Living with family members can be challenging sometimes, especially when conflicts arise. However, there are ways to resolve issues and overcome contention. Reach out to an expert like Emmalou Penrod for support and guidance.
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The Challenges Of Living With Family And Overcoming Contention At Home With Family Coach Emmalou Penrod
Good beautiful day, you beautiful souls. This is Charla Anderson, host of The Charla Anderson Show, collector and connector of fascinating people, and everyone is fascinating, especially YOU! I am so honored that you would join and take the time to read and learn from me and my guests. We’re on the most amazing platform, WinWinWomen.com, WinWinWomen.TV, Roku, Amazon Fire, all those streaming services, and podcast by Podetize. I’m excited about all of these things that are going on. We’ll tell you a little bit more about that as we go here.
I’m extremely excited to introduce to you Emmalou Penrod. First, we’re going to take you on this tiny little mini vacation of a 22-second breathing exercise.
It helps us all get grounded and centered. I want you to take that moment. We’re going to breathe in calm for 7 seconds, we’re going to hold for 4 seconds and breathe out gratitude for 11 seconds. Let’s do that and get ourselves centered. Ready? Here we go. Breathe in this calm. Hold. Release. Breathe out gratitude. Thank you. Don’t you feel better? I do.
I am excited to introduce to you my friend, Emmalou Penrod, from Utah. We got to meet at a retreat in June. She is a delight. We’ve got so much to learn from her. Families are so important and sometimes we’re struggling in our families to communicate well and all that. She’s an expert at that, a master educator, and an amazing lady. I cannot wait for you to learn and glean all we can glean from this beautiful lady, Emmalou. I know you’re one in a million.
There’s that little story. Welcome, Emmalou. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Charla. I love that intro. Thanks for the breathing exercise. It helps to take that 22 seconds and get grounded. That is powerful. I am excited to share. I know that families are the foundation of society. My goal is to make the world a better place by strengthening families. I want to talk about conflict. It’s inevitable. Anytime you have two people sharing a living space, there will be conflict and differences of opinion. Whether it’s husband-wife relationship, parent-child, or extended family, there are differences of opinion.
Love doesn’t cover it all. It doesn’t cover everything. I love so much about what I read about on your website, the different things that you’re doing, and conflict and contention are inevitable.
Contention is not required. You can resolve conflict without contention. Let me specify what I mean by those two words. Conflict is when you have a difference of opinion. When you resolve it properly, it strengthens your relationship. It helps you understand each other more on a deeper level. Contention, on the other hand, weakens and even destroys relationships. Think about all of the differences of opinion in family life. There’s the temperature the thermostat is set at. When do we eat meals? Is it at a specific time or is it more of a timeframe? Where do we squeeze that tube of toothpaste, in the middle or at the end? All of those are differences that, if ignored, can be great, so they need to be addressed.
I want to cover four points on what I found to be the best way to do this. The first one is to have rules of engagement. In the best of all possible worlds, at that point where you’re falling in love with this new person in your life, you both have the maturity to realize that, “Maybe we haven’t had a disagreement yet, but at some time we will. Let’s decide now, while we’re both calm and feeling the love, what our rules are. What are the appropriate ways to do it? What are not appropriate? For example, do we both agree we’re not going to raise our voices, or that we’re not going to swear, or that we’re not going to bring up old baggage?”
Even if you didn’t at first, it’s never too late to take that calm moment. You’re feeling the love. You both are invested in the relationship. You want it to be happy and successful, and you start establishing these rules of engagement. How do we handle it when we have a disagreement? If you wait until the moment when you’re having that disagreement, emotions are running high and you’re not going to do your best thinking. You can do this with children as you’re raising them and you’re teaching them that, “We don’t raise our voice. We speak to each other respectfully.” They’re also watching how you and your spouse handle disagreements. They’re watching your example. Children are always watching us.
“They do as I say, not as I do,” does not work.
That’s the first step.
I’m going to use a different word, preferences. My preference is I’ve never cared about the toothpaste too. Your preference is it’s got to be nice and clean. That’s a word that I feel like if we would just recognize that these are preferences or habits rather than attacks against you or me.
