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Episode 8
ABOUT THE EPISODE:
This personal episode is dedicated to all the moms who have put their life, dreams, career, and sanity on hold while they fight for their child's safety and health. For those who are having health issues and have given up on joy because of the stress in their life.
I share the bigger meaning behind what this podcast and The Stream represent both to me and to the world at large and encourage you to think about your dreams and passions that might be lying dormant while your child's situation takes over your entire life. We'll also learn about allostatic load (what the heck!?) and why it's important to know about and control.
You'll come away with practical ideas and an action plan for ways to keep the pilot light lit on at least one of your dreams.
This podcast is part of a nonprofit called Hopestream Community
Learn about The Stream, our private online community for moms
Learn about The Woods, our private online community for dads
Find us on Instagram: @hopestreamcommunity
Download a free e-book, Worried Sick: A Compassionate Guide For Parents When Your Teen or Young Adult Child Misuses Drugs and Alcohol
Hopestream Community is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and an Amazon Associate. We may make a small commission if you purchase from our links.
Brenda Zane
Hello friends. Welcome to Episode 8. Today we are going to be talking about a couple of things. One is I’m going to start out and just tell you some background on why I do what I do. And I’m also going to talk about why I want you to do what you want to do. And I know this probably sounds, well crazy. Right now you’re thinking, Wait, this is a podcast about parents of kids in addiction, and what in the world are you talking about? But stick with me here. I think it’s gonna make a little bit of sense.
the bigger meaning behind what I do
And so I’ll start out just by saying that a couple of months ago, I got asked a pretty common question, and that is what you do. So before the days of lockdown, when we used to be out and about socializing and running errands and all the things that we used to do, This is a very common question, right? What do you do? And that used to be easy. In my prior life, I spent 25 or so years in the advertising industry. And so I would say I’m in advertising. I worked for an agency, and then the conversation would flow from there about clients or whatever else was going on at the time.
Now it’s a little bit more complicated when people ask me what I do. Um, but when people do ask, I say I have an online community and a podcast for moms and parents of kids with substance use disorder, and the look on people’s faces pretty interesting. Sometimes I have to explain what substance use disorder is depending on who I’m talking with. If they’re sort of not in the addiction or treatment industry, people kind of have a blank gaze. When I say that, once I say addiction, people go, oh, right, yeah, wow. You know, Wow, that’s what you do.
So when this person asked me what I did and I responded with what I do, he said, Oh, well, that’s nice. Why is that important to you? And so I told him our story, you know, sort of the cliff notes version of what happened in our family and my story of kind of falling apart from a physical and mental standpoint, and I talked about really not having a network around me or kind of that tribe to go through it with and how I’d wish that I had been healthier during our struggle. And he said, oh, well, why is that important?
And I was kind of irritated because it seemed really obvious to me. But, you know, I smiled and I said, Well, it’s important to me because moms who have kids and addiction feel really isolated and they usually feel guilty and they’re super stigmatized about their situation. And, you know, I just want them to know that they’re not alone. And it isn’t their fault that their kid is misusing drugs or alcohol and especially they shouldn’t feel like they’re bad parents. And he nodded and he really looked generally interested. And so then I was even kind of more irritated when he said, Huh, Why is that important?
And I was like, seriously? So I thought for a minute, and I said, Well, it’s important that these moms don’t feel guilty or isolated and stigmatized because that takes up mind space and energy that they need to be directing toward their child and towards their own health. And so, you know, if they’re not consumed with all of that it can really help them find and seek out the help that they need to get their family better. And, you know, if they are consumed with guilt and isolation and stigma, it keeps them isolated. And then that just fuels the cycle of not getting help for their kid.
And he nodded again, and I was really ready to shift the subject by then. But then he again said, Well, why is that important? And so I was kind of expecting him to say that. So I was ready for it, and I thought about it again. And I said, well if moms don’t feel confident about getting help for their kids or they don’t have the energy to or they are too embarrassed to then the whole family suffers in these kinds of really unhealthy patterns and unhealthy patterns means kids aren’t getting better, and then that can lead to really tragic circumstances. For the child who’s battling addiction, that and that might be jail. That might be death, as I know so many families have dealt with, and so if we can avoid those circumstances and help keep you know, kids and teens out of entering the legal system, then that just makes everything better so that our communities air healthier our families or healthier. There’s less violence, there’s less crime. And, you know, if we can prevent a child from dying most of all, you know, from this horrible disease, then that keeps families intact. And it prevents the whole family from having to go through the trauma off, losing one of their own.
