Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #358 Best of - 'Taming That Voice Inside Your Head'

Transcript

#358 Best of - 'Taming That Voice Inside Your Head' · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hello, this is doctor Justin Coulson here with miss Happy
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Families Kylie, mum to our six kids on the founder
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: of Happy Families dot com dot U. Hey, just before
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: we go on with the podcast, a really quick plug
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  Speaker 1: for the Misconnection Summit. It's happening in the early part
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: of October. She's the fifth of October. If you've got
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: tween and teen girls eight to eighteen, please jump online
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Happy Families dot com dot you sign up for the
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Misconnection Summit. You will not believe how amazing the content is.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: It's going to change your life if you've got those
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: tween and teen girls.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Well at school holidays up and down the Eastern.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Seaboard, We're taking a couple of weeks off to be
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: with our family. We can finally get away and enjoy
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  Speaker 1: some family time after everything that the pandemic has put
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  Speaker 1: everyone through for so long.
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  Speaker 3: And I guess the good news is even if you
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  Speaker 3: are stuck at home, we're taking a break from homeschool.
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: That's got to alleviate some of the anxiety and stress
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: in families around the country, we really hope.
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  Speaker 1: So anyway, we're replaying some of our favorite episodes from
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: during the many of which you've probably miss We thought
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: that you would love this one. It was a listener
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: question that came through this time from a mum wondering
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  Speaker 1: if there might be an indirect impact on our children
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  Speaker 1: based on what we say about ourselves. It's the Happy
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Families podcast.
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  Speaker 2: It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just
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  Speaker 2: wants answers.
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  Speaker 1: Now, changing our self talk isn't instantly going to change
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  Speaker 1: our world because it takes time for it to compound.
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  Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, my mum
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  Speaker 1: and dad. Hello, this is doctor Justin Colson, the author
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  Speaker 1: of six books about raising happy families. And I'm sitting
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  Speaker 1: in front of my wife and co host, my podcast partner,
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  Speaker 1: and one of our six daughters, missus Happy Families, Kylie,
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  Speaker 1: who's got a big brill on her face because she
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  Speaker 1: knows that I'm about to highlight that. Can I say?
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  Speaker 1: I don't know if this is too impolite. Kylie's been
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  Speaker 1: walking around the house for the last forty eight hours,
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  Speaker 1: kind of like she wed her pants, except she didn't.
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  Speaker 1: But because Kylie has announced that the florist recourse has
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  Speaker 1: had to wait for a little while. Kylie said, well,
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  Speaker 1: you know what, I'm going to get back onto my
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  Speaker 1: other goals. I'm going to make time for myself. I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to go to the gym.
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  Speaker 3: And I've been paying all of these fees to have
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  Speaker 3: a gym membership and I haven't been maximizing it.
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  Speaker 1: So how long has it been since you've been back
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  Speaker 1: to the gym?
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  Speaker 2: This week I've started.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, how long had it been until?
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  Speaker 2: Oh, maybe four years?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah? And you know what it's like. You shot for
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  Speaker 1: boot camp on day one, and you go gung ho
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  Speaker 1: and you're so excited about it, and then you wake
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: up on day two, Kylie, and.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: Let's say, going to the toill it might have been
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  Speaker 3: a little bit.
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  Speaker 1: Harder than I remember it. So maybe you did with
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  Speaker 1: your pants.
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  Speaker 3: No, but fighting the seat was a lot harder.
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  Speaker 1: Kylie did legs on day one. And oh my goodness,
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  Speaker 1: we've just we've had so much fun making fun of me, Yes,
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  Speaker 1: getting you to walk up and down the stairs, haven't
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  Speaker 1: followed you to the bathroom. I didn't know that that
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: little bit of personal disclosure was going to come out.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: But anyway, hey, we got some Really, we love it
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: when you contact us, is what I'm trying to say.
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  Speaker 1: Podcasts at Happy Families dot com dot you. We also
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: love the reviews and ratings that you leave on the
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Apple podcasts app. I'm going to talk more about that shortly,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: but Taran send us an email. Taran's an Adelaide and
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: asked a bit of a curly question.
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  Speaker 2: Hi, Tarran, thanks for joining us.
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  Speaker 1: Hello, so good of you to be with us. We've
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: had a few technical issues trying to just make this happen,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: and you've you've had the most entertaining morning of your week.
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  Speaker 1: I'm gussing, but we've got you now, Taran. Can you
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  Speaker 1: tell us a bit about what you do in Adelaide
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  Speaker 1: and why you reached out to us.
