Ep #156: Choosing a Healthier Dynamic for Your (Co-) Parenting in 2025

Welcome to Co-Parenting with Confidence, a podcast for those courageous moms out there who want to move past the conflict and frustration of divorce and show up as the mom they truly want to 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.

Welcome back to the podcast, and if you're listening to this when it comes out, happy New Year, it's January 1st, 2025. I cannot believe it. 2025. I remember in high school when that sounded sort of way off in the distance, almost like Jetsons time. I'm aging myself right now. For those of you who are younger and don't know who the Jetsons are, look it up. It was a great cartoon, but here we are. It's 2025, and this is that time of year when I think so often we slow down, we get some time to reflect. Maybe we're not slowing down, maybe we're really rolling through it. Maybe if you're co-parenting for the first, maybe even the second or more year, this time of year brings up a lot of emotion for you. I know for me, the holidays and New Year has really shifted since my divorce.

It's a time I used to just love and now it's a time that I have to sort of work through because there's a lot of sadness, there's a lot of grief even 10 years later, and I don't say that to be depressing, but I say that so that we understand that it's a process, and it doesn't matter whether this is your first year co-parenting, whether you're still married, but you are maybe in really the thick of conflict right now, not knowing what's going to happen in your marriage. Maybe you're just newly divorced and moving forward wherever your situation is. I just want you to say that this next year can be a better year for you. It can be a healthier year for you. It can be a more productive, more aligned, more really empowered year for you. And how does that happen? You decide, you get to choose what this next year looks like, and that's what I want to talk about today is choosing a healthier dynamic for yourself, for your parenting, for your co-parenting in 2025.

And that's what we're going to talk about sort of New Years and some new strategies. But this is not a let's change everything. Let's have a New Year's resolution. Let's set some massive goals because those things often are fueled by willpower, which is not lasting. And if you want to do a real reset and spend some time thinking about, well, what do I even want this next year to look like? I'm going to link in the show notes a couple of episodes that I've done in New Year's past that really help you set your intention for the new year. And there's a process that I'll walk you through. But today I wanted to talk about some small doable steps that can actually help you create a better, healthier dynamic moving forward. Whenever I get on a breakthrough call or I'm working with my clients, I can really empathize and relate to what they're saying because so many of us have, while very different lives and experiences and situations, we have a lot of shared common themes in our lives.

And there's some that I see so often that really come down to getting in the way of being healthier, choosing different dynamics. So often, I was just talking to a woman yesterday, she so wants to not get triggered, and her ex was out of the picture for a while now back, which happens more often than we'd like. And it's like you get used to one way of doing things and you feel like, okay, I've got this. I've forgiven. I've sort of moved past. But then when that person comes back, or maybe they've been there the whole times, but maybe they're going back into destructive patterns, whatever it might be, it's like they go back into the past and then boom, you are pulled back in. This is one of those feelings we can feel like we're going moving forward, forward, forward. It's one step forward and then three steps back and we feel chained to what that other person is doing or our children.

And so it's cognitively we know what we need to do, what we should do, but we can't seem to get ourselves to do it. Does that make sense? So it might be that you don't want to get triggered when the other person is argumentative or is poking holes at you or is ignoring your text or requests. But you do. You can say to yourself, don't get triggered. Don't get triggered. Don't get triggered. Then we do. The problem isn't that we get triggered. It's what do we want to do around it? How do we want to change that dynamic so that we're not in that pattern anymore? Maybe what you're struggling with is really getting stuck in that black and white thinking, that inflexible thinking where you just are grasping for control, trying to figure out what's the right thing to do, what's the right thing to say?

What's the perfect way to deliver your message? What's the thing that you could do or not do that's going to make the other person do what you want? Any of these things are kind of that black and white. They're absolutes. They're putting us either on one end or the other, and there's no middle ground and there's no flexibility. Maybe you want to stop blaming the other co-parent or your partner for the issues for where you're at. I know I personally struggled with this one a very long time where I blamed him and his actions and his choices for what I was experiencing and what my son was going through. That blaming just keeps you locked in the past, right? Unable to move forward, unable to really let go and choose a different way. I've experienced all of these things and I went through a period after my divorce where I just ignored pretty much everything.