So I got through that, and, as you can imagine, he said again, still really interested in and very kind and looked me right in the eyes and said, Why is that important? And so this time I had to think for a few more minutes. Because the reason why I do what I do seem really simple and obvious to me before. But now that he was kind of probing and asking all these questions, I had to dig a little deeper. And so after a couple of minutes, I realized something and I said, You know, if there’s less crime and less violence, and less trauma in our communities and in our families, it just creates overall more peace and well being in the world, and especially for moms.
You know, if they’re able to live their lives and not have this constant worry and this constant trauma and pain in their lives, then they’re going to live better lives. And that makes the whole family healthier. And so he smiled and nodded, and he probed one more time. And you know, he could tell that I was kind of on to something big and he said, Yeah, why is that important? And at this point, it just sort of hit me like it was the most obvious thing that I had never thought of. But I said, If mom’s are spared the trauma and loss that’s associated with their kid’s addiction, then they can be more present, inactive in their family and in their work. And then the world doesn’t lose out on those talents and gifts that all of these women have. And you know, moms are women, obviously, and women have very unique talents that society can benefit from, and they deserve to live a full and happy life, even if they have a child who’s battling addiction.
And so ultimately the world and the community and the family lose out if a woman doesn’t have the ability to contribute her full talent. And so as kind of irritated as I was, I thought, yeah, that’s it. That’s actually why this is so important to me because I know for myself I got to a point where I was not able to function and contribute all of the things that I have to contribute to the world. And I know the moms that I work with are exhausted and broken, and they kind of shrink into themselves. They lose jobs or they have to quit their jobs. They lose their friends. And sometimes they lose these family relationships because when you’re on the outside looking into a family who’s struggling with this, it looks completely crazy and insane, and people really don’t understand why parents, but mom’s in particular, why they do the things that they do so they get blamed for enabling. They get blamed for shutting kids out. They get blamed for not finding the right therapist er treatment program. They get blamed for loving their kid too much and doing too much for them, and it’s just completely overwhelming.
So all of that to say, this is why I do what I do, and why I’m so passionate about helping moms get to a place of better health, better sort of mental clarity and stability so that they can at some point in the future, and I’m not saying that this is gonna happen in the middle of the craziness, but if they can keep themselves healthy enough for long enough that in the future they’ll be able to give back and contribute all of their talents to their jobs, to their communities, to their families, who really, really need them.
this episode is for you, mom, if you’ve lost your dreams and joy
And so this is why I’m dedicating this episode to moms, passions and dreams and talents that I know right now are getting swept aside as you fight for your child’s life. And that’s okay. It doesn’t, you’re not supposed to have to carry on with your life as normal when you’re going through this. But if your mom who’s listening – and you might not even have a child who’s battling addiction, you just might be listening because you have a friend or family member who’s in that situation, or you just stumbled upon this and were curious, but if you’re a mom of any kind, if your passions are on the back burner because of the stress in your life, I really, really want you to pay special attention today, and this is really, really for you.
So as many of you know, there are really physical and mental symptoms that come when you have a really high level of anxiety and stress, and that limits your ability to live your life in a fully functional way. And some moms that I work with, and some moms that I know end up in the hospital because they’re so stressed out from their child’s situation. A lot of them end up either being offered or on medication for anxiety and depression, which there’s nothing wrong with that. But this is the level of stress that’s in these people’s lives, and sadly, sometimes the medications that they’re given to manage their stress or the ones that their kids are addicted to. So it can be a mess.
allostatic load – what?!
Because of the physical symptoms that you’re having and there’s actually a term for this, which is Allostatic Load and I just want explain this for a second. I’m not going to get medical or technical on you, but I think it’s really important because the term stress is so overused and it’s basically just ubiquitous now for life, right? Everybody is stressed. I don’t know anybody who would say, Oh no, I don’t have any stress in my life. So that word is not necessarily the best word to describe what you’re going through in particular, especially right now, we’re still in lockdown and stayed home orders with COVID-19. And so you know the word stress. I think if you looked it up on Google trends, it would probably break your computer.
