Woman Evolve with Sarah Jakes Roberts - Best of Hope Ep. 4 - Hoping to Parent with Intention & Having Hard Conversations

Episode Date: September 12, 2023

When it comes to communicating with the children in your life, are some things better left unsaid? If you're wishing to parent with intention, this drop of hope is just for you! Tune in as SJR and New York Times bestselling author, licensed therapist, and sought-after relationship expert Nedra Tawwab explore the benefits of discussing the "hard" things. Their talk will leave you not only parenting the child that’s in front of you, but healing the inner child within you!    Get your hands on SJR's latest book at AllHopeIsFound.com

Can we get a little practical this week? Because who else wants to know if they're parenting right or if some things are better left unsaid? Don't always your hands at once, but these were the questions I would grapple with before licensed therapists, Nedra, to walk gathered me right on together. As a mom, it is my greatest hope to serve my children

with integrity and intentionality, even if it requires me sitting in the tension. For those of us who are hoping to parent with intention, I like the way you said that, that when we have these moments where like our generational parenting ancestors rise up and say, snatch that child. And we insist, say, no, we're gonna let them be free and communicate. Do you think it's better to err on the side of openness than it is to shut them down with that goal and mind

of them being able to advocate for themselves in the future? Absolutely. I think, you know, I've, the first half of my career, I work with kids and teenagers. And the things that they talk about is probably a lot of stuff that we thought about as teenagers, their friends, tattoos, dating, you know that stuff. And it's really harmless, but they need to be able to express it. And what I noticed that parents would do, you can't date nobody, you can't't get no tattoo or you can do a lot of

Conversations about something without having to say no because once you talk to them about some things It's just a conversation is not necessarily a goal. It's well, what would you want one of where would you want it? Now what kind of job do you want? Oh, have you ever say somebody? You know just asking them questions. Not saying you can't do it. But people can talk themselves out of things. Kids and teenagers are very reasonable and thoughtful human beings.

And if we allow them the space to have conversations and opinions, you'll be surprised of the good decisions that they can make. That okay, that's so strong. I've I've I don't I recently moved back to Dallas. I was living in the LA with my husband for eight years and Dallas is the city where I was raised. It's where my dad built his ministry and you know, I got pregnant here. All of these things exist here. And so being back here has been me kind of like understanding from a more holistic perspective,

some of the trauma and silencing that was required in order for us to like present this picture. And I think that I am learning that that silencing really has been something that I'm like learning to undo in my own relationships and really using my language to show up. So I am applying it to like my 13 year old daughter and inviting her to have a dialogue with me. She told me the other day she's like, I think I'm a wait at least until I'm 16 to do things. And I was like, well, wait a minute. Let's talk about that. Like, what happens at 16? But the fact that she was even open to having that conversation with me,

sometimes I wonder, like, am I doing this right? Am I doing it wrong? But I do love what you're saying about being able to have that conversation. So they are exercising their own mind. It's something that I really hope to continue to inspire in them. I want to ask you a question, though, because you're talking about annoyance and how that's perfectly human, perfectly normal for us to experience that emotion. What is the line between I am annoyed and I am constantly being angered, constantly

being intentionally picked at, because I think when we take it out of the concept of like mother and child and something that we know is pretty common in raising children, and then move it into adult relationships with siblings or parents, even romantic relationships. And this is beyond annoyed. This feels like an intentional desire to see me act out of character or to make me feel insecure. How do we know when we've moved past annoyance and it's something that has some abuse or I don't want to use violence because that may be too strong of a word but like this is bigger than being annoyed. I feel like someone's intentionally inflicting pain on me.

You know, I think with emotional abuse often, there are these underlying things that we don't recognize, like the backhanded compliment or not even receiving compliments, not being appreciated sometimes, especially when someone is able to show appreciation for others who are doing the same thing as you. There is this dismissing of how you feel, a dismissing of what you think that certainly can weigh on your spirit. And in those situations, you know, we started with how do you have heart conversations? You know, I think when a person does something, that's when we, you know, go standard is that's when we say something about it. That's when we say, wow, you

just dismissed me and I was saying something that was important to me and you cut me off or you told me I should think this way about it. If you can't do it right away, I would say when you find yourself like thinking, thinking, thinking about how offended you are, about what someone did, the way to stop being offended is to talk about it. So it could be 24 hours, one week, two two days whatever time frame Work up your courage and just let them know how you feel, you know, I've I've certainly had situations where I felt like oh that felt like a dick and I might have you know just set with it and maybe talk to two people about and they was like girl It's a dick and so

to two people about and they was like girl is a dig. And so, and so you know, I've caught people and say hey, I saw you yesterday and you see at this thing. And to me, it felt like a dig and I just want you to know that I don't like it when you say that sort of stuff to me. Now sometimes people get defensive, but what tends to happen is they don't do that exact thing anymore because now they know I see you. How do you do you think that there's a certain level of fear of rejection that you have to no longer possess in order to have those conversations? Because I can hear people in my head but like, but then they're going to be acting funny or then we're not gonna be able to go to lunch anymore.

