Calm Parenting Podcast - Why Kirk Struggled—Some Deeply Personal Insights to Help You in 2020

Episode Date: December 30, 2019

Why Kirk Struggled—Some Deeply Personal Insights to Help You in 2020 NEW PODCASTWhy Kirk Struggled—Some Deeply Personal Insights to Help You in 2020Kirk shares deeply personal reasons he struggled as a husband and father. It will help give you hope to change in 2020. As always, Kirk provides scripts that will change your kids now and for generations to come.BOOK KIRK. Changes happen at our live events because Kirk’s vulnerability in sharing his struggles inspires parents and teachers to change. If you like Kirk’s podcasts, invite him to speak in your city in 2020. 20% OFF in 2020 if you contact [e-mail] with your city/state and the name of your school, church, or organization. SPECIAL NEW YEAR’S SALE. Make 2020 different than 2019. No more being at your wits end. No more feeling like a failure. You can do this. Follow the link below to learn more:  https://www.celebratecalm.com/products/   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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no multiple step protocols, just simple scientifically validated solutions. The secret is One Skin's proprietary OS1 peptide. It's the first ingredient proven to switch off the aging cells that cause lines, wrinkles, and thinning skin. OneSkin is the world's first skin longevity company. By focusing on the cellular aspects of aging, OneSkin keeps your skin looking and acting younger for longer. Get started today with 15% off using code Kirk at OneSkin.co. That's 15% off at 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. Happy New Year, everyone. Welcome to the Calm Parenting Podcast. This is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us at CelebrateCalm.com. So happy you're here. Listen,

I wanted to talk to you about breaking generational patterns and the old habits, because I know New Year's, it's like make New Year's resolution. I hate all those things, but if it works for you, definitely do it. But if you're like most people, you'll resolve to do things, and then by February, you're no longer going to the gym. So we've got to break. What I want to do is break old patterns that we have. Most of us probably have these from our childhood. Give you a couple examples that happen like within our family unit. Here's what ours are. If you've heard my podcast before, CDs, you'd know my dad was military, yelling and screaming. So guess

what I grew up knowing how to do? Yell, scream, react to everything. When things don't go my way, I use fear and intimidation. That was an old pattern of mine that I continued to replicate from my dad in my family. And if I had not changed that, my son would have continued that down through the generations. And that's what's so cool about, look, this whole philosophy of this is there's only one person in life you can control, and that's yourself. And the quickest way to change your child's behavior, even your spouse's behavior, is to first control your own. And if you really dig deep and own your stuff, you'll realize that you play a part in just about every single thing in your life. And that that is not a blame thing.

It's not a negative. It's actually really good news. Because if changing my life and my relationships and my child's behavior is dependent on changing another person's behavior, then I'm done. You're lost because you're never going to do it. When you try to change other people's behavior, it usually frustrates them and it frustrates you. But when I set about relentlessly changing myself, that is 100% within my control. And so when I finally got this epiphany many, many years ago after trying to change my son, it radically changed our relationship and our family because I began putting my energy

not into changing who my son was. Quick aside, just got an email over the holidays. By the way, hope you enjoyed Hanukkah and Christmas and the holiday season. I know some of you are ready for your kids to go back to school and you're like, I can't wait to go back to work. There's order and structure there and there are rules and it's kind of peaceful at work, not at my house. But anyway, I got this email of like, well, our son is really talkative. He talks all the time. He's getting trouble at school. What can we do? And the whole tone of the email was, we need to change my son. And my response was, that's who your son is. He's a talker. It doesn't mean you can't change that. It doesn't mean you can't give him tools because that's what we do with kids who talk all the time.

