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Rachel Denning (00:11.054)
Hey there and welcome back. It has been a couple of weeks since we've posted a podcast and that's because we have been traveling. We just returned home to Georgia after a six week road trip and we are now going to be preparing to move to Portugal within the next six months. This episode is about teaching children to manage their emotions. Emotions can be big and scary for both parents and children.

But it is possible and desirable to teach and model emotional management for your kids. This helps family life to be more pleasant and enjoyable for everybody. Plus, emotions are everything. Our lives are experienced through our emotions. So by default, the quality, quantity, and content of our emotions directly determine and affect the quality and content of our lives.

We can and should educate our emotions and teach our children to do the same. But how? That's what we cover in this episode. We'll discuss strategies for dealing with a range of feelings, which are normal, and how to validate and accept them when they arise while working through them so they don't stay to cause long -term distress or trauma. Don't miss this episode. This episode is sponsored by...

teaching children to manage their emotions workshop. Discover even more strategies on how to do this consistently and well with yourself and your family. Visit the link in the show notes to get access to this workshop now.

Rachel Denning (02:09.229)
Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Extraordinary Family Life Podcasts. We are your hosts, Greg and Rachel Denning. I was going to let you say your name, but it always sounds kind of weird when you just say your name. Rachel. There it is. She's here with us. We recently did. So every month, we have this awesome group of humans.

who join us in what we call our Extraordinary Family Life coaching program. And so every month we have these workshops or we address topics around family and life. And this month we were working through this consummately important topic of emotions and particularly helping our children to manage their emotions.

which by default leads to us as parents learning to manage our emotions. We're going to get there, babe. Spoiler alert. We're getting there. But think about it, you guys. Think how huge this is. So as I've been thinking about this topic for the last couple of weeks and more especially today as we're preparing for this, I just can't get over how emotional life is. Really, everything is emotion.

And one thing I was thinking through in my mind, I'm like, well, you could take like the best day and the best circumstances and you could be off emotionally. You've probably experienced that before. Like everything's great. Awesome things are happening, but you're just like in a funk or you just emotionally not feeling it right. And so, so it's not circumstances. And in fact, the great circumstances can be totally undone by emotional troubles.

And then the opposite is true. I was going to say that. That's one of my favorite things is the emotional flatulence. We'll come back to that. And interestingly, that's also the case, right? You could come into a really great situation and just bleh and just emotionally vomit or flatulate on people. And man, it changes the whole mood, doesn't it? Right? Somebody walks in a room and it just.

Rachel Denning (04:30.446)
changes everything or to start fighting or getting grumpy or upset. And what was a great experience is immediately transformed. The other side is true as well. Things could not be working out. It could be really frustrating. You could be in a rough, tough spot and emotionally feel like, you know what? No, I'm going to be filled with gratitude and joy and happiness and love. I'm just going to fill my heart with love and peace. And wow, you feel great.

when in bad circumstances. And so life ultimately, I don't know how to say this with enough power to make this sink into our souls and your souls.

your life, the quality of your life, and ultimately the outcome in a major way is determined by your emotions. It's that powerful. The quality of your emotions will determine the quality of your life. The great news is, is that we get to educate and refine and improve our emotional experience. We're not victims, and I guess that's where we start. Because if you think,

and believe and your kids believe in, I mean, I think we kind of start life, I think we all start life that way. Maybe that's kind of default setting where we start is like, you grow up, like something happens to you as a kid and you think, dang, that made me mad. What other option did I have but feeling mad when somebody took that toy from me? And so you can settle into this idea of like, I'm a victim to emotion, like something happens, I feel that. What can I do about it? I think.

That is a good place to kind of start actually, because I was thinking about this while you were talking. Because when we begin life, that is essentially how it is. We are in a way victims to our emotions. Like a baby, they feel hungry and they are a victim to that feeling and they don't know what it is, they don't know how to deal with it. All they know is they need to cry because I'm feeling something and I don't know what it is, right? Same with discomfort or whatever. They feel these emotions and they have this almost automatic response.

Rachel Denning (06:40.397)
to them. So yes, that is how we start life. But what we want to emphasize, of course, is that's not how we should live our entire lives. We need to educate our emotions, like you were talking about, just like we learn how to walk and run and read and do all these other things. We can learn how to be the manager of our emotions and choose to have better emotions and to have more control and direction.

over our emotions. But since we were talking about this, I do want to at least address this part while we're talking about how to help your children manage their emotions. I think one mistake parents actually make that I have seen a lot is that when their children are very young, they don't allow them to have those emotions. And it's almost like they get very frustrated with them or they try to force them or control them to not have those emotions.

maybe just out of ignorance or maybe because they think that's going to help them have better emotional control, but I think it actually does the opposite. I think that, and this is an approach we've definitely taken in our parenting, I think when you can acknowledge and validate the emotions of your, especially very young children, it helps them to build this foundation of feeling accepted and acknowledged and...

