Are you an alienated parent who feels like you’re always under a microscope—at court hearings, during exchanges, or even just sending a birthday card? This episode dives deep into the hidden world of performance anxiety, why it’s so common for alienated parents, and how you can break free from the pressure to “get it right.”

 Host Shelby Milford, a grief coach and alienated mom, explores the roots and realities of performance anxiety for alienated parents. Through personal stories, practical tools, and compassionate advice, Shelby helps listeners understand why the pressure to perform is so intense—and how to start easing it, one step at a time.

 

Topics Covered:

• What performance anxiety looks like for alienated parents
• Real-life scenarios: court, supervised visits, school events, and more
• The emotional and cognitive roots of performance anxiety
• Common thinking traps: catastrophic thinking, personalization, mind reading, and more
• Practical tools to break the anxiety cycle
• Building a new, compassionate internal narrative
• Small, actionable steps to reclaim confidence and connection 

Key Takeaways:

• Performance anxiety is a natural response to the unique pressures of alienation.
• Catastrophic thinking and self-blame are common but can be challenged.
• Small, repeated actions and reality-testing negative predictions help build confidence.
• Mindfulness, support, and self-compassion are essential tools for healing.
• Progress is about showing up, not perfection.

 

Notable Quotes:

• “If you’ve ever found yourself overthinking every word, replaying each moment, or feel like you’re auditioning for the role of the perfect parent—as if there was one—you are definitely not alone.”
• “Performance anxiety would kind of come with the territory of alienation. So anytime that you go into a court appearance, supervised visitation, it is about you, right?”
• “The more that we think our role is being threatened, the more we try to make those moments count.”
• “Catastrophic thinking reinforces and brings us right back to that state of emergency that we don’t like.”
• “You showed up and you did one thing differently. Keep noticing and celebrating those baby wins.”

 

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Episode Transcript

 You are listening to the Beyond The High Road Podcast with Shelby Milford, episode number 161.

 Welcome to Beyond the High Road, a podcast dedicated to healing your heart and life following the grief of alienation. I'm your host, Shelby Milford, a twice certified life coach specializing in post-traumatic growth. If you're experiencing the effects of alienation and you're ready to heal, then this show is my love letter to you.

Stay tuned.

Hey y'all, how we doing today? We don't have any new reviews and I don't have any announcements, so we're gonna get right into it. Today we are gonna be talking about the long awaited, um, performance anxiety.

This was a request by a listener and, he gave me some specific examples, uh, upon my request to him. and his examples were actually so common, I think for. People in general. And then also of course, because of alienation. Alienation just sort of, puts a magnifying glass on our anxiety as a whole and our, ability to perform up to par, you know?

The reason why I think performance anxiety deserves the attention today is not only because it was the request but also it's because I know that almost every alienated parent knows it all too well, even if we rarely say it out loud. That anxious knot in your stomach feeling right before you have to see your child.

Or you have to face the other parent or show up in court  supervised visit, With an evaluator, or go to reunification therapy  or show up at their school, your kiddos school, or to a game. I mean, it's just such a common feeling because because we feel like that we are under a microscope the second that we walk into whatever setting we're going into, right?

Um, you want so badly. We want so badly for it to go well, but the pressure to get it right can feel entirely overwhelming. If you've ever found yourself overthinking every word, replaying each moment, or feel like you're auditioning for the role of the perfect parent, as if, there was one,  You are definitely not alone. 

So I wanna get into why this happens, the toll it takes, and of course, how to start easing your anxiety one step at a time. So, I'm just gonna go. through and I've written down, I've got an outline here. Actually. Let me just go through and let you know what we're gonna be doing. performance anxiety. 

section one, gonna talk about what it looks like. Some scenarios of how that could happen. Section two, we're gonna talk about where it comes from, right? We're gonna talk about

the cognitive patterns that create performance anxiety. Then we're gonna talk about the tools to break the cycle in section four, and then building a new internal narrative. And then that'll be it. Okay. Send you on your way. So by the end of this episode,  the objective is to have you guys equipped with tools practices that you can put into place in order to ease your anxiety, right?

In order to become aware even of the thoughts that are causing the anxiety to begin with and the emotions that are happening, and so that you can catch it, sort of like I was talking about last week. Catch your stress response on the early part of it the early signs so that you can interrupt and replace it with better patterns.

Okay? So that's the, that's the objective. And yes,  

For alienated parents, I think that those performance anxiety can look like for alienated parents. What performance anxiety could look like is court appearances, having to, anytime you feel like you're gonna be either put on the stand because of the trauma that many of us carry during and after.

Something like alienation we're being put out in the spotlight, at least the way that we're seeing it. and actually in the whole dynamic, we are the ones that are being cast aside and pointed at, we're the ones that feel like we're sort of swimming around in a fishbowl and being criticized, right?

You're not doing it right. you don't love them, you're not fit, you're dangerous or whatever it is. You are the one that's the spotlight's on. So it makes sense that. Performance anxiety would kind of come with the territory of alienation, So anytime that you go into a court appearance, supervised visitation, it is about you, right?

Or else we wouldn't be here, let's just call it spade a spade, any sort of phone, email, or text conversations with our children's school. Anytime you go to a sports event, that's the one where I think I actually, even though I remember going to many of my daughter's school events, sporting events, whenever I had access to those, that is the least parent centered activity, if you will.

Even going through alienation. However, sometimes alienated parents can, feel the most anxiety around because it's social,

 one of the ways it can show up is, of course, probably the most obvious is if you are going to court, and you think that you're gonna be brought up to the stand. Us As alienated parents can feel like if we're called to testify in court about the relationship with our child, whatever the line of questioning is, especially of course by the, by the other attorney, we get stuck in  what if I say the wrong thing, I'll look like the bad parent.

What if the judge thinks I'm to blame? How do I keep my story straight  depending on what's going on with you? I know that that was one of my. Thoughts because there was a lot going on there. But, they were trying to incriminate me not only in the, family court, but also in criminal court.

And so they were hoping that my testimony,  and I normally don't like to talk about what the other parent is hoping or thinking or , what their intentions are, but in this case they made it very clear that they were hoping that I would say something that would incriminate me there so they could take that testimony over to the criminal courts and get me further, sanctions or whatever, get further punishment for me.

 So I was. Frozen with performance anxiety so worried that I would say too much or that it wouldn't come out. And I wasn't trying to lie. It wasn't about that. It was that this other case that they had, instigated they meaning my, my ex right?

