Samantha Boss:
I just screamed and hollered a lot. Knock it off. I mean, this wasn’t a scream all night. This was just real hard, real direct, real screaming, real just mean. And then I’d be fine because I got it out for my body, but now they’re carrying it in their body and they’re rigid and cold, walking on eggshells with me, which was my whole childhood. Right. You know, walking on eggshells with parents that were not regulated. And so I was just repeating this pattern and I beat myself up for it for years.

Suzanne:
Samantha Boss. Thank you so much for joining me.

Samantha Boss:
Thanks for having me.

Suzanne:
I want to talk today about the idea of keeping our cool as parents when we’re in conflict with our kids, because you and I interviewed last week on your podcast about how do parents break that cycle of reactive parenting with your own upbringing when calm was never modelled to you.

Samantha Boss:
Yeah.

Suzanne:
So I loved what you said about that. I know about you, you talk about just having to learn this. So I want — you are a certified divorce mediator.

Samantha Boss:
Yes, ma’am.

Suzanne:
Right. You’re a divorce coach. You are a former teacher. You’re host of the Ugly Truth of Divorce podcast. And you’ve got a new one out called Yes, We Have Divorce with Sam and Leah.

Samantha Boss:
And I started my own, The Ugly Truth of Divorce, and it’s all been going great. And I — we were just talking about this this morning, of being so dysregulated with my first set of kids and not keeping my cool. I have a six, seven year old now with my husband, and the difference is so — it’s like two different worlds that I’ve lived. And knowing now, there’s so many reflective moments in raising these — the first two versus the second two set of kids. ‘Cause my first set are 21 and 19. I got divorced when they were one and three. And so I didn’t have any of the tools — none, zero, zip — of what I have now in raising this six, seven year old together with my husband. Completely different life. And so every day is a moment of just self-reflection of, wow, I’m so grateful for the tools that I have now.

Suzanne:
What do you want to tell me about your own upbringing?

Samantha Boss:
Dysregulation was from birth. I was out of a teenage pregnancy, so I was not expected. Both households were in upheaval that my parents were both in, and so they came together — I like to say I saved both their lives. They came together and got out of the households they were in and started a new life with me, but… what they witnessed was not well. So I had two dysregulated parents starting a life with me, and they were young and figuring things out, and trying to figure each other out as teenagers and then young twenties. And then my sister came along five years later. And it was just a constant fighting for money, fighting for survival, fighting for their marriage — nobody was calm. Everything was rigid. It was utter chaos most times, of just go, go, go and do, do, do. And I was never taught about emotions. I wasn’t taught about being calm, or “hey, you’re having a moment, go have a moment. ” I was taught “don’t cry, what are you crying about, knock it off, let it go. ” It was just a very rigid household that was not warm and fuzzy. They were a bit ahead of how they were raised, some progress in the right direction, but just not enough — they took some of the things that happened to them and didn’t do those things, but they just didn’t do quite everything they could have to make it a little more peace and calm when I was growing up. A lot of yelling, a lot of screaming, a lot of fights and arguments, me included in those fights and arguments with them. Just never calm. It was always go, go, go.

Suzanne:
So when you became a parent then, you were essentially starting from zero, right? When it came to regulating your own nervous system.

Samantha Boss:
Yeah. I came from, okay, this is what my parents did — they were this, they were that, I don’t want to be so much like that. But I also knew what I didn’t want to do, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. So I knew some things — okay, I didn’t want to do this and I didn’t want to do that, but I still didn’t have any tools of, okay, well if you don’t do A, what does B even look like? I don’t even know. I just know I don’t want to do A, right? So we do nothing but go back to what we know. We can say we don’t want to — man, I don’t want to be a screamer, I don’t want to be a hollerer, I don’t want to be irrational when it comes to loud noises or my kid dropping something or my kid crying. But I can say that all day long. But when that happens, I always regress back to what happened to me — to get scolded, to get yelled, to get questioned, to get, you know, “well why’d you do that, ” “well I didn’t fucking mean to drop that. ” I went back to what I knew because I didn’t give myself any other tools. So even though I didn’t want to raise my children that way, I think subconsciously I just ended up doing it, duplicating what my parents did, because I didn’t know any other way besides yelling.

Suzanne:
You did the best that you could with the tools that you had, which is what we were raised with.

Samantha Boss:
Exactly.

Suzanne:
So you actually — I think you answered my next question — of what were you up against inside yourself when conflict came up with your kids? In those heat-of-the-moment conflict situations.

