How to Promote Good Mental Health for You and Your Kids

[00:00:00] Rachel: There’s a poem by Philip block. And you’ve probably heard I’ll paraphrase it slightly, but it opens like this. They muck you up your mum and dad, they may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had and add some extra just for you.

[00:00:13] Rachel: This week, I’m talking to Dr. Beth Mosley about ways that we can model what good mental health looks like, even if we don’t get it right a hundred percent of the time. How can we strike the right balance between giving our kids a smooth pathway through life, and letting them fend for themselves? How can we show them that it’s okay to ask for help, but at the same time, equipping them to solve their own problems? And what happens on those days when we lose our rag with our kids or our colleagues, how can we show that we’re not perfect and that we sometimes need help?

[00:00:45] ​

[00:00:45] Rachel: If you’re in a high stress, high stakes, still blank medicine, and you’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed, burning out or getting out are not your only options. I’m Dr. Rachel Morris, and welcome to You Are Not a Frog

[00:01:04] Beth: So I’m Dr. Beth Mosley. I’m a consultant clinical psychologist, and I’ve been working children’s mental health for more than 20 years now. And I’m also parent of three children, single parent, and I’ve written a book called Happy Families to support parents with understanding their children’s mental health.

[00:01:21] Rachel: It’s wonderful to have you on the podcast. Beth, thank you so much for coming and I’m just waving your book at the camera here, so if you’re watching on YouTube, you can see it there. This is a fantastic book, just packed full with so much stuff. And I was saying to Beth just before we came on the podcast, I think everyone should read this for basic psychological intelligence for themselves, not, not just their kids, right?

[00:01:41] Beth: Yeah. You know, I’ve kind of written it for parents because everything in that book you can apply to, to yourself as an adult. And I’ve said quite near the beginning of the book, if the only thing you do is read the book and apply this to yourself, that will make such a huge difference to your children and your family life. So definitely it’s a, it’s a real all rounder.

[00:02:01] Rachel: Yeah. I’ve been reading it going, yep, uh, practice meetings. Oh gosh. This is how to communicate with your colleagues.

[00:02:06] Beth: Yeah.

[00:02:07] Rachel: a bit like when I read Toddler Taming and I came back going, right, how Many of these principles can I apply to my other half? Pick your battles and all, and all that sort of stuff.

[00:02:16] Rachel: But I wanna start off with asking you, how could someone like me really screw up my kids? Because obviously we, we have the idea of, we know, we know that, that, that the parenting, that that is not ideal. You know, neglectful, abuse, all that sort of stuff. And obviously we don’t wanna be like that, but I think we can really go the opposite direction and cause all sort, all sorts of havoc in, in another way by being too perfectionist, being too driven, all that sort of stuff. So if you were to write a manual on how to really screw up your kids, what would be in it?

[00:02:51] Beth: Oh, it’s such a good question. And you know, I’m a psychologist and a parent, so I’m acutely aware right from the day I conceived my first child of the potential for me to screw up my kids. I think the important thing to remember is when none of us are blank canvases, we’re all coming to parenthood with our own stories, our own experiences of being parented, and our own wishes and hopes for our kids. Um, and our wishes and hopes for our kids might be quite different from what they actually end up wanting to do with their lives.

[00:03:21] Beth: So I think we can come to this with the best of intentions and some of our fears and anxieties and worries and need for control and need to kind of take uncertainty out the picture, ’cause uncertainty is such a difficult thing to manage, especially when we feel so deeply in love with our children and so deeply rageful with our children because, you know, there’s nothing like parenthood to bring out the full range of emotions. And I don’t think anyone in my whole entire life has made me as angry as my children have made me angry over the years.

[00:03:54] Beth: Um, so as a psychologist it’s so easy for me to sit in a room with a family and offer advice and guidance, but as a parent, applying that advice and guidance to my own life is so difficult ’cause of my own fears and worries and my own emotional response to things.

[00:04:10] Beth: So often the things that we can unintentionally get wrong to screw up, our kids are linked to, I guess the need for control. Um, and one of the things you quickly learn when you have children is you absolutely just have such limited control of the over this little being. Um, and you go through various stages of their development and those, those needs of your children change and adapt and you, you finally get to the tweens, teens era and it’s like actually you go back into that place of losing control again.

[00:04:45] Beth: Um, so I think there’s something about giving yourself a break as a parent. I think we often have exceptionally high expectations of ourselves. Um, and that can drive some of the expectations we put on our kids.

[00:05:01] Beth: I think the biggest thing I’ve learned is failure is really important. And actually, I often say to, to parents, being a perfect parent is not good. It doesn’t help your child. It doesn’t help them go into the real world, because in the real world, no one’s gonna be perfect. It’ll just be one massive disappointment. And how will you manage all of those tricky situations, in your life if your parent met every single one of your needs and you didn’t have any challenges to face in your life?

[00:05:31] Beth: So that immediately kind of means you can breathe a sigh of relief. Getting it wrong is actually getting it right. Um, and I think ultimately if we can hold onto being patient with ourselves and with our kids and not freaking out when we do mess up, and believing that everything is repairable and, and really most children, what they want is the unconditional love of their parents. Um, it, it all goes back to that. And actually in some respects, that’s the easiest thing that we can do as parents.

[00:06:05] Beth: And just relying a bit more on our gut instincts. I think we’ve got into a culture around parenting that we almost want everything manualized, um, to be sure that we are not gonna damage our children. So I think believing that actually our children are resilient, they’re adaptable.

