Ep #166: The Wake-Up Call: Stop Waiting for Life to Slow Down

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'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.

Hey, welcome back to the podcast. I'm excited to be here with you today because I'm feeling a little feisty and I think that we all need a little wake up call. Maybe not all of us, but maybe you need a wake up call. So today I am talking specifically and directly to the woman who is doing it, all right? The one who looks like she is thriving on the outside, she feels like she's drowning on the inside. These are the women that reach out to me via email on Instagram and send me dms saying, I need help. I'm drowning. I'm underwater. I can't keep it together anymore. I'm exhausted. And so we go through the process of talking about what needs to change. And these are high achieving, really successful, composed, productive women, and they know what needs to change, but there's something in the way.

What is that something? It's a conflict within themselves that believes that they don't have the time to take care of themselves. That somehow taking care of themselves and dealing with this and slowing down is something that they can do later, but it is in and of itself the thing that has to happen so that they feel better, but they're not willing to do it hate. It's like they know what they should do, but they're not willing to do it. So why is that? Well, that's what we're going to dive into today. That reason why even though you are so smart, you are so successful, you're so put together, you take care of everything for everyone around you, but somehow you can't seem to do it for yourself, and it leaves you depleted, exhausted, angry, resentful, bitter, all of the things. Now, listen, I want to say I get it.

I get it a thousand percent because I have lived this, and this is really what brought me to coaching because I was the perfect over. And what do I mean by over functioner? I took care of everything, hyper dependent. I will take care it all. I will do everything. And I just over functioned. And I took care of what was other people's responsibilities, including their feelings, trying to manage their feelings, trying to manage everything that was going on for them. Cue my ex-husband, cue my kid. This is what we do as overfunctioners, and sometimes a lot of codependency is in here, but I was over-functioning in an effort to keep the peace, to keep everybody happy, to keep conflict at bay. But the only thing that I was actually keeping was myself never feeling any peace and constantly in chaos, constantly internal chaos. I was just on a call with a woman the other day and she's come three times, and Mickey, I really need your help.

Okay, here I am. I'm here for you. But you know what? My life has just been a whirlwind the past six months. So I need help. But not today when actually her life has been a whirlwind since I've known her for years. But she keeps waiting for that moment when things will slow down on the outside so that then she can slow down on the inside. And I tell her, that day isn't happening. That day is not coming. The only way that it slows down is when we slow it down. Or another woman that came and said, you know what? I'm sick of it. I need to change. My kids are struggling. I'm struggling. I'm tired of trying to keep up appearances. I'm sick of the conflict. I'm sick of all the stuff, but my schedule's just so tight right now. I don't see any pockets.

I don't see a pocket of time where I could come and see you. Right? Again, Q, she's not willing to make the time. And listen, I'm not blaming her. I get it. I've been there. And I know and trust that when she is, she'll be here. When she is ready, she will find the person to help her. And I send so much love and blessings to each one of them because I understand how they feel. Or maybe it's the woman that comes in and says, you know what? My kids are struggling so bad, I don't have time to take care of me right now because I have to take care of them. And this is going to lead right into more of the problem when we're letting everybody else's needs be more important than our own, or thinking that the energy can only go one place or the other.

We can either take care of our kids or we can take care of ourselves. But it doesn't have to be either or. It can be both. And listen, we have been conditioned to believe that self-care is sort of not something that we have the luxury of or only certain people have the luxury of. And there's a lot more conversation around. And when I talk about self-care, I am not talking about Instagram and TikTok self-care where we're Manny Petty's or drinks with the girls or massages or whatever. No, self-care is doing the emotional and nervous system work so that you can take care of yourself. It's the reparenting work, and that's what we're going to talk about today. There's this idea that when life slows down, that there's this somehow, this time that happens, it's like a little bubble, a little portal that we can somehow get through that will slow life down so that we can then start to take care of our own needs.

