Ep #100: Celebrating 100!

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's 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, we'll get ready and let's dive into today's episode. Hi, and welcome to episode number 100, my friend. I can't believe that we're here 100 episodes. You know, each week I sit down and think about what topic I wanna create. And a lot of these are based on the questions that you guys ask, the DMs that you send me of the things that you're struggling with. And I really try to make each one an answer to those questions, an answer to the things that we all struggle with in co-parenting. Because universally we have the same experiences. Yes, each one is different and unique, but a lot of the themes that we're all experiencing I can understand. And from my clients to you listeners, and hearing from you, I just love that we get to be in conversation with one another. And I am so grateful that you've been here with me. Many of you listen to so many of these, and I'm so grateful and appreciative, and I'm so happy to hear from each of you when you do reach out with those lovely notes and all those questions, because it keeps me going. It really does. And you know, I sit down here alone and record these podcasts, but I really feel like I'm talking directly to you. And I'm so glad that you're here, that it's helping, that you are gaining some ideas and some thoughts to open your mind to possibilities that maybe you hadn't thought of before. And I just am so grateful for you, and I wanted to thank you. So for this 100th episode, I wanna highlight some of the most popular episodes and the core messages in each one of those because I think that there's little nuggets that we can pull out of those very downloaded episodes. And I wanted to just talk about them in relation to the process that I work with my clients on and that we talk about here on the podcast so much. But before we dive into the episode today, I just wanna say thank you. I really am truly so grateful that you're here. I'm grateful for your time and your energy, and I want to say thank you. So I am going to, for the month of September here in 2023, in celebration of this 100th episode, I am going to be giving a gift to each of you who rate and review the show. Listen, this is how the show gets more traction. This is how the show gets more listeners, is when you subscribe to it and you rate and review it, because that helps more people find it. And so I would love for this 100th episode if you would help me to spread the word. And please do that by going to rate and review the show. And if you do it now in this month of September, I am going to send you a little gift. So go ahead, rate and review, take a screenshot of that, and then I want you to DM that to me, and then I will send you a gift. 'Cause I just love sending gifts. It's one of my favorite things. I love sending flowers to my friends. I love sending gifts, little notes. It's just fun. It's just fun to give gifts. And so I thought, how could I have some fun with this 100th? Well, this is a great way for us to have some fun, and both of us get a little gift. So as we dive into the episode, I'm gonna break it down into three categories, and those are the categories that I work with in the Conscious Co-Parenting. For those of you who have listened to the Conscious Co-Parenting Masterclass, if you haven't, I'll put it in the show notes. Please download that because it really gives you a framework. And you'll notice that the framework is repeated throughout so many of the episodes. But I'm gonna break it down to these most downloaded episodes actually fall into the three categories quite nicely. The first step is really awareness. It's always awareness. That's always where we begin. The second is agency. What is agency? It's the choices that we have. And then the third step in the process that I teach my clients and that I talk about here on the podcast is aligned action. And so that's what I wanted to talk about as it relates to each of these episodes. So I'm gonna go through them, we'll give you a little clip, and I'm just gonna give you the highlights that I think are important from each. So the first episode when we're looking at awareness that was most downloaded is episode number 56. It's about triggers. And I think this is such an important topic because we all get triggered, even when we promise ourselves we won't, even when we try so hard to stay calm, cool, and collected, but we do, right? We say that we're not gonna get upset when the other co-parent does something and then they do it again and we get upset, right? How many of you have been on this cycle? I mean, we all have, but it's really important to understand triggers because they do happen to all of us. But learning what's happening and how to deal with it creates the awareness for change. We can't change anything that we're not aware of. And so it always starts there. So I wanna have a little clip from episode 56, and if I had an easy button that we could all just hit and make your co-parenting partner be an absolute delight, I would hand it over to you in a heartbeat, I promise. But the truth is, is that you can't change other people, not even your kids, right? Not your other co-parent. Nobody. Let me repeat that. You cannot change other people, no matter how hard you try, no matter how you pretzel yourself, no matter how you manipulate the situation, it just doesn't work. So