Hello. Hello. Welcome back to become a calm mama.

I'm your host. I'm A Childress and I am a life and parenting

coach. And today's topic

is the 3 unavoidable aspects of parenting.

Really, this could be titled the unavoidable

aspects of life Become the things that I'm gonna talk

about are universally true

if you're a human being. And I got this

concept from watching the

Netflix documentary called Stutz, s t u t

z, about Philip Stutz who is a therapist, and it was

a a documentary that Jonah Hill did about his

therapist and the tools that Stutz teaches.

So while I'm watching this, he says

this sentence that there are

unavoidable things that are true for all of us,

and that is these three things. We all are going

to experience pain, uncertainty, and constant

work. And that these are the aspects of a. And

I was thinking about it when I was listening or watching this documentary, and I

was like, that's actually true of parenting.

That no matter how good of a parent you are or how

perfect you are, which is impossible, or who your kids are

or how they're wired or anything like that, that

no matter what you do or don't do or who your kids are or

aren't, there the reality is that

pain, uncertainty, and constant work are unavoidable.

And I wanted to bring this up on the podcast because I actually

found this to be somewhat relieving. And

I have found that to be true in my life that when I

stop fighting things that are inevitable, I have more

peace. I have more calm. And this podcast has become a calm mama,

and it really is about finding an internal

state of being calm where we are okay

with our reality. And when you're truly deeply

calm, that means that you can show up

as the person you wanna be as a mom. And part of that

journey is becoming okay with pain.

A I'm gonna break these down. Being okay with pain, being okay with

uncertainty, and being okay with the constant work of

life. Before I break them down,

I was thinking I was talking to my coach about this and how

I wanted to do this episode. And she said,

yeah. As a parent, when you don't have kids yet,

you create an idyllic version of what it's gonna be like when you're a mom.

And I as she said that I was thinking about my friend Sue and I

a how we, before we had kids, we thought a

that we were going to this is funny, but that we

could a ourselves walking along the beach

like a beach boardwalk. We live near the ocean. So watch

walking along the beach boardwalk with our hair

kind of all nicely done, strollers, nice

manicures, you know, fit little bodies about where

that came from. And we were just gonna walk along with our kids pushing them

in the stroller and just talking and being, like, so happy with ourselves.

And I always laugh when I think about that image Become the

truth is it was hardly ever, like, put together

or, you know, looked felt felt that way. And that

is a big truth about parenting. But if

you don't recognize that pain, a, and

constant work are going to be part of your experience as a

mom, then when you are experiencing

pain, when you are experiencing the relentlessness of

parenting, the constant work of it, or that, like, feeling of like, oh

my god, is everything okay? What's gonna happen? You know, that uncertainty.

When you are experiencing those things, you start to think something's wrong with

you. And that's the last thing I ever want you to think is

that something's wrong with you Become there's not. The truth is

that this is how it is to be a human being a

the sooner or more fully we accept

these three aspects of reality aspects

of parenting, the more peace we'll have. So let

me break them down just really quickly. I mean, obviously, we know what pain is

uncertainty and constant work mean, but I wanted to talk about it

for a second because it's like, well, what are we talking about when we talk

about pain? And I really think it's mostly

the emotional pain or the psychological

discomfort when things happen or

when you create things in your head. Right? When you have uncertainty or

you're overwhelmed by constant work, you can experience emotional pain.

So what does that mean? It looks it can look like a, it can look

like grief, it can look like anger, It can look like anxiety

or it can be a combination. Most of the time these feelings

come from, like, actual situations of loss or rejection or trauma or rejection or

trauma or disappointment. But in parenting, they

actually can happen just because of the nature of

caregiving to a young person. Because it's

such a, like, constant work Become there's so much work

to it. And we have a lot of uncertainty around it. And so

we can end up having a lot of, we

bring on emotional pain because of our own, you know, feelings

of self worth or uncertainty or

frustration. And so really we're thinking of,

you know, in terms of pain, emotional pain is this

idea. So it is inevitable. We are going

to experience pain as humans and especially as parents.

