Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #703 I'll Do Better Tomorrow

Transcript

#703 I'll Do Better Tomorrow · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:03
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
0:07
Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers.
0:10
Speaker 2: Now, I came up and I got the air.
0:12
Speaker 3: I got back on my board, I paddled back out
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Speaker 3: and I got some more amazing waves. That's really to
0:16
Speaker 3: take our message big waves, parenting world heavy water. But
0:22
Speaker 3: as long as we can stay calm, get out of
0:25
Speaker 3: the sweep.
0:25
Speaker 2: It'll work out.
0:26
Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, my mom
0:30
Speaker 1: and dad.
0:30
Speaker 3: Hello, this is doctor Justin Colson, the founder of Happy
0:32
Speaker 3: Families dot com. Today you I'm here with Kylie, my
0:34
Speaker 3: wife and unto our six daughters. Kylie, the weekend is
0:38
Speaker 3: just around the corner, and that means our Friday episode
0:41
Speaker 3: of I'll Do Better Too of the podcast is called
0:43
Speaker 3: I'll Do Better Tomorrow. You know what I'm trying to say.
0:46
Speaker 3: I'm excited for the weekend. I'll Do Better Tomorrow for
0:48
Speaker 3: those of you who are new to the podcast, is
0:50
Speaker 3: the opportunity that we take to reflect on the week
0:52
Speaker 3: that was and work out how do we do things better?
0:55
Speaker 3: Where do we go wrong, what do we do right?
0:57
Speaker 3: How do we do better tomorrow? When it comes to
0:59
Speaker 3: the way we raising our family, Kylie just before we
1:02
Speaker 3: get into it, I want to reflect on last week's
1:05
Speaker 3: I'll be about it tomorrow. If you didn't catch it,
1:07
Speaker 3: I think the only way to talk about it is
1:10
Speaker 3: to confess that I said last week that I wanted
1:14
Speaker 3: to quit parenting. I'm done, I've had enough. Just over
1:17
Speaker 3: it and we'll talk about this in just a sec.
1:20
Speaker 3: But I hate to say it. It got worse. It
1:22
Speaker 3: actually got worse. More to come on that in a moment. However,
1:26
Speaker 3: as a result of our podcast, I shared what I
1:29
Speaker 3: had talked about on Facebook and a couple of hundred
1:32
Speaker 3: comments came through it. It kind of blew up the
1:34
Speaker 3: parenting expert on Australia's leading parenting Educators saying that he
1:38
Speaker 3: wants to stop being a parent.
1:39
Speaker 2: I guess got people.
1:41
Speaker 3: Most people were actually quite empathic and also shared, yeah.
1:45
Speaker 2: I want to quit parenting as well. It's hard. But
1:48
Speaker 2: I got one email.
1:50
Speaker 3: In fact, we received this email from Kira, who emailed
1:52
Speaker 3: us podcasts at Happy Families dot com dot and Kylie.
1:55
Speaker 2: Here's what she said morning, Justin and Kylie, I'm in tears.
1:57
Speaker 2: Thank you. It's funny, that, isn't it. I'm in tears.
2:00
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for making me cry. Firstly, justin thanks.
2:03
Speaker 3: For sharing your open and honest opinion about feeling over
2:06
Speaker 3: parenting at the moment. It was greatly appreciated and deeply felt. Second,
2:10
Speaker 3: Kylie is a number four whose eldest is currently sixteen.
2:12
Speaker 2: You had me in tears.
2:14
Speaker 3: I felt like maybe I've lost her forever, but to
2:16
Speaker 3: know that she will come back if I can just
2:17
Speaker 3: hang in there, maybe for a couple more years, was
2:19
Speaker 3: so reassuring. I'm a long time listener, a huge fan
2:22
Speaker 3: of supporter of your work, and having moved to the
2:24
Speaker 3: Sunshine Coast in January last year. Also, I've thoroughly enjoyed
2:27
Speaker 3: listening to you both every day. Thanks and enjoy your
2:30
Speaker 3: wee time this weekend. So that was from Kira. What
2:32
Speaker 3: a wonderful, wonderful email podcasts at Happy Families dot com
2:35
Speaker 3: dot you if you have any feedback for us on
2:38
Speaker 3: the podcast.
2:39
Speaker 2: Kylie, I think that.
2:42
Speaker 3: Off the back of that email and off the back
2:44
Speaker 3: of last week's podcast, which is definitely worth a listen
2:46
Speaker 3: if you missed it.
