The Special Needs Mom Podcast

Coffee with Kara: Life Updates and Messy Realities

• Kara Ryska • Episode 277

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Today’s episode is a cozy, casual chat. The kind you’d have over coffee with someone who gets it. I almost skipped releasing an episode this week, but connecting with you truly matters to me, even when life feels full.

I shared why I’ve stepped back from social media, what prompted it, and how that space has led me to new things like watercolor (and letting go of perfection, one messy brushstroke at a time). I also gave an update on the ongoing home repairs after a family incident and how bringing in support made the process lighter and less lonely. It's a reminder that we don’t have to do hard things solo.

I touched on a recent ER visit with my son and how emotional work I’d done earlier that day created more peace in a situation that could’ve felt overwhelming. And finally, a quick update on the Pathway to Peace Coaching Community. Doors will open again, likely early next year. The waitlist link is in the show notes.


Speaker:

Hi, I am Kara, 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. Fast forward, past 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 the 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. I'm very glad you're here. This episode is gonna be a casual chit chat. We could call it Coffee with Kara. I kinda like the ring of that. My name's spelled with a K. but we could change it for this purposes'cause I feel like it works a lot better. But, anyhow, I contemplated, do I just not release an episode this next, for this episode that you're listening to right now? Do I accept my own bandwidth and just say no thank you, or do I just kind of record a casual episode and give you what I have available? And you can see what I chose. I was like, Hey, I wanna connect with my people, with my podcast listeners. I, I really enjoy talking to you, which might sound funny'cause you're like, well, you don't know me. I think about you. And when people reach out to me and I get. Messages via the text function of my, podcast host. Like, I don't know, you don't know how much it lights up my day and it makes me feel connected and seen. So here I am and I thought, you know, it's gonna be like having a little, a little catch up time with a friend you haven't seen in a long time.'cause it has been a minute since I've recorded, like a more solo update or a personal update. So I just thought, hey, I'll let you know what's going on. And, You know, nothing mind blowing. I, I will say I have taken an intentional break step back from social media. Some of you follow me there, some of you don't. you may or may not have noticed. but the thing that really got me is I was, reading. Comment on a post of a good friend of mine. She shared some feelings about something and she's an author, so she has a, a significant following and the comment went something like this. It went like, I am so disappointed in you. They weren't disappointed in her because of her, her thoughts about something, her feelings about something. And the comment went on to say how they had bought all her books and how dare she think this way. And we're all allowed to have opinions. of course, but there was something about the particular language. I'm so disappointed in you. And I'm like, I don't know. I'm not cool. I'm not cool with people. I don't have a personal relationship expecting me to be somebody who I may or may not be. Like that is a lot, a lot to have to hold up to all the strangers on the internet or podcast, whatever. and I'm just like, nah, I don't know. That doesn't work for me. I quit. That was the moment I was like, I'm out. I don't know. And so additionally, you know, Recognizing what I'm modeling for my children and how much time I kind of sit. And so I was like, okay, let's step one, let's delete the apps from my phone. I of course figured out in a few weeks, so I'm like, oh, they're not deleted from my phone. I just deleted'em from my home screen. I can still get to them. So, we're not black and white over here. that wasn't really the point, but for me it was like. Okay, this was the turning point for me to say, this relationship's not working for me any longer. what's funny is that I turned to solitaire. I was like, well, what do I do? I literally was like, what do I do with my phone now? let's play solitaire. So I started playing solitaire. It was enjoyable. I liked it. but also maybe not exactly what I'm going for in terms of, I wasn't necessarily looking to, to find the next app, to numb myself to check out. so I've weaned myself from solitaire, and now I feel like I'm spending a lot less time on my phone, which for me. Was a win. I think it's also opened up space for me to be able to do things like watercolor. I started Watercoloring really enjoying it. Let me know if you are a fellow watercolor. it's really. Pushing up against all of my perfectionist nature, wanting to paint in the lines, wanting to do all this and that, that you can't do with watercolor necessarily. but I'm really having fun with it and my kids are like, wow, mom, that's so good. And so it makes me feel good too. So that has been fun. I've been buying the books from, oh, what's her name? Emily Lex. She's a watercolor artist and she sells these little, like, basically watercolor painting books where she gives you step by step and, so I've been doing those and having like a really good