Transcript: 

Perspective, Childhood Beliefs, and Generating Change: Adults

 

Hi, welcome to the Us & Kids podcast. I am your host Jan Talen. I am a licensed marriage and family therapist, a wife, a mom and a grandma. This Us & Kids podcast is about how to be married forever while you parent together. It's not an easy task. I encourage you, subscribe to Us & Kids in your favorite podcasting app so you don't miss a single one. It will keep your marriage and home fulfilling, strong and good.

 

So today's podcast is about what about all the changes that we have to make? How do we make them and stay an adult, right? Sometimes there are so many changs. They come at us so fast that just even the change of what's for supper can tip us over. We wonder how can that happen? Why can't I just stay self composed for that little thing? This shouldn't be such a big deal. Well, sometimes we have these thoughts, right that everything goes wrong. Then everything is wrong and everything is wrong and everyone is wrong. The common denominator is me. I'm the reason that everything is wrong. That's a heavy weight to put on her shoulders. Even when we're adults, and it can be a fairly common thought when there are lots of big changes and we're not really sure about what we're doing. We may be faking it fine, but inside we know we're pretty rattled and insecure about what's happening or how this is going to work out. And big changes include becoming married and becoming parents. They are some of the most significant changes outside of death that we make while we're an adult. And they are wonderful because they give us a really good growth in our coping skills.

 

But they also can be really tearing or an internal struggle because things can feel so different and so different than what we thought they would feel. Everyone says, Oh, I'm just so glad you're married. You are the cutest couple. Isn't this wonderful? And you can be thinking, I don't know what just happened. What did I do this last week? What, what years gone by where I don't get it. I still don't get it. We can feel like deer in the headlights. We're not making that adjustment so quickly. We're holding our new little ones first one or second one did I say, Oh, you guys are so lucky. These kids are so cute. You make the parents and you can be nodding and smiling and saying, yeah, they're really nice kids and inside going, I haven't a clue what I'm doing. If you were a fly on the wall in my house or in my brain, you wouldn't stay.

 

You'd leave. If these kids could leave, they'd leave because we're not the best parents ever and we can just sort of feel really insecure ourselves. So the pause here for just a minute is if the struggles are so big that you are really having high tension in your relationship or if you're having trouble focusing and concentrating and not being forever crabby or forever sleepy, if those are some of your struggles that sort of rate persistently on an eight, nine or 10 scale, then get some help in your area and get some professional help on the ground. Face to face. Yes, find a counselor or a therapist. Okay. There are lots of things that we can do from a professional standpoint there that can really give you a good boost. If you're really struggling with it, shoot me a short email at [email protected] and I'll help you find someone in your area.

 

Okay, so that's a little aside on that. Let's just talk for a minute about that adjustment and what's happening in your brains. So our brains are made for searching. They are better than Google or any other AI you can put together. They are made for searching through and over all sorts of things all the time. Even while you're sleeping, they absorb the millions of impulses of information every second from what your eyes are feeling, what your ears are, hearing, what your time is tasting, what's your memory is remembering and sending back into your brain what all of the neurons all over your body are doing. It's reading all of your internal systems and all of that external information and putting it together to sort it out so it can tell you what is good and what is not so good.

 

And the truth is all day long, good things are happening around you and not as good things are happening around you and your brain is helping you sort, which ones to pay attention to. So when we're feeling a little fragile and a little weary or a lot weary, our brain can start to see that and read that. And it begins to often over read things that are not as good and it can become very tempting for us to take on the blame for things gone wrong. Why does our brain let us do this? Because it then gives us the locus of control. When we feel weary, we often feel like we can't control anything. We can't control our kids. I can't control my thoughts. I can't control the car that just hit me. I can't control how much my kids eat. I can't control that the heater broke, can't control anything, and so we just begin to beg internally, I got to control something.

 

I'm going to control everything but making it all my fault. Oh, it does help you then become independent but also becomes a very, very heavy burden and taking everything all on yourself is probably then also taking on lies or things that are not true and that creates an convoluted and really warped or funky thoughts. Sort of like one of those wavy mirrors that distorts our body image. When we take on things that are not ours to take on, then our view of the world and our view of ourselves becomes like one of those wavy mirrors that distorts how we are. One of those things I think of like helium balloons and when you suck in some of the helium and that it would make your voice sound like the chipmunks, but taking on things that are not true. Beliefs that are not true or accurate can help our voice in our head become weird and what we feel become an accurate, what do we do about that?