So Allostatic Load is just a term for the wear and terror on your body that accumulates as an individual’s exposed to repeated or chronic stress. And this term was actually coined back in 1993 by two doctors named McEwen and Stellar. All the details of that will be in the show notes, but it represents the physiological consequences of chronic exposure to repeated or prolonged stress and, you know, part of being able to manage and regulate stress in your nervous system. is the ability to reduce uncertainty. And, you know, as humans, we don’t like to feel as if a surprise is sort of right around the corner at all times. And so because of that, we really strive to reduce the amount of uncertainty of future outcomes of what’s going on.
But that takes a huge amount of your brain’s energy. And if you know, if we fail to resolve that uncertainty, the situation becomes that chronic stress, and it results in the accumulation of then what is called Allostatic load. So if you are a parent of a child who’s battling addiction, you have absolutely zero ability to kind of reduce uncertainty to a point. You know, your kids are doing things that either you don’t know of or they’re out of the home and doing things and then coming back into the home.
So the amount of uncertainty and just unpredictability is huge. And so I just wanted to highlight this because I want you to know that this is a real thing. This is there is not just the term stress to describe what you’re going through. There is actually a condition that is applicable to what you’re going through and what’s really scary is that heightened Allostatic load can result in permanently altered brain architecture. So if this is going on for long enough and you’re not managing it, it can actually have a really, really serious impact on your body. And it also minimizes your ability to cope with and reduce uncertainty in the future.
So even if this phase passes and you’re now living your life fast forward 5, 10 whatever years down the road, it still is gonna have an impact. So all of this is just to say that if you’re in a situation where you’re dealing with this constant uncertainty and you can’t plan or predict what’s gonna happen, your body is going to react, and you are gonna have physical symptoms that can cause that long term damage.
And so this is why I really emphasize and focus here on the podcast and in The Stream, which is our online community space. I focus on health and overall wellness because your system can get so overloaded with that stress hormone cortisol that you’re gonna have those physical symptoms and that detracts from your ability to live not only your life, but to be able to help your child.
And so I know that this is a lot. I know that the impact of your child is a lot, but I’m really going to encourage you today to think a little bit differently and maybe think about some things that you haven’t in a while.
what I want you to do today
So today, what I want is for you to get back to some of your dreams and passions. Some of the things that you were doing before your child went off the deep end and kind of go back and revisit some of those things that got shoved into the back burner of life. And I know it’s really hard to focus on anything other than your child right now. But even spending 15 minutes with your brain focused on something positive can have a calming effect on your nervous system.
And what you’re really trying to do is calm that nervous system down so that it’s not in that fight or flight mode all the time. So I would love for you to grab a pad of paper or your laptop or, if you journal, grab your journal and just write down anything that you can think of that you were doing before your child started experimenting with or using drugs or alcohol before things got to the point where this is all you could focus on and that it consumed your brain and your body 24/7.
So think about what are some of the things that you used to love to do on the weekends. What goals did you have for your career or for your life? What were some of the dreams that you had about things that you were going to do? What made you smile? I think a lot of times we get into this situation and we honestly can’t remember the last time that we smiled fully or laughed, you know, just crazy laughing with your head thrown back and tears streaming down your face. Those things tend to fade away.
So think about what made you smile. Who did you do things with that you don’t do things with anymore? Who have you sort of let fade from your life? For whatever reason, over the last period of time. And just keep writing until you can’t think of anything else so you can pause this. Write it all out and again, this applies to you, even if you don’t have a child in this situation, if you’re a mom with a lot of stress or even just a mom, we tend to let these things fade.
And so I’d love to have you take out and really get it down, get it visible so that you can see what are some of the things that are not in your life anymore. Now what I would love for you to do is pick one of those things that feels like just a tiny step in that direction would be possible. So it doesn’t have to be, “I can do this.” It’s just, “I could take a tiny step toward bringing this back into my life,” and it might be really tiny, like, if you like to draw or paint. Maybe it just means that today you’re going to find a website that sells the paint, the pencils or the paper that you like and just poke around on the website. Don’t even order anything. Just look at it, kind of get your creative juices flowing again, and then set aside every day, 15 minutes, to take just one baby step closer to that dream or passion.
