Glimmers, Feeling Connected, & Everything for The 1st Time for Alienated Parents

you are listening to the Beyond The High Road podcast with Shelby milord episode number 116 stay tuned he guys before I forget the specials the stocking stuffer of three three pack and also the hybrid the 15 session package is going away on January 1st it will be no more there's payment plans for both of them and in fact too if you want it split up in a different way like five payments instead of four I can do that for you you just have to email me otherwise you can just purchase straight from the website tell your partner or whoever might be looking for a creative gift for you especially your partner because it will actually make your partner's life so much better

too just by default it's super convenient for the people that you're in relationship with friendship relationship parents whoever so those are available till January 1st no exceptions it's the only time of the year that I extend these two offers okay welcome to on the high road a podcast dedicated to Healing your heart and life following the grief of alienation I'm your host Shelby mford 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 hello you guys it is a week before the holidays I mean I guess it is the holidays already already but it's the

week before Christmas and so if you celebrate that miss me that we are in a lovely joyous time for you or we are in a period of ho or something in between that but given that this is a podcast about being alienated from our children I'm going to assume the ladder um and so that's why I'm bringing you today this episode will be brought to you by glimmers as it always does in the days just before recording it's like somebody from above the universe God whatever you want to call says here you go and drops down like little clues or Easter eggs until I get to the final topic for the week it's usually how it goes and so it started off with you guys know how much

of a inside out fan I am right right I love the first movie inside out and I still hadn't seen inside out to until really recently and then I needed to watch it again and then I watched it again and those second and third time happened Saturday and Sunday I sat in my bed 10 o' at night on a Saturday watching a kids movie if you haven't listened to the previous episodes where I refer to the first inside out I'm a huge fan of both movies now because of the way that they simplify emotions and the way that our memories work for developing kids and being that we are the parents of children who were not able to sometimes we don't understand what's happening with them

both of these movies are so comforting I guess in a in the way that I assume that all kids at some point will see it or at least hear of it and through other kids their influence because of movies like these will help our kids understand what's going on with them but also too for us to sort of understand right okay so the first Inside Out was about this girl that was probably in elementary school and now she's in middle school getting ready to go into high school and puberty hit the scene that happens inside the kiddo's mind in this movie with all of the emotions there's this big wrecking ball that comes in I'm not going to ruin a movie for you but I was laughing

hysterically in my bed the other night because it was so funny to me and also so obvious it was like of course they would make the scene exactly this way because this is exactly what happens with a teenager when puberty hits all of a sudden we wake up and life is like you know so we're so sensitive and over stimulated and all the other emotions come in it's just brilliant so anyway coming off that movie from this weekend I have some entertaining visualizations I guess in my own brain about what happens during grief in our brains and I'm going to explain that in just a minute and then also what happens to the quote unquote positive emotions after repeated prolonged states of trauma for

us so anyway this is not a holiday per se episode but given the fact that we are around the holidays when many of you will be listening to this um I think there are a lot of triggers that come up all year round for us like I don't think that there's any specific time of year that is just like the time that alienated parents get are mostly activated there's so many different little cubes right y'all know that I don't love using the word trigger because trigger implies that we don't have control over what we do with it it takes our agency away when you have an overactive nervous system you've trained yourself to scan your environment looking for threats I remember remember

my ex not my daughter's father the other one used to accuse me when we would go out to eat at restaurants or bars he would accuse me of having my head on a swivel because I was scanning The Establishment where wherever we were looking for other people to be with better bigger better deals right and I was like you have got to be kidding me I would search every corner of every establishment I went to because I was looking for I'm sure you guys know you probably already guessed it looking for my ex or his wife looking for anybody that knew them I would scan every establishment from the parking lot from the time that I parked until I left the place I was constantly looking that

right there is an overactive trauma response system it's kind of hard to have fun or let loose trust get vulnerable connect with those you're with when you're in that heightened state of anxiety you know what I'm saying so life can feel really stressful and shitty I think that's why a lot of us spend our time thinking that we're like in this hell that they have all the control over us because we've just come from trauma and they have taken the things that are closest to our heart and so our mind our body is continually scanning the area looking for any possible threats danger so of course because all of our energy is going there how could we feel free it's like we are