But the problem really isn't that we're waiting for the secret portal to open up. It's that we're running our life like an er. It's like when you're in the er, everything feels like an emergency, right? But the truth is, unless someone is bleeding out unconscious or broken, it's probably not an emergency. But we live in that fear and the scarcity that if we do slow down, all the plates are going to fall. It's like we're that little person twirling six plates in the air, and if we slow down at all, they're all going to fall and smash. But these mindsets, these beliefs really just keep us stuck in feeling burnt out and resentment and bitterness and in exhaustion, and I don't want that for you. And so that's why I wanted to talk about this today because what can actually move the needle to help us change, to help us grow, to actually allow ourselves to have some time and some space to move forward in a positive direction?

Well, I believe it's actually when we start to reparent ourselves. So what is reparenting? It's really the act of giving yourself what you need in this moment, and it might be what you didn't receive when you were little. So it's starting to really heal sort of the little versions of ourselves that the wounds that we received maybe in childhood or in growing up, and this is not parent bashing. This is not blaming our parents for what they did or didn't do. It's really just from a place of understanding and compassion that we're all human, we're all flawed. We've all had issues that have happened that really block us from stepping into being the person that we really want to be. And so we have to start to become our own parent to heal those false ideas, those false beliefs, those worthiness issues from our past inside today so that we can move forward.

It's really looking how to create a whole self, right? Because there is trauma from childhood, big T, little t. And the way to move forward is to recognize that we do have these hurts, but that they don't have to prevent us from being an emotional adult today. So what that might look like is sometimes when we're toddlers during that time in development, when from newborn through toddler, there's a lot of attachment. It's needing our caregivers to give us and meet all of our needs so that we feel very safe and secure. Well, sometimes the caregivers that we had weren't able to meet our needs, and there might be some attachment wounds, meaning that our needs weren't met. And so we started to see the world as unsafe. And if this happens, sometimes we can grow up in adulthood to become very hyper independent and start to really see vulnerability and connection as a weakness because we didn't receive that healthy connection when we were younger.

And so we don't have healthy connection when we're older. So we actually become this very independent version who doesn't allow for weakness, mistakes and has a hard time connecting with others. And this doesn't mean that you're not in relationship. It just means that we have a hard struggle with really healthy attachment, or maybe it's an adolescent kind of wound, right? Let me back up one second. So why am I talking about sort of toddlerhood and adolescence? Well, because when we look at the stages of development, they happen when we're growing as children and through childhood and early adulthood, but they actually then continue throughout our lives and we can start to see how when we didn't receive everything we needed when we were younger, which nobody did, because no one had perfect parents, because perfection doesn't exist. Our parents are doing the best they can with what they have, but when we don't have these needs, they start to show up in adulthood in different ways.

And so we have to actually parent the inner child inside of us that is wounded and acting out. That is the one that's saying there's not enough time. We can't slow down. We can't do the work to take care of ourselves. Everybody else's needs matter more than ours. Those kind of beliefs, we have to start to heal them. And a lot of times it's based on the developmental period where these wounds kind of started. So that's why I'm talking about that. So let's talk about adolescent maybe as you're an adolescent, that's that elementary school age. This is really a time where we're supposed to learn about having a differentiated identity, meaning we can be a little bit of our own person. We're starting to do things a little bit more on our own. We're having a little bit more autonomy in certain ways where we learn to set and enforce boundaries.

All of these things happen during those times, but when we don't really learn, when we don't have parents that allow us to sort of go out and learn the lesson and come back and feel really loved and warm and not shame or judgment, when we don't have that, it can leave an adult really unable to be that differentiated self unable to articulate and express emotions, especially big ones like anger. And anger for women is a big emotion that we are not allowed to feel, so we suppress it or repress it when really we need to learn how to move through those emotions. This is the time when we need to know that all our emotions are valid. All of our emotions are welcome, unhealthy or scary, hurtful offsetting of emotions, not okay, feeling the emotion, okay, right? But we don't learn that as a kid.

