My amazing-life changing parenting course! --> https://beholdtheconnection.podia.com/ This episode is all about how our brains want to give us a level 10 in panic about everything ALL the time. Thankfully, with practice, logic, and intention we can override the constant "you are going to die" or "you are going to fail" or "this is too hard" thoughts that our brain offers us. On the other side of panic is peace and confidence and assurance. Even when things are unknown, we can lean into our resiliency, strength, and confidence that WE CAN HANDLE new and unknown things. I can and you can too. Often times the bark is worse than the bite when we are really in things. We waste so much time stressing and worrying about unknowns, when really - we can handle whatever comes up. We've got this. I share a personal story on this episode and I hope it helps you!
*** Please scroll down and leave me a review! It helps other people find my podcast. Thank you!***
My amazing-life changing parenting course! --> https://beholdtheconnection.podia.com/ This episode is all about how our brains want to give us a level 10 in panic about everything ALL the time. Thankfully, with practice, logic, and intention we can override the constant "you are going to die" or "you are going to fail" or "this is too hard" thoughts that our brain offers us. On the other side of panic is peace and confidence and assurance. Even when things are unknown, we can lean into our resiliency, strength, and confidence that WE CAN HANDLE new and unknown things. I can and you can too. Often times the bark is worse than the bite when we are really in things. We waste so much time stressing and worrying about unknowns, when really - we can handle whatever comes up. We've got this. I share a personal story on this episode and I hope it helps you!
*** Please scroll down and leave me a review! It helps other people find my podcast. Thank you!***
Speaker 1:
[inaudible]
Speaker 2:
Hello everyone. It is riddle. How are you guys? I am from behold. The connection. You can find me on Anne's to ground. I have the Facebook parenting group called being a happy and connected parent for sure. The platform I show up the most on is Instagram. And I have a beautiful and uplifting and self guided audio parenting course. You can find it on behold, the connection dot[inaudible] dot com. I really recommend it. I think it will change. I know it will change the entire journey that you'll have as a parent from here on out. If you take the time to listen to all the modules and do the work and take a look at the PDFs. So what am I here to talk to you about today? I am. If you go back to all my other podcasts, I launched this podcast back in March, when everything shut down in because of the pandemic, the coronavirus, if someone's listening to this in 20 years and doesn't know what I was talking about, about shutdown and you're back at this episode, remember 2020. Remember the virus remember, um, when we had to get really good at processing and feeling disappointment, and we had to get really good at living in uncertainty, by the way. And I'm totally getting off topic here. These are really good skills to build happiness in life is how quickly you can adjust from plan a to plan B and then again, sometimes to plan C and that's the truth. So what we're learning in this pandemic, I'm doing a whole new podcast. What's happening here. What we're learning in this pandemic and that our kids are seeing us learn and what our kids themselves are learning is how to adjust and how to process and feel disappointment. Where do we feel it in our body? Can we allow it or do we just shove it down and have anger come up? Right? Anger is often a secondary emotion, meaning it's hiding something that we're really not wanting to feel. And so ideally in life, what we want to do is tune into that first emotion, the emotion that can be harder to feel a lot of people call them naked emotions. And I try not to use that. You'll hear me from time to time, but I prefer to use words like harder to feel emotions because the truth is they're not negative. They're messages. They're worthy of our time and attention. And they're our reaction from thoughts in our head to what's going on around us. What happens is we frame it as negative emotion, and then we don't want to feel it. No one wants to feel the fear and process it. No one wants to feel the disappointment and process it. And no one wants to feel the overwhelm. So we buffer away. We watch too much TV. We'll overeat. We'll, you know, even things like gossiping or there's a million ways actually to buffer away from just simply allowing the feeling. So what I want to talk about today mainly is how not everything needs to be a level 10 panic. Our brain wants it to be, but that's where we get to override. You know, those primitive, lower brain, Alex, and we need to use it logic and reason and prefrontal cortex and pull on relevant past experiences of success and resiliency to tell ourselves and to tell our brain, Hey, we don't need this constant stress. We don't need the cortisol flying stress hormone at all times. We don't need that adrenaline at all times. We're going to just relax a little bit here and take it thing by things. So what most many of us are facing right now is a back to school dilemma. Let me talk about that. So depending on where you live, your school may be opening in ways that you like or don't like, and you may have some choice and autonomy over what that's going to look like for you or your kids. You may have a vulnerable child or adult in your, in your home. You may be a teacher that, um, is nervous to go back. There's just who, I don't even know who all could be listening to this podcast. So I can't always get it right for everyone, but the message stays the same. I feel like I have an Anton spider, not just a niche. Okay. But guess what, everyone, my right shoulder is fine. I felt a tickle, but there was