Understanding Your Marriage & Mama Triggers; recognizing what triggers you is the foundation for becoming a happy wife & mama! with Special Guest Beth Miller

Jackie Finneman is a 30-year family counselor turned parenting coach with more than 40,000 hours of working with children and families. She is thrilled to share behavioral strategies, supportive resources, and parenting stories from her own real-life personal and professional experiences. Parenting is a roller coaster, not a merry-go-round. We can deal with and overcome the behavior challenges within our home and set ourselves and our kids up for a successful ride. Has your roller coaster derailed? No problem. Listen in to get you and your family back on track. Welcome back to the No Problem Parenting Podcast, where we choose to deal with and overcome the behavioral and emotional challenges within our home. And today I have a special guest with me to talk about all things marriage, right? And maybe you're on the verge of divorce or you're separating or you're just struggling in your marriage and you want to prevent that from happening? Well, Beth Miller is my guest today. She's the founder of Solify Wellness, a marriage coach and certified hypnotist. Beth has coached many women who are on the verge of divorce and helped them transform their lives and marriages into relationships filled with mutual love, connection, and support. Beth helps women become the mom, wife, and version of themselves that they truly desire to become. Her work is deeply rooted in psychology and neuroscience,

and she helps moms release unprocessed emotions and reparent memories from the past that may be keeping them stuck in relationship struggles. I'm so curious about all of this, Beth, and so happy to have you on the show today. Oh, thanks for having me. Let's just talk a little bit about your work and give us a little history of your story and how you got to where you are today with coaching, coaching moms. Yeah, absolutely. So in a nutshell, what I do is if you are feeling angry, sad, mad, just triggered by certain actions that your kids are doing or your husband, whether it's socks on the floor or whether he's lying on the couch when it's supposed to be time to get dinner ready, any of those feelings that come up, I help you get rid of those feelings, process those feelings to figure out why they're even there, which is often from our childhood, which is playing out again in our marriage. So I help women almost neutralize those feelings so that you can actually feel happier and not so resentful or angry or sad within your marriage or within your household. Well, and so you talk about recognizing your triggers being the foundation of becoming a happy wife or mama. And some of those triggers are from our childhood or many of them probably are right. How do we uncover those? Like, how do we get to that? Talk about your process with that. Yeah, such a great question. Yeah. People ask, how do

I start this work? I'm like, it's so simple. You can start it on your own. It's just being aware of your feelings. So often we'll feel a certain way, but we're just too busy. We're late for work.

The kids aren't getting in the car fast enough. And we're just feeling so frustrated. And you start taking it out on the kids being like, we're good. We got to go. We're going to be late.

And you don't actually feel that emotion and understandably. So you've got to get to work. But if you can just mentally be aware of that, like I'm feeling really out of control right now. I'm feeling really frustrated. The kids don't seem to be listening to me. I'm not heard. I'm not being respected and then digging into those because every time you're triggered, it's an emotion that comes up and that emotion usually stems from some sort of belief. And that belief would be, I'm not being respected. I'm not being heard, which often comes from a memory, which could be like from earlier as a mother, or it could even be like teenage years or into your childhood memories of when you weren't heard. And it really was hurtful, painful, or times where you weren't respected. And that's also painful. And that's just kind of resurfacing and often a really close relationships or romantic relationships is where we often are kind of re-triggered, but the root cause is usually from earlier in our lives. I'm curious about, you know,

when we're dating and we have this wonderful relationship and maybe it's a little rocky and it's up and down and, you know, you get, you have your first fight and then your 15th fight and, you know, all that. And, but you're still committed to each other and excited to get married. And then you get married and then you have kids and you have work demands and you have, you know, just the, I guess the regular schedule starts to be sort of mundane or, you know, you're just kind of going through the motions. And then all of a sudden one day you're like, I'm frustrated. I'm not getting my needs met. I'm, you know, I'm not being heard. I'm not being taken care of or cared for by my spouse and, you know, slowly you start to get really kind of frustrated and ticked off and the communication breaks down. Like then what do we do? Like, how do we get back on track?

