Podcast Episode 382: 8 Simple Words That Can End Family Fights Transcripts

Please note: Transcripts for the No Guilt Mom Podcast were created using AI. As a result, there may be some minor errors.

Tera Wages (00:01)

We need pleasure to thrive and joy helps us to balance any of these other more uncomfortable emotions. My kid took a Sharpie to my vehicles and to my neighbor’s garage. He was flooded with joy. That Sharpie looked so good on those cars.

JoAnn Crohn (00:26)

Welcome to the No Guilt Mom podcast. I’m your host, JoAnn Crohn, joined here today, as always, by my brilliant, brilliant co-host, Brie Tucker.

Brie Tucker (00:36)

Good, hello, hello everybody. I feel so special.

JoAnn Crohn (00:40)

Hello, hello.

Brie Tucker (00:41)

And it’s a Monday today as we’re recording this. And is this not a Monday of a bit of the Mondays Monday?

JoAnn Crohn (00:47)

It is a Monday and it’s like really kind of a stressful Monday week because I don’t know with you listening right now where you’re at with your kids school schedule, but here in Arizona, this is our kids last week of school. And so there are so many events happening. There’s so much stuff that’s not in routine. And I don’t know about you, Bri, but that drives me crazy.

Brie Tucker (01:10)

It does. just to be clear, people were recording this in May. It’s July. And by the time this episode airs, guys, JoAnn and I are actually going back to school shopping because our kids go back to school in two weeks. So.

JoAnn Crohn (01:13)

Yes, yeah.

July! That’s right! Oh

my gosh. We do not have a long enough break here.

Brie Tucker (01:28)

I know, like right now we’re going through all the things here at the end of May with the crazy new schedules and kids changing. You’ve got a kid moving from elementary to junior high. I’ve got a kid graduating. We both have kids that are going into their senior year. So we’ve got a lot on our plate. And I just have to laugh at the fact that yeah, this is airing July 1st and our kids will be starting school like July 17th, I think this year.

It’s all the emotions.

JoAnn Crohn (01:58)

It’s not a stretch to say we have a lot of emotions going on. And so our guest today is going to help us and help you actually decipher your emotions and communicate them better to your loved ones, your kids, your spouse, your partner, whoever you need to communicate them to. We’re joined today by Tera Wages. She is a mom of four, podcast host and CEO of Connection Codes, a company teaching families how to regulate emotions in just four minutes a day. She’s on a mission to help moms drop the guilt

find their voice and build deeper connection with their kids, partner, and most importantly, themselves. And with that, let’s get on with the show.

You want mom life to be easier. That’s our goal too. Our mission is to raise more self-sufficient and independent kids and we’re going to have fun doing it. We’re going to help you delegate and step back. Each episode we’ll tackle strategies for positive discipline, making our kids more responsible and making our lives better in the process. Welcome to the No Guilt Mom podcast.

Welcome, Tera, to the podcast. so wonderful to have you here, especially after we’ve had these little brief brushes and encounters in the past few years.

Tera Wages (03:24)

Yes, thank you so much. I have so much joy being with you today and can’t wait to dive in.

Brie Tucker (03:30)

We all know that all of us here, we all are on a mission to help with emotional regulation. It’s so crazy how many times that is the cause of our meltdowns, our frustrations, our big feelings. It’s just that we’re having a hard time regulating things. So.

Tera Wages (03:51)

In doing this work, I have found that there’s an emotion behind everything I do. Even put the clothes that I chose in the morning, there is emotion behind it. And the more I’ve learned to tune into those emotions, I’m like, wow, yeah, they’re everywhere.

Brie Tucker (04:05)

I’m laughing because I had that this morning you guys No kidding. You could call my husband and he’ll tell you I went and laid down on my bed inside Excessively no less than five times this morning because I couldn’t figure out what top to wear because we were recording and I business on top

JoAnn Crohn (04:24)

What do you have on the bottom?

Brie Tucker (04:27)

My regular black sweatshorts that I wear. They got pockets and they have zippers on the pockets.

JoAnn Crohn (04:35)

But emotions are like such a key thing to life and it’s so interesting because especially when you’re thinking about the differences between how girls are raised and how boys are raised, girls are really raised on how to name their emotions, really reflect on their emotions while boys are like told to stuff them down, act like a man. I mean, I wish this wasn’t true and yet I still hear it being said to little boys just at a running club event.

A few months ago, was like, ⁓ stop crying. You’re acting like a girl. ⁓ this is told by an older gentleman to his younger grandson. And the parents were like, stop that. Please stop. And he just kept going and going. But I mean, it’s pretty indicative of like what boys are raised with.

