As an alienated parent, you already feel the weight of your situation — the court filings, the ignored messages, the emotional exhaustion that never fully lifts. Maybe you've caught yourself thinking: I just can't handle any more of this.That thought feels like the only truth. But what if it isn't? In this episode, Shelby Milford reveals why so many alienated parents mistake a capacity problem for a personal failing — and why the stress that feels like it's breaking you might actually be the very thing that can expand you. If you're ready to stop living inside the walls that pain built around you, this episode is your next step.

 

Main Talking Points

• Capability vs. Capacity defined — Your skills and intelligence haven't disappeared; chronic stress has quietly shrunk the bandwidth you have to use them.
• The "know your limits" trap — Well-meaning advice to "protect your energy" can quietly reinforce self-constriction rather than genuine self-care.
• What happens when capacity collapses — Shelby shares personal stories: self-sabotaging healthy relationships, inability to hold onto money, using alcohol to cope with supervised visits, and shutting down under courtroom stress.
• The video game wall effect — Every avoided disappointment or risk builds another wall; over time, your life becomes smaller and smaller — not because of alienation, but because of how you're responding to it.
• Capacity is a decision — Shelby explains how she chose to stop telling herself "nobody should have to handle this" and instead expanded her capacity to hold pain without letting it run her life.
• Capability without capacity = burnout; Capacity without capability = unused potential — Both must grow together for real, sustainable change.

 

Key Takeaways

• Your capacity is not fixed. It shrank under chronic stress — which means it can be intentionally rebuilt.
• Telling yourself "I can't handle this" isn't a fact — it's a belief you're reinforcing, and it is actively shaping (and shrinking) your experience.
• Avoiding hard emotions doesn't protect you. Over time, it atrophies your resilience and makes your world smaller.
• The two questions to ask yourself regularly: "How much can I handle right now?" and "How much do I want to handle?"
• Every time you choose to stay in one hard feeling, one hard conversation, or one moment of stillness without running — you are expanding the life you're able to hold.
• Mastering difficult emotions is not just healing — it is the path to your true potential.

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Episode Transcript

How to Increase Your Capacity To Handle ANYTHING For Alienated Parents

As an alienated parent, there might be this running feeling of: I can't keep doing this, I should not have to handle this much mistreatment, rejection, and disrespect. One more ignored text, one more court filing, one more bill, and I'm gonna explode... mastering difficult emotions, is what will set you free.

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? So I have a new camera here and I think that it's, I'm messing around with it. I feel like it looks funny and different and I, anyway, so, um, just bear with me this week while I get used to it.

 I've gotta change the backlighting and stuff and I know that many of you are not even watching, so it doesn't matter. But I'm just putting it out there. I am, bear with me while I play with the technical side of things in the next couple weeks.

So. Moving along. And also too, when I'm reading my, I've got my notes, of course, when I'm reading my notes, the way that my camera is positioned now, it's gonna look odd until I work out the kinks anyway. Um, so we are gonna get started. Okay. So this week we're talking about capacity and capability.

As an alienated parent, I want you to check in with me, um, regarding how true this feels. Okay. On paper, you might look functional, maybe, maybe not, depending on where, where you are in the journey. , maybe you're working, maybe you're paying your bills, maybe even showing up for other people, But quietly, there might be this running feeling of.

I can't keep doing this, I shouldn't have to, I should not have to handle this much mistreatment, rejection, and disrespect. I hear this from so many parents and I, I was in that boat too. You know, one more ignored text, one more court filing, one more bill, and I'm gonna explode feels like you're already at the brink, right? You're like up to your forehead in stress, in responsibility, in, emotions overload, you're carrying the financial burden. You're carrying the emotional tax, Sometimes even the physical toll, Somatic symptoms and the idea of one more disappointment. Oftentimes feels impossible to bear. I hear this from my new clients all the time and really like the, my clarity calls where they will say to me like, I can't, I couldn't even handle the disappointment. I don't know how you could handle the disappointment, and I'm gonna get into that later.

But, so what ends up happening from there is that you start backing away from things that could actually change your life for the better, right? Change the whole trajectory of your life. Life, your life. You don't apply for the job, you don't start the business. You don't say yes to a new relationship, or even just to, uh, a new opportunity, like to go out an outing with friends or po possible friends, potential friends.