Samantha Boss:
I think for me — my parents were great people, but looking back now, I couldn’t have had kids at sixteen and nineteen. Are you kidding me? I wasn’t even making a car payment at that age. What they had was the best they had with the tools they were given, right? And I have a lot of reflective moments about that now that I’m in my forties, almost fifties, and I can see it for what it is. But when I was first raising my first two kids, barely 25, 27 years old, I didn’t know better. I just knew what I didn’t want to do. So as I’m starting to raise these kids, I’m figuring out, holy shit, I want better for them but I don’t know how to do it. I had no concept of nervous system. I had no concept of dysregulation. So when something would happen and I would yell or correct — if they dropped something, or I was dysregulated from work and they were being loud and I’d tell them to knock it off — I just screamed and hollered a lot. Knock it off. This wasn’t a scream all night, this was just real hard, real direct, real screaming, real mean. And then I’d be fine ’cause I got it out of my body, but now they’re carrying it in their body. And they’re rigid and cold, walking on eggshells with me, which was my whole childhood. So I was just repeating this pattern and I beat myself up for it for years — when I finally, in my late thirties, learned about nervous system regulation, learned about coping skills, got some more tools. I had so many aha moments after my kids were grown, of like, holy shit, I could have done so much better for you. I could have seen the red flags. I could have got ahead of them. I could have used other skills, other coping skills. I could have apologized more. My parents didn’t apologize — they’d bark and yell and I had to move on. At least with my kids, I started to apologize as they got older, because I could see, this doesn’t feel right, I need more. But I was so late to the game on my first set of kids, figuring out that my nervous system was essentially ruining their childhood, because I just kept screaming and hollering and being so sporadic with how I showed up.

Suzanne:
Was there a defining moment for you when your kids were younger, or did you immediately see your responses?

Samantha Boss:
I think it was — I was using alcohol. Every time I didn’t have them, I needed to be around people. And there came this embarrassing moment where I humiliated myself with drinking. I humiliated myself with the person I was having an affair with. Just utter humiliation. And it all happened around the same time frame — I was like, okay, you gotta dig a little deeper because this is humiliating. And I knew at any point in time, if my ex-husband were to have found out what I was doing, I would have lost my kids. So there came this moment of instant clarity: drinking isn’t helping you in any capacity. The circle of people you’re hanging with isn’t helping you at any capacity. How you’re talking about yourself isn’t — all the things came at the same time from this one humiliating moment. And it was time to stop drinking, time to change the circle. I started diving into podcasts, personal development, new groups, I started going to church — I did all these new things that old Sam would have never done. It was like I had to rip it off because I was so humiliated by my actions I couldn’t recognize myself anymore. I’m like, this is not how you want your kids to remember you. You could lose your kids at any point in time because of these behaviours. It all came crashing at one moment, all at the same time.

Suzanne:
But then you worked on it.

Samantha Boss:
Some of us that are single parents, it’s like, if I fail and fall, where do my kids go? I’m talking horrible about my house — I can’t even tell you how bad the other house was on dysregulation, way worse on a different level. And my kids were getting both ends of that at each house. So I knew I had to make my house the calm house. I had to get my shit together for my kids to have a place to release their shit. I had to show up for them, which meant I had to show up for myself first — that it was regulated, that yeah, they could drop something and they didn’t get their head bit off, yeah, they could be loud and it was okay.

Suzanne:
I want to totally pause on my planned questions and get back to the alcohol thing.

Samantha Boss:
Yep.

Suzanne:
Because it’s something we need to address. We know that drinking started happening more in COVID. We know that “mommy juice” is everywhere — shirts and cups and everything. What do you have to say about the role of alcohol in your relationship and your parenting, to your kids?

Samantha Boss:
We could talk about this for a long time. I would say I’m very open and honest. I’ve been sober almost three years now. And I’ll say, when I went through my divorce, I was humiliated because I’m getting a divorce, right — it’s shameful, it’s regretful, a lot of guilt, all the feelings I didn’t know how to cope with. I came from a household where you bury shit. You don’t talk about stuff, you keep it to yourself, you keep the household stuff in the house, you don’t go out seeking help. So I’m home working on my own demons, and the only way I could get out of my head was drinking. When I didn’t have my kids, I picked up the mom juice, and it’s the only way I could fall asleep. That’s how it started — I need a couple beers to take the edge off to fall asleep. Well, a couple beers went to six beers. And before you know it, every weekend I didn’t have my kids, I was getting smashed to release, to forget — woe is me, my divorce is hard, my co-parenting journey’s hard. When I had my kids the following weekend, I was fine. But when I didn’t have my kids, I had alcohol. It’s what I used to cope with all that was going on. My court case was out of control, going to court every three months if not more, spending so much money, fighting with my ex, my kids were all dysregulated — “dad says this, ” then they come back, “dad says this. ” I had nowhere to put that. I didn’t have a therapist, I didn’t have journaling, I didn’t have any of the skills I have now. So alcohol was my so-called release, and all that did was fuck up my brain, dysregulated my sleep, made my appetite horrible, my moods were so bad — because I would go without alcohol and my body would be like, we can’t sleep without alcohol, so what are you doing? And I’d be like, well I have my kids, I can’t use it. So I’d go not sleeping for three days. And then when they’re gone, I’d drink and I’d sleep better. It was just this cycle of abusing my body because I didn’t have any skill set to do anything else.

