46. "I Should Be Further Along Than This," said nearly every alienated parent

you are listening to the Beyond The High Road podcast with Shelby Milford episode number 47. stay tuned welcome to beyond the hybrid all right you guys so I'm seeing a trend um over the last week 10 days or so I'm supposing it's because it's back to school time and so many of us have lived by back to school time as like our new year with our kids because like for me anyway New Year like January 1st never really held any significance after I had my kiddo and really my whole life I feel like back to school time is a time to sort of regroup and reorganize reconnect with family and start planning out the year the holidays and such Sports switch dance schedule switched you know the

whole nine so for me I know back to school time is like very significant and it also causes a lot of pain for me in the more recent years since my daughter wasn't home even when she was with the alienation going on back to school time came around and bad or good I still sometimes wouldn't look forward to it when she was with me because I knew that that meant communication with my ex was going to be higher more frequent there was going to be more issue holidays were coming so it's not only a significant time as far as like regrouping and getting being more together with my kiddo right no summer vacations and distractions but it was a higher time of stress too so when all of a sudden that

is gone and we don't have our kiddos around to refocus with then it can be very painful for us a lot of us are going through a heightened amount of suffering and I think that that is appropriate you're seeing the back to school commercials or you go to Target or wherever and you're seeing the the school supply aisles and it causes like a lump in your throat or feeling in your belly it makes sense it's a very sort of symbolic time right it represents us grounding ourselves in our kiddos in this sort of solidarity and so when it's not there it's It's upsetting right so I want to acknowledge that that that's going on right now for many of us anyway if we're following the the school

schedule that we do in the states and then also at the same time I'm seeing a trend of so many of you in Facebook groups in my own practice one-on-one and also with the members in the healing and reinvention program I can't even count the number of times that I've heard somebody expressing like a need to get over the pain that they're feeling so that they can get on with life basically somebody said yesterday I want these wounds to close up so that I can start my journey to heal it so if you are thinking this if you are wanting to get out of the current suffering the current discomfort that comes with the experience of alienation and of missing your child I want to let you in a little

secret are you ready I'm gonna get real close to the speaker so you can hear me the suffering that you are feeling is your healing this is what you're supposed to be going through this pain is meant to be here you're meant to experience it so each time that you try to circumvent or argue with the discomfort of today you are denying yourself the opportunity to heal okay so there's nothing wrong with the fact that you are in pain it is nothing to solve for the pain is what you are supposed to be experiencing given that you believed that you would be mothering or fathering your child for their childhood years it makes sense that you're feeling pain that you have discomfort this is part of

it and maybe you wouldn't have chosen nor would I have but it's here and so when we want to change shift and like give parts of our story back away we cause ourselves more suffering and more pain on top of the stuff that is already here and present so if you're telling yourself that you cannot begin your healing process begin your new life start doing anything that you want to do anything that you've wanting to purpose yourself to doing if you are saying that you need to get through this pain first I just want to urge you to question this thought this idea okay because it is entirely possible for you to experience the pain and the emotions that are associated with grief while carrying out

your everyday duties and tasks and even your purpose I was reminded of this quote this morning by a Marianne Williamson who fun little fact Side Story when I was growing up we as I shared with you guys in the past I lived in Southeast Asia Burma Indonesia and Thailand for my elementary and into Middle School years but my mom and dad also had a rocky relationship let's just put it that way and so there were times where we would leave somewhere my mom and I and we would go back to the States and stay for a little while and when we left Indonesia we left and for summer vacation we did not come back for another for 10 months to follow okay and so this was like it I ended up doing

almost my entire fourth grade year in a place called now I'm from Miami Florida but my mom took us to Fairfield Iowa and Fairfield back then was known for one thing and that was the Maharishi Institute it was like the TM Hub in the states right so it was basically all of the people that were into Transcendental Meditation and so my mom had been at the TM since before I was born she was like a hippie in Coconut Grove in Miami and she was a Sith what they call it she would kill me if she knew I was sharing this now not that there's anything wrong with this because I I'm proud of my upbringing I actually completely always forget about this little chunk of time that we were in Fairfield Iowa but

anyway she put me in the Maharishi Institute for kids we wouldn't meditate in the morning we would meditate in the afternoon you know in fourth grade we did it while we were like coloring or working quietly there was a Kids Campus and then a college campus and then of course the City Halls where there was like this Dome where they would do their meditation but anyway that's not the point the point point is is that during that time my mom also in fact my entire upbringing my mom was also a religious follower of the the book of course Miracles and then later on really became I guess deeply moved by Marianne Williamson's work on A Course in Miracles and so now I guess she's run

