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Feelings are meant to be felt - this was a new concept for Dr. Skylar Clark. Just over a year ago she moved her family of 6 from one coast to the other, navigating 4 new schools, a new city, new culture, new job and no family in town to help. Skylar came to coaching wanting to create new systems and structures to help her manage life, but instead she left with a toolkit filled with strategies to help her manage, not just her chaotic circumstances, but the chaos inside herself. Listen in as Skylar walks you through the #1 tool she learned in coaching – how to feeling your feelings.
Topics in this episode:
Systems and structure makes life easier but it doesn’t necessarily make you feel happy, confident and balanced
Creating a toolkit to help you process negative thoughts and emotions
Emotions are literal vibrations in your body – what the heck does that mean?
The quicker you feel your feelings that faster they go away
Exactly how does one feel their feelings?
Show Notes & References:
Learn how to not let your negative emotions and swirly thoughts get in the way of you living the ambitious and balanced life you want. Sign up for a free breakthrough call to start learning the tools to manage your thoughts and emotions. www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/book
Want ongoing support as a working mom? Sign up for the free 19-day audio series: How to be a present and connected mom. Each day you will receive an email with a downloadable audio of 5 minutes or less that will teach you a tool or strategy for being more present and in the moment. Click here to sign up and receive the first audio: https://www.ambitiousandbalanced.com/be-present-optin
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Transcript
Intro
Working moms, I can't wait to share this interview with you.
Dr. Skylar Clark is a mom of four. She is the director at a physician's assistant school in Oregon. And just over a year ago, she moved her entire family from one coast to the other, navigating four new schools, a new city, a new culture, a new job, and no family in town to help.
She came to coaching feeling desperate. Life was chaotic. It was overwhelming. She felt completely out of balance, and nothing she was doing was working.
She came to coaching wanting to create new systems and structures to help manage her life. But instead, she left with a toolkit filled with strategies and processes to help her manage not just her chaotic circumstances, but the chaos inside of her as well.
Listen in as she shares the number one tool she learned in coaching how to manage your negative feeling, emotions, and thoughts. You ready? Let's get to it.
Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms podcast, the place for women who want to balance their ambitious career goals with their life as a mom. If you're looking to feel more confident, decisive, and productive at both work and home, then this is the place for you. I'm your host, Rebecca Olson. Let's get to it.
Rebecca: Skylar, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm going to give you a second to introduce yourself, but let me just tell the listeners out there that Skyler and I started working together, I think we had our breakthrough call last December, if I recall, and started right around Christmas time, which is let's just add extra chaos into life that feels chaotic.
Skylar had moved her whole family across the country just months before that. She has four kids. She'll tell us about that and everything that she does, but it was chaos and Christmas time being chaos and holidays and all these things.
So, I brought Skylar onto this podcast. I actually asked her, like, if you could talk about anything, what would you talk about? And she came up with this topic herself.
Embracing uncomfortable emotions.
This is the topic around embracing uncomfortable emotions. That was the most impactful for her over our coaching time together. And we stopped coaching just, like, six weeks ago. It wasn't even that. I don't even know if it was that long ago, but it has been fairly recent.
So we've been on this journey for most of 2023 together, and I'm just really excited for her to share, pick her brain about uncomfortable emotions and what that experience was like for her, and just appreciate your time and your vulnerability here. Skylar, thank you.
Skylar: Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm really excited.
Rebecca: Yeah. So tell us a little bit about yourself so people can kind of identify with who you are and kind of where, status quo, where you're at, how many kids you have, what you do, that sort of thing.
About Skylar.
Skylar: Well, I'm a mom of, four kids. They are five and seven - they're two little girls. And then I have two teenagers who are 14 and 16. Thankfully, this year, I have two in elementary and two in high school.
Rebecca: Gosh, that's true. So you don't have elementary, middle, high, and preschool or whatever? Oh, my gosh, last year was really chaotic.
Skylar: That was hard. And then a wife to a wonderful husband who kind of owns his own business and does lots of tinkering things in the It world.
And then as my profession, I oversee training for physician assistance at a large academic health center. So I run the training program, educationally, financially, administrative functions, manage lots of personnel, write lots of reports, and try to really find time to do things that I enjoy, which is traveling and dancing.
So that's me in a nutshell.
Rebecca: I remember actually…hmm, I don't remember if it was our breakthrough call? I don't think so. But maybe it was one of our very first calls together, maybe we followed up. It was a follow up call of some kind before we started coaching.
And you said you had a girlfriend that wanted to go somewhere, and you were like, I don't know if I'm going to go.
And I'm like, no Skylar, whether we work together or not, you will be going on this trip. I 100% want you to go on this trip. It's really important. I remember that, pretty early on, actually. That's funny that you mentioned that, because you do like to travel.
Working moms need to hear about this.
So why this topic? What is it about the embracing the uncomfortable emotions and what you learned about that over coaching?
Why does that kind of rise to the surface? It's like, women need to hear about this. Working moms need to hear about this. People need to hear about this.
Skylar: Yeah, I feel like at least the lifestyle that I had been accustomed to living - The name of this podcast is Ambitious and Balanced Working Mom, so I was very ambitious, lacking in balance, generally speaking, and kind of teetering from family life things, all of the planning, logistics, getting the kids to and from last year, four different schools, all of their after school activities, following, up on homework, going to doctors appointments.