Then, of course, uncertainty, that seems obvious. Right? It's

like it's the state or the condition in

which something is not known. Right? Where you don't

know what's going to happen. Now, this

is always true. We never know what

exactly is going to happen. We have an a. We

can, you know, predict based on evidence or based on

experience. We can make some guesses and we can make some plans.

But in reality, we don't really know. And I can see this with a lot

of the parents that I work with. They're like, is my kid gonna be okay?

And I think what a lot of times you're asking is is my kid

going to avoid pain? And the answer is no.

Your kid is going to also experience pain. That

is certain. And so when you recognize

that it is an inevitable part of your child's growth

is that they're going to experience psychological

discomfort or psychological suffering due

to distressing events. Yeah. That's gonna happen.

We want to, of course, make the the

painful experiences. We don't wanna bring those on on

purpose. We don't wanna intentionally create anything like that. Of

course not. But the truth is it's inevitable.

So that is certain. It's certain that pain will

exist. What you were often asking to me asking

me is, is my kid gonna be able to handle the

discomforts and pain of life, the constant work

of life? And to that, I say, yes, I believe so.

Let's equip them now. So the hope

is in today. The hope is in now. The

hope is in teaching your kids how to handle these

three inevitable things while they're young

so that they grow up and they feel really capable. Right? Then,

of course, we have constant work. So we have pain, uncertainty, constant work.

Constant work is honestly I I was telling Tiffany, you guys know my

best friend, this concept. And I think she kinda gave me

a funny face when I said constant work, like, kinda like, I

don't think she liked it because she really loves, you know, free time

and, you know, having, like, a lot of,

flexibility in her life, and I love that about her. And I

was I kinda challenged the concept a little bit. And I was like, no. No.

No. Just to live, just to be a human being, we have

to take care of our body. So no matter if you have, like, a

job or not or what you have to, like, eat and clean yourself

and, you know, clean your clothes and, you know, go to the a, stuff like

that. So we always have to take care of our body and

take care of our people. Right? That's part of being in

relationships with others, especially with Childress, constant work

is inevitable. And then a course, taking care of yourself

emotionally, spiritually, physically, relationally,

that requires effort. I've been

using this phrase lately, a relentlessness

of parenting and especially when you have younger

kids, the physical relentlessness of it.

I I think about, like, hand, heart, head.

So when you're real little when your kids are real little, like,

0 to 6, 0 to 7, you are using

your body all the time. Like, you're in, you know,

picking them up and carrying them and cleaning up after them and making

meals. It is a very physical time period of parenting

and raising kids. And then it kinda transitions where you're in

your head because you're, like, 6 to 12. Like, you're problem

solving. You're, like, working out calendars and who's going to camp when

and pickups a who has a project. And, like, there's just so

much minutia that you're managing and you're in your head a lot. And you're

managing a lot of, like, details and coordinating

and things like that. And then it parenting switches to your

heart from, like, 12 to a 12 to 18, 12 to

20, where you like, most of the things are managed. A

lot of stuff is handled at school. You're not managing so many small

details, like, because they're in, you know, sports and things like that

through the school. And then you aren't really

doing that much physical stuff besides driving and, like, making some meals, but

you're not picking them up and carrying them and putting in the bathtub and putting

them a, wiping Become, and all those things. Right? But what happens is

your heart gets really,

stuck where you're worried. You know, you feel you feel

for them, and you wonder. And that's where the uncertainty

really kicks in is when your kids are,

you know, 12 to to really puberty on adolescence.

So So there's like a relentlessness to a, especially in those younger years,

constant work. So

if we can't get rid of these three things, if we can't get

rid of pain, if we can't get rid of uncertainty, and we can't get rid

of constant work, where what's the hope?

Right? And the hope is

in changing our relationship to those things.

Instead of resisting and fighting and avoiding

pain, uncertainty, and constant work, allowing, accepting,

embracing it, and changing the way we think and feel about it when it

happens. That's our work. Now I wanna

say that one of the

traps that I personally realized while I was,

you know, listening to this watching this documentary and hearing this

concept is that I think at some point

in my life, I bought into a lie that I

could avoid uncertainty with

constant work. My

brain tricked me in believing that

if I am hyper a,

hyperplanning, overworking, controlling, not letting others

do things, And if I had all of it managed and

it was, like, you know, really, really productive and really

high standards and almost like, you know, I've talked about this on the podcast,

like, perfectionistic or, but I don't see myself as a perfectionist,

but, like, just kinda, like, very, very put together. Okay?