Well, and it's not making certain emotions bad. It's not making them wrong or evil or making them villains. Because then all of a sudden, you go through life and you begin thinking, say, anger is bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. And you associate that. There are definitely really good times to be angry and to feel angry and have a full broad spectrum of healthy emotions. But you're right, we can inadvertently make certain emotions seem.

wrong. Great. Exactly. And so as a small child, say the first time a child feels anger, there's nothing wrong with them in doing that. They're like, wow, this is a new experience. This is new to me. I don't know what this is. And for us to shame them for feeling that emotion is not helping them to develop in the long term, a healthy emotional mastery. Because when we feel shame about the emotions we might feel, it doesn't help us to

Rachel Denning (09:06.221)
Properly process them right and deal with them and to be clear nor does that mean we don't say anything and teach them about Emotional mastery development we're just like oh all emotions are normal and natural go ahead kid and that kid will be an emotional Well basket. Yeah, okay, so all emotions are normal and natural in a way Some motions are healthier than others in the long term than others. Yep, and some should be

definitely more predominant than others. Exactly. I mean, even like the physiological response to anger is a suppressed immune system. So in the long run, if you spend a lot of time being angry, you're literally weakening your immune system. So even your physiology is saying, hey, don't do this often. This isn't a good place to stay long term because it's weakening your immune system. So quite literally,

chronic anger can lead to illness and death. Absolutely. Which is so profound. So, right, but for a young child to get angry about something, you know, it's okay for us to say, oh, I can see that you're really angry about this. This is one thing you do. You name the emotion for them so that they understand and they learn to associate feelings with a name. Or even ask, it seems like you're angry. Exactly. That's even better. It seems like you feel angry, right?

and then talk through it and say, well, why are you angry? Are you angry because of this? Oh, you are, okay. What can we do about that? And you're beginning to narrate this process of working through emotions. Now, there's one other thing I wanna add because I think it's important. I heard Jordan Pearson say one time that a child under the age of six months especially and maybe up to a year can do no wrong.

meaning whatever their needs are, they just need to be met with love, patience, and patience. And I believe that that's very true. In fact, I think that that is one of the things you and I have done with our children that's had a big difference in the long run is that we were very...

Rachel Denning (11:20.813)
uh I don't know meeting of their needs that's not that doesn't make sense but we were always very quick to meet their needs and to acknowledge them like we I don't know that we've ever intentionally just ignored our kids like I'm busy right now I don't have time for you like just cry over there if our kids need something we pay attention to them we pay close attention we listen

and we fulfill their needs as soon and as quickly as possible, especially under the age of one. And then of course, as they get older, you slowly wean them off that process as they become more independent. And teach them emotional mastery and direction. Exactly, right. But I think when you do that with very young babies, essentially, it provides a very solid emotional base for them to build on because they feel this complete support, love,

connection, protection, safety. It's like you have this emotional space to be there. Now, this could also be misunderstood. Some people might, you know, I can picture, you know, this person, you know, the iconic helicopter parent saying, oh, that's what I do. I run around and I, oh, oh, it's okay. I'm here. I got everything. And I'm like, well, that's, that's, that's going to the opposite side of teaching this emotional dependence.

and keeping, I guess this is the imagery I saw, is keeping people as emotional babies. And what's interesting is just because you get older and your body gets bigger doesn't mean you grow up emotionally. And so there are a lot of emotional babies out there in full grown bodies. So it's not necessarily, I guess I don't wanna bag on anybody or make them bad or wrong or, they're just underdeveloped and maybe not even to their own fault in some.

Some people consciously want to remain as emotional babies. They don't want to grow up because with growth, there's always some discomfort and some strange struggle and effort. And so whether they were kind of led there or they had some experiences, there are a lot of people. And maybe it's fair to say you might have some underdeveloped emotional areas or strength as well, right? So it's worth examining ourselves, all of us saying, well, I wonder where...

Rachel Denning (13:47.149)
where I could be more developed or stronger or better emotionally, even in the instance of something like love, increasing our ability and capacity to love. You can work on that. So you actually love more than you did before. Right. Or even worry. You can learn how to worry less. A lot of things anxiety. Um, but I did want to add that just because.

We're talking about this and you're talking about helicopter parenting and stuff. We're also not saying, you know, because we've never been the parents who are like, oh, we have to go home now because our baby has to take a nap. You know, like the strict schedule of.

everything revolves around the child's life. We're not saying that you have to be that kind of parent of like, oh, I have to meet my child's needs. So that means I have no life. I can't go anywhere. I can't do anything. We traveled with our babies. That's such a good point because continuing on with life while acknowledging the child actually helps them to increase their emotional mastery and capacity because you're like, Hey, I know you're feeling this way. Look, come here. It's all good. We're going to keep going. Right. And we're not going to.

build our whole life around your sensitivities because what that ends up doing is creating a super hypersensitive kid who never learns how to control or direct those emotions. Feels like they're the center of the universe and everything revolves around that. And if something goes wrong, oh boy, it's all done. And look around like that is a common problem. So like someone asked me one time because we were out and about and we were traveling with some people that...

needed to take their child home for a nap. And this person asked me, they're like, well, I know you guys traveled with your kids. What did you do? And we just, as an example of how this works is we were always very aware of our kids' needs and we recognized that sometimes, yeah, they're gonna be tired, they're gonna be hungry, they're gonna be grumpy. And when you're at an airport or you're out and about doing things, you know, you can't always meet every need on demand.

Rachel Denning (15:59.629)
but what you can do is give them the love and attention they need. And so Greg or I would always be on kid duty. Meaning we gave them that individualized, needed attention. Maybe it's holding them, maybe it's cuddling them, maybe it's taking them for a little walk. One of us was always willing to give the kid the attention they needed so that their needs felt met.

knowing that that was going to help us get through whatever it was we needed to get through without them throwing a tantrum or damaging the relationship, you know, having them feel like they're unheard or unloved, which is ultimately what's happening, I think, on a psychological level for young children. We think that ignoring them does nothing, but really it is creating these psychological, well, eventually issues where they feel...

