Calm Parenting Podcast - Stop Anxiety, Perfectionism & Controlling People’s Emotions

Episode Date: December 30, 2023

Stop Anxiety, Perfectionism & Controlling People’s Emotions Have you noticed that your anxiety as a parent actually backfires and causes the exact opposite response you want from your kids? When you try to rush them, they move more slowly! When you push, they resist even more. When you lecture to motivate them, they shut down. So how can you break this cycle of frustration, stop trying to make everyone happy, and let go of perfectionism? Kirk shows you how. Our New Year's Sale Begins NOW: You get everything we have ever recorded delivered directly to an app on your iPhone, iPad, Android, or computer. Listen anywhere, anytime. You get 35 hours of practical strategies and concrete examples, along with multiple PDF workbooks. Make 2024 different. Click here to learn more and take advantage of our New Year's Sale: https://celebratecalm.com/calm-2024 Go to https://www.HelloFresh.com/calmfree and use code calmfree for FREE breakfast for life! One breakfast item per box while subscription is active. Get your kids something they will actually LOVE, use, and look forward to getting all throughout the coming year. Build your child’s confidence NOW! Visit https://crunchlabs.com/CALM and get your kids CrunchLabs today! A Revolutionary Baby Monitor is Born. Visit https://www.masimostork.com/ to learn more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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OneSkin.co with code K-I-R-K. After you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. So please support our podcast and tell them we sent you. Moms and dads, being a parent is stressful. This modern day life we live causes a lot of anxiety, right? And it starts first thing in the morning when your son doesn't wanna get out of bed. You get anxious that he's going to ask you to stay home yet again and miss another day of school. And your daughter won't eat.

Is she gonna be unhealthy? What if she gets sick? Your son's worn the same hoodie sweatshirt for 13 days in a row. What are the other parents and teachers going to think about you as a mother? And your daughter won't brush her teeth or her hair. And as you're rushing out the door, she remembers one final thing she just has to do before she leaves. And you're sitting out in the driveway honking the horn, right, waking the neighbors up.

Great, now there's a traffic jam. You're going to be late. So you grip the wheel a little tighter. You ride the guy's bumper ahead of you. You're tense. And your kids are trying to talk to you. But you snap back because you're still upset about their dawdling, right? We'll talk about this tonight.

You snap as you drop your kids off to school. Now you feel guilty, right? Because now you got to rush to work. You're afraid your boss is going to be mad at you again. Your mother's pressuring you to visit for the holidays, but you don't really want to go. You're getting the usual guilt trips and you'll probably give in, right? And then the PTA and church committee keep asking you to volunteer. They need to help after all. And you're the responsible one. And what about the Johnson's kids? They're taking piano and extra language after school. If they can do it,

why can't your kids? Why do your kids sit on screens all the time? You vowed that you guys wouldn't do that, and now your whole family is just kind of addicted to screens all the time. What if you're not doing enough for them? What if they can't get into the right prep school? Will you be a failure as a parent? Heck, you're not sure whether you're going to need that money for college or bail, given your son's behavior. Oh, that's right, you don't have money set aside for college anyway. The braces, the new roof, summer camp therapy, and car repairs have eaten away at that. Right? And your house never seems clean enough. Why can't your kids clean your bedrooms so you don't have to badger them? Now you're dreading the battle over homework.

You end up frustrated standing over your child scolding. If you had just woke us, you'd be done in 45 minutes instead of it taking three hours. Now here come the tears. And you forgot to lay out chicken, so you're back to mac and cheese again. Again. And your kids still complain. Dad's getting irritated because Jacob can't sit still at the dinner table. Right?

He does this whole like, we're going to sit still. We're going to sit still. We're going to enjoy dinner as a family. Well, no, you're not because everybody's anxious and tense. And mom, you're getting anxious because you're sensing to sit still. We're going to sit still. We're going to enjoy dinner as a family. Well, no, you're not because everybody's anxious and tense. And mom, you're getting anxious because you're sensing the coming explosion. And you've got to run interference between your strong-willed child and your husband. And now you have to help your daughter with that project that's busy work anyway. So the dishes sit in the sink for a while.