And so then when we're an adult, we don't know how to express these emotions. We don't know how to manage them, so we just either suppress them or we become that one that's like raging on everyone. We're totally chill, totally chill till we're not. And this is where anxiety, when relationships are really rocky, we might organize our entire life around trying to prevent the loss of connection instead of being able to have a really sturdy feeling within ourselves that can handle what's going on around us. Or maybe it's a teenage kind of wound. When we think about the teenage years, this is when we really are establishing our own identity, really. Who are we? What do we want to do? What do we believe in? This is the time in life when we learn how to tolerate the good and the bad when we tolerate growing and learning and making mistakes.

But we don't want to be shaming ourselves or making ourselves wrong if we don't succeed, if we don't achieve. But oftentimes that's what happens. And so when our teenage self isn't given the loving boundaries, the guidance, the accountability to create a really strong identity and being able to tolerate that good and bad, well, that might look like an adulthood where we have a really strong internal judge who condemns us when we're not perfect, who leaves us really on the defensive and blaming others and really trapped in the black and white thinking it's either this way or that way, and it can't be any other way. So we can start to see from these examples that oftentimes there's something going on inside of us that actually needs help. It needs healing, it needs love, it needs compassion. It needs boundaries. It needs strength and accountability and some structure, and that's what reparenting is.

We have to learn how to parent the version of us on the inside that is sort of playing out all of these old things so that we can change the pattern, so that we can break the cycle. It's a way of awakening and evolving so that we can deeply understand ourselves when we can have compassion and love for all of the parts, not just the pretty shiny ones, but all of them, because when we can do that, then we learn how to take personal responsibility for our own growth, for our own healing. This is the gift that we can give ourselves, and we do it by learning how to reparent ourselves. So what does reparenting look like? Well, it looks like continually asking yourself two questions over and over and over so that we can really start to activate and learn how to use the internal resources that we have.

What are those two questions? Well, it's what do I need right now and what can I do to offer that to myself right now? And we can actually start to ask and answer these questions. Things shift in big ways, but we have to be willing to slow down first. We have to be willing to slow down and meet the parts of ourselves that maybe we don't like so much. Maybe we're not even aware of them, or maybe we just want to change them, but we have to actually meet them and understand them and offer loving compassion. And then what do you need right now? And then how can I give that to myself? This is where coaching comes in and is so powerful, and I know this is where it was a really turning point for me because it mirrors this re-parenting process when you have a really beautiful, loving, strong, effective, amazing coach who is in your corner, who is there to help you see these parts of you, to meet them, to explore them with love and curiosity and holding a safe space, one who's teaching you how to regulate your emotions, how to regulate your nervous system so that you are able to do this work without feeling overwhelmed and exhausted from it.

There's ways to go about that. And when we have someone in our corner doing that, well, then we learn how to do it for ourselves. When we have someone modeling it right, then we can see it. We can start to understand it, and then we can actually start to integrate it for ourselves when we can integrate it for ourselves. This is when change and transformation happens, but we oftentimes need that parent and that parent figure, sort of that coach, that mentor, that therapist, who's willing to not coddle us, not criticize us, but lovingly call us forward, is someone to say to you, I see what's going on for you right now. I know it's hard, but we're doing this anyway. I love you too much to let you continue to live this way. And it's the willingness to meet that person where they are, to let them help you and guide you.

It really is the way of learning how to slow down so that we can speed up. But if we don't have that brake system, that natural brake and gas that's working, all we end up with is a gas pedal and no break, which is terrifying. Think about it. If you know the brake in your car is not working and only the gas pedal terrifying, we need both working. And that's what reparenting really offers us is a nervous system reset to be able to meet ourselves so that we have an active brake and gas pedal. The fact is that when we don't step into a role of parenting ourselves, we end up scouring the earth for that mom or dad out there who's going to, this is what most relationships are kind of built on some level. One of the partners is looking for that missing parent version in the other.

