#70 | How Ted Lasso and a Walt Whitman Quote Are Helping Parents Become Fierce LGBTQ Allies

Welcome to Just Breathe: Parenting Your LGBTQ Teen, the podcast transforming the conversation around loving and raising an LGBTQ child. My name is Heather Hester, and I am so grateful you are here. I want you to take a deep breath and know that for the time we are together, you are in the safety of the Just Breathe nest. Whether today's show is an amazing guest or me sharing stories, resources, strategies, or lessons I've learned along our journey, I want you to feel like we're just hanging out at a coffee shop having a cozy chat. Most of all, I want you to remember that wherever you are on this journey right now, in this moment in time, you are not alone. Welcome to Just Breathe. I am so happy you are here today.

I am doing a, a really short solo episode today. Um, I have some things that I've been thinking about that I just wanted to share with everyone, and I thought that this would be a good time to do it. They're kind of timely, and I felt like, oh my goodness, it's been a long time since I've done a solo episode. I've been really grateful to have so many amazing guests over the past few months and, you know, all these wonderful people that I could share with you. But I just wanted to jump in here today and let you know some things that I've been thinking about, and I'm wondering if these are things that resonate with you or things that have kind of caught your attention recently. And I'd love to know if they have. Please email me, reach out to me via email or on Facebook. You can always direct message me. I would love to hear your thoughts. But this first kind of came up for me, this whole question or really just concept, and this is going to sound really funny. I do not watch a lot of TV, and when I do, it has to be something that just is really good, captures my attention, doesn't make me feel like I'm wasting time. And so, and that's just me, I'm just weird like that. So I have recently watched Ted Lasso after my husband and so many people have said, oh my gosh, it's so good. You have to watch this. You have to watch this. Feel good. It makes you laugh, it makes you cry. And so I thought, well, why not? This sounds like a lovely thing to just kind of decompress with. And needless to say, you know, for everyone who has watched Ted Lasso, I loved it. I fell in love, and just so many things about it that I love. But the reason I bring it up, other than the fact that it really renews our faith in the value of kindness and the value of really loving and appreciating people for who they are in this world and how they show up in this world. In one of the episodes, Ted uses the quote, a Walt Whitman quote, that is one of my favorite, and it just blew me away. I loved the way he used it, and it's the quote, "Be curious, not judgmental." And he used it in a way in that scene that was very literal. But I thought, you know, this can really be used in so many different ways, and really thought of— it really, you know, made me think of a lot of different things and different ways that it could be applied. And so a few weeks ago, I actually did a workshop on fear, and it really was kind of rolling around in my head then, and I was like, this is kind of perfect, because when we think about fear specifically, and ways to overcome it, ways to just kind of even just tips and strategies, right, for dealing with fear. This quote was really great, using the idea of being curious about the fear, whatever that fear is, instead of judging both the fear and yourself for feeling that emotion of fear. And I thought, my gosh, this is so great. And so, you know, this— a lot of the workshop was actually based on kind of continuing to circle back to the idea of being curious, like stopping and allowing yourself to think, why is this coming up for me? Why Am I feeling fearful? What is happening either internally or externally that's bringing that up for me?

A quick interruption. I am so excited to announce that I am adding a new segment to every podcast episode going forward. You can now call me and leave a message with your amazing questions, and I will answer them at the end of every episode. So cool, right? So here's number: 847-448-1212. That's 847-448-1212. I can't wait to hear from you.

Back to the episode. I just had a really— it was really fun for me to create that and to present that. And I've just been giving it a lot more thought and Really interestingly today, and I don't know if you will get to hear this awesome interview with Crystal before this drops or after, but I had the pleasure of interviewing Crystal Whitaker, who is a DEIB coach, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging coach. And she, oh my goodness, if you've already heard her, you know how great she is. If you haven't heard her yet, Oh my, you are in for a treat. But we brought this very thought up and I thought, oh my goodness, I love that once again, we're talking about this in a very different way, the idea of being curious. And so she and I were talking about it in the context of when we are communicating, whether it is with our kids, our spouses, our partners, our friends, whomever we're communicating with, when we bring that element of curiosity into the conversation, it immediately stops any judgment. It stops fear. It stops any knee-jerk reactions that we might have to things if we approach it with curiosity, approach the conversation, approach whatever we're, you know, our speech with, "I'm just kind of curious. I'm curious, you know, why you're sharing this with me." Or when something is being shared with you, when you are having a conversation, it is a really wonderful way to— mindset to be in so that when information is being shared with you, you aren't automatically thinking of that response. "I wanna respond, I wanna respond." It allows you to be in that space of, really hearing and listening to, you know, whether it's your child who's sharing something with you, or again, or your spouse or your partner or a friend. When you're in that space of just curiosity, you can kind of just sit there and really hear what they're saying, what they have to say. And then it also allows for a moment to process and respond with thoughtful, a thoughtful response instead of a knee-jerk response. So whether it's a question or a comment or, you know, a follow-up or whatever it is, it's going to come across in a way, um, very different if you're coming with curiosity than if you're coming with judgment. So I really just wanted to kind of come to you today with that and really kind of brainstorm the ways that we can take this idea of approaching, whether it's, you know, conversations, whether it's in our work, you know, we can take this anywhere from parenting to really any relationship, to how we show up in the world and showing up, and that can be in our communities. For, you know, those of you who love, love being online and are so good at, you know, social media and communicating that way, you know, how you show up there. And then it really, we have this opportunity to take this with us not just in our communities, but into our country and into the world. And that's what really, you know, those are two of the bigger ones that inspired me to actually do this really quick episode because I wanted this to be more of a thought-provoking episode, one that inspires conversation, one that inspires thoughts. And I want to know what you think about this. I want to hear your feedback. I want to know the ways that you you know, would like to use curiosity in your family, in your home, with your kids, or, you know, ways that you feel like you could use it in, in your community. And then, you know, on a much larger scale, how being curious and not judgmental could really change the trajectory of so many things that are happening in our country right now. So reach out to me, reach out to me, you know, again, via email, on Facebook, whatever is most comfortable to you. I'd love to hear what you think, and I would love to know, you know, how can we really do something with this and make some really good changes? So that's all I have. I know this is a really short episode, but I just felt very compelled to share this with you. You and connect with you in this way. And until next time, remember that you are not alone.

Thanks so much for joining me today. If you enjoyed today's episode, I would I would be so grateful for a rating or review. Click on the link in the show notes or go to my website, chrysalismama.com, to stay up to date on my latest resources as well as to learn how you can work with me. Please share this podcast with anyone who needs to know that they are not alone and remember to just breathe.

Breathe.

Until next time.