[00:06:23] Beth: And ultimately, it’s really unlikely that you’re gonna significantly damage your children by, allowing them to experience distress or getting it wrong. And I think we’ve become very fearful of. Unintentionally damaging our children or not meeting their needs, and then them not wanting to have a relationship with us when they go into adulthood. I think we’re very, we want these ideal relationships with our kids when they become adults too.

[00:06:50] Rachel: One thing. I think really chimes with me is this feeling that we want our kids to achieve, we don’t ever want them to fail. And so then what we end up doing, and I’m guilty of this, is it’s just trying to smooth their path out in, in front of them. And I, I’ve noticed a lot of my, my friends can do this a lot, my colleagues can do this. I think possibly as, as professionals, we are used to problem solving for our patients, problem solving for people. We are leaders, we are managers. People come to us for solutions. So we then feel that that’s what our children need.

[00:07:20] Rachel: So if they’re, you know, we had a, an issue yesterday where my daughter’s been practicing for an audition for the last three months. She’d loved to be in her school play, but she had a dreadful cold yesterday and she lost her voice and she was just distraught about it. I was like, how can I fix it? How can I fix it? How can I make sure the school, you know, and actually probably not that helpful for me to intervene. It, it, it’s disappointing and, and we feel that’s so keenly for them, but we just try and, try and make everything right.

[00:07:49] Rachel: And presumably that teaches them that A, it’s not okay for bad things to happen, B, you must worry. And by worrying, that’s gonna sort stuff out and that you can always get your way by intervening, which presumably is not helpful. Now, um, have I got that right? Am I talking about he helicopter parenting or is that something completely

[00:08:08] Beth: Yeah, I mean, I think this is a real challenge, isn’t it? Helicopter parenting and lawn mow parenting. And again, it’s coming from the best of intentions because we want our children to be happy and we want our children to achieve their potential.

[00:08:19] Beth: What I’ve learned is now I’ve got a 19-year-old who’s come back from his first year at uni this summer, is all the stories he was telling me about his first year at uni, um, and the some of the challenges that he’s naturally gonna face, adjusting to living in a flat with a load of other people from different backgrounds. All of the stories he told me about the challenges they’ve had to negotiate, I realized that it was all the, the challenges that we’d had to negotiate as a family together when we’d gone away on fa, big family holidays or we’d had challenges, you know, through getting divorced. It was all those experiences of us working through that together and him having to learn that things can go wrong, but that can lead to something else which works out better in the long run, which we’re actually equipping him to manage those difficulties.

[00:09:11] Beth: And I think that’s the bit you have to hold onto. Um, if your child is gonna grow into an adult who believes they’ve got some agency over, over their life, um, and understands that if unexpected things happen, they’ve got the, the, the kind of skills. And confidence to, to manage those situations. And if they struggle for whatever reason, it’s okay to ask for help and get support, then, I mean that you couldn’t ask for a better outcome.

[00:09:41] Beth: And I, and I feel like When I was listening to him talking, I was like, oh my god, all those times that I was so distressed that the family holiday had been a disaster or we’d had this, we’d had a massive argument or we’d had this disruption, and I thought, it’s ruined. It’s ruined. All my hopes for this holiday have gone, or whatever the situation is, actually, those were the moments, how we navigated those moments, um, and how I allowed my children to build that resilience, that’s the bit that’s most important, way more important than having a fantastic holiday.

[00:10:14] Beth: Um, and that really reframed and has helped me actually with my younger children to really hold that in mind, that in this moment that I’m panicking about what this means about future, this is the moment my child is learning the skills to manage the future. And they are, they’re not expecting me to solve all their problems for them. They’re beginning to learn that they can solve their problems themselves, and I’m there to support them, of course.

[00:10:42] Beth: But, um, I, I, I think that’s my, uh, youngest has just gone to high school and I see him walking into that high school with such confidence that he can manage whatever comes his way. And I think that’s the benefit of the third child, isn’t it?

[00:10:56] Rachel: I think. Most of us, most people listening to this podcast would probably identify with the role of the rescuer in the drama triangle. You know, because that’s our job. If we’re, we’re doctors, we try and rescue our patients. And all of our team, you know, other healthcare professionals, we, we are there to care. We, we are there to help people. And our kids are the things we love the most in the world, so of course, our every instinct is to rescue them.

[00:11:19] Rachel: And whilst that can be helpful sometimes if we are never being able to go through those difficult emotions, when, when stuff happens to us or our kids or our partners or colleagues that we can’t problem solve out of, think that’s when we get really, really stuck.

[00:11:36] Beth: One of my favorite chapters in the book is chapter six, which is all about exactly this. And I think you are right. You know, when you’re presented with a physical problem with your child’s got a headache or there’s a feeling a bit sick, you kind of know exactly what to do, don’t you? Um, as a parent, you learn that as you go along, but when they’re presenting with emotional distress or you are experiencing emotional distress, it’s really hard to work out what’s going on, because we don’t have an emotional x-ray. We don’t just have something that miraculously tells us, oh, yep, this is why I’m feeling really sad today, um, and this is how to solve the problem.

[00:12:11] Beth: And I think one of the things that I have found most helpful for myself as a person who also finds it really hard to experience emotions and let them be because I want to solve them, is really tuning into understanding firstly, that emotions do come and go like waves.

[00:12:31] Beth: So when we’re experiencing extreme emotion, it can’t stay at that heightened level indefinitely. It will pass. And it’s really important to hold onto that because in that peak of that emotion, we can often do things that can sometimes inadvertently stop us processing that motion or looking beyond the emotion to understand what’s actually going on for us.

[00:12:57] Beth: The other thing is to see that emotions are signposts to what might not be going well or right in our lives right now. And if we ignore those signposts, we can, um, end up distracting ourselves from resolving really important things that could potentially make a massive difference in terms of our wellbeing and our future outcomes.

