Ep #132: Anger Management for Moms with Elizabeth

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Mikki: Welcome to Co-parenting with Confidence, a podcast for those courageous moms out there who wanna move past the conflict and frustration of divorce and show up as the mom they truly wanna be. My name is Mikki Gardner. I'm a certified life and conscious parenting coach with my own personal dose of co-parenting experience. Throughout my co-parenting journey, I have learned to become confident in who I am as a woman and a mother, and I'm here to help you do the same. If you're ready to learn what it takes to become a great co-parent and an amazing example to your children, well, get ready and let's dive into today's episode.

Mikki: Welcome back to the podcast. I'm excited to share another interview with you. Today's interview is with Elizabeth. She is an anger management coach for Christian Moms. She's also the host of the Emotionally Healthy Legacy podcast and a mom of four. Elizabeth is awesome. She's super passionate about mental health and emotional wellness and motherhood. She supports stressed Christian moms in overcoming anger and embracing emotional stability, empowering them to leave an emotionally healthy legacy for their children's lives. I can't think of anything more important. I'm really excited about this conversation today. Elizabeth is open, vulnerable, and transparent about the struggles that she has gone through and gives us practical ways to move forward and to make things better for ourselves and our children. I mean, that's really what we're doing in every one of these episodes is trying to find ways to be proactive and to show up in support of who we wanna be and who we wanna be for our children.

Mikki: I mean, this is how we turn this world around is by showing up each one of us and leaving a healthy legacy behind us. And so without further ado, I hope you enjoy this conversation with Elizabeth. Oh, everybody, I'm excited today because we have Elizabeth on the show. I'm gonna let her tell you about her. Elizabeth, I read your professional bio and all the great things before we started the interview, but I would love for you to tell us just a little bit about yourself and welcome here to the community.

Elizabeth: Yes, thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm Elizabeth and I am an anger management coach for Christian Moms and I help moms that are struggling with out of control anger, cultivate peace and calm in their home and teach them how to respond with patience and calm.

Mikki: Oh my goodness. I feel like calmer already just as you said that, but I love that you bring this topic up. And I love that you bring it up for specifically Christian Moms because I'm curious why is that your sort of people that you're talking to, tell me about that.

Elizabeth: Yeah. So when I first got on this journey and I started supporting moms and emotional wellness, I had the title stress management coach and I did that for a while and there's a lot of things that I teach that anybody can implement, but sometimes I wanted to bring my faith in because that's who I am as a person. It's a huge part of who I am and I felt like I was constantly kind of suppressing that and holding that back and feeling like it might not align with some people. And so of January in 2023, I decided to make the switch to Christian Moms and I did stress management for Christian Moms and then switched to anger management and they are related obviously when we're stressed out.

Mikki: Sure.

Elizabeth: We're a lot easily more angered, but I just felt like it would be a little bit more aligned with who I am as a person and I could freely speak out of that without suppressing any part of me. And even though I would say 95% of what I teach can be implemented just about anyone, you don't have to be a believer to implement it and you can already see massive changes in your life.

Mikki: Yeah. Well, I love what a bold stance you took. It's like you were doing the work, but noticing where you were suppressing, where you were pulling back. And I wanna dive into that a little bit more 'cause I think it is a real bold, courageous act to put the stake in the ground. And I love that you did that and that you're sharing that with us today 'cause I think we all have to learn how to do that, right? To put our own stake in the ground, whatever it is. So tell me, how did you get to be the anger management coach for Christian Moms? Give us a little backstory.