We give them tools to learn how to use that gift and that quality in positive and appropriate ways. But if your whole view is like, we have to get him to not be a talker, that's not happening. Instead, I want to use that and know like, okay, he's going to be irritating. He's probably going to get in trouble at school a lot. He's going to speak up during church at times when you don't want him to, but there are a lot of good qualities there that we can use. And so if you start to change how you look at your kids, because I guarantee you, most of you look at your kids like they're strong will and they're difficult and they're challenging. And I know they are because they only want to do things on their own terms. And when they wake up in the morning, these kids have an agenda. They know what they like. They know what they don't

like. And they're never going to do it your way. They're going to do it the difficult way, and they're going to do things the hard way, even if it means it makes it more difficult on them. And rather than listen to you the first time, they're going to push the limits, and they're going to take the consequences, and they don't care about them. I get it. They're really difficult. But if all you ever do is kind of complain about that, nothing will ever change. And so you've got to break these patterns because these patterns stay with us. Like,

you know, but look, I wanted to kind of share this insight. Some of these things that we experience as kids, these things that we experience in life, they hurt us, but they also benefit us. So here's some perspective. So when I'm a little kid, right, I've got two older brothers. My oldest brother, very strong-willed, very smart artist kind of guy, career military father, not a good mix. So then my oldest brother, my next oldest brother was born less than a year after him. And then I came like three years later and then I have a younger brother. And so here's one of the patterns I developed as well. I learned to hide. So I learned to, when things get tough or there's an issue, I wouldn't directly address it. And I would kind of hide, hoping it would go away. Well,

guess when that doesn't work well? In a marriage. Why? Because you have issues that come up with your children and in your marriage. And then I would just put it off like, oh, it's no big deal. That's why, by the way, that's why I often dismissed my wife. It wasn't just because I was a jerk and a typical dismissive husband of like, oh, honey, there's no need to be upset. You're just overreacting. You know what? There's no, you know, Casey doesn't have any problems.

You know, he's just a little boy. He's going to be fine. That's what I used to say about Casey when he was a little kid. My wife would bring up like, look, he's having some serious issues in school. You know, he's going to be fine. He's going to be just fine. And so I want you to have compassion for each other. This is not an excuse because I just said you've got to take responsibility for yourself and control and change yourself.

But look where that was coming from. As a little kid, I didn't know how to handle this stuff, so I hid behind everything. So I become an adult. Guess what? I hide. That hurts my marriage, hurts my relationship with my son, until I finally learned how to deal without myself. Now, there's a good side to these things, and I always want to find the good side in

things. You know what else I learned how to do as a little kid? I learned how to observe and read people. Because while I was hiding, what I was doing was observing. Because what I was really doing was preserving myself emotionally, right? It was just emotionally, it was an emotional survival tactic with a authoritarian father who couldn't control himself and who lashed out when things went wrong. So I learned to hide behind my two older brothers who unfortunately took the brunt of his emotional abuse, emotional beatings, whatever you want to call it. They took that. But what I learned to do was quietly kind of observe from the sidelines and I started to observe things

and that's why I think that I'm really good at what I do now with people is especially like when we do live workshops and people come up to talk to me during a break or afterwards and ask me I see things in body posture I see things and I hear things in tone of voice very powerfully that gives me insight. Why? Because that's what I did my entire childhood to basically survive. Because I wanted to know when my dad got home from work, how was he walking through the door? How did he close the door of the Chevy Impala that he drove? What were his first words when he walked through the home? What was the tone of voice that would tell me, uh-oh, he's going to be yelling at my mother and

there's going to be a fight, or to know whether I could go and approach him and ask him if he wanted to go outside and play catch with me. See, I had to figure that stuff out very quickly within seconds of how he came through the door of our home so that I knew how the night was going to go. So I could determine, do I get on my bike and ride over to my friend's house and spend time there? Do I go to my room? Do I, uh, back then we didn't have earbuds and headphones, so I couldn't drown out the sound of my mom, uh, screaming when my dad started yelling at her, right? And so you have to become very good at figuring out and reading people. So that was the side benefit of a really

nasty thing that happened. So what I want to do as a grown adult now, and that's what we want to be, because I know everybody, like the New Year's resolution stuff are fine, but I want to break generational patterns because that lasts literally for generations. The greatest gift I have ever given to my son is breaking this pattern from my dad so that when I began, when I started changing, guess what was happening when my son was little? When I'd come home from work,

