275: Starting Scared, with Chrysty Lockhart

Picture of hosted by Penny Williams

hosted by Penny Williams

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Are you tired of letting fear hold you back? The key to moving beyond that is turning what you view as failure into stepping stones to success. And you can teach your kids the same. In this episode of Beautifully Complex, I’m joined by Chrysty Lockhart, who shares her transformative journey from fearful to learning to push forward despite the fear. She emphasizes the importance of pushing through discomfort, offering valuable insights into embracing the mindset that failure moves us closer to success. Through heartfelt conversations, you'll learn how to build resilience, develop perseverance, and why stepping out of your comfort zone can lead to growth and joy.

Moreover, this episode explores the art of balancing personal identity with parenting, especially as a parent of neurodivergent kids. We candidly discuss maintaining self-care, letting go of perfectionism, and the impactful role of emotional regulation in creating a harmonious home. With our personal stories and practical advice, you'll find encouragement to face challenges head-on, fostering a more empathetic and psychologically informed approach to parenting. This episode is a treasure trove of inspiration for anyone looking to overcome fear, find joy in challenging times, and create a positive environment for themselves and their family.

3 Key Takeaways

01

Start Scared: Embracing the concept of “starting scared” means pushing through initial fears and discomfort to try new things. This can lead to significant personal growth, allowing individuals to overcome anxiety and feel more confident.

02

View Failure as a Tool for Success: Recognizing that failure is an essential part of the journey to success helps individuals build resilience and perseverance. Learning from failures and challenges, rather than fearing them, cultivates strength and adaptability.

03

Encourage Personal Growth: Promoting an environment where children are gently encouraged to step outside their comfort zones can lead to joy, confidence, and self-discovery. Open communication and emotional regulation by parents create a safe space for kids to explore and grow.

What You'll Learn

Overcoming Fear of New Endeavors: You’ll learn actionable strategies for starting scared and pushing through discomfort.

Embracing Failure for Success: You’ll understand the importance of learning from failures and developing resilience and perseverance.

Encouraging and Supporting Children: You’ll gain insights on encouraging kids to step outside their comfort zones while ensuring they don't push beyond their limits to facilitate personal growth and confidence.

Creating a Positive Home Environment: You’ll discover the significance of self-care and emotional regulation, as well as the impact of open communication with your kids for a harmonious household.

Finding Joy in Challenging Times: You’ll understand how embracing both grief and gratitude can lead to personal growth and discovering joy even during difficult seasons.

Resources

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My Guest

Chrysty Lockhart

Chrysty is a wife, bonus and bio mama, teacher, host of the Start Scared podcast and an Enneagram 6 who used to be bound by what she thought she was supposed to say, do or be. SO much so that she has lost herself in the chaos of everyday Mom life and is trying to discover who she is in real time! She is passionate about empowering and motivating other Mamas to cut through the BS stories they tell themselves and find clarity to start scared on putting themselves first, because who they are outside of being a Mama still matters!

Photo via @cozyearth 📷: @ellisandhale

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Transcript

Chrysty Lockhart [00:00:03]: Failure is looked at as such a dirty word, but you can't have success without the failure. Because the failure, you learn what works, what doesn't work, how I'm gonna pivot, how I'm gonna try again. You learn your resilience. You learn perseverance. You learn grit. I mean, like, all of these amazing qualities come from failing because then you figure out what you want and what you're really good at after you fail.

Penny Williams [00:00:30]: Welcome to the Beautifully Complex podcast, where I share insights and strategies on parenting neurodivergent kids straight from the trenches. I'm your host, Penny Williams. I'm a parenting coach, author and mindset mama, honored to guide you on the journey of raising your atypical kid. Let's get started. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Beautifully Complex. I am super thrilled to have Christy Lockhart here to talk about starting scared. And I was telling Christy before we started recording, this is a conversation I need to have.

Penny Williams [00:01:11]: I have a lot of anxiety as every listener knows, and I let it hold me back. And sometimes I do need to just step into it and start scared. So I think this applies to us as parents. It also applies to our kids, and it's gonna be a really enlightening conversation. Will you start, Christy, though, by just talking about who you are and what you do?