I'm unloved, I'm unheard, people don't listen to me, people don't care about me and it's not something they can articulate until many years later. But that's, and we had another example too. Greg and I went out to eat. We love to go out and we went out for sushi or Thai. And you know, there was a family there and they brought their child, which is great, but the child was being very, very loud in the restaurant, which was mostly adults. And I told Greg, cause Greg has always been so good about this.

I said, I'm so grateful that you are always willing to make the experience good for everyone, including the other guests in the restaurant, that he would be the one that would take the kid and go out and just give him the individual, without resentment, without any anger, like you just know, hey, right now this kid needs attention. All the people in the restaurant don't wanna hear this screaming. I'm gonna just take the kid and I'm gonna go out and get him a snack if needed or just.

walk with them or entertain them. Like you've always been so good about that. And I know that for our travel, our very unique travel lifestyle, that made a huge difference in making it doable and making our kids feel like, you know, they weren't being neglected because of our lifestyle choices. And I have never thought of it like this, the way you're describing it. But I was also never resentful to them for their needs or for acting their age.

Rachel Denning (18:24.653)
And so they never felt that from me. And so they just grew up in this healthy way of like, well, you know, I can age appropriate, maturity appropriate. I can feel what I feel and parents are gonna be my needs. And then we go back and as soon as you're telling, you're just giving examples. I thought of that time we were in Arpege. We're in this super, super fancy three -star Michelin star restaurant in Paris. Oh man, it was incredible. And we took a baby. Like who does that? I don't know.

And so I had to walk a little bit and bounce a little bit and move around a little bit. And it was amazing. And you allowed me to fully enjoy the experience with our friends. Yeah, so I was like, I got this, Rachel just sat there and enjoyed this amazing thing. And I walked a little bit and bounced and it was there. And the staff was so awesome. I thought, I was wondering how they would react. They just loved her. And they were like, this is so cool. And I was like, there aren't many babies coming to this restaurant, I can guarantee you. And they were so cool about it. I did want to say something though, in line with that.

And I'm not even sure how to emphasize this enough, but it is unbelievably important. If we raise our children in a healthy, emotionally healthy environment where they are loved and adored and well, but and also being spoiled. Yes. And compassion without too much compassion where compassion becomes a vice and

And if it's done in a healthy way, and we'll talk through ways we've observed that work and we've experimented ourselves. But if it's, I just have to say upfront with as much emphasis as I can give it, if we do it in a healthy way, then healthy emotions are the natural byproduct and result and outcome. And if your kids grow up in that kind of environment, then they just, they grow and develop emotionally. And it's amazing.

to see a little baby grow into this flourishing youth and then young adult with this full range of beautiful emotions and able, capable of feeling what we can and ought to feel in certain situations and also able to recognize when they need to control.

Rachel Denning (20:51.661)
and direct and manage their emotions. And it's awesome. Now we get to watch our older kids do that. Even some of the younger ones, because we've been modeling it for so long and teaching it, they make good emotional choices and you watch them, you give them the tools to where they learn to manage themselves and soothe or counteract or say, oh, they get this awareness of like, man, I'm starting to feel this. Let me step away for a second and bring this back.

It's the most beautiful thing and that's what we all want because all of us in a family relationship, I want as an individual to have this beautiful, healthy, emotional wellbeing. I want Rachel as an individual to have this beautiful, healthy, emotional wellbeing. Then the two of us together in our marriage have this incredible emotional relationship. And just to emphasize this, like almost everything is emotional. Like,

Our intellectual conversations have an emotion to them. Really passionate, wonderful sex. Some people think it's just strictly physical. It's extremely emotional. And so it's all raising children, doing business together, even recording this podcast together. There's so much emotion in it, and it ought to be beautiful and healthy and wonderful, right? And then together we teach the kids.

And I want you to picture this. I want all of you to just picture it. Imagine right now, dream about it, especially if you're, if you feel like it's an emotional tornado in your house sometimes, right? Mind field. Yeah, exactly. Then the, then just pause and just picture it, see it in your mind. This wonderful, healthy, emotional relationship you have in your family dynamics and family culture, and ultimately your family legacy of emotional.

mastery and greatness. Oh man, it's amazing. And sorry. I want to emphasize one thing. If you remember your thought, this cannot be mistaken for emotional numbing or emotional pretending or emotional facades or emotional masking where you put on this big pretense or you teach the kids like, don't, hey, don't feel that. Don't do that. And then they stuff it.

Rachel Denning (23:17.005)
And so emotionally they're just stuffing or emotionally stacking. Like we teach often in our courses and our coaching, they're stacking and stuffing and pretending. So in that case, the emotion is not being addressed at all. It's not being refined. It's not being developed. It's not being corrected or educated or whatever else. It's just being hidden or stuffed down or buried or we're putting up this mask like, no, everything's good. And inside you're just, you know, all over the place. That is not what we're talking about.

