Why Am I Like This?!
We are a therapist and a psychiatric nurse practitioner and we want to share a simplified view of these complex concepts that are often misunderstood, avoided, and even feared.
This is a podcast about being human, adapting to life, and learning from our unique experience.
We try to provide the answers to question: Why am I like this?
Why Am I Like This?!
Why Am I So Emotional?!
Emotions are complex internal experiences that provide valuable information about our values and responses to situations, yet many of us struggle to manage them effectively.
• Emotions are subjective experiences that vary from person to person
• Children experience emotions intensely because they lack adult context and understanding of time
• Anger often masks more vulnerable feelings like fear, sadness, or rejection
• Many adults struggle with emotions because they never learned co-regulation in childhood
• Recognizing separation between yourself and others helps tolerate their distress
• You can express emotions without acting on them through journaling or talking
• Using visualization techniques like "containers" can help manage overwhelming feelings
• Focusing on connection rather than compliance builds better relationships with children
• Teaching emotional intelligence means validating feelings while setting boundaries on behaviors
• Being okay while others are distressed is a powerful skill in any relationship
Visit coreself.az to learn more about our new practice offering therapy, medication management, and innovative treatments like Spravato and TMS for treatment-resistant depression.
Laura's Free Course on Emotional Development and Regulation:
https://benavieri.com/neuroception-sign-up/
This show is sponsored by:
Core Self
Benavieri Counseling & Coaching
www.benavieri.com
Active Healing Psychiatric Services
www.activehealingpsych.com
Hello and welcome to. Why Am I Like this? The podcast for those who didn't get enough hugs as a child? I'm Laura Wood and I'm a trauma therapist.
Michaela:And I'm Michaela Beaver. I'm a psychiatric nurse practitioner.
Laura:So, Michaela, why are we doing this podcast?
Michaela:I am so glad you asked. We want to help you understand yourself a bit better how the things you learned about yourself and the world in childhood are still affecting you today. We want to figure out why are we like this, those random things about ourselves that we might wonder about, like why am I so jumpy? Why am I so anxious? Why do I take everything personally? Why are my thoughts so negative? Why do I feel like I have to fix everything all the time?
Laura:Yes, and today we are talking about feelings. We're talking about emotions today and we're going to try to answer the following question what are emotions, why is it so hard to deal with them and how do I learn to tolerate big feelings them and how do I learn to tolerate big feelings?
Michaela:Let's start by introducing our new endeavor and then we can get into today's topic. Yes, so Laura and I did a thing and we started a practice together and it's called Core Self, because we want to help you understand and get back to you know, your core self, and I think that you know. At Core Self, our goals are to really help ourselves align with both the medication management side of things and the psychotherapy side of things and the psychotherapy side of things, and helping people manage all sorts of you know different things like depression, anxiety and ADHD, all the things.
Laura:Yeah. So we want to join forces with you know, not just one solution. We want to join forces and have multiple solutions that are new and old and, you know, innovative and just non-traditional solutions to problems that we've been facing for a long time. Like, one of the biggest things that I think we're going to be focused on treating is treatment-resistant depression, and treatment-resistant depression is a really, really hard thing to deal with, where you know you've tried medicine after medicine after medicine, you've tried therapy, you've tried all these things that are just not working, or you still have that lull of like. I just feel, you know, like numb, or I feel dead inside, or I feel like I'm not, you know, really engaged in my life fully, I'm not experiencing the brightness of life that I should be, and for those people who are experiencing treatment resistant depression, it really is like a dark cloud over every second of every day, and we want to help those people. And so what are we offering to do that?
Michaela:Well, I'm so glad you asked Traditional medication management. Of course, right, we want to. We don't want to throw out the old things that are helpful, but we want to also add in some new things. And so, you know, we're offering Spravato, which is a treatment that's covered by insurance and it's kind of like the you know people. It's called Esketamine and it's in the ketamine family. It is a nasal spray that is given in the office under supervision of a provider, and people are in the office for two hours being monitored and it's helping to use the glutamate pathway and it is helping to, you know, and our hope is that it's going to be used alongside psychotherapy and specifically an EMDR therapy that Laura has created so that people can do trauma work alongside using this medication, so that we can see the best results.