[00:13:20] Beth: So what I often talk with families and children about is the values that sit behind our emotions. So our emotions are telling us, uh, that something important in our life isn’t quite right. And if we can dig beyond the initial feeling, we can be curious about it. If we can say, right, I’m feeling really sad about this situation in a, I’ve got in a relationship. What’s that about?

[00:13:46] Beth: Often with, with young, with children and adolescents, they’ve got a breakdown in peer relationships or something’s happened, and really going behind what that’s about can help you understand what’s important to you. Loyalty’s important to me, and this friend has just dropped me. You know, being kind of respectful of others is important to me. And, um, this situation is actually completely and utterly being totally disrespectful. Um, and from there you can start to build a picture of the things that count for you, your values or your child’s values. If you are, if you are supporting them with this exercise.

[00:14:21] Beth: And then based on unpicking that, you can start to say, well, what do I need to do next? Because quite often, unintentionally, we do the opposite of what is important to us. So our friend does something horrible to us if we’re a teenager and we’ll retaliate and that will end up making us feel worse. Or we might withdraw. The biggest thing that I think people do when they’re struggling with anxiety or low mood is they withdraw from others.

[00:14:50] Beth: Quite often the reason they’re feeling anxious or low is linked to relationships with others, wanting to have a sense of belonging, perhaps, um, worrying about a relationship breakdown. And actually what we need more than anything is connection with others. But what we’ve done is we’ve taken our way itself away from others.

[00:15:08] Beth: So if you can help yourself or your child make sense of the fact that I’m feeling like this because belonging and feeling loved and loyalty are really important to me, so what can I do that’s gonna take me towards those values rather than unintentionally take me away from them?

[00:15:26] Beth: So instead of withdrawing from everybody, actually to get that need met, I really need to reach out to someone I trust. I really need to do something which is gonna fulfill that need in me and accept that it’s not a deficit in me that I feel like this. It’s nothing wrong with me, actually there’s something amazing about me. I deeply care about belonging and being loved or loyal to whatever it might be.

[00:15:50] Beth: And I think that can really help us start to it’s a skill, really, understand that our emotions are flags and that we need to take, pay attention to them proportionately. And by learning to tune into what sits behind that, we can then make wiser decisions about how we respond to those emotions and avoid unintentionally running away from them.

[00:16:14] Beth: And I think I, I work with a lot of people whose relationships and their marriages have broken down. Um, and quite often it is the result of years and years of ignoring some of these emotions that have been sitting around in the background and not kind of connecting to why it’s so important for them to make sense of what’s going on, and then do something which will proactively move back towards what’s important to those individuals.

[00:16:42] Rachel: What I struggle with is when, when someone beat a child or my other half, or a colleague shares to me their, their difficult day. Like, one of my friends has been awful to me, mom, you know, they’ve left me out, they’ve not invited me to the party, everyone else has been invited. And you just like, it feels like you’ve been stabbed in the gut, ’cause you know exactly how that felt. And you wanna make it better, but you can’t, they’re feeling upset.

[00:17:07] Rachel: How do we sit with those difficult emotions? Because I think we really, as healthcare professional, just try to, we don’t try to minimize people’s feelings, but we try to deal with their feelings. Like we would deal with a, a rash or, or, or, or something like that. And it’s just not helpful.

[00:17:25] Beth: I think we try and move people on and, and we, we have an idea that the quicker we get people away from this, the, the quicker we can get back to normality. It’s sort of a, sort of damage limitation. It’s almost like the fear is, oh my god, if I, if I, if we carry on down this route, this is gonna get so big and it’s gonna really mess up the rest of the day.

[00:17:45] Beth: But I think one of the things that is such an important part of all of our profession and, and sometimes we can find ourselves forgetting that it’s often the most valuable thing, is really understanding what it means to listen.

[00:17:59] Beth: I am constantly, because I’m a, I process information really quickly, i, I’m a very solution focused person, I have to sit on my hands. I have to bite my tongue constantly, all of the time, just as a parent, as a professional, as a work colleague, and give people the space to say what’s going on in their head and then have the patience to literally listen and then repeat back what they’ve said to me in slightly different words. I mean, it’s often that simple.

[00:18:31] Beth: So your child has come in and they’ve not been invited to a party, and, and, and actually what you want to do is, is, is kind of reassured them. Oh, well that’s probably not your, because they don’t like, it’s probably ’cause they could only invite 10 people and you know, they’re probably not that nice a friend anyway. Probably would’ve been an awful party, you know, all of that stuff.

[00:18:49] Beth: But actually, you know what it’s like when you’ve got some disappointing news or you are feeling hurt and upset, the last thing you want is that response from someone. What you actually want is just somebody to hear what you’re saying and be able to tolerate your pain and, and, and honor it, but not be overwhelmed by it too.

[00:19:08] Beth: So the key thing I would say is, and I do talk about this book, how do we, how do we learn to listen better? And I think we have this idea, if we’re gonna do listening, it’s gonna take ages, and, and that’s just gonna prolong everything. But actually it’s the biggest healer, and it’s that connection, that opportunity to connect someone, if we can do that connection piece, then we can move on to the problem solving piece.

[00:19:31] Beth: And I think what we often do is, is we hear the problem, we see the emotion, and we wanna jump straight into solving the problem. And we just need to dial it back a bit for, for one or two minutes and, and do the connection piece because that’s what allows the emotional part brain and the thinking brain to reengage with one another and, and create that soothing balm.

