podcast

Hey everybody, thanks for joining me today. I thought since it's Mother's Day week that it might be appropriate for me to share a few thoughts on anxiety traps that parents can fall into, specifically parents of adult children. I think that all stages of parenting have their own anxiety difficulties, but in some ways, being a parent of adult children is the most challenging as far as anxiety goes because it's the phase where you have the least amount of control. And when we have less control, we tend to feel more anxiety. When our kids are little it's, it's exhausting. It's a lot of responsibility. The responsibility itself can be a trigger of anxiety. But it's also kind of a power trip because you are in charge of everything. This person is totally helpless and dependent on you, and you are in charge of what they're gonna wear, what they're going to eat, what their schedule's gonna be. If you want them to physically move from one place to another, you just pick them up and move them. You are the boss. You make all the decisions. You are in total control. And so it can be difficult to make that transition from being in charge of everything to letting the child be in charge of their own life, which is gonna happen whether you want it to or not. When we make this transition into our kids being adults, it can be just a worry fest where we spend all of our time seeing all of the different, uh, challenges that are before them and all of the different problems that are looming in their way that we don't have control over anymore, but that we're hyper aware of, and we can just get stuck in this anxiety spot and worry. You know, it could be good in some cases where it actually helps you to prepare for the future. For example, I've been, times when I've been struck with worry right before bed that I had not left the door unlocked and that my teenage child wouldn't be able to come in. And so that worry prompts me to go down and check the door, and occasionally I have already locked the door and it's a good thing I went down and checked to unlock it so that they could get in. So there's an example of when worry might be a good thing 'cause there's something you can do about it. But when you don't have control over your adult children's problems and situations and choices, then worry is not gonna be helpful. It's just going to be torturous both for you and for them.
So how do we get out of these anxiety traps? Well, it's a good rule of thumb always when we're talking about anxiety, to get our focus away from the areas where we have no control and toward the areas where we do control. Asking the question, you know, what, what kind of a mother do I want to be?
So one of the first things that came to my mind when I started to ask myself this question, what kind of a mother do I wanna be of adult children? I had an image of my grandmother. My grandmother was somebody who would come to visit and she would immediately just enfold you in her squishy hugs and start kissing you all over and telling you how wonderful you were. And I remember once when she was telling me about all of her grandchildren and how wonderful they were, and, and asked me, you know, why, why is it that all of our children are so wonderful? Do you know why? And I said, why is it? And she said, well, it's because they're ours. And her answer kind of surprised me because I guess I half expected for her to start listing different qualities that we had that made us better than, than other people, that made us especially wonderful, or different things that we had done that showed that we had really achieved, we had earned her love, but no, she was proud of us and loved us just because we were hers. And so this really cemented for me that I was loved, not because of things that I did, but because of who I was. Just because I was there. She loved me because I was there and I was her granddaughter. So when I asked this question about what kind of mother do I wanna be of adult children, I thought of my grandma and I thought that's the kind of love and acceptance that I want to transmit to my kids. I can't control their moods. I can't control their emotions. I can't control their choices. I can't control their problems. But I can accept them and love them the way that they are, exactly the way that they are, the way that my grandmother did.
The second thing that I came up with was that I just want to be an example to them of the best way that I can think of to live of a good way to live life.
The third thing that I came up with was that I wanted to transmit to them that I trust them and I trust life. I'm not, I don't wanna transmit worry and anxiety about their choices, about their future, about life in general to them. And this came partly because of different interactions that I had with a friend of mine who would sometimes complain to me about her mother, who she knew her mother loved her a lot, but she didn't feel like she could talk to her mother about a lot of different things in her life because she knew that if she mentioned them, her mother would start to worry a ton about that particular problem and that it would consume her and it would ruin her week or whatever. She would just be anxious and worried the whole week. And so she would often talk to, to me about these issues rather than her mother, because she knew that I would be able to respond with, you know, a listening ear, but at the same time, just, you know, I know you're gonna figure this out. I know you're gonna be okay. It'll be all right. And that was really what she wanted. And so I realized, you know, sometimes I fall into this trap too, with my own kids, of worrying about them and transmitting this worry to them, and I don't wanna be that type of mother. This is one of the hardest things I think about becoming a parent of adult children, is that transition from being the problem solver, the curer of all ills, toward being just the observer in our children's lives. When they're little and they're helpless, what are we doing? Well, they're, they, they cry for everything. They can't even speak. So their cry is a signal for us to jump into action and solve the problem, figure out what it is that they need, meet their need and help them to feel happy again. So we basically regulate all of their emotions for them. And it can be really difficult to go through that transition toward where they are adults now, and we're not responsible for their emotions, but when we see them suffering, for some reason, we still feel like we need to jump in and fix it. That's just ingrained into our parent DNA. So it can be really hard to get to the point where we, where we can look at our children's lives and the different issues that they face, and be able to transmit trust that things will work out rather than worry, like my friend's mom. We did have an episode a few weeks ago where we talked about the advantages of learning to trust life and learning to give a particular meaning to our own lives, where we can see that all experiences, whether good or bad, contribute to our growth. And if we can believe this, that this maximizes our chances for generating challenge responses and dealing well with the things that life throws at us. Well, it's kind of like taking it to the next level to believe that for our children, to believe that everything that they face, whether positive or negative, can be for their growth. to trust that life will give our kids a good journey and that they'll learn what they need to learn. It is really hard to sit back and watch them learn from their own experiments to learn to trust a process that we don't control anymore.
