Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Welcome to another episode of Parenting with Impact, and we are your hosts Elaine and Diane. Let's dive in, Diane. What's the topic we're hitting today?

Diane Dempster: We're talking about mindset and stories, and this came up for me. I've been doing some self-study, and one of the things that I've been paying attention to is the role of your mind, your brain, and the fact that it's not- 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: It's a big thing. I've been paying attention to the role of your mind, woah. Okay.

Diane Dempster: But the thing is, this is the bottom line. Your brain is not supposed to be in charge. It's not supposed to be in charge of your decision-making. You're supposed to have this internal guidance system. And we've gotten into this place, as a society as human beings where our brain is in charge.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: We think our brain is in charge but it's really not because there's this direct line between our brain in our heart and our gut, and they're all in sync, even if we think the brain is in charge.

Diane Dempster: Right, but the brain is not supposed to be in charge but then we act as if it is right. And we listen to our brain and we listen to our brain way too much. We've done stuff in positive intelligence, we've done stuff with saboteurs and Gremlins, and all these different voices.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Trigger management and stories. 

Diane Dempster: Yeah, exactly. And so what I want to talk about is how much we're getting hijacked by our mind, and how aware we are of when it is or isn't happening. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: You know, what I often say to parents is that our gut will make a decision. Our emotions, our heart, our gut will come up with what we know we want, and then our brain will collect the evidence to prove whatever decision our bodies already made.

Diane Dempster: Or it'll try to talk us out of it. So the way the brain works is that it looks for evidence, whether it's this, okay, I've decided that I want to do this, and the brain looks for evidence that it was a good decision. If you decide not to do something, your brain looks for evidence that not doing it was a good decision, or you decide that somebody is not a-

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Safe character person or something.

Diane Dempster: -safe person. Actually, that's true, the amygdala, which is part of the brain, is the first thing that meets somebody or a situation. So the amygdala goes, is this a friend or is this a foe? Boom, that's it. Is this a good situation to be in or not such a good situation?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Are you a good witch or a bad witch? 

Diane Dempster: So then all of a sudden, your amygdala goes not so great a person, not so great a situation. Don't want to be here, and your brain looks for evidence to prove that's true. So you're already set up for failure if you're letting that fight or flight, instinct take over and be in charge of you.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And I was just reading last night, Tom Brown's new book on ADHD, what is it? ADHD and Asperger's Syndrome in Smart Kids and Adults, a really simple, easy title. But part of what he talks about when he's explaining executive function is not only does this process that you're describing happen, which our brain assesses quickly, but it's happened super quickly. It happens in a split instant, and we don't even have a consciousness that it's happening. It's so fast.

Diane Dempster: So why is this important? There's a couple of areas where it becomes important. There's a theory and then there's why it's important. So one of them is triggers. We teach this all the time in our programs by paying attention to the stories we tell ourselves or what actually throws us into the triggers, not the situations.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Wait, stay there. Do you want to hit the other one, and we'll do both of them?

Diane Dempster: No. Let's just do that one.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Okay. So stay there for a little bit longer, because that's a shortcut for you but that's complex for a lot of people who don't do this all the time. What's the story you're telling yourself when something happens, good, bad, indifferent, we make a story out of it. We help ourselves make sense of it, and so why is that a problem? 

Diane Dempster: It's a problem because what ends up happening is that we get hijacked by the story. When we teach trigger management, we talk about the difference between what we expect will happen and what actually will happen. This is my favorite one to tell you if you go to the store, you're ready to buy your favorite ice cream, Chunky Monkey. You get to the grocery store and all of a sudden they don't have any.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Is that your favorite ice cream? I just have to ask.

Diane Dempster: It's actually my partner's favorite ice cream. [inaudible] I go there looking for ice cream for him. So you get there and it's like, oh, and then you have this letdown. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Disappointment.