time. if I was still on social media, maybe I'd post a picture, but I guess we won't be doing that. oh, what else did I wanna share? Okay, so we talked about social media. Okay. Kind of closing that topic, I was like, okay, but what is missing is the desire to connect. And so I feel like there's these impulses that I have of like, oh, I could share this on social media. I could share this some way. And that's still an authentic desire that I want to, I'm gonna let it marinate for a minute.'cause the question for me is, so how do I do that if it's not social media? How do I do that? I have some ideas right now, but nothing I'm ready to commit to. but I think that's where I'm thinking, okay, well we're the actual people that I can share this with. So this is the people that I text and box in my life. Do you guys know the Boxer app? I'm obsessed. and or, leaning into the community, the Pathway to Peace coaching community that I am curating and building. And so more about that later. Okay. So that's kind of where I've been in terms of the social media and it really is kind of funny, like to think back on how impulsive, I was like, I don't think I realized until I took him off my phone, like how automatic it was. I mean, let's be honest, I can't pick up my phone still without getting distracted on text or emails or schedule or something. So. I needed one last thing on my plate. So, let's see. okay, so think back to September. I shared, an episode about, an incident we had at my home. I left it vague on purpose. More recently, I was like, maybe I'll tell the whole story, but I'm not quite ready. but you can go back and listen to the episode. I'll have the link in the show notes. long story short, my home, had an incident in it Yes. Related to my disabled son, who, does have impaired judgment and it shows. And so we've been in a state of disrepair and construction in my home since September. Now that's not ideal. It's not ideal even when you're like, yes, let's do a home remodel. This'll be fun. That's still hard. it's even less awesome when you did not say this was a good time for it. In fact, you would've said, absolutely no. We will just live with how our house looks. But, what has made it better is not doing it alone. And what I'll say is I brought my friend in, Nicole Christensen, with Casa Christensen. She lives in Texas, but she designed our new bathroom, is what we remodeled. and she did it all through the internet and it was just, I can't say the name of the project, otherwise I'll give away what happened. It's a cute name. I'll say that. And how about this email me hand. I will say you the name'cause it is really cute. We named the project after the incident and, So it took something and like turned my frown upside down, as in I got to work with my friend, I got to have support. And I think what I'm consum, and I think what I am reflecting on as I share the story is how deeply I believe in not doing things alone. Could I have saved some dollars in not hiring my friend? yeah, I could have. but that would've equated to hours and hours of stress and like. Not fun. And so I believe in bringing on support where we can. And I'm just so, so glad I did, so many times I was just like, man, self, I appreciate you that you did that because that was a really smart decision given what you need in your life. So, I'm sending her pictures of the work now and it's really fun to see it all coming to Fruition. She and I, and then a whole other group of college friends that we collectively are known as Mojo. That's a long story, but there's seven of us, friends and we all went to college together, not even all in the same years, but, have stayed in touch and have, just such a neat way of supporting each other. And so, we have been, I. Redesigning, redoing, renovating a, if you will, a friend's bedroom, who is going through a divorce that she did not want or choose. So, many of you have been through that and know how hard it is. And so we came up with a way of supporting, actually, it's funny'cause we were just talking about it today. Literally it started as, Hey, let's make a care package for her, like. Actually, it started with my friend saying, Hey, there's these cool painting books. I think our friend would like them. Let's buy one. And so that's how I ended up with mine, is I was buying one for her. I was like, well, this looks fun. I'm gonna buy one for me and we can do it together. and so it started off with this care package that were like, let's create a couple things to, just give a tangible expression of our care, know she's being thought of and for us to, and to kind of, Give her mementos knowing that she's not alone. And then one thing led to another and we're like, why not redo her room? Actually, I can't even remember how we got there, but it, it's just been really, really fun. So I've been distracted in a good way doing that for our friend, and that has been really fun. What else? my boy's been sick. and that kind of, you know, that's how I ended up here with, this kind of episode versus more of a well thought out episode is that my first priority is my boy, my boy Levi, well all of my kids, but, Levi got sick and so I got to practice our emergency protocol routine. make sure I'm not getting rusty on that and do the whole ER thing on Friday night. And it's kinda like my own version of Friday Night Lights. You guys watch that show? it was, I love that show. but I always like make myself laugh at these jokes because, you