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  Speaker 4: So, I'm a mental health clinician, I'm an occupational therapist too,
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  Speaker 4: and also I'm of three little kids, and I suppose
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  Speaker 4: there's a lot of stuff we read about, and it's
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  Speaker 4: even a post on your Facebook page from our parenting
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  Speaker 4: around the impact of critical talk to our children and
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  Speaker 4: how that develops the inner voice. I guess I was
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  Speaker 4: thinking a little bit beyond that around how I guess
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  Speaker 4: negative talking and critical thinking about ourselves can then have
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  Speaker 4: an impact on our children and whether or not that
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  Speaker 4: too becomes more like they in a voice or a
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  Speaker 4: way that they then thinking start thinking about themselves. That
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  Speaker 4: was my question.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's such a great question as well, because the
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  Speaker 1: things that we say to them are obviously so direct.
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  Speaker 1: But then what you're really saying is could there be
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  Speaker 1: an indirect impact on our children and their voice based
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  Speaker 1: on what we say about ourselves?
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  Speaker 4: Exactly?
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  Speaker 1: Yep, let me ask you a question, Taran. If a
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  Speaker 1: mom speaks negatively, and I'm going to use mom because
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  Speaker 1: obviously I'm talking to you and ninety percent of our
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  Speaker 1: audience is mums. If a mum speaks negatively to herself
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  Speaker 1: in the mirror about her body and her five year
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  Speaker 1: old daughter hears it, does her five year old daughter
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  Speaker 1: do you think internalize anything in relation to the way
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  Speaker 1: she might view her body?
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  Speaker 4: Well, we've been told that that is the case. That absolutely,
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  Speaker 4: the child then starts kind of having those criticisms or
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  Speaker 4: thoughts around whether they could be fat or ugly or
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  Speaker 4: out of shape. But does that also then apply to
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  Speaker 4: the mum who might say, Oh, I'm stupid, I'm not
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  Speaker 4: good enough, I'm not worth anything, I'm useless, I can't
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  Speaker 4: do it is apply to that language as well.
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  Speaker 1: So, Taran, what we call this is an intergenerational transfer
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  Speaker 1: of mindset, cognitive mindset, when we pass things on from
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  Speaker 1: one generation to the next, and it does happen. There's
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  Speaker 1: no research studies that I would call robust and really
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  Speaker 1: strong that have gone and looked at precisely how our
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  Speaker 1: own inner voice transfers to our children. But there's plenty
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  Speaker 1: of anecdotal research, and there's lots of sporadic bits and
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  Speaker 1: pieces of research around the place. And what we're going
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  Speaker 1: to do is come back in a second talk about
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  Speaker 1: how we can filter our inner voice and make sure
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  Speaker 1: that we give our children the support that they need
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  Speaker 1: so they can develop the strength and the kindness and
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  Speaker 1: self compassion that they need to tackle these big challenges
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: on their own. It's the Happy Families Podcast.
• 6:20
  Speaker 5: Imagine a home where discipline got results without anyone having
• 6:24
  Speaker 5: to feel bad or in trouble. The Do's and donts
• 6:26
  Speaker 5: of discipline as a webinar to help parents set limits
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: with love, compassion and humanity. Find it now at happyfamilies
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: dot com dot au slash shop.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: It's the Happy Families Podcast, the podcast for the time
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: poor parent who just wants answers now. And before the break,
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  Speaker 3: we were actually having a great conversation with Taran, who
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  Speaker 3: sent an email into us at podcasts at Happy Families
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  Speaker 3: dot com dot AU.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, Taran. We really appreciate that.
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  Speaker 3: She wanted to know about this whole idea of whether
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  Speaker 3: or not our own inner self talk actually has significant
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  Speaker 3: implications for our children's in her voice.
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  Speaker 1: All right. So this is one of those ones where
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  Speaker 1: I kind of I got a little bit funny when
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  Speaker 1: we've got to talk about this, because in the pop
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  Speaker 1: culture pop psychology world, there's all of this talk that's
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  Speaker 1: out there that I think is not necessarily helpful. Like
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  Speaker 1: I was listening to it. I can't believe I'm admitting this.
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  Speaker 1: I was listening to an Oprah podcast. Oprah is actually
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  Speaker 1: pretty awesome. All right. I'm going to say I was
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: listening to an Oprah podcast maybe six or nine months
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: ago now, and jay Loo was on there. She just
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  Speaker 1: turned fifty, and everyone's always going on about how beautiful
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  Speaker 1: she is and what does she do for a skin,
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  Speaker 1: And she's got this thing where she's like, stop talking
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  Speaker 1: about what I do, And she said, I practice a
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  Speaker 1: daily affirmation myself. Talk about my physical appearance is and
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  Speaker 1: I quote, I've actually looked it up. So I could
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  Speaker 1: get it exactly right. She says, quote every day, I
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  Speaker 1: say I am youthful and timeless at every age.