And his wife I had not gone to court for that yet. And so I didn't want to testify in civil court and say something that would be taken differently in the other, in the other court. Right? And so  it's actually, you guys, while I'm saying this, it's, I know that I'm can't see myself 'cause I've got my notes in front of me, but I know that I'm smiling right now and I tell you what,  never in a million years did I think that I would be on the other side of that, what I was just sort of explaining to you and be smiling about it.

Got, I'm definitely not laughing about it or, smirking any of that because it was such a dark and stressful, awful experience. Long it was like years long of saga with the criminal courts because of what they had instigated. And so for me to be on the other side of that and talking with you guys about it, it's, wow.

It's, uh, feels like, , it's very surreal.  Anyway, back to where I was, the anxiety that we have around the court experience revolves around the fear of not being able to meet the legal or parental expectations.

And the outcome feels tied directly to our, your performance in this moment, not just other people's opinions. So it feels like if I say the wrong thing or  I must say the right thing so that I can get the judge to understand,  or God forbid, if you, well actually probably be better if you had a jury, but like other people, the other attorney or whoever, even the people watching right in the courtroom to understand what my intentions were, It's all feels like it's on you to say the right thing. And we kind of forget in that moment. Some many of us forget that there are so many different. Aspects are so many different factors that go into the outcome, And not only that  we also have our accuser, our abuser, sitting right in front of us.

And so it can feel really, really well. It's  retraumatizing It was for me, for sure. I can remember, My daughter's stepmom sitting in front of me right while I was on the stand and her smirking and being so theatrical, making fun of me, what have you, while I was testifying and   me not wanting to react to her, reacting to me, but it felt so activating.

 So that's one way. Another way is during supervised visitation, during a limited & supervised visit, we can feel I felt intense pressure to make the visit special, authentic, and emotionally safe for our children, right? For my child. Um, in such a very short window of time too, every gesture, comment or activity is overthought.. I know for me, I was thinking,  if I slip up, will she shut down? Will she not respond?  Will that be taken as. Me being inadequate by the supervisor,  the anxiety centers on passing the test of parenthood in front of both your child, and the observer. 

Right. I remember the first couple times that I, I had a supervisor, well, there were two different sets of time that it happened. I remember one time in particular the supervisor was this new lady and she was like standing right behind the couch over my daughter and I, while I was reading to my daughter, I was showing her photos or something, and she had a notebook and her, she was writing in it, writing notes, and it felt so awkward.

And I was really worried that this was going to affect my daughter for a really long time. Like, is this all she's gonna remember is this woman over here? And so I felt the brunt of it wanting to like. Overdo stuff in front of my daughter, in front of Scarlet, so that I could draw her attention to me and not to this woman who was taking notes behind me.

It was so awkward, and I, it, it is, I felt so much anxiety around each, supervised visit after that until finally, um, I got it worked out because I talked to the, the, the manager of the place, whatever, and o over time I developed a really good working relationship with all of the supervisors because they all saw what was happening.

So it was not such a big deal. Um, but it, it was for, quite some time I just didn't want my daughter to remember that. This person that was standing over us always. eventually the supervisor stopped standing over me. Right. And it was not a big deal. But if it's you that's in the supervised visitation position, and if you're doing it like out in public places or even at your home or a family member's home, from my experience, there are ways that you can get them to back up a little bit.

And eventually they do sort of blend into the scenery, if you will. The way that I dealt with it, I'm not really supposed to be offering you the, solutions right now, but it's just on my mind and I'm worried, I'll forget the way that I dealt with it is I planned every visit.

Like I either, if they weren't at my house, and even if they were, eventually, they were all like in public places at like this, outdoor, mall, Galleria place, I always brought projects for her and I to do, and the supervisor seeing that I was always prepared and always engaging with her.

And either we had Uno to play or we were in a pool or we were doing stuff. Um, the more active we were and engaged we were, the less inclined the supervisor was to being right in the mix with us. And so just, that's just a little, I don't know, tip. I'm sure most of us as alienated parents, that's one thing we're really sensitive to, and I'm sure you probably are super engaged with them because you're missing so much time.

Right. That's like, we're scared that our role is being, it is being threatened, you know? And so, of course. The more that we think that our role is being threatened and that we're not gonna be able to exercise our that role, the more that we make those moments count, we try to, anyway. So I, I know that you're probably doing what I was already just suggesting anyway, but just in case.

Here's one that I talked with you guys about, right around my daughter's birthday and I know probably every year I've talked about this, writing cards and letters or messages to them sending gifts to them. What do you write in the card?

I remember agonizing over what to write in her birthday card and also what, why I don't, I couldn't text her, but even the message that I sent her. Recently, I don't know if I was agonizing recently, but I definitely put a lot of thought into it, you know, but for years I, I mean, I actually still have gifts that were never sent because of my performance anxiety or my anxiety around how those gifts would be received, you know, and what the alienating parents would say to her when she received those gifts and whether they would be poo-pooed or not.

And so I just ended up not, and this is what a lot of parents will do, is we are in so much fear of it not being received, right. That you don't end up sending it, you know? So, and actually this is one thing that you, if you've listened to any of my episodes, it's one thing that I, I think the biggest fail ever is not sending something that you really do wanna send or not doing something that you actually really do wanna do.

You know, so,  and that's okay if it's a fail. Like I said, I've got some stuff here that I still haven't sent to her. just know that it's there so that you can, we can talk about the solutions later, but, 

it's understandable if you're there, you know, or if you have been there,  a lot of times we will , write and then rewrite messages for hours on end, to the kiddos. Also to the alienating parent, how much time have you spent on editing and censoring messages that you're going to send to them?

Because you want it to be received in the right way. You wanna send the right message, which by the way, we know if we're talking about the alienating parent, there is no right way for them because they're gonna receive it however they wanna see it. It's not about what you've written, it's about how they wanna see you.

And that's just up to them, and actually the same thing does go for our kids, though. I wanna put more thought into it because I want to feel loving when I'm writing whatever I'm writing to her, you know? . But the thoughts that come up, I was paralyzed by thoughts, like, if I mess this up or I'm gonna lose the chance to reconnect, or what if it sounds desperate?

Or what if it sounds too cold or what if it's not funny? The way that it, I'm thinking about it and the way that she hears it when she reads it, you know, um, the distress is not about the delivering the right performance, rather the fear of social sort of embarrassment, you know? Or

here the distress is not always about delivering the right performance, though that is a factor. Sometimes it's the fear of to the direct social embarrassment the rejection, you know? Attending school or extracurricular events? Okay.

of all of the experiences that we have as alienated parents, attending school or extracurricular events is the least focused on us. Whereas like supervised visitation, it's about us. We wouldn't be in supervised visitation if it wasn't that we were getting accused of not being fit or not safe or whatever it's, So that is us focused. The purpose of it is because of what they're saying about us. Same thing with the courtroom testimony, legal reviews parental evaluation. Any of that stuff is us focused. So it makes sense that we would have some anxiety there.