guess what he had to do? The same thing that I did as a little kid. What dad is walking through my home tonight? The one who's going to go to the basement and play hockey with me in the basement and be fun? Or the dad is going to yell at me because I didn't pick up my stuff and because I didn't do well in school or I got in trouble. Which dad's coming home through the door? And when he was eight, nine years old, guess why he was so emotional? Because I was, right? And so when I broke that pattern, then my whole family could relax because when I came home from work, my wife didn't have to tiptoe around and walk on eggshells wondering like, what's the night going to be like? And my son didn't have to be like, and I'm getting a lot of breakthroughs with men with this. And that's why I'm so tough on men.

Because I don't really have a lot of, I have a lot of sympathy for us because we don't know how to do this stuff, right? And so that's why I mentioned before, of sympathy for us because we don't know how to do this stuff, right? And so that's why I mentioned before, and sorry for bouncing around a little bit, but I want to hit this stuff. That husband who's dismissing your concerns probably isn't just an a-hole. Doesn't he act like one? Of course. And I know you're going to want to divorce him because it's hard to take that dismissiveness. But when you realize why he does that and the fact

that it was probably a survival skill with his own father, it gives you a little bit of mercy and compassion to approach him and to begin working on that. Guys, same thing with your wives. They have patterns that they developed, right? Some of your wives frustrate you and they probably frustrate you because they're just carrying on the same pattern they had as a kid or something they saw with their mother right moms a lot of you had that martyr mother who did everything for everybody else and nothing for herself and it sounds very virtuous but it ends up becoming a really nasty pattern you get bitter and resentful after all I do for you and you can't even do. Oh, well, you need to look at yourself with that.

Realize your kids didn't ask you to do everything for them. You chose that and you're doing it maybe as a subtle form of manipulation because if you do all those things for them, then they owe you to be good and to listen to you. That's a nasty little trap. And some of you have a mother, 70, 60, 80-year-old mother, who still uses the same thing on you. And it's a chance for you to break that pattern so your kids don't,

look, if you don't want to do it for yourself, fine. But do it for your kids because it's not fair to recognize this pattern and then continue it and burden them with it so that your child then has to be 38 years old wondering, why did I just F up my whole marriage? Sorry for the language, but I didn't say the words, so just roll with it. Why did I end up F-ing up all my relationships? I didn't even realize I had these patterns. And guess what you get to do? You get to break the pattern and teach your kids and say,

you don't have to struggle with this when you're 25 and 30. You don't have to have a string of relationships that are broken. And look, most of us, our relationships are broken, not because of other people, but because of something inside of us. I used to say this all the time at the live workshops. And I encourage you, by the way, book a live workshop because we get to do a lot of really cool things at the live workshops. Stuff comes out when you get a group. Look, picture a group of people. I don't care if it's 50 people, 100 people, 200 people together, and you have all of these lives living right in front of you, and all these dynamics of people with different childhoods and different experiences.

And they're all there in the same room. And what happens is I pick up on those things. And in the course of a workshop, it's not just about giving you strategies. You can look at some of our live workshops on our website and see they're really cool. I'll give you tips of how to get your kids up in the morning without a fight, how to get their homework done. All that stuff I can do very easily. That's why they're all over our programs and it'll change your family. It's all awesome stuff. But when we're live together and I'm absorbing all of that stuff, stuff comes out and we have so many breakthroughs from people who are like, oh, I never noticed that before.

You're speaking deep inside of me. That pattern is within me. And so I hate to say it's not like I do a lecture, right? I don't walk up with a script of saying like, here are the 10 things that you need to change. It's not boring. It's live. Every single event we do is very, very different based on who's there and what's happening in my life. I'm continually growing. Look, you're going to hear in this podcast and the last couple that I

did, I've talked about my father a little bit more. And I just realized that I didn't usually talk to him in this way. Something new, something different's happening within me, and I'm growing. And I think that's why this whole celebrate calm thing has continued to grow, because I keep growing and changing. And as I change and I recognize things about myself, I can share that with you, and we can break those patterns and keep going to deeper and deeper levels. And it's really freaking cool. And that's why it never gets boring.

