MINDSET TRAPS OF PARENTING TEENS AND THE EMPTY NEST—TRAP #1. THE EMOTIONAL ROLLER COASTER: HOW TO FIND PEACE WHEN LETTING GO FEELS IMPOSSIBLE | EP. 195
Welcome to the Almost Empty Nest Podcast, where we moms of teens and college kids reframe what letting go really means to feel more connected, confident, and at peace. I'm your host, Master Coach Jennifer Collins. Have you ever noticed how motherhood can feel like one long, emotional roller coaster that you can't quite control? One minute you feel calm and connected to your big kid, and the next you feel anxious or frustrated.
You try your best to stay calm when your kid does something that triggers you. But before you know it, you end up back on that roller coaster. And worse, you find yourself reacting to your fear and frustration in ways that don't actually help.
Here's what I want you to hear. There's nothing wrong with you, if this sounds familiar. You just have a human brain, a brain that's doing exactly what it was designed to do.
In this episode, I'm returning to the mindset traps of parenting teens and the empty nest, where I'll explore the hidden thought patterns that keep so many of us moms stuck. Today, I'm talking about why your peace and emotional well-being can feel so fragile during this stage of parenting. And I'll also share how you can take your power back.
Because no matter where you are in this stage of motherhood, whether you're still in the thick of raising your kids, or you're adjusting to that quiet space of the empty nest, you have more power than you think you do to create peace in your life. And with this series, I'm going to show you how. Let's dive in.
Hello, my friend. When I first started this podcast, almost four years ago now, I remember feeling this sense that as a mom, I was constantly locked onto this emotional roller coaster. One minute, I'd be feeling happy and like I had this parenting thing nailed.
And the next, I was totally stressed and anxious about something going on with one of my boys, or frustrated that they weren't doing something I really wanted them to do. And it was like walking into each day, I really wasn't sure what I was going to get. And at the time, my boys were just at the beginning of high school.
Part of the reason I felt drawn to this work of coaching was because I had lived through a middle school experience with both of them that was unbelievably painful. So much awkwardness and insecurity and feelings that your growing kid doesn't know how to express. And you feel like you're constantly watching and waiting.
Hoping for the best, but feeling heartbroken that you can't get them through to the part where they feel confident and capable. I used to feel trapped on that roller coaster, totally unable to figure out what to do with all of my emotions, other than try to get my kid to feel better or do better. And as my boys grew up, what I realized was that the strategies I used when my kids were little weren't working anymore.
When they were young, I could solve most of their problems with a snack or a hug. They were, for the most part, easily distracted, and they trusted me to make it better. And what I realize very much about that time of parenting now is that it gave me a sense of control to be able to so easily swoop in and fix what was happening with my kids.
Because it felt like no matter what was happening, I could do something to make things better. And not only could I do something, but my kids welcomed my help back then. They even sought it out.
It gave me a sense of control, and maybe more to the point, a sense of security to know that I could do something. And it also, if I'm honest, gave me a deep sense of validation and purpose to be the source of comfort and support to my boys. That all changed once my boys hit middle school and then high school.
The things they were struggling with weren't things I could fix anymore. Insecurities with friends, or even making friends. Their first crushes.
Then people who broke their little hearts. Not being included in birthday parties. Having best friends who were honestly cruel to them.
Honestly, I was shocked about the challenges my boys went through. And this was just up to freshman year of high school. Then there were teachers who the boys didn't like, and classes where they hit a wall, and sports teams they got cut from.
And all these things that I guess in many respects were a normal part of growing up, and yet there was nothing I could do to help or to fix it. It's interesting because I often wonder if it's different for us now than it was for our own parents. Because it's not like this parenting thing is new.
But as I've reflected on this question over the years, I think there are many reasons why it's different today. To be honest, one big factor is that we're so much more aware of the impact of emotional and mental health these days. When I was growing up, no one used words like boundaries or emotional regulation.
Honestly, you were either fine or you weren't. I think by and large, parents didn't really sit down and talk to us about feelings. They focused much more on our behavior.
We were expected to do what we were told, to be respectful. I feel like I was really lucky to have grown up in a home with a mom who was trained as a counselor. But she was also pursuing her master's degree while I was in high school.
I remember finding her school books around the house and seeing some chapter about how she was supposed to talk to her teen. And then I'd see her trying that technique on me. And I'm not proud of it, but I remember making fun of her at the time.
Like, how does that make me feel? I thought it was ridiculous that she was asking. It really wasn't until the late 90s and early 2000s when we started more broadly talking about child development and emotional intelligence in a way that was introduced to mainstream parenting. Then social media came along, and suddenly we were all being inundated with advice and experts and opinions about how to raise emotionally healthy kids.