2:48
Speaker 2: Let's talk about our I'll do better tomorrow this week?
2:51
Speaker 2: Can I go first?
2:52
Speaker 3: Since I've preempted go for it? Okay, it got worse
2:56
Speaker 3: I wanted to quit parenting. When we recorded the podcast,
2:59
Speaker 3: it went where on Friday had dropped on Friday, and
3:02
Speaker 3: the weekend was even worse. In fact, in some ways, Kylie,
3:05
Speaker 3: I felt like, how do I say this? Twenty something
3:10
Speaker 3: years ago, when I quit my radio career and went
3:12
Speaker 3: back to school so I could be a better parent,
3:15
Speaker 3: I did it because I was just making such a
3:16
Speaker 3: mess of things, And in some ways, I feel like
3:19
Speaker 3: I'm no better now than I was then, Like I
3:21
Speaker 3: just cannot believe how.
3:22
Speaker 2: Difficult things have been.
3:25
Speaker 3: Just recently, I felt like I absolutely blew it across
3:28
Speaker 3: the weekend, and because I blew it so badly, it
3:31
Speaker 3: put me into a great big spin. I was already
3:33
Speaker 3: feeling lousy, but then I started to feel lousy er,
3:36
Speaker 3: and I don't remember the last time that I felt
3:39
Speaker 3: so bad for such a prolonged period of time. I
3:42
Speaker 3: knew what I needed to do, I just couldn't bring
3:44
Speaker 3: myself to do it. People recognized that I wasn't doing well.
3:47
Speaker 3: They reached out, and I ignored them. Didn't want to
3:49
Speaker 3: talk to anybody, because what am I going to say?
3:52
Speaker 3: I don't have conversations with people about this awful stuff.
3:55
Speaker 3: They can't do anything about either.
3:56
Speaker 2: I don't want to talk about it. Really really, really
3:59
Speaker 2: tough time.
4:00
Speaker 3: And I had an experience while I was out surfing
4:03
Speaker 3: trying to clear my mind. For those who don't know,
4:05
Speaker 3: I love surfing, and because we live on the Sunshine Coast,
4:09
Speaker 3: there was a cyclone off the coast of Queensland, which
4:11
Speaker 3: means that we've had absolutely enormous surf for the last
4:15
Speaker 3: week or so. I jumped off the rocks at my
4:18
Speaker 3: favorite point break nearby, and it was treacherous jumping off
4:22
Speaker 3: the rocks, really really dangerous, lots of water sweeping across
4:26
Speaker 3: the rocks, and it's just not a it's not a
4:29
Speaker 3: smart thing to do.
4:30
Speaker 2: You have to be very experienced to do it.
4:32
Speaker 3: But I got to the edge of the rocks, I
4:33
Speaker 3: jumped off the rocks, paddled out, caught a couple of waves,
4:35
Speaker 3: and at one point, after a few waves, I ended
4:37
Speaker 3: up in this current and no matter how much I paddled,
4:42
Speaker 3: I couldn't get out of the current. I was trying
4:44
Speaker 3: to paddle back out past the waves. The waves kept
4:46
Speaker 3: on coming through and pushing me into the current. The sweep,
4:50
Speaker 3: the tide, all that sort of stuff was just holding
4:52
Speaker 3: me in place, very very close to a really big
4:54
Speaker 3: rock wall, and no matter how hard I paddled.
4:57
Speaker 2: I just could not get out.
4:59
Speaker 3: After about fifty minutes, I realized that I was in
5:02
Speaker 3: a predicament, and so I turned my surfboard around and
5:06
Speaker 3: I actually caught one of the waves even further into
5:09
Speaker 3: well further away from where all the waves were breaking,
5:12
Speaker 3: and basically I went into shore, climbed up the rocks,
5:15
Speaker 3: ran back around the beach to the rocks where you
5:17
Speaker 3: jump off, and this time I couldn't get back out.
5:21
Speaker 3: The tide had changed in the intervening forty fifty sixty minutes,
5:25
Speaker 3: and there was too much water sweeping across the rocks.
5:27
Speaker 3: The surf was bigger as well, and it was simply
5:30
Speaker 3: impossible to get off the rocks, and so I had
5:32
Speaker 3: to run back along the beach and paddle out near
5:36
Speaker 3: that rock wall where I'd been caught in that sweep already,
5:38
Speaker 3: and it took me about twenty five minutes to paddle
5:41
Speaker 3: back out and start catching waves again. As it happened,
5:44
Speaker 3: I caught some of the best waves of my life
5:45
Speaker 3: that day, and some of the biggest waves as well.