 

Right? Because there's change going on and we're just trying to stay on top of it. We're not trying to take in things that aren't true. This is not our objective, it's what's happening. So we're going to pause for a minute. Breathe out and relax because there are a couple of things we're going to go through here that are just going to help you understand what's happening from way back in history for your own history and then move it forward into what we can do today. Okay? So we're going to start here by saying, let's look at the model or the approach that you watched while you grow up. How did your parents handle change? How did people that you admire handle change? Maybe it's an older sibling, maybe it's a grandparent, maybe it's a favorite neighbor, but how did they do it? Sometimes you can hear that they sort of heard messages or sent messages that said, if you did something bad, God is after you.

 

It's your fault. And maybe you often got blamed for what wasn't your fault, but you were there. And so they blamed you. Maybe they ended up with words that said, you're not worth anything. Okay, you are just a troublemaker. You'll never add up to anything. Or there were standards of perfection. Do it perfect or you get outta here and perfect was never perfect enough. If you can't do anything right as a kid or good enough or smart enough or strong enough or quick enough, Oh, you began to live into that belief and that's up. The pause that I'm inviting you to do for a minute is to think, what messages did I get when I was a kid? I'm not sure they were helpful if they were that negative. I'm sure they were helpful that when you were a kid, you're an adult now and now you can choose whether or not to accept that message or whether or not to say I'm done with it all done being done, putting it aside, all done with it.

 

Now this model from childhood that I'm inviting you to consider there a little bit has probably helped those beliefs about yourself and what you take into today. So I came from a busy house of six kids, but to start with there were just the three girls. I was the youngest of the three girls. We were born in lesson three years and we were together and we were together for five years before sister number four showed up. Actually for me, I guess sister number three. Okay. Fourth girl and then came a brother and then came a sister over another five year span, so there were three of us. I was the youngest, the youngest for five years and then over the next five years I got three more siblings. In that five year span where I was just the youngest, my mom got really sick. I don't remember very much of it, but what I do know is that I stayed with some aunts and some cousins of whom I don't feel like I really knew.

 

I remember some places in snatches of memory because I was little memory wasn't complete then, but enough trauma for me to put a few things in my head. I was safe. I was well cared for, but I was sort of bewildered and a little weirded out. I didn't know those people. They wanted me to eat funny food, watch TV that we didn't really have or use and I formed some beliefs about how to behave based on that experience. I figured out how to be quiet and just watch, tried to be invisible. I figured out don't cry and ignore those whales inside of me of where is my mom. My parents were very good parents. They were not oversharers. That was their approach. They didn't share a lot of information. They might have told me why it was at my aunt's house and how long I would be staying, but I don't remember that information or being reassured that they would be coming back.

 

I learned to not overshare. That is don't say an awful lot. Watch and learn. Watch and learn. Don't say much and I learned to take care of myself. I learned to say I am fine regardless of whether or not I was fine and I acted it. That belief and approach served me well in many places. I did scary yet fun and good things. I tried out for the school play. I learned how to go skiing. I played soccer, I joined the track team. Things that nobody else in my family had done, but it slowed me up from building deeper friendships and it led me to realize that sometimes I would be much better off if I actually formulated the questions in my head instead of just acting like it's all fine. Asking more questions and figuring out if it was or how I could make it better.

 

Hmm. Well what about you? Do you have a story or a history piece that you remember and you realize that impacted me? That is part of how I still think back when I was three, I've carried that forward for years. Well, you can choose now you're an adult. Do you still need that belief or do you want to adjust it? So take a walk with me for a few minutes to see what beliefs you want to keep and what you want to adjust. And as you think about those beliefs, consider what you want to be like. This is a look into the future by the end of this year or in the end of five years or 10 years or 20 years. Sort of think through what kind of person do I want to be? What do I want to be known for? What do my children want to be able to think about me?

