Ep #35: Self-Soothing

I'm Mikki Gardner, and This is the Co-parenting with Confidence Podcast, Episode Number 35 Self-Soothing. Welcome to Co-parenting with Confidence, a podcast for those cores 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 Coparenting 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 and thank you for joining me today. You know, I know there are so many great podcasts that you have available to listen to, and I am so grateful that you're here with me talking about co-parenting, have you ever had those moments where you feel like you can take anything on that you are just killing it in the co-parenting situation, you've really got this, and then 10 minutes later your ex does something and you're in a total tail spin, before you know it, you've said things you didn't wanna say, you've sent the text that you wish you could take back, or you have found yourself head first in a now empty bag of potato chips, wondering what just happened? Well, if you have, then you're human, right, and you're experiencing all of these things, but what I wanna talk about today is what's going on behind all of that and how we can help ourselves avoid the emotional melt down. Listen, life is chaotic, it's stressful, there's negative experiences, that's part of it, it's going to happen, not because anything has gone wrong necessarily, but because we're humans interacting with other humans and we don't have control over all of the things around us, and really, oftentimes, the goal isn't to fix any of the problems or make the people do what we want them to do so that we can feel okay. The goal really is to start to feel Okay, regardless of what's happening around us. I know you've heard me talk on this podcast so much about how it's the awareness of our thoughts and our feelings that are ultimately the key to our happiness, that's what builds the confidence as being the mom and the co-parent that we really wanna be, because it's our thoughts that are creating our feelings, which drive the actions that we have in the world, and that determines the results or the experience or the life that we're living. So in other words, it's not the people or the circumstances or the experience that dictate our feelings, but it's our beliefs and our thoughts about those people, those circumstances and those experiences that cause our feelings. Really, when we get this backwards, when we don't understand this, or we get triggered by things in the world by people, and we end up reacting. I know I've talked about this before, because for me, it always feels like pinball mode when I'm just being bounced around from thing to thing to thing, just at the mercy of it, and what we end up doing when we're triggered, when we're not understanding and not aware of what's going on, we think we're at the mercy of the world and not the conscious creator of our experience that we actually are, and when we're feeling out of control, when we're feeling negative, when we're feeling hurt and disappointed and shame and blame... And the list goes on and on. We are really just in a very activated state, and what do I mean by that? When we are in an activated state, our emotions have become dysregulated, and what that means is we actually are being flooded in our system by stress hormones, and it makes us feel on edge, it makes us feel unregulated, discombobulated, disrupted. These stress hormones are not there to mess with us, they're not there to create all kinds of problems, quite the opposite, they're built into our system as a survival mechanism to keep us safe and alive, so our primitive brain really is there, and when it senses a threat, it floods our body with these stress hormones, right. It goes into fight or flight mode. It does this so that we are ready. When we're at the ready, we're ready to run, we're ready to fight, we're ready to do whatever it is we have to do, but unfortunately, all too often, we're letting that primitive brain, we're letting that unconscious part of us dictate how we're reacting 99% of the time. Until we become aware of what's going on, aware of what's actually triggering us, and then slowing ourselves down, regulating ourselves, we can't get out of that pinball mode, right. So Self-soothing is really just a strategy to regulate our emotions once they've become disruptive, it's to take ourselves from that activated reactive state and ground ourselves into a responsive state, you know when our emotions are high our intellect is low. Why would this be? Because when our whole body is flooded with these stress hormones and we're feeling very emotional and reactive, we actually don't think clearly because all of our brain power and energy is going into this one area, so we actually have to bring ourselves down... Bring the emotion down, bring the stress hormones down and regulate our systems so that we can think clearly, so that we can decide and choose our next response and not end up in that pinball mode, you know, ultimately another way to say it is that we can't sit around waiting for the world to change so that we can feel better, we have to create the change by feeling better first, so that we can change everything else around us. This requires us to start regulating ourselves when we're feeling triggered versus reacting and creating more mess to clean up later. And what do I mean by that? What does all this look like, you're like, Okay, I kinda get what you're talking about, but when we're in a dysregulated state, when we're emotionally reactive, it might look