Harnessing Your Inner Hero: Transform Your Story Into Gold As An Alienated Parent

you are listening to the Beyond The High Road podcast with Shelby Milford episode number 95 stay tuned hey I forgot to mention I should have mentioned it last week during the episode when I was talking about the reviews and that you guys can email me but you can also there's a new way that you guys can contact me and that is if you watch or listen through Spotify Spotify has just opened up the um option for y'all to make comments on each like on the individual episodes and I can actually like the podcast hosts can actually respond which was a frustration of mine in the past where um people would comment on on any of the questions I might have posed for each of the

episodes and I couldn't respond and now I feel like just opens up that opportunity and that line of communication between us so if you do have anything that you want to share whether it's a about the episode or whatever um you can do that of course Facebook live noon on Fridays if you haven't joined the Facebook private Facebook group it's free um but yeah and so that's it so I'm going to get on to the episode hey guys I'm getting myself all situated here um so today we're going to be talking about the stories that we tell ourselves and the meaning that we're assigning to those stories how they're [ __ ] us they're [ __ ] you basically how they're screwing with your

ability to create happiness in your life this came up initially on Friday during the Facebook live because we're talking about last week's episode and and we had a little Q&A afterwards and it got into was talking with one of the moms was asking some questions and without sharing all of the information she was having difficulty with how she was in interpreting her daughter's willingness to see her and reach out in her mind she in the mom's mind she was being taken advantage of like my daughter only reaches out if she knows that I'm going to take her shopping and so Mom had a story and we all do this myself included with even just the everyday things that it shouldn't be this way daughters

shouldn't reach out to their moms when they want something they shouldn't treat their moms like a resource was her words and I was explaining to her that that story of hers that it shouldn't be like this was screwing with her it was actually causing her more unhappiness on top of not being able to see her daughter I had another client today who was talking about her elderly Mom this is just U more of a trivial story but as you know I like these because I think that they are applicable in so many different areas right but so she has an elderly mom who is progressively worse with time being ready my client had a story has a story about how mom is supposed to behave mom should be ready

by the time that I get down there so that we can go out the whole purpose for the visit is for to get Mom out of the house but what I was trying to help my client see is that maybe the purpose doesn't always have to be about getting her out of the house doesn't mean that that you don't go out right you get there at some point but maybe each time she schedules to go down and see her mom she schedules in the extra hour and then when she's there she's not spending an hour Hing and ha and trying to manipulate and push and nudge and pester her mom into being ready mom if you would have just put your toothbrush back where it's supposed to go mom if you would just start getting dressed the

second that I call you before I leave basically in essence my client is trying to change her mother's behavior and it's never going to work this has been going on for years her mom is her mom if she wants to let go of the story that she has about when she should be ready if she should be ready then she might actually find joy in the moments that she spends with her mom before they actually go out right so client was so stuck on a story about the fact that Mom should be ready and she not and now we're not getting out to go eat and do whatever which by the way when they go eat and do whatever they're probably not even going to say anything more than they could say when they're sitting back

at their house does that make sense so client has all this resistance around plans that she has for her mom who her mom should be rather than genuinely spending time with the mom who was present for her that day late and all losing things and all usually the memory making moments are during the mundane and the slightly perturbing times that's when the beauty comes out that's when the joy happens not at lunch at the place that they choose usually those are a bit more forced but it's the moments at home when you're enjoying each other as yall are appreciating each other for who you are those are the moments that count but client was so hellbent on keeping the story that mom needs to get

her [ __ ] together she's holding on to the story that isn't reality right and it's screwing her whole weekend up really and then it causes her to go into this whole meltdown about what it means because Mom is late and so that narrative although it seems sort of trivial and it's not about our kids whatever it actually did affect the way that she saw herself as a mom as the story evolved later that story alone was creating her state of mind moving forward not only about every future interaction she has with her mom but her story about who her mom is and the problem with the time that they spend together so that next time she goes to spend time with her mom she's

