I’m Diana Swillinger, and this is the Renew Your Mind podcast. Episode 31 My Best Stuff.
DIANA: Hey. Hey. Hello to you. I am so glad that you’re here. How are you doing today? I’m doing amazing and I’m really excited about today’s podcast. Do you ever get tired of people saying, I’m really excited? I do, and then I say it anyway. Just know that I know I said it. I’m really excited today. Well, this is going to be a fun episode, but really quick, let me share a review that I’ve had on itunes. Please go over and leave a review if you haven’t. I am m really, really attached to the work I’m doing here for one main reason. It helps people. It’s not because I would need accolades and I want a lot of people to listen because it makes me feel better. The Renew Your Mind podcast is helping people manage their emotions and their thoughts. It’s helping women like you and me renew our minds.
Please share this podcast with your friends who could use a little help and let more people, the people you don’t know that you can’t share with the way they’re going to find it is if you go leave a review on itunes. So please go over there and leave a review. This one here is from Low, uh, Wool. Sod it’s just a bunch of letters. You ever type on the keyboard? A bunch of gobbly gook letters. That’s who left this review, but it’s a nice review. It’s called Renewing My Mindset, and it says, this is a great Christian podcast. Reprogramming the thought. Life is challenging but worth it. And Diana is here to help. Yes, I am.
All right, today’s podcast is going to include a little insight from one of my kids. As many of you know, I have four kids. My boys are all big and taller than me. By next year, they will all three of them be adults. And I have an eleven year old little girl. When we thought we were done having kids, like done done, God’s like, nope, I have other plans. And we were blindsided, but turned out to be the most incredible blessing. And we got a daughter. Her name is Shaylee, which means from the fairy garden. And, uh, it’s very fitting for her because after having boys for ten years, she brought sparkles and mermaids and sprinkles and fairy dust into our lives. She’s the baby of our family and she’s brilliant and she’s just an amazing light in all of our lives. Her life isn’t without struggle. Nobody’s is. And even at, uh, the age of eleven, she’s had some drama over the years. And until I learned and created my own amazing mind renewal tools, she’s really struggled. And she’s been observing me though. She’s been learning right alongside me. And we talk about this stuff, which is incredible. Last week she had a language arts project for school where she got to pick from several different options and she picked giving a recorded video speech about her role model. Guess who she picked? Guess. Who do you think it is? It’s me. She picked me.
I was blown away when I heard what she wrote and I heard her deliver it. I was proud of her and I was proud of me. My life was kind of a mess before y’all, I was a mess. I have come a long, long way and I am proud of me and her. I was humbled. I was hopeful, not only for her, but for future generations of, um, not just my family, but all the young people. And I was hopeful for all the women I get to work with. And I am hopeful for you. Shaylee is eleven and she has significantly reduced overwhelm and anxiety in her life. This is a real issue for most young people today. And when I became a life coach, I did not do it with my daughter in mind. I actually had women just like you in mind. But lo and behold, I had given my daughter a huge leg up in her own struggle with overwhelm. She used to panic and she’d have trouble breathing and she had no solutions except she’d grit her teeth and wait hours until it would subside and then it would just happen again the next day.
Today she still has some anxiety and overwhelm occasionally, but it’s not daily and it’s usually short lived because she knows what to do with it. She’s heard me teach my stuff all the time and she put my best stuff into her short and concise speech for school. And so she agreed to let me share it with you today. I’m going to play it for you now. And then I’ll come back and I’ll talk a little bit about what she said. So, without further ado, here is my daughter Shaylee, talking about her role model.
Shaylee: My role model. My mom is my role model because she is a life coach. My mom teaches people how to relieve anxiety and stress and live a much better, happier life. My mom teaches people that it is okay if something goes wrong and did it really go wrong or did it just not go the way you had hoped? She teaches that there is no should, there’s could. She teaches that if anything went the way it wasn’t supposed to, or if someone is acting the way they aren’t supposed to. She uses a saying, it was supposed to happen. You know how I know? Because it happened.
My mom teaches that if you get mad or upset or stressed, change your thoughts by using these strategies. And after you’ve changed your thoughts, it’s okay to keep feeling mad or upset or stressed. Just don’t do it at people. She teaches that you can’t control people. There is nothing you can do if they do something that you think they shouldn’t do. You can talk to them, but you still can’t control them. I love my mom, and the things she teaches as a life coach are very helpful. That is why my mom is my role model.
DIANA: See why I feel so proud? This girl is set up to handle life with these tools. She is. And these tools are available to you, all of them. So let’s just take a look. First thing, she said, it’s okay if something goes wrong. And did it really go wrong, or did it just not go the way you had hoped? So you know what she’s doing here? She is accepting what is. Even if she thinks something went wrong, she’s saying, that’s okay. It’s okay for things to go wrong. How is that possible? You know how she just decides it’s okay. That’s it. The dog ate my homework. Okay, that happened. That’s okay. That just means I have to do it again. It doesn’t mean she loves it or she would choose it. She’s just not arguing with reality of what actually happened. She’s not arguing with it by saying it’s not okay and it shouldn’t have happened. And after she accepts the reality of what, is she’s willing to question her assessment? Did it actually go wrong? That’s a good question. Who would decide if it was actually wrong? Maybe it’s not wrong at all. Maybe it’s right. Maybe it doesn’t need to be considered wrong or right. The dog ate my homework. I’ll do it again. Maybe I’ll learn more this time. Maybe it helps me learn discipline and resilience. Maybe it’s right. Or maybe it just is.
You can see how just that thought skill would reduce anxiety and overwhelm just that. But she goes on, but wait, there’s more. Next, she says about my tools. She teaches that there is no should. There’s could. This is really good. You know why? Should is just a word that shares our opinion. Have you ever noticed that anytime we say should or shouldn’t, we’re just expressing an opinion. My daughter should go to college. She shouldn’t be late to meetings. I should exercise. We should invest in our retirement. All of those are opinions. Try it yourself. Try saying a sentence with should. It’s just an opinion. In our heads, we make the word should be like, this is how it should be. And if it’s not, it’s a problem. But when we do that, we stress ourselves out because we think it’s absolute. But it’s just an opinion. When we replace the word should with could, we get to see everything as it is.
Our ideas are just presenting opinions, options, and choices. And this is kind of along the line of deciding if something’s right or wrong. We’re not the end all be all judge on what is right or wrong. We’re also not the end all, be all judge on what people should or shouldn’t do or how the future should or shouldn’t go. And if you, uh, actually are that authority, if you’re the end all, be all judge and you know exactly what’s right and wrong, and you know what people should and shouldn’t do, please go run for president. Because we need somebody to set us all straight. So the next thing is basically, how do you know something happened the way it was supposed to? Because that is what happened. This is another way of deciding to stop fighting with reality. It happened. That’s how it was supposed to happen. M because it did. What is the point of arguing with what happened anyway? What’s the point of saying it shouldn’t have happened that way?
Notice the word shouldn’t. It’s an opinion. It’s possible everything happened exactly the way it’s supposed to happen. It really is. But even if it’s not, what is the point of arguing with it? When you argue with it, you feel angry and frustrated and resentful. None of those are helpful. But if you accept it everything happened the way it was supposed to, then we don’t have to pile on frustration. Then we just get to be okay with it. We don’t feel all the angst of resistance. And let me tell you, resisting reality is exhausting. Have you noticed this? And, uh, I’m, um, not talking about being resigned like, it sucks. And I’ll just admit it sucks. Because when you do that, you just make yourself a victim to reality. You’re like, I accept it. That’s what happened, and it sucks and I’m suffering. That’s not what I’m talking about. That doesn’t help. I’m talking about not making reality your enemy. Things happen. People do things. People say things. That’s just life. That’s reality. It’s not you against the world. It’s just you and your family and your neighbors and all of us people doing our best and trying to figure it out. It just is. All right, next. This is brilliant. Shailey said it’s okay to feel mad or upset or stressed. Just don’t do it at people. She’s talking about feeling your feelings in a mature and healthy way. We have emotions. We feel them physically in our body. God gave them to us, and they’re there on purpose. We don’t need to deny them. We don’t need to sweep them under the rug. We don’t need to shove them in the closet or resist them. It’s not wrong to have an emotion. It’s okay to have all the different emotions. Just don’t use them as an excuse to lash out at other people.
But also don’t hold them back until they take over and you feel out of control. One of the things I do with my daughter is talk her through her feelings. This is why she mentioned that in her speech. I remember a morning she was at the breakfast table, and she felt overwhelmed getting ready for school. But because we had talked about emotions before, she noticed it. And she told me that was a skill she already learned to take a breath and notice her emotion. She knew it was overwhelmed, and she told me. And you know what? I said? Okay, cool. I validated her emotion. I didn’t make it a big deal. I didn’t mirror it and get overwhelmed and stressed back at her. I used to do that, though, years ago. Not anymore. I let her know it was normal and not just acceptable to feel it, but it’s cool. It’s cool. She was having this experience. Learning how to feel our emotions is a pretty awesome thing, I think. So I’m like, Here you are with overwhelm. What does it feel like?
She told me where and how she felt it in her body. She said she was noticing sensations like where she felt it in her shoulders or if her heart was racing or all these other things. And taking a moment to notice how it was physically happening in her body took her out of the thought spin. That alone helped her to feel more calm. And she allowed the overwhelm to live for a moment in her body. And she got out of her thoughtspin after feeling it. And not blaming me for pressuring her or rushing her. She just took a breath and collected herself. And then she could access a thought about what she wanted to do next. And she stayed present. She stopped worrying about all the things. She calmed herself down. She functioned. She was able to change her main thought when she was overwhelmed. She was probably thinking something like, this is too much. I can’t keep it straight. We’re running out of time.
But after she felt overwhelmed on purpose, she was able to think something that allowed her to feel capable. I’m imagining it was something like, I just need to do the next one thing. I can think about the next thing after that. One thing at a time. All right. Last thing she said is, you can’t control people. I really find that to be very true. We can influence many people by the things that we say and do, but not all of them, and not all the time. And even when we can influence people, we can suggest things and then they do it. But we’re not actually in control over what other people think, feel, and do. We say something, do something, or interact with them, and then they get to decide after that. Shailey says, you can talk to them, but you still can’t control them. And what she didn’t say something that I often tell her is that when you realize, that when you know. That when you remember that now you’ll get to decide what you want to do. I’ve talked to her about kids at the school. So a general example could be a kid hits her on the playground. She can make a request for that kid not to hit her, but then he or she gets to decide how he wants to behave. She tried to reason with him, but he might hit her again. Then I ask, So what do you want to do if that happens? After you make that request, she can’t control him, but she can control herself, and she can take ownership of that. And in every situation, we have tons of options of what we want to do. So she’s talking about taking ownership of your own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. So wise. That is jam packed of good stuff.
You guys, I, uh, told you it was my best stuff. And I bet you can see why I’m so proud of her. I’m proud of her for being humble, and I’m proud of her for being an excellent student of life. I’m proud of her for taking ownership of her own thoughts and emotions and behavior. I’m proud of me for modeling that and taking ownership of my own thoughts, emotions, and behavior. And trust me, I don’t do it perfectly. I still make a truckload of mistakes, and I teach her through those, too. She’s watching. She’s learning. And my mistakes are probably exactly how it was supposed to be. That’s exactly how I’m supposed to show up for my daughter. A little bit of brilliance and a little bit of mistakes, and all of it mixed together and be proud of you, too.
Listening to this podcast, you are making micro shifts in how you’re thinking and feeling and how you’re showing up in your life. And I am proud of you. All right, y’all, that’s it for today. I will catch you next week. Take care of you.
As an advanced certified life coach, I help Christian women trying to live their best lives, but they still feel unsatisfied and stuck. I teach thought management skills that work so you can enjoy life again and step into who God has created you to be. Don’t forget to head on over to Rympodcast.Com to get my free resources or a free coaching call.
