MINDSET TRAPS OF THE EMPTY NEST -- TRAP #1 - THE EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER
Welcome to the Small Jar Podcast, where we moms of teens find the power to step off the emotional roller coaster between motherhood and the empty nest. I'm your host, Jennifer Collins. Episode number 139.
Hello, my friends. I am so happy to have you here with me as I explore the mindset traps that we fall into as moms in midlife. So far in the series, I've shared with you the origin story of mindset traps, really how they can be traced to our biological roots.
Now, a mindset trap is a habitual pattern of thinking that can distort our perspective of reality. And these traps often keep us stuck in unproductive ways of feeling or reacting. What often happens with these mindset traps, and think of catastrophizing or perfectionism as two examples, what happens is that we tend to think of ourselves as the kind of person who catastrophizes, or that we're inherently a perfectionist.
And as moms of teens and adult kids, we notice these personality traits as we think of them coming out in ways we might not always like. Because let's face it, this time of raising kids, navigating how to give them independence while helping them launch successfully, and the process of figuring out how to let our kids go so that we can successfully transition to our next chapter. This time of life is fraught with a lot of stress that can exacerbate our tendency to fall into these traps, or what we think of as these personality traits or personality flaws.
So as I said in past episodes, I've covered the origin story of mindset traps, really where these mindset traps come from. When I think of origin stories, I think of superheroes who have some life-changing event or moment when they discover their superpower. Like Spider-Man when he was bitten by the radioactive spider, or Wonder Woman who was created by the gods and raised by the Amazons.
The origin story is like a roadmap to help you understand how the hero or heroine got to where they are. How often do you think of your past as an origin story, as if you were the hero of the story? Or do you more often think of your past as a mixed bag? Some wonderful parts, I hope, but also a history of being let down, mistreated, or influenced in a way that made you feel less capable or less in control of who you are now. In the last episode of this series, I talked about how therapists will often help us explore our past to uncover trauma, or help us process these past hurts in a way that helps us understand where we are now, how the past might have led us to feel or act the way we do now.
But the goal of therapy is also to help us heal, so that we can move beyond our past. But often, these origin stories don't set us free. Instead, they can become our identity.
Look, all of us have an origin story, a story of how and where we were raised, the belief systems and the values we were taught by our families, our religious background, our racial or cultural identities. Some of us have broken away from these past values in some ways, having learned that those old values don't serve us. And as we've raised our own children, we took the parts of our past that we loved with us, potentially instilling some of the values that we were raised with in our own kids, but also probably learning lessons from our past that made us want to approach parenting in a different way.
My point here is that of course the past influences us in the sense that we learn, we observe cause and effects throughout our lives, and then we decide, whether consciously or unconsciously, to continue those things that worked, and potentially move away from those things that don't. But there are times when the old beliefs or values are so deeply rooted in us that it feels hard to break free. This is why in the series I've spent so much time on the motivational triad, that basic human instinct for us to avoid pain, seek comfort or pleasure, and to keep things simple.
Think of these three instincts as the origin story of our instinctual emotional experience on a day-to-day basis. If you haven't had a chance to listen to these past episodes, go back when you have time, because for me there's something really powerful about understanding these human instincts we have, because it's through these instincts that the past, that personal origin story of beliefs and values and experiences each of us have, the story comes to life in our current everyday experience through our primal instincts to stay safe, comfortable, and efficient. Understanding this link, which I explored in detail last week in the What is a Mindset Trap episode, this is the key to helping us step off of the emotional roller coaster we can feel like we're on as moms navigating life with teens and the road to the empty nest.
So this week I'm exploring the first mindset trap in detail, and that is the trap of emotional reasoning. This trap emotional reasoning creates the experience of feeling like you're stuck on an emotional roller coaster, where you feel out of control of your emotions. But the trap is actually that your feelings influence how you perceive reality.
I used to take my boys to Six Flags every year, at least once, on my oldest son's birthday, because he was born in late July. Every summer, the three of us would go to the amusement park. We'd get a picture every time as we walked in, and these are some of my favorite pictures of the three of us.
I would splurge for the fast pass so that we could get right on the rides without waiting in a long line. It was so much fun, until the boys started getting older and wanted to go on the big roller coasters. I was good on some of the medium or baby coasters, you know, the ones where you don't really go upside down or really fast.
But I remember one year my boys started wanting to go on the big boy rides, the ones with the steep drops and the multiple loops going upside down. They were old enough, or at least tall enough to get on the ride, but in my mind not old enough to be on the ride on their own. Or maybe I just wasn't comfortable yet with this aspect of letting go.
So here I was, wanting to give them a chance to be on a big kid ride, but also not willing to let them go on their own. There was only one answer. I had to go on the ride with them.
I still vividly remember those rides. I remember being strapped in the first time, looking over at my boys. I put myself in the middle, and I remember holding onto both of them awkwardly, because you know those harnesses keep you in pretty well.
But I remember thinking, I have absolutely no control over what happens next. This is what I think of when I think of emotional reasoning. It's like we find ourselves in particular situations, and it's like we know we have absolutely no control over what happens next.
No control over the situation as a whole, but maybe even more to the point, no control over how we're going to feel in this situation, how we're going to react. I'm just strapped in and destined to go on this ride and hope that it ends without too much damage. Now this concept of the emotional roller coaster, it goes both ways, meaning there are some parts of the roller coaster ride that are awesome.
The thrill, admittedly mixed with terror, but the high and the excitement of the ride. Maybe even more, the utter relief when the ride is over. Also for me, the joy of seeing my boys' faces when we got off the ride, seeing how happy it made them to take this big step as big kids.
Also me feeling proud of myself that I'd been able to give them this experience. A roller coaster, very much like life, has ups and downs. Parts that are amazing, and other parts that are terrible or terrifying.
The other part of this analogy that's interesting is that when you think of a roller coaster, not only are there highs and lows, but you feel out of control. But here's something really interesting to consider. When you're on a roller coaster, the highs and lows you experience, they're no one's fault.
You don't blame the roller coaster for making you feel terrified. You just know that's part of the experience. It's just what is.
You might want to avoid the roller coaster for this reason, but the highs and lows aren't personal. They're no one else's fault. They're also not your fault when you find yourself on the roller coaster.
And I think this can be the part of the mindset trap of emotional reasoning that can be the most difficult for us to get our heads around. That it's no one's fault that we feel the way that we do. And then this challenge is exacerbated by the third part of this analogy, that it's hard to get off of the roller coaster.
In fact, when you're on the roller coaster, you literally have to ride it out once it gets going. As a rider, there's no emergency brake. There's no saying in the middle, no thanks, I changed my mind, I don't want to do this.
And for many of us, this is how we can feel when we're stuck in painful emotions like anxiety and guilt and sadness. It's like we've been strapped in and there's no getting off. So let's put this together.
You're on a roller coaster. You experience these emotional and physical highs and lows. But you don't blame the roller coaster.
You just know this is part of the roller coaster experience. But still, it's really hard to get off. How does this analogy relate to the mindset trap of emotional reasoning? Well, in life, in our lives as moms, but also in other areas of our lives, we experience emotional highs and lows.
This is true of all of us. But in contrast to the roller coaster analogy, we do attribute our emotions in a way that sometimes involves blame. I mean, for sure, the experiences of our lives provide triggers for our emotions in the same way, obviously, being on a roller coaster triggers exhilaration and terror.
But each one of us experience our emotions related to any given situation differently. That's even true of each of us experience being on a roller coaster. So the question is, does that mean each of us are just inherently different in the way we process the experience of our lives? Or is there something else at work here? And here's another question.
Is there a way for us to step off the emotional roller coaster in a way that isn't available to us on a physical roller coaster ride? The answer, my friend, is yes. And this is the work I do with my clients in my one-on-one coaching program Mom 2.0. It's giving you the power to step off the emotional roller coaster of your life. And understanding the mindset trap of emotional reasoning is at the heart of it.
Okay, so think of the motivational triad, these three basic human instincts to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and conserve energy. These three instincts are like being strapped in a roller coaster. Once you're strapped in and the ride's underway, you're in it.
You're going to react to the experience of the ride. As you're on your way up and you hear that click, click, click of the car being pulled further up, you feel this anticipation building. And then you slowly go over the crest of the first drop, and you look down, and your heart seems to go in your throat, and then you're in a free fall.
And of course you're going to feel terrified. It's a basic human instinct. And whatever physical sensations that you're feeling at that moment, it makes perfect sense.
In fact, some people go on these rides specifically because they want to feel these sensations. They actually seek out the thrill and the terror of the ride. But what's happening in our bodies when we're on the roller coaster is simply a function of how our bodies are designed.
The nervous system coordinates physical sensations like our heart rate or feelings of relaxation. You can think of it as the body's messenger system for emotional signals from the brain. Then the limbic system coordinates the way we experience positive emotions.
It also helps us with emotional regulation and motivation. So this is just the mechanics of our body and brain. The way we instinctually react is governed by these biological systems over which we don't have immediate control.
I sometimes describe it to clients like the hackles that stand up on the dog's back when a stranger comes to the door. But you can also think of it like a physical reflex, like sneezing, or when your knee jerks up when the doctor hits it with that hammer. For these reasons, I like to simplify it and think of it as our primitive brain.
The parts of our brain tasked with our basic survival. It's just how our body is going to react to keep us safe and alive. So we have these basic human instincts to avoid pain, seek pleasure, and conserve energy.
And our primitive brain or the nervous and limbic systems automatically create the physical response to situations where we sense our safety is in danger or where there's an opportunity to experience pleasure or be more comfortable or to make life easier. It's tempting to think that because we have these sometimes strong and instinctual responses in situations that we're stuck on that roller coaster. But here's what actually happens.
We have these instinctual responses and then the higher part of our brain that's responsible for interpreting our lives and decision making and planning. This is the prefrontal cortex. What can happen is that we then use this part of our brain to make our instinctual responses mean something about us in our lives.
And this is where emotional reasoning comes into play. Let me explore some examples. First, let's start with the instinct to seek pleasure.
In the context of our lives as moms, one way we do this is in our desire for connection with our kids. And let's face it, one of the most powerful aspects of parenting has been the feelings of love and connection we've experienced with our kids. This is why we got on the roller coaster ride of parenting in the first place.
And it's definitely why we've chosen to stay on the ride. But as our kids grow up, inevitably, there are situations that seem to threaten our ability to feel connected. So some of our kids start to prioritize friends more or they spend a lot of time in their room.
Wherever they're time, it seems like we as moms are the lowest priority for them. My friends, your instinctual, very human reaction to the situation is that you could feel rejected. You might feel it in your body like a punch in the gut or a tightness in your throat.
All of this is a very normal, natural reaction. But then your prefrontal cortex or your higher brain gets involved. And by the all of this can be happening in fractions of a second.
Your body responds to what it perceives as rejection or a threat to the feelings of connection that you want instinctually. And then your higher brain observes these physical signs of discomfort and interprets the situation to make sense of it. So here's some places where our brains could go.
Our minds could think, my teen doesn't want to be with me. But then our minds don't stop there. They continue spinning stories.
Maybe it's that your child doesn't care about you. Maybe they're being selfish. You could feel like they're not being good family members because they should want to spend time with the family.
You might think that they're pulling away and that they'll never come back. Or even that you failed in some way, that it's your fault that your teen is acting this way. Either you did something wrong or you raised them wrong.
None of this is a judgment. Just notice that your body experiences these physical sensations of rejection automatically. And then your brain just wants to try to understand what's going on.
And frankly, we have no idea in these moments why our kids seem to be pulling away. I mean, on the one hand, we can know intellectually that it's a part of growing up. But we also can't help but interpret it in a way that feels really personal.
And our kids can frankly not be very nice at times. So it's not really a huge logical leap to make some of these conclusions that our kids care less or that we've done something wrong. And then, by the way, these situations stack up on each other.
Our kids don't just reject us once. It's time after time, for months, for years. The evidence keeps reinforcing whatever narrative we've spun.
And so this only reinforces our feelings of rejection and loss and hurt when this happens. So in this example, notice that it starts with this instinctual pain of rejection. But then it's exacerbated and perpetuated by our brain's interpretation of the situation.
Now let's look at an example that involves the instinct to avoid pain. Let's say your teen does something risky or you think that they're struggling in some way. Each of us instinctually wants to avoid pain.
Pain of hurt, failure, or regret. So when we see red flags, some potential risk or challenge, our fight or flight response activates. We tense up.
Our heart rate increases. It's the exact same feeling that you might experience as you head toward that free fall on a roller coaster. You're afraid.
The reason your nervous system activates is because your body is literally preparing to flee from danger or to fight a predator. This physical response is designed to keep you alive, to keep you safe from danger. And think about how often we fear danger in the context of our role as moms.
Not just fear for our kids' physical safety, but also their mental health, their happiness, their ability to succeed in life. Our basic instinct is to protect them, but also to protect ourselves from the pain of failing. When our kids hurt, we hurt.
But again, all of this is an immediate reflex response. And then our prefrontal cortex interprets the situation. Again, in fractions of a second, we might start to think, I have to fix this.
I have to protect them. I have to figure this out. And keep in mind, this instinct has been working really well for us for a really long time.
For much of the past two decades, when there's been a problem with our kids, we've stepped in. We have very often been able to fix things. And think of the validation of that.
We've been rewarded as moms by our ability to help keep our kids safe, happy, and successful. Only now, it's almost impossible for us to successfully do this much of the time. We can't force our kids to be safe or make healthy choices.
When our kids are sad, other than being there for them, if they'll even let us, we can't take away their emotional pain. And their success is all up to them. So we can find ourselves in a situation where we perceive danger, but we can't fix it.
And so our brains continue on with this narrative. We still want to fix it, even though our efforts aren't successful. So we start to think about what will happen if we can't fix the situation.
We blame ourselves. We blame our kids, or at minimum, feel frustrated with them when we can't get them to take the steps they need to take to fix the situation. Our mind perceives the threat that has triggered our physical, instinctual response, and it spins a narrative about what's happening.
And my friends, this opens the gate to every other mindset trap, from catastrophizing to perfectionism, and every other trap I'll discuss in detail in this series. So the emotional reasoning mindset trap is like the linchpin of all of these traps. Okay, let me look at the third instinct, to conserve energy.
Remember, this instinct isn't just about conserving physical energy, it's also about conserving mental energy. So there are times in our lives as moms when the challenges we're facing with our kids can just feel like too much. Whether it's the pain of emotions or just all of the thoughts spinning in your head, you can quite literally feel overwhelmed.
Our bodies experience overwhelm as a state of heightened stress. Your muscles might feel tight. Your fight-or-flight response could be activated.
We often start to have difficulty focusing. Interestingly, one of our instinctual responses could be that we freeze. Our body perceives that it's going to have to work really hard to address this danger or the stress, this overwhelm, and so it starts shutting down systems that aren't necessary.
And believe it or not, this means that your prefrontal cortex, that higher area of your brain responsible for decision making and problem solving, your fight-or-flight response could involve literally turning the function of your higher brain down, because all of that problem solving requires energy. So this is why at times, particularly when you feel overwhelmed, it feels really hard to think clearly or make decisions about how to proceed. In this situation, your body is prioritizing your emotional experience and response over your higher order decision making and rational thinking.
This is why often when we feel overwhelmed, our instinct to conserve energy can lead us to procrastinate or just shut down. Now everything I've just described is our body and mind on autopilot, our instinctual response to feeling overwhelmed. Our instinct leads us to freeze or shut down.
The problem is that our minds can then interpret these symptoms and the situation as evidence that we're not equipped to handle the situation. As our minds continue to spin this narrative, we might then begin to think that we're failing as parents or that we're helpless in the situation. The mindset trap of emotional reasoning leads our minds to think, if I feel it, it must be true.
We're essentially giving our emotional experience, especially these instinctual emotional reactions, we give these emotions control. Essentially, we let our primitive instinctual mind override and even take over for our more rational higher-level thinking. I mentioned before that emotional reasoning is the linchpin of all of the other mindset traps.
Essentially, we let our emotions and instinctual responses run the show. We take them at face value, as facts, and this becomes the foundation for all of these other distorted ways of thinking. For example, emotional reasoning can fuel catastrophizing.
Your fight-or-flight response is activated by some trigger, but then you use that immediate response as proof that there's real danger. Your belief in the danger only fuels your anxiety further by making you go down a rabbit hole of worst-case scenario thinking. Emotional reasoning also causes your brain to seek out evidence that confirms what you believe to be true based on your emotions.
This again leads you to have a distorted view of reality because all you see is evidence of the problem rather than evidence of the opposite. And of course, when we feel overcome by anxiety or overwhelm, our brains can literally want to shut down rational thinking and even physical expenditure of energy, so we find ourselves procrastinating and stuck in a cycle of feeling helpless. Of all of these challenges though, I think the most negative impact of emotional reasoning is that it can lead us to reinforce our own limiting beliefs.
We feel anxious, therefore we believe we're inherently an anxious person. I feel like what I've done isn't enough and so I have to do more to feel better. Or I feel guilty, my teen is struggling, so it must be my fault.
Look, my friend, I think self-awareness is a really valuable tool. I'm all for admitting my mistakes. But are you even aware of how often you're ruled by your emotions? Convinced that something is true simply because your knee-jerk instinctual reaction to something is negative? Or maybe it's an emotional response by now that you've practiced over and over again, so it's become a habit.
A habit of anxiety or hurt or guilt. Maybe even a habit of loneliness and sadness. My friend, the invitation here is to learn how to separate out your rational, higher-level mind from the instinctual emotional responses we naturally have to our lives as human beings.
Think about how often in your day-to-day life you find yourself at the mercy of your emotional experience. It's even embedded into the way we talk about our lives. We talk about people who did things that we don't like and we say, they hurt me.
What's clear is that you're hurt. But did that other person hurt you? Were they doing something intentional? Or is it simply your interpretation of the situation, led by your initial pang of hurt and rejection? This isn't a matter of invalidating your feelings or questioning the way you feel. Clearly we feel emotions.
And it even makes sense that in a situation where someone does something we don't like that we would feel hurt. But also, are we aware of how our emotions or even that instinctual response we have to things that catch us off guard or that disappoint us? Are we conscious of how we're interpreting the situation through that lens of our emotional experience? My friend, I don't know about you, but I've spent a lot of my life, particularly my life as a mom raising teens, I've spent a lot of time feeling like I'm at the mercy of my emotions. Just this morning, I randomly happened to check on find my iPhone.
I'm not even sure why I did it, but both of my boys were out of the house. Maybe it's just a mother hen instinct to want to take account of where my boys are. So one was where I thought he should be staying over at a friend's house.
But my son in college, his phone was in the middle of the quad near his dorm room. Meanwhile, it's 5am and probably about 20 degrees outside. My friend, I'm drinking coffee, looking at my phone and my hackles go up, my body tenses.
I immediately go into fight or flight. I expected my son to be in his dorm room at 5am. At minimum, I expected him to be in some indoor place at 5am in the middle of winter.
But reality didn't meet my expectations and I immediately sense danger. This is my primitive mind reacting exactly as it should. It wants to avoid pain.
And for me, pain means seeing my son in the middle of the quad at 5am, in my mind, in some kind of danger. What I was seeking when I opened my phone to check on my boys was the comfort of knowing both of them were safe. And I got information that indicated to me the opposite.
My friend, how often do you let that fight or flight instinct let you get carried away? You feel fear and then you let that dictate your perception of reality. That there is something to fear. That the danger is real.
This is perfectly normal, my friends, and it's our brains working exactly as it should. And yet, it also opens the door to a lot more pain when we get caught up in mindset traps like catastrophizing and all or nothing thinking. This is why emotional reasoning is so powerful to understand.
This mindset trap is the initial misperception that opens the door to a bunch of other misperceptions. It's almost like the first poor communication in the game of telephone. If you can gain mastery over emotional reasoning, then you can quite literally escape every other mindset trap.
And my friends, this is the work I do with my clients in my one-on-one coaching program, Mom 2.0. Your emotions are real and they are valid. And I know that they can be painful. But the way to process them and break free from feeling stuck on the emotional roller coaster is to learn how to leverage the power of your higher mind to become the watcher of your more primitive and instinctual mind.
It's easier than you think. So here are a few questions you can ask yourself to get started. Number one, when you first notice a painful emotion, name it.
Is it anxiety, sadness, guilt? Whatever it is, try to come up with one word to describe that feeling. Ask yourself, how might I be trying to stay safe or comfortable? How am I trying to avoid pain or conserve energy? Notice how the emotion might make perfect sense when you think of it from this perspective. What if nothing else has gone wrong? Your primitive brain just wants to be safe and keep your loved ones safe.
It wants to be comfortable and efficient. These basic instincts are driving my emotional experience right now. Viewing your emotions through this perspective gives you a chance to take a step back, to give yourself compassion for your emotional experience.
Don't rush to talk yourself out of your emotion, but just notice how the emotion might make perfect sense simply because of how your brain is instinctually designed to respond. In my one-on-one coaching program, I take my clients through a five-step process to understand how to step off that emotional roller coaster, to stop feeling ruled by your emotions, and to learn how to access your higher brain to understand your emotional response. And even more importantly, the narrative your mind creates to explain both your instinctual responses and also the circumstances of your life.
It's about learning how to make conscious decisions about how you want to feel and show up. I always say that I feel like us moms are always doing our best. We love our kids so much. We care so much about doing the right thing for them. And yet, more often than we’d like to admit, we’re stuck on an emotional rollercoaster that makes it really hard to find the peace and confidence to convince ourselves everything’s going to be ok. To trust ourselves that we’re doing everything we can. Or maybe even that we are safe to let go. Remember, when we’re overwhelmed by our emotions, our primitive brain’s natural response is to try to turn down our higher brain…it’s trying to safe our energy to prepare for a fight.
But what if you don’t have to fight so hard? What if you could learn tools to help you turn your higher brain up?
My friends, this is a superpower, and it’s not magic. Join me in Mom 2.0 to learn how to access the power that’s already within you.
Quite simply, take hold of the power to step off the rollercoaster.
Until next time, friends.
If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave a review and check out our coaching program, Mom 2.0 at www.thesmalljar.com. You have more power than you think, my friend.