going to be dreading it because she's going to know that she's going to have to Hound her in order to get her to go do something on time it's always this constant manipulation in order to get somebody to sit into the stories that we have for ourselves or the stories that we want to have happen and never works and even if we do get that story to fit in that certain box we're not going to appreciate it so much because we've spent all this time and energy trying to make it happen that it's going to not be just so perfect right oh but they didn't do it this way or they didn't want to do it this way I had to make them do it or whatever it is you know what I'm saying

so instead if we can just learn to appreciate what we have for what it is like I was speaking about with the mom in the Facebook live right where she was telling herself that the way that they could be happy she could be happy is if she didn't feel taken advantage of by her daughter and she could find Joy if her daughter would just want to spend time with her and not use her as a commodity or as like a resource then things would be fine I was explaining to her that maybe this is exactly how it's supposed to be maybe daughters are supposed to only want to spend time if they're going shopping right clearly in this situation with this mom and this daughter this is how it's supposed to be

because it already is we cannot change the current reality so I like to not argue with that and say okay this is exactly how it should be right now doesn't mean I'm not going to work to change that narrative going forward but it starts with not resisting what already is now there's a difference between wanting to create change moving forward like Inspire change in others maybe create change in you know family law and if you're going back to court of course change the the current order status if you will right that's one thing that's not resisting that is you fighting for something but when you're resisting what actually has already happened or is happening currently by

pushing against it and saying it shouldn't be this way you're not doing anything but maybe hurting yourself and maybe possibly the relationship with your child and possibly your life moving forward it's acting in petulant right you're being petulent by like making the stand and no it shouldn't be this way and and it gets nothing accomplished except for it wastes your energy and it only makes the bad part of your reality more bad feels worse so what I was telling her is like maybe maybe this is exactly how things are supposed to be and maybe maybe just maybe by focusing on how it's not supposed to be this way and how daughters should always want to hang out

with their moms and don't shouldn't have to bribe them with certain things she could be so focused on holding on to the story that she misses out on the Wonderland that is right at her fingertips like within her and in front of her that she could be living by letting go of her limitations her story her meaning that she has assigned to what current is and she said well what do you mean like it could be good because maybe it'll be good when she realizes that she's been alienated and I said even that is a story like maybe just maybe it could be good and it is good right now maybe it is and because you're so in the bad meaning the limiting meaning of your story currently you're not able to

see all that is amazing right now and the growth that you've made the growth that she has made maybe there's other things that are working in your favor as a result of the alienation and again I am not saying that this is the only way it could go I'm saying why not use it all for you I'm not saying that like alienation was supposed to happen because you were meant to learn a lesson and this will bring you to the best but you had to learn your lesson first I'm not saying that at all at all and I'm not saying that we should go FK them right the alien needing parent all I'm saying is is it's here it's happening and so if you can look at this like okay I can make this mean that this is the

end of the world and this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me and this sucks and I'm a victim and blah blah crying me to River or I can stop spending all that energy wasting all of that energy and I can start exploring the ways that this is going to bring me to like the superhero version of me right like clearly this is here this is The Stance I take now and I've taken for some time now clearly this was here to grow me so what are those ways what are the ways that I've already grown how am I different today than I was back then another client I was talking with this morning she's living consciously now that is like the biggest obvious difference right she's living

consciously she's not walking through life ricocheting off of external circumstances to determine who she is how she's feeling and what she's going to do next that's amazing she has agency over herself she knows that she is the creator of her life her emotions her her everything her results moving forward and that is something that most of us didn't have before this alienation thing came and less their lives I say that obviously with a little humor behind it the thing is is there's just not a downside to seeing it as and I know it's kind of cliche it didn't happen to you it happened for you but if this true how can you find the ways that it's happening for you listen you don't have