Elizabeth: Yes. So I thought I was a pretty patient person and then I had kids. [laughter] And then I realized I did not have as much patience as I thought I would. It's funny how kids make these sides of you come out that you never thought existed. I mean, I remember as a teenager, I would have my moments of like frustration, probably like hormonal and stuff, but I wouldn't call myself angry or just reactive. And I think I started to notice a lot of that when I had my third son. My husband was a flight attendant at that time and he was gone a lot. And I was a single mom in a sense a lot and just parenting on my own a lot for days at a time. And I felt really overwhelmed and I think I was just burned out and stressed out. And what I started to notice is that I was really reactive with my kids. And then my third son was also a little curious George on steroids. He would get into everything. I mean, you can imagine a two-year-old. They just love to explore and he was just so busy. And I felt like all day long I was just putting out fires and just reactive, reactive, reactive and just threatening and spanking and yelling and just raising my voice and just at the end of the day, just feeling like a terrible mom.

Elizabeth: I knew I wanted to be calm and patient and loving 'cause that's the way my mom was. And that's how I remembered her. And then instead, I felt like I was this reactive mom that was constantly just frustrated and agitated. And I remember either thinking about it or reflecting, what would my kids say about me as a mom? What kind of person I am? And I felt like my kids would probably say like frustrated, annoyed all the time. And that's how I really felt most of the day. And I know I didn't like that. I ended up coming across an influencer who was selling a course at that time called Unburdened.

Elizabeth: And it was about how to shift your life and make practical changes in your life to respond a lot more and be a responsive mom. And it just felt really aligned with who I wanted to become. There's a lot of mindset shifts and creating a day that really is like your ideal day and what time you wake up and what time you get up. And I started to make a lot of changes in my life after I bought that course. It was a financial stretch for me at that time. That course, I ended up selling some of the things in the house and using that money to buy a course. And so it meant a lot to me and I was really in a place where I wanted to take action. And I did. And one of the biggest shifts I made at that time was shifting my mindset. That was one. And the other one is getting up before my kids in the morning 'cause my kids slept through the night. I didn't have an excuse not to get up earlier in the morning.

Elizabeth: I just wouldn't 'cause I stayed up too late scrolling on my phone. And so it created the cycle. And I started to get up earlier in the morning before my kids. And I noticed a massive shift in how I was feeling as a mom. And also working through that course in those earlier hours in the morning and actually taking action on those things really made a big difference in my life. And I wanted to share with other moms what I started to learn. I felt like I had moments of mom rage and out of control anger. It wasn't a daily thing in my life, but I definitely had that moments where I felt so angry. I hurt my kids in my anger with my words and my actions and like spanked them out of anger. And I really hated the way I felt afterwards. And when I started to learn about connective parenting, that was really hard to implement. Breaking those cycles is really hard. They don't say how hard that is. They're like, oh, okay, do this, do this, do this. And then you're triggered and everything you know and everything you learn just goes out the window and you just go back to your old automatic ways. And I learned that when I support myself proactively and take care of myself and increase my capacity proactively, I was able to implement the things that I was learning.

Mikki: Oh, my gosh. Well, I just love your honesty and how forthright you are to be willing to share with us, because I know my audience, especially, right, we are single parents. Yes, maybe there's some help, maybe there isn't. And it's a really lonely place. It's a very stressful place, especially post divorce or separation, when it's a very emotional time and you're on your own sort of parenting these children and maybe half the time, maybe part of the time. But I really appreciate you telling your story, because I think so many people can see themselves inside of it. And I had a very similar situation where it's like I look back at how I was parenting and I just wasn't happy. I didn't feel good. I didn't like the way I was showing up and I didn't like how I was treating my son. And so that can be a huge wake up call for us. So I love that you sort of started proactively taking care of yourself. So can you talk to us a little bit about how we can start to shift, that anger or that rage like you're talking about? How can we start to move the needle?

