Ep #77: De-Stress Your Co-Parenting Relationship

[music] 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 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. Welcome back to the podcast and to episode number 77, De-stressing Your Co-parenting Relationship. Listen, if there is one thing that I know that so so many of us are under it is stress, extreme stress and anxiety. And that's why I want to talk to you today, because stress is definitely inevitable in life, it happens because we're in relationship with other humans, because we're in a fast-paced environment, all of those things, but it doesn't have to be your normal, and it doesn't mean that the only way to reduce stress is to change everything or everyone. And that's what we're gonna talk about today, but before we dive in, I just want to make sure that you heard and you know about an upcoming workshop that I have coming up, and it is about this topic, How to De-Stress Your Co-Parenting, so you can have less stress without changing your co-parenting partner, it is an option, I promise you. So I want you to join me on April 4th with a great group of moms, and we're gonna be talking about exactly this, I'm gonna give you tools and strategies, and you will walk away that day feeling less stressed and more confident in your co-parenting, I promise you. So there's a link in the show notes or you can just go to my website https://mikkigardner.com/workshop/ and save your spot. You have to sign up to be there, so save your spot today, I can't wait to see you. So today, I want to talk to you about why de-stressing your co-parenting relationship is so important, and this is really bringing it back to the basics a little bit, because I think this is important, it's something that I talk with each of my clients about at the very beginning of our journey and throughout the journey. Because too often, we just get overwhelmed by what's going on in life, we just get overwhelmed by the ferocity or the rigidity or the sheer ridiculousness of the other co-parent, and we start to feel like we have no control. And so what I want to talk about today is what you do have control over and how you can reduce stress, but I want to start the conversation off with one mindset. Everything is about mindset because it's your perspective, it's how you see the world, when we believe that stress is just the way it is, or that this is just the life that I have and nothing is gonna change, that's a fixed mindset, believing that you sort of... Everything you have is not getting any more, we're sort of stuck where we are, this is a very negative mindset, and listen, we all have it at times. But one of the things that we do in coaching is really look at what is the mindset that you're having and starting to shift that because our mindset is the perspective, like I said, that we see the world. Think of it as like a lens on a camera, if you put a rose-colored lens, everything that you see is going to be rose-colored. If you put a green lens in front, everything is going to be tinged with green, and this is how mindset works. And so what I want to do is offer you first and foremost a different perspective, just to try on, and that is that you matter, that you deserve love and care, you deserve calm and you deserve less stress, this is first and foremost. And you might say, "Yes, I do, Mikki, but it's not possible." Okay, let's not go there yet, let's just come back to the mindset and the perspective that you matter and that you deserve to be cared for, to be loved, and to be valued and to be heard, and this starts with you, right? But taking on that mindset also means that you have to start to show up believing that, using that lens, which means you have to love, care for, nurture and listen to yourself, and that's part of learning how to de-stress. Because all too often stress is feeling like this outside force being put on us, and we think when that happens, that we just have to get rid of it, or we just have to wait till it goes away, and those are the only options, but learning how to de-stress is available, we're gonna get to that in a minute. But I also want to start with, that we have to understand that when we are under stress, your nervous system is having a reaction, 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 fright, 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, 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, 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 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, 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, allowing yourself to matter, allowing yourself to slow down, to not have to react, to allow yourself the space to decide how you want to respond. And I want to 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 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. 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 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. So I want to talk to you about a couple of things here on how to de-stress. Well, the first step is actually to release the feeling, release what is going on in your body, if you are getting to the point where you feel like you are about to snap and yell, instead of allowing yourself to go past that point, I want to offer you that there's an alternative option. It might look like stopping and removing yourself from the situation, if you really have to yell, go stick your face in a pillow behind a locked door and scream it out. That's great when we have small kids that we don't want to unload and unleash all of our stuff on, but we actually have to get it out. If you are in a high-stress conversation and you realize that you are tipping past the point of being able to rationally think, you need to stop and excuse yourself, it can look like, "Hey, I actually need a minute here, I'll be back in five minutes" and go walk around the block, or run around the block, or go do 50 jumping jacks. Actually physically moving our body allows us to move the emotions. When we just sit and stay with them, they just sort of swirl around and get deeper and more entrenched, so we actually want to physically release them, like I said, yelling into a pillow, going on a walk, going just outside and putting your feet in the grass if you can, whatever you can do in that moment. And listen, I know we're all moms here and you've got kids and maybe you've got little kids, but sometimes we have to say to them, "Mom needs a minute," especially if we're feeling attacked or there's a stressful situation going on. I know one of the hardest things to do is to parent your children really well when you are in the midst of co-parenting conflict, when it's your time with your children and you feel like it's being hijacked by the other co-parent's drama. That is up to you, and