If I had it all kind of managed

that then I would not I would the future would be

settled. I would not I'd, like, have everything planned.

So I thought through constant work, I could avoid uncertainty.

And then the truth is uncertainty still a. Things happen that were not in

my plan, and I would get very overwhelmed

by that, like a sick kid. That would

throw me for a loop. Oh my god. My kids are sick a again. I

remember saying to the kids when they were littler, I'd be like, you can't be

sick today. It doesn't fit in my schedule. You can be sick tomorrow.

Who says that? That's crazy. Right? But I

I really did not allow for uncertainty because I really

wanted to, oh, like, hyper plan. A,

also, I thought that if I was constantly working, I could

also avoid pain. Like, if there was

some kind of experience of pain, I just go, oh, let's fix it. Like, let's,

you know, solve solve for the a. And I wouldn't allow for the pain. And

I was really overworking myself

and overdoing it and over performing

in parenting and in life because I was so

afraid of the future, and I was so afraid of

pain in the future. Maybe you can relate to this. I have

a feeling you can Become this happens a

lot to moms. So they they're thinking,

I just gotta get my shit together, and I just gotta, like, make, you know,

make the plans and do all of these things. And then and then everything will

be fine. Right? And then when things aren't fine,

if you think I can prevent

pain, I can prevent uncertainty, I

through constant work, then when pain and uncertainty

happen, you will then blame yourself

and think what am I doing wrong?

And that's such a trap.

It's not your fault that shit happens in the

world that that bad things happen to your kids. It's not

your fault you can't prevent it nor would you want to.

And I'll tell you why in a second. But what I've noticed is that

sometimes, you you're you're as

a parent, you're like, where can I go to

find some kind of guru or somebody who's gonna help me

make it make my life easier, right, which I do help you

do, but not by getting rid of pain, not right getting rid of

uncertainty, not by getting rid of constant work, but by changing

your relationship to those things?

So let's talk first about pain.

So learning how to well, first, see the inevitability

of it. Becoming okay.

Like, I I was thinking, like, we need to become less afraid

of hard things happening, less afraid

of, you know, of pain and and

discomfort for our kids. We wanna see it

as inevitable and allow for it and become

okay when it happens and not try to work so hard to avoid

it. Because when you're working so hard to avoid

pain, what are you missing is the pain free moments

of life. Yes. Pain is inevitable but it's

not constant. So if you're working

so hard to prevent it, you might be missing the moments when the

joy is there, when the a is there. Those small a

delightful moments when you're sitting around the table and all of your kids are there,

or maybe you just have one or whatever, and you're just laughing

about something funny. Those are pain free a,

and we have to be present to to see them. But

if we're in the future trying to micro macromanage

and and, you know, predict the future and plan for it and solve for it,

we end up not, not

enjoying those pain free moments. So we wanna make

friends with pain. We wanna allow pain to come in not as

a permanent part of our life, not as a a permanent, like,

resident, but as a guest, one that comes and visits.

One of the questions I always ask is what does one do with sadness?

And he a read this beautiful explanation of like, I invite sadness to come

in and have a cup of tea with me And we sit and we sit

in it and we allow for it. And then when the cup of tea is

over, I say, goodbye, sadness. We'll see you again next

time and allowing for it to come in and

come out. And when you become okay with pain,

your children will become okay with it too. They will

learn how to deal with it. They will learn how to process the pain.

That is the essence of resilience is

handling pain, not rejecting it, not avoiding it, not

denying it, but allowing for it,

moving through it, and

doing knowing that it's temporary, knowing that it's okay, that you can

that you're resilient, that you can handle this discomfort, this pain. It's not

forever. That's having hope and a positive

a. And that really is the key to emotional

health. And when your kids have something

hard or you have something hard and you wanna push it away, you wanna reject

it. You are actually creating more

because you're you're creating more work for yourself a

you're creating more distance from what is reality and you're

missing the present moment. There's that

old quote, right, that pain is a. Suffering is

optional. So pain is like a short

term experience. It's an in the moment thing.