And I would either be really in depth and focused on that, or then shifting and trying to focus all of my energy and attention on all of the work things that I had to do in a new environment, culturally, organizationally, kind of establishing myself and my leadership presence with a new team.
That was really challenging for me.
And part of the challenge, I think, was that I had been accustomed to. And you and I talked about this. You're like, I bet you've been like this all your life.
“Putting your all in and moving forward, no matter what the cost.”
In fact, Rebecca, I think I have. Just going from one thing to the next. So the loss of control, being external, trying to achieve the next thing, the next rung, the next accolade, because that is kind of how I was acculturated.
That's part of moving ahead academically and in medical training is just putting your all in and moving forward, no matter what the cost. I think for me…
Rebecca: sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice.
Skylar: So much sacrifice that you just kind of like you compartmentalize. You learn how to do it really well.
And I think for me, in seeking you out, and one of the things that was really transformational that I learned was like, gosh, I've had all of these uncomfortable emotions.
They're really uncomfortable things that pop up, and I go, like, gosh, I feel really anxious, or I feel really overwhelmed. I'm like but I got 100 other things I have to do, and so I really don't have time to slow down and process them. And I also just didn't like that they didn't feel good, which you and I talked a lot about.
Rebecca: Yes, we did.
Skylar: That was par for the course.
Rebecca: How aware do you think you were that the emotions were piling up?
And we had emotions back from probably the decision to make the move, which was at this point now, almost a year and a half ago, I assume, because you moved over last summer in 2022.
So back then to big decision to make this career move, move up in your career move, four kids out of and I think you lived near your family, if I remember right.
Skylar: I did, yeah.
Rebecca: A little bubble of your family to move them completely to a different place, you have to take on their emotions, which all four of them had very different emotions about the move, some of them really big and high, everything. Right.
So then taking on the new role and having to make big adjustments in a department just because that would be what would normally happen when there's a leadership change.
So all these circumstances, lots of big circumstances happening, and your brain thought these were circumstances, and they were, of course there's circumstances here, but that really wasn't the challenge so much as the emotions that came with all of these.
“I didn’t process my emotions.”
Skylar: Yeah, I don't think that I had processed them, or if I ever did. It was on a really superficial level, kind of going, I don't feel great. Oh, yeah, that was hard.
So there was certainly not any depth of processing. It was generally I would just kind of go, like, I have so many other things to do. I'm sure you heard me say that so many times.
So not even space to slow down, to say, like, why do I feel this way? What's contributing?
And then, what do I do with that information?
Because I had convinced myself that I just made a whole bunch of bad decisions by moving my entire family, everything I knew, loved, from south Carolina to Oregon, and just it all kind of happened at once.
And then I felt like I was stuck just in a swirl, which is.
Rebecca: One of the things that we like to do as humans, is when something feels bad, we label it as wrong. On some level something feels hard, we label that as wrong.
There is a whole lot of emotions that come up with a big life transition.
So there's a whole bunch of hard, not great feeling emotions that came with this big transition. Some of them expected, a lot of them unexpected, and then your brain goes, oh, well, I shouldn't be feeling that way, so I must have made a wrong decision or I must have done something bad.
And in this case, it probably felt pretty irreversible since you actually moved your family so far.
And I remember we actually didn't address this until much more into the middle of coaching. I kind of remember letting that go. I knew I took note of it as your coach, I was like, okay, we're going to have to address this at some point.
She thinks she made the wrong decision, and I know we're going to have to come back to why this was the right decision for her and do some work around that.
But it wasn't the first thing that I wanted to jump into because there were some other things that needed to go on initially.
First, because you didn't see your kind of overwhelm and your stress and your imbalance as being an emotional problem. You saw it as being a structural problem.
Skylar: I did, 100%.
Searching for balance outside of ourselves.
Rebecca: I just need better structure. I need better rhythms. I need a better planner. I need a nanny. I need something that is going to make life circumstantially easier for you.
Skylar: Yes.
Rebecca: Tell us about that.
Skylar: I am a planner. We talked about that quite a bit. I like logistics. I like to figure out all of the nitty gritty details. And I was also reflecting about that before I came on the podcast today.
And again, it's just been, I think, all of my life circumstances generally have just kind of gone the way that I've thought they're supposed to go. So I've been acculturated into thinking, like, if I make this one change, then there will be this anticipated positive, general impact on my circumstances, and everything will be better.
So I don't know if I just got feel better? Yeah, I'll feel better. Just tweak something. Tweak the process a little bit.
“It was like nothing I was doing worked.”
And with all of the changes that came with moving across country and changing school settings, lifestyle, all of that, it was like nothing I was doing worked.
I got a new planner. I rearranged the furniture in my room. I mean, I changed my workout schedule. I did all sorts of things.
I was just at this watershed moment of like, well, I've tried everything I know how to try. And so I feel like I went from being helpless almost to hopeless, where I basically convinced myself nothing is going to work. I should never have done this.
Rebecca: We circled back to, oh, your brain just wants to systematize this. It thinks that if you build structure and systematize this, then things will be better.
So we're talking about everything from like a morning routine to how to handle meal prep, to how to structure your workday, to how to handle meetings, how to have time for just your work in your workday, to how do you sign up kids for summer camp to all these little things. Right.