Laura:Yeah, we don't want to just use one thing or the other.
Laura:Right, we believe that all of these treatments work well together and there is a tiny bit of research starting to form, because we've just been starting to use these treatments and we find that they're so effective.
Laura:But there's a tiny bit of research about utilizing therapy in conjunction with these treatments, and we want to be part of that group. We want to start really understanding how EMDR therapy in conjunction with Spravato treatments can support recovery, because one thing we know about esketamine treatments is that it helps our brains improve our neuroplasticity. It sort of activates our neuroplasticity, I should say, and what we need in trauma healing is neuroplasticity. We need that safety in the room, which is why we're in, you know, in office. We are monitored by providers. We're creating a safe environment for that work to get done, and then we're adding in this therapy that is going to offer new perspectives and new insights and new ways of looking for looking at things. And what we know about EMDR is that it works with the parts of our brain that already are focused on adaptive learning, and so we want to take this neuroplasticity and say, okay, let's learn some new adaptive ways of seeing this trauma and processing this trauma and coping with this distress.
Michaela:Yes, I love that, and so we're working on the details of how to, you know, implement all the things the best way so that people can have it covered by their insurance. In an ideal situation, insurance would cover both of these things to be happening simultaneously. That's not always the case, um. So we have big hopes that you know, trying to improve the way that these services are provided to clients so that they can get the most progress possible.
Michaela:The other thing that we're going to be offering is transcranial magnetic stimulation, and so we're super excited to be offering this as a part of our repertoire, if you will, because, you know, we know that medication only gets a lot of people so far, and the more medications that we try, the more likely or the less likely a person is going to respond to those treatments, and so we want to be offering all of the options to people so that they can get the best chance possible of getting to recovery. You know, not not just response to treatment, but like remission from symptoms Looks like. You know, I know you guys have me whoever's been in care has taken a PHQ-9,. You know people who who are started at 20, maybe they come down to a 10, but they're not getting all the way down to a two or a three because they're not actually getting into remission. That's our goal we want to get people into remission so that they can live their lives to the fullest and feel their best.
Laura:Yeah, I love that, and so what's cool about TMS, or transcranial magnetic stimulation, is that it actually treats the site on your brain that is responsible for a lot of the neuroactivity that would be happening in a non-depressed person. So we want to activate those neural networks and we want to have them start doing, making more connections and being more active, because in a depressed person there's a lot less activity there, and so we're stimulating that area to make some activity happen so that we can start feeling some relief and maybe even remission. And that's really the goal, and I think it's such a different way of treating and it's non, you know, you don't have to be taking medication. There are some people I know that are able to not take medication anymore after this treatment, and then some people stay on their medication and get the treatment and find themselves feeling much, much better.
Michaela:Yeah, and of course you know we're going to talk a lot about TMS or Spravato to patients only because we want them to know that those options are there. We don't want these treatments are not right for everybody, and so we want to make sure we're just offering the right services to the right people. It's not, you know, mandatory that anybody get use these services. They're just options and they're just tools in our toolbox.
Laura:Yeah, and what we also want to offer is not only medication management for adults, but for kids and teens as well, and therapy for kids and teens as well. So right now, we are in the process of hiring a new therapist who is going to be able to work with kids and teens and be able to support entire families who are struggling. And you know I know, just as a mom and as a provider like it's not just one person in the family that's suffering when a kid is suffering, the whole family is suffering, and so we really want to impact those dynamics.