And I know what you’re thinking right now, “you’re out of your mind. I don’t have 15 minutes a day to do this.” But, my friend, there are 1,440 minutes in every day, so I know you can carve out 15 of those for yourself. I know you can do it.
So maybe after a couple of days of just looking at pens and paper, you order some. And then maybe the next day you just start to think about what you would want to paint or draw or whatever your thing is. You know, maybe you really want to learn how to take better care of your skin, let’s say so, you know, hop on YouTube and find somebody that you like who has free videos explaining that there so much available on YouTube whether you want to do some beading, you want to do some jewelry making. Maybe you want to learn how to write? Maybe you have a book in your heart or in your mind that you want to write – anything like that is is something that you can search out and find ways to add it back into your life.
Because what I really want for you to do is to rekindle some of the life that you had prior to all of this happening. It can just feel so overwhelming and so consuming that you forget that you did have a life prior to this happening. And I don’t want you to lose yourself in it because this will change. There are good things that could happen. There are bad things that could happen. But this will change. This will not be forever. And I don’t want you to lose yourself so that when you come out the other side that you don’t either recognize yourself or you’re just so battered and beaten down that you don’t have the energy or the strength anymore to do something for yourself. Because the world needs your input, right?
the world needs your talent
If you go back to the beginning of this and why I do what I do, the nuggets in there is that the world needs your talent, the world needs your passion and your expertise and your love and all of the things that you offer. And if those stay on the back burner for too long than the world misses out, we all miss out on what you have to offer.
Imagine if some of the greatest women and history hadn’t done the things that they did because they were too tired or too stressed or too worried. They didn’t contribute to the things that they did. We wouldn’t have them to learn from and to grow from. So think about that with yourself, and I know that it doesn’t have to happen today. I know how overwhelming it is. It doesn’t have to happen today, but keep it flickering in the background so these things can really still be on the back burner. That’s probably the reality, for now. But try to keep the pilot light on on one, just one of them. Just one small thing that you can focus on now to get your mind off of what’s happening.
you can’t worry your child healthy
And the reason why that’s so important and why it’s so helpful is that you can’t worry or think or love your child healthy. I know you think you can. I know you want to. We all want to, but The reality is that we can’t. It’s virtually impossible to love them healthy or to think them out of addiction. So you have to force yourself to spend time every day just doing something else. It’s not selfish. It’s not irresponsible. It’s actually mandatory for you to stay functioning in the world in its mandatory for your child’s health. Because if you are not yourself, if you’ve lost yourself and you’re feeling bad and you’re feeling sick and you’re feeling unworthy, that does not serve your child at all. And so when you spend time thinking about yourself for something other than them, it really helps to lower that Allostatic load that we talked about.
And it relieves some of the pressure on your body because I know, I work with you guys. I talk with you. I know so many have chronic anxiety and headaches, have stomach and digestion problems, you have brain fog where you can’t really focus. You don’t really know what’s going on. Eczema, very common, sleep deprivation. I mean, you know, you name it. It’s just really, really dangerous for your long term health.
And so that’s why I want you to start thinking about how to get some control over these issues and a really great place to start is just about giving yourself a little bit of time and space to dream, right? To pick up your head, to look at the long game. Don’t look at what’s right in your lap today. You’ve been looking at that for a long time, you know, you know it’s there and I know it’s serious, and I know it’s terrifying. But I also know that you need to be stronger than the strongest of all mama’s to get through this. And how are you going to do that if you are too worn out and too battered and too unfocused to be able to be there?
is this resonating?
If this is resonating with you, I really encourage you to check out our online space, The Stream. This is the kind of thing that we focus on. These are the things that we talk about. We find little doable ways to take care of ourselves, just different ways of thinking about our mindset and trying to get ourselves into a state of mind and body where we can really be helpful to our kids and be there for our kids.
So that’s it for today. Thank you so much for listening and just know that you’re not in this fight alone. Um, I’ll put some resources in the show notes for you and those are always at Brendazane.com/podcast, and then you can also check out The Stream and right now, take advantage of the free membership that I’m offering during stay-at-home orders.