retraumatization of your past have effectively trained your brain to live in survival mode the where triggers are cues that signal threat and danger a glimmer is the opposite of that it refers to like those little tiny moments when our systems are in a place of connection and regulation homeostasis right which cues our nervous system to feel safe and at peace the world is right again that's what a glimmer is and there are tiny little moments they're not like these huge you know oh my gosh Everything's changed look at the light at the the all the birds are chirping and everything's great I mean yeah that can happen that's how that's how it starts is with a glimmer but a glimmer

is that little like like when you drink your first cup of coffee in the morning or when you see a rainbow I have a story for you in a second that happened yesterday actually speaking of rainbows or when you see your dog when your dog welcomes you home and their cute little wagging tail though and they wag their whole butt and they're you know panting their little tongue is out and they're show adorable and they jumping up and down they want to see you and you're actually in the moment and you feel delighted by their excitement that's a glimmer a glimmer is like the little fairy the Little Tinker Bell that is sort of flying around you dropping you little presents throughout the day

little nuggets there are as many as you want to find throughout the day glimmers can be dance parties your favorite song comes on in a grocery store while you're shopping gardening can sometimes cause you to feel glimmers a lot of things that we're outside or sensory stuff especially when we're using a few of them at once walking through nature feeling the sun on your skin in the morning and really reveling in it like they mindful moments when you have brought yourself away from the thoughts that are going on up here they're worrying about what's ahead ruminating about what's behind instead you're right in the moment and you're noticing the beauty of where you're sitting in that

moment there are little GS from the universe and there's so many that stare at us right in the face I'll through out our day the more that you interact with your world the more glimmers there will be but if you're trained to only look for the triggers that's what you're going to find and it's not your fault it makes sense why you would you've been through hell maybe you're still going through hell or you know what hell feels like maybe you're not still there but your body may still be more regulated for trigger than it is for glimmer right many times they come natur silly and there's no need to look but if you're only prying to look for the other on it's going to be very hard for you to

jump and see those Blissful moments so the plus side to intentionally looking for one or five glimmers a day the more that you condition your body prime your body to find those glimmers the more that your body will find those glimmers right so the less your body will be in a state of survival and the more it will be primed conditioned for homeostasis safety and then the more that you can even that out so we're sort of drawing you out of that extended free state or uh hyperaroused anxiety state you can draw yourself more of the glemmer than a course overall your body can be exposed to more safety and things that happen in your world that seem sort of unpredictable instead of going

towards that's going to be something bad for me you're going to start to see what's going to be good for you instead because it is a knee-jerk sort of a habit reaction that you might have right now if you tend to look for the danger or the bad or what's going to up about whatever new experience that might come your way or possibility the way that I see it this is where it's going back to the movie coming from trauma I feel like we as alien needed parents those positive emotions of joy of delight of bliss of Wonder you know the place where possibility begins to develop in in my mind the way that I'm picturing it now is that all of those are up in the dark corners of my mind or

bound up and locked into a closet right back in the day I actually forgot what Joy felt like I even questioned if I have I ever been happy have I ever felt Joy I remember thinking that maybe I've just never known what that is so I imagine joy in my mind mind like bound up and thrown in a closet somewhere by my other uh negative emotions like anxiety and anger and fear and all of those my negative emotions took over my brain and all of the motivation and determination the Bliss and the Wonder and all that stuff those were nowhere to be seen and the only way to coax them out and activate them again is by intentionally noticing these little tiny glimmers in your life not the big things

not not like I'm grateful for this and I'm grateful for that it's so difficult coming straight from survival system to be really truly grateful for the things that we have in our life especially when we feel like in our minds that our life has been taken from us right that we have no freedom and no um agency over our ownselves and choice for what we do with the rest of our lives because they're holding it in their hands the keys in their hands right very very difficult to find gratitude from that place and to feel elated about the life that was given to us you know but glimmers are entirely possible even back then for me there's just it's almost impossible to only feel the negative all

the time there would be for me back in those days I told you guys that I had like deer for pets essentially I had these football teams of deer that would come to my yard every day and they were the light of my life the light of my day the light of my years living there is when the those would come into the yard and all of the THS and I would feed them by hand they would leave and then I would have the big bucks come in right like 20 or 30 of them each grw it's amazing amazing those were my glimmers back in the day and I actually even think of those more like shimmers like where it's a little bit brighter than a glimmer because it lasted for so long and it was just like my time of pure

