Ep #42: How to Calm the F&*$ Down

I'm Mikki Gardner, and this is the Co-parenting with Confidence podcast, episode number 42, Calming the F Down. [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'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, well, get ready and let's dive into today's episode. [music] Welcome friend and thank you for joining me again today. Listen, I know there are so many things you could be doing, an amazing podcast you could be listening to, and I'm super, super grateful that you're here with me. And if you're new here, welcome, I'm so glad that you found me. The reason I do this podcast is to help support moms and women as they navigate co-parenting. My mission is to add, simply as much value as I can, offer you tools and perspectives that help you access your own intuition, that internal GPS system that we all are hard-wired for. And today, that's what I wanna talk about. One of these internal, sort of systems, that we have working in our body, in our mind, and how it shows up for us. And part of that is learning how to calm down. But before I do that, I do wanna say that maybe you've been listening for a bit, and maybe today you're like, I really wish that I had a companion or a mentor or a coach on this journey, somebody in my corner to help me navigate this co-parenting process. Well, I'm so glad that you're here, and I want you to know that that's exactly what I am here to do for you. If you're enjoying this podcast but you're like, I wanna see how I can actually implement this into my life in other ways, or find out about working with me, then just go over to my website, www.mikkigardner.com, it's in the show notes, and sign up for The 3 Myths of Co-parenting. This will get you on my mailing list so that you're notified about any of the upcoming workshops that I do, the resources that I offer, you'll get a weekly newsletter from me with different co-parenting strategies, and you can also get on the wait list for any upcoming open spots that I have available in my one-to-one coaching practice where I support moms on the daily. So today, I wanna talk about calming down. Listen, this is not attack on any of us, but we are all experiencing very similar things in this post-pandemic, super-fast-paced social media-filled world, where there is a ton of over-reactions, big emotions and a lot of unchecked behavior. So, I wanna go back a little bit so that we can understand what is actually going on here. We have the most amazing computer, the human brain, living between our two ears. Each and every one of us has this very simple yet very complex brain. And it's important for us to understand what's going on in our brain before we try to change anything. We have to understand what we're starting with, and nobody came out, like nobody is born with a user manual to tell us how to use our brain. It would be so helpful if we could have that. But our brain really has one job. Its sole job is just to keep you alive. That's its only interest. It sounds pretty easy, right? But to do this, it has a couple of things that it works on. One is a very simple model called the Motivational Triad, to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and to minimize your energy as much as possible. So what does that look like? Seek pleasure, do things that are feel-good. Why? Well, sex, right? Do that so that you procreate so the specie continues. Avoid pain. Okay, translation, Don't do anything that's gonna kill you. And minimize your energy output, well, this is, conserve all of your energy. So don't put up too much effort, because you never know when you're gonna have to run from the saber-toothed tiger, you never know when your next meal is coming when you're living in the cave. You can see that the cavemen lived in a pretty simple way. But we have the same brain that is structured and working in the same way, in a very modern environment. We have a simple brain living in a very un-simple world. So this is where you can start to see things get a little bit tricky. The other thing that we have to understand is that our brain is wired for negativity. And what do I mean by this? Because its only job is to keep you alive, it is going to assume that everything is a threat, just to be on the safe side. So, we have this amazing stress system put into our body, a delivery system, so that it can keep us alive, so that whenever there is a threat, perceived or otherwise, the same thing happens. So, we have our limbic system, which is what we call kind of our downstairs brain, this is the primitive brain. Then on top of that is the prefrontal cortex, this is our upstairs brain. This is our thinking brain. This is where all of our emotions, logical thinking, all of that lies. Now, when I was just talking about that system for being wired for negativity and the stress delivery system, this is the limbic system. And it's tied to our spinal cord. Why? So that when something is perceived as a threat, it sends a signal, stress hormones get pushed out into the body, they run down our spinal cord and boom, they're everywhere. This is why we have such strong, quick, immediate reactions. This, super useful when the saber-tooth tiger might be standing outside the cave door. You can