Transcript:
Uncertainty Can Make us Crazy
Hi, welcome to the Us & Kids podcast. I'm your host Jan Talen. I'm 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, even when you're in the house, way too much together. When things are so uncertain, even more uncertain than they usually are when we are trying to parent and when we're trying to be married at the same time, at least this level of uncertainty is real for many of us in this 2020 year. So let's remember, it's not an easy task. So I'm encouraging you to subscribe to the Us & Kids podcast in your favorite podcasting app. I'm glad you're here. But Hey, let's not be uncertain about what we're going to talk about today and let's get to it.
So my question is, do you like mysteries? Do you like unsolved mysteries? Do you like them just on TV or do you like them in real life too? Do you like to solve mysteries by yourself or with a team? There's a lot of mystery around us these days. A lot of unknown, or don't have the answer yet or the answer changed from yesterday to today. I'm not just talking about the political arena. I'm talking about what is going on inside of our houses, our hearts and our relationships. Shifting answers and solutions for what's going on around in our houses with changes of jobs. Be home, don't be home. You're employed, you're not employed. You get unemployment, you don't get unemployment. Okay. And then there's the weather. It's rainy, it's not rainy. You can meet with friends, you can't meet with friends. What are we going to do about birthdays?
Listen to all of that mix up and mess up and they can mix up and mess up our reactions and our relationships. So the question gets to be, do we just have to sit and spin and spin and spin in circles cause nothing's for sure. Or is there a way to keep ourselves calm and keep on track? I was spinning just the other night. I took my husband with me, not like spinning like cute, like dancing things. I'm not very good at that, but I was spinning like crabby, distressed, totally focused, on everything I could not control. And I was just blurbing about it and blabbing it and crying about it. And he's gotten to know me over the 40 years of our marriage and knew that the best thing he could do for me was listen, without many words. I had enough for all of us and the rest of the world at the moment.
Give me a good hug when I was done being angry and anxious. I have a new word for that. Just thought you'd want to know my angry and anxious when I put them together. I get angsty and that's my new word. There you go. If you need a new word, that's one of them. That mixture of angry and angsty. They often go together. Oh yes. So I did, I settled down and then I went to sleep. But when I got up I had to start to unpack and understand what had happened here. I'm not the only one this is happening to. And what am I going to do about this? Cause I can't keep spinning. It's too tiring. That's for sure. So I'm borrowing some information and some studies on how business owners manage crazy business cycles and then I've added into that the DNA for Fun communications course way of thinking about it.
So if you want the link to where I'm getting my business emotional intelligence information from, that will be in the show notes. Okay. And do you want to know more about DNA for Fun communications course and want to learn that method for communications? Then go on the website www.usandkids.com and join the wait list cause the new courses coming out in about four to six weeks. All right there, let's get going on this. Because you see the DNA method is first of all, the D stands for realizing what's my desire. What do I want the end outcome to be, what do I desire it to be? You go where you look, emotionally, relationally, and when you're driving a car, keep your eye on the road. That's where you will go. And then N is for choosing what is my necessary skill to get me to that desired outcome.
Okay, what emotional skill do I need? What relationship skill do I need and in the DNA for Fun course we will help you learn those skills and get them practiced up well. So you just go and get one and it's as easy as using a knife or a fork. You know how to do it. It's not tricky. And then there's applying it, the a apply it because the skill looks a little different if we're parenting than if we're talking to our spouse. I certainly talked to my two and three year old little grandkids differently than I do to my Chipper, my spouse, right? Although what might be content about what's we're having for supper? Both of them. It just sounds different. Two different ages. Well, let's see what happens when we blend business, emotional intelligence ideas with how to keep yourself steady when you're being married forever and you're parenting together in the middle of 2020. First of all, in the uncertainty, what's my desire?
My desire, I hope yours is as well, is that my marriage and my family will survive and hopefully even thrive through this. Okay. Skills I need. Skills I didn't have a couple of nights ago. An ability to think and have some self control and some thought control. The module on this in DNA for Fun, is managing the emotional me. And I can tell you the other night there was no managing the emotional me, the emotions were managing me. What did I have to do? What could I have done? Probably could I have done is a little bit better way to say it. I had to start out, eventually I did, by quieting my limbic system. You're what system? Good question. Okay. Back of your brain is where your emotions are and where your fear and fight or flight response is. And when he gets triggered it wants to run wild.
