Coaching with LDS values

Episode 106; Our Feelings Determine How We Show Up Around Our Adult Children This is Bonnie Lyman, and you're listening to the podcast, Loving On Purpose, episode 106. Our feelings determine how we show up around our adult children. Welcome to the podcast, Loving On Purpose. I'm your host, Bonnie Lyman. If you're having trouble navigating through your relationships with your adult children, if you are struggling to connect with them. Or having specific challenges. You're in the right place. Hey there, thanks for showing up to listen to another one of my episodes. I'm excited about this one. Help you know how to act around your adult children. That you feel good about it and they feel good about it. And so it's a win win situation. So if you're new to listening to my podcast, you should go back and listen to the podcast, the episode. It's, oh, I don't know, it's near the beginning. I know that, um, iTunes quit numbering them for some reason, so I can't give you the number. But the name is, the model is, The secret sauce and the model is the, to me, the foundation of becoming who we want to be of having the experience that we want to have in this life. The model is a way to find out how to do that and how to have a better relationship with your adult children. So the model is simply CTFAR, it's like a formula. The C stands for the circumstance, what's happening in our lives. The T. Then, it's triggered by the circumstance of whatever is happening, and that triggers us to have thoughts. Our thoughts then cause us to have certain feelings, and our feelings It causes us to have certain actions behave certain ways. We either withdraw, we overreact, um, or we react. And then it's our behavior then that allows us, or causes us to have the experience that we want to have in this life. So, we talk a lot, or I have talked a lot about, it's your thoughts that cause your feelings, not the circumstances, not what's happening in your life, not what somebody says or does, but your thoughts. The meaning you're putting to what's happening in your life that causes you to have certain feelings. But it's always our feelings that cause our actions or no actions, our behavior. Um, it's always our ha Actions of why we act the way we do or whether or not we don't act, it's always our feelings that cause us to behave a certain way. I'll give you an example I had with a struggle that I had with my daughter. The circumstance was, and I had a hard time making this factual, but the circumstance was when she talked to me, she never said more than five words, and she talked to me Only when asked a question. And so, my thought was, because I kind of knew her, my thought was, she's hurting. And I knew what she was hurting about, but I'm not going to disclose that at this time, but it was something that was really bothering her, and she did not feel good. about herself. And so, that thought caused me to feel compassion. Now, it was this feeling of compassion that caused me to write a letter and and tell her I understood that she needed some space from me. I felt like I triggered something That caused her to hurt even more or to feel more inadequate about herself and that she couldn't solve her issues. So I told her, because I loved her so much, I was willing to give her all the space that she needed. So that was one of my actions, and then because I had such compassion and love for her, I was able to wait until she was ready. To come to me, she never came with an apology and I didn't expect that, but she started talking to me on a more, uh, kinder level, you might say, uh, it, our relationship. Improved One thing though, we have to understand there are no bad feelings and for that matter, there are no bad thoughts. There are just thoughts that we want to believe that will cause us to feel the feeling. we want to feel. So this, this is where the work comes in on using the model and becoming the boss of our brain and creating a more fulfilling life for ourself is by managing our thoughts. Because our thoughts cause our feelings, we want to become aware of our thoughts and change. those thoughts that don't cause us to feel love toward our adult children. And, you know, we, we want to feel love for our adult children. But that might mean that we still don't like their behavior, but we can not like their behavior, and we can still feel a lot of love for them. And then when we feel love, because our feelings cause our actions, we are going to show up as love. We would do what love would do. It's not their responsibility. to help us feel love for them. They don't, they're not responsible. They're not even required to act a certain way toward us so that we can feel love for them. It's our It's our responsibility to think thoughts about them that will cause us to love them. And if we can choose our thoughts, that means we get to choose our feelings. Now, this is easier said than done. And I really feel that if you're in a really tough situation, that it takes some guidance from a coach to be able to learn how to look at things from a different perspective and change your thoughts. So, do we like our behavior? Do we like how we show up, just not to our kids, but to everybody? Do we like how we show up to others? Does our behavior show that we love our children just the way they are? Our behavior And that is our actions or our inactions, I can't emphasize this enough, are always caused by what we are feeling. So if we want to show up as the mom that shows by her actions that she loves her children unconditionally. We need to have feelings of peace, and compassion, and kindness, and forgiveness, and understanding, and love. I believe all those feelings are, I, I call them cousins. So what are some loving thoughts? Some loving thoughts are, just like I mentioned about, um, my daughter. Hmm, she must be hurting, because I know that when people are hurting, when they feel like a victim to their circumstances, they hurt others. Another one may be, I wonder what's going on in their life that would cause them to act that way. To go to curiosity. Another one might be. I think there's something in their life that's not right. I hope they can figure it out. So, my next thing I want to talk about is what does feel, what does love feel like? Because all of my clients say, well, I love my children, I'll always love my children. Yes, that's right, but we do that because they're our children and we just kind of automatically do that. But if we really love them, then we feel warm. We feel whole, we feel complete. We're at peace. And most of my clients are not that way. So that I know. They're not having the right kind of thoughts. And so, if love causes us to act a certain way, and I get in a certain situation, and I'm feeling it, I like to ask myself, what would love do? Love may just listen. They just may tell them what they think is great and wonderful about them. They may just ask if, ask permission before giving advice. That's what love would do. And there's a lot of other things, but I want to get on with our topic here. Our children are supposed to be and do exactly Who they're being and what they're doing. And how do I know that? Because they are being that way and acting that way. If you thought like they thought you would be and do just like them. It's just their way of figuring out how they, as an adult, fits into this world full of choices. That