Chrysty Lockhart [00:01:33]: Hi. I am so honored to be here. Thank you so much for having me. I am 1st and foremost, I'm a Christian. I'm a wife. I'm a mom. I recently retired as a teacher. I'm a podcaster.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:01:46]: I also have anxiety, and I'm a mom to an ADHD er, and so he is just a ball of fun energy.

Penny Williams [00:01:55]: Yeah.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:01:55]: I am an avid reader. I love to read fiction books, and I am just kind of on a mission to show moms, especially, that who they are outside of being a mom still matters and that putting that step forward to start scared on living the lives that they dream to live are still within their reach even though they feel like sometimes they lose themselves in the chaos of everyday mom life. So it's a little bit about me.

Penny Williams [00:02:22]: Yeah. It's so easy to lose ourselves. It's so easy to just get caught up in the flow of things, especially if we have complex kids and really sort of chaotic, overwhelming family life. We just get on autopilot. And when we show up with more purpose and intention, we can live the life that we really want to live. I think that a lot of times, we assume that it's not possible for us because it seems so hard to do. But I have learned that if you just take a little bit of time to be really intentional and purposeful, then you really can craft a life that you want. Not to say that we can get rid of ADHD or autism or any of those things.

Penny Williams [00:03:09]: Right? But just that we can have more influence than we probably think that we can have. Does that make sense?

Chrysty Lockhart [00:03:15]: Yeah. Absolutely. And I I agree with that. And I think that we're in such a beautiful position as moms and especially with our complex children that we we set such a good example that even though we have I mean, we all have our own complexities, And if we do things that bring us joy, light our soul on fire, you know, that sets the example for them to pursue their passions and live their dreams, but also to remember that just because they become a parent doesn't mean life stops. Right? That you're still a whole complete human being outside of the hats that you wear.

Penny Williams [00:03:53]: Yeah. How do we tap into that? How do we find or make the time to be sure that we still nurture that person that we are outside of parenthood?

Chrysty Lockhart [00:04:06]: That's a a really good question. I think it's really hard, and I think that it takes a lot of intentionality Mhmm. And a lot of support. Like, I have such a supportive husband, but, you know, so he'll take Bruce for, you know, boys' nights so I can go out with my girlfriends or whatever. But, also, if you don't have that support, you know, there are a lot single moms out there, but just even getting up 30 minutes before your your child does. But being intentional with your calendar and making sure that you set time aside to do things that you want to do that, you know, bring you joy, even if it's journaling or a gratitude practice or working out. It can be as small as a walk around the block in the morning. You know? But getting yourself grounded because if you don't start the day in a a fully grounded way Mhmm.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:04:56]: Then it's like trying to, like, grab, you know, some kind of support throughout the rest of the day. Right? Because you're not grounded, and you haven't put your self first yet. But it's just all about that intentionality, and it's not easy, especially when you have young kids. But you do have to. I feel like in order to be a better mom, you have to take some time to really, you know, put yourself first.

Penny Williams [00:05:19]: Yeah. Yeah. It's such a a myth that a good parent sacrifices themself for their kids. Because when we sacrifice ourselves for our kids, our intention is to give them our very best. Right? To give them all of us. But what happens if we don't take care of ourselves is we're less able to do that. You know? So this cultural idea that the best parents are the ones who completely sacrifice themselves entirely is not true. It can't be true because we do have to take care of ourselves.

Penny Williams [00:05:58]: I started by just being okay with letting go of some of the household, like, daily chores, like doing the dishes at night after dinner and just watching TV instead so that I could turn my brain off and I could chill out because that's what worked for me to be able to go to sleep, honestly. Right? Like, to be able to recover enough from the day to go to sleep and start fresh again. And so I got okay with, hey. There might be some dirty dishes in the sink for a couple of days. If that's what I need, that's okay. Right? I think that self talk is really important here.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:06:39]: Right. And I think that's such a good point because, you know, previously, I would have these to do lists, and I would feel like I would have to get the to do list done

Penny Williams [00:06:50]: Yeah.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:06:50]: In order to feel successful. But those to do lists never get done. Right? So I have a mentor who said, okay. You know, brain dump everything that you wanna do out on paper, and then label the top three things. If you get those three things done today, then that's awesome. If you get anything else done, it's sprinkles on the cake. Right?