I know that everybody’s stress level is just exponentially higher right now. When you’ve got a child in this situation and they might not even be in your house, they might be in treatment. They might be in sober living, but this is just takes everything to a new level.
join us in The Stream
So for now, membership is free so you can get a founding membership with us, and it’s very different than other Facebook groups. I think if you come in and spend a little bit of time, you’ll see how it’s a little bit more personal, a little less noise and sort of a different focus on you vs on your child. So thanks again, and I look forward to meeting you here next week.
Hello friends. Welcome to Episode 8. Today we are going to be talking about a couple of things. One is I’m going to start out and just tell you some background on why I do what I do. And I’m also going to talk about why I want you to do what you want to do. And I know this probably sounds, well crazy. Right now you’re thinking, Wait, this is a podcast about parents of kids in addiction, and what in the world are you talking about? But stick with me here. I think it’s gonna make a little bit of sense.
the bigger meaning behind what I do
And so I’ll start out just by saying that a couple of months ago, I got asked a pretty common question, and that is what you do. So before the days of lockdown, when we used to be out and about socializing and running errands and all the things that we used to do, This is a very common question, right? What do you do? And that used to be easy. In my prior life, I spent 25 or so years in the advertising industry. And so I would say I’m in advertising. I worked for an agency, and then the conversation would flow from there about clients or whatever else was going on at the time.
Now it’s a little bit more complicated when people ask me what I do. Um, but when people do ask, I say I have an online community and a podcast for moms and parents of kids with substance use disorder, and the look on people’s faces pretty interesting. Sometimes I have to explain what substance use disorder is depending on who I’m talking with. If they’re sort of not in the addiction or treatment industry, people kind of have a blank gaze. When I say that, once I say addiction, people go, oh, right, yeah, wow. You know, Wow, that’s what you do.
So when this person asked me what I did and I responded with what I do, he said, Oh, well, that’s nice. Why is that important to you? And so I told him our story, you know, sort of the cliff notes version of what happened in our family and my story of kind of falling apart from a physical and mental standpoint, and I talked about really not having a network around me or kind of that tribe to go through it with and how I’d wish that I had been healthier during our struggle. And he said, oh, well, why is that important?
And I was kind of irritated because it seemed really obvious to me. But, you know, I smiled and I said, Well, it’s important to me because moms who have kids and addiction feel really isolated and they usually feel guilty and they’re super stigmatized about their situation. And, you know, I just want them to know that they’re not alone. And it isn’t their fault that their kid is misusing drugs or alcohol and especially they shouldn’t feel like they’re bad parents. And he nodded and he really looked generally interested. And so then I was even kind of more irritated when he said, Huh, Why is that important?
And I was like, seriously? So I thought for a minute, and I said, Well, it’s important that these moms don’t feel guilty or isolated and stigmatized because that takes up mind space and energy that they need to be directing toward their child and towards their own health. And so, you know, if they’re not consumed with all of that it can really help them find and seek out the help that they need to get their family better. And, you know, if they are consumed with guilt and isolation and stigma, it keeps them isolated. And then that just fuels the cycle of not getting help for their kid.
And he nodded again, and I was really ready to shift the subject by then. But then he again said, Well, why is that important? And so I was kind of expecting him to say that. So I was ready for it, and I thought about it again. And I said, well if moms don’t feel confident about getting help for their kids or they don’t have the energy to or they are too embarrassed to then the whole family suffers in these kinds of really unhealthy patterns and unhealthy patterns means kids aren’t getting better, and then that can lead to really tragic circumstances. For the child who’s battling addiction, that and that might be jail. That might be death, as I know so many families have dealt with, and so if we can avoid those circumstances and help keep you know, kids and teens out of entering the legal system, then that just makes everything better so that our communities air healthier our families or healthier. There’s less violence, there’s less crime. And, you know, if we can prevent a child from dying most of all, you know, from this horrible disease, then that keeps families intact. And it prevents the whole family from having to go through the trauma off, losing one of their own.