Michaela:Absolutely. Our new nurse practitioner, sarah, just started a couple of weeks ago and she is taking new clients and she also does some psychotherapy. She's following the? Um the seven week psychotherapy course that I created for providers Um, it helps them to learn more like help. She's helping clients um learn more about the nervous system, what's going on in their bodies? Um, she's helping provide coping skills similar to the things that we talk about on here, like grounding skills and nervous system regulation, and she does some, and in that there's some cognitive behavioral therapy, and so the goal is that we're providing this service so that you know we can help you transition into getting into therapy.
Laura:Yeah, and I love therapy and I love all the things that we're doing. I'm super excited about core self. I just think that our vision for this practice is so much bigger than any one place that I've seen so far. Right, we're offering all of these things in one place where families can go to really find true healing and true relief from suffering.
Michaela:where families can go to really find true healing and true relief from suffering, and I'm super excited to be part of it. Yes, I am too. We're doing big things and we're super excited about the things that we're offering. So, if you're interested in hearing more about our services, we offer free 15-minute consultations. We do only serve people that are located in Arizona, unfortunately, consultations we do only serve people that are located in Arizona, unfortunately. But, yeah, schedule a free 15-minute consultation with Sarah or our therapist and learn more about the services that we offer and see if you'd be a good fit for what we're trying to do here.
Michaela:Which this kind of segues back to our conversation about feelings, and I think it's really important to know.
Michaela:One of the things that you said is that when the kid is struggling, everyone else in the house is struggling, and I think that this is so important because I think that this speaks volumes to where we can help people, because right now and I think it's Gerber Mate that said that this, so I'm stealing that from him a little bit but the feelings of the child take over and consume the feelings of the adults in the household, and this is part of what we're going to talk about today, and we'll get into the nitty gritty of why.
Michaela:This is part of what we're going to talk about today, and we'll get into the nitty gritty of why this is happening and how we can stop this from being the script that happens in your household as well. So we were talking. You asked me what are feelings, and we were talking about this a little bit before we started. And it's an internal experience or it's a subjective experience that we're having inside of us about the different things that are happening around us. So it's a response to situations or events, and I think that feelings are informative, right? I think that feelings are informative, right. They're based on what are our morals, what are our values, what are the things that matter to us, and they're giving these feelings, are giving us information in that situation.
Laura:Yeah, so I love that you added into like our personal experience when it comes to our morals and values and how those shape our feelings.
Laura:Like, not everybody's feelings are the same right, so I might not feel the same way about a situation that you feel about, but that doesn't make either one of our feelings any less valid. So feelings as a response to stimuli, a response to our environment, like you said, what's going on around us is going to impact the way that our nervous system kind of responds and reacts in that situation. So our nervous system is going to send us information and that information is in the form of often either like a bodily sensation or an internal emotion, and those internal emotions are providing us with information about so that we can say, ok, what am I supposed to do with this? What am I supposed to do next? Is this something that's good for me or bad for me? Is this something that's safe or is this something that's dangerous? Is this something that I need to act on? And I tell clients all the time that, like, feelings are not problems to solve. We don't always have to act on them, but a lot of the time we do, we think that we do.
Michaela:I like that you always say feelings are not facts?
Laura:No, they're not facts, but they can be real, right. So like they tell us something that's like real and true for our internal experience, but it's a subjective experience, it's not objective, right? So just because we're having that feeling doesn't mean that it's an objective fact that something bad is happening or that something bad is going to happen.
Michaela:Correct and I think of the best example I'm sure I could. I just thought of like five different examples, but I think like one of the examples that came to my mind is like your kid, right, and they're having a meltdown and it's over the dumbest thing in the entire world, and you're like just just get over it, like this is stupid. You don't like in your brain, in your adult brain, you're like I don't understand what is going on. For you Like why is this happening? Right, and it's like, well, that's because it's not your subjective experience. Like that thing, that toy, that, that food, whatever it is, was a big deal to that, that individual. That their their subjective experiences, this is important to them. They don't know anything different.