We're talking about actually addressing the issue and cultivating it so it's healthy. And you can make, there's so many metaphors here to the emotions. Let's say a physical wound, if you've got some nasty infection in a cut on your leg, you're not just gonna hide it and go, no, no, I'm good. Everything's good. While your leg turns, you know, festers and gets toxic. And then you go septic, but.

we try to do that emotionally. We try to hide these wounds instead of heal them. Or you wouldn't also like put your arm in a sling and never use your right arm again. Cause it's just going to atrophy and rot and then get stuck. And it's going to be completely worthless. And some people do that with certain emotions. They'll take it, put it in a little sling and never use it again and think that that's okay. Whatever. When they, they literally have lost their ability to feel that emotion. And so they've let emotional atrophy.

take over where you could take the emotion and you could feed it, nourish it, exercise it so it's big and strong and healthy. And you could see all these emotions fully developed, almost like you see this. I love this, like an emotional athlete, right? A decathlete of emotions. Yes, decathlete. Well, and to add to that and to go along with that, Greg and I were actually talking.

I don't know, earlier today or yesterday. And because, and maybe this is just my perception, maybe this is off because I thought, you know, sometimes people might think that when we talk about these kinds of things that that means us and our kids never experience anything except happy emotions, right? We're constantly happy all the time. That's all I ever feel. And you're the exception. Now you do feel that.

Rachel Denning (25:40.653)
probably 90 % of the time. Because I've chosen that. Yes. I came from... Well, we could go into this because I think it is useful, but you've chosen it without stuffing the emotions. You're not pretending you don't feel anything else. You just are able to more quickly process the negative emotions or the anger or whatever that you feel. But what I am trying to say is that, you know, our children and me...

still feel a range of emotions. This includes loneliness, especially if they don't have a girlfriend. Just kidding.

I'm joking a little bit. Loneliness, sadness, sometimes worry and anxiety. But the key piece here that we wanna bring up is not that you don't ever feel these things, but that you have the tools to be able to deal with them, to face them, right? So it's not that feeling loneliness is wrong or feeling sadness or feeling.

anger even is wrong, like you've mentioned already, there's there is an appropriate time to feel those things. But staying in those emotions can be wrong, and ultimately unhealthy. And as I was listening and thinking through this, not only staying in them, but there's actually some not sure how to describe it some physiological no, some like a toxic.

dark side of emotions, that we could let it run wild or get poisonous. So there's a certain loneliness you just feel, but then there's a poisonous loneliness, a dark. And if we're not managing that and teaching it, and if we're not, again, if we're not growing up in a healthy environment and you as parents are not, and again, we're responsible.

Rachel Denning (27:49.101)
We have a ton of responsibility, one for our own emotions, but two for, for the emotional wellbeing of people around us. Not that we're responsible, like their happiness depends on me. That's not true. And I can't make other people happy. But as a father and a husband, I have responsibility for the emotional energy I bring, but also for helping those around me have healthy emotions.

Does that make sense? Yeah, I don't want to clarify. I'm not responsible for it. Like their happiness isn't dependent on me and my happiness isn't dependent on them or even you. Right. And so there has to be this these boundaries, but there's a beautiful thing. I just want to add, but you do have this responsibility to give them appropriate tools that they can use to manage emotions. And sometimes I would say, I think our roles as parents includes creating state changes, which essentially means your state.

is essentially like how you feel. So it could be just the emotion you're in. If you're in a state of depression or a state of anger, one way of referring to that is that that's the state you're in. And in order to change that, you have to change your state. And this is, we're not talking about - Which is so powerful and possible. The state you live in. But I wanna go back to what I was saying about it's toxic. I've been able - Wait, wait, can I finish for one second? Sure. I just wanna say that as parents, we can -

help our children to make those state changes. Sometimes that includes maybe you take them out to do something cool because whenever you do something, say like adrenaline, you jump off a cliff, like that changes your state because your whole physiology changes because you're doing something that doesn't allow you to be depressed. Like you can't be depressed while you're jumping off a cliff because your body's like, ah, you know. And it literally alters your biochemistry. Exactly, that's kind of what I'm talking about. So I just wanted to point that out that sometimes that is our responsibility to...

to do things to facilitate experiences that help our children have state changes. Yep, exactly. I wanted to come back to the toxic side of things, because I think it's significant. In what I've observed, working with lots of people over well over two decades, this comes up often where, let's take loneliness as the example. So a child is naturally going to feel.

Rachel Denning (30:11.021)
lonely at certain times. Just kind of growing up. But even small children can. Yes. And there are instances, I've seen this many times, where a child feels lonely. And this is where parents can assuage that and say, Oh my goodness, yeah, you were feeling lonely and with good reason, but I'm here for you. This is good. And

and bring that back to a really healthy place. And actually, if your child has, if you and your children have healthy, loving relationships, loneliness is going to be, you're going to feel loneliness because you love people and you want to be with people. You have a healthy relationship. When they're away, you're going to feel lonely. Right. Where I've seen this go to the, I don't know another way to describe it better, but toxic or poisonous side is they feel lonely, but then the parents are so

engaged in their own problems or their own pursuits and they don't step in and assuage that loneliness and they don't help the child emotionally because maybe the parents struggling still struggling with their own emotional issues. And so then that is never cared for or addressed or there's, there's no healing balm around that. And so it just keeps going and going going.

And so a child grows up in this place, always feeling lonely, and then the lonely turns dark and bitter and poisonous or toxic. And it can go so far and so bad. And then it's on a totally different level, where one kid's like, I feel lonely, and this kid's like, I do too. And it's totally different things. One's like on a level one and the other one's on a level 70. And they're both saying, yeah, I'm lonely. And they're not talking about the same thing.