Elizabeth: Yeah, one of the things that I started to learn as I was doing this work, if I proactively support myself as a mom, not in the heat of the moment, all the skills, that's all great and stuff. But if I proactively support myself with even basic things that increases my emotional capacity and reduces my stress levels, and I'm able to have more tolerance and patience as a mom. For example, a very simple thing that many moms just don't think about it twice, that is hunger and feeling just hungry, right? And dehydrated when we're hungry or hangry, we're a lot more reactive. How often do we take care of the kids, feed everybody, get everyone out the door, and it's 2:00 PM and we're still just drinking our coffee and never had any food, and then we're reacting at 4:00 PM. And then wondering why am I so reactive? Well, you literally need to eat some food. Your blood sugar is just completely off, right? So that is like a really simple, easy fix. Sleeping, that's another one, right? Like if we stay up too late 'cause we're scrolling on our phone and social media trying to escape our day or just to decompress and we didn't teach ourselves another way, right? We create this cycle of like sleeping in until the last minute or having poor night's sleep.

Elizabeth: And so that is another big one that increases your capacity level is being able to get enough sleep and good, decent quality sleep as much as you can help it. That will increase your capacity levels. Proactive things like some time to yourself. And I wanted to touch on a couple here that I think will be very helpful is saying no to a lot of commitments in this season in life. I didn't go through divorce, but I went through a really hard stage in my marriage for a couple of years. Things were really, really hard and I fell into depression and I was like barely in survival mode. And I could literally maybe do two things during the day outside of taking care of my kids, like cook dinner and a load of laundry. And even that felt so overwhelming and so hard. And I had to cut out anything extra in that season of life, taking my kids to any other activities or any even extra commitment. I had to cut that out because that was another thing to manage that would create more overwhelm, that would create more stress and that would contribute to me feeling even more triggered. Does that make sense?

Mikki: Absolutely.

Elizabeth: And so, I mean, I have multiple friends that are single moms and I know that oftentimes busyness is a way to cope with the uncomfortable feelings and grieving. And what we need to do is create space for those feelings. And how are you gonna have space for those feelings to process and release your emotions in a healthy way if you're over committed, how are you gonna make space for the feelings of your children? And come alongside them because feelings just take time, right? You need to have time for that. And so reducing commitments and saying no to things for a season, it doesn't mean forever. You just say not for this season. Mom, can I please play football? I know you really wanna play football. It sounds so fun. It's just not the right time for us this year. How about this year we take a break and then look over next year's schedule and maybe we can do it next year. It's just some seasons are seasons to say no. Just so you can create space to grieve, to process and reduce that stress.

Mikki: Yeah, I really appreciate you saying that because, it's like I do talk to a lot, which I think is very similar. It's like really setting the priorities for whatever season you're in. And the season won't last forever. But when we are ignoring our emotions, when we're not processing them, we add to the stress. Like you said, we prolong the season, right? That season of whether it's depression, whether it's stress, whether it's grieving, not being present to those emotions and allowing them in healthy ways. Sort of just packs them away for later. And so I really appreciate you saying that.

Elizabeth: Yeah. And then the other thing is it can easily come out in rage and anger towards your kids. And what that is, is just unprocessed emotions that you've been stuffing, stuffing, stuffing, stuffing, because you didn't create the space and the time for you to be able to process them and release them in a healthy way through either journaling or praying or talking to a safe friend or a counselor or therapist or whatever it is, or just moving your body, whatever it might be to cry. If you don't create the space for that, you're just gonna suppress it. And then it's gonna have this volcanic explosion. And you are just wondering, why am I freaking out my kids over the tiniest things? And it's because you're just suppressing everything, all the grieving that's been going on for months or years even.

Mikki: Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know about you, but oftentimes, we don't have healthy examples of what it looks like to do that, if anything, we've grown up in a culture and a society that is, don't feel your feelings, right? There's a pill for everything. There's a tool or a diet or a product or something, right? We are constantly being fed the message that we don't have to feel our feelings, that we just have to do this. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about, I mean, you touched on it, but what does mom rage look like? Because we don't hear a lot about dad rage or other things, but like specifically to moms, can you talk a little bit more about what that is?

Elizabeth: Dad rage exists. They just don't talk about it because it just people perceive...

Mikki: Oh, for sure it does.