I've done 1,500 live events. They never get boring. I never feel like I'm saying the same thing over and over again because it changes things. So if you want to book a live event, take an action step. Stop hoping someone else, well, we always get this, well, when are you guys coming to my town? I don't know, when you freaking do something and bring us to your town. I don't just, like, look, I don't just, like, wake up in the morning and say, hey, let's pick a spot on the map.

I think we'll go to Kansas next week or next month or in March. Look, anyway, we just don't decide that. It happens because someone hears a podcast or reads something online or does something and says, we need to have Kirk and Casey come to our school, to our church, to our synagogue, to our foster care conference, adoption care, and deliver this material and interact with us, and they contact us. And then we make it happen happen and we're really easy we don't require like m&ms and all kinds of stuff like rock stars we basically go there to serve so we'll bring you m&ms if you want we'll set up the chairs at the event it gives me something to do before the workshop to handle but control my anxiety so look just email casey c-A-S-E-Y, at CelebrateCalm.com or call 888-506-1871.

And tell us your city. Tell us where you are. And let's book this stuff and bring us out there. And we get to meet and we get to interact and draw these things out. But we're changing generational patterns. And by the way, the cool thing is some of these things will literally change your child overnight and change your home overnight. And some of them will change things generationally. It's really cool.

So where was I going with that? So here's one that I gave. I've heard from a dad because I gave this challenge to some dads. But I guarantee this will begin to change your family. If you go in and talk to your family and say, kids, I need to own up to the fact that I lose my temper too easily and too quickly. I get upset and I lash out at you guys. And I can't expect you to control yourself if I can't control myself. I overreact and I know that it makes everyone uncomfortable. I apologize for that and I'm going to change. That's cool. That will change your family, but it will cost you everything, meaning your pride. Because it's really hard because many

of us guys, we have hero complex. Well, I don't want to let my family know that I struggle. They already know. It's pretty clear, right? That you have an anger issue, you overreact to things, right? And so when you do that though, you will set in course, see there's accountability there. When I, and moms, it can be you, whatever it is for you that you want to apologize. Look, for some of you, I apologize for doing too much for you. I think I've sent the message that you're not capable of being responsible for yourself. I think I've sent the message you're not capable of being successful on your own without me constantly lecturing you and micromanaging you. So I apologize for that because I believe you are capable.

And I'm going to start controlling myself. So you know what happens when you say that to your kids? Now they get to hold you accountable. And now they get to say, mom, you're doing that thing again. Hey, dad, dad, you're doing that thing again. It's really uncomfortable. Because you know what that does to your family? When you're ranting and raving and all upset about everything, now they're on eggshells and they don't know what to do. And when they're stuck in the car with you, because that's what I used to do, because that's what my dad did, they're held hostage to you because they don't know what you're going to do.

And now they're just holding their breath, waiting for you to get control of yourself. But when you own up to your stuff, that's cool, right? So determine what are the old patterns you want to break? What are you tired of complaining about? Because look, are you tired yet of complaining? Well, my child isn't motivated. He's just lazy. I guarantee you your kids aren't lazy. They're not motivated, but that's a different thing. And I guarantee you, here's a quick tool. Do the opposite of what you'd normally do. What do you normally do? Well, you know, you need to start doing this. When I was a kid, you needed, you know, and I don't know why you can't do that. If you don't get this done, I'm going to take this

away from you. Well, it hasn't worked for the first eight or 10 or 12 or 14 years of your life. Guess what happened? Guess what? It's not going to work in 2020. But I guarantee you, if you humble yourself and you go with kind of that kind of really low key tone that we teach, say, you know what? I wish I was more like you. I wish I had the courage sometimes to stand up for myself, to do things differently. I wish I did have the courage to push the limits a little bit. I'm too cautious in life, but you just go for it. And I want to learn a little bit from you. You know what? You do weird things. Don't tell your kids they do weird things, but you know what I mean. But some of your kids do weird things. They always want to lay off the sofa upside down. Well, instead of complaining about it all the time, go lay off the sofa upside down. Say, you know what? I'd really like to understand what the world looks like from your viewpoint.