What would your mother say? She never seemed this frazzled. What are you doing wrong? You decide that you'll finish up the project for Sarah because it's bath time, another power struggle, and then bedtime. Only Jacob has trouble sleeping and you threaten him repeatedly to get in your room now. Good. Let's end the day with some guilt. What kind of bad parent are you that your kids won't eat, sleep, do their homework, or listen to you? Can you see how much emotional, mental, and physical energy this anxiety takes from you? It's exhausting, and worse yet, it'll destroy the very relationships that you cherish

the most. So that is what we are going to attack on this episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast. So welcome, this is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. That's a little bit of a lengthy opening for our podcast, but I really wanted to set that scene of how stressful everyday life is, especially with a strong-willed child. So I want to dig into that. You know the drill. If you need some help with anything, you email us, email our son Casey, who was basically just describing that. Look, I was describing our life before I learned how to control myself, right? Constant anxiety, control issues. So reach out to Casey, C-A-S-E-Y at

CelebrateCalm.com. Tell us about your family, ages of the kids. We get together as a family, discuss it. We will reply back to you personally and usually very quickly. Why? Because that's what we do. It's our family's mission. So we're going to talk about anxiety, your anxiety. Why is it so critical to attack this once and for all? So let's just look at the practical side of this. Your anxiety never, ever helps or works. Anxiety causes the exact opposite response that you want from your kids. Think about it. When you

say, move, move, get to the car, get moving, move, move, move. Instead of running more quickly, your kids move more slowly. Why? Because they know when you are in that anxious mode, nothing they do will please you. When you lecture your kids constantly, it backfires. They ignore you. They discount what you say. The more words you use, the less valuable they become. When you get on your kids about every little thing, they don't thank you for being so conscientious and caring so much about me, mom. They don't. They fight you. When you react to them pushing your buttons, they are now in control of you. The truth is that you create so many power struggles

over issues that don't matter, all because of your own anxiety. There's no guilt, no blame in that. I don't do that. I just want us to recognize that we have power and control over this, and this anxiety is literally just destroying our relationships, and it just doesn't work, right? Because when you lecture, think about this. It sends this message to your kids. I don't trust you to make a good decision, so I'm going to keep badgering you. You can't do it on your own. After all, what would I do if I didn't have to be responsible for you? See, this isn't really about you, son. It's about me. What else are you saying? I don't believe, I don't really believe that you can be successful because I spend 95% of my energy trying to fix what's wrong with you. Instead of spending that time cultivating your natural gifts and passions.

See, because of my anxiety over your future, I'm going to harp on you over and over again. So no, I don't trust that you have what it takes. And I'm more worried about my own legacy because if you don't turn out well, then I will have been a failure as a parent and I can't live with that, right? There's some truth in parts of that, right? You're also saying this, this problem isn't really yours, it's mine. I have this vision of how life was supposed to be and I feel compelled to make our family life perfect or go the way I'd envisioned it, but I can't and so I'm going to try to make all these little insignificant things just so because that will give me the illusion that things are actually okay. And some of us have our identity wrapped up in our kids' behavior, right?

When they don't do things the right way, your way, you take it as a personal affront. After all I've done for you, I've tried to teach you to be kind and responsible, and you can't even, right? And when you hear yourself using that guilt trip, then you know your anxiety is out of control because anxiety keeps you from enjoying daily life because you're so wrapped up in making sure everything goes perfectly. There's always something else to do, always more drama, right? And because your central nervous system is on

high alert all the time, you become exhausted. You may not sleep well. Maybe you develop adrenal fatigue and this stress can lead to heart issues and a compromised immune system. You know all that, right? Good people who can't quiet this anxiety inside sometimes seek relief in other things, alcohol, drugs, gambling, porn, right? Other addictive behaviors. So it's serious. So here's how this works. I wanted to go give you some tools today.

And I'm actually drawing this from our 30 Days to Calm program because it's very foundational to everything we do at Celebrate Calm is we start with ourselves. Quickest way to change your child's behavior is to first control your own. The only person I can control in life is myself, and when I do that, my kid's behavior changes. So if you get the Calm Parenting Package, the first thing I want you to go through really is the 30 Days to Calm program. And here's how you get the most out of that, right? One, I want you to be ruthlessly honest with yourself. No blame, no guilt.

But I don't want you making excuses. And I want you to follow through on the action steps or this won't work. You kind of have to follow my directions. I'm being controlling, aren't I? Right? I want you to be consistent. Don't let anything get in the way of working through this program. I want you to have some focused intensity, right? As you go through this, because it will change you inside. I'm going to tell you how cool that is once I finally figure this out. And while you're listening to the program, you listen to it on this new app we have. It makes it really easy.

I want you to journal. I want you to take notes. There's a 30 Days to Calm workbook. And you can take notes in there. And you'll go through this 30-day challenge in your workbook. You don't have to do it in 30 days. You're busy parents. If you do it in 40 days or 50 days or 90 days, that's fine.

That's fine. Just focus on yourself because this program doesn't have anything to do with your kids or spouse. It's 100% for you and you're worth it. So let's examine this. I want to go through kind of some roots. I'm going to call it the 10 roots of anxiety. Why we do this. This is like 10 sources of anxiety. And you can make a list. See which ones of these apply to you. Pretty much all of them apply to me. So number one, is your anxiety a childhood inheritance? Look, I know a large fortune would have been a better inheritance, but we're all affected by how we're raised. Did you have a controlling parent use guilt to manipulate you?

Do one of your parents worry excessively? Did you have the martyr mother who taught you to make everybody else happy while making yourself miserable? Perhaps you had an alcoholic parent, right? And early in life, you learned to manage your parents' emotions just to keep the peace. By the way, you probably married someone whose emotions you have to manage. Why? Because you're comfortable with that. That's how you grew up. That's how you developed a sense of order and structure in life, right? You developed a caretaker pattern in which you take care of everyone else. Maybe it's because you were super ultra responsible for raising your siblings, right? You learn to be concerned about other people, but at your own expense.

And that creates anxiety because you become exhausted. You ultimately can't control what other people do. Number two, how do you view authority figures? How do you view God? See, our parenting expectations are largely based on how authority figures treated us as kids. If you view your parents or God as an unrelenting taskmaster who's never pleased with your behavior, who's interested in rules more than a relationship, you'll likely repeat this pattern with your kids. I see it all the time. I did the same exact thing because they'll never be good enough, right? And I guarantee either you or your spouse

parents this way. It's just about every family, right? And you can see the kids pulling away from that parent. Number three, are you burdened with guilt? Do you feel like your child struggles, that your child struggles are somehow your fault, right? Like as if you were a better parent like your child's struggles are somehow your fault? Right? Like as if you were a better parent, your child wouldn't be struggling. It's just not true, moms and dads. Right? And everybody struggles with self-doubt. That's normal. But if you have an overriding sense that you're not a good enough parent, that'll cause perpetual anxiety. Number four, do you feel compelled to control others and make everything perfect? See, because I have a busy brain and don't always feel in control inside,

my natural impulse is to control other people and situations. When plans don't go as I expect, it causes me anxiety. And it may manifest in some kind of OCD tendencies or perfectionism. Do you need things to be just so? Your house, your hair, your clothes, meals, right? Maybe you feel irritated and get on edge when it's not. See, it's controlling you instead of you controlling it. Number five, you're anxious about your child's future.

Of course you are, because you look at this child and you're like, who's going to marry this child? Who would possibly hire this child? And you're projecting into the future. And every good parent on the planet gets anxious about whether a child's going to be successful. Because your child may procrastinate, he may be impulsive, disorganized, unmotivated, right? He doesn't give his best, he doesn't learn, hasn't learned good study skills, right? He's not disciplined. And so you project out and think,

how's this child ever going to be successful? Right? And the traits that irritate you most about your kids are likely the same traits that held you back from being successful. So what do you do? Same thing your parents did to you. You focus relentlessly on rooting these qualities out of your child. But just like it didn't work with you, it's not going to work with them. Why? Because the more you push, the more strong will kids resist.