It is the most developed part of the brain in your kiddos that are zero to four or five. There's another part of our brain farther up in the front and that is a part of our brain that is more rational. So the limbic system, the fast, go fast, run fast, frightened fear, we're going to call the hare like the rabbit, not like the hair on your head, but like the rabbit that runs really fast. And the part of your brain that thinks more rationally, that develops after you're about four years old, and needs to be continuously practiced, is the tortoise. Now let's remember the story just briefly right tortoise and the hare have got a little bet going on, that one of them could make it to the end of a race before the other. And so the hare runs fast, then gets distracted, gets too tired, says you can take a nap and stops and then gets up again a little while and takes off again.
But stops and starts in a hurry. Screeching halts and racing fast. The tortoise on the other hand. Plots along, just step, step, step, step, step, steady and faithful. Here we go. Keep your eye on the finish line and he just doesn't stop. He just plods along. Doesn't let anything frightened him or scare him an awful lot. He just keeps chugging along. This is more of our rational thinking brain. The challenge here is that when things are uncertain our hare brain, ha ha, wants to just take off and go with all sorts of uncertain, fearful, unmanageable uncontainable thoughts. And our tortoise, the rational part of our brain sort of goes, not going to get you to the end of the race. I have to quiet our limbic system down. Get the hare to become a bit more friends with the tortoise so that they can just keep moving.
How do we do this? That noise, we're going to start out with just a good deep breath because it helps to clear our brain out a little bit and while we do that, we're going to stay positive. What does that look like in our marriage between husband and wife? Between Chip and I, we had to say, we're going to be okay. It's going to be okay. He asked me a couple of times, I don't usually have a good answer when he asked me, but it's nice for them to ask, how can I help you? And that question, may not have an answer, like I don't really have an answer for him, but it means I'm in it with you. It's different than what are you going to do about it because that's the, I'm on my own and my husband is not going to mess with it.
But how can I help you? Says I'm in it with you. And that adds positivity and strength. Cause now we're in it together and I want to be married forever. So this helps me towards my goal, my desire to be married forever. With kiddos in the house, what are we going to do when they are spinning out of control? This usually looks for kiddos, I'm thinking sort of in this seven and under, but we can go higher than that as well. They become anxious when they feel our anxiousness, but they often act it out by being whiny or resistant or crabby. They don't want to eat. They don't want to cooperate. They don't want to go to bed. They don't want to go to sleep. They don't want that milk. They want this milk. They don't want that cup. They don't want peanut butter and jelly.
They don't, and it's enough to just make us pull our hair out, stay positive here and give grace to our kiddos. Keep your routine steady, keep what you're going to say you're going to do. Keep that as steady as you can do, but don't be mean. Just stay positive about it. Well, when we made the PB and J for you today, so we're going to sit down and eat that. While we sing a song and when we're done with that then we're going to talk about whether or not you still need Mac and cheese. You see, I'm going to give grace there. If I have some leftover Mac and cheese in the fridge, there's a good chance I'm going to say fine and I'm going to put the PB and J in a baggy and give that to them at snack time.
This is how we help calm down their limbic system because they follow us and when we're distressed, they're often going to pick up on that. What else am I going to do? I had to think about what do I know and what do I not know? What is knowable? Well, for marriages, if you were pretty good before this, all of this happened and we had Covid sort of jump into our 2020 year. If you were pretty good, a B grade or above in your marriage, that's a good grade. Marriage is hard. Okay? Then you're still pretty good. Even under this stress, go back to those skills. You know how to do them and use them. Haul them out and use them again. Continue to use them. You might not be able to hold onto the B grade, but you could well hold it above a C plus you might move it up into a B plus or A minus.
Stay steady with what you know is good between the two of you because that's what you know. Don't add things that you don't know how to do to the extent that you can't keep using what you would do know and what works. And for your kiddos, you know that there are a lot of changes and anxiety and a lot of things that are happening inside of our littles. They don't have words for, they don't know how to put into words how weird it is that mom and dad are both home or they're home, but they're not wanting to talk to me and they don't want to play with me or mom is home and then dad is home but nobody's home together and mom never puts me to bed anymore. Only dad and this and this and they're confused.
Okay. Help them stay in routine because you know that routine and they know it. Use what you know to study you together. Okay? Now we're going to move a little bit more into what you do do not know, but this is based on not just focusing on what you don't know that will make your brain spin and the hare will go run down the road with crazy things happening all around. And the tortoise is just going to look stunned, like, where'd my friend go? What just happened? Come back to what do you know and use it. You might make small changes. Don't make big ones if you don't have to. Number four, this is not going to sound real fun, but embrace what you can't control. What does that look like? I'm sort of saying it over again. Move forward on what you know. Understand the real world.
Okay. I understand that there are things in the real world you couldn't control. Well, I have to remember that. Oh, in 2019 all the things that I was all flustered about, I didn't care. I couldn't control them in 2019 either. I was fine. That was 2020 and I'm all distressed. Well, let's pause for a minute. The real world is different. That is true. Let's not over-exaggerate it because that is my limbic system that hare running down the road. He's going to run right past the finish line if he's not careful. Come back, understand what I can not control and understand that I was okay with it before I was safe. I was in good relationships. I had a reasonably full and somewhat balanced life. I'm going to be okay now I'm going to move forward on what I do. So in your marriage it can be some of this, acknowledged between each other.
This is hard. Keeping connected to you. Keeping my brain under control. Doing work in such a different way. Waiting for paychecks, waiting for the unemployment stuff. It's hard and there is a lot of too much you and too much me. We're here too much together. Yes, that is possible. That's not an insult to your marriage. When we're home 24/7 with each other, it puts all of the pressures of the things that we need emotionally on the other person where usually we got it from the world around us. We got acknowledgement of being valued and of being known and a being somewhat balanced of other people understanding instead of us instead of just our spouse. We got that from the broader world around us and now often we're moving all of those expectations and to our spouse and our kids who usually only gave us somewhere between 20 and 50%.
Okay. Pause for a second and understand that your spouse cannot fully fill you, nor can you fully fill your spouse. That's why we're supposed to be in community and relationship with other people. And you may be staying somewhat in touch there. Just be generous and gracious with each other. Where you can up your connection and communication. Do it, do it, do it. But when you know that it's time to take a break and have some space, somebody go for a car ride, go for a walk. Relook at that routine so that the expectations aren't so heavy on the both of you.
What about for your kids? Some of the same, at least in your own mind. It depends on how old your kiddos are but acknowledge this is hard. They're lonely too. They miss their friends. They miss their freedoms. They miss the places they usually go, even if it's just to the park and they're trying to make sense of the things they can't control. So help them to realize what they do have impact on and remember that they need impact. So when you say, what is for lunch, what would you like? You have to mean it. They need to have some control. When you say, what PJ's do you want? Let them choose those PJs. When you say, do you want him to walk this way down the street or that way mean it? They need some senses of control because it helps them settle down and they will see that they have a voice and they are still heard.
It's important. I understand you can't control everything and move forward based on what you can know and do as you move forward. Number five, focus on what matters. Okay, mom and dad, husbands, wives, remember that the kids are going to follow your marriage connection if they see you two getting along in a marriage calmly, kindly, with hope, with good touch, with good smiles they are going to follow that. it is our strongest predictor of how well kids will behave is based on how well mom and dad behave as husband and wife, not as mom and dad. It's our strongest predictor is how well mom and dad behave as husband and wife are what settles our kids down. So if my desire is to be well married at the end of 2020 then I'm going to use my emotional skills and emotional control that toward us is going to come in and calm down my brain and help me think, how can I be kind even when I'm so sick of this? How can I smile when I just want to cry? How can I cry and know that they'll hug me?
Take care of each other gently, gently, gently, generously with hope, with smile, with gentleness because as you are okay, your kids are going to follow. Now not like within the next two seconds probably, right? But often within the next day or so. And help your kids to be okay. They see you guys intention. Then they're wondering if mom and dad aren't okay, am I okay? Help them know that mom and dad, you guys as a family are going to be okay. We're going to figure this out and we're going to be okay. Nobody's leaving. We're staying here together. Number six, this world is messy. Marriages are messy. Raising kids is messy. Households are messy, relationships are messy, and 2020 is messy, so you know what that means. Nothing's going to be perfect. I'm going to encourage you to let that one go, okay? We can't win on the perfection side. We just want you to keep on doing the best you can and letting the best I could for today, be the best you could do for today.