Laura:They don't, and we all have our worst day, right. So everybody has a one and a 10, like a level one upset and a level 10 upset, and my level 10 upset might be a lot different than a three-year-old's level 10 upset, but for that three-year-old it could quite possibly be the worst thing that's ever happened to them. Right, like they don't, they haven't had a lot of experiences, so they don't have a lot of context to turn around and say like, oh, this will pass For them, this is the biggest thing in the world and this is something that is an emergency and that isn't tolerable. That's something that they can't handle and everyone needs to be there to support them in that moment.
Michaela:Right. Well, I think that if you think about it, littles they view the world in now or not now. They don't understand five minutes, they don't understand time in the way that we understand time. And so if you're like, hey, it's fine, you're just going to get that later, they're like I'm never getting that thing ever again. It's lost, it's gone forever.
Laura:My world is ending, right and object permanence. If they don't see it, it doesn't exist. And so if we take something away from them that we're you know, or if we disappear, if we go away, they think that we're gone forever. They don't understand, they're not. Their brains don't have as much power as we do yet because our as adults, like we have a lot of context and we have information.
Laura:Like kids have content without context and so it's very, very distressing to them when something small happens or something small to us, like, because they can't process that information. It's too much, it's too advanced for them. It's like I was I read this analogy one time where it was like you know, a giant wolf, you know, runs through town and starts eating kids and you know all this stuff. And like if we were reading this story, we would think, oh my gosh, like that's, that's crazy, right, like that's the worst thing, like this is really dangerous. But when you really when you realize that it's like a Bugs Bunny cartoon, then the context of the story changes and you don't react the same way. But with little kids, like the content is all they have. They don't have the context of the fact that it's just a pretend thing, or the fact that it's you know just five minutes from now, or that things will come back Like they don't have that context, so they can't like shift their emotions the same as quickly as we could, right?
Michaela:Well, and they often react off of the first thing that they hear, which is oftentimes no, right, right, right. The first thing that we say is no, we don't say yes, but you can have ice cream after dinner. The first thing we say is no, you can't have ice cream. You haven't eaten dinner yet.
Laura:Right, that's such a good point, the presentation matters. Like no to a kid feels like rejection. Like it feels like I think about this example sometimes, like a little kid running, running up to their mom and saying like look, I made you something. And then the mom saying like go away, I don't care, right, like that's rejection, that hurts so much. And so when that happens, when a kid comes up and says hey, can I have this? They're so excited, right, and then we say no, like we don't want you to have that, like that's bad. We're saying they're bad, right, we're not saying that, but they feel that they feel like you've just rained on their parade For sure.
Michaela:Well, and I think about kids and big feelings and a lot of times, you know, the thing that I hear the most, that's distressing for parents, is anger. Right, they're just so, they're irritable, they're angry, they're, you know, hard to reason with right and that can be really challenging because, you know, when we grew up, there was a lot of command and control. Right Like jump, I say jump, you jump. If I say you know, if I say do this, you command and control. Right Like jump, I say jump, you jump. If I say you know, if I say do this, you go, do it. Right, Like there's a fear-based incentive to listen.
Michaela:Right, and you know, maybe you're not trying to do that, but you still have it ingrained in you that, like, when I say something, my kids should listen to me, and so that that mis connection is there. Right, Because we're not building fear in our kids. Now we're a lot of times we're trying to build connection and foster those things and we're trying to, you know, have this good balance parenting, but we're still lost in this idea that kids should do what they're supposed, like what you tell them to do, and then, like, they respond in anger and then we get angry because we we're frustrated and we feel helpless. We don't know how to get them to do the thing that they're supposed to do. We just want it to go easy.
Laura:Yeah, that is such a helpless feeling too when you are trying to get your kid to do something and they're not doing the thing you want and you don't have time and you know, maybe you're in public and they're having a meltdown or you know that feeling of helplessness like I can really relate to that as a parent and the thing is, controlling my kid in that moment is a way to cope with my feeling of helplessness, right. So it's not even about the kid, that's about me. Not feeling helpless, Like the control that I'm exerting over the child is actually a coping skill.