Tera Wages (05:18)

Even in that, they’re ashamed of stop crying like a girl. Like if girls are even crying, that’s a bad thing. The way they’re even saying that phrase is negative. And so, so many of us are taught that we can feel joy. Joy is the only emotion that’s like acceptable. Boys are often told that anger is okay. Anger can be acceptable for boys. But even as women, we’re shamed for feeling sadness.

Put your big girl panties on, is what I was told. I’ll give you something to cry about. There are so many times that we are taught to ignore our emotions, but even from a good place. If our kid is running down the sidewalk and they fall and skin their knee, we know they’re okay. And our instinct is to be like, you’re okay, we’re okay. To their little bodies, they’re like, no, it hurts. It hurts. I am hurt. I have fear. I’m sad. They have so many emotions.

but we even in those moments with a good heart of reassuring them are teaching them to ignore what their body is telling them.

JoAnn Crohn (06:23)

that’s true. So you are part of Connection Codes, the CEO. I thought I was reading up on Connection Codes and I thought the founding story was so interesting. Started by a couple.

Tera Wages (06:34)

Yep. Yeah, it was started by Dr. Glenn and Phyllis Hill. And when they began the process, it was because they had been in a 30 year marriage of pain, tons and tons of pain. And Dr. Glenn was determined to find out why is this so bad? Marriage is not supposed to be like this. So he went back to school, got his marriage and family therapy license and degree and masters, and then became a clinical sexologist.

because he was just determined to find out how to improve his own marriage. Through that, in conversations they were having, they started to really realize the role that emotions were playing in their communication and how to get curious with each other and how under every single interaction they were having, there was an emotion that they couldn’t see. And so they dove deep into that work and wanted to create a tangible process.

for people to be able to access the emotions that they’re feeling and created this framework and this four minute tool that I will share today. And they were just teaching this in their one-on-one private counseling sessions. But in 2020, they were hired to speak for an event that one of my clients, my video production clients was putting on, COVID shut it down. And he said, well, can we do it online instead? Can we host a webinar? ⁓

They didn’t even know what Zoom was. They were like, what do you mean? Like, what is Zoom?

Brie Tucker (08:02)

Wait, in all fairness, a lot of us know what it was, I don’t think, really.

Tera Wages (08:08)

You’re right.

JoAnn Crohn (08:09)

The things that COVID did for this world, it definitely helped people learn how to navigate the virtual landscape.

Tera Wages (08:15)

Yes, even like this podcast, we weren’t doing this in 2019. so luckily, I got to be on the first time they ever taught this outside of their private practice. And my husband and I sat on our front porch and went through and our background is helping thought leaders create content around their books. So we’ve worked with a lot of the top thought leaders, Amy Porterfield, Marie Forleo, helping them grow their business through e-courses and listening to this

Brie Tucker (08:15)

Yes.

Tera Wages (08:44)

And listening to this framework, I was like, this is different. This is different than anything we have ever heard. And my husband and I started using the tools for ourselves within our marriage. We started using it with our kids. And we had a child that had been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder by the time they were six years old, had watched them completely shift. And I was like, I’ve got to get in. I’ve got to like help this couple, grow this thing and get it out. So every parent, every person can have these tools.

And that’s what got me where I am today.

JoAnn Crohn (09:15)

That is a amazing story, especially like the transformation of your child, because I know that so many parents are worried about their kids right now seeing increased anxiety, especially after the COVID, because all that messed all of us up in so many untold ways. So I am excited to hear about this tool and how we could use this tool. We’ll get into it right after this.

So Tera, right before the break, you were telling us about this tool that you’ve been using to really help families figure out their emotions and communicate better with each other. So I’m so interested. How do we use this tool? is

Tera Wages (09:55)

Yes, so this is called the Core Emotion Wheel and it is the four-minute tool that Dr. Glenn Enfield has created that shows us how to access the different emotions firing in our bodies that we were taught along the way to ignore. And so it has the eight core emotions on there. Anger, shame, guilt, fear, lonely, sad, hurt, and joy.

Brie Tucker (10:16)

And they’ll sound familiar like I might have seen them in a movie

Tera Wages (10:21)

Yeah,

exactly. If you listeners have not seen Inside Out 2 specifically, like you have to see it as a parent. I watched it and wept from so many elements of it. But I also wept because I was like, this is what I do. I literally help people reaccess those emotions. And I want to go ahead and answer the first question that we often get, why are so many of those emotions negative? ⁓

Joy is the only quote unquote positive emotion on the wheel. But emotions are our signals. They are our guides. They are not positive or negative. The purpose of emotion is to create motion. It is to tell us there is a need and you need to move towards that need. For example, loneliness. There’s been studies done in the last couple of years that living in chronic loneliness is as bad as smoking a pack of cigarettes every day.