nothing there. Okay. So that right there is a very good example of a level 10 panic. Just kidding. Those level to what our brains are designed to do. I talk about this almost every episode is keep us safe, keep things very predictable and keep things, keep on the lookout for danger. Like don't let us die. Okay. So now take that information. That, that is the number one thing. Like keep you alive, find food. Don't go to dangerous things. That's the number one first initial job of your brain. And we're living in a pandemic where open Facebook can tell me, it's not the first thing you see the death rate or the transmission rate through the mask debate or our schools safe enough, or they are kids. Do, are they carriers? Are they not? Are the teachers safe? Has enough money been put towards a relaunch? Should we have just opened wide open anyways? Because at some point we either need immunity or a veteran. I mean, there's some million. And then a night, there are a million opinions and thoughts on this. So all that we can control is our own sphere. Go back to last episode, we really need to narrow in what that can look like is emailing or phoning your, what are they called? I just phoned mine to do what to, um, what is the super intendant? There's the word F see a lot of this. I see a lot of disgruntled. I don't like this. How's it going to be a lot of panic. Okay. But not a lot of purpose. Not a lot I'm doing before I ever get to panic. I drafted an email with my top three questions. Hey, I'm wondering about this. It's friendly. It's problem solving. Guess what happens? The superintendent actually, I think it was the deputy superintendent phones me back the next day. And we chat. Sometimes he says, I don't know what we're going to do about that. Oh, okay. I don't know. It's still information, right? Or here's your options. Here's if you don't like this, we can offer that. We need to remember to be doing worse rather than, okay. That's the truth. That is what I'm trying to say there, but back to the panic of our brain. So your brain is going to tell you how you're going to die. Your children are going to die. Everyone's going to die because we are in a pandemic and your kids. There's a shift coming up. And so a big thing right now is uncertainty. Okay? The brain hates uncertainty. I just put in eye drops. I wish this was live. So you guys could see me. I'm just a million things. As I talk over here, anyways, it's so much uncertainty for the brain and it really hates that the brain wants to be able to predict if you're going to deliver die. And so uncertainty does, does not allow for that. Right? So what can happen is your brain can look at everything like a level 10 panic, especially when you're in a little bit of a loop. As many of us are right now, due to the pandemic, the brain can especially gauge everything. Like this is a level 10, this is a level 10. And then we wonder why we're overwhelmed, overwhelmed with school decisions. We're overwhelmed with work decisions, keeping people alive. Are we even going to like this year and is this going to be done in 2021? You know, all of that. Right? And so we, Oh, I was just faced. I was Instagramming myself and then it started talking. Um, so we need to be mindful. I love the fact that we have to that. No, one's going to do it for us. I want to tell you a short story. Let me, let me move on to that. In my parenting course, there's a set of 13, beautifully designed, custom designed by my designer. Um, graphic quotes. And some of them are bringing the calm to the chaos, beautiful things like that. And I actually have them. I'm looking up cause I have them in my office and I have them on little cards. I've printed them small in my vehicle, different ones. And I like to glance at them to reset my mind and focus my intention and attention. Nevertheless, what am I getting at here? Ah, yeah, I want, I love it. I love the sentence. My mom used to say this all this time. Everything is figureoutable. I'm leaning into that. So heavy as I'm deciding what to do with my children and what feels right for us, everything is figure outable. So here's my story. When, uh, my dad was dying and he had brain, a brain tumor. He had been dying for a couple of years. Um, and I was doing math 30. So what that means is that's grade 12 math, uh, highest level. And I was homeschooled most of my life, but I was attending public school at that time to get it done, get some support. I was not math strong. It's very good student, very high grades, not in math. I struggled at times, actually in the younger years I had really good grades, but I struggled in math. 30 was a struggle and my dad was dying. I mean, I spent weeks at a time up at the hospital and weeks at a time, like helping my sisters because my mom was at the hospital with my dad. It was not, I was strained and I was stressed. So I'm sharing that because you'll find parallels in what I'm saying to how you're feeling right now in life and in the pandemic strain and stress. Yes. Stress to, so let's look say that I was certainly not bringing my best self to math 30. Okay. I was trying my hardest, but it wasn't, I didn't have all my resources. My brain was worried about other things I had a lot going on. So I, I wrote my departmental and I got my final grade back and it was 55%. I mean, I didn't have grades like that. I had very high grades. That was, that was a real kick to the crotch. To be honest, I was pretty upset. And yet it made sense. I'm just doing the best I could, but the best I could was super distracted. And so rather than stay in that place of eternal misery and wallow, I really truly thought, Oh yeah, that's lower than I wanted. I felt the disappointment even then though, I'm disappointed. I felt a little barest. You know, I felt that in my body, I could process that. Oh yeah, there's embarrassment. You know, I got to tell my mom about this and hopefully she reacts well as her husband's dying, you know, just there's a lot. I've had a lot behind it and a good release for me has always been crying. I'm sure I did a lot of crying. I processed it. But at the same time of processing the emotion, I always always have been taught to have my back. I knew that it wasn't reflective of me for the rest of my life. I knew that it was a figure outable. It didn't need to be a panic. I trust him in my resiliency, my resourcefulness I'll figure this out. This math 30 grand is not taking me down. And so we took a little bit of time, not much, I mean maybe six months. And then I decided to enroll in it. A, what was it called back then? Distance learning. I think it was called. So I did it myself. I kind of homeschooled myself. Now in those six months, my dad had died and I thought, well, you know, there's been an end to that chapter and maybe I'll get a better grade now. Well, no, I underestimated. I shouldn't say no. I definitely underestimated the, um, you know, being a young teen and processing grief, you know, that was just as hard as the stuff before, when he was dying. So I really struggled there too. Plus I was doing it myself, distance learning through workbooks. Nevertheless, I persevered, I worked hard. I did it at my own pace and I felt very, very confident that this time would be better. I wrote my departmental, I got the results back 55%. I got the exact same grade, a bad grade, you know, like a past, but with no pride, you know, I mean, I didn't really want them on my transcript. I wanted to go to university. And so what was I going to do? This is, this is where the message is, okay. This is where the story is coming to to a, to a peak or whatever you call it. I could have quit. I could have gone even into overwhelm. I could have thought a lot of harsh things about my self or my intelligence. I could have let that become the whole story. Um, instead chose to not make it mean a whole lot. I didn't let it become an emergency or a panic in my life. And I leaned into it's figure out a bowl. It's fine. It's figuring out a bowl at a young age. I was given perspective from my dad dying because when your dad, Oh man, just a second. Okay. Why don't we do this live? And your dad dies in front of your eyes while you're holding his hand. Whew. You gain a lot of perspective on how much of the rest of absolutely everything is noise. You guys, we fill our lives. My eye is actually burning right now. We fill our lives with a lot of noise thinking it's a level 10 panic because our brains are just trying to keep us safe from physical harm, but also emotional distress. Anything that feels like it could be a harm to us or us getting kicked out of the tribe. You know, like people not wanting to be our friends or whatever. Everything's a level 10 panic because the brain will in some way make it mean survival. And so we, I really have to be conscientious of that. How I solve that problem is instead of going right to university, I found a program at a college where I could do my first year and it would all count towards the university and I'd transfer over. Sure enough, by the time I went to college the next year I had awesome grades transferred over now I'm in grad school. I mean, the rest is history from then on university was a breeze like that did not that math, 30, 55%. And then 55% again, did not need to define me. And I'm so glad that I didn't let it. I'm so glad I didn't make it mean a whole bunch about me. I'm so glad I didn't give it a level, a level 10 panic in my life. I really just want you to be aware of the fact that your brain will present things to you at a level 10 panic, especially when you're making decisions, especially when you're making decisions about your kids. I want you to bring it all down. I want you to find your breath. I want you to make a list of what's realistic and what's doable and what actually the dangers and risks are. Don't let your brain offer it up to you. Logically. Think about it logically really, truly. I want you to see, I'm going to give you a list of questions that I've produced that I have on some of my social media and it's called processing emotion in times of uncertainty. That was easy for me to say he wasn't, it. It's just a bunch of questions. And I want you to jot a couple of them down, not if you're driving though, and just think about it. What reality am I currently resisting? We resist a lot. Don't we, instead of leaning into the reality, that is once we accept and lean into the reality and feel the feelings, everything does become crystal clear, we really can find our footing again. Okay. What emotion am I trying to avoid feeling? Who am I blaming for something that's a big one? What emotion am I clinging to? What am I scared of? How can I better accept and lean into my reality? How can I love me through this? How can I feel more acceptance about this plan? What is the first thought I can embrace for changing the story of sheds in my head to a story of his? So what that means is instead of the government should do this, or there shouldn't be a pandemic, you know, some shoulds and shouldn'ts switch it to is the government is doing this. And so I will do that. The pandemic and the virus is doing this. And so then I will do that. How can I best thrive in this reality? What is within my control? What disappointments have I processed successfully in the past, this is giving your brain evidence for your ability to process and it builds up resiliency in yourself. And then what is the next best step work through those questions? My friends, I promise you will arrive at a lot more peace on the other side. Thank you for listening. Take care. You are the right parent for your child. You've got this. I'm here, wind at your back. Screenshot. This episode, show it, share it on social media and help this podcast grow and share about my parenting course. That is my whole heart in one course. Thank you so much. Take care, everyone.