Transcript: 

Dismiss Depression, Negative Nonsense and Anxiety

 

Hey, welcome to the Us & Kids podcast. I'm your host Jalen, and I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, a wife, a mom, and a grandma. And this Us & Kids podcast is about how to be married forever while you parent together. You know it's not an easy task and many of you are experiencing that now because a lot of you are home together 24/7 for this period of time in 2020. I want to encourage you, the Us & Kids podcast is available for support, for regaining some sense of sanity and emotional balance because we're going to work on building good communication skills that work for being married as well as for parenting your kiddos. And you're going to have time to practice if you're all home together. So let's get to it. Okay. You probably will agree with me that if you're listening to this in real time it's been an unusual week.

 

And there's going to be a few more of them. Now I hope that you are all safe and connecting well, but also are healthy. You know, we've talked in a lot of our past podcasts about how to adjust, that there are real adjustments and just in the last month or so you'd find two new podcasts on the website about these adjustments and how to make them so that you and your family end up better and stronger and wiser and not scared. The things that are happening around us are real and there is real for us as adults as they are for our kiddos because kiddos struggle with this change of plans and environments and routines as much as we do and they are going to follow some of how we behave is how they're going to behave. So I wanted to put together a few things using the DNA method to just help you really understand how to do this.

 

The DNA methods starts with a letter D and the letter D is about desire. What do you want the end or the memory of this week or this slice of 2020 or this day or this hour or this conversation. What's your desire? What do you want at the end of this? Do you want it to be miserable or do you want it to be memorable? Do you want it to be fun and interesting or awful and full of anxiety? Now I agree, we don't have total control over everything that happens. We do have impact if we pay attention to the long game and say, this is what I'm deciding to do. Another D word. This is my desire. I want to end up here because we go where we look to the best of our ability. Okay, as long as like something major doesn't totally dump us off our tracks, but even then we probably can figure out some way to reset.

 

For the time being let's pay attention to what do you want the end memory to be? If you're going to say, just want to live through it. I want to come out of it alive. Part one. Good plan. And then part two, if you're alive, what memory do you want between you and your spouse and your kids? You know, and I know there are going to be spaces that are messy. What do you want to do with the mess, especially mentally and emotionally? Do you want the mess to create higher anxiety or do you want it to create lower anxiety? If you think about what do I want, what are my desires and you make an actual decision, what do I want it to be? Do I want to rile everybody up and make the household crazy? Am I tired of the screaming and the noise and I want to make a calmer?

 

Then what skill do I need to get there? So now we're going to move. We've decided what we've desired. You've paused the podcast for a second and scribble down some notes so that you can confer with your spouse and partner and maybe will they even some of your older kids and say, what do we want this to look like at the end? Because a little family meeting here might not be a bad idea. A little spouse meeting might not be a bad idea. Think about what you want. What do you desire? What do you want the memory of this to be in five years and now? What do you need? What skills do you need? Especially communication skills. Do you need get yourself and your family to go down your desired decided memory road. So what's your desire? That's the D and then what do you need relationally, emotionally to get there. How do you want to stay connected? That might be one need, right? Do you want to stay connected with hugs or prayers or handholds? To the kiddos, one of them were more than one of them really just need more time with you.

 

How do you want to stay connected? Or are you aware that your fear, your anger, and your anxiety is going to create distance and you have to decide, what do I want for my family is to be connected? Did however I and my anxiety want to disconnect. I just want to push everybody away and make this all go away. Well, pay attention because when you have those thoughts and that awareness, now you can decide how do I lower my anxiety? How do I settle down my anger? I'd remember everybody's trying to make it through this and we're may not be doing great, but we're doing our best. Nobody's really out to get you. They're just trying to survive, so hold their hand and settled down. It will help you get more what you need. A nicer, more pleasant connection because the better and more common safe the connections, the more common safe you in your household can be and then the better the memories.

 

Yes, work towards that and then begin to think, well, what emotions am I going to use to create these memories? This is something you would practice in the DNA for fun course. When we looked at the necessary skills, we would talk about what emotions are necessary and how do we use them. If we have emotions that aren't necessarily hopeful, what do we do with them? I can't go into all of that today. What we can start with is make yourself a list of what emotions are going to be best to use at this time and place, around these people, what emotions are best and make a list of what emotions are best to be put in a journal or to be worked out while you walk or you work out or while you pray. It helps us sort it out. If we write it out. I don't care what your penmanship and your spelling is like.

 

It's the moving it out of your head and onto paper. That frees up your brain to think more clearly and frees up your emotions to feel more accurately. All right, so you're going to make a list. What emotions do I want? What emotions belong in a journal or in prayer or in a workout, and remember to breathe out. This clearing your brain in your body of adrenaline and cortisol is really important to do. When we're trying to add into the relationship, in our memories, the emotions that will help us get our desired result. A little hint here, I don't want to be too parental, but I do want to give a little hint. Put your phone down, stop scrolling and stop reading things about this virus mess. What you can do right now is in front of you, in your household right here. This is what you can take care of and you know how to do that nicely.

 

So now do it nicely. This is the mess you can contain. This is a mess that you can make into something beautiful and go for it, you've got time, you've got energy, you've got creativity, work it as best you can. So a few other hints here, just quickly. We've covered them in other podcasts. Make a schedule for yourself and for your kids. Make sure they buy in on it so they probably have had a part in making the schedule. Include some personal spaces, 10 minute rest time, some spree start times, maybe going for a walk, getting the kids outside to play while you pick up inside, taking 10 minute reading breaks, things like that. Remember to be grateful, to think positive and content thoughts. This is the good time to learn about yourself and your kids in your family. It's a good time to build good memories.

