Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #814 Fine, Fantastic or Flourishing?

Transcript

#814 Fine, Fantastic or Flourishing? · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: The time poor parent who just wants answers.
• 0:10
  Speaker 3: Now, it's just the importance of having this plan right,
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: That's really that's ultimately what this is about. It's about saying,
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: we're going to identify one thing to improve. What's the
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: plan stand.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show. My mum
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: and dad.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Have we got some exciting news for you?
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Should we dive into it? Of course? Okay, five days ago.
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: Six days ago, across the weekend, we sat down at
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: the in law's place. So our daughter Chanelle is married
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: to Jared. Jared's parents hosted.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: The gender reveal.
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: I'm not a fan of the gender reveal. I'd rather
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: find out on the day that the baby is born.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: I want to find out how we've never found out.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: We've never found out.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: It's been very exciting for us, and I would have
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: loved for her to follow suit, and she probably actually
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: was in line with that.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: So you know what, Hey, it's their life. If this
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: is what they've chosen to do. I'm all on board
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: because I love the kids and so a while back
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: we said that we were going to become grandparents. It's really
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: happening now, like it's really happening. What had it got
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: like a month and a half ago, six weeks?
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Two days? Get out it. It can't even be that.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: It's going to be less than that now, No, sixty days, Okay,
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: well she's counting.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: Sometime in the next couple of months there is going
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: to be an additional baby in the family, and it
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: won't be one that we have to deal with all
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: the time, which I'm so delighted about. We now know
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: we now know what gender that child will be. And
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: the photographer who came along a friend of Chanel's, to
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: sort of document the gender reveal, got a little bit
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: of audio for us by videoing the explosive moment where
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: the cannons went off and we saw the color of
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: the smoke. Here's what happened, y and the color of
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: the smoke was we know how to make girls in
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: this family.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: The funny thing was Jared's sided the family. They have
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: all boys, all of the grandkids boys. We have a
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: house full of girls, and I'm full of girls, and
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: you've got the majority of girls in your family as well.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: And so we were on team blue.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, we were convinced that there was a boy
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: coming and his.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: Family were Team Pink. Ye, So it was very funny
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: to see it all unfold. What's so funny is watching
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: the breakdown on camera where we've got the still shots
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: minute like second by second. Yeah, is the cannon has
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: literally blown. You can see pink all through the sky
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: and for about four frames there is zero response in
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: real time.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Happens in a fraction of a seconds, yes, but when.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: It's broken down into those incremental like second by second frames.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: You can see all the brain's computing Yes, it's pink,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: it's a girl, Oh my goodness.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: And you've got Team Girl with their arms throwing in
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: the air. You've got the mother in law who was
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: on Team Blue and she's literally got her head in
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: both hands thinking, oh no, I really wanted a boy.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: It was just it was so delightful. It was so
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: nice to be with everybody and was just be able
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: to celebrate the expectant joy and how that and how
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: that is actually creating joy in our lives already.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: I'm feeling I'm feeling super confident now, like I know
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: what to do with a baby girl. I'm feeling okay
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: about this now. I was, I mean, I was. I
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: was really excited to have a little grand baby boy,
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: but I had no idea, like, it's what do you
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: do with that little thing between its legs when you
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: have to change the snappy? I was nervous about that
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: sort of stuff, not that I planned on changing any nappies.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: But well, a couple of the sister in laws they
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: actually thought you were a bit disappointed.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Did they really?
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: They did.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Oh, they must have seen the photo of my face.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: They did. They thought you were a bit disappointed. You're
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: on team Blue, you were expecting a boy, you wanted
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: a boy?
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: No, no, no, there was no expectation or wanting. Do you
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: know what it actually came down to? This is there's
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: a theory that's been going around for a long long time.
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: Many people have shared it with me. And the theory
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: is that super fit and healthy men with lots of
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: testosterone have girls.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: I don't know where you've ever heard that.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: I've heard it a number of times and people who.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: Are not the more you enjoy sex, the better.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: And maybe that's the theory, I don't know.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: And if you're a little bit less in shape, maybe
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: have slightly lower testosterone, you're more likely to have a boy,
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: that's the theory that I heard, and I like, Jared
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: has been in better shape over the years.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: He's not in horrendously bad shape or anything, but I've
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: always been in really good shape, and I thought, that's it.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: I'm super athlete. I've had lots of girls.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: And there goes the theory, because well, either that.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Or Jared's actually super super fit.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: That or they're having a wonderfully healthy intimate life which
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: we don't need to talk about here on the podcast
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: or whatever. Again quite frankly, so anyway, we're going to
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: become girl grandparents because we're already were already a girl.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Girl mom and girl dad. And the trend continues.