You know, you don't make the call, send a message or try the new strategy. Not because you're incapable. You're fully capable, You have the skills, you have the intelligence, you have the heart that it takes, maybe even the tenacity that it takes, 

[00:03:41] Capacity vs. Capability: Definitions & Why the Difference Matters

but capacity has quietly shrunk, that's what we're gonna talk about today. We're gonna look at the difference between capability, and capacity, and why so many parents a mistake, a capacity issue for a capability issue, and how long-term stress and rejection can actually make your life, and you feel smaller and smaller. Okay? And most importantly, I want to talk with you guys about how you can grow your capacity back on purpose,

deliberately. So you can actually step into those opportunities in front of you, and instead of standing on the sidelines telling yourself, I just can't, I wouldn't be able to handle it, So let's start by separating out what you can do, like your abilities, From how much you can hold. Because once you see that, clearly everything else starts to make so much more sense. So let's start simple. When we talk about capacity with an object, I wrote all of this out earlier and I was like, alright, so if we're thinking about, of course I went and looked at Google Dictionary and stuff like that, but I kind of, um, not, not Google's dictionary, but you know, it's Googled it and looked for the definitions of the words.

And I took what, like the Webster dictionary said, and then I also added to, because when we talk about capacity specifically for an object, it's gonna be a much different, definition than for us. And then of course for, I'm gonna go into it right now. So when we talk about capacity for an object, I'm, what I'm talking about is the total amount.

That that object can hold. A cup can hold eight ounces, Or 12 ounces or whatever the cup is. A tank can hold maybe 10 gallons. And then of course we have systems, machines, operations. usually it's the total amount that that system can produce

I mean, sometimes it's hold, but usually when we're talking about an object's gonna hold something like a container can hold a, a volume of something and then a system is how much it can actually put out. That's its capacity. But when we're talking about you and I, people, it's much different. You and I are not cups, we're not gas tanks.

We're not a factory. We are wired with an advanced brain right? That can watch itself And question our own thoughts and decide on purpose what we want to believe, what we can accomplish, achieve with our brains, with our noggins, with this ex, all of our executive functions is much different than anything else with consciousness on this planet, right?

so for humans, I want to define capacity as your total bandwidth. your energy, your emotional space, and your resilience, how much life that you can hold and experience at once.

Okay? That's capacity in my definition for us as humans. Capability on the other hand, is the actual skillset that you possess at current and like the competence to do a task, right? So personal growth requires. And that's what we're doing here, right? It's why you're listening to this podcast. I think if, if not, you might wanna turn it off now, but requires increasing both of these things, capacity and capability.

And you want them to go hand in hand. And I'm gonna explain why in a second. So, wanna enhance your capability through skill development, right? Through acquiring the knowledge or the ability to do whatever it is that you want to do.

And then at the same time, you wanna expand capacity through improved energy management, your resilience, and your thought management. Okay? So

Now that we have separated what you can do from how much you can hold, I wanna talk about one of the most common pieces of advice that we get from, no disrespect, a lot of the old way of thinking, from counselors and therapists and our parents and what have you around trauma and grief. Okay? It's so common to hear things 

[00:07:59] "Know Your Limits" Is Keeping You Stuck — Here's Why

like, know your limits, don't push yourself, protect your heart, protect your energy.

All of those three statements and any statements like that, they sound loving, they sound noble, they sound wise.

sometimes they are appropriate comments like those are appropriate rules to live by, . But I wanna play with this a little bit because for most of you, these are my limits is not a fact, It's a belief that you've repeated so often that it feels like a diagnosis. So I want you to try something with me.

Wherever you are, Just say the sentence in your mind. I know my limits. Say that to yourself. Notice what happens in your body when you say that. Where do you feel it physically? Do you feel open or do you feel closed?

Does it feel freeing, like empowering? Do you feel motivated? Probably not. I'm gonna guess for most people that sentence feels like an opt out, It lands as constriction, not as freedom. I know my limits. It sounds, ah, disen heart. yeah, closed off, uh, puts like a a wet blanket on top of your potential, For me, anyway, that's what it does. I was, when I was writing this, when I was thinking about this over the last week or so, I was jotting down notes and thinking about all the ways that we limit ourself and our capability and our capacity because of how we're thinking about capability and capacity. If you've said these things to yourself, anything like this, right? I know my limits. I need to protect my energy, protect my heart. Um, don't push. I'm not gonna push myself. Or you hear, my mom used to say this to me all the time, don't push yourself, honey. Protect yourself.

