S2 E3. Overthinking Your Teens and Adult Kids? Let Go, Grieve, and Love Them Anyway

And over and over again, in fact, seven times this week alone, I have had somebody reply that the biggest, heaviest thing on their brain is their relationship with their adult children.

And I coach on this a lot too in my coaching practice.

And I myself am a mother of a 19-year-old and a 16-year-old.

So I have a lot of experience in this area and I have thoughts.

I have thoughts and I have skills that I am going to offer you today on this podcast about all of it.

What tends to happen is when we become mothers, and I've been having this conversation with so many women recently.

Our lives are turned upside down.

As a mother, your life is turned upside down.

You don't get up when you want to get up.

You don't go to bed when you want to go to bed.

You don't get to do the things that you want to do when you want to do them when you are a mother of a baby or babies and small children because they take precedence because their survival is our job.

And I vividly remember becoming a new mom and just feeling the shock wash over me that A, I was in charge and B, I didn't have anywhere to go.

Like there was no quitting this job, right? This was just my job.

And so when my child was up at the crack of dawn, which my child always was, then I was up at the crack of dawn.

even if I had been up feeding said child all night long, right? And it's interesting how challenging it is, I would say, for most, not for everybody, but how challenging it is when your lifestyle is just completely upended, completely turned upside down.

It's a wild adventure.

It is the catalyst which brought me to understanding that I needed to address my emotions and what was going on for me.

It is what led me to completely cracking wide open.

But then what happens is we learn how to live inside that.

And one of the ways we learn to live inside it is how much we love our children, how much we care about them.

And we are... really and truly responsible for every part of their lives.

We are, when they are small, responsible for their happiness.

We are responsible for their comfort.

We are responsible for their advocacy.

We are responsible for keeping them alive, feeding them, clothing them, ensuring that they are successful as babies, then young children, and then moving forward after they're walking and talking and doing all the things, then they go to school.

And over and over again, in fact, seven times this week alone, I have had somebody reply that the biggest, heaviest thing on their brain is their relationship with their adult children.

And I coach on this a lot too in my coaching practice.

And I myself am a mother of a 19-year-old and a 16-year-old.

So I have a lot of experience in this area and I have thoughts.

I have thoughts and I have skills that I am going to offer you today on this podcast about all of it.

What tends to happen is when we become mothers, and I've been having this conversation with so many women recently.

Our lives are turned upside down.

As a mother, your life is turned upside down.

You don't get up when you want to get up.

You don't go to bed when you want to go to bed.

You don't get to do the things that you want to do when you want to do them when you are a mother of a baby or babies and small children because they take precedence because their survival is our job.

And I vividly remember becoming a new mom and just feeling the shock wash over me that A, I was in charge and B, I didn't have anywhere to go.

Like there was no quitting this job, right? This was just my job.

And so when my child was up at the crack of dawn, which my child always was, then I was up at the crack of dawn.

even if I had been up feeding said child all night long, right? And it's interesting how challenging it is, I would say, for most, not for everybody, but how challenging it is when your lifestyle is just completely upended, completely turned upside down.

It's a wild adventure.

It is the catalyst which brought me to understanding that I needed to address my emotions and what was going on for me.

It is what led me to completely cracking wide open.

But then what happens is we learn how to live inside that.

And one of the ways we learn to live inside it is how much we love our children, how much we care about them.

And we are... really and truly responsible for every part of their lives.

We are, when they are small, responsible for their happiness.

We are responsible for their comfort.

We are responsible for their advocacy.

We are responsible for keeping them alive, feeding them, clothing them, ensuring that they are successful as babies, then young children, and then moving forward after they're walking and talking and doing all the things, then they go to school.