So I got through that, and, as you can imagine, he said again, still really interested in and very kind and looked me right in the eyes and said, Why is that important? And so this time I had to think for a few more minutes. Because the reason why I do what I do seem really simple and obvious to me before. But now that he was kind of probing and asking all these questions, I had to dig a little deeper. And so after a couple of minutes, I realized something and I said, You know, if there’s less crime and less violence, and less trauma in our communities and in our families, it just creates overall more peace and well being in the world, and especially for moms.
You know, if they’re able to live their lives and not have this constant worry and this constant trauma and pain in their lives, then they’re going to live better lives. And that makes the whole family healthier. And so he smiled and nodded, and he probed one more time. And you know, he could tell that I was kind of on to something big and he said, Yeah, why is that important? And at this point, it just sort of hit me like it was the most obvious thing that I had never thought of. But I said, If mom’s are spared the trauma and loss that’s associated with their kid’s addiction, then they can be more present, inactive in their family and in their work. And then the world doesn’t lose out on those talents and gifts that all of these women have. And you know, moms are women, obviously, and women have very unique talents that society can benefit from, and they deserve to live a full and happy life, even if they have a child who’s battling addiction.
And so ultimately the world and the community and the family lose out if a woman doesn’t have the ability to contribute her full talent. And so as kind of irritated as I was, I thought, yeah, that’s it. That’s actually why this is so important to me because I know for myself I got to a point where I was not able to function and contribute all of the things that I have to contribute to the world. And I know the moms that I work with are exhausted and broken, and they kind of shrink into themselves. They lose jobs or they have to quit their jobs. They lose their friends. And sometimes they lose these family relationships because when you’re on the outside looking into a family who’s struggling with this, it looks completely crazy and insane, and people really don’t understand why parents, but mom’s in particular, why they do the things that they do so they get blamed for enabling. They get blamed for shutting kids out. They get blamed for not finding the right therapist er treatment program. They get blamed for loving their kid too much and doing too much for them, and it’s just completely overwhelming.
So all of that to say, this is why I do what I do, and why I’m so passionate about helping moms get to a place of better health, better sort of mental clarity and stability so that they can at some point in the future, and I’m not saying that this is gonna happen in the middle of the craziness, but if they can keep themselves healthy enough for long enough that in the future they’ll be able to give back and contribute all of their talents to their jobs, to their communities, to their families, who really, really need them.
this episode is for you, mom, if you’ve lost your dreams and joy
And so this is why I’m dedicating this episode to moms, passions and dreams and talents that I know right now are getting swept aside as you fight for your child’s life. And that’s okay. It doesn’t, you’re not supposed to have to carry on with your life as normal when you’re going through this. But if your mom who’s listening – and you might not even have a child who’s battling addiction, you just might be listening because you have a friend or family member who’s in that situation, or you just stumbled upon this and were curious, but if you’re a mom of any kind, if your passions are on the back burner because of the stress in your life, I really, really want you to pay special attention today, and this is really, really for you.
So as many of you know, there are really physical and mental symptoms that come when you have a really high level of anxiety and stress, and that limits your ability to live your life in a fully functional way. And some moms that I work with, and some moms that I know end up in the hospital because they’re so stressed out from their child’s situation. A lot of them end up either being offered or on medication for anxiety and depression, which there’s nothing wrong with that. But this is the level of stress that’s in these people’s lives, and sadly, sometimes the medications that they’re given to manage their stress or the ones that their kids are addicted to. So it can be a mess.
allostatic load – what?!
Because of the physical symptoms that you’re having and there’s actually a term for this, which is Allostatic Load and I just want explain this for a second. I’m not going to get medical or technical on you, but I think it’s really important because the term stress is so overused and it’s basically just ubiquitous now for life, right? Everybody is stressed. I don’t know anybody who would say, Oh no, I don’t have any stress in my life. So that word is not necessarily the best word to describe what you’re going through in particular, especially right now, we’re still in lockdown and stayed home orders with COVID-19. And so you know the word stress. I think if you looked it up on Google trends, it would probably break your computer.
So Allostatic Load is just a term for the wear and terror on your body that accumulates as an individual’s exposed to repeated or chronic stress. And this term was actually coined back in 1993 by two doctors named McEwen and Stellar. All the details of that will be in the show notes, but it represents the physiological consequences of chronic exposure to repeated or prolonged stress and, you know, part of being able to manage and regulate stress in your nervous system. is the ability to reduce uncertainty. And, you know, as humans, we don’t like to feel as if a surprise is sort of right around the corner at all times. And so because of that, we really strive to reduce the amount of uncertainty of future outcomes of what’s going on.