Brie Tucker (11:19)

yeah, and that has become so evident since COVID. And again, people like withdrawing from that social connection more.

JoAnn Crohn (11:29)

Yes, like that whole emotion means motion, like the place you need to move to. And I could see how when we stuff those things down, we’re ignoring our needs. But Tera, let me ask you this, because a lot of us have been told that those needs, like, it’s all in our heads. Like, how do you counter that?

Tera Wages (11:49)

Yeah. Well, so we actually break down what the need of each of these emotions is. So the need of lonely is that I need support or connection. And so when I’m needing support, I need that loneliness to fire in my brain so I can access the support that I need. For a long time, for many years before I found these tools, I never experienced joy. I shouldn’t say never. I had like happy moments, but I was drowning.

in loneliness, in shame, in fear. And I didn’t even know what they felt like. I just felt terrible all the time. I was brittle and harsh and yelling at my kids and just disconnected because I wasn’t accessing the need of, I need support. These are the things that I actually need in my body. And now that I experienced these and I can get to the need of it, fear, the need is protect.

I need to protect. Watch out. Guilt, I love that guilt, I was thinking about it this morning, knowing that I was gonna get to come on the No Guilt Mom podcast. Guilt is being able to recognize I either need to change my action or my expectation. ⁓ And so there are times that we experience guilt and if we can recognize it, ooh, what’s happening with the guilt? I have an expectation that I need to change.

JoAnn Crohn (13:16)

Typically what we see with moms is it is the expectation because there’s so many like expectations unsaid and said that moms have to deal with. But yes, definitely. What about the needs of the other emotions?

Tera Wages (13:30)

Yeah. So the need of sad is I need to acknowledge loss. And so I loved on the recent podcast you were talking about overwhelm and you’re talking about just saying things out loud, how helpful that was. so sadness is simply acknowledging the loss. Hurt is that I need to eliminate or move away from the pain source. If that oven is hot, I need to feel hurt. If I’m in a toxic relationship, I need to recognize it as hurt so I can move away.

JoAnn Crohn (14:02)

I need to use that more, Tera, because when I’m sick, have a tendency to ignore that I am sick and not recognize the hurt and not give myself like the rest and stuff I need.

Tera Wages (14:14)

Yes, and that often comes with shame. Yes. And so with that, I should be able to do everything. I am flawed or unworthy. That’s the message of shame, but I love the need of shame. I need unconditional love.

Brie Tucker (14:18)

I should be able to do everything.

I need a big fuzzy blanket and someone to hug me and tell me that I’m important. I am enough.

Tera Wages (14:37)

And so we get trapped in the shame of just the message of it and not recognizing what the need of it is. And even with our kids, I thought about this a lot recently in regards to our kids, when they do something that they shouldn’t do, they know they shouldn’t do it. And we move to correct them and we can create that shame. They’re already feeling shame, but what they actually need in that moment is connection. They need love, which is where that positive reinforcement comes in so handy.

Hey bud, you know that you shouldn’t do this. I love you, I’m here with you. You’re such a great, kind boy. We’re not gonna say that to our friends. Whatever the correction would need to be, but making sure we meet that need of shame that they’re experiencing. Anger is my favorite emotion. Okay. Yes, I love anger because anger is our driver and it moves us to action. It actually helps wake us up and pushes us forward.

Brie Tucker (15:25)

Bye.

Tera Wages (15:37)

we get anger confused with the behavior of anger. We associate anger with throwing our phone or yelling at our kids. It’s a reaction. But when we get to the root of what anger actually is, anger is an emotion that’s fiery, not the behavior that we’re seeing. And so actually being able to tap into that anger is what helps us move to the needs of the other emotions.

JoAnn Crohn (16:04)

That is interesting. Can we talk about anger for justice? Yeah, I would love to talk about it. Because like the emotion different from the behavior, I mean, that is something like we teach as well. But I’m like thinking about things that I have experienced that have then caused me to like move forward with speed. And when you say that anger is that driving emotional force, I immediately think about when I was a sophomore in college.

Brie Tucker (16:08)

Interesting point right there.

JoAnn Crohn (16:30)

And my dad had given me a budget for every year in college. So it was like $6,000 the first year, 4,000. And then it like gradually tapered off until I had to provide for myself. In that first semester, I was almost entirely out of money. I would have not made it the next semester. And that’s when I was like, okay, I didn’t wanna do this, but I’m gonna apply to be an RA so that I can get my room, my board paid for, I can get my meal plan. And then I would have a little stipend on top of that.