Because I've spent the first 6, 8, 12, 14, 4, 2 years of your life, whatever it is, trying to change you and make you be more like me. You know why? Because I've got control issues and I've got a lot of anxiety and it makes me uncomfortable when you're like this. But I'm going to push myself out of my comfort zone. I'm going to lay upside down with you and say, what do you see when you're like this? It's part of the reason I want you to do, if you don't have it, get the No BS program. It's on sale. We're keeping it on sale through the new year. It's at the website, CelebrateCalm.com. Look at the web. There's two tabs. There's one that calls No BS. And I did that because people asked for an instruction manual. Just give it to us straight.

What do we need to do with a strong-willed child? So I give it to you straight, 25 action steps. Best thing you possibly invested, 25 action steps, and one of them is entering into your child's world and learning about your child, how he sees things, because I guarantee you, your kids feel very misunderstood. And if you were to start the new year and leave this podcast and put it on hold right now, go to your child and say, does it ever feel like we misunderstand your motives? I guarantee you that will reach down into that child's heart and it will begin to change them because you're taking ownership and you begin to apologize for calling them lazy and saying if you would just apply yourself, which

is a horribly damaging phrase. And I guarantee you, we go through this 25 action steps. So you go through apologizing and understanding what's really going on inside of them. You will change their behavior, but it starts with you. Are you tired of complaining about the fact that your spouse is the way they are? Right? Like you don't connect emotionally with me. Well, guess what? You probably married an emotionally stunted person. Why? Because most of us are. Because the way, whatever, it's because life happens and we try

to survive. But I guarantee you, if you went alongside that spouse and say, you know what? It means a lot to me that you're trying. I know you're not there. By the way, stop watching all of those movies and reading all those books with the perfect man or woman who's like, you know what I'm saying, right? They're like, big, strong guy who makes a lot of money. He's capable of making things with his hands, but he's also emotionally vulnerable. Those people don't exist, okay? It's why those books are called fiction. And I'm kind of being funny, but kind of not. They're often very damaging to relationships, because if you ever watch those romantic comedies, you know why those guys are so awesome? Because

they're reading a freaking script. If you gave me a script to read, I could be that guy too. But I don't know what to say and do in the moment because I never learned this stuff. And that's why we try to teach you this stuff. I try to teach guys like, hey, when your wife says this to you, here's how you respond. Here's exactly what you say. Here's what she's looking for. Because nobody taught us how to be emotionally vulnerable.

I don't even know what that meant until most of the way through my marriage. And so we try to teach this in real life steps. And so anyway, have a little compassion for each other. Have a compassion for yourself. Have a compassion for your child and realize you're just figuring this stuff out. Do you lecture too much? Well, that's your issue. That's your own anxiety.

And once you can realize that and say, hey, son, daughter, do I lecture too much? You're going to be like, uh-huh. Say, yeah, I know. It's my own anxiety. Say, I have anxiety about your future because I love you so much and I want you to do so well and I get so anxious and so I think lecturing is going to work, but I think what's happened is I've actually pushed you away from me and that's not what I want. So can you and I have a code word that every time I start lecturing, you use this code word so that I develop the self-awareness to know that I'm actually pushing you away because that's not what I want, right? Some of you, the thing is you

need to be a firm parent, right? Who doesn't get pushed around. I just got this really cool email from a dad right before I recorded this. And he was like, well, we've got limits on our son with his phone, but his friends don't have any limits. And so we tell our son to get off the phone. He calls us. The dad was funny. He said, just say he has a very good vocabulary. So I was like, good for you for being a parent with some self-respect who doesn't need his child to like him and who has the courage to

put limits on to know what's best for your child, right? Even if it's hard for you. And so we went through some different ways to put limits on the child without always creating a power struggle. But some of you need to develop that sense of self-respect because your kids don't respect you because you don't respect yourself. So I want you to begin this new year with, let's begin, let's find one thing you want to change about your child and figure out, or your spouse, and figure out what is it about yourself that you can change that will impact that. Begin doing the opposite of what you normally do. And I encourage you, go to the website, celebratecalm.com, and you'll see a tab for New