Elizabeth: Yeah, perceive differently, Like when a female feels angry versus when a man feels angry, they're like, oh, no big deal. He's a man. It's like a macho thing. And then when a female feels angry, they make this big deal out of it and like shame her and put her down. And so the anger has different levels, I would say. And one of the way that I teach with my listeners and my clients is we have just like the level of like just frustration and agitation. When you have enough stress that will build up, it would be like unmet needs, running at empty, not enough support, lack of sleep. What else is like overcommitment, all these things, they will just add up, add up, add up. And then you will get to the level of anger. That's the next level. And when you're feeling angry, the part of the brain that helps you think clearly is offline. And so you are more disrespectful. You're rude. Your tone is unkind when you're feeling angry, typically. For the most part. That's when we say things that we regret oftentimes. And so it's still coming out verbally for you. And then when we get to the rage aspect, when enough stress is built up and you stay in that anger and you don't do what you need to do to release some of that anger and process it and you continue to stay, let's say maybe even in a fight with your ex or whatever, you get to the rage aspect of it. And rage is fight, flight or freeze. You either flee and you're like, you know what? Screw this.

Elizabeth: Forget you, like swear everything and just walk away. And you're like, I'm done with this. You either shut down. You're feeling so overwhelmed. You just completely shut down. You can't like think or for many of us, it is we are in the fight mode. And this is when we want to physically do something and hurt somebody and do revenge, because that's the rage aspect. When you just want to just I just wanna choke somebody. I feel so mad. This is where we spank out of anger. This is where we like twist our kids ears so much or just so rough with their hand or just like shove them even or whatever it might be. We know what we're doing is wrong. It's like we have an aerial view of ourselves. We almost like we see what we're doing is wrong and hurtful, destructive, but you can't stop yourself. And that feels so scary because rage is a flip side of helplessness. You feel so out of control in that circumstance that you think that rage is gonna get you feel more in control, but it actually makes you feel more out of control.

Elizabeth: And it is scary. It is scary for you. It is scary for your kids. And that is a really hard place to be. And I've experienced rage several times in my life with my kids, and I actually hurt my kids in rage and the shame and the guilt and remorse that fills you right after that is like no other. It just feels like you are the worst human in the world, that you're not even meant to be a mom and all that inner critical self talk. And I believe as a Christian, the enemy also uses a lot of negative talk to make you feel even worse then as a person. And so that would be rage when you're completely out of control. And so what I teach with my clients is how to recognize those signs that you're getting dysregulated and how to help yourself before you get to the rage. Because once you're in the rage, it's so difficult to stop yourself. You can, but it feels like a 1000 times harder. It just does.

Mikki: Yeah, for sure. So let's talk about sort of some of those maybe signs or how you can sort of start to process things. 'Cause I assume that it means processing it, so it's like almost letting off some steam, right? So that it doesn't build up so much. So what would that look like?

Elizabeth: So it depends where you are on the level. So if you're just getting frustrated and agitated, you would notice some like tension and just kind of like feeling irritated. Everything is bothering you. So when I catch myself there, all I need to do is just go and have some alone time and decompress. If my husband is home, I say, Hey, can you please take over with the kids? I need some time to myself. I'll step outside. If all my kids are home and I'm solo parenting, depending how nice outside it is, I'll send them outside if I need to. I'll just literally put them all on screens and have 10 minutes to myself in my room. The biggest thing is not to take my phone with me, 'cause then I'll just scroll on my phone. But if I'm usually just frustrated and agitated, I just need something to calm my nervous system.

Elizabeth: And that typically I don't need to have any physical release. It is just mental decompression. Sometimes I just lay down on my bed and just close my eyes and just lay there in silence and just take some deep breaths with my hand on my chest and on my belly. Sometimes I will step outside and just be present and just look at the nice weather and just take some deep breaths out there. Sometimes I will listen to music depending if I have some unprocessed emotions. I will journal if I need to release some like negative yucky feelings and I'll just brain dump. So sometimes I'll just move my body if I can go for a walk depending on the ages of your kids, if your kids are with a spouse or if you can just, sometimes I'll put my daughter in the van and she'll just play with stuff in the van and likes to be in the front.

