Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / Nobody Likes You When You're Like This

Transcript

Nobody Likes You When You're Like This · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the Happy Families podcast. Recently, Mrs.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Happy Families said something really harsh to me. And it
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: had to do with how likable I am, or maybe
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: in this case, how unlikable I am. The reality is
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: that in family life, or in life generally, we put
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: too much on our plates. We have an unbalanced schedule.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: We try to do too much, and sometimes we don't
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: know what to do about it because everything has to
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: be done. It's just the way life is. Today, we
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: talk about how to create margin, how to be nice
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: when you don't have the capacity to even think about
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: being nice, and how to avoid being told by your
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: wife or husband that nobody likes you when you're like that.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Stay with us. That's next on the Happy Families Podcast.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the Happy Families podcast where you
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: get real parenting solutions every single day. This is Australia's
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: most downloaded parenting podcast. We are Justin and Kylie Coulson
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: today and insight into how life goes sometimes when there's
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: just too much going on. I shared a newsletter just
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: recently and it involved Kylie setting the record straight and
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: pointing out that I'm just not getting things right all
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: the time. Here's how it went. Can you imagine trying
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: to sweep the kitchen with a broomstick a broomstick only
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: no no broom head no bristles just a broomstick it's
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: not going to be effective it's going to be an
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: exercise in futility and frustration because you need the whole
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: broom when you try to do something with a broken
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  Speaker 1: tool it doesn't work it's exhausting and the greatest tool
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: that we have is not our phone it's not our
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: planner it's not our inbox it's our mind but when
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: your mind is full of fear and worry and regret
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: well whether we're talking about heavy stuff like depression mental
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: health challenges neurodivergent challenges Or just the lighter stuff, like
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: overwork and overwhelm. And I say lighter in inverted commas.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Everything gets harder because that tool is broken. It's inefficient.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: It's not working properly. The floor doesn't get swept. Right
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: at the point of maximum overwhelm, you, Mrs. Happy Families,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: pulled me aside and you said in these words directly, Justin,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: nobody likes you when you're like this.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Sounds pretty harsh.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Well, that's when I say it like that. But was
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: it deserved?
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't remember saying it.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, was it accurate? You probably
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: don't remember either. Let's just think. Can you describe what
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: I'm like when I'm trying to do all the stuff
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: that I would normally do? So the travel and the
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: normal writing and the podcasting and the presenting?
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Well, first of all, you lose the capacity to say
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: all your words properly and put them in the right places.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: But Like all of us, when we've got too much
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: on our plate, our capacity actually gets smaller, not bigger.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I wrote my first book, which
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: is still such a popular book, What Your Child Needs
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: From You, I talk about this idea of emotional bandwidth.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: It's like the internet. You've got too many people using
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: the internet in your house. There's too much information trying
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: to get down this one little channel where it's just
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: not wide enough. You need more internet. You need a
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: bigger bandwidth. And so there's just been too much going on.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: I actually like to think of it more in relation
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: to the idea of high emotions, low intelligence. When we're
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: feeling really stressed and we're feeling the weight of everything
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: that we're carrying, our emotions are actually more heightened and
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: our capacity is lessened. And so in those moments, you're
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: really hard to get along with because you only see
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: the big list in front of you and don't recognize
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: that everybody else around you is carrying their own big list.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Kind of lose perspective.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Very much so.
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  Speaker 1: And the focus is the dragon that I have to
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: slay and everything else is just an obstacle to getting
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: that dragon slain.
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  Speaker 2: There are lots of things that you would normally do
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: to participate in family life that then fall onto me
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: as well.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: And so you're feeling overwhelmed, I'm feeling overwhelmed, but you
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: can't see that your overwhelm is actually increasing my overwhelm?
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Well, part of the problem is actually that I know
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: that it is and I can see it and I'm
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: helpless to do anything about it. That only adds to
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: my feeling of stuckness and overwhelmedness, if they're even words,
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  Speaker 1: because I know that I should be doing these things.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: I want to be doing those things. I typically would
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: be doing these things, but right now I can't. And
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  Speaker 1: so compounding my pressure and overwhelm is the guilt that
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: I'm failing you and failing the kids. And so I
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: become like this. I become short, snappy, blunt. My expectations
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: of myself are already high. And so then I start
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: to pass those expectations onto everybody else. If I'm being
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: this productive, you need to be this productive as well.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: I'm maximizing. I'm optimizing. I'm fulfilling everything that I have
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: to do. Why aren't you doing yours? Because normally I'd
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: step in and pick up that slack or at least
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: try to. So I don't know if you remember this
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: instance or not, Kylie. But do you have any reflection,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: any recollection of what I did when you told me
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: that nobody likes me when I'm like this?
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: I don't, but I can have a pretty good stab
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: in the dark.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: I'm really nervous about what your stab in the dark
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: is going to be. What do you think I might
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: have done when you said that to me?
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: When you're feeling really, really under pressure and you come
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: in and you notice that People are not being as
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: productive and under pressure as you are.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: You're going to go there. Oh, my goodness.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: Or the house isn't exactly the way it needs to
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: be to function efficiently. Do you mean like.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: When it's 3.30 in the afternoon and we have at
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: least three adult children in the house and they still
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: haven't done the breakfast dishes? Do you mean that? Yeah,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. I don't think that's a high expectation.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: And I think whatever you're about to say is justifiable
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  Speaker 1: and reasonable, even if I do have a lot of
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: extra pressure. But go on, say it anyway.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: You might just lose the plot a little bit.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Oh, gosh. Well, that's not what I wrote about in
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: my newsletter.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: So it wasn't that one.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: No, it wasn't that one. So in other words, when
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: I get it right, as I did in the newsletter story,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: you don't remember those ones. You only remember the ones where.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: I get it wrong. I hate it when you put
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: me on the spot like this.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: So in the newsletter. And this is actually what happened
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: because the newsletter is based on true facts.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Oh, really?
