Transcript
Speaker: You're listening to Outnumber the Podcast, Episode 170, Embracing and Regulating Emotion with guest Ronda Farr. Today, Ronda is going to take us inside her work as a life coach focusing on emotion. And as we know, being a parent is an extremely emotional job. We're going to talk about how to regulate our own emotions, how to stop resisting the emotions that we consider to be negative, and also how to help our children regulate their own emotions. Let's get started.
Speaker: Hello and welcome to Outnumbered the Podcast. I'm Audrey. And I'm Bonnie. We are experienced moms to a combined total of 19 children. In our weekly episodes, we explore relatable topics using our perspectives of humor and chaos. Tune in for advice and encouragement to gain more joy in your parenting journey.
Speaker: Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. We have another lovely guest with us today. We're so excited to talk to her. Her name is Rhonda Farr and she is a coach that's going to talk to us all about our feelings, all the emotions that make us so happy and also so angry and how to best manage them, especially as we are and as we were able to manage them, we were hopefully able to gain a greater appreciation for how they can help us and how we can work through the ones that are not serving us so well.
Speaker: Rhonda let's let you introduce yourself really quickly So like you said, I'm Rhonda far. I'm an emotions coach a certified coach. I was a family counselor before my coaching days I worked with teenagers who are addicted to substances and did family counseling for them now I have four boys and I do a coaching practice from my home and I focus on Like you said emotions those things that we love to hate and hate to love
Speaker: Awesome. Well, we're so glad to dive into some of this topic today because we know that this is so like as moms, we're dealing with our own emotions and with our kids' emotions. So we're so excited for you to share with our listeners. But like usual, we would love it if you could start us off with some humor.
Speaker: All right. So my husband and I moved into this house that we're in now about 10 years ago. And like I said, we have four small boys and I live in Northeast Tennessee. So I know you guys have a lot more kids than I do, but even having four children here, people are like, what? That's too many. That's crazy. Right. And so we made a connection with our neighbor who shares our property line and the
Speaker: elderly gentleman had worked with my dad and so it was kind of like was so fun for them and they don't have grandchildren so they kind of adopted our kids from day one and so I had a three -year -old at that time and the elderly gentleman brought my three -year -old over and was like you just come knock on this door anytime and we're available and they were just so happy they're retired and so he showed my little one actually how to pull the doorknob down and
Speaker: I know. So here's what happened. There were a few days that had passed. I think we lived here a couple weeks and we were looking for our three -year -old and we could not find him. Turned out he was inside the neighbor's house and what had happened was he knocked. Nobody came. He used his newly learned skill to let himself in, heard water running in the bathroom and happened to be sitting on the toilet when this elderly gentleman exited or
Speaker: started to exit the shower. So yeah, that happened. Oh, my goodness. As soon as you tell me, and you taught him how to open the door, I'm thinking no, this poor old man has not been around three year olds very, very much. Not a good idea. Poor man didn't slip and fall and
Speaker: Give himself a concussion with that sort of startling view. Well, he took full responsibility for it because I was mortified. I didn't know he had been taught the things. Like I said, they felt this connection, like they became their grandchildren. And then he was like, that was my fault. I'm so sorry. And I'm like, oh, I'm so sorry. When you have multiple children, people think, you know where they are all the time. And you know what they're doing all the time.
Speaker: No. I think that stopped after about child number three. I just couldn't keep track of everyone and two of them would run off while I was nursing a baby and whatever. Like you just pray they're going to be all right. That's so funny. We pray a lot. Lots of guardian angels, right? Yes, yes, yes. Okay. So you're telling us a little bit about your family. You have four boys. How old are your boys now? I have nine to 19. Okay. Yeah. So lots of different fun ages, those teenage boys, and you live in Tennessee.
Speaker: I'm in Northeast Tennessee. I'm glad you asked that because sometimes I will talk for like an hour when I'm teaching a class or doing an interview. And at the very end, they'll go, Where are you from? Like they've been distracted the entire time. So I do like to get that out of the way. Yeah, we do. We do sense a little bit of an accent, but I love it. Sounds so cute. Thank you.