Bliss I mean that was magical back then I don't expect you guys to all have you know BL coming and feeding out of your hands there is great example but you can start to look for those moments in your life so yesterday it had rained just a little bit and it rained in the front yard but not in the backyard so I went to go check and see if I need to turn the sprinklers on and I looked out and right in my backyard was this huge double rainbow right so beautiful so bright amazing what I noticed I've never seen this before in my life all of these fish crows coming to sit on these trees that I never really see a ton of birds sitting on they were all sitting and

facing the rainbow and more were coming in fact I have a video of it and I'll probably put one of the pictures as the cover for this episode or I'll put it on the website like on the podcast website anyway it's was so amazing because the crows were all facing the rainbow and I thought are they actually marveling at the rainbow right now like are those crows all getting together and they were calling to each other talking more were coming some on far far away trees some on close ones they were all congregating to Marvel like Revel in the beauty of this rainbow and I thought well first off don't they see these all the time and second off do they see color do

these birds see color come to find out that birds see ultraviolet light just as much as they to see the full spectrum of colors like that we see so they see so much better than us so they probably trip out on rainbows anyway this was a glimmer for me yesterday because I was able to notice that these birds not just fros there was actually some eits and whatever else that came and sat they were having their own glimmer so I would had a glimmer watching their glimmer and the glimmer of the rainbow it was pretty Rad but keeping your eyes open for moments like that little moments when you pour your coffee in the morning when you get into your jammies at night after a long day and

you get into your cold bed like cold pill and it feels so comfy that when you put your favorite pair of socks on after a shower petting your dog or your cat fairet whatever watching birds chirp in the morning talking to each other the first snowfall how the snow glistens in the sun it's beautiful right wherever you are it's just about becoming Mindful and seeing what you can see beyond your own thinking in your head we spend so much of our time walking through life like zombies thinking about all of this about the past and about what might happen in the future right we're either ruminating about what's happened and then catastrophizing worrying about what's going to happen in the future we

don't even see what's right in front of us how many times have I driven myself places and not remembered how I got there it's because you know the The Habit brain takes over but what was I doing that entire time where was my brain it's just really about training your brain to become more Mindful and in the moment and appreciating like literally in the moment what's happening the interactions that you're having somebody that holds the door open for you at the store or gives you a smile they make eye contact with you and they just exude warmth you know glimmers those are glimmers when you do something for somebody else you hold the door open and they look back at

you in appreciation glimmer they're these little baby moments of connection to the world around us and y'all this is what you and I and every alienated parent is missing the connection to the world around us we've been isolated from not only our kids but a lot of times from society and maybe even family we feel locked in closed in of course it feels like jail of course it feels like they're calling all the shots on you and now they may be doing that in a lot of areas but don't give your agency to them for things like this you don't have to and I know it's easier said than done but you don't have to give your every day every moment power over to them by thinking ruminating about things that

you can't fix in the past or what might happen ahead what they might do based on the things that you're ruminating about in the past you know like really try to connect with the today what's happening who's in front of you what's in front of you right now in this moment what's around you if you do celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah or any of the holidays that are coming up birthdays especially in these moments it's so important to connect with the now in some way instead of looking for the ways that your holiday is going to be up by them if it's going to be up it's going to be up there ain't no reason to worry about it just you'll get there when you can um I'm not saying

that not to plan out the possibilities of like how things might pan out but try not to LD in that instead every time you catch yourself stuck in what might happen what they're going to do what they had done Encourage Yourself to move over to the possibility of glimmers in each and every moment so sometimes that means especially coming from what we have that glimmers are just going to pop up in your home if you work from home like I do I have trained myself to Now find glimmers even here with dance parties and walking outside and getting curious about things that are outside of my brain right but it might mean for you that you go where the glimmers might be so that means going

and taking a walk do some gardening or if you don't have a yard you can do a little indoor garden you don't have to spend a lot of money some basil and a little bit of potting soil just get your that your senses going like maybe something that has a really nice smell to it and texture another glimmer for me actually as I'm saying that I'm looking at my kitchen window right now and I have this beautiful I have tons of this one kind of plant it's their HOAs they're tropical plants but I have this one that's in particular it was in really bad condition whenever I bought it and now it is beyond thriving and it's bushy and huge and it is blooming everywhere and the blooms smell like a

