Ep #137: How to Keep Going When Nothing's Changing

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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.

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Welcome back to the podcast. I am out on a morning walk, you may hear the birds, my shoes squeaking underneath me. But I wanted to come on because there are certainly themes that come up in the coaching that I do, and they often are ones that I relate to, and there's one that keeps coming up over and over that I wanted to talk about because I thought maybe you have experienced this too. It's when we're doing all the work, when we're doing all the "right things", all the things we're supposed to be doing, whether that's to take care of ourselves, whether that's our emotional and mental health work, whether that's trying to co-parent differently and interact differently with the other co-parent, whether that's trying to change our patterns with our family, maybe be less reactive or with friends, but we're trying and we're trying and we're trying, and it feels like you're kind of spinning in place, running in place, but you're not getting any forward movement.

And when this goes on for a little bit past the point where we think it should have moved by then, we get really frustrated, and then we decide, "Well, this isn't working", and we give up, and we go back. We go back to usually the behaviors that we wanted to change. And this is totally normal. I just wanna say that first and foremost. Nothing has gone wrong, you are not wrong, you are not flawed in some way, but our nervous system will always go back sort of to its baseline, and when it's baseline is the behavior that you don't like, it's frustrating when you go back. Right? So what I wanted to talk about today is sort of when you're in that place of when you're doing all the things, when you're trying so, so hard, and how do you move things forward? Well, there's a couple of pieces here. One, it's not on our time table, right, how other people receive things, the changes that other people are willing to make or accept, out of our control. What is in our control is our own actions, our own choices, our own beliefs, our thoughts, our actions, our feelings, and the results.

And sometimes it doesn't come right on time, sometimes it doesn't show up right when you want it to, sometimes we have to wait through the sort of dry period when we think it should have moved forward by now, it should be working, people should be seeing me differently, I shouldn't have such a hard time with this, any of those should's is a signal that you have to release the shooting on yourself. Because all it shows is that we haven't moved enough yet, and I don't want that to sound like you are not doing enough. Sometimes it's just that it takes a moment for our body to acclimate, for our nervous system to regulate, for other people to be able to receive what it is that we're doing or changing, or even see the change. So in those moments when you feel like you are doing everything you should be doing and nothing is changing and you just wanna give up, I wanna offer you a different way, I wanna offer you a different step instead of giving up. And here's what it is, it's stepping into the discomfort, stepping into the uncertainty, because frankly, the only thing we're guaranteed in this life is that things are uncertain.

The only thing we're guaranteed is that we're all gonna die at some point. I know that sounds morbid but it's true. Everything else is pretty much uncertain. And so, the more we try to control what we don't have control over, the more frustrated we become, the more angry, the more bitter, the more exhausted, the more overwhelmed. And I'm not saying this as if it's an easy task, it is not. I deal with this on a daily basis. I know my clients deal with this on a daily basis. So instead of getting so wrapped up in the when is it gonna change? The way forward is actually to kind of sit down, if you're waiting for that path to open up in front of you, sometimes we just have to sit down and wait, wait for our nervous system to become more regulated and aligned, and that requires skills, skills to do that. And if you need help with that, I would love to be your coach and help you through that, or you can find a body worker, you can find a somatic coach, you can find a therapist who is helpful in that area.

But learning how to handle the uncomfortableness within your body is one of the most crucial and needed steps in the moving forward, because when we can become more safe in our body, we need the outside world around us, we require less of it, we're not desperately grasping for safety outside of ourselves when we can create it inside of ourselves. And so that's a different podcast, which we'll talk about another day. In the meantime, if you need support with that, please reach out. Reach out to me or another practitioner. Well, let's move on to when we want the path to open up, when we want to see the change, when we want to feel things shifting. In those moments when we feel like we are pushing and pushing and pushing to try to get something to change or even if we feel really pulled in a direction, people are pulling us to go there, I want you to just offer yourself a moment of respect to sit down and lovingly honor where you are. And what does that look like? It means maybe journaling, it means being honest with yourself to say like, "Oh, I feel like you don't want right now. I'm not happy with the way things are going. I wish things were different", and in that you acknowledge that things aren't the way that you want.

But then, the next step is to with compassion, say to yourself, "But I'm willing to wait, I'm willing to love myself through this uncomfortableness. I'm willing to honor my needs that I have and be patient to move forward because it means that much me". And here is when your vision and your values come into play, because for us to make transformation and change that's significant, we have to understand why we're doing it. We have to become so committed to what it is that we want, that we're willing to go through those hard times, that we're willing to go through the discomfort, because if we don't have that commitment, it's gonna be really hard to stay focused. So I want you just to sit and take a moment, and you can do this 100 times a day, once, as many times as you need, but to just sit down, hand on your heart, take three deep breaths. I know you hear this from me all the time, breath is our most powerful tool, because it is what gives us life and it helps create safety within our body. So coming back to the breath in the times of anxiety, in the times of overwhelm, in the times of agitation.

As soon as we notice that we are feeling that way, our job is simply to try to connect to our breath so that we can again, regulate ourselves a little bit more so that we can be at choice. The goal is not just to calm down, although that is a great benefit, but it is to be at choice, to be able to decide how do I wanna move forward here, do I wanna continue with the story, with the shooting, with the upset-ness, or do I wanna choose a different path. And this is where, my friend, you have all of the control. And it's simply choosing differently, if you want a different result, we have to think and feel and act differently. And so it really starts sometimes when we wanna give up to stay committed and just say, "No, I matter. What I want, matters here. What I want to build for myself and my children", maybe with your partner or your co-parenting partner, that can mean more, and you can be willing to move through the discomfort to heal what needs to be healed, so that you can choose differently. This is the work. This is the work. And it is not easy. And we need support. It's just plain and simple. If we could do it on our own, we already would have.

If you haven't gotten a result you want on your own, it means there's something blocking. And so we can keep fighting it over and over, or we can ask for help. We can reach out and get support from someone who can help us move through that, who can help us remove the blocks. They don't remove the blocks, you do. But when you have a guide and someone supporting you through that, it makes the process easier, quicker and you feel supported. And listen, the last thing I wanna say about this is, so many of you grew up with really difficult situations, where you did not feel loved, where you were not taking care of the way that you deserved, and that's not fair. I'm not gonna tell you it was fair, I'm not gonna tell you to get over it. Listen, it's not fair, but we get a choice as adults, do we wanna continue the patterns and the stories that we've been in that have kept us stuck and upset, or do we wanna choose differently? And it is in that choice of choosing differently that we do it day after day after day after day. Even when it's hard, even when it doesn't feel like it's working, we gotta look at it and say, "Am I making one degree different? One degree?"

If you're making one-degree difference in the way that you wanna go, you are doing amazing. And that one-degree shift over time, that's what creates the big results, but we have to be willing to stay in it in the time we may not see it, and that's the hardest part. But like any Olympic athlete, they might not see the changes in their numbers, in their stats, but they keep going, they keep going, they keep going, and then I bet they'll start to see it. And you are no different, you are that champion as well, and I want you to know that you are worth the time, the effort, and the stillness, most importantly, the stillness, to be patient and loving with yourself, to choose over and over and over and over again, to choose to love you in a way that means that you're moving forward, that you're choosing differently and that you're going towards what you want.

You can do this, my friends. I love you, I'm here for to you. If you need any support, I want you to reach out, but just know, keep going and just look for those one-degree shift's because that one-degree is gonna make a big change moving forward. Have an amazing day. 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 your 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.

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