Speaker: Okay, so before we get into the meat of things, I would love to know how you got started. So you said you were a counselor first. What got you into this specializing in the emotional aspect of things? I'm so curious about that.
Speaker: Very good question. So I come from a pretty conservative background. And after I got certified as a coach, I realized a need for couples and intimacy, really. And so I thought, you know what, I'm not afraid to talk about these things. I'll do that. Like I love it. I can tell it's so important. And then what happened was I kept getting on calls with individuals who
Speaker: Wanted to change their spouse who wanted to be able to control other people and who really didn't understand how they could be happy in a relationship with a partner who wasn't doing what they wanted them to you know what it always came back to that person taking responsibility for their own emotions.
Speaker: So after coaching for so long around intimacy, and almost there are always outliers, but almost every single time it coming back to, hey, you need to really confront your own emotions and why you're trying to change this spouse. And then it became emotional coaching. And then I got a business coach because, as we do as entrepreneurs, I tried to grow this business and I had some success and then back and forth.
Speaker: And she's like, you love emotions so much. Why don't you just do that? And I was like, what? I could just do that. Insert the emotions coach, my happiness, my fulfillment. I love it. Love it. Love it. So that's how I started. And that's how I'm here. Oh, that's so great that it was this gradual path that all of a sudden you realize, isn't that just how life works, right? You take one step forward and you end up over here and you go, Oh, well, I'm so happy here, but who knew?
Speaker: And do you know what? I used to have a podcast, an intimacy podcast, and I still have a few episodes out that I did with professionals and such that I think are important to leave out. And I still get clients from those podcasts. And as soon as we get on the call, I'm like, I just need you to know this is about you and self -confrontation, not about your spouse. If you're in, I'm in. But if you're not up for that, we're not doing it. And they almost always say yes. Interesting.
Speaker: So our audience is made up of mostly mothers, fathers, parents who are trying to be very intentional. It's something we talk about a lot on this podcast. And then happy. Our byline is finding joy in the chaos of motherhood. So what aspects of managing emotions do you see parents most struggling with?
Speaker: So I think it's important to talk about how emotions affect our parenting to answer that question. And we can actually apply this to every aspect of life. But anything you do as a parent, spouse, or otherwise is motivated by how you think it will make you feel.
Speaker: I don't speak in absolutes a lot. I see some grimacing, but I really believe strongly in this and I even ask you to challenge me if you think that I'm wrong. But we wake up early in the morning and get the breakfast made and get the things done, and we could say this is so selfless. Yes, motherhood is a selfless service, but I promise you even those things that you think you don't want to do but you're still doing is because of how you think it will make you feel,
Speaker: if you do it and how it will make you feel if you don't do it. So if we can ask ourselves that question first, what am I afraid of? What am I afraid of feeling if I don't do this or what am I afraid of feeling if I do do this? We can get to the root of the issue really quickly. And I think most of us think we're doing it for different reasons or not, like never, you guys. That's interesting. It brings to mind a question that
Speaker: Let's see who was oh, yes, it was chip gain said he proposed to a group of his friends He said if fear wasn't part of the equation, what would you find it? What would you do? And so he was of course talking about like in their businesses and things but I've been pondering that question for quite a while about Parenting like if fear wasn't part of the equation like where where are my fears just trying to identify those and what kind of parent I would would I be if I was able to address those fears that are holding me back as a parent
Speaker: Totally. Yeah. I have to do this right now. I have a 19 -year -old, as we just said. I don't know how old your kids are. You guys might have more experiences with this than I do, but this transition into adulthood and what we can control, which is nothing, by the way, but what I think that I can control versus what I should try to control, it's so difficult. So to add to your question, I love the way you said that. I like to ask it this way.
Speaker: If I give up control or trying to control this, what am I afraid might happen?