But the one that is the least focused on us is attending school events, games, you know, anything like that. Any sort of competitions, whatever that's really about the kid,  how this is where I hear the most parents agonizing over. And Me too. I was there too.  I was like, I was so nervous going to any sort of event, because I'm thinking back to her soccer days, back when I was still.

Uh, we had 50 50 custody at that time. Yeah, 50 50. And I was not getting, um, the information about the games from my ex. In fact, he was, you know, playing the game and, , told me that it wasn't needed for her to come on those days. And that practice actually only was every other weekend. But when I found out, otherwise, I did some digging, found out where the games were and brought her.

That was a whole experience in itself. I think I probably shared that story in one of the episodes. But the coach thought that I was, he even shared with me, he was very surprised when I showed up and thought that I was a, a prostitute or something like that. I don't think those were his words, but he was very shocked that I was Scarlet's mom because he thought I was a deadbeat basically.

Long story short though, I can just remember being there and feeling like the spotlight was on me, even though it was really about my daughter, you know, this was her game. The same thing with like gymnastics and stuff, you know, or her recitals. Mm. And the reason why it matters here, it's not just social anxiety though, is that, um,  the reason we feel so much anxiety around these events is what happens if our children ignore us?

What happens if we wave to them and they don't wave back or they turn the other way? What will the other parents think?  It's not so much about being judged as it is about it is, but it's more like. Every parent I know, if it was me and I was seeing another parent be, uh, ignored by their kid, I would think, well that parent's gotta be terrible.

Which would only reinforce whatever narratives the alienating parent is already spreading about us. You know? So it is a performance anxiety about even just going. And then

once we get there, we're like rehearsing in our mind how to wave, how to speak to the child. Should you speak to the child? You worry a bunch about, like, if I approach them at the wrong time or show too much emotion, I might make things worse. I might make my kid feel uncomfortable, so I don't want to.

Put pressure on them, especially at a sporting event or somewhere where they're needing to perform because we're already hearing from the alienating parent or parents that, we're the ones that are causing stress in our kids, So it feels like a lot.  And so the anxiety lies and not necessarily measuring up as a parent in the, in your kiddo's eyes, but it's focusing on the success or failure of the whole interaction. 

like if I go and it's a failure, then what does that mean about me? What does that mean about our relationship?  And what does that mean about all future events? Can I not go to the rest of 'em? So that feels like so much feels overwhelming. It's like this is going to, this event, showing up to the, your first event or maybe your, even your 20th event can feel like,, if this goes bad, then that's going to solidify why I shouldn't go to any future ones.  And so it can feel really, really pressury about showing up and not, not even just showing up. 'cause you can sit in the back and not be seen by your kid if you, I know many parents that do that, you know, they just go and they sit in their car and they watch the kid play from the parking lot, you know, soccer or football or whatever, or they'll just kind of blend into the, crowd.

 

 And if you go and sit in the bleachers or wherever then should you wave high? If you do,  are you distracting them?  Are you, getting into their head and so then maybe they won't play well  And is the alienating parent gonna use that against you and say that you were there solely to distract your child  or to,

i, I've even heard it, that alienating parents will say, oh, you were there just to get attention to make it all about you. And that got into their heads and see what you did. This is a big mess. Of course, there you are stressing your kid out again  so it can feel really, really stressy. Right? And so a lot of parents will overthink it and then maybe not even show up at all. so the other one that used to drive me crazy, and it was before every single handover  anytime that we had the exchanges. I, for me, I felt.

The anxiety wasn't necessarily around anything in particular other than  it was everything actually.  It was like, it was, how do I hand over, do I say hi? Do we, I hadn't even been introduced to the stepmom before she was even the stepmom. She just showed up one day. There was no like, hi, this is so and so and this is who will be picking up, you know, Scarlet now from now on, it was just, it just happened and there was no discussion.

So I was literally handing my daughter off to a stranger. But that in the decree, that's what it said, right? Well, after a couple of these was very quick bet. Well, on the first pickup. On the first exchange that the stepmom was doing it, she was really, really nasty to me.  Like high school, you know, like, oh, ew.

And she made terrible comments while either I was holding my daughter in my arms. 'cause she was only like, not even two yet. Also, when she was holding my daughter about me. And so it felt really ugly and dark and I was nervous about anything I did. I didn't know, I was nervous about the whole exchange.

But then nervous about whether, do I look at her in the eyes? Do I say hello to the stepmom because she was so,

Is malicious the right word? Maybe, but also vicious spiteful. And back then, I mean, I was, uh, you know, usually coming from teaching some sort of fitness class, you know, and handing my daughter off. And so I knew I was in good shape, although she would always make these really catty comments about, about me, like while I was holding my daughter while she was, you know, so direct, derogatory, like the tone with which she said things, it was awful.

And so it always threw me like I never knew how to behave around her, , I always hoped for there to be some niceties, you know, for things to turn around, but they never did. And so I had a lot of anxiety about how to respond to her viciousness, and then as she got older, I was more concerned about, there was some perfor performance anxiety because there was some anxiety around that whenever I went to pick her up from exchanges. we met in a few different places, never at either of our houses, not after a couple incidents, but funny.

Not funny. we would usually meet in some sort of parking lot at Walgreens or near, uh, a kid's exchange place. Anyway, when I would go to pick her up, oftentimes the stepmom would have these staged family events happening in the grassy area in between the parking lot and the highway sometimes or the parking lot and the grassy area, and then a main road They would be all playing football all, I mean like the three or four of them, because also her older stepbrother playing football or she would be doing back handsprings, the stepmom and teaching my daughter. It felt very odd and very staged, but it kind of in a way put the pressure on me. 

I put the pressure on myself to like also do things  I never did because that would've felt really weird, you know? And not true to me. But I almost made it in my mind that I wasn't doing enough at those moments, I didn't know what to do with myself. Do you ever, like, do you ever get, like when you feel like you're in the spotlight, you feel like you don't know what to do with your hands or your arms and you feel like they're like just hanging or they're like floating midair?

That's kind of how I felt with the exchanges. Like, what am I supposed to do here? You know, most of 'em, I would just sit in my car and wait and talk to my daughter. But even the talking to my daughter, I can look back now and see that as almost, I wanna say there was a hint of like performativeness. In even my conversations because there was this pressure I was putting on myself to even like do that.