[00:19:52] Beth: So I would just say it’s very, very simple. Keep it simple. Just sit, sit, sit back, bite your tongue, sit in your hands, whatever you need to do, show you are interested with your body language, um, your facial expressions. Be patient, let them speak, and then all you have to do to show you’re effectively listening is repeat back what they’ve said, but with a slightly different words.

[00:20:16] Beth: So I’m hearing that your friend didn’t invite you to a party. That sounds like that’s really upsetting. And then your child will naturally go on to Yeah, exactly. And then quite often by just doing that a couple of times, they will move on to solving their own problem. So they’ll move into the transition of, they feel connected, they feel you get it, they feel that their emotion counts. And then it’s like, well, actually, now I can start thinking about how I’m gonna, well, actually, you know what? I hate those kind of parties anyway, or, or whatever it might be.

[00:20:49] Beth: Um, and so I think if we can learn to do the connection listening bit, even if it’s 60 seconds, then quite often we’ll find that we don’t have to do the problem solving bit. The person will do it themselves. They’ll transition into that themselves, and we can just support them with that.

[00:21:06] Rachel: What if it’s something much bigger than that? You know, like split with their boyfriend or, you know, something that they’re gonna so themselves to sleep for the next, the next week about? Do we just sort of just keep listening? Just keep listening. Just keep being there.

[00:21:19] Beth: There’s this wonderful Brene Brown story about her, um, her daughter who’d broken up with her, her boyfriend, and she was in the dark, in her bedroom crying. And, and Brene Brown went into her bedroom and sat on the bed. She just wanted to turn the bedroom light on, and she just wanted to take all of this away and she just wanted to say, just to just sod him. He is not that great a boyfriend anyway. But what she did was, is she sat on the bed and she just stared at the bedroom light, and she just sat with her daughter in that moment of distress, and was that soothing presence. And she just kept saying, my job right now as a parent is not to turn the light on, it’s to sit in the dark with my child and show them that this, their, their emotions in this moment are not so overwhelming for me that I have to try and shut this down or get away from this. And so she sat in the dark for a long time with her daughter, and then once the daughter was calmer, they were then able to talk about it together. And I think that’s a really, uh, easy analogy in a way.

[00:22:24] Beth: And, and my children have had significant events happen in their life. You know, significant tragedies with the death of family members and, and you know, obviously the relationship breakdown for their parents is a huge thing, and other relationship issues. And the, the most important thing that I think I’ve taken away from those moments is my ability to sit with my children in their distress and be there in waiting as a calming presence, and then be able to talk about it with them in a way that kind of matches where they’re at, has been the most, they’ve been the most important moments, uh, in my, in my life as a parent, I would say.

[00:23:04] Beth: And I mean that was particularly true for my son when his girlfriend broke up with him. And it was about getting the timing right. Because for him, he couldn’t have those conversations too early in his pain journey. But he then was able to come back to me and we were able to create a kind of. It was, you know, one evening we’d watch the film together and, and then I asked him the question, how’s it going? And then we kind of were able to chat for a couple of hours about it.

[00:23:30] Beth: So there’s something about being willing to create the right space and opportunity to have those conversations at the time that really works for your child or young person or whoever. If it could be a partner or a work colleague. And then having the patience to sit with the distress, not magic it away, acknowledge it’s there. Like with my son, I have to say, you know what, it is so painful. It, it is so painful. And I can’t take that away, but I can promise you that the pain will ease over time. And, and whatever happens, I’m here if you need me.

[00:24:08] Beth: And I think, it’s a hard thing to do because you literally, when I saw him in pain, I felt the pain too. I wanted to take the pain so he didn’t have to have it. So I think it’s really hard for us. It’s, and again, I think it’s a skill that we almost need to, to learn and to practice, and we won’t get it right all the time. And we’ll mess it up and we can own that as well. And then the more we do it, the easier it becomes.

[00:24:34] Rachel: I’m just reminded of a, a complete parenting fail I felt that I had the other day. We’d had, I’d been away for the weekend, um, at festival, we’d come back, we’d, you know, hosted a birthday party. And then the next day I was so tired and when I got home from work, the house was in a mess and I was just, no one had cooked tea, um, and my kids who were sort of sat around having done nothing all summer. Uh, I just sort of lost the plot and started yelling at them, you know, why has no one done this, done that, or whatever. And they felt, you know, they, I think they were expecting a really nice chat with me after I came home from work. And I absolutely made things worse.

[00:25:13] Rachel: And if I think about actually what was underlying my, I mean, I was tired. I was tired anyway, but I was, I think I underlying was, um, thoughtfulness, you know, thoughtfulness and kindness and, and doing things for people. But I did exactly the opposite. ’cause I was feeling, I guess, that those, those real values of mine hadn’t been, um, respected or, or nobody cared about me, I then acted like I didn’t care about them, which is just absolutely, absolutely stupid. But it was really hard in the moment. All I wanted to do in the moment was find somebody else to blame. Say you are the reason I’m feeling like that. And I think we all do that, we, and I think particularly as professionals who are used to problem solving, we, we feel an emotion and then we try and pin it on something that someone else has done, rather than just going, I love that, using it as a flag. So what do we do in the moment when all, every bit of our body’s going, let’s blame somebody else for this. It is your fault.

[00:26:10] Beth: I, I think the important thing to recognize is the amount of times I’ve lost the plot with my children in exactly those same scenarios, because at the end of the day, I am a human being and, um, I’m, for whatever reason, and often it’s linked to feeling exhausted and feeling taken for granted and feeling like nobody gets how hard this is, nobody appreciates just the sacrifices you are making to help people have a better life in your family.