Elizabeth: And I will literally just pace back and forth behind the car on the road. And so just processing my emotions in that way and just like praying. And so that would be like to decompress and calm my nervous system. But if you are getting to the stage of anger, you feel angry and you know the next stage is rage, but you're starting to feel angry and you're starting to feel like tense and your heart rate is going up. You're getting sweaty. Your palms are getting sweaty. You really feel tense. You're raising your voice. If you stay there, you're gonna get to rage. So you gotta like make a plan ahead of time. What am I gonna do in a moment like that? So I choose to walk away, communicate to my kids. I feel really angry right now. I need a break.

Elizabeth: And so oftentimes, depending on your personality, if you're a fight, flight or freeze, sometimes you need to physically release some of that frustration and anger. I have wool balls that you put in the dryer. They're really nice for like throwing at the wall. They bounce off.

Mikki: That's a good idea.

Elizabeth: Yeah. You can do like stuffed toys. I do some wall pushups. I do sometimes counter pushups. Sometimes I will just pace back and forth in my room with my hands behind my head and just say a mantra that helps me calm down. I'm a good mom who's having a hard time. I'm a good mom who's having a hard time. I'm a good mom who's having a hard time. This makes sense. I feel really mad about this and it makes sense why like validating that I'm not crazy. This makes sense why I feel this way.

Elizabeth: And so sometimes it's just physical release and just removing yourself from the triggering circumstance if possible. Obviously that's not always possible, but if you can catch yourself getting to that, that is gonna be helpful. But I would say like the biggest thing overall, if you learn to process and release emotions on a regular basis, you won't have these moments as often. And what I mean by that, journaling on a regular basis to release your emotions. Going to counseling or getting together with a coach on a regular basis to release your emotions and process what's going on in your life. Having friendships, praying to God, moving your body. If you do those things on a regular basis, you'll constantly process emotions that you won't have as much that will just coop up and lead to anger and frustration. Yeah. I still feel frustrated with my kids, but I rarely ever, ever get to the rage aspect 'cause I constantly release emotions on a regular basis. Do you have any more questions?

Mikki: No, that was so helpful and I like that you just tied it right back to, it's really that proactive choice, right? To set yourself up in advance. Because we all know we're gonna get annoyed. We all know that things are going to be frustrated, but it's how are you preparing yourself to be able to handle it. So that was super helpful. I feel like we could talk forever, but I wanna be respectful of time here. Is there something else that you wanna share with the audience? Knowing my co-parenting audience out here, like how do they process some of this emotion 'cause these are big emotions and I know you just gave a couple of ideas, but if there's anything else you would love to tell them.

Elizabeth: Yeah. I think the biggest thing is to remember that emotions take time and you need to create space for them. Otherwise they will come out in a very inconvenient time and in a very unhelpful way towards your kids and your loved ones. One of the things that I did wanna mention is that asking for help is huge during like just always in life. I mentioned when I was going through a depressive time in my life, I asked for help. Thankfully I had family nearby. Well I was going to counseling, I had mentors at church. God provided close friends at that time that were able to surround me and help me. I had my sister come once a week who was a late teenager to my house and watch the kids. I had my mom and my mother-in-Law and I allowed them to have the kids sometimes for a weekend.

Elizabeth: So I would get a break. I had at that time a membership at Lifetime Fitness in Minnesota, which gave me two and a half hours of daycare in the middle of the day, which allowed me some time to myself. That was another way for me to ask for help. I had a friend that offered to come to my house and clean my house deep, clean my house. And I said yes. I had friends that came and offered to bring me meals and I said yes. Because I was at a point where I was struggling so bad that doing those basic things felt like too much. And I had to acknowledge that I am struggling in this season of life and I need extra help. And that does not mean that I'm failing. That means I am intentionally allowing support and asking for support in my life to make things lighter and easier for myself.