5:48
Speaker 2: But while all this.
5:49
Speaker 3: Was going on, I was reflecting on the whole parenting thing.
5:51
Speaker 3: There's a metaphor here. This applies to parenting.
5:54
Speaker 4: Well, as you were sharing a story, I was literally going,
5:57
Speaker 4: this is explaining my whole life. Yeah, like literally, like
6:01
Speaker 4: there are some times where I feel like I'm stuck
6:04
Speaker 4: on the rocks and there's nowhere to go, Like everywhere
6:07
Speaker 4: looks like it's covered in glass, and I can't, I can't,
6:10
Speaker 4: I can't make a right move.
6:12
Speaker 3: Well, there's no glass on the rocks at this particular
6:14
Speaker 3: point break, but there's a lot of barnacles and there's
6:16
Speaker 3: a lot of sharp things. I mean, I have Actually
6:18
Speaker 3: I'm still nursing the wounds on my feet from a
6:20
Speaker 3: few cuts from those rocks. But the reality is parenting
6:26
Speaker 3: can feel a little bit treacherous. It can feel like
6:28
Speaker 3: the water is sweeping all around us. It can feel
6:30
Speaker 3: like there's so much coming at us.
6:32
Speaker 4: Well that no matter how hard you paddle, you're just stuck.
6:35
Speaker 3: Right And and that's what I was going to say. Even
6:36
Speaker 3: if you get off the rocks and you get into
6:37
Speaker 3: the water, there are some incredible highlights. There are some
6:41
Speaker 3: moments where you go, oh my goodness, this is the best.
6:44
Speaker 3: But then five minutes later, you're in that sweep and
6:46
Speaker 3: you're paddling like hell to get out of it, and
6:50
Speaker 3: you just can't and you have to turn around and
6:53
Speaker 3: go back in and start all over again. And that's
6:56
Speaker 3: kind of how it's been. That's kind of how it's
7:00
Speaker 3: It's been really a tough kind of week, and it's
7:03
Speaker 3: just been There's been a handful of moments where a
7:08
Speaker 3: child has come in and sat on the bed and said, hey,
7:10
Speaker 3: love your dad. Or what you did for Valentine's da,
7:14
Speaker 3: which maybe you're going to talk about later on the shore,
7:16
Speaker 3: but you did a really special Valentine's Day for me
7:18
Speaker 3: and the kids and put together a big Valentine's wall
7:21
Speaker 3: with all the different things that we love about everyone
7:23
Speaker 3: in our family. And it's when you're in that sweep,
7:27
Speaker 3: you're in that current and you put in the extra effort,
7:29
Speaker 3: you paddle extra hard, or alternatively, you catch your wave
7:32
Speaker 3: into the beach and you reset before you go back
7:35
Speaker 3: out and face the waves again. And I feel like
7:37
Speaker 3: that's what this week has been quite a lot for me.
7:40
Speaker 3: So I ordered better tomorrow is reset, get out of
7:43
Speaker 3: the sweep, get off the rocks, get into the place
7:45
Speaker 3: where you can actually catch the waves metaphorically speaking, that is,
7:49
Speaker 3: take a breather, go for a walk, talk to the kids,
7:53
Speaker 3: do whatever you need to re set and get family
7:58
Speaker 3: life back on track, because sometimes it's really hard. Sometimes
8:03
Speaker 3: it's just really really hard, and we beat ourselves up
8:06
Speaker 3: so much as parents when we get it wrong, especially
8:08
Speaker 3: when we're reparenting expert and we' written books about it,
8:10
Speaker 3: We're supposed to know all about it, and then we still.
8:11
Speaker 4: Get it wrong.
8:12
Speaker 3: Tough gig. So here's to a much better week with
8:15
Speaker 3: a whole lot of resetts taken care of. Is there
8:21
Speaker 3: anything about that you want to pick apart or add
8:24
Speaker 3: two or do you want to share your older better tomorrow?
8:26
Speaker 4: Well, I guess my experiences just flow on from that,
8:29
Speaker 4: because obviously I'm intimately entwined in your experiences, and so
8:38
Speaker 4: for me, watching you spiral downwards is always really challenging.
8:43
Speaker 4: Unlike you, who has been given endless opportunities to practice
8:50
Speaker 4: being empathic and sympathetic towards me and my down spirals,
8:57
Speaker 4: I have not had the same ofortunities. You have always
9:02
Speaker 4: been the.
