Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Welcome to Carpool Q A, where we give you one thought, one conversation on one topic to get you from point A to point B. I'm JD Wilson and I am your host and I'm here with Tana Odinger and Becca McKay. And today is going to be our last episode, our final episode of Carpool Q and A. We are closing out our spring season of it and excited about that, excited about going back to one episode a week and doing that. I'll also just say we've enjoyed this. It's been really fun. It's been a change of pace for us to do conversations that were more short form and kind of one topic to the point instead of like the deeper dive interview style, whatever.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: Can I interpret what that also means? Which is JD has enjoyed having a timer on Tana's loud talking and long, lingering. And I'm just teasing. Like, we have really enjoyed saying all.
[00:01:09] Speaker C: Of us are not the concises.
[00:01:11] Speaker B: No, we're like, has enjoyed having a.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: Timer on you and I is what that.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: It's true. It's true. But what they probably don't. What they aren't seeing is like the off the side chats, which are like, we are at 13 minutes and we have tried so hard to keep them short and every time we hit stop, we're like, we could have talked forever. So apparently talking long is not a growth area for the three of us. Talking short has been so fun and challenging.
[00:01:42] Speaker A: In and out. Get it to the point.
Yeah, it has been a good challenge and I think it's been helpful, too, just because sometimes, and it's the perfect segue for our question today. I think legitimately, we have not ever shared the question with each other ahead of time this entire season.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: That's true.
[00:02:05] Speaker A: Today we talked about it. So we're going to talk about why this is Becca's idea. So I'll give her credit.
[00:02:09] Speaker B: We had to land the plane together. We had to know how. We were wrapping up a little segment.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: We had several different ideas. But we're going to talk today about why it's not about the journey or it's not about the destination, it's about the journey. So there's a lot of different layers to this. We will try to, as we have already talked about, keep it concise into the main point. But Becca, why is it not about the destination but more about the journey?
[00:02:35] Speaker C: Yeah, I think first what we mean by that is why are we doing carpal Q A's about quick topics? Why do we think that that's something we need to do. And why do we think that's something people might want to hear? And so it's like this idea that you can't read one book and just all of a sudden you know how to care for kids, period. And perfect. You mastered it, right? You can't go through one class, even if it is an 18 module, cultivate connection class. You can't go through one class and be all that you want to be for the kids in your care. And so I think why it's a journey and not a destination is because we're humans and humans have to have repetition and we go through different mean here at etc. We talk a lot about lifelong growth. Like, we don't ever want to stop growing. We don't want to be people who are like, well, nailed it. Moving on. It's just something that we're constantly. And so there's different ways that we do that. Carpal Q A is one way that we thought might be helpful for people to just kind of rethink about our big topics, but with really specific things.
You think about your favorite conference that you look forward to going to every year to kind of be refreshed and refilled. You think about that book that you've got like a couple of pages dog eared so that you can flip back to it on hard days.
And so, yeah, it's about parenting and caring for kids. And being a human is just not about a destination at all. It's just this pursuit of connection and care and those types of things. Tana, what would you add to I.
[00:04:13] Speaker B: When I hear those words, it brings up a visual for me of when we started out with this connected parenting thing.
We did have a couple of goals in mind, and I've shared this ad nauseam, but those goals were not all about, at all about Mo and I making any changes. They were very much about making know, I don't know, enforcing or setting up success for some other people, aka our children, to make some changes. And that's very destination mindset. Instead of, hey, there was so much awareness that started coming very quickly to this idea of being present and what does it mean to just be together and grow and change and have a growth mindset? So this growth mindset versus fixed mindset, and that's not a destination, that's a way of thinking and a way of being. And sometime early on, I got a little bracelet that I wear pretty frequently, even still, and it has the word journey on it, which I know is a very overused word, but to me, it really was this very symbolic reminder of we're not done. Like there's never a moment. And the Monroe's talked about this on one of our long form podcast episodes that just dropped a couple weeks ago about you keep parenting even into adulthood. I am a parent. I will always parent, which means I am in relationship with these people for a long time and there's not ever a final moment in that it is relationship.
So I hope I can keep remembering and reminding. And we're in a season right now with one situation where Mo and I literally talked about this the other night.
And I said, honey, do you remember when we first started realizing we don't think we have the tools or insight or understanding to serve our children and our family well? And we ran after something new. Well, we're in a situation right now where we don't think we actually have what we need to navigate this next season with one of our kids. And I said, I think it's time to go find a little structure, some tools. I said, do you remember when we said we're going to balance, nurture and structure and how that was like a whole paradigm shift that shifted everything? We didn't even understand what all it shifted. I still don't actually, to your point, I'm still figuring out what that means in leadership and organization and family and marriage and everything. I was like, I feel like I need a few more nuggets.