Right? . Like I needed to have the best interaction before she went over to her dad's house. If she was in the car with me, I needed to say the right things and do the right things in those moments. The last moments before she went over to her dad's, especially if she was gonna be going over to her dad's for more than a couple days, couple, two or three days.

And so I really wanted to make sure to like either reinforce whatever our time was together or whatever. But I know that looking back on that now, that probably felt for her a bit. Like concocted or something, or just a little pressy, you know, because  if I know that, if I was feeling pressure, then she's gonna notice that.

'cause that's kids, you know, especially our own kids. They, sense things like that.  It is what it is now. I mean, I, I know why I was feeling that way and I definitely don't blame myself. 

But anyway, if you understand, if you can identify with this, then you probably have some performance anxiety around the, exchanges, right? Handovers, custody. Handovers. Okay. so I've described. What it could look like a few examples anyway, of what it could look like as far as in your situations of alienation.

But I wanna also talk about that this could have sort of leaked over into your everyday life. And what I mean by that, there is, um, we're gonna talk here in a minute about the emotions and cognitive patterns that create performance anxiety. so I don't wanna go too far into it, but if you've had any sort of earlier trauma, even before the alienation, , and let's just, you guys know that we all probably did.

Okay. And so you could have already been living, coming from a place of fear or you sort of default to fight or flight response, right? Or even freeze. And you could be there because of your overwhelming fear to measure up. Okay. And so what that might look like in everyday life is  maybe you fear going to the gym.

This is a huge fear for many people and me coming from that being my background, a fitness background, I heard this a lot. I mean, for years people don't wanna start going to the gym because it feels so pressury.  And it feels like that also, that you're under a microscope. Like everybody in our minds, we have this all or nothing thinking, which I'm gonna talk about in a minute.

Like everybody else at the gym knows exactly what they're doing and they know the correct form. And they're like professionals. They're seasoned. Professionals that are all in the gym. Well, the regular other parents and whoever that are there, in our minds, we feel like we're the only newbie at it. If you're new at working out and so, or new at anything, really.

But this is one way and so we put all this pressure on ourselves and we feel like we're gonna get to the gym. You might feel like this, and not do something right and people are all gonna be laughing We make it so big in our heads and that people are really actually thinking about us .

Like there's people there rating what our form is on whatever machine you might be on, when really people are only thinking about themselves and probably all worrying about similar things or about their days and whatever. Nobody's ever really looking at you, but when it comes down to it, when you're coming from trauma and have the fear of not measuring up already.

Doing something new where you know it's in public or that other people are also performing, if you will. It feels really awkward. I used to feel this, this like this and you know, being the new kid at school and I was the new kid a lot and know, and you would think after so much time of being like the perpetual new kid at school I would've gotten used to it and it would've been like nothing.

But also remember that coming from trauma, that our default, my default anyway, was to be in that fight flight freeze. And so   that thinking, not relying on executive functions, but instead relying on emotional reasoning and fear of not measuring up, I never got used to it.

And I was always in fear. I was always feeling some sort of anxiety about people. Seeing me wrong,  you know? And so though it may not be rational, my point here is though it may not seem rational that you have these fears, it also makes so much sense coming from what you have.  it doesn't mean that because you had earlier trauma or that because you're going through this thing of alienation that you, you're always gonna have it not if you don't want to.

And that's why the steps I'm gonna give you today, if you start executing, like using these tools on, not just once, not just twice, but on a continual basis, you will create new neural pathways for yourself and start creating new evidence to show that you do measure up and that it's not as important as maybe your, your emotional brain is making it me in the moment, like the pressure that you're putting on yourself. alright, so now we're gonna talk about.

So performance anxiety typically stems from a complex web of emotions, especially for us as alienated parents. The core origins often include deep rooted fear, particularly the fear of being judged, rejected, or found inadequate as a parent or as a person. Even shame and guilt can also be major drivers as parents.

Second guess their actions and worry about making mistakes causing further harm to the parent-child relationship. And to our children, as we've already been accused of, underneath those emotions. Feelings of helplessness and powerlessness are common, stemming from the lack of control over the alienation dynamic, right? And all the outcomes that you thought you were gonna have, and now the fear of the unknown of those outcomes. You know, ,  for many anxiety arises from the anticipation of loss and or disappointment paired with loneliness and a sense of isolation, especially when support is limited or your efforts to reconnect are ineffective.

So performance anxiety usually emerges from a blend and summary of what I just said there. Performance anxiety usually emerges from a blend of fear, shame, guilt, helplessness, and loneliness, all intensified by the unique circumstances of alienation. 

alienation as it is because we're being accused so much and criticized pointed at, put under a microscope. if you had insecurities before, alienation just magnifies that we're being set apart from our own family,  you know? And I don't mean to make that worse for you.

I'm actually offering hopefully some compassionate understanding.  It makes sense why you have the fears that you have. I'm not measuring up. 

Now that you know where it comes from, if you hadn't already, or maybe you just didn't, many times, like I talk about, you know, we can reason our way out of even our ugliest of thoughts, but reasoning out of it isn't, won't do you any good unless you become aware.

Of what those thoughts are and where they're deriving from. So now that we kind of, I just discussed that, and I'm gonna go into the next part, which is all of your cognitive, , pattern. then from here, you making sense of all of that and not beating yourself up as a result of it, but just carrying with you the understanding is going to help you moving forward just alone.

Just knowing this. And then of course, the exercises are gonna help you even further.

So we just talked about that fear of rejection or judgment, shame, guilt, helplessness and loneliness are the main causes or performance anxiety. Now we're gonna talk about the    

cognitive patterns that maintain anxiety and self-doubt.

So the first one is catastrophic thinking. Anticipating the worst possible outcome such as a total rejection or dramatic escalation reinforces a constant state of apprehension and hyper vigilance. We're already in that hypervigilance,

your body is accustomed to that. And now when we go catastrophic thinking, talking, coming from last week, which this was the perfect thing to follow all of that up, starting from the fears episode four weeks ago, I think now, catastrophic thinking reinforces and brings us right back to that state of emergency that we don't like.

It sucks, it feels awful, but that our body is addicted to. So catastrophic thinking is habit for us, the worst thing's gonna happen. Oh, no. Everybody's gonna be staring at me and they're all gonna be talking about me, and they're all gonna be saying, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, that's what we have going on in our head all the time. 