mix between chocolate and like this floral fragrance and it's just it's mesmerizing to look at and it's also just so satisfying because the smell comes in like these waves it's so perfect but that last night was a glimmer to me cuz I noticed the smells come out more at night they tend to bloom at night anyway I noticed that last night that it was there was all the blooms had opened and that's why actually you guys I surround myself with all the plants that I do because I do I want to see the beauty around me and these all offer me little glimmers especially when I'm because I work inside from my house and I'm staring at my my screen all the time I surround

myself with things that stimulate and inspire glimmers you know so that's what I'm asking of you so whether that's that you set like okay I'm going to look for one glimmer a day you know maybe it's three glimmers a day especially like I said around the holidays if you know that you're going to either be one alone or two you're going to be with family and you think it might be stressful or quote unquote triggering instead of looking for the triggers or anticipating those triggers start to anticipate the glimmers find your own connection instead of finding why you are isolated from and apart from in those moments you know what I'm saying so like for instance I was

talking with uh another parent earlier today actually this is such a common thought and really belief that a lot of us have is I don't see like a mom anymore is what she said and if she's focusing on that and mean it makes sense and I understand her I had that thought for so long in fact this weekend my own experience I had it for a brief moment and I'll explain it in a second but when you're thinking about the reasons why I don't feel like I'm a mom then you're going to find all the ways that you don't feel like a mom but when you instead take that I don't feel like a mom understand that thought acknowledge it and then go okay it makes sense that I would think that but how do I feel

like a mom and see how that can change and maybe cause you to start looking for the abundancy rather than looking for the scarcity the loss so it's just little ways that you can turn around little I don't want to say hacks but little shifts redirects with every negative thought that comes your way well how is it that it's the opposite of that how do I feel like an amazing mom right now or how do I just feel like a mom how is that true of my life well I know I had a child I have the birth certificate to prove that right how else am I a mom how am I a loving mom well I can find many ways that I'm a loving mom even from afar you know okay last thing I'll share is that this weekend this is

just more on a personal note but I have been spending time with this elderly lady she's 81 and long story short I'm just helping her out her grandson asked me to just go check on her and spend a half an hour with her and I told him I would and in fact those half hour visits have turned into on my own accord have turned into like hour and a half two hours each time because I'm really enjoying she turns out to be a former social worker and so we have a lot in common as far as what our interests are and I knew that she coming from where she did she would understand what I was going through and I never really planned on sharing it with her but the other day she'd asked me um I

want to see a picture of her and it was such an awkward moment at first because I hadn't yet told her anything about my daughter about scarlet and so all the pictures I I had of her which was like over a thousand on my phone were all when she was younger you know and I had already told her that she was not Young younger you know that she was getting ready to go to college and so um I was like this moment where she was like oh you don't have any pictures of her she didn't say it but you could see it recently so anyway I ended up finding a recent picture of her that I had screenshotted from Instagram from before which Tri triggered this whole process of me going and searching for my daughter on

Instagram I don't go on Instagram often y'all once I left the lady I I went on looked my daughter up right I don't often go search on social media because I don't love the way I feel and I don't love where my mind goes I know it's there I just don't always check I do it once a year maybe because it causes me to wonder and then whatever and there's things that I there nothing I can do anything about so I just don't right but because she had asked me and I realized that I hadn't looked I did and I found out that my daughter is I know where she's going to school now like for her college and it was bittersweet you know like she's going to be going in a different state than where she is and

where I am but like actually kind of in between the two but it was bittersweet because there was a picture of her and her dad for a moment there I felt further away from her even though in everybody's eyes you know that you want you hear that oh well at least when she's 18 you'll be able to contact her and all the things right but to me it almost felt like I was further away from her because I was getting the information through the internet and then I reminded myself that this is it's not real you know it's not real and she looked beautiful and I'm so proud of her that she's going to the school and no matter what her choices are or when we connect I trust that we will that no

matter what happens I can feel close to her right here in my heart right now right here right now just like if I were to draw up I was talking to another mom about looking at photos and not it depends on what you're focusing on in those photos like older photos when you were with them you can focus on the loss and how things aren't the same as when they were in that picture and that would cause one of those triggerish moments you know sad moments or you can focus on all the joy that you experience with them in that moment what you were feeling at that time in that picture and it can cause you a whole different experience and so I just remembered that like I can feel close with her without