But that takes a huge amount of your brain’s energy. And if you know, if we fail to resolve that uncertainty, the situation becomes that chronic stress, and it results in the accumulation of then what is called Allostatic load. So if you are a parent of a child who’s battling addiction, you have absolutely zero ability to kind of reduce uncertainty to a point. You know, your kids are doing things that either you don’t know of or they’re out of the home and doing things and then coming back into the home.
So the amount of uncertainty and just unpredictability is huge. And so I just wanted to highlight this because I want you to know that this is a real thing. This is there is not just the term stress to describe what you’re going through. There is actually a condition that is applicable to what you’re going through and what’s really scary is that heightened Allostatic load can result in permanently altered brain architecture. So if this is going on for long enough and you’re not managing it, it can actually have a really, really serious impact on your body. And it also minimizes your ability to cope with and reduce uncertainty in the future.
So even if this phase passes and you’re now living your life fast forward 5, 10 whatever years down the road, it still is gonna have an impact. So all of this is just to say that if you’re in a situation where you’re dealing with this constant uncertainty and you can’t plan or predict what’s gonna happen, your body is going to react, and you are gonna have physical symptoms that can cause that long term damage.
And so this is why I really emphasize and focus here on the podcast and in The Stream, which is our online community space. I focus on health and overall wellness because your system can get so overloaded with that stress hormone cortisol that you’re gonna have those physical symptoms and that detracts from your ability to live not only your life, but to be able to help your child.
And so I know that this is a lot. I know that the impact of your child is a lot, but I’m really going to encourage you today to think a little bit differently and maybe think about some things that you haven’t in a while.
what I want you to do today
So today, what I want is for you to get back to some of your dreams and passions. Some of the things that you were doing before your child went off the deep end and kind of go back and revisit some of those things that got shoved into the back burner of life. And I know it’s really hard to focus on anything other than your child right now. But even spending 15 minutes with your brain focused on something positive can have a calming effect on your nervous system.
And what you’re really trying to do is calm that nervous system down so that it’s not in that fight or flight mode all the time. So I would love for you to grab a pad of paper or your laptop or, if you journal, grab your journal and just write down anything that you can think of that you were doing before your child started experimenting with or using drugs or alcohol before things got to the point where this is all you could focus on and that it consumed your brain and your body 24/7.
So think about what are some of the things that you used to love to do on the weekends. What goals did you have for your career or for your life? What were some of the dreams that you had about things that you were going to do? What made you smile? I think a lot of times we get into this situation and we honestly can’t remember the last time that we smiled fully or laughed, you know, just crazy laughing with your head thrown back and tears streaming down your face. Those things tend to fade away.
So think about what made you smile. Who did you do things with that you don’t do things with anymore? Who have you sort of let fade from your life? For whatever reason, over the last period of time. And just keep writing until you can’t think of anything else so you can pause this. Write it all out and again, this applies to you, even if you don’t have a child in this situation, if you’re a mom with a lot of stress or even just a mom, we tend to let these things fade.
And so I’d love to have you take out and really get it down, get it visible so that you can see what are some of the things that are not in your life anymore. Now what I would love for you to do is pick one of those things that feels like just a tiny step in that direction would be possible. So it doesn’t have to be, “I can do this.” It’s just, “I could take a tiny step toward bringing this back into my life,” and it might be really tiny, like, if you like to draw or paint. Maybe it just means that today you’re going to find a website that sells the paint, the pencils or the paper that you like and just poke around on the website. Don’t even order anything. Just look at it, kind of get your creative juices flowing again, and then set aside every day, 15 minutes, to take just one baby step closer to that dream or passion.
And I know what you’re thinking right now, “you’re out of your mind. I don’t have 15 minutes a day to do this.” But, my friend, there are 1,440 minutes in every day, so I know you can carve out 15 of those for yourself. I know you can do it.