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  Speaker 3: Close quote, I think I need to try that I
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  Speaker 3: can look half as good Jalo at fifty, I will
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  Speaker 3: be happy.
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  Speaker 1: I roll my eyes when I hear that. Is kind
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  Speaker 1: of like it's kind of like you do remember the
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  Speaker 1: book that came out and they made a movie out
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  Speaker 1: of it, The Secret? Do you remember that?
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  Speaker 5: No?
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  Speaker 3: I don't, but I have looked into it a little bit,
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  Speaker 3: and you know, I'm assuming that it's this book based
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  Speaker 3: on this idea.
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  Speaker 1: Of the law of attraction manifesting. Yeah, you know, if
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  Speaker 1: you think it, you can have it in your life,
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  Speaker 1: which I just I mean, I've been thinking about winning
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  Speaker 1: the lotto for a long time and it still hasn't happened.
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  Speaker 1: So I just don't buy the whole manifesting thing.
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  Speaker 4: You know.
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  Speaker 1: Your mum's a bit like this, Yeah, she is. You
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  Speaker 1: can create it just you know, drive into the car
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  Speaker 1: space and have positive thoughts and a car space, you know,
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  Speaker 1: like somebody will back out and you can get in
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: the crowded car park you can have the spot. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that's totally her.
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  Speaker 2: My favorite one from your mum is she buys a wart.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, my mom buys warts. So when we were kids,
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  Speaker 1: she would say, well, you don't want that wart. How
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: about if I buy it off, you 'll buy it
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  Speaker 1: off your for fifty cents or a dollar, and so
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  Speaker 1: she'd give us the money. And here's the crazy thing
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  Speaker 1: about it. Now, I don't know any research on this,
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  Speaker 1: and I feel so bizarre saying that I believe you
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  Speaker 1: drag this out of me. My mum bought about twenty
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  Speaker 1: eight warts off me. I had warts all over my
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  Speaker 1: hands when I was well. It was gross and I
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  Speaker 1: was very uncomfortable about it, but it's the reality of
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: life for a lot of people. I had about twenty
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  Speaker 1: eight warts on my hands, and I remember she gave
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  Speaker 1: me two dollars eighty. I felt like I was so rich,
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  Speaker 1: and she was like, well, now that I've bought those
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  Speaker 1: warts for ten cents each, I own them, so you
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  Speaker 1: need to surrender them. And I kid you not. Within
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  Speaker 1: two weeks I had no warts on my hands and
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  Speaker 1: I have never had a wart since.
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  Speaker 2: That is crazy. And you know what's even more.
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  Speaker 1: Crazy, how do you explain that is that we've actually.
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  Speaker 2: Done this with our children.
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  Speaker 3: I can't believe that, yes we have and they don't
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  Speaker 3: have any wars.
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  Speaker 1: We've bought the warts off our girls. I think I
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  Speaker 1: made it a dollary.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I was about to say interest serve time. It
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: was a lot more expensive for us.
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  Speaker 1: But as a research scientist, as a person with a
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  Speaker 1: PhD in psychology, I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of
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  Speaker 1: manifesting and this idea that we can visualize and affirm
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  Speaker 1: our way into an out of things. Now, that might
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: not sound like it's going any thing to do with
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  Speaker 1: Taran and her question, but it's worth spending some time
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  Speaker 1: on this idea. Now, psychologists don't use the term manifesting
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  Speaker 1: or affirmations or visualization. They're not really huge into that,
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  Speaker 1: although there are some pretty cool studies on visualization now.
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  Speaker 1: But what the researchers do look at is.
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  Speaker 2: This how you guys aren't like the be all of everything.
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  Speaker 1: No, but we take things very seriously and manifesting is
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  Speaker 1: not serious enough to study. But what is self talk
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  Speaker 1: is serious enough to study. And I know you might
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  Speaker 1: say it's the same thing. I'm not going to say
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: whether it is or it isn't, But you know, there's
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: the textbook stuff and then there's the real life stuff,
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  Speaker 1: and we do have self talk, and self talk is
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  Speaker 1: the voice that's inside your head that never ever ever stops.