like not holding our boundaries, giving in when we really don't want to, saying yes, when we really mean no, maybe letting our boundaries be pushed and not holding them, then getting mad and unleashing our anger on to our kids or whoever is pushing the boundary, so not only is there that but now there's this whole other mess to clean up, other fences to mend because of the anger and the unleashing. Maybe it's saying to yourself, I am not gonna respond to nasty grams from my ex, and then one comes in, it's just that low blow that You just unleash a barrage of responses back. Right, ultimately the only thing is we end up adding to the drama. It might look like not wanting to feel the sadness of when your kids are gone for the weekend and maybe drowning yourself in the bottle of Pinot Noir, so you don't have to feel the sadness, but inevitably, you wake up the next morning with the same sadness, but now physically feeling not well, when we're sick, when we're hurt, when we're activated, when we're triggered, when we're stressed, we are reactive. We're out of alignment. We're out of ease. It's called diseased. When our body is flooded with all of the stress hormones and inflammation, it causes disease, dis-ease within our body, we are in a society and bombarded by media messages that tell us not to feel our feelings, right, feel bad, have a drink, take this pill, buy this purse, eat that treat, blame your ex, do all the things. The list goes on and on and on. This is what we call numbing or buffering, it's trying to do something to avoid having to feel the feelings that you're having, and we all do it, it's human nature, it's what we do, it's not a problem that we do that necessarily, but the numbing and the buffering only masks or hides the emotion for a moment, and when it wears off, it's still waiting for us. Right, but next time we have to up the ante a little bit more, we have to have a little bit more to get... To numb ourselves, you can see where that cycle takes us, but here's the thing, that feeling is always waiting until it's processed. Feelings are like visitors, they'll knock at the door, then they'll start pounding, and then they'll just kick it in, but like any visitor, a feeling will leave, some stay longer than maybe we want them to, and others are there for a short time, but they are meant to leave Self-soothing is really about learning a skill that we can develop to be able to allow the feelings to come in, to witness them, and then allow them to walk back out the door, essentially, when we're so busy fighting them and resisting them and avoiding them, we end up locking them in the closet and then piling all the mess and the drama and the unwanted reactions and all the crap on top of it, but it's just leaving more to clean up later. So today, what I wanna talk about is this idea of learning how to self-soothe, learning how to take care of yourself when you're feeling dysregulated, when you're feeling out of control. And I wanna offer you some simple and tangible actions that you can take to regain balance and get yourself back to equilibrium, because the fact of the matter is, our natural setpoint is ease, is calm, is love. I know that you might not think this right now today in the situation, especially if you're living under a high amount of stress, but it is true, our most natural spot is calm and peace and ease. It's why it feels so good. When we're there, it feels like home, so what we wanna be able to do is start to get proactive and think about steps that we can take to self-soothe ourselves ahead of time, it's a powerful way of caring for yourself, and especially if we tend to reach for that Ben & Jerry's or the Pinot Noir? When we're upset, having this tool kit to able to reach for something else to self-soothe ourselves and have those at the ready, so that we don't have to go to those numbing behaviors. When we're in the midst of emotional overload, which we are often in divorce, it can be really difficult to remember the things that soothe us, and so actually creating these things in advance and having them as like an emotional tool kit to have at the ready is so important. You know, I was just to a client the other day, divorce is a complicated conundrum, right? Because you're in the process of grieving doesn't matter where you're at in the process, but there is a grieving process, we have to go through, there's highs and lows, there's ups and downs, there's twists, there's turns, there's all of the things we're really creating a new identity. We're setting up a new family dynamic, we're doing so many things, and by the way, we're expected to be co-parenting in the best possible way, we're expecting ourselves to show up as the best version of ourselves, and we can only be there for our children to the extent that we are there for ourselves, and that's why this work is so important, because for us to be that safe, calm, loving place to land for our kids, to be able to soothe them, we have to be able to soothe ourselves, and so I wanna talk about a few different ways that you can actually start to create this. Some of these won't work for you, you'll be like, You know what, Mikki no thanks. And that's fine, right? But starting to look at what are those moments in my life, what are those things that create calm and peace and ease for me, what are those moments when I feel most like myself, most peaceful, because those are going to be sort of little breadcrumbs of ways that you can create that for yourself. So mindfulness is one of the most, I