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The Pressure to Do Something (and Learning Not To) · Parenting Through The Hard

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Welcome to Parenting through the Hard, a podcast for parents navigating
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the messy, unpredictable seasons of raising teens and supporting
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adult children. I'm Angie, your host and friend who
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knows exactly how heavy and lonely this road can be.
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My goal is to create a space where we can talk about what's
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real, honest conversations about the challenges of parenting that are rooted in
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hope and and anchored in love. Whether you're in crisis,
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unsure about the future, or just trying to make it through the day,
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there's space for you here. Together, we'll explore what it means to
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keep showing up, finding strength, staying grounded, and holding
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onto hope one step at a time.
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Hey friend. Welcome back to Parenting through the Hard.
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I'm your host, Angie, and if you've ever
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felt that pressure to do something,
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to fix it, address it, say something,
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make a decision, this episode is
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for you. Last episode,
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I shared something I've been starting to see a little more clearly in myself.
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This habit that I've inadvertently developed which ties my peace
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to what's happening in my kids lives. And ever since making that
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connection, I've noticed how this habit impacts me and how I
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show up, what it's actually creating inside
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of me. The first thing I realized, and I'm sure you'll be able to relate
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to this, is that when my piece feels connected to
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how things are going for my child,
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there's a quiet urgency that shows up
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inside me. This feeling that I need to do something or fix
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something or figure something out. At first I thought
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this urgency was tied to my needing
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to make sure that they would be okay. But what I'm beginning
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to see is that it's also so that
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I can feel okay. I've been sitting with
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this awareness lately, and it has me wondering
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if maybe as a parent,
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waiting is actually part
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of the work. Not avoidance, like I'm trying
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to run from something. Not denial, like I'm pretending it's not
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there and not that place of I just don't want to deal with this
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right now. But I'm talking about intentional,
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grounded waiting. The kind where I actually
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have to slow my body down, take a
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breath, maybe even stretch out my neck a little bit. Because if I don't,
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I can feel myself getting pulled right back into action mode.
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Honestly, my natural instinct is urgency.
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When something feels off with one of my kids, when I
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sense distance or tension or uncertainty, when I
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don't know what they're going to do next, everything in me wants to
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move. Everything in me wants to say something or to ask
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a question or to fix the tone or to control the outcome,
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even if it's just by a little. And even when I don't say it out
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loud internally, I'm already working all
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the angles of that situation. And it's
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not always loud. Sometimes it's really subtle.
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Sometimes it's in the way that my body tightens
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just a little around my shoulders or in my jaw, in the
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way that I press my fingertips to my temples
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in order to just kind of relieve some pressure.
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Sometimes it's in the way that my thoughts start speeding up without me
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even noticing. I'll start replaying a conversation
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in my head, or maybe I'm thinking ahead to the next one.
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I'll start trying to figure out how I want to say something,
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or when I should bring something up, or whether I
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should just wait and see. Which, for the record, rarely feels like the option that
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I want to take. And all of that is happening
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internally, before anything has ever
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actually happened on the outside. And I think for
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a long time I saw this kind of characteristic
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in myself as me just being thoughtful, like I was being
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a good parent, like I was paying attention, like I was staying engaged.
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But what I realize now is
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that a lot of it is just me trying to get
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ahead of the discomfort that I'm experiencing.
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It's me trying to get to a place where things feel settled
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inside me again. And it's hard to admit that
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urgency inside me doesn't always lead to
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clarity. In fact, most of the time, urgency inside me
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leads away from clarity. It leads to reaction,
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to forcing conversations that aren't ready to happen yet,
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to decisions that I end up second guessing,
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to stepping in when I probably needed to stay
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back. And then I have to go back and redo
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it. I have to go back and repair it, or re
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explain it, or rebuild trust.
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And that part has been really humbling for me because
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there have been moments where I've stepped in, said something,
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pushed a conversation forward. And even while I was doing
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it, something in me knew, this isn't quite right.
