by Jessie Cooper | Jun 25, 2020
Last week I wrote about my own journey during COVID-19 as an over functioner in my imperfect parenting series. If you missed it check it out. It’s good stuff. This week what I’d like to expand on how anger shows up as I’ve written a lot about anxiety.
Anger is no stranger to me. It’s also the emotion that I experience that I feel a ton of shame over. In the moments that I’m angry I feel pretty much like the scum of the earth. I go into a cycle of feeling like a horrible person and mom. Over the past year with two young children I’ve had a good amount of these shame spirals.
Dealing with anger
Dealing with anger is personally very hard for me; I’ve had a long journey with anger. As a survivor of domestic violence I see an outburst of anger as a warning sign. I either feel like a person around me is becoming a threat or am fearful I will become a threat. In my early years and through young adulthood I used anger to protect myself (get bigger so I wouldn’t be hit) and to express the internal hurt I was feeling. Through my 20s as I stepped away from violence I healed my wounds and told myself, “never again.” In my 30s a new form of anger has come into my life as a wife and mama of young children. That is where shame popped up big time for me. While I have never hurt my children physically and never will I have experienced anger with my children and it kills me. I tell you this because I had forgotten until recently that anger tells a story that needs to be seen.
I know as a practitioner that anger is a secondary emotion. This means that anger is present when there is something else going on emotionally. Tara Brach did a recent podcast on anger and she reminded me of this. While in my head I knew this to be true for some reason it didn’t stop my own shame cycle as anger popped up for me these last three months at home. It wasn’t until a fight with my own dad in Ohio that I realized why I hold anger and what to do with it.
One afternoon he took our boys to a spot I couldn’t see them. I asked next time he gave me a heads up. He blew up, feeling I didn’t trust him and I got about as big as I could verbally until he walked away. It hurt like no other. It was the first explosion in 15 years I’d seen. But this time I did something different. I walked away and held myself in my heart for about 20 minutes. This looked like breathing through my belly and washing light into my body with visualization. Then I walked to my dad and asked him what hurt. That’s when I found out my dad was having an awful time adjusting to us because he too had been alone for three months and was over functioning prior to our visit. Through this interaction I was able to honor my own trauma story.
I had realized as a trauma survivor that when anyone (including my kids) screams or hits I felt like I needed anger to make myself big and protect myself. While it doesn’t seem logical that a screaming, hitting toddler would trigger me, my limbic system doesn’t know the difference. In seeing my story clearly I have melted the shame and know personally self care (walking away) is absolutely necessary for me when I’m overwhelmed. It feels silly to say I can’t see the difference between Henry kicking me hard and being physically beaten. But feeling silly and shameful does nothing to serve my soul.
My story may be your story
This is the story of anger. It holds on to each of us until we can find the core. What is your story with anger? When do you explode? What do you say to yourself? I believe wholeheartedly that anger is a messenger. Only when you listen to the message and provide yourself radical love will anger melt away. From the exhausted parent going about it in a way that brings shame, to a nation crying for change, anger is speaking to us all.
So what can you do? What can we all do? I don’t think everyone will have the same privilege I had to confront my dad and my own anger together. While it hurt immensely the night it was incredibly healing. I do think each and every person can ask their anger, “Why are you here? What do you need to say to me?” This can look like journaling, walking in silence, and reading wonderful books (try Harriet Lerner “The Dance of Anger”). Most important is to get curious while you are compassionate with yourself. Through your curiosity and kindness anger will speak and then melt away. When you learn the lesson anger leaves.
My darling ones, we can all fly free.
Xoxo,
Jessie
by Jessie Cooper | Jun 17, 2020
It’s been a few weeks since I’ve written in my imperfect parenting series. The world has been hurting and it turns out so was I. I’m grateful for my own personal struggles and awakening this past week but man it was hard. I’m going to put down perfect (remember I promised I would?) and tell you my real deal.
Sheltering in Place 2.0
A week ago Saturday we were all packed and ready to head to Ohio where my family is. After almost three months at home we decided we could shelter with family verses sheltering by ourselves. In the days prior to the trip I had run a marathon. I’m sure it sounds familiar to a lot of moms. I ordered groceries for the car, a Target pick up, met the dog boarder for Simon, took Simon to the dog boarder, laundry for everyone, bags for everyone but Martin, car activities, iPad charged, extra sunscreen, and a stack of books for me. We got in the car at 7:00 am and I was exhausted. My husband turns to me and goes, “thank you (I pause ready for praise!) for remembering to get gas,” in utter sarcasm. My heart sank as it usually does in these scenarios. I grabbed my laptop and buried myself in our family budget.
Our first stop was my uncle’s Lake House on Lake Erie. Sounds like a dream after 3 months at home. We got to the house and I did potty, diapers, lunches, sunscreen, and swimsuits. I’m already exhausted, remember? The kids get packed up again and we’re off to a secluded section of the beach where my uncle has jet skis. We’re unpacking three kids and one dog (Teddy is too old to board). Henry and Declan are like flies to the light once they see the water. Martin? Jumps on a jet ski and rides away. For a god damn hour and a half. Luckily my cousins were there and saw my panic with my children and the water. They jumped in to help supervise. Me? I was livid. Here I was exhausted after three months feeling like the primary caregiver with the addition of prepping for traveling and my husband was nowhere to be found. I’ve also successfully ran a company and prepared it for some awesome growth forward to serve more people. I wasn’t just physically exhausted on that Saturday, I was mentally done.
Now don’t get me wrong. I understand my husband needed to chill out. He’s also been trapped for 3 months in our home. I’m sure enough women have been through this scenario enough times that it’s easy to blame my husband for his inaction on getting ready for the trip then riding away. Leaving me with the burden of responsibility is equally our responsibility. Let’s dig in.
I’ve often referenced Brene Brown and her amazing work. I hope I’m lucky enough to someday say thank you in person to her; she’s changed my life more times that I can count. Her latest work is a new podcast, “Unlocking Us.” After moving through the tough emotion of feeling very alone about the responsibility I bear at home I needed this. I plugged in “Brene on Anxiety, Calm + Overfunctioning.” For the next 40 minutes I listened to Brene call my bullshit while giving compassion to the anxiety I held during COVID.
COVID-19 and Self-Care
I’ve written to you all many times about self care during COVID. I also personally wrote about over functioning and underfunctioning. I took surface steps (like a bath at night) to calm down my over functioning just to jump out and start my cycle all over again. I was writing these words to you while calling myself awful names (bossy, controlling) and feeling helpless stopping the process of managing our home. It took me actually stepping outside of our home and getting a break with the kids (this came later at my parents house) to see what I was up to.
Going into and during Sheltering in Place I turned on over functioning to volume 100. I was so scared of the virus coming into our home and grieving the life we had before the virus. I was worried about Henry, Declan, and especially Dametrius being new to us. Martin and I were also on a journey to a healthier marriage. And I was also deeply worried prior to the PPA Loan about my employees.
In my work I was and am the luckiest woman in the world; truly. My team honors my heart and leadership. They bring these amazing skill sets and systems to support my vision. Instructional ABA Consultants is a space I no longer over function. God bless my team. Home? No one calls my bullshit and I went to town running this house like a navy ship. My husband is a classic under functioner and slinked away.
When I’m not in a stressful place in life I still struggle with over functioning at home. Like I mentioned before Martin and I are still figuring out what our partnership means to both of us including how that plays out day to day. It’s a journey. A piece of that is that when I get anxious I immediately move to control every outcome and Martin prefers to hide when he’s anxious. We’re a perfect storm. In listening to Brene I saw myself and my husband so clearly. These three months and the visualization of the jet ski’s incident was the message I needed to hear.
Originally when I was going to write about the juggling act I’m guessing I was going to write about putting down your home projects that don’t serve you and find time to be present. On the surface that’s great but if underneath you’re still screaming it won’t serve you (or me). Here’s what I suggest to everyone. Rest. No really, rest. There is no way to come out of over functioning or under functioning if you’re exhausted. Or to even identify if you were doing it to begin with. Very personally I was able to do this through our trip and am now working to call my own bullshit because Martin’s not there yet. In the same sense he can work on saying when he’s overwhelmed versus hiding in the Iphone. We both have work to do but through it we can pick up peace.
The world is hurting right now. Me too. I’m guessing you too. If we can collectively reset and be kind to our body & minds peace is on the way.
Xoxo,
Jessie
by Jessie Cooper | May 13, 2020
Over the last month, I’ve written about my own personal journey during COVID to shine a light on fear. This week, in honor of Mother’s Day, I’d like to write about parenting during COVID. Personally, I’ve gone through highs and lows. Some days, I’m so grateful and proud. Other days it’s a completely different story. Through all of it, I’m learning to love myself and my boys in the midst of imperfection.
Intentional Parenting
Prior to COVID, I liked to think of myself as an intentional mama. I made a lot of calculated decisions about how I wanted to raise my boys and had some pretty high expectations of myself. I’ve shared before that when I had Henry I suffered from postpartum depression. As a trauma survivor, I had an added layer of not wanting to do anything to harm my child. Not harming my children in a physical way, I don’t worry about that, but in not wanting to make a mistake. From there I spent the better part of 18 months being 100% attentive to Henry when he was with me.
I mean, I was that Mom we all hate. Calculated floor time, zero TV, homemade meals every night, cloth diapers, no electronic toys. I was perfectly happy doing all of this but I didn’t do anything except this. I gained being a mama in my heart and at the cost of myself (a bit). Enter Declan (my second boy) and keeping up at this pace was just not achievable at the same rate. I went through an angry phase, being angry at myself for not being able to keep it up. Then I realized while I could love all the different ways I could parent my children, the most important was having a full heart. That I needed to find time for Jessie and not just the mama in me. I’ve quoted it many times but truly, “How Not to Lose Your Shit with Your Kid,” changed me.
Changing Your Parenting Style
After I realized I couldn’t keep up the same pace of my “perfect parenting,” and with two children under 2, I gave myself a hell of a lot of grace. I let myself fail, break my own rules, and most importantly spent time taking care of myself too. I was able to keep the things that were important to me for Henry and Declan. This looked like eating whole foods, limited TV time (none for Declan he was not yet 1), being present when I was with them, and allowing myself some alone time when we were home together. This felt good. Really good. Enter Shelter in Place. Without my village, it all fell down.
I had gotten into this groove with my children because I allowed myself access to support. I made sure I didn’t expect myself to be with my children 110% of the time. My children went to who I consider their second mom’s house (Dana!) three days a week. Martin and I were rocking date nights at least every other week. I was going to the gym. I was regularly cooking at home (while still appreciating occasional restaurants). I was balanced. I was happy with myself, my parenting, and so grateful for our new son Dametrius finally coming home. Then, overnight, it was just our family and our responsibilities increased as a family increased exponentially.
I’m pretty lucky in the sense I had already laid the foundation with myself that it was OK not to be perfect as a parent. That to be a mama didn’t mean to be on point every second of the day. But a big piece of this was letting myself have some alone time. With sheltering in place, alone time is SO much harder to achieve. My husband works 40 hours a week from home with little relief from his work to help with childcare. Owning my own company means I have to be the flexible one with fitting my work schedule around the kids. It also meant I’m with our boys way more than my husband. I’m learning how to teach our new 8th grader. Dametrius just moved into his new home, so I had no idea what he knew academically.
Add my own hippie heart of loving organic foods (but not able to go to the store), limited technology, and being present to everything else and you’ll realize this was a tall order!
So I did something radical. I’m serious, this was big for me. I threw away my script. Seriously! I decided that the most important thing was something I already knew after healing from postpartum depression and parenting two very young children. It’s love. That’s it. Love is all my children need to grow and thrive.
Realizing What’s Important as a Parent
Don’t get me wrong. There are still things that are very important to me as a woman and mama. But if I kept up with my pre-COVID rulebook I was going to crash and burn. Honestly, looking back, I don’t know how I wasn’t crashing and burning anyways! Sure, I had help, but my expectations were sky-high. So now I expect failure from myself and my kids on a daily basis. We fail, we cry, we kiss, and we move on.
I still want my children to eat well but, honest to God, cooked my first boxed mac and cheese for them ever. I still want them to play in the dirt more than behind a screen but we have movie night every night. I still want to be present with my kids but I allow myself to check emails on my phone while drinking coffee each morning. Some days we have free days. This means jammies all day, movie mornings, coffee, and picking up a toy or something small in a pickup order. I’m resting for myself, eating as well as I can, and moving or getting any exercise when I have a few minutes for self-care. When I can’t do these things I give my heart a big hug.
Mostly, I’ve realized that while my village made my pace possible it wasn’t what my heart wanted. Being home with my children for this amount of time has taught me to follow their needs and my own together. I’m not the mama I was before COVID. I’m messier, louder, and I cry a little more. But you know what? In accepting imperfection I’m happier too. I hope through reading this that perhaps you can love your imperfections in parenting too. And hey, maybe you’ll become a bit closer to your authentic self.
Xoxo,
Jessie
by Jessie Cooper | May 6, 2020
A phrase I often use is “the bridge back home.” I’m not sure who coined it or if it’s just a phrase that I’ve used so many times it comes from me. What I call the bridge back home is really the way back to myself when I’ve been out of alignment with my authentic self.
Last week I wrote about what lies underneath my own fears and the need to control outcomes. I questioned if my own human experience rings true for others? Do we all engage in behaviors when we fear to avoid feeling the fear? After following the work of the amazing Brene Brown, I think the answer is a resounding yes! We’re human. To have a fear or fears that have transferred over into patterns of behaviors is so real I can touch it. These behaviors can be internal (things we tell ourselves) or external (things we do). Either way, they can make us feel better or worse in the short term and always make us feel worse in the long term. Let me try to explain.
The Only Thing to Fear…
When we are experiencing an emotion that doesn’t feel very good we typically exhibit either high or low energy behaviors. We then have an internal dialogue telling us all the ways we are not good enough. I’m a high energy gal when it comes to external behaviors. High energy looks like overachieving, micromanaging, perfectionism, and the like. Low energy behaviors look like eating high-calorie foods, sitting for long periods of time, lack of exercise, sleeping a lot, and so on. Each of these types of behaviors tells our brains we are anxious, stressed, or depressed. The more we engage in them, the more anxious, stressed, or depressed we become. It’s a loop.
To break the loop there are some really cool things you and I can do. This is what I call the bridge back home. Home is the way to me.
To begin, you need to know there’s no order with fear. Remember, being perfect is part of a loop so it’s going to get us nowhere. I’m going to write some different methods for you to try. I hope some of them resonate with you.
Identify Your Behavior
Identifying if you are in a high or low energy guy/gal is a piece of the bridge back home. What do you do when you don’t feel like you? And what can you do differently? For my high energy behavior readers, the key is to slow down. For my low energy readers, the key is to speed up. A key piece of this is knowing you are out of alignment.
Let’s go there for a minute. When we are out of alignment we engage in our fear-based behaviors. These are anxiety, depression, frustration, bitterness, anger, deep sadness, and the like. If anyone feels these stretches of emotions for more than a few days, I’d go out on a limb and say you’re out of alignment. If they go on for longer than a month I’d recommend reaching out for some clinical support. At the beginning or late stages of fear, a large piece of healing is to notice we are not ourselves. It’s another piece of the bridge.
The next piece of the bridge back home is to do something to realign your energy. This goes back to knowing if you are a high or low energy behavior type. For the high energy behavior types, a big piece of this is creating space in your day. Try to not book things back to back. Find a welcome rest, as well as time for self-care. I can tell you as a high energy person that this shit is hard for me. I have to make an active effort to slow my energy down when I’m in fear. I try to be careful with my schedule, limit my technology use, try meditating, saying “no,” and doing a ‘home spa night.’ When I’m not in alignment I am not doing these things. When I am in alignment I do some of these things each day. Truly. I am careful because once I’m doing too much my fears kick in. Then I’m not my best self. Remember the loop?
If you are a low energy person a key to your bridge is little steps toward doing more and consuming less. This means making small efforts every day to do something active and to tone back things like high-calorie foods and technology (technology is not great for either of us!). If you’ve been stuck in low energy-mode for a while, you cannot expect yourself to run a marathon. But you could take a 15-minute walk outside or jump in a pool for a bit. Moving is key here because the more you slow down less and less serotonin and dopamine are produced by your brain. This is your loop.
Finding the Bridge Back Home
OK, so we’ve got some steps to build the bridge back home. We know to identify that we are not, in fact, ourselves. We know to classify ourselves as high or low energy and some steps to help heal our energy type. What now? Here is the most important piece of information: show yourself some serious love. It is not fun for anyone to be responding to our negative emotions or our operating in fear. It just isn’t. If you spend all your time tearing yourself down you are not showing the world or yourself any kindness. You are imperfect, you do shit that is embarrassing and mean, but you know what? Me frickin’ too!
If I tore myself or others down every time a mistake was made, what help is that? As a mama, I teach my children it is OK to fail. It’s OK to have bad days and act in ways that none of us agree with. Remember my oldest son Henry? He is learning this every day! From there I teach them to vocalize how they feel, give them a huge hug, and we move on. My kids expect the same from me. Seriously!
I can’t stay calm for a solid 24 hours. I just can’t. I’ve got two dogs, three kids, a husband, and a business to run. And I’m human. But when I lose my cool at home I will say, “Mama was mad, it was so noisy, I’m sorry.” We kiss and makeup. And you know what? I do this exact same thing for myself. “Jessie, my love, it’s OK darling. Breath deep. It hurts, but we need to try again.” I parent myself how I want to parent my kids.
I know I said there is no order but this is the key to the bridge: Treat yourself with love and kindness when you fail and get hurt. Then, from that space, stand tall again and come back home.
Xoxo,
Jessie
by Jessie Cooper | Apr 29, 2020
Over the last six weeks, you’ve allowed me to provide you with guidance during the COVID-19 outbreak. I’m so very grateful to be able to give you my take as well as speak my own truth. Last week I wrote about fear and the stories we make up behind those fears. For me, well before COVID-19, this river ran deep. It took both facing my fears and pausing during Shelter in Place to truly shine a light on them.
In calling out my fears and the behaviors around them I was able to see myself clearly. I’d like to share some of my experiences with you. I’m hoping that by doing this you are able to relate, unpack your fears, and authentically show up for the beautiful ride we call life.
Calling Out Our Fears
Sheltering in Place has been hard for me for many reasons. We talked about my fears related to COVID-19 in my last two blogs. What I haven’t talked about is that during Shelter in Place I have been forced to sit with my own thoughts on a larger scale. Like everyone else in the world, I am stuck where I am, with who I am.
For me, the first phases of Shelter in Place produced anxiety due to fear of the unknown. I spent a lot of my energy navigating the new normal, both at home and at work. This piece of anxiety was hard, as I was unable to control or even predict outcomes. On a surface level, however, it was not a deep fear; it was a guide to larger fears that would come up for me.
I’m wondering if this is true for a lot of us? Do we all have surface-level fears pointing to deeper fears? And if we only ever respond to the surface fears, do the fears underneath live on?
Let me speak for me. My primary surface fear was being unable to control the outcome of COVID-19, both in my home and my business. My fears first bubbled over in my perfectionistic tendencies at home (and a bit at work). At home, this looked like keeping a perfect house. I mean, I love a clean home (definitely more than most people), but when I’m cleaning to be perfect… it’s different.
Usually, I’m just jiving and creating a space I enjoy. At work this used to come out in micromanaging. Thanks to our current team, who I could not be more grateful for, I can’t really jump in and do this anymore. They would call bullshit and thank God for that! So this is my surface. I’m afraid of what I can’t control, so I will try to overcontrol what I can. Does this speak true for anyone else? Do you have surface behavior you engage in when you’re afraid? Does your perfectionism come out?
Avoid Feeling “Out of Control”
Once I can see what I’m really up to, I usually find I’ve been doing a heck of a lot of things to avoid feeling out of control. Perfectionism is one of them. Numbing activities like too much chocolate, wine, or Netflix is another. Forcing myself to be overly busy is a third. I do these things in order to ignore what my make-believe fears are telling me. And make-believe fear is always telling us we are not enough. It’s a tricky, awful fear but also a piece of the human experience.
So, what came up for you? Looking at your past month during Shelter in Place, what have you found is beneath your fear(s)? Are you overachieving at home to avoid it? Or are you purposely underachieving to try and relax? Are you really OK with everything that is happening in your world? All of your answers are OK. What isn’t OK is to notice that fear is driving you and to continue to allow it to be in control.
What can you and I do to fight these fears? Honor them. Honor the fear and what it’s telling you because even make-believe fear can guide us all. Fear is telling us very loudly that we are not OK. We have to realize that something lives beneath our fears that needs care and attention.
In speaking for myself, I have felt very deeply, for a very long time that what I am doing is not enough–that somehow I am wrong. It took sitting in place during the COVID-19 outbreak to finally be able to say this out loud. This comes from a traumatic childhood and being a survivor of domestic violence. Harmful circumstances occurred around me for a very long time and I wanted to prove I didn’t deserve them happening to me. That’s why in times like these when I cannot control outcomes, my fear tries to tell me I’m not enough. That I’m not safe. But I’m grateful for this fear and here’s why.
Learning from Fear
When my make-believe fears are present and impacting how I behave, it’s a signal for me to pay attention. To discover what I’m really afraid of; how I haven’t been honoring myself. It’s hard to write this. To write that I struggle with perfectionism and am a survivor. But I know that by saying this I’m honoring the badass woman I truly am. That no one deserves to be at the hand of physical violence. That we are not stories narrated by our fears.
I know this to be true. You are perfect just the way you are. Human, full of failures & flaws, and maybe some awesome eclectic tastes. But you are worthy of love, belonging, and a life you adore. I hope by sharing this piece of my story that you are able to look at your own. To get curious and ask yourself why you are afraid. What’s behind it? That in naming your fear and owning your story you are able to honor the beautiful person you are. Perceived imperfections and all.
I hope this piece of my story guides you to honor yours.
Xoxo,
Jessie