[00:26:35] Beth: And, you know, I have entirely done exactly that. I’ve just, I talk about it in the book, flipping your lid, you know, that’s the moment where emotion takes over, rage takes over, and all this stuff comes out of your mouth, which you then regret later.

[00:26:48] Beth: But I would say that that’s okay. I mean, that’s being human. And the key thing for me is, after I’ve calmed down a bit and I’m feeling a bit more reflective, rather than just going into a guilt spiral where you just then feel terrible and then you maybe overcompensate the other way and come back downstairs and are super nice and do all the tidying anyway and feel like you’ve gotta make up for your explosion, um, my thing is to go back to the group and apologize or the young, whatever situation I’m having to do this all the time. My daughter, because she just really pushes my buttons and I think sometimes she actually quite enjoys getting a big reaction outta me because calmness to her represents not really caring that much.

[00:27:30] Beth: So I always end up in these scenarios of my daughter where I’m having to go back to her room and say, look, I’m really sorry I lost the plot earlier. I was feeling tired and overwhelmed. But what I think was actually going on for me is this is, what do you think? Is there anything we can do to, so we don’t end up in this scenario again?

[00:27:50] Beth: And quite often they’re the most important points. ’cause you’re doing a couple of things there. You are modeling I can get it wrong and I can lose the plot. And actually that’s not the end of the world. I can own that. And I’ve had a think about it. I’ve made a bit more sense of it. And I need your help to work at how we can kind of not end up in that predicament again.

[00:28:12] Beth: And so I think that’s the key thing is, is finding ways to talk about it and be explicit about it. One of the things we know is, is that if you are in a mood or upset about something, and it could be nothing to do with your family, the people around you will assume that it’s about them. So sometimes we have to do quite a lot of broadcasting. Like if I come home and I’m in a mood about the fact I’ve had a really terrible day and I’ve had enough, and why am I, why have I worked another 12 hours, you know? Um, and, and now I feel like I’ve got nothing left to give my family who ultimately should be the most important thing, but don’t probably feel like they are, um, I have to sometimes explicitly say, I am in a mood, and it’s nothing to do with you guys. It’s just because I’ve had a really long and awful day and I think I might need your help. Because I feel overwhelmed.

[00:29:05] Beth: And actually when I’ve managed to have the resources to say that, quite often my teenage daughter will say, okay, mom, well what can I do? And I really am so shocked when she says that. She’s like, well, I, what? Don’t worry. I’ll cook dinner or I, and, and I’m, I’m really amazed ’cause it turns into, you know, a kind of, this is where I’m at, this is. A shared problem now for us and, and how can we support one another?

[00:29:29] Beth: And it gives you, you, again, it’s modeling. It’s like, well, if your child’s had a terrible day at school, what do you want ’em to do? You want to come back in and say, I’ve had a terrible day at school. It’s not that I hate you, mom, but I just feel like I’ve got too much on my plate. And then you can go, great. How can I help take something off your plate?

[00:29:47] Beth: So I think sometimes we try to be perfect and in the process of doing that, we are not modeling the fact that it’s impossible to be perfect, and that what we need to be able to do is get better at broadcasting what’s going on inside of us in a proportionate way so people get it and aren’t overwhelmed by it. And then thinking together about, uh, whether we just all put up with mom tonight because she’s moody.

[00:30:12] Beth: Um, humor. I mean, quite often that’s what I find my teenagers do now, is that they then take the mickey out of me, and it sort of lightens it, lightens it a bit. And then, and with that humor, they’ll then do something helpful. But if you just sit with it inside of you just building up like a pressure cooker, everybody’s trying to guess what’s going on in your head, and, and nobody can, nobody can get it right basically.

[00:30:37] Rachel: I mean, that strikes me as brilliant advice, whether you’re dealing with kids, colleagues, anything. Because often you know, at work, you’re feeling a bit cross about something else that happened, completely unrelated, you’re a bit snappy with somebody else and then they think, oh, crumbs what? What have I done? So the more we can share about our internal state, our eternal mood, and the fact it’s nothing to do.

[00:30:56] Rachel: People aren’t mind readers, aren’t they? Or, or, or if they think they are, they’ll, they’ll read, they’ll completely personalize it. They say, oh, the reason they’re annoyed is, is because of me or whatever. So I, I love that. And what a different reaction from your daughter as opposed to if you’re just come in and be grumpy, you’d probably got the, the opposite reaction of her just stomping up to the bedroom going, well, she’s obviously crossing me. What have I done? I’ve not done anything, you know, rather than the the offer of help, so I love that.

[00:31:21] Rachel: And what about worry and anxiety? Because I’ve observed that it, it can just become this perfect storm with parents who are pretty driven, pretty perfectionist, our whole success story’s been based around what we do and how good we are and things turning out right, and we worry about our kids because a lot of us, I guess, see them in a, as an extension of ourselves, rightly or wrongly, well, probably wrongly.

[00:31:46] Rachel: And then your kids starting to worry about stuff and they’re going off on one, and it’s starting to really affect them. And then we are worrying about them worrying. How can we help our children deal with worry? How can we model good worry to them? Because I think this is something we totally haven’t got nailed, and, and we turn our worry into unhelpful actions and rescuing. They might turn their worry into rumination and, and, and whatever. But I know that you talk about this a lot in the book, and I think it’s something that, that we haven’t got right at all as as professional parents.

[00:32:18] Beth: Yeah, I think we’ve got loads of worry myths, to be honest. Um, I think we believe that worry can be quite protective. Um, it can help make sure that we’ve got our eye on the ball or that it shows we care. We, so we can have lots of ideas about if we really analyze why we end up in worry cycles. I think it’s ’cause we often believe that worry is effective, um, in protecting us from certain scenarios or our children from certain scenarios.