9:02
Speaker 2: Rock in our home.
9:03
Speaker 4: You've been very pragmatic, You're not particularly emotional about things.
9:07
Speaker 4: You have a lot more clarity of thought in stressful situations,
9:12
Speaker 4: and so when you are not doing well, for me,
9:16
Speaker 4: it actually is a little bit of a trigger, and
9:18
Speaker 4: I think that there must be something I'm missing if
9:24
Speaker 4: you're this worked up about it, even though I know
9:27
Speaker 4: the circumstances, even though I know the situation, clearly, I
9:30
Speaker 4: am not seeing everything because if I did, I would
9:33
Speaker 4: be just as worried as you are, or I would
9:35
Speaker 4: be just as upset as you are. There's something I'm missing.
9:38
Speaker 4: That's how I see it. So it's not about the
9:41
Speaker 4: fact that clearly this must be my fault or anything
9:44
Speaker 4: like that. It's literally because I have such a high
9:50
Speaker 4: respect and I guess or at the way you see
9:55
Speaker 4: the world when you're not seeing the world the same
9:57
Speaker 4: way I'm seeing it, All of a sudden, I I
10:00
Speaker 4: go into panic.
10:01
Speaker 3: Is it okay if I jump in for a sec
10:03
Speaker 3: and just highlight two things based on what you're saying.
10:06
Speaker 3: Every couple there's going to be somebody who's I guess
10:09
Speaker 3: the I don't want to use this term because I
10:12
Speaker 3: don't see myself as this, but for simplicity's sake, the
10:15
Speaker 3: strong one, the anchor, the rock, whatever, whatever, metaphor you
10:17
Speaker 3: want to use to me, that's you. But it's interesting
10:21
Speaker 3: that you see me as that because I just think
10:23
Speaker 3: that you're you're you're the glue that makes our family
10:27
Speaker 3: hold together. Nevertheless, if you're saying that about me, the
10:30
Speaker 3: pressure that the rock of the family feels in terms
10:34
Speaker 3: of that, that's a lot.
10:35
Speaker 2: That's a big weight to carry. It's a big weight
10:37
Speaker 2: to carry.
10:38
Speaker 3: And if you think that the entire emotional well being
10:42
Speaker 3: of your family is predicated on you holding it together,
10:45
Speaker 3: that that really boosts the challenge and it makes you
10:49
Speaker 3: feel even worse when you're falling apart.
10:52
Speaker 2: I think it's worth highlighting.
10:54
Speaker 3: And also, secondly, if you're a single parent, if you're
10:57
Speaker 3: doing it on your own, you know that it will
11:00
Speaker 3: come down to you. I just want to acknowledge that
11:01
Speaker 3: if you're a single parent right now and you're listening,
11:04
Speaker 3: there's a lot.
11:05
Speaker 2: There's a lot and shoulders. It's a heavy, heavy weight
11:08
Speaker 2: to carry, and.
11:11
Speaker 4: So often for me, the challenge is how to support
11:15
Speaker 4: you when I'm actually slowly falling apart inside because you're
11:20
Speaker 4: falling apart, and not taking any of it personally because
11:26
Speaker 4: I actually, deep down understand that it isn't about me,
11:29
Speaker 4: but all of my attempts to be helpful often hinder
11:35
Speaker 4: the process because I actually kind of start to want
11:39
Speaker 4: a problem solve. I just want to fix it because
11:42
Speaker 4: I don't like this feeling at all. I don't want
11:46
Speaker 4: this to continue. So I can see the solutions inside.
11:49
Speaker 4: I know exactly what needs to happen, and I just
11:51
Speaker 4: I want it fixed.
11:52
Speaker 2: And how do I respond when you forget how to
11:55
Speaker 2: fix it? You pretty much walked away. I can't do this.
11:59
Speaker 4: I can't talk to you right now, and you left
12:01
Speaker 4: because I actually know, I know, I know, And that's
12:03
Speaker 4: what I struggle with more because I know you not
12:07
Speaker 4: and I'm like, if you know, why are you not
12:08
Speaker 4: just doing it? You know exactly what you need to do.
12:10
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's just sometimes you just can't do it. Sometimes
12:13
Speaker 3: it's just too hard. That's the challenge. That's the great challenge,
12:17
Speaker 3: being able to get past that and do it. But
12:20
Speaker 3: sometimes you can't. You're paddling and paddling and paddling, and
12:23
Speaker 3: you just can't get out of the sweep.
