Today, we’re going to be talking about the people pleasers guide to co-parenting well. And if you’ve been hanging out with me very long, then you know that divorce is something that I and many of you as well have personally experienced. I’m a child of a divorced family, and when I think about this topic of co-parenting and people pleasing, it just hits really close to home. When I think back to my childhood, I wish this information and content would have been more available to my family.
I’m absolutely honored to have today’s guest, Mikki Gardner, who is a Certified Life + Conscious Parenting Coach, the host of Co-Parenting With Confidence Podcast, and a mom to her son. After learning how to navigate life post-divorce and using it as a catalyst to her own transformation, Mikki now helps moms move past the divorce drama to become calm, confident co-parents, even without their exes participation. Mikki is on a mission to help women navigate the emotional and practical difficulties of divorce, and co-parenting while creating an intentional joy and ease-filled life after divorce.
Divorce is so prevalent in our world today, and I think that it can feel scary, heavy and lonely for those walking through it. I remember sitting with my own mom on the kitchen floor post-divorce, and I was only five years old, but I could see in her eyes that she just felt lost. I really hope that today’s episode can be a source of support and wisdom, especially for those women walking through that.
From Divorce to Empowering Other Moms
Mikki dives into her own story and states that of course, she never intended on getting divorced. It wasn’t something that had happened in her immediate family and just wasn’t something you’d do. To that thought, she thought she had checked all the boxes – got married, got her education, had her own business, had her son and her house. But she says in what felt almost instant was that what she thought she knew about marriage was gone in a moment. Her ex-husband and her tried to make it work for a while but it just wasn’t in the cards.
She explains that one night about six or seven months after the decline in their marriage, she and her husband at the time got into a fight at her company holiday party. As she was driving home that night, she pulled over to the side of the road in tears, trying to figure out how she had gotten to this place. She was trying to do everything right and in that moment, she heard a voice clear as day say, “Is this what you want your son to see of you?” She woke up the next morning and told her husband they were going to get divorced. She didn’t know what it was going to look like but she told him that they were going to still be a family. He was on board and they spent the next couple of years figuring it out. Mikki says she made so many mistakes and tried to people please her way out of it, tried to control everyone and act like she was okay. She had a lot of destructive behavior and was ashamed, lonely and felt like she didn’t have anyone to turn to.
Later on, Mikki ended up meeting a life coach. She hadn’t ever heard of life coaching and once she started, it really interested her and she wanted to give back and help moms who were in a similar position as her, feeling alone and ashamed with nowhere to go. Mikki says she is so grateful that she gets to mentor and coach other moms as they figure out how to create their family. She helps them figure out how to navigate the change with calm, clarity, confidence and love. She says it’s completely possible, even if the other person isn’t on board.
I love how Mikki alluded to the importance of personal responsibility and how we can’t change other people. Even if your ex-husband is not on board, it’s still doable to be a good parent, and its’ still possible to have some peace.
Maintaining Well-being Amidst Divorce
Divorce can be messy so finding ways to stay grounded amidst the chaos is important. Mikki comments on how divorce is like the death of a dream. It’s a death of a life that you thought you had. And when we lose someone we love, we give people a lot of grace and a lot of space and time to heal and to mourn. But with divorce, there’s also this imposed sort of time limit where you’re then supposed to get back out there. But it’s not easy. You’re required to still be a parent, while you’re really emotionally traumatized. And the more difficult the marriage and the divorce was, the harder it’s going to be. But you’re also expected to parent these little children during this time when you’re really depleted.
So Mikki says that the number one thing to do is learn how to protect your own well-being. And that is really learning how to speak up with conviction and hold boundaries that protect your peace. You are the one who creates and maintains your peace, not other people. We don’t need to change your acts, or we don’t need them to change their behavior in order for you to feel differently. Yes, it would be awesome but they are who they are. So we have to start to really look at it as how am I creating peace versus just trying to be a peacekeeper. Mikki has a new book coming out all about people pleasing and learning how to get out of that peacekeeper role. She says that’s where she spent a lot of time just trying to control everyone’s experience and all their feelings and everything that was going on. But it was really her inability to be uncomfortable, and her unease that she wasn’t willing to sit with. So learning how to protect your own well-being is all about learning how to process your feelings, how to sort of regulate your thinking and your emotions so that you can show up in the way that you want. And when we can do that for ourselves as moms, we can then teach our children to do it as well. And when our children are able to create their own calm, their own balance, their own peace, this is when the world shifts.
How to Know if You’re a People Pleaser
Are you quick to agree with someone to avoid conflict? Do you feel overly responsible for how other people feel? Do you do the things that you don’t want to do so that other people won’t be disappointed? Do you accept fault even when you’re not to blame? Are you uncomfortable with other people being upset with you? Do you push your needs aside? Are you hoping that someone is going to give you the same in return? And do you feel frustrated or resentful, often?
These are all signs of people pleasing, because essentially, what people pleasing is is lying because we can’t handle the discomfort and unease that we feel inside of ourselves so we try to change everything around us. But here’s the good news…We people pleasers are awesome. We’re awesome people, right? We are efficient, we get things done, everybody loves us, we’re super accommodating, we’re really helpful.
People pleasing has a shallow side when it comes at the expense of you, and at the expense of your peace. When you’re not being honest and when you don’t allow your needs and your desires and your truth to matter, this is when people pleasing can be a detriment. And so we really want to learn how to stop just trying to keep the peace for everyone else’s sake, and learn how to start creating peace. And when we create peace from inside of ourselves, that is the strongest energy in the room. Many people think the one who’s yelling or throwing things has the biggest energy in the room but they’re actually the weakest energy. If you look at sound waves, anything high-pitched or yelling is at a very high part of the scale, because it’s very unstable. When we are peaceful, calm and grounded, it’s a very low steady energy. That’s the strongest energy in our universe. And so that is the piece that we’re trying to create as a groundedness because when we are that, we affect everything around us.
Understanding Awareness & Boundaries
Mikki works under a three step framework when it comes to boundaries. But everything begins with awareness because we can’t change anything that we aren’t aware of. So, we have to start with understanding. In our world right now, what we’re seeing is most people are living in a reactive state, meaning you’re just reacting to whatever’s coming at you, especially when you have conflict or even just sadness. The opposite of getting triggered or being reactive is to take responsibility. Mikki defines responsibility as the ability to respond to life and that’s what comes from that grounded state and it takes the awareness. Then, we can move to the second step agency, a fancy word for choices. We can accept something, we can change it, or we can leave it. And once we understand what our choices are, then we start to take aligned action in the direction that we want to go.
So, when we think about boundaries, people often think,” Oh, I have to set a boundary to stop the other person from intruding on my space.” We can’t change other people, and we can’t stop them from doing anything. Instead, it’s what you will do in response to something that happens. When we start to understand boundaries from that angle, it’s really how am I going to respond to what’s happening, and that is taking aligned action towards what it is that you want. Look at it as, how do I want to be showing up? And am I in alignment with that? So as soon as you realize that you have been triggered or activated, it’s your first opportunity to pull back.
But the most important thing about boundaries is they need to be clear. They need to be about you – what you will or will not do, not the other person. They need to be communicated either to yourself or the other person. And then the most important part is to expect pushback. People don’t like boundaries. Children do not like boundaries. And they really don’t like it from people pleasers, because we’ve always accommodated everyone’s needs. So expect the pushback while at the same time taking care of your own peace. A boundary is truly about you and what you will or will not do or will or will not accept.
Control, Harmony and Forgiveness
So what do you do if you’re in a situation where your ex is maybe not participating in co-parenting, or not in the way that you’re hoping that they will be?
We cannot control what your ex is or isn’t doing but what you can do is take personal ownership over how you’re showing up. There are a lot of times that I think, especially as people pleasers, that we don’t want our children to feel the pain of the other parent not being involved or feeling deserted. So first and foremost, the best thing we can do is sit back and make sure that we’re taking care of ourselves, and owning our feelings about the situation, and getting help to process that. Because we can’t change what the other parent is or isn’t doing. All we have control over is how we show up. Our kids don’t need all of our baggage to carry, they’ll have enough of their own but again, it’s learning to protect your own peace and learning how to have that calmness and that clarity, so that you can show up as the most stable loving version of you, because that is all your children need. They don’t need you to be perfect. They don’t need you to rescue them, all they need to do is watch you rescue yourself. And then when you do that, you teach them the skills to do it. Every mom has the ability and the power to create a harmonious environment for her children, regardless of what the ex is doing. And that’s your only job.
That brings us to forgiveness. And this is something we all have to learn in life, but definitely in divorce, because forgiveness isn’t for the other person. Instead, it’s a choice to not carry someone else’s weight, not to carry someone else’s baggage, and let that hold you down. And learning how to release our anger is so important because anger is always under the surface. And it doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person, or that you’re not doing what you should do. Sometimes things happen, and we have anger about it, and learning how to release that in a healthy way is what creates the most liberation. And then to be able to teach your children how to do that, for themselves, is such a beautiful practice, too.
The Power of Community & Support
So how do you know when it’s time to seek help? If you’re asking the question, it’s time. There are several sources of support out there whether it’s through church support groups, therapists, a coach, or listening to podcasts. I would just encourage you to follow your curiosity. If something feels intriguing, if it feels curious to you, follow it. If it doesn’t feel good, don’t do it. We have grown up in this culture of, don’t talk about things, don’t talk about your feelings, don’t air your dirty laundry, etc. And we’re seeing that it just doesn’t work, and frankly, we’re not meant to be these lone wolves like we are, we’re not meant to live in our little houses all alone, we are wired to be in community. If you’re going through divorce, if you’re struggling with co-parenting, find someone that you trust to come alongside you and walk with you on the journey.
The People Pleasers Guide to Co-Parenting
Mikki’s book, The People Pleasers Guide to Co-Parenting is about how to stop being the peacekeeper and start parenting peacefully even when your ex doesn’t reciprocate. It’s learning how to stop living on autopilot and really start navigating where you want to go. It’s also learning to take responsibility when you’re triggered and how to have your own back consistently, building that self-trust, so that you can be the calm, confident co-parent that you want to be, regardless of what’s going on. It’s filled with stories of Mikki’s clients who have walked through really difficult situations and learned how to empower themselves and shift the trajectory of their families.
I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy of that, it sounds like it’s going to bring so much encouragement and support. I’m always telling my kids to be who you want to be, and Mikki is literally giving you the roadmap on how to be who you want to be
I’ll leave you with this message from Mikki: I know you feel alone, and you’re not. All you have to do is reach out your hand and there is going to be someone there. It starts with us being willing to let ourselves matter, let our feelings matter, let our experiences matter, and to choose differently. Divorce can feel really challenging. And it also can be a gift to learn how to be the woman and the mom that you really want to be.
Connect with Mikki!