Speaker: What am I afraid might happen to my children, to our family unit, to someone else? And then, like we said, we get to the root of what we're feeling. And if we can address the situation from that place, it's so much more effective. Like, for example, if my kid asked me if they can go somewhere, we can negotiate, OK, you can be back at this time, and you can do it this way in these stipulations. And that's fine and good. There's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker: But if I ask myself, why am I afraid might happen if I give him permission? Oh, I'm afraid he might get mixed up in this. Or oh, I'm afraid that there might be an accident. Or oh, I'm afraid somebody else might judge me for letting him go or whatever. And then I can confront myself from that deeper place. It's a much different way of seeking solutions and insights.
Speaker: Oh, that is some deep stuff. As you're talking, I'm just realizing, huh, I'm pretty sure the main thing I fear above all is losing control.
Speaker: Especially in a large family because I feel like, you know, you're talking about just getting breakfast on the table. Well, if I don't get up and do my task, everything devolves very quickly, right? And then, I mean, is it life or death? No, of course not. But I'm going to come down to a pile of cereal on the floor. I'm going to come down to spilled milk. I'm going to come down to all these things that are things that I don't really want to confront. Maybe some frustration. Maybe some disgust.
Speaker: And so I hold a really tight grip on control because I'm afraid of just what kind of emotions are going to come up if I let them do their own thing. So interesting. Yeah, and I'll add to that too. Sometimes we confront what we're afraid of and we say yes.
Speaker: Like, I still choose this, and that's OK. But we do it from a place of intention and awareness, not just default, right? And when we do get frustrated about something, we have so much more awareness around why we're frustrated, not just because parenting is hard, and children are rude, and life is crazy. It's because, oh, I understand for myself, I really do value order. Or, oh, I really do value X, Y, or Z, and I choose that.
Speaker: So just the awareness can be a huge shift as a parent. So my question would be, do you think that most people who are not yet in that mode of self -awareness operate largely based on some subconscious fear?
Speaker: 95 % of our lives the research shows are repetitive subconscious habitual thinking and feeling patterns 95 % so yeah, just a little bit right interesting to your point about
Speaker: the teenagers and the choices that these adults make. So one thing that is coming up for me that I'm realizing has been a habitual thing with me is what other people think of me because of what my kids are doing. So like if my toddler was having a temper tantrum in the grocery store when they were two, now if my adult child, I was like, my fear at that time would be like, oh, what are people are going to think about me and about my parenting?
Speaker: Okay, so now fast forward 20 years, what are people going to think about me because of choices that my adult child is making that maybe aren't what I would have chosen for them or what I think they should be doing?
Speaker: Like I'm confronting these same things that I thought maybe in the 20 years I've been parenting, 23, 24 years I've been parenting that maybe I'd been able to work through and address some of this, but here they're coming up again, just like down at the very root of it. It's like the same thing. And I don't know, it's kind of, in a way it's kind of discouraging to find that I'm right back in the same emotions that I had way back when I was a little baby me trying to raise a two year old.
Speaker: Well, don't you worry. I'm going to give you some tips on how to address that today, but I wanted to add so much self -awareness around that. I find myself doing the same thing. And I recently heard BYU professor and research fellow Janet Erickson say something that I can't stop thinking about. She said, when we can understand our own emotions and really handle those, and that's what I'm going to give you some tips for before we leave today. She said, we give our children a gift
Speaker: by not infecting, I love that word, her word, by not infecting the situation with our own shame and embarrassment. Then we can address the circumstance, the issue at hand without infecting it with our shame attack, with our embarrassment. I can't think of a situation where my shame and embarrassment has made a situation better for the people around me, like not one.
Speaker: So true. Yeah, so true. So are we ready? Like, can we move into these tips? Because I'm there. Can I give you an analogy first that will help the tips make more sense? Yeah, go ahead. Okay. So I want you to think about if your emotions are a beach ball. Okay. And in that beach ball, we can insert shame, embarrassment, self judgment, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker: And let's pretend we're standing in a pool. The pool here is like life. And let's put some shame and embarrassment in it since we're talking about that. So what we can do with those emotions is we can pretend they're not there. And we can resist them. So it's just a ball of air if we think about it with the analogy. We can push it beneath the surface. And we can put a smile on our faces. And we can pretend we're fully engaged.
Speaker: But beneath the surface, you must have your hand on that beach ball to keep it hidden. You can't let go of it. And oh, by the way, if you get tired, guess what's going to happen? It's going to come up with some force. Do we ever get tired as mother's parents? Laughable, right? Not me.
Speaker: And oh, by the way, if somebody else has their own beach ball of emotion and we are in the middle of it and we get whacked in the face or distracted, guess what's probably going to happen with your own beach ball? It's going to come up. Do our children's emotions ever whack us in the face or distract us? Come out of nowhere? Yeah.
Speaker: So we can pretend that mess is not there, but we must be very carefully guarding it. And we can say if we're resisting or pretending emotions aren't there, that they're not affecting us. But through this analogy, we can see that they are because we always are tied to them. We're always protecting. No, keep your beach ball over there. No, don't throw your beach ball in my direction because I got to hide my own, right?
Speaker: Resisting and avoiding means you're resisting and avoiding. It does not mean those emotions are not showing up and running your life because they are. Here's another way we could use the beach ball. Maybe we take that shame and embarrassment and we indulge in it. We just hold it right in front of our face. We're just like, here it is. Maybe we can see through that beach ball, but everything's going to be distorted through that lens.
Speaker: We're going to be so busy holding onto our beach ball. Other people are going to be playing games in the pool. Other people are going to be inviting us to things. And we're going to be like, nope.
Speaker: I'll look at you maybe, or I'll notice from a distance, but I've got this. Don't you see I'm holding it? Like it's going to distort the things that we're seeing. It's going to keep us from engaging and being involved in the fun things of life and a whole bunch of other stuff, right? So resisting us is controlling us, or resisting emotion is controlling us, but also indulging in emotion is not really where we want to be either.
Speaker: So a lot of people will say, okay, well then what do we do? Like neither of those are very good. I want to offer to you that we can be in the pool and we can let the beach ball of emotion be in the pool and we can let it hit us in the arm sometimes without grabbing, without pushing. We can feel what it feels like and we can experience the waves that it might make. And yes, we might still get hit in the face with somebody else's ball, right? And we can feel what that feels like.
Speaker: But we don't have to latch, we don't have to push. Or because we're human, sometimes we might latch for a moment or push for a moment. But when we recognize what we're doing, if we have these skills that I'm about to teach you, then we can decide, do we want to hold on? Do we want to push? What do we want to do instead? So I would love for you to ask me questions or clarifying thoughts about that before I move into the tips. My first thought as you're talking about the analogy is that both the indulging and the
Speaker: What term did you use? The repressing or the... Resisting or avoiding? They all seem pretty selfish when you think about them like that, right? Because you're so hyper focused on how people are viewing you or how you're coming across that as a mother, I don't know about you guys, but I have very little time to be selfish. And so to realize that I'm actually doing that emotionally makes me understand that maybe I'm not as available as I thought I would be for my kids.
Speaker: and how I would love to teach them anything but being in their little bubble that they can't let anybody in. I also see a lack of vulnerability, a lack of allowing people in to really see who you really are in those instances. So yeah, some clarity's coming to me.
Speaker: Totally. And I don't want to get too in the weeds of this. I don't think we have time today, but there are also like, there are emotions in the moment, right? Like my kids making this choice, or I have to deal with a plethora of circumstances because of all the children. Can I keep it together with all that? But then we also have stored emotion in our body.
Speaker: capital T traumas, little t traumas. That's kind of some buzz wording that we hear lately, but it's true. Like we have stuff from our childhood that we're probably holding on to. I'm really good at this stuff because I've done it for a long time and I've processed a lot and I still have it. We all do. We pick up things along the way.