Suzanne:
You’re defining what I’ve heard so often — it works until it doesn’t. It does a great job at the start and then it works until it stops working.

Samantha Boss:
I remember going to the doctor and saying I need sleep aids because I’m up to six beers. And she was like, well what do you mean? I said I have to have six beers to sleep, and that’s a fucking problem because I don’t have my kids — but when I have my kids, I’m not sleeping. And I can’t have six beers because I’m a single parent. And she was like, first off, you’re an alcoholic. Secondly, we need to figure out why you’re not sleeping — and a lot of it was the anxiety and the worked-up-ness, and I had no skills to deal with it. So alcohol numbed me out to where I felt like I was doing my body a favour, and all I did was wreck my body for years.

Suzanne:
So your kids never saw you drunk? You didn’t drink in front of them?

Samantha Boss:
No, I didn’t drink in front of my kids. I didn’t need to. If I’d go to my parents’ I’d have a beer with dinner and that was it — I was able to turn it off for them. I could show up for my kids on my weekends and my days with them, that was just a rule I had. But if I didn’t have my kids on Wednesdays or the weekends, you best bet I was knee-deep in some alcohol.

Suzanne:
You saved your kids a world of hurt — one of the things I’ve seen so often is having that intoxicated parent on whatever substance, it does so much damage to our kids. Gratefully you didn’t have that. I had kids I worked with at the psych unit whose self-worth was in the toilet because their mom couldn’t get sober, or their dad kept drinking and he died.

Samantha Boss:
Yeah, yeah, I’m very grateful for that. Also, one of the reasons I quit recently was, my son was drinking excessively underage and abusing it, and here I am like, you need to knock it off — but then I remembered moments in my life that weren’t great where I used alcohol too, and I’m like, I’m a fucking hypocrite. So I said, I’ll quit, you quit, we both quit together, and it was just this magical moment of quitting, and now I could never go back. I have this clarity, and there’s so many great things about my life now. I was just a casual drinker in my forties — a beer here and there, it wasn’t anything like it was when I was going through my divorce. But yeah, my life and my journey now is so clear and crisp without the alcohol. And being a role model for my kids that I’ve built this great business — alcohol would only regress that back down and screw that up.

Suzanne:
Okay, let’s shift back now. So what you did is you recognized you weren’t regulated, you’re yelling and screaming and your kids weren’t feeling safe. And then you did something about it. What I really respect about you, Sam, is A, being so honest about it when we spoke before on that podcast, but also you went and you worked. So tell me — and for parents listening, and teachers in the classroom, this is the same thing — what did you do? What did you learn? What was most effective for you?

Samantha Boss:
Well, first I had to go to people I trusted, which were my parents — again, great people, they evolved super fast as I was aging up and got a lot more tools. But I had to go to my mom and say, I don’t want to be a screamer, I don’t want to be a yeller. And she flat out said, what you’re doing and who you’re doing it with isn’t ever gonna change — nothing in your life will change if you keep what you’re doing and who you’re doing it with still in your life. And I was like — that was the embarrassing moment where my mom called me out. So I had to change everything. By quitting drinking, number one, I dove into fitness — I started working out at home, free videos in my basement, really took care of my body, which helped with my sleeping. And then I really dove into therapy. I finally got a therapist for the first time, and it wasn’t a yes-man couch therapist — it was a challenging therapist who really questioned, why are you doing the things you’re doing to yourself? You know better than this, so why are you doing this? She called me out on some things and gave me coping skills — when I would get heightened with my ex-husband, how to talk myself down, how to cope, tapping, breathing, journaling, all the things. But I really think one of the things that changed me was reading personal development books. I’m more of a checklist kind of person — if I read something and can check it off, okay, I did that today, good, I’m achieving a goal in the positive versus having a beer. I really liked the checklist mindset of a personal development book — something you relate to or you’re trying to strive for. A lot of people in my field, when they become a single parent, start reading books about toxic things like narcissism, and that wasn’t gonna help me. I wanted to read about who I wanted to become, not what I was dealing with. I wanted to become organized, motivated, confident, a good mom. So I started diving into books about that. And that really helped my mindset, and I had to do it every day. When I would start to fall and start yelling at my kids again or barking, I’d be like, hmm, when’s the last time I journaled? Practiced gratitude? Sat with myself and did some breathing? It’s been a couple days — here I am showing up again, starting to yell, or thinking, man, I need a drink, or I wish these kids weren’t here, I’m resenting everything. It’s because I wasn’t practicing all the good things I had just learned. That’s when it all shifted — when I really looked at how I was spending my free time, my downtime. I did this stuff in front of my children too. Hey, let’s all get a book out. I was reading, they were reading. They knew when I was working out at five in the morning, don’t come down for that bowl of cereal because I already set it on the counter, you already know how to take care of yourself, this is my two percent of the day, I’m gonna work out. The kids started seeing mom prioritizes herself. A lot of us think that’s selfish. It’s not. My kids were like, don’t go down there, she’s working out, she’ll be done in 30 minutes, that’s one episode of a show, we can survive without her. And I was right. I think it was just changing my day-to-day tasks and putting good stuff in. It’s not always about removing — yeah, I removed alcohol, but what did I replace it with? I removed those toxic people, but what did I replace it with? You have to replace it with something, otherwise it’s real quick to go, yeah but I know how this feels, I want to go right back to it because now I have nothing to do. I started golfing. Before, I would go out and drink as soon as work got over on the days I didn’t have my kids — now I’m out hitting balls, playing nine holes. Way more productive than sitting at a bar smoking and drinking.