think, important, profound things we can do is learning to bring ourselves back to our senses, bringing ourselves back into our body, because our body never lies to us again. Again, our emotions are directive, they're simply telling us if we are having negative emotions or things that we don't wanna feel, it's simply trying to tell us that we're out of alignment, somewhere, we're out of integrity, something isn't right for us that we're out of our ease and so for us to get aligned back, we have to really get in touch with our body, and if our thinking and our thought is creating this sort of frantic-ness, we're not gonna solve the problem through our thoughts, we actually have to go into our body, into our senses, so that we're able to ground into what is true. So take some time to think through each of your senses and discover what you find calming. I'm gonna give you a few ideas to get started with, but this is very much something for you to decide what creates calm for me, so of all the five senses, I'm gonna start with sight... Maybe it's having a meaningful poem or a quote, maybe it's having a mantra, something that you can see, I'm a huge fan of sticky notes, I've got them everywhere. People make fun of me, I really couldn't care less, because they remind me of staying grounded, what brings me calm and what brings me peace, maybe it's a favorite picture of people that you love, or the things or the places that create a calm for you, having those around you is so, so helpful to bringing calm. Sound, this is another one, soothing music, nature sounds, anything to get you into a calm state using sound. Now, touch is another of the senses, you know this might be having some people really like having a stone to hold or a crystal or something, a tactile fabric or a small stuffed animal, just like your kids love their lovies or their stuffies right? They love it because it creates calm and peace for them to be able to hold it... Right, and that's not lost on us as adults. Taste is another one, right? And this might be maybe a little taste of something sweet of chocolate might bring you calm because it brings you into your senses, it might even be like a Tic Tac or a mint, right? There's even the, I know, stress, gummies or things like that, where it really gives you something to chew on and brings you into touch with taste it, it's bringing you back to your senses. The last of the five senses is smell. This is another huge one. So there might be essential oils or spices or a smell that you really love that brings you peace and calm, and if you had those items in a pretty box or a little bag or even something, just an essential oil in your purse. When we feel triggered, we can actually use that to just bring ourselves back to our senses, I know this might kind of sound silly, but we just wanna come back into our body, get out of the barrage of thoughts in our head and ground ourselves in what is true in this moment, and we could always find that truth in our body. You know, after divorce, I know myself and so many of the clients that I work with, we ultimately don't trust ourselves very much, right? We go back to all these thoughts, what did I miss, how did I not see that all the things... So part of the healing journey is really about rebuilding trust, and that starts with actually learning how to connect with the 90% of ourselves that is not in our head, that's coming back to our body, allowing ourselves to ground down and experience what is happening in this moment versus that worst case scenario that's running and playing out in our minds, and when we are able to create mindfulness, even in the most mundane moments or activated moments, it can bring us back into our senses, there's four other tools that I wanna talk about. The first one being what I call a grounding exercise. This is something I actually work with each of my clients, and we go through a visualization, and we do this to create a personal one for them, and we use it whenever we get triggered, maybe before a conversation. If we know that there's gonna be a time when we feel like we're going to lose control or get very stressed or feel a lot of anxiety, we create this grounding exercise, and you can do it for yourself in a very simple way, when you start to feel anxious when you start to feel dysregulated, when you start to feel triggered or activated... All you need to do is put your hand on your heart, if that feels comfortable. Some people like to put their hand around their wrist and squeeze lightly either one of those. But you just put your hand on your heart and you say to yourself, "I am okay, I am love, I am safe." If that feels like too much, you might just say, I am okay or I am safe in this moment, because here's the thing, if you are able to do that, you are safe in that moment. We might not feel safe in our thoughts, but we are safe in our body and grounding yourself down. Now, if you have someone physically hurting you, clearly, this is not a time to ground but what I'm talking about is when we're feeling anxious, overwhelmed by our thoughts or leading up to a conversation that we're stressed about to ground ourselves before or during, and just simply say in your mind, within yourself, I'm okay, I'm safe. The second tool is breath work, there's a lot of breath work out there, and we might talk about it on another episode because there's some pretty, really healing forms of breath work that can be done through practitioners and therapists, but when I say breath work today, what I wanna