Transcript: 

REsolutions, Not Resolutions

 

Hi, welcome to the Us and Kids podcast. I am your host Jan Talen. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, a wife, a mom, and a grandma. This podcast is about how to be married forever while you parent together. Oh, it's not an easy task. So I encourage you to subscribe to Us and Kids in your favorite podcasting app. I'm glad you're here. So your marriage and your home can be so fulfilling and so good. Let's get started. Cause today is January 14

 

So what right. Well I wanted to say Happy New Year. Let's start with that. And even though I'm a little late, 14 days late, I still wanted to say that. I'm hoping that this year has hope and promise and energy and good ambitions in it. I know a lot of people make new year's resolutions. It's something that I don't make very often but this year I sort of played around with the word and I thought maybe you'd like to just sort of play around with it with me. 

 

What is a resolution? Okay. Yeah, I know you can go look it up except for that I looked at the word and went, wait, it's a resolution R E solution. Okay. In mental health, in marriage and relationship and parenting, we often talk about redo’s and so we're going to think about this as a resolution.

 

A solution usually implies that there was a struggle or a problem that we needed a solution or a fix for and sometimes those fixes worked for a while and then they don't and we need an upgrade. So let's think about it like that. What is a resolution? It is a time and an awareness to make an upgrade or to change a solution to a situation or a problem that you are already working on. So let's think the first thing we need is a clear definition of what you might want to change. That would mean that you would need to be aware of what is aggravating or troubling you. Be careful. Don't make this list too long and don't make a list for your spouse or for your partner. If you're making a list of things that need to change for your children and they are school age, they are going to need to buy in because otherwise it's not going to work.

 

If you are thinking that you need to change the sleeping habits of your six month old they do might also need buy in from your partner you'd buy in from your six month old but they're too little to understand this. If your list of what you would like to change or redo becomes 42 and a half things long, it's probably a bit overwhelming for you, for your brain, for anybody who looks at it. So now look and pick the top two two that you are pretty sure you could have success with and we'll talk about the keys to some success to our podcast here. So it might be better to pick those top two at the end of the podcast instead of at the first. You can save the list of the other 42 and do them two at a time as you go through the year.

 

Ah, I'll be surprised if you make it through all 42 but it's always good to have goals and to give yourself affirmation for the things that you do redo and do successfully. Oh, what else do you need to make a good solution to a problem? That definition is important. Not too broad. Quite specific. For me, at the beginning of marriage, I wanted to have my whole house guest ready, clean every day. We had children soon after marriage. It was not a realistic goal. It was too big. I had a goal that I wanted my kitchen sink to be always clean. Once again, having children in the house did not make that very doable. As I worked to rewrite that goal, I became aware that having my front door area cleaned so that if someone came to the door, I was calm because I wouldn't just distressed about the mess behind me. That was doable. You couldn't see the playroom from there. 

 

Yeah, and I realized that if I wanted my kitchen sink cleaned, I had to begin to practice one touch and that is taking the dish and putting it right in the dishwasher, not stopping it in the sink. Not always doable, but it was a goal and something that I worked for consistently. It's still something I tried to do. It's not 100%. A goal usually doesn't work if it involves the change of someone else. I cannot totally control whether or not my children or my spouse practice one touch dish to the dishwasher. I can encourage them, but I don't have control over them unless we are both working towards a new arrangement. The success will be limited, not impossible. Just depends on if you're going for 100% or if you're going for 75% which is an improvement.

 

If the percentage of kitchen sink clean used to be 15%, 75% is a great improvement. Let's work through an example with a few applications. When we had more children at home, one of the goals that I thought at first was that maybe my spouse should be home by a quarter to five every day. Well, hell, that wasn't very realistic goal. I didn't have much control over his work, over the traffic and even over my understanding by husbands desire to be home at that time of day. We had to sort of talk about what work was like for him, what it would mean if he left that early because no one else was leaving that early. You know, we had to talk about how much time work really took, what his responsibilities were, and we had to talk about how weary I was by four o'clock. So we had to, as we looked at a resolution to supper time, we had to talk about what was a realistic goal.

 

It came down to understanding a couple of things. My desire to have supper together as a family was also his desire. He was not trying to avoid supper time or putting kids to bed. We had to come to an agreement that he would work to be home by supper time. I would work to have supper ready when he came home so that when he got home at six we could eat from 6:30 to 6:45 he would play with the kids, a break for me. I could do the dishes. I liked this because it was mindless to do the dishes and the kids were happy and transitioning from leaning into me, into leaning on dad. It was a good break before we went into bedtime. He and I had to talk through and agree that I probably was going to feed the kids a pretty good snack at four because they weren't going to make it until six without a mini meal at four but sometimes they ate a bigger mini meal at four and so they weren't very hungry at six and so had to have some understanding that a mini meal at six because they had a bigger meal at four was going to be okay.

