi's. I wouldn't call it recovery, what would I call it? It's an important part of his care journey. We have some big decisions to make and I'm really kind of trying to tackle some challenges, and so we anticipate that this is gonna be kind of intense season, maybe year, I don't know, it could be year.

Speaker 1: 10:35

But even with that anticipating that, I noticed it didn't feel so overwhelming, it didn't feel so heavy. I felt like I had connection to the possibility of it working and me having support I needed and just not having it feel so hard, and so that's good, am I right? That is a good thing. That is what I really wanted out of the rest, both resting and just taking time off with my kids, but also the essentially vacation that I took with my husband, and I think there was a lot of fear of like, oh my gosh, what if I go and have this vacation and I come back and I feel exactly the same. I was really scared about that. I am relieved to report that mission accomplished, rest was achieved. Okay, so this episode is one of those episodes that is generated by some of my own life experiences and particularly experience with Coaching and coaching concepts. So, of course, because I've been coaching quite a while, I'm able to perhaps catch things that I wouldn't have been as an earlier coach or even if I perhaps wasn't a coach, and there's a lot about noticing right. So a lot of the times when we're engaging in coaching practices or really applying the work of coaching were observing ourselves and I think it was right.

Speaker 1: 11:55

The day or, yeah, I think it was the morning of going back to work After break and my kids didn't have school, I had some work commitments and there were less special needs, mom related and more with the with the part of my business that is, more corporate and leadership and executive type coaching, I had this feeling of like I don't want to go back to work. It wasn't an ideal feeling to have, right, like who wants to get dragged to work, nobody and so it's kind of bummed. I was like doggone it. I feel the same way that I did before and, as I mentioned, I was a kind of already scared about like what if I still feel the same way? But then I kind of was like wait a second here, do I really feel this way about going back to work? Like, am I really actually that upset about going back to work to do work I love, and you know the clients are great and so I just paused a little bit. I was like, okay, there's a little bit of a disc Concruency between my experience. It just didn't make as much sense. It was a little bit off. I was like huh. And so I paused and thought and it was like I think that I have just been thinking this automatically and it's kind of the pattern that I have gotten into up. Oh, I just want to rest, I don't want to work. And so I kind of got stuck in that pattern, in that habit, and so I did a little bit of writing and I really kind of broke down like to really gently nudge myself like hey, what is really going on here and how do you want to feel? Like, do you really want to feel this constant force of like Somebody making me do things that I don't want to do? And the answer is no. I really don't like feeling that way, and so I I have outlined just like three steps. Conveniently, they all start with C, which just makes me so happy three steps that can help you do the same thing.

Speaker 1: 13:47

So, for instances, where you find yourself thinking or experiencing something that's very familiar and Yet is not desired so it could be something like when you're feeding your children and whatever that looks like for you and you might have the overall experience or feeling of like oh my gosh, this is so much work, or I hate this, or this is never ending, or whatever the thing is. My guess is you wouldn't be really enjoying it from that angle. You'd be kind of suffering through it, and then that's your opportunity to be like wait, do I really hate this as much as I'm telling myself I do, and you might say yes, and that's okay too. But you also might say you know what, I'm gonna do it no matter what, and so I'm gonna do it. Do I want to bring this overarching belief and it's shadow into it and I'm gonna say the answer there? It's probably not, and so the first step, the first C, is Q.

Speaker 1: 14:47

So your Q is to notice when you feel a way that is familiar yet not desired. So you can I mean you can imagine how much this might come up right like. So let's just say I know for myself the time that I get my kids home from school before dinner. It's always kind of funky, like I haven't figured out how to enjoy that time personally working on it. But I'm not quite there, and so that familiar feeling might be.

Speaker 1: 15:12

I think there's a couple different feelings, but the ones coming to mind is overwhelmed. Sometimes four people want something all at the same time, and I happen to have a little lower energy at that time of the day, so that would be a cue, huh. Oh, you're feeling overwhelmed, and just to kind of be curious, which is the second C you know how much I love that word and so this curiosity, just as you do that little stop, pause and reflection to ask yourself a curious, based question From a place of like, loving, kindness Sounds so lofty, but let's work with it. I guess what I'm saying is like from a place of how you would speak to somebody that you just love so much and you just want the best for them. That's what I mean by the loving kindness. And so ask this question like you, do I have to feel this way. Do I have any other options? Or even something like I said before, is this really how I feel or is it just what I'm used to feeling?

