Welcome to podcast number 37. Today we're going to talk about how how we think about things can change everything without changing anything. So let's dive in. We're going to give a real example. I'm going to walk you through how one example, how we think about it, gives us negative results. One example gives us positive results. How we can choose what we want to do. We've got this. Let's go. Welcome to the Autism Diagnosis to Confident Mom podcast with Kira from Kira Brown Coaching. I'm a mom of Neurospicy Kids and a life coach. I'm here to share real tips and support to help you feel confident as a parent. Hello. Today we're going to talk about a little boy. We're going to call him Isaiah. We're going to say he's six years old and he has been diagnosed with autism. And we are going to let you know that he has 30-minute meltdowns when there are changes in his routine. Those are the facts about Isaiah. Those are the things that we can prove in a court of law. Those are the things that we know, okay? Those things are neutral. We um do not feel anything about those until we have thoughts about Isaiah. So let's discover how our thoughts about Isaiah change how we show up in the world for ourselves and for Isaiah and the others around us, okay? So we're gonna start off with story A. We're the parent giver of Isaiah, okay, and we feel that we are exhausted, we are tired, we cannot be flexible because we have to prevent these meltdowns, and we can't have a babysitter because that would be a change in routine. We can't, we're just exhausted and we're embarrassed by his behavior, okay? Um, let's talk about that. If we believe that we can't be flexible, that we can't drop him off to a babysitter, then how do we show up in our actions in the world? Do we try to find a babysitter for Isaiah? Do we try to get a break? Or do we look at how exhausted and tired we are all the time and think that the world is hopeless? When we're exhausted, how do we show up for Isaiah when he has a meltdown? When we weren't able to prevent a meltdown and he has one? Do we show up short and impatient? Do we show up not kind? We definitely shame ourselves for his behavior, right? We're a bad parent because things didn't go the way they were supposed to go. I can't believe I can't get my kid to behave, right? Okay, let's look at story B. Same scenario. Isaiah is still six, he's still diagnosed with autism, and he still has 30-minute meltdowns over changes to his routine. Okay, same, same exact facts, but let's talk about it differently. Instead, we tell ourselves, I just need to have a little bit of time to help him adjust. And we find somebody to babysit, and we talk about sorry, that's gonna be our actions. So we um we just say, I need time to help him adjust to a new scenario or new people. I need to educate people around him on how to help him through meltdown. Those are our thoughts, okay? Notice I didn't go to oh, it's great that he has meltdowns. It's great that he's consistent. I didn't try to make it positive, I just went more neutral with the story that I tell myself, okay? But where do we come from in this point of view? What actions do we make in real life? Maybe we find the babysitter and we hang out with him and the babysitter so that we can educate the babysitter on how to help him through meltdown. Maybe we start with short visits and work our way up to longer visits. Um maybe we look for ways to help him adjust before the schedule changes. Hey, we're gonna go do XYZ. You're gonna hang out with Susie. Susie's really fun because she likes to blow bubbles in the backyard, and you like to jump and chase bubbles, whatever it is, right? You might get creative on how you can help him adjust. You also might educate Susie. You might say, Hey Susie, meltdowns are normal for a change in routine. You will be a change in routine, you might see this behavior. He might yell and scream, he might hit his head, he might try to hit you if you try to touch him, he might shut down and hide under a table. All of that is okay, and this is how we this is how we help him through that. We stay calm, we write, we tell those are things that might be different. I just want to point out to you that the only difference in these two stories is what we think about the facts. It's not the actual facts, the fact is still the same. The fact is that Isaiah is six with autism, and he gets 30-minute meltdowns over changes in his routine. Do you know how come they're neutral? How we can prove that they're neutral because different people think differently about that. One parent might go, oh my goodness, I would love it if we only melted down for 30 minutes. That is the best news ever. And another parent might go, oh my goodness, a 30-minute meltdown. I'm so sorry. Bless your heart, mama. How do you ever deal with that? I thought our two-minute ones were bad. Okay, it's all a matter of how we think about it. And I'm not telling you this so that you can feel guilty about the way you think about things, because a lot of the times the things we think come automatically unless we consciously make a decision to think differently about them. But we have control over how we think about things, and we can change everything about the situation without changing anything. The facts are still the same, but our whole experience is different. In one, we're completely exhausted, we feel shame and embarrassment, we try to hide from the world, we're impatient. The other one, we're working on getting ourselves a break. We're more patient and kind with our with Isaiah. Okay. And I'm not talking about we need to go positive thinking about everything. Because not everything needs to be positive. And in fact, if we try to make things positive when they're not, when they sincerely don't feel positive to us, that's called toxic posity, and that causes problems too. That's not what we're talking about here. We are just talking about how do I want to feel about the situation? What do I want to think about it? Sometimes I do want to feel bad about something. There are times when I have had a really hard day, and I just want to believe today was horrible. I don't want to repeat it. I am so exhausted. I just want to go to bed. And that's what I do. There are other days when I'm like, well, that gives us data to learn from. Not unless you're some sort of psychopath, right? We want to be sad about that. We want to be angry about that, we want to feel bad about that. And there's nothing wrong with feeling bad, but just know that we're choosing with our thoughts to feel that way. Um, but if we know that we can think about things differently to feel differently, we take our power back. It's no longer up to Isaiah how we feel. Do you really want to give your autistic six-year-old the power to run your mood, to run your emotions, to run your life? Because if you do that, you have no power to change anything. You are at the mercy of a six-year-old. Okay. So, and at that, a six-year-old whose emotions are probably equivalent to like a three-year-old or a four-year-old. So, think about the facts as data. When we look at data in a science experiment, it doesn't mean anything until we interpret it. So, the facts or the data is just there, and then we get to interpret it how we want to. That gives us our power back. We now have the ability to feel better or to change, and we can change everything about the scenario by how we think about things. We don't have to change our child, we don't have to change the grandparents in our kids' lives, or the school teacher, or the bus driver, or our spouse, or the other siblings, or the meltdown. Like, we don't have to change that. We can change everything by how we think about it. You're doing better than you think you are, mama. Keep up the good work. Thanks so much for listening to Autism Diagnosis to Confident Mom. If this episode helped you feel a little more seen or supported, please take a moment to like, follow, or subscribe to the podcast. And if you know another parent who needs to hear this, share it with them too. We're all in this together. You're doing better than you think, Mama. You've got this.