So maybe after a couple of days of just looking at pens and paper, you order some. And then maybe the next day you just start to think about what you would want to paint or draw or whatever your thing is. You know, maybe you really want to learn how to take better care of your skin, let’s say so, you know, hop on YouTube and find somebody that you like who has free videos explaining that there so much available on YouTube whether you want to do some beading, you want to do some jewelry making. Maybe you want to learn how to write? Maybe you have a book in your heart or in your mind that you want to write – anything like that is is something that you can search out and find ways to add it back into your life.
Because what I really want for you to do is to rekindle some of the life that you had prior to all of this happening. It can just feel so overwhelming and so consuming that you forget that you did have a life prior to this happening. And I don’t want you to lose yourself in it because this will change. There are good things that could happen. There are bad things that could happen. But this will change. This will not be forever. And I don’t want you to lose yourself so that when you come out the other side that you don’t either recognize yourself or you’re just so battered and beaten down that you don’t have the energy or the strength anymore to do something for yourself. Because the world needs your input, right?
the world needs your talent
If you go back to the beginning of this and why I do what I do, the nuggets in there is that the world needs your talent, the world needs your passion and your expertise and your love and all of the things that you offer. And if those stay on the back burner for too long than the world misses out, we all miss out on what you have to offer.
Imagine if some of the greatest women and history hadn’t done the things that they did because they were too tired or too stressed or too worried. They didn’t contribute to the things that they did. We wouldn’t have them to learn from and to grow from. So think about that with yourself, and I know that it doesn’t have to happen today. I know how overwhelming it is. It doesn’t have to happen today, but keep it flickering in the background so these things can really still be on the back burner. That’s probably the reality, for now. But try to keep the pilot light on on one, just one of them. Just one small thing that you can focus on now to get your mind off of what’s happening.
you can’t worry your child healthy
And the reason why that’s so important and why it’s so helpful is that you can’t worry or think or love your child healthy. I know you think you can. I know you want to. We all want to, but The reality is that we can’t. It’s virtually impossible to love them healthy or to think them out of addiction. So you have to force yourself to spend time every day just doing something else. It’s not selfish. It’s not irresponsible. It’s actually mandatory for you to stay functioning in the world in its mandatory for your child’s health. Because if you are not yourself, if you’ve lost yourself and you’re feeling bad and you’re feeling sick and you’re feeling unworthy, that does not serve your child at all. And so when you spend time thinking about yourself for something other than them, it really helps to lower that Allostatic load that we talked about.
And it relieves some of the pressure on your body because I know, I work with you guys. I talk with you. I know so many have chronic anxiety and headaches, have stomach and digestion problems, you have brain fog where you can’t really focus. You don’t really know what’s going on. Eczema, very common, sleep deprivation. I mean, you know, you name it. It’s just really, really dangerous for your long term health.
And so that’s why I want you to start thinking about how to get some control over these issues and a really great place to start is just about giving yourself a little bit of time and space to dream, right? To pick up your head, to look at the long game. Don’t look at what’s right in your lap today. You’ve been looking at that for a long time, you know, you know it’s there and I know it’s serious, and I know it’s terrifying. But I also know that you need to be stronger than the strongest of all mama’s to get through this. And how are you going to do that if you are too worn out and too battered and too unfocused to be able to be there?
is this resonating?
If this is resonating with you, I really encourage you to check out our online space, The Stream. This is the kind of thing that we focus on. These are the things that we talk about. We find little doable ways to take care of ourselves, just different ways of thinking about our mindset and trying to get ourselves into a state of mind and body where we can really be helpful to our kids and be there for our kids.
So that’s it for today. Thank you so much for listening and just know that you’re not in this fight alone. Um, I’ll put some resources in the show notes for you and those are always at Brendazane.com/podcast, and then you can also check out The Stream and right now, take advantage of the free membership that I’m offering during stay-at-home orders.
I know that everybody’s stress level is just exponentially higher right now. When you’ve got a child in this situation and they might not even be in your house, they might be in treatment. They might be in sober living, but this is just takes everything to a new level.
join us in The Stream
So for now, membership is free so you can get a founding membership with us, and it’s very different than other Facebook groups. I think if you come in and spend a little bit of time, you’ll see how it’s a little bit more personal, a little less noise and sort of a different focus on you vs on your child. So thanks again, and I look forward to meeting you here next week.