12:26
Speaker 4: And so I was really grateful that on Sunday I
12:28
Speaker 4: had an opportunity to speak with a friend and just
12:32
Speaker 4: I guess get my own perspective on things. And it
12:34
Speaker 4: wasn't actually even about you. It was literally about me
12:38
Speaker 4: and how I was processing what was going on and
12:42
Speaker 4: just needing somebody to kind of say, I see you,
12:48
Speaker 4: I get it. And this person hasn't experienced any of
12:50
Speaker 4: the things that we're going through right now, but they
12:53
Speaker 4: were able to literally weep with me and just recognize
12:57
Speaker 4: that where I am right now, where we are right
12:59
Speaker 4: now our family circumstances is really hard. It's just really hard,
13:04
Speaker 4: and there isn't actually any solutions right now. It's just hard.
13:09
Speaker 4: Just like you being out in that you know, massive
13:12
Speaker 4: current and paddling and paddling and paddling and feeling like
13:15
Speaker 4: you're not getting anywhere, that's kind of where we're sitting
13:18
Speaker 4: right now with things. And so I was able to
13:20
Speaker 4: come home with a little bit more clarity and just
13:22
Speaker 4: calm and peace in a piece that it was going
13:27
Speaker 4: to be okay. And you had sent me a text
13:30
Speaker 4: earlier in the day to just kind of explain to
13:33
Speaker 4: me how you were feeling, and the acknowledgment that you
13:35
Speaker 4: know what you need to do and you don't need
13:36
Speaker 4: me to tell you what to do, and that you
13:41
Speaker 4: just needed me to love you. Yeah, And when I
13:44
Speaker 4: sat down with you, I just said, I don't I
13:46
Speaker 4: don't actually know what to do right now because I
13:49
Speaker 4: think that I'm being helpful, but obviously everything that I'm
13:52
Speaker 4: doing to be helpful actually pushes you further away from me.
13:56
Speaker 4: And you were able to articulate just so beautifully that
13:59
Speaker 4: you just wanted me to treat you as though there
14:01
Speaker 4: was nothing wrong, that you weren't broken, that you didn't
14:04
Speaker 4: need fixing, that you were just the person that I've
14:08
Speaker 4: always loved, and that I would continue to love you
14:11
Speaker 4: exactly the same way. And I took that on board.
14:16
Speaker 4: And that was really hard because, in spite of the
14:17
Speaker 4: fact that I know that what's going on is actually
14:20
Speaker 4: not about me, I obviously will take things that happen personally,
14:26
Speaker 4: and so trying to get into a space where I
14:28
Speaker 4: can just go, you know what, this isn't about me
14:30
Speaker 4: and he just needs my love right now took a
14:33
Speaker 4: little bit of effort. But on Sunday night, I sat
14:39
Speaker 4: down with all the kids and you kind of came
14:41
Speaker 4: in halfway through it, and we were talking about Valentine's
14:43
Speaker 4: Day coming up and all of those kinds of things,
14:45
Speaker 4: and I asked miss Ate if she'd say our family
14:48
Speaker 4: prayer to head us off to bed, and this most
14:53
Speaker 4: angelic little girl just said the most beautiful prayer over
14:59
Speaker 4: our family, that we would find a way to love
15:01
Speaker 4: each other. And just that one little thing from the
15:07
Speaker 4: youngest member in our family just melted my heart and
15:13
Speaker 4: helped me to recognize that all any of us want
15:16
Speaker 4: is love. No matter what we're experiencing life, we just
15:19
Speaker 4: want to be loved. And so I was able to
15:23
Speaker 4: kind of be what you needed me to be in
15:26
Speaker 4: that moment, and over the next few days there was
15:30
Speaker 4: just this beautiful shift. The load, the heaviness that we're
15:34
Speaker 4: carrying is still there, but I feel like we're able
15:39
Speaker 4: to come together in a way that lightened the individual
15:44
Speaker 4: load that we were carrying together.
15:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I hope that the take home message that
15:50
Speaker 3: you get from this podcast is I guess two fold.
15:53
Speaker 3: Number one, family life can be really hard, and even
15:56
Speaker 3: without family life, life can be really hard.
15:57
Speaker 2: Personally. We just we all carry a load and.
16:00
Speaker 3: Sometimes we cope with it really really well, and other
16:02
Speaker 3: times it gets too much and we just kind of
16:03
Speaker 3: have to put it down and have a rest for
16:05
Speaker 3: a day or two or a week or two, and
16:07
Speaker 3: that's actually okay.
