Ep #130: What Do You Do with the Anger?

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, we'll get ready. And let's dive into today's episode.

Welcome back to the podcast. So before we dive into the topic today, I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening. Thank you for the comments and the emails and the questions that you share with me. I really love making this podcast. It is a labor of love, and I want to pour more positivity, more inspiration, more practical ways to empower you in your co-parenting journey and in your parenting journey and in your life. The thing is that it is our birthright to feel good, to have good things, to be abundant, to be the love that we are. And part of that is the choice and the decision to live in that way. And that's why I keep doing this podcast because I want our children to see a different model than many of us saw. And to have a choice in the life that we're living and feeling and experience it, it doesn't matter what happened in the past.

You always get a choice moving forward. And so I wanna thank you for being here, for listening, and most importantly, for doing the work. Because if you're listening to this podcast once, twice to all the episodes, it's because this is who you are, and you're doing this work for yourself and your kids, and you are making this world better. And I am grateful to you for that. If you wouldn't mind going over to wherever you listen to the podcast, whether it's on Spotify or Apple, and if you would rate and review the show, I would be so grateful because this really helps the show. And if you would do this for me, I would be so, so grateful. So what I wanted to talk about today is something that I hear over and over from moms when I'm on breakthrough calls or connections. They say, ah, I don't want my anger or my animosity, or my frustration with my ex to affect my kids.

Or I don't wanna sort of heap that onto my children. Maybe you know, you're emotionally reacting to your acts in front of your children. Maybe you see their faces and you know that it's impacting them. Maybe you're just hoping it doesn't. Maybe you're trying so hard to cover up how you're really feeling that you just put on the super. Everything is perfect, everything is nice. It's like that Lego movie. Everything is awesome. But when we have that, everything is awesome fake persona on, people can feel it. They hear our words saying, everything's great, but what people actually experience of us is what they feel in our energy. And when our energy is full of anger and resentment and bitterness and blame, others are gonna feel it. And that includes our kids. And that's what I wanted to talk about today. Because we can't continue to hold onto that toxicity of the past of all the ways that we were wronged.

We cannot continue to blame. We cannot continue to get frustrated that the other co-parent or your ex has moved on. Maybe they're thriving and you are not. And the frustration and the anger around that keeps you digging a hole deeper and deeper and deeper. And I know you just heard me say that and are thinking, are you blaming me, Mikki, for this? I'm not blaming anybody. What I'm saying is that we are emotionally hooked in to the story of the past. When we are carrying the anger and the bitterness and the resentment with us all the time, it cannot help but affect us and all of our relationships and all of the people around us. So how do we not do that? Well, we have to first start by letting ourselves feel the emotions that we are feeling. To notice them, to acknowledge them, to see them.

So often we're trying to act like they're not affecting us. Act like we're not angry, act like we're not bitter. But really we are. Maybe you find yourself doom scrolling on your ex's social media. Like sort of looking for all the ways maybe you engage on their social media or in a negative text stream that sort of provokes them. Maybe you don't start it, but maybe you don't end it. And so all of these ways are the ways that anger seeps out into our life. And the thing about anger is that it will get out. Suppressed anger is going to come out because anger is a big emotion with a big charge behind it. And the more that we fight against it, the more we try to suppress it, the more we try to act like it's not there, the more power we are giving it.

I want you to think of it like this. It's like if you are trying to hold a beach ball underwater, you can hold it underwater maybe for a moment, maybe a couple of minutes if you really use a lot of strength, but eventually it is going to pop up and way up into the air. For as much force as you put on it to hold it down, it is going to pop up that much higher into the air. And so we have to understand that our emotions are similar to this. And so when we try so hard to not feel them, to ignore them, to buffer around them, we are going to have to feel them at some point. But we're just basically adding to their power the more that we don't process them. So how do we start to process? Let's just pick anger.