And so there's, I just wanted to emphasize that because I've seen it too many times where even the anger, the hatred, even the darkness, right? Or discouragement. It can go, if it's not healed and addressed and educated and refined and nourished and improved, it can go so far and so dark and so bad. So again,

Rachel Denning (32:33.645)
I'm gonna emphasize a lot of things and this is one of them. You have a moral obligation and responsibility to get yourself in a healthy place emotionally and get your children there too and lead them there so that these things don't turn. Sceptic? Sceptic, yeah, that was the word I was thinking of, exactly. And just for clarification, septic, like when you're talking about, your body can get an infection and then it can go septic, right? So I got a kidney infection one time and man, it went septic and I.

That's probably the closest to the death I've ever been, man. I went in and they measured my blood level and the doctor was like, you are so close to being admitted to ICU and you're in bad trouble, right? Because the infection has spread through my entire body. Into the blood, essentially. Yeah, it was in the bloodstream. So I got septic. So that idea of this emotion, if it's not... Well...

cared for and it's not healthy, it can go septic emotionally. Right, so essentially it's this idea of intervention. I think it is a parent's moral obligation to practice intervention with their children in the case of especially dangerous emotions. And I think where we often see a problem is that parents don't do that because they, like we're saying, we're like, oh, it's normal and healthy to feel all these different emotions. And so parents think, oh, my kid's feeling lonely or sad, but then that turns into days.

and then weeks and then months and then years sometimes. And they don't do anything about it. They just think, oh, it's a phase, they'll grow out of it. No, that's not always the case. So you have to be aware, you have to be paying attention, and at times, you have to take intervention. Now our philosophy has always been to intervene sooner than later. Well, and prevent. And obviously, there's a whole lot of value of prevention.

But if our kids are experiencing certain, I don't even like to use the word negative, but yeah, there are definitely some emotions that are more negative than others. If they're experiencing some of those emotions, we allow them to feel that, but we also talk to them like, okay, what are you gonna do to take action to get out of this? Because that's what we're trying to teach. You don't want to stay there. You don't stay. So you're right. So let it come, but don't let it stay. Right.

Rachel Denning (35:00.141)
and be there as someone who's a support. And sometimes it's, you can do the thing of like, well you need to do this, this and this. And those things will work, but nobody really likes to be told that. So it's better to say, how can I help you? How can I support you? What do you need from me? To help you feel better. When they're, well, you can start quite young. Say, what would you like to do? Or what could help you feel better? Turning the question to them, like what can you do so they're not dependent on you to get out of emotion? Say, hey what?

What could you do to feel better or switch this? Do you want to switch it? What do you think? And sometimes they don't want to, sometimes they want to stay. Sometimes you want to stay in your emotion. But then you stop, well, is this serving me? Is this really who I want to be and how I want to do it? Like, yeah, I'm still angry, but is that serving me? No, it's not changing anything. And like that great quote that changed my life, bitterness is a poison that you swallow, hoping your enemy will die.

and you want to hold on to your bitterness because you think it's going to kill your enemy, it's killing you. And so you stop and say, man, this isn't serving me. And I can say this because I did this many times. I had to because I was so angry and so bitter at people that had done wrongs to me when I was young. And so I had to work through this and realize, man, this isn't serving me. It doesn't serve me at all. So I need to let go of it. And I need to just grow emotionally out of that whole mess.

because it's not gonna be a benefit to me or to the people around me. And so this is, it's mentoring and modeling. I do wanna kind of interject here and make sure that we emphasize this is a full life approach down to the kind and quality of food you're eating. It will affect your physiology. And I know this sounds crazy. It can affect you emotionally, the quality of food you eat and the quality of input.

the music you listen to and that's being played in your family definitely will have an effect. Movies, conversations, like the input that's going on and how it's being done. The energy you bring in the emotional, what would you call it? Like emotional like trademark for your family. I think every family kind of has this. Emotional culture. Yeah, emotional culture. Like that's.

Rachel Denning (37:29.741)
That affects it. Sometimes we'll go visit families and they're all just super somber and serious. And I go and I'm like, man, I wonder if these people ever laugh. Right? And then some are like, they always joke, joke, joke, joke. And they never are serious ever. And you try to bring up a serious topic or conversation and they get so uncomfortable. They're like, I have to crack a joke and then like leave because they can't go there. And so like they're they're pretending they're ignoring issues that have never been addressed.

Or they're always addressing everything, it's a dark cloud. Or like people who watch the news endlessly, then the whole world's falling apart every day. And it's just bad, bad, bad. And so then you're talking about like stress and cortisol levels and I mean, on and on and on, negativity, positivity. It's a big, it's all of it. It's all of life is affecting us emotionally. So if we're gonna address it, we have to address the whole thing. We have to pay attention.

to everything that is being inputted into our life because it is having an emotional effect that has an emotional cost. Yes. And I'll add, as soon as you're saying that, it struck me. There's also some voids. It's not only the input, sometimes it's the lack of input. Like there's just, there's just this huge void. There's no laughter or no enthusiasm. Love, yeah. There's no spark. There's no excitement. We'll meet families often.

Where there's a, yeah, this just major gap or hole of passion or excitement. You're like, the whole family, like, hey, what are you guys excited about? I don't know. Like nothing. And there's no excitement. And like, wow, man. Yeah, I would be emotionally down too if I woke up and I literally had nothing to be excited about. Day after day, week after week. Like, what's the point? Yeah, that's gonna.

