This YouTube video (Bunny Young, Nov 29, 2020) features the speaker confessing imperfection around parenting and sharing four actionable strategies to reduce guilt and stress: 1) take deliberate breaths, 2) use a grounding song or short meditation (noting Daniel Tiger and Headspace), 3) walk outside/get sunlight to shift environment and mood, and 4) label your feelings aloud to yourself/children. The video mixes personal anecdote with therapist-framed advice and ends with a call-to-action for a free parenting ebook (link in description).
Chapters
So I have a confession to make to you guys. But before I actually make this confession and put it out on the interweb for everybody to hear and listen to, I want to also tell you that I'm going to give you the steps that I've taken when this imperfection, when this absolutely horrible habit sneaks up on me and it seems to come out of nowhere. However, if I'm being honest with myself and if you're being honest, we probably all suffer from some level of it. So are you ready for my confession? I thought you were right. Before I get into it, though, if you're new here and you're like, who is this person and why do I care that she's confessing? I'm Bunny Young, business therapist and mealorist. And you are on the Power of Purpose channel. And so leave me a comment and let me know who you are and why you're here and how I can help you. And if you're returning, leave me some love in the comments and let me know what your favorite video thus far has been and how I can help you make the world a better place. So back to confession. Can't really believe I'm going to tell you guys this. So on top of my confession, I also promise to give you not one, but two, but three, four tips that you're going to be able to use to handle the thing that I'm going to confess to you that I still can't believe I'm going to do it. Here it goes. I'm not perfect. I know, I know. I'm just going to give you a moment to take that in and to just revel over that shock. But before you're like, yeah, Bunny, I know no one's perfect, et cetera, what I want to tell you is that where this has come up the most for, for me is with my kiddos. Because being a mom is one of the most amazing privileges in this world, but it's also one of the most frustrating things. And I've often said that as a CEO running multiple companies, I would probably fire my kids and my husband if I had that option. Not because I don't love them, but because there's times of being completely and totally disrespectful. But that's not actually my number one pet peeve when it comes to my kids. Now, I have been sober for almost 10 years. Not a drop of alcohol. However, whining is something. And the wine. And I'm not talking about drinking wine. I'm talking about the Wine has been something that I have been absolutely intolerant of pretty much my entire life. I don't understand how you can't just speak English and ask me for what you need or why, even with my company and teams, whether it's a client or a team member, why you're coming to me and you have to whine about the problem instead of just us discussing a solution. Now, I realize that may be counterintuitive to the fact that I'm a therapist, and I totally and completely understand. However, what I can tell you is that being paid to listen to people whine is one of the reasons that I left traditional couch therapy and went into organizations where we could actually take action on the things that people were whining about. And so that's what I want to do with you today, is I want to help you take action when there is something in your life that you're feeling like, I'm not perfect. I feel guilty over this. This is something that I want to change. And. And it's in your mind. We're not talking about whether you want to go from doing 10 pushups or zero pushups to a hundred pushups, because there's a million channels for that. I'm talking about in your own headspace, how to be able to change your perspective, and we have a whole video on that. But also how to shift your mindset rather than beating yourself up over and over and over again about not being perfect and feeling guilty over certain things, especially parent guilt on if we accidentally explode and raise our voice, which is what my number one biggest mom guilt is, is that millisecond, right after I have just raised my voice, and I'm like, oh, my gosh, I am such a horrible human being. These amazing beings have come into my life, and I'm so blessed to have them, and I love them more than I even thought humanly possible. And here I am raising my voice to them. Luckily enough, I was raised with amazing values that I don't ever feel like I crossed that line with my kids. And I don't have judgment for if you're at a 9.8 on your stress level and you come home and there's the whining that it's just what pushes you over. And most of the time, our kids don't understand that you are already at a 9.8, I'm going to give you tips so that you don't get to that place of, oh, man, I just totally lost my shiznit. And now I've Got to deal with all this guilt. Guilt, whether it's with my spouse, whether it's at my job, whether it's just somebody cut me off on the way home. My hope is that after this video, you are going to feel a sense of relief and also feel like you actually have some actionable items to put into place to move from that guilt and that beating yourself because you don't feel like you did something the way that you probably should have, into a space of relaxation, less overwhelm, and like, you can actually accomplish the things that you want to accomplish the way that you want to accomplish them. All right, so here we go. So number one's not going to be a shocker. It is take a breath. Really simple, right? However, in your body, there are so many things when you're oxygenating, oxygenating your body that happens that actually gives your brain pause and allows you to decrease your stress level. And so that that one breath, if you can sneak in a couple more, go for it. But that one breath is just giving you a moment to stop and evaluate the actual situation that you're facing, rather than all of the stress and weight that you had on your shoulders when you came into the situation. So that's, number one, is very simple. Take a breath. Let's do another one. Why not? And I often tell people that when you take a breath, imagine that you're smelling like the sweetest rose, or if you're a huge barbecue fan, like that smoked brisket smell. Like, that's the kind of inhale you want to take. And the kind of exhale that you want to do is like you're blowing out 50 birthday candles. So that's the intensity of that breath work. And there's so many more YouTube videos just on breath work. But that's my simple tip to start you with number two. This one was actually inspired by my kiddos. I was having a rough day, and my oldest came up to me with a song from one of the TV shows that she watches, which is Daniel Tiger, for all of you parents out there. And she came up and sang me this song that was about taking a couple breaths and waiting a couple seconds when you felt like you had so much to do and didn't know where to start. She also uses monster meditation on headspace. And they're not paying in any way, shape, or form for me to say that, but I use headspace all the time. And the fact that they have incorporated it with Sesame street and so my kids can recognize their favorite characters as they're Doing these short meditations is amazing. And so being able to have a song with your kids that you sing when you're feeling overwhelmed or when you can see that they start feeling overwhelmed can help you ground yourself and make better choices. So now we're going to go to tip 4, 3, and that one is to walk outside. It's really simple. Vitamin D, scientifically proven. Now, if you're living in Chicago in the middle of January and it's negative, something outside that may not work for you, but maybe you find that you have a sun lamp inside where you can just spend a couple moments. Combining our first tip of taking a breath with the third tip of walking outside, letting the wind blow on your face, getting some sunshine, and just being able to kind of change your environment, and that can really change and impact your mood and your headspace. We've gotten one. Take a breath. We've gotten two. Have a song. We've gotten three. Walk outside. Are you ready for four? Feel your feeling. Oh my gosh. Label it. Say this is how I'm feeling. It's amazing when you can label your feeling. Being able to say, here's how I'm feeling is great for you, but it's also great for setting the expectation for the person that you're in the situation with. And you'd be shocked about how many kids actually understand and comprehend when you can label that feeling. And it also helps them label their feelings because sometimes they experience the feeling before they know the word for it. So you're helping them learn how to label their feelings, and that can help you be less frustrated as a parent or when you're interacting with a family member. If you're sharing and teaching about how to communicate, this is what my feeling is. My hope is, is that after this video, you are going to feel a sense of relief and also feel like you actually have some actionable items to put into place to move from that guilt and that you don't feel like you did something the way that you probably should have into a space of relaxation, less overwhelm, and like you can actually accomplish the things that you want to accomplish the way that you want to accomplish them. Want even more sanity? Click the link in the description for your free ebook side Parenting tip. It's really important that when you say something that you follow through. And so when you're like, if you don't do this, we're leaving Disneyland. And then they don't do it, guess what? Bunny's entire Disney vacation has just been ruined. Here's my other confession is I'm probably a bigger Disney nerd than my children.