 

I also had to do some internal work. This is a step in making a good resolution. I had to do some internal work of her own supper time and my expectations. I had to process my expectations and my disappointment when he was late. I had to pay attention to how much I it disappointment and sometimes resentment on to the kids and onto our relationship. It was important to get a resolution to supper time. So these emotions didn't continue to grow and build into the evening routine. It was also important that as I became aware of the need for a re solution that my husband and I processed, it with dignity and with an open mind so that we could work towards a better compromise. These are qualities that make a re solution workable and lasting. Compromise, talking together, being aware of what internal work is necessary for you to do so that you know how your emotions are interacting with the problem and also could impact the solution.

 

So once I explored those emotions and understood them, then it was my responsibility about how to take action and make adjustments. I had to own those emotions and make a plan so there was room for new emotions, but emotions are not the only thing that impact the change from one solution to another. What else impacts that change is how we think about ourselves and how we think about the solution. If I simply thought about how much my husband was to blame for not being home for supper and making bedtime chaotic and continued to dwell on him, the resolution would not work. When I took the time to process my own thoughts about how he didn't come home, cause he probably didn't really love me and the kids probably really didn't care and he probably really enjoyed work more than home. I became very lonely and demanding.

 

I had to challenge those thoughts to be more true because those thoughts were not accurate. He was working hard because he loved us and wanted to give good things and lavish things on us and to us as. I transitioned my thoughts to be more secure about his love and we could talk about a resolution to dinner and bedtime. It became productive. As you think about a resolution that you want, be aware of. The emotions you're bringing into it and your self talk that you are bringing into it. Challenge what you think is truth and ask internally whether or not that's really true can get good information so that you can reset to a place that is healthier and less negative. Well, of course, because it's involved my husband, we had to process these things together to figure out a resolution. We knew that it had to be specific and doable, so we had to have a specific plan.

 

What exact time were we talking about? What would that mean in my adjustment to my schedule and how I would feed the kids? What would it mean to him and how he had to begin to close down the day. We also had to agree that there had to be spaces for grace because we were working with a moving work situation as well as we started out with one and grew to four kids. Those are moving targets. We agreed to hold each other accountable both on the negative but also on cheering each other on for doing it well. We set a goal of how often during a week and over a monthly wanted this change to be successful because he and I both knew were going to be times when things went south. The key was that we worked on communicating beforehand when the plan was changing on our end.

 

The idea was not just to be sure that we had supper together and bedtime together, but also that we were a team together, even when we were separate. We worked towards calm. We worked towards cooperation. As the kids grew, we worked on communicating with them when the plan was going to be different. It worked well for many, many years. We still communicate about when is supper and what else do we have to do before the evenings over. So let's move into a little bit more thought about something that might be similar for you. One of the first questions for a resolution is what's the internal work that you need to do? What emotions are becoming too big or too messy? What thoughts are intense? Some of you might be thinking, Oh, I've got to change my emotional intensity. I'm too anxious. I'm too angry. I'm too reactive.

 

Being aware of that emotional intensity is important. He might be able to think, I don't admire my emotional intensity. It often embarrass me. I see that it hurts other people around me and makes my own self-talk swirl into an ugly place. So, next sentence, I would like my emotional intensity to be, I finished the sentence to be high when the circumstances have an extreme level of energy in it, like maybe life or death. I would like my emotional intensity to be helpful to the situations that I'm in. That's how I rewrote my goal and am working towards a resolution for emotional intensity. What else would it take to change it? Oh, we'd have to change my thoughts. Okay. To change my emotional intensity, I will first need to understand what my triggers are. When do I suddenly go, high, what are the thoughts that feed into that?

 

What are the perceptions that feed into that and where am I reading people maybe too fast or maybe too intently and it's not about me, it's about them. I'm going to work to become more aware of things that I think are dangerous and assess whether or not they really are that dangerous for me to be so loud and disruptive. So my action point would be tracking my thoughts and paying attention to what is that list of things that are dangerous. So I might think that kids standing on the couch is dangerous. Or kids getting their own silverware or kids opening the dryer door. On a scale of one to 10 how dangerous is that? One being absolutely safe. There's no life or death threat. 10 being they will die for sure, but I also might think that my spouse being on their phone is dangerous.