you're probably like, thanks for the news flash Mikki, right? Like, I already knew this. Well, here's what I know to be true. We say that we know that we can't change other people yet. We keep trying to do it, and we just keep getting stuck there over and over and over. So you might be thinking, okay, fine. So I am trying to change them because what else do I do when I feel attacked, right? When my axis is sending me a barrage of nasty grams, or when they're blaming me for all the problems in our co-parenting relationship, or when I am just so exhausted from having to defend myself for the 1000000th time? Well, what you do is you break the cycle. And what does that look like? It looks like choosing to focus on what you can control, you. You learn the tools to stay out of toxic communication and stay on the road to cooperative, calm, co-parenting, no matter what your co-parenting partner chooses to do. So that's really what we're talking about today. And I'm guessing you're here listening to this because at some point you have found yourself getting triggered, right? So have you ever been there where you start a conversation, right? Innocent enough, and your ex says something that makes you feel the need to defend or explain yourself. So then you defend or explain your thoughts and feelings about it, and then your ex comes back, right? And attacks back, maybe manipulates lies, just throws it all at you, and then you defend and attack back, right? What happens is you end up in this defend, attack, defend, defend, attack, this endless cycle that goes on and on. And you're probably thinking that the problem is your ex, right? They're the problem. 'cause they said all those things. They're the problems 'cause they're not cooperating. Or you think the problem is, is that you don't wanna fight, but that you have to because you have to defend yourself against what they're doing. Or you might think that if you don't reply, they win, right? And you're thinking that the solution really is that your ex has to change or start cooperating or do something different in order for co-parenting to get better or to get out of this cycle. You think that you have to figure out a way to communicate with them, what words to say that will get them to see it differently, right? Or sometimes I see moms come to me and they think the only solution is just to give up, right? Just to go along. It's just not gonna get any better. And when these are the solutions that you have, what you end up getting is exhaustion because you're trying to change everybody around you. You're trying to pretzel yourself into the most awkward positions, right? Trying to get somebody else to see you in a different way. You're irritable because you never feel heard or listened to. You end up resorting to yelling, right? And then you feel regretful for the way that you acted, and you stay stuck in this endless mind drama of what to do. Is this familiar at all? Right? This is when we get triggered over and over and over. But here's actually the problem. You're thinking that the other person's actions or words are forcing a reaction from you, right? You're believing the trigger point. Or the problem is, is that you're not clear on your boundaries. So you don't know what to respond to or not. You don't know what is a trigger and what isn't. You're not clear about where you end and the other person begins. I'll go more into that later. And you don't wanna deal with the other person's feelings or you feel responsible for their reaction. So you try to control it, right? You put all of your focus, energy and attention on what they're thinking, feeling, and acting at the expense of your own wellbeing. So how do we solve this? Well, we first learn to identify your triggers, right? Be aware of them. And then you learn to set and enforce boundaries, high value boundaries. And then the third thing you learn to do is you let your ex, your kids, whomever, is triggering you, be disappointed or upset, and you move forward with grace and confidence. What does that look like? It looks like you deciding to take 100% responsibility in your life. You stop handing over your feelings and frankly, your sanity to other people who don't have the capacity or the right to be in charge of you. You decide that the only person in charge of you is you, and you decide your boundaries based on your values, and you set and honor those boundaries consistently for yourself, no matter what. You decide to let other people deal with their baggage, their emotions, and you move forward with strength and confidence and love. So the next episode that we're gonna cover as it relates to awareness is episode 77, de-stress your co-parenting. I mean, who does not want that? Here's the thing, we all experience stress. Stress is really normal. It's a normal feeling and experience that we all have. The problem is, is so many of us don't want to feel it. We try not to feel it or we get mired down in it. So we feel way too much of it. Stress is normal, but when we are pushing against it or when we're just adding onto it without knowing what's going on in releasing that stress, this is when real problems can happen. Because when we don't understand what's happening in our body, we can't resolve it. You know, stress is always like that tea kettle, you know, it's warming up, the water is getting warmer and warmer and warmer, and then it starts simmering, and then it starts boiling. And the tea