Ep #76: What Supporting Yourself As a Co-Parent Looks Like

[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 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. [music] Hi friend and welcome back to the podcast. I'm excited to be here with you today. I wanted to build on last week's episode and really talk about what it looks like to support yourself while maybe conflict or disagreement is happening. Does it feel like sometimes you have two options? You either fight or you end up just constantly eating you know what. Do you ever feel like a ping pong ball, maybe between your kids and your ex, or between your ex and your new partner, or between you and your ex, but you're just constantly being flung back and forth, back and forth. Well, that's what we're gonna talk about today, ways and strategies for you to support yourself so that you're not waiting for others to do it. But before we dive in, I did wanna tell you about a little upcoming workshop that I have. I love doing workshops with you guys, because it's an opportunity for us to get together to talk about different perspectives, different mindsets, different tools that you can apply to your co-parenting today that will make a significant difference. And this next workshop is all about creating less stress and more ease in your co-parenting. So if you are interested in less stress, if you wanna de-stress your co-parenting relationship, great news, on April 4th, you will have the opportunity for this webinar with me. We're gonna actually talk through what works and what doesn't work, give you the tools and the strategy and the action plan to move forward. You will walk away from this hour together feeling less stress and more capable, I promise you. So there's a link in the show notes, or you can just go to my website, mikkigardner.com/workshop and sign up and save your spot today. I can't wait to see you there. So we're gonna dive right into the episode today. You know, just the other day, I was on a call with one of my beautiful clients and she was going through something that I see so often. And there's a couple of reasons that I wanted to bring this up because I think that many of you listening, I know that you have people pleasing tendencies, just like me, just like my clients. We all kind of have those tendencies to be a people pleaser. Nothing wrong with this. Listen, people pleasers kind of run the world. I get it. And we do great work, and it can be a really great quality. It also can be a double-edged sword, and that's the part that we're gonna talk about today, because what I saw in my client and what I see in so many of my clients is that there is this urge, this overwhelming urge to fix things when there is conflict, when there is disagreement. It's almost as if you can't sit still, you can't focus on anything else when you are in an active argument with the other co-parent. And listen, co-parenting is challenging. There are bound to be disagreements, there are bound to be a little bit of conflict, and sometimes there's a lot of conflict, but what you don't have to do is just cross your fingers and wish the other person would change. That strategy doesn't work. So today what I wanna do is talk about ways that you can actually support yourself so that you are moving yourself and your kids and your family forward in a productive way. So first, we have to understand what's happening, and I'm gonna use this example. So my client, they had an agreement, like many of you do, there's a parenting agreement or a divorce agreement that sort of lays out everything, and usually there is a lot in these documents, and often when we're getting divorced, we're pretty stressed out, right? There is a lot of emotion going around, we may not be thinking clearly and we might forget some of the things we "agreed to". Well, this is what happened to my client the other day, she had forgotten about something that she had agreed to, and she went ahead and did this thing that she said she wasn't going to do, truly, completely forgetting. It was a genuine, honest mistake. When the other co-parent brought it to her attention and say, hey, did you do this? Because I can't do it now. She got an immediate pit in her stomach and said, yeah, I did. It was but the first step before she reacted with a very quick, yeah, I did. Very defensive. Was, oh my gosh, I did something wrong. She immediately realized, oh, there's something here. She wasn't quite sure, but her stomach, her gut was telling her something is wrong. And she immediately jumped to the defensive. And he said, well, you need to change this because we agreed. She said he was actually really calm, very rational about it, and she jumped at him. Became very defensive, I'm not changing it, I deserve this. I forgot, it's not a big deal, we'll just do it again next year. She jumped into reaction mode, and it was this urge to fix the mistake that she had made, but also she wanted to not let him dictate what she was or wasn't gonna do. So in this one very quick three-second conversation, it went from zero to 60. And afterwards, she was consumed with worry, with stress, she was scared that this was gonna turn into a huge issue that she was gonna have to deal with, her partner was upset with her about it, her ex was upset with her about it. She was stuck, and so she reached out on Voxer 'cause that's how I communicate with my clients in between sessions, so that we can address things like this because life happens in between coaching sessions. So what we realized is that she was in between the rock and a hard place and she was feeling very unsupported, she was feeling very afraid, she was feeling a lot of stress and she wasn't showing up in her life because she was so consumed with what was going on. And she was sort of rapid firing, sending me all of these messages wanting my feedback, wanting to know how we could fix this. What do I do? And here is the part that I wanted to talk to you about. Sometimes we can't fix things in an instant, as much as we would love to, and as much as we live in a world that is instant gratification and tells us we can have anything we want at any time, we just have to Amazon it or do whatever. We don't actually live in a world that things can be resolved instantaneously, and sometimes we have to be willing to go through the discomfort, the messiness, the uncertainty long enough to gain the clarity to know what to do next, to know how to bring resolution. And this is where we really have to learn to support ourselves so that we can take 100% responsibility over our 50%. So as she and I started to pull apart and untangle all the mess and we realized that it wasn't necessarily her co-parent's reaction or her co-parent's words, it was really her feeling like she had made a mistake, and when she feels like she makes a mistake, it brings up all kinds of discomfort for her because it brings up the unknown of, well, what's gonna happen next? All of the past trauma and experience from the previous relationship where conflict was a constant part of it and she doesn't wanna go back there. And so anything that suggests that there could be conflict, she resists. She doesn't even wanna go near it, she doesn't wanna touch it with a 10-foot pole. She just wants to make it go away, but in that urge to wanting it to just go away sometimes and often, she makes decisions that aren't necessarily in her best interest or her family's best interest, because she's just wanting to fix it. And this is where when we're people pleasers, we tend to say yes a lot, or we tend to just say, oh yeah, yeah, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine. I'll make it work. And we do that because we don't wanna feel the discomfort of either the other person being unhappy or there being potential conflict, but the problem is, is that when we just say yes, when we just try to fix it, we're not being truthful or authentic to what our needs and desires are, and that builds resentment over time, and that's what she realized when she became very defensive with him in that instant, realizing I made a mistake, but I deserve to not have to deal with this. That was all the resentment that had been building up from not speaking up, from not being more truthful and authentic up until this point. Now, this is the point in the conversation where I say to you, and I said to her, zero blame, zero judgement for yourself. Have compassion. You're doing the best that you can with what you have available. When we know better, we do better as the great Maya Angelou said. So that's the step one. We have to stop and slow down enough to be able to be aware of what's going on. When we deconstructed what had actually happened in that conversation versus her initial suggestion of how it went, she realized what was going on, she realized she had made a mistake, she realized that she genuinely wanted to rectify that mistake, and she wanted to figure out how to move forward in a way that was different, in a way that she wasn't just people pleasing or she wasn't just complying or she wasn't just giving in to something that she no longer felt good about. The decision that she agreed to back when she was just trying to get separated, just trying to divorce, actually no longer applied, but we can't get to that step until we get to step one. And so that's where I wanna talk to you the same way that I spoke to her. When we understand that we are maybe having a disagreement, or you realize there is conflict happening, first and foremost, we have to stop and pause, we have to pause because as long as the emotion is high, our rational thinking mind, our intellect is low. And so we have to be willing to get ourselves back to a place where we can be more aware. We can be more responsive. I know I've talked a lot about that here, and this is where responsibility comes in, the ability to respond. So we have to stop and pause and breathe. Now, sometimes this is where supporting yourself starts. In that conversation that she had with her other co-parent, he called, she picked up the phone and he said, hey, did you do this thing? In that instant, she knew something, her gut told her something's wrong, but instead of stopping and pausing, she just jumped, and that's where she went instantly into reaction. And that's okay. She got triggered. It happens to all of us. Hindsight being 2020 though, we talked about what it would look like to have supported herself in a moment. What that would have looked like is pausing and getting herself some space so that she could decide how do I wanna approach that conversation. And so we practiced some scripts and I wanna offer you a couple here, but maybe your co-parent texts or calls and says, hey, did you do this? Or, hey, I need to talk to you about X, Y, Z. And you immediately know that you are going into reaction, so you wanna buy yourself a little bit of time, you can do that. Especially if you're not standing in front of the person. You can stop and pause and say, oh, hey, I realize this is a really important topic and I want to talk to you about it, but I'm in the middle of something right now. Let me call you back in 20 minutes. All that does is allow you some space to decide, how do I wanna move forward in this conversation? And to be able to ground yourself, which we're gonna talk about in a minute. We can do the same thing when we feel triggered, when someone yells at us or when we're about to blow up on our kids or anything where anything is coming at us. We wanna stop and create space, and what that looks like is simply stopping, taking a breath, maybe taking three deep breaths, and then deciding how you wanna move forward. This is a skill. This is a muscle. Listen, we are very good at the instant yes, we are very good at reacting, we are very good at going along with what other people want us to do. What many of us aren't as good and skilled at is actually choosing and being responsive, and part of that is giving yourself a buffer or some space to be able to decide what that even looks like. And so this is always where I talk about meditation with my clients. The reason that we meditate is so that we can separate from our thinking, so that we can actually go to the place within ourselves that is not that rapid crazy thinking in our minds, but it's actually the still, calm, peaceful, loving voice inside. When we can learn to tap into that and separate from the frantic thoughts in our head, we've gained the skill of creating that space intentionally. The more we do it, the more we sit and learn to do it, the bigger that space becomes, and over time, that might give you a one or two-second reaction time and that one or two second space, that buffer is huge, because that's the moment that you can decide, oh, my gut is telling me something is wrong, or you're feeling that tightness in your chest, or you're feeling that lump in your throat. That is your body's way of telling you, hey, something's misaligned. We need attention. And so you stop and breathe and get yourself the ability to pause for a moment. Like I said, it might just be saying, hey, I really wanna have this conversation with you, but I can't do it in this moment. Let me call you back. Or I'll text you when I'm able to talk. Or if someone's standing in front of you, you can say, I'm feeling really overwhelmed, I can't talk to you in a way that feels productive, please give me five minutes. And you go walk around the block. This is not wimping out, this is not chickening out of a conversation, this is actually choosing to show up in responsibility and strength and calm, and we have to choose it. And that's what supporting yourself really looks like, it looks like saying, I don't wanna just fix this situation so that it goes away, but I actually wanna resolve it and that's going to take some time. And during that time, I have to support myself to be able to do that. But that's a skill, it's a skill that we have to develop and we have to learn. It's like going to the gym and lifting weights. So I wanna offer you an idea, maybe for the next three to five days I want you to not say yes to anything. I actually don't even want you to say no to anything either, unless it's a hard no. If it's a hard no, absolutely. If it's, can I run across the street into traffic? No. Right? Can your co-parenting partner unload and yell at you? No. Those are hard nos. What I'm talking about is when someone says to you, oh my gosh, I have to talk to you about this right this second. That is a no. It's not an instant yes, just letting them go, but it's saying, I need a minute. And learning how to create the space. Maybe a friend says, hey, you wanna grab coffee next Tuesday? Instead of instantly saying yes, even if you know you're going to, practice the skill of buying yourself a little bit of time saying, let me check my calendar, I'll get back to you. Or a child wants the candy bar at Target in the check out. This is one of those ones where we give in, but maybe we say, No or we can't do that today, or I actually need to think about that. And you think about it the entire time you're in line. But whatever it is, you're allowing yourself to feel a little uncomfortable and you're buying yourself some time and space to decide what do I really want here? Because that's what supporting yourself looks like, asking yourself what do I need? What do I want? And then being able to give yourself that in the best way that you have possible. And sometimes we can't give ourselves exactly what we need, but I guarantee, when you start to ask yourself, what do I need? What do I want here? What it's doing is it's allowing your voice to matter. It's allowing you to matter, it's allowing what you desire to matter, and you deserve this, and it starts with allowing yourself the time and the space and building the muscle to do it. So that's what I have for you today. And listen, if you're like, I really wanna do this, Mikki, I know that this is a problem in my life, but I just don't know how to do it, do not worry. Just go to the show notes and click on the clarity call link. That is a call that you can have with me, where we will set up a very specific individualized, personalized plan for you based on what's going on in your life and your co-parenting, you and I will decide an actionable plan so that you can start supporting yourself today. Listen, you do not have to do this alone, get the support that you need so that you can support yourself, because when you're supporting yourself, you show up as a calmer, more confident, more capable co-parent. I promise you. So there's the link in the show notes, it's free, no strings attached, but you will walk away feeling more empowered and less stress. That's what I have for you today friends. Thank you so much for joining me, I really appreciate it. And if you know someone who could really use this episode, I would be so grateful if you would share it with them. Just take a screenshot and either text it to them or put it on Instagram, and if you do, please tag me, 'cause I would love to connect with you there. I will talk to you soon. Have a great week and friend, take really, really good care of you. 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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