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: Now with that exciting personal news out of the way
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: and having taken up way too much time in our
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: podcast already, we need to talk business every single Friday,
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: and the Happy Families podcast.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: Well, I've noticed for a little while now, every time
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: we got on to do Oh, do Better Tomorrow, you
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: acknowledge that you're not here, Yes.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: And it's been another week like that.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: At the moment we have I'm just traveling a lot.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: There is a lot of seminars to do all over
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: the country, and so this.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: Episode gets a little bit tricky to do from time
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: to time because you're not here a lot.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: But I'm here now you are.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: And so during the week I was actually, oh, I
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: discovered a new function on my podcast at Okay, there's
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: this thing you just push unplayed and it brings up
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: all of the unplayed episodes whenever podcast. You're making fun
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: of me.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no, Honestly, I just listened to what's
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: next in the queue.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Well, I usually flick down and I find Okay, haven't
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: listened to that one, and I'll play that. But there's
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: a button, right, and I pushed it and there was
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: a lot more than I thought I hadn't listened to.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: So I started. I actually scrolled down to the bottom
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: because you know, when you play if you want to
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: play them consecutively, actually goes up the list instead of down.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, So I had to go down
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: to the bottom of the list so I could start there.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: So I would kind of go upwards. Well, it took
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: me back to when I very first joined the podcast, right,
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: there were so many that I hadn't listened to. So
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: I just started kind of you know, on speed Doll,
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: I'm listening to them really fast.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: Oh, I've got to say on that now, I know
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: that we've got an important conversation to have here. But
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: I've started listening. I'm trying to reduce my phone usage
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: and I'm also trying to slow my life down and
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: create my margin. I've started listening to podcasts on regular speed.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: Do you know what I did this with the girls
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: the other day because I'm listening at one point seventy five.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: All right, Oh my goodness, no, no, no, no.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: It sounds so normal. It sounds so normal. So anyway
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: the other day, so it's like.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: We've just got this great energy all the time.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Yes, it's really energy pumped. If I'm listening to Americans
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: every now and again, I have to slow it down because.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: They don't speak Australian English.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, their twang's a bit too hard to get when
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: you speed.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: It up listening on one.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: But I was listening to this therapist the other day
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: and no joke, I put her on single speech and
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: I looked at my daughter and I was like, I
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: said to her, does that sound like it's like droll old?
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: It was so slow.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: She looked at me, she said, that does not sound normal.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: So then I put it up to one point seventy five,
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: and I'm like, no, that's better.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well absolutely single speed. Anyway, you've been listening to
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: all of our old podcasts.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: I listened a whole not all of them, but obviously
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: the ones I've missed. And I've noticed a trend. Right now,
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: we've got over eight hundred episodes. I joined you at
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: about one hundred and thirty four.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: I think, Wow, was the U recorded a lot of
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: podcast episodes, so.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of you and I in there. And
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: what I noticed is time and time again. Yes, in
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: how I'll do better tomorrow, we've acknowledged that we really
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: suck at doing holidays.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: That's a big thing.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: I can see that literally back from like the first week. Wow,
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: we acknowledged that we're really bad at holidays.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Let's make a plan, let's improve that, let's do better tomorrow.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: And that we need to slow down time and time again.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: It's just this acknowledgment that we're craming way too much
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: into our lives and we need to slow down. And
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: I thought, isn't it interesting after all of this time,
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: we're still talking about the same thing.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Wow, So we're not getting any better? Is what you're saying.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: I think that we get better at different time.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Right, Okay, so it's so cyclical.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I think often what happens is we
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: get really intentional and we make changes yep, necessary changes
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: to what's going on. But then we become complacent. And
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: sometimes it's not even complacency. Sometimes there are like big
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: things that happen our lives that change moving house that
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: changed everything in our lives. There's just different seasons in
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: our lives and things that happen.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: That progression and regression.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that we're at a stage in our
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: lives yet again where we need a bit of an overhaul.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: Yes, and it's been a long time since we've gone
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: and done like our quarterly getaways for those of you
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: who are new to the contents once every quarter we
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: used to before COVID, we used to disappear for a
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: weekend and either your parents or my parents watch the
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: kids for those two nights and we go away. And yes,
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: we would enjoy our time together and have a little
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: bit of a break, but we actually went there with
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: an agenda and we talked about what's going.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Well, what's not, and what we're going to improve on.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: Over the next twelve weeks over the next quarter, and
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: it made such a difference.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: It helped us to stay aligned.
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: And focused together and really beyond the same page and
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: work towards improving and progressing what our family was about.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: Since COVID, because it's been so challenging to get that
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: time away. It hasn't been the regular quarter.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: I mean, you've had your parents have had some health issues,
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: and my parents are just a long way away from us,
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: So it's just been tricky.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: And so when we have gone away, we haven't been
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: able to do two nights. Generally, it's been one night.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: We're squeezing it in.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Oh. We've just wanted to have fun and just wanted
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: to be together.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So it's been really tricky, and it's something that
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: we really recognize makes such a difference in our lives when.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: We do it. Let's talk about our olds about it
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: tomorrow and now that we've shared your insights from our
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: repetitive challenges as a family and the delight of being
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: baby girl grandparents or soon to be at least, what
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: is your old do better tomorrow?
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: For the week.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: On the weekend just gone, you and I did something
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: that we know works yes to get on the same page.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: We got together, we had a catch up.
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: It wasn't nearly long enough. We need a quarterly get away,
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: but it was an hour an hour.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: Instead of sitting in our bed yep and being less
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: than inspired, I said, let's go down to the beach.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: So we went down to the beach. We had a walk,
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: We took the notepad and pen, and we went through
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: the same three questions that we ask every time we
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: do this.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: What's going well, what's not going so well?
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: And what's the one thing that we're going to improve
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: this week to make our family or our individual lives
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: function better.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: And the challenge when you need a complete overhaul is
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: how do you prioritize one thing. So we're looking at diet,
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: we're looking at sleep, we're looking at screen usage, we're
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: looking at.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: We're looking at every like seriously.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: The list of what's going well, I mean, things are fine,
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: but the thing is we don't want things to be fine.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: We want things to be fantastic.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: We want to be flourishing.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and the list of things that we can improve on,
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: I mean it was long, it was substantial, but if
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: you try and try to improve it, all at once.
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: It just it's overwhelming. It gets too hard, and you
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: kind of run out of seam on about day three.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: It all just hurts too much to try to implement
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: all this change all at once.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and what often happens is you start off gung
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: ho with all of these changes and within a few
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: days you can't.
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: Stay sustain it. So we picked just a couple of
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: things to work on this week, one thing personally, one
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: thing as a couple, and something as a family. We
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: brought the kids in once we'd had our conversation and
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: we talked about the family stuff. I have done super
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: well on my personal stuff in terms of making my
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: mornings magic.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: And we have our first date. We've got a date.
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: Night tonight, which I'm delighted about because it means that
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: we're implementing this stuff that we've said it's important, and
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: the stuff that the family said that we would work
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: on together and try to improve. It's been a little
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: bit lumpy and bumpy, but the reality is we're making progress,
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: and it's just the importance of having this plan right.
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: That's really that's ultimately what this is about. It's about
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: saying we're going to identify one thing to improve what's
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: the plan stand?
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: And I think the most important thing is so often
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: we want immediate and substantial change to take place, to
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: feel like we've been successful, to feel like it's been worthwhile. Yes,
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: But the very fact that we now have awareness of
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: what's going wrong and where we need to improve, that's
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: a massive tick. Yeah right, Because we can keep living
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: this life and just letting things slide and make no
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: acknowledgment and nothing changes. But the very fact that we're
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: able to have the conversation is the most important thing.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: The second thing is recognizing that because it's not just
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: you that you're bringing along, it's a whole team of
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: people that are at various developmental stages, let alone capacity.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: And care factor, like different kids care a whole lot
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: more about some stuff than other stuff.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: It's really important that you're not hard on yourself or
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: your family. So if you see that for one moment
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: in time, life was actually really good, then you have
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: to be able to see that and acknowledge it, yes,
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: for what it is. And the conversation that we have
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: next week is Okay, we had a great Monday. How
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: do we make this flow into Tuesday? Or how do
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: how do we you know, increase the amount of time
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: we've been I've spent together as a family this week.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: So we have to see the wins for what they are.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: Ye however small, however incremental, however small, because if we don't,
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: then we're going to literally spiral down, lose all desire
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: and motivation to keep trying.
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: So that it tomorrow for this week really is get
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: serious with intention and put a plan together for one
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: or two things to improve this week, and then have
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: the conversation every week, every Saturday or every Sunday, sit
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: down and have the ten or fifteen minutes with the family,
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: maybe have an hour as a couple, get on the
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: same page, and watch things fingers crossed hopefully get better.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin rule On
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: from Bridge Media, Craig Bruce as our executive producer. If
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: you would like more information about making your family happier,
• 14:28
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• 14:31
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• 14:34
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• 14:36
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• 14:38
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• 14:59
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• 15:01
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• 15:07
  Speaker 3: hopefully you'll do better tomorrow as a result of what
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: we've talked about today.