Speaker: And guess what? Sometimes our children press those wounds. You're disrespecting me? What? Or maybe our kids are going through a very hard circumstance with their peers and it triggers something in us that we went through with our peers or our parents. So sometimes those emotional wounds, we keep them inside. We don't even realize they're there.
Speaker: until a child has a circumstance that kind of presses. Think about a sore that you might have on your leg or arm. And if somebody were to come push on something that was infected, how badly it hurts, well, what we do is like, oh, you got to feel better. Oh, we got to fix this because I can't stand anybody pressing on my wounds. It hurts so badly. And so those might be some of those beach balls that just whack us right in the face. We don't even know they're there until something just needles them a little bit. So those are important to think about as well.
Speaker: So let's move on to the tips and the tools that parents can use because I think one of the hardest things about thinking about emotions with kids is trying to manage your own inner beach balls while you're also trying to help your kids learn how to manage their beach balls. I think some of us feels like, oh, we should be over this. So I would love to dive into the tips now.
Speaker: Perfect, beautiful. So one of the first things that I'm going to share is going to seem so simple. It could not work, but I promise you it does. So an emotion, I could give you a few different definitions of what an emotion is. An emotion is energy in motion, like it sounds. An emotion is a visceral physical response to a thought that you're having, right? Or it's a nervous system response to something like we just talked about that's being triggered inside of you. It could be any of those things.
Speaker: But if we think about it in all of these definitions as energy in your body, that's just moving. Like when we get anxious, it's almost like we can feel it like a pinball, pinball pinging. Or when we get sad, it's like a heavy weight and our heart is heavy, right? Like you literally can feel a physical visceral feeling in your body. So the first thing I ask my clients to do is when they notice themselves having an emotion is to let their body go limp.
Speaker: Just let their body go limp. And I like to give this analogy for the mamas on the call. You know, when you're in childbirth, when you're in labor and if you tighten your body and you resist those contractions, like how much worse it hurts and how much longer it takes your body to work with the labor and emotion and processing and emotion is very similar. If you can let your body go limp.
Speaker: and soft and just drop your shoulders, open your chest and let that ping pong ball of anxiety or overwhelm just move. Or let that sadness just pull on your body. Let your body's physical energy relax while the emotion runs its course.
Speaker: It seems too simple, but what you're doing is you're not holding on to the energy. You're not pushing against it, resisting it. Your body knows how to process an emotion. Your body knows what to do with discomfort. You don't need to let it do it.
Speaker: That is really cool because we just had an episode recently about having less pain during birth. And that is something that we talked about, like just not fighting against it, like relaxing into it. And it also seems like a very dumb thing to say, like, how can you not tense up against the pain? Same thing, you know, how can you not just fight against that emotion, especially when you have this thought in your mind that this is a bad emotion or this is something I shouldn't be feeling. So that, that is very interesting to hear you
Speaker: apply, recommending applying the exact same thing toward emotional pain as we recommended toward physical pain. Yeah. And you can take it even further. I love that you had this episode, so hopefully they play, play well together. Here's the next step of that. After you let your body experience it, I like to just close my eyes and I don't usually say it out loud, but I'll just say to my body.
Speaker: You're welcome to feel what you feel like you're welcome to be here. And then I will focus my attention on where that sensation is in my body. And I just start describing it with every bit of detail that I possibly can. It feels fast. It feels hot. It feels heavy or slow or.
Speaker: Any detail I can possibly gain from it after I soften and focus on it, because what i'm doing is notice i'm not pushing it away i'm not totally grabbing in front of my face i'm saying you're welcome to be here, and I want to get to know like you're a part of me.
Speaker: And here's the really cool thing. When we let it move and we describe it, usually it will dissipate. Not always. Usually it will dissipate. But I don't even process an emotion with the intent for it to dissipate. I process an emotion with the intent to get to know my body.
