Ep #29: Keeping the Little Promises

I'm Mikki Gardner, and this is the Co-Parenting with Confidence Podcast, episode number 29, Keeping the Little Promises. [music] Welcome to co-parenting with competence, a podcast for those courageous moms out there who wanna move past the conflict and frustration of doors 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 friend. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm really excited about this episode because I think that we all need a reminder, we wanna feel better in life. We want to not keep doing the same things that get us into trouble or make us not feel good, but yet often we just keep doing them over and over. I think it was Einstein's definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. But how often do we do that in our life? So I have a couple of questions for you before we start diving into the topic. Do you ever have a tendency to put everyone else's needs above your own and then end up feeling resentful because they're not pulling their weight? Are you ever trying to do everything for everyone because you've always done it, but now you're a single parent and it just seemed impossible? Do you find yourself cutting out workouts or quiet time for yourself, or even time with friends because you feel guilty not being with your kids when they're home with you? Do you ever find yourself saying yes when you really mean no? Do you ever find yourself promising yourself that you're gonna get up and do that workout or have that morning routine, but then you just end up hitting the snooze button? Do you find yourself saying, oh no, it's okay, I can cancel my plan so that we can be there, but then end up blaming the person that you're not happy about being there? Maybe you've promised yourself that you will not respond to any of the nasty grams that your ex sends you, but then you lose control, and you lose your cool and you just start firing away? I know that I can raise my hand to almost every one of these questions, and I'm guessing I'm not alone. Actually, I know I'm not alone, because every day my clients bring some version of these questions to me on our calls. If you're anything like so many of the moms that I talk to, real self-care, real self-trust doesn't feel like it's at the top of your to do list, because you're so busy taking care of everyone else. And honestly, just trying to stay afloat most days, the idea of self-care as the way that the media and culture defines it seems ridiculous and counter-productive and a waste of time to many of us. You already have so many things to care for. Why are we adding to that list. And here's the other thing, many of us did not have healthy role models, show us what legitimate self-care practices look like. So many of us may have grown up with some watered-down version of June Cleaver. Yes, I just dated myself and for those of you who have no idea who June Cleaver is, that the leave it to beaver mom, she was always there for everybody. Always with a smile on her face. Always perfectly put together. And never a problem that June couldn't solve. And she always had dinner on the table at 6 o'clock. [chuckle] But this just isn't realistic, but that was what was presented to our parents, and then we got some water down version of that. Maybe you had a mom who was a complete martyr, who believed that she had to burn herself down just to keep others warm, but none of these are good examples of self-care, of prioritizing ourselves, caring for ourselves and showing up fully. So why am I bringing this up today? Well, because in order for us to heal from divorce, for us to co-parent confidently with awareness, unless honest, just effectively adult in this world, we have to be caring for ourselves, and there's another requirement besides self-care, and it's self-trust. If you're like so many of the moms that listen to this podcast that I talk to every day, and that are my clients, their trust and their faith in others has been shattered. That's what the divorce did, and more importantly, their trust in themselves was shattered. Why didn't they see things, how didn't they know? Why didn't they fix it, all the things go through, but what it does is it just eats away at self-trust, and it puts us in this position to not trust ourselves and therefore be looking everywhere outside of ourselves. We start searching for who has the answers, who can we trust, who can we turn to, and you know what, we end up on this exhausting cycle of searching for the answers outside of ourselves when that is the exact place that they are not. Self-trust is one of the key pillars of the work that I do with my clients, because when you trust yourself, you know that you have the answers inside of you, you just have to find them. You have to figure it out, get curious. You end up having your own back, you know how to ground yourself and keep yourself safe, you are so much more powerful when you fully trust yourself and you feel ready for anything that comes your way, because you know that you have your back, and then you show up fully each day, even when things are difficult, even when they're uncertain, even when they're hard, and even when everyone else is acting a complete fool, so how do we build back this trust. Maybe we didn't even have it really in the first place. Maybe it was shattered during the marriage. Well, building it back or building self-trust really is a twofold process, it starts with prioritizing you, your well-being, what's good for you, what you need. And then we start by setting and keeping the little promises. There's an old adage that You can't pour from an empty cup, it's very true, if you've ever tried, it doesn't work. [chuckle] Yet we run ourselves into the ground and then somehow expect to keep pouring out of our empty