[00:32:46] Beth: The problem is, of course, we are sort of programmed to notice the tough stuff, to notice the difficult stuff. So our brains very naturally run to noticing or worrying about the future or, or the past. Um, so there’s something about, Ah, I’m doing that worrying thing again. Um, what am I actually worrying about? Is the worry something I can actually solve? Is it a problem that’s solvable? If the problem’s solvable, can I quickly write down what I need to do and then I can park it?

[00:33:21] Beth: Because when the worry comes back up in my head, I can say, look, I’ve got, I’ve got fix for this. I’m gonna do this. I’ve written down my, what I’m gonna do. And so you’re kind of almost helping your brain break the habit, um, and reminding yourself that the worry isn’t the thing that’s gonna solve the problem or protect you from something terrible happening. The action, if it’s an actionable possible problem that you can solve is.

[00:33:47] Beth: And then the other bit of it is if you recognize this is nothing I can do anything about, this is a worry that is based on a scenario I have no control over whatsoever, then there’s something about learning, um, how to let that go. Because if we don’t let it go, there are so many things. I mean, can you imagine all the possible scenarios that we could get caught up with, um, that would actually destroy our ability to enjoy what we do have right now.

[00:34:21] Beth: So I do talk about a drop the rope exercise in the book, which is kind of gives the analogy of if you’ve got a rope between you and the worry monster and there’s a hole between you both, and the worry monsters pulling and pulling and pulling and trying to drag you into that hole and you keep pulling and pulling and pulling back, then ultimately you just end up in this tug of war with worry, which uses up so much energy.

[00:34:48] Beth: I mean, worrying takes so much energy up. It stops you sleeping, it stops you enjoying activities, it stops you being present. Um, so with this massive tussle with the rope, you know, if you keep pulling back, you’re just gonna end up using up all of your energy for life worrying. But if you just drop the rope, if you say, you know what, worry monster? Okay, those things can happen, but I’m just gonna drop that rope, I’m gonna leave it.

[00:35:17] Beth: Then, actually you are kind of walking away from engaging with that internal tussle, and then you can use your energy to engage with what’s really important to, to you.

[00:35:29] Beth: We’re worrying about things we care about. At the end of the day, the stuff that you are lying in bed, worrying about at night is because you deeply care. The problem is that sometimes that worry can get so big, it can stop you actually being, doing, doing the things that are important to you.

[00:35:44] Beth: But again, like all of these things, because we are predisposed to notice the negative stuff, not the good stuff, we have to be really intentional about this. It isn’t easy. It’s like that brain plasticity that we need to to use to our advantage means we have to intentionally practice this. And it might feel really difficult at first, but the more we do it, the easier it becomes because we build those new neural pathways, and build those new habits.

[00:36:16] Rachel: Does that work even when you’ve got, like, a big worry that you can’t do anything about? So say, I guess for doctors, we worry, you know, we might have been referred to the GMC, you know, completely randomly by a patient who’s got a vendetta and we might not have done anything wrong, but the GMC are now investigating, we can’t do any, you know, we, we’ve done everything we can about it, you know, contacted our defense, um, organization and all that, but it, it’s out of our hands, and this goes on for years and years and years. It’s a big thing. Is it still possible to use that technique even, even with the things with like massive consequences?

[00:36:50] Beth: Well, the only way we’re gonna survive those types of events in our lives without that destroying us, because that’s a huge thing. Your career is on the line. Your, your ability to provide for your family, everything you’ve worked for your whole life. How can you not feel consumed with anxiety and worry about that thing? It’s. Big, it’s life changing, isn’t it?

[00:37:12] Beth: And there are things for all of us that are going to be going on in our lives that are potentially huge life changing things, uh. So we can sometimes get overly preoccupied with what we are thinking and how to manage what we are thinking. And a, a big part of the work that I do is helping people move to doing more of things that we know will help their system manage the stresses and strains of their life. So in that scenario, you are naturally gonna be preoccupied by that, that horrendous situation. It’s how do you in the daily life and your daily habits and rituals, build in the things that will provide your body and mind with the most protection, protection, and resilience to manage those stressers?

[00:38:05] Beth: So how do you build, build in opportunities to connect with the people that you know will be supportive during this time? How do you build in physical activity to help you process some of those adrenaline and cortisol chemicals that be rushing around your body? How do you build in good nutrition and good sleep? Because these are all of the things that are gonna profoundly impact your ability to physically cope with that additional stress, but also psychologically cope with it.

[00:38:33] Beth: We know sleep deprivation leads to huge changes in the way that the body processes toxins, but also the way the amygdala functions. So if you don’t get enough sleep, your threat system’s gonna be on high alert. So I think we can often end up in these, these scenarios where we have a significant thing going on in our lives, which is a real threat, that we have limited control over.

[00:38:59] Beth: And it can lead to a downward spiral of us stopping doing all of the things that will actually protect us in the best possible way to be the most resilient, and to manage that scenario the best. And again, it goes back to kind of needing to force yourself and be intentional about those things, um, rather than just getting sucked into a vortex of overwhelm and starting to rely on those things that we know won’t help us in the long run, which could be alcohol, it could be staying up really late watching a box set. It could be any form of a kind of, of eating, you know, binge eating.

[00:39:40] Beth: Those things to provide us with comfort. I mean, they’re so easily available. They’re so difficult to not rely on those things. So again, it kind of goes back to it’s hard work. It really requires us to be intentional. And how can you use your support network around you to, to support with that? Because with most of these things, we cannot do it on our own.