Suzanne:
It’s so important to acknowledge that we have to be whole — to be whole for our kids. I think a lot of parents don’t feel that freedom, that you need to have your own time to be able to then go and lean into your kids.

Samantha Boss:
Yes. Yeah. You don’t — I mean, to me, I associate it with — I remember coming home in childhood, we always called it the lunchbox theory. When my dad would walk in the door, it all depended on how he set his lunchbox down. If he set it down and turned around and pivoted and left the room — abort, stay in your room, don’t come out. But if he set it down and turned around and started talking, okay, you’re okay. We wouldn’t say a word to him till we saw how he set that lunchbox down — same spot every day. And how he reacted right after that told us how the rest of that night was gonna go. I hated that as a kid. So to me it was, I want to show up no matter how my day is at work. What can I do on the ride home to get all that shit figured out, out of my system, for that twenty-minute ride home, so I can show up for my kids when I walk in that door because they need me. Or if I do come home dysregulated and upset, I need to vocalize that: hey, mom’s gonna go take a hot shower, she needs 20 minutes, when she comes out she’s gonna be a brand new person. We did numbers a lot when my kids were small, once I started to wake up to this. I’d say, mom’s at a nine, we don’t want her at a ten — mom’s gonna go take a shower, hopefully she comes back down to that three, four range, but I’ll let you know what number I’m at when I walk out. So the kids would know, okay, she’s gonna go take a shower and come out. A shower worked for me ninety-nine percent of the time — I just needed that moment to go in there, breathe, and figure it all out. I had to communicate that with my kids and not try to shelter them from it, not act like I was fine and then snap at them about every little thing. They knew I was dysregulated when I walked in the door — I knew it, they knew it. Nobody talked about it, and then we started talking about it. And what that led to is they would come home and say, mom, I’m angry, I’m at a nine, I’m getting ready to explode. Okay, well what are the things we can do to get you down to a three, four? This conversation was happening daily at my house, when they’d transition from their other house — hey, what are you walking in at, let me know what I’m dealing with. They’d say, six, seven, I need a good snack, I think I’ll be good. Okay. And then after a good snack, I’m at a five, perfect, we can live at a five, let’s go. We were constantly talking about our emotions and how we would feel, because I haven’t been around you for three days, I need to know what who’s meeting me at the door and what you need to feel your best. But I had to show it — I had to teach, I had to show them that first.

Suzanne:
I appreciate that so much. And you’re modelling what your parents didn’t model to you. So you’re changing the script.

Samantha Boss:
Right, changing what I didn’t have. I still to this day see my parents, and I know they’re in grandparent mode — everybody changes when they become a grandparent. My daughter is around them a lot, she’s nineteen, she’s like, grandma and grandpa are great. And I’m like, listen here, sister, who you have as a grandparent, don’t get it twisted, is not who I had as parents. And I’m sure for her children, who I show up as won’t be who I was for her either. And she gets that, because she sees me different with her little brothers, thirteen years younger than her, than how I show up for her. And I think for me, it’s not about bashing my parents — they did honestly really good, for being sixteen and nineteen when they started, to where they are now as grandparents. It’s been a moment to watch. But so is my life, on saying, hey, these things happened to me too, I’m stopping the cycle, and now we have new skill sets to pass down to generations to go.