 

You don't have total control. Probably are able to work on goals that are concrete and visibly in front of us. If we don't make any changes, we won't make any changes. The success rate of changing without changing is about a hundred percent you won't do any changing, right? I'm not sure that sentence made any sense. I think you get the idea right here. If we're going to change, we have to make small incremental changes. It's the way that our brain works best and here's a combination of different things that you can do to help your brain work towards some goals that you might have. For me, it was realized when you're frightened, Jan and begin to realize why and what else do you want to know. Assess the fear instead of just stuffing it. Part one, I realized focus on the good. When you're aware of that, you're bewildered and the little overwhelmed.

 

Look around what's okay? Look at the good from the present in the past and realized, take a breath. Okay? Yup. I'm glad my parents picked safe spaces for me. And once again, I'm sort of in a weird space around people I don't really know, but I do know that they are safe. Happens in my adult world. Yep. And did my childhood world. And number two, remember and build friends with good people. Build those friendships. Choose your friends wisely. Watch what they live into. Did they live into grace? Are they crabby when they talk about other people or are they complimentary? Are they encouraging or are they demeaning? Make friends with people who live into the values that you want to have as well. That way the two of you encourage each other on, Oh, these can be like physical friends that you're with, but you could also work with a mentor or someone from church or authors that you say how they model life. How they got out of that ditch. They were abused as a kid. So was I look at how they did that. I want to do that than pay attention.

 

So read books about being a single parent or about kids making it through a divorce or what to do when mom gets sick or kids raised by grandma so that you can understand, but you also now have a model and a little bit of a bigger view about where do you want to go. Number three. There are big words in our language that we would encourage you to settle them down. Just just keep them for special occasions. Everything and always are often sort of dangerous in our thought world when we're trying to move forward and make adjustments, because if we say everything is always dirty, everything is always messy. Everyone is always crabby. First of all, somebody is going to find a time when it wasn't dirty or messy or crabby, it also sends up a belief or a message that no one will ever be able to live up.

 

It's not a very gentle thought. A more truthful thought is, Oh, it seems like everything's always messy and dirty and then your spouse or maybe even one of your kids can say, my mom, I picked up the Lego's. Mommy, I made my bed. See, it's a more gentle thought when it says, it seems like then we can sort of challenge that and go, no, this is more true and we can adjust our thought and our belief that everything is wrong and it's all my fault. Settle it down with, well it seems that way, but is it, it gives room for wonder. It gives room for curiosity. It gives room for, well I know this will change. Okay. Right now it seems that way, but I think it will change and we will figure it out. It gives room for, well in the scheme of things, everything's messy.

 

But those people down South who got flooded, at least I don't have mud. I'm messy. But mine's not muddy because perspective does add truth based on what others are experiencing. I'm not so bad off. Was talking with a friend the other day and I was a little distressed about something in my world that didn't go just as I had hoped. And, they looked at me and I said, but given my friend over here and her experience of just about losing her son, okay, my bump in the road is nothing. And that perspective can help pull us back into that place of gratitude and of thankfulness and focusing on the good, what we said in number one. What we're doing here in these first three ones is teaching your brain to work towards what is right and just search more for what is right than what is wrong.

 

Remember we said our brain is always searching. It's just gathering information, but we have control of our brain. We are the boss and we get to say, brain it's time to look for what is right and good. Number four, as you train your brain to do that, do the change you know is right for you. Like I said earlier, if you don't change something, nothing will change. A little clue here, it's sort of interesting. When we are miserable, it's usually our brains asking us to change or do something different. Interesting. Right? When we are miserable, our brains are asking us to change or do something different. It is not inviting us to sit in the misery.

 

Over time. I've learned to think and to process more intentionally that pausing to think. To think for real, like to think, okay, if this happens in this or this, I want to respond emotionally this way or this way. Okay, if this happens, then I think my decision tree will to respond this way and this way and offer this kind of help. Thinking, calming your emotions and really thinking, leads to really good change. Listen to your misery, to your weariness and what it's asking you to adjust and then do it. Not big changes, one to three degrees, little changes at a time. Your brain then won't overreact to it and you'll be able to go with it. Okay? Try something new. Try it a few times. If it has some success, keep it up. If it doesn't have the success you want, look and think what was good about it?