Exactly. Sometimes you may even use a scale. On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being you have to have it this way, and 1 you want it the other way, where do you rate? Sometimes it’s a preference, you may decide, “Let’s take the average of the two and go with that.” The important thing is to determine in advance how we will address a difference. How are we going to resolve it? How are we going to discuss it? Will we discuss it in front of the children or will we wait to do it in private when we will? You may decide we won’t go to bed angry or we may decide we will wait until we’re both feeling rested and at our best. Establishing in advance, before you’re in the heat of the moment, how you’re going to resolve that difference is the first step.
Establish in advance, before you're in the heat of the moment, how you will resolve that difference. Click To TweetI love that. It’s a plan of action. It gives you a checklist even. I bet you offer something along that line.
It’s setting healthy boundaries. You’re teaching this person how to treat you and what you will accept. It can eliminate any type of verbal or emotional abuse if we agree in advance, “When we disagree, this is how we will resolve it.” That’s the first step. The second step is to ask yourself, “Am I seeing this other person as a person or an obstacle?” Let’s face it. When we’re in day-to-day life, especially with this person that we see every day and we know what we want, and this person isn’t allowing us to have what we want, it’s easy to start seeing them as an obstacle.
We forget that they’re a person. We need to be able to recognize that we’re doing this and that we’re no longer seeing them as an individual with their own needs, feelings, and goals. We’re trying to impose, “If I can just get them to do this, if I can get them to understand,” we’re not going to get very far in resolving conflict. Be honest. “How am I viewing the other one? Can I see that they are a person and they have their needs too?” Maybe setting the thermostat at 65 is too cold for them.
Finding the balance is critical.
Once you can view them as a person, you’re looking not at the enemy, adversary, or problem, but you’re seeing, “Here is someone I love and care about. I want them to get what they need too. I want them to be able to reach their goals. I want to support them in whatever way I can,” that naturally leads to respect. That’s the third thing. Do you know, in family life, some people feel respect is even more important than love? Have you ever said something rather thoughtless and even cruel to someone you loved that you might have reframed from saying to someone you respected?
For some people, to feel respect is even more important than love. Click To TweetPretty sure that’s happened a time or two.
It’s natural because sometimes we get so comfortable in this love. We feel like, “I should be able to be free to say whatever’s on my mind.” We need love, but blend it with some respect, some care for their feelings, some desire to want to help them reach their goals, and to want to maintain a positive relationship with them. It’s a serious mistake to assume that, “Our love is so strong. It doesn’t matter what we say to each other. We’ll overcome it.” That’s dangerous ground. It’s important to remember that respect.
This is huge because when you are feeling respect for the other person, you’re not seeing them as the enemy. You’re seeing them as an ally. Now, you can invite them to collaborate with you. “We have this issue. The thermostat, the toilet seat, the tube of toothpaste, or whatever it is, and it’s causing some contention. Let’s talk about it. Let me understand how you feel about it, what your needs are, and how strong of a preference is this for you.”
This is when you use active listening. You’re not planning your response while they’re still talking. You’re listening to understand them. You’re putting yourself in their shoes. “How would I feel if I were them?” You’re then explaining how you feel. Maybe he didn’t even realize that the toilet seat was a problem. Maybe he was not even aware of it. Once he hears in a calm voice from the woman he loves that it’s causing her problems, he is now aware. Rather than attacking the other person, invite them to collaborate with you.
That’s huge to me. I know that I choose because one of the things is a mutual partnership, one of my highest values. We start getting into the small things, the details of life that don’t matter in the big scheme of things. When preferences are unmatched, I love that you’re able to point all those things out in a calm manner ahead of time.
Also, when you’re in this calm manner, you can make good decisions, evaluate, and carefully weigh out, “What are the benefits of this relationship? What are the pain points and drawbacks? Is it repairable? Is it time to choose my peace of mind over?” This is when you do your clearest and your best thinking. Let me apply it to a child because you don’t divorce a child. Your relationship with your child changes as they get older.
Your goal as a parent is to raise them to be independent and to work yourself out of a job. If you are remembering that and as you resolve conflict with your child, you’re treating them with respect, allowing, and encouraging them to make more of their own decisions, and recognizing that it’s tricky. You think about it. You start with this helpless little babe who needs your attention, love, and care 24/7. In 18 to 20 years, you now hopefully still have a close friendship, maybe even you’re mentoring them, but accepting that they don’t need you anymore.
