Ep #63: What’s Love Got to Do with It

Welcome to the Co-parenting with Confidence podcast. I'm your host, Miki Gardner, and this is episode number 63, What's Love Got to Do with It? Welcome to Co-parenting with Confidence, a podcast for those courageous moms out there who want to move past the conflict and frustration of divorce and show up as the mom they truly want to be. My name is Miki 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 back friends. So let me ask you a question. Now that you're divorced and you're trying to navigate this co-parenting thing, do you feel like you're doing it well, feeling fulfilled most days? Or do you feel like at the end of the day, co-parenting feels more like a full contact sport and you just don't have the proper protection or equipment? Well whichever camp you're in, today's a good episode for you and we're gonna get you properly padded up so to speak. But before I dive in, I wanna thank you for being here. Listen, I know there are a million things you could be doing and maybe you're taking me with you while you do some of them, and there's so many amazing podcasts you could be listening to, but I'm really grateful that you're here with me today. And for any of you that are new, welcome. I'm so glad that you found the podcast. If you're loving the show, it would mean so much to me if you would subscribe and rate the show. This is truly the lifeblood for a podcaster. It's how other people find the show. It's how we spread the message of positivity, hope and empowerment. So if you're feeling giving today, I would feel so grateful and love if you would rate and review the show over on Apple for me. And I wanted to give a shout out to one of the five star reviews, and I love the name, armpit91. It's titled, It All Comes Down to the Details. They say, "Yes, Mickey has a realistic and thoughtful approach to co-parenting. Thank you, Mickey, for being real with your listeners. I'm inspired by your courage." Thank you, armpit91. I'm inspired by you. So today, what I wanna talk about is a couple of lessons that I've learned over my own personal journey of co-parenting and from my clients that I have been honored to be their mentor and coach on their journey. So I had a kind of interesting experience recently, and I wanted to tell you the story. Back in 2014, I was still a wedding planner, owning my own business, on the hamster wheel of doing all the things. And I was just divorced. So I was just in that first year, that year of first, of figuring it out. And I went to a conference in the Cayman Islands. And one day I decided to go on a walk during our break on the beach. And looking back on it, it felt like a guardian angel had been just dropped into my lap, but as I was walking, I kept sort of walking up on this man, and then I'd fall back and then walk up. We kind of leveled out and we're walking next to each other. And so we started chatting. He was there celebrating his daughter's first job. So she was getting ready to start her job the next week. And so he had grabbed her and whisked her off to the Caymans for a long weekend, just the two of them. And I was just mesmerized by him, that this is what he was doing with his time. As we talked, I shared a little bit about what was going on in my life. And he shared about what had gone on in his life. He at one point almost lost his marriage and his family, just from choices, but he decided to change, to change course. And he and his wife ended up buying an RV and they spent a year on the road with their kids. And these were not little kids. These were kids in, I think, middle school and high school at the time. So they were in the thick of it. And he decided that he could work from anywhere. He figured out how to do that with his job. They got in this RV and they started traveling. And the stories that he told me about, the moments of connection and love, it was just mind boggling. I had never heard about anybody doing such a thing. And it really opened up my mind. But I remember one thing that he said to me, and it really, I don't know that it hit me there on the beach, although it did, because I remember being, feeling a little shell shocked when I got back from my walk. But really, he said to me, "You get to choose. It is no one else's job to define what your family looks like and how you choose to spend your time and how you choose to love your family". And I remember he was very serious and looked me in the eye and he said, "Mickey, it is up to you". And it really, really hit me that day, but it was over time. And I had no idea how full circle that would come. But when he said that to me that day on the beach, it started the wheels turning, right? It sort of opened up, it planted a seed that there could be something different. That the way that I was living my life, the way that I was feeling in that moment didn't have to last forever. And that I was in charge of what that looked like. Well, fast forward a little while later, I decided to start to really shift things up. This is when I went to positive psychology class and I started learning all about that. That's when I found out about life coaching and I got a life coach. And then I got certified as a life coach. Sort of all of these things started to shift. But what shifted is that I had an idea. I had a gift given to me by this stranger on the beach that offered me the idea that I get to choose. So why is this coming up now? Well, a couple of reasons. A couple of weeks ago, I was back at the same place in the Cayman Islands. My partner and I went to have a long weekend without the kids. That's what I call a vacation. Trip with kids, it's a trip. But we went for a short vacation. And I took my daily walk on the beach. And I just remember walking down the beach and thinking about that man, thinking about the conversation that we had, thinking about how much had changed in the six years since I had been there. So much had shifted. After meeting him, I went on to start to really shift my life in little ways that I had no idea what the big changes they were gonna bring. But I remember that that year I decided I was going to follow my curiosity and I was gonna start to choose how I wanted to feel, even if I didn't know what that