Parenting

Why The “Conflict Avoiders” Are Actually The Conflict Creators

Posted on  //  Posted in Coaches' Corner, Life Coaching, Parenting  //  Tagged , ,

I hear a lot about “conflict avoidant” people. Seemingly these are people who steer away from creating conflict, because they “don’t like” to have conflict with people in their lives – they prefer harmony, apparently. They will either call themselves this, or other people will refer to them as this: oh, they didn’t do that because they’re conflict avoidant…

 

I’ve begun to have a different take on this and I offer a 360 re-frame here from a professional point of view.

 

I’ve come to believe that being perceived as conflict-avoidant gives a person a bit of a free pass: they are not expected to, or are repeatedly excused for not, dealing with difficult matters head on by having a conversation – i.e. using communication skills – that sorts things out and avoids an actual conflict from ever escalating.

 

None of us like having these conversations: whether you call them Robust Conversation or Courageous Conversation – they’re hard to do and they require a certain amount of courage activation, and a certain usage of what we call “skilful means” at both ends of the dialogue – the bringing of something difficult up, and the managing the other person’s response once you do.

 

What is actually happening is “communication avoidance” – the avoidance of conversation / communication. What this fundamentally leads to is – you guessed it! – conflict. What that then leads to is a number of behaviours that perpetuate the avoidance, and prevents the conflict (which has now been created as the other person has been negatively impacted due to the initial avoidance) from ever being resolved. 

 

I’ve begun to recognise and name this pattern as Communication Avoidant and therefore Conflict Creative. I haven’t copyrighted it, you are welcome to use it.

 

Whether we are in the workplace, in a hierarchy, in the parent community, or at home with our families, this is a toxic dynamic, and by naming it we can begin to change it. Either as the person who inhabits the traits, or the person who may be on the receiving end, or the person somewhere in between.

 

This does not mean that you have to be – or indeed should revere people who are – a High Conflict Personality (Google it) – people who are “a hammer looking for a nail”. This is the other end of the spectrum. Although the temptation for solving a problem is to go to its extreme opposite, this is rarely useful! (Everyone who’s ever worked for me knows what a fan I am of finding that beautiful middle-ground, the healthy grey-area, where the best of both worlds exist, and can serve as a functional dynamic).

 

What the Communication Avoidant person is, is anxious. They don’t trust themselves to manage the skills at either end, and they don’t trust themselves to be emotionally regulated should anything bring out a discrepancy within them that they may need to take ownership of, look at, and perhaps adjust in relation to others. What they become is resentful, because they aren’t raising things that need raising, and it pisses them off exponentially over time, leading to unpleasant and/or more avoidant behaviours. What they have is a high degree of shame, and shame stops people from achieving the benefits of self-reflection, personal-insight, and genuine apology, where they might be able to say, right, OK, so you feel like that? Maybe I contributed to that, and for that I’m sorry…What they are doing is, confirming their own belief system, which is that not bringing things up was the correct course of action, because now the other person is emotionally dysregulated from whatever the result that the non-communication had, and has now reacted “so badly” that it means – see, this is why I never raise things, look how over-reactive other people are! 

 

And don’t get me wrong: this is not a judgemental post; this is a psycho-education post. Whether you perceive yourself on either end of the spectrum, or recognise where others may be, it can help you. 

 

As adults in relationship with others, it’s a personal responsibility to:

 

  1. Put your big pants on and address things in a timely way, before they harm or negatively impact others
  2. Develop the right amount of skilful means to resolve disharmony as and when it arises – this means managing other’s emotions, managing your own, and using communication skills (which can be learnt from AI these days)
  3. Own your own parts in any human discord: nothing ever occurs in isolation
  4. Practice genuine apology, see how far it gets you (hint: very far)
  5. Protect yourself from people who cross your boundaries and can become harmful to you. This means knowing what your boundaries are.

 

A balanced approach, see? A middle ground, taking the best from both ends of the spectrum and operating from a functional grey-area. 

 

Questions to ask yourself:

 

What might have happened if I’d brought that up at the time I felt initially concerned?

What did I keep to myself, that ate away at my brain, that caused resentment in me?

When I imagined bringing this up, what was I afraid of? What am I REALLY avoiding?

What did I contribute to this conflict? 

Was I a hammer looking for a nail? 

What could I do differently next time?

What can I do now to contribute to a resolution?

What skills would I like to learn to make this easier next time? (Do I have Chat GPT downloaded yet?)

 

Whether you’re a leader, a parent, an employee, a child, a dog, remember: communication always wins.

 

As always, I welcome your comments and feedback.

Charlotte.

How Much Anxiety is NORMAL?!

Posted on  //  Posted in Coaches' Corner, Life Coaching, Parenting

A lot of my lovely current clients are dealing with anxiety at the moment, as so many people are, and wishing to turn the dial down, turn off huge anxious or panic responses, and get back to a sense of normality, in certain situations at least! Once they’ve experienced the amazing healing that both NLP and Havening Techniques can offer them, where they’ve settled dramatically and turned “off” the main panic response, they are noticing that they still might get “triggered” and are now pondering, what’s normal? How much can you realistically “turn off” and how much do you want to, actually? What’s normal and what’s not?!

These are very interesting ponderings, and of course, I have a professional opinion on this. So let me answer that for you:

There’s a big difference between an organic surge of adrenaline, in response to a trigger in your environment that’s out of the ordinary, and the layering on of thoughts – known in Buddhist psychology as the second arrow – which creates anxiety and/or panic for you, and/or makes that normal organic response worse and escalates things. We also need to consider: how debilitating is this issue right now?