 

What could I do better or differently? Tweak it a little bit. Don't go back to the first way you were doing it. You knew that didn't work. Keep looking for a new solution. You'll find it. Calm your brain down because thats when that courage and creativity will start to sneak to the front and all of a sudden show up and you'll be delighted with what you're able to adjust. Sometimes the change is in your perspective, it's not necessarily a change in behavior. It's a change in perspective. From this is awful and it might really not be good. To, oh well this change is going to be interesting or challenging. Wasn't really what I was hoping for. But now listen to the hope in it. I and we will figure it out. We're just going to do our best and we're going to keep using those virtues of patience and kindness and creativity and resourcefulness and optimism.

 

Work together when there's big change and when it's not what you want, but also keep thinking through how can we do this? What's our best option and pick your best one. It may not be the one you want, but it might be your best option. What else do you want me to do? Feel free to change a habit to make it better. Habits make our life smooth because we don't have to think about them, but there are times when habits were done with them like a old piece of clothing. Okay. Or an old car. It just doesn't run or work well anymore and it's time to make a change. Give yourself some bonus or some incentives. Keep an eye and internal and emotional, intellectual and what you want the change to look like in the end. If you're going to adjust that habit, what do you want it to look like in the end?

 

Okay. I made a change in terms of how dirty I wanted my car and what did I want it to look like in the end my thought was, well I don't want to vacuum up my car every week cause I know I'll do that. What do I need to do? I need to keep more things in bags. Then the dirt stays in the bags. I can shake it out in the sink instead of it just going all over the car. It's not a big change, but it has helped how dirty my car is. When I'm working with kiddos and I want them to change, what am I going to do? What small change do I need to make? Do I need to look at them more? Do I deem to be a tad more kind? Talk a little slower, bend down and do eye to eye.

 

Hold their hand. Picking one of those and doing it over and over and over will help your kid realize you're connecting and they will follow you. Be serious with your words, but also be very kind and practice, practice, practice because now you're not just trying to change you. You're also trying to change your kiddos willingness to follow or cooperate with you. Get two things going on there and that means consistently practicing. It takes about three months for a brain to really get enough neurons and pathways to say, that's a path I'll choose. Oh, the same thing's happening for your kiddos. So that's where this practice comes in. Sometimes it's important to just change the internal sentence. From, I hate, to well what I want or what I prefer is so it could be something like this. If I'm parenting, I hate those bedtime tears. They cry every night, every night.

 

All I want them to do. Listen, listen. Here it comes. All I want them to do is go to bed by themselves when I tell them to, okay? Now you know what you want them to do. Go to bed by themselves. I think you're going to have to think how old is the child really before they go to bed by themselves. And what are you going to do in the years before they're old enough to do that, to help them be willing to do that? Are you going to teach and model routines, quietness, practicing, falling asleep by themselves? Learning how to self-soothe, trusting that mom and dad are still going to be there. Keep building that clear path for you and for your kiddos. Realize what you want and then think about the plan on how to get there because a cleared path from where and what I learned in childhood to what I want to be in it as an adult.

 

It takes time to develop probably a lifetime but worthwhile path. Cleared in front of you so that you can make the changes as life goes on with more skill and less trip ups from acting like the child and the places you learned it way back when. Childhood behavior, childish behavior maybe, are they the same when we're 49, 32, 25? Behavior that looks the next like a six year old or a four year old or a two year old is less becoming the older we get and that's why we want you to continue to figure out what from childhood do I want to upgrade and make some changes so it fits who I am today. Who I want to be in the future. Keep working at it. Keep making it clear where you have a spiritual base talking with Jesus, talking with God and asking for that spiritual energy and support as well, It's always a good idea. You know, I really enjoyed this time with you.

 

Changing is hard. You have marriage to maintain. Trying to figure out how to be the best mom and dad is not easy. Stay with it. Thank you for listening and joining me. Join the discussion on Facebook and keep watching out for the DNA for fun. It's a communications course and it will give us the opportunity to learn and react to all these different changes with a lot of other skills that go way deeper than what we can cover in a podcast. Take care of yourselves. Have a great week. Catch up with you next week and remember there's a printable. Find it, print it, use it, share it with your spouse. Cheer each other on. Alrighty. Talk to you later. Bye. Bye.