Hey, it's going to take a major emotional toll. Absolutely. But even something like, let's go back to like marriage.

Rachel Denning (39:37.101)
If I'm not dating you, if I'm not pursuing you, if I'm not complimenting you and loving on you and taking you out and doing special things for you, is that gonna affect you emotionally? Absolutely. Massive, right? Yeah, I mean, we were saying, well, you're not responsible for making me happy and vice versa, but it definitely has an effect. It's not that I'm numb, you know, I don't care what you do one way or the other.

Ultimately, my emotions are my responsibility, but your choices also affect me. So I think that that ties in perfectly with this idea of the emotional energy we're bringing to the family, you know, and this idea of modeling for our kids. What are we modeling? How are we impacting and influencing our kids emotionally? Because they feel it.

It was kind of interesting because I'm fascinated and I've seen this again and again. I was having a discussion with my brother the other day and my dad's death came up and I got emotional about it. I was crying and my little girl who's eight, she was so cute. She just came over and she was holding a kitten and she's like, here mom. Hold the kitten. Okay, this is important because she was way in the other side of the room playing with the cousins.

didn't even seem to be engaged or even aware at all that the conversation was happening. As soon as Rachel started to tear up, boy, she was over there. Like she felt it across the room, came over to the kitten, handed it to her. Yeah. Right? And a big hug. The natural thing was, here, take something. I want to comfort you. Yeah, this is comforting because you're crying. And when you think they're not paying attention, they are. And you're training them. Which.

I've also along the same line, I have noticed that the days that I'm kind of just a little irritated and frustrated and annoyed. I mean, those are the days when my, especially my younger kids are irritated, frustrated and annoyed. And they're just like a little more feisty with each other. They're a little more, you know, a little more contention going on. And I'm like, Whoa, okay, hold on a second. They're picking this up from me.

Rachel Denning (41:58.957)
And so I can reset that, I can change that. It's like a thermostat. You're setting the emotional thermostat. Yeah, I'm setting the thermostat. And they're reflecting that. So very often when we're like, man, why are my kids fighting or why are they this or that or yelling or well, the first place I look is me. Am I doing that? Am I, are they getting that from me? Are they picking it up from me? Because often they're picking it up unconsciously. And that might sound weird to some people, but I've seen it again and again.

I mean, we've seen it in dogs, dogs do it. We were just talking to your brother about his service dog, like they can pick up on emotion. And so can kids, and they can do it without articulating that it's happening. They just sense it. And if you're, have had some awareness and just think about it, you felt it too. You felt the emotion change in the room. You felt your husband like, oh wow. Just go cold. Exactly. Like you can, and without anything being said or done, you're like, whoa, the feeling just changed here.

You can feel it and sense it, right? But there's some, there's some awareness to that and sensitivity. I guess let's start giving some like very practical things of how to start doing this. First, it starts with you. Like we've emphasized and it, it starts fundamentally with the, the truth that you can choose your emotions. That's, that's still a new concept for a lot of people that I can wake up and I can choose.

my emotion independent of circumstance and independent of, oh, what side of the bed you woke up on, right? I woke up on the wrong side of bed. No. Or even if you wake up kind of feeling blah, maybe you didn't sleep so well. So what? Does that mean, let's say you had a rough night with a baby or something. Does that mean you can't be happy? Is this impossible? There's nothing that could be done for you to be happy now because you had a rough night? Well, one example.

we like to use because I think it works. I don't know why. I mean, people appreciate money. And so Greg will use this example often. He'll be like, if I was to give you $10 ,000 or a million dollars right now, like, would you feel happier? Would you be excited? And for most people, that's true. Like if you suddenly received this huge windfall of cash, it doesn't matter how bad the day's been going. You would be excited all of a sudden.

Rachel Denning (44:24.173)
Now, you might be thinking, well, yeah, because I just got so much money. Exactly. You're thinking, well, that's circumstantial. Yes, but it's also evidence that your emotions can change by changing what you focus on. In that instance, you're no longer focusing on all the irritations of your day. You're focusing on this new thing. And so it's a tool that helps you understand that where you put your attention and focus is going to affect how you feel.

So if you choose to focus on the negative things, the irritations, the annoyances, then obviously that's what you're gonna feel. But at any time, we can choose to have gratitude or some other positive emotion by changing what we focus on. This might sound morbid to some people. One thing I've done before when I'm feeling negative emotions and I wanna change it, I will...

Just focus on pure gratitude that Greg or my children are alive, that they're not dead. Like literally, I'll do that. I'm like, I am so glad none of my kids are dead. I'm so glad. It's a total reality check and a paradigm shift of thinking. Yeah, you might be moping through the day. Yeah, thinking, oh, my life is so sad. And then I'm like, you know what? No, it's not. All of my kids are healthy. All of my kids are alive.

Because I know, I personally, and what I'll use is often use personal examples. I personally know people who have lost their five year old, or their two year old, or their spouse. My dad died, right? When he was 47. Your little brother. So it's very easy to think of an example of somebody who quote unquote has it worse than you, and like wow, you know what, I am seriously grateful right now.

There's no reason I need to be irritated and annoyed with my kid. And I would do this, especially with my little kids. They can be annoying. But then I think, you know what? At least they're alive. So I think that's a very good example. Well, OK. So number one, you can choose your emotion. You literally can wake up and say, I want to choose this today and feel it. And when you get knocked off, come back. If you're in a funk and you want to get out of it, that's.