Diane Dempster: Disappointment. And if I create a story about it. I can't believe it, why can't they keep this in stock? Or the story about it. Oh, my gosh, she's going to be disappointed. I got to figure out something else to do because he was really looking forward to the Chunky Monkey.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And he's already kind of mad at me because I did this yesterday.

Diane Dempster: Yeah. I was getting a Chunky Monkey because we had that argument this morning.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right. So it could be a million things,

Diane Dempster: Right, but this story is what gets me worked up. It's a fact that there was no Chunky Monkey, but I got sucked into oh my gosh, I'm going to be in trouble with my partner because I don't show up with the ice cream when I get home. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So when we tell ourselves a story, it takes over really if you think about it.

Diane Dempster: And let's use an example that's probably more real for our parents than the Chunky Monkey because that was a pretty simple one. Our kids tell us, I finished my homework. I've got the paper in. It's all done on find for the semester. And then we go in the online system and we find out lo and behold, there's four missing assignments.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And I was going to do something simpler, which is we walk into the bathroom and the towel is on the floor. Same thing, y'all. Okay. There is no difference between these two scenarios.

I really want to point that out for a minute because, in both scenarios, we're going to tell ourselves something. All right, so you go into the online system which is great.

Diane Dempster: So I expect that I'm going to go on the online system, and I'm going to see no assignments, and I go in there, and lo and behold, there are assignments and that's the reality. The story comes in. I can't believe he lied to me, or she lied to me.

I can't believe they missed this. Oh, my gosh, they're going to fail this semester. Here we go again. I mean, there's all these stories that probably happen at the moment. Same thing with a towel, Elaine.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: The towel, I can't believe these kids did this again. I asked them not to do this. It's one simple thing, why can't they just put the towel up? It's going to have a mold issue. It's going to make a sibling sick, like all of these stories, because he may have hung it up and it dropped on the floor, or he may not have never hung it up in the first place.

Who knows? Either way, it's probably not going to be the indicator of his failure in life in the way that I might be catastrophizing it.

Diane Dempster: I know you always like to tell us the mom whose kids got potato chips all over the floor. She's like 11 or 12, and she forgets to pick up the potato chip crumbles on the floor, and she's decided she's going to live in squalor the rest of her life.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right. She's never going to be able to take care of an apartment when she's in her 20s because at 12 years old, she left potato chips on the floor. And like, this is a real story, and we were coaching around it.

When the mom finally realized that's what she was thinking, that was the thoughts behind the story, she was telling herself, she started cracking up because she realized how ridiculous it was but we need to pause and pull back in order to sometimes realize that we're spiraling out that we're making up these stories that really make ourselves crazier than we need to make ourselves.

Diane Dempster: The important piece of it is to separate the fact from the story because the reality is a story may be true on some level, but it may not be true and mostly because of the way we talked about the amygdala working.

If we see the situation as bad, the amygdala is going to create all kinds of bad stories to support it because that's just the way our brain is wired.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So yes, there are potato chips on the floor, the towel is on the floor, and there are missing assignments, and how we choose to think about that the story we tend to tell ourselves is actually going to determine our next steps.

So instead of going with the story of catastrophizing, which is what the examples we've been giving, ready for this y'all? We could make up a story that works for us. We're going to create a story anyway. Why not make up one that's good that works for you that serves?

Diane Dempster: May not be good but serves even if it's a little bit better.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Or that you can believe. I mean, that's just the key is you got to make up a story that you can absolutely believe is true. You can't lie to yourself because we actually don't do that very well even though we think we do, right?

Diane Dempster: Right. So instead of my kid is going to live in squalor when they're 25 I'm willing to consider that even though my kid is having a hard time remembering to pick up the potato chip crumbs right now I've got plenty of time to help her learn the skills she needs to be able to manage her own apartment when she's out on her own when she's in her 20s.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: When she's in her 20s just like her older sister is able to do. 

Diane Dempster: I'm willing to consider that even though I've picked up my son's towel 15 times that it's okay because what I'm really working on with my son is helping him remember to get his homework turned in.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Get his homework turned on or maybe you know what, instead of bringing up this issue over and over again, maybe it's time to teach him to do his own laundry. Maybe I need to approach this completely differently, which might lead you to a different set of next steps.

So what about the assignments because I know that's been your kryptonite or portal.

Diane Dempster: The assignment one, so even though my kids said that the homework was done, I'm willing to consider that they're not doing it on purpose.

They're not telling me on purpose. They're not purposely lying to me about the assignments. This is a kid with working memory issues so this is a kid-

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Who may think he did it.

Diane Dempster: Who may think he did it or remembered doing it and actually didn't turn it in. How many times has that happened?

They thought they turned it in. They really did do it, and it's been sitting in the bottom of some book in some notebook, and you have to go back in and help them find it because it's lost.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I had a kid who was, it was easy to come up with all kinds of reasons when maybe he didn't actually do it because that might have been a typical tendency.

But there was one time that I'll never forget, he was in middle school and he was adamant that he had turned in. It was a test or an exam. Turns out, the teacher lost it.

Diane Dempster: We had that happen too. And the teacher said, and we gently eased in and said what's going on? She's like, I'm so sorry, I found it. It's two months later. I know your daughter had to redo something, and I'm sorry about that. So sometimes that happens.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: The concept here is when you're to help yourself, either not get triggered, or reclaim yourself when you are triggered, is to really be intentional about the story you tell yourself. And we were talking before we got on the call. Some of us have a fairly analytical approach to the world. Diane, can I tell you a little bit?

Diane Dempster: Sure.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: We're talking about Diane has a tendency to walk into a space or a room or whatever, and she's an analyst. So the first thing she sees is what's not working, what's not right, which is a really great skill to have in a business partner, and maybe as a kid might have been frustrating to have a mom sometimes.

It's not that she's not going to analyze. But the idea is to really get to how quickly you can notice that tendency to find the negative, and then to keep going to look for another story that serves more effectively. The story I was telling you, Diane, was from a client over a dozen years ago, she was a mom with five kids, and she was particularly estranged with her teenage daughters, and she was really struggling with this relationship. She was so upset.

And it turned out when we were coaching around it, she had been a medical analyst in her career before she stayed home to become a mom. And so what we were just describing we would walk into the room and she would see what was out of place.

What we coached around with was not that she wasn't going to see it because let's be honest, she's going to see it but the question was, could she prevent herself from saying it?

Diane Dempster: Or leading with it even.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Or leading with it, relating with it long enough to see something else to come in the room and say, hey, it looks like y'all are having a great time before she says, okay, can you get your in gear and do something. 

Diane Dempster: [overlapping] on the floor.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So to know that if you have that tendency, it's okay. You're going to think that way, see that way. If your lawyer, an analyst, or you have that kind of mind, the question is, what other story can you tell yourself that will serve the situation or serve you better?

Diane Dempster: I guess that takes us back to the very beginning, which is the role of the mind. The mind is going to create stories. The mind is going to do what it does naturally, which is either analyze or judge or whatever is going on, and then underneath it.

The question is, are you going to be in charge? Are you going to let your mind be in charge? And I think that's the important piece of it, or even just honestly, who's in charge, but how aware are you? I mean, it's like how many times do you go through your day, and actually pay attention to the things that your mind is saying to you?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah. Sometimes we're really mean to ourselves.

Diane Dempster: Oh, we are. We're mean to the situation. What?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I said something and I was like, such an idiot. And then I said out loud to myself, wait a minute, you're not an idiot. That was an honest mistake.

But my first tendency was to beat myself up. So there are two places to go with this or maybe more. You might have more. I was thinking one about focus with kids and the other I want to go to the mantra.

Diane Dempster: Let's talk about kids. Can we talk about kids for just a second? Because this came up for me the other day. I had a friend who posted the story on Facebook and her kid had to do something crazy that day, and put it off, put it off, put it off, and then that morning, had this freakout. I don't want to go to school.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Was that on [inaudible] crazy hat day?

Diane Dempster: [overlapping] crazy hot day. And then mom's like, you can figure this out. And he's like, I'm not creative. I can't do it. I'm not creative.

And she just kept saying over and over again, I'm not going to let you fall for that trick that your brain is trying to pull on you, and the point was, she thought his brain was telling him that he's not creative and it's BS.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Because everybody's creative in some way.

Diane Dempster: Everybody's creative in some way. But his brain was telling him, you're not creative. And she's like, I'm not going to let you fall for the trick that your brain is trying to pull on you. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I love that. 

Diane Dempster: And it's like I think that's what we need to say to ourselves all day long. Don't fall for the tricks that your brain is trying to pull on you.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: It's funny you say that, because what I used to say to one of my kids was, you can't talk to my child that way. When they would say something about themselves, like I'm an idiot, they would say something disparaging [overlapping]

Diane Dempster: I'm so stupid. I can't believe I do that. I never do right. I mean, all of us have kids that are like that.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And I would say, don't you speak about my child that way, because that's not my child, my child is whatever. When I externalized it and made it third person, they would usually laugh or play. It lightened it. I wasn't being punitive.

Diane Dempster: And I think that the other piece of it is because our kid's brains are going a million miles an hour, just like ours are. So if our kid makes a mistake, their brain is looking for evidence that they're stupid.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah. There's got to be a reason for it.

Diane Dempster: It makes perfect sense that they would say that out loud. I don't always assume that they're completely internalizing it, but I know that there's part of them their brain that's focusing on what's not working instead of what's working. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Which is actually a sign that they have that analytical capacity to be self-aware, which is great, long term.

Diane Dempster: Right. It's this consciousness raising of yes, there's part of you that feels like you made this big giant mistake. There's part of you that feels like you're not creative. It's acknowledging the fact that there is that part of you that feels that way and do you want that part of you to be in charge or do you want the part of a different part of you to be in charge?

I, as a parent want the part of you to be in charge that trusts your instinct that knows your whole, that knows you can do things that's not trying to beat yourself up. That's the part of you that I want as mom that I want my kid to have in charge of them. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: One of the questions that I use with my kids a lot, one of them in particular, is when she starts perseverating or beating herself up or going into the spiral of [inaudible] so this is mostly from anxiety. The question I asked is, what else is also true?

Okay. It might be true that you haven't heard back from that job interview or it might be true that whatever it is that's upsetting to you, what else is also true or what else could also be true? Well, it could be true that they've been on vacation and they haven't gotten to it yet.

There's a million other things when you really start to look at it that could also be true and when you realize there are so many things it's harder to get stuck with that one thing.

Diane Dempster: And I think that that's important as parents. The example I always talk about is the parents with the defiant kid, the kid who's being rude and disrespectful. When you say, well, what's going on with this kid? Well, he's rude and he doesn't have respect for me. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: What else is also going on?

Diane Dempster: What else might also be going on for them? Well, they're really having a hard time and bottom line. It's, it's shifting your thought to a thought that's going to help you resolve the situation. Like if I'm sitting there with a kid who's being rude and all I can think is you're a rude kid I'm going to want to punish them. I'm going to want to run away and leave the room because I don't want to be yelled at by my kid.

I'm going to talk about consequences and punishments and all these sorts of things that we know as parents that have complex kids don't work very effectively. Listen to our other podcast on consequences and punishments. But you have to pick a thought that's going to help you help your kid in the moment is ultimately what you want.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Here's what's coming up for me. So you know me, I go macro. What do we talk about all the time in terms of parenting? Mindset matters. I was writing an article for Attention Magazine on parenting young adults, and I mean parents want strategies. You know the most important strategies the older your kids get?

It's all about the parent mindset. It's all about how we are thinking about the situation because that's going to influence how we approach the situation and how we approach the conversation with these young people.

And I don't care how old your kid is, your mindset sets the tone for what happens in your dynamic in your relationship. What we're really talking about here is choosing a mindset that works for us.

Diane Dempster: Right. Again, get back to the fact that, are you aware of what your mind's telling you about your situation with your kid, about your own work, about whatever it is just being consciously aware? And is that a thought that's actually helping you or is it a thought that's bringing you down?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So there's one more thing I want to cover, is there other than if there's anything else you want to talk about? 

Diane Dempster: No.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Okay. So the one other thing I want to talk about, is what I call mantra is probably the wrong word for it but the mantra or a quote or an expression. When my kids were little, particularly in those early years, when it was really, really hard before I understood what was going on there were certain expressions that I would say to myself, that would get me through those rough days.

I had two of them. So I want to share mine. I want to see what yours were, and then I want to invite people to come up with a story that will carry you through the tough stuff. What, Di?

Diane Dempster: Let's go back and bottom line that because what we're talking about is our mind is going to tell us all kinds of negative stories. And if we have a positive story running in the background all the time, or a more a more supportive story-

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Or even neutral.

Diane Dempster: -a neutral story if you do it all the time, your ability to do it when you really need it is going to be easier. So what you're talking about is a mantra, a phrase, something that carries you through the rough times because you remember it constantly. So what was yours?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: My kids were little, what I used to say to myself all the time and I would say it out loud, was this is where I am in my life right now. This is where I am in my life right now. Kids melting down, can't get out the door to go to school, haven't had a shower in four days like whatever it was, this is where I am in my life right now.

This is not forever. This is where I am right now and it's amazing how much it got me through some really rough times. Do you have one?

Diane Dempster: The one that I've used is nothing is broken here. It's this sort of it's not broken. It may not be the way I want it but it's not broken. It had that reassurance that we are not really over the deep end even though we feel like we're over the deep end.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: The other one that I used a lot was there's a Hebrew term "Gam Zeh Ya'avor," and it's a necklace David brought me back from Israel when he went to go ride a bike across Israel and I got to stay home with three young children. 

Diane Dempster: Thanks, David.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: All I got was no I got this beautiful necklace, and I've written an article about it on the website it's called This Too Shall Pass and from the Song of Solomon. And it's this one quote that no matter what, it reminds me that in the good times and the bad times, this too shall pass. It's always going to pass.

This time this is just a moment and I literally wore the necklace for 12 years. That necklace that quotes that concept got me through a lot of years. This too shall pass the good times and the bad times we get to choose whether we want to embrace them or let them go, but we've got to recognize that nothing is forever. This too shall pass.

Diane Dempster: The other one that I think about with parents because a lot of us tend to get triggered by this stuff that's going on with our kids. We talk about this all the time but the story if you can convince yourself that you're going to be more of the kind of parent you want to be if you can keep your cool than if you get triggered that can be that great reminder.

I am more of the parent I want to be if I can keep my cool than if I lose my cool. I mean that's something simple that you can remind yourself of. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Maybe as simple as a calm parent your home parent is a happy family. Make it as simple as you can. So what's yours?

As you're listening to this, we want to invite you to think about a quote, a mantra, whatever the expression is for you. What's something that you can tell yourself that may get you through the good times and the bad times?

Diane Dempster: And we want to give you a challenge to start paying a little bit more attention to what your mind is telling you so that you can use this phrase that you just came up with, and help yourself to stay more grounded and balanced in your day-to-day life.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Awesome. That was a really fabulous conversation. This is why I'm so excited to have this podcast to be able to talk about the issues that are coming up in our world and our work. Anything you want to say before we close out?

Diane Dempster: No. Thanks for being here.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Awesome. Thanks for tuning in, everybody, and thanks for the work you're doing for yourself and your kids. It makes a difference. Take care, y'all.