It doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means you’re human.
In this episode, Shane Jacob talks about why these moments show up, what they’re trying to tell you, and how to navigate those moments without guilt or shame.
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this episode of the Stable Parenting Podcast. My name is Shane Jacob, your host, and I thank you for taking your time to be here with me today. Lots of places you can be, and I'm grateful you're choosing this one. We're gonna talk about something to make your time worthwhile.
You know, I hear quite often really more often than you might imagine, hear things from parents. I hear things from people, things like statements like:
"I wish I wasn't a parent."
You know, I hear this from time to time: "I don't want to be a parent." But, but you already are. You know, but you are. I hear quite a…I hear a lot of things, but this is one of them that I wanted to talk about —this and similar type statements that I hear people saying.
A lot of times parents will say things like:
And you know what I say? I say, "You've got to be kidding me. You created a life and brought it into this world a totally dependent, helpless, innocent soul, and now you want to be doing something else? What are you thinking?" No I do not say that.
No. That’s exactly what I don't say.
You know why? There are several reasons, because what you think aboutwhat you think is really important.
Most of us, probably all of us at one time or another, when we're doing something worthwhile, have thoughts like "we wish we were doing something else."
We've had thoughts.
If you've been a parent and you've never thought, "I wish I wasn't a parent," I don't know… maybe you haven't been a parent very long.
The thoughts are a symptom of something that's a little bit deeper.
If somebody who is telling me this they're likely feeling shame for what they're thinking when they tell me that. And you want to be helpful rather than shame them further.
Because the people that say to me, "I just wish I wasn't a parent," when I ask them to tell me more about that, every one of them has to dig deep and be vulnerable and have a little bit of courage just to even share that with me, okay, to start with. And every one of them feels absolutely awful excuse me feels absolutely terrible. By the way, I just made a new word:that was a combination of awful and terrible. Offable, whatever I said. Anyway.
They feel terrible for thinking it. They feel guilty. They feel shame. They feel like, how could they? They feel like they know they owe this duty and responsibility to their children, and they have these thoughts that they wish they wouldn't. So that, it feeds a cycle.
And so, if you've had a thought that you're not real proud of ever about anything, this message is for you. It might not be the exact one that you wish you weren't a parent, but if you've had a thought that you have been ashamed of, this message is for you.
Like I said, when parents tell me that they don't want to be a parent, and they're already a parent, they're already feeling like they're the scum of the earth. And the last thing that they need me, or you, or anyone is to tell them the last thing they need to do is feel worse
At one time or another, we all think similar thoughts. It goes like this: the reason why it matters, what you think about what you think, and the reason you have a thought you have a thought your ashamed of. Here's what happens when you feel bad or feel shame for what you're thinking, that feeling of shame drives you to do certain behavior. When you feel shame, guilt, and shame, you do behaviors like:
Basically, what you do is you disconnect. You disconnect when you feel shame.
So here's a question. How much, okay, how do you think you're parenting? How do you think you're behaving in your life regarding parenting or whatever? In these moments when you feel shame, those feelings causing you to do these things, how are you showing up in your life as a parent or whatever?
What do you think if you are a parent, what do you think your kid thinks, your children think kid or kids, when you disconnect?
What do you think your kids think when you disconnect? Usually, you know what they think. They think that they're the problem. Yeah. Your kids feel abandoned. That fuels more problems, and the cycle continues.
What you think makes all the difference to your kids and to your relationships. It matters.
So, what's going on? Why are you having these thoughts? Why are you having these thoughts about not wanting to be a parent, or other thoughts you’re ashamed of then you feel bad about? There are three main concepts to understand.
Number one: You are not your thoughts.
What do you mean, Shane? Your brain, which is an organ in your body, it’s a biological organ is a magnificent supercomputer. It has been taking in input 24/7 since you've been breathing, since you were born, up to right this minute.
And it’s taking in this information right now. And your brain feeds your conscious mind thousands, it takes in information. It's constantly taking in information. It's constantly spitting out thoughts to your conscious mind, thousands and thousands at one estimate Brooke Castillo at the Life Coach School estimates 60 or I don't know where she got the number, but she says 64, that 60,000, I guess it is 60,000 thoughts a day.
That's a tremendous amount of information. know, this endless chatter that our brains like always going, okay. Going, maybe when we sleep, but whatever the number is, it's thousands of just tremendous amount of information.
These thoughts are a result of input to your brain. Input comes in your brain through all five senses takes in input. Input comes in, your brain through all five senses takes in input. Okay, it hears, it sees, and it experiences all these things. It takes in input and it processes that. It makes meaning, okay, and it transfers that meaning back to your conscious mind in the form of a thought. What's the thought again?
A thought is a sentence or a phrase in your mind. Whether you speak it,if it falls out of your mouth or not, It's a phrase or a sentence in your mind. That's what a thought is.
This is biology. This is just the way our brains operate. These thoughts are just a function of an organ in our body feeding us information. Okay.