It was loving. She didn't mean anything bad by it.

If you've been saying this to yourself, I want you to consider that it's highly, highly possible that you've been reinforcing your own believed limitations. You might be calling it self-care, Oh, I'm just caring for myself. I know where my boundaries are, When it's actually self constriction and it's not your fault, this is what many of us were taught by people who loved us and wanted us safe, like I was saying with my mom, basically what I'm saying is, is that you likely inherited this habit or this mindset of protecting your energy, of knowing your limits, and all that stuff from somebody else's fear.

For you or for their own fear of expansion themselves.. Okay. So I wanna urge you to start questioning these kinds of thoughts and beliefs that you might have. Um, rules for how to live life, what you should take on, what you, should handle, what you can handle, what other people are handling, all of that.

[00:11:01] Capability Without Capacity Examples

Lemme show you how this plays out. With capability and capacity, you can be wildly capable and still not possess the capacity to hold the life that comes with it. ? There was a, a few months back I was watching. Nah. Yeah.

Maybe it was a couple months ago. I was watching Mark Manson, like, you know how YouTube will play one? you play one video of somebody's and then it just goes and it keeps playing their videos. One of the videos, and I cannot remember what it was about, Mark Manson was talking about this boy genius from like the 1950s.

He was like in newspapers and articles and what have you. This, he was like the most famous like young kid that anybody ever wrote about because he got accepted and attended, I think accepted to and attended Harvard, um, super young, like grade school age. Right. He had gobs of capability, right? He was like, I think a math whiz or something.

Don't quote me on this 'cause it's been a while since I've seen the video. He ended up isolating himself from the world later on in life.

And eventually this guy, now adult in his forties became institutionalized. They committed him because he didn't have the capacity to hold all of that intelligence that he possessed in his brain.

He didn't know how to handle it all. And so what he did instead was, became a hermit and ended up basically. Imploding. my point here is that you can have all the capabilities in the world, but if you also don't hold the capacity, you won't be able to do anything with the skills. Um, my mom was in town this last weekend and we, I just had the TV on something, you know, like background noise.

And actually I think I noticed it the week, weekend before too. Happy Gilmore has been on the TV a bunch on Comedy Central. I think it is. Like on repeat. You know how they do that. And it made me think about what I was gonna be talking about with you guys today. He could hit a golf ball into next week, But he had zero capacity.

For the emotional side of the game, the game of golf, The structure, the etiquette, The mental stress. Dealing with other people's opinions as well. He had to build that capacity with his mentor right? Before, I'm laughing 'cause I'm thinking about , the movie before his capability could actually mean anything.

He was throwing fits in the golf course. He'd thrown his, breaking his clubs and he ended up losing a bunch of games until he took on the mentor. once he built the capacity, then it all worked to his benefit. And I've seen this in my own life too. I made a list this weekend of the things.

I a quick list. I'm sure there was many, many more, but just sat down and did a five minute list that the things that I did not have the capacity to hold relationships with securely attached guys, I didn't have the capacity for peace in those relationships for peace in general. I was so used to chaos that I would self-sabotage and sabotage the relationship because I didn't know how to sit with peace, right?

And sit with, just like normalcy and sometimes boredom even too, in those relationships. And outside of the relationships too, I didn't have the capacity to hold onto money. I've talked about this many, many, many times with you guys that, um, I don't know, a couple years ago I had this revelation that I, why is it that I always, I could make money?

And I've done that on several different periods of time in my life where I made okay money. Right? But I couldn't hold on to money. I always seemed to spend it so that I was living paycheck to paycheck, you know? And I didn't need to spend it. It was almost like this nervous energy that I had around holding money.

Even though I loved the idea of holding money, I just, I couldn't because, because of my beliefs about that and my lack of capacity to hang onto it, okay. Um, to not drink during stressful situations. This was another thing. I did not have the capacity for, that. I had the capacity at one point, right?

As a kid didn't need to drink during stressful situations. Maybe I would turn off in other ways 'cause I hadn't yet built up the emotional resilience. Right. But I did at one point have the capacity to not drink in stressful situations and then all of a sudden I didn't. Even at one point it was even going to see my sweet baby girl because of all of the narratives and I felt defeated.