All of the logistics of, day to day life. Your brain just wanted to have it, wanted to know, this is exactly how we're going to do it, and this is how we're going to handle it.
And if we do it this way every single day in this format, then spit out at the other side, life will be great, happiness and ease, right, at some level. So what did you learn about that over the course of our time together?
Skylar: I think you said this maybe verbatim, if not, I'm paraphrasing a little bit. But I heard you say it so many times, I think it finally started to sink in.
The fix is your thoughts and your emotions.
And what you essentially said were, all of those things are great and they may even be helpful in some way, shape, or form. But that's not the root cause. That's not the fix. The fix is your thoughts and your emotions. I know it took me probably two or three months to go like oh. It was a foreign concept.
I mean, again, I think many of us function in a way that we have a I had my to do list and I would tell you how many things I had. And I'm like, Rebecca, there's no way I'm going to get through all of this.
But then there has to be some other system that's going to fix it all. Or signing my kids up for summer camp with the four of them and all of the life stages that they're at - just looking for systems.
The system is not the solution.
And so I think you really helped me to realize it wasn't the system. Like, there is a system for everything, and at the same time, that's not the solution.
The solution was me slowing down enough to think about why do I feel like I must have or need to have a system in place for every flavor of every single part of my life?
Because that's essentially how I was, like, organizing kids things at the front door before we left the house.
Rebecca: Everybody needs a cubby and a hook and a thing and a nameplate.
Skylar: And that was me.
Rebecca: So what did you learn about why your brain really wanted to systematize everything?
Skylar: I think I just learned that I had never been taught otherwise. I wasn't ever taught to intentionally slow down. And you really helped me and challenged me.
I think you asked me just that exact question, like, well, why do you think that that's what it is? That you need. And I think it was just a product of my conditioning, my environment, studying in school for a long, long, long time, where you just learn systems really well and you learn to survive, but may not be thriving.
You learn to sacrifice a lot to get to the next thing. And you're not really thinking about the, is this what I should be doing? Or why am I doing this?
So you asked me and, challenged me quite a bit. Why do you think that's the case? And how do you know that's the right thing to do or it's not the right thing that you should be doing?
Reflecting on coaching goals.
And I think ultimately, when you had me reflect on my goals for coaching, it was to help me have more balance and to kind of help me have a life that was a little more peaceful.
And so when I directly compared that goal with, I need a rack for this and a box for this and an organizational system for this other thing, those really weren't compatible.
Rebecca: Like, there was always going to be something else you were going to need to do.
Skylar: Yeah, I think you said that you're like, there's always going to be a thing.
The solution is internal not external.
Rebecca: Yeah, definitely. And you're not the only one I've ever said this to, Skylar. Almost everybody I talked to, it comes to this conversation at some point where we talk about the solution being internal instead of external, because you won't be able ever none of us can ever control all of our circumstances in life.
We can't control other people. Certainly. You can't control five other human beings that live with you in your house. You can't control their emotions. You can't control how happy they are. They can't control if they like, what you're making for dinner today or not.
They can't control if they put their backpack up on their place or not, if they keep their room clean or not. You can't control if they, get sick and if they're up in the middle of the night. You can't control your employees. You can't control if the teams ever get back to you.
I could go on and on and on about the things you'll never be able to control in other people, no matter how many systems and structures you put in place. Right. So we would constantly cut back.
Skylar: Yeah. And those were all of the things that I would just be perseverating on.
Rebecca: How do I do this? How do I create this? How do I do this? How do this? constant. Constant. Right.
And I only have two kids. I can only imagine if I doubled that and tried to figure out how I was going to systematize everything for everyone that worked for their personality type and their needs and all of those things.
Like, I could feel it. I could feel it coming up my chest. Right. It feels overwhelming just thinking about doing that.
Skylar: It literally was exhausting.
Rebecca: And that was what you were chasing all the way up to coaching. You were even thinking that on some level, that's what we were going to do in coaching, even though I probably told you that we weren't.
Skylar: But it didn't sink in.
Rebecca: It didn't sink in. Just curious, was there like, a moment, a situation where really this concept clicked in, the system isn't going to fix this, and if, a system doesn't fix this, it's got to be something in me differently. Was there a situation?
Skylar: The thing that stands out to me, and this probably sounds familiar, I had a very in depth report that I had, like, three months to write with data that I had to pull from all manner of sources.
That because I was the new leader, I was sort of digging for information, putting in a lot of time and effort to try to perfect, because I'm also a perfectionist or maybe recovering perfectionist now, but to try to perfect that report and to get everybody on board with what needed to happen.
And it also had a couple of interactions with some challenging personalities in the workplace. And I remember talking to you in one of our sessions and again kind of saying, like, I thought I had this great system.
I've mapped out every single piece of data that I'm going to need to look at and write up in a paragraph and link things together from now until I think maybe it was March.
So from March until June, and I'm still overwhelmed, my system is not working. And now I have these personnel things happening.
And I think you said something along the lines of probably ad nauseam at that point, Skyler, it is not the system.
Your circumstances are going to continue to change.
And that was a really challenging time for me, just having to take on this big project that I really I think I told you did not anticipate having to do when I signed up for this job. That just hearing it enough and kind of getting to a point where I think I started to realize no matter what I did, the system wasn't going to fix the situation.