[00:40:02] Rachel: Yeah. You talk about cheerleaders in the book. Who, what, what sort of people could be your cheerleaders or, or, or your kids’ cheerleaders?

[00:40:10] Beth: I think it’s really important to recognize there are so many potential people in our life, and sometimes there are moments in your life where you’ve got a, a critic or a bully, um, and not a cheerleader. And we might have people that we do rely on quite heavily who might have a critical lens or a bit of a bullying approach within our relationship.

[00:40:31] Beth: And I think what I talk a lot about in the book is how do you build a community of cheerleaders so that you can feel that you’ve got people in your life who’ve got your back in these moments, but also are willing to be honest with you that they will call you out. Like if, if you are in a place where you perhaps are completely getting it wrong.

[00:40:53] Beth: ‘Cause there’s nothing, we don’t wanna be in an echo chamber, do we? Because that’s not helpful in terms of learning and growth and development. So thinking about those people, it could be people in your family, it could be friends, it could be, um, it could be influencers online. For me, you know, one of my big, sort of resources that I use when I’m struggling or feeling a bit overwhelmed or wake up on a Saturday and I just feel a bit meh, is I go to a, a really good podcast on a topic that I think is gonna kind of give me a bit of a boost.

[00:41:25] Beth: And so actually I’ve got quite a few podcasts. Car people who are my cheerleaders because they kind of help me get back on track and feel motivated and inspired again, and not hopeless and helpless.

[00:41:38] Rachel: There was something in the book that I was very interested in, and I’ve heard someone mention it before. Um, and you’ve sort of alluded to the times when we, we flip our lid with people where we lose the plot with our kids. And certainly. I do that all the time. I’m getting a little bit better. And it’s obviously, um, our amygdala hijacker in a chimp or whatever you wanna call it, and you call it the difference between your upstairs brain and your downstairs brain. But in the book you talk about a window of tolerance.

[00:42:04] Beth: So the window of tolerance, if you imagine it’s kind of three. Boxes on top of one another, and in the middle you’ve got your window of tolerance. And, and that’s where you’re kind of in that place where you’re thinking that you can think and feel together. You’re feeling good. It’s when you, you kind of can be quite productive at work, you’re good at listening to others.

[00:42:23] Beth: Now, if you go into the top box, that’s when you go into like a hyper aroused state. And once you get into that hyper aroused state, your anxiety levels peak, you can’t concentrate, you are very sensitive, to any threat, and actually you are probably in the fight or flight zone.

[00:42:44] Beth: When you think about the bottom box, we call that hypo arousal. And that’s where you can be very disconnected almost from everything. You kind of go into a real lull. Um, you can actually in that, that kind of part of the box experience, feelings of disassociation, not even being really connected to your reality.

[00:43:05] Beth: Um, and you might associate that with when, if you have ever experienced low mood, that feeling that you just, nothing, you can’t almost feel anything. And ideally, you know, if we are performing at our best, we want to kind of be in that window of tolerance and different things can, can kind of take us from the green win window in the middle up to the hyper aroused or down to the hyper aroused.

[00:43:31] Beth: Quite often people have been for an extended period of time in the top, the top part of the window, the hyper arousal, it’s so exhausting for their nervous system that they actually burn out and go into that kind of hope hypo arousal. And I think it’s really important because it helps us visualize where am I at right now, and what do I need to either upregulate me if I’m in the hypo hypo part of the box, or what does my child or, or this other person need to upregulate them, or what do I need to downregulate me to get me back into the, the window of tolerance?

[00:44:12] Beth: And often things that are gonna downregulate us are gonna be things that are gonna help us manage the physical symptoms of going into hyper arousal, fight flight. So it could be, you know, I need to, I need to do some really deep breathing to kind of regulate my, my kind of oxygen and carbon dioxide levels, or I need to just get outside and, and do a fast walk or I need to jump around to just process some of this excess energy I’ve got.

[00:44:41] Beth: Or it might be you have something you listen to or you just need to eat some food. Because quite often I get, I get that feeling of hyper arousal when I’m my blood sugar levels drop, and I start to feel that internal panic and, and that kind of triggers me thinking I can’t cope with anything. And actually often it’s just literally because I need to eat.

[00:45:01] Beth: So you can come up with your, your stuff that helps you downregulate you. Because we’re all unique, but there are some fundamental things that will be helpful for everyone. And the same with hypo arousal. And I think this is really important if you have a risk, if you’re at risk of low mood or you have a, a person in your life who’s at risk of low mood, really understanding what helps take someone from that hypo-aroused state, a, a kind of the window of tolerance. Because some of the things that we can do when we got other people around us who were in that hypo-aroused state, and you might see it in your kids to adolescents, you just won’t get out of bed, can be the things that will actually lead to further shutdown and won’t support that person becoming up regulated.

[00:45:46] Beth: So work it out for yourself if you are a person, because I very rarely go into hypo aroused, I’m much more likely to go into the hyper, but my son, who, my eldest son, he’s so chilled out that he often is sitting at the hypo in going into the window, that’s where he tends to sit. So understanding what helps him get upregulated when he needs it, like when he needs to revise for an exam, for example, and he’s just so laid back about it, he, he almost can’t be bothered. Me understanding what helps upregulate him rather than further push him down into that kind of place, is really important.

[00:46:25] Beth: So I think it’s a really useful tool for understanding ourselves better and how we can take action when we are recognizing where we are in this. But also it is really helpful for understanding other people in our lives too, and we can use it as a tool to have those conversations with them so that we are not unintentionally making things worse. Because often you might see your child go into fight or flight mode and you start shouting at them, which is just gonna keep them in fight or flight mode or push them into a, those, uh, kind of hyper-aroused state where they shut off and they’re un unreachable. Then you can create a bit of a guidebook for everyone in your family.