And your kids know you'll never be satisfied. Number six, improper boundaries. Sometimes we just go too far as parents. We need our kids to be successful so that we can feel successful as parents. And that alleviates our guilt. In effect, we're saying, I'm allowing my child's behavior to affect how I feel about myself. Does that sound familiar? Right? No blame, no guilt. In effect, we're saying, I'm allowing my child's behavior to affect how I feel about myself. Does that sound familiar? Right? No blame, no guilt. Okay? Just recognize that. Or perhaps your parents overstep their boundaries, as I'm sure they do, right? Because that just happens.

And sometimes we put our kids ahead of our marriage, and that doesn't end up well either. Number seven, are you emotionally dependent on making other people happy? Do you need others to be happy or in a good mood so you can be in a good mood? Can you be happy even when your kids choose to be bored or miserable? Can your spouse be in a bad mood without you feeling like you have to fix it? See, I needed my wife to be happy because her bad mood made me uncomfortable and feel like I had failed somehow. If you're basing your happiness on what other people do, you're powerless and you become dependent, right? Are you afraid to disappoint people? I've struggled with that. Do you try to please everybody else when you know

inside that you really don't want to do something, right? Let's break that pattern so you don't become even more resentful. Number eight, is modern society driving you crazy? Sometimes the pace and stimulation of modern life is overwhelming. Do you ever feel like you can't get a peaceful moment without the constant intrusion of 24-hour news cycle, cell phones, social media? It's all kind of like craving your attention, right? Our finances are a never-ending burden. Life's way too busy. We're overcommitted. We don't have enough time or money. You're gonna have to turn some of those things off. Number nine, are your expectations unrealistic? There's almost always a disconnect between our expectations as parents and reality, right? Does your child's

behavior embarrass you? As a general rule, your kids will never meet your expectations in areas that are important to you. It's just like, that's not how it's going to work. And your anxiety will blow it out of proportion. Now here's the opposite corollary. Have you made things too easy on your kids because you don't want to deal with the power struggle and you feel better when your kids are just happy. That's not good either, right? Number 10, drama. For some of us, I have to ask, why do you participate in the drama? Is it because it's stimulating and you like the challenge of fixing it? Do you often create a crisis so that you feel needed, like you can fix the situation or be in the midst of something special? Do you

use it as a distraction to keep you from dealing with your own issues? Do you feel like feeling like the savior who swoops in to help others? See, I want to use your big heart in healthy ways. Now, if you struggle with several of these sources of stress, that means you're normal. It's okay. It also means you have some work to do. So I want to share a couple quick ideas that you can just start to implement today. Okay, so here's one and it's kind of a fun one. Look, I like putting things in ways at times where you can conceptualize it.

And a lot of this I just do for myself because it just makes it easier. Here's one thing I want you to work on. I'm going to give you two things this week. One, resign from your job. Give yourself a pink slip and take this pledge with me. I resign from a job I have carried for 30, 40, 50 years. Throughout my life, I have labored. I have labored to prove that I'm right,

to overcome people's objections so they believe just like me. Today, I resign. It is not my job to control how other people act. It is not my job to control how other people think. It is not my job to control what they think. My wife, my kids, my brothers, my friends, my neighbors can hold opinions contrary to my own, and I don't have to convince them that I'm right. That's not my job. Now, if you want to take it further, this one's even better. I resign from the job that I have carried of trying to make

everybody else happy. It is not my job to control other people's emotions. It is not my job to make other people happy. It's not. That's a huge burden some of you carry. It is not my job to fix other people, including my kids and my spouse. And I found, for me, this language is very powerful when I say it on a daily basis. Nope, not my job. I resigned from that job. My job is to model things, to live it out, to live in integrity and humility. My example is my greatest teacher. But I give up that idea that I can somehow make other people happy.

Practice that this week. Just start saying those affirmations. Just say, I'm resigning from that job. Nope, not my job, right? Not my job to do everything around this house. Not my job to make sure that everything functions perfectly. So number two thing to practice this week, I want you to practice imperfection. I struggled with perfectionism for 35 years, and it nearly destroyed my relationship with my family and it just kept me from understanding and experiencing peace and grace. For me, it's an evil, evil thing. So I have very little tolerance for that right now. So what I did is I began practicing imperfection daily.