You and I can get on the same page about this next thing that we're in the middle of with one of our kids. I need some more information, some more tools, something else that can help us now. I think that's the point of it. I mean, our oldest is almost 24.
20 years ago was when we're like, we think we need something else to help us here. 20 years later, literally two nights ago, I was like, honey, there's a book I found. I have it on audio. I don't think I can listen to it all at once. It feels like a lot, but I think I can listen to bits and pieces of it and can we do that together? I think we need this.
[00:07:48] Speaker A: Yeah, that's good. Well, along those same lines, we first went through the etc. Parent course 1011 years ago and then went through it. And it's like if you audited a semester of med school, you could not go into a hospital and administering care. You'll remember some of the things. Maybe you nail an IV or maybe you're great with your charting or whatever, but you are not going to remember everything you need in one semester, right? So we found pretty quickly, like, hey, this did just enough to completely disrupt and upend everything we were trying to do. And now I don't remember half the crap that we learned in there, because I've been so fixated on this one particular season, now they've changed. So, I don't know. It was maybe two years later, our third baby was on the way, and we were like, yes, back to the class again. So we went through the course again, and then there was a moment after we had to stop early because the baby was born, and so we were like, well, that one didn't count. So, like, a year later, back to the course again.
And then when we did that, that's when we were like, okay, now I think it's time for us to. We want to be facilitators, and we want to learn how to get this to the people, so to speak.
Even then hosting this every week and being a part of these conversations all the time, it's hard to explain to people when they talk to us about it.
This is not some service that we're offering to the world. This is for our own good.
[00:09:26] Speaker B: It's so self serving in the best of. If we can just be honest about that half the battle, right? Just being honest.
[00:09:34] Speaker A: Stay in. Like, we have to stay in it, and it forces us to keep things top of mind. So it's been good.
[00:09:40] Speaker C: Agreed.
[00:09:41] Speaker A: Becca, we have talked about a lot of different things when we think about this as a tool or a piece of advice. Any ideas on how to begin thinking in this way or how to identify? Oh, I think I'm too destination focused here. I'm not enjoying the journey here. Like, any advice on that front?
[00:10:04] Speaker B: It's a great question.
[00:10:06] Speaker C: It's a really good question. I'm going to need you to help me answer it. But I think what pops to mind immediately is kind of this idea. It's a quote. I don't know who says it. Like, the only constant is change. And so I think that having people in your life, having things in your life. Tana mentioned a bracelet, like having a piece of art on the like, I've seen them and they're cheesy. And I will admit that they're cheesy. But if having an enjoy the journey poster above your child's bed helps you put it up there, put visual things, put sticky notes, put literal physical objects in your way that remind you of this idea, and people who can speak into you, who know you, who can remind you, like, this is a season because the reality is no matter what it is. And among the three of us, we have walked with families through every imaginable and unimaginable thing that can happen to a parent, not individually, but as a collective along with our other etc. Staff, we've seen a lot of hurt and pain. And yeah, it feels forever in the moment. It just does. But if you can have people, your close people, your village, your community, who are speaking into you, who are helping you with what you need today and knowing that it's not going to be this way forever, things change and that's positive and negative. Things get better and worse, things get closer and further, things get easier and harder. It's also so dependent on your personality. Like, I've seen my own siblings, I have two sisters and a brother, and of the three of them, some of them thrive with the baby stage. Like, that was where they shined. They were all in and they're struggling with preteens. But for another one of my siblings, it's the complete opposite. They didn't know what to do with a baby who couldn't talk. But now that there's a preteen, they are like meshing so well. And so I think just to know that, accept the gift moments as a gift and ride the waves. Sorry, this is getting too long.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: I'm saying preach, keep on going. What else you got?
[00:12:18] Speaker A: Seriously, the thing that I will tack on to that is just.
[00:12:26] Speaker C: If you.
[00:12:26] Speaker A: Have a second to reflect, think about, and just, even if you're a list person, make a list of good things that have happened in your life, tough things that have happened in your life. And I don't say bad intentionally because there are hard and all those different things that happen, but those things all kind of serve to make up your collective experience. And so good things, tough things, and chart for yourself.