And when we are thrust into playing the role of parenting for someone else, we get really resentful. It's a burden, it's a responsibility we don't want, and we end up taking it on. We end up enabling other people their unhealthy behaviors, mothering them, but not allowing for growth ourselves or them. And this has got to stop. I know you might be saying to yourself, yeah, Mickey, it all sounds great, but it sounds like too much work, or I'm need at the office right now, or maybe later, or it's just too expensive or when the kids are going to get older, then I'll have time. But the fact is, today is the time to become an emotional and spiritual adult who can help yourself grow and heal. Because when we do, we not only help ourselves, we give the greatest gift to our children, to our partners, to the world around us, because we are strong and sturdy, and people need more strong and sturdy people around them.

This is what happens when we take radical responsibility for our wellbeing. We start to learn that life doesn't have to be perfect, that everything doesn't have to be peaceful on the outside for us to feel real peace and liberation on the inside. And we have to start to give ourselves the tools to feel that so that we can manage our inner world. When our inner world, when we change what is happening on the inside, the whole world changes on the outside, period, end of story. It's just the way it works. But it's about you giving yourself the toolkit, right? To be able to make those changes. And listen, you are more powerful than you'll ever know. And maybe you're not sick of your excuses yet. Maybe you are. I've so many women come to me and say, I am sick of my excuses. That is the moment.

That is the moment where we can really start to do some work. When you are willing to admit to yourself, I'm sick of it and I'm changing it, and you step into relationship with a coach or a therapist who is willing to be there on the journey with you to show you a different way, listen, that's what reparenting looks like. It's being the parent that you needed when you were little or the parent that you need right now. You are that person. You have everything within you to do it. It's you getting out of your own way to start to do it. And that might sound harsh, but sometimes we need to know that actually we are the block. And so when we know that we're the block, we can start to move it, right? But we do that with love, with compassion, with healing, with small, doable steps, okay?

So I want you to ask yourself, what would it look like to become the parent that I really need? I want you to journal on it. Maybe journal on what is one loving but firm boundary that I need to give myself this week or today? Or if you're saying, it all sounds great, Mickey, or I just don't feel like it's for me, but I really, really want help, well, let me help you, right? Let's jump on a call and have a conversation. You might be sick of the patterns that you're seeing, but you don't know where to go. Let's jump on a breakthrough call so that you and I can start to create a roadmap of what's next for you. That might be coaching, it might not, right? But what we can do is get on a call and figure out what is going on for you right now, and what are the needs that need to be met and how can we help you meet those?

And then one last thing. In the meantime, re-parenting ourselves is also talking to ourselves in a really calm, beautiful, compassionate, loving way. So I want to offer you a couple of mantras so that you can, when you are feeling overwhelmed, when you're feeling angry, when you're feeling like these patterns are just never going to end, we can start to shift them by meeting ourselves in that frustration, in that ickiness and that murkiness. It might sound like, I see you, I hear you, and I validate you. You are good enough as you are. You don't need to be perfect. It's okay to feel this way. All of your feelings are valid. You are powerful beyond measure, and you can do this. It's okay, and I love you. Your voice matters. You are needed. What happened in your childhood or in your past was not your fault.

And you don't need to be afraid to create a boundary for yourself. You can do this, my friend, and if you want help, I'm here. And maybe I'm not your person, but I'm happy to help you find that person. So if I can be of assistance, use the link in the show notes. But I just want you to know from the bottom of my heart that even if you have spent all your time tending to everybody else's needs and you don't feel like you even know what it looks like to choose yourself, or you cannot slow down until everything around you slows down, that day is not coming that day will only come when you choose to slow yourself down, when you choose to do the work, to get your emotional and nervous system, gas and brake pedals working. You can do this, my friend, and you can do it by setting loving boundaries for yourself, being honest and taking radical responsibility. This is the moment. This is the moment to stop waiting and to start choosing something better. I want you to have a really beautiful week. I'm sending you so much love and many blessings. I'll see you next time. 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 the 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-parenting with confidence.com. I'll see you next week.