42: Take Off the Masks of Adulting

Hello friends and welcome to Grief Guts and Green Smoothies. I am your host, Melissa Dugalecki and I am so excited to be here with you all to chat about ways in which we can all get through different adversities, challenges and loss and how getting outside of our comfort zone and maybe having a green smoothie or two can help us do so. We will cover different topics ranging from interviews to recipes, to sharing my own stories of my grief journey and the loss of my daughter Layden. Honor to be able to share her light in hopes of helping you spread yours. Now, let's dive in. All right everybody, welcome back. I am really excited about today's episode as it's gonna integrate this seasonal time as today is Halloween and we are going to dive in, take the masks off of adulthood as children put on their masks of Halloween. But we're really going to peel back the layers and look at what we can learn from children and a process I've observed in them, a process that I coach and how these lessons from these kids running around right now, trick or treat, just counting their candy, wanting their costumes on what we can learn from them, that is absolutely going to help us in our adult lives. So let's get started. So one of the things I think about and coach often, whether it's in my one on one work with clients in life coaching, or whether it's in the mindset work within the group coaching of move, is that we really tend to over complicate things as adults. If you think about it, when we come into this world, we are born without limits, we are born without judgment, we are born without shame, without guilt, without worry, without fear. And then we begin to attach ourselves to things and we're conditioned for certain behaviors. And the truth is we're conditioned for these things because it's the way we've come to understand safety, it's the way we've come to understand survival, fight or flight. So there's really no sense in beating ourselves up for where we've come to. But there's also no sense in continuing through at the same exact energy vibration or the same exact way of operating simply because it's what we've always done. So many people that I work with talk about wanting to get different results and yes, they take action to it, that's why they're working with me. But in order to get different results, we have to bring different energy, we have to bring a different approach. One of my favorite ways of doing that, of reminding ourselves of the pure state within each and every Single one of us is to look at children and to channel children. And what better time to do that with a sense of lightness and playfulness than Halloween? And I'll be honest, Halloween is not my favorite day of the year. Right. For a number of reasons. One, I've never been a huge fan of the holiday. Sorry. For those who are to each their own. I always kind of classified it in the, you know, blank check to dress promiscuously column or the temptation to overindulge in sweets column, whatever it may be. But for me, those have kind of been with the holidays represented until laden and then the holiday represented. I remember being pregnant on Halloween saying, oh, I wonder what our baby will be next year, right? I wonder what that's gonna be. And now as Halloween rolls around, it can kind of kick start the holiday season for me. It's like kind of bracing myself. If you have ever ridden a roller coaster when you're going up a roller coaster, you know that feeling when you're going up and it seems to be going so slowly and you hear like the click and the click and the click and the click as you're going up and you know that you're just going to go down, maybe you're going to have a few loops and it's going to be this wild ride and it's going to be fun and it's going to be scary and your heart's going to be racing. That's kind of how I feel leading up to Halloween because for me it kicks off the holiday season. I get a quick little reprieve and then we're into the time period of Leighton's life, right. Her birthday and all of her surgeries. And my emotional memory is really high. My logistical memory is not right. Whether it comes to information, names, things like that that come across my plate on a day to day that aren't highly associated with emotion. I have a hard time remembering because I've worked really hard at developing my emotional intelligence, my emotional responses that tends to lead, that energy tends to lead. So memories, and I'm not alone in this, memories associated with high emotional intensity are really present for me. I feel them. So as we're going up this roller coaster, I can feel it, we're ready to go, but I'm buckled in. I got the tools and we're gonna do it. So as Halloween approaches, I feel this sense. But with that I'm also allowing myself to bring this new meaning to it that I'm excited to share. And it's this beauty this lightness, this innocence of children that every single one of us has within it. You have it within you. It's just that we forget that it's there. And so let's allow this time of children putting on their masks and putting on their costumes be a time where we as adults take ours off, where we allow ourselves to strip down to our core, right? That innocence, that light, that beauty that is truly within all of us. We just have to peel back the masks that we put on, right? Of trying to be a certain role, trying to gain a certain level of acceptance, of seeking validation, of not wanting others to see our vulnerability. We've put on all these masks as a way to survive, as a response to the conditioned behaviors we've been told we need to assume to succeed. But that's not true. Those