to make it the best thing that's ever happened to you ever you could make it all neutral you could decide to assign it no meaning whatsoever this is actually the way that I like to do it first right is you decide that anything and everything that has ever happened is just up for debate I don't know it's a neutral those are the things that have happened how do I want to feel about it now and moving forward and again there are going to be times when you want to feel not happy about thanks and that's okay but then you have a choice and you have authority over your life and the your emotions that you feel on the regular everyday basis those external stressors those things that happen

aren't controlling you you decide but you make it a neutral first I was mentioning this old Fable or whatever your Parable the other day in the in the Facebook group and I couldn't remember the the details of it like the story so I saw this back in like 2017 before I even sold the house but then I looked it up again this morning so there's this story it's an old Chinese parable about the farmer and his horse and so there was a widower older man farmer and his son and they lived on this Farm one day the son didn't lock the gate properly and the horse ran away it bolted off and was gone for some days and the neighbors all came and they were like oh how terrible what a bad son he was so

irresponsible he didn't lock the gate this is awful now you won't be able to farm your fields and you will go poor and you will starve and what terrible luck and he was like good luck bad luck who knows hard to tell a few days go by and the horse returns with more horses The Neighbors come again they're like what amazing luck this is so great now you will have all of these horses to help you farm your fields and everything will be great and you will eat much and you will be able to sell all your crops and what great luck and he said good luck bad luck it's hard to tell the next day the son was on the back of one of these wild horses that their horse brought home and he got thrown from the

horse and he broke his leg and so the Neighbors come over again oh how awful your son broken leg what a tragedy now you won't be able to use your son to help you to form the fields this is going to be awful you guys are going to be starving what terrible luck and the Widow says good luck bad luck hard to tell the next day the army came around they were coming to take all the men the young men from the village off to go fight and because the farmer's son had a broken leg he was not taken to war and so the Neighbors come again oh what amazing luck now your son will be saved and he will not die in the war like the rest of these poor souls what great joy you've been blessed that he said good

luck bad luck hard to tell basically the idea is assigning meaning to the events that happen in our life however long it might be while all of these things are happening can only add more drama into our lives the lens that we see our life with will determine the way that we respond if he were to take on the neighbor points of view this is terrible this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me this is awful this means I'll go starving well that's how he was going to show up he wouldn't be able to till the fields well he wouldn't have been able to do all the things that he would to do in order to form the crops and live a fruitful life assigning the meaning actually limits Us in

possibilities that we can create for ourselves and live out for ourselves in the end we just don't know what's happening around the corner that some of these things we can create for ourselves other things are dependent on other people's actions we cannot control those what we can control is how we decide to view and frame the events that occur in our lives and the more that we're committed to believing that something is so terrible for us we miss out on all the ways that it might be the best thing that ever happened to us so we really have to become like acutely aware of all of these little stories these micro stories that we have going on throughout our lives throughout our days even like

what it means to have to go to the store damn it I have to go to the store today I found myself s the other day I was talking about the fact that I was babysitting an extra dog this week that I didn't want to be doing it came as a surprise and I didn't draw a proper boundary unless sure it's fine whatever I didn't really assert myself in the situation and I was falling victim to the situation again very trivial situation but you can apply this to your situations of alienation and all the other everyday activities you have going on I was making it mean that I was behind my house was messy I can't work when my house is a mess I don't like it when things are unorganized and then my

brain is unorganized and I won't be able to do the podcast well because I'll be thinking about the other things I need to do I assigned all of this meaning to all of these separate little things that in my mind were domino effect on the way that I was going to show up for the rest of the week and that was [ __ ] me and essentially in the end could have been [ __ ] you guys too you know what I'm saying because the way that I show up here for you guys can and will affect some of you at least right and the way that maybe the lens that you guys decide of VI your life with so it's huge sometimes I think that and I'm talking about myself here when I choose anger or

