FamilyLife Today®

Sissy Goff: I’m so much angrier when I’m sad. When I’m worried about something and I’m not talking about it, it almost always comes out as anger. I don’t mean for it to, and it breaks my heart that that’s what happens, but it happens.

Ann Wilson: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Ann Wilson.

Dave Wilson: And I’m Dave Wilson. You can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

So, how many nights do you think you could not sleep as a parent? Even as a grandparent, how many sleepless nights?

Ann Wilson: I’m sad to say, so many. When they were little, I would fall asleep thinking of all the things I did wrong that day. When they were teens, I would fall asleep wondering what things they could be doing wrong.

And now, with adult kids, I fall asleep recounting and worrying over all the things I did do wrong while they were growing up and how it might be affecting them today. Isn’t that terrible? Do you worry about anything?

Dave Wilson: Yeah, I worry about money. When I think about sleepless nights, it’s usually connected to money. Back then, it was paying for college and preparing them for the future. Now, it’s grandkids and how much money we’re spending at Christmas.

Ann Wilson: You mean how much money I’m spending on them.

Dave Wilson: I didn’t want to say it that way. That’s good. I’m glad you spend something because I don’t think I’d spend anything. Anyway, we’re here to talk with Sissy Goff about parents that worry, because that’s us and I think that’s almost every parent.

Ann Wilson: I would guess every listener has something they worry about and can relate to exactly what you said.

Sissy Goff: Yes, and it makes me sad I didn’t know you back then. I could have helped somehow.

Ann Wilson: You’re going to help me today and you’re going to help a lot of people. Your new book is called *The Worry-Free Parent*, and I like the subtitle: *Living in Confidence So Your Kids Can Too*. That’s what we want, Sissy. So why this book? This time, you’re in the parents' world.

Sissy Goff: I know. I’ve obviously written a lot of books for parents, but it’s always been about their kids. I’m sitting with two types of parents a lot. One is parents I can tell are really anxious. I’ll say, "Tell me about your family history," and they’ll say, "I don’t have a clue."

As much as they want to help their kids, they don’t understand themselves. I think wanting to help those parents certainly is important. It comes out in ways when we don’t understand it. It comes out sideways, and kids start to absorb it even though we would never intend for them to.

Then there are the parents who do say, "I’m really anxious and I’m aware of it, and I think I’m making things harder for them. Help." The biggest agent of change in your child’s life is not someone like me as a therapist; it’s you as a parent.

If you can do the work, and even do the work in front of them where they’re watching you and hearing you, it makes a difference. We talk all the time about kids learning more from observation than information. When they’re watching you do the work, it normalizes it for them.

It helps their understanding of grace, even, of the idea that my parents fail too and I can do that and I’m okay. Kids and parents are such perfectionists right now. I’ve never seen it as rampant as it is today.

Ann Wilson: When you say, "Let your kids see you do the work," what does that look like?

Sissy Goff: I think talking about our feelings is so important. One of the things I’ve learned over the years that is really interesting to me is—I don’t know how many thousands of kids I’ve seen now who have anxiety—but they have a few things in common. My guess is this is true about all of them.

They’re really bright, conscientious, and try so hard. They care so much. These are beautiful parts of who God made them to be, and it’s hard to turn the volume down on all the caring. The same is true for parents. Anxious parents are trying so hard to get it right.

I had a mom say to me, "It’s like I’m trying so hard to be a good parent that I’m not even parenting." It feels like that so much of the time. Doing the work is starting to acknowledge our feelings. When we’re not doing that, I think all of our feelings kind of morph into anxiety.

That’s how it lives in our bodies. Because we’re trying hard and being kind and doing all those things, we’re not saying, "Hey, that made me angry," or, "I felt disappointed when." Neither are kids, which is why anxious kids are so compliant and sweet until they’re at home, and then they explode at home.

When we can share feelings together—not process our feelings in front of them where they’re hearing all the ins and outs—but we can say, "I felt sad today when this happened," and then keep moving. That’s a part of it.

Then, when we can use healthy coping strategies in front of them, that helps. "I felt really sad today, so I needed to go write in my journal." We didn’t grow up with parents who were talking about feelings, and certainly not modeling healthy coping strategies.

How different our lives would have been if we had. What a gift that is to those kids today, and in their marriages and their own parenting as they move forward.

Dave Wilson: That’s such good advice. I think so often as a parent, especially as a man and a dad, we don’t want to get in touch with our feelings. Some guys are listening going, "I’m not going to bring up that I was worried today or felt sad today at work. I just deal with it internally."