So that's one.   The next one is personalization and over responsibility. It's not necessarily a word, but we're making it a word today. Believing that you are solely to blame for any negative reaction from your child or children or the other parent leading to excessive self monitoring and self blame, excessive self-monitoring.

I'm going to say that stress that because I know for me and then many of the parents I talk to, we have this voice inside, like that shaming, blaming voice About doing anything, performing anything. I remember having that voice, cleaning my own house. I had this voice, and sometimes it would even sound like the stepmom, which was, awful.

I mean, I, didn't respect her. I didn't respect him, but for some reason that was the voice that came through to me when I was doing stuff, even in my house, or if I looked in the mirror and saw myself, it was always her voice that was coming for me, you know, about how I kept my house. And even the decor, it was like this constant critiquing in such a negative, nasty way.

And I was doing that to myself, or my emotional thinking was going there. And I truly believe that like in my right mind, and for you, you know that you're not solely to blame for this, In fact, you know that you're being alienated, and so you've got that, hold that truth. But then you've got all of this dissonance because this other part of you, the part that's running you, is blaming you and putting so much pressure on you to look a certain way to keep your home a certain way, even if nobody's coming, you know?

Now, I will say that keeping your home a certain way for your own sake is the most important thing that you can do because it's your surroundings, right? But when you're shaming yourself for doing stuff coming from what they've said to you before, you create an environment of that special kind of hell that we talk about all the time.

This is why I think so many parents feel like they are locked in a cage. Since the alienation started is because of the dialogue that happens in our brain. And that same dialogue is the dialogue that stays with you on your every day while you're performing. Even , the most trivial of tasks, how you make your coffee in the morning, whether you sweep the floor, if you get that corner or not.

, How you dress to go to work, whatever it is, you have this narrator in your mind, the shaming, blaming narrator that makes you responsible and to blame for everything that's happened, even though you also know with how you're thinking, that you're not responsible for everything,  So that's another reason that you could have performance anxiety, 

 Mind reading and Fortune telling, we've talked about this before - in the My Kid Hates Me episode or the one that was directly after that. There was a, my kid hates me. And then like I think it was cognitive biases that aren't working for you. I forget what that one's called, but, uh, we talked about this, mind reading and fortune telling. We assume that others meaning your child, your ex, whoever, third parties, even friends of friends, whatever, are thinking negatively about us, right?

Are predicting that any small misstep will confirm negative stereotypes about our parenting. I cannot tell you how many, especially parents, with school aged kids dealing with this on the day in, day out, having nightmares about it, like 24 7, worried about what the other people are gonna think.

It goes back to our primal need to be accepted in any group that we're in. And if we're already being singled out by the alienating parent, and then maybe our kids too, it feels really dire and like 9 1 1 emergency. But when we are then, assuming it's our way to protect ourselves, right? We just wanna assume the worst case scenarios so that we can, your survival brain, can protect you and keep you away from that sort of harm.

And as long as we're aware of it and we make ourselves aware of it beforehand, then we're all good. But actually that making ourselves aware isn't doing us any good at all. In fact, it's keeping us in this place of anxiety, performance, anxiety, right? Like, I'm not gonna go to that place. I'm not gonna, I don't wanna see those people.

You avoid all the places, people, places and things that where you think that might, there might be some sort of. Judgment placed upon you about how you show up, what you're wearing, what you're doing, you know how it goes.

 All or nothing thinking, viewing each exchange as a test of your worth, or success as a parent, If an exchange isn't perfect, it's judged as a total failure, if you make one mistake in your weekend together or whatever your parenting time is, you say something wrong, or you give the wrong, punishment isn't the right word, you know, but you, correct them in the wrong way, that that's gonna be taken back and you are telling yourself that then everything is gonna go to shit.

I'm not saying that there hasn't been. evidence to support that they make mountains outta molehills. And it's usually, that's why we're so hypervigilant about things, but living that way constantly worrying about what they're gonna do. And so you either go into this like it's everything or it's nothing is going to keep you in that same special kind of Hell.. 

Hypervigilant self-criticism. Overanalyzing every action, every word. This is pretty much what I've been talking about throughout here, or facial expression from yourself and from others. Always searching for evidence that you are doing it wrong or will be rejected, right? So you may not really believe that you're doing it wrong with your, higher thinking, but the part of you that's worried about how other people are seeing you is overactive, hypervigilant, right?

Always looking out for the judgers, doing that can really. Actually affect, negatively affect your ability to perform in those situations. Like I remember, you know, going to school events for my daughter, like when, you know, going into her classroom and stuff when she was in elementary school.

I was so worried that I was going to say or do the wrong thing that I got, I got myself so nervous, even when I was more at ease when the stepmom wasn't there. She happened to try to be there for all the things over, did things, you know, um, for fear that me, her mom would actually be seen as her mom.

, But I remember being so hypervigilant and so aware of her presence or her possible presence that I, stuttered. I It was hard for me to put together full sentences, when I did speak, I was coming from fight or flight, like breathless sort of stress response. So I'm sure I came off as the typical alienated parent, like a little chaotic, you know? And so it affected my ability to connect with the teachers and the other parents and whoever I was in front of. And it really, the most important thing is it, it affected my ability to connect with my daughter on the level that I wanted to. You know, of course I was always like lovey and sweet with her, but because my stress response was going, like I was in a full on fight, flight response, anytime I went up to the school, that also I'm sure transferred over into my daughter she was upset a lot of those times too, 

so, and the last one is, as I've sort of mentioned throughout, this is fear-based avoidance, right? Re replaying past negative exchanges or situations and using those as your template for predicting future interactions, exchanges. Experiences, which only fuels your anxiety and makes preparation for the next exchange experience event even more stressful.

We all wanna say, yeah, but they've done this in the past, so we know they're gonna probably do it in the future. And okay, sure we can, it would be great for you to always consider the worst case scenario, but leaning into the worst case scenario, scenario will cause you to, in a lot of cases, because that's just natural for our survival system to want to avoid because our body likes to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and be efficient.

So it's gonna do whatever it can to stay on habit and avoid all the painful events. So how do we do that? You're con, you're living from a place of fear, right? How do we get away from there and to the happy place? And doing that is going to lessen your ability to see opportunities. To seize the opportunities and also to create opportunities for yourself.

all of those patterns, lock, alienated parents us into a cycle where anxiety increases before, during, and after whatever events we're worried about performing on. Right?, Making it difficult to adapt or notice any positive shifts in the way that you're performing, right?