  1. The Organic Surge of Adrenaline: Here’s the scenario: your nervous system has a good baseline, you’re fine. You’re walking around, living, and feeling OK or good. Something “not normal” happens, a trigger.  A car cuts in front of you on the motorway causing you to swerve. Your amygdala, the fear-detecting and safety-making part of your brain takes this information in very quickly through your senses, and sends a message to your adrenal glands to create extra energy, because your life’s been threatened, and you don’t want to be asleep for that….. you want to be able to spring into action now. Once the perceived “threat” is over, you recover and go back to your baseline OKness/goodness.
  2. Layering or the Second Arrow:  In the midst of a scenario like the above, your Nervous System is unable to just let the adrenaline surge and peak simply come and go. There’s past trauma in the mix, a reason to try and control things to the max. So now we have: OMG, it’s happening again! Why does this always happen? I was just anxious then! It might happen again tomorrow!  I should be better about this by now... and so on, and so on. Sometimes we can perform this layering process in the ABSENCE of an organic response, just by THINKING about the possibility of an organic response, or even one that you’ve had in the past. You get anxious right then and there, or exacerbate the anxiety that was organically and USEFULLY triggered.

Look – you actually can’t programme yourself to be a robot, no matter how hard you try. We’ve inherited this brain through evolution and there needs to be a level of respect for this ancestral heritage. Your brain is designed to keep you safe, respond to alerts and threats by surging your adrenaline so you can do what needs to be done in the moment with energy. You want to turn off this response completely? Good luck in an actual emergency. Well, you won’t need luck, cause you can’t turn it off completely, your brain won’t have it. You CAN teach it what’s appropriate to respond to and not, and turn the dial down when it’s NOT a functional response, absolutely yes! I feel like this is the essence of what I do in one context or another.

Do you have agency over #2, then? Absolutely yes! The layering over of thoughts that trigger or exacerbate the anxious response is absolutely within our control, and often I seek to heal this FIRST and re-train those thought pathways, so we can then get to the core issue, and the rest is organic from there, and you can enjoy your amygdala doing its job in an organic and functional way.

See if you can start to tell the difference between the two?

Much love, Charlotte.

The Burn-out of Christmas Future…

Posted on  //  Posted in Life Coaching, Parenting

Nevermind the Ghost of Christmas Past, what about the Burn-out of Christmas future?  And what can we aim for instead?

I’ve not been shy in sharing that the end of the year, before Christmas and New Year period, is not my favourite time. Usually I’d be gearing up to drink my G&Ts in my camping chair around about now, going away early before term end, avoiding all of the pressures and obligations. It’s the way we like to do things: spend heaps of time outside with the kids and live very minimally for two weeks or so.

This year it’s our turn to host the family for Christmas and my little one is in a dance performance, so, we’re staying home until January. I’m looking forward to having a Christmas at home after two years of being away. The kids loved putting up the tree and decorating the house, and we’re having so much fun with Elf on the Shelf!

AND – I’m talking to parents and people in the community about what a “crazy” time of year it is, how we’re drinking more wine to get through it, joking about needing a valium to get through this weekend in particular (3 x Christmas parties for the adults, 2 x birthday parties for the kids, as well as the usual Saturday morning gymnastics and swimming commitments).  Everything seems to have fallen on one weekend in December, and the kids are tired. Not that we’re not looking forward to all of these get-togethers, we are!! (For those reading who know what they are!) It’s just a lot to get into two days when we value our downtime as well.

I announced in my newsletter recently that I’m in the process of writing a book about relationship health, and within the book we examine this idea of “social contracts” – the unspoken agreement that we have with other people about what’s ok and not ok, and what’s expected by both parties, no matter what the relationship is. Most of the time this remains unspoken between people, unless something changes and a boundary might need to be drawn, or the relationship changes to accommodate a new way of being. I feel like the social contracts we hold around this time of the year are unrealistic. Certainly if we’re a people-pleaser, we will find it hard to say no, and might find ourselves running around, trying to be all things to all people, and turn into a spec of dust by the time Christmas day is upon us!

I’m personally an advocate of re-defining our social contracts with others: speaking them out loud when needed, and not being enslaved to the traditional obligations. I’m not talking about being thoughtless and hurting others and flippantly letting important people down – oh no. Our relationships are crucial (not all of them though – more of that in the book) and need to be treated with care. It’s all about BALANCE.

Here are a few hacks I’ve learned along the way, to not let things get too “crazy”:

  1. Planning: look at your calendar, take the time to see what’s coming up, and plan the essentials around it. By essentials I’m thinking about how to keep myself and my family resilient and well, with nutrition and sleep and time to rest. I personally meal plan on a Sunday for the 7 days ahead. If there are busy afternoons with late finishes, I’ll be planning a quick meal or leftovers, or a nice takeaway (the 80:20 rule, right?). This saves me stress and I can let go of thinking because I know there’s a plan.
  2. Prioritise: look, you can’t do everything and be all things to all people, all the time. Give yourself permission to say NO or just MAYBE to some things. My calendar is mind-boggling for next week with so many overlaps. There’s no way we will be able to do ALL of the things. I’ve let people know that I may or may not be there, depending on the family’s well-being and energy levels. I’ve been clear (being clear is kind – Brene Brown) so I won’t be letting people down as they know what to expect.
  3. Focus on the basics of self-care: my plan for myself and my kids to get through the next 10 days and then finish the year strong: lots of early nights. Nutritious food, as much as I can on that particular day. Low-sensory baths or showers at night to settle the nervous system. A bit more passive screen time than usual. Not planning any non-essential things – playdates etc. will have to wait, as will cleaning out my car, which resembles a bit of a rubbish bin. Epsom salts, candles, magnesium, focusing on sleep, nutrition and as much downtime and unstructured time in between the commitments as we can.  A healthy amount of physical activity, sunshine etc. Some adrenal-gland re-setting with yoga. (If you’re fatigued or waking up tired, you’re likely to have flogged your adrenals too much and now they’re tired and not giving you much energy. This can be re-set with the ways outlined above.)
  4. Focus on the present moment: yeah, I know, it’s a cliche these days. It’s also not easy, for anyone. I find that the planning takes care of a lot of thinking about the future: it’s written down, it’s sorted, I don’t need to think about it. When I find my brain whirring away trying to strategise or work out things in the future, I can let it go, as I know I’ve taken care of it (most of the time). I notice the thought, and do my best to breathe into the moment I’m in, and let a lot of the future take care of itself.
  5. Systems. We don’t rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems. Do you have good systems in place at home that keep things ticking over well? Routines, rewards and incentives that work? If not, might be time to start implementing some next year. More on that in a later post.

I hope that this may help some of you reach the goal of a Resilient Christmas Future (and beyond).

With love, Charlotte.

 

Are You Shovelling The Right Shit?

Posted on  //  Posted in Life Coaching, Parenting

I’ve had a rough couple of weeks. 

 

Dealing with menopause, family sickness, catching colds and having to take time off. When I have to take time off, the wheels of the family start to wobble. It causes a bit of a ricochet effect where the systems I rely on stop working because I can’t operate them, and everyone just gets a little more stressed than usual.

 

And –  it’s not just me. My life is very community oriented and I talk to a lot of different people in a day: the school mums, Playcentre folk, my gym buddies, my yoga teachers, my physio, my hairdresser etc. etc. We all seem to be experiencing the same thing: things are a little crazy right now. Everyone’s stressed, emotions are heightened, the energy around the place seems, just, chaotic. I don’t know if it’s the full moon, or because the sun has put out more radiation than usual recently (apparently).  

 

In the last few weeks, I’ve had to endure so many professional mistakes made by others (mainly, if I’m honest people working in the health system, but also people who make the mall-smoothies) which have caused no end of inconvenience and time wasting. People are stressed, they’re dropping the ball, and the ricochet effect is very real. It affects all of us.

 

My stress mountain peaked, my nervous system got overloaded as it sometimes does before I could stop it, and, like any train wreck, it kept going until it crashed. I’m on the other side of that crash now, recovering well. The trick is, each time this happens, is to get better at understanding HOW it happens, and to catch any signs at their earliest stage and nip them in the bud, heal them, let go of the triggers. Perhaps I should be better at this than I actually am? My nervous system is an interesting beast, robust but also sensitive, and I get to know it a little better every time this happens.

 

The other thing is, that there are simply things beyond my control. 

 

Hmmm.

 

That’s a hard one for us A-types, isn’t it?

 

If we really think about it, most things are beyond our control. As my physio said to me on the table the other day, releasing me from the physical fight-flight I’d been stuck in, she profoundly said: You can’t control, but you can make choices.

 

This felt like relief for me.

 

When you grow up with an underdeveloped sense of an internal locus of trust (i.e.you can’t trust yourself) you overdevelop your external locus of control (you try to control outside forces in order to feel safe). I did this.

 

It’s not easy to let go of control. It’s a life’s work. It’s possible however, to learn to let life happen around you, and continue to be resourced to make the best choices in any given now-moment. I think, this is all we can do.

 

On the same day, as I waited for my car mechanic to write up my invoice, we had a wonderful coaching conversation. And, in case you were wondering, he was coaching me (he’s a wonderful person). We talked about the pressures of life, how chaotic life can be, and how as much as we intend to clear space and only spend time on the things we actually care about, we often end up “doing shit we don’t want to do at the end of the day”.

 

I’ve examined this so often in my life. I think I’m probably more boundaried than most people I know. And –  this kind of chaos STILL happens. I still get sucked into the societal expectations around me. Because I care about being a good person doing good things, it can derail me at times. The efforts at keeping up with school and kindy themes – Dress Up Week, Move It March, Cyber Safety Evenings etc. etc.etc…. it never ends!

 

My mechanic said – “at the end of the day, you have to make sure you’re shovelling all the shit out of your life, so that you’re only paying attention to the right shit, the shit you actually care about.”

 

Yes. 

 

To do this requires a few things:

 

  1. Knowing what actually matters to you  – your unconscious set of VALUES made conscious. (Values are the things that actually matter to us, the structure of motivation and satisfaction. Often unconscious to people. When you’re aligned with them you feel good, when you’re not, you don’t. Simple.).
  2. Using these as your guiding compass – always.
  3. Having the courage to go against societal expectations in order to live out your values. This will piss people off.
  4. Setting any and every boundary necessary  in order to protect these values. This will also piss people off.
  5. Knowing who your “Penguin Huddle” of people are in your life. The ones that actually matter (i.e. not trying to be all things to all people all the time).
  6. LETTING EVERYTHING ELSE GO.

What shit are you shovelling? Is it the right kind? Do you know your values? I may run a short values elicitation workshop online, let me know if you’re interested. 

Love, Charlotte.

Re-enter Your Life on Purpose, With Courage

Posted on  //  Posted in Coaches' Corner, Life Coaching, Parenting

[Illustration by the amazing Sue Kerr]

In New Zealand it has just been announced that from this Thursday, we start transitioning out of lockdown and in to a lower alert level. This will mean the re-opening of most businesses, schools, travel within the country and socialising with groups no greater than 10 people. This is a huge transition from where we have been. Before we go rushing back into ‘life’ again, let’s take a moment to pause, reflect, take stock, and start out lives again on purpose, and with the courage to learn from our experience, let go, and re-shape our lives going forward.

If you’re anything like me, you have mixed feelings about re-entering ‘normal’ life, or as close to what your past normal life used to be like (the ‘new normal’). On the one hand you are excited about the return of some freedoms you’ve missed and of schools starting up again. And on the other hand you are feeling anxious about being thrown back into a full life again. Whatever your situation, things have changed.

If I’m really honest I lean more towards the anxious side. Not that I am anxious about the virus per se – I’m not – I just don’t want to go leaping back into what life was like before this experience of staying home with my family for six weeks. I know from talking to people that I’m not alone: a lot of us have enjoyed this enforced time at home (albeit despite its challenges!) and aren’t looking forward to our bubbles completely popping after all.

Why are we feeling like this? Surely we should be chomping at the bit for our old life? And what does this say about the way we’ve been living our lives? 

I don’t know you all personally but I can take a stab at what this fear we are feeling is. It’s not that we don’t want things like schools to start, do a bit of socialising and the occasional meal out. It’s that we don’t want to go back to the things that we (perhaps only newly realised) do not like about living a full life. We don’t want to just ‘go back to things’ mindlessly, without consideration and intention. There are things we just haven’t missed, and we are not in a hurry to return to them.

But we are afraid. Afraid of saying no, afraid of choosing more wisely. Afraid of letting people down, afraid what others may think of our new choices. Perhaps we are afraid of losing people, money, status. 

Personally, what I’ve realised about myself during my lockdown is the exceptionally high value I’ve placed on socialising. I know where this comes from: as a child I was shy and insecure. I had attachment issues. I didn’t make a group of friends that I felt totally comfortable with until I was 16, and from there, fortunately, my friendships went from strength to strength. I had developed the belief that as long as I’m doing something with a group of other people, then it’s worthwhile doing. It’s like I was not living properly unless we were all doing it together. In other words, I got my self-esteem from surrounding myself with people at all times.

To some degree of course this is a truth: people need people. However, there’s degrees of it that I want to take into account. I’ve prioritised saying ‘yes’ to social invitations at the expense of my own wellbeing and sometimes the wellbeing of my family, and fairly recently, too.

I’ve always thought of myself as an extrovert who just had to socialise at every opportunity. Now I’m looking forward to saying ‘no’ more often and channeling my inner introvert, and that of the family, too. It won’t be easy, it will take will and courage and different decision making.

I’m also not that keen on returning to rushing around getting to places on time, my endless to-do lists and multitasking to fit it all in. I like how empty my calendar is! My mission will be to keep it empty, only putting in the things that spark joy, and not at the expense of my other values. For another thing I’ve definitely learned about myself: I can be very happy with less, much, much less. 

As I’ve said repeatedly, this has been a gift given to us and is the perfect time to make changes. So, how do you re-enter life and its activities mindfully, purposely, with intention and courage?

I’m a firm believer that we all have our own inner-wisdom. Sometimes it is just heavily obscured by a load of other crap, like social pressure and expectations, insecurity, perfectionism and people-pleasing. What this means is that we have a sorting exercise to do!

No matter how busy life is, we can all find 30 minutes in a day. Take that time to get rid of distractions, either be alone or talk to your significant other if you have one. Get quiet:

  1. Make one list of all the things you’ve missed, and on the same list what you’ve enjoyed about being at home. This is what you value, what really matters to you.
  2. Make a second list of all the things you haven’t missed, that you’re not in a hurry to get back to. These are the things that no longer fit with your values. If your job is on that list, then you have some work to do in identifying how you can work differently. Perhaps it’s working remotely more often, perhaps it’s working less and spending much more time with the kids.
  3. For the list of things you haven’t missed, write down what you want to drop completely, and what you want to change. Be brutally honest with yourself! No one has to know, for now anyway. For example you may want to ditch the gym membership and just continue biking with your family. You may not want to completely ditch a group of friends, but you want to change the way you catch up, and what you do together.
  4. Lastly, ask yourself: what action do I need to make these changes? And how can I cultivate the courage required to do that? As I said, most blocks to change will be driven by social expectations and fear based: the word ‘should’ will feature highly here. Here’s where channeling some Brene Brown and her work on vulnerability and courage can be a game changer. If you don’t know her look up her Ted talks. Oh, and her new Podcast – Unlocking Us – is just great, too.

Leave a Facebook comment or PM me with your insights, I’ll help where I can.

Love, Charlotte.

Are You Suffering From Zoomzaustion?

Posted on  //  Posted in Coaches' Corner, Life Coaching, Parenting

[Illustration by the amazing Sue Kerr].

We could say we are lucky to be living through a global pandemic in this current age of technology. Staying connected to our colleagues, friends, family, our children’s teachers, school friends and friends is easily integrated into our home lives. We can continue most of our ‘normal’ activities: exercise classes; buying music, movies and books; online shopping; stalking our favourite celebrities on social, and so on.