looked like. That's when I went to positive psychology class and started to learn about that. That's where I learned about life coaching and I got a life coach and that was transformative. So then I went to life coach school to figure out how to do that. One step led to another. And as I was walking the beach a couple of weeks ago and really reflecting on how much had changed and how much has shifted in my life, it really came back to me that his words were never truer than they were that day or today, that I get to choose. And that feels so empowering to me, right? And I know to my clients, it can also feel really overwhelming at times. What do we choose? How do we know what to choose? How do we know which direction to go? How do we know what the right decision is? Especially when we're co-parenting, especially when we're co-parenting with someone that doesn't agree with, isn't supporting us and there's conflict. We can feel like we never know what to do. And so what I wanna offer you is just a couple of lessons that I've learned along the way. And part of it is we don't see the change that we've made until we actually stop and turn around and look back. And I know with the new year coming, the next couple of episodes are all about setting intention, all about getting really clear on what you want. And part of that is stopping and looking back. And I think that was what was so profound about this walk that I took a couple of weeks ago when I was walking down the beach and I was remembering who I was six years ago when I was walking down that beach. How honestly helpless and desperate and confused I felt. And how grateful I was for this angel to have been dropped into my life. I mean, I genuinely feel like he was. He just showed up and he just disappeared. But he impacted me so much. So one of the things that I think that I wanted to communicate here today is a few things. One, we have to let ourselves unfold. Like I just said, we don't know how far we've come until we stop to look back, but we also can't force it. You don't know what you don't know. And the way to get clear and to know more is to take action. But when we're just taking actions from a frantic reactive space, we're really not learning. Clarity comes through aligned action. Having a vision for what you want and taking action that is aligned in that direction. And that also means stop doing things that aren't aligned in that direction. You know, if you don't like something about your life, it's up to you to change it. We can't keep doing the same thing and believing the same thing and wishing it would change. I think that's what this man taught me is that he changed everything. They pushed against outside the box and decided to really live a different life just for a period of time to explore, to get curious, to find out what they didn't know. And so I want you to allow yourself this same gift. Allow time to unfold. Yes, it's true that time heals all wounds, sometimes because we forget, but other times when we are letting it unfold, when we're sort of mining for the little nuggets that are there. It is not a passive passage of time, more it is an intentional allowing of things to pass, to learn the lessons and to allow yourself to get clear. You know, the next thing that really hit me while I was walking on that beach is that you do 100% get to decide how you want to feel and how you want to experience any situation. And I remember him looking me deep in the eye and saying, It is your right to choose. You are the only one who's gonna give you permission to live the life you want. Not your ex-husband, not your family, not anybody, right? It was my decision and I had to start deciding. And that's what I show up and help my clients do each and every day, right? I walk alongside of them, reminding them what it is that they want because we naturally veer off course, but we have to come right back, right? It's that gentle reminder. I love the analogy of when we go bowling and we're teaching kids, we put the bumper rails up, right? So that they can get the hang of it. For me, that's what coaching does, right? It gives us the bumper rails that we need so that we know we're not gonna fall off course, right? We might hit the bumpers here and there with decisions that aren't aligned, but it helps keep us on course. And so whatever you need to set up those bumper rails for a little while while you're learning how to move past the drama, get out of the conflict and learning how to co-parent in a different way, give yourself those bumpers, whatever it looks like, whether that's therapy, whether that's coaching, whether that's reading, whatever it is, really decide how you wanna feel and then give yourself the space and the support to do it. The third thing that I wanted to mention here that really hit me as I was taking that walk this year and what that man was a beautiful example of is that you go first. We always go first. It's not anyone else's job to decide, to tell us, to give us permission to change things. You decide because when you go first, when you start showing up differently, when you start stepping towards what you want and how you want to co-parent, how you want to be a parent, how you want to live and how you want to feel. Everything follows, right? Energy follows that. And so we have to go first. We have to make those decisions. We have to make those choices. So many people suffer because they're fighting against the reality that is true for them, right? They're either trying to fix it or change it or argue with it, but really it's not for us to fight against or resist or argue with or change, but it's more how do we learn to move with it, right? Are we dancing with life or are we in a fight with life? And it might feel chaotic and confusing and like we're doing it wrong and like we have three left feet half the time, and that's okay. But what we want to do is be moving with it, right? Figuring out how to move with life instead of resisting and arguing and fighting against it. And this really brings me to the last point, which is we always only have two choices in life. We can either be coming from fear or we can be coming from love. Co-parenting is no different here. We can either come from fear, right? Fear