Michaela:Yeah, I mean, if you're in public and your kid is acting a fool, you're like embarrassed, you're like I want this to be over. Like people must think I'm a terrible parent, like that's all about. Our own internal experience of the situation has nothing to do with the kid, with what the kid is actually doing.
Laura:Yeah, and you know it's so hard to not only deal with our own feelings but it's hard to feel. It's hard to deal with our kids distress, like when, like what you were saying about you know parents coming to you saying, like my kid's angry, they're irritable, they're distressed. It's so hard for us to tolerate other people's distress, especially when it's our kids. We just want them to be okay, right, we just want them to be happy. And so if you grew up in a home where you know there was too like, maybe there was too much emphasis on being okay all the time, Like if you weren't allowed to feel feelings, if you weren't allowed to have distress like, then you might not be able to tolerate other people's distress today.
Michaela:Absolutely, and I think in that you're like that's not fair. I never got to deal with my. I have feelings when I was a kid. You don't get to have feelings like that's like nope, yeah.
Laura:I think that's so funny because that is the internal narrative. Right? The internal narrative is if I didn't get it, you don't get it, and because that's not fair or because that's like an affront to me, that's like saying that what I had wasn't good enough and I don't like the way that feels. So I can't face my own experience of having, you know, not been able to process my emotions or not be able to like share my subjective experience, not be acknowledged. I can't admit that I wasn't acknowledged, so I can't have you be acknowledged, because that would be saying that that's something that you deserve and that means that I deserved it, but I didn't get it. And that's too big and that's too emotional for me. That's a lot.
Michaela:I know I mean and I think, like you're going to sit there and go well, I didn't think any of those things. But that is the internal experience of it all. You know, when you really sit down and look at it, it's like we're trying to correct the things that happened to us. Having kids is bringing up all the things that you dealt with as a kid yourself things that you dealt with as a kid yourself, and now we we bring up the past, every single day, that we're interacting with our kid, yeah.
Michaela:So what do we do about that? How do we not let ourselves, let our kids or the people around us maybe it's not a kid, maybe it's another adult that doesn't have good emotional regulation? How do we help ourselves survive that and have a different outcome where we're not just getting in distress and letting our child's distress run the household?
Laura:I think, yeah, this applies absolutely not just for kids, like this applies to other adults in the house or other adults in your life, like any relationship that you're in. If that other person is in distress, like it's really difficult for you to tolerate that distress and to be calm when they're not okay. Like I always say, you have to be okay even though other people around you are not okay, and that's really hard to do. It's one thing that's important to do is recognize that you are separate from them, like they are not you, you are not them. You are a fully separate, autonomous person that can have your own experience, and so are they. So they are a fully separate, autonomous person that can have their own experience, and that doesn't say anything about you and that doesn't mean anything for you. So that sense of separateness between you and the other person is really important when you're trying to tolerate their big feelings.
Michaela:Yeah, that's fair, it doesn't mean anything about me, and I think that, like, it's automatic to go on the defensive, especially if it's like another adult or like a partner or whatever. Like, I'm going to go on the defensive because as soon as you said that thing, now I'm automatically thinking that I'm I'm bad or I'm in trouble and I'm like no, I can't. That's not tolerable to me, so I'm going to go on the defensive, which happens a lot of times, and this is one of the things I was going to say about kids.
Michaela:Anger is oftentimes a secondary emotion and I think that this is really important because we were often trying to solve the problem of anger, of behaviors, of throwing things, of not saying sorry, of, you know, being really upset about a situation and then not behaving in the way that we're like is, like you know, like the societal norm, and I think that, like, when we take a step back and we go, what's the actual problem? Why is this kid acting angry? And you'll, a lot of times, find that there's a reason that's outside of just simple anger. Right, anger can be a primary emotion too, but for the most part, like you're, there's often this underlying thing that is more vulnerable, right, like you know, we talk about defense against attachment. We talk about, you know, my, if I feel anxious, that's vulnerable. If I tell people that I feel nervous, like I'm going to, I'm at risk of being judged, I'm at, you know, whatever. So you know we, it feels more comfortable and safe to be angry than it does to be anxious or nervous or guilty.