kettles, you know, the steam comes out. That's kind of what happens with us. But if we aren't aware of what's going on, if we aren't managing our stress in a healthy way, it's like we just always are boiling, but we're never letting the pressure released from that valve. And so I wanted to use this little clip to talk about what is actually going on inside your body. Because instead of ignoring it, avoiding it, or trying to act like it's not there, we actually have to slow down so that we can choose how to release the pressure, how to move through the stress in the healthiest way, in a way that serves us. So let's take a listen, but I also wanna start with, that we have to understand that we are under stress. Your nervous system is having a reaction, right? It is involuntary and it happens before you even realize it. But when we are under stress or in conflict or in disagreement, your entire body is flooded with cortisol. That's the stress hormone. That's what is attributed to fight or flight. So whenever our body senses being attacked or stress or any kind of threat, it releases cortisol so that you are prepared to either fight, fight, or flee. And this is totally normal. This is how our body is wired. But understanding this is that when we are flooded with this cortisol, our actual emotions, right? Our reactivity is very, very high, which means our intellect, our rational mind, our thinking mind is actually very, very low. And so we have to bring those back. So we have to offset all the cortisol by bringing in more oxytocin, bringing in more calming, happy hormones, if you will, so that you can get yourself leveled out so that you can actually start to address things. And this is why mindset is so important, because when you are constantly believing and thinking that you have to do everything for everyone, that you have to fix everything, that when there is conflict, you have to resolve it, right? Or when there is conflict, you can't do anything until it's gone. When we have these beliefs, when we have this mindset, all too often we just end up reacting. We just end up letting the cortisol filter through our body and we stay in that heightened sense of response time all of the time. Listen, I think you can all, for those of you who are young moms or anybody who's in a very high conflict co-parenting relationship, it can feel really overwhelming, right? When everybody needs your time or everybody needs you to respond to something, or when someone is attacking you and you feel like you have to constantly be on the defense, the first step here to being able to de-stress is realizing that you are actually feeling the stress. Oftentimes, we ignore this, right? We just are in reaction mode, just boom, boom, boom, coming back at things or ignoring the feelings that we're having in our body, ignoring the stress, ignoring the anxiety, ignoring the exhaustion, ignoring the sadness, ignoring whatever it is that's going on. So first and foremost, we have to be able to be aware that we are either triggered or we are in a high stress situation. And that starts by allowing yourself to be heard, right? Allowing yourself to matter, allowing yourself to slow down, to not have to react, to allow yourself this space to decide how you wanna respond. And I wanna go through a few tangible ways that you can do this and understanding that the first step is always the awareness piece. And so when we are aware, right, that we're either really, really overwhelmed or we're feeling like we have to resolve things or we're feeling like we are so stressed that we are about to break, that is the moment that you need to stop and decide I matter. What I need actually matters here. And how I'm feeling is sending me a signal, right? Remember, feelings are just messages from our body. They are directive. While our mind and our thoughts might lie to us at any given time because thoughts are just sentences in our brain, they're neither true or false. Feelings will never lie to you because that is your something in your body responding to what is going on. So when we learn to listen to our body, whether it's exhaustion, whether it's stress, whether it's anxiety, we start to clue into what is actually going on. And we build our own awareness. Now we're gonna talk about agency, right? Again, I said those three steps that I work with my clients on to learn how to turn their chaos into calm. It's number one, awareness. Number two is agency. Agency is choice. The choices that we have available, we always have a choice. We may not feel like it, but we do. And so there's two episodes that were most downloaded that really talk about this. The first one is number 82, navigating different parenting styles. This one is so important. Really, one of the things that I talk about in this episode is creating rules of engagement. You inevitably are going to not agree with the other co-parent. You don't agree with anyone 100% of the time, and so often you're not going to agree with them, and it can feel really threatening. And so by creating rules of engagement, you get to decide what is important to you. Nobody else gets to dictate what matters to you or how you feel. You get to decide that. You get to decide what fights are worth fighting and what aren't. You get to dictate what values you hold and what are most important to you. And by actually stepping through this process, it helps you create, again, rules of engagement so that you can