Ep #89: Embracing Duality

[music] 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. Welcome back. I'm excited to be with you here today. Thank you for listening. I hope you know how grateful I am for those of you that tune in each week and listen to these episodes. I always love meeting you on clarity calls or talking to you on Instagram, and you say how much this has helped you, or something interesting that came up in the episode for you, it warms my heart more than you know, and I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for being here, thank you for listening, and thank you for being in conversation with me. I just love when you guys reach out and always feel free to DM me on Instagram or email me and tell me what's on your mind, what topics do you wanna hear about, what questions do you have? I love answering those questions, and if I don't know the answer, I'm gonna figure it out and I'm gonna bring it to you here. So please always feel free to send me a message so that I can be answering all the questions that you have. And if you have been listening and getting value from this, I would be so grateful friend if you would go ahead and share this with another person, and if you would rate and review the show. For us podcasters, this is a labor of love, and I'm not gonna stop doing this, but I would love if you would share it and help me share the message with the world, because I think for us to support our children and to support the world, we need to be in conversation. We need to be talking about things that matter and figuring out how to do this whole co-parenting thing. Wow. And that's what I'm committed to doing. So if you would make sure that you, one, follow the show so you don't miss any of the upcoming goodness. And two, if you would rate and review the show for me, it just takes a minute, I would be so, so grateful, so thank you. But diving into today's episode, there's something I keep hearing definitely through the one-on-one work I do with my clients, but on clarity call after clarity call, after clarity call lately, there has been a theme coming up and I wanted to talk about it, and it comes down to being able to embrace duality. And what do I mean by that? Well, the duality means that we can hold two things that are in opposition with one another, and how does this been coming up on the clarity calls? Well, so I was talking to one woman and just, she was so frustrated, she was doing all of the things right, yet the other co-parent would not meet her where she wanted to be. He would not support all of the requests that she had. He made things continually "difficult" for her, and she just couldn't understand why he couldn't see what a good mom she was and how hard she was trying. How she was doing all of the things, and he wouldn't give an inch. I was also talking to a man the other day, and he was really struggling because he finally got himself out of an abusive relationship, he finally stood his ground and said, no more, no more for me and no more for my child. And yet he was being villainized by the people around him who were not in support of the divorce, who were not in support of him leaving, who were telling him to "man up". And I've talked to women who say the same thing, they don't have support around them, they have people judging them, questioning their decisions, but they're certainly not being supported and embraced. Now when we are supported and embraced, it makes everything a lot easier because it makes us feel like we're doing the right thing, but here's the part about duality, you can be doing "the right thing for you," and other people can disagree with you. You can be trying to co-parent well and doing all the things "the right way," and the other co-parent cannot be on board, they can make it difficult, and they can make it hard. Conflict can happen and learning to move through that conflict without it knocking you off your balance. Well, that's starting to embrace the duality. And that's what I wanted to talk about today, because this is something that affects each and every one of us, because oftentimes, maybe the life that you're living right here in this moment isn't what you wanted, maybe you didn't want the divorce. Let me do any of us. But maybe you felt like you had no choice. And here you are, maybe with less time with your kids, maybe less money, less resources, less support, maybe a lesser lifestyle, a smaller house, less opportunity to do things, less travel, less bonus things, whatever it is, you might look around at your life right now and say, This isn't what I wanted, this isn't where I wanted to be right now, and you can still show up. Moving towards what you want. And that's what I wanted to talk about today and a couple of ways that we can start to do this. And I'm gonna use the example of one of my clients I was talking to the other day. She's doing all the things. I mean, she is really working her buns off, making sure that she's showing up for her children, that she's being present, that she's trying to be there for them at everything when it's her "time" and when it isn't. She shows up, she encourages them, she supports them, she drives them places, she does all the things even when she doesn't have to, why? Because it makes her feel like a good mom, because it's how she wants to show up, and so she does. Now, the other co-parent though, doesn't feel the same way. How do we know? Because they don't show up that way. It's not "their time." He's nowhere to be