I have a saying. If they were born at fourteen, there wouldn’t be any. They come out like this and they’re adorable, then they’re almost two and a little bit hard to keep up with, but then they turn 14 or 11 or 12 nowadays, and it’s like, “What was I thinking? Now I have three.”
As we’ve nurtured them, we’ve developed this trust and rapport. There will be lots of conflict during those teen years and pre-teen years. Overall, they see us as someone that they can come to. You think about the life-changing decisions they make at that age. It’s terrifying to think of the choices they could make that would impact the rest of their life.
I did a talk about that to eighth graders. It’s been several years. I took a 100-foot rope, colored the 13 to 20 years in red, and tied it every 10 feet off. I would say, “Who wants to be the baby and hold this for ten years? Who has a twenty-year-old that maybe made some siblings that made some mistakes that have affected their life?” They get to carry this rope around the whole room. Here I am, and many of the decisions I made back then are still affecting me now. I felt like that was a very powerful visual to impact. That’s a long time. Those little seven years there are not that long.
That is a powerful visual because they tend to think that this is all there is. If they can see, this is just a short part of your life. Yes, it’s hard and stressful. There’s a lot going on inside your body, inside your head, and around you. I love that. That’s brilliant. Those three steps are all leading to that win-win. If you are approaching this conflict with the idea, “I can’t win unless you do too. We both need to benefit from this,” then there is no need for contention. There is no need to attack the other person, to tear them down, and to try to control them. The most miserable, unhappy, and frustrated people I have ever met are people who are trying to control things that are out of their control.
The Challenges Of Living With Family And Overcoming Contention At Home With Family Coach Emmalou Penrod Click To TweetI’m going to bring up my little book that is going for a best-seller. It’s free on Kindle on Amazon for a couple of days. One of the things I say in this teeny tiny book with a big message is, “I did what I did. I didn’t do what I didn’t do. I did all that I knew to do with what I knew at the time. Just like you did and are doing in your life right now. I love you.” I call it a forgiveness release. It’s like, “I can’t change anything before this second. I can only change the next second and the next move.”
Another book that I truly feel has some of these four agreements. Did you ever read The Four Agreements? The four agreements are, be impeccable with your word, don’t take things personally, don’t make assumptions, and always do your best. It’s an amazing book by Don Miguel Ruiz. However, do not take things personally because the vast majority of things that people say and do have almost nothing to do with you. It’s where they come from, not because of you. You might trigger their things. It would be really valuable in our society if we quit taking everything so personally and being offended by everything. That’s become an epidemic in a way.
I agree with you there. Please tell me the name of your book. You said it’s up for bestseller.
Candy Bar Hugs: It Doesn’t Take Much To Make A Difference! Type in Candy Bar Hugs book. Otherwise, you might get real candy bars coming up. Candy Bar Hugs is a tiny book with a big message. It’s a pay-it-forward type of book. The eBook, it’s free for a limited period of time. Let’s go for it.
I love your result that you did what you could because the past is one of those things we have no control over. All we can do with the past is learn from it.
If we don’t like what happened, we can take a different step. We can stop in the middle of a sentence if we’re being ugly. “Can we stop in the middle of a sentence when we’re going?” and you did. “Twenty-two seconds. Breathe. I’m going to change that.” We can stop. We can change the trajectory of the conversation if it’s not going well.
Deep breathing is huge. Did you know that deep breathing moves you from the sympathetic nervous system to the parasympathetic? It signals your brain, “Calm down. Slow down.” Taking that 22 seconds for that deep breath can help you change. Stop mid-sentence. I love how you made that point. That is beautiful. Also, recognizing the only person you can control is yourself. You can’t control anyone else, even your children. You can influence your children, but you can’t control them.
My next book will be out before the end of 2023, Split-Second Transformation~Change Your Words, Change Your Life: 31 Daily Practices. It’s got so much good stuff. Change your words, change your life because every word matters. I say this nearly every show because it’s so important. Every word matters. We say things we don’t mean or don’t like. We need to speak life, not death. We want to speak positive words to ourselves and our families. It makes a big difference.
One of my chapters in there, you might find interesting for conflict resolution. It’s called The Elephant in the Room. I heard this many years ago. Perhaps as a wedding gift, what if you gave a stuffed elephant to the couple with a little card that says, “When something’s coming up and there’s this elephant in the room nobody wants to talk about, or if you’re you feel that tension rising about something, go get the elephant, put it on the coffee table, on the bed, or wherever your place is. It gives an indication to your partner that you need to talk about something.” Humor will make a big difference too. It is a simple humorous way to grow into that conversation just a bit in a sane and safe way. It’s simple.