So it's better that I say nothing at all. You know, I am a sensitive sleeper. I don't know about you, but if anything happens, I cannot sleep. If you get all my nerves for too long during the day, I'm waking up at night. So the way I love my sleep is just, I have to have peace of mind.

And a part of that is, you know, we don't think about the impact of not having those higher conversations. The impact to our self-esteem, the impact on our sleep, the impact on our appetite sometimes, the anxiety we experience when we have future interactions with that person. There's a lot of things that happen when we don't speak up that we kind of gloss over because we don't want to miss lunch. So I understand that this person is going to behave this certain way. And I get that that's really tough to allow them

to have that reaction because some people aren't mature enough to hear anything negative about themselves. They can't believe a lot of defensiveness is like, I am not a bad person. I am not a bad person. You're not about to tell me that I said something mean to you. And it's like, well, you did in fact say something mean to me.

That's exactly what I'm saying. And you're still a really good person and you make great pie, but you also say me stuff sometimes and you did it yesterday. So, you know, I think we can't not say things because of how they'll respond, what typically happens in relationships is people cool down. And we have to maybe, we have to call somebody else to go to lunch with on that particular day.

We will have to miss lunch with them because we know how they'll respond or we'll have to endure the silent treatment for two days or whatever it is. But what they're doing in their behavior towards you is really manipulating you to not say anything to them. You know, people are teaching you not to say anything to them with those sort of behaviors. Like, you cannot tell me about how I treat you because if you do, this is what I'm going to do to you. So guess what? if it works, you will never be able to say anything to them. So you have to decide,

do I wanna be in a relationship with someone I can't talk to? Or will I, you know, advocate for myself and say, hey, look, I understand you have your process, but I will still say this. Okay, so I should have known that this was probably gonna be like somewhat of a therapy session because that's what you do to us all day, any day. So, you know, I'm gonna hand throw myself on the altar,

you know, because I'm definitely one of those people. I feel like I've grown a lot, but I do feel like I'm one of those people used to be one of those people who struggled with like anytime someone says something bad about me. Now I think you're saying I'm a bad person. I don't know that I would necessarily verbalize that to them, but I think I would internalize any level of criticism as you tell me like I'm not a good person or I have failed. I think it's rooted in a lot of like childhood things. And so I think how do we become the type of people

who can separate from this idea of being perfect or like acting in a way that never ascends or not being accountable for the moments where we did say something mean or we did say something immature and hear that feedback without responding. Well, I don't know if we can respond without being defensive but like how do we open up in such a way? We talk about having tough conversations,

like we're the ones communicating with someone else, but how do we receive tough criticism, tough feedback about ourselves without it damaging our self-esteem or making us feel like, well, I just quit altogether. You know, you have to put yourself in more uncomfortable positions. You have to allow yourself to make mistakes. you have to put yourself in more uncomfortable positions. You have to allow yourself to make mistakes. You have to try new things that you're not good at. You have to open yourself up to receive feedback. You know, there are a few times a year while text a few friends and say, girl,

what do I need to work on? Like what have I missed? I just can't imagine it but okay I'm gonna do better. I do my homework so I'm gonna do whatever you tell me to do but that just feels like ants. Keep it to yourself. Yeah you know I um I asked a friend that recently and she said you know I think I think you leave relationships, but I've seen you stay for too long. I said, oh, wow. Really?

Because I guess she, you know, she's hearing for years of complaining. She's probably like, girl, it's been eight years. You won't dump that free yet. So, you know, I think sometimes, you know, adults, we don't necessarily put ourselves in uncomfortable situations. We feel really great doing the things we're good at. And the opportunity to try something new is like the scariest thing ever. You know, like to try skiing if you've never been, to try a new recipe.

We are creatures of habit because we're good at stuff. And so there is some benefit to learning something new and not being good at it. First of all, Nedra, she's giving very much so home girl and we love to see it. Alright, so what are we hoping for after that discussion with Nedra to have the hard conversations, to ask more questions, to use our language and to stop being easily offended. Those my friends are some practical tools to walk away with. You can thank me later. Make sure you purchase the new book All Hope is Found, rediscovering the joy of expectation today and continue to receive more inspiration and

practical tools for your hope journey. you