Understanding the Root of Parental Anxiety

Welcome to Unfuck Your Brain. I'm your host Cara Loenthal, master certified coach and founder of the School of New Feminist Thoughts I'm here to help you turn down your anxiety, turn up your confidence, and create a life on your own terms, one that you're truly excited to live. Let's go And welcome to this week's coaching Hotline episode where I Answer real questions from real listeners and coach you from afar If you want to submit your question for consideration, go to unfuck yourourbrain d. com forward slash coaching hotline, all one word or text your email to plus one three four seven nine, nine, seven, one, seven, eight four And when you get prompted for the code word It's coaching Hotline, All one worked Let's get into this week's questions Here's the first question I was wondering how to use thought work to stop myself from thinking of my sister as my rival All my life, my family and people around me have compared me to my sister I've been the bigger sister, the shyer sister, the serious sister. Our personalities have been compared As a result, I've placed it in my head that my sister is my rival, so I compare myself to her and I resent her Such a good question, right? Because I think When you start to pay attention to how parents and families often talk about children, I think this is useful both as the child of parents as we all are, but also some of us are parents ourselves and to watch our own minds when we do that likeike how ingrained it is in humans to make comparisons. It's so interesting. you know, some of it is societal and maybe some of it is just like Brains are bored. so they're like, what can I do? Let me compare this object to that object I know, you know, for instance, in my family, for sure, there was a lot of like evaluation and judging of everything. L that was just like the family hobby. was like if you interact with an object or a person, the first thing you do is evaluate and judge it So I think some of our brains may be a little more prone to this than others All totally resolvable withoutwork So In this scenario You are thinking that your sister iss your rival And then you resent her for that, right? E though it's your own thoughts But the whole thing under here is not the comparison necessarily really, evaluation, I think. So if I compare two delicious dishes, I might be like, well, this one tastes more like chocolate, which is delicious. That one tastes more like fruit, which is also delicious. They're both delicious. They're just different. I like them both If that's how we think about ourselves compared to our siblings, so like I'm very introverted and very focused on my own internal experience. And one of my siblings is very extroverted and he's really great at building relationships with other people. think one of those is better than the other. I used to, right? I used to think, of course, whatever I was was bad, Whatever somebody else was was good. And so I would be like jealous of his ability while not valuing my own ability. And now post thought work, I don't have those thoughts. I'm just like, oh, these are just two very different gifts. What's really interesting about stuff like that is I think often we can't have all the gifts. It's like there's limited energy in the world So I don't know that I could be as introverted and as attuned to the subtle movings of my mind and emotion. which allows me to be a coach and be a teacher and share with all of you, right? so much of what I share and teach comes from my observation of myself I wouldn't be able to do that if I were busy spending all my time and energy focusing on other people and building those relationships. But that's not bad or good, right? It's just two different ways of being in the world, which may even be incompatible So I just want you to think about your problem as being like not even so much that you are noticing differences between you and your sister, but that You think one of you has to be better You think one of your ways of being has to be better. And of course, you're always finding that you're lacking and she's the better one. And then you feel bad and then you resent her Yes, you could just try to stop comparing yourself all togetherether, but I kind of think part of just what human brains do is notice differences and that sometimes it's more accessible to notice the difference, but then notice how the second layer is really the important part, which is that you're evaluating and judging it So maybe she's more extroverted and maybe you're more introverted. So what Maybe you're more serious and she's more funny. Again, so what Both of those things are part of like the world. We need funny people and we need serious people Funny people shine in one kind of situation, serious people shine in another kind of situation benefits and disadvantages, quote unquote to being funny or serious. like One doesn't have to be better than the other One doesn't have to be worse than the other What if they're just different and that's okay? Whenever we're comparing ourselves to someone else and then we're resenting them, it's always because always find ourselves lacking in the comparison, or we believe other people find us lacking So you may be resenting her because you're like, well, people think I'm shy and serious and she's funny and outgoing, and people think funny and outgoing is better and then you resent her. but it's also your thoughts If somebody thinks being extroverted is better, I'm like, awesome. I hope you're extroverted if you think it's better, otherwise you're going to be unhappy but I don't take that personally or make it mean anything about me So the work here is for you to really see that you're projecting your own judgments about yourself onto your sister or onto the people who have made these observations. If you didn't believe that one of you had to be better than the other that she was better than you You wouldn't care what other people think about it or if they comment on it and you wouldn't be so invested in your own thought process about it It all comes back to what you're making it mean about her and you. And right now, you're making it mean that she's better or other people think she's better Neither of which is true. it's that you think she's better, That's the only problem. If you've been dreaming or secretly thinking about becoming a coach But you're not sure how it works or how to coach a range of people effectively, or if coaching is even a real job. 