use it as is a way to, again, regulate our senses, regulate our body and to bring down the emotional activation into a more calm space, and so the way that we do this is through four-count breathing. I always found this really interesting, I don't know that you will, but the Marines I heard use four count breathing to keep their bodies regulated when they are like the Navy Seals when they're in these really intense situations, how do they stay so calm? Well, part of it is having that skill to be able to breathe and regulate their heartbeat so that they don't experience the highs and lows, and so you can do this and you can teach your kids to do this. It is hugely helpful. I know that I use it with my son. It's as simple as this. You breathe in for four. So breathe in. One, two, three, four. And you hold your breath for four. One, two, three, four, breath out. For four. And hold for four. So let's just do it really together really quick, so we're gonna go in for four... Hold for four. Out for four. Hold for four. I don't know about you, but I felt a slowing down, and that's really what we wanna do, because it teaches ourselves, it teaches our body that we are actually safe, we are safe to take care of ourself when we feel like everything is racing, we can bring ourselves into safety and calm. This is a superpower, this level of self-soothing, whether it's grounding yourself, breathwork, any of those things, is hugely impactful, being able to be mindful and come back to your body, so I love the four count breathing. The third one is meditation, I mean, I've done episodes on meditation. I'm sure I'll do more because I'm a huge proponent of meditation. But when we're feeling dysregulated, there are so many great moments, there's guided meditations out there that help us lower the anxiety, even just sitting in silence for two minutes can help us bring our activation down, but when we're highly activated, if we're able to get ourselves out of the situation and do a guided meditation, if you had an app, I love Headspace, Calm is great as well. But any of them have guided meditations to help you sort of re-regulate yourself, and so I highly recommend those. The fourth of the tools that I wanted to offer is the self-love, if you haven't listened to episode 29, Keeping the Little Promises, I highly recommend that you do. Because I think self-love gets lost here, but when we are feeling out of control, what we're really craving is love and care, and so what does self-love look like? It looks like doing the things that fills your soul up, and so I like to have clients always start by making a list of 20 things that their soul loves, the first two or three might be pretty easy, but then after that, it can kinda get a little bit hard, but I want you to create that list of 20 things and then use it if you're feeling activated, anxious, triggered, sad, any of those things, you can do just one, maybe two of the things on your list, whether that's take yourself on a walk outside, whether that is have a cup of tea, whether it's reading something from a book that inspires you, whatever it is that sort of fills you up and brings you back to your calm place, you can have those at the ready. Again, everything that I'm talking about here is just making a list and creating that tool kit so that during times of stress when your emotions are running really high, you have it at the ready, you have it accessible to help you remember how to soothe yourselves so that you are able to take more control over what's going on in your life. This is the work that I do with my clients. I help them create emotional tool kits with a variety of tools to be able to handle the chaos that life throws at them with confidence and care, and this is one of the tools that we work on a lot to help navigate the inevitable stresses in life. But how to self-soothe. And I wanna offer you something, if you are listening to this and you feel like you really need some love and support in this area, and you're ready to invest in yourself, to give yourself the tools and the skills to live the life that you truly desire with ease, then I want you to get on a clarity call with me. I'm gonna have the link in the show notes. Just click on it, we will get on a call, no strings attached, and we're gonna identify one area where you get tripped up, where you find yourself losing control, feeling reactive, creating more mass than you want to, and we're gonna help create an aligned action for you to be able to soothe yourself and to move forward with confidence, and with ease. So again, the link is in the show notes, please schedule your call today because then you'll be feeling better tomorrow. So that's the show for you today, that's what I wanted to talk with you about, is to help give you just a few ideas on how you can start soothing yourself, so that you can be the more confident, strong, loving parent for your children and re-parenting yourself by doing this work. I mean, that's really what we're doing here. So if you have found value from this free podcast and you're like, I wanna know more and you wanna learn about upcoming workshops or how to work with me, just go to www.mikkigardener.com and sign up for the Three Myths of Co-parenting, and you'll be on the newsletter, so that you don't miss any of the fun. Thank you so much for spending time with me. I'm really grateful that you're here, and I'll see you next week, and in the meantime, take really good care of you. 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.