And I swear, like, I think I was angry at the fact that I wouldn’t have money, maybe. But it did inspire me to action. And maybe a little bit of fear in there as well about the need to then, what you said, protect and protect my surroundings. So it’s just so interesting. Like you just sent me on a little brain like journey there, Tera.

Tera Wages (17:05)

Yes!

Brie Tucker (17:21)

Yeah, I’m thinking about that and I’m like, huh, yeah, my divorce would have been dictated by a lot of fear and anger that got me to move.

Tera Wages (17:30)

Anger can come as secondary. And so if we experience that fear, I found for me anger typically fires as a secondary emotion when there is fear or shame. For my husband, guilt often drives him to anger. And so getting to the core, to the root issue, that actually helps us get to the true need of what we are. That anger simply kicked in to say, hey, you have a need.

You’re not doing anything about the need. You’re feeling fear in this marriage. I need you to take action. You’re feeling disregarded by your spouse or ignored or they’re hurting you in some way. The anger is gonna kick in so you actually take action on what you need to

Brie Tucker (18:13)

So anger is a secondary emotion and I totally hear that now when you say that. It can be both. Are there any other emotions that are primarily like a secondary one where you’re feeling this because of another emotion that you haven’t?

Tera Wages (18:28)

So anger is the only one that can come secondary. You can have multiple fire at the same time. So if we experience an identity loss where we feel disrespected or disregarded, who? That feels like anger. It feels like shame. It feels like fear. It feels like hurt. All of those emotions are going to fire at the same time. And that’s where we get that emotional flooding. The anger is the only one that often can come secondary after another one.

Brie Tucker (18:57)

What do you do when you’re dealing with that emotional flooding?

Tera Wages (19:00)

Yes, yes. So that’s where we get curious about ourselves. And how we encourage people to get curious is to ask this very simple five word question. And that is what is happening. So right now, many of us are asking the question, why? Why can’t I focus? Why can’t I get this task done? Why did you not fold the laundry today? Why is your room still a mess? Well, that puts us on the defense. That puts us now we are creating conflict with each other. That person’s gonna come back, well, because I had this and this and this, instead of what’s happening. So when I recognize that I’m flooded, like at night, if I’m starting to spiral and have anxiety before bed, ooh, what’s happening for me? I’m inviting myself into my experience where now I can access those emotions from a place of curiosity. Or with my child, why didn’t you clean your room? Ooh, what happened? What happened this afternoon?

Your room was supposed to be clean. Well, so and so came over and now we’re in a dialogue with each other. Now we can actually communicate and get to what we need to get done instead of arguing with each other for the next 15 minutes.

JoAnn Crohn (20:11)

Yes, could not agree with you more. We teach the structure to our balance members too. I like how you describe it’s like putting yourself on the defensive when you ask the why. I haven’t heard that and I’m probably going to use that to explain that now because you’re totally correct. But moving into that dialogue, that is where all problem solving happens and occurs. So Tera, we’re going to take a short break, but right after this, we are going to dig into the joy because I cut you off there. I was like, we don’t need joy. We talk enough about it.

We’re gonna dig more into joy and also your process to help kids and family members actually recognize their emotions right after this. So Tera, you had one more emotion, I think on the wheel that you’re gonna talk. Joy, what’s like the need behind joy and everything that we can learn from that.

Tera Wages (20:54)

Joy sent the messages that felt good and I need pleasure. We need pleasure to thrive and joy helps us to balance any of these other more uncomfortable emotions. And there’s two things I want to mention about joy. One, joy is not always positive. My kid took a Sharpie to my vehicles and to my neighbor’s garage. He was flooded with joy. That Sharpie looked so good on those cars. And I can eat an entire pan of brownies from a place of joy. I love that. People flirt with their coworkers from a place of joy. That felt good. so joy is also not positive or negative. It just is. Being able to tap into it is the key because we do need pleasure to thrive. And so if we’re not getting pleasure in these everyday normal moments, we’ll seek it from more harmful behaviors.

JoAnn Crohn (21:57)

That is so interesting because sometimes I get joy from pushing people’s easy buttons and like I think a lot of people have.

Brie Tucker (22:04)

What do mean pushing people’s easy buttons? I need to hear about this.

JoAnn Crohn (22:09)

I sometimes do it to you,

Brie Tucker (22:12)

Sure you do. That’s I’m like, tell me more about this easy button that I’m going to guess I have.

JoAnn Crohn (22:17)

Honestly, I do it to my sister. I do it to my kids sometimes. I do it to Josh. And all it is is like this good natured rubbing of like something I know that bothers them. That isn’t a huge thing, but it’s incredibly funny to see them react the way that they do when they have this. So like, I don’t even know the last time I did it, but I do know an example of my son also has the same quality. He was playing an online game with his friends.

brand new and like he was falling in lava pits and like throwing grenades and like you could hear both friends freaking out. They’re like Eric, Eric, Eric and he’s just sitting here going because he got joy from it and that was their easy button.