Years. And what we're going to do is start the New Year off with a special sale on everything we've ever created. And this includes everything, everything, all the CD programs, marriage program, it includes the No BS program. If you already have the program, it includes the No BS program. If you already have the CDs, just get the No BS program. But if you don't have it, get the whole package of everything we've ever created. And in there, you're going to also have the 30 Days to Calm program. And I encourage you to start with that because we go through your triggers. What are your triggers? When you come home from work, when you interact with your child or your spouse, what triggers you?

And then we begin developing a different response to the trigger. And what happens if you have a personality like me, it's just developing new neural connections and new habits. And so that's why I started coming home from work and sitting down. Why? Because when I sit down, it's harder to yell at my son. It changed things. When I began sitting down, I began asking

questions instead of demanding things. And I did the opposite of what I'd normally do. And what I'll walk through with you is when you go through these programs, you can email me and say, hey, I'm going through this program. Here's my trigger. What could I do differently? I'll help you with that. You invest in our stuff. You invest in changing yourself. And I'll keep investing in you. But don't, sorry, I know this is going to sound jerky. But don't just say like, well, we've never bought your stuff. We've never invested.

But could you help me with my deep issues? I'm a compassionate person. I love to help people. And I'll help you. But look, if you're not willing to invest your time. And look, money is investing time because and i will always i don't care if i have five million dollars i'm not giving stuff away because there's something that happens when you invest in it because you know what money is it's an

investment of emotional invest it's an investment of your emotions and investment of time. Because in order to get money, you have to take your time and put your energy into working. And then you get that money, and then you invest it and you give it. And I will invest in you. I've invested in all of this with countless – it doesn't matter. But there's something cool that goes on there that I always honor in people. Because whenever I get that email, they're like, hey, I'm going through this program, I'm investing in stuff. I'm like, okay, I'm going to honor that.

Because you invested, and I'm going to invest back with you. We're going to keep investing together until you change. And I'm committed to that. I tell people, I hope to be around doing this for another 10, 20, 30 years, because I'm going to keep changing myself and I will work with you. And anytime a dad emails, especially and says, listen, I've got this problem with my anger, or I look at stuff on the internet I shouldn't look at, or I've got this problem. I'll work with you because if you're willing to change, I'll help you change. Anyway,

let's start the new year off. Find one thing to change. Let's change it. Let's begin breaking that pattern because this is generational. It's really, really cool. If we can help you in any way, email Casey for help. If you need help financially, ask for it. That's called being assertive. I need help financially.

By the way, let me tell you something quickly. This is really cool. I wasn't planning to do this, and maybe it'll come up another time. But I had this mom email and this was really cool. I may actually share this another time. I'm deciding now whether I share this because there may be a better time to share it. I think I'll share it another time. It's a really cool thing.

I'd rather devote some energy to it because it's really kind of cool. Anyway, if we can help you, email Casey. Casey at Celebrate Calm. Call us 888-506-1871. We're at CelebrateCalm.com. We have a free newsletter, these podcasts. We have a Facebook page, Celebrate Calm. Let's make 2020 the year that you change yourself. How cool would that be to break the patterns you had from childhood, to break these patterns and become a new human being? What a gift to your kids and to them generationally. Anyway, thank you for investing your time in listening to this. Thank you for doing the hard emotional work to change. If we can help you, let us know. Thanks so much. Welcome to 2020. Bye-bye.