of reactions, fear of opinions, fear of the unknown, fear of conflict, fear of all the things, all the uncertainty. Or we can decide to come from a place of love, which is strength and presence. So this is really a mindset that we have to decide which direction we're coming from. And when we are in fear, we know we're in fear because we're hiding or reacting. That's when we're living in autopilot, wishing things were different, feeling disempowered, feeling overwhelmed. All of these things are signs that we are coming from fear. And if we don't like how we feel in fear, the other option is love. So what does that look like? Well, that looks like really learning how to open up to possibility, to start believing in something different, believing that there can be a change, shifting your mindset away from just survival and shifting it towards wellness. This is really a muscle that we have to build. Honestly, fear is not a bad thing. Fear was wired into us for our survival, for our safety. Because if we weren't afraid of things, we wouldn't last too long on this earth. We'd run out into traffic or put our hand on the hot stove all the time. There's a certain amount of fear that is okay. And actually helps direct us. It's when we get stuck in fear, when we're staying in fear, when we're hiding, when we're not doing anything, we start to feel like a victim. We start to feel like life is happening to us instead of for us. And this is what I wanna offer you, is really figuring out how to build the muscle so that you can start choosing love more often than fear. Maybe you're stuck in a decision. Maybe you're stuck trying to figure out what the next right thing is. Whatever it is, I wanna offer you this question. I know I've said it here on the podcast and I will say it a million times more. I got it from Glennon Doyle and it really opens things up. You ask, what is the next most loving thing to do? This does not mean easy. It does not mean passive. It does not mean that everything is gonna be totally fine if you pick the right decision. No, it's just the next most loving thing to do. And often the most loving thing to do is to have boundaries, is to be honest, is to stand up and say when something is not working. Those are not easy, right? But they do help you feel ease down the road. And so that is a great question to ask yourself. The second thing that I learned over the last six years that really helps shift from a mindset of fear, from a place of fear to a place of love and strength is building the muscle of self-trust. Just like that man told me, there is no one you can depend on but you. And he didn't mean this in a woe is me, but you are the most powerful person in your life. And how are you showing up for yourself? You get to choose. So one little way that you can start to build more self-trust is what I call a minimum baseline for wellness. So minimum baseline is something we use in weight loss coaching a lot of times. It's the minimum that you're gonna do and you do at least that. Well, I want you to do that for yourself in your life because in directed towards wellness, directed towards love, directed towards self-care, directed towards really showing up for yourself and making the choices that are in support of where you wanna go. And then taking again that aligned action to get there. We have to understand that especially in times of chaos, trauma, healing, especially after divorce, we are often in a stress state. We are in a reactivity state. So first and foremost, we have to calm our nervous system to be able to make different choices. When our emotions are really, really high, our intellect goes down. Why? Because it's the two parts of the brain. They can't work at exactly the same time. When we are in a reactive, stressful state and we're in a highly emotional state, all of the energy is going to that primitive brain to flood your body with cortisol and stress hormones to say move, change, do something. We're in a state of fear. And when life is on the line, that fear is natural and good. But what happens is we get stuck in that reactive state, we live in that stressful state and that becomes our norm. But that is not a healthy place to live and that's not a place where we can co-parent in a conscious, calm, confident way. So we have to really calm our nervous system. We have to choose to show up differently for ourselves. And so a minimum baseline can do that. I will put in the show notes a link to a worksheet that will help you with this. But it's really deciding what are the basic minimum things that I'm gonna do for myself each day. You know, these aren't big, huge things. They could be simple things like drinking enough water, having a morning meditation, making your bed, going to sleep on time, right? This isn't huge things, but they have huge impact over time when you do them day after day because what you do is build the trust that you are going to do what you say and what you say you mean. And so this is what helps you build the confidence in yourself to show up, the confidence to address things that are not working for you, the ability and the confidence and the capability to hold boundaries. This love and self-trust is what allows you to love fully. Right, it doesn't take you out of your life. It puts you square in the middle of it so that you can be more connected and more loving. So that's what I have for you today. I wanna thank you for being here. And I hope the lessons that I learned from that man six years ago and the few that I've shared with you today might plant a seed for you too, that things can be different. It does not have to be this way forever. You do not have to feel this way forever. And it doesn't require everyone in your life to change. You go first. If you know someone who could benefit from this conversation, please share it with them. Just take a screenshot of the episode on your phone and text it to them or share it on social. And if you do post it on Instagram, please tag me because I would love to connect with you all over there. Thank you so much for spending this time with me. I'll see you next week. And in the meantime, take really, really good care of you, friend. 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.