know, like Friday night lights, like, it's like football, right? But like my version is in the ER where you're like under these bright lights, get it Friday night lights. And I think especially funny because it was like Friday night and all these football players were coming in with their injuries. So over time I saw'em, I was like, yeah, us too. Us too. Our version of Friday Night Lights. okay. And lastly, gotta wrap this up'cause I gotta go get those kids from school. I think I wanted to share gratitude. I think, you know, so I mentioned, you know, we did this er thing and my husband happened to be working late that night, and so I was on my own. So not really. I wouldn't say it's an easy situation. but I would say it was made, I don't know if ease is the right word. It was made so much less heavy because of a. Coincidence, but because of some work that I had done, some like personal internal emotional processing work I had done earlier that day and I was working with a tapping coach. if you dunno what tapping is, Google it. EFT, tapping. or reach out, I'd be glad to explain it to you. It is something that I use to support myself and in some cases my clients. but it's, it's really a very, very helpful tool for processing a lot of emotion, including trauma. So it's perfect for us special needs moms, and I got to acknowledge and recognize like a whisper, an underlying whisper of feeling of emotion that I had, and the words I would use to describe them was. Like a, a feeling of chaotic or chaos or out of control. And as soon as I like recognized that this was like the underlying hum, I was able to kind of see different, like things in my life. That I was holding onto, I was gripping onto, and it just felt so stressful. I could tell I was like in kind of in a rigid type state where things did not feel loose and dynamic and flowing. They felt all of the opposite. And as I worked through to acknowledge and to process these emotions, what came clear to me. Was, oh, I don't have to hold on to these things the way that I was. I can let go of them. Yes, there are consequences. And in some of the cases that I had specifically, it's like the consequences, like some money wasted, or money spent that would not be going towards what I thought it would be going toward. And generally you don't like, like that's not an ideal situation. I would not choose that. But can I deal with that? Yeah. And if I look at. The gift that I got, in kind of processing that I was like, oh, I feel so much more in control. I feel so much more at peace because I had let go of that, which I was trying to control that was uncontrollable. mainly the future. And so. This, when I talk about my night at the ER was so much less worse because I wasn't carrying everything on top of what I needed to do to care for my boy.'cause let's just be honest, like that is a lot, is to be in this situation where, you know, where we're caring for these medically complex children or these behaviorally, complicated children. Or these behaviorally, challenging children. and so just to be able to be there with the sole purpose and freedom of, all I have to do is care for him right now. Like. I know that doesn't sound that light, but when you, again, when you hold it up in contrast to all that was holding before, it felt so much better. So that's just one gratitude and maybe even some personal work that I've been doing that has been valuable to me. And, Okay, last two things. One is I also got in last week, I got to meet Andy, Andy Torres. And if you're like, who's Andy? Well, you know Andy. She is, part of the Special Needs Mom podcast team. I have Andy and Alex, and Andy makes all the things beautiful. So if you've ever seen something that you're like, oh, that's so pretty, Andy made it. and if you've ever seen someone that you're like, Ooh, that could use homework, I made it. No, she's very gifted and a big part of the behind the scenes here, as well as Alex, our editor. And so, I got to see her in real life, which was super fun. Okay. And then what was the last thing? oh, okay. I wanted to talk more about the Path to peace coaching community. I know you might be sick of hearing me talk about it, but I'm not gonna stop talking about it because, it is the biggest source I think of, what's the word? I don't know. I mean, I'm proud of it. That's definitely coming up as I'm thinking about it. But I think just there's something about watching it. Work, for lack of better words, like watching connections be made, watching the women in the community connect with each other. it's like, oh my gosh, like, oh my gosh. It is fulfilling a space of what I intended it to do, right? But like we all know, sometimes our intentions and what we actually, you know, produce are not the same things. So, it's just been really fun. So. I feel like now I'm like, oh, now I'm like, oh, there's this really cool thing, but you can't come yet. I'm like, oh, how do I transition this? Let me just say this. I will be opening it again in the future. i'll say that's probably January or February. It's not certain yet, but that's gonna be probably where we're gonna be at. So if you're like, oh, okay, I wanna make sure I don't, miss that intel of when open enrollment starts, join the wait list and you can do so by seeing the show notes. So, and now I just looked at the time and I'm thinking, oh no, I'm gonna be late to get my kids from school. So I'm gonna rapidly wrap up and see all in the next episode.