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: It's based on what really happened.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: And my story is not based on true facts.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: No, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying in the
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: one that I wrote about, not the ones that I
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: didn't write about. I said, and so despite the deadlines
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: and pressure, I stopped. Just for five or 10 minutes,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: just enough to check in, just enough to listen to
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: the kids, just enough to hug my wife, just enough
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: to walk in the garden and pull a few weeds,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: touch the ground, breathe and be human. just enough to
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: reconnect to the stuff that really matters. And like magic,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: my brain started to work again. I was more productive,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: more present. I was a better person. People started liking
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: me again. Well, my family, at least. So after the break,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about what we're supposed to do
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: when nobody likes us when we're like this, because it's really,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: really hard to regulate, pull ourselves back from the brink
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: and get things back on track. That's the conversation next
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: on the Happy Families podcast. Stay with us. We're back.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: This is the Happy Families podcast. Okay, what do we
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: do when emotion is running away from us, pressure is mounting,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: we can't see past the massive to-do list in front
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: of us, or just the one thing that's enormous that's
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: taking up all of our bandwidth, cognitive and emotional. Kylie,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: this is the great challenge that we have in family life.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: This is the stuff that we're always trying to work
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: out where to move forward to. And I've got a
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: couple of ideas that I think are useful. You might
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: have some to add as well. First thing that I
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: want to suggest is the importance of taking action. There
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: seems to be something really profoundly helpful about just moving
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: your body, whether it's giving somebody a hug. There are many,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: many times where you have said something along the lines of, Justin,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: nobody likes when you're like this, or something along those lines.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: And I've just moved towards you, grabbed you in my arms,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: hugged you and said, I'm so sorry. Like literally just
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: ask for forgiveness. But you and I will then go
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  Speaker 1: for a walk or we'll go sit outside or we'll
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: lay on the grass or we'll Do something to move
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  Speaker 1: our body. I talked about weeding the garden for five minutes.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: I don't know why. I actually hate weeding. I'm not
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: a really big fan of this, but sometimes just weeding
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  Speaker 1: the garden feels really good.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: It's called earthing.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Earthing.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Earthing works. That's fine.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: Bare feet on the ground, grounding. Breathing.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: I've recently discovered the power of the 4-7-8 breathing technique.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: You breathe in for four seconds through your nose, hold
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: it for seven, then breathe out for eight. Do that
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: 20 times if you can't go to sleep and it
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: changes the game. Like that puts me to sleep almost
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: every single night. It's very rare that I get through
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: 20 reps of that and can't do that. Getting enough sleep. Oh,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: my goodness. Like what a difference that makes. So these
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: are just a few ideas that I've found to be
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: really useful. What about you?
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: I think the only other thing that I would add
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: is nutrition. Yeah. Oh, yes. Yes. When I am overwhelmed,
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: one of the very first things to go is good
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: eating patterns and habits. And it'll be two or three
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: o'clock in the afternoon and I've lived off a chocolate
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: bar and maybe a piece of fruit if I'm lucky.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: I might not have even drunk water. Like just the
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: impact that giving your body nutrition has on your capacity
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: to cope with the day-to-day rigors of family life, I
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: think goes understated too often. Yep.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: I've got a couple of other things that I'd throw
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: in as well. Connect, the power of connection. So whether
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: it's saying, hey, let's just go for a walk or let's,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: if you're fortunate enough to have a pool, let's jump
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: in the pool together or, um, Let's take the dog
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: out or jump on the trampoline. Let's play hide and seek.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: There's something powerful that happens when you know that you're
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: getting out of control because there's too much to do. Bizarrely,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: there's something powerful that happens when you say, I'm just
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: going to let the list go for five minutes. I
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: know that sometimes you can't. Sometimes you have to get
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: out the door because you've got to be at an appointment.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about those times where life just feels overwhelming.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: By pausing and doing something trivial and unimportant, playing a
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: card game, playing hide and seek, kicking or throwing a ball,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: going for a 15 minute bike ride or going for
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: a skate with the kids, any of those kinds of things,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: picking up a musical instrument and playing it. Maybe you've
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: got a guitar or you don't really pick up a piano,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: but that kind of thing. When you start to do
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: those kinds of things where the time on the clock
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: is sort of irrelevant, it just gives you new perspective.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: It helps you to reset. It helps you to re-enter
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: the atmosphere in a much more positive way.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: Well, it just breaks the cycle. Yeah. You're stuck.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Takes the pressure off. I like to crank up some
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: music every now and again. You've been annoyed with me
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: and my music choices lately. The pressure. I've been playing
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: a lot of Concrete Blonde. You haven't loved it?
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: No, not really.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know why. I just think they're one of
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: the best bands ever. In short, in short, when it's
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: all too much, do something I think that is completely human.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: go analogue, get away from digital, shift away from the deadlines,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: even if it's for five and ten minutes. Stop being
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: a human doing and remember how it feels to be
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: a human being. And in case you're worried, the work,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: the list.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: It'll still be there.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: It'll still be there when you get back.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: But you will probably find that you're at your best
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: when you return. That is a very simple but hopefully
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: very helpful Happy Families podcast today. Thanks so much for
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: listening to the Happy Families podcast today. is produced by
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Justin Ruan from Bridge Media with additional support from Mim Hammonds.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: If you'd like more info to make your family happier,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: you'll find it at happyfamilies.com.au.