Ep #90: Hope Does Not Build Connection. THIS Does…

Welcome to Real World Peaceful Parenting, a podcast for parents that are tired of yelling, threatening, and punishing their kids. Join mom and master certified parent coach Lisa Smith as she gives you actionable step-by-step strategies that’ll help you transform your household from chaos to cooperation. Let’s dive in.

Welcome, welcome, welcome. Welcome to today’s episode. I can’t believe this is our 90th week together. I am so honored each week to show up and work with you. My goal is to change the world one family at a time. I feel like together each week we’re meeting here, same place, same time, and we’re doing it. We’re creating connection and cooperation with your kids and changing the world one family at a time. So thank you. Thank you for going on this journey with me. I’m honored and touched to be your partner in real world peaceful parenting.

Many, many, many of the episodes so far have focused on your kids. How to help them, how to support them, how to work with them. Today’s episode takes a different turn and really is inwardly focused. Today’s episode is for you, about you. Today we’re going to talk about holding space. Say what Lisa? I know. Bear with me.

In the coaching world, we talk a lot about holding space. Holding space is knowing and believing the transformation or the goal is going to happen, even if there’s no proof and even if the one wanting the transformation has doubts. Let me say that again. Holding space is knowing and believing the transformation is going to happen even when there’s no proof, and even when the one wanting the transformation has doubts. That’s us, by the way, the parent. Doubts. Doubts that we’re gonna get there. Doubts that they’re gonna get there.

The way this translates to our children is we often have to hold space for them that something’s going to happen for them before there’s any proof that it’s going to happen. Now, let me be crystal clear about this. Holding space is not hoping. They are two completely different things. One I encourage, the other I do not.

Holding space is not hoping. Oh, I really hope someday this is going to get better. I’m not sure that it will, but I hope it does. When people say I hope, what they’re really saying is I don’t believe, but I’m pretending to believe. I’m going to wrap up my unbelief in a pretty box and tie it up with a big red bow.

Hope is waiting for evidence before believing something is true. As my husband likes to say, hope is not a strategy. As I like to say, hope does not build connection. Holding space, on the other hand, is one of the greatest tools you have in your real world peaceful parenting toolbox. It’s absolutely 100% available to you right now.

Now, please hear this. When you marinate in the thought I hope this gets better or I hope this changes, what you’re actually doing is you’re giving your brain the assignment to seek evidence that you hope it gets better. Your brain is not looking for evidence to prove that your thought is right or wrong, or to prove the circumstance is getting better. Your brain does not make any effort at all to change your beliefs when you think I hope it’s getting better. Your brain is only looking for evidence of hope. Hope that it’s going to get better, not any proof that it’s actually gonna get better.

Conversely, there’s much more power in the thought and belief that it will get better. It’s not likely that our kids are going to have the exact same problem the rest of their life. At some point the current challenge is going to get better. It is. What if you believe that now for your child? What if you believe now at five that eventually my kid’s going to know how to brush his teeth, and he’s going to do it on the regular? Or his storming is going to come in the form of calm words instead of yelling and screaming.

Now here’s the question. What if you carry the weight of believing in the transformation now and believe for your child that they are going to overcome the challenge they’re having right now? You are going to be able to sit still in school. You are going to be able to not hit your brother. You are going to not storm all day. You are going to be able to go to the bathroom when your body gives you the cue that it’s time to go. You are going to eat vegetables. You are going to be able to get yourself ready for school and at school on time.

What if, as parents, we hold the space and say to our children, I know this is going to happen for you. I believe it. I will carry the weight of believing until you catch up and believe with me. So good right?

Now hear me, we can also hold space for ourselves. When I started my own journey to peaceful parenting, I believed I would stop yelling at Malcolm long before I actually stopped yelling. I believed these techniques were going to work. I believed it. I had very little evidence, but I believed it.

When your brain is given the assignment to support your belief, it looks for evidence to prove it, and it finds it 100% of the time. This isn’t something I made up. This is fact. This is fact. When your brain is given an assignment to support your belief, when you say I believe that one day my kid will fill in the blank, your brain looks for evidence to prove it. It finds it 100% of the time.

It’s ironic because I see families that makes so much progress when they’re practicing the peaceful parenting tools. They show up for coaching. They listen to podcasts, and they make progress. But because the parents have a belief that the best they can do is hope for things to get better, their brains don’t see any of the progress. Because their brains aren’t looking for progress. Their brains are looking for hope of progress.

I can see the progress because I don’t have a dog in the fight, and I hold space for their kids. I hold space for their transformation. I believe they’re going to get where they want to go. I believe it. Because I’m holding space and believing this is going to happen, I clearly see the evidence of the progress they’re making as a family. Let me say that again. Because I as their coach, am holding space and believing this is going to happen, I can clearly see the evidence of progress they’re making.

But their brains are skipping over all the evidence of the progress because their brains are only seeking evidence of hope, not the evidence of progress. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Light bulbs. Hopefully light bulbs are going off for you. I want to say this again because it’s far too important to skip over. So if your brain has drifted off or you’re looking at Facebook, or you’re focused on driving, or you’re doing something else, come back to me because this is too important to miss.

Now hear this because I as their coach, I am holding space, and I believe the transformation is going to happen. I already believe it. I clearly see evidence of the progress they’re making as a family, but their brains are skipping over all of the evidence because their brains are only seeking evidence of hope. Not evidence of progress. Right?

So what if you change your thoughts. You move away from hope, and you move away from I hope we’re going to accomplish this to yeah, we’re gonna get it eventually. It’s just a matter of time. We haven’t figured it out yet, and we’re not there yet. But we’re going to. We’re going to get this figured out.