 

I might that lights being left on in bedrooms is dangerous. On a scale of one to 10 how dangerous is it? And that's where I'm going to begin to do my own internal work to realize where my emotions are becoming too big and where I would have room to let them just be less big. We know. And it would be important for you to sort of put into this understanding when I'm too tired, I'm too hungry, I'm too lonely. That often sparks and moves that emotional intensity from a five manageable, not, not awful, not bad, not good, just to five, but it often can move it up to an eight or nine when we're too tired, too hungry or too lonely, go take care of those things and see what's what happens to your emotional intensity. So as I become aware of my sense of danger and how quickly this emotions, anxiety or anger rises inside of me, I will work to lower these skills.

 

Now is a plan to how am I going to do that? This also is very specific. I will pause, shut my mouth, maybe close my eyes, take a deep breath in and out and ask and invite myself. What's the one to 10 scale? Where does it really fall? As I become aware of my annoyance tricker I will realize that I'm feeling insulted or dismissed or rejected and that says I'm not valuable or needed. So why will work? To remind myself the truth, my family, my partner does love me and value me. They are not trying to insult me. They are just trying to communicate a need with me. As I have questions about love or security or connection, I'm going to ask that and talk about that specifically, not talk about it by being angry and confusing. Well, what kind of support am I going to need in order to make this change?

 

Well, I'm going to support myself. I'm going to make a table of what I'm looking to improve on like crabbing less about the lights on in the bedroom or the kids on the couch or the dishes in the sink. Whatever is on your list of whatever triggers that anger and anxiety and I'm going to make a note of how I'm reacting throughout the day and throughout the week. I think this will take about seven minutes a day. Estimating your time frame and whether or not you can find it in your day is important and where I would fit it in. For me, I would do this while I brush my teeth. What else am I going to have to think about? Things that will discourage me, that I will want some support from that will tempt me away from my resolution. I will become discouraged if I become overtired, if I lack or lose connection with my spouse. If I have a crabby crappy day at the office or if I let fears about politics or Wars or financial distress, really move in and just swirl around inside of me. Those are things that will discourage me and distract me from my goals. So next step to manage these, I will pay attention to those triggers and I tend to settling them down more quickly. I will turn off the radio. I will deal with my tiredness. I will go and hug my spouse for a minute and reconnect.

 

I will also look around for and speak into three positive things. As I walk into the door of my house, I am going to think positively instead of worrisomely. Is there a cost, not another step in making your solution doable? Is there a cost? Well, this probably not really financial. The cost will be more on the energy to focus and stay focused. Maybe I'll spend $4.95 and buy some post it notes or a dry erase marker to put some notes of encouragement up on my bathroom mirror or in my car. I might get a stash of dollar bills and put a dollar bill in a jar for every time I have had a good emotional day and at the end of the month I've taken my family out for ice cream or a movie.

 

What am I going to do? Behaviorally? I'm going to have some choices like standing still, instead of moving fast. I'm going to practice smiling, breathing out, maybe walking away to a bedroom or a bathroom or outside when I realize that I'm moving above a five and I need to reset. If I have time and sometime I will make time to do some writing to keep an understanding of myself, my thoughts, my fears, and my behavior choices. As I work to become calmer and become more aware of my behavior, I will be able to have a better sense of accomplishment. How long will it take to change? Another thing to estimate. Reality, I've been doing anxiety and anger for a long time, so my goal will be to be calmer. By the time it's Valentine's day I would like to have 50% of my days more calm, like a five and under 50% of my days. By Memorial Day, I would like that to be around 75% of the days. By labor day I would like to have it around 85 to 90% of my days.

 

You'll see my goals are specific. I'm working towards internal work and external work, behavioral work, thought work, emotional work and relationship work and that's why when we do it bit by bit by bit, we practice, we reset, we redo those resolutions become good solutions. 

 

There is a new course coming up. I'll be starting it the 1st of March. It's called DNA for fun and in DNA for fun. We're gonna talk more about how to help these changes come about. I want to thank you for listening and joining me today. We have a discussion on a Facebook page and we will also, as we build the DNA course and you join us in that course, you will be able to be with conversations, other people working on the same thing. So it will be a great support space for you. Visit Us and Kids website to get all that information about the webinar and the course. I look forward to meeting you, talking with you, and I'm cheering for you as you look at those resolutions that you can do through out the here, not just in January. Bye bye.