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Stop. Abort mission. But I pushed
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forward anyway. Why? Because the discomfort
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of waiting felt harder than the risk of stepping in
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too soon. But later I'd feel it. That sense of
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needing to circle back, to go back and soften something I said,
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to clarify something I pushed to repair a
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moment that didn't need to be complicated in the first place. And I
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think that's where I've started to understand that just because I
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can say something doesn't mean it's
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time to say it. And that's where I guess this shift has been happening
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for me. I've been working pretty hard lately
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to remember that if the time is not right,
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then I should wait. If the way is not clear,
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I should wait. I've been working hard to remember
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lately that if the time is not right, wait.
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If the way is not clear, wait.
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If the answer feels muddy or inconsistent,
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wait. Not because I'm trying to let go, and not
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because I think they'll figure it out on their own, which, honestly, they probably would,
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but because waiting can actually be
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a form of wisdom. Now I feel like I need to be clear on something
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here. Waiting has not just been me sitting by and
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scrolling TikTok reels while they figure it out. Waiting is not
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passive. It's not checking out or pretending everything's
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fine. If anything, it's the opposite of that.
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Waiting is very active. It's just internally
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focused instead of externally reactive. Because while
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I'm waiting, I'm doing something really important.
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I'm dealing with my own panic,
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my own urgency, my own fear.
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I'm reaching out to people that I know
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will be honest with me, and I'm having conversations with them about,
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hey, I really want to do abc.
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And everything in me wants to take
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action in that direction, but I'm really feeling
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this sense that instead, I need to wait.
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And let me tell you, this is not comfortable
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work. Because when I'm not moving outward,
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everything turns inward.
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The questions, the tension, the uncertainty.
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And instead of fixing something out there,
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I'm actually forced to see what's happening in me.
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And sometimes that means noticing how quickly I
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want resolution in matters. I mean, give me the neatly
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packaged box with the bow on top so I can move on with my life,
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please. Or how uncomfortable I
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feel in my own skin when things feel unfinished and I can't control
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the outcome. Or how much I want clarity.
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Not necessarily because it's time, but because I don't like the feeling
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of not knowing. And I guess that's been the big
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shift for me lately. Realizing that the urge
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to act isn't always about what's needed
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in the actual situation. Sometimes it's just
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about what I'm feeling in the moment. And I guess I'm
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starting to see that if I don't do that work, then all those things start
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making my parenting decisions for me. Not clarity,
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not wisdom, not love. Just anxiety
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in disguise. And is that. Is that
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really what I want to be leading with in my parenting? I guess that's been
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one of the harder things for me to admit to myself that sometimes what
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feels like responsibility is actually just my anxiety
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trying to move faster than the situation is ready for.
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But surprisingly, it turns out that waiting
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can actually be a God guided action.
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Not just something I do when I don't know what else to do,
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but something I choose to do. Wait for it
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on purpose. Because sometimes
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waiting holds more power than rushing into something that
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just isn't ready. I've started to see that there's a difference
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between a decision made from urgency and
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a decision that comes when it's actually time.
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When it's time, there's a different feeling. It's not
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always easy, but it's steady. There's a sense of peace,
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a sense of alignment, even a
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quiet confidence. Not because everything is perfect,
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but because I'm not forcing it.
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And that's hard. Because living in the in between,
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living with unanswered questions, living with situations that
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aren't resolved, those are all things that are extremely uncomfortable.
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Sometimes it feels almost unbearable.
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It would be so much easier to
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just do something, anything. I didn't realize just how much
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strength and discipline it actually takes to wait.
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Because waiting doesn't actually look like a picture of strength.
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Waiting looks like stillness. It looks like restraint.
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It looks like doing less. But internally
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it's a ton of heavy lifting. And I guess maybe that's why we resist
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it so much. I can see now that doing
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something too soon often creates more work for
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me later. More confusion, more repair,
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more stepping back after I've already stepped in.
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So I'm practicing something a little different these days.
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When I feel that urgency rising.
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Instead of asking what should I do?
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I'm learning to ask myself, what happens
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if I don't step in just yet?