 And also contributes to your emotional exhaustion,  which is the real kicker you guys is like, you can screw up. We all make mistakes, right?   But the emotional exhaustion that you feel will create new evidence to reinforce the bad experience, Or the bad performance.  Meaning that you're gonna start to create these rule sets that, that you always do bad in these situations, right?

Or that those situations are always to be avoided  You're just gonna keep reinforcing the, the fear  and that's suck because then you never create new experiences for yourself coming from fear, right?  You're only trying to avoid, you're not trying to perform in those moments,

 I can't tell you how many experiences per, uh, performance anxiety actually stole from me and my daughter back in the day. The first thing that comes to mind is the one that I talked about, back, two Julys ago when I read you guys my journal, and I was talking about how the stepmom came for the square dancing.

Event at my daughter's school and she took Scarlett outta my arms, I was holding her hand. She swept her away and then said, you can have her after I'm finished. And then she kept her the whole time. I could have gone up tapped my daughter and said, Hey babe, I'm gonna go ahead and dance with you right now.

but I didn't 'cause I was so scared of what was gonna happen. I was scared of how I was gonna behave or if I could get the words out of my mouth. Even when I was in front of my daughter in this stepmom I tell you,    giving into or letting anxiety, performance, anxiety, fear of any kind lead you will steal all of your experiences in your whole world really. 

There were so many times where I didn't do what I knew that was right for me as a mom and for my daughter because of my own fear of how I would actually perform when I got there or whether I was gonna be able to come up with the words. But  the problem was me leaning into the all or nothing thinking, hyper vigilance, . The self-criticism, all of that leading up to going in the problem was me not back then. Of course, I didn't know, 'cause I didn't have the tools, was me not becoming aware of exactly what I was saying to myself in those moments.  It will create a special kind of hell for you if you submit to fear or the performance anxiety itself.

Like even if we're talking about the simple. if it has nothing to do with your kids and you're scared to go to the gym or job interviews or something 'cause you're so worried and you feel like ever since alienation has happened, you have lost yourself you can't think straight or put together sentences or sell yourself.

You're not invested in your whatever. It's right. No matter what it is. If you are choosing to not do it because you are fearing how you will perform, then you're choosing to fail ahead of time. Like, I think I said in the beginning, which will steal your life from you. It will steal all of your ambition and make it really difficult for you to dream and think about outcomes that you really do want, so, yeah.

mean, I bowed out of a lot of things, not just with my kiddo, but like if you don't go to the gym because, or start the workout regimen. 'cause you're worried about what people are gonna think or if you're gonna not measure up or if you don't know the exercises. Nobody, , when we start doing something, no matter what it is,  nobody knows.

You learn as you go and developing the confidence and also the skills in order to show up anyway and just learn one exercise a day. 

The gym is just an easy example sequence to give you guys. So I'm gonna go there take it away from alienation, but let's say you're so worried because I hear this a lot from people and I used to be this way before I was ever.

in the fitness field, I didn't wanna go to the gym because I thought everybody there knew what the hell they were doing. Like they were all seasoned professionals or something. And I was gonna be the odd man out and  in my brain, this, all or nothing thinking everybody was going to be looking at me and either laughing, I don't know.

I never really made sense of it, you know, and, and brought it real, but they would somehow scoff at me and be like, oh, that's the girl that doesn't know what the fuck she's doing. But really, everybody has to start somewhere. And the worst case scenario,  I mean, I guess there's those people out there that might say something snide as you do something in the wrong form or whatever, but it, that really speaks about those people.

. It speaks to how they speak to themselves. Because if they're judging you out loud, then imagine what that voice is turned inward, right? it's always, when somebody's judging somebody else, it's because they're judging themselves that way. You know? So just remember that.  if you're fearing going to the gym because of that, but you really had these goals that you wanna get to, like health goals and whatever,  and now you're doing yourself dirty by not going, because you're paying attention to the fears more than you're caring about the end result of your health, 

it also gives you this weird benefit of not starting the regimen, which your survival system loves, because it really doesn't wanna do anything. It just wants to be efficient and stay home and be comfy and watch Netflix and eat some snacks and not do that. So it also feeds into this negative survival system situation, which, unless you talk some sense into that, become aware of it, you know?

Um, when I say talk some sense into, I don't mean judge yourself or blame or beat yourself up, I just mean really inspect why, what are the benefits to staying home and not going to the gym? What are the benefits you're receiving? Even if, even if you don't like those benefits, there's something that's motivating you to stay home more than it's motivating you to go.

You know, and if whatever fear that you're afraid of overcoming or that you won't overcome at the gym, if it's what you're doing. Remind yourself too, that you have to start somewhere. And maybe it's that you just go and you create, and this is where we're gonna get into, um, the tools anyway, is that you create small pockets for yourself.

Like, I'm gonna go to the gym and I'm gonna do one exercise at the gym today. I'm gonna go get on the treadmill position myself on a machine I can stay at for a while and watch other people do stuff I am gonna see how somebody does the leg press machine and see how somebody does bicep curls.

And then the next time I go to the gym, I'm gonna do the lead press machine and I'm gonna do bicep curls, spend 15 minutes there and then leave. And then you create that positive experience for yourself. Like, see, I could do that, and it was fine. the whole gym didn't laugh at me maybe I even made a friend or somebody smiled at me and it was fine.

Building the evidence for yourself that things are gonna be okay. Creating these little safe pockets, spaces for yourself is what is gonna create the momentum and the evidence for you to move forward. Like the, the, the positive

feedback that you need or your emotional brain needs to encourage and sort of coax it out, basically gradual exposure,

If you notice that you have certain safety behaviors, maybe you don't love, I was just referencing this in one of the recent episodes. You don't love pauses in conversation, You feel the need to fill the pauses with. Conversation or entertainment or whatever, right?

If that is you being aware of when it comes up for you, that you start over talking over, explaining over whatever, lovingly noticing those things and then choosing to drop that behavior for the conversation or exchange or experience, Like I am gonna choose to not fill the empty space with my over-explaining during this next experience, next kid exchange or whatever is going on. athletic event where you're going to see your kiddo. I'm not gonna overexplain myself because it's a safety behavior. It's a behavior that you do, which creates more discomfort in the moment and afterwards, and also builds on the negative experience that you have.

So if you can become aware of what those actions are that you take, that might make it worse for you in the end, then lovingly notice them, okay, this is what I do and I do this because I'm wanting to fill in the space because I don't like the discomfort. Whatever. I feel like it's all on me noticing, okay, it's really not all on me and I, I don't have to over explain myself.