Take a deep breath. Tell Mr. Hare to sit down or to just plod along with Mr. Tortoise that this is the best and we're going to be okay. Grace and humor here goes all long ways because somebody is okay is somebody else's not okay. When somebody says, well, that's the best I can do on that pan. I can't get the rest of it out. I can't even think about scrubbing it anymore. That's their okay. Now can you be okay with that, or are you going to be ticked that they didn't finish it? Grace and humor here, are really important and your kiddos, you're going to remember they need grace and humor too because all they know how to do is do and be is the age that they are. They do not know how to manage this. They have not done it for.
Good chance you haven't done it before either and if they're just two and four years old or one and three, three and seven, they don't have language. They don't know how to put this in their brain and so they're going to try to figure it out at the age that they are and it's not their job to come up to your age. It's your job to go back and listen, listen, listen through their words and their actions about what's happening to them in their little five-year-old brain. Remember I said earlier, that limbic system and the rational thinking part of the system doesn't really connect until you're after age four so it's pretty common for our two and our three year olds, even our one-year-olds, that hare can go running off at the drop of who knows what and you know this cause they could throw a tantrum like this.
Okay. Because that's what their brain is doing. So they don't know how else to get rid of that anxiety and that confusion and so screaming and moving their body clears out the hormones in their brain. They're not trying to be naughty, they're not trying to be disrespectful, they're not trying to grow up. They're just being their age. And your grace and your humor is what helps them get through the developmental pieces of their age fairly well. Go for it. There you go again. Take that deep breath and keep your sense of humor and while you do number seven, don't dwell too much on the problems. Where you focus attention determines your emotional state. So you could see the other day I was totally in that ditch focused on all the things that were wrong and that's where my emotional state went in the ditch and in the ditch.
So, often we will talk about in DNA for Fun, we will talk about that gratitude idea and putting a gratefulness calendar or gratefulness tablet in some places where you can write down what the good things are. In general, we need 10 to 15 positive sentences, words, actions per day to hold us steady. Hand them out liberally you guys, don't be afraid to say I love you. Don't be afraid to say, let me help you with that. Or, Oh, I got that. Or would you like some more water? Hey, I took care of that over there, I saw you left it out. Generous actions here helps the brain calm down. Do it everywhere you go. Do it with your little ones. They're scared and they're lonely and this, touch, this comfort, keeping a routine and helping them out. Not sitting aside and judging them and saying, do it yourself.
I told you to do it yourself. Sit down and help just to be nice about it. Don't be too worried about spoiling just help them out. Number eight, just remember we're trying to keep our brains connected and part of this is trust your gut. Learn how to do this. My gut has been fairly distressed through this process and I know that and I know places where I have influence in places where I don't. I hadn't recognized that something that I knew a while ago and then I ignored it. All right? My filter for news comes into me that when I take too much of it, I become tipped over sideways and opinions from other people that are strong can really rattle my sense of security about my thoughts. I've got to explode those filters down. What do I say that better? I have to pay attention and not let those things overwhelm me and what my gut knows is wisest for me.
So in order to know my gut, I have to make sure that my filter is about what's coming into my heart in my mind are appropriate. For me, I also use a spiritual filter. I have a relationship with Jesus Christ and that filter about Jesus, what do You think of this, often helps me rebalance. That may work for some of you as well. What's your spiritual filter? And now use it. We also know that in order to know our gut, the internal read, we're going to call it rather magical, but really we're understanding that there's a lot of science behind it. That space within us talks best when there's room for quiet. And this may mean, we talked about it a little bit ago, that there may mean in that there's a, this is my time to be by myself, Hun. That's your time. And then turn off your screens and go for a walk and listen to the birds and write in your journal and absorb the sun. Okay? Just to be still for a few minutes. Let your body and your brain reset. You'll see kiddos act on their gut in their intuition as well.