You’re right about humor. Quite often in families, it’s money. Money becomes the elephant that everyone tries to tiptoe around, but it could be any topic. Ignoring it doesn’t work either. It needs to be addressed. There needs to be some communication or dialogue done in a calm and respectful way.
I thought it was brilliant whomever I heard that from.
I love that idea.
What a fun wedding gift along with something else. It could be something that you could make into a beautiful card the reason they’re getting an elephant. That would be in the preparation stages.
It is part of establishing those rules of engagement. How are we going to settle differences? That’s an excellent way for that topic that everyone’s too embarrassed to bring up.
It escalates. All of a sudden, you’re attacking somebody or you’re being attacked and you’re like, “I didn’t know there was anything wrong.” Something’s been building. What you’re offering with this whole concept is so incredibly needed now. I want to know how people find you. How can they find out more about this particular topic if they want to help solve conflicts in their relationship?
I’m on LinkedIn under my name, Emmalou Penrod. I also have a YouTube channel, my name is Emmalou Penrod. I have a website, HealingYourFamilies.com.
Do you also have a TV show called?
I do have a TV show called Healing Your Families. It’s on Win Win Women. It’s at 3:00 PM Pacific Time on Wednesdays.
I don’t think I mentioned this in the very beginning. I certainly meant to, but as a co-host on this pat platform, it’s one of the longest-running ones, I believe. Weren’t you one of the early adopters?
Yes. This is the only global interactive platform for women.
We love it. We love Paula Fellingham. I know you’re on the executive board. It is going to explode, literally. I feel like it’s ready.
The vision and the mission. Let’s care, connect, and collaborate with all the women of the world. We can learn from each other. We can support each other. If the women can collaborate, will the men be far behind?
I’ve been saying for quite some time that I feel like the world of competition is old school now. We’re in a world of collaboration with eight billion people in this world. There’s plenty to sell to or to buy from or whatever the relationship happens to be. I used to tell my kids when they would get upset with somebody. At the time, I was like, “There are seven billion people in the world. Find another one.” It’s a little bit harsh probably, but there are a lot of people in this world. We think we have our little world, but it’s huge. It’s amazing that the world is getting smaller in so many ways.
Over technology, we can communicate with women all over the world.
That’s the point of Win Win Women. Someone in a village in another country that doesn’t even have internet can get somewhere. The goal is they need the information that we have. They can go and start searching for information on how to heal their relationships, how to speak positive words, how to start a business, how to be a salesperson, health, and all of the things that we all need information about. The dream of Paula Fellingham is to have access to every bit of information, and the wisdom of our show hosts, and there will be many of them. There is already.
We can learn from people from other cultures as well.
It works both ways.
It is a win-win.
The women collaborating is so huge. I felt that when a dozen of us or so of hosts and executive team members and Paula Fellingham got to know and love each other. We realize that there is no competition. We’re not cattiness. When I worked in offices before I was a flight attendant. I was like, “I like men. They’re not so catty.” Back to your four points, would you reiterate them if I can speak to them?
Yes, I’d be happy to. One is to establish the rules of engagement. The best time is when you are starting the relationship. It’s never too late. At any point in a calm moment, establish the rules. How will you resolve differences? Decide healthy boundaries. What behavior is acceptable and what behavior is not acceptable? The second one is to be honest. Ask yourself, “Am I seeing the other one as a person or as an obstacle?” Shift that mindset. See them as a person. That leads to respect. The last one is to establish a win-win, a way both of you can resolve this difference and both of you come out okay with what’s most important. Those are the four steps. Thank you so much for inviting me to join you, Charla. I love what you’re doing. I love your books.
You are so welcome. You have a resource on your website. You’ve got an eBook.
Yes, 8 Steps to Change Your Negative Response to Positive. Sometimes in family life, the kids push our buttons and there’s this knee-jerk reaction. You can change that.
Do you mind mentioning something about The Goulding Process?