see where it's really useful now, but unfortunately our brain, again, can't tell the difference between a real and a perceived threat. So, even when you pick up your phone and maybe your ex's name is there with a text message and you get flooded with intense emotions because of the past and maybe they tend to send really nasty messages, and so you have that sort of boom, flood in your body. This is that limbic system. It sees a threat, it's getting you ready for action for either a flight, fight or freeze. You know, the brain is so amazing this way because that endocrine system puts us on high alert, and it's pumping all of that sort of adrenaline, the cortisol, everything through your blood stream. All of this is happening far, far below your consciousness. When we are activated and we're in fight or flight, it really shuts down everything else. That higher function of our brain, the prefrontal cortex, goes offline, just checks out. Because all of the energy and attention is going to the primitive brain. So, all the decision-making is being taken over by this primitive brain that just wants to keep us alive and isn't really taking anything else into account. So the brain in this state, the prefrontal cortex isn't connected, and without that connection and without being able to soothe the limbic system and reconnect to our prefrontal cortex, we lose a pause between how we feel and what we do. And this brings us to what we're talking about today in learning how to calm down, because what we're talking about why this is all so important is because when we are in a reactive mode, we are not responding to life, we are reacting, our primitive brain has taken over and we're not using our logical thinking. So why it is this all so important? Well, if you look at the world around us, also the world is... It appears to be coming more and more polarized. If you look at politics, at religion, even friend groups, we're experiencing more us versus them than we ever have before. Between the pandemic, the lockdowns, the economy, we are having more collective trauma, we're having more collective stress. With a 24-hour news cycle, we are having more graphic images splashed at us, where we are getting activated and having reactions so much that our bodies are just shutting down. We're going numb, we're desensitized, and worst of all, we're thinking that it's normal. We're starting to live in a more stress-filled every day, a more stress-filled, more anxious state, and the more that we become in that state, the more our body acclimates to the higher level of the stress hormones that are going through our bodies. The cortisol, the adrenaline, we get used to it, we get addicted to it. And the more and more we experience it, the more and more we need of it to feel anything. We are literally getting addicted to these high level of stress hormones and we believe that it's sort of how we're supposed to feel. It becomes our baseline, our default. And anything less than that, kind of feels non-interesting anymore. This is the danger of high stress, high anxiety, and not being balanced with the ability to calm ourselves down. When we are in this automatic unconscious stress-filled lifestyle, our emotions are kind of running the show or that automatic system. But whenever our emotions are really, really high in the reactive, in that reactive state, our intellect is low. So, our stress response, that fight, flight or freeze, is activated and our logical thinking goes out the window. So, for us to be able to reactivate, get back into that upstairs part of our brain, the one that we want to be using, the one that's sort of filled with light and curiosity and flexibility and ability to make pivots and changes and choices, that's where we want to be working from. To be able to do that, we actually have to be able to soothe and reconnect that limbic system, that downstairs part of our brain, so that we can get back to where we want. So, where might this be showing up in your life? Well, I know so many of the moms that I talk to, and listen, I'm a mom, [chuckle] on a daily basis. Our kids can activate us. But it's understanding what's going on in those moments. Maybe when your ex texts you, it brings you back to a very stressful place, fearful of what's coming next. I know so many of my clients get on the regular nastygrams from their ex. Those messages that are tearing them down, accusing them of things, and it puts them automatically, boom, right into a stress response. They get into a reactive place where they feel like then they start making instead of pausing, they might attack back, they might go off the handle, they might say something to their kids they don't wanna say. So, whenever they're in that reaction, we have to learn how to de-escalate so that we can make a choice versus just reacting from it. Maybe someone's coming at you with a really mad face and you feel afraid and you lash out before the conversation even starts. Or you feel attacked in a conversation, and you go, boom, right into defense mode where you no longer are listening to what's going on, you're just looking for, what is my next thing to say to get this to stop? We're not listening, we're not trying to solve the problem, we're just