Elizabeth: So then I'm not stretched too thin. So then I'm not reactive. So then I'm not damaging my relationships with my kids or having a bunch of health issues because I'm trying to do too much and I feel too embarrassed asking for help. I choose to ask for help. That's a mantra I choose to ask for help to make things lighter for myself. It's a choice. It's an intentional choice for this season. You choose to ask a little bit extra help. There's people at church oftentimes who in women's ministry that are more than happy to help. I don't know if you have your parents or siblings or friends. Or mentors or just like even hiring a coach. That emotional help. Is also so massive. It's crazy. Like I have a client right now. She's like I stopped going to therapy 'cause I wasn't getting anything out of it.

Elizabeth: I'm getting so much more out of coaching than therapy. And who knows? Maybe it's like your program or my program coaching is so transformational in people's life. When I invested in coaching, I'm like oh my gosh, I feel like I got so much more out of coaching than therapy. It's insane. It's so crazy. And so I would say asking for help, however that might look either simplifying things that you're doing in your life and just delegating, deleting things and physically and like asking people that love you and are capable of supporting you. You're not a burden. You're allowing other people to bless you in this season of life. They have an opportunity to bless you and you're giving them that opportunity. It feels so amazing when we can serve and support others. There will be a time in your life where you have more than enough capacity to help others around you. And you will feel such honor and blessing to help someone else. And all they needed to do was just say it. Say that I'm struggling and I need help. And so that is something that I just wanted your listeners to walk away with.

Mikki: Oh, Elizabeth, thank you so much. I'm glad you put an exclamation point on that because oftentimes we don't wanna feel like a burden. We don't want to let people know that we're really struggling or any of those things. And really just allowing yourself to be poured into. And then you will have a time where you can do that for others. So well, how can people find you that are feeling very aligned with your message? Where can they find you and where would you direct them?

Elizabeth: Yeah. So the best place is to go listen to my podcast. My podcast is called Emotionally Healthy Legacy. And you can find it on any podcast platforms or the next step is to watch my free training. If you go to the website called endmomshame.com, it will lead you to sign up for a free training. And it's five steps to break free from mom rate shame. So when you exploded in anger at your family and your kids and you feel so much shame and guilt like you're the worst mom in the world, how do you process and release those feelings in a healthy way? How can you reflect on that and understand why you even reacted in the first place? And what can you do to support yourself? So that training is awesome and great and those are the two ways to connect with me.

Mikki: Oh, I love that. Well, thank you so much for coming on and before I let you go, I ask everyone this, but I'm curious, it is the Coparenting with Confidence. So how do you define confidence and how does it show up in your life?

Elizabeth: Yeah, that's a great question. So for me, confidence is knowing who you are as a person. Not the roles that you play, but who you are as a person. Like your identity and who you're striving to be. Maybe you're not that person yet, but you're working towards becoming that person and acting out of that alignment. And so that for me would be, I am lighthearted and playful with my kids. I am intentional with my words and actions. That's who I am. I am slow to anger and slow to speak. I create a warm and connective environment in my home. This is who I am. And acting out of that alignment creates confidence in who I am as a mom and makes me feel really good as the way I show up as a mom everyday for my family. So that would be what confidence is for me.

Mikki: Ah, love that answer. Thank you so much. Thank you for all you're doing, all the goodness you're putting in the world. And thank you for coming and sharing so vulnerably and honestly with us today. It was really amazing.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Thank you for having me.

Mikki: Oh, and one more thing, the legal stuff. This podcast is solely intended for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for any medical advice. Please consult your physician or a qualified medical professional for personalized medical advice. Thanks for listening to Coparenting with Confidence. If you want more information or resources from this podcast, visit coparentingwithconfidence.com. I'll see you next week.

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