My kid can’t brush his teeth yet, but we’re going to figure it out. We’re not quite getting to school five days a week on time yet, but we’re going to figure it out. My kid hasn’t quite tuned in to all the signals in his body that it’s time to go to the bathroom yet, but I know he’s gonna get there.

Imagine giving your brain that assignment to look for evidence that it’s only a matter of time before you or your child figures it out. All day long your brain and their brain is going to be looking for progress. You’re going to find it 100% of the time, which is then going to strengthen your resolve to keep making the transformation happen. See the positive loop that gets created?

Holding space is the origin of the self-fulfilling prophecy. I’ll give you an example. If a kid grows up with a parent telling them all the time you’re lazy. You’re lazy. You’re lazy. Oh my god, you’re so lazy. Why are you so lazy? Stop being so lazy. The parents voice becomes the kid’s inner voice. Then the kids brain starts looking for all the evidence that he really is lazy.

Because of the way the brain works, his brain finds evidence 100% of the time that he’s lazy. Then the kid grows up identifying as a person who’s lazy. Because he believes he’s lazy, he won’t want to try new things. He won’t want to look for evidence that he’s not lazy.

So let’s say your son goes to the first day of freshman football. Now, if you know anything about freshman football, the very first day of freshman football practice is grueling and painful for everybody. I don’t care how long you’ve been playing football. I don’t care how conditioned you are. I don’t care what shape you’re in. No matter what, I promise you the first day of freshman football is grueling and painful for everybody.

But this kid who grew up being told and believing that he’s lazy goes to the first day of freshman football and barely makes it through. What his brain doesn’t realize is that every kid there on the first day of freshman football barely makes it through. At the end of the day, they’re all exhausted, dehydrated, barely able to lift food to their mouths, and barely able to put one foot in front of the other.

But unlike most of the other kids, who are physically feeling the same way, this kid might end up quitting. Do you know why? Because his brain uses the first day of freshman football as evidence that he’s lazy, and he can’t hack it. He quits because he thinks he’s lazy. He thinks he’s lazy because his mind believes he’s lazy. That belief started with the parents telling him all the time that he’s lazy.

For this reason, it’s a great idea, as a parent, to take inventory once in a while, of what we’re saying to our children. What are we repeating over and over and over? What are we telling them? What beliefs are we implanting in their brain? What messages are you sending to your kids about themselves that their brain is going to look for evidence to prove? What are you saying out loud that’s going to change your thoughts into your child’s beliefs?

On the other hand, if you tell your kids they’re capable of resolving conflict, they’re great human beings, then this is what they’re going to believe. Our brains don’t wait for evidence. We assign or serve up a belief to our brain, and then and only then does it look for evidence. Most people think what happens is we use evidence to mold our beliefs. That’s not how the brain works. Science proves it. The brain believes first, and then it seeks evidence to support the belief.

If you have an inner confidence without doubt that you and your child are going to get wherever there is, that confidence will be instilled in your child. Their brain will find evidence to support your belief, and then it will become their belief. It all starts with holding space.

Holding space protects your kids from childhood scars like believing they’re somehow broken because they wet the bed until they were 10. Or they were easily distracted in school, or they cried a lot when they have big emotions that they didn’t know how to process. Holding space teaches your children that their challenges are process problems, not character problems.

If you’re struggling with practicing this valuable tool of holding space, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to challenge your thoughts. When you challenge your thoughts, you challenge your beliefs. I want you to challenge your beliefs. Challenge what you say. Challenge your hope. Challenge your doubts. This is the work to be done.

Holding space doesn’t mean you simply say I believe you, and then you sit back and expect your kids to figure everything out on their own. You still have to put the work in. The difference is that you choose to believe that your children are going to get there. Wherever there is. They’re going to grow up and live happy and fulfilling lives. You choose to believe that all the things are struggling with right now at some point won’t be a problem.

You choose to believe they will continue to make progress. You choose to believe they have a great capacity to learn and grow and heck, surprise you. You choose to believe that you are the best person in the world to be the one to hold space for them.

Let me tell you something. What I know for sure, with 100% certainty is that it matters. It matters that we believe in our kids. It matters. The end result will likely be nothing like we’ve imagined. The journey will certainly be messy. The end result will not be perfect. But in the end, there will be progress. That progress will prove that your work was worth the effort. It matters that we believe in our kids. It matters.

It matters the words that come out of our mouths. Our beliefs become our words, and our words become their beliefs. Be conscious, be aware. Choose your words and your beliefs carefully. Hold space, please. It’s one of the most important things you can do with your children is to hold space and believe that we’ll get there. You’ve got this. I know you do. I feel it. I’m going to hold space for you while you’re holding space.

I do this every week. I hold space for you. I know you’re going to get there. I know you’re going to find the answers. I know that you’re healing your own childhood wounds. I know that you’re building connection with your children. I know because you’re here, and I’m holding space for you on your journey. I know you’ve got this, I promise. All right. Until we meet again, I’m holding space for you and wishing you peaceful parenting.

Thank you so much for listening today. I want to personally invite you to head over to thepeacefulparent.com/welcome and sign up for my free peaceful parenting minicourse. You’ll find everything you need to get started on the path to peaceful parenting just waiting for you over there at www.thepeacefulparent.com/welcome. I can’t wait for you to get started.

Thanks for listening to Real World Peaceful Parenting. If you want more info on how you can transform your parenting, visit thepeacefulparent.com. See you soon.