And while I think there is so much value to this, that we talk about therapy and mental health without stigma or shame, it's also created this invisible pressure on us moms to get it right. We're not just raising kids anymore. We're trying to raise these emotionally resilient and responsible and self-actualized humans.
But it's like our measurement for success is somewhat of a fiction. Because we want our kids to be safe, happy, and successful. But first off, no one's happy all the time.
So by definition, we're set up for failure at least part of the time. And second, how do you even define these things? What does it look like to be successful? And how can we really know if our kids are happy? And even safety? I'll be the first to say there were times when I wish I could have wrapped my boys in bubble wrap. But that's just not realistic, particularly once your kids start becoming independent.
And I would even argue, when you think back to our childhood and how much relative freedom and independence and actual privacy we had from our own parents, you realize that our kids have lost some of that in their own childhood, as we've been more concerned for their safety in this big, dangerous world. Sometimes I wonder if we've inadvertently shielded them too much, so that once they do get out there, they don't have their own instincts. And it just goes to show that there's no perfect way to do this job.
And we as parents are a product of our own upbringing and what we wanted to do differently from our own parents. But we're also a product of this age that we've raised our kids in, one where we're more aware and connected and flooded with information about all of the things that could go wrong. So as a result, we're on this emotional rollercoaster with our kids.
We're constantly watching them for signs of anxiety and depression, burnout, friendship struggles, academic challenges. And look, we've been doing this as moms since our kids were born. But the difference now that they're older is that although we can see them struggling and we feel that struggle in our own body, we can't always do anything to fix it.
And so while the awareness we have about our kids' emotional well-being can sometimes in some ways be a gift, it can also be a trap. Because when we're this connected, our nervous system can feel like it's constantly in the state of fight or flight. You feel everything your kid feels.
And so that's how you end up trapped on this emotional rollercoaster. And this is really at the heart of this first mindset trap I want to explore today. And that's the trap of emotional reasoning.
Emotional reasoning is when you believe your feelings are evidence that something is true. It's when how you feel becomes the filter through which you see everything that's happening. So when you feel anxious, your brain tells you there must be something to be anxious about.
Or when you feel hurt, your mind assumes someone caused it, that someone made you feel hurt. And when you feel guilt, you automatically assume it's because you did something wrong. In other words, your emotions become proof instead of information.
And what's tricky about emotional reasoning is that it feels so true. Because what happens is you feel these emotions in your body. They're physical and immediate.
And honestly, we rarely stop to question them. So when you feel that pang of anxiety, that pit in your stomach, or that tightness in your chest, your brain is immediately analyzing it, trying to make sense of it. And the obvious answer it finds is that something must be wrong.
And look, sometimes there is something wrong. Our emotions are designed to alert us to danger. If your kid is struggling, or you sense something's off in your relationship with them, or if you're facing a real danger, your body is going to react.
That fight-or-flight response isn't made up or a sign that there's something wrong with you. It's actually a very normal human response. But the problem is that our brains don't always know how to tell the difference between a real threat and an imagined one.
Think about it. You can have the same fight-or-flight response if you're at a scary movie, and there's one of those jump scares. Even though you know intellectually you're in a situation where it's all fake and there's nothing real that can hurt you, you know you're just looking at actors on a screen.
But your body will still react with this fight-or-flight response. You feel this rush of adrenaline, and your heart starts pounding, and your chest is tight. And it actually doesn't matter that there's no real danger.
Your brain and your body automatically responds as if there is. And this is why emotional reasoning can be such a trap. Because once that physical reaction happens, your brain also responds by creating a story around it.
When you're in that scary movie, your brain will rationalize that everything is okay. And so you downregulate pretty quickly once that scary part is over. You might even find yourself laughing at your quick emotional response.
But when it's not as easy to resolve or rationalize whatever danger your brain has latched onto, that's when your brain can fall into the trap of deciding that the feeling you're experiencing is proof that something terrible is happening, or that you need to fix something, or that you've done something wrong. And this is where we can unintentionally make ourselves suffer. Not because the emotion is wrong, but because we mistake the meaning of it.
The truth is, your emotions are real. They're always valid. But they're not always reliable evidence of what's actually true.
The reason I wanted to start this new Mindset Trap series with this trap in particular is because emotional reasoning is like the foundation for almost every other mindset trap we fall into. When you're catastrophizing, it's because you feel afraid and your mind decides that the fear must mean something terrible is about to happen. And when you're caught in perfectionism, it's because you feel inadequate and your brain believes that that feeling must mean you're not good enough yet, for example.