And I do mean I would practice it, right? Sure, do everything with excellence, but begin doing small things imperfectly on purpose. Now, quick little aside. I'm recording this in a hotel room. I'm on the road now conducting live events. As I was just saying that, someone just knocked on my door. You may have heard that little tapping sound. That was housekeeping. It's only 9 30 in the morning. There's a sign out there that

says, I'm still sleeping. Leave me alone. And yet, in the middle of recording this, I hear that tapping thing. Now, I have a couple choices. I can go back and edit that out, but I'm not because I learned this many years ago. I started when I did the podcast and when I record the programs in the Calm Parenting program. At the beginning, when I started recording those, I would record them perfectly. Like if I messed up, if I slipped on a word, if I stumbled, right, I would go back and edit that out. And then I began practicing and saying, no, I'm not going to do that. And so on this podcast, I don't make it perfect. I stumble over words. Sometimes things just don't sound the right way. And I know I talk fast, so I kind of slur words at times. So this was actually the perfect example of that tapping on my door. I did stop the recording, and I'm not good at this

stuff. And I had to go to the door and be pleasant with the nice housekeeping person instead of saying, did you not hear me in my room yelling into my computer to record a podcast, right? So I'm glad that I could just model that for you. So here are a few ideas. Leave the house without being all put together on purpose, even if it makes you uncomfortable. You purposefully try this. Purposefully leave a couple dishes in the sink overnight. Not all of them, but just a couple, right? And so you write a note and you send it even though you had to scratch something out. You make a meal. It's not complete. It's good, but instead of fixing two side dishes, you only fix one. Here's a cool one. Don't turn the clothes right side out when doing laundry.

The kids can do that. Or to be honest, the strong willed child probably won't. And he or she will just wear the shirt with the tag out. Let them breathe into it. Relax. Right? This past year, we kept our Christmas tree a little off center. Right? And that bothered other people. They were like, you know, your tree's leaning a little bit. And we're like, I know. We're doing it on purpose. You have control issues. So, right? But it was perfectly imperfect. And as you begin to practice imperfection consistently, you'll learn to be content even when everything isn't just so.

I do mean this. Practice on a daily basis. Purposefully don't do certain things. Leave things a little bit undone. And I promise your kids and spouse will thank you. But even more than that, you will thank yourself when you are free from this, right? When you don't have to feel compelled. So I'm going to wrap this up. I want you to resist that anxiety that you feel all the time.

I want you to begin working on these issues. And I want you to begin to resign from trying to make everything perfect. Resign from controlling everybody's emotions. I'm telling you, when you can do that and your kids can be upset at you or they can be bored. And you don't have to walk around and find out like, how can I help you from being bored? And you can look at them and say, I'm completely comfortable with your boredom. I'm okay with you being bored. I'm okay with you being miserable right now. I'm not talking about a child suffering from depression, but I'm talking about a child being bored or being dissatisfied with a choice you made, or maybe they're upset and they're disappointed because you didn't give them something.

And rather than tying yourself in knots inside, I want you to be free from that, right? And I want them to be free from you trying to control everything. Okay, it's enough for you to think about. It's been about 23 minutes, and it's enough to begin practicing. Look, if you already have our programs, set aside some time. Go through the 30 Days to Calm workbook. It's all laid out for you, and you go through it methodically, and you'll begin breaking these patterns one by one. It's all laid out for you. And you go through it methodically and you'll begin breaking these patterns one by one. It will make a difference. If you don't have it, go to CelebrateCalm.com. Just order the Calm Parenting Package. If you need help financially with it, just email Casey. Casey at CelebrateCalm.com and begin going through this first. You'll begin to break generational patterns. I promise you, this just means kind of, it changes your internal life. It changes you. So you just begin enjoying life, enjoying your kids

and not feeling compelled to do, to fix, to do everything all the time. It is very liberating inside. So if we can help you, let us know. Love you all. Thanks for sharing the podcast. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye.