Divorce Recovery with Emotional Intelligence and Restoring Your Identity - Michael Ayala-White || DPTSP #059 || David M. Webb

[00:00:01] Welcome, everybody out there to Don't Pick the Scab Podcast, where we dive into ways to help men over 40 heal from divorce.

[00:00:09] I look for guests that are somewhat out of the box, per se, and I got one today.

[00:00:14] We have Michael Ayala-White on the show. He has a BS in Biblical Studies from Moody Institute and a Trauma-Informed Coaching Certificate through Moving the Human Spirit.

[00:00:25] And we're going to figure out what that is. He personally has a trauma-informed coaching business, primarily working with men and helping them to restore identity and purpose.

[00:00:34] So tell us a little bit about yourself, Michael, and I got some questions for you. Let's go ahead and go like that.

[00:00:53] Welcome to the Don't Pick the Scab Podcast with the premise of connecting men over 40 with the tools and community to thrive in their divorce recovery either before, during, or after a divorce.

[00:01:07] Yeah, David, thanks so much for having me on. I appreciate it.

[00:01:09] As you already heard, I own my own business. It's called Wayward Coaching.

[00:01:14] And what I do is I'm a trauma-informed coach and I work with guys in all different walks of life to help restore identity and find purpose.

[00:01:22] And so in today's day and age, it's very easy to get caught up in the grind, also get caught up in your own trauma, and not figure out what is the proper heading toward healing and toward health for themselves as an individual, for their families, for their careers, for wherever they want to go.

[00:01:37] And so I work with guys all over the world at this point to figure out how to help them engage their stories of brokenness, because our stories are the roadmap to healing.

[00:01:49] And if we don't know and process through our stories, we don't know how to heal and move forward into who we are made to be.

[00:01:55] And so I work with guys through addiction, trauma, divorce, career loss.

[00:02:02] A lot of them come to me in typically some of the worst spots of their life to figure out how to get their bearings again.

[00:02:07] And through my own story of brokenness, trauma, and divorce, I've also learned how to walk the path of healing as an individual, as a man.

[00:02:15] And now from a professional standpoint, I try to help men that are a couple steps behind me get some bearings, get a heading and figure out how do we move in the direction of health for you.

[00:02:25] What inspires you to pursue a degree in biblical studies?

[00:02:29] And how has that shaped your approach to coaching?

[00:02:32] Yeah, it's a great question.

[00:02:33] So I grew up in a faith based household, Christian household.

[00:02:37] I personally became a Christian when I was 19 and wanted to figure out, okay, how do I advance my education?

[00:02:46] And I looked around for a long time and figured out that Moody Bible Institute was the place I wanted to go.

[00:02:53] I figured out very early on when I jumped into some Christian ministry and some faith based stuff that I could teach pretty early on.

[00:03:02] When I was around 19 years old, I started doing that in some community college stuff and then got some opportunities to do that on Sunday mornings and Sunday nights throughout the region.

[00:03:10] And I wanted to advance that part of me, that intellectual part of me.

[00:03:14] What I wasn't anticipating was how my trauma would catch up to me and how intellectual assent would actually become a bastion for my trauma.

[00:03:26] Because the more I learned about Christian studies and the more intellectually intelligent I got, the less I was willing to engage my trauma.

[00:03:36] Wow.

[00:03:38] I used my head to hide my heart and hide my trauma and I didn't even know that I was doing it in a conscious way.

[00:03:43] And it wasn't until my life really fell apart that I was like, maybe the way I'm living isn't working.

[00:03:48] Maybe my degrees aren't enough.

[00:03:50] Maybe there's more to how I was made and how to be engaged as a human being, even from the Christian perspective, than I had previously been raised in.

[00:03:59] And love Moody, love their program, thankful to get a really good education from them.

[00:04:05] Let's define trauma.

[00:04:06] What is trauma based coaching?

[00:04:09] Let's just go ahead and knock that elephant out of the room.

[00:04:11] Yeah.

[00:04:12] So trauma informed coaching is, coaching is such a broad umbrella as a whole.

[00:04:18] And it's this buzz niche area now that seems like everybody's a professional coach in something.

[00:04:24] And so, yeah.

[00:04:25] And that's not always a good thing.

[00:04:26] Sometimes people take a three hour seminar and now they're a mental health expert or mental health coach.

[00:04:31] And you're okay.

[00:04:32] But for me, I went through a longer program to get informed on what is trauma, how to not heal or treat, but navigate certain types of trauma and a lot of story work to figure out, okay, how did you get the way you are?

[00:04:50] And how do we formulate an actual practical plan?

[00:04:53] Because guys are very practical.

[00:04:54] Just tell me what to do.

[00:04:56] It's okay.

[00:04:56] Let's figure out where you came from and where you need to go.

[00:04:58] So coaching as a whole is just, is a partnership with, for me, particularly men to set a trajectory of where you want to go.

[00:05:06] And the trauma informed side of that is just understanding that a lot of the guys that come to me have experienced trauma.

[00:05:12] And so I can help them with what's called somatic work or body work to figure out, hey, what's irritating you down here and how can we give you some relief?

[00:05:20] And then also learning like, hey, there are certain things that I can't do and I'm going to refer you out to some partners.

[00:05:26] So trauma informed coaching really is just, it's a partnership with men to set a trajectory of where they want to go.

[00:05:32] And for those that come to me, it typically means that somewhere in their story, they've experienced some trauma that they're not quite sure.

[00:05:41] What are some of the common misconceptions about trauma that you encounter when working with your clients?

[00:05:48] Yeah, great question.

[00:05:49] First thing is that not everything is trauma.

[00:05:52] An argument with your parents as a child that is imprinted on your memory may not be trauma.

[00:05:58] It could just be a negative memory that affected you in a specific way.

[00:06:04] So how do you differentiate between trauma and non-trauma?

[00:06:08] What's the line?

[00:06:09] Yeah, so that's a good question.

[00:06:11] Technically, I can't tell someone that something wasn't traumatic necessarily.

[00:06:17] But in terms of what's understood as typical trauma, there's normally some sort of physical or emotional harm that leaves an imprint on the person to which they are then stuck in that area and cannot emotionally or mentally mature.

[00:06:35] And so whether that's your typical physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, neglect is a huge one.

[00:06:41] That's the unspoken traumatic event for people is sometimes the absence of a father or a mother is far worse than having an ambivalent or a kind of topsy-turvy mother or father.

[00:06:56] Because at least with that, we can take the memory and work around the memory.

[00:07:01] It's got a framework.

[00:07:02] It's got a starting and stopping form.

[00:07:04] For someone that has either been abandoned or neglected, their imagination fills in the gaps.

[00:07:09] And now it's tough to tell what's real and what's not.

[00:07:11] Oh, wow.

[00:07:12] And so that can actually be harder to unwind because you're trying to figure out where does this even end versus an actual event of physical abuse where it started and stopped in two, three minutes.

[00:07:25] And we can work through that.

[00:07:26] The lack of a parental figure particularly, now you have to create from scratch what you perceive to be healthy and that can be really hard.

[00:07:34] To your original question, I'm not going to tell someone that something isn't traumatic, but we're going to work through, okay, was this just a bad day by you?

[00:07:42] Or is there a reason why when you're six years old, you specifically remember this event that has affected the way you see relationships move forward?

[00:07:51] That would be a traumatic event where it causes isolationism, addiction, some sort of attachment disorder, not being able to connect with people well, things like that.

[00:08:01] So basically it's easier to repair a car than to build one.

[00:08:07] Most of the time that's right.

[00:08:08] Most of the time that's right.

[00:08:11] Again, repairing a car, if you have the manual and you figure out where the parts are, there's a starting and a stopping point for that car.

[00:08:19] When you're trying to build a car from scratch, it doesn't exist yet.

[00:08:22] It may be fine, but it's not there.

[00:08:24] There's no frame.

[00:08:25] You have to build the frame first to put everything in there.

[00:08:28] Similar to building a house.

[00:08:29] The hardest part of building a house is digging out the foundation.

[00:08:32] That takes the long part.

[00:08:34] It's sometimes easier to fix the foundation if it already exists.

[00:08:38] So how do you help men restore their identity and find purpose after experiencing trauma or significant life changes?

[00:08:47] Great question.

[00:08:49] So there's a couple of different ways.

[00:08:52] The first way is through what's called story work.

[00:08:54] So the first thing we want to do is figure out how did we get it?

[00:08:58] What was the thing or things that led you to the significant event that this hamstring you are causing you to be stuck?

[00:09:05] So help them process that through some story work techniques, identifying core negative beliefs.

[00:09:11] This is one of the things that's really hard for men is to get their inside world out.

[00:09:16] A lot of stuff for men is happening in here.

[00:09:18] We just don't know how to talk about it.

[00:09:20] We don't have the language for it.

[00:09:21] We've never really seen most of the time other men actually talk about how post-divorce they're lonely.

[00:09:28] Like I was 30 years old the first time I heard a man tell me that he was lonely.

[00:09:32] I felt that most of my life.

[00:09:34] I just never heard that.

[00:09:36] I've never seen this model.

[00:09:38] So the first thing is trying to help them process through what exactly is that happened to them so that they don't make the same mistake over and over again.

[00:09:49] The second thing would be to identify the core negative belief that resulted from that specific.

[00:09:56] Whether it's I'm not enough, I'm not lovable, I can't do things, whatever the core negative belief is, that is informing the decisions that we make.

[00:10:06] And sometimes we do things to prove I knew I was this way and it's like, no, that wasn't even your fault.

[00:10:11] That just happened to you.

[00:10:12] But because you already had this core negative belief inside of you, that reinforces what's called narrative bias or confirmation bias.

[00:10:19] It reinforces what's already going on.

[00:10:22] So we want to dig down and figure out what are some of those core negative beliefs and start the process of unraveling and uprooting those.

[00:10:30] And the third thing is planting truth.

[00:10:32] It's not just taking something out or telling someone not to do something.

[00:10:36] Because if I tell you not to think about the number eight, what are you going to do?

[00:10:39] You're going to think about the number eight.

[00:10:41] But if I tell you don't think about the number eight, think about the number 13, you're far more likely to think about the number 13.

[00:10:47] So we want to take out those core negative beliefs and do what's called replacement, which is putting in some things that are true of going, I am lovable.

[00:10:57] I can bring good things into the world, even though I'm not perfect.

[00:11:00] I do make mistakes, but that doesn't mean that I'm a failure.

[00:11:04] I do fail sometimes, but I'm not a failure.

[00:11:06] Helping to replace those core negative beliefs with truth can actually help propel men into who they actually are.

[00:11:14] And really, who they probably were going to be before the trauma that they experienced, which probably led them to make some bad decisions when they became adults that they themselves have to work through as well.

[00:11:26] So that's an oversimplification process.

[00:11:30] That's what men need, man.

[00:11:31] They need it simple.

[00:11:32] We're going to do this, and then we're going to do this, and we're going to do that.

[00:11:38] Let's talk about emotional intelligence.

[00:11:40] Why is it so important, and why is it crucial for men, especially in relationships with others?

[00:11:48] Oh, man.

[00:11:49] How much time you got?

[00:11:50] All right.

[00:11:52] Hey, don't get down for me.

[00:11:53] Yeah.

[00:11:54] No.

[00:11:55] Why it's so important is because emotional intelligence, emotional intelligence is a set of keys to unlock connection and relationship for men.

[00:12:04] If you can't understand what's going on inside, then it's going to be really hard to connect with someone else.

[00:12:12] If we can't bring our inside world out for ourselves and other people to see, then we're never going to be seen.

[00:12:19] And this is why it doesn't even have to be faith-based.

[00:12:22] There have been plenty of articles right around COVID and then after COVID of what's called the male epidemic or the male pandemic, which is lack of male relationships and friendships.

[00:12:33] We just don't know how to do that.

[00:12:35] You and I can sit and talk about the chiefs and the bills for hours.

[00:12:40] We can talk about the history of that.

[00:12:42] But anything beneath that, and then we start to fumble around and we're not totally sure.

[00:12:47] How do I engage?

[00:12:48] How do I talk about what I'm struggling with?

[00:12:50] How do I talk about what I'm doing with that?

[00:12:53] And emotional intelligence is the keys to unlock what's going on down in here to bring it out so that we can actually be seen, we can be known, and we can be loved.

[00:13:04] And in turn, if we can do that for ourselves, we have a better shot at holding space and relationships for other men and partners to be able to make them feel seen and feel loved.

[00:13:17] And this is the thing for guys is that we live in logic.

[00:13:21] We live in our prefrontal cortex up here of intellect, rationale, philosophy, all that stuff.

[00:13:26] It's all good.

[00:13:28] Most of, for those of us that have female partners, most of the female partners, doesn't mean they're not intelligent.

[00:13:35] They are, but they're living down in here in emotion, in feeling, in gut intuition.

[00:13:41] And so when they're sitting there trying to talk about what's going on inside, and I respond, well, here are the three things you need to do.

[00:13:48] She's like, shut up.

[00:13:49] I'm like, I don't need you to help me right now.

[00:13:52] I need you to hear.

[00:13:53] I need you to listen.

[00:13:54] I need you to listen.

[00:13:55] Exactly.

[00:13:56] And so we're two ships passing in the night, and neither of us are trying to be malicious to the other.

[00:14:02] What we have to realize as men is that if we can become more emotionally intelligent and figure out what's going on here and bring it out, we have a far greater chance of sitting with our spouse, with our daughters, with our female friends, with our male friends, and holding space for them to feel heard and feel seen.

[00:14:20] Because as human beings, that's really what we're looking for.

[00:14:23] And so emotional intelligence is the roadmap and the language to be able to connect well and to receive well.

[00:14:31] So that's how I would sum that up.

[00:14:32] All right.

[00:14:33] I'm going to drop it on you.

[00:14:35] The C word, communication, baby.

[00:14:38] Men suck at it.

[00:14:39] And that's pretty much what you were talking about ahead of time.

[00:14:42] How can men improve their communication with friends, their loved ones?

[00:14:48] That's a big speed bump for us sometimes.

[00:14:50] How can we circumvent that or become better at it?

[00:14:55] Yeah.

[00:14:56] We'll go with three things here.

[00:14:58] The first thing is to engage your own story.

[00:15:00] As funny as that sounds.

[00:15:01] What I mean by that is-

[00:15:03] Interesting.

[00:15:03] The data is very clear on this, David.

[00:15:05] I get asked all the time, like, I want to be a better father.

[00:15:09] I want to be a better husband.

[00:15:10] I want to be a better son.

[00:15:11] I want to be a better coworker.

[00:15:13] I want to be a better client.

[00:15:15] And they're like, what do I do?

[00:15:16] The data is very clear.

[00:15:17] You want to be a better version of yourself?

[00:15:20] Work on yourself.

[00:15:20] You want to be a better husband, father, coworker, employer, employee?

[00:15:25] Work on yourself.

[00:15:26] Because the reality is that at minimum in 2020, 95% of the globe went through a traumatic event with the pandemic.

[00:15:37] Like we actually were told you have to go against the very thing that you are made for, which is community.

[00:15:42] I live in New York State and New York State was one of the top states of just the length of shutdown.

[00:15:51] And we're still paying for that in a relational way.

[00:15:54] At minimum, we all went through a traumatic event that we haven't probably processed through fully even now.

[00:16:02] So we need to work on our own stories as men.

[00:16:05] Number one, we need to figure out where the heck did we come from?

[00:16:10] In terms of family of origin, in terms of relationships, in terms of any type of trauma, racism, bullying, neglect, whatever.

[00:16:19] All of that affects the way we see relationships when we get older.

[00:16:23] And when we think that the past doesn't matter, the past informs our present and our future if we don't go back to fix it.

[00:16:29] So that's the first thing.

[00:16:30] Second thing would be most guys like what I love.

[00:16:35] And I was this guy.

[00:16:36] The reason I pick on these guys is because I was this guy.

[00:16:39] I was in front of this line.

[00:16:41] Guys talk about how they don't know how to bring their inside world out.

[00:16:44] And that's true.

[00:16:45] But it's not because they're not intelligent.

[00:16:47] It's because it doesn't matter.

[00:16:49] You and I and many other men can pick whatever hobby that we are passionate about and list thing after thing after thing of stats, of records, of whatever.

[00:17:04] Because it's important to us.

[00:17:06] Yeah, because that matters.

[00:17:08] I can tell you all of Josh Allen stats.

[00:17:10] I can tell you the bills offensive and defensive snap counts and the things that matter to me because it's important.

[00:17:17] And what I had to learn was, can my internal world and my language be just as important as everything else?

[00:17:24] And so I had to learn a new language.

[00:17:27] Essentially, I had to learn how to communicate what's going on inside.

[00:17:31] And the reason that I was wanting to do that is because it became important.

[00:17:35] And so when guys tell me, hey, I don't know how to do that.

[00:17:39] I'm like, that's fine.

[00:17:40] The question is, are you willing to learn?

[00:17:43] I didn't know how to do it.

[00:17:44] I have good friends of mine in recovery that are in their mid 60s that learned how to do it in their mid 60s.

[00:17:52] So there's no age limit here.

[00:17:54] The question is, are you willing?

[00:17:57] So for me, the first thing that guys can do is work on themselves, engage their own story, start to figure out like, where the heck did I come from?

[00:18:04] How did I become this way?

[00:18:06] And in that process, learn a new language, learn how to talk about what you feel.

[00:18:11] You can't see it here, but on the laptop I'm using, I have a small sticker on it that is legitimately a feelings wheel that has 50 different feelings on it.

[00:18:23] That when I'm not sure what's going on in here, I just look down at that and go, I am feeling blank.

[00:18:29] And that helps to get what's inside out.

[00:18:32] Wow.

[00:18:32] So we need to, as men, again, we have all sorts of languages that we use depending on what setting we're in.

[00:18:40] And we know the stats, we know all these things.

[00:18:42] So the question is what's going on in here important enough to learn a new life.

[00:18:47] And if you can experience some of the release from the trauma, you start to realize it is important.

[00:18:53] Because now I'm not as irritated, now I'm not as activated all the time.

[00:18:57] And now I can actually engage better in relationships with people and space for them.

[00:19:01] And they care about me and I care about them.

[00:19:03] And so it's a journey, man.

[00:19:04] Like it's a journey just like anything else.

[00:19:07] But we have to be willing to be uncomfortable and try something new because what we did and what we were doing got us to where we are.

[00:19:16] And if we don't like where we are, we have to change what we've been doing.

[00:19:21] Yeah.

[00:19:21] So what you're giving me is a lot of pieces of the puzzle.

[00:19:24] But the one piece that we haven't talked about yet is self-care.

[00:19:28] And I'm a big self-care guy.

[00:19:29] And I think that we don't take care of ourselves.

[00:19:33] We want to take care of everybody else, but not ourselves.

[00:19:37] How do we do that better?

[00:19:39] Yeah.

[00:19:40] The analogy that I got in one of the counseling intensives I was a participant in as a person, as a, not a professional, but as a participant.

[00:19:48] It was the analogy of the starving baker, which is, it's the guy who bakes and bakes and sells all his baked goods and breads and dies of starvation because he never eats.

[00:20:00] Dang.

[00:20:01] And I was like, thanks for picking on me because that's me, like for sure.

[00:20:05] Yeah.

[00:20:06] So first thing I would say is we have to realize that self-care is not selfish.

[00:20:11] That's the first thing we have to realize is if we're not healthy, we're no good to anybody else.

[00:20:17] Like we're either going to go into burnout, addiction, shutdown mode.

[00:20:21] Like the alternatives to the lack of self-care are just not good.

[00:20:26] So the first thing that men need to realize is that self-care is not selfish.

[00:20:31] Taking care of yourself makes sure it allows for the rest of your family, your career and everything else to flourish.

[00:20:38] Second thing would be to figure out like, what is it that you enjoy doing that gives you life?

[00:20:45] And we're not talking about unhealthy things of drugs, avoidance, isolation, things like that I'm talking about.

[00:20:52] For me, I'm a big nature guy.

[00:20:53] I love to be outside.

[00:20:55] Buffalo makes it tough.

[00:20:57] You get a couple months out of the year that it's actually decent here.

[00:21:00] But when I travel or go other places, it's I go into the mountains or I go by the beach.

[00:21:05] That is self-care for me.

[00:21:06] It just allows my body to depress.

[00:21:09] You can just be like, ah, this is good.

[00:21:14] Within what I do now, like for me, I'm active.

[00:21:17] And so I just walk.

[00:21:19] I go for a walk almost every day.

[00:21:21] That's self-care.

[00:21:23] Figuring out what helps you recharge.

[00:21:26] And it's a little bit different for certain people depending on the season.

[00:21:30] Because if you've got newborn kids in the house, that's a little different.

[00:21:33] Oh yeah.

[00:21:34] Seasonal things, no doubt.

[00:21:36] But if you're serious about self-care, then it's possible.

[00:21:42] Because I see guys all the time where I'm like, tell me about your fantasy football leagues.

[00:21:46] Oh, I'm in eight of them.

[00:21:47] Okay.

[00:21:48] How much time does that take for me to read?

[00:21:50] Dang.

[00:21:51] Tell me how much time it takes.

[00:21:52] Ah, 10, 15 hours.

[00:21:54] Like, okay.

[00:21:55] What if you just cut that in half?

[00:21:57] I don't know.

[00:21:57] I'm like, you're telling me you're fried.

[00:22:00] I'm looking for time in your schedule and there's plenty of time.

[00:22:03] It's just a matter of priority.

[00:22:05] And so this is where for guys, again, it's about like, can we shift the narrative and the

[00:22:09] perspective to go, hey, I'm not hating on fantasy football.

[00:22:15] I'm just concerned about fantasy land because you're using it to escape instead of getting

[00:22:20] healthy.

[00:22:21] So like we have to figure out the balance of having some downtime to do fantasy football and

[00:22:26] just let your brain relax, no doubt about it.

[00:22:29] But when that eats into actual care, now we got to figure out like, what do we need to

[00:22:35] shift?

[00:22:36] And so for guys, that's an ongoing conversation about discovering who you are and what recharges

[00:22:42] you and then leaning into that version of self-care in very few times.

[00:22:47] It's been, I think I can only count on one hand the amount of times where I'm like, okay,

[00:22:51] we really need to sit down and figure out what self-care looks like for you because your

[00:22:55] margin is so.

[00:22:56] Most people, there's so much built in time between fantasy football, Netflix, softball

[00:23:02] five nights a week, that we can tweak some of that to figure out what self-care looks

[00:23:07] like for them.

[00:23:08] My favorite comparison is when the plane's going down, you don't put your kids out to

[00:23:13] the mass on first, you put yours on first.

[00:23:15] Yours first.

[00:23:16] You got to take care of yourself.

[00:23:18] Well, let's talk about co-parenting, man.

[00:23:20] Co-parenting is near and dear to my heart.

[00:23:23] And a lot of these guys over 40 have kids, little kids, teenagers.

[00:23:27] What's some of the things you could tell them about co-parenting to make it a little bit

[00:23:32] easier, especially when it's contentious?

[00:23:35] Yeah.

[00:23:36] Yeah.

[00:23:36] Okay.

[00:23:36] Great question.

[00:23:38] So I'm going to speak from the perspective of a kid here, mostly because I want to be sensitive

[00:23:45] to just areas that I haven't walked.

[00:23:48] So I want to speak a little bit of a different angle, but first thing would be is to pursue

[00:23:53] the hearts and minds of your kids.

[00:23:55] Pursue their hearts and their minds because in the time of divorce, unless they're extremely

[00:24:02] young, there's a narrative that forms inside the kid's mind.

[00:24:07] And it's typically something's wrong with me.

[00:24:10] That's why they split.

[00:24:13] And the reality of for kids, depending on what age they are, like three to 17 is this front

[00:24:21] part of your brain here that holds the logic that I was talking about earlier to be able

[00:24:26] to understand that this is not my fault.

[00:24:28] That doesn't fully develop until we're in our mid twenties.

[00:24:31] So we're stuck down in here in our emotional self going, this is my fault.

[00:24:36] This is what I feel.

[00:24:37] And nothing you can tell me can change that narrative.

[00:24:41] What a parent can do is lean into the reality of their kids and assure them, hey, you, this

[00:24:50] is not your fault.

[00:24:52] And here's why I love you.

[00:24:54] Here's why I want to pursue you.

[00:24:56] As far as the co-parenting goes, there's two things.

[00:24:59] First thing would be, if it's contentious, you have to know what activates you.

[00:25:05] That's the first thing.

[00:25:07] Not even thinking about the other parent at this point.

[00:25:09] Yet.

[00:25:10] You have to figure out what is it that sets me up?

[00:25:13] What is it that makes me absolutely explode up to a 10 or a 12 or dive down into a zero into

[00:25:19] just shutdown mode?

[00:25:21] And how do I prep myself for the interaction that I'm about to have?

[00:25:26] So that's less likely to happen.

[00:25:29] Because our nervous systems are activated.

[00:25:31] Like when we're going into anywhere that feels unsafe for us.

[00:25:34] And this is the thing with guys is like, what do you mean unsafe?

[00:25:36] And I'm like, bro, you walked into this room.

[00:25:39] And I can tell from the look in your eyes and your body language, you're not having it.

[00:25:44] You do not want to be here.

[00:25:46] And so I'll call it unsafe.

[00:25:48] You're calling it you don't want to be here.

[00:25:50] It's the same thing.

[00:25:51] Your nervous system is active.

[00:25:53] And so you're already on 10, already looking for threats and already looking to get into

[00:25:59] an argument before you even got into the house to pick up the kids.

[00:26:03] So what I'm saying is the first thing is you have to know how you react and do the opposite.

[00:26:09] So if you shoot up into anxiety all the time, man, just do some breathing when you're in the car.

[00:26:14] When you pull into the driveway, take a minute and a half to two minutes to just, just slow it down.

[00:26:24] Slow it down because you can't control his or her reaction, but you can control your reaction.

[00:26:30] That's what we're responsible for.

[00:26:31] And so the first thing is to just either slow it down.

[00:26:36] Or when you're in the car, if you're someone who shoots down into like shutdown or depression mode instead of anxiety.

[00:26:42] So you have your fight or flight up here and you have your freeze down here.

[00:26:45] If you're someone who shoots down into freeze mode and you pull up in the driveway, just shake your hands up.

[00:26:51] Come up out of that.

[00:26:52] Get your blood flowing, get things moving so that you can be attentive when you walk into the house.

[00:26:56] And so first thing would be know how you respond.

[00:27:01] And make sure that you are in your best frame of mind when you're getting ready to go co-parenting, whatever.

[00:27:08] Sporting events, going to pick them up, drop them off, whatever it might be.

[00:27:12] You are responsible for yourself and it doesn't take that long.

[00:27:15] I'm not asking you to sit for a half hour and meditate.

[00:27:19] I'm talking about a couple minutes in the car of either deep breathing or shaking things out to get the blood flowing.

[00:27:25] Then go and do what you got.

[00:27:27] That's the first thing.

[00:27:28] The second thing is if you can, remember that you're...

[00:27:32] Remember whoever you co-parent with is a human being too.

[00:27:37] Because like I talked about in the first thing, if you pull into the driveway or parking lot or whatever you're going and you're activated, that means that he or she's a threat.

[00:27:49] And threats need to be either eliminated or avoided.

[00:27:53] But if we can slow things down or bring things up in us and remember, hey, they're a human being too.

[00:28:00] And I don't even have to like them.

[00:28:03] I just have to get through this interaction.

[00:28:06] That has a far greater chance of landing or of creating some empathy to go, we're just gonna, we're just, we just want to get through this.

[00:28:15] For the sake of myself, for the sake of kids, let's just figure out how to get through.

[00:28:22] And I think a lot of that again, has to go back to the first point, which is don't just stroll up there and be like, man, I do not want to be around him or her.

[00:28:29] It's like, yeah, I get that.

[00:28:31] Take responsibility for how you react and slow it down or speed it up so that you can be the better version of yourself.

[00:28:39] Because normally we're going in there.

[00:28:40] We are.

[00:28:40] You could see the contentious looks in body language on co-parents that want nothing to do with each other.

[00:28:46] And they're just trying to either drop the kids off if possible or they're saving their frustration for that co-parent so they can get after him.

[00:28:54] And it's like, man, we got to learn how to just take control of our own bodies so that we can show up as the best version of ourself for them and particularly for the kids.

[00:29:03] Two things.

[00:29:04] I have a lady, she's a co-parenting specialist here in Colorado Springs.

[00:29:11] And she says, you need to love your kids more than you hate your ex.

[00:29:18] And that was like, that's that spoke volumes.

[00:29:21] But my other thing was, I was that jack in the box parent.

[00:29:25] When the kid, you know what?

[00:29:25] I had the kids 50-50 week on week off.

[00:29:28] I had the kids.

[00:29:29] I was on go make memories go kids going on Sunday.

[00:29:33] I was like, dude.

[00:29:35] So that self care, speak to that week off that you don't have the kids.

[00:29:39] You got to take care of yourself because you go there.

[00:29:42] Then all of a sudden you crash.

[00:29:44] Yeah.

[00:29:44] It's almost like a sugar high almost.

[00:29:46] That's a great analogy, David.

[00:29:48] That's really good.

[00:29:48] Yeah.

[00:29:49] Because when it wears off, it just.

[00:29:51] Yeah.

[00:29:52] Part of it too is, part of it too is, can you separate?

[00:29:58] Can you have, what is your why?

[00:30:00] Can your purpose be like deeper than just being a parent?

[00:30:06] And I don't say that in a way that is disrespecting parenthood or having kids.

[00:30:11] What I'm saying is when they're gone, what is your purpose?

[00:30:15] Because if your purpose is only them, now you're in trouble when you don't have it.

[00:30:19] Now you're, I just have to wait until the next week.

[00:30:21] And therefore self care doesn't matter.

[00:30:24] When in fact, no, who are you without?

[00:30:26] You're still a human being.

[00:30:28] Before you were ever a parent, you were still a human being.

[00:30:30] The purpose shifts when some, when kids come into play, but particularly in co-parenting,

[00:30:36] when there actually is space, who are you without?

[00:30:38] Well, and this is the opportunity for self discovery here in my mind, is to go, tell me

[00:30:43] about who you are without.

[00:30:45] Tell me about what you used to love to do that was healthy, that maybe you can bring

[00:30:48] back into that when you don't have.

[00:30:51] And you can discover more of who you are.

[00:30:53] And the reality is that for a lot of parents, at least that I've worked with, that don't

[00:31:02] know who they are without the kids.

[00:31:05] It can be crushing for the kids because the kids become the whole purpose.

[00:31:09] And they're like, why does like my mom or my dad have this anxiety when I'm not with

[00:31:15] them that they're texting me or calling me and checking in?

[00:31:17] And it's like, yeah, that's good.

[00:31:19] You want to make sure they're safe.

[00:31:20] But what is your purpose without?

[00:31:22] In that week off, who can you be?

[00:31:24] How can you rediscover yourself in a way that could actually free your kids from not feeling

[00:31:32] pressure to have to fill a gap, particularly in co-parenting?

[00:31:37] That's a whole nother conversation about what's called enmeshment or triangulation, which is

[00:31:44] like the one of the children become an emotional surrogate spouse for the opposite sex parent.

[00:31:54] And so that's a real thing and you don't need to go there.

[00:31:56] But like, how do you find a deeper purpose than just being a parent, particularly in the

[00:32:00] week off?

[00:32:00] That's what I would say is like, if you can figure that out and you can figure some self-care

[00:32:05] out in there, you're going to free yourself and you're going to free your kids of some

[00:32:10] unintentional stress and pressure that they may feel like.

[00:32:13] Dad doesn't know what to do without me.

[00:32:15] Mom doesn't know what to do without me.

[00:32:17] That's not the child's responsibility to figure that out.

[00:32:19] That's the parents.

[00:32:21] Yeah, they're just kids.

[00:32:23] Wow.

[00:32:24] All right, Mr. Mike, my men have about a half hour attention span.

[00:32:30] And I know that after 59 episodes, but tell the people where to find you.

[00:32:37] And I'll have that in the show notes.

[00:32:39] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:32:41] Website is www.wayward-coaching.com.

[00:32:46] You can also shoot me an email, mike at wayward-coaching.com for any more information.

[00:32:51] I am coming up in the next couple of months with doing like a three-day intensive for

[00:32:58] store work for guys to figure out like, hey, for guys that are either struggling with addiction

[00:33:03] or trauma and they're like, I know more.

[00:33:06] I'm just stuck.

[00:33:08] That weekend is all about going through your story to figure out what is the root of you

[00:33:13] being stuck and then coming up with a care plan, self-care plan to figure out what they

[00:33:19] would need to do to stay out.

[00:33:20] So that information will be on the website as well.

[00:33:22] And would love to hear from anybody that has any questions or is just looking for some help.

[00:33:28] Man, this has been awesome.

[00:33:29] Once again, I found another podcast guest who we just touched the surface.

[00:33:34] We got to come back and do it again.

[00:33:36] Man, I got so many questions, but hey, I appreciate your time on this Thursday night.

[00:33:43] All right, everybody have a good night.

[00:33:45] Take care.

[00:33:45] Bye-bye.