Laura:Mm-hmm, yeah, or sad, or rejected, and anger is often a more acceptable feeling from a society perspective, like, socially, anger is more acceptable than you know sadness or fear. If I go to my you know happy hour or whatever, and I'm like I just feel so fearful today about this, like that's really really vulnerable and people get uncomfortable. But if I was like I'm so angry about this, people would be like, yeah, I'd be angry too. Right, so, like you can, people will co-sign on your rage, but what they don't know how to do is be with you in your fear or your vulnerability. Right, because they don't know how to handle their own Right. Exactly, we don't know how to handle it because it's hard and you know one way to.
Laura:One other thing that I recommend to people to know you know about feelings is, in order to tolerate big feelings, we have to recognize that we don't have to act on them. Right, we can express our emotions without acting them out. We can express them in different ways, like through journaling, or through talking with a friend, or even, you know, sending yourself a voice memo, like talking through it yourself, like out loud, or writing like notes on your phone, or like bullet points or something like that, just to kind of move through what you're feeling in that moment and just like get it out of your head and kind of not have to ruminate on it. So those things can be really helpful too.
Michaela:Yeah, I like that. The other thing that we I talk a lot about is you know we can be okay even in the midst of chaos, and I use a container a lot to help support people. It's like you can put that into your container. You know, whatever that container looks like, you can you know whether it's a file cabinet or like a bunch of jars or whatever it is. You can put it into a container and you can let it be there and you can be safe and you can be okay Even in the midst of chaos. I learned that from you, oh.
Laura:I'm like oh, my container is this purple Tupperware bin that I have in my office. I can recognize a container. I love a container. I also love the idea of recognizing that you can be okay in the midst of chaos by just noticing like that, even though all of this stuff is happening around you, you are not going to die. Like there are actual so I just preface this with there are actual emergencies, there are life and death situations. That's not what I'm talking about here, like I'm talking about using coping skills to deal with big emotions that are not actually reflective of a life threat, and so discerning between a life threat and something that is, you know, difficult is actually a really important skill. You have to be able to recognize that your life is not in danger, and when you can recognize that, you get an internal sense of safety. That internal sense of safety can coat all those feelings with some soothing sense of relief.
Michaela:Yes, I love that. I think that's such a good way to look at things. A good way to look at things. So we've talked about what emotions are and we've talked about some of the ways to deal with them. So far. What? Why do you think it's so? What other reasons do you think that it's so hard to deal with feelings? What? Why? What else comes up for you?
Laura:Well, if you didn't really have someone in childhood who, like, reflected your feelings back, like if when you had a feeling that was important to you or you had something going on for you and you shared it and you were rejected in that feeling in childhood. A lot of times we can become phobic to those emotions because we don't have what we need in childhood. A lot of times we can become phobic to those emotions because we don't have what we need in childhood is co-regulation. So if we never had that co-regulation of a supportive and safe other person, an adult, who can say, like it's okay to feel this way, like your feelings are okay and safe, we're going to be okay, we'll get through this together.
Laura:If you didn't have someone to do that, but you really had someone say, like it's not okay to be angry, like you need to stop, or it's you know, stop crying, you don't need to be sad right now, like, or when you are sad, it makes me sad, you know. Or like don't be sad, because if you get upset like, I get upset and you don't want mommy to be upset Right, like. So when we, if we have adults in our lives who don't necessarily reflect our feelings and don't necessarily acknowledge them and give us that safe space to experience and process them, then we can become phobic and we're not going to be able to know exactly how to deal with our feelings.