Now our brains can feed us all kinds of random information and all kindsof nonsensical thoughts.
Okay, you ever had a thought like, “Where did that come from?” or “I can’t believe I’m thinking this”? This is the kind of thought that I'm talking about here, right here, by the way. I can't believe I thought that I'm like disgusted with myself like, no, no, no, no, no, you don't think something else.
All of us to some degree, one time or another have thoughts that we wish we didn't think, right, but we already did. And so,
The point here is that the biology through our supercomputer, our brains sometimes feeds us thoughts that we don't agree with or that they just seem wrong. Okay. They seem wrong to us. They definitely, a lot of times don't serve us and why, why don't they always serve us?
Isn't our brain on our side? Our brain is on our side, but it kind of, it's been described as a toddler with a knife, you know, it's unattended. It's just kind of gets out of control. Okay. And what I mean is, is our brain's natural.
It's described in scriptures like the natural man or natural tendencies our brain guides us to preserve us and protect us and keep us alive.
Our brain has, they call it the emotional triad, three main functions.
Okay. So that is our brain's operating system motto. Okay. Basically. And so until we override it with intention, conscious mind, with our own integrity, our own choices and decide if those thoughts are going to help us or not, or if we want to think of them or not, that is what we're given.
That is the default setting of human beings brains, okay? Total biology. So, that's what our brain settings are set at. So when parenting or anything that we're doing gets tough, okay, it gets hard, it seems like it's unbearable, our natural brain tries to get us to avoid... move away from the discomfort, save energy, seek pleasure, and it gives us thoughts like, I don't want to be a parent.
And by the way, just let me tell you something, if you didn't know, this is totally normal. Okay. What you think about these thoughts is also very important. You need to know that there's nothing wrong with you. If you have thoughts like this or similar ones, there's nothing to be ashamed of or feel guilty about. Okay.
These thoughts are an automatic reaction to input from your brain. They do not define who you are. Okay.
Now we get to decide and choose and control. Mostly how we act, what actions we choose and act on. Those would more define who we are. But just because our natural brain feeds us some random thought for some random reason, probably just trying to avoid work.
It doesn't mean that anything negative about you, it just means you're a human being. It means you're a human being.
Okay. So if you've ever thought anything that you were ashamed of, if you're a parent, if you've ever thought that you're
And you're just like, it's a conflict in your mind because you feel that you have love for your kids, but it's so hard, and sometimes you think your thought has that you don't want to wish you weren't doing it.
Just know that that's a normal function, and what you think about is important, and you can choose what you get to think about it.
And I'm gonna make a case and give you some suggestions and some ideas of what you may want to choose to think about those thoughts that you don't like, that don't seem right to you.
You know, if you thoughts like, sometimes I hear like, you know, I want to do what I want to do. I don't want to constantly be taking care of someone else. You know, I just wish I wasn't a parent. It means that you're normal.
And the second thing, okay, the two out of three things that are important in this is the next thing is you don't have to believe the thoughts that your brain provides you.
It's totally optional to accept them or not. They are optional thoughts. That is not facts. They're not truths. You get to choose what you believe. Your brain is just there to protect you and preserve you, again, to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and conserve energy.
You don't need to accept any of its suggestions or thoughts as your truth. You have been given, and I have been given, and every human being's been given the gift of choice or the free agency to choose what we believe.
These thoughts are exactly what I'm talking about you can either choose to accept and believe them or not.
Number three, thoughts create feelings. One thought, one feeling. Next thought, next feeling.
When we think thoughts like the kind of thoughts that I have been talking about, like the ones that I talked about, I'm not cut out. I'm not good enough.I wish I wasn't a parent. My kids know I suck at being a parent. Most of the time I don't even like being a parent. I wish I could be doing something else. When we think these thoughts, when we think these thoughts, we love our kids, but we think these thoughts that you've been given to the brain and we're thinking them, we're thinking them.
And a lot of the time, because of the conflict and the love that we feel for our kids and this conflicting thought, most of the time for most of the people, and I'm speaking from my own experience with the thoughts that I have that I'm like, we're something wrong here, Shane. The thoughts that I have that I'm ashamed of, okay.
When I think them,
These are the kind of feelings, if those are words I just said, or feelings, most of them are. When we feel these feelings, our feelings drive our actions. when we feel these things, disgusted with ourselves, we feel shame, feel like we're irresponsible people, we feel stuck. When we feel these feelings, we do actions that really don't serve, they don't get us where we want to be.
Okay, because when we feel that way, we do actions like we isolate, we avoid, we retreat, we just check out and disconnect. Okay? Hide. A lot of times we don't want to be seen when we feel shame.
So the result that we create bychoosing to think these thoughts, accept them, hold them in our conscious mind, the result that we create is for our kids is exactly what our brain told us. Our brain told us that we're not cut out to be a parent. You know, and so we're not qualified to be a parent. We don't know what we're doing. And we like being a parent even less. Okay.