found. He's not coming to the soccer games, he's not showing up and doing the little bit extra, he's not dropping things off just to make it easier on anybody. No, he's off doing his things, his life, and oftentimes, unfortunately, that involves partying, drinking, dating, doing all the things. Now, it's his time when he's not with the children and she has no control over that, but the problem comes in because she is really struggling to understand how can he be doing this, how can he be showing up this way as an adult partying all the time, more focused on what he wants to do and having fun, than being there for their children, and this is where duality comes in, because he can be however he wants and she can choose to move forward in the way that serves her, but if she's not able to hold the duality of both things, that's when the problem comes in, because when we are so focused on the fact that we think things should be different... Well, that's where you get stuck in a place where you have no control over other things, but you're trying to exert control and you futilely exhaust all of your energy. Have you ever been there? I know I was talking to her the other day on a session, and she was frustrated, she said, "I just don't understand how he cannot show up for a morning soccer game because he's hungover." Now, he didn't have the kids. Now, if he had the kids and he wasn't showing up because he was hung over, it may be a different story because that is impacting them because they're not being cared for. They're not being taken care of. But here's the thing, she argued with me, well, he's not caring for them, he's not doing those things because he's not showing up the way he should, and whenever we hear the word should, we know that there's an expectation there. And where there is an expectation, we know that that is your work to do, not the other person's. Now, that doesn't mean that you have to let go of all expectations and you just let everybody be the way they are, no, but it means that you explore, what does it mean for me. Having that expectation that he should be there. What happens for me when I have it? Well, for her, she feels like crap. She feels bad for her children, she feels sad for them, she feels angry at him, she's holding onto the past, she's finding so much evidence, she's just gathering evidence, every time it's like, oh, another piece of evidence, and she's putting that in the bank and that account of resentment, that account of all the ways that he's not showing up, that account is getting bigger and bigger and bigger, but what isn't is her side, her energy, her love, her moving forward, her growth, because as long as we're focused on what the other person is doing, we're not giving the attention and the focus to what we can control, which is how she could be showing up. And this is where the idea around duality really starts to come in, and specifically the skill of cognitive dissonance. This is a psychological skill, and it's a term that has the ability to hold two competing thoughts at the same time. Psychology today says that cognitive dissonance is a term for the state of discomfort felt when two or more thoughts contradict each other. The clashing of the thoughts may include ideas or belief or the knowledge that you have that one has behaved in a certain way. So this is where I was noticing with this client, she was really struggling to be able to hold all of the things at once. Meaning holding that he was spending his off time partying, drinking, sleeping in, missing out on the children's things, not showing up, not "doing the work," and also when he had the kids, he was showing up, he was taking care of their needs, but she was seeing all the ways that he wasn't. Right. So for her, the conversation that we started to have is to be able to hold this duality, hold this ability for all of the things to be true at the same time, that he could love his children and he could be really self-focused on his off-time. That he could be a "good dad" and not show up sometimes being a "not good dad", in her mind. That he was co-parenting with her and he wasn't doing a very good job, in her mind. All of these things could be true at the same time, and it was important for her to be able to hold all of this at once, so that she could start to allow him to take responsibility for his actions while she is taking responsibility for hers. It really is about getting out of the reaction and getting into the alignment with what it is that you do want, it's allowing these things to be true. And shifting into aligned action in a way that supports what you want. So how do we do that? Well, part of it comes down to just being aware of all of the things and willing to let them be there in a neutral manner. We're not looking to condone them, we're not looking to condemn them, it's more just looking at them from a place of neutrality without emotional attachment. Learning how to look at how he does show up and how he doesn't show up in this case, or looking at... Like I talked about earlier, your life being not what you want, but also what you want. Being able to look at it from a neutral place without attaching all of the story, attaching all of the emotion, and attaching all of the evidence to the contrary, because as soon as we get stuck in that spiral where you get sucked in really, really quick, and that's where the suffering really comes into play. And so I'm gonna talk to you about what I talked to her about in that moment, because