How to Ride the Waves of Life Without Drowning

Episode 159 - How to Ride the Waves of Life Without Drowning

We all get caught up in trying to arrange the people and situations in our lives just the way we want them to be so that we can be happy. 

We will find ourselves trying to hold onto things that want and need to change and pushing away difficult situations we don’t want to have. 

The true cycle of life is of expansion and contraction. Things we love come and go. Things we don’t love come and go. If we can learn to not get caught up requiring the circumstances of our life to be a certain way so that we can find happiness, we will have a much more peaceful life.

To help you begin to learn how to get out of the push/pull cycle, I’ve included a meditation in this podcast. 

Meditation: minutes 16:17 – 25:40

Did you enjoy this meditation and want more of these? Email me at info@tinagosney.com and give me your feedback. 

Do your holiday family get-togethers get a little (or a lot) dramatic and difficult? If they do, you’re not alone. I’ve created a free pdf guide called: 

The 3-Step Process to Keeping Your Cool Around Family Holiday Drama

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE GUIDE

You can’t change your family members, but you can manage yourself around whatever happens. This guide will help you to feel more in control of your thoughts and emotions no matter what happens. 

Tina Gosney is the Family Conflict Coach. She helps her clients move past contention in their homes and move into connection. Developing healthy family relationships can change lives.
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Tina is certified in family relationships and a trauma informed coach.
Visit tinagosney.com for more information on coaching services.

Transcript

Tina Gosney: 0:00

Tina, hello. Welcome to the coaching your family relationships podcast. I'm your host. Tina Gosney, a family conflict coach. This is where we talk about difficult family issues and how to move through them. I'm so glad you're here with me today. Before we get started today, I want to let you know that I have a free download, a free guide for you. It's a PDF guide about helping you to manage family holiday drama. You know, it's your around your family more during the holidays, things are more likely to come up, and it's just like a more stressful time of year, it's easy to have family drama during the holidays, and you can use this three step process to keeping your cool. Remember, we don't ever try to control anybody else. We're trying to keep ourselves cool and manage our own emotions and our own thoughts around this holiday drama. Go click that link in the show notes, you can have access to that guide. I promise you're going to be grateful that you downloaded it and know it ahead of time before the holidays start. So we're talking today about how to ride the waves of life, and this is something I've been personally working on for a while, and I work with this with all my clients. How do we manage all of these ups and downs of life? And I was remembering when I had my first baby, which was many, many years ago, when I had my first baby, she was just a few weeks old, and I was basking, you know, in that newborn love, this little being that is in my home more than I ever thought was possible. And I'm also more exhausted than I ever thought was possible, kind of that I was in that phase of life, and I ran into an aunt of mine, who I dearly love, and she was asking me, Hey, how is it going being a new mom and having a newborn? And I said, I love it. I am so exhausted, and I love it. I just want to freeze this little baby in time and never have her change. And my aunt looked at me for a second, and she got kind of a funny look on her face, and she said, You know, I get that. I remember feeling that way, too, but you don't actually want that, because you want that baby to grow and to change and to thrive. She said, I had a friend whose baby didn't do that. This baby stayed like a newborn for a long time, and they call that failure to thrive, and their baby ended up having a lot of health issues. I don't really think that you want to freeze time. You think that you want to freeze time, but actually you want time to move forward, and you want that baby to grow and change. I didn't understand completely what she was talking about, but I took her word for it, and now I understand what she meant. We do want things to grow and change, but sometimes having that growth and change feels really hard, because we're always all people. We're always seeking this feeling, you know, the feeling of, oh, everything is just right with the world. We could call it happiness, we could call it peace, we could call it whatever we want. But we're seeking that feeling of I just want things to be the way that I want them to be, and I want them to stay this way forever. I don't want them to change. And when we tie that feeling, I'm just going to call it happiness. When we tie that feeling to the conditions in our life being the way that we want them to be we try to hold on to them just like I said. I just don't want my my baby to change. I want her to stay this way forever. We try to hold on to things that we're not able to hold on to. There was no way I could freeze time and make her stay just the way that you know is that little newborn baby that wasn't possible. It would be like trying to hold on to a wave in the ocean. But when we try to hold on to these things that we want and that we love, because they make us so happy, but we can't, and they start to change. It's like trying to grab that wave on the ocean, and it can get really frustrating. And sometimes things are happening in our life that we can I remember a specific time when something happened in my life. This is just a few years after that new baby. And I had a couple other babies at the time, but something that I knew was coming and I did not want. To go through it, and I remember kneeling down and praying, please don't make me do this. I don't want to go through this. And we try to push away things, right? So we're trying to push away things that we don't want, and we're trying to pull in the things that we do want. We get into this constant push and pull. I like this. I want it to stay, trying to keep it here. I don't like that. I don't want it. I'm trying to push it away and not deal with it. We try to manipulate these conditions in our lives so that our life can be just what we want it to be, and then if it is we get that feeling that we're seeking, calling it happiness today. So then when, when we've had this thing, this condition in our life, this situation in our life that we have loved and we don't want it to change. And it does, we get depressed. We get really longing for the past, knowing that it's not going to come back, and it feels hopeless. And we get depressed, or we get really anxious about what might happen in the future, because we don't have this thing that we love so much, this situation, this condition that we love so much, and our brain will go back and forth from I'm missing the past to I'm anxious about the future. I'm depressed about the past. I want it to come back, and I can't. I can't make it do that, and I'm anxious and worried about what's going to happen in the future. And our brains will constantly bounce back and forth between the past and the future, the past and the future, and what does it not do? We don't live in the present moment. We are very rarely awake and aware of what's going on in the present moment. Now, I know this sounds kind of crazy, because you think you're probably thinking, I'm awake all the time. I'm aware of what's going on, but really, I want you to pay attention to what your brain is doing. How often is it thinking about something that happened in the past or something that will happen in the future and going back and forth between the two of those, chances are it does this many times, hundreds, if not 1000s of times a day. If you want to test this out, here's something that you can do. Just set a timer for 20 minutes, 20 minutes when you're doing something like working out or doing dishes or taking a walk or even just like in your normal everyday whatever, but set a timer for 20 minutes, and during that 20 minutes, notice every time your thoughts vary and leave the present of what you're doing, anytime you notice your thoughts going off of into getting lost into something else that is not right in front of you in the moment, chances are, if you make a tally mark every time that happens in 20 minutes, you're going to have lots of tally marks. I wouldn't be surprised if you had 20 or 30 tally marks in 20 minutes. That's how often our brains are doing this. And so we're constantly living in the past, or we're living in the future. We're not present and awake in what we can actually have some effect on which is the present moment. And let's just say, by some miracle that we do, you know, we're trying to manipulate all these conditions so that we can be happy and make everything line up just the way that I want them to be. If I could just get everything to work the way that I want it to, if I could get my spouse to act this way and my children to act that way, and if I could have this house and had that much money, and I could be liked as much as that person is liked over there, if I could get all of those conditions lined up all at the same time, and I could just sigh This big sigh of relief, like, Oh, finally, my life is just the way that I want it to be. Then what happens? Well, it's very fleeting, because something happens and something changes, but even before that, we might get really anxious about, wait a minute, it took me so long to get things lined up this way. How can I maintain it? How can I make things stay like this? And we get really anxious about trying to keep things the way that they are, and then we're not still not living in the present moment or experiencing the happiness that we were seeking. And we get back in to that push and pull. I'm trying to pull this, this situation, this group of situations, all lined up in this way. I'm trying to pull it along with me in my life and push away anything that might threaten it. I have a friend who was born with a really serious medical condition, and she shared this story with me the other day, she was in Hawaii with her spouse, and they were on vacation, and she had a medical emergency. She ended up going to the ER and learning that something was happening inside of her body that would change her life forever, and leaving the hospital with that knowledge. And right after they had, right after this, they had a snorkeling trip planned, and she said, I'm just going to go snorkeling, because this probably going to be the last time I'm going to be able to do this. And she noticed, this was a day that, you know, it was kind of windy and the water was pretty choppy, and as she was at the surface, she was kind of getting thrown around by these waves. And so she dove down deeper into the water, and saw a sea turtle, one of those big, beautiful sea turtles that you're not supposed to touch. And she said it was just gliding. It wasn't. It wasn't being affected by all the wind and the tumultuous waves at the surface. It was down deeper, and it was riding the just the gliding through the water, just seamlessly, effortlessly, gliding through the water, and all of that stuff going on on the surface was not affecting that turtle. We want to be like the turtle. We want to be able to drop down underneath the surface of the conditions that are happening in our lives. We want to normalize the fact that life is always changing. It's always expanding and contracting. This is just the cycle of life. You are always in a period of expansion and contraction. You're doing that other people are doing that, situations are doing that, the conditions in your life are doing that you can't keep them from changing, as much as you can't hold back the tide of the ocean, or as much as you can't grab onto a wave and hold on to it. So if there is something that you're struggling with in your life right now and your brain is telling you this is never going to change, it's always going to be like this. I want you to realize that is not true. Your brain does not know that. It is just trying to keep you safe. It's trying to alert you to danger, because this is the cycle of life. Things change. Nothing stays the same. This is life. This is also the cycle of relationships. Every relationship goes through a period of expansion. Everything's easy, it's good, it's just the way I want it to be. And then it goes through contraction, where nothing is easy, good or the way I want it to be. This is life constantly moving from expansion to contraction. You can see this in the seasons of the earth. Spring is new life. It's an expansion. It's the beginning of an expansion period, summer that could that expansion continues, right, and it flourishes. And then we get to the fall, the beginning of contraction, the beginning of nature shutting down and going dormant or dying. And the winter, that full contraction and dormant cycle. And then we get to spring, and it repeats over and over again. This is nature. This is life, and our relationships in our family will do the same thing. We go through harmony, disharmony, and then repair and repeat. Repair is an episode I'm going to do in the future. I don't want to get into that today, because I will do a full episode on repair in the future. But how we repair is very important. So if we expect this harmony, disharmony repair, if we expect that to happen, and we know that this is how life is, then we can be more like the turtle. We can let go of the push and the pull, we can live more like the sea turtle that lives in much calmer water because he's underneath the turbulence that's going to throw him around, but becoming the turtle is riding the waves of life, and that requires practice. One of the best ways that I like to practice this is through meditation. And I think meditation has a bad rap. Some people hear that word and they just immediately contract right. Immediately want to push it away. But think about when we get into that push pull cycle, and we try to get everything in our life to line up just so we can be happy again. We are feeling that push and pull inside of our bodies. Our body will contract. It will go through some difficult emotions and difficult feelings. Our brain starts to work overtime, and it starts to ruminate and worry and try to come up with solutions about how we can control all of these things that are really outside of our control? Well, we can't control the outside world, but we can practice making peace with what is happening right now. So I want to give you a little taste of what this looks like. Okay, so if you're up for doing a meditation with me, we'll be doing it for the next few minutes. Please don't do this while you're driving. This is not a driving meditation. You can do this sitting or taking a walk, but I prefer sitting because it just allows me to focus more inward than if I was taking a walk. So just find a quiet spot where you can sit upright. Your feet are on the floor. Your posture is straight, your spine is straight, but also supported. You're awake. You're alert. Your chin is parallel with the ground, and you close your eyes because we want to block out that stimulus of sight. Sight wants to take over our brain often. So as you let your body settle into a relaxed position, but still awake and alert, just start to notice your breath and consciously, purposefully slow your breath down. Inhale a little bit longer, exhale a little bit longer. The in and the out as you pay attention to your breathing and allow your body to relax and settle, you're going to notice the body just organizes itself into a position that's comfortable. You're and let your body just organize into what it wants to do while you remain with a straight spine. Now, instead of concentrating on your breath, let's put your attention inward to your experience, inside of your own body. We're going to do a body scan, just as if you were going through the airport security line and they had a wand and they're going to but this, this wand is a body scan, one that measures tension and emotions in your body, start at the top of your head and just notice, are you holding any tension? Do you feel anything behind your eyes or your forehead? Are you squinting? Are you holding tension in your face. If you are just consciously relax it. What is your jaw doing? Your teeth should not be touching. If you're clenching your jaw, just consciously relax, move into your neck and your shoulders. What do you feel there if you're holding any tension there, just let it. Let it drop. Move into your chest. We tend to feel a lot of emotions right in our torso, our chest and our ribs and our stomach. What do you feel there? We don't have to try to let it go. I just want you to notice what your body is doing right now and move down to the lower part of your body, your legs, if you're holding any tension there, just purposely let it go. I want you to direct your thoughts to something in your life right now that is difficult, something that you want to be different. You want it to change. You could be even putting in a lot of effort. Need to make it to change. You could even be putting in a lot of effort to make it change. This thing that you're trying to change, maybe it's not really doing what you want it to do. Maybe your effort is fruitless. It's not effective. And you're feeling in that in your body that push, push it away. I don't want this. I want it to change. And you can feel the contraction, the tension, inside your body that that produces picture, that thing, that thing that you don't want, whether it's a person, a situation, a condition, what is happening? Picture it as much as you can. What do you see? Your eyes are still closed. You can see inside your head. You can see scenes playing out behind your eyes. What do you see? What can you hear as you think about this situation or this person? What do you hear? What are the words that come into your mind? Is there anything that you smell? Anything that you feel? Now, as we go into the feeling, I want you to notice where you feel it in your body. We just did a body scan. You can do it again and notice how, as I started to think about this thing that I didn't like that I'm trying to push away. I noticed that my heart got contracted my stomach, I had a pit in the bottom of my stomach, or my my shoulders got really tense. Just notice where you feel this in your body. And then we're going to sit with that feeling for a minute, letting that tension be there. Don't run away from it. It's just a feeling in your body. Notice your breath, you breathe in, and your lungs expand, you breathe out and your lungs contract, the in and the out of your breath. Every time you exhale, breathe out, a little bit of that tension. Picture yourself letting go of needing that person or that situation to be different. Let go of that that trying to push it away. Just let it be there and exhale it you. When you inhale, inhale, acceptance, and when you exhale, exhale, your grip on forcing a different outcome, let go of that. Now this doesn't mean that you don't do anything about the situation. It just means that you are able to ride the waves of impermanence with more ease, with less anxious doing, and you're you stop trying to hold on to the waves of the ocean, or to push them away, continue with that inhale and the exhale every time you exhale, let a little bit more of that tension go. The nature of this world is change. You are changing. You are not the same person you were 10 years ago or 10 months ago or even 10 minutes ago. Neither is your partner, neither is your child. We are all constantly changing, growing, learning from our experiences. Just breathe that in and let that just settle into your body. And you can say to yourself, it won't be this way forever. Everything is always changing. It won't be this way forever, everything is always changing. It won't be this way forever. Everything is always changing. Take a deep breath and just let it out. Shake out your hands, open your eyes. We've got some benefit from that meditation. In my journey through trying to learn how to ride the waves like the turtle, irst, it just focused on my mindset. I tried to change the way that I was viewing and open up my perspective and the way I was viewing things. And that was effective up until a point, until it wasn't. And then when I started implementing bodywork, grounding, meditation, especially meditation, that was a game changer. So I want you to think about this. If you're trying to think and a reason your way through your problems and you're stuck in that push and pull, you are limiting yourself. Our thinking mind is really powerful, and it's also limited because our brain is very ineffective in helping our body to calm down, and we need our body to be calm and our mind to be quiet. So when you combine this type of body work with the emotions work and the mindset work, that is super effective, you are integrating the different parts of you, the very wise parts of you, and it allows you to access more of that, the go with the flow, feeling whole and feeling peaceful and happy no matter what's happening. So I now practice meditation with all my clients that are open to it. Some of them not ready yet, and that's totally fine. It's not a problem. There will come a day where they maybe I would love to know if you tried out this meditation, if you would like to hear more meditations that we can start practicing together, becoming like the sea turtle and riding want to implement that into their life, and they see the the flow of the water. So I would love to hear your feedback. If you would email me at info@tinagosney.com and let value of it, but those who are implementing meditation are me know what you think, I would really appreciate it, because I want to give you what's helpful and effective for you in this podcast. finding so much benefit from it and are loving that I've Okay, so before we go today, don't forget to go download that free pdf training about managing family holiday drama, keeping your cool while the family drama happens around you, not getting introduced this to them, so I might begin adding more mixed up in it. Happy to give that to you. It will be available through the end of the year. Your family relationships are your growth machine. Stay open meditations onto this podcast. to the process, even when it's messy. I'll see you next time.