Oh, such a good question. And before we get into that, let's backtrack a tiny bit, like you nailed it. It's a slow process and it's really a slow process of chipping away at who you really are as moms, as wives, we compromise, we sacrifice. And over the course of time, that chips away at who we are. We kind of lose our identity. Then all of a sudden there's probably signs leading up to it, whether it's panic attacks or just feeling some extra anxiety, or whether it's just feeling not good enough. Like there's usually some little signs that are leading up to you feeling a little lost or confused on who you are and what you want.

And what happens is over time, like you start communicating with your partner and you're like, I need help with this, or I want this done and they don't do it. So you start to feel really resentful because you keep hitting this resistance, but you help me with this. And it's not happening. So you hit the resistance, which creates resentment. And eventually you just give up. You're like, I just feel completely rejected. And then that's when all the emotional intimacy and physical intimacy sometimes goes as well. And that's when you get in this place where you're like, I don't know, is the D word where we need to go is divorce what we need to do? Because I don't see this getting any better. I've been communicating my needs for so long. Often we don't really even, often our communication styles, we're not really taught to communicate. Like we,

see our parents communicate and often that's our role model for healthy relationships. It's not like anyone takes a course on, well, some people do maybe in university or in college, but often we're not taught to like have a communication, proper communication with your partner. So there's a lot that you can do with expressing your needs to your partner that maybe wasn't natural to you because you've never seen it modeled before. So that's usually a spot that I would start is figuring out what are your triggers? Why are you feeling a certain way?

My partner went to the home hardware store, like went to like Home Depot and he ended up buying a bunch of stuff to kind of fix up our bathroom. Like we don't even need that stuff. Why are you putting in a new faucet and sink? Like that's not $500 that I want to spend. And all of a sudden you're feeling triggered by the money that he spent and you're feeling angry and you're lashing it out on him. But really, if we were to look at that trigger of feeling like you don't have enough money, it probably comes from a scarcity mindset of when you were younger, maybe seeing maybe your dad had his own job and to say it was like construction and parts kept breaking down and you kept seeing money go and your parents complaining about how much things cost. And now you feel like you have to save, save, save, but you're not even in that same position as your parents, but you have this ingrained belief from a child that you need to save.

So it's really interesting how our past can then influence our future. So we start with those triggers is really where we start with all this. And then we have to start communicating our needs is really the next piece. Yeah. And I think our spouses are probably going through the same thing.

They have their triggers as well. And so it's one thing that for us to identify our own and then having some empathy for theirs too, but what if they aren't willing to work on it or notice it or do anything about it? They don't actually have to do this work. One person in the marriage, if they're willing to start becoming a detective, they're ready to say, you know what, I'm really sad, but I'm going to celebrate this because this is my body communicating to me that I'm not happy. And if only your body could say, you know what? You're sad because of this.

You feel like you're not good enough because your husband's complaining how you like put the garbage out or something. Like you just feel all of a sudden like you're not good enough, but really it's your partner just expressing their needs that something's not done the way they want it done, but you think you're not good enough. So if your body can just tell you that would make this a lot easier, but instead you have to look at the emotion and be like, what is this communicating to me what belief do I have about myself that's driving this emotion and so you can start to heal that within you so that all of a sudden you do feel good you're like I'm worthy I'm like it's like connecting with your badass version of yourself like confident worthy knowing that you're good enough knowing that you're loved and when you can start to embody that beautiful version of you like getting yourself back on track where you feel kind of whole again you'll see your partner and you'll see their complaints you'll see their negative energy just as that that's theirs that's their energy they own it and that's based on their own inner child their own past their own beliefs and it's they're just projecting it onto you but you're not going to accept it anymore because it's not yours and you lovingly see them and you can communicate with them with such kindness because you know it's not about you anymore they're not trying to

break you down per se or hurt you or project stuff onto you I think about when we're confident we're so much more capable we're so much more energetic we're so much more hopeful and we're less likely to take either our spouse or partners feelings on as our own or personalize them and our kids as well we're not we're not relying on that external validation or compliment or whatever to to feed us right that's pretty much what you're talking about is gaining that confidence and certainty about yourself.