But having you continue to remind me of that, I think was really helpful and kind of a turning point. I don't know. Would you say March ish…?
Rebecca: Yeah, probably March or April. And for you, there were some cycles with it, right. Which I'm so glad. Over the course of our six, seven months together, there were these cycles.
There would be moments where things, like, clicked, and then a couple of weeks later, there'd be a tanking of some kind, right. Or just things would feel like they went backwards.
It was the two step forward, one step back if we wanted to go that and I'm so glad that there was because there was just a variety of circumstances we were able to implement and talk about the various circumstances that felt different in your mind, but in reality weren't really different at all.
And we were able to continue to apply the same tools to every circumstance and go, no, you don't need a system for that. Remember, this works. You think that you needed one? No, you don't need one for that either. Right?
I do remember that report for sure because I remember going, you think that when this report is over, then you're going to be able to relax and rest and you're going to be able to get back into life and back into connection with your kids and prioritizing your kids.
There is always going to be the next thing on the list.
And I remember going, so it was like before this report, were you able to do that? Do you think that there's never going to be another report after this?
And it was like, no, there's pretty much always going to be something that is going to want to pull my attention away and I'm going to feel totally engrossed in that I can't keep doing this.
And it was it was a moment like, oh right, I have to learn how to operate differently within my circumstances if I want to change the way I'm feeling and thinking and ultimately doing the things that you're doing so that you're actually prioritizing life in the way that you want to prioritize life.
Skylar: Yeah.
You need to look internally.
Rebecca: So generally speaking, you learned that this was an internal, this was the things going on internally. It wasn't the circumstances, though, challenging, for sure, and I think most people objectively would go, yeah, that sounds pretty challenging, moving your whole family across and starting a new job and four different kids at four different schools, I could see how that was challenging.
But navigating to a place where you felt balanced, which is the goal, is to feel balanced, which meant kind of in control, a bit more in control of how you were feeling, in control of what you were doing, in control of your energy so it felt like you weren't completely depleted every day.
So you learned that it wasn't the systems that you needed or the structures that you needed in place because it was never going to be perfected. What did then you learn that the solution was?
Taking control of your thoughts.
Skylar: The solution for me was to learn how to take control of my thoughts.
I remember one day I was at a park with one of my kids, maybe two of them, and we may have been communicating over Vox and I was totally freaking out in my head and you said something so profound like, you don't have to get on that train.
Those thoughts that were kind of all or nothing, really Negative Nancy, totally made up in the moment, coming out of nowhere.
You don't have to go with that. Just like wait for the next thought and find the next thought that maybe you can latch onto and get on that train.
And it was like, I do what I can do that. Wow!
And so over time, the more that I really worked that skill and that muscle, I've been able to say, like, oh, that's a weird, crazy thought. I don't know where that came from. But not getting on that train, I'll wait for the next one.
Your thoughts are just thoughts.
Rebecca: I love that. Yeah. This comes back down to the concept or the idea, really, that your thoughts are just thoughts. They're optional, right?
You can think 100 different things about the exact same situation or moment. And some, of those thoughts are going to feel really good and make you feel super confident and move you in the direction you want.
And some of those thoughts are going to stick with you, and you're going to ruminate on them, and they're going to feel terrible, and you're going to worry, and it's going to feel anxious all about exactly the same thing.
Just because your brain thought it doesn't mean that you have to believe it.
Thus learning that just because your brain thought it doesn't mean that you have to believe it or continue to think it. That was what we were constantly working on.
It's that idea that can't always help the first thought. Those thoughts are going to pass through your brain, but you can always choose your second.
Give yourself space.
And in coaching, once you understand that, which took some time, and it takes a lot of people time, particularly if it's a new idea that it takes time to learn to give yourself space.
It's space between the first thought and the second thought. It's that in between moment that's really crucial to what you're going to do and how you're going to choose to respond to the first thought that happens.
And that's kind of what you're talking about, this analogy of a bus or like a train or something like that. You get to sit at the bus stop or the train stop and say, am I going to get on that one?
The thought bus.
That’s just that thought bus. That just tells me, oh my gosh, this is totally overwhelming. I don't have time to do this. I'm not sure if I'm the right person to do this. Maybe I made the wrong choice.
All those thoughts, are you going to get on that bus and take that where it goes, or are you going to stay here at the bus stop?
Are we just going to wait for a different set of thoughts, or are we going to cultivate a different set of thoughts that are going to be more useful and feel better to us?
And so we spent a lot of time as creating a little bit of space between first thought and second thought.
Skylar: Yeah, we did. And I think the other thing was me learning how to cultivate the next thought and saying like, okay, well, my first one was doom and gloom and totally negative, not helpful, so I'm not going to go in that direction.
But how can I think about this? Like, why is this a good thing for me? How is this beneficial?
I mean, you gave me a whole list of questions, in some cases that I could apply to various circumstances to basically learn how to reframe it and pick a different thought that was just slightly more positive than the one before.
Embracing the uncomfortable emotions.
Rebecca: Or just coming back to a more neutral perspective. Right. Whatever it is. So we're talking a lot about thoughts, but I'm curious because for you, this was really about embracing the uncomfortable emotions.
So bridge that for us between where you are at and learning about your thoughts. And first and second thought to the emotional processing aspect of this.
Skylar: You really helped me understand, kind of the framework and the connection between thoughts and emotions, and that if we're thinking I'm really overwhelmed, then generally there's an emotion that's associated with that, and that emotion feels a certain way in our bodies.
And we did a lot of work, I think, initially in that realm, and I think to be really transparent, it freaked me out, and I kind of got stuck in like, this feels really terrible.
So I would say I'm thinking that this was a bad move and I should have never moved here. Therefore, I'm feeling anxious or feeling regret so you'd have me describe where I felt it and do some visualization exercises that also it took me a while to see the value in, but it was really valuable.
And then I just kind of get stuck in, like, okay, but now this feels really bad and I don't like it, so how do I avoid feeling this way?
And you basically said, like, nope, you don't get to do that. You have to learn how to process it. And I think one of the transformational analogies for me was inadequate skylar.
Rebecca: That's what we labeled her first thought always came from inadequate skylar. She was talking to pretty loudly all the time.
Skylar: And having a tantrum. So through the various coaching conversations that we had, I was able to kind of separate where those thoughts were coming from, kind of have a visual of a toddler just like screaming.
Rebecca: You had four of them.
Embracing our emotions.
Skylar: I have had four toddlers, yes. And so you helped me think about how to approach my emotions and to almost, like, embrace them, even if they were ones that I didn't like.
Nobody likes generally for their toddler to throw a fit or a tantrum. But how do we go about approaching our toddlers? We allow them space and some time, and we're there to comfort them when they're having a tantrum. And then when things sort of die down, you can redirect.
But you were really helpful in helping me to see, like, you can't really redirect a screaming toddler who's on the floor kicking and throwing things. There's not going to be a lot of progress.
Rebecca: So you kind of got to wait a little bit, you have to wait.
Skylar: You have to wait. So creating that space, but not allowing it to go on forever, I think was really important. So that visual sticks with me all the time.
And I just think about inadequate skyler basically being like the size of my five year old. There may or may not be a correlation. Screaming and throwing a tantrum, but then pausing to think about what's the actual need.
Yes, they're throwing a tantrum. Yes. Inadequate skylar is freaking out about something, but what actually is she wanting to say or trying to say or wants you to know?
And so over time, I was not an easy adopter of that process at all. But over time, it started with practice to make a lot more sense and just be, I think, highly applicable and something that I could kind of pull out of the many tools in the toolbox for processing emotions that was really helpful and beneficial.
Rebecca: Can you give us an example of how, even if it was a small way, a big way, just recognizing, take us from beginning to end, this thing happened. Inadequate skylar started saying this, this is how I handled it, this is how it ended in the end.
Skylar: Trying to schedule my kids for summer camps was one where I feel like I have so many kids and so many other things going on that summer camp scheduling was something that was on the radar, but really not a huge priority. And I kind of kept moving it.
And being new to the location that we were in, it was also overwhelming just not knowing what the options were, and there's always a system with those things.
And so I had essentially missed almost every deadline possible for summer camps for three out of the four of my children, and had then immediately started to freak out that there were no options and I didn't know what I was going to do with them. I didn't know how they were going to survive during the summer.
How was I going to work if they weren't in a summer camp from Monday through Friday, from eight to five?
Rebecca: So, just to be clear, the circumstance was realizing I missed every deadline and I haven't signed my kids up for summer camp.
I actually remember the message you sent me with that. And then, inadequate skylar, those are all the thoughts of inadequate skylar. She chimed in and was freaking out. And then she was freaking out about you too, right? Because she has a lot to say…
Skylar: About me, yeah. So I was not a good mother.
Rebecca: What kind of a mom am I?
Skylar: I was not prioritizing my kids and what the heck's up with that?
Rebecca: Yeah, all these very shameful, guilty types of thoughts. Those were all the first thoughts, right. The first bus that came along.
Skylar: That was the first bus that came very quickly. I had to really take a step back and one of the things you taught me was to take a few breaths, to kind of quiet myself and then really think about, why was she throwing a tantrum this time? What was it about?
Taking time to breathe.
And so it was just wanting to do the right thing, wanting to make sure that my kids were enjoying themselves, that they were entertained. And after I took the time to process the guilt, the self shame, the punishing myself…
Rebecca: So that looked like taking some breaths, and then what did you do?
Where are you feeling the emotions in your body.
Skylar: Yeah, so taking breaths and then identifying, like, kind of doing a body scan, basically, and identifying what I was feeling. So were they vibrations? Was it heaviness tension?
And over time, I would realize for very specific emotions, I would feel like the exact same thing in the exact same place. Felt exactly the same every single time.
So was it heavy? Was it rumbling? Was it a vibration? Was it seemingly external and kind of taking up more space than my physical body? What did it look like in terms of a color?
Like, I would just slow myself down. And initially, it would take me a long time to synthesize all of that information. But with time, that got a lot easier.
And then I could say, like, gosh, this is me feeling stressed, and it's right in the center of my chest, and it feels like a stabbing sensation that extends outside of my body. I mean, I would literally feel all of those feelings, and they felt very uncomfortable.
Rebecca: Just to be clear, everyone listening to this, that she's describing what it's like to feel the emotion right now, when we really talk about feeling it. She's literally bringing to consciousness, bringing to her mind what her body sensations are.
With every emotion comes body sensation.
So she's just bringing awareness to all of that body sensation. She's letting that body sensation happen instead of ignore it, push it away, redirect it somewhere else, stop the tears -if there were tears, like all of those things, that would literally be a stopping of the sensations and the vibrations and the feelings that are going on. She's letting it she's bringing awareness to all of it.
Skylar: And then I would essentially try to visualize how I could absorb all of those messages in my body. And so you would say, try to if it's outside of your body, imagine yourself taking up more space in that emotion and kind of envelop all of those sensations very much in the same way that you would hold your tantruming toddler till they kind of soften and calm down.
Rebecca: And I know we would walk through these kinds of things in our sessions. I also have recordings and so forth to try to help in the moment, be able to process some of these things so that you don't always need me as a coach to do it. And then you probably don't need them anymore.
It becomes much easier right, to learn how to take a pause, take a moment, notice what's going on, notice how it feels, give it a little bit of space, let it be there until it kind of softens or dissipates and then ultimately goes away.
Your emotions and feelings are trying to tell you something.
Skylar: Yeah, but I think in doing that, I started to realize, like, gosh, my emotions and the feelings that I'm feeling as uncomfortable as they feel, like physically uncomfortable, are trying to tell me something and should be inputs into my next steps, like my decision making process, which was a totally abstract, very new concept for me.
Rebecca: The emotions are a communication tool to your brain. They actually have something to say to you in this case, if you can remember, what do you remember it was saying to you about summer camps?
Skylar: I just wanted my kids to be somewhere where they were safe. And so once I let go of all of the negative, like the shame and the guilt of bashing myself that.
Rebecca: I should have been doing this earlier.
Skylar: Not getting everything lined up exactly the way that I would have prior, then it almost opened a different avenue of decisions that I would never have otherwise chosen.
Because then the thing that I was problem solving for was just making sure that they were safe and having a good time, which didn't necessarily have to be them locked down from eight to five in a summer camp all summer long.
And so actually, we ended up taking a week of vacation and going down to central Oregon, which honestly, I think was cheaper than me having them in summer camps all concurrently.
And also was a way to honor some of my other values. We talked a lot about values and purpose and that kind of things.
“I’m going to feel these icky emotions…I don't have to let them linger.”
So once I started to realize I'm going to feel these icky emotions. They feel bad, but I don't have to let them linger. I can extract information that's going to help me make the next decision and perhaps problem solve for something that in a different way than I would have addressed it otherwise.
Then it became like, gosh, this is such a valuable tool. I need to do this all the time.
Rebecca: Would you say all of this happened in one sitting or was this over?
Skylar: Oh, no.
Rebecca: Okay. A couple of times. Just want to make sure.
You can do this in one sitting. And sometimes with maybe smaller things, like an email that comes in or something that you need to respond to, right, that might be literally in the moment from start to finish. You might go through this entire process that we're talking about.
But this had bigger implications, bigger conversations that had to be had, some research maybe, that needed to be done.
Skylar: And this took longer. But I've also been in meetings where I just have a little sheet of paper and I am processing my emotions in the moment and sort of resolving whatever the situation is that I'm feeling internally within a couple of minutes.
And then I'm able to refocus myself and move on to whatever the next thing or the next task is.
And still very much be present and engaged and involved without feeling the negative emotion in a meeting and then saying like, oh, well, I don't like what's going on here, but I'll deal with that later.
So you really also helped me realize in many cases, I have the opportunity in the moment or, just as close to when something happens that kind of causes these icky emotions - there are some things I can do to process them and I don't have to put them off.
We had talked about recording voice memos to myself on the drive home, writing in a journal in the evenings.
Rebecca: Lots of tools. We came up with lots and lots of tools for you in your toolbox to try to help you do really two things to process what's going on in default inadequate skylar and the emotions that are coming with her.
Moving into an intentional space.
And then how to move into a more intentional space that you feel better about and you are making decisions that you feel good about and that actually kind of bring you closer to either decisions. Feeling good, feeling happy, more balanced, and all of those things.
I'm curious, now that you've been practicing these tools, what's the outcome of this, of being able to really learn how to process your emotions and separate yourself from your thoughts?
“I am so much more present.”
Skylar: I am so much more present before, like flashback to Christmas time of, 23
Rebecca: 2022.
Skylar: Thank you, 22. 23 Hasn't happened yet.
Rebecca: But it's coming up.
Skylar: I don't know, it was like I was going through the motions, but not present.
So I would be with my kids, for example, and trying to do, I don't know, like, cooking something with them or a project or helping with homework.
And although I was somehow engaged in that, my mind was somewhere else. It was like running through all of the to do list tasks and the things that had happened the day or two before, the week before that I hadn't processed.
So those feelings, the emotions, the thoughts were all just kind of like, swarming in my head. I didn't even know where to begin. How do I attack this? How do I go about managing?
Being a Shepard to your own thoughts.
Rebecca: Sometimes I like to call this like putting your sheep in the pen. Like you act as the shepherd, and sometimes you need to herd your thoughts and your emotions somewhere and bring them back into safety, which is all they really want to begin with, right?
A wandering sheep is kind of stupid. That's what the animal is. And they kind of wander off. But so is like, our thoughts and the emotions, they're just out there, like, wandering without any direction, and they're just there and what they're asking for is like, come shepherd me, bring me back into safety where I feel comfortable and I feel clear and I feel content and I feel like acknowledged. And I feel like I'm not wrong. And where I feel like I have purpose.
That's what your thoughts and your emotions want to be. That's what we want to feel as human beings, right, is that we're centered and we're calm and we have control. We're grounded and we have purpose. That's what we want. And that's our internal self is desiring that.
Skylar: I had no way to do that. I didn't have the tools, I didn't have the language, I didn't have the strategy, the technique, the skills, the practice, or any of that.
Now, present day, I know exactly if I'm feeling a certain emotion, and depending on how significant that feeling is, I kind of think about like a scale of if it's a really intense emotion.
I have the boundary protocol where I stop, I slow myself down intentionally. I think about what's been going on. I have some questions that I can ask myself in terms of helping to process the emotion, how to reframe it as an outcome of me responding to my own questions, like, what am I going to do with that information? How do I know I'm making the right decision? There's a whole protocol for that that's really helpful if my emotions are a little intense.
Rebecca: Hold on, hold on, because I'm just having this thought, and I've never thought about this before. You came to coaching and you really wanted to build structure and systematize life in its circumstance. And we didn't do that. What we did create a lot of systems. We systematized and built a whole lot of structure for you to process what was going on internally.
Skylar: Internally, yeah.
Rebecca: So we actually did do it. We didn't do it in the way that you had expected to do it. We did it in a way that was actually getting to the root and the heart of what you wanted in life, which was to control how you were feeling and thinking so that you could make better decisions and feel better and be more present and feel more confident and be more decisive and make sure your decisions are aligned with values.
All the things that you really wanted to do that structure and systems can be helpful sometimes to do. But this was like the heart of it, right?
So we actually did create structure and systems for you. Look at that. We did exactly what you wanted.
Skylar: We did it! Identifying that the locus of the control of those structures was not external, which is what I think I had just anticipated was going to be the fix.
And so it took a lot of hard work. It was not easy, but it was so incredibly valuable because I'm able to very quickly acknowledge the emotions, identify what's going on, pick one of the many tools from the toolbox and know that I'm doing the right thing.
“Knowing I’m doing the right thing.”
And then think about how to make the next right decision based on my values, the purpose, work we've done, just who I am as a person, irrespective of what the circumstances are, which I think is a big thing, and not seeking to please people, but just really know I'm doing the right thing because it's the right thing for me to do.
Rebecca: I've given you a shout out on this podcast a few times before, I know, and I just want to shout it out right here while I'm talking to you because you did the work.
I mean, you put in the effort. I mean, you're a mom of four that's leading a department that is new, that's doing lots of things that are new, and you put in the effort.
Of course, you could have probably put in more time, or you could have been, quote, more thorough, right?
But I hear this so much from working moms that are thinking about coaching and talk to me about it and then end up not doing it. And it comes back to this, like, I wish I had more time.
Trusting the coaching process.
It's like, I don't know. I've worked with a lot of people that have very little time, and somehow they manage just the little bit, like being okay with the incremental steps that we took and trusting that the whole process, we were going to get you there.
And one of the things that I think what made you so successful in coaching with me is you were willing to just share when something was working and when it wasn't working.
I got many messages from you that was like, Rebecca, that last session I did not walk away with what I needed. And it was like, great, what do you need? What was different?
And sometimes it would be like, that would be your old brain telling you that'd be inadequate skylar, saying you didn't get what you need. And we'd have to talk about that.
And sometimes it was really like, no, I think I need a little bit of, like, a tool here. And we would talk about a tool and we developed that.
Coaching is not just endless conversations. And that's, such a big difference, I think, between therapy and coaching. And I've done plenty of therapy, and there's so many tools and things in therapy, so don't hear me when I say that It's not but for a lot of people, it can just feel like endless conversation.
And that's important when you're processing something and when you're healing from something.
And that isn't what I want coaching to feel like. I want it to feel very tangible. I want you to walk away with a, whole tool belt that's going to be how you're going to handle how you're going to make decisions differently, how you're going to prioritize, how you think about that, how you process things, all that, right?
I want a tool belt for you. I want a tool belt where all your tools around you, and I love that.
And you stuck with the process and just believed, like, I will speak up, and I believe that I'm going to get where I need to go, and I'm going to trust Rebecca's going to get me there.
And I'm sure at times you were just like, I don't know if this investment was worth it or not. I have no doubt that you had those moments.
You really continued on and showed up for yourself and got what you came for in coaching. I'm very impressed with you and the way that you, navigated this whole process, so good for you.
“Coaching has impacted my kids and husband.”
Skylar: Thank you. And I would just add it's had impacts I think I've shared with you on my family, with my kids and my husband, I'm able to take some of the tools that I've learned and share them with others, because this isn't something that we learn as kids. We don't go to school, and they tell us how to process our emotions.
Rebecca: If we were to say the biggest thing that you walked away from in coaching was this emotional processing tool belt that you got and the connection to thoughts and those things, and then you think about a sizable investment that you made in it in coaching, was that worth it?
“I feel like I have learned how to coach myself.”
Skylar: It was absolutely worth it, without a doubt. Because I feel like I learned how to coach myself. Like, there are still days where things don't line up exactly the way I want. And I can almost replay some of the conversations that you and I had had. Or I can go back and look in my notes or my journal and just sort of find a, starting place to get me to where I need to go.
Rebecca: There's no more lostness.
Skylar: Yeah, I don't feel lost. I don't feel hopeless. My relationships with friends and family have improved. I mean, just in ways that I was so blinded and in this swarm of clouded, just unprocessed emotions that I would never have known.
“Without a doubt, it was absolutely worth the investment in myself to be better in showing up in all the ways that I show up every day, in all the spaces that I show up in. It's priceless.”
Rebecca: How about as a leader? We've talked a lot about the family side, but as, a leader of a department with a lot of employees and people that you are responsible for.
Skylar: And lots of personalities, I think that was one of the things I latched onto very quickly, was like, I'm not going to please everybody. I'm not going to make everybody happy.
So how do I know I'm doing the right thing? Why did they hire me? What am I getting paid to do?
Coming up with kind, of a framework as to how I make decisions so that I know for myself that, I'm making good decisions was one of the tools that would be generated.
And making sure that those decisions were made in a balanced way and that they weren't, like, super emotional because that was one of the places where I brought my emotions in all the time, was in leadership, in making decisions, and things weren't really balanced in the way that they should have been. So it touched all aspects of my life, I would say.
Rebecca: I'm curious, if you were, you would imagine yourself to be now a year, almost a year and a half into this position, right? Not quite, but something like that, If you hadn't learned these tools over the last yea?
Skylar: Just a mess. I mean, I don't think I would be as self assure as I am. I have started to tell people in a number of cases like, this is the decision and it's the right decision because I know it's the right decision and that's it. And that's all I say.
Rebecca: I don't need to give you any other caveats to that.
Skylar: And I've been able to make time for myself around work. Instead of feeling like I had to go to every single meeting that I was invited to and show up to every engagement, but really going back and going like, is this a priority?
Do I actually have to go to this? Or am I just conditioned to think that I have to do this for some other reason? So it takes a little bit of time and space and processing that.
And just yesterday, I was invited to a meeting and I'm like, no, not going to that one. And I sent out an email and I said, I'm not coming. And I didn't offer an explanation, I didn't provide any additional details.
Rebecca: There's no drama and there's no internal drama about it. And you let it go and you move on instead of carrying all of this stuff around with you, around what's right and what's wrong and how are people going to feel and how do I feel, and maybe I'm doing it wrong. And all the second guessing and lack of confidence stuff that happens.
Skylar: Oh, that could have gone on and on with, like, teams messaging and responding to emails. Just things that I was conditioned to think, like, it showed up in my inbox or on teams, and I have to respond to it right now.
Saying no and being okay with it.
And very quickly, that number of messages and things I had to respond to would grow exponentially. So just learning how to say, like, no and be okay with it, I love it.
Rebecca: I could just talk about this endlessly. Your journey has been so fun to watch and to be a part of it's just an honor. It was an honor to be your coach. And I'm so glad you came here and shared a bit of your journey.
I think I remember the first time that somebody ever told me to feel my feelings, and I was like, what the heck are you talking about?
es, it felt very esoteric and weird and kind of like, I don't really know. This is kind of moving into some weird stuff. And it felt like that at the beginning to me too.
And it's a life changing skill that you've learned that I teach, that coaching provides. And so fun to hear it from your perspective, though, because obviously I talk about this stuff all the time, but to hear you take us through it and to share the way you've experienced it from someone that went from never heard it before to being a champion of it, right. And it's like such a huge shift for you. So thank you for coming on this podcast and sharing it with me.
Skylar: Without a doubt. Thank you for having me.
Rebecca: Yes, of course. Any other final thoughts for those ambitious working moms out there in life or whatever it may be?
Self care for your internal self.
Skylar: One of the other topics that we hadn't really touched on specifically, but that this, doing the coaching, processing the emotions, definitely touches on is self care. And this for me was key to learning how to take care of myself.
Rebecca: So self care not just your external self, your internal self.
Skylar: Exactly. Not just like going to the gym and scheduling a manicure and a pedicure and getting a facial, but really taking care of yourself.
I feel like I learned that it starts from literally inside, within and being able to process and understand emotions.
“This has been empowering for me and transformative and incredible.”
So this has been so empowering for me and transformative and incredible. I've got tons of examples, but I just feel like I'm on the path to do even greater things and I haven't let go of my ambitiousness.
Rebecca: In fact, I remember some of those final conversations about what's the next step after this, which there's almost no way that you could probably be thinking about what's next career wise or what those next steps are or opportunities. If you hadn't gone through this process, you just would have been stuck in the weeds.
Skylar: Oh, yeah, totally. So that ambitious part of me has not changed, but I can manage it and take care of myself and still show up the way I want as a mom and a wife and a leader and a friend really intentionally.
Rebecca: So working moms, if you want to start this process or want to consider the coaching process learning these tools, developing your own toolbox and your own toolkit to working through your emotions and your thoughts and staying ambitious but balancing life and just feeling just feeling in control and feeling like life has that joy that you wanted to have - It starts with a breakthrough call.
That's where it started for Skyler coming up to a year ago in a couple of months here. And you could just go to www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/book to find a time to connect with me about coaching.
You'll just learn all about it. We'll talk about what the process is like. We'll talk about your goals and make sure it feels like the right next step for you.
All right, working mom till next week. Let's get to it.