Michaela:Sure, and I think that, like, it's not our intention as parents to make these, say, these statements, and we're not meaning what we're, what it like, we're not really meaning to send that message Right. And I find myself all the time struggling with the right words to say, right, like, because all the wrong things come up. Especially when you feel like helpless in that situation, like you just really don't know what it is to get your kid to, to do the thing or to understand what you're asking of them, can be really hard to find the right words to say.
Laura:It is really hard and I often just say you know, like this is a really big thing, like you're going through a really big emotion right now, you're experiencing something really hard right now. Or this is really hard for you or you don't want to do this. You are, you know, you're reflecting back. You're just saying what they're doing. You're saying what they're feeling, like you don't want to go to bed right now. You were having too much fun. You don't want to stop doing the thing that you were doing. You don't want to. You know, wash up for dinner right now. This is really hard for you to be done playing with that game, right? So we're just reflecting back. We don't have to solve it yeah, that's really insightful, I'm going to use that and it's really hard.
Michaela:Yeah, I think it's like you know, if I'm going to be really honest, I'm thinking about my own, like a situation that just happened right, where my kid chose not to do his reading. Like he's supposed to do 10 minutes of reading every you know, certain nights of the week or whatever, and he really didn't want to do his reading. Like he's supposed to do 10 minutes of reading every you know, certain nights of the week or whatever, and he really didn't want to do it. And you know, thinking about saying like you really didn't want to, you really don't want to read. Right now it still feels unsettling to me because I still didn't get him to do the thing and that's what's really hard, because it's like you know, I think in that moment it's like I feel like a failure. Yeah, you know, and so like I get that, like I get that that's hard, but I think that this really does make sense because you're helping them understand that you understand them.
Laura:Mm-hmm. And when you understand them and you connect with them, you can say follow up with, and we have to do a little bit of this, let's, instead of do 10 minutes, let's do three, and then we can come back to it at a different time. But we can say, like you really don't want to do this reading right now. I get that and that's okay not to want to, and we're still going to do a little bit of it and even if they don't do any of it, you're not a failure, because it's one day, it's one moment, it's a snapshot in time and it's not reflective of your encompassing motherhood. Right, it's a tough minute, sure.
Michaela:Well, and I think that, like you know, inherently you go to. Well, this is what I felt like going to judging my like, comparing myself to like maybe what my husband could get him to do Right, and then I have to think back to like we have different tactics, we have different ways of parenting and maybe I feel, like you know, we each feel like our way is the best or whatever, but it's like I may not get the same results because I'm not doing the same things. That's okay, you know, but I think that, like, in in the moment, it's like you want to be successful, to show that, like you're doing the right things and you can win Right. I think that, like, we have to understand that, like the goal isn't getting the kid to do the thing now, it's the relationship and it's emotional regulation. And is he gonna fail first grade because he didn't read 200 minutes that month?
Michaela:no, no, he's not so when we zoom out and we look at the big picture, it's a lot easier to be forgiving.
Laura:But in that moment I think it's like you want so badly to win you know, yeah, I do understand that, like we want to be able to get them to do the thing that they need to do, because that will make us feel like we did it well, we did a good job, right, right, there's not a lot of times as moms or as dads that we get to really notice like, hey, I did a good job. Just now, like, how often do I say that to myself as a parent? Almost never, right? Maybe that's something that we need to acknowledge more often.
Michaela:For sure, and I think, unless we change this, the like, the barometer right, like what are we? You know, like I think that the new barometer should be like I handled that really well, like I did a good job connecting with my kid and you know, I'm really proud of myself for that right Like winning at getting the kid to to do what you told them to do. But I still think that, like I said before, those things are very deeply ingrained in us as like, and I think it's like we want to be able to report back to the school that we did, we did the best and that we are the best parents you know, and it's like I want to do that Right, but like, also, if I didn't, if it doesn't happen, what's the worst thing that's going to happen?
Laura:Yeah, when we're thinking about parenting, we have to separate ourselves from the outcomes a little bit and focus more on the connection and the everyday, like lessons that we're teaching our kids. Are we teaching them to be kind to themselves? Are we teaching them to respect their own bodies and their own emotions, and are we teaching them to respect themselves and set boundaries? Are we teaching them to respect their education and prioritize work even when they don't want to do it? Are we teaching them that? Or are we teaching them that outcomes are the only thing that matters and that if you don't do this you're a failure and that if you, you know, if you get good grades, then that means that you're a good person? Like, we want to kind of zoom out, like you said, and think about what are we teaching them while we're teaching them?
Michaela:Right, well, and why do you? Why do we think that kids in college, you know, have breakdowns because they're putting so much pressure on themselves and they have themselves set up like unreasonable expectations for themselves. And, you know, as things get harder, we can't maintain all the things and we can't be involved in all the things and and be as successful as we were before. And so we have these, you know, or or just like creating these unrealistic expectations of themselves, and you know, then they, that's what, that's where anxiety comes from right, like that's one of the sources of anxiety is that they only believe that their benefit is if they're succeeding, if they're doing well, right, like that's the only way that they're good enough.
Michaela:Mm-hmm.
Laura:We have to help ourselves and our kids notice that that's not the only thing that matters, like we have inherent value and we are good enough, even if our outcomes aren't there. We can try harder. We can try something else, you know, and sometimes people fail. Sometimes you know they do fail a class and they have to learn and grow from that and work a little bit harder next time and maybe get a tutor and do. I mean, there's like high school kids or college kids that are going through that too and recognizing that they can't be a part of all the different clubs and activities and also be successful in their academics and they have to make some hard choices and sacrifices. They have to learn how to do that and that's okay. It's important that we let them work some of that out and not rescue them all the time. Right, and that's a hard thing to know when to rescue and when not to rescue.
Laura:But when it comes to dealing with big feelings and having like big meltdowns, like we don't need to save them from those feelings, we can recognize that those feelings are allowed, they're valid and you know, we can have those feelings, we can express our feelings without acting them out, and so we can do that by, like, if a kid is violently acting out, right, we can say to them like you know, this feeling is okay, this behavior is not. We can have these feelings and we can talk about these feelings and we can move through these feelings together. We can't hurt each other, we can't hurt ourselves, we can't damage property, right. So we can teach our kids how to be emotionally intelligent and emotionally literate when it comes to identifying their emotions and working through them in a more healthy and safe way.
Michaela:Yeah, and that teaching may not happen in the moment when you're having the outburst it likely happens later, right? But it's still a good opportunity to help them learn and grow from their feelings and also know that, like you know, it takes time. They're going to keep having these outbursts until they learn how to manage it, right, and you're just setting good boundaries and helping keep them safe during that moment.
Laura:And we have to help ourselves feel safe on the inside in order to help them feel safe on the inside. That's good, that's a good point, and that's true in relationships too. There's a lot of co-regulation in adult relationships, like we can be that stable base for our partner when they're going through a hard time too, by saying I'm okay while you're not okay, and I can be okay enough for the both of us and I'm here with you.
Laura:Yeah, which can be really challenging, but it's actually also really rewarding and can create further deepening of connection between people. Yeah, definitely so I think that might be a good place to leave it for today. That might be a good place to leave it for today. We have definitely got some good ways to tolerate our big feelings, and I really loved our conversation earlier about core self and I'm going to link to core self in our show notes so if anyone wants to take a look at our website, they can. And thank you so much for listening to why Am I Like this. If you like our show, please leave us a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform, follow the show and share it with your friends. This episode was written and produced by me, Laura Wood and Michaela Beaver. Our theme song is Making Ends Meet by Thick as Thieves, and a special thanks to Core Self, Benavieri Counseling and Active Healing Psychiatric Services for sponsoring this show.