And so to me, and this is, um, I can't say it's difficult for me to, um, admit to you guys, but it's definitely something I'm definitely not proud of. But I'm also know how real it is. And I know that many of you are maybe in that boat where you,, they used,

an allegation against you about how you are around your kid. Even though you may not have originally been guilty of that accusation, once all the stress built that a, whatever you were being accused of, you ended up going and doing, because to you that would take the air out of the whole situation, help you to deal, and then you ended up doing the very thing that you were accused of before and weren't doing.

Does that make sense? And that was the case for me. So I know that sounded wordy, but I, I, anyway, so even going to see my baby girl because. It was so difficult for me at one point, maybe like a few month stretch where it was so painful to sit with the idea that, number one, that I, it was necessary to have a supervisor, present at all of my, meetings with my daughter, right, quote, unquote visits with my daughter, but also that she wasn't coming home with me.

It was just so bittersweet and awful, and it was just this constant reminder that, you know, as much as I wanted to see her, I also didn't wanna go to those things because it just made me face myself and face this ugly situation that I never would've chosen for myself. So, in order to relieve myself of that, I ended up drinking.

So I, at the time, I did not have, have the capacity, the emotional, mental capacity to withstand that I would use that word in this application, but not how I would want to use it today. Like to have the resilience is where I'd wanna be today, but back then I couldn't, didn't know how else to, to manage it, you know?

, Another way that I didn't have capacity is, to stay calm and clearly speak in conversations during the darkest time periods, right? Without breaking down or clamming up saying things I didn't wanna be saying. You know, how it goes walking away feeling like, ugh.

I could not stay calm because I was in a constant stress response and I wouldn't be, I most of the time What's so interesting about this, and I know that uh, many of you also have this situation going on for you, you're experiencing this where I would be walking through a grocery store and feeling pretty okay, right?

Not, um, overwhelmed. And then I would see somebody and them just asking me the question of, how are you? Their tone, their eye contact with me. That confrontation though, may have been loving, Maybe it wasn't a quote unquote enemy or somebody from the other side, right? But that confrontation for me took me over to the edge, And that's when I would just break down or run away, you know, dodge and move away from the conversation anyway. another thing I didn't have the capacity for was to allow my mom to be herself. And I'm, I wrote this this weekend and she was in town, so that's probably why, why, and she was difficult, I couldn't allow her to be herself without being entirely reactive in a negative way, I also didn't have the capacity to allow for pain to be present without running from it, to sit with embarrassment, without hiding.

To allow for boredom without blowing shit up. Kind of like I was mentioning in the first example, With relationships, uh, to allow for awkward silences. I didn't have the capacity for that. My brain was working on overtime, thinking about all the things that they were thinking, and then it was just so much, it was too hard for me to hold all that right because of what I was making at me to sit through a movie at one point in my journey, I could not sit, nevermind, just sit still and stillness and quiet. I literally had to be moving back. Then I had to be moving, like playing Frisbee 'cause of the nervous energy I had, or sleeping dead asleep or entertained in some way, many ways, many times. I had to have a lot of of input coming at me. I, I had to be handled.

I needed to be handled by somebody or something in order to. Feel like I wasn't gonna crawl outta my skin, I didn't have the capacity to handle his appointment or rejection. To hold someone else's hard truth, especially if it was about me or if it affected me. And then also to hear the opposing attorney or my ex talk poorly of me in court or what have you, I could not take it.

I didn't know what to do with myself. I thought for sure I was going to, I don't know. I never came to it. I never made sense of it, but I thought, I can't handle this. I just can't. I needed to flee. Right. Fight, flight response. So why does this matter for us as alienated parents? Because for most of us, we didn't sit down one day and say, I'd like to enroll myself in an advanced capacity building program called alienation.

You know? No, no way. The level of growth that we have experienced even up until now was thrust upon us. And I hear parents say to me all the time, all the time, I don't know how you handle this so well. I don't know how you, aren't phased by all of the things that they're saying about you. Why doesn't it phase you that your daughter hasn't reached back out?

This is like some of my newer clients were dumbfounded. When, um, I told the story back, I don't know, maybe it was August or September of, of this, of last year, about how I sent her a message and then she sent me a message and then I was blocked and they were just dumbfounded by the fact that I just see him unphased And I really, truly, of course I have feelings because I love my daughter deeply, it's a bummer But also, I never was banking on it, so the question from them is always, why doesn't it phase you?