for her to be able to move forward with him as the other co-parent because that's not changing, he is the other parent. And she is going to have to co-parent with him regardless because he's present. And so how is she going to do that in a way that actually supports her versus her just keeping putting money into the account of how he's not showing up, all the evidence of how it's not working, because what you look for, you will find. And so if you're looking for all the ways that it's wrong, you will find them, and I'm not asking you to do toxic positivity where we're just looking for all the shiny silver linings, no, we wanna look at all of it from a place of awareness and neutrality so that you can step into agency and aligned action. I know if you listen to some of the other episodes, those are the three As, the framework of co-parenting well that I talk about. So once we're aware, we've sort of been able to look at all of the things in front of us, we wanna do so from a neutral place, not asking yourself to feel amazing about something, but also not allowing yourself to go down the rabbit hole of despair, because it's from this neutral place that you can start to build the bridge for all of the thoughts to be true at the same time. That's when we can hold the duality of all of it, and this work isn't like one and done, and it's not super-fast, it's actually subtle and slow moving. But it is a part of healing, and when we start to heal it, big shifts happen, because you can start to unpack the hurt, unpack the pain, unpack the anger, and learn how to let that be there while you still stay in a very responsive state. Taking charge of the choices that you have available to you and taking the aligned action to move forward in a way that you want. And we wanna do this because you want to heal the wounds and take action from a healed place versus taking action from that wounded place over and over. And that's what I saw my client doing, she was taking all of her action from the wounded place, and you know where that kept her, in the wounded place. And so we have to start to step into allowing our healing to happen and the hurt to be there, because when we allow both to be there at the same time, we loosen the grip on it, we don't become so focused on it and we can start to move forward and move out of it. So it's actually in embracing the duality, embracing all of it together, that we're able to move forward, that we're able to heal, and the last thing I wanna say on this is this is a long game focused. Parenting and co-parenting is a long game-focused, and so many times we get caught up in the day-to-day or in the small minutiae, and it's okay, that's what we do as humans, but it's also this ability to have more neutrality in our thinking, so that we can look at it in the long term, so that we can allow sort of something to be there today, maybe conflict, maybe something we're not happy about, but not letting ourselves think that it's always gonna be this way. So often we think, Oh well, there's conflict right now, there's always gonna be conflict. No, we're going through a season. We're going through a moment and can we move through it, being acutely aware of what is happening and how we wanna move forward through it, because that's a powerful place to be coming from, and that's where I want you co-parenting from on a daily basis, from a place of awareness of responsibility, again, that ability to respond to life instead of react. And the ability to really sit down and look at where do I wanna go and how do I move forward towards that today, not how do I get there today, but how do I just keep moving forward one step at a time, and a lot of that is learning to embrace all of the things, letting all the things being true at the same time. Letting you be a great mom and maybe making mistakes, you can do both. And you can still move forward. Letting the other co-parents show up and still showing up when they don't, letting disagreements be there without meaning that it's gonna be there forever. Because you are in control of how you show up and what you're co-creating. And so if conflict is there today, how can you be the change to move through it instead of continuing to stay in it, and so part of that is embracing the duality. I hope this has offered you some ideas on ways that maybe you're staying stuck. Maybe you're thinking something is gonna last forever, and maybe you can just start to sort of visualize loosening the grip, opening your hands of this and allowing all the things to be there and not letting it mean that it's never gonna change, that things are never gonna get better. That you're never gonna have a co-parenting relationship that you want or that you enjoy, or that could just be a little bit easier because it's possible. And it's all about how you are showing up. And so just remember, friend, you have everything you need to be an extraordinary co-parent, no matter what the other co-parent is doing, and your children only need one amazing parent. They don't even need one amazing parent, they just need one loving, kind, respectful parent who is safe, who is consistent and who shows up for them. So even if the other co-parent isn't doing that, focus on you being that for them, they only need one, and that's you. So I'll talk to you next week. And in the meantime, friend, take really, really good care of you. 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 co-parentingwithconfidence.com. I'll see you next week. [music]