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  Speaker 1: And our voice inside our head reveals a lot about
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: what we believe about ourselves. And the thing is, we
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: actually believe what that voice says all the time. If
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: I say to you you're a wonderful person, there's a
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: little voice inside your head that reacts immediately to I've
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: just said. Or if I say you're so honest or
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: you're so beautiful. As soon as I say those things,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: there's a little voice inside your head that responds with, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I am, or no I'm not, or that's really nice
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  Speaker 1: of you, but I've still got a way to go.
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  Speaker 1: And some of our voices are wonderfully kind and compassionate,
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  Speaker 1: and sometimes ourself talk, our inner voice, is abusive. There's
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: no other way to say it. Sometimes, the things that
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: we say to ourselves, if we said them to our child,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: you definitely call child protection.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: And we talked about that on a podcast.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: We had talked about that before, And sometimes I wonder
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: if we need to call child protection on ourselves, because
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: there isn't in a child inside each of us, and
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: we talk so badly to it. But I guess the
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: main point that I want to make here is that
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  Speaker 1: our words create our worlds. The way we speak to
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: ourselves literally, it compounds over time. If every day I
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: wake up and I say, oh, that'd be right, this
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: stuff always happens to me, I'm hopeless, I'm lousy, I'm
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: no good, It's just another day. I can't do it.
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  Speaker 1: That self talk creates the world in which we live,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: and we live in a world where we This is
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: going to sound a little bit dispassionate or a little
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  Speaker 1: bit lacking in compassion, But if our self talk is
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  Speaker 1: that awful, sometimes we actually make victims of ourselves. Changing
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  Speaker 1: our self talk isn't instantly going to change our world,
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  Speaker 1: because it takes time for it to compound. But if
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: this is what we bring into our life. To move
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: back towards Tarran's point, this is also what we bring
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: into our children's lives. They see the way we talk,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: they hear the way we talk, and they watch the
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: way our lives go, and they think that's what life is.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: They mirror us, they model us, they copy us. I
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: feel like we could.
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  Speaker 3: Talk about this all day, but clearly we have a
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: lot of parents who are time poor and just want answers.
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  Speaker 3: Doctor Justin Colson, so can you give me three take
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  Speaker 3: message home messages.
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  Speaker 1: And for our literally take these messages home. That's what
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  Speaker 1: we call it the take home message. Take home message
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  Speaker 1: Number one. Your self talk matters, Your words create your world.
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  Speaker 2: So what do you do if your self talk is bad?
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  Speaker 1: Change it bit by bit. You'll fail lots, but change it.
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  Speaker 1: And when you catch yourself speaking about yourself lousy, like,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: oh you're such an idiot. Oh yeah, this always happens
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  Speaker 1: to you. When you hear yourself saying that, recognize it,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: say have some compassion on yourself, be kind to yourself,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: and say, ah, I need to stop saying that about myself.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: I need to do better. And don't beat yourself up.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Don't pull the whip out and go snap snap, you know,
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  Speaker 1: I just just accept that you blew it and change it.
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  Speaker 1: Say that happened to me just then, but it's not
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: always going to happen to me. I can change this,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: you know, like literally twist it around. So that's the
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: first thing. The second thing is we need to be
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: our greatest cheerleader. And I don't mean like in some
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: false kind of you know, I'm the greatest Muhammad Ali
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: had nothing on me kind of thing to see what
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: I did there. I'm a poet and I didn't even
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: realize I could ryme like that. But we want to
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: be our greatest cheerleader in the point from the point
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: of view that we want to be saying, I believe
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: in me, I've got this, I can take care of this.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: I might be struggling right now, but I know it'll
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: be okay in the end. That's much more positive self
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: talk than my life is ruined. And the third thing
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: to remember is the way we talk about ourselves. Our
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: kids see it, they watch it, they imitate it, they
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: become it. Whatever you are, you know I am, that
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: is what you'll be, but it's what you'll teach your
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: kids to be as well.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: I really hope that this has been helpful today.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you've enjoyed the podcast, we would be so
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: grateful if you jump online and leave a rating and review.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: You literally can do it in the Apple podcast app.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Just click on our podcast and click on the button
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: that says leave a rating and review. It's literally that simple.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: We'll take you about sixty seconds. It's your ratings and
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: reviews that help other people to find out about the
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: podcast to make their family happier. Thank you very much
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: to Justin rule On from Bridge Media for producing the podcast,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: and our executive producer is Craig Brew. If you'd like
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: more information about how to make your family happier and
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: get month to months support from me, all you have
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: to do is go to happy families dot com dot
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: au