Building Healthy Relationships by Exploring Adult Attachment Patterns (Part 2) :: Charissa Lopez [Ep 499]

As parents, we are keenly aware of the peaks and valleys of our kids’ emotions. Anger, sadness, excitement, and all the other feelings can make us feel like our child is on a roller coaster we’re just trying to slow down.  It’s true that we all feel highs and lows throughout our day, but we rarely talk about what it feel like when we’re “in the zone” and feeling calm and ready to go. My guest today is sharing about the window of tolerance and how to regulate ourselves and our kids to help stay in that window.  “If I am dysregulated, I cannot regulate my child. So if I'm in fight or flight and I'm yelling. There's no amount of yelling that brings my child back into the window. And sometimes parents think the yelling is working, but what you're doing isn’t getting your child in the window. They're going into collapse and into a place of fear.” Charissa Fry is a Licensed Professional Counselor and believer. Her passion is to come alongside those who are hurting and struggling to help them find truth, hope, healing, connection, and growth. She shares some eye-opening information and statistics to get us on the path to helping our kids build resilience and stay in that window of tolerance.  Charissa shares from a faith-perspective that we as believers are not alone. She reminds us that we can lean on God to regulate our emotions as we love on our kids and go through the hardships of life.  “God himself through Jesus is the ultimate attachment figure. He is always reaching for us. He never fails to respond to our needs. He always loves us. He's never judging us and never shaming us. So to know that when we need to be co-regulated, that when I am feeling like I'm going to leave the window, I can remember the truth of who God is and I can reach out to him in prayer.”

7 Okt 201939min

It’s a popular (and sometimes controversial) typology system that can help you understand yourself and others better, but how can we use the Enneagram in light of the gospel to help our marriages thrive?  Beth McCord of Your Enneagram Coach is here to walk us how to look at our marriages and close relationships through the lens of the Enneagram and the Gospel.  “With the Enneagram, you can see that we all struggle. We all need Jesus. It's just we need it in different ways. And he makes us more like him in different ways as well. It's called the body of Christ and we reflect Christ differently. We all need to bring our uniqueness to glorify him and bless each other.” We talk about how using the Enneagram can improve communication and compassion in our marriages and what to do if your spouse has no interest in learning his type. (hint: the answer isn’t to bug him about it)  Beth shares that no one pairing out of the 45 possible Enneagram matches in marriage is better than any other, but it’s our surrender to Christ that makes all the difference.  “I can guarantee you there is not a combination that is better or worse. Any two types that are surrendering and depending on the grace of God through Christ’s work on the cross on our behalf will be a blessing to one another.”

30 Sep 201946min

When a child processes sensory information just a little differently than his or her peers it can mean BIG emotions, meltdowns and a huge struggle for us as parents.  Often these kids are labeled as “sensitive” or “intense” and they might cause us to avoid playdates and public places because we’re never sure what seemingly small issue will cause the next explosion.  Lynne Jackson of Connected Families joins me to uncover the mysteries behind our kids with sensory struggles and how we can help them thrive. We talk about Sensory Processing Disorder and the wide range of sensory processing symptoms.   As a mom who had two kids with sensory processing needs and as a licensed occupational therapist, Lynne encourages us to become a student of our kids and try to understand their point of view. “Imagine if the volume on all your sounds and the sensations in your body was turned up and you were to trying to fall asleep, that would be really hard. Car rides and meals are often torturous. So then what are the kids doing? They're trying to cope. They're jumping down. They're complaining about the food and squirming in their seats. They're trying to do something so they feel in control.” We talk about what to do if you suspect a sensory processing problem in one of your kids and where to seek help. I share my story of working through this with one of my boys and why I wish we’d gone to see a therapist sooner.

23 Sep 201944min

Author, blogger and podcast host Sarah Mae joins me to share her story of working through the generational bondage of alcoholism and the verbal and emotional abuse she suffered from her mother.  “I remember yelling out, 'I'm going to kill myself,' and her saying, 'Go ahead, I dare you.' And that was it for me. I just bawled because I felt so unloved and so confused.” In her new book The Complicated Heart, Sarah takes us into her painful past and all she experienced with her mom. She also shares the hope and victory of how God wooed her heart and changed the direction of her family forever.  “Dysfunction does not have to be your legacy. It does not have to be your identity. And you do not have to pass it on to your kids. It doesn't matter if you were born into it, married into it or you created it yourself. There is always victory on the table. We just have to be willing to pick it up.” Throughout our chat, Sarah is candid and encouraging. She shares openly about the abortion she had at 16 and the healing she’s experienced from bravely speaking out against the shame of past sin and accepting God’s grace as all-sufficient.

16 Sep 201947min

Access to the internet is everywhere in our modern world. And that means access to pornography and sexual imagery is everywhere too. Rather than bury our heads in the sand or cross our fingers that our kids won’t see porn, we can choose to be proactive and to give them a plan for how to react.  Kristen Jenson, the best-selling author or Good Picture Bad Pictures, joins me to share some simple ways to talk with our kids about porn and protect their minds.  “Pornography makes a child more vulnerable to sexual abuse. So if you porn-proof your child by starting these conversations early, you are actually helping your child to be more protected from child sexual abuse. When you start these discussions it's not as hard as you think. And once you do, you've begun this journey with your child to trust you for answers. You tell them, ‘Don't go on Google to ask these questions. Come and talk to me.’” This may feel like a super heavy topic, but I promise it’s worth taking the proactive approach now vs waiting till you have teenagers. Kristen shares a lot of resources and makes it easy to get started.

9 Sep 201947min

My guest today is Ruth Chou Simons. She’s a mom of six boys and an author and entrepreneur. You may know her best from the beautiful watercolor prints and products she creates for her business on Gracelaced.com.  In her newest book, Beholding and Becoming: The Art of Everyday Worship, Grace shares about how every day is an opportunity to be shaped and formed by what moves our hearts and captures our gaze.  We dive into what that looks like in Ruth’s life and how choosing to focus on Christ changes everything from our perspective on our parenting and work to how we look to others.  The most unhappy I get is if I get preoccupied with somebody else's story. And I don't give thanks and I don't jot down reminders of how he's provided for the ultimate story of redemption in my life. And also how he's working that out day by day and writing my story anew. We talk about how our fast-paced, hustle culture steals the joy and the beauty away from the everyday faithfulness of growing in God. My favorite reminder she shared is, “You don’t have to be blooming to be growing.” So true. How often do we start something and expect instant gratification and quick wins? We want easy-to-share glossy images of success. But God looks at our hearts. At the slow growing happening under the surface. We are all in process with God until we see him in heaven.  Let’s celebrate the small wins and focus on turning our eyes toward God and away from the distractions and hollow gratification of social media. As Ruth reminds us, we become what we behold. Those small, unseen decisions really add up to who we are.  Because at the end of the day, every action we have is really stemming out of our belief in our worship. And so how you think, and how you believe, and what you believe is the most beautiful and worthy of gazing at in your life will actually translate into what you do next. What your little moments every day are accumulating to be for a lifetime. What we chat about: Focusing on the beauty of what God has created vs comparing our lives to someone else’s on social media At the root of dissatisfaction in our lives is an underlying struggle with identity. Is our identity found in Christ or is it found in everything going our way? Growing our appetite for the things of God by choosing to fill our time with his Word. The struggles women have with wanting to do something perfectly or not at all  Celebrating the process of growing vs seeing immediate fruit in our lives What you believe is the most beautiful and worthy of gazing at in your life will actually translate into what you do next The goal isn’t just to experience God’s provision, but to trust that his presence in our lives is enough “Nearness to God brings likeness to God. The more you see God, the more of God will be seen in you.” - C.H Spurgeon

2 Sep 201937min

For a variety of reasons, childhood anxiety rates are soaring, especially among girls. My guest Sissy Goff is here to share some of her insights on how to recognize worry and anxiety in your daughter and empower her to overcome. We talk about tools we can use to help us understand why our brains are often working against us in times of anxiety and grounding techniques to slow and stop the emotional spiral that often ensues.  “We always want her to know she's stronger than her worries and that she has a voice to talk back to the worry. A lot of people who work with kids call it the worry monster because that separates it out from her voice. We don't want her to think it's the truth, which is what kids are going to think when they have voices in their heads telling them things.” This is a short, hope-filled bonus episode that just scratches the surface on all that we can learn about equipping our kids to work through anxiety. For more encouragement, follow Sissy and her team at https://www.raisingboysandgirls.com and watch for her book Raising Worry-Free Girls coming out September 17.    What we chat about: 1 in 4 kids are dealing with anxiety of some kind and girls are twice as likely to feel it Anxiety is hard to recognize in kids. Sometimes it comes out as anger or meltdowns and other times it’s deeply buried People whose personalities lean toward Type A tend to have baseline anxiety at all times. If your child’s personality leans that direction, it’s important to give them tools to deal with it Anxiety is always an overestimation of the problem and an underestimation of ourselves Techniques to help a child with anxiety calm down and redirect blood flow to their prefrontal cortex Integrating our faith as we teach our kids to fight back against fear and worry

30 Aug 201924min

Fellow boy moms, this episode is for you! This chat with Monica Swanson another mom of four boys and author of the new book Boy Mom dives into a lot of your questions about how to raise your boys to be godly men.  We talk about encouraging strong friendships between brothers, teaching boys to be strong AND gentle, and about the importance of giving our sons ways to experience excitement and adventure while getting some of their natural aggression out in safe physical activities. “I am a big believer that boys were made for adventure that they need to have some excitement in their lives I think is just how God wired them. They're little warriors who need to experience some thrills. A lot of the trouble boys can get into is related to when they're lacking authentic adventure, when they're not facing challenges and overcoming obstacles.” Monica has two boys out of high school and two still in the nest, so she offers a lot of hope for those of us in the trenches of parenting to keep pressing into relationship with our sons and to make the practicals of faith an anchor in all that we do.  “God is so big and so powerful and he can move mountains on behalf of your son. He wants your son's heart more than you even know. We get our boys plugged in everywhere we can. We want them to have so many positive spiritual models in their life that there's no denying that God is the best way to go. It about coming alongside them and saying, ‘This is for your best. God is for you. Let's walk this life with him.’”   What we chat about: Monica’s four boys and working with very different personalities  Building healthy brother relationships and dealing with kids who hit Boys need to let out their energy with exercise and physical activity Setting healthy boundaries for your kids with manners and learning to laugh with them about it too Teaching boys how to balance strength and kindness by pointing them to the stories of godly men The power of shoulder to shoulder conversations with boys and why to keep pressing into conversation with them Motivating boys to get excited about school and finding hobbies and interests Ideas for how to foster adventure for your boys and learning not to parent from a place of fear Fostering faith in your sons through time in the Word, prayer and modeling

26 Aug 201952min