We think we’re dealing with it and we’re not. One thing that jumped off the page of your book immediately to me, because you break it into the past, the present, and the future, is how if I’m a worried parent, my kids are seven times more likely to be worried kids. That’s scary. We have to do the work.

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Ann Wilson: You know, Sissy, this was so sad. I haven’t even told my son this, but our youngest son was preaching at a church. He mentioned some really nice things about it. It was about legacy.

But he did say, "When I got in my car to leave and travel across the country to go to this new school..." and this was me, because I said it. He said, "My parent said, 'Be careful.'" I said that. "Be careful, honey."

He said, "You know what I wanted her to say? I wanted her to say, 'You got this. You’re going to kill it. You’re going to be amazing.'" I’ve been thinking about it for the last two weeks. How many times as parents are we warning our kids, "Be careful," instead of saying, "Man, you are really good. You got this."

Dave, you probably have done that way more than I have. But what’s in me that the older I get, sometimes I think it’s worse now? That would have been a gift that we could give to our kids: to say, "Man, you’ve got this. I’m so confident in you."

Sissy Goff: That’s beautiful. Absolutely. I have a friend who said, "I wish when I was growing up my mom had said 'you got this' more than 'let me get this for you.'" So it’s both. We’re not speaking fear; you’re cautious.

Of course you care. This is the most important thing in the world to you and so you want him to be careful. But he hears it as, "I don’t know if you can do it, so watch out for everything."

It’s worth noting that when you started that sentence, you said he said some really sweet things about the legacy. I wanted to hear the things you did right. But we don’t. We stay with the things we do wrong, and it makes us more anxious.

Dave Wilson: If I think of anybody that was great at "let's talk about our feelings," I’m looking at her. You were phenomenal. For me, some of it is processed in my family of origin brokenness.

I had two alcoholic parents and a divorce and then the death of my brother all in one year when I was seven years old. We never, ever talked about it. Even when my little brother died, my best friend, I don’t think we had a conversation.

Ann and I got married and conflict happened and I tended to pull away. I’m never connecting these dots, but she was like, "We have to talk." Then as we were raising our boys, she was like, "We have to teach them how to do that."

But how does a parent like me, that didn’t walk that road, now he’s a dad and he’s hearing an expert saying, "You have to talk about your feelings. You have to process these and help your kids do that." How do we start?

First of all, we’re scared. Second, we’re like, "I’ve never done this. I’m not sure what to do. I’m just going to go watch the game." Total escapism. But that’s where a lot of parents live. Is it courage? Part of it is having the courage to say, "I’m going to step into somewhere I don’t know where it’s going to go." Is that where we start?

Sissy Goff: I would definitely say courage. It takes a lot of courage to start to talk about our feelings. I did not talk about my feelings at all until I was 22. My parents divorced and I moved to Nashville and got in counseling for the first time.

I remember feeling like someone took off all of my skin. It’s awful when you start, but it’s so good. Part of what I want this book to be is when you’re not talking about it, there are secrets inside of you—shame might be a better word—for the ways that those feelings are impacting you.

I’m hearing more parents talk about losing it with their kids than I’ve ever heard. Getting really angry. I’m so grateful that they can, behind the closed, confidential doors of a counseling office. So much of that is because we never talked about our feelings.

It comes out as anger. I’m trying to say to worried parents as much as I can: you’re angry not because you’re a bad parent, but because you’re worried. You’re anxious. You’re screaming trying to get out of the door at your kids on the way to school because you realize he’s already had four tardies.

The fifth tardy means he has to go to Saturday school. You know there’s a birthday party. You find yourself screaming because you want good for him, but the delivery is off. We’ve got to back up and do something different.

I just feel like parents have more shame than ever before. I really believe when we can talk about our feelings in healthy, appropriate ways, we’re preventing anger. We’re preventing us from having this anxiety that then makes us say "be careful" or stepping in and fixing it for them.

If for no other reason, you would do the work because you don’t want your kids to experience what happens when you’re not processing your emotions. I had a mom once who told her daughter, "Either you process your feelings or your feelings will process you."

That’s good. And that’s what we’re talking about. I’m so much angrier when I’m sad or when I’m worried about something and I’m not talking about it. It almost always comes out as anger. I don’t mean for it to, and it breaks my heart that that’s what happens, but it happens.

Ann Wilson: I’m thinking about when our kids were little and I would be yelling. I thought, "I’ve never yelled in my life." When that goes off, when you get angry, should that be like an alarm going off to go deeper, to check down inside?

Dave Wilson: Something more is happening. It was back in that same time, but I was fixing our dryer. This is in a slab basement, and I’m a Mr. Cheapo. I’m not hiring some dude. I can figure this out.

I have the whole dryer torn apart. I’m laying underneath, lint everywhere, and I was reattaching this belt. I’m all proud that I can do this.

Ann Wilson: I’m impressed.

Dave Wilson: So I’m laying in there and I have this Phillips head screwdriver and I’m just trying to get this little screw way in the back of the dryer. CJ, our oldest, was six years old maybe?

Ann Wilson: Probably maybe four.

Dave Wilson: He was very little. He comes down, and he to this day is an engineer. He works in the IT world. He’s wired that way. He says, "Dad, can I help?" "Yeah, man, get down here."

So he’s literally laying in this lint. We’re both horizontal on this slab floor. He reaches in and I say, "Here, just take this screwdriver and try to screw it in." But he’s just not coordinated enough. He couldn’t really reach it.

I had this thought in the moment as I put my hand around his: "This is a beautiful moment. Dad’s big manly hand, little boy’s hand. I never had this with my dad." The next second, Sissy, I go from this tender moment to frustration because he’s trying to do it and his screwdriver keeps going off the thing.

I’m like, "CJ, just try. CJ, CJ!" Next thing I know, I’m really angry. I’m grabbing it out of there. All I know is I finish the job and I feel this little body get up and go up the steps. I’m laying there with this epiphany: "My anger just pushed away a five-year-old."

I remember laying there going, "I’ve got to find out what the source of this is." It was that moment where I didn’t realize I’m giving a gift to my child if I do this. It wasn’t that I was frustrated with a screwdriver. It was deeper.

You say in your book that if we don’t deal with our stuff, it’ll pass on. If we do deal with our stuff, you say it’s one of the greatest gifts we can give our kids. Is that what you’re talking about?

Sissy Goff: Absolutely it is. That is exactly what I’m talking about. That is a beautiful picture.

Ann Wilson: I love these takeaways. You have a lot of worry-free takeaways in your book. Tell us about this. All of us need to hear truth, but especially those of us who worry. What does that mean?

Sissy Goff: One of the things from a cognitive behavioral therapy standpoint, which is the gold standard for working with anxiety, is we have sayings that we go back to that we say to ourselves over and over. They are something we anchor ourselves to.

When we can do that with truth and with Scripture, it’s not only anchoring ourselves to something, but it transforms us. The importance of that is because what happens when we get anxious is our brain shifts blood flow.

It leaves the prefrontal cortex, which helps us think rationally and manage our emotions, and it goes to the amygdala. That’s the fight-or-flight region of our brain. That is why you’re having trouble with the screwdriver and all of a sudden you find yourself really frustrated and yelling.

You move into fight or you move into flight or freeze. When we can slow our bodies back down and calm ourselves down, our blood vessels dilate again and shifts the blood flow back to the prefrontal cortex so we can get to a rational place. But we’ve got to calm our bodies down first.

What happens is we develop these well-worn neural pathways in our brain. The more often the amygdala gets triggered, the more likely it is to get triggered. It actually enlarges and develops a hair-trigger response. It’s like a faulty alarm system in your house.

The same is true for our brains, and it starts to lie to us. Worry makes us perceive problems that aren’t even there. We start to forecast all the things that we feel like might go wrong because our brain has changed.

Ann Wilson: That’s a good way to say it too: we start to forecast. We create this whole scenario of what could happen. Let me ask you, how would a listener know if they have anxiety? If they are thinking, "I don’t think I have it," what are the signs and symptoms?

Sissy Goff: I have a whole series of questions in the beginning of the book about whether your shoulders are hunched up around your neck and if you find yourself having intrusive thoughts. Anxiety really can take two pathways.

One is through the amygdala, and that type of anxiety is like lightning strikes. It’s something that just happens in a fraction of a second and it impacts our bodies first. But there’s also cortex-based anxiety.

With the cortex, we really think ourselves into a more fearful space. I’m laying in bed and I hear something and I think, "Well, that sounded weird. I think that was a man outside my house. Oh no, I think he’s on my porch."

All of a sudden, you have this whole scenario that you’ve created and you’ve actually used the thinking part of your brain to scare your amygdala. Now your thoughts are on board and your body’s on board.

It impacts us in both places. If you regularly feel like you’re having headaches or tummy aches and you don’t know why, or you feel like your body’s tense in a lot of moments, that's a sign. After I’ve been anxious, my legs are tired, like I’ve been running.

One of the primary ways I think we recognize it is what I call the one-loop rollercoaster. If you have thoughts that are worst-case scenario thoughts, the thought comes in and it is an intrusive thought.

If we don’t have anxiety, the thought comes in and it goes right back out. If we’re anxious, the thought comes in and it goes around and around and around. Part of the danger of parenting is we feel like we’re helping or problem-solving when you’re laying in bed thinking through all those things without realizing I’m just looping and it’s only making me feel worse.

Ann Wilson: I think the first time I realized that was when my sister was diagnosed with lung cancer. In the past, I had always been looping. "What am I going to do? What’s the plan? What should we do in the future?"

I remember at one point as the Scripture talks about taking your thoughts captive, and even Romans 12:2 of not being conformed by the world but being transformed by the renewing of our mind. I remember thinking it’s not doing any good.

The more I cycle around this, it’s not helping. I remember in my mind handing all of it to Jesus. I just had a picture in my mind: "Here, Lord, I just can’t carry it anymore." It was the first time I began deciding purposely I will not think about that because it’s not doing any good. It’s the first time I ever got off the rollercoaster.

Sissy Goff: Way to go. That’s beautiful. I think that was the beginning of the process of learning not to, because I thought it was thinking ahead and planning before I realized that this worry is doing nothing good for me.

That is where I love that idea of taking thoughts captive. You were thinking, "I’m not going to think this thought anymore." Then we need to replace it.

Ann Wilson: How do you do that?

Sissy Goff: Truth. I think we can have a Scripture. I love breath prayers where we could say, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." We start with "I can do all things" as we breathe in slowly, and then breathe out "through Christ who strengthens me."

Whatever verse we want to pick, we breathe in and say the first half and breathe out and say the second half. Anything like that, again, we’re calming our bodies so our amygdala’s getting offline in a good way, we’re getting our thinking brain back online, and we’re anchoring ourselves to truth.

Or I think even flipping the thought and thinking, "I just yelled at my son trying to get out of the door because I’m a good parent and because I want good things for him." We do a lot of parenting seminars on this content where we talk about stop, drop, and flip the thought.

That’s an easy way to remember it. Stopping that thought and letting go of it, but then flipping it to something positive.

Dave Wilson: Stop, drop, and flip the thought. That’ll preach. I find we probably know all the ones that we think of like Philippians 4:6: "Don't be anxious" or "Don't worry about anything." That’s sort of the breathe in. But in everything, pray and request, and the peace of God replaces it. Does that work for a parent in the middle of anxiety?

Sissy Goff: Yes, I think it absolutely does. If we keep doing that deep breathing, we can shrink our amygdala again. We’re actually resetting and creating new, calmer neural pathways. This truth and what we know to be true scripturally also meets science and it transforms us.

Ann Wilson: You would think that with adult kids, you’d stop worrying. "Things are great, we don’t need to worry anymore." I’m finding myself in a whole new phase. Because I have no control, now I’m worrying because I have nothing.

My words mean nothing and then I try to manipulate a situation. Realizing there is a God in heaven who hears every prayer, as it says, he’ll guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. I’ve come to that realization that I don’t want to build that muscle—the negative neural pathway.

To me, it’s like building that muscle. Which one’s stronger? Let's not build that one, but let's keep giving things over to Jesus.

Dave Wilson: There’s nothing like having Sissy Goff on FamilyLife Today. Again, her book is called *The Worry-Free Parent: Living in Confidence So Your Kids Can Too*. You can get your copy right now by clicking the link in the show notes at FamilyLifeToday.com.

One of the questions that we get most often this time of year, and I get it personally, is when people ask, "What study should we do with our small group this year?"

Ann Wilson: Have you gotten that?

Dave Wilson: Yeah, I get it from guys and I get it from couples. Here’s the thing: you can pick. We’ve got *The Art of Marriage*, *The Art of Parenting*, *Vertical Marriage*, and all kinds of video studies and workbooks tailor-made for you and a group of couples in your home that literally can change their lives.

We’ve done this and you want to do it as well. Let me tell you right now, the FamilyLife videos and workbooks are 25% off right now through the end of August. You can go to FamilyLife.com/shop. You don’t need a discount code; you just go there, pick the one you want to do, and you watch God work.

Ann Wilson: It’s so good, you guys. I really hope you’ll take advantage of this sale. Again, it’s 25% off. Just go to FamilyLife.com/shop.

Dave Wilson: FamilyLife Today is a donor-supported production of FamilyLife, a Crew ministry, celebrating 50 years of helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.