And when you're in the comparison trap, you feel insecure. And so your brain interprets that emotion as evidence that you're somehow falling behind. So this is why understanding this trap of emotional reasoning can become the foundation for unraveling all of the rest of the traps that I'm going to explore in the coming months.
Here's what's really important to understand about all of these mindset traps. They're not a sign that something's wrong with you. They're actually a sign that your brain is doing exactly what it was designed to do.
Because your primitive brain's primary goal isn't to keep you happy and at peace. Its primary goal is simply to keep you alive. And so it does this by following three basic rules, what scientists call the motivational triad.
Your brain wants to avoid pain, seek comfort, and conserve energy. That's it. Those three instincts are what drive almost every automatic response we have.
They're the same instincts that kept our ancestors alive. But the problem is, today the danger we experience is almost totally emotional. And so when we run up against these situations that our brain immediately reads as a problem, we react.
It could be our kid's tone of voice, or a text that we're waiting for that doesn't come. Or the comment a teacher makes on your kid's school portal. A sign that your kid is being left out.
Your brain witnesses these situations and reads them as dangerous. And so then it triggers that same fight-or-flight response. Now, your brain's first instinct is to avoid pain, both physical and emotional.
So when your teen is struggling, your brain reacts as if you're in danger too. And I honestly think so much of this is simply a learned, habitual response. We've spent decades helping our kids avoid pain.
And when they were little, we were, by and large, very successful at doing this. But as our kids grow up and face situations we can't fix, heartbreak or failure, loneliness, our brains still want to jump in and stop that pain for them. And it's not just their pain, but it's ours too.
Because watching your child hurt hurts you. So the truth is, you're feeling your own pain and responding to that, wanting to fix it. We also have a basic instinct to seek comfort.
Your brain loves predictability and peace. It wants things to feel good and to make sense. You know how it feels when your kid is in a good mood.
You can't help but respond positively to that. It's like a sense of relief, like, ah, we're safe, we're good. But the minute your kid is irritated or upset or even just distant, your brain interprets that discomfort as danger.
And it compels you then to try to get back to comfort, trying to fix whatever problem it perceives so that you can feel better. And that's not necessarily bad, but there are two potential problems. One, you can't always fix the problem, which leaves you feeling this continuous lack of safety and comfort.
The second problem is that sometimes the way we try to jump in and fix the situation is more focused on short-term relief than long-term outcomes. For example, we often avoid hard conversations because they're uncomfortable. We also avoid following through with consequences because we don't want to deal with the pain of our kid's reactions.
And I'm not saying it's always the right thing to come down hard on your kid or that you always have to have these hard conversations. But just notice how this instinct to stay comfortable can also keep you from feeling the discomfort of the sometimes necessary parts of supporting your kids and their long-term growth. So far, I've covered the instinct to avoid pain and seek comfort.
The last instinct in the motivational triad is to conserve energy, essentially to keep things simple, efficient, and familiar. And honestly, this is one of the biggest reasons we often find ourselves in that default mode when life gets hard or overwhelming. We feel this instinct to shut down.
And so that's when we start to scroll or distract ourselves, procrastinating. It's not because you're lazy or unmotivated, but it's simply because it's your brain's way of trying to conserve energy, to keep things simple. This instinct is also why you can find yourself slipping back into old emotional habits, like when we find ourselves always overthinking or people-pleasing.
Even when you know these habits aren't helpful, in its default setting, your brain still sees these patterns as efficient, because they're familiar, and familiar feels safe. So here's the thing, the motivational triad isn't necessarily bad. It's just that these default reactions don't always align with what we really want to create, or how we really want to show up in our lives, especially as we're navigating the complicated journey of raising and launching our kids.
So let's look at a few examples of how emotional reasoning can show up for us as moms. So let's say your kid comes home from school, and they walk right past you and disappear into their room. And you knock, and you ask them how their day was, and you get that one-word answer, fine.
And even though they're probably just tired, you still feel this pit in your stomach. Maybe your brain goes to something's wrong, something bad must have happened at school today, and I need to figure out what it is. Or maybe you jump to taking it personally, feeling rejected or hurt, or wondering if you did something wrong, replaying that fight you had the other day.
Notice that there are so many different ways that your brain can jump to conclusions about what's happening. This is emotional reasoning. Your brain is basically saying, I feel the sense that something's wrong, therefore it must mean that something is wrong.
Or let's look at the situation where your kid's falling behind in school. You see that they're missing assignments, or maybe they've had a bad test grade. You see this pattern, and so of course you start to feel this sense of anxiety.
But then your brain goes to, if I don't get on top of this, things are going to go off the rails. And here's the problem. Maybe there is something you need to do as a mom.