truths are there simply to keep us safe. But in keeping ourselves safe, we miss so much opportunity in growth. We got to get a little bit uncomfortable to grow. And so I want to break down four things that children do so damn well that we can learn from. And I witnessed this at a birthday party recently. I was at my friend's 2 year old's birthday party and she has an older sister and I was witnessing this and watching it and it truly did inspire this episode and this thought process around it ever since of man, we gotta stop complicating as adults, we gotta stop complicating. And the process that children follow, ironically, is the exact four step process that I teach, that I created in my one on one coaching and then I also use and move in the mindset coaching. It's a four step method and kids do it every day. And so I couldn't help but feel as though I just tapped into that intuitive nature that we all have within us when I created that method. And I've heard the method used similarly by Abraham Hicks, by Gabby Bernstein. It's similar processes, but all of it comes back to our core. All of it comes back to our being. And so the first thing that we can learn from children, if you're watching children, is that they feel it when something excites them. They feel it when something upsets them. They feel it. You will see them cry in public. You will see children express that they are angry in public. Now those are signs of them feeling it. So the first step is that they allow themselves to feel it when something rises up in them. They don't stop it, they don't stuff it down, they don't try to numb, avoid, escape the discomfort because they know it's gonna pass. They know it's not who they are, they know it's just a state of their current being. They may not be able to articulate that, they know that, but intuitively they know that. So children allow themselves to feel things. They let it rise up, right? And as adults, so often we stuff it down, we put on a mask, right? We put on a mask or we avoid. We reach for that candy, we reach for that food, we reach for that drink, that shopping spree, that unnecessary extra workout or that extra thing we have to do at work. We over busy ourselves. We reach for whatever it is that's going to create a barrier between us and the emotional experience. But the first thing to learn from children is to allow ourselves to, to feel it. Next, children share it. We know what children are feeling, we know what they're thinking. They have that temper tantrum, they have that meltdown, they have that dance party of excitement, right? They just move their body. They let that energy move through them. Whatever it is, you can actually watch energies move through kids, whether it's extreme happiness or sadness or fear or whatever it is, they, they not only allow themselves to feel it, but they share it, they express it. And so we as adults can take notes from children. And I love this beautiful visual as they're putting their masks and costumes on that we can take ours off and we can allow ourselves to share it. And not only share it in the way that it moves through us, but in the way that we articulate it. Children will say, I'm upset, I'm mad, you hurt my feelings. She made me scared, she made me sad, whatever it might be. Now, of course they haven't learned personal responsibility yet. That's a whole other lesson that we can work with children on, but we're able to share it in that space of personal responsibility, not of placing blame, but of just identifying. This was triggered in me. This is how I feel. This is my part of the energy that I'm owning. But this is what really elicited that in me. And I'm gonna get curious about it, I'm gonna share it, I'm gonna share my truth. And the next thing that children do is that they release it. Have you ever watched the bounce back rate of a child when they're upset? I was flabbergasted. I was at the two year old's birthday party and there was a little disagreement right, between siblings. Normal and eight seconds later they're best friends and they're hugging, right? Can we learn that? How many times have we as adults, somebody asked us how we're doing and we said, I'm fine, right? That straight faced, I'm fine, nothing's wrong, right? Not only are we not allowing it to surface, we're not sharing it, but then we're not releasing it. It's like we're trapping. If you can envision it, we are actually trapping these things in us. If you watch the process through a child, they allow it to come up, they feel it, they share it, and then they release it, right? They move on. They are hugging and they're moving on because they're in the present moment. And as adults, we hold on to things. It's like we constantly taking inventory or taking note. But the truth is, I say this all the time. We are collecting evidence for the stories we've told ourselves. So now we're looking for certain things to keep ourselves safe. Then we collect evidence for it. And once we've collected evidence for it, we, we hold it in and we confirm these truths. And then what do we do? We go out and we collect more evidence and we hold it in. Think of how heavy that is. Oh, think of the burden that that is. So from children, right? Step three is we gotta release things, we gotta let it go. And that takes courage of trusting that even if our feelings get hurt again, or even if we get disappointed or angry or upset, that we're gonna be okay, that it's gonna pass. Instead of constantly going through this minefield, envision this minefield that we put ourselves in as adults of trying to avoid anything that can trigger it. Kids just kind of go through and they get triggered, they allow it