in reaction. Or maybe you'll find yourself scrolling on social media and feeling depressed or angry, comparing yourself to all the perfect lives that you're looking at, and then you turn off the phone and eat a carton of ice cream. It's just that boom, instantaneous, where there's no space. All of these little examples I just gave that maybe you can relate to in your life, they're similar because there's no space between what we're feeling and how we're acting. So, that really brings us to learning how to calm down. And when I say calm down, what I'm really saying is learning to step into response-ability. That's not responsibility, all one word, it's two words, response hyphen ability. It is our ability to respond to life instead of reacting, to create the space to go from that downstairs part of our brain to the upstairs part of our brain. When you think about the downstairs part of your brain that's like the mechanical area, all of the automatic systems live... Or how is there... Everything's working from there. It's dark, it's kinda cold. Nobody wants to live down there. We want to be living in the upstairs part of our brain. And this is not just an issue that divorced moms or co-parents face, this is a universal human issue. This is one of the most important things that we can model for our children and ultimately teach them how to do for themselves. Because right now, as a society, we're raising more reactive, more activated, less response-able people. So, for us to be able to do this for our children, we have to be able to do it for ourselves first. For us to be able to be present and non-reactive with our children, we have to learn how to calm ourselves down. How do we know if we're not able to calm ourselves down? Well, we're losing our temper a lot, maybe we're having huge over-reactions and adding to the mess of the drama that's in front of us. Maybe we didn't bring the drama, but if we're adding to it, we're reacting. Maybe you're over-scheduling yourself to the point that you then resent everyone around you for the life that you're living. Maybe you're feeling so obligated to react to the ridiculous behavior or comments of the other co-parent that you end up making choices that you're not happy with later, or maybe you just find yourself trying to defend yourself against the attacks and opinions of other people. All of these things, they're human, we all do it. It's totally normal, but what we want to do is to learn to come from a place of response versus reactivity. So, how do we know when we're activated? There's a lot of people that will use the word triggered. I prefer the word activated, and here's why. Triggered suggests someone is making you do something, that they're kind of poking you and they are the source of the pain. Activating is more of an awareness that something in you has been woken up. Ultimately then it puts the focus on the fact that you are in control of that. When we are activated, oftentimes, I know as moms, our children activate us. It is a wound that is open, it's like someone is pouring salt on an open wound and you're like, Oh, there we go again. And we are instantly in it, instantly feeling the flood of emotion, the heat in our body. Have you ever felt that where there everything just rises all at once? That is an activated state. And it's important to understand this because we want to realize that we are not triggered by other people or everyone around us, but it is more that something is being activated within us and then we can start to take responsibility. So then, what are some of the ways that we know that we are feeling activated? Well, oftentimes we'll feel like an immediate reply or response is required. But here's the thing, short of something being life-threatening, it doesn't require immediate response. As moms, we spend all of our days trying to attend to everyone's needs, fix all the problems, make sure everyone has everything they need, look good in the process, all the things. But really, truly, unless it is life-threatening, it does not need your attention right in that moment or does not require a reply. Just because people bring their big giant unkept feelings to you, does not mean you have to carry them. I mean, how often do our little kids bring us all of their big emotions about things that are happening, and we feel like we have to clean everything up right that moment? But sometimes it's because we've been activated. When the tears are happening, when the kids are crying, when they're not wanting to go to the other parent's house. It's the emotions that we're feeling, it's the flood, it's the feelings of helplessness, it's the feelings of guilt, all of those things coming up that are really activating us, and so for us to be able to calm ourselves down and then choose, how do I wanna show up here? These are the moments that they happen instantaneously, and as soon as we can realize that we are in an activated state, then we can start to calm ourselves down. I like to think of when people come at us with their big feelings too, it's like a game of hot potato. I know that oftentimes I'll talk to clients, and they'll have their acts, maybe it's transition moment, they just come with that look on their