How do you handle it so well? My answer is always because I choose to. I chose to. Then when I started this whole journey and I choose to. Today, it's a constant choice. Well, now it's pretty much my default, but there are times where I do have to choose again.

I chose to stop telling myself that nobody should have to handle this much pressure. That story itself. Like, nobody should have to handle this. Why do I have to handle this disrespect? This isn't right. That's how I spoke about this to myself. I chose to stop making it a problem that my nervous system was being asked to grow.

it's not that it doesn't hurt, like I was just trying to say. It's that I've expanded my capacity to hold that hurt without letting it run my life. And I wanna show you how you can do that too,

[00:22:43] How Avoidance Makes Your World Smaller (The Zelda Wall Analogy)

so let's talk now about what happens when you don't hold that. When you don't increase your capacity. When you keep saying to yourself, I can't handle this, or I don't have the capacity, I shouldn't have to deal with this. Nobody else deals with this. Why am I putting up with this? That's another thing is I shouldn't put up with this, which is an ego thing to say, but anyway, I'm just jumping ahead. You don't just describe your life as if it's factual.

What you're doing is you're shaping it. You're shaping your experience from that moment that you say those words moving forward and you reinforce it, then moving forward, , avoiding stress and avoiding discomfort. We've been talk, we, I talk about this a lot, but we've been talking about it a lot in this. Whole series. This is the number, by the way, you guys, this is number four of a four part series. I hope that's right. Four, yeah. I guess we could call it the possibilities series. So anyway, avoiding stress, avoiding discomfort doesn't just keep you safe. And I would really question anyway, what safe means. That's what your system is telling you. Don't do this, don't go there. Don't risk failure. Let's stay here where it's safe.

some version of that but is it really safe? You could question your definition of safe, right? And like Is it safe to sit in the same spot in your life and not grow?

How safe is that for you long term? over time doing this actually shrinks your capacity, By avoiding things, it shrinks you with atrophies your capacity to hold and to handle all the things. I picture it like, I was thinking about this yesterday. I picture it kind of like an old school video game.

Do you remember Legend of Zelda? I was not a gamer, but Zelda, Mario Brothers, that's what I remember. donkey Kong, But if you picture Zelda your character's in a maze, every hard conversation, every risk becomes a wall.

Every time you think, oh no, I could fail there, a wall goes up, oh no, this, I might be disappointed. A wall goes up. Oh no, I don't know if I can handle the rejection. Another wall goes up, Eventually your avatar is just bumping into walls in every direction. Your life becomes smaller and smaller.

But when you question what you can handle, Opening up to each and every disappointment and failure. All of those walls disintegrate it's now just open space for you to run and jump and expand.

So each hard thing that you create space for each difficult thing that you create space for, you also open up the door for bigger emotions, bigger actions, bigger opportunities, and a much bigger life.

So instead of saying, oh, I need to avoid this person because I don't wanna put myself into a stressful situation, a hurtful situation, put myself in the line of fire, You could decide that this is what's going to help you address the hot button or whatever it is that you're holding onto, right? So that then you can open up to all the situations to get good at feeling whatever comes up for you, so that it becomes a non-issue.

Because really, like I discussed in last week's episode, what you're ever fearing is your own thoughts, the experience that your own thoughts provide for you, you know. And, and if you didn't watch that episode, you can go back to last week and watch it. But basically what I was saying is, many people have the fear of public speaking, right?

'cause they think that, oh my gosh, people are gonna judge me. They're gonna hate me, what I have to say, they're gonna think I'm dumb. They're gonna blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right? They're gonna, I'm not wearing the right clothes, or I'm whatever, but really, that's your own assessment, thoughts, prediction about what other people might be thinking.

So really always, what you're ever really afraid of when you're thinking about going and speaking publicly is your own thoughts about what other people are thinking about you. But all of those are still your own thoughts. You're afraid of your own thoughts. So instead, if you open up to all of your, all of the situations and get good at feeling whatever comes up for you in each of those situation, all of it becomes a non-issue because it's really all about your own thought.

However you wanna perceive somebody else's reaction. Even so increasing your capacity is simply a decision, like I was saying a second, I chose to, I chose to change it for myself. It's a decision not to run, not to hide, not to blow shit up. It's a decision to open up to stress. Right? I think of when I think of like opening up to stress, if you guys ever, if you have Apple products, maybe they have this on a similar thing on, um, in Android too, but like on my Apple Watch, they have, you know, the Breathe app where it shows you this little, like, I don't know how to explain it, but icon or something that it's like this, when you breathe in and you're supposed to fill your body, your lungs, and your abdomen up with air, expand it, it, the little icon also, it's really pretty actually like this, uh, Aqua Blue expansion, right?