Speaker: Oh, when I feel sadness, this is what it feels like. Or oh, when I feel angry, this is what it feels like. The more often I do that, the more self -aware I become when I'm interacting with my children or my spouse or the neighbor down the street who maybe spoke harshly or whatever it might be. And then if we want to take it to the next level, this is third step. This is advanced here. But then I might ask myself, what are you trying to teach me?
Speaker: When I'm feeling sadness right now, what are you teaching me? Are you teaching me that I really value the relationship with my child and I want to make that connection? Are you teaching me that when my child hurts, it feels respectful to hurt with them?
Speaker: Are you teaching me that maybe I'm way out of my, um, out of my lane here and I need to get in a different lane. Sometimes that's it too. Right. But I can't learn those lessons from my emotions unless I get to know them and accept them with some compassion and acceptance of the human experience.
Speaker: Oh, you know, as you're talking, one thing I'm thinking about, I've just recently started to be a little bit more self -aware of how I react internally when I'm around my children, specifically when they are hurting or being crazy, but specifically hurting. And one thing I've noticed is that in my mind, a good mom feels sadness and empathy with her children when they're hurting. And in my experience, I feel
Speaker: Initially what I thought was frustration, but now I realize is anger. And I'm trying to figure out why I get angry when my children are hurting. And I think I'm starting to see, well, part of it is that I just don't like to feel awful. And I feel like I did something wrong or I didn't protect my children or, you know, all these things are coming up and I'm like, huh, who knew? I just thought it was irritated that everybody's punching each other. You see me after class, sister, and we will get to the root of that, I promise. 100%. We'll get to the root of that.
Speaker: I would love before we go to offer a little technique that we can use to teach our children not to resist or indulge, if that's okay too. Because when it comes to parents, that's the next question. Like, okay, now what? So here's a little game that I like to play with one of my children who's a little more emotional, a little more prone to being dramatic. So I'll say, hey, I'm going to just make up a scenario.
Speaker: And no matter what I say, I want you to see if you can keep your body limp and then describe what your body feels like. And we'll do this in lots of different ways. So I'll be like, hey, imagine you're on a roller coaster. And it goes up really fast and down really fast. And so I'll let him start to go there. And I'll just say, what does your body feel like? What does your stomach feel like? And then I might say, and then you drop your favorite hat.
Speaker: and you know it's gone forever right and then I'll just let him like where do you feel that and what would you name that and so he might say anger or sadness and then I'll say like where's that in your body right and so if we really want to dial at home and I want to get more intense which I've done this only a couple times be careful I'll say
Speaker: Imagine that I walk into the living room and I see shoes and a coat and they're not yours, but I just curtly say, hey, come pick this up, right? Which that one's pretty close to home. And I can see him like, he's wiggling and I can see like he's trying to relax his body and trying to identify it.
Speaker: And we get a little closer to home. But what I'm doing when I play this game with my children is I'm teaching them this skill, keeping your body relaxed, getting to know what emotion feels like in your body, and not indulging like screaming anger, frustration. We're just teaching them how to feel sensations that come from thoughts and stories.
Speaker: Which by the way, all day, every day, our brain is telling us stories, offering us thoughts that are almost never true. They're just predictive based on our history, like it's forecasting what could happen based on our history. So we're just teaching kids how to do that.
Speaker: Oh, that is really good. So we use the same tools for our kids that we use for ourselves, huh? Yep. That is really good because I always like it when I can help my kids work on the same thing that I'm working on. It's like we're a team, like we're working on it together. And then we take into the future some of the same body of knowledge that we can go forward. So something I can really relate to what you're saying about
Speaker: emotions being generated by thoughts and stories that we have in our brain and working with that with kids. I was having that discussion with some of my kids too. And they were, they were like, it was kind of a hard concept for them to grasp. And I was able to share some of my experience with them that helped them see that how I came to understand that. Yeah. You know, thoughts, feelings just come from thoughts. And so I can see how that, that little game that you play with your kids would also teach them
Speaker: Like you're not actually in a roller coaster. You haven't actually dropped your favorite hat. It's just your thought about it that's generating that feeling or that, you know, that tightness in that one spot between your shoulders or whatever it is. So that's a really neat way to illustrate to them where emotions come from.