to surface, they feel it, they express it and they move on. So can we channel that inner child inside of all of us for step three to release it, to let it go? Now that can also be done individually, right? Through journaling through physical movement, painting, woodworking, running, boxing, batting cages. I have actually woken up before and said, I need to go to a batting cage today. I gotta release this energy. I've got to move it through me. And so many of us are seeking to feel better. But in order to do that, we have to become better at feeling. In order to feel better, we have to become better at feeling. And boy, we don't have to look far, go observe children, or go out there on Halloween and watch it because you know it's bound to happen in the streets. Somebody's not gonna get that last Reese's peanut butter cup that their friend got and they're gonna have a Mini meltdown. And they're gonna move on. By the time their two houses down, right, it's gonna happen. So you can just go watch it, right? Or they're gonna be upset that their parents are shutting down their trick or treat time, and it's time to go home. By the time they get into bed, they're going to have moved on. And it's this process, right? So first it's allowing themselves to feel it. They let it surface. Number two, they share it. Number three, they release it. And in the method that I've created in my coaching, it's one, we identify what's actually popping up here, what's being triggered. Because as we become adults, right, it's typically all triggering those things we've collected evidence for. Two, what can we release? What can we let go of? Three, what can we replace it with? And then four, how do we sustain and maintain? So this very childlike, this very intuitive process is one that I teach on a higher level, but we can learn from children. And the last thing that children do that I think is the most incredibly powerful lesson that we can watch, is they're their authentic selves. They dance in the aisles of the grocery store. They sing in the middle of the street. They dress up in costumes that are fun for them. They color, they get messy. They got food on their face, they get dirt on their jeans. And none of that matters. You can see in children this wonder of feeling, of experiencing, of connecting, and this freedom of letting the opinions or the judgments or the votes of others weigh them down. It's not until they've been conditioned to give others a vote in their state of being that they do so. So that means, intuitively, we are all free, authentic beings. So it's up to us to not give that power away. And if we have, it's up to us to reclaim it back and not to guilt ourselves for having given it away, because that's what we've been conditioned to do. But you know what? We can recondition our behaviors at any time. We just have to make the decision to start now, to not kid ourselves by saying, we will start when it gets better. We will start when this settles. We will start when X, Y or Z transpires. We will start now. So I hope this was helpful for you to step back, to allow children to put on their masks this time of year and to let that inspire us to take our masks off, to feel what arises, to share, to express what arises, and then to release what arises so we can have a sense of clarity, of weightlessness, and this incredible power of owning our authentic selves, owning our authentic truth. Singing out loud, dancing in the streets, whatever it may be, this freedom that is within all of us, we just have to hang onto it and not put on layers and masks to hide it. If you are ready to take action now, please do. Don't wait. Take off those masks. Work with a coach, work with a counselor, listen to podcasts, read books. Take energy to your own growth, your own freedom, your own feeling of being. Remember, if you want to feel better, you have to learn to be better at feeling. And we can learn that from children, but we've got to take energy to it. And of course, working with people is going to help. As you know, I do mindset work in move in group setting. That's something you're interested in getting that mind, body or belly, please reach out, ask the question if you want to work with me one on one. I am not currently taking any new one on one clients. I'm full. But that will likely shift in December. People are always evolving in, evolving out, right? So again, if that's something that you want to do or you're curious, but just ask, just ask. There's no pressure, but you deserve to see what aligns for you to feel your best. And if it's something else, go ask that something else about that, right? Go find out. Go learn. Do not allow anyone, anything or especially yourself to keep these masks on that prevent us from feeling and living. Because boy, if I learned anything from Layden, it's that we are meant to shine brightly. We are meant to feel our best. We are meant to learn, love and connect. And so I thank you for allowing me to utilize this platform of podcasting to shine Layden's light, to share the lessons that she brought and that she continues to bring. For me as her mother, nothing means more to allow her impact to grow, even if her life is no longer here on earth, that her life and her light continues to grow. So thank you so much. If this episode resonated with you, please take a second to just rate a review, share it Spotify or itunes. That's just going to allow this work to grow, right? These messages to come get out there and if it helped you, well, it could help someone else. So if you're sharing it, then you are allowing somebody else to grow as well. And what a gift that is. Thanks for tuning in everybody. We will talk soon.