 

I mean, goodness sakes. What else are you going to get an extra two to three weeks to be with each other? So on the optimistic side is let's make the most of it right and also remember it can be wise to make a budget. The temptation to be can be to go get food, to go through the drive through to just munch and snack through those chips minute by minute and hour after hour. Pay attention to how much those things cost and what actually fits into your budget so that you aren't screaming and arguing about it as time goes on. I not sure that's a part of what the memory that you want and then what am I deciding and desiring this memory to be like, how do I want to connect and how do I want to manage my emotional self so that I can connect? Well, what emotions do I want to bring into this and what emotions should just stay away and next.

 

Ah, breathe out and listen. Listen well, listen carefully and gently. Your kiddos and your spouse are going to pick up on your anxiety and become anxious themselves. Slow down and listen. Whining from an adult and from a kiddo can mean worry. It can mean boredom and it can mean lonely. If you listen well, you can probably figure it out and you can help your kids figure out what's going on. And then you can actually fix it instead of just stuff it do you know? Then if emotions get stuffed inside, they pop up later and it's usually in a more ugly form of emotional energy. So continue to look at what do I need, what do I need to do to listen better? If one of my necessary skills and navigating through this is for me to stop listening to my anxiety in my head and listen to what's happening to my kiddos or to my spouse.

 

Everybody will settle down. That would mean listen with compassion, less judgment, less criticism. Listen with your eyes and with your body. Soften that facial lock. Get some of the tension out. Hold a hand, touch a shoulder. If it helps you listen better. Don't squeeze and be mean. Touch gently that says I'm with you. We're okay. And meet up at eye level. Every now and then. My husband giggles. He's a good foot taller than me, so, so every time, and then I say, stand down there and he has to stand down a step and I'm standing up a step because then we're sort of closer to being eye to eye. And every now and then I want a bear hug and I want to see him eye to eye, but what I want to be eye to eye with my grandkids, I sit on the couch with them or I sit on that step so that we are eye to eye because it helps that listening when our eyes can see each other and our eyes are kind.

 

Another skill that's really important here and being able to build those connections and then being able to achieve our desired goal. This is necessary skill of speaking clearly that means think about what you want to communicate in light of the memory you're trying to build and when you have edited out in your head probably two or three times so that you can say it in a way that you'd be able to hear it if somebody said it to you. Yeah. So that you'd be able to absorb it if somebody said it to use those words have to make sense and the tone in the delivery has to be kind enough so that they can absorb it and then help your kiddos say what they think and what they need. Remember, they don't have the language development often that you and I have, but they can sense the weird and so their words and their volume might be more loud.

 

They might be more crabby, more resistant or teary or hungry or withdrawn and can come up like one more show mom. Just one more. Come on mom, I don't want to. You can hear all of that, but now instead of being offended and disgusted at the disrespect, if I listened well and could have a speaking tone here, I would be able to say, eye to eye. I can hear that you're sort of bored and that this helps to fill it and you're right. We're going to do one more, but it's going to come tomorrow because right now we're going to go to this, but I'm going to be close enough to be connected them. I'm going to be kind enough so that they can hear me and see that I'm not mad at them, even though they just screamed at me. I'm going to come at them with my speaking tone of compassion and encouragement.

 

I remember they might have questions about what's going on. invite them to it, ask those questions, and then answer those questions one at a time. So it could be a simple question like, mom, are you going to get it? Are you going to die? Or I miss my friends. How come I can't go back to school? Fair enough, right? We don't know the answers, but tell them that. I don't know for sure, but I sure am glad you like school. Hug them, find a way to help them connect. Do a zoom. Do a face time. Do a video chat. Help them write letters and notes. So we're going to work at speaking and listening easily together and then we're going to circle this all up with touch because touch keeps us connected. The application of touch can be different for you and your kiddos and you and your marriage relationship.

 

It's still important because the neurons, their release, the comforting hormones that go through our brain and our body and helps our parasympathetic nervous system to calm down the adrenaline to settle out so that we can breathe more freely. That opens up creativity. It opens up room for laughter and rooms for smiles, so a little more hand hold, a little more arm around, a little bit more of you're doing a great job with kind words and touch, can really help things. Take a minute to think about that child that reacts too fast or that child that just withdraws and connect with them too. Don't just say that, just spinned off all today, so just nevermind them. Move into that with courage. Remember, you're trying to build a good memory for them too. Work towards that. We've worked at understanding your desired memory. Now you make a recipe out of all of these different skills the connecting at the emotional space, the listening, the speaking and the touching.

 

What mixture do you need for anybody in your family and you will apply those skills a little bit differently for everybody. Don't get overwhelmed, just keep trying, keep working at it. Keep resetting. Encourage each other because the lower you can keep that adrenaline and cortisol, anxiety hormones, the more the hormones of dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine can stay in your brain and in your family's brain and in full circle. The more these happy hormones are in your brain, the more calm and creative you can be even when your kids are being chaotic so that happiness begins to spread into your family places and this, my friend is a good kind of contagious. Good for your household and good for yourself.

 

I've sort of said each of these skills are taught in the DNA for fun communications course and this course is going to be available for purchase again in the near future. You can go on the website, usandkids.com and sign up on the waiting list so that you will be even more prepared when the next crisis of any magnitude comes along. Because you know, raising children every day, it might be a crisis. Being married every day might be a crisis. My invitation to you is if we use DNA for fun, that method, we could make crises into pretty fun circuses. Hey, I'm cheering for you this week. Remember that we'll be on Facebook live on Fridays to do a little review about this and that we're working on that course. So what else? One more thing. There's a printable. Yes there is. So jump on the website or find a way to download it and be able to use these ideas in your everyday life. We'll catch up with you later. Cheering for ya. Bye. Bye.