they never had before. They have many more responsibilities now as an adult than they ever had before. And their family structure is so different. They are an adult just like their mom and dad now. Their siblings are becoming adults. They are marrying and now they have in laws. Parents in laws and siblings in laws. And their siblings, their own siblings, are marrying, and that creates more in laws. And so you have a whole bunch of adults with a whole bunch of adult opinions. So it's important to know, and for you to figure out first, who you want to be. What do you want to be known for? How do you want to show up in the world? I'll give you an example of what I identified of the kind of person I wanted to be. I wanted, I want to be the kindest, most uplifting person I can be. When someone crosses paths with me, that it would cause them to have thoughts that cause them to feel good about themselves. So in order for me to act like that person, I have to have kind, loving feelings that cause me to behave like a kind, thoughtful, loving person. If you want to be a person who is quick to forgive, Then you must, um, have forgiving feelings. You must practice thinking forgiving thoughts that cause you to feel forgiveness, then that causes you to harbor no grudges against others who have perhaps done you wrong. In our church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, we have a program called ministering. It's an assignment. We're each member of the ward, or that's a congregation to some of you that don't know what a ward is. We are given the assignment where we each have three or four other members to contact each month just to check in on with them every month to make sure everything is okay with them. And if there are any problems that they need help with, um, we would try to help them. Or if we couldn't help them, we would, um, ask or at least report their needs to, um, our bishop. Because the bishop is a lay member with a full time job, He doesn't have the capacity to know all that's happening with the people in his ward. In just the last three years or so, it has changed a little bit than originally. How, um, they requested you to make contact with these people. They originally wanted you to make a personal visit to their home. So, I probably, of all the years that I was a member, I probably only missed three months in all my years, um, in making contact with the people I was assigned to. I did that because it made me, it, it felt good to fulfill this assignment, so it was easy to do. But I had a friend who thought they were bothering the people. They were supposed to visit, especially if it was obvious that they didn't have many needs. This friend felt like they were taking up their time, even maybe wasting their time to come into their home for a visit because it didn't make this person feel good. Most months, they didn't fulfill the assignment. But there are people that they were assigned to, if they ever needed anything. This person was right there to give them any help they possibly could. They felt good when they were actually helping in some way and not just visiting. The point is our feelings cause us to act or not act in certain ways. Because we know we can control our thoughts to cause us to have the feelings we want to feel. That must also mean we have control over being the person we want to be. It kind of goes back to the cliche, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Let's say the circumstance is in dealing with rich people and poor people is the circumstance is a certain number of dollars in one's bank account. Imagine you have a certain amount of money in your bank account. For someone who's wealthy, feeling secure might mean having at least two hundred thousand dollars in their account. And when their account drops below That number, the feeling of un uneasiness causes them to take steps to earn more money until their account is back to 200,000. This is their comfort zone for fueling rich or secure. On the other hand, a person with. Less money might feel secure with just 200 in their account. If it goes above that, they feel abundant that they have extra money and tend to go out and spend it until they're back at or below their 200. If how we feel who we are, whether it be rich or poor, doesn't match who we actually are. In other words, the amount of money to feel rich is, is not happening. That number is not there, it's below it. Or the number that makes us feel poor gets above that. It causes us to act in a way that will get us back, that will get our bank account back to that number so that we can feel who we are. It's important to note here that our feelings always cause us to behave in a certain way. The rich get richer because if they see themselves as rich, They have to maintain having a certain amount of money in their account. The poor get poorer because when they see themselves as poor and they start making more money, it's not in alignment with how they view themselves. And they would rather be sane than successful. This is why it's so important to tell your kids As often as possible, all the good things you admire about them, then they will start to believe they are successful, kind, whatever, person. And then feel like a successful, kind person who then starts acting like a successful, kind person. We don't have control over our children and how they act and we can't change them. But we can influence them a little bit by telling them and reminding them and pointing out to them their strengths. We can't change them, only they can do that, and only if they want to. They have a right to be anybody they want to be. What we do have control over To truly show up as a person that unconditionally loves a child that might not even deserve to be loved is to focus on the good in them that causes you to feel the most amazing emotion anyone could offer you, the feeling of love. Love is always a choice and it's always available and it's always an option. I challenge you to become a watcher of your thoughts. Choose thoughts that cause you to feel love that your children might know by your actions what love looks like. I hope you have a great week. We're supposed to get snow on Friday. It's supposed to be a high of one degrees and I'm going to enjoy every moment of it by hunkering down in my house. With some hot chocolate and sitting, reading, writing emails to you in front of my fireplace. So I'll talk to you next week. If you liked this, this episode, and you felt it was of benefit to you, I ask you to share it with somebody that perhaps it could also benefit. But if you're still feeling kind of stuck, in that you don't know, How to apply what was talked about or where to start on, on changing your thoughts, on changing your perspective, on bettering your relationship. Get on a call with me and we can have a discussion. I can tell you how to apply it and where we start and then you get to decide. What you want to do about this relationship that maybe you're struggling with with your adult children. There is no reason to go on the rest of our lives struggling with our relationships with our adult children. Let's assume the best. Let's assume that we all love each other. And we're just trying to figure out how to maintain our own boundaries and respect another one's. But I can help you with everything. So just go to BonnieLyman. com and book a call. I can't wait to hear from you. .