Rachel Denning (46:47.341)
That's an intense big way to do it. You can do it even just by practicing gratitude or whatever, but yeah, create a paradigm shift. Just say, hey, whoa, okay, I'm sitting here complaining about my daughter. What if she was killed in a car accident? Like boom. Now some of you were like, oh, and then you get worried and afraid and now you're.

hiding in your closet in a clump like, ah, I don't want to die. We're not doing that. You're finding ways to snap out of it emotionally. You have to learn to focus on the gratitude aspect of it instead of the fear and worry aspect of it. Then I also use this technique when I am feeling fear and worry. I will mentally, this also seems strange, but what I will do is if I think about something that seems worrying or frightening or terrifying, instead of avoiding it and pushing it away, I actually,

mentally allow myself to go there and if necessary I feel the emotions I cry I Get angry whatever it is and I work through it then and then say okay. Well if that happened then what well eventually I would I would be able to find peace eventually I would be able to move on you know it would take time, but then I come back to guess what that's not my reality because right now we're alive and healthy and well, and I'm

focus on the gratitude of feeling that that that is my reality and not some other imagined worst case scenario. It's beautiful. Part of what you just said illustrates another technique that I use and teach is anticipating what might happen and how it might make you feel. So this is a great tool for you and for your kids. Teach your kids this and walk it through say, okay, it's kind of like a role playing.

Yeah, exactly or a simulation or just like let's anticipate this say hey guys, we're going out we're gonna go traveling and we're gonna get to this border we're gonna get here whatever and This might happen like things might not work out or maybe the flight gets delayed. They're like well What if you know, they start thinking about things they're like what if this happens while we're out? What if someone gets lost? What if somebody's really mean to me? What if they say something mean or or when it has happened then we'll use it to

Rachel Denning (49:07.821)
as an example, like in a morning devotional or something and say, okay, let's say this happens again tomorrow. Let's just imagine we go out tomorrow and somebody comes up and just does something really mean. What do you think you're likely, if it just catches you off guard, what do you think you're likely to experience? And we talk through it and then say, okay, well, how would you like to respond as like, as your best self? Like, how would you like to prevent this from just totally throwing you off, right? And ruining the rest of your day or whatever.

and you walk through it. So then if you begin to anticipate it, what's really awesome, I found this again and again with myself, my clients, is if you can anticipate what's coming in and choose consciously ahead of time, so you don't get blindsided by it, then when it happens, and I use this with kids, right? So as a parent, you often will snap at your kids if they do something that kind of catch you off guard, they break something or embarrass you or they fight. Well, what's the likelihood that...

sometime during this week, your kids will fight or break something or embarrass you. Probably pretty high if you have. Chances are pretty good. That's good, if you have lots of kids and they're little, it's pretty good. So, and I remember, I remember going through this as a young father, I'm like, wait a minute, this keeps happening. The kids keep breaking things and ruining things, making messes. And I keep getting upset, like who's.

Who's the crazy one here? Who's the one denying reality? Exactly. Is it the kids that are the problem or is it the fact that I keep getting upset over the same thing kids do? They're just being kids. Because you keep expecting something different. Yeah. I'm like, I'm the neurotic one here. This is insane for me to keep getting upset that these little toddlers are making messes. And so I'm like, well, duh. And so I'm like, okay, wait a minute. I'm going to go home from work today and I'll bet.

I'll bet the kids will make a mess tonight. And I want to be a good dad. And I don't want to like scar my kids by yelling and getting upset. I don't want them to remember me as dad always getting upset for making mistakes or making things or making messes. I don't want to be that. So, okay, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go home and in my mind, I'm imagining, okay, they're gonna make a mess. They're totally gonna spill like some colored.

Rachel Denning (51:27.949)
or water paints on the carpet. Like bang. Like colored drink, what color drink? I don't know, that's what I'm trying to come up with. They would have like water. Kool -Aid, we don't drink Kool -Aid. We don't drink it, but let's say they're like, they love the paint, the girls love the paint. And so they put it in the water, it's just blue and they tip it over on the carpet. And so I picture that, I'm like, okay, how would I respond as my best self? I'm like, I'm gonna be like, it's okay guys, it happens, mistakes happen, let's be more careful next time we move the cup back. Here, come with me, grab a towel, let's go ahead and clean this up.

That's the best response. And because I worked through that so many times, you guys have heard me tell the story. When I walked out of my office one day and Sage was five, she had a kitchen knife and she was stabbing holes in our leather couch. And I walked out and I was like, huh? I was like, Sage, what are you doing? She's like, oh, I'm playing a game. I was like, okay, give me the knife back. And I walked over there and took the knife and like.

We shouldn't play games with our nice leather couches. Let's not play these kind of games. Let's play different type of games. And it was done. Like what was done was done. There was like 10 holes in the arm. And you talked to her about it. I talked to her. I taught her, but there was no, there was no damage to our relationship. And she never did it again. Right. So I guess that's my point is like work through these things, get yourself where you're in a good, healthy spot yourself and then articulate it.

walk your kids through it. Well, right. That's why I was going to add, because then you can learn to do that process with your kids and you can anticipate situations and circumstances where there's likely to be emotion or misbehavior or whatever. And you can walk them through that and help them mentally think about, well, what will I do and how will I handle it? And that really back to this idea of prevention is the best.

scenario, you're helping prevent, say, meltdowns or screaming or bad behavior, whatever it is. Whatever it is you want to prevent, you can do that by talking about it beforehand. Something else I've been thinking I want to share, of course, I mean, this is very simple, but it works effectively. It can work for adults, it works for kids. One of the things I do with my youngest two girls is, you know, when they get upset, they're crying or, and, and,

Rachel Denning (53:51.789)
Like there's plenty of emotion. Our eight year old is a very feeling and emotional. Emotive. Yeah, she's very emotive, okay? And she can swing from like, this is the worst day ever to this is the best day ever, like in the same day, you know? And she, when she has these downward swings, whether she gets upset about something because someone took her thing or this.