Penny Williams [00:07:11]: Yeah.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:07:11]: And so I really try to live my life like that now because, you know, the dishes in the sink, although I would hate that, also, I do that too. Because I'm, like, I'm done. I'm tired. I'm tapped out. I'll do it tomorrow. It's not gonna hurt anything that the dishes are sitting in the sink. I'd much rather go read my book and decompress a little bit.

Penny Williams [00:07:30]: Yeah.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:07:30]: So it is, like, really just letting go of the that perfectionism that we feel like we have to get everything done in order to, quote, unquote, feel successful

Penny Williams [00:07:39]: Yeah.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:07:40]: That, you know, it's not all possible.

Penny Williams [00:07:43]: Yeah. Agreed. 100%. Yeah. I am an an uber organized person. I have a very structured brain or something. Like, it's so weird. When I wash my hands, I have to make sure both hands are wet before I can be done and dry.

Penny Williams [00:08:02]: If I only have one wet hand and wet dry hand, my brain, like, freaks out. That's how, like, my brain works. And so for me, I was constantly walking behind everyone, cleaning everything up. I needed the order for myself, but I was actually making myself more crazy than just trying to accept that it wasn't gonna be perfect anymore. And I had to accept that there wasn't anything wrong with people in my house who maybe aren't as organized as I am. It's just a difference in the way our brains work, but I had to get where I could let go of that perfection or I was going to lose my mind. And my kids were not learning how to pick up after themselves either. Right? If I was doing it all for them, there's no skill building happening.

Penny Williams [00:08:50]: And I think that's what we're talking about here is, like, these little acceptances, these little things that we can shift our thinking around so that we can take time to take care of ourselves, to nurture that person that we are outside of parenthood.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:09:08]: And one of my goals, like, recently is to just have more, like, ease and peace in my house, and it starts with me. You know? Like, I can't create ease and peace in my household if I'm not full of ease and peace. And so those little things, like, I would do the same thing, walk behind the kids and picking up, you know, after them, and I'm like, I'm training them that to know that I'm gonna pick up after them, so why do they need to do it anyway. Right?

Penny Williams [00:09:38]: Exactly. So Yeah.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:09:40]: And then I hold on to the resentment that, you know, why can't they clean up after themselves? But really, it's me who's teaching them those things that, you know, mom's just gonna come back and do it for you. Like, for me, like I said, I just want ease and peace and joy, and if I don't start with myself, then how is anybody else going to create that in the house too? Because I set the tone as the mom, right? I feel that really hard that you know, if my nervous system is out of whack, it's gonna cause their nervous systems to be out of whack. You know?

Penny Williams [00:10:13]: Yeah. That energy is contagious. And, yeah, it was something that I really had to work on early on in my own thinking. I had a very victim mentality, which I've talked about a 1000000 times here on the podcast, but I had to take that journey so that I could quit obsessing about the struggle and ADHD and show up differently because no one wanted to be around me anymore. Right? Like, I was alienating my family. I was bringing myself down. I was making myself think that everything's bad. I was making them feel like everything was bad.