Brie Tucker (23:03)

Wait, so what I’m hearing is he got joy from irritating the other people. ⁓

JoAnn Crohn (23:07)

Yes, yes. And when you’re close in a relationship, get joy from irritating my sister all the time because I’m like, what can I, I don’t do it so much anymore, but I used to. It’s hard.

Brie Tucker (23:17)

they’re further away to do it so that they can see that it’s all meant in a playful manner.

JoAnn Crohn (23:23)

Yeah.

I like how that you described it there, Tera, as joy doesn’t have to be a positive emotion. You could do horrible things out of joy.

Tera Wages (23:31)

Yep, you can. But we also need joy. And so actually being able to recognize it in your day, where previously I was drowning, I mentioned earlier, in loneliness and shame, I couldn’t touch joy. I was not feeling joy regularly. But I also didn’t recognize that it was shame and loneliness that were happening and holding me back so much or weighing me down. And now I get hit with shame as often today as I did five years ago.

but I just process it out. It doesn’t stay stuck in my body and it doesn’t weigh me down or hold me back. It doesn’t create conflict within myself or with my partner. So now I actually am experiencing joy. I’m recognizing joy more often. When I started with this with my oldest, they had a hard time acknowledging joy as well, which was so painful for me as a mom. It’s like, I’m doing all of this.

Brie Tucker (24:22)

You’re like I’m doing all the things. Yes. You’re supposed to be happy all the time. What’s the matter? ⁓

Tera Wages (24:29)

Exactly. And even when we would do the wheel together as an exercise, they would have a hard time figuring out what their joy was. Now they’re like, I have five, I have to name all five. I’m like, let’s go. And so it does help you by doing this practice, which I know we’re gonna share here momentarily, by doing the practice every day that I do this wheel, the shame doesn’t feel as intense because I touch it every day. Loneliness doesn’t feel as intense because I’m building that muscle. And on the flip side, I can actually acknowledge joy throughout my day because I’ve trained my brain to look for it. We’re building muscles to be able to actually not feel so uncomfortable by uncomfortable emotions and to access the good ones more often.

JoAnn Crohn (25:18)

It’s the whole thing behind neuroplasticity. Like how do you realize like what things feel like if you don’t practice feeling them?

Tera Wages (25:26)

Yes, but people don’t know how to feel them because they lost the messaging along the way. Those emotions got sent to the back of the brain.

Brie Tucker (25:32)

Well, you know, because it’s taught so freely and are growing up. I’m going to like blame it on the lack of like, we don’t teach it in school. And if we didn’t experience it growing up, like you said, sharing a lot of what we went through growing up, our parents were just doing what they knew from their parents, which was a lot of that I’ll give you something to cry about. Don’t make a big deal out of this. Just keep your nose down and keep moving forward.

Tera Wages (25:42)

Yeah.

Brie Tucker (26:00)

We were taught how to carry trauma, but not how to process any of that.

JoAnn Crohn (26:06)

That’s a good thing. Mic drop, Brie. Taught how to carry trauma, but not how to process trauma.

Brie Tucker (26:10)

That’s why I got a hunchback, man.

JoAnn Crohn (26:13)

So Tera, how do we process the trauma?

Tera Wages (26:17)

Yes. And so this tool is designed to take four minutes between two people where you truly go through each emotion and name a recent time you felt that emotion. If you can’t think of a recent time, you can think of a big time. So there are times I’ll process things from my childhood, especially early on when I started doing this, Wes and I would process pains we had early in our marriage or years ago. And if you can’t think of a big time, you can make something up.

And so as I’m helping my kids learn how to use these tools, I had a son, he’s now, he actually turns 10 this week. When he would share loneliness, he would say, I was on an island all by myself. He has never been on an island all by himself. But what that did is it taught him to recognize what loneliness would feel like in his body. And now I’ve even heard him say to a neighbor, if you’re ever feeling lonely, you’re welcome in my room.

you can come and play with me. And he’s using that word and he knows what that feels like. When we do the wheel now at night together, he can tell me the exact moment that day that he felt loneliness because he’s trained his brain to recognize it and then how to communicate it in a safe space.

JoAnn Crohn (27:31)

That is so, so.

Brie Tucker (27:33)

We have to dive into this. want to see it. I want see it.