And this is why this trap can be so tricky. Because your emotions truly can be signals that something is wrong. The problem is that we often jump to the conclusion that we have to fix the problem.
So then in this situation, we might remind our kid to study, and then we hover and nag them until they do. And before you know it, you're in an argument with them, and you're threatening consequences. But here's what's really interesting to explore.
And again, there isn't a right way to approach this. But how do you know when you need to jump in and fix it, versus when you need to sit back and let your kid figure it out on their own? When you're responding to your default instinct to avoid pain, your reactions are almost always geared to try to control the situation. But when you learn how to understand this trap of emotional reasoning, then you can actually take a step back and make intentional decisions about exactly how you want to respond.
The bottom line is that emotional reasoning turns feelings into facts. You feel fear, so there must be danger. You feel guilt, so you must have done something wrong.
Or you feel sad, so something must be broken. But when you start to understand what's actually happening in your brain, you can begin to separate what's true from what's simply a normal human emotional response. This truly is the first step to stepping off that emotional roller coaster.
Learning to recognize that your emotions are valid, but they're not the truth. They're not the whole story. Because my friend, here's the cost of staying stuck in emotional reasoning.
You find yourself constantly pulled into the emotional ups and downs of your kid's life. And so the result is that you feel like your emotional well-being is something that happens to you, instead of something you actually have the power to create. And this is why this stage of motherhood is so absolutely exhausting and frustrating and anxiety producing.
Because we're constantly being pulled on this emotional roller coaster that we can't figure out how to step off. In an effort to manage other people's feelings, we're always walking on eggshells. Or you try to step in to help or to fix.
And when it doesn't work, you feel even more anxious. You start to feel disconnected from your kid because of their behavior. You feel hurt and rejected by their attitude.
You feel like a failure as a mom. You start to lose trust and confidence in yourself and ultimately feel like your own sense of peace and happiness isn't in your power to influence or create. And this isn't a problem with motherhood.
This is the cost of emotional reasoning. And my friend, you actually already have within you the power to step out of this trap. It's just that no one has ever taught you how to do that.
The truth is that emotional reasoning, which is simply a default setting of your mind, it keeps you believing that every emotion is a signal to fix something instead of simply a signal to stop and notice what's happening in your mind. But when you don't know how to do this, your automatic response to your kids and to your life is going to be to try to avoid discomfort. And my friend, when parenting teens, this is only going to keep you stuck in powerlessness.
I remember how terrible that felt in my own life, and I don't want that for you. Not when I know that there are simple tools that you can learn to take back your power. So the question is, are you ready? Because this is exactly what I teach in my Mom 2.0 coaching program.
It's designed to help you step out of these emotional traps and finally feel calm, confident, and in control of your own happiness. In Mom 2.0, you learn tools to separate what's actually happening in your life from the story your brain is telling you about it. And this skill will empower you to stop reacting on autopilot and instead respond with intention and confidence.
The impact of this work is that you build a sense of trust in yourself that doesn't depend on how your big kid is doing. And because our kids are going through their own emotional growing pains and inevitably on their own emotional rollercoaster, just imagine the impact of being able to be that steady, grounded, loving but firm influence in their life. That they can count on you no matter what comes.
The stage of motherhood doesn't have to feel like you're fighting for survival. In fact, what I've experienced in my own life and seen my clients experience as well, is that when you claim this power to step off the rollercoaster, you actually capture so much of the joy and appreciation of this stage of life. Because these moments with our kids are fleeting.
And I know I didn't want to miss any of it feeling overwhelmed by my own anxiety and frustration. This is why I'm so passionate about this work and sharing it with other moms. Because I don't want you to miss this.
And the beauty of this work is that you don't have to wait for your kid to change before you start feeling better. So if you find yourself stuck on that emotional rollercoaster, waiting for things to get easier, it's time to stop waiting for peace and start creating it. Join me in Mom 2.0. My friend, this is where the work begins.
Once you understand this first trap, how emotional reasoning is convincing you that your emotions are facts, you finally have the chance to take your power back. And that's what this whole series on mindset traps is all about. Each trap I'm going to cover in the coming months is going to build on this first one.
So as you listen through this series, I want you to keep coming back to this truth. Your emotions are real and valid, but they are not the whole story. And when you learn to work with them instead of against them, you gain the power to be the mom and the woman you want to be.
At peace, confident, connected to the people you love, and knowing how you want to show up to the season of your life with intention. My friend, you have within you the power to step off of this emotional rollercoaster, and I can't wait to show you how. You have more power than you think.
Until next time.
If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love for you to check out my next free masterclass. There's a link in the show notes. You have more power than you think, my friend.