Penny Williams [00:10:50]: Right? And so when I shifted it, it was like this huge sigh of relief in the whole household, and it made room for joy. But I had to be intentional about that. Right? If I just kept going on autopilot, we'd still be obsessed with all the negative, and we would not be doing anywhere near as well as we are. And it's just so important that we show up in the way that we want our kids to feel. Right? How do we wanna make our kids feel? It's super, super important because it starts with us. As you said, it really, really does.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:11:23]: Yeah. I just had a conversation with my 9 year old. We have 3 kids. 1's 20. 1 just turned 18 and 9. And Bruce said today that and it was so convicting. He goes, well, yesterday, you argued with daddy, and today, you're arguing with me.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:11:37]: And I'm, like, who's the common denominator? You know what I mean? Like, it's not Bruce, and it's not my husband, Frank. The common denominator is me. And, you know, that's just again, I'm on this journey of healing myself and learning and accepting that, you know, I can change me. I can't change other people, but it was just really convicting for me that, yeah, it does start with me. It is something that I have the ability to change, but you don't have the ability to change if you're not willing to look at straight in the face and realize that, okay. I need to work on myself a little bit more. Yeah. And not holding shame to that because I feel like if he would have said that to me 2 or 3 years ago, I would have felt very shameful and probably maybe even gotten very defensive about it.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:12:28]: But I was like, you know what? You're right, bud. Like, thank you for, you know, holding me accountable to my actions. You know, he did it in a very loving way, which I really appreciate, but that's the beauty of having kids. You know? They hold the mirror up to you and Mhmm. You know, allow you to recognize the things that you may not recognize in yourself until, you know, they Mhmm. Show it to you. You know? So

Penny Williams [00:12:51]: Yeah. Yeah. It's such a good illustration of kids giving us signals of what they need too. Right? He was signaling, hey. There's a lot of, you know, discord going on here, and it feels kinda yucky to me. So I'm gonna say something. Right? And I just don't think we're open enough sometimes. And what was great was you were open to what he was saying.

Penny Williams [00:13:15]: You didn't take offense. You didn't, you know, get really emotional, and you just were like, okay. Yes. That's true. And I'm gonna do something about it. And we all have that ability if we're just more open minded, I think, to what our kids are saying. Yeah. Even if it doesn't feel good.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:13:34]: Yeah. I mean, it definitely doesn't feel good to be told that, like, you're the common denominator here, but I appreciated the honesty, and I appreciated, you know, the accountability because

Penny Williams [00:13:45]: Yeah.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:13:46]: He knows. He knows that I want joy and peace in the house. And, you know, I'll be the first one to admit my nervous system was so dysregulated yesterday that that's why. And I should have done something about it before I got upset with, you know, the people in my house who had nothing to do with it. You know? It's such a beautiful thing to be able to have those kinds of relationships with because I think a lot of times as moms or as adults, like, even, you know, the older generation, you know, a lot of kids are, you know, be seen, not heard.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:14:18]: And, you know, or not to have an opinion or not to, you know, stand up for themselves. And I'm so not in that mindset. Like, if something's bothering him, I want him to feel safe to be able to come and tell me

Penny Williams [00:14:33]: Yeah.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:14:33]: You know, without worry that he's gonna get in trouble or whatever. You know? And we talk a lot about there's nothing you could do to make me ever stop loving you. We will figure it out together. But, you know, it it's just interesting, the dynamics and the changes in our generations, you know, as now we're kind of learning more about psychology and and kids and stuff like that and learning more about the brain, and it's just really interesting to me. And I I wish I would've taken more psychology classes.

Penny Williams [00:15:01]: Right. I know. Me too. If only I had known how much I really needed in those psychology classes, and to be a therapist, maybe, that would have been really smart, but who knew? Yeah. I am a hot sleeper these days. I've tried so many products to help me stay cool while sleeping, and they've all been a bust until now. I've been sleeping on the bamboo sheets from Cozy Earth, and these sheets have changed my sleep completely. I'm no longer hot, which means better sleep.

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Penny Williams [00:16:39]: Let's talk a little bit about starting scared and how that can apply, I think, in everyday life because we could easily say, well, you know, I wanna do this thing. I've never done it before. I'm really scared. Oh, this is how you, you know, get over the hump and do it. But I think this is also part of day to day life. Right?