Tera Wages (27:36)

Okay. So are y’all open to doing it with me? Is anybody willing to share? Okay. Okay. I will go first to demonstrate. Okay. So recently I’ve been having fear that my kids don’t have enough grit that they just kind of start something and they give up when it’s hard. And so I’ve had fear about that recently. I’ve had shame. I am on my phone too much in front of them, Literally everything 

Tera Wages (28:04)

the world is on my phone. And so I have shame that they see me doing that too much. I have guilt this morning. I was having a conversation with my husband and I interrupted him twice. My brain was just going so fast and I have guilt about interrupting him and not slowing down to really hear what he was saying. I feel loneliness. I feel loneliness in work and growing a business and managing a household. Definitely loneliness there. Sad. The last couple of weeks I’ve been waking up and having like hot flashes at night. And so I don’t know if it’s hormones or caffeine or what. Oh my God, I’m so sad about that. I feel hurt. I have heard that this weekend we took our kids for ice cream and one of them didn’t get the one that they wanted. It wasn’t the big one. And they were feeling a lot of sad about that. Let me know. But I just felt hurt because

Hey, we planned this nice thing and now you’re upset about it. Anger, feel anger. Our air conditioning went out upstairs and I have anger for how expensive everything is. Like how expensive this is about to be, just the cost of life for us. And my joy is tonight is fifth grade graduation for my oldest. And I’m not usually big on these like graduation for younger things, but.

seeing the progress that they have made. We moved here four years ago and seeing who they’ve become and what they’ve grown into. I’m just so excited to celebrate this kid. So lots of joy there.

JoAnn Crohn (29:43)

is awesome. It’s some of like the things when you were going through it, I’m like, shoot, I’m gonna have to do this. And it feels very vulnerable at first, because you’re like, what? my gosh. ⁓

Brie Tucker (29:52)

Yeah, and I’m sitting here thinking like gosh am I gonna be able to Appropriately have each of these emotions like I have it I don’t have as much neuroplasticity on these motions. I need to work on them some more

Okay. Do you want to go first, JoAnn? I’ll let you go. My fear will be happy to let you go.

JoAnn Crohn (30:07)

I can go. I can go.

Here’s an example of pushing people’s easy buttons. I felt lonely when my best friend wouldn’t go day drinking with me on Saturday. There it is. See, I had to use that example, but that’s okay. I will not use that. I will not.

Brie Tucker (30:28)

But it’s true, like you have in a lonely day.

JoAnn Crohn (30:31)

I felt lonely actually because my husband was going out with some friends that I’m friends with too and I was not invited. So I felt lonely about that. I felt fear with running a business and being a business owner and feeling like I don’t have the skills to market my product to people. My fear. I felt guilt when I was sitting on the couch working and my husband was cleaning the entire house to get ready for cleaners, even though

JoAnn Crohn (31:00)

that is his set job to clean the entire house. I still feel guilt due to my expectations, I’m sure. I felt shame last week when I was sick thinking that I should be stronger and I shouldn’t be feeling these sick feelings. I felt anger, anger at the state of the world right now and the news and how I cannot control any of it going around me. Yeah, and I just don’t have control in that. Joy.

Brie Tucker (31:27)

Yeah.

JoAnn Crohn (31:29)

I felt joy sitting on the couch watching The Pit with my son and eating blizzards, Dairy Queen blizzards. It’s a great show. I will get into it. Focus. then I felt hurt when I was talking to my 16 year old daughter about her taking over my social media and asked, what can I do differently? And she said, which is a very 16 year old answer to say.

Brie Tucker (31:39)

Kiss. Go ahead.

JoAnn Crohn (32:00)

It’s deep, Tera. It’s deep.

Tera Wages (32:02)

Did you share your joy? I missed it.

JoAnn Crohn (32:05)

Yeah, my joy was watching the pit.

Tera Wages (32:07)

That was your joy. ⁓ I finished last night. Yeah. So good.

JoAnn Crohn (32:14)

My son’s been into these medical shows and he was into Rescue 911 and he’s like, I am so glad they didn’t end this with a cliffhanger. Yes! So good.

Brie Tucker (32:26)

I think I’m gonna start with fear. Okay, it doesn’t matter where I start Okay. All right. So I’m gonna start with fear. My dad is his health is declining and I am fearful that he’s not going to be around a lot longer and that consumes me a lot I’m not sure if that’s like the right way to put the fear in there or not, but

Tera Wages (32:30)

It does not ⁓

Hmm.

JoAnn Crohn (32:48)

You did it correctly. you did it. Anyway, you do it.

Brie Tucker (32:52)

Okay, lonely. I felt very lonely on Mother’s Day because I had been sick for a week and I didn’t get to do anything on Mother’s Day because I was sick. So I had gotten rightfully quarantined from the plans and I just started crying because I was sitting by myself on Mother’s Day and nobody was there to hang out with me and I was like, ⁓ so that was a very, very lonely thing. That was a big lonely day. I feel guilty because

My oldest is graduating high school this week and going off to college. And I feel like I should be more involved in what’s going on and that I feel guilty that I can’t support him more in college and the ways that I want to be able to support him. But I just, I don’t have the ability to. Shame. I also feel shame. I feel shame that I can’t pay for all of his college. mean, I know that that’s like a thing that a lot of people can’t do, but I do feel shameful that.

I would love to be able to give him no worries, but I can’t. I am also angry at the world right now. I get angry about that a lot. I’m angry that I have very close family members that are fearful for their lives, and I don’t like that. I feel, I don’t know, I think the sad kind of goes back to the anger. I’m sad that the world is how it is. I’m immensely sad and wanna cry almost every day.

Let’s see, hurt. ⁓ I just told JoAnn about this. This is very recent. I am hurt that my daughter refused to walk my dog last night because I walk her dog every day, twice a day. And she was upset about being asked to do it once to walk mine with hers. And so I was very hurt about that. Very, very hurt. And I should have gotten curious, but that’s okay. I can see that now. And my joy is I’m finally feeling better.

I can’t explain the amount of joy I have felt since I finally got over being sick for what felt like forever, but it was really only a week. I feel so much joy that I’m healthy and I’m able to do things now. So yeah.

Tera Wages (35:04)

Thank you. Yeah, thank you all for sharing. ⁓

Brie Tucker (35:06)

That takes a lot of work, man. And it’s only a few emotions, but it’s like, ⁓ my heart is racing, my palms are sweaty. I’m all like, my God.

JoAnn Crohn (35:15)

Well, even just like admitting it to someone outside ourselves is a really hard thing. Like even like I had some trepidation saying I was sad about something and seeing I was hurt about something. I have no problems talking about guilt and shame because I think we do it all the time and we access those emotions all the time through this podcast. But hurt and sad is not something I like to admit very often.

Brie Tucker (35:39)

I also think and correct me if I’m wrong on your guys’s opinion on this, but sharing that so publicly as we just all three of us have the world. Like it’s one thing to have this conversation with my husband or one-on-one with my kids. Whole nother thing to have this conversation with thousands and thousands and thousands of people.

Tera Wages (36:02)

I get that. Yeah, on our podcast, we do it at the end of every episode. And so every episode, I’m like, OK, here we go. I thought to bear my soul. Everybody, here we go. But what’s amazing and beautiful about it is that these emotions, because they are at our core, we can see each other in them. When you talk about your fear of your dad, what’s happening with your dad.

Brie Tucker (36:11)

Let me just bare my soul.

JoAnn Crohn (36:13)

Yeah.

Tera Wages (36:28)

my body can feel that, my brain can mirror that fear and I feel connected to you in hearing that. And so this tool is powerful because it allows us to actually connect with each other at our core. To hear my husband share what he’s experiencing sadness in, or hear my child share what they’re experiencing shame in. Oh my gosh, I feel so connected to them. And yeah, and so I think that’s a powerful way to process, one, for yourself, just to get it out of your own body.

but then also to connect with those closest to you in a safe way.

JoAnn Crohn (37:01)

I love it.

Brie Tucker (37:02)

I’m gonna try this with Miguel? Yes! I have to give him a heads up because he doesn’t process things as quickly or as verbally as I do, but I think I’m gonna try to pull this in with our gratitudes at the end of the day.

Tera Wages (37:13)

that’s a great idea.

JoAnn Crohn (37:14)

Yeah, well, Tera, we like to end all episodes like this. What is, I guess it’s about joy. What’s coming up for you that you’re excited about?

Tera Wages (37:23)

Ooh, that’s a great question. I was very excited to come on this episode being with both of you. And I’m excited for summer. I love being with my kids and then being home. I work at home by myself all day. And so just to have other humans in my house is less lonely. So I’m very excited.

JoAnn Crohn (37:44)

That is an awesome awesome thing. Tera, thank you so much for coming on and we’ll talk to you soon.

Tera Wages (37:52)

Thank you.

JoAnn Crohn (37:54)

So anything that feels like a therapy session, I’m really into. And I feel like that episode felt like a therapy session about like digging into our deep emotions.

Brie Tucker (38:03)

Yeah. I mean, it helps that it was created by therapists for sure. But I agree. And like I already said in the episode, like I can’t wait to bring this up with my husband. think that it would help a lot with us because also like, I think it’s a good point where she talked about how your personal feelings of let’s say shame being upset might be shame for you in that moment when you say you’re upset, but for your spouse, if they’re saying they’re upset, the upset might be hurt.

or lonely. And like, it is hard to figure out what like, I mean, I do know, like, when my when I say I’m upset, my husband does try to curiously ask questions. I don’t always ask questions to him. I need to work on that some more.

JoAnn Crohn (38:45)

My husband doesn’t ask any questions, so I don’t know.

Brie Tucker (38:48)

Well, mean like if he says like I’m upset about that it I normally am just like Okay, I’m sorry. I won’t do that again without asking When we’re what why or how so?

JoAnn Crohn (39:00)

But if you don’t know the layers to it and you just like automatically, because I mean, when somebody says they’re upset, my initial inclination is like, my God, I did something wrong, which is shade.

Brie Tucker (39:10)

Telling me they’re upset because they’re upset with me. That’s the only solution. That’s the only possible issue.

JoAnn Crohn (39:16)

Yeah, so it has to be something you could change, of course. Yeah, but it’s not.

Brie Tucker (39:20)

And, necessarily, yeah.

Tera Wages (39:23)

That’s it.

JoAnn Crohn (39:23)

Typically not. people have such like an inner world going on that like I’ve realized that a lot of emotions have very little to do with me. Even though like I like my daughter was sad in her room and she was in her room most of the weekend. But I mean she had she was feeling sick and it wasn’t to do with me at all. It was her feeling sick. We attribute all these things. Yeah.

Tera Wages (39:43)

Well, yes, we.

Brie Tucker (39:46)

I was just saying, I’m running through that with my daughter right now. She’s been, as I said in a private conversation between you and I earlier, that she is getting moody, in my opinion. But I have yet to ask her, other than just saying what’s going on, which I think is too big of a question for her, even at 16. I need to drill down some more, because I can tell something’s going on, but I’m not getting anywhere with my general questions. So I’m going to work on this. I’m going to work.

JoAnn Crohn (40:05)

Yeah.

The and wheel would probably be a really good tool. I know my daughter would push me away though at first. Like it would have to be multiple, multiple approaches with this tool to actually get something. Yeah. somewhere.

Brie Tucker (40:25)

I think that that’s an important part with this. It’s great, it’s awesome, but you have to be open to it. And let’s just be honest, most people are not running towards therapeutic interventions, like we had said, because our society is like, let’s push it down. You’re a great, amazing person if you can handle it all on your own, right?

JoAnn Crohn (40:45)

That’s actually the other message.

Brie Tucker (40:46)

Right? That’s what’s rewarded in our society.

JoAnn Crohn (40:50)

Yeah. And if you’re listening to this right now and you’re like, I should be able to handle it on my own. No, no, you should not. That’s actually why we have our balance membership is so you don’t have to go through these things alone because we coach you through them. We help you figure out these roadblocks. even like, so another emotion I really wanted to talk about was the emotion of getting started with something like something like this emotion wheel, bringing the emotion wheel to your kids.

because there is a hurdle there. There is an emotion to say like, first of all, there could be a little shame or anticipated shame because your kids might reject you. And I am fully anticipating my daughter’s gonna reject this straight out. So that’s one hurdle. The other hurdle is just not feeling worthy of knowing this. I have a huge thing of not being seen as the expert or not being taken seriously. And so when I bring up something new,

that I open myself to be vulnerable, to be called that. And my daughter’s probably the first person to call me out on, don’t know anything, mom. So those interactions sting a lot.

Brie Tucker (41:56)

It’s interesting because you get stuck in the whole emotional process of our kids are most comfortable with us normally. They’re normally most comfortable with their moms. So we get the rough and tumble emotions that they hide from other people because they know they can say, you really don’t know what you’re talking about, mom, that’s stupid. And they know that while it might hurt us, they know that we love them and that we’ll still think of them as, yeah, we’re not going to leave them with.

You’re still going to think that they’re great people later. So it’s a rough thing. And I think that, again, that is one thing that Balance, I love about our Balance community. We support each other when we have those thought processes of, my God, my kid hates me because they act XYZ around me and I must be a terrible mom because they do this to me and they don’t do it to their teacher and they don’t do it around their dad. And we’re there to be like, no, no. Have you read the science behind this? No, no, that’s just your-

across the bear for being emotionally mature and doesn’t.

JoAnn Crohn (42:58)

Being you have to take it all the time and just say things wordlessly. can tell them how you feel. I I told my daughter, I was very hurt by it. So you don’t have to take it. But again, that is what our Balanced membership is for. We have a link for you in the show notes. We would love more than anything for you to join us there. It’s a community of over 200 women now and growing. So please come and become part of the Lola movement. next time, remember the best mom’s a happy mom. Take care of you. I’ll talk to you later.

Brie Tucker (43:29)

Thanks for stopping by.