And as you exhale, then it shrinks again. Then you expand and you open up to all of it, like a flower blooming, And then you exhale and contract. Right? That's what I'm saying here. offering for you guys here with all of the experiences maybe you've been shying away from, it is a decision to open up to stress, because what is stress anyway? Open up to unpleasant emotions that you might have. And when I am saying unpleasant here, I'm saying it in an effort to make sense to you. But I think that the word unpleasant is actually still a judgment that could very easily set a limiting tone for you if you're using that word along with the word emotion, your language actually matters, and it will set a tone for you. But opening up to the whole gamut of emotions, because all it is is a physical sensation that's happening. And like I've been talking about, well, forever, but I've been talking about recently, it's when you entertain your brain, the overthinking part,

the overthinking happens as a result of you under feeling. I hear from people all the time, I'm such an overthinker. Yeah, that's because you haven't learned how to and it's okay 'cause I was there. Too many of us are, you haven't developed the skill, the capability of dropping into your body and being, being like with you.

Consciousness actually when we're, it seems backwards. When we are living consciously, we are not overthinking or letting our brains distract us so much. Right. You would think consciously with that's because we're using our brain, but really being conscious is being present in the now. And what overthinking does is takes you all the way to tomorrow and back to the past and then you live in both of those places like you're straddling the today and that is where all of your freedom lives.

Okay, now I'm getting off topic, but When you learn how to be present with yourself and let go of the forward thinking and reverse thinking. You can be in today without making all of the things going on in your life mean something for you.

Especially when I'm talking right now, I'm talking about like your kids, right? Or some outcomes that you're either really invested in, um, not happening or invested in them happening either way, when you are cl white knuckling your future and today, it causes so much angst for you and resistance for you today.

And it shrinks your capacity and also your capability, your bandwidth, really, um, to, to be present and to hold more. So what the basic gist of everything that I wanna say today, is that.

We are so trained, we, I think we, many of us have been trained to believe that we can't handle something because other people haven't handled it, or because we were never taught or something that we didn't expect. Yes, with alienation, we got thrown into involuntarily, I would say, all of us into this position where all of a sudden now we're holding way more than we've ever thought that we could.

And maybe you have other people telling you that too. Like, oh my gosh, I don't even know how you're handling that. I wouldn't be able to handle it. I hear that, that what, that statement itself is such a limiting belief. And so if you are buying into that statement, it's going to shrink your capacity and your capability, even for how you go about with like, for the things that you can handle in, in life today and moving forward.

It's also going to shrink your, ability to, or your resilience, Because you're making up a story about what you should and shouldn't be able to handle. But what I am suggesting today, this is what I think is so important, and I don't know why I haven't addressed this in this way yet.

After 185 episodes or 84 episodes, today's 8 180 5, um, I have no idea why. Because this is such a big thing for so many of us. As alienated parents, we tell ourselves that we shouldn't have to handle it, that we don't can't handle it. But who's to say that you can't handle it? It's all about the way that you're looking at it.

If you believe that the stress that you're under is harming you, then it's going to harm you. But if you believe that this is here, you choose it, don't. Alienation happened. It was chosen for us, right? And now it's what we do with it. You could choose to believe that it's gonna harm us to take on anymore or whatever.

Or you could be like, you know what? Maybe it's not gonna harm me because I have a very powerful human brain and system. And whatever you're thinking on, like however you're thinking about it, is the experience that you're gonna provide to yourself if you just decide that like, um, uncomfortable situations.

I'll use the example of my mom this weekend. We had a very lovely fun even weekend and that, or even two years ago, would not be the story I was telling you today, you know, because I decided, and it's a continual thing, especially with my mom, because I don't see her all the time. I'm not, um, I don't have the opportunity to put myself in that situation all the time, but I'm trying to choose.

I'm not trying, I am choosing in the situation to grow myself. It could be a very unpleasant situation for me. It could have been this last weekend because I could have been like, oh, she does this, she does that. She tries to control. I could have had a whole story about it. And about how that was bad for me and it wasn't healthy for me, and I should know my boundaries and I shouldn't put myself around people that do these things.