16:09
Speaker 2: But we've got to be able to figure out.
16:11
Speaker 3: A way that we can navigate our relationships and our
16:13
Speaker 3: interactions with others while we're doing that. And I think
16:17
Speaker 3: over time, you and I've gotten pretty good at it.
16:19
Speaker 2: I mean, we've been married for twenty five.
16:21
Speaker 3: Years next month, and it's taken a lot of practice,
16:24
Speaker 3: but I think we're dealing with those tough times better
16:27
Speaker 3: now than ever. The second thing that I hope you
16:31
Speaker 3: take from this as a take home message is that life,
16:35
Speaker 3: given enough time, sorts itself out. We get out of
16:39
Speaker 3: the rip, the big waves stop, the cyclone goes away,
16:43
Speaker 3: the ocean calms, we find an opportunity to catch the
16:47
Speaker 3: waves and have those highlights. And I really want to
16:50
Speaker 3: come back to that. While I was surfing over the
16:52
Speaker 3: last week and we've had that cyclone swell, I have
16:55
Speaker 3: literally had some of the best waves of my life.
16:58
Speaker 2: But those waves have required a lot of work, so
17:02
Speaker 2: much effort.
17:02
Speaker 3: I have paddled, and I reckon I've lost about five
17:05
Speaker 3: kilos from paddling so much this week, and I have
17:09
Speaker 3: been in some rocky places, and I've also taken a
17:11
Speaker 3: couple of beatings I took one hole down on one wave.
17:15
Speaker 3: That was one of the longest hold downs that I've
17:17
Speaker 3: ever had in my life. I was stuck on the
17:19
Speaker 3: bottom of the reef, the rocks down there, and the
17:23
Speaker 3: wave just kept on holding me down, and I knew
17:26
Speaker 3: I had to stay calm. I knew I had to
17:28
Speaker 3: just let the wave wash over me and eventually it
17:30
Speaker 3: would pass. But at some point I started to realize
17:32
Speaker 3: that I was running out of air. And as I
17:34
Speaker 3: swam to the surface because the wave had gone, I
17:37
Speaker 3: couldn't believe how far away the surface was. Like. It
17:39
Speaker 3: was shocking to me how long I stayed out of
17:41
Speaker 3: the water. But I came up and I got the air,
17:45
Speaker 3: I got back on my board, I paddled back out
17:47
Speaker 3: and I got some more amazing waves. And that's I
17:49
Speaker 3: think that's really to take her message, big waves, pairing world,
17:54
Speaker 3: heavy water, But so long as we can stay calm,
17:59
Speaker 3: get out of this, it'll work out.
18:02
Speaker 2: Have I pushed the metaphor too far or is that okay?
18:04
Speaker 3: No?
18:04
Speaker 4: I think it's great for me. For me, the big learning,
18:08
Speaker 4: and it was amplified watching you go through it. Is
18:13
Speaker 4: that when our kids are having big emotions as the
18:16
Speaker 4: big people in the room. We just want to fix it,
18:19
Speaker 4: and your experience with me trying to fix it was withdrawal.
18:24
Speaker 2: Just treat me like nothing's the matter, leave me alone.
18:27
Speaker 4: I can't do this. And so to see that and
18:30
Speaker 4: recognize in such a just tangible way that all you
18:35
Speaker 4: actually needed was for me to just love you seem
18:38
Speaker 4: so easy. But it's really hard because we so often
18:42
Speaker 4: take things so personally when our loved ones, whoever they are, kids, adults,
18:47
Speaker 4: are like, are having big emotions, and.
18:50
Speaker 3: Those big emotions are never about you. That was just
18:52
Speaker 3: about what's going on inside the person.
18:54
Speaker 4: But the load that it's taken off me to recognize
18:57
Speaker 4: that it's not my responsibility to fix it. I don't
18:59
Speaker 4: have to fix it. Yeah, I fix it by actually
19:02
Speaker 4: just loving you.
19:04
Speaker 3: Strong take her message. The Happy Famili's podcast is produced
19:06
Speaker 3: by Justin Rowlan from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our
19:08
Speaker 3: executive producer. Have a great weekend. We really hope that
19:12
Speaker 3: if you're carrying a heavy load, that you find some
19:15
Speaker 3: of those perfect parenting waves to catch across the weekend.
19:20
Speaker 3: And if you'd like more information about making your family happier,
19:22
Speaker 3: please visit us at Happy Families dot com, dot a