This thought might bubble up, especially when your to-do list is overwhelming and work pressure is high.
It's an urge to go back to simpler times with less responsibilities and less people to take care of.
It's not a thought men are proud of. Not something they talk about.
Yet, talking about it and giving it some airtime is usually the most helpful way to navigate it.
The more we shove it down, the louder it tends to get. Then it's running in our subconscious mind and dictating our actions.
We're easily annoyed and build up resentment toward situations or people at home.
In today's episode, we lean on Dr. Richard Schwartz's "parts" work to help understand why the thought is there, and how to quiet it down so we can be a solid dad and husband.
This thought might bubble up, especially when your to-do list is overwhelming and work pressure is high.
It's an urge to go back to simpler times with less responsibilities and less people to take care of.
It's not a thought men are proud of. Not something they talk about.
Yet, talking about it and giving it some airtime is usually the most helpful way to navigate it.
The more we shove it down, the louder it tends to get. Then it's running in our subconscious mind and dictating our actions.
We're easily annoyed and build up resentment toward situations or people at home.
In today's episode, we lean on Dr. Richard Schwartz's "parts" work to help understand why the thought is there, and how to quiet it down so we can be a solid dad and husband.
This is the Durable Dad podcast. I'm your host, tommy Geary. This show is going to give you the skills and tools you need to be a rock solid man for your work, your community and, most importantly, your family. Alright, what's up? Episode number 54. Kicking it off, hope you are having a good day.
Speaker 1:
I have done two things that are pretty manly, I would say, over the last week, and I'm kind of excited about them. One was I went pheasant hunting and I've never hunted for anything before and I have only shot guns a handful of times, so that was pretty cool, cool experience. Went pheasant hunting, couple of buddies and we got a couple birds. I'm pretty sure I shot one, but my friends shot it at the same time, so we're calling it a win for me because he had already shot one and, yeah, barbecued up the pheasant and it was an experience. So that was cool. And also replaced the sump pump in our house. Ours was malfunctioning and it was old and I replaced it and I've mentioned it on the podcast before. I'm not the handiest of men and it's something I'm working on, so that was a cool win. It actually went pretty dang smooth.
Speaker 1:
I called my father-in-law and asked him some tips and googled some stuff and I don't know. I used to not call my father-in-law, or at least hesitate to call him because he knows so much wealth of information, and Brenda would be like let's call up my dad and check with him, and I would have this defensiveness Like I shouldn't have to call him, I should be able to do it myself. And that has been dropped. I will call him, facetime him at the drop of a dime. So that was cool and I think both of those things I was thinking about. I was reading Atomic Habits recently and James Clear talks about the decisions you make, the actions you take, or a vote for who you want to be in the future. So I'm not a hunter, I'm not a super handyman, but I want to be that in the future. So I think these two things were a vote for that.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so, diving into what we're going to talk about today, we're going to talk about a thought that comes up when guys are stressed out, and this thought, when we're overwhelmed, when our responsibilities are piled up, is that life would be a lot easier if I wasn't married and I didn't have kids. And this thought a lot of guys are ashamed that they're having this thought. They feel guilty. They shouldn't be having this thought, and I want to say that it doesn't mean that you're a bad husband or a bad father. If you think this it's a normal thought to have. It's just a part of your brain that wants to chill, that thinks that if we went back to simpler times, life would be more smooth. Now this thought isn't wrong, but it's not helpful. It's not a helpful thought to keep and to hold on to. So I'm going to talk about why it's not helpful and I'm also going to talk about what we want to do with the thought.
Speaker 1:
But first I want to introduce this concept around parts work. So, shifting a little bit for a second here, this parts work is introduced by Dr Richard Schwartz. He has a book called no Bad Parts and basically what he says is that we have multiple personalities. We have multiple parts inside of us. This is the inner dialogue that we have. This is the angel on one shoulder, devil on the other shoulder. Those are two parts, but there are a lot of different parts inside of us and if you pay attention, you can actually hear that. There are different voices, different opinions and they're talking to each other and it's all happening in your head. So Richard Schwartz says that no parts are bad parts. They're all trying to help us in some way and this thought life would be easier without my wife and kids is a part of us, and typically what guys will do is they'll push this part away, they'll bury this part and whenever it pops up we feel ashamed that we're having that thought.
Speaker 1:
And the problem with this pushing apart away when we don't acknowledge it, it gets louder and it's persistent. All right, we've talked about this on the podcast. When we don't acknowledge our thoughts, when we don't acknowledge our emotions, they don't go away. They actually start running the show in our subconscious mind. And when our subconscious mind is not being managed, it comes through in our actions and in this case it usually shows up with us resenting our wife more and questioning our marriage. We're more easily annoyed with our kids. We don't handle the stress that we have in a mature, level-headed way and we end up not being very fun to be around. We have that aura of us where we're just more testy and what we end up doing is kind of pushing our family away. And where I see this thought being most destructive is when we're in an argument and it sneaks out.
Speaker 1:
One of my clients was Discussing something with his wife. The discussion heated up and he said I don't know how much longer I can put up with this. All right, that's the heat of the moment. As soon as something like that comes out of our mouth, we want to take it back right away and we become this person that actually pushes their family away. And that's not what you want. You don't want to push your family away, at least not Subconsciously. You know some marriages will end in divorce, but we don't want to do it in a way where it's our subconscious mind Sabotaging our relationship. We want to do it consciously. We want to put in as much effort to make our marriage work and then decide from a calm, spacious place If we're in a partnership with the right person. So we don't want to just push this thought away. We don't want to just ignore the thought. What we want to do is hear this part out. It's a small part of you that is looking for some ease in life.
Speaker 1:
So Dr Schwartz talks about another part of us, that's the higher self. And the higher self is the part that is Wise. It isn't afraid. It knows what you stand for. It knows what you really want. It can handle Whatever life throws your way. It's our higher self. It's our true self. And in order to connect with this higher self, you know, usually we have to slow down a little bit, take a few breaths. You can journal about it, you can write it out, you can talk with a coach or a counselor about it. Separating out the higher self from this other part is where we get to create some space and less shame.
Speaker 1:
So this is the part of us that can turn towards the part that wants to run away and hear it out a little bit. And Hearing it out is allowing it to go on a little bit of a tangent. Life's really hard right now. I used to have a carefree life and I want less responsibility and less people to take care of and I just want things to be more chill. And when the higher self starts to turn towards the part that just wants some ease and wants to run away, that part is gonna chill out a little bit. Think of it.
Speaker 1:
As you know, dr Schwartz talks about this higher self kind of being the parent in our internal family. That's what he calls this system of parts, our internal family system. So the higher self is the parent and instead of pushing an internal part away, instead of telling it it's wrong or trying to argue with it, the higher self becomes the parent that validates and listens and's like yeah, I get it. I understand that you wanna run away If you've ever tried a tactic like this with your kids. If your kid's having a really hard time at school or your kid doesn't wanna wake up in the morning for school, and you just connect and you're like, yeah, I get it, I've had a hard time at school before. Sometimes I have a hard time at work. You can see your kid drop a little of the guard and have a little more ease. And it's the same thing that happens inside of us, this back and forth that we always have in our head. We're just bringing more awareness to it and we're doing it more deliberately.
Speaker 1:
There was one guy that I was working with recently and his wife and him were having one of the same arguments that they have all the time, and as we're talking about it, he had this thought a part of his brain that was reasoning that divorce would be easier, and part of him knew that that wasn't true, but we explored why that part of him thought it was true and then, after we did, he was able to so clearly and concretely say that when our marriage is functioning well, we're unstoppable. And his higher self wanted to stop avoiding conflict, told himself it's not so bad to be in conflict, wanted to try to share his communicating his emotions a little bit more with his wife. And that's what I want for you. I want you to have a marriage that is functioning well so you can accomplish more together, so you can have success as a family, whatever that looks like. And the Durable Duo Workshop that's coming up in April. That's what we're facilitating. We're facilitating better communication, better disagreements, so we can be that unstoppable couple. If you haven't already, go to the website thedurabledadcom backslash duo and check out the details, cause that's coming up, all right.
Speaker 1:
So there might be a small part of you that thinks life would be easier if I wasn't married and didn't have kids, if I could go back to the simpler times. But for most guys it's not our higher self, it's not our true desire, it's just a part of us that's looking out for us, that's trying to protect us. We don't wanna be ashamed of it when we stop shaming ourself for certain thoughts. When we stop resisting thoughts and emotions, there's a lot more clarity on the other end. We just gotta siphon through it a little bit, and Richard Schwartz would call this parts, work and internal family systems. There's other modalities to go about it, but, broadly speaking, all parts of you, all thoughts, all emotions are good and I really want you to understand that.
Speaker 1:
And in this case, this thought that life would be easier if I wasn't married and I didn't have kids. When that runs in your mind, if it shows up, don't shame yourself. Know that other men have very similar thoughts and that it's normal. And just because you're thinking it, it doesn't mean that it's true. All right, that's what I got for you guys this week. Hope you have an awesome week and I'll catch you next time. It felt like it's finally over. No-transcript.