Even if it's my mom, I can choose my own family. You know what I'm saying? All these different stories that I hear from so many people, not just alienated parents, I could buy into that story and it would limit the hell outta my life and out of my, not only my, uh, ability to relate to and with my mom, but also in future relationships, other relationships that I have currently.

Or I could decide that, yeah, it's hard. It's not easy, it's difficult, and even that as a judgment, but I want to actually learn how master this, no matter what she is throwing at me, I'm, I did air quotes, but I don't mean it like that. Like it, it's really all what my brain is offering me, not her. She's gonna.

Present herself in whatever way she does, and that's about her. And it, my neutral circumstance, that's what I decide to think about it. But if I decide to lean into the bad, it's gonna be an awful experience for me. And I'm gonna think things like, oh, I shouldn't have to put myself in situations like this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But if I decide this is here, I wanna grow through this. I wanna get really good at feeling the discomfort at watching, or witnessing myself and my mom with love, while she may have some issues with her own sense of control for her, you see? So I wanna be able to open up develop the resilience to handle all of it, because I know it's possible.

It's the only reason that it's ever impossible when we're talking about something like this. Is because of the thoughts that I'm believing, And the same for you when it comes to what you can handle as far as rejection or, uh, disrespect or whatever it is that's going on for you. Or another email coming in from the alienating parent, you can handle, whatever it is that you wanna handle.

And maybe the, the most freeing, expansive way is to go into it. Like, let's see, let's see how much I can handle because I make the decision. I get to decide what my capacity is. That's all it is with capacity. Is you making a decision that you want to handle this or you don't wanna handle this? Now, I do wanna say, and I wrote this in my notes earlier, and I don't think I said it, before I came to this work, the work that I teach you guys and of course after alienation already took hold, right? Had been going on for years. Right. I didn't know that it was a capacity thing I was up against, it was because I was living unconsciously,, I just thought that nobody could or should have to handle the pressure that I felt that I was under, and I'm sure maybe you guys can identify with that .

Now, I know that it's only pressure when I label it as such, It's only pressure because I'm seeing it that way. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing, like let's say for you that you decide that for you right now, that it does feel like pressure. I don't want you to deny that for yourself because you'll lose trust with yourself.

And again, we just came off of that from a couple episodes ago too. You can decide because first off, you're human right? You are human. We're all human. And so we're fallible. And so if, and also not even just fallible, we have the gamut of emotions. It's not a problem. But we do have control over our thoughts.

And if you do decide that pressure is how you want to view the situation, it's completely fine. But it is good to know to make yourself aware that this is what you're deciding, what you're labeling it as. Okay. And why, like ask yourself why you're deciding to lean into that belief that it's pressure or that it's too much to handle,

like of course, whatever it is, you wanna honor that. But is that also how I want to see it, Because even. This tiny little shift of noticing what it is that you're labeling something as a predicament situation, experience, whatever. just knowing that that's what you're labeling it as and that it's a choice for you, especially after alienation, right?

And not having the choice of, you know, having somebody step in between you and your child. Um, here it is a choice how you believe, how you see things, what you do with it is all a choice, even that small shift ownership, right? Taking responsibility for your thoughts about the situation of alienation will afford you infinite possibility moving forward in that area.

Just knowing that there are many more choices that, and you're probably acknowledging because many people. Many parents that I speak with will say, I didn't have a choice. This is what I had to do. And it's not true. You always have a choice and it's really good, even if you don't like all your choices, you don't have to like all your choices, but just know that there is always a choice and that you take your power back by saying, I'm not choosing this or I am choosing this because I don't like the effects that would happen if I don't.

You know what I'm saying? So just noticing where you have agency, And then also asking yourself why you're making the choices that you're making. This will help you to increase your capacity because now you know where it's coming from. It's not, uh, fixed statement or a blanket statement that everybody would feel the same way that you do.

Many people probably would, but it doesn't have to be the only takeaway, the only way that you can experience it. I hope I'm making sense 

So one of the things I didn't mention also is that when we're talking about capacity and capability, I started to talk about it, but I didn't cap uh, capability without capacity will lead to burn out, right? As you have the skill to do something, but not the energy or the space to handle it sustainably.