So one exercise that I have tried to do at some times when I have found myself worrying and I just stuck in a worry loop about my kids, about different problems that they are facing that I can't solve for them, even though I wish I could. Um, one exercise that I do is to sit down and write down, first of all what it is that I'm worried about, so that I can understand what the story is that I'm telling about their problem. And we've talked several times before about how our brains are prediction machines and we're always trying to predict the the future. That's what emotions are part of. It's part of this predicting machine of the future and trying to help us to respond in ways that are gonna be most adaptive to the future. But anyway, behind every emotion is a story that you're telling about how this is gonna affect you, how things are gonna go from here, if this is good or bad. So first I try and write down my worries so that I can identify what this story is that I'm telling. And then I try and identify in my story what are the actual things that I absolutely know, what are the facts and what are the things that I'm imagining? Because every story, especially stories about the future, have some unknowns in them, right? There are things that we absolutely know. Things that are given, things that are facts, and then there are other things that we are extrapolating, things that we are imagining, ways that we are filling in the blank from previous experience, from other things that we've seen in other people's lives. Things like that. We end up filling in the blanks with things that we come up with out of our heads. So I write down the story. And then I try and identify, where are the facts in this story, the things that cannot be contested, that everyone would agree, this is a fact. And then the rest of it is stuff that I made up. And I try and extract the facts out of my story. And then I start with those. And I try and build a new story that still has those same facts, but fills the blanks in in a different way, in a way that trusts the process of life to give my children something good. So I try and tell the story from here in a way that includes them learning from their own experiences and forces in life working for their benefit. I try and imagine those unknowns in a way that sees my children getting through this particular problem just fine and coming onto better times. I also try and think of times in my own life where I was up against difficult problems or maybe even made some unwise choices, but I learned from those choices and became wiser because of it. Or examples from peop other people that I know to whom this happened. So, so this little exercise of trying to imagine a different trusting outcome, an outcome that trusts life to work for the good of my child is one way that I exercise trying to not transmit worry to them, but instead trust. So that was the third thing that I came up with, that I wanted to be as a parent.
And the fourth thing that I came up with when I thought about this question about what kind of a parent I wanna be was in relation to the mistakes that I make and have made as a parent. It's not possible for any parent to get through the whole parenting experience without making some mistakes, right? And so our own errors, our own mistakes, can be a big source of anxiety in the relationship with our children, especially when there are things in the past that we, we can't go back and change. We can't go, we can't, can't go back and undo. But in thinking about what kind of a parent do I wanna be in relation to my own mistakes, I realize that I want to be someone who is committed to this relationship that will keep serving my children, regardless of the fact that I have made mistakes. That will keep being committed to this relationship that will be committed to repairing the mistakes that I have made. So someone who gets up when they fall. That's basically what I wanted to do.
So these four different things that I came up with when I thought about what kind of a mother do I wanna be, right? That I want to transmit unconditional love and acceptance. I want to be the best example of living life that I know how to be. I want to transmit trust of life instead of fear, and I want to get up when I fall. I want to keep being committed to this relationship even after I make mistakes. I want to repair them as much as is, as is possible. And so then when my brain drifts over to that other side of things, and to worry about the fear that I don't control my children's problems and their choices and their emotions, then I can just remember, oh, I need to steer back toward the realm that I do control. And there's so much there to work on to consume my time and my energy and my focus that I can spend my life investing in this. And there's still gonna be lots to work on. Lots to, lots to do.
But I just wanted to. Outline for you this particular exercise that I did that has helped me to bring my mind out of that worry space and back into the space where I am in control and identify what it is that I actually can do at this stage of parenting. What it is I, what it is that I can still offer my kids. So, thanks for listening today. That's what I have to share with you. We're gonna have our kindness narrative now, and I just wanna say, if you haven't shared your kindness narrative yet, you can send in an audio or if you don't wanna send in an audio, if that makes you feel too anxious to record your own voice or you don't feel comfortable with that, you can actually just send me a written version of your story on email or on Instagram. So those are the two options to send either an audio or a written version by email, my email is Calm Your caveman@gmail.com. Or you can send the audio or the written version on Instagram at Calm Your Caveman. And I can keep you totally anonymous. I can read your story if you wanted to send it to me written, but that way at least you can share it . So thanks and thanks to everybody who's shared theirs so far. So here we have now our kindness narrative for today. Have a great week.
When I was in seventh grade, I went to a kind of in a experimental private school, and it, it was a great school, but they didn't have a lot of the metrics that had to be met, that public schools did. And so when I returned to public school, when the private school left the area and moved an hour north, I had to go back to public school, and when I did, I signed up for Algebra one, which was, uh, the eighth grade class at the time. My first day I was absolutely distraught, as I could see, I was so behind the rest of the students and I didn't know what was going on. And at that time in my life, I was a very good student and didn't accept anything less than an A. And I thought, well, that's over because I can't even understand what this woman is teaching. And, uh her name was Mrs. Johnson and she was a, a tiny, five foot four woman in her, what seemed to be her late thirties, quite young, looking back, and quite stern, very on top of things. Very matter of fact, teacher. She must have perceived my just absolutely devastated feelings. And I went up to her and, and talked to her after a class and she looked at me and she said, if you will come every day after school, I will help you get caught up. And this woman, looking back on it now, I find it absolutely unbelievable, but she sat with me every day after school for what seemed to me at least an hour. Maybe longer, I'm not sure. I can't remember exactly. But I remember within three or four weeks I was completely caught up on the math and she had so much patience with me. She was so kind to me. She never made me feel like I was a burden to her. And I've never forgotten that. I will add that, um, we had standardized testing at the end of that semester, and I was the only one in the class who got a hundred percent on the standardized testing. And that was all because of her. I ended up getting a 36 on the math ACT, which made it so I didn't have to take Math 110 in college, which is basic algebra. and I really feel like it was because of her. She found it within herself to give her time after school to this one student that had a desire and she was so wonderfully kind to help me.