Suffering is when we dwell on pain, when we keep bringing it

up and rehashing it and rethinking it or trying to

avoid it in the future. You are creating unnecessary

suffering. A pain is inevitable.

Suffering is optional. I think this quote's been attributed to,

like, Dalai Lama, Haruki Murakami, like, different people.

It's like a Buddhist saying. But the idea is, yes, pain is

gonna come, but you don't have to, like, get stuck in it.

Okay. Let's talk about uncertainty for a few minutes

Become, like, I talked about what

isn't what is uncertainty. Right? It's like a state or a condition

in which something is not known.

Right? That you don't know what's going to happen. Now, of

course, that is true. We know that on a

psychological like, on a, like, a, like, a, you know, practical

level. You know, you don't know the future. Right? You don't think you're, like, a

psychic or whatever. Maybe you do. I don't know. If you do, tell me because

I wanna know. But okay. The what happens

with uncertainty is, like, sometimes there's, a little bit

more of a, like, a psychological fear that

something's gonna happen and that you're not gonna be able to handle it.

Right? And you're you spend a lot of time in the future

planning and processing and predicting and having make

believe conversations and make running scenario, a scenario,

running scenario. When you're in that state of trying to

solve the future, you're actually in an anxiety

spiral because your mind is

trying to solve for something that it can't solve. And so

you're gonna keep, you know, going in a in a cycle trying

to solve a problem that's not solvable. The problem is actually in

your mind. I love this quote from

Eckhart Tolle from the power of now, which if you've never read it,

it a lot of the the strategies to handle uncertainty

and handle pain are discussed in his book.

So I'll just read this quote because I really think it's helpful. He says,

this kind of psychological fear is always of something that

might happen, not of something that is happening

now. You are in the here and

now while your mind is in the future, this creates an

anxiety gap. And if you are identified with your mind

and have lost touch with the power and simplicity of the

now, that anxiety gap will be your constant

companion. I love this. He says, you can

always cope with the present moment, but you cannot

cope with something that is only a mind projection.

You cannot cope with the future.

This is so important because what we're doing is not making

friends with uncertainty. We're trying to

solve trying to become certain in order to

soothe our own anxiety, to soothe our fear, to soothe

our nervous system. And the

truth is that when the future shows

up, you can handle it. That's called

now. That's called the present. You are

always equipped. You can always handle anything. I promise.

I have had so many very, very, very hard things

happen in my adult life, in my childhood, and I have

survived every single one of them. I am okay.

You right now are okay. Wherever you are this

moment, can you be here? Can you be now? Can you

see what is okay about this particular moment in

time? If you're out for a walk, pause my

voice and just look around at the colors, the

sky, the colors of the plants nearby you, the contrast

between the concrete and the green, you know, grass,

small things. Look for a bird. Look for some

beautiful color, pop of color. If you're in your car,

just notice. Feel your hands on the steering wheel. Feel your bottom

on the chair. If your kids are around you and you're making

dinner, just smell the smells of the spices you're about to

use. Just try to find a place to

become okay with right now. That is the

key to dealing with uncertainty.

It's being present now.

And this is what how how it actually works is you

go you go present in the now, and then you go, boop, to the a.

And then you have to remind yourself to come back. And then you go boop

to the past and you remind yourself to come back. That's the whole

thing what meditation is. Meditation is just training your

brain to come back. Come back. Come back. Come back. It's like you with your

little kids. Come back. Come over here. Come back. Right? That's what you're

doing with your brain. So coming

to this mama, being okay now, and then another

mindset trick for dealing with uncertainty is

being able to say, I can handle whatever

happens. Anything that comes,

I can handle it. Not because you are, like,

you know, super productive and you plan for everything and all of that.

It's like when a moment comes, I can take care a. I can handle it.

That's just trust. It's just trust, and you need to be able to have that

in yourself and your kids. If you believe that your kids can

handle pain, they can handle disappointment. They can handle not being

invited to a friend's birthday party. They can handle a skid, you know,

like a hurt knee. They can handle a bad grade. They can handle being cut

from a team. They can handle, you know, not getting

all the favorite things they wanted for their birthday present, having rain, have something

a, whatever. If you trust that your kids can

handle that that that frustration and you're like,

okay. I know you can feel these feelings. It's okay. Yep.