One the one hand, I marvel at it! Last night for example, I was able to attend my live-stream yoga class in my living room in front of the fire. I had my teacher’s lovely voice directly in my ears with my bluetooth headphones, which are designed to sit just outside the ear, enabling me to still hear sounds around me. I had the yoga playlist playing simultaneously though Spotify on my Google Home Speaker. All generated from one device – my phone. Pretty cool!

On the other hand, are we getting overloaded by the amount of technology in our home? In distance working and learning, are we putting proper boundaries in place to separate our work life from our home life? Are we succumbing to social pressure and saying ‘yes’ to more Zoom meetings that we actually need to? Are we feeling too personally responsible for keeping those email chains or Facebook nominations going when we’ve been tagged in them?! You know the ones, recipes, albums, tag ten people to keep the chain going etc., etc. It can all mount up to the latest phenomena of ‘Zoomzaustion’ – technology burn out during this time.

I was privy to a conversation a few days ago where working from home was being discussed. Every single person (bar one) said they were doing way more (too much) work than they would normally do: they missed the ‘water-cooler’ conversations with their colleagues; they checked their emails as soon as they work up at 7am and kept checking them way into the evening; they were on ‘way too many Zoom meetings’. They were way more available for longer during the day then they normally would be, and not enjoying it! Let’s face it why would they? Doesn’t sound like much fun.

It’s so interesting that our boundaries between work and home tend to blur more when we are working virtually, at a time where we don’t physically leave the office and travel to our homes. We aren’t getting the benefit of that change of scene, of literally ‘leaving the office behind’, of entering into a completely different environment with cooking smells and kids, or whatever your home situation is. And yet it is during this time we need to be much more protective of our time and draw those clearer lines in the sand between work and home. Not doing this will just spell stress and burn out over time.

And why, why are we on more Zoom calls than we actually want or need to be?! What’s going on there?

Because we are ‘just at home’ we feel like we can’t say no, after all, we have no where to be, so no excuses. I want to challenge this: again, this is the time to be even more protective of our time, not less. Not doing so spells stress and burn out. If we feel we have no reason to say no, because after all we are ‘just at home’ then we end up saying yes to way more things than we need to. Does your child really need three Zoom calls a day with their classmates and playdates? Do they really actually enjoy those meetings? Do you really need to be keeping in touch with your family or colleagues that often? What would happen if you didn’t?

In my last few blogs, I hope I’ve driven the message home that yes, this is a crisis. And within that crisis we have been gifted an amazing opportunity. When else in our lives have we been forced to strip everything back, apart from the very basics? This gives us an insightful benefit of contrast. We get to say, OK, I miss that, I want more of it in my life, or I don’t miss that at all, so I want to let it go. We are more in-tune with what we value and want in our lives right now. And because we are in this unique position of sorting the wheat from the chaff, we get to choose what we say yes and no to.

So, what can you do?

  • Channel a bit of Marie Kondo: Does that Zoom catch up spark joy (for you or your child)? If it is not 100% required of you because of the expectations of your role, then ask yourself that and see what the answer actually is. If not, say no! If you have the ‘should’ word reverberating around your head it’s a sign that it doesn’t spark joy and is only an obligation.
  • Just say no, occasionally: I’ve written extensively before about why we find it hard to say no. Ultimately we don’t want to let people down, offend them, or have them think less of us. Understandable as we are tribal creatures. Historically without our ‘tribe’ we would die. Things are different now. Consider setting some boundaries and saying no occasionally, and just see what happens. Be brave! Instead of thinking less of you the person or people may think more of you, and it may even give them permission to do the same themselves. We can become so personally responsible for other people’s feelings, and in most cases there is no need.
  • Get some boundaries between work and home, now: Treat your work at home much like you would work in the office. Start it at a particular time, finish it at a particular time. Take your lunch break. Stop feeling guilty, or as if you ‘should be doing more…’ or ‘be seen to be super available so they know I’m actually working…’. Most Importantly – do something to mark the end of the working day. Turn off emails on whatever device you use, go and exercise, shower, change your clothes, whatever you need to do to mimic that physical feeling of leaving the office behind. You will be more productive for it, trust me.

We know from research conducted in palliative care that the biggest regret of the dying is that they lived their lives according to what other people expected them to do, rather than what they desired themselves. It’s a lesson for all of us with breath left in our lungs. Let’s not waste that breath.

Our next post will be exploring how we re-enter ‘normal’ life after so long in our bubbles. We want to do so purposefully, and intentionally, in a way that respects the insights we’ve had during our lockdown period.

As usual, I’d love to hear what better boundaries you feel you could have in place right now, and what action you will take. Leave me a FB comment or feel free to PM me, anytime.

Love, Charlotte.

Turning 42 In a Global Pandemic

Posted on  //  Posted in Life Coaching, Parenting

[Illustration by the amazing Sue Kerr]

This was supposed to be an entirely different post about staying positive about your kids during lockdown and homeschooling. But, having two kids at home myself and going in and out of positivity means that I missed the boat on that one!  Perhaps I will give it another go soon. Today I want to write something more personal, as it is the day I turn 42 years of age, three and a half weeks into our country’s official four week lockdown.

What does it mean to me to be turning 42 during this time? I reflect upon my life. Perhaps I am half way through it? Or more? Or less?