Chrysty Lockhart [00:16:58]: Absolutely. Like, I have always been afraid to try anything new. Like, out of fear of looking dumb. What would people say? What would people think? How would they react? And it kept me stuck for, like, my whole life. And I think back, and I have so many regrets growing up that I didn't do the things that were on my heart that I wanted to do because I was too scared. And so it wasn't until a a couple years ago that I was like, okay. I want something else in my life. Like, you know, I I go to work.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:17:31]: I come home. I do the wife thing. I do the mom thing. Like, there's gotta be more. And so I am obsessed with podcasts. I love to listen to them, and I have a a friend who has, you know, a podcast course, and I slid into her DMs, and I was like, hey. I think I wanna start a podcast. I think I have things that I wanna talk about.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:17:49]: I'm super introverted. I don't like the people a whole lot, so podcasting is kinda like a ride up my alley. Right? You know? I can Yeah. Talk to myself, and it'll be talk to my cat, and it'll be fine. But I was like, who's gonna listen? What am I gonna talk about? I'm not an expert in anything. All of these, like, scared thoughts going through my head, And so that's actually why I named my podcast Start Scared because I knew that if I didn't just rip off the band aid and start, even though I was so scared, it would never happen. Mhmm. And so that's kind of ended up being, like, my motto for the last couple years is just to start scared, just to do it even if I have no idea what I'm doing.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:18:30]: I have no idea how it's gonna work out. I have no idea who is gonna care. If I care, that's what matters.

Penny Williams [00:18:37]: Mhmm.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:18:38]: And so being able to do that and because I I feel like if there's a calling placed on your heart or even if it's just on your heart to try that one thing, it's not there on accident. Right? And so even if you don't know how it's all gonna work out, it doesn't have to be a forever thing either. You know what I mean? Like, if you wanna go and try a adult gymnastics class and you decide you don't like it, that's cool too. You don't have to do it again. You know? But if it's on your heart to just try, you know, living with regrets is so much harder than just trying it scared. You know?

Penny Williams [00:19:18]: Yeah. Yeah. When my kids were young, they used to be in little league. Yeah. Well, my son didn't last very long in tee ball.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:19:27]: Lying either.

Penny Williams [00:19:28]: My daughter played softball all the way through to a couple years into high school. So we were at the ball field a lot. And 1 year, we were invited we have, like, a triple a ball team here because we're in a pretty small town, and we were invited to the ball field, and the, I think the training manager was talking to the kids. And this was years years ago, and I still remember it and think about it often. He said that in baseball, softball, whatever, you fail the majority of the time. You have to be okay with failing to be able to play that sport Because all the times you swing that bat, how many times you actually going to get on base much less score? Right? And when we think about that, if you watch like a Major League Baseball game, they are swinging and swinging and swinging and failing, but yet they're super successful baseball players. Right? And so just changing, like, that perspective that you can be very successful at something and still have mistakes, still have what you would consider a failure, but it can still be successful. You know? The 2 things can go together, and it's kind of mind blowing.

Penny Williams [00:20:47]: Right?

Chrysty Lockhart [00:20:48]: I love that perspective, and it's so true. It's so true. And and that's actually one of the questions that I ask a lot of people who come on to the podcast is, you know, just for full transparency, I wanna know about a time you failed and how it provided clarity for you. And I think that that is because failure is looked at as such a dirty word. Yeah. But you can't have success without the failure. Because the failure, you learn what works, what doesn't work, how I'm gonna pivot, how I'm gonna try again. You learn your resilience.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:21:19]: You learn perseverance. You learn grit. I mean, like, all of these amazing qualities come from failing, because then you figure out what you want and what you're really good at after you fail.

Penny Williams [00:21:29]: Yeah. And if it's too easy, it doesn't feel very successful anyway. Right? It just That's so true. It doesn't have the same impact as when something is really challenging and we really stick through it or we really put ourselves out there. Right? And it's such a good example for our kids. I think so many of our neurodivergent kids really struggle with pushing through discomfort, trying something they think is going to be hard. You know? I talk about all the time, my son's a serial avoider, and it's getting a lot better as he's gotten older. He has learned that he can do some things that are uncomfortable or hard.

Penny Williams [00:22:07]: He can do something that he normally would have said, no. That's okay. I'm I'm not willing to go there and try that. Right? Just a couple of weeks ago, he wanted to go to a convention about 4 hours from our house, and it was pretty last minute. It was the middle of the week. I had all sorts of meetings and stuff. He doesn't drive still. And it was a friend that he knew online that he hadn't had an opportunity to meet, who'd really been supportive to him over the years.