cup. We're completely depleted, exhausted. Showing up for everybody else. But not for ourselves. It just doesn't work. The hardest part or the worst part about this in my opinion, is that culture has somehow told us that self-care is selfish, but actually not taking care of yourself is the most selfish act that you can do, because you end up with nothing left to give. How many times have we just given, given, given all day long, and we end up back home with the people that we love the most, that we wanna pour into the most, and our cup is empty. The people we love the most, get the least of us, so it is not selfish in any way, shape or form, to care for yourself, to prioritize yourself and to have a practice of self-care. Taking care of yourself is a necessity, not a luxury. This is why I'm talking about self-care today. I have so many clients that come to me and say, I just don't know why I'm not getting things done that I wanna get done, I don't know why I'm falling into that pattern over and over, I don't know why I feel like this every single day. Well, we have to look at what are those patterns, are we caring for ourselves, are we prioritizing our well-being, and if we're not, then we need to make a shift and start keeping a promise to ourself. First, I'm gonna dive into some ideas on how you could do this, but the key is really just to be kind to yourself, give yourself a break and maybe some time and space that you need to focus and figure out what you need, maybe you give yourself 10 minutes today after this podcast and decide, ask yourself what do I need? Maybe journal about it. What do I truly need to feel more me, more energized, more filled up, and then we're gonna decide on a couple of things, and you're gonna commit yourself to keeping those small promises every day to take care of yourself as you would someone that you deeply, deeply love. The magic really lies right there, keeping the small promises to yourself. When you keep that promise that you make to yourself day after day after day, you know what it does, it creates trust, it creates confidence, you prove to yourself that you will show up no matter what, even when it's hard, even when you don't want to, even when it's early, that you have your own back, and when you are armed with this trust and this confidence, you're willing to take more risks, you're willing to be more vulnerable, you're willing to be more honest, you take better and better care of yourself because you know that you're gonna do it no matter what. And this is the magic. So where do we even start? You're probably like, okay, Mikki, enough, enough. Well, I'm gonna give you several ways here, and then you get to decide if any of these feel good or if they're something else. Really you're looking for things that are gonna nourish you. That are gonna fill you up. I've also created a little guide to get you started. There will be a link in the show notes, so if you wanna download it to help you, I strongly recommend it. On a previous podcast, I did talk about self-love. What does self-love even mean? Well, self-love, by my definition, is just giving your soul things that it loves, pretty simple. Maybe start by writing out 20 things that your soul loves, things that fill you up, that bring you energy, joy, peace and love. And once you have those 20 things, you're gonna just pick one and promise to yourself to it every day. This can be as simple as taking a five-minute breath break. Try saying that fast. A five minute breath break, you know where you just sit, maybe outside in the sun, if it's a beautiful day, and you just allow yourself to feel yourself breathing, maybe a bath, maybe a cup of tea, maybe a walk with a friend. Once you have this list of 20 things, you can just roll through them, so that's kind of a fun, easy way, and I love those self-care list for those moments when we're feeling really down, we can just look at that list and go do one, because I guarantee you'll feel better after than you did before. Let's talk about what a self-care routine might look like, and I'm gonna give you some ideas. This isn't one-size-fits-all, and I recommend that you take what resonates and leave what doesn't. You can decide, but here's a couple of them. Movement, hugely, hugely important. Spending at least 30 day... 30 days, spending at least 30 minutes every day moving your body is huge. That could be a walk outside, that could be a yoga class, it could be a run, it could be Zumba, it can be whatever feels good to you, but really committing to moving your body at least 30 minutes, this could just be a walk after dinner with your kids, anything to get yourself moving and ideally outside. Another thing to commit to his hydration, it's so important, consuming at least 64 ounces of water a day is imperative, it helps our body stay level. To stay balanced. I know for me, I start my day each morning with a court of lemon water. It sounds like a lot, but I drink it and I know I've started that, I'm off to a really great start. I mentioned the breath break, that's hugely important, but just taking time throughout your day to breathe, to focus on it and to re-center yourself. A sleep routine is a really important part of self-care, keeping a routine that supports your sleep wellness, that might look like having a regular bedtime and a regular wake up time, avoiding electronics, one hour before bed, avoiding caffeine after lunch. Maybe you start reading or journaling before bed, but really creating an intentional practice to put yourself to bed, to show yourself kindness and to prioritize sleep. Really important. And my number one favorite way to build self-care into my day, and what I would like to recommend to you is meditation. I know, you've heard me say it before, and I will continue to be a broken record on this. Why? Because a dedicated daily meditation practice can be a deep and profound act of self-love, any amount of time spent in meditation each day does positively impact the quality of your internal experience, it does impact the quality of your life, and it has the power to provide you with a more responsive and a less reactive position in life. Meditation is really simply learning to separate from our thoughts, it's learning to focus on our breath and allow our mind to do what it does, which is think. But without attaching to it. Now, why is this important? Because when we can start to understand that the thoughts that are running through our head are just simply sentences in our brain. Not true... Well, not true or false. That they're just thoughts. And we don't have to attach to them. We don't have to believe them. We don't have to follow them. That nasty mean girl voice in your head who tells you all the bad stuff, she's not you, she's not in charge, and she's not honest. But the only way that we can start to understand that all of those voices we hear in our head, all of those things that run by all of the past mistakes, all of it, the only way that we can understand that we are separate from that is to actually sit down in meditation and practice building the muscle of separating from our thoughts, of learning to see them go by without attaching to them. And you know what this does, it's huge. Because when people come at us when there's conflict, when things happen in the world, we create a buffer around ourselves, that space between us and our thoughts, which allows us the ability to choose. I'll go back to many of those examples at the very, very beginning of this episode, when your ex comes flying at you with all the nasty grams, it's so easy to just hit send it, it's so easy to just retaliate, and it's almost guaranteed when we don't have the space to decide, and that's what meditation does, it offers you the ability to practice building the muscle of responsiveness versus reactiveness, it's just like going to the gym that you would do for your body, but you're doing it for your mind. For me, I really was a meditator for a long time on and off, and then in the last year, two years I guess I decided that I was really going to just commit. At first I said, I'm just gonna do 30 days, and I did 30 days every day. Then I did 60 days, and right around the 60-day mark, I started to really notice a difference. Things felt different to me. I felt different to me. Then 90 days passed, then 100 days, then 200 days, then 300 days, then 400 days, then 500 days. And now I'm on to... It's over 550 days. And what I've realized now is that I built so much self-trust, that was the single most profound activity for me to build self-trust was just sitting down every morning without fail. I would get up early or I would move things around, but I wouldn't let myself off the hook. And that for me was a huge shift in building self-trust, and I know, I know that it will be the same for you. It's just we have to be willing to make the promise and then keep that little promise to ourselves. What I'd love for you to do, and I did it in the download, if you wanna download it. But I created a little checklist. You can create your own. Pick those things that you are going to decide and promise yourself that you're gonna do every day. Maybe it's a morning ritual, starting your day, having water, making your bed. Why? 'cause it just feels good when you go to sleep in a bed that's been made, it's like giving your future self a little gift, it's saying you matter and you're cleaning up. So maybe your morning you routine is drinking some water, making your bed and meditating. Amazing. Can you imagine starting your day with that kind of intention and love towards yourself. I promise you, if you keep that little promise, it will feel huge, maybe movement becomes one of the things that you're gonna promise yourself. Maybe there's an evening ritual that you're gonna promise yourself to do. And maybe you wanna add one of those little acts of self-love, and you can pick one each day, but if you create a checklist and you keep it front and center, it's right there. You can't get away from it, you check it off and you prove to yourself over and over again that you are gonna show up for you. Because that is who is gonna change your life, you. You are the one that holds all of the answers, you are the one that has all of the capacity to live the life that you are dreaming of, it is right there, and it begins with prioritizing yourself and keeping the little promises to truly love and care for yourself. That's what I have for you today. Again, I have a link in the show notes if you wanna grab a copy of the self-care guide that I created, just to help you decide on and start keeping those little promises to yourself. And if you know someone who needs to hear this message today, please share it with them. I know that when I first got divorced and I was really struggling just to keep my head above water, self-care seemed like such a far off thing or a mani-pedi or a night out with the girls, but I didn't really understand what self-care meant. I didn't understand that it was about prioritizing myself, about caring for myself deeply, and learning to trust myself again. If you know someone who needs to hear this message, please share it with them. And lastly, the last thing I'm gonna ask, if you are receiving value from this free podcast, I would be so appreciative if you would rate and review the show, this helps me know what you're enjoying, and it helps others to find the show so that we can spread the message. Thank you for spending this time with me, I'm so grateful that you're here. 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]