Speaker 1: 16:11

And this is where it gets really interesting, because the most practiced thought will be our go-to. You don't even need to try, it just pops up conveniently and it's always there. So, like for me, the example is the most practiced thought I had had for the last I don't know couple weeks months was I don't wanna work. You're like hi, make it so dramatic. So that's gonna be if you don't stop and give it a little bit more direction. That's gonna be how it goes for you, and so the most desired thought will not be automatic at all. You might even not have any idea what this thought should be, but this is where we get to bring intention in, and a little intention goes a long way. And so this gets us to our last C, and that is choice.

Speaker 1: 16:56

Simplistically, this question is so what will you choose? Given the facts, given your commitments and the desires. What will you choose? So, using the example of feeding your children, given the commitment that you have, that you would make over and over again to take care of your child, and the truth is is that you're going to feed your child no matter what. So what would have to be present or possible for you to perhaps enjoy it or even just find comfort in it or maybe just not hate it? We don't have to go all the way to the positive, we can just get to neutral.

Speaker 1: 17:30

As I mentioned, a little bit of intention goes a long way, and when we listen to the cue of like there's this incongruency queues us into curiosity, and the curiosity is designed to kind of look at your options, to ask those questions like do I really have to feel this way? Or do I really feel this way? Or even if I feel this way now, what can I think about or believe on purpose to feel differently in the future? And so that leads us to the intention that we would bring into something which, of course, having these curious based conversations with ourselves or with somebody else, obviously can give you that access to choice. So then you get to choose, and I like to put in here, like you don't always have to choose, like the novel or like the elevated thing, like you can still choose to feel exactly how you feel, even if it's not necessarily a positive feeling. There's nothing wrong with that, especially sometimes when you decide that you wanna feel bad on purpose. It kind of takes away the judgment and allows you just to actually experience where you are, which in so many ways, is the thing. That kind of allows you to move on to something else when you're ready.

Speaker 1: 18:44

Okay, I'm gonna leave it there. We're gonna do simple the beginning of the year here. I don't know if you can hear it in my voice, but I just came down with like a little bit of a virus and I am so bummed I don't even want to know how much I've spent on supplements and cures and things to get me better faster, particularly because I was intending to go beak at the we Are Brave Together retreat this weekend and now that's not going to work. So I'm going to have to do virtual, which I'm going to make awesome, but I'm super bummed For our wrap up. I do want to put a little plug in for what we're calling the Purge Party, and hopefully you would have heard something in the intro to this episode. Afterwards, I'm like Purge. That's bringing back memories from like a lot of conversations about bulimia when I was little.

Speaker 1: 19:30

But we're not doing that kind of purging. We are actually getting rid of stuff that we don't want in a positive way, and so I want you to consider like, okay, is there like a little pile, or maybe a big pile? Is there an IEP binder? Is there like, oh my gosh, like you just have stuff everywhere and you can't figure out where anything is. Is there an area of your home or of your digital space that you just want to finally do? You've been meaning to do it. You have not done it. You have a lot of, perhaps, headspace going towards. I didn't do it. I should have done it. Why am I not doing it? I don't want to do it All that.

Speaker 1: 20:07

Well, we've created this just two hours. It's a two hour. I'm calling it a co-workshop because actually you know you'll be doing the work, but we are going to be helping you, help move whatever it is out of the headspace that has stopped you from getting this thing done. Angela, my co-host, is going to be bringing the organizational expertise and I'm coming from the coaching expertise and between the two of us, you'll be very highly supported to really accomplish something that you've been meaning to do for a long time.

Speaker 1: 20:38

Or maybe you haven't been meaning to do it, but you're like, oh my gosh, this is a perfect time to start organize. Like hey, we just had our IEP. It's our first one. Let's get this show off with the bang. Please consider coming. We're asking $40, which I think is really hopefully accessible to many of you. If you're like hey, I want to go and it's not accessible at that price, reach out. I never want pricing to be something that stops y'all from getting what you want. The link to go to that will be in the show notes, and also I have a link on my Instagram so you can get it there easily as well, and I'm so happy to be with y'all in this new year. I will see on the next episode.