You mention words. Thank you for bringing that up. I meant to bring it up when you were talking about words. You said how powerful they are. Especially children, up until the age of 8 or 9, will take everything they hear. You slap a label on their child, they believe it, and they become it. Even when you’re doing the best you can to be very kind, they still have the rest of the world. They go out on the playground, they go to school, and they go out in public. They get this negativity that is writing those mental programs that run in their brains and that help them define what their value is, who they are, and whether or not they’re good enough.
Children act out and misbehave because they’re hurting. They don’t have the ability to come home and say, “I had a rough day at school. I’m feeling down on myself. I need you to say something positive to me.” They can’t do that. What they can do is come home, slam the door, kick the dog, and throw their book bag. If we immediately react to that behavior, we’re adding to their pain. This is a process. It was developed many years ago by a very brilliant woman who had an extremely angry and unhappy child. It’s making use of that brainwave activity. It slows down when we’re asleep. It slows way down when we’re sound asleep. There’s this right range where they’re open to suggestions.
Through a systematic approach, if you suspect your child has some real negative mental programs going on that are causing some problematic behavior, they can learn this process and help their child. It rewires the brain. I don’t know if you’re familiar with neuroplasticity and how the brain can change itself. It helps them rewire their brain to something more positive.
I ran across it maybe a few years ago. I want to look into this a little bit more when my baby, the infant, where I feel like if that would become a thing, I thought going to sleep might be an issue. I wanted to look into it a little bit more at that time. Here, I just rediscovered it. I’d forgotten about it. She’s not problematic for going to bed or sleeping.
That is the age that you can start. Anywhere from 18 months to about 12 years. When they get 11 to 12, they can take more than that.
That’s where you put them in a box, close the door, and go, “We’ll see you when you’re twenty.” I did want to point that out because I saw that on your website. I’m assuming there’s a certification of some sort for you to be able to offer.
I went through the certification. I’m a SleepTalk Consultant, so I can teach that process if parents are interested.
I’m very interested and familiar with it. They’ve done so many studies now, Gregg Braden, Joe Dispenza, and Bruce Lipton. It is that group of the placebo effect and all of those things that people, with their minds, are healing themselves. It’s incredibly powerful. We’ve gotten so into the pharmaceutical world that we don’t realize that our body has that innate ability to heal itself.
Our body has that innate ability to heal itself. Click To TweetWe greatly underestimate the power of our minds and our children. We can teach this to our children too.
I may send this to you if I remember, but I saw a little video of this little girl standing on the sink and she’s up there, “I like my pajamas. I like my house. I like my room. I love my mom.” She’s self-talking at four years old into this. She was so cute. I feel like we need more of that. By the way, you said it for children, but also, it would be so amazing had we had that. Many adults don’t know how to process stuff because they didn’t have it as children either.
Mindset is huge. We have affirmations and vision boards. It’s powerful.
On YouTube, there is a ton of all-night meditation that has the healing, the alpha, the theta waves, and the correct hertz of music that helps you to get into that state, affirmations, and things like that. I’ve been doing a lot of that in the last few years. I’m excited that you came on and shared incredible insights and wisdom with us. Thank you so much Emmalou for coming along and joining us. As I always like to say at the end, be blessed and choose joy.
Important Links
- https://HealingYourFamilies.com
- https://www.Facebook.com/emmaloufamilycoach
- https://www.LinkedIn.com/in/emmalou-penrod/
- https://WinWinWomen.tv/show/healing-your-families
About Emmalou Penrod
Emmalou Penrod is a wife, mother, grandmother, retired schoolteacher, and Family Relationship Coach with Healing Your Families. Her experience and values have taught her that families are the foundation of society. She is passionate about making the world a better place by strengthening families.
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I’m Charla Anderson, host of The Charla Anderson Show, Collector & Connector of Fascinating People (and EVERYONE is Fascinating!) on live TV, streaming and podcasts. As a Ziglar Legacy Certified Trainer, a retired award-winning flight attendant, Olympic Torch bearer, personal development junkie, Inspired Speaker, Published Author and Your Courageous Coach, I want to share my passion of living life full-out, saying YES to intriguing opportunities, and encouraging YOU to do the same. Let’s jump on a discovery call and get to know each other. Find all things Charla at CharlaAnderson.com/links.
On The Charla Anderson Show, We discuss Mindset, How much Your WORDS matter, Princess to Queen energy, mantras, HOPE, Faith, Miracles, Overcoming, and much, much more, including learning from amazing guests.
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