face, instantaneously, they feel like they need to be on the defensive. But someone else's big feelings are not yours, is not yours to carry, and so if we can see them as like a hot potato that's being thrown at us, don't pick it up, right? Again, short of life-threatening, our response is not always required, sometimes we're being activated based on what we're believing. I mean, here's the thing. Thoughts are not necessarily true, their just sentences in our brain. Thoughts are just thoughts. We have over 60,000 of them a day. Stanford just released a study not that long ago, that we have over 60,000 thoughts a day, and 95% of them are recycled from yesterday. [chuckle] It's unbelievable, right? So if we aren't consciously interrupting them, we're just using the same thoughts over and over and over, so it's reasonable to understand why we're feeling the same thing over and over and over, if we wanna feel differently, we have to be willing to interrupt these thoughts to question them, decide do we wanna use them or not, do we wanna believe them or not? Just asking yourself when you have a thought, maybe my co-parenting isn't working. He's the worst co-parent. This is never gonna work. I'm not loved. Whatever it is, asking yourself, is it useful for me to believe this thought? Is it helpful for me to believe this thought? Am I doing myself a service by believing this thought? Really just getting curious and questioning it, this is a huge part of learning how to calm down is becoming more and more aware of our thoughts. We talk about this a lot on this podcast. You know, the other moment that we realize that we're being activated is when we're flooded with emotion, we're flooded with physical sensation in our body, a lot of moms that I work with have trauma from their marriage. Infidelity, the lies, the broken promises. So now, even though they're divorced, even though they're co-parenting, when the idea of talking to, they ask about something, confronting them about something going on, they have a huge emotional wave, all based on this old trauma, it might feel like a pit in their stomach, it might feel like they're just instantaneously overheating. Super-hot, just rising in their body, and they've equated that feeling to something being wrong, they've equated that stress response to bad things, and so they think that it means, don't do this, when in actuality, it's just, again, that sort of unconscious, that limbic system, the endocrine system in action, seeing a threat, and the more that she can learn to calm herself down, then she can make the choice to say, "You know what? I see that I'm activated from this old place. I'm not going to use that thought moving forward, I'm gonna choose a different direction, I'm gonna choose a different response." This is where this work comes in, to being so impactful. So we have to understand that sometimes when we have these sensations in our body, it doesn't mean that things are a threat, it doesn't mean that everything is wrong, but we need to calm ourselves down, notice what is happening, so that we can make a decision and make a response. You know, calming down is really where we are allowing ourselves to access the choice that we have, all of your power is with inside you, it is in your ability to respond, to understand, to listen, to be still, to create calm. Nobody can give you calm, if we're waiting for other people to give us calm, we will be waiting a very, very long time. You create it for yourself, and you create it for yourself by connecting your mind and your brain to your body, you use that wise part of you, that logical thinking upstairs part of your brain to get yourself out of the downstairs part of your brain reaction. Calm yourself down so that you can then make choices, so what is the first way we can do this? This is gonna sound simple, and you do it all day, every day, but you breathe, just taking a couple of deep cleansing breaths when you are in an activated state, calms your body. It helps you regulate your parasympathetic nervous system. One of the things that I always work on first with clients is creating a grounding exercise so that when these traumatic events happen, when the stress happens, because it will happen, that she has an ability and a process to calm herself down so that she can make aligned choices towards what she wants versus repeating those patterns over and over and over. One of them is just as soon as you start to feel yourself, whether it's being flooded with those physical sensations, whether it's the thoughts in your head, Oh, here we go again, right? Whatever it is that you can notice when you are activated, what I like to do, a simple one that I can offer you is just hand in your heart, right? I do this with my son all the time, Put your hand on your heart because it grounds you into your body, reminds you that you're not just your thinking brain, but you're actually this body walking around too, because it's the body that's feeling the reaction. It's the body that needs to be regulated, so your hand on your heart and you say, I am okay, I am safe, because if you are doing that in that moment, you are. Your brain is telling you you're not safe, there's all of the dangers out there, but when we're able