We are living through a global pandemic and trying to save lives with our behaviour, so in the cold hard face of things any of us could die at any moment (which of course is always the case! However this fact is certainly highlighted during this COVID-19 pandemic where so many have lost their lives globally.)  I’m sure I’m not the only one who transitions between feeling very grounded and grateful, to feeling clingy and fearful.  There is a certain freedom however, that opens up when you consider that life can be taken from you at any time: what is truly important to you is unapologetically highlighted to you. You are forced to sort the wheat from the chaff.  How you choose to spend your time – without the  hustle and bustle of  ‘normal’ face-to-face commitments – changes.  As I write this on a day that is raining, where my baby is sleeping peacefully in her cot, where my husband and eldest daughter are drawing pictures together in the dining room, where I reflect upon all the seasons of my life, I can’t help but feel I’m exactly where I need to be right here right now.

From the ages of 16-27, I partook in the taking of class-A party drugs much in the same way people embark on an exciting career: I got better and better at it and revelled in its rewards. An apt variation of our Prime Minister’s current mantra of ‘go early, go hard’. I was often the last woman standing. I honestly look back on those days – and the beautiful friends that shared it with me – and wonder how we all survived. There were certainly times when I didn’t think I would, and would eventually fall sleep after a multiple-day bender totally prepared for the fact that I may not wake up again. A small portion of it was certainly unhealthy escapism stemming from family and childhood troubles. And, a large portion of it was simply the down-and-dirty hedonism of the 90s-00s. I’ve got so many amazing memories of that time – many presenting themselves afresh to me today – and although I would never be able to do anything remotely like it again, I have no regrets!

Then I found myself in New Zealand. I arrived at age 26 and turned 27 a few weeks later. I did a sky-dive on my 27th birthday, and threw up behind a tree upon the landing, the effects of the previous night’s celebrations catching up with me. The months that followed my arrival in NZ were to mark the beginning of the self-development journey that I will be on for the rest of my life (and maybe beyond). I completely stopped all drinking, drug taking, partying and went to a buddhist meditation school where I learned a loving kindness method that I’ve not forgotten. Ironically, I got a part-time job in a bar to earn money to pay for my NLP training. I was the oldest and soberest person there, including the managing staff. In short, I got still. And things started to open up and fundamental healing shifts began to occur. I did what I had never been able to do before, choose a career, start a business, and get good at it.

I met my husband to be at age 33. This marked another new phase in life. Burned out from running the business, we packed up our city lives and headed for a semi-rural arrangement. Shortly afterwards we married. Shortly after this we started renovating our home. Somehow amongst this we managed to conceive our first daughter, who I gave birth to five days shy of my 37th birthday. Coming into motherhood – and doing so somewhat ‘late’ – signalled another fundamental shift: my first experience of mental illness in the form of post-natal distress (PND). An awful, life-threatening thing to go through. But I’ve come to call PND ‘the healer in disguise’.  I came out of it fundamentally and positively changed, in a way I can never put words to.  

And so the phase of parenthood continued, with all its challenges and rewards.

And then I turned 40. 

I had my 40th birthday at the same time I was rehearsing for a local theatre production which was due to open in a few days. My first foray into the performing arts since leaving the city. I had recently found out that I was pregnant, too. I remember on my birthday feeling like I had everything: I was pregnant, I was performing, I was happy working again. The sad realities of fate intervened: I caught the flu (or something close enough to it) and I had to go on stage totally sick. I lost the baby. No one can know for sure why one miscarries, only that they are so common (a fact you only discover once you’ve had your own). It was an awful time for our family and an extended period of stress. 

You know how this story ends, because I have two healthy girls, and I worked hard to get both of them into the world. This time a blissful and natural water birth. Another bout of PND, however; another recovery. Quicker this time.  Another experience of the ‘healer in disguise’ and a fundamental shift in who I am. Again, impossible to put words to it. Only to say that I’m so grateful for the healing that offered itself to me, and the people who helped me receive it. 

And now here I find myself. So grateful for this previous and wild life and the souls that share it with me in my bubble. Your are the universe to me. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And happy birthday to me. 

With all my love, Charlotte. 

This Is It – Don’t Wait To Be Happy

Posted on  //  Posted in Life Coaching, Parenting

Picture from the wonderful Sue Kerr www.suekerr.ca

I now have a 4-nearly-5 year-old and a nearly-7-month-old. This is my first attempt at writing since I went on maternity leave in July 2019. I was ready for a break from my desk then, and now I’m ready to write.

Two things happen to me when I give life: I put on 20kg at least during pregnancy which sticks around, and I get a mental illness called Post-natal Distress (more commonly known as post-natal or postpartum depression, PPD or PND). With my firstborn it was worse and I was in denial for a long time, which meant it didn’t get accurately treated and I was in a very bad space for 7 months. I eventually got on the right trajectory and started healing, but it took a year to gain the beginnings of a sense of normality. Obviously my husband and I were reticent to have another child after barely surviving that period.

And we did. I was in a great space, I had done a lot of healing and was vital again, it was a good 3 years down the track. I’d had a miscarriage not long before and I felt very resilient through that experience, sad, but resilient. I worked with the health professionals in my life to put a lot of preventative measures in place, so I could avoid it happening. I strategised, I planned, I thought of every little detail. I prepared our friends and family thoroughly, and was clear about what kind of support we would need for those who wanted to give it. I put a lot in place to cope with it, if it happened.  Yet, that optimistic part of me thought I was just playing lip-service to the whole thing, not truly believing it could possibly happen again. Not this time.