I don't have to answer to anybody. And now, each time the urge comes up in that when you go to sit at your kids' baseball game or whatever football game you don't overexplain, and see what results that creates for you. Like create little experiments for yourself. You know, where you're like, all right, so I'm gonna see if I Don't do A or B or C, how that fares in the end for me? Do I feel better or worse after that? Or maybe it's that you, ,

don't make eye contact, with your ex at exchanges. Maybe this time you make eye contact and see what happens and see that you, you're not actually gonna shrivel up and die, you know? But start slowly either removing or adding in, a new behavior, just to see how your experience is at the end.

Create little tiny safe pockets, deliberately allow pauses or refrain from Overexplaining. , Add the eye contact, add a hello where maybe you didn't say hello before during the exchanges. Hi, how are you? You know, adding positivity into the way that you show up and positivity, like I said, does not always mean entertaining feeling in the space or feeling like you have to explain yourself to whoever Tom, Dick and Harry that's asking about your kids.

showing up confident or maybe not confident, but calm, loving present for whatever experience you want to be present for, Alright. You can reality test your negative predictions. So each time it's really important you guys, anytime you feel like the worst case scenario is gonna happen when it doesn't, which most of the time it won't. And the other day I think I was inaccurate about like the worst case scenario or the bad outcomes we think we're gonna have.

It's only 90% of the time, I actually think it's like 93 or 97% of the time, they don't come to fruition. So it's even more reason to like lean into the things that you fear, anytime you have a negative prediction, this is gonna suck, my kid's not gonna be there, they're not gonna receive me, they're not gonna say hi back, or whatever it is.

Anytime that that doesn't come true, write it down in a log. You want to reinforce that the negative thing that you thought was gonna happen did not happen because if not, then your brain, which is already geared towards hypervigilance and negative events, is going to still carry the negative summary.

The possibility of negative in the future unless you really highlight the positive or the neutral experience that actually happened. Does that make sense? So anytime you have a, a fear at the end of whatever the event was or the experience was, notice what didn't happen poorly and what happened positively.

And focus on the neutral and the positive, Reinforce that. so record whether your anticipated negative outcomes, major conflict, visible distress actually happened. Review this evidence over like a once a month, depending on how often you see your kid or you do whatever it is that you're fearing once a month or whatever, just to

update and replace, anxious predictions with real data. And also, I'm gonna reinforce this. I wrote, I guess I wrote it somewhat twice as take small safe risks during your handovers, like exchanges or experiences, sporting events, school events, or, you know, maybe your kid isn't in school like mine.

My, well, she's in college. You know, she's passed all the, early school years now. And so maybe it's other ways that you take small risks, like if you were talking about with your adult kid, right?

Offering simple, positive greetings, regardless of what you think that there are negative responses gonna be. Just create evidence and safety in your environment around the thing that you're fearing. Like each time that you do something like you're scared to, like, you know what we do when we are scared of a negative interaction is we shut down and we sort of go tunnel vision we, I will often look down and not make eye contact and wanna just get through it, what that does is steal those moments from me and then I'm not showing up as myself like authentic because I'm so in my head that I'm just like a beeline for whatever it is I need to do and that I'm out, which is awful. And it just reinforces all the negative fears that you have, even if you make it through, okay, you're still so in your head that you don't actually experience whatever you're doing.

So instead take little baby small, safe risks. I'm gonna shake three new people's hands. I'm going to say hi. Even if I know that they're gonna give me a shitty response, I'm gonna say hi. I'm gonna say hello. How are you coming from?

Love, whatever. Just create little baby experiences and create the new evidence for yourself because it's about how you show up anyway. You know? That's what performance and anxiety is, that we're not gonna be able to do it. But you, you create little, you small wins, you know?

Hmm. All of these experiments are much more effective when repeated and gradually intensified. Paired with some sort of reflection, logging, Helping us you to weaken unhelpful beliefs and noting the actual positive or neutral responses afterwards.

Okay? So the cumulation, , and the gradual intensity buildup of these experiences, and experiments that you conduct for yourself and your own social environment, performance environment.

 

So how can you challenge your ants Automatic negative thoughts before exchanges or experiences.

number one, identify and name the thought as you guys hear me Always say, write down or mentally note. I prefer to write down the specific negative thought or fear, right? My child will hate me. They don't wanna see me anyway. I'll mess up and I'll make things worse.

Whatever it is, write it down. Which helps bring those automatic thoughts into conscious awareness. Because when they're just bouncing up in your brain, that's why I don't like the mentally note. I don't know why I wrote that down, but when they're just bouncing around in your brain, , they go unnoticed.

They go unchecked, right? And you still hear them playing and you still continually repeat them because they're automatic. You've been thinking of them for a really long time. They're like all these like objections and fears shooting at you, But because you haven't yet highlighted them.

They fly underneath the radar for you and they're creating this negative experience, this collection of negative experiences for you, and you don't even know it because you're not stopping to write 'em down,  lot of times we think we put it down on paper that makes it more real.

But no,  in fact, what you're creating every day, every experience that you have in your life is, are real events that you're, that you're creating. Like they're, they're go down in history, you know, that you've been living based on, and acting based on the fears that are up in your brains. So you're like making them come into fruition.

That's what's real you writing down and recognizing a thought will help you to become aware and then let it go over time, okay. Seek evidence for and against ask. You know, I ask you this a lot. What evidence do I have that this prediction is true? How do I know that this is true? Like, how do I really know that this is true?

And what evidence do I have or can I collect that suggests that it's not true? How could the opposite be true, What else could I believe about this upcoming situation or about my performance what else could I say? What supports me moving forward? Not what's working against me?

This process helps separate facts from assumptions or fears. Consider alternative explanations. Explore less catastrophic or more compassionate explanations. I don't know why I keep wanting to say For example, my kid may be withdrawn at first, but that does not mean they hate me. This transition just may be difficult for them. Produce some discomfort for them. . It doesn't always have to be about me. I was talking with another mom the other day about this, and she like that. Her thought was, I'm not in my son's life anymore as much anymore.

I forget exactly what she said, but she was assuming that because they weren't having experiences because her son just recently went off to college, because they were not creating memories together due to his location, that now she's not in his life. But how is that? Because even though she's dealing with alienation, she raised him for the first.

At least 13 years of his life. I always get , the years mixed up. but for a while, So she's literally interwoven into the fabric of all of his, being, his mannerisms, the way that he responds, the way that he interacts with people, the dynamics that he has.

Those all came from mom, you know? So she is literally in his life every day, every second of every moment that he's alive, you know? So her thought, this thought that I'm not in my son's life anymore is not true. it's different. It's not the same as like having daily interactions, or even weekly interactions.