to stop and take a breath and calm ourselves, just hand on your heart and take a few deep breaths, and then you go to the next step. The next step is to turn inward and say, what do you need? And then listen. Before we were talking about when there was no space, no pause between what we feel and when we act, this is what calming the F down really is all about. It's about calming yourself down so that you can create enough space to access choice, to access the agency that you do have, to access the power that you have within. And when you ask yourself, what do you need in this moment? You listen, it's normally not overly complicated, you might just need to feel some calm, I just need to breathe, I just need five minutes to myself, I don't care if you have to lock yourself in the bathroom, whatever it is to give yourself what you need. Maybe it's to say something, maybe it's to walk away, maybe it's to say, You know what? There's too much emotion here, I'm happy to talk to you when we can talk in a reasonable tone of voice, maybe you just need a glass of water, maybe you need a nap, maybe five minutes of meditation, even a guided meditation for stress or tapping. Tapping Solution is awesome. Another way I've just started doing it, and maybe I'll do an episode later, but you can look up tapping, it's on the meridian points to help calm yourself down, it's learning to create that space so that you can calm your parasympathetic nervous system, so that you can access this other part of your brain that you can access the intuition that you have within, so that you can make choices that serve you, that create the life that you want versus living and reacting, reaction. For me, some of the ways that I create calm, it's a daily practice every day, the more that I realized that I was living in this stress response, I had to start to create a practice, create calm in intentional ways, so that when these moments happen, which they happen every day, right? That I might get activated, that I have the tools and the ability to calm myself down. For me, some of these calming practices are meditation, walking in nature each day, prioritizing connection to others, right? For me, it's no screens, and at least one hour in the morning after I wake up and one hour before I go to bed, the screens are not anywhere near me, no news or TV on in the background, because it's about controlling what I consume, so that I can be aware of it, and when I'm in a place that I'm feeling calm, that I'm feeling able to take in news media, social media, any of those things, I'm in a place to consciously do that. Calming down looks like learning how to be aware of when you're activated, when you're in the stress response and then making choices that are in support of calming versus continuing the addiction. I mean, here's the true fact of life as we are supposed to feel good, we are. Feeling good is our birthright, calm and peace is our natural set point as humans, I know looking around the world right now, that does not appear to be true. It is true, it has been proven through science, all the neuroscience, all the things that we're learning, and if we are not feeling this way, it is because we are simply out of alignment, we've gotten addicted to the stress, we've become conditioned to just grin and bear it. To wear our stress and our hardship like a badge of honor, but ultimately what this does is it keeps us living in a reactive state, making choices for ourselves, for our children, for the other co-parent maybe that we don't like, and then we get mad that things aren't changing. Things are changeable, they're changeable today, and it starts with learning how to calm ourselves down, and it starts also with learning how to become responsible, response-able in our life. You are 100% capable of taking full responsibility in your life, it's a decision you make and re-make a thousand times a day. Really, all of it is about protecting your peace. And if something is robbing you of that calm, of that peace, of your power, it is too expensive, and it's time to invest in calming yourself down so that you can choose your responses and align to the action to create the life that you truly want to be living. I know that you are capable of doing this. And I know that it is not simple or easy, but it is possible, it takes work, it takes practice, it takes messing up and having compassion to keep trying, and that is modeling for our children what we want for them, right? We are an example to them each and every day, so do we wanna be an example of reaction, over reaction, big emotions, offloading everything, or do we wanna be an example of being calm and grounded and confident and powerful? I think it's the latter, and it starts with calming ourselves down. If you know someone who could benefit from today's episode, I would be so grateful if you would share it with them, and if you share it on Instagram, I'd love it if you would tag me so that we could connect there, I love talking with you guys on Instagram. Thank you so much for spending this time with me today, I really appreciate it. I'll see you next week, and in the meantime, take really, really good care of you. [music] 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]