Okay? So lots and lots of skill. And then without the capacity, as I talked about with those two examples, um, earlier, happy Gilmore and the, boy genius, right? you're not going to be able to sustain it without the capacity. The same thing like when I was talking about my, inability to hang on to money.

Because I didn't have the capacity to hold it, to keep that, keep it there without having the nervous energy of wanting to go spend it until I built up the capacity. And really what that was, was me making the decision that I wanted to hold more to actually hold onto my money and not just go spend it instant gratification I was going to change the, patterning, and that pattern came from my own parents, my mom. Um, and then with capacity, having capacity without capability, it leaves a lot of potential on you. So you can have tons of capacity, have the space to hold it, like the mental, emotional space to hold whatever it is that your, um, tolerance, even if you will resilience.

But without the capability, the skillset, then you're gonna have a hard time because , you lack the skills to actually execute effectively what it is that you need. , It's unused potential.

So basically with the growth dynamic, what I'm offering to you guys here is, is as you increase your desire for more, right, your capacity, you must actually increase your skillset as well, your capability in order to handle it, both to balance it out. Okay? So you're always. It's almost like, um, you're doing one, you're growing your capacity, making a decision to handle more leaning into, expanding, open, blooming,

and then you have to increase your capability, get more skills,

master techniques and what have you. . It just depends on, it's vague right now because it really just depends on what we're talking about.

So the two questions you wanna ask yourself regarding capacity is, how much can I handle, right? How much can I handle right now? How much do I believe that I can handle? And then the next question is, how much do I want to handle, How much do I want to handle? And make that a very deliberate choice, and one that you're consistently asking yourself throughout all of your experiences in your life. Do I want to handle this? Why or why not? Do I not wanna handle this? Why or why not? Knowing your reasons why you don't wanna open up to something, which is, like I said a minute ago, is fine if that's something that you're not prioritizing, right? But when you are not choosing something for yourself, and when you're saying like, no, I'm not doing that.

Make sure that when you're doing it, that you feel expansive, because of the yeses you're saying to other areas of your life. Do you know what I'm saying? So that it's not just a, no, I'm not gonna choose this 'cause I believe I can't handle it, or I'm not gonna put myself in that situation because I don't think that that's.

Healthy for me, and I'm, I'm not, there's no judgment here, but I think too, sometimes that's the tone that we take about it because there's resentment or fear backing it. So instead is, is there a reason for me to be fearful? Why? Because all of the, that you are really ever going to experience, well, you know, if we're talking about just regular relational, not abusive situations, whatever, like somebody coming to hurt you or something.

The all we're ever really fearing is, is the physical sensation we feel in our body because of the thought, the assessment we're making of a situation. So how much can I handle? How much do I want to handle and why, and how is it that I can open up to more instead of stepping back in fear and protection of ourselves? because we are seeking to protect ourselves. Is that needed? Because I would offer that in most cases, in a nonviolent situation, um, we don't necessarily need to protect ourselves in the way that you might, you might believe that you do, especially coming from, a history of trauma. And I know that this is maybe a different viewpoint than others have offered you in the past.

but I tell you the best way to gauge it for yourself is in each situation that I'm saying yes or no to how am I feeling inside and why am I saying yes or no to those things? How am I feeling? Does this feel like I'm closed off or does this feel like I'm opening up for me? Not for them, but for me or for you, you know, you say that to yourself.

Just know that you are not stuck with the capacity that you had at one point, like something static, , your capability can grow, your capacity can grow always, and I hope that they are like that. You're seeking to always grow the both of them, okay? Every time you choose to feel one hard feeling on purpose, stay in one hard conversation,

tolerate one moment of boredom or peace without blowing it up, you're expanding the amount of life that you can hold and experience. Okay? 

[00:45:01] How to Deliberately Grow Your Capacity as an Alienated Parent

So this week, instead of saying, I don't have the capacity for that, try asking yourself, how much do I want to hold? How much do I wanna be able to hold and why? what tiny little rep can I do today that grows me in that direction, expands me, blooms me. That's verb outward, So that you can handle a much bigger, like the umbrella beneath you is much wider, more vast, Because it is possible. It is possible. And this is my friends. I tell you, mastering the difficult emotions, is what will set you free.

So That's how you go from living  a life designed around your believed limits, To living a life designed around your true potential. so that is all I have for you guys. I've gotta go, um, edit this and figure out what that lady wanted. I'll talk with you guys later.

Okay. Take

care. Bye.