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That has been something that's been repeatedly showing
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up in my journal as I'm writing all of these things down. These struggles
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that my kids are having, or these situations that I want to insert myself into.
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That question is highlighted over and
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over again the last few weeks in my journal. What happens if
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I don't step in just yet? What happens if I just
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stay present without interfering? What happens
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if I just stay connected without controlling? What happens
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if just this one time, I trust that clarity
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will come when it's time. And this doesn't
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mean I never act. It just means I'm learning not to let panic
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set the pace. Waiting isn't
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easy. It's not comfortable.
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It's definitely not satisfying in the moment. But it is
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often what protects the relationship.
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And it has been protecting me from acting in ways that
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I regret later. So if you're in a season right now
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where things feel unclear, where you don't know what the
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next right step is with your child, where you feel
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that pull to fix it or solve it
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or do something now, like I do. Maybe this
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is our reminder. We don't have to rush to an answer
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just because it feels uncomfortable. We don't
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have to move just because we feel the urge to.
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Maybe waiting is the most powerful thing
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we can do. If it's okay with you, I'd like to go
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ahead and close out today's episode with just a short prayer. I haven't done
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that for a while. It feels like. So go ahead and just take
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a deep breath and sit back and receive.
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Father, you know how hard this is for
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us mamas. You created us. And you know how
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quickly our minds move and how fast we go from noticing
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something to trying to fix it, manage it, and get
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ahead of it. And if we're honest, a lot of that
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isn't coming from wisdom. It's coming from fear.
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From not knowing what's coming next, from not
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feeling settled, from wanting things
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to feel okay again.
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But your Word reminds us to be still and to know
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that you are God. And that's not easy
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for us because stillness can feel like doing
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nothing when everything in us wants to do something.
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So when we feel that pull to move, to say
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something, to do something, to step in,
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Father, would you meet us there? Right in that
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moment? Would you slow us down, not just on the outside,
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but inside of us? Help us to
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sit with what feels unfinished without rushing to resolve it.
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Help us to notice what's happening in us without immediately
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trying to escape it. And give us the strength
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to stay present even when everything in us
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wants relief. Teach us, Lord, the difference between
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something that actually needs our attention and something
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that just feels uncomfortable. Because, God,
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we don't want fear to be what leads us
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as mamas. We want to move from a place that is steady
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and grounded and aligned with you, Lord,
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when it is time to act, make that clear in
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a way that we can recognize. Not loud or forced,
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but steady. The kind of clarity that we we
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feel instinctually. Not one that needs to be chased.
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And until that time, Lord, would you help us just trust that waiting
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is not wasted, that you are
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working even when we're not doing anything at all.
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And pray these things in Jesus name.
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Amen. Thank you so much for being with me here today.
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As always, I'm so grateful to walk this road alongside
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you. Let's keep showing up. Not perfectly,
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but honestly. One of
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the things I've come to love about this space is that it's not something I
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carry on my own. Parenting through the Heart is a community we're building together,
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shaped by the stories that you share and the way that you show up here.
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If this space has been supportive to you, one way to help sustain it is
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by sponsoring an upcoming episode. You can donate whatever feels right to you,
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and those gifts help cover the production costs of the podcast and keep
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this community growing. You'll find the link in the show notes whenever
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you're ready. No pressure, just gratitude. Now for the fun part.
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I truly love hearing from you. I've already received such
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thoughtful messages and ideas for future episodes, and they mean more to me than
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you know. This space is guided by real stories and real
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needs. If you have something that you're walking through or a question that
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you want to share, you can always email me@parentingthroughthehardmail.com
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it's easy to forget how even the hard parts of our story can
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become a lifeline for someone else. If you haven't yet,
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you can also visit parentingthroughthehard.com to explore
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encouragement in your inbox. Just simple grace filled reminders
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meant to meet you where you are once or twice a month.
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It's truly an honor to walk this road with you friend.
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Until next time, let's stay grounded in what matters, keep taking
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small steps forward and remember, you're allowed to stumble
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to learn and to give yourself grace. You're doing better
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than you think.