her lifting a finger without me lifting a finger nothing has to change for me to have a good relationship and develop an even better relationship with my daughter we don't have to speak at all and I can develop a better relationship with her I can feel closer to her I can set my intention for myself with her I can decide the kind of mom I'm going to be day in day out as if she was just with me what I do doesn't have to depend on what she does or doesn't do you know so I just wanted to share that with you but another glimmer is my moments that I have with this 81y old lady on the weekends I go see her on Saturdays or Sundays either one sometimes both actually and I have so much fun sitting

with her she's so young at heart she's so funny and she loves to do skin care and talk about all the things that I she's just such a fun spirit I find so many little Sparks of joy in each one of our conversations she's like delightful to talk with you know so I guess my suggestion there if there even is one is that if you aren't engaging with the people in your life because the people in your life are quote unquote triggering at this point for you um and you're having to set a boundary because you're not yet ready to go there and grow in that way does that make sense like I didn't for a long time with my mom because I couldn't contain myself wasn't there yet to be able to

regulate my emotions so instead of putting yourself around the people that you're not ready to be around in your mind you can go and find somebody that's not any of those people you can go volunteer at a elderly home places like that and maybe you won't always have the connection that me and this lady have but you can find so many little glimmers in a place of service right when you're helping somebody else out and that's exactly what I'm doing with her and when I put that hat on that I know that I'm there to serve her and to keep her mind busy that's another glimmer for me anyway I hope I'm making sense cultivating new experiences for yourself the last thing I'm going to say I said

that already three times is that last night I was watching carpool karaoke is that what it's called and this year it was with Zan low as opposed to what's his face and um I can't think of his name right now but you know who I'm talking about and anyway Chapel R was the first and then there was dual Lia and uh lady G were the three and although my favorite was surprisingly Chapel round and I never really was a fan of hers until after that show um J Lea said something that made me happy she said the rule that she liked to live by is when was the last time that you did something for the first time I've heard it a million times over but last night it really hit me it resonated

right like there's so many times when we're just going through the motions of all the things that we do throughout the day but what if you were to just like how can I be seeing this as if I'm doing it for the first time and that in itself can spark the very glimmers that we're talking about right now when was the last time that you experience something for the first time everything that we do we could experience it as if it's the first time because it's never actually the same as it was the last time if we're defining it differently and it couldn't be the same as last time anyway because it's a different day a different moment a different lighting you know what I'm saying you can find all the

differences in all of it and it doesn't have to be that history is repeating itself you could look at each experience as if you're creating it new and that will produce a just a domino effect of all different uh potential glimmers in your life you don't have to keep going through emotions oh am just doing the same different day we do this a lot with our kids you know oh yeah well of course nothing's going to change I've been waiting around P's not here same time just goes by but when you look at it that way I promise you you're going to keep creating nothing from it and like time will continue to go by until you decide to take the bull by its horns basically and choose to not depend

on your past to dictate your future so how is today the first day of your future because it really is truly is you know look for those glimmers okay and I will talk to you next week guys also too before I forget the specials the stock stuffer of three three pack and also the hybrid right of the two the 15 session package is going away on January 1st it will be no more so you have both of those packages and it's on my website like if you go to the main site you can just click the red banner on top you can't miss it um to get to both of those packages there's payment plans for both of them okay like affordable payment plans for either one of those and in fact too if you want it split up in a

different way like five payments instead of four I can do that for you you just have to email me okayy just shoot me an email or message me on social media or whatever I've been making it a habit of being better at checking my social media messages um Tik Tok usually I'm on point most of the time but anyway so just send me a message and I will make it happen for you okay otherwise you can just purchase straight from the website tell your partner or whoever might be looking for a creative gift for you um especially your partner because it will actually make your partner's life so much better too just by default it's super convenient for the people that you're in relationship with friendship

relationship parents whoever so those are available till January 1st I think it's at midnight so basically the 31st is the last day to get those okay no exceptions it's the only time of the year that I extend these two offers okay all right you guys that's all I have for you love you all and I will see you next week 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 Tik Tok or Instagram see you next week