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So here's the question I'd be grateful for ideas of how to think about my son's health problems. He is seven and has a chronic rare disease and immune deficiency that mean he gets sick and hospitalized often. I ruminate about his health and feel anxious thoughtoughts are that it is my job to protect him, but there's only so much I can do When he's healthy, I'm able to let go and focus on other things, but he's often sick. and when he is, my anxiety is very high. Usually I can see how my anxiety is an overreaction I'm freaking out about weight gain and imagining everyone at the gym feeling sorry for me, which I can see is not a real crisis But I don't know how to think about something that is actually life and death So here's the mistake that you're making that so many people make. Because your anxiety is about a topic involving life and death You think The life and deathness is what causes your anxiety I'm gonna to say that Because you have the thought that this is life and death and you feel anxious You are assuming that the reason you feel anxious is the thought this is life or death But that's not actually why you feel anxious The reason you feel anxious is the thought It's my job to protect him and I can't. That's why you feel anxious You said, it's my job to protect him, but there's only so much I can do That thought is what is making you feel anxious is not the life and deathness of the situation, which is an optional thought. It's not even the thought this is a life and death situation So is driving a car We drive cars all the time, even though lots of people die driving cars. It's a life or death situation We don't forget about it It's the thought, it's my job to protect him. So you are telling yourself, it's your job Do something you can't control That will always make you anxious And that's why when he's healthy, you feel fine Even though that doesn't make any sense, if it truly were his illness that caused your feelings, then just because he was healthy sometimes wouldn't matter because he always has the underlying illness So it's not his illness. It's not that it's truly life or death. It's none of that It's the thought, it's my job to protect him But there's only so much I can do. A thought probably sounds to you like it's a useful thought, likeike you're acknowledging, I can't control it all But you're telling yourself it's my job to protect him And you can't can't control whether he lives or dies. So if you tell yourself that it is your job to make sure that he doesn't die you will feel anxious and that would be true. whether he had this immune issue or not whether it was your hundred year old father. or your seven year old son, whether he' the picture of perfect health or on Death Store. Anytime you tell yourself, it's your job to control something you cannot control. you will feel anxious So the work for you is really seeing very clearly where the anxiety comes from and not believing your brain that, oh, you're anxious because it's quote, unquote truly life and death. You've got this distinction in your head between like things that aren't really crises and things that are really crises. But there's no such distinction All just thoughts And your anxiety and your rumination are not caused by the like objective severity or importance of the issue They are caused by the thought that you need to control something you can't control That is always where anxiety comes from So that's the work is digging into that and making peace with the truth, which is that you can't control this And you probably have some thoughts that like this is different because your son has this diagnosis. but I have coached many a parent whose child was the picture of health, who still had ruminating anxiety like this about them has nothing to do with the actual health of the child or the parent or whoever It has to do with our belief that us to control something we can't control. and what we imagine we would say to ourselves if we can't control it If the person does get sick, if the person dies, what we imagine saying to ourselves is usually horrible Like it was my job to protect them and I didn't. I failed as a mother, daughter, nurse, whatever All those thoughts and feelings are what you fear So I would look at that, do some work on that thought about trying to control it. I think the clean and dirty pain podcast episode is also very useful, even for like imagined suffering in the future to help you distinguish Oh, this is grief I would want to feel if someone close to me died for any reason versus this would be the shame and blame that I would be creating for myself which would be the same thoughts that created the anxiety beforehand that I don't have to keep believing That's it for this week. 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