It happened. It hit us at 4 weeks postpartum, just like last time. I was highly anxious and permanently in fight-flight, just like last time. However, last time I had a long stretch of anxiety and then a long stretch of depression. This time I would yo-yo back and forth between the two, as if my nervous system couldn’t decide where it wanted to be: one day intense anxiety and the next intense depression. Unlike last time, I had another child to consider and care for through it all. It has not been easy. We all have our own challenges and ‘crosses to bear’ so to speak. This is my struggle, and I own it as it is. It may or not be better or worse than others have it – who knows? It is however, my own personal struggle and journey.

I was unwell, it was yucky. I’ll spare the details.

My strategising and pre-planning wasn’t enough to stop biology (unfortunately – perhaps nothing is?), but it did mean we were supported and I passed through the worse of it a lot quicker. I’ve been my ‘normal’ self (whatever that means) 98% of the time for a good few months now. I threw every and any treatment I had available to me at it – which I will be talking about in subsequent posts – the conventional and the non-conventional. Who knows what worked, when, and what combination of things? I remember a number of significant and specific times where I  turned a corner. And I kept on turning those corners, and still am.

I woke up one morning recently and I felt that this truth had settled upon me in my sleep somehow: This Is It.

My life is happening right now. And I’m choosing to participate in it RIGHT NOW. Every messy, non-perfect part of it. My mind can trick me into a an imaginary time line that says ‘things will be better when…..’ or ‘I can be happy when…..’

when the baby can sit

when the baby is older

when life is more organised

when I can socialise more

when I can sleep more

when Pup goes to school

when we can walk everywhere

when we can go on holiday

when I’m skinny

when I can go back to work

when we get a pay rise

when…when…when……..

The list is endless, right?!

It’s an effort to stay in this place of NOW – of fully participating in life in the present and messy moment, and not waiting for the ‘if/whens’. Can I pull it off all the time? No, it’s hard. Yet it is worth the effort. There’s no fantasy future where all the parts of your life are tied up into neat little bows. The journey and the struggle is real. And, two seemingly opposing things can be true at the same time – more on that in the next post.

Can you be aware of your ‘life will be better when….’ thoughts, and challenge them by waking up into the present moment? Just gently focusing on your senses, what you can feel, hear and see? What can you pay attention to that brings you in to this RIGHT NOW moment in your life?

Charlotte x

I’m calling BS on the whole ‘peaceful parenting’ ideal!

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The last two mornings have been really tough, and I’ve shouted at my child.

I’m not proud of losing my temper, not at all. And if I’ve gone down in your estimation by admitting it, then so be it. Feel free to unsubscribe now. I gave up the belief that I had to be perfect in order to effectively help others some years ago (probably around the same time I became a parent!)

I share it with you however because it’s been a grave reminder to me how easy it is for parenting-guilt to arise. In my book The Imperfect Parent I call it the Shitty Guilt Fairy. And oh my, does the Shitty Guilt Fairy love it when I lose the plot! She kicks off her sparkly shoes and settles in, good and proper. And guess what comes with her? You’ve got it, the good old Inner Critic. This version is special however and probably hurts the most  – the Inner Parenting Critic.

The biggest pearl of wisdom I’ve ever learned from a parenting-psychologist (one which I drove 6 hours to go and train with for one day, and 6 hours back) was this:

“F#^k our kids. We give them everything we’ve got and they still demand three times as much!”

And isn’t that just the truth? The parenting equation isn’t one that is set up fairly, in my view. We do our best, we care, and we have the best of intentions to be the BEST parent we can be at any given time. We care for them, love them, teach them right from wrong and try hard to not give them labels that are hard to grow up with

And it’s when we’ve given everything and they still need more and push our buttons, that’s a recipe for losing it. For the last two mornings I’ve encountered nothing but obstacles and complaints one after the other, that have driven me to the end of my tether:

I can’t wear those leggings, the kids will laugh at me (dissolves into screaming fit)
I don’t want that toothbrush I want an electric toothbrush! (dissolves into screaming fit)
I don’t want to wear that because it’s been in the washing machine! (dissolves into screaming fit)
I wanted to sleep with my glo-ears on! I didn’t want you to take them off! (dissolves into screaming fit)
My socks are falling down! (dissolves into screaming fit)
My egg tastes like a vanilla tree and it’s making me really sick! (refuses to eat, dissolves into screaming fit)

Let me be really clear on my stance on parenting and why I wrote my book: I DO NOT BELIEVE in courses that claim to achieve “Peaceful Parenting”. If you’ve done them and they’ve worked for you, and you can remain 100% calm 100% of the time, then good for you! I’ve received criticism for this stance on social media and I’m fine with that. It doesn’t change my stance. I find the most effective way of living my life is to be a realist. For me, these so called ‘goals’ are lofty and unattainable and therefore extremity unhelpful to us as parents in the expectations they create. I don’t believe they are achievable, and when we fail to achieve them, as we inevitably will, it simply gives us another reason to beat ourselves up. In my view, even the Dalai Lama would struggle to keep his cool after 24 hours of parenting. And who knows how he’d do with a particular challenging child, or doing it solo, or doing it sleep-deprived, or a combination of all three?

Of course we all want to be calmer and not lose it quite so often. But because of the above – that we give them all we have and they still demand three times as much– losing it is inevitable. And what I DO NOT LIKE  is the cruel guilt-driven beat ups that parents give themselves about being “a bad mum” or “not cut out for this” or whatever. I’m calling BS on the whole thing!! 