You're entitled to your a. You're entitled to your

frustration a knowing that feelings are temporary and they

pass, and then the brain will problem solve and go, oh, well, okay. At

least we can go tomorrow or whatever. It starts to solve and starts

to soothe itself. You can trust

that you can do that and your kids can do it. So

uncertainty is all about anchoring back into the present

moment instead of going into the future and trusting that whatever

present moment you're in, you can handle it. Isn't that beautiful? I think that's

so beautiful. Alright. Constant work.

Like I said, taking care of your body, taking care of your

people, taking care of yourself, these are the requirements of

living, and there will always inevitably be constant

work, especially when you have young

children. Children in general, but I do promise you

it doesn't it's not as much work. Like, I have

a kid who's about to graduate from high school, and I have another one that's

already in college. And I don't have that much work to do for them

anymore. Like, it's it's amazing. Okay? It's, like, super

intense for a really, really long time. And then

your list isn't just their stuff. Like, my list right now

is a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with my children. Like, one

of it is, like, I wanna look into buying a new A plant

for my front yard. Like, fun stuff like that. So

it's not always going to be kid kid kid kid work work

work work, but you're always gonna have work to do because you're a

human being. But the relentlessness of parenting

does lessen. That is certain. I'm

gonna tell you that. Right? It gets better. It gets easier

physically. Emotionally, it's just hard because you're always gonna

have uncertainty and your kids are always gonna have pain, and that's going to be

true. So a the work of life is sometimes

it's, you know, actual physical work a then other times, it's

act it's emotional work. It's learning to

manage your own anxiety, learning to manage your own feelings, learning

to allow and process hard things,

taking really good care of yourself, taking care of your body, moving

your body, eating foods that feel nutritious for you,

reaching out to your friends, building relationships, reading books,

or or having a hobby, or spending time in the

sunshine. Whatever it is, you you are

entitled to take calm of yourself, and

that is part of constant work. It's taking care

of your body, taking care of your people, taking care of yourself.

So those are the basics. So

how do we make constant work

less work? Right? Isn't that the question? We

wanna make our work more manageable. So, of course,

I teach a lot about creating routines and,

you know, being able to teach your kids what's

expected and how to listen and, like, how to follow your directions because

it does make it a lot easier if your kids

are good are, like, they know what to expect. So

a small example is when my kids were young, I trained

them. Sounds weird, but I did. I taught them that when they came

home from school, they put their shoes in the shoe bin

and their socks, like, in the laundry downstairs in

the in the laundry room. So they put their socks and shoes away. They bring

their backpacks to the counter, take their lunch or take their backpack backpacks

to the little backpack spot, take their lunches out. They would take

their all their plastic containers and put those in the sink. They

didn't have to put them in the dishwasher. They put them in the a, and

they would put their lunch boxes on the counter, and then they would empty the

dishwasher. And I started this young. So we had this whole

routine that they would come home, and they would put their socks and shoes away,

put their backpacks, put their lunch boxes, the containers, and then empty the

dishwasher. And while they were doing those things, I was putting snack on

the table. Obviously, didn't, you

know, I didn't they didn't go to aftercare or anything like that. That was

just that rhythm worked for me. And even if we

went someplace after school, like, we went to, you know, the park

or we went to practice straight a or went to the grocery store or whatever

it was, they still were expected to do those things regardless of when we

came home. And that made my constant work

way easier because I wasn't putting

shoes and socks and lunchboxes and gathering stuff and finding water bottles and all that

stuff. Oh, also, I did not send water bottles to school with my

children. Straight up, you can argue with me. I was like,

they're fine. They're not gonna drink that much water. They, you know

and if they ever wanted water, they could bring it, but I just did not

make that part of my work was theirs. There was like a water

fountain at school. They just drank, like, at lunchtime in recess. That's

what I did as a kid. I'm like, I survived. So, anyway,

that creating routines like that is really helpful for a parent

to not have so much work. My kids knew they had to put their laundry

in the laundry bin. They had to do there's just stuff they did around the

house, and they had to clean up before dinner and all the

stuff. I just trained them how to live in my family and live in my

life, and they did. You know? And a had ADHD, one had sensory

processing. They still did it. It's okay. It's just

commitment. So sorry to rant, but creating routines, teaching your

kids to listen. Also, like I just modeled saying no to things

that don't work for you. Managing water bottles did not work for

me. I was just kind of a hard no on it. I was just like,

this is I cannot keep track of this. I cannot fill these up. They're always

losing them. This is so annoying. I'm out. I'm out of the water bottle

game. So we didn't do them.