When you see them react strongly to something, sit down for a minute by them instead of just saying, not so loud. You can't scream like that. Don't do that. Sit down for a minute if you can with them and say, why are you thinking that right now? What's happening? And let them, you gotta wait, you got to form the sentence and say it to you and it takes courage. You're going to be there just right by them with confidence and with patience so they can say their little sentences. You will understand them more and you will be able to honor them. It's powerful parenting. Take the time to do it.
Number nine, how far? Trying to keep ourselves in balance and it feels like it's shaky and it's not really working very well. We're having a really bad day. You know what? We need contingency plans. Plan B, good idea, right? So in our marriage, if our marriage has had a bad day, a bad week. Take a few seconds, minutes, hours, reset. Go back to what was working in 2019 and pull some of that back into your relationship. Pull some of it back in. I remember that communication is 85% non verbal. So it's the looks, it's the touches, it's the helpfulness. It's the smiles, it's the kisses, it's the back rubs. It's the sitting on the couch watching an interesting show and not the news. It's putting your screens down and actually seeing each other while you eat, reset. Have your contingency plan for after a bad day.
I know one couple that did, we don't do this but, but I thought it was an interesting idea that if somebody who said that bad day was really on me. It's a little trickier here, but you can probably find it in a grocery store. They go and they buy a flower and they put it on the other person's pillow with a little chocolate or with a little something and it says in the flower, I'm sorry, let's restart. I thought it was a rather sweet little gesture that lets everybody just settle down a little bit. Well, kiddos don't necessarily know how to have a bad day, how to say they're having a bad day unless they've heard you say it. And so they sound their point and say, I'm just having a bad day. You know it. Okay, what I'm going to do with those kiddos, we're going to reset with them.
It's a good chance that they're having a bad day. You're having a bad day. The whole, you know, the whole day has just sort of slipped off the edge of the cliff, right? Remember to come back to what is good. Go back to your gratitude list. In your contingency plan, you're going to come back to what is good. Reset, use love, use touch, use humor, not sarcastic humor, but encouraging humor and calm things down. Have a contingency plan. I've given you some broad guidelines. You know what really works in your family. Now go and do it. A couple of other ones. Don't ask, what if. It's a bad rabbit hole. It's a snake hole, really. It winds you down backwards. You can go into all sorts of places with what if and then you start to go negative. Put a lid on that one really fast. Help your spouse to do the same thing and focus in on the present. While you're doing all of these things, you are going to remember that to clean out our brain to keep it so that the rabbit, the tortoise and the hare, that's the better way of saying that the tortoise and the hare can be friends with each other and can plot on down the road together is by giving them even good breathes. In and out clears out the carbon dioxide that creates anxiety and moves in good hormones while we breathe in good oxygen. In and out, slow and easy, big deep breaths.
If you can't do it there where you're at, sneak into a bathroom, go for a walk outside. Pretend that you have a big yawn. All of those things will help clear out some of that anxiety inside of you. Now hold somebody's hand, smile, sing a little happy song. Maybe even just three bars of it because there will always be uncertainty. There will be always be things we cannot manage, we do not have control over and these skills are good for a lifetime. No matter where you are and what you're doing.
This time of 2020 is not easy. But we don't know that 2021 will be any better frankly. We do know that our skills and how to manage it is what will make us the best memories and so when my desire is we come out of this as well married and as a solid family. If that's my desire, then I'm going to have to use good emotional management and share it with my kids. Now I'm going to have fun. My life is going to be fulfilling and satisfying. It's going to be unlimited in the things that I think that I can do in the things that we do together and it's going to be naturally good, we're not going to work real hard at it.
In a nutshell, that's the DNA for Fun communications course that you can find on the website. The website is usandkids.com and you can sign up for the waitlist. Then for the course for now, sign up for the course. It will be well worth it, but also use the skills because they're good for you. And naturally what I'm after is what's good for you to be married forever while you parent together. Thank you again for listening. I think this has been a long podcast. I hope that you got the whole thing in. You know there's going to be a printable ready for you. So don't be afraid to grab that will help you remember all of the things we talked about cause there are 11 of them, right? And this will help you be able to go back and remind yourselves when your hare just wants to run wild to pull it back in and make tortoise and hare your whole brain, your good friend. Stay in it together and we'll talk to you next week. Thanks again for joining. Jan Talen signing off. Bye bye.