show up even when there's differences of opinion, even when there's different parenting style in a way that is filled with love and respect and kindness and grace without feeling like you're not being heard. It's allowing yourself to move through this process with strength and flexibility. So let's take a listen to episode number 82. We also have to create rules of engagement, and what do I mean by this? Especially when there's different parenting styles, it's really important for you to create a sense of safety and clarity for yourself, otherwise it becomes all about what the other person is or isn't doing again, it becomes focused solely on the other person, which by the way, you have no control over instead, what we wanna do is start to create rules of engagement for you, so that you always have a safety and a place to come from as you're navigating, as you're talking through, as you're speaking up as to things that do and don't work. So how do we do that? Well, A, you know your why, the why is really your vision for how you wanna show up as the co-parent and the values that you're using to guide your life, your parenting and your co-parenting. This is where I start with all of my clients, because we always have to have a foundation of what it is that you truly want and desire. Again, that knowing yourself, what do I really want? And then once we have that, once you know what you truly desire, it creates a general direction. It creates a lighthouse, a GPS, so to speak. You might not know the next turn that you have to take, but when you have these visions in these value, you always know the direction that you're headed. Right, I always use the lighthouse analogy, it can get very, very dark and stormy on the seas, but when you see the lighthouse, you know that you're always going in that direction, and so our visions and our values are important to understand, to give ourselves a framework to work with them. Another way to start to understand the rules of engagement for navigating different parenting styles is for you to have an okay and a not okay list. So what is this? You literally write down all the things that are okay for you and all the things that are not okay, so things that you will not tolerate or things you will tolerate again, because we can't change the other person, but you absolutely have control over what you will or will not tolerate. Now, listen, I always say right here, abuse and pain and someone disrespecting and hurting you not okay. Never okay. And that's a hard no. That gets dealt with immediately. So a parenting style is never about abuse, that... Or corporal punishment, that is abuse and that is not okay. What we're talking about is navigating parenting styles where someone might have different rules within the home, different ideas on what it means to support the kids, all of those kinds of things, we are not talking about verbal, emotional or physical abuse, which is always not okay. And please get help. But you can create an okay and a not okay list. Now again, this doesn't change how the other person acts, but it absolutely means that you're allowed to not tolerate it in your presence, you are allowed to say, this is or isn't okay, I will not tolerate this. That's where boundaries come in. Now, on your okay list, it is okay to allow the other person, the other co-parent, your children, or you to be uncomfortable, if you speak up to say, I don't agree with these rules, or the kids have come to me and told me that X, Y and Z are happening and I'm not okay with it. That's your right, you're allowed to do that, and you're allowed to let the other person not agree with you or be uncomfortable, but it doesn't mean that you are supposed to tolerate or condone or just go along with or stay silent about things that are not aligned for you; listen, they're your children and you get to say, you may not be able to change it. I'm not saying that you can change the other person, but speaking up or talking to the kids in a respectful way about what could be going on, that might be okay, and you get to decide if that's a line for what you want. So I really encourage you to go through and figure out what are the expectations that I have of the other co-parent or what is it that they're doing that's driving me so crazy, not upset. And really figure out what is it that I think about them, when they behave this way. Right, and how do I feel when I think those thoughts? And what do I do when I feel that way? Because that starts to give you a clearer picture of what's going on internally for you. The next episode that was really popular and downloaded a lot was episode number 75, what to do when you don't agree, and this is again about agency, what are the choices that you have available to you, and here's the thing, you are only responsible for your intention, not the reception, you are responsible for what you believe, how you move through something, the words that you use, but how someone takes it, that's not your responsibility, right? Because we don't have control over that. And so this episode is really speaking to why we do the work we do, why this work of learning how to co-parent in a different way, learning how to be conscious, learning how to be more aware, choosing the agency that you do have, taking action from that place because listen, stuff is gonna still come at you, the other co-parent is gonna disagree, they may be bringing conflict your way, we can't stop