I just put a smile on my face, told everyone I was okay, and I just repressed and raced forward trying to do everything for everyone to prove that I was okay. But the problem was is that I couldn't slow down because I was terrified if I slowed down that I'd fall apart, that everyone would see the cracks, that I wouldn't get back up again. Have you been there? Right? These are the dynamics that keep us really imprisoned in our life and unable to show up the way we want. And the other thing I want to say is, you know what? This took me more time than I really care to admit to move forward to get out of that, all or nothing thinking, which you know what? Let me be honest. We all go into at some time or another, it took me a long time to stop blaming.

It took me a long time to quit racing and jumping to the next thing that was going to make me feel better, whether that was a relationship, a therapist, a friendship, an Amazon purchase, a trip, a drink, whatever it is. I was really always striving to figure out what I could do, and I was jumping from thing to thing, and that's what my client reminded me of the other day is that we jumped from thing to thing to thing racing. I've tried that. I've tried that, I've tried that, and we can keep trying those new strategies. We can keep making those New Year's resolutions or we can step back. We can pause and figure out what's really at the root here and how can I choose a different way so that I guarantee a different result? And that's what we're talking about today. So this is all around nervous system regulation.

Emotional regulation. Regulation is a word that gets thrown out there a lot, and we all think we know what it means, but when we really sort of boil it down, being emotionally regulated nervous system regulation simply means that we're able to manage, right? It's a managing of what's happening. I don't want to use the word control because so many of us think that we just get a full control over something. Managing is aligning, working with, figuring out, and so that's what regulation is. It doesn't mean that we don't ever get triggered or we're always perfect and level and calm. No. It means that we're able to manage the ups and downs that happen because frankly, the world is happening crazy. What is happening? Disappointments happen. Frustrations happen. Grief is part of our experience. Anger is part of our experience. All of these emotions are meant to happen.

So we're not meant to not have any, no. We just want to be able to manage them and choosing a healthier dynamic with other people in our lives, even the difficult ones, requires us to be able to manage. I'm always thinking and working in my own life and with my clients to help us stay grounded to be sturdy. That doesn't mean that we don't go through ups and downs. It just means that we have our footing regardless of what's happening around us. And that's what I wanted to talk about to is really what are some small, doable steps that you can start to implement right now today and do every day that over time create massive shifts. So we're really talking about five things that I want to offer to you. You can pick one or all five. I recommend all five, right? I mean, it's January 1st.

Let's go big. But when I say go big, still really pulling back and focusing on what are small doable steps that I can actually do today in this moment to move myself in the direction I want to go. Okay, number one movement, and these are in no particular order and stay with me because you're going to be like, what the heck does this have to do with co-parenting, Mikki? Well, what it has to do with co-parenting is that our ability to learn to be responsive, remember to respond, not just react. We need a pause. We need a little bit of space between what is coming at us and what's happening in the other person and our next step. If we don't have that space, we are just reacting and we're just going from thing to thing, right? It's like pinball mode. I know I've used that analogy here before.

You're at the mercy of whatever is happening in front of you or to you or inside of you. Instead, what we want to do is create a little bit of space, and that space offers you the time to choose what you're going to do next. This is the magic that is required to be able to be in relationship differently with other people is to get out of the reaction. Get out of the black and white, get out of the fear, get out of the anxiety and step into something different. Notice I didn't say get rid of all of those things because they're all going to happen, but it's how can you choose to do it differently? So number one, movement. This is simply moving your body in any way that feels good for you. If you are able to walk, if to move in any way, a gentle stretch, lifting your arms above your head, I'm doing that now.

Rolling out your shoulders, really just allowing your body some movement. Our bodies need and love to move. So this could be a five minute walk around the block. This could be a 10 minute walk. It could be a 30 or a 60 minute walk. I don't care what it is, but it's really deciding I'm going to do something to move my body. It could be yoga; it could be stretching in the morning before you do anything else. It could be yin yoga at night. It could just be stopping and doing again, sort of a gentle stretch or going for a workout, whatever feels good to move your body. That is important. How can you move your body in an intentional way every day? Number two, rest. Rest. That's it. Our body, we are animals, right? We are not meant to go, go, go, go, go, go without relaxation.