Losing it is inevitable. How we treat ourselves in response to that is optional. 

I’m not going to lie. I’ve heard my Inner Parenting Critic the last few days. I’ve felt the guilt, and it’s hurt. I’ve been in floods of tears, completely undone by it all. And you know what? I’m so glad I know how to get myself out of that spiral these days. If I didn’t have an Inner Coach Practice (and let’s face it some really good friends) then I dread to think how far down the spiral I would actually go. Once again, if I go down in your estimations for admiring that, then so be it. But it’s the truth.

Self-compassion, self-empathy, forgiveness and kindness are the only ways to genuinely learn and move on. 

With love for all the parents out there. It’s the hardest job in the world, and because you care and are self-aware, you’re doing amazingly well.

Charlotte x

Why You Need To Stop Calling My Child Shy

Posted on  //  Posted in Life Coaching, Parenting

Have you ever wondered what your childhood ‘label’ is and how it might be negatively impacting you as an adult?  Let’s take a look at that and at why you need to stop calling my child shy.

To share a personal story with you. I was at a small playground a few weeks ago with my four year old daughter. She was playing happily, I was sitting on the sidelines.  She got onto the sea-saw at which time a grandmother with a much older child – perhaps around 10 years old – comes over.

The child gets on the sea-saw with my daughter, who we shall call Pup (for that is her nickname). Pup then decides she doesn’t want to be on it any more, gets off and comes over to me.

That could be a reasonable end to the story.

The 10 year old however sits there, expectantly, while the grandmother repeatedly and pointedly looks over at us, expecting Pup to come back onto the sea-saw.  I should reiterate here that these are absolute strangers to us. 

When Pup chooses not to – because why should she? – she is repeatedly labelled as ‘shy’ by the grandmother. Like, about 5-6 times: “She’s shy? Oh, she’s shy!  She’s feeling shy today? Is she a bit shy? Oh, she must be shy….” etc.  

I found this totally infuriating.  

Why You Need To Stop Calling My Child Shy

It mirrored something that happened with a kindy mum recently. She’s one who always wants to stop and chat, and on this one occasion, she decided she wanted to have a conversation with Pup.

She asked her some questions, and Pup clearly couldn’t be bothered to engage, so she stayed quiet and circled my leg and waited for the woman to go away so she could get on with her morning. Once again, we got “Oh, are you a bit shy this morning?”

I found this totally infuriating, too.

Why?

Here’s the thing, this is why you need to stop calling my child shy.  Anyone who knows Pup knows that she is far from ‘shy’.  She is an extrovert.  She is open and willing to engage with a variety of people. She has a wide circle of friends and is popular and socially capable.  Those familiar with Clifton StrengthsFinder will notice she has a lot of ‘Woo’.

And, you know what else she is? She’s discerning. She is capable of making a choice about who to engage in and indeed the right context in which to engage. As do I.  Is she reticent and quiet sometimes?  Of course!  As I am.  As most members of the population are.  And have a right to be. We have a variety of emotions on a wide spectrum and we have a right to feel them when we feel them.

I looked at the grandmother squarely in the face, and said, “She’s not shy at all. She just doesn’t want to go on the sea-saw right now.”

I made sure Pup heard. It was a confrontational move, but I’d rather have an adult feel uncomfortable with a social interaction than have my daughter internalise an unhelpful label.

Here are the things that make me uncomfortable about this kind of unhelpful labelling:

It is a word that the adult in the situation is using to make themselves feel comfortable at having just been rejected. That’s all. 

If it said enough times or in a context where the child is feeling vulnerable, it can be internalised by them. This means they believe the label as the truth, and start to think of themselves, their behaviours and capabilities in the context of it and only it. In other words, they become the label. 

It can take just a few seconds for this to happen in their neurology, and yet it can last and limit them for a lifetime. 

You can relate to this, can’t you?  What was your childhood label and how limiting do you still find it? 

Why is this unhelpful now, and in the long term?  Because it’s a limitation. If you believe yourself to BE something, you’ll become it, whether it is true, accurate or correct or not, you grow into the label and it dictates how you feel and behave. 

If the label happens to be something useful like considerate or kind, then we are not so concerned.  However as we know from our evolutionary function the negativity-bias, your brain is less likely to internalise the positive, only the negative.

A labelling word like shy is also static and inflexible – meaning that your brain treats it as an object that is permanent, rather than an activity. The opposite example would be sometime like ‘I can quieten and go inward in certain situations where I don’t feel entirely comfortable’. See how this has become an action, a fluid sequence of events, in a specific context?

See how you can begin to see in an around it, and begin to work with it?  That there are counter-examples, other contexts where you are not quiet? See how it becomes less about WHO YOU ARE and more a behaviour that happens AT CERTAIN TIMES?  See how much more useful this description is compared to the labelling word?

These are just some of the reasons why you need to stop calling my child shy.

My recommendations: don’t use these words with your children or yourself. Don’t allow others to use them with your kids. Challenge them when they are used to stop the seed from planting. You can do this.

Heal your own unhelpful labels from childhood. Remember: you only internalised them and believed them because you were young and vulnerable. They are not the absolute truth or correct. Try describing the behaviour like I have above, in the context in which is actually occurs, and see the difference this makes.

You may be interested in my upcoming online eCourse on transforming your Inner Critic to Inner Coach. Language matters, and inner-language matters even more. You can change this and become more of who you really are.

Illustration: Sue Kerr.