those external things from happening, but you absolutely can learn how to contend with it differently, and that is what this episode was really talking about. And I thought it was important to share here, so let's listen to a little clip from episode 75. And so that's why I'm doing this episode, and we're gonna begin with understanding what's going on, and often times we're struggling because we don't understand what we're responsible for, so what you are responsible for in co-parenting in any relationship of your life, you are responsible for your intention, not the reception. So what does that mean? It means that what you are carrying and how you show up is up to you, but your responsibility is not the other person's acceptance, agreement or behavior, you are solely responsible for your intention. Now listen, I know that that seems contrite and we've heard this all before, but it really is so important because too many times we get fixated on how the other person is reacting and making that mean that we're wrong or asking for too much or out of line. Whatever that looks like, and that's simply not true. Their reception is their responsibility, your responsibility is your intention, how you are showing up and how you are coming to the relationship. The last episode that we're highlighting is all around aligned action, and all around a topic that is so important and one that we have to talk about so often because it is A, often misunderstood and B, one of the hardest things to do. And so what is that? It's episode number 66 all around boundaries. Listen, just today, I was on calls with clients and we were talking about boundaries, what are boundaries, how do we set them, how do we hold them, how do we love ourselves through that process, these are big topics and crucial because this is what makes relationships work when we have strong, yet flexible boundaries that are based on what is important to you and what is in your well-being, because when we are acting from that place, we're acting from strength and love, and that can't be wrong. Now, someone might not enjoy the boundaries, right, but when you're co-parenting with strong healthy boundaries, it really does keep you more involved, more invested in your life, it doesn't put you on the outside, it actually digs you in deeper in the most beautiful of ways. And so I wanted to share a little bit from episode 66, which was a very popular episode, All About Boundaries, and how boundaries when done well, the aren't walls that you put up to keep people out, but instead they're the thing that actually bring you into your life and help you live in it in a beautiful, healthy way. Boundaries are simply a part of growing, they're an essential part of growing, I like Christine Hustlers definition of boundaries a lot, she calls them a self-honoring agreement with yourself or others that support your well-being and comes from love. A boundary is something that you agree to do for yourself so that you are supporting your well-being, your self-care, and that it always comes from love. I don't know anything else that would be more supportive, healing and loving, than having boundaries, but all too often we think boundaries are really these walls to keep people out, but actually boundaries keep you in your life because you're being truthful, honest and caring. I mean, the fact is, is that when we tolerate the hurtful, negative behavior of the other co-parent, when we don't say what's true for us, or when we pull away and we just ignore what's going on, it actually just builds resentment, not because of what they're doing, but because of what you are or are not saying to yourself, we self-abandon, and when we self-abandon, we become a doormat. So really, boundaries are about having the courage to communicate your needs, to set a boundary and stop pretending something is okay when it just simply isn't. I think the one place that I've learned more about boundaries in my own life has been through the co-parenting journey, because there are complexities, it is challenging to co-parent with someone that you once loved, and that now is a completely different person to you, so you're really holding these two views of this person, and you also have so much emotional baggage, history, memories, that it all sort of gets smashed in there. I find that when I'm not really clear and boundaried with myself, I just end up numbing, avoiding and self-abandoning, essentially, I end up as a doormat and I get really resentful about it, or I pretend like things aren't happening, and I feel really, really uncomfortable in that. That's what I have for you today. I am so grateful that you were here with me, I'm grateful for all the downloads that you've had, I loved going back through them and listening and seeing what were the favorites, what's resonated, and I really love that these are so many topics that you guys are asking for, so please keep them coming. Always feel free to email me or DM me and send me a note on a question you have a topic you wanna hear about, anything, I would love to talk to you, thank you for being here. Thank you for celebrating the 100th episode with me, and I'll see you next week and until then, take a really, really good care of you, friend. 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 Co-parenting with Confidence. If you want more information or resources from this podcast, visit coparentingwithconfidence.com, I'll see you next week.