Worst case scenario is going to happen. I just tell her, I'm like, okay, first we take a deep breath, right? And I take a deep breath with her. We'll both, we just take a deep breath together. And that right there, it changes your physiology. Like it literally has - There's actually science behind that. There's a lot of science behind it, but it does. It helps you to just get oxygen to your brain and to your blood. And it really just does help to regulate your emotions better.

And then we talk about, okay, first of all, they might just need to talk about it. They might just need to tell you what happened. So I'm like, what happened? Explain it to me. And if they're crying or whatever, I'm like, take a deep breath so you can speak in a normal voice so I can understand what you're saying. And then she tells me about it. And you know, at that point, I just listen and I say, oh, I'm so sorry. I understand that that's frustrating or that's annoying or that's...

That's not nice, right? I validate that. Yeah, it wasn't nice that your sibling did that. But then it's like, okay, what do you want to do about that? Do you want to cuddle with me? Do you want to talk to them? I give her options, right? Again, she's learning how to do this on her own. So she needs to, she ultimately needs to be making the decision.

I think sometimes where parents go wrong is they want to give the solution. This is what's going to happen. You're going to go to timeout. You're going to apologize. You're going to do this. Well, you know, that can work, but ultimately it's not helping them to solve the problem. The skills and the ability to control. So let's take that example. Being able to talk to the person who wronged them. Well, that's what I was going to say. Let's, let's, let's say in that example, like, what do you want to do? And they're like, I want to go hit them. Maybe they want vengeance. They want to go make it right. They want to be angry.

Rachel Denning (56:10.541)
And so at that point, again, you're talking through it, saying, oh, OK, I understand. When somebody does something to us, our reaction, we want to go back and hit them or kick them or get back at them or do to them what they did to us. And you keep calming them down. You keep talking through that and asking questions where they talk through it and be like, is that really what you want to do? Is that really what you want to be? What's likely to happen if you do that? And they're like, oh, well, they'll hit me back. And I'm like, yeah. And then where does this end? It's going to go on.

And so you're helping them to understand and learn these concepts. But ultimately, the goal is that they're making the decisions. Now, it's okay to give them ideas, to give them options. And sometimes, especially when they're really young, they need options like, well, do you want to do this or do you want to do this? You know, do you want to go sit quietly for a minute to calm down or sit with mom? Or do you want to go say you're sorry and keep playing, you know?

So you give them some options like that so they learn, but then over time, you know, hopefully they start coming up with their own options of like, Oh, well, I think I need to go do this. And then they start going through the process on their own of like asking, well, what could I do? What could I do to make this better? Do I want to stay feeling like this? How do I want to react to those people or the situation? And it's amazing. It's so exciting, so gratifying, so fulfilling to watch your kids walk through that. And then.

handle situations with such maturity and refinement and emotional strength and make these good choices and then you get they... It's a process. It's a process. It doesn't happen overnight. But it doesn't have to be long either. You can start teaching some of these things and the results are immediate and I'm being sincere here. And there's always other levels too though. I want to point that out that once they develop a sort of mastery...

you know, say dealing with squabbles with their sibling. Then of course there's another level too where they've got to learn new schools for a new area of like, okay, now... Handling disappointment. Exactly. Handling loneliness. Mean people. Right. Discouragement. All of those things. So in a way it's an ongoing process but at different levels. And you're giving them tools and strategies, you're modeling the whole way and then you get to cheer and celebrate as...

Rachel Denning (58:38.221)
they get into a spot and you get into a spot where most of the time you feel.

You have good emotions. They have good emotions. When you get knocked off a little bit or something happens, you feel it, you experience it, and you get back. You look for solutions. And you get back to where you want to be. Look for solutions. I think this is one last thing I want to add really fast. It's because we have to learn and we have to model for our kids and teach our kids how to recover from negative emotions.

in the book of joy by the Dalai Lama that's one of the things they really talk about is that one way people feel a lot of or more joy is by learning to recover to feel more positive in emotion is one and then learning to recover from negative emotion so that's the other skill we have to teach our kids and have to learn ourselves is like what helps me feel good when I am feeling these feelings can I dance can I put on music can I can I write

Can I go for a bike ride? Can I go for a walk? Can I whatever, paint a picture? What's going to help me get back into feeling positive emotions? Yeah. Love it. Again, circle back. Life is all about emotion. It really is. You can almost tag an emotion to every time period, every experience in life. It's all about emotion. And we want to be emotionally whole and full and emotionally.

developed, emotionally skilled and refined so that we can go through life and have an amazing emotional experience in a very positive and wonderful and beautiful way. Love you guys. Thanks for being here. Share this podcast, send us questions, follow us on social media and go out and cultivate this in your family so your family legacy is built around really awesome

Rachel Denning (01:00:38.029)
healthy emotions. Love you guys. Rejoice.