[00:47:04] Rachel: What sort of things do you, I’m, I’m just trying to work out what might help someone in a hypo arousal state. What, what sort of things generally do would, would get someone in up into the windows tolerance?

[00:47:14] Beth: mean, physical activity is one of the biggest things. And, and the problem with physical activities, it requires you to get up. And, and I talk about this in the book, in the low mood, low mood chapter, is the behavioral activation, as we often think if we’re struggling with energy and low mood, that we need to wait until we feel better to do the things that we used to be doing, which we got joy out of. And actually, we, we don’t. We know that if you change the behavior first, then the, the, the uplift and mood comes.

[00:47:43] Beth: So that’s such an important thing to know, particularly if you are living with someone in your household who is in a low mood state, because you often kind of get stuck with knowing how to support them outta that.

[00:47:55] Beth: So with hypo arousal, I would definitely say trying to do upregulating activities, which can involve movement, music, fresh air, um, just a change of scene. And, and for a lot of young people, they get stuck in their bedrooms, on their beds. I mean, most kids I work with who have struggle with low mood, they’re on their beds, on their phone. And what I often say to them is just say, 1, 2, 3, go, and get off your bed. Put your phone down, go downstairs.

[00:48:24] Beth: And if you’ve got a child or a person in your family struggles with low mood, you can almost have a conversation about when I come down to the kitchen, I just want you to be a certain way. It’s really interesting ’cause you, ’cause I think our kids can turn up in our kitchen and we can’t quite be sure what they want from us in that moment. And sometimes we like, oh, you’re here. Oh, let’s have a conversation. You know,

[00:48:47] Rachel: Or empty the dishwasher

[00:48:48] Beth: Yeah, exactly, or empty the dishwasher. But so there’s something about like mo basically movement, getting you out from one place to another. Just change, a change of scene is, is often really important.

[00:49:00] Rachel: Just as we finish, what, what would your three top tips be? If you sort of wanted every parent to know these three things for themselves and for their kids, what would they be?

[00:49:09] Beth: So, number one, don’t panic if your child is distressed or struggling. The first thing to do is, is kind of hold onto your own emotional response and just create space for tuning into and connecting to what’s going on for them. And that in itself is such a powerful tool as a parent. You don’t have to have all the answers and you don’t have to solve all the problems. Really, you just need to be there.

[00:49:38] Beth: And the second would be, I think our children are living in increasingly complex worlds where we, as their parents, have often very little knowledge and understanding of just the level of, of things that they’re juggling. And that particularly is true with digital technology and social media. So I think the more that you can park your judgment, uh, uh, because we often have quite negative views about some of these things, and be curious and about understanding particularly for a teenager what their world is like, and being genuinely interested in that world in a non-judgmental way will open up opportunities for you to improve your relationship, particularly with your adolescent and provide the sense that if something big is going on in your adolescent’s world, they won’t be afraid to succumb to you to talk about it. Because what we know is adolescents are doing not just adolescents, younger children too, is they’re not talking to other adults. They’re going online to get the answers to the things that they’re worried about.

[00:50:45] Beth: And the other last thing, we, we didn’t get much time to talk about this, but I think one of the benefits of being a single parent who works a lot is my children have developed amazing skills of independence, which has increased their confidence and, and a real world skills. So anything that we can do to support our children have more opportunities for free play and, um, because that’s one of the things that I think we, our children are having less opportunities to do and developing independence, so being a team in your family.

[00:51:14] Beth: And for me, doing sometimes expressions of being a good parent are about doing a lot of the things for my children, like cooking dinner, doing their washing, feeling like I’m doing all of these things that make me feel like I’m a good parent, but actually my children really value the opportunity to cook their own lunch, to cook dinner for us as a family.

[00:51:35] Beth: So I think how can we flip the lid on that and give our children more chances to get out there in the world, order food at a restaurant, speak to people out and about, um, talk to more strangers. I mean, I, I think I listened to a great podcast, which is saying we should be encouraging young adults to talk to more strangers, uh, uh, because young people are getting scared ahead of being in the real world, talking to people, speaking to people on the phone. So the more that we can support our children to get those opportunities, I think the better for them.

[00:52:07] Rachel: So helpful. If people wanna find out more about you, more about your work, where can they go?

[00:52:11] Beth: So I’m on Instagram. Please come and follow me because I’m such hardworking social media. Gosh, it’s really,

[00:52:17] Rachel: Yes.

[00:52:18] Beth: it really is. And I’m just the handle on everything really. If you just type Dr. Beth Mosley into the internet or one word, you’ll find my website. And, there’s lots of free resources and blogs and links to other podcasts, and my book’s been published in lots of different countries as well, so in lots of different languages. So all the links are there too.

[00:52:38] Rachel: Brilliant. And I’d really recommend the book, and it’s got lots of sort of worksheets at the back as well that people can use, so, um, yeah, wonderful. Beth, thank you so much for being with us and we’ll love to have you back another time to, to talk even more about this.

[00:52:50] Beth: Great. Thanks.

[00:52:51] Rachel: Thanks for listening. Don’t forget, we provide a self coaching CPD workbook for every episode. You can sign up for it via the link in the show notes. And if this episode was helpful, then please share it with a friend. Get in touch with any comments or suggestions at hello@youarenotafrog.com. I love to hear from you. And finally, if you’re enjoying the podcast, please rate it and leave a review wherever you’re listening. It really helps. Bye for now.