Penny Williams [00:22:36]: And so I made it happen, and, like, the friends had an Airbnb, and I got a hotel, and I'm like, I'm gonna get it right by the Airbnb. So when I have to go pick him up in the middle of the night, right, I'll be right there. That didn't happen. He got through I mean, I was floored and shocked, but so proud. Right? Yeah. He was like, yeah. People were talking all night and this and that, and I didn't get much sleep, but I'm just so happy to be here and doing this that it's okay. Right? And then he goes to this convention with thousands of people.

Penny Williams [00:23:09]: He had to stand in line for 2 hours to get into one thing that he wanted to do. He never would have done that before. Right? But, like, he just wanted it so much that he was willing to push himself and step outside of his comfort zone. It was scary to meet somebody that you've never met in person before. There were also friends there you'd never met to stay in a house you've never been in. Right? To go to this giant convention to ride in a car. This was my sticking point. It was so hard for me.

Penny Williams [00:23:42]: It was that these, you know, 20 something boys were driving around at the end, and I'm like, oh my god. Please don't kill my kid. Right? The whole time, I'm just freaking out for 48 hours. Please don't kill my kid. And he was like, you know, one guy was kinda scary, but we're alright. You know? And he just. And and at the end, he was so proud of himself. Right? If it was easy for him, he wouldn't have had that extra layer of pride and fulfillment and just pure joy that came from really pushing himself and succeeding at it, and coming through, you know, the other side glad that he did instead of regretful.

Penny Williams [00:24:26]: Right? And it was amazing.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:24:28]: And then it builds confidence, and now he's gonna want to, you know, start scared on something else.

Penny Williams [00:24:35]: Mhmm.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:24:35]: You know? Because he has that confidence in his confidence bucket that he can do hard things. He can push past the discomfort and the scary stuff and come out on the other side okay. And so, you know, like, what next? What can I do next? Because I can do it.

Penny Williams [00:24:49]: Yeah. And it wires our brain for that too. Like, science tells us the more we do hard things and we get something positive out of it, right, the more able we are because it's wiring our brain to expect that. That was true. Amazing. Yeah. And the same is true for us as as adults.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:25:09]: Yeah. That's exactly right. You're not going to know what you're capable of doing unless you try, and then just like you said, you know, you've got that confidence and it rewires your brain that, oh, I can do this. I can do hard things. And I always notice, like, it just is always scarier in your brain before you actually, like, really do it. You know? And so we have these, like, expectations or this fear, but then when we really do start scared to just, you know, go for it, it's never as scary as you make it seem to be in your head.

Penny Williams [00:25:43]: Yeah. Yeah. That's so true. I learned over the years to really challenge my anxiety more. I took a public speaking gig a few years ago, which terrified me to my core, and I honestly thought I was gonna pass out waiting for my turn the whole like, the closer I got, the more physically I was just like, I'm gonna die. Like, I can't do this. But somehow, I went out and paced the hallways and did a lot of breath work and went in, and I did it. And then after, I was like, what did I think was gonna happen? Like, my social anxiety brain fears judgment.

Penny Williams [00:26:21]: Like, do I think people are gonna throw eggs at me or start telling like, in the middle, interrupt me? No. I never expected that to happen. So why was I so fearful of, like, you know, like, on the flip side, we can look back and say, you know, it really wasn't that hard. Like, it was hard, but only for reasons that weren't likely to be the outcome anyway. But now I have no problem with that. Right? Like, if it was thousands of people or something, I would be super freaked out, but I can take, you know, speaking gigs and be okay and not feel like I'm physically going to pass out anymore.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:27:02]: But you wouldn't have known that.

Penny Williams [00:27:03]: Because I had to push. Exactly. Right. Right. I pushed myself way outside. Right? With our kids, we need to take much smaller steps than that. If I push my kid to do something and he felt like he was gonna pass out, like his nervous system was that dysregulated, he would never again be willing to try. Right? So we don't wanna push our kids that far, but we can push ourselves that far if we think we can.