Because that's the one that I'm talking about here. First, like I said, it's acknowledging that you're angry, saying I'm angry. Noticing when you're angry. Sometimes it's subtle, sometimes it's obvious. But to actually stop and just say to yourself, I'm really angry right now. What does this anger feel like in my body? That's a wonderful way to start to get into your body where all of our emotions live. And that can sometimes be a really scary place for a lot of people. And a lot of us have not felt our feelings for so long that we've abandoned the body and we just live in our heads. So it feels very awkward. It feels scary, and it feels weird, and it feels ridiculous. To have the conversation with yourself that I'm suggesting. And that's why we have to employ help here. Where we learn the strategies to be able to do this.

It's a skill. It's a learned skill. So if you don't have a therapist or a coach, I want you to find somebody to help you process the emotions. But also, have you ever had one of those moments when you feel like you are about to pop? Like you could just scream, I have an idea for you. Let it out. Scream. I just did this yesterday. I was so frustrated about something. I went into the other room and I screamed, blood curdling scream. The dog came running in. 'Cause he thought, something was really wrong, but I did it when I was alone. I did it when I was able to process it and just let the anger out. Afterwards, my voice was scratchy, my throat hurt. I literally screamed with such power. But here's the thing. This is what we need to do.

Instead of trying to bottle it all up, let it out. We have to let these emotions out. It's like a tea kettle. We have to let this steam out, otherwise it's gonna blow. So it's like we just give a little bit of a release, whether it's a scream, whether it's like hitting a pillow. I'm a big fan of that. Maybe you just need to cry. Maybe the tears are like just right there. Go in the bathroom. Take a shower. Allow yourself to feel it and to just cry instead of trying to fight it, we have to be willing to just feel these emotions, because when we are able to feel them and process them, they lose their power. Which brings me to the next point, which is when we have all of this anger, this bitterness, this resentment from the past, from what didn't go our way, that was very unfair.

And listen, the beautiful clients that I work with everyday, it's not fair what happened to them. It's not, oftentimes, it's not okay, they didn't deserve it. But as long as they keep holding onto that, the part where they believe they didn't deserve it, and you can know that you didn't deserve it. But when you're attached to it and really holding onto it and thinking about all the ways that you didn't deserve it, and thinking of all the ways that it was wrong, what we're actually doing is just giving more and more power to the story and to the person who did it. And what we don't wanna do is continue to give your ex any more of your emotional power, your energetic power, or any part of your life that you do not want them to have. And this is not asking them to change.

No apology that they will ever give you will completely erase all of your feelings about it. I know we like to think that if they were to apologize, and if they were to just be nicer, then I would feel better. But the fact is, that's not theirs to give, you feeling better is based on you making the decision to do so. And you stepping in and making the decision to be intentional with how you wanna feel, intentional with how you wanna behave, intentional about what you wanna believe, really starting to make conscious choice so that you are starting to live in alignment with the life that you absolutely want. And when we start to do that with each thought, each feeling, each action, each interaction that we have, we start to shift into a direction that actually allows us to let go of the anger, to let go of the bitterness, to let go of the frustration, and to say, I'm not giving you one more stinking ounce of my emotions, of my energy, of my time, of my beautiful spirit.

I am going to pour all of that beauty and wonderfulness that I have inside of me, into myself and into our children. That's where I want you working from. And as long as we are held back by the ties of anger, of bitterness, of holding onto the story, holding onto the betrayal, holding onto all of it, as long as we were holding onto all of that, we are handcuffing ourselves to the past, to our acts, and allowing them to be in charge of our tomorrow. And I don't want that for you. I don't want what has happened in the past. I don't want your ex, whether they're difficult or not. I don't want your ex's new partner. I don't want any of them to have your power. I want you to stand in that. I want you to stand deeply with your emotions and your feelings, with your own thoughts, and choose the actions that you want to take in alignment with the direction you wanna go.