Speaker: Totally. And if you want a little tip, like when your kid is anxious or riled up, I know anxiety among our youth today is a pretty big thing. Like I hear a lot about it. There are some things that we can do to help our children, um, decrease the sensation in their nervous system, or I didn't say that correctly. There are some things that we can do to help our children regulate their nervous system. And it has to do with breathing and stimulating this vagus nerve, but
Speaker: I like to teach the bubble game for the really, really small kids. Like, hey, breathe in through your nose, catch as much air as you can, and then blow the biggest bubble or blow up the balloon.
Speaker: And we use their hands, right, to blow it up. And this deep breathing calms the nervous system. So that's one that we like to do. Another one is I'll have my children sometimes put palms up right at the base of their stomach or right by their waist and put fingers together. And I'll say, okay, let's move the hands up by breathing in through your nose and
Speaker: When they breathe in, I have them raise their hands up toward their chest. And then I say, hold it while you flip your hands. And so we hold the breath and then we flip the hands over. And that usually takes a couple of counts, a couple of seconds. And then I'll say, blow with your hand or mouth, blow your hands all the way down. And then I'll say, do it again in your nose, suck it up.
Speaker: So that's really helpful. And then there's another one. And you can describe this to your child any way you want. My kids love potty humor, but I'll say, bear down like you're going number two, right? And listeners, audience, you can do this at home. Just like tighten your chest and like grimace on your face.
Speaker: just bear down I wish you could see how ridiculous I look right now trying to show this over a podcast um but what that does is it actually stimulates that vagal nerve um and again I'm trying to show you with my hands but just trust me that stimulating that nerve as if you're bearing down
Speaker: helps calm the nervous system. So that's not necessarily resisting, indulging, allowing emotion, but it's when they're in that emotional response, like we all will get to, even if we know these tools, it's helping them regulate the nervous system in real time.
Speaker: Oh, such cool tools. Thank you so much. So excited to share those, especially I have a couple of children I know are going to be especially and I've tried teaching them breathing techniques, but I love the the, you know, very physical image of the of the ball or balloon or whatever.
Speaker: I had one of my kids that was really scared of dogs and they would start to have a panic attack, even at seeing a dog and basically, you know, stop breathing. So I used the analogy. This isn't quite as good as the ones that you've shared, but it really helped her.
Speaker: drink in air through a straw and that would have her you know put the image of a straw in her mouth and then she would begin breathing you know suck in air through the straw you know blow it back out the straw okay and then we would get her just focused on her breathing and it wouldn't be quite so traumatic the fear of the dog whatever she was having
Speaker: Yeah, I love that. And if you wanted to try this other game with this particular child, maybe they've overcome it. But just have them sit and go completely limp. And just imagine what a dog looks like. We don't have to take them all the way to being attacked by a dog to help them exposure therapy. We don't have to do that. We can just say, imagine what a dog looks like. Imagine that we put a puppy on your lap.
Speaker: Imagine what it would be like if it licked your skin, your face, or your hand. We can start so small. It doesn't have to be push you in the deep end over your head until your body's freaking out and we're like, hey, use these tools. Use these skills, kid. Don't you know? We don't have to do it that way.
Speaker: introduce these gently, and I find it to be way more effective, by the way, to do it. Yeah, and prep them ahead of time, especially if you know there's an experience that is going to be strong, which I coincidentally, we could also use to our benefit. I know I'm going to go to a family event that is probably going to bring up some events for me, or I'm going to go to this thing that might cause some anxiety, or how can I prep myself? What kind of thoughts and stories can I tell myself ahead of time? What happens when this
Speaker: comes up. What happens if someone says this? How do I respond? How does that feel? You know, I love that the preparation ahead of time. Totally. Finally, before we wrap up, I would love to ask you Rhonda one last question. And that is, what is one thing you wish you could say to a young mom, maybe all young moms, let's say you had a way of talking to everyone. And especially those who are struggling and don't feel like they feel a lot of joy feel like there's some guilt on top of that. Is there one thing that you wish that you could say to them?