Penny Williams [00:27:29]: And sometimes really great stuff happens from there. It's all about just being intentional. You know? You have to sit down and make that choice. It's not just gonna happen if we don't decide to start scared.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:27:41]: That's exactly right. I did my first speaking engagement on stage at an event in April, and I was so scared. But she asked me, do you wanna be on a panel, or do you wanna be on stage by yourself? And my initial reaction was, I wanted to be on a panel because I know it would be easier. And so I told her, I wanna speak by myself because that's gonna push me outside my comfort zone that much more. Because I can do a panel easy, but to be up there without someone to banter back and forth with, just up there by myself with everybody watching me, I'm like, that's gonna push me outside my comfort zone. If I wanna speak, that's gonna be what I need to do. And so, it was so scary, but then, once I was done, I was like, oh, I can't wait to do it again.

Penny Williams [00:28:24]: Yeah. Exactly. And our kids can have those experiences too. We just have to make sure that we're weaving them in for them, and we're encouraging them without pushing them outside of kind of their window of tolerance.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:28:38]: Yeah. So true.

Penny Williams [00:28:38]: Anything else you wanna share before we close, Christy?

Chrysty Lockhart [00:28:42]: No. I just feel very called to remind moms that even though the season that you're in right now can be so incredibly challenging and so incredibly hard, there's beauty in it too. Like, I am such a glass is half empty type of person, and so I've been really trying to reframe my brain to find the beauty in any of the seasons that I'm in

Penny Williams [00:29:10]: Yeah.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:29:11]: Regardless of what they are. And even if I'm going through a hard time, like, my dad recently passed away, like, you know, grief and gratitude can sit at the same table. So you can go through a hard time, but you can also find beauty in it too. So just to remember that, you know, just take a step back and to find the beauty and the joy in any season that you're in, especially if it's hard because you're not gonna get this time back. And if we sit in the suck Mhmm. That, you know, we're gonna look back and realize that we missed out on something beautiful and wonderful, and we never know the lessons that we can learn unless we really truly sit back and reflect on it. And so just Yeah. Knowing that, like, starting scared us so hard, but, like, if that calling is on your heart or there's something that you wanna do even in the midst of a hard season, do it because it's probably gonna bring you so much immense joy

Penny Williams [00:30:07]: Yeah.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:30:08]: And then confidence to be able to do something else and to keep going.

Penny Williams [00:30:12]: You are such a joy to talk to you, Christy. I am really happy that you're on the podcast and that you shared these insights. I think it's gonna be really inspirational for a lot of parents who are listening and also to help our kids to be able to push to find joy also. So thank you so much. I want everybody to make sure that you connect with Christy through her Start Scared podcast. We're gonna link that up as well as website, social media, all that good stuff in the show notes for this episode, which are at parentingADHDandautism.com/275 for episode 275. I cannot believe it every time I say it.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:30:56]: So amazing.

Penny Williams [00:30:57]: And I just really go there, link up, learn more from Christy, be more inspired, and let her guide you to find some more joy. And with that, I just wanna thank you again, Christy.

Chrysty Lockhart [00:31:09]: Thank you. It was such an honor.

Penny Williams [00:31:11]: I'll see everybody next time. Take good care. Thanks for joining me on podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share. And don't forget to check out my online courses and parent coaching at parentingadhdandautism.com and thebehaviorrevolution.com.

Thank you!

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it. Have something to say, or a question to ask? Leave a comment below. I promise to answer every single one. **Also, please leave an honest review for the Beautifully Complex Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and appreciated! That's what helps me reach and help more families like yours.

Hello!
I'm Penny Williams.

I help stuck and struggling parents (educators, too) make the pivots necessary to unlock success and joy for neurodivergent kids and teens, themselves, and their families. I'm honored to be part of your journey!

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I'm your host, Penny.

Join me as I help parents, caregivers, and educators like you harness the realization that we are all beautifully complex and marvelously imperfect. Each week I deliver insights and actionable strategies on parenting neurodivergent kids — those with ADHD, autism, anxiety, learning disabilities…

My approach to decoding behavior while honoring neurodiversity and parenting the individual child you have will provide you with the tools to help you understand and transform behavior, reduce your own stress, increase parenting confidence, and create the joyful family life you crave. I am honored to have helped thousands of families worldwide to help their kids feel good so they can do good.

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