when I choose to blame oh it's their fault if I just wouldn't have taken on this extra dog none of this would be happening and I would be able to have time for myself and blah blah blah putting myself as the victim in that moment and I have no control over the rest of what happens if I remain in that victim spot if I remain in that blaming spot spot but the second that I realize that this is my story and not actually reality it doesn't have to be my reality anyway that's the second that I take my power back and I'm able to then rewrite reframe my story from in the moment and moving forward we can do this with our stories of our past right and we can also do this with our reality

today the easiest way to do this is to ask yourself is it true is this really the truth another client said to me today again I have all of this weight on my shoulders I have all of this stuff that I've put on my shoulders and I was looking at her through the screen and I was like huh I didn't see anything there I don't see I see some shoulders I see some stuff behind you but I don't see anything on your shoulders it's as simple as asking yourself the validity the truth about things like that maybe you don't have the weight of the world on your shoulders maybe you're just imagining it there maybe you're just it's the way that you're looking at your situation

that tells you that you are stuck and I promise you this it's physically impossible to remain stuck in your situation of alienation it's impossible it is impossible you're only seeing yourself as stuck because you're looking and concentrating on the ways that you can't move so you're hyperfocused on the east side of you but you have yet to look north south and west we see the world with our mind and not with our eyes it's our perception always 100% of the time it's the story that we make up in an instant about whatever we see in front of us each of us do this and we all are going to have a slightly different story about it but even if you make meaning for whatever you see in

that instant you can decide to question it and take your power back is that how I want to view this how can I view this in a way that helps me and is does not hold me back or harm me we can do this also like with our past if we're telling ourselves that we screwed up my client was saying today oh I I I'm just a bad decision maker I've made bad decisions and in my partners and then you know other decisions and I just I'm a bad decision maker I'm like no that's it's not an actual fact you're not a bad decision maker that oh that's Kim she's a bad decision maker she's bad decision maker Kim no that is your view of you based on your mood right now and what you're focusing on but I promise you

that is not a fact about you that you are just a bad decision maker maybe you have evidence to support that but I'm sure you have other evidence to support the exact opposite of that go mining for the evidence that works for you not against you but we choose the like I was saying before is sometimes we choose the anger and choose to blame because it absolutely is the easiest way out for the survival brain we just want to throw all the responsibility elsewhere it's their fault it's their fault it's because of them that I'm here but when we do that we also with the responsibility that we hand over we throw away our power but if we're able to and I was visiting this with you guys

last week a little bit too like with our parents but when we're able to find our own responsibility in all of these stories that we have about ourselves then we're able to do something so like I do always look for ways that I am wrong because if I am wrong I'm able to make it right for me but if I'm not the one that's wrong and somebody else is always wrong then guess what I'm [ __ ] because then I'm waiting on them to actually Remedy fix the situation but I can find wait a second I created the story I'm telling myself that this is the worst thing that could ever happen to me but actually maybe it's not the worst thing that could ever happen to me maybe it's working to my advantage maybe

I can grow through this how can I grow through this what are my opportunities in this moment then all of a sudden this the worst thing that could ever happen to me is gone it's tired that is an old lazy ass story now I have something I can do oh wait I found this this this this and this that I can focus on and now that lazy whatever story about how the world is against me it's not needed anymore I've got my work cut out for me here I got stuff to do stuff to focus on stuff to keep me growing and going in the direction I want to go in anyway holding on to the old Stories the limiting stories is just only going to end up double screwing you you know the idea of

alchemy is like turning plain old medals into gold and silver and valuable medals and they talk about story Alchemy changing your story Carl Yung I believe was the first that spoke about this he compared the psychological process of transformation to that of alchemy and we call it story Alchemy so we changed the way that we're viewing our shitty blah metal stories right the old crappy stories if we can turn them into the gold stories we all win now we've got this beauty in front of us and not all of this that holds us back and it's only our perception anyway like the the bad stories that we're holding on to aren't doing any good ever they never really get us where we want to go so our