this is where I work with my clients and where I want you to know that it is 100% your decision, where your attention and your focus goes, but it has to be made intentionally. And so part of that is refusing to allow the stress to impact your life on the daily basis, and that's where learning how to move through the stress, actually adjust and work around it by doing these things. So first up awareness that you're stressed or triggered, second step is allowing yourself to decide what it is that you need, physically moving, maybe to get the emotions moving out, maybe it's yelling in a pillow, maybe it's hitting a pillow, maybe it's putting your feet in the grass, maybe it's going on a walk, maybe it's having a glass of water, maybe it's... I don't know, taking a nap, but you will tell yourself what you need. And then the third step after you've released some of that actual... All of those feelings when you've moved some of the stress and you feel like your thinking mind has gotten back on track, I want you to reassure yourself, this is where that mindset comes in of you mattering, I want you to open up to some compassion here for yourself, and to say, "You know what, we all get stressed, all mom's experience this sometimes, anyone else would feel this stress, too." This is just normalizing and having compassion for yourself. Maybe it's saying, "I'm doing the best that I can, or "This isn't gonna last forever, or "I'm in charge of how I feel, nobody else." So once you're aware, you've allowed yourself to decide that you get to slow down and you've physically moved or done something to release that stress, you step in with that positive mindset, that positive affirmation to open up to compassion, and then you find more emotional safety. "What can I do now? What can I do next? Am I calm enough to go back into the situation? Do I need more time?" If it's with a co-parent, another co-parent, you might need more than five minutes, but that five minutes that you gave yourself to just move through it actually reduced your stress, so that you can at least come back to what is at hand, whether that is caring for your beautiful children, whether that is taking care of yourself, whether that's you at work, whatever it is, allowing yourself to reduce the stress for a moment and then decide, "I can't deal with this right now, but I will deal with it later," or just giving yourself the space to start to reduce the stress. Because when you find and prove to yourself that you can reduce your stress by acknowledging it and releasing it, and then giving yourself compassion and being positive towards yourself, this builds the muscle of being able to reduce stress in bigger and bigger ways. I'm gonna give you one other practice that I really love, and I offer to my clients often, I actually got this from Mel Robbins on one of her podcasts, and I really loved it. So it's really the five-minute rule here. When we are feeling triggered, when we're feeling overwhelmed, when we're having any intense feeling, you want to offer yourself the space to do just the things that we talked about, allow yourself to actually feel it, release it, and then move forward. So what this could look like is setting a timer for five minutes, you set that timer and for those five minutes, you feel the feeling, whether that is anger, whether that's sadness, whether that's anxiousness, whether that's uncertainty, you just let yourself feel it. You can feel pity, you can feel frustration, you can feel whatever it is, you can feel like a victim, whatever you're feeling, allow yourself to fully, fully feel it. No judgment, no blame, just feel it. When the timer goes off, and sometimes you don't even need to get to the full five minutes before you've already felt it through. Once the feeling, either the timer goes off or the feeling has dissipated, you stop with the feeling of it, intentionally say, "We're done now with this feeling, I cannot change what happened, I cannot change the past, but I can decide how I want to move forward." And ask yourself, "What do I want to do next?" And then you do that. Here's the beauty of doing this process, is that you allow yourself to feel the feeling, so we are not resisting it, we're not ignoring it and we're not avoiding it, we're feeling it, and then we're stopping and intentionally deciding, "I can't change the past," which is true. "I don't know what the future will bring," which is true, but you can decide what you want to do next with intentionality, with purpose, with authenticity, and honoring that you matter. The real thing about learning how to de-stress or feel less stress is learning to deal with it, to learning to deal with the things instead of just hoping that they will go away or hoping that the other person will change. Hope is not a strategy. The strategy is learning how to actually reduce your stress by acknowledging it, by moving through it, and by choosing a different way forward. That's the process, my friends. It is simple, I didn't say easy, but it is a simple process, and the more we do it, the more we get practiced at it, the more practiced we are, the more capable and the more efficient we become with it. And so I just wanted to offer this to you, and if you want to learn more, please come to the workshop, because we are really gonna be diving into this topic, because so many moms I know are under so much stress, and it is impacting the way they are showing up as the mother of their children, the way that they're showing up as the co-parent in their co-parenting dynamic, and the way that they're showing up in every area of their life, and this stress... Listen, I get that life is stressful, but you get to decide how it impacts you and how it impacts your life going forward, and so I want you to allow yourself to matter. I want you to allow yourself to learn some skills to move through this differently because it is possible, I promise you, this is the work that I do with my clients, and I see these massive transformations and it warms my heart. And I can tell you from personal experience, stress, you are able to manage it when you decide to. Thank you so much for spending time with me today. I am so, so grateful that you're here, and if you know somebody who needs to hear this message, please share it with them, and please share the podcast with them, because when you rate and review the show or when you share this podcast, that is actually how we get the word out to more moms, so that they can receive this message, too. So if you value it, I would be so grateful if you would share it, and if you would take two minutes to go on to iTunes and rate and review the show. I'll see you next week, and in the meantime, take a really, really good care of you, friend. 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. [music]