For us to be able to go and to give, we have to refuel. We have to replenish, and that starts with sleep. So this might look like taking breaks, adding some breaks into your day. This might look like adding a little bit more sleep. If you are running on five or six hours sleep, how can you stretch it to seven or six and a half or seven? How can you go to bed a little bit earlier? Maybe you stay up Netflixing or binge watching something. How can you maybe shift and give yourself a little bit more of intentional sleep? So rest is so important and must be a priority. Number three, I'm just going to call good stuff in, right? This is putting good stuff into your body. If we want our bodies to move and to work and to feel grounded and to feel sturdy and to be there for us, we have to be putting good stuff into it.

So water, right? Drinking more water, eating more vegetables, right? This is not rocket science. We hear it all the time, but it actually really matters. It's been interesting as I've navigated my health journey. The more I become intentional about what I put in, the more I notice how my body feels when it's in my body. It's why I don't really drink alcohol anymore, because the repercussions of that are, I feel awful. My mental health is affected the next day. I get headaches almost instantaneously. It just simply isn't worth it for me. Listen, I'm not making a judgment. We all are adults and you get to do what you want to do, but just simply noticing what are the effects of when I eat X food or when I drink X thing, what is the effect on me? And is it filling me up? Is it helping me be healthier and more energized and more available?

Or is it taking away? If it's taking away, we have some choices to make. So really looking at good stuff in. Number four is stillness and meditation. Listen, I'm not going to tell you that you have to go on a meditation journey and meditate all day every day, but what I would like to offer is for us to be able to hit that pause button, we need to be able to be still at least for a couple moments. So this could look like starting your morning with silence right before you pick up your phone and look at it. It could be just two or three minutes to be with yourself to notice your breathing, to do a meditation, a guided meditation to stretch, to really just be with yourself in those still moments. The fifth one is really important and something we can do during stillness, but also when we're getting triggered is breath work. Listen, the one thing that we have that is so valuable for us is our breath. Being able to regulate yourself, your emotions, your nervous system requires you to use your breath. And so practicing this more and more and more often is so important. It's as simple as taking three deep breaths in and out, in through your nose, out through your mouth.

Do that three times and you are likely going to feel a lot different. And if you don't do three more. So the next time you get that text that comes in that you just want to react to, take three deep breaths the next time your kid does that thing that is driving you nuts. Take three deep breaths and then choose how you're going to respond, right? And if you need three more, you give yourself three more breath. Work doesn't have to be this long sort of 60 minute process, this intense journey, although those are amazing, it can be as simple as just noticing your breath in your body, letting it fill you up with energy and letting it ground you as who exhale. Getting control of your breath allows you to get control of what you do next. Again, being able to regulate and manage your experience.

These are five simple things that if you focus on each and every day, again, just doable steps in small ways will change things. For us to be able to change the dynamic to show differently, it requires us to have a different sort of management of ourselves, and it begins with calming our nervous system, grounding ourselves, and choosing differently. So it starts with us sort of laying the groundwork of looking at these five things, movement, rest, putting good stuff into our body, maybe eliminating some of the stuff that isn't benefiting us, stillness and breath. That is the healing process. That is how we help our body, our nervous system, our mind and our spirit really heal. When we want to think about how can we do things differently, how can we let go of the blame and the anger and the hurt from what has happened in the past?

It requires us to start to really take care of ourselves in a different way so that we're available to do things differently, right? We're not doing things with perfection. We're not doing things the quote right way, but it's really learning how to choose a response that is going to elicit a different result. So this is what I wanted to offer you today to change the dynamic, to give you a little bit more ease, generosity, compassion and space in this next year so that you can really start to decide what it is you want, who you want to be, and then start being that person. I know you can do it. I have every faith in you, and as you begin to take care of yourself differently, you're able to take care of others. You're able to enter into relationship differently, and that's when things really shift and change in the most beautiful of ways.

I promise you it's possible. I see it every day with the beautiful women and men that I work with, and I've seen it in my own life how really this kind of work has had the most profound benefit, and it's those small, doable steps that create massive impact. That's what I'm hoping for you in your family in 2025. Know that I am here for you. There's links in the show notes of how if you need any support, just reach out and if you would be so kind and you have been getting a lot out of these episodes, I'd be so grateful if you would rate and review the show. It's wildly helpful, apparently, but I would really appreciate if you would do that for me so that we can stay engaged in these conversations and really start to move the needle in 2025. I'm sending you so much love and many blessings. I'll see on the next episode.

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Thanks for listening to Co-Parenting with Confidence. If you want more information or resources from this podcast, visit co-parenting with confidence.com. I'll see you next week.