Yeah, it's not something you actually have to work at because it just comes naturally when you start to do this work, when you start to step one, notice those triggers, figure out the emotion, figure out what belief you have about yourself. So for example, my husband comes from a family of six. He's very loud, very confident, very strong voice. Like he walks into a room, you hear him compared to my little voice.

And that was one thing that I was really drawn to. Like I loved his confidence. I loved his ability to make decisions. but as we move through the years of having kids and I was exhausted having three kids under the age of four and it was tough because I couldn't seem to express my needs the way I wanted to and when he would express his needs they were always so loud and me being a people pleaser it would break me in a way that I thought it was me that was causing him to feel that way for some like it wouldn't even be about me but for some reason I took it so personally like it would make me kind of shut down thinking he's attacking me why can't he just be happy why does he have to be so loud about whatever's bothering him. And so when I got a chance to kind of look at myself and my own people pleasing behaviors, and I could kind of cure myself with those and not just kind of cure myself, like I could, like I can realize, you know what, that's not mine to fix. And it came from a childhood where I really liked external validation. If I did well on tests,

if I did well on sports, I got a lot of encouragement and I liked that. So I felt like if I do things well, if I help people, if I sacrifice like my own needs to help others, people will like me more. And so that's where I had to really go and start healing a lot of that from my past so that I can show up in my marriage and just realize, you know what, that's him. He's just communicating his needs. And now that I can hear him and not interrupt it or not take it personally, he just needs to vent. And once he's done, you know what, we're good to go. So when you can really shift yourself, your whole relationship dynamics will shift too. And it's not like I have to try to be confident or try to be myself. It just happens so naturally because I've reprogrammed some of those memories from my past. So you're talking about connecting with the authentic you finding out who you really, really are and what your needs are, are going to sort of resolve any animosity you have towards your spot, because it's just going to go away,

you're just not going to be, you're not going to take it personally and not be upset with them. It's not even really an issue that no, you work on yourself. And all of a sudden, you show up differently. You've, some women have never felt authentic. I'll give you that. They've never been in a place where they felt confident, where they felt worthy, where they felt loved. Like they've never had that. So it's almost like you have to create this new version of themselves. And that version of you is always in you. It's just been like covered up by walls and heaviness baggage from our past. And when you can lift all that, you actually feel lighter and you feel so good. You feel in flow and everything you want really starts to come. Like your relationships get better because you're just acting from such a beautiful place of just feeling so good that you attract good things. So how do you access that? How do you release the blocks and those root minds, that root mindset kind of, or that subconscious mindset, right. That is contributed to your relationship issues. How do you, how do you release that? Yeah, that's the million dollar question. How do you actually, like in theory, this all makes sense, but now like, how do I do this. I'll tell you, number one, it's not easy. It's not like you can wave your magic wand and be like, okay, I'm ready for all those beliefs to go away. Now that I pinpoint them, you have to sit

with those emotions and not that you have to sit with them, that you're going to relive anything from your past and your traumas from your past, whether it was bullying, whether it's as simple as seeing someone in class, say four plus four was 10 and everyone laughed at them. That can even be a trauma for you too, being like, I don't want to speak up because that person got laughed at. And then all of a sudden you grow up to be a person who doesn't share their opinions because they're scared people will judge them. So you can see other people's traumas and they still kind of traumatize you. And these are many and major traumas, of course. But what happens is when you can go back and identify those, and you don't even know they're there a lot of times, but I do this usually through something called a hypno journey. So what hypno journey is, is I get you really relaxed. And then we take you on this incredible journey into your mind. So you're so relaxed that you're in this state called theta, which is that state just before you fall asleep. And just before you wake up. So, you know, when your alarm goes off, you're kind of like, what day is it? You still have some like remnants of your dreams. And you're like, I think I have to get up.

It's this beautiful state where you're kind of aware, but you're still very dