Ep 30 How to Handle Estrangement During the Holidays (A Faith-Based Perspective)

In this episode, Nicole begins with a personal anecdote about an introverted mishap at the Boise Co-op. Nicole then transitions to a heartfelt discussion on preparing for the emotional challenges of the holiday season, particularly for those experiencing estrangement. Nicole emphasizes the importance of allowing oneself to grieve unmet expectations while still practicing gratitude. She also provides practical advice on handling sensitive family interactions and encourages listeners to lean on their faith, praying for peace and discernment. The episode concludes with a hopeful message about trusting in God's miraculous capability to bring reconciliation and peace.

00:00 Introduction and Technical Glitches

01:06 Personal Update: The Kombucha Quest

04:12 Navigating Thanksgiving and Holiday Challenges

05:41 Coping Strategies for Estrangement During Holidays

11:05 Praying for Peace and Guidance

14:03 Encouragement and Faith in Miracles

17:27 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Connect with me on Instagram: @heygirl.itsnicole
And explore more resources for estranged moms at nicolecoates.com.

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Transcript

nicole: 0:00

Won't you do it this time? God, I'm waiting to watch to see how you're gonna move and I'm so excited for when you do because it's gonna be so cool. Hey everybody. Welcome back. Okay. First of all, I know some of you're just listening to this, but behind my screen on my video is blurry and I don't know why, and I have a small time to record. And I wanted to so badly just sit here and figure out why all of a sudden my background is blurry and I don't have the time or the capacity to figure it out and it's not gonna bother anybody else, but it's sure gonna bother me. And these are the things that happen behind the scenes of anything technical when they're doing solo stuff like I am. I know it doesn't affect most of you, but I try to share that. Also, I was playing around with some ideas on how to kind of start the episode and tie in personal stuff, and my best friend had a really good idea of. We always say to each other, and I'm sure it's a common phrase to if any of us, the update you didn't ask for. So I'm gonna try to add in before the episodes, I'm gonna add in a little the update you didn't ask for and you don't really need, but we're friends here and we're growing in that connection. So, today's update that you didn't ask for. I, you guys, I need you to know that I'm an introvert. I know it doesn't really give, I don't really give introvert vibes since, I put a lot of my life out on the internet, but I'm very much an introvert. So I don't really like going out. So I avoid it at all costs. So I have to tell you today I went to the Boise Co-op. So I live in Idaho. I went to Boise co-op, which is like a Whole Foods except on a much smaller level, right?'cause it's local. And I was looking for, there's this one kombucha company that I. Drink their drinks. And I got an email that said like, their holiday, I think it's called a satchel, but that could be very wrong, was out and there's only limited, um, at the co-op. Or you had to go to the farmer's market and I don't wanna go to the farmer's market. That sounds awful for me and my introvertedness. So on my lunch break, my husband and I ran over to the boys co-op. We were gonna grab hopefully a bottle of this. Like fancy. It makes me feel like I'm drinking alcohol, but I'm not drinking alcohol. And like I could drink alcohol. I'm not sober, but I just, I don't know. I'm getting old and it makes my joints hurt and all the things, so I just don't, and so I wanted this fancy like. And it feels like it's in a wine bottle and it's tasting, it's yummy. And I wanted it, so we go to to Boise co-op and we're trying to get it and I decided I'm gonna be brave, I'm gonna ask the employees and I don't wanna miss it because I didn't ask somebody or didn't look in the right places. And you guys, this was, this is like exactly why I don't talk to people because. I asked on my fifth by my fifth employee, and I was just asking in like each individual department, I wasn't like being annoying and I was not upset. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing it, but I couldn't find it. And so she was like, well, lemme go look in the back and see if we have it. And I was like, cool. And I had showed her the picture from the email and where it said like, there's just a couple in the co-ops. And so she was like, oh yeah, just lemme go look in the back. And again, I'm happy, happy as could be, fine, chill, no big deal. She comes out with a manager and instantly I'm like, oh gosh, I'm gonna die. And the manager was like, so we don't have any, and I got ahold of the owner and the owner gave me her number to give to you so you can reach out to her. And I just looked at him like mortified, like, wow, this escalated really quickly. I just was curious if you had it or not. We did not need to call the owner. And the whole time, my husband and I are just looking at each other like, this is why I don't go out. This is why, because things always happen. What do you mean? We've now called the owner, and we've asked the owner he's like, do you want her number? And I was like, uh, no. Mm-hmm. No, absolutely not. I don't want her number. It's truly okay. I will come back when you have them. Like I am fine. And so then. He was like, well, I'll get your number and I can call you when it comes in. Okay, fantastic. That sounds reasonable. I may never come in the store again because now I think everyone's mad at me or thinks that I'm mad at them because how did we resort to calling the owner? I don't know, but just so you guys know, Tommy from Boise Co-op, who's very kind, and he's already called me and told me that they'll it, they'll be in tomorrow. I don't still, I'm on the fence of if I'm actually gonna go in or not, because surely these people must think I'm crazy because how in the world did we escalate to calling the owner? I don't know, but that's my update. You didn't need to know. It has nothing to do with anything but just the story of my life. So, hi, welcome back. So glad you're here. We're gonna talk about Thanksgiving this week. Uh, Thanksgiving. This is coming out on Tuesday. Thanksgiving is just in a couple days and after Thanksgiving is a holiday season. So just holidays in general, can be hard. And I know a estrangement can be in all sorts of different seasons and from different perspectives. I hesitated making this episode. If I'm really honest. I kind of wanted to breeze past it because I don't feel like I have a lot of encouragement or guidance to share, but I decided that I'm just gonna face that head on and know that maybe you just have a friend who gets what you're going through today, and sometimes that's enough. Today it's just gonna be two friends holding space for each other that holidays can be hard and they can really suck. And, I understand what you're going through. Here's some thoughts on how we can kind of brace ourselves for the holidays. The holidays come with a lot of expectation and where we can get hurt as moms is. With those expectations and are they realistic for what your life looks like right now and getting stuck on that? They aren't. Your life doesn't look like what you expected it to and the sadness of that. And I just wanna say, you're allowed to grieve how your life looks differently than you expected. There's no shame in that. There's nothing wrong with that. It doesn't make you less of a mom, less human, nothing less Christian, nothing. It's okay to be sad that things don't look like what you thought they'd look like. And a lot of estrangement is that in itself. I think that it's okay also, um, to give yourself permission that this, the weeks of holidays, like this week, it's not gonna be easy. And also that grief doesn't mean you're not grateful for other things. The, the two things can exist. You can grieve what is lost, what is absent, what you wish was different, and still be grateful. I think a lot of times we follow up like, but at least you have other kids that are coming, or at least you have you, that both they're, they can exist at the same time. So don't rob yourself of grieving because you wanna, um, hyperfocus on gratitude. You should be gra grateful. Obviously that will help this week, but they can exist at the same time too. Um, and remember, you're not super human. And now as moms, we like to pretend we are and that we are in a lot of ways, but also this week, like it's okay to be human. Sometimes humans are broken, and it's okay to experience that a little bit. Um, make sure you give yourself the same amount of empathy that you would give a friend. Don't hold yourself to a standard that you wouldn't hold your friend to. I think that's always something that I use to kind of help gauge how kind I'm being to myself. Um, some ways to practice gratitude because sometimes it's hard when we're overwhelmed with grief. Um, some ideas I had was journaling and writing down areas where you are grateful that God has shown up for you, ways that he's held you this year. Ways that he's offered small pockets of peace so that you were able to just breathe writing down gratitude for the relationships that you have that are healthy, um, and also reflecting on your own personal growth, how far you've grown, where you've come from, where you're at, evaluating where you're at. Really taking account of where you've been, where you are and where you're going. Also it's okay if nothing on that gratitude list has anything to do with your estranged child. Like you we're so grateful for them and they get a lot of our energy in other ways. It's okay if it doesn't, if it doesn't come through on that list, it doesn't make you a bad mom. Something I wish I had more insight into is kind of how to navigate, triggers from relatives that may ask you about your estranged child. So I kind of pondered and wrote down some ideas of responses that either I've used or come out of the conversation and thought of later. And so I wish I would've used that. I thought I'd just share with you guys. So two that I kind of came up with, one is simply saying we're navigating a complicated season right now, and that could be enough if you wanted to elaborate further. You could say, we're navigating a complicated season right now and. Today I'm choosing peace, and that maybe kind of closes it down. Or you could even say like, we're navigating a complicated relation. We're n, we're navigating a complicated season right now and it's not something I prepared to talk about, or it's not something my heart's ready to talk about today. I'm just being really honest because sometimes so many people don't know what to ask or maybe ask the wrong thing and we want them to check in on us, but sometimes they need to be guided a little bit on when. The right time to talk about it is. So it's okay to tell them that you're not in a place where you wanna talk about it right now. Or, and you can also just simply say the O The other thing that I wrote down was simply saying, it's not something that I feel like I wanna talk about today, or it's not something I wanna talk about today, but thank you so much for asking and caring. You know, just being bold in that and so they know, but then you're showing appreciation that they asked.'cause you know, you can leave and feel like, gosh. We just ignored the elephant in the room. And sometimes that's positive and sometimes that's not. So, you know, equip yourself with how you might respond so you're prepared so it doesn't take you off guard. And you know, if you don't wanna talk about it, hold to that because sometimes it's exhausting just recapping and having to feel like you're defending yourself, which. You know, I'm sure they don't mean it in a way that you need to defend yourself, but there is something about when you talk about it, you just inevitably feel like you have to defend yourself. Before you go into those holiday settings. Evaluate how much you wanna talk about it. Is it gonna drain you to talk about it or is it gonna bring, is it gonna help you to talk about it? And that can be different for each of you. It's so personal and it so depends on where you're at in your season, which season of estrangement you're in, where sometimes it's not a big deal to talk about it, and sometimes it's really emotionally draining and you don't wanna talk about it. So kind of do an evaluation for you so you know where that boundary is and where that line is going into those, those social settings. The other thing, as you're going into the holiday season, if you still have relationship with your estranged child, I know there's different degrees of estrangement, right? Is start praying. I know this is coming out Tuesday before Thanksgiving, but even if we're looking into the Christmas, like start praying for peace over your. Communication with them and your time with them far before your actual time with him and ask God to release For me, I get stuck in fix it mode. So asking for God to help us release that desire to fix and fixing is not always negative, right? Like it's our instinct as moms, we have years of wisdom and we wanna share that. And sometimes that comes out as fixing and that's not a negative at all. And I, I actually. I don't want us to stop doing that, but I want us to stop doing it with our kids who don't respect us and don't respect our wisdom. So I say that kind of double sided. I don't want you to stop doing that.'cause I think that's the wonder. A wonderful thing of mothers, but also I want us to stop wasting our time doing it with our kids who don't care. But that's just my opinion right now. You gotta do what works for you and what the Lord's calling you to. But something I have prayed in the past is. Has just asking the Lord for discernment on what to share, when to share it and how to share it. To take us out of, kind of fix it mode. Um, can, can be helpful for your own piece because it's frustrating when we share like great nuggets of advice or great nuggets of things and to be dismissed and shut down. It's demeaning and it's hard. So sometimes I'm not even saying that for your relationship with your child, I'm saying that for you to protect your peace. That's okay to hold back some because you have to protect. You have to protect you in certain seasons of estrangement. And again, as always, that's just a thought. That's an idea. That's an opinion. Always take everything to the Lord. He's going to guide you on where you're at in this journey and how he would actually want you to show up for your child in these situations. Also praying for piecing your time together and not for the outcome. Shifting our focus away from our outcome of what our time together will look like and more about just being present in that time. I think helps us with our expectations because again, going back to expectations, we can be so disappointed by them, and sometimes it's just a natural, an expectation. Just natural expectations. I'm not saying that you have built up this whole life that's not achievable. Some of them are natural, like that our child would want to call us back, you know, like we expect when our kids get older that we would still talk to them. So this feels wrong. When we're praying, if you're in a season of estrangement where you're still with your child, praying for peace with your time together and your interaction and, and discernment in those times, um, can guard your heart for the outcome.'cause I get so twisted up on this, you guys, because I want you to pray for the outcome. I want you to, I want the outcome to be reconciliation. I was talking, I was talking with one of the gals in our membership who I'm gonna bring on the podcast and you guys are gonna get to meet and she's amazing. And so we were talking about Joshua Coleman and we were talking about things that I'm seeing on social media, and it just seems like, are these relationships really recoverable? Are, can we, can they be salvaged? Is reconciliation really possible? And statistically it doesn't look great on paper. But then she and I had to remind each other that, yeah, well we serve a God that miracles happen and things didn't always look good for him on paper. So whenever I get discouraged by those statistics, I remember that like, like Watch my God do it. Like won't he do it? Watch him do it this summer when we were laid off from our jobs. We've walked through some pretty big faith moments, and this was a big one as well. And my favorite thing about wa walking through moments where God's really testing our faith, is stepping back and just having the mentality of go to work. God, let me see. You do it in the way that only you can do it, that only you get credit for. And that freaking blows people out of the water. Like, I just wanna watch you move. And I get passionate and excited about it in estrangement too, because statistically it doesn't look great. And part of me wants to tell you to like hold back, protect your heart. Don't hope too much because hope feels painful. Hence the name of this podcast between Hope and Heartbreak, because that's where we live. So I started to tell you, pray for the moment. Pray for discernment. Don't pray for the outcome. But actually I changed my mind. Pray for the outcome because won't God do it, and won't it be great when he does and we can just be like. God did that. God did that. I could get stuck on that all the time because God's done crazy things in my life and like how I met with somebody this week and like, how did you start? Well, God told me to start. I just started walking through doors feeling like I was gonna throw up every step of the way, and God kept opening the doors and saying, okay, go. Okay, go. So maybe that's what we pray for this holiday season, that God would open doors even if we feel nauseated and broken and sad that he would just keep opening doors for all of us and we would just keep walking through the doors saying, Hey, God, won't you do it this time? Oh my gosh, I'm getting so emotional. Won't you do it this time? God, I'm waiting to watch to see how you're gonna move, and I'm so excited for when you do because it's gonna be so cool. It's gonna be so, so cool. And I wanna hear every single story when God moves. Maybe it's not through reconciliation, it hasn't been for me so far, but God has moved in such cool ways otherwise that it makes all of this pain worth it because I wouldn't get to experience the coolness of God without this pain. I'm not saying I wish this pain was happening, but also there's some really cool benefits of walking through really hard stuff with God. Because he shows up in really cool ways. And if we can step back and just recognize that for a minute, it shifts our whole perspective. So this podcast is off the rails we started in one direction and we ended in another. But I mean, that's how it goes when you're, you know, doing things with the Lord. So I honestly don't even know what I said and if it's worthwhile or anything at all. Um. But we're like 20 minutes in. So this is, you know, a doozy. I, I wanna hear how God moves for you this holiday season. I more than that, also, I wanna hear what things you're laying at his feet and you're going to leave there. What things are you holding onto and trying to control that God's asking you to release to him so that he can move? He might need you to let go of it in order for him to move. Maybe that's what you ask yourself this holiday season. What are you trying to control that he needs you to let go of so he can move? Because when he moves, it's really cool you guys. Let's make space for him to do that. Let's make space for him to move and just go to town and get all the glory. Because when reconciliation happens, I don't want, I don't want, I don't want the glory. I want God to get all the glory and won't we do it? Won't we do it? It's gonna happen. I know it's gonna happen. Statistics, they don't have anything on the God that I serve, so let's go. Let's go. Okay, this, I don't know how to wrap this up'cause this was, took a whole nother turn. Love you guys praying for you. If you have a specific prayer request, please email it to me, hello@nicolecoates.com. Also, as always, I love hearing you guys' feedback and um, episode ideas so you can email those as well. Um, you can follow me on Instagram at. Hey girl, it's Nicole'cause Hey girl. Okay. If you knew you knew me in real life, that would probably make more sense'cause that's how I talk with my girlfriends. Um, and then also on my website, nicole coats.com has resources for you guys. So, okay. Won't he do it? We're ready. God, whenever you are. Okay. Love y'all.