It is not easy work. But this is the work that frees us. This is the work that will free you from the anger, from the bitterness, from the resentment, from the money stories, from the relationship stories, believing that you're not deserving of love and a whole, beautiful, healthy relationship. All of these things are just choices that we have to make for ourselves. Instead of waiting for someone else to stop doing something, or to start doing something, or to say they're sorry, or to make amends. You can be waiting way too long and you get one precious life. And I want you standing in your power, taking back your control, taking back your energy, taking back your time, taking back your freedom, and taking back how you want to feel in this life and who you want to be for your kiddos. And we do that when we start to become more honest with ourselves, more honest about the feelings that we're having, what we're feeling, being willing to feel them, acknowledge them, process them, allow them to move through us.

There's so much research coming out more and more and more that all of the emotions, all of the trauma, everything is stored inside of our bodies until it is processed. And that does not get processed just with time. It gets processed by us intentionally moving through it and releasing. And listen, I'm not gonna tell you that it's easy work, and I'm not gonna tell you that it's a linear line like you do X, Y, and Z, and then it's great. No, it's work that we have to do day in and day out, over and over, decision by decision, action by action. But when you do that, you are creating the direction that you're going in. You are creating freedom for yourself. And that is what I want for you. And I know that it is completely possible. That's the biggest thing. It is completely possible for you when you decide.

So if you're saying to yourself, okay, Mikki, I know I've got some work to do, amazing, congratulations. That is honesty, that you can work with. And what I want you to do next is I want you to use the link in the show notes to book a breakthrough call with me. If you want to talk about how you can start to do the work to move yourself and your kids in a different direction, then I want you to get on a call. This is not gonna be a hard sales call where I'm trying to sell you on coaching, although I know coaching is amazing for the right person. But what I do wanna do on this call is help you get really clear on what is one thing that you can start to focus on right now in your life. And you can start to shift in the next, let's say, 60 to 90 days.

And I will help you come up with a plan to do that. And then we will decide if coaching is part of that or not. If you are a good fit and if I'm a good fit for you, these are all questions that have to be flushed out. But we can only do that once we open up and get into conversation. And what I want more than anything for you is to have clarity is for you to have the peace of mind to say to yourself, I got you. We're doing this. I've got everything I need. Because you already do have everything you need inside of you. And I know that accountability and support and mentorship makes the journey so much faster, so much smoother, and keeps us going when we wanna quit. That's the thing. I was just on a call with a client.

So frustrated, but she's making the progress. She's in the middle of the transformation and we have to keep going. But so often, how many times have you said to yourself, oh, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna, let's say work out. And you go to the gym two days in a row, but then on the third morning you wake up and you're like, Ugh, I don't wanna go. Or your kids are home and you're like, I can't go. I can't do that. Whatever it is, then you make the decision, well, I'm just not gonna do it today. But then tomorrow comes and you don't do it again, and the next day comes and you don't do it again. And that happens over and over. And this is what we need to create a plan so that you don't do that. So that you don't have the best of intentions, have the desire to make change, but that you don't have the plan to actually make it happen.

So I want you to get on a call with me. I wanna help you create your plan so that you are moving forward and you are seeing the change. It can happen quicker than you think. Here's the thing I really want you to take away from this conversation, is that you do not have to live buried underneath the weight of the anger, of the bitterness, of the resentment, of the sadness. You get to decide how you move forward. You get to decide how you feel each day. And you, my friend, I want you feeling amazing. I want you feeling in control of your parenting, in control of your relationship with your ex. I want you feeling in control of your future and where you are headed. And I want you excited for what's to come. And this is totally possible for you. So use the link in the show notes, please, let's get on a call. I am here to talk with you. I love talking with each of you that listen to this podcast, and I am so grateful for you being here. And if no one else tells you today, I want you to know that you are loved and that you are worthy, and you are completely capable of creating a life for you and your kids that is based on your wellbeing and that you fully love and enjoy. I believe in you, my friend. I'll see you next week.

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.