Not people pleasing. So if you wanna get out of constant

work, like, not get out of it, but you wanna lessen your

workload, don't say yes to things that you don't wanna

say yes to. Don't volunteer for stuff. You

it's okay. I was like Uber volunteer. I did all the

things. And great. It gave me some purpose and meaning and

I liked a. But it's also okay if that's not your

jam. Like, you don't have to say yes. You don't have to host birthday parties

or say yes to driving kids to, you know, the playground and all that

if it's outside of your capacity.

Lowering your own perfectionistic standards. Right?

Usually, we have these high high standards because we're trying to avoid

pain and uncertainty. But when we're like, oh, pain is a.

Uncertainty is inevitable. I can lower my standards a little bit,

relax, and just, you know, trust that I can handle

whatever moment comes. That is another way to manage

constant work is just by creating less work for yourself. Right? Isn't

that amazing? So, having

priorities is really important. What's truly important to you?

Like, our a, we did not

do club or travel sports. We did a

little tiny bit of, like, all stars or some extras

and stuff like that with soccer. But in general, we were sort of

a hard no on giving our weekends away. I'm not

saying that you have to do that. What I'm offering to

you is that my children are okay

regardless of whether they did team sports. I mean, like

a sports. They did sports, but we just didn't devote our

lives to their sports because we didn't want to.

To be perfectly frank, my husband worked a ton of hours. He did not work

on the weekends, and he wanted to be at home. And I wanted to be

at home with him watching our children so I could

relax. And he wanted to spend time with them a my kids

wanted to spend time with them and and they didn't wanna be over,

over scheduled. So we just don't do

it. It was great. I don't know. I'm

just offering to you that you get to make your life work for you. So

a what's important for us, it was downtime. We

called it work recovery. So work has

always been a big priority, especially for my husband and then work recovery

because he needs time off from work. Not every

person needs that much downtime. So, you know, do your thing.

But you can also say no. You can say say no to things

that other people do, and your kids are gonna be

okay. Right? Because what makes someone okay? That they know how to deal

with pain and uncertainty. So that's it.

They don't need all the extras. The

last thing I think in all of this that's really important

is what I'm thinking of as radical grace.

I think you a a mom,

or a dad, if you're a, your grandparent, is

really saying to yourself, like, I'm okay. I'm

good enough, and I'm gonna mess up, and I'm

gonna not always show up perfectly and

that's okay. This is okay for me to be a. It's okay for me to

struggle. It's okay for me to be on a learning

journey. It's okay for me to grow. It's okay for me to not be

a 100% know how to handle all this stuff. Right?

That it's okay for you to be human and giving yourself so

much love and grace and compassion instead

of saying a wrong with me? A I'm you know, everyone seems to have

it together a me. I talk to moms all day, every day,

week in week out. No one has it all together. Even the

mom that looks like they do. Like, I probably look like I had it a,

and I didn't. You know? We all are

struggling and figuring it out and learning, and so extend

grace to yourself and extend grace to a. And you'll

find that you have a lot less pain, to be

honest. Okay, mamas. If

you are struggling with anything

and, you know, you're just in uncertainty and it's

overwhelming or you're in pain and it's overwhelming, or

you really are like, hey. What did she say about those routines? Oh, I don't

know a more about that. Reach out, book a complimentary

consultation with me, and we can talk about what how to

work with me, what my programs are like, a, you know,

or I'll just listen to you and find out what's I'd like to get to

know everybody. So I'd love to chat with you and get to know you,

and help you with the 3 unavoidable aspects of

parenting. So this week, I want you to give yourself lots and lots

of calm mama grace, and I will talk to you next week.