Speaker: Yeah, so there are lots of things, because I was that mom. I didn't enjoy parenting very much, unfortunately. And I used to feel really guilty about that and beat myself up for that. So first of all, you're a human. And I say to people who feel a lot of anxiety or overwhelm or frustration, here's what this means about you. Do you want to know? And they're usually like waiting with bated breath. You're like, yes, tell me what this means. It means you have a human brain.
Speaker: living in a very fallible world. That's all it means. Our brains are designed, hardwired, to pick out things that aren't going well. It's survival. That's your caveman brain that's noticing all the things that are frustrating and difficult, right? And it's saying, hey, notice every one of these things so you can plan for it, so you can solve for it. So you don't die.
Speaker: So if you don't die right your brain is just hardwired to feel frustrated a lot of the time and just noticing that that's actually not a big problem is Super useful. There's this book. It's called the upside of stress and I can't remember the author We're just talking about this off the fly but they did a lot of research and took some samples of people and asked them how much stress and
Speaker: and overwhelmed they felt in their lives and they found that the people who even said why don't experience a lot of stress it just not a. Not a thing they fared better than the people who said oh yeah i feel a lot of stress and it's horrible i hate it.
Speaker: But interestingly enough, the group that fared the best were the people who said, oh yeah, I feel a good amount of stress. And I know that stress is normal. So it just is what it is, right? They took saliva samples. So we're just not even talking about objective mental health surveys. They took saliva samples of their health and their hormone levels and the cortisol and all the things.
Speaker: And the people who fared the best and were the happiest were the ones who said, yeah, this is hard. And I know that that's the design of our creation. I know that it's supposed to be hard. So again, it goes to that resistance if we can circle all the way back. I would say to these moms, I see you.
Speaker: I feel you, it is hard and I love you and take some time for yourself and get to know your emotions and how you best appreciate the self care. How do you feel best rested? Do all the things and don't judge yourself when you feel like you don't like your kids. And don't judge yourself when you feel like you had too many and you don't know how to do this anymore. And don't judge yourself when you are like, I don't even wanna get up and do this today.
Speaker: You know what we see you that's valid. We love you. I felt that too. And it's because you have a human brain living in a fallible world.
Speaker: That's beautiful. It's almost like we paid her to say that, huh? All that stuff. It's like what we say all the time on the podcast. I know. We're so glad that you came on, Rhonda, and just kind of shared with young moms and all of us about how to manage our own emotions and help our kids work on their emotions. Would you share with our listeners where they can find you on the internet if they have some deeper issues that they want to
Speaker: look you up and find some help or just check out all of your work.
Speaker: Oh, sure. So you can go to rondafar .com. In fact, on that first page, there's a free course that pops up. It's a four part series that will teach you all about how your brain works and all about how emotions work and also how to accomplish goals and create emotion on purpose. That's a whole nother podcast episode, but you can actually use your emotions to create things in the world and create relationships.
Speaker: So, I would say start with that if you want to know more about what I do and what I teach. You can find me at rondafar underscore coaching on Instagram and through the link in my bio or the website, you can figure out how to actually talk to me, get on my schedule, get on my email list if you want to learn more about it. So, yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing. It has been seriously a delight having you. We've learned so much and I can't wait for everyone to hear your wisdom. Thanks again. Thank you.
Speaker: Thanks for listening friends. Click the link in the show notes to subscribe to our email and never miss another episode. Show us some love by leaving a review on iTunes or sharing the podcast with a friend. Thanks for all your support. We'll talk to you next week.