We start to believe that we're not good at parenting, that we're not cut out to be a parent. We start to believe it more and more. It's a cycle and it keeps us in this loop, which is not where the people that I talk to that talk like this, that tell me these thoughts, it's not where they want to be.
They don't, they're not trying t ocheck out and totally leave their kids and abandon their children for good. They're just having this thought and they don't know what to do with it. And if we don't take care of it with intention, it's not going to lead us to a place.
It's going to have a great and happy ending. Okay.
So here's the bottom line. Sometimes your brain is going to give you thoughts that don't sound right. Okay. They just plain sound opposite of your values. Okay.
This has nothing to do with your value or what kind of person you are. Okay. That, that, that's just not it. Okay. Asa matter of fact, if you, you haven't had some thoughts that made you cringe, okay. You haven't been paying attention to your thoughts and maybe they're just playing and you just haven't noticed occasionally.
Okay. if you hold onto these thoughts and continue to think them and start to accept them as beliefs you're probably not going to like the result that it's going to have the effect that it's goingto have on your life.
It's usually just your brain trying t omake things easy for you partner. I'm just telling you, your brain doesn't, I mean, it has a good intention, but you need to be the one to override this natural brain, this emotional triad, the way that it's processing.
A lot of the times it does accomplish keeping us alive and preserving us. I mean, it's an amazing machine, but everything out of these thousands of thoughts every day that it spits out to us, everything, it does not help us.
Okay, that's where we get limiting beliefs and thoughts like this that will just get fed to us that make us feel shame and then we get a bad result. Okay, here's the thing.
We all know, here's the thing we all know, whatever is worthwhile is notgoing to be easy anyway. And so what matters is not, what matters is, is what we act on. That's what matters. Not some fleeting that we have some fleeting thought. Okay.
For example, if you realize that you're thinking that you hate being a parent and you're thinking of all the reasons why. Okay. If you just stop, if you realize this and you just stop, okay. Pause.
Just, okay, time out. Think about what I'm thinking, okay? I'm not gonna negatively judge myself and say that I suck and what the hell's matter with me for thinking this thought. I'm just saying time out and stop, okay?
Let me think about what I'm thinking. If you ever see yourself, catch yourself, not catch, I don't like that one, but if you ever notice yourself, just stop and notice.
If you're thinking any thought that doesn't feel right, feels wrong, that you're ashamed of and you just like, stop, hold on a minute, think about what this is. Okay.
Notice what you're thinking. Don't negatively judge yourself. Just notice. Okay. Then ask yourself, what would I prefer to think? Cause I don't like thinking that one. Okay. Maybe you think maybe, maybe you could just think of a new thought. Okay. I replace them when they call that an intentional thought rather than this unintentional one that your brain fed you, that's just there. Then you could develop one yourself, like develop and come up with a new thought. Okay.
Maybe it's something like, Hey, parenting is damn tough and I'm just the one for it. So go ahead and bring it. Whoa. Had that feel that doesn't feel shameful and all those other things that gave me some poof power.
Too tough for you? Too much? Maybe that's a little strong for you. I don't know. Maybe it is. Maybe it's not.
How about this? How about, you know, as time goes on, I'm getting better at this parenting deal. I'm getting better at this life deal as time goes on.
Or I'm raising exceptional human beings. Hard as it may be. I don't know.
Think of a thought. Here's the thing. Whatever the thought is, you get to choose one that works for you. And here's how you can know if it's going t owork for you if you believe, if you can accept that it's true, okay?
Number one and number two, if it feels better. That's the key. Because ifit causes, if that new thought that you did on purpose causes you a thought that feels better, that new feeling is gonna drive new actions, it's gonna get you a new result, okay? And that's what we're going for in this, okay? Your result is gonna be
When you choose, your thought, okay, your result in the end is gonna be more of what you want, guaranteed. You're gonna have more of what you want in your life, guaranteed, guaranteed, okay, when you pick your own thoughts. Parenting's tough, we all know it. It's gonna be one of the most challenging things that we do. Whatever you're facing, whether you're a parent or not, in any other thing in life, the biggest rewards are always on the other side of difficult.
We know that. when your brain feeds you random thoughts, just remember it's important. What you think about those thoughts is important. Okay. Don't worry about those random thoughts, your actions are who you are. Okay. The fact that these spots don't feel good. This is important.
The fact that these thoughts that you're noticing that this doesn't feel good, if you can stop and recognize it, that you're feeling shame, the fact that they don't feel right and they feel wrong, causes you shame, a good thing. Because what that means is, is that you recognize that something's wrong. It means that that is proof that you're a good person, not that you need proof. According to me, the fact that you're breathing is proof that you're an amazing person.
Hey, my friends, you got this. And when you don't have it, we're always here to help you at Stable Living Coaching. That's what we do. And I encourage you to join us if you haven't yet. Struggle with us, celebrate with us, get more out of your life with us. You can join us by going to stablelivingcoaching.com. And my friends, remember, You cannot fail as long as you Don't Ever Stop Chasing It.