commitment to this is the worst thing that's ever happened this is awful they suck they're terrible people what is that that cause for you it only causes you you're the only one me if I'm there right to feel terrible inside and it causes our reality to reflect that nobody else is feeling the pain that we feel when we're concentrating on how horrible they are they don't feel it so why not change the story and turn that into your own personal gold that's the best revenge is turning what they meant for your harm into gold into your benefit just don't limit yourself neutralize everything that happens in your life in your mind just like the widower the farmer good luck bad luck

it's hard to tell I don't know yet all the information is not in yet in the meantime it just is it just is that way you don't add the suffering unnecessary suffering on top of your grief that you may be feeling because you're not not spending your time with your child it doesn't have to be bad or good it just is I miss my daughter terribly but I'm not making it the worst thing that's ever happened to me it just is I miss her I'm sad I would love to have her in my life on the everyday or even just you know fleeting I'd take anything right and for that I'm sad but I'm not going to assign that whole what it all means this must mean blah blah blah for me and her no

I don't dare limit myself and limit us limit our relationship limit her in that way by making it mean something that is um the ultimate to me slight on on her an insult to us in our bond to try to make it mean something and Define it moving forward no I wouldn't dare so just neutralize everything and just when you notice that you're doing it just have love and compassion for yourself oh it makes sense that you're doing this you're just trying to protect yourself in the moment I see why you're trying to assign meaning right now because by assigning meaning it means that we can then feel comfortable in knowing where we fit into the equation right we meaning you um where you fit

into the equation but maybe you don't need to know that right now it is the brain's tendency to try to do that because socially we want to know where we file but you don't need to know that what you need to know is where you fit in for you and who you identify you as that's what's important and when you identify yourself and really trust that your opinion your determination of that is the most important then all the other stuff will fall in line so you decide who you are and what you mean to the world and what value you bring to the world don't leave it up to other people to decide that for you um oh I was saying something else oh I was saying that yeah it's so normal

for our brains to do that it's trying to protect us but in trying to protect us it doesn't understand that it's actually hurting us so just allow like have some compassion for that part of you that's trying to classify and trying to make it mean something terrible or bad or whatever or even on the other side of things this is the best thing that's ever happened because then you have all these expectations and then that that thing remaining the best thing that could ever happen and statistically that is just probably impossible for it to remain the best thing that's ever happened or like it's going to remain a good thing probably not because other things are going to happen along the way

it's just life life happens doesn't always have to be like the bad good blah blah it's splitting actually we're looking at it it's black white life isn't that way it's twists and turns and waves and ins and outs and it's all beautiful even in the grief that we experience as alienated parents nothing remains as it is it is all fluid so don't do life itself and all the little experiences in it the Injustice of freezing it and trying to capture and make each one of these means something for the end of time it's not that way life just is the best that we can do is learn learn from noticing whatever patterns we've had in our past looking at similarities and reframe what we've

made it all mean up until now so if you've made it mean like my client was saying I'm just a bad decision maker maybe reframe that maybe you don't make terrible decisions maybe you made the best decisions possible to get you to where you are and to where you're going ultimately which is where you're supposed to be life has happened exactly how it is supposed to be what if that is true it has to be true true because it already has happened that way it is exactly how it's supposed to be and I know that sucks to hear sometimes but honestly why are we going to try to recreate history we can't so everything that's happened has happened because it's exactly how it's

supposed to be now how you view it is all up to you okay all right you guys that's all I have for you listen I forgot to mention last week um I should put this take this and put this in the beginning when I was talking about um writing in and emailing or whatever if you watch on Spotify or if you listen on Spotify there is now Spotify has opened up uh comments place for each individual episode that you can write whatever comments you want or say anything that you want to say there and I can also respond so I now can we can have a conversation right there on Spotify so that's amazing I think Spotify is the first to do that so if you like we can connect a little bit more and I check

those all the time and that is it Facebook live on Friday at noon that's all okay y'all have a lovely lovely lovely day and week talk to you next week bye 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-size clips and tips be sure to find me on Tik Tok or Instagram see you next week