Has your life been one continuous ride on the high wave? In which case I would say we need to reevaluate your self assessment skills. Or have you had ups and downs? Have there been good seasons, bad seasons, hard? I just don't want to say bad seasons, but good seasons, tough seasons, whatever. Within our day, there are good moments, tough moments. Like, I did not want to get out of bed this morning under any circumstances, too bad. I have four kids and I had so, like, that wasn't that great. This I'm enjoying. Beck and I were together with a family earlier through an unimaginably hard anniversary moment of a tragedy in their life. And so today by itself, has been a roller coaster. But that's life. And so I think if we can keep in mind that journey, if all we can do is just keep stepping forward, that's enough. That's what we do. Because you're reminding yourself you're on the journey. And if you've experienced a tough time before, it helps you to savor and really soak up the great times when they come. And when the tough times are there, you can remember these aren't going to last forever, and we're going to make it through. We'll just keep putting 1ft in front of the other. So that's my advice.
[00:14:07] Speaker C: And I want to be clear with what I said that I'm not saying be dismissive of the tough. I'm not saying it'll get better, it's fine. That's not what I'm saying. But the question, why is it a journey? Why is it important to keep coming back? Is because in the tough times, you need to think about things differently.
And not even just tough times, but in different ages, you have to think about principles in different ways.
With different kids, you have to think about principles in different ways. Balancing nurture and structure, one of our favorite things to talk about looks completely different with different kids. And so that balancing nurture and structure is something you could think about every single day and you could have a different thought about it. So the idea that it's not a destination, it's not destination focused, isn't just like, hold on, it'll get better. It's just this idea that we're growing, we're learning, and we're learning to apply things based on relationships. And that is just not ever going to be a cookie cutter, clean cut thing.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: It comes to my mind as we sort of think about this as it relates to connected parenting, that I know I felt this way and thought this way. Obviously, we've walked with a lot of families that have said similar kinds of things, well, this isn't working.
And even that idea of this isn't working is the next byproduct of that is you have a destination in mind, you think, I'm going to do this thing and it's going to make this finite change because I don't have that finite change that I expected happening. This thing isn't working.
And the only solution to that mentality is to change the way you think about it and make it be about the journey of relationship.
And if you're listening and you're like, I am feeling discouraged. And I do appreciate you saying, Becky, you don't want to be dismissive. We aren't saying, oh, it shouldn't be hard. It is horribly hard.
There's a lot here, and it isn't always easy, and sometimes it's smooth and sometimes it's rocky. And all of those things are true in the seasons when you're feeling discouraged or you're feeling like this isn't what I thought, or we're not landing where I want to land, or it isn't going the way I wanted it to go. Something that helps me, and I've seen help a lot of other families, is start keeping a bit of a journal. And I don't mean like a journal that's just a week long. Go ahead and do a touch point with yourself and maybe a little nugget about a kiddo every day for a long time.
And what I would believe to be true. If you're not perfect, but you're doing your best to practice presence and practice attunement, and practice repair and practice connection and prioritize the things that we talk about.
If you're being intentional and putting your intention to that not perfectly good enough, then over time some things are going to happen. Over the journey, you're going to be more resilient. You're going to look up a year from now and think, I can handle more than I thought I could.
I could grow in ways I didn't know I could grow. I can change my initial knee jerk react. There is a sense of capability.
I hate this because it's so overused. Like, I can do hard things, but there's a little nugget of truth in that you can change over time. And you know what? Your kids will change over time.
Some of those things that you're afraid are going to happen, they're going to come to be, and you're going to have so much more reserve and capacity and resilience to make it through than you thought you would and so is your kid.
I think that would be my encouragement is try to not let this belief system enter in that even if you have diagnosis and conditions, and we call them like pretty big speed bumps and they aren't maybe going to change the circumstances may not change. The mental health diagnosis isn't going to change. The medical diagnosis isn't going to change. We aren't talking about those things.
We're talking about your relationship.
[00:18:37] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:18:38] Speaker B: We're talking about the interactions, the moments of joy and delight and connection that can blossom in the middle of those things that may or may not still look gloomy. And there is hope. And that's why it's a journey, because it isn't even about. It's kind of like it really is a discovery process. What can I control and what can't I control? And how do I find joy in those things that are within my grasp? And that to me is only and always about relationship and how that spills over to the other stuff. That's the journey.
[00:19:18] Speaker A: I think that's the perfect place for us to wrap up.
[00:19:21] Speaker B: I appreciate you all. Thank you for this segment of shorter snippets. And for those of you all that have listened with us through the carpal Q a season, I hope that it's been encouraging little nuggets and maybe it was enough and it was all you could handle for this season. And for that, we really respect and value y'all. So thank you.
[00:19:42] Speaker A: As a housekeeping note, if you are listening, saying, wait a minute, hold on.
ATC podcast continues on Carpool Q A and this season has wrapped, so it's our last one. So yeah, for Tana, for Becca. Thanks for listening. We'll see you soon.