for president like you know last term and then maybe again even this term I just did a Google on her now it's been a while since I've really followed her right but in my upbringing she Marianne Williamson was like God it was Maharishi and Marianne Williamson those were the people that I grew up with being with my mom so a lot many of Marianne Williamson's books and quotes and her way of believing was sort of instilled in me at a young age but anyway I had lost touch with all of her work for years right and then this morning I was reminded of a quote or a teaching really by her that I think is very relevant for this topic here now and for you guys and so I looked it up

this morning you know how I butcher quotes and sayings and stuff but then I did like a whole Deep dive on Marianne Williamson and the books that I remember from when I was a kid anyway and it just was no surprise that a lot of those same Concepts would be attractive to me later on in adulthood I think it's probably no mistake that I was given that Foundation if you will it makes complete sense that here I am teaching you what I teach you today and then looking at so much of what she is taught in her past and how crazily congruent how well aligned my message is with this I didn't think that I was paying attention as a kiddo but looking back on this now clearly I was I

follow if you guys hear me I have a few mentors a few people that I follow like will read everything they put out will listen to everything they have will go to their schools anything new that comes out of theirs on it so you hear me talk about Byron Katie and Brooke Castillo is another one and in fact I believe that a lot of their teaching now that I'm reading more and more came from people like Marianne Williamson so here is the quote and this was from that the book A Return To Love which like I had the book cover which In My Memory was sitting on my mom's coffee table for years and years and years she said you'd think we'd have some compassion for ourselves

bound up an emotional change the way we are but we don't we're just disgusted with ourselves because we think we should be better by now and then it says sometimes we make a mistake of thinking that other people don't have as much fear as we do which only makes us more afraid but the part that I was remembering this morning was that we think we should be further along than we are we always think we should be somewhere better through the pain it's never the case we're right where we're supposed to be this pain is here for a reason it is your healing your curriculum so each time you argue with it or want to change it or want to alter it to make it feel less painful if you

want less discomfort then you're missing the point this discomfort is something that you need to experience and when it becomes comfortable like when it becomes doable then you have learned the lesson and then guess what there will be something else that is uncomfortable that is our experience as humans that might be a sucky answer but think about it if you are always trying to circumvent and get out of the pain so that you can be there so you can be productive I've not only heard this once I hear this all the time I just need to get through this and get this pain gone so I can do the work I need to do in order to heal are you all hearing what I'm saying this is it

another thing that I read today a period of emotional suffering is not a symptom of our depression or our problem but a necessary factor in our healing it is the pain that we're feeling in the healing we cannot go around it you can't bypass I mean you can try but you're gonna make your experience much more difficult and you're going to experience a lot more suffering we want to move from our pain and we want to get to where we're not we want to get to comfort we want to get to happy we want to get to success we want to get to you know anything but suffering this suffering is your healing and here's the other part and this is what I wanted to point out it doesn't have to be one or

the other okay it's not like you'll get the happiness you'll get the reward once you do the suffering it doesn't it's not like that it is and what if you could be experiencing grief and pain and suffering and be healing this is your work right this is it what if you can experience intense sadness and still go about your day still have a productive weekday months year whatever what if you could be an alienated parent experiencing grief and be a complete and total badass who gets everything done on our list why does it have to be one or the other it's like you were always waiting for it for this suffering to end so we can get to the real life to get to really living get to the good stuff but

what if this is the good stuff then how much time have we wasted on trying to get out of this stuff so we can get to the other stuff think about that how much time have you squandered trying to get out of the suffering thus causing yourself more suffering just so that you can get to the good stuff what if you can do both and not just what if let me just tell you that I know for a fact I am living proof that you can do both having and experiencing the grief and the pain and a deep sadness and longing for your child you can have that and be a complete and total badass in the same day at the same time that is what is so amazing about us as humans I can go through my day

acknowledging my sadness and not trying to buffer or like verb my way out of the grief I'm experiencing and also applying myself with getting a podcast out writing a course for my membership carrying on coaching my clients who are also suffering all of that can happen at once simultaneously I don't need to carve out time especially for this suffering for this closing up of wounds it doesn't have to be that way doesn't require you to stop living in order for you to somehow process and experience this stuff you can keep living life and that is what I think is such a mistake an error in the way that we all think we think that if we're experiencing pain that if we are feeling you know the the

emotions that our whole world needs to Halt and we need to either pay undivided attention to it and have prolonged periods days and sometimes weeks of crying and crying and deeply process and feel the emotions or we think that we must avoid it so that we don't do that neither of those need to be and both of these options are extremely taxing they cause you more suffering so you can instead not make it so difficult on yourself and you can acknowledge feeling deep sadness and go about your day create enough value at work to get a raise and help others whatever it is that you want to do just because you're suffering because you feel the Deep longing for your child does not mean

that you need to make it worse by halting your life too you don't need to get done with this in order to move on with life I think we as a culture are obsessed with getting closure right you don't need to have closure closure is just a story in your mind anyway you can make closure whatever you want to make it right it's just a decision in your mind to move forward so why not tell yourself now you don't have to adopt this but I mean it just makes sense to say hey you know what I've decided that I'm going to welcome this grief I'm gonna welcome my sadness I'm gonna welcome my anger even it's here it is what it is right I this is part of my life it may not be their life it may not

be their life this is part of my life it has become part of me and that is okay right it can come along with me for the ride grief anger sadness longing those feelings are essential parts of our life so why not bring them along for the ride another quote Marianne Williamson has I found this and I thought you know this is just something that I think would provide Comfort when you're in the place of arguing with your own reality you know you're saying ah this is just so inconvenient I need to get through this one of the quotes she has is your human self might be in hell right now but your Divine self is literally Untouched by your suffering your human self is in hell right now but your

Divine self is literally Untouched by your suffering so like that to me that is like oh right so my higher thinking is completely Untouched by this meaning nothing has gone wrong your suffering is just part of your experience here this is what you're here for if this has presented itself to you then it is what you are supposed to be feeling so stop telling yourself that this is not where you're supposed to be right stop telling yourself that you need to be up there in order to get anything done we don't need to separate it it's not when I get through this instead it's I'm suffering I'm going through pain right now of course I am I thought that I was going to spend my

life being an active mother of course I'm in pain it makes complete sense that I'd be in pain denying myself or like what Marianne Williamson says being disgusted with myself because I'm not yet through it now that isn't going to produce the result we want either of course you're in pain of course you're feeling unhappy unmotivated all of those things right but you could have that recognize that reality I'm feeling pain right now and still continue to move forward you're not leaving anything behind you just bring everything with you it's okay denying yourself of that is what causes you suffering and the healing and reinvention program this is what we're doing this month it's the

skill of allowing your emotions to be present without wanting to change or fix them because there's nothing to solve for everything is happening as it's supposed to emotions do not have to be a problem needing to get through them to get around them to react as a result of them that's another thing that so I'm noticing is so many of you are wanting to like you're very reactive and wanting to oh I need to get out of this right now and I need to re you know like distract yourself and talk your way out of it and it needs to happen now when there's a sense of urgency to get yourself through it I see see my clients often and I know I can identify with this too but they're trying to verb

their way out of feeling these emotions so much so that they cannot sit within their own skin without busying themselves away from the emotions that they're having they're desperately grasping for somebody else to come and take the discomfort away and let me just tell you the Frantic busyness the sense of urgency to move from where you're currently at no that wasn't correct English but to move from your current status is only going to cause you prolonged pain so instead of acting needing when you're there just notice it oh I'm noticing that I'm feeling this sense of urgency right now isn't that fascinating I wonder why I feel like I need to move through it and I will just

a hint I will tell you that your brain's pain center is going to tell you that you need to move through it because it's an emergency and we're gonna die if we continue to feel this pain or this discomfort but I will tell you that it's wrong your brain is wrong it was programmed this way you came this way out of the box for a reason right to keep us safe and out of harm but in today's world that does not serve the purpose that it once did for us so instead of fighting the emotion and feeling like it's something that you need to solve for and that it's a problem and then you have to get out of it in order to get anything accomplished instead just notice it and bring it

along for the ride okay my friends all right then have a good week thanks so much for listening today guys I'm honored that you chose to share your time with me if you like what you've been hearing and you want more come join me in the new monthly membership where we take the concepts that you hear about here and using a logical framework you learn to apply them to your specific situations upgrading your thoughts and your life even while experiencing the grief of alienation for more information go to beyondthehighroad.com see you soon