No, it's different, but it doesn't mean that , she's not in his life anymore. So just consider alternative points of view from the one that you're probably all or nothing might be thinking Okay. About your relationships. As a whole. And then of course, the ones with your kiddos. reframe your limiting statements, With more balanced statements. Replace automatic negative thoughts with more realistic balanced ones. Like Okay. It's possible that today's exchange will be challenging and

I will handle it to the best of my ability, even if it's not perfect.

Mindfulness and present focused coping use grounding or mindfulness practices to gently disengage from anxious predictions and then focus on the immediate moment, reducing rumination or catastrophic thinking about worst case scenarios.

all those little techniques and tools that I offered you in last week's episode, use those to bring you back into the present, right? Noticing the grain on whatever natural piece of stone or wood you have in front of you. Or look at your hair, the different colors that you might have in it, whatever you have in front of you that's available.

Become very hyper-focused on the present. Bring you back into the present. Notice your breathing, the rise, fall of your belly. Those kinds of things. the last one, of course is practice with support, role play exchanges with a trusted friend, a coach raising my hand or therapist

Using their feedback to reality. Check your negative thoughts or whatever thoughts are coming up for you, right? And to experiment with new responses. So practice it like, like you're rehearsing for a role. This is so important.

I have my clients do this for a variety of reasons, but you really wanna imagine yourself in the place where you're fearing performing. how would you behave? What would you look like? How are you holding your body? Maybe you do a superhero stance for a few minutes before you leave your house, create Confidence by mentally rehearsing and maybe even physically rehearsing whatever it is you're getting ready to go do, talk out any conversation that you're, anxious about having. Talk it out with the wall. Record it on your phone, talk it through with a friend or whoever you trust the most.

Like, Hey, I just wanna practice this with you. Tell me if it sounds okay. You'll notice too that it will be clunky at first when you do it just with practice. And that way you're ironing out all the kinks before you go. I tell you, it's such a helpful tool to rehearse beforehand. And that is not being like unauthentic or fake.

In fact, no, you're being so intentional about how you wanna show up. And I, I mean, honestly, if that's not more real and more mindful thought out and wanting to be present in the moment by eliminating any of the, the fear or the. You know, possible things that could get in the way so that you can be focused on.

What you really wanna do is connect or, perform at your highest in whatever you're doing. Think about athletes, they're constantly rehearsing and practicing and doing it over and over and over, and you, they could look perfect, but no, they're gonna keep doing it over and over and over till they're perfect every single time.

You know, and I don't wanna, you, you ever strive for perfection because perfection is whatever. But what I'm saying is, is the more that you practice, the more native it becomes to you, the more native it becomes to you. It shows up on default, it's automatic, and then if it's default automatic, you can focus on so much more because you're not having to hyperfocus on the thing that you're so fearful of.

 

In the end, I really encourage you guys to recognize, number one, your courage to keep going, to keep pursuing and, um, showing up even if it's scary. I know it is. And this is the, the situation that we're in. I mean, it feels so impossible. Well, you have a lot of things. It feels like the world is against you.

You know, you keep showing up is the best thing that you can possibly, the most loving thing that you can do for yourself and everybody involved. Now, how you show up, like where you show up, that's up to you. You know, I want you to, of course . Do what's right for you But what I think would really help you to create more positive experiences is to recognize your courage each time you do show up and also recognize your progress. Celebrate your progress. The little wins, even if your outcomes are imperfect or they're not exactly how you want them, that's okay. You showed up and you did one thing differently.

Keep noticing and celebrating those baby wins because the more evidence you create around the positive experiences that you're cultivating, the more likely you are to show up again. And it's really all about repetition. If you're trying to, whatever craft you're trying to per, you know, to, um. Uh, I, I, I was about to say perfect, but I don't, I don't love that for this.

I mean, the, whatever craft you're trying to hone in on, you know, or whatever experience or connection you're, wanting to create, it's not about how they respond. It's about how you show up and you developing the courage to up the ante for yourself.

Little by little, right? I'm gonna make eye contact today. I'm gonna say hello, no matter what their response is gonna be. I'm gonna create these little safe pockets for myself to continue advancing forward instead of telling myself, what's the point? They're never gonna, they don't, they're not gonna receive me the way they should anyway.

Or whatever you're saying to yourself, okay, make it a game or like a experiment for you. performance anxiety is. Bound to be part of your experience as an alienated parent. . I was so hard on myself about everything, and it was the voice in my head that was haunting me. And once I realized that that voice in my head was not something to be believed, it was not like some factual information that was being fed to me.

It was information that was being fed to me by like, what I was taking to heart from the alienating parent or the stepmom, or whatever had happened in my past, or my mother from back in the day. You know, it, none of that stuff is fact, and it doesn't have to be this, the narrative that I choose to, move forward with.

it doesn't have to be for you either. be onto yourself. Don't believe the words that your brain is trying to feed to you, especially if they're inducing feelings, like fear, dread and whatever else. Okay. you can cultivate some relief for yourself, and some, wins by pursuing whatever it is that you're fearing, you will fail at performing.

Well, that was wordy. You know what I'm saying? Okay. So cultivate them. Create the small little experiments, log your wins. Make sure that you reinforce those wins. 'cause if not, they're gonna go unrecognized. , And of course, as always, let me know if there's anything that you guys wanna hear about next.

shoot me an email write a comment if you're listening on Spotify. All right, y'all have a lovely, lovely week and I'll see you next week.

Bye.

 

Closing

Thanks so much for listening today. If you like what you're hearing and you'd like to hear more, please make sure to click subscribe wherever you're listening or watching. Also, for bite-sized clips and tips, be sure to find me on TikTok or Instagram. See you next week.

Timestamps:

• 0:00 – Introduction & episode overview
• 0:46 – Listener request and why performance anxiety matters
• 1:17 – What performance anxiety looks like for alienated parents
• 3:48 – Court appearances and the pressure to perform
• 8:13 – Supervised visits and overthinking every gesture
• 11:11 – Making moments count and the fear of not measuring up
• 16:35 – Emotional and cognitive roots of performance anxiety
• 29:23 – Catastrophic thinking and other cognitive traps
• 38:34 – Tools and strategies to break the cycle
• 50:54 – Building new habits and celebrating small wins
• 1:00:22 – Final encouragement and closing

performance anxiety, alienated parent, parental alienation, coping tools, stress relief, confidence, parenting tips, overcoming anxiety, family court, reunification, estranged parent