Suzanne:
You also — when we interviewed before — told me really the power of taking a moment in the middle of conflict. And when you were first learning, can you tell me about that? You told me about using that pause in the middle of conflict, and you felt yourself rising.

Samantha Boss:
Yeah, it was like a bird’s eye view, right? By this time, in personal development, a little bit of therapy, I’m starting to realize — I would get this bird’s eye view of myself going, okay, you’re just screaming to scream, you’re dysregulated, you’re yelling at them, you need to stop, you’re getting ready to cross that line. I was up here and could see the whole thing, the looks on their faces. But when I’m doing it, I couldn’t see their faces — I just saw Sam needs to get her emotions out. I didn’t see my children standing there. So when I got these bird’s-eye moments, I’m like, my gosh, you need to stop. Something my son and I did — because I was the one who battled with him the most, our personalities were so alike, we would word-vomit mean things at each other just to get a rise, all the time when he was a little kid — we both went to therapy, we both learned we’re both like that, and we just had to have a code word that meant stop, can’t say another word, we need to calm down, we just needed ten minutes to leave the room and come back. Even if he’s not the one battling me, having the ability to say, you know what, I’m gonna remove myself from this room and come back in 10 minutes. Go in there, scream, holler, jump in circles, tap, do whatever you need to do, release that, come out completely different. For me, now it’s still going outside, putting my feet in the dirt, sometimes spinning in a circle, just to get my nervous system dysregulated in a different direction, and then I come back so clear. But so many parents stay in the room, they keep yelling, throwing the fit, because they’re not getting the reaction that stops the flow. My son Walker’s response was a blank stare — he’d blank stare at me, look over my shoulder, which I’d be like, look at me when I’m talking to you — he was trying to piss me off, plus he was scared of me. But when he got older, he’d come back at me, then we’re tit for tat, going at it. Where my daughter Josie would be like, uh-huh, yeah, I just want it to be over, whatever you want, mom — and that’s not any way to be either, because she grew up to be a people pleaser because of that. So the barking and yelling — you have to get to a point where you can hear yourself and stop, because something inside you is telling you to stop, you just keep pushing it down: but I need to say this one last thing, I need to prove this point, I need this kid to agree with me, I need this kid to see my point, I need this kid to be scared or respect me. Ooh, that kid is not gonna want a parent like you when they get older, I can tell you that right now. So you have to stop, just for ten minutes. I guarantee if you give yourself ten, you’re not gonna come back the same. And it’s important to differentiate — it’s not abandonment, you’re not walking away from your child, you had a mutual understanding, your kids knew. A lot of parents feel they need to stick around, but your kids knew you need a break, and I will be back.

Samantha Boss:
(continuing, coaching example): And one of the things I coach my clients on, especially when their kids are like this — if your kid is dysregulated and coming for you, coming for you, maybe being disrespectful — one of the things I’d coach a client to say is, you know what, it seems like you’re in an energy that I don’t deserve, I didn’t cause it, but it seems like you’re there, so I’m gonna remove myself. I’m gonna step away — not making the kid who’s already pissed off at the world leave the room, because now I’m in a power/authority/control fight and that’s not gonna go well. I’m gonna leave the room, and when I come back, we’re gonna keep going in a positive direction. Our energies are gonna be down. Here’s where a lot of parents go wrong — “are you better now, did you lose your attitude, are you gonna talk to me that way again” — now that kid’s back up again, because you’re talking to him all sad. When I walk back in, I’m gonna assume everything’s good. If he shows me energy that he’s not well, I’ll say, we’re still up here, huh, okay, well I’m gonna leave a little longer this time, maybe you should go for a walk, maybe not, but I’m gonna go for fifteen minutes. I’m gonna let some time lapse, because going back and forth, nobody’s winning. And now you’ve said shit you can’t unsay — deep wounds. I’ve called my kid a narcissist before, I’ve called my kid “you’re just like your dad” before — you can’t unsay that stuff, but it was me trying to dig at a what, 15-year-old? Are you kidding me? That was a me issue, not a 15-year-old issue — that was a grown woman trying to have a fight with an adult, but a kid was present instead. And I lost my shit and said things I will never be able to take back. So taking that break, being like, I need to step away for 10 minutes, set a timer — you got phones, you got Alexa, set a timer, give yourself the peace of a full 10 minutes. They’re fine, they’re not going anywhere, come back to it. But you have to walk away and get your shit together.

Suzanne:
Well, and what you just said — that coming back, “are you good now, are you calm” — I’m listening to you thinking, and that’s judgment. Yes, everything you just said is judging.

Samantha Boss:
And what happens with kids is they shut down completely, or they fire back. And maybe they’re not ready in ten minutes — maybe they needed twelve. You know, and had they had two more minutes, they would have been. But you going back, “I’m up here and you’re way down here, are you better, just that way, do you understand me” — that kind of thing, I hated that as a kid. I saw it, but I couldn’t say that. So then I just get angry, I don’t show up the way they want, and now we’re back to fighting, back to arguing. I really think what I’ve gotten so much better at with this second set of kids is — I may be in a great mood, but if my kids were thrown off at school, they’re coming back dysregulated, I need to help them figure out a way to get regulated. If I’m at work and dysregulated and I show up and they’re in a good mood, I need to figure out a way to regulate down. I have to see this isn’t a “them” issue versus me — I need to get my shit together before I show up for them, and vice versa, if they show up dysregulated, I gotta help them until they know all the tools to do it themselves. Kids don’t know these things — I didn’t. And I became an adult who didn’t know them, and then started parenting without tools. You have to get them somewhere, and everybody’s different — I love journaling now, it’s my go-to to release, to word-vomit the things I’m feeling. But every parent’s different, I still go outside. I think you have to recognize you’re in a code red, you’re at a nine, ten, and we need to calm ourselves back down. When you’re drinking, you’re at a nine, ten all the time, because you’re using all of that to hide behind what’s really the problem — insecurities or whatever. I just think showing up for your kids in the real version you want to, you’ll be proud of yourself. I have a lot of shame in how I showed up for my first set of kids. Now we’ve all been to therapy, done an apology tour, and they see me parenting in a great light with their younger siblings, and they’re so proud of me for that, they talk about it all the time. It’s really important that I did change. I could not have parented these two kids the same way — it would be exhausting. I’m almost fifty, I could never have parented that intense on the second set. I thought everything was a big deal, everything needed to be addressed, everything needed yelling — it was way too much. So meeting your kids where they need you to be, I think, is the key takeaway for me now. If they need me to be more lovey-dovey, that’s what I need to be. If they need me to be more protective, that’s what I’ll be. But me showing up dysregulated is never what they need.

Suzanne:
I have one more thing I want to talk to you about before we do my wrap-up questions, taking us back to our goal — you commented that earlier on you took breaks, had that moment of emotional regulation, but you’re doing it less now, you’re not erupting like you used to. Can you talk to me about that journey — the early times of taking that break, recognizing mindfulness, and now that that’s happening less, what’s gone on in your brain, what’s gone on in your body, as you’ve worked on that over however many years?

Samantha Boss:
Decade. First off, cleaning up all my triggers, getting triggers out of my life. My first job of teaching was a huge trigger — I was dysregulated every day coming home, so I built my own business, worked for myself. Taking out the alcohol, removing triggers that caused dysregulation was the first cleaning house — literally, having a clean house was a trigger. For me, clutter makes me have chaotic moments. My husband now knows he can’t stand that he has to make the bed every day, but for me, seeing an unmade bed is a trigger, it kind of heightens me — I need that made. So removing triggers is number one. But number two, this is a new one for me: feeling my body. What is my body really feeling right now? Am I feeling anger? Probably not — I’m probably feeling scared about something, or anxious, and covering it with anger. So really tapping into what my body feels like, what it needs — probably a hug, attention, to be validated, some self-care. That, for me, has been huge — sitting with my body and letting it feel that intensity, but then really reversing it, following the line of where it originates from, really tapping in and labelling it, versus “I’m so angry right now” — okay, but about what, where is it stemming from, my brain, my heart, my stomach, is it a past trauma surfacing? Versus, I think I just walked around with a whole bunch of childhood stuff and didn’t know what it was, and just labelled it “this is a horrible divorce, this is a horrible situation, I’m poor, I’m struggling as a single mom” — I had all this victimhood around it and wasn’t going back to the root cause. So I think the reason I don’t have to do it as much — I’ve eliminated triggers, I have really good red flags, I know when it’s coming, so I can get way ahead of it and remove myself and go have some time. I think communicating about it to all the people in my life, being honest about it, owning it, versus acting like it’s the elephant in the room people talk about behind my back — now I own that mom gets easily triggered by certain things. Sounds are a big one for me, so everybody knows: go ahead, mom, if you’re gonna be loud, mom the noise-cancelling headphones. I eliminate some triggers, and I think that’s key.

Suzanne:
It also seems that your brain’s rewired.

Samantha Boss:
Definitely, definitely. Rewiring, this neuroplasticity, of having the ability earlier on to calm, because you do it, redo it, learn, recalibrate — I fail, I’m like okay, that didn’t work for me. But also realizing, I was only in my childhood for eighteen years, I’ve been an adult longer. Childhood is your foundation, it was created, but I can pave over that foundation, rewire it, fix the cracks, because I’ve been an adult a lot longer. At this point it’s like — okay, but I am who I am because of who I am, not because of my childhood anymore. It’s because of who I am. So I need to have better tools as to who I am, to be able to cope with it, because dysregulation events are gonna happen all the time. You have to be ready for them, not act like they’re never gonna exist again because you’ve taken away all the triggers or fixed everything in your life. It’s still gonna happen — somebody else may trigger you, a household member may pull you down again. So you have to be ready for it at any point. But feeling it, I can sense it — the second my body starts to feel a certain way, I’m like, oop, let’s get ahead of it, so I don’t need to be in the ten range. I would say I haven’t gotten to a ten range — I had an anxiety attack probably a couple weeks ago, I made a post about it, that was the first time I’d been at a level ten in two years. Because I’ve just gotten so ahead of vocalizing this is what I need, this is what my body’s telling me, this is what I need from you, I’m gonna remove myself — I’ve just gotten so used to getting ahead of it, versus waiting for it and seeing what happens, seeing if I can handle it this time.

Suzanne:
No, right, right. Well, it’s such a story of hope for so many people who were raised in homes that weren’t equipped to be calm parenting. Okay, I always do three wrap-up questions — it’s my standard, taking us back to that goal of how we keep calm in moments of conflict with our kids. Self-regulation — what do you think the main hurdle is with all of this? Just nailing that down, the main hurdle of self-regulation.

Samantha Boss:
I would say the main hurdle, for me, was just owning — I thought for a long time that this is just who I was. I labelled it: this is who I was, I’m just a high-intensity person, I’m just an anxious person, I literally labelled myself as someone who has anxiety and gets really bothered by a lot of things. I would say now, that’s not even — no, I’m not that at all. It was just a label I put on myself, and I was okay with that label, and I think that was a whole decade I did that to myself. And I think that was wrong of me — it was wrong of doctors too, to be like, you’re somebody that just needs — you’re anxious, you just need meds forever. Again, I’m not against meds, but for me, once I got told that, that’s who I was. And it was like, no, I actually am not that person. I can be that way sometimes for sure, but that’s not who I am. I really thought I was this high-strung, high-intensity, dramatic person all the time, and now I’m not at all, it’s so different.

Samantha Boss:
It’s like breaking the assumption that you’re gonna be like this your whole life.

Suzanne:
Yes. And you don’t have to be.

Samantha Boss:
Yeah, well, this is all I know and this is all I want —

Suzanne:
No, then go learn to be somebody different.

Samantha Boss:
Totally. There’s freedom.

Suzanne:
Absolutely. Okay, number two — what changed in your relationship with your kids once you built that skill, in terms of what did your kids get from you that they couldn’t get before, when you were not regulated in those moments?

Samantha Boss:
You’re gonna make me cry. I will tell you, it’s a day-to-day joy to be their parent. And I think when you’re going through a divorce, you do all this work to keep them for the 18 years you have them, and what you don’t realize is you have them for the lifetime. So even though my kids got a dysregulated mom for probably the first 10 years of their life — the last eight years were fine, but the first 10 were utter chaos — what I know they’re proud of me for is that they have a decade of rough foundational things, but they have a lifetime with me of being their person. I’m their person when something goes wrong or right. I’m their joy phone call when they get to brag about what they accomplished, because I put the work in to be the calm one — they call when they’re not calm, and they know they’re calling their mom to fix it, and I will get them regulated because they know I have the tools. Which blows my mind, because when they were little, they knew I didn’t have the tools. But they know I’ve worked my ass off to gain as much knowledge as I can, to figure out what works best to be the sense of calm they can call when chaos hits them. And I am forever grateful for the work I put in, and grateful I went through the hell I went through — because they’re changing lives too, with what they do, they’re helping people, they’re that point of contact in their friend group. They’re that person who can see people struggling before that person even knows they’re struggling. I know we all went through that because we needed to, to help more people. I’m so grateful they can see the work I’ve put in.

Suzanne:
Okay, so can I just say — you have just described what every child wants in any parent. You’ve just set it out.

Samantha Boss:
Yeah, I mean, just to know that my kids call and brag about stuff, just so they can hear me say, I’m so proud of you. And then I’ll remind them — it’s not just about this moment, but remember what you did to get here, you did this, you did this. I just sent them a text this morning — this is how we talk to each other. I said, good morning, let’s get after it this week, it’s the last week of February, a month out from a special event, how can I help you these last six days, how can we better our lives, let’s see who needs us this week. This is a family that wants to make sure we’re humble. We’re a family that makes sure we know we’ve been through some things, and there’s probably somebody we touch a life of every day that we need to extend to before this month ends — how can we change someone’s life before this month ends? I think this is from all of us being in therapy, all of us doing personal development, wanting to be better people, and not letting our childhood — their childhood — navigate who they are the rest of their lives. Yeah, there’s the power.

Suzanne:
Here’s my last question. Of everything you’ve said — such great tangible strategies — but for a parent listening right now who didn’t have this modelled to them either, who is still reactive and still yelling and honestly feels like this is just who they are — what is the one thing, the one single thing you want them to know, that you could put on a t-shirt?

Samantha Boss:
Mm. Wow, like five hundred things went flashing through my head. I thought that was a really good question, I’m gonna steal it. I think first and foremost, I’d want them to know they’re gonna be okay. If they’ve heard this podcast, it’s for a reason — this is their one embarrassing moment, that they related to too much of what I said, and they’re embarrassed, and they go — this is rock bottom, she pretty much diagnosed everything I’ve been doing, how I’ve been living, how I’ve been acting, how I’ve been showing up, how I’ve had shame about it. Today’s the day to change. You will be okay if you change. Is it gonna be hard work? Yeah. Are you gonna mess up and readdress your kids the wrong way after you read a whole book, and you’re like, but I screwed up yesterday? Yeah, guess what — read another book, listen to another podcast. Just because I learned the skills doesn’t mean I went 100% cold turkey into perfection mode. I still regressed, but I was quicker on the reflection, quicker on the recall, quicker on the apology — that wasn’t about you, that was about me, I should have said something before I even got home, I should have warned you. I think it’s gonna be okay if you recognize it. You have to own that you’re not proud of yourself — I was not happy with myself. It’s going to be okay, backside of the shirt, if you self-reflect. You have to self-reflect. I’m in coaching right now, and one of the questions she asks me every day about business is, what’s your satisfaction level every day? And I thought, I could really change that into my business and ask these parents — how satisfied are you with your parenting today? I wasn’t satisfied for the first 10 years, it was ugly. And now I feel so satisfied in how I show up for my kids — I message them, reach out to them, answer the phone when they call, I remember the smallest details about their day and ask them about it. My son sells plants, so I write down all the plant names and ask, hey, how’s your last allocation doing? I remember the details because that’s important to him, so it needs to be important to me. So I think, in this — are you paying attention to the details? Do you really know who your kid plays with at recess? Have you caught the name? Or are you so bogged down with your life, your victimhood, your story, your drama, that you’re not paying attention to the little detailed teardrops your kid is giving you about who they are? It’s about taking responsibility for what we do, but without shame — calling it, owning it, and now you move on. We’re not crippled. It’s gonna be okay. We need to take responsibility, I think, and I believe we’re taking less of it in this society. But how we can do that shame-free and guilt-free —

Suzanne:
And you’ve just outlined the hope and the promise.

Samantha Boss:
Yeah. It’s just about that self-reflection — if you’re not satisfied with how you’re showing up as a parent, and there are things about you that bring shame, then let’s change it. Let’s learn a new trick, let’s try a new tool, a new method. There’s nothing wrong with going to your kids and saying, let’s have a group call, sit at the table, maybe all your kids, maybe one at a time, and just say, what’s something about me you’d love to see me work on? What’s something I need to keep doing? What’s something I probably need to do less of? And then I’m gonna do it back for you too. It could be, you’re a horrible cook, mom, you don’t keep a clean house, or I don’t like the way you come home from work and yell at us right away. Don’t take it personally, absorb it, go give yourself a ten-minute break, come back, reassess, and be like, okay, it sounds like I need to do a better job of getting home from work, or getting a cookbook, or let’s do a group cleanup before we — you have to ask them how they’re doing, how satisfied they are with you, and be ready for the answer, because maybe you’re doing something great that you haven’t even noticed. Tap into that, and tap into the things they want you to work on. You already probably deep down know what you need to work on — you just need to say it out loud and do it.

Suzanne:
Yep. That is so fantastic. Samantha Boss, where can we find you?

Samantha Boss:
Anywhere, anywhere and everywhere. The Ugly Truth of Divorce is absolutely everywhere — TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, the podcast, like I said, just dropped, or you can go to my website, SamanthaBoss.com, where I build custom parenting plans for people. The next chapter I’m also super proud of, that I have with Leah — we coach women, moms only, on being dysregulated, and how to help calm them down and give them the tools to navigate this next step, when you weren’t raised with the right tools. That’s a place you can go get that.

Suzanne:
Thank you so much for your time this morning.

Samantha Boss:
Thank you.

Suzanne:
Thanks for listening. Now you can do your part and share this with someone who wants to learn more about how to stay calm in those moments of stress. And you can click like on that little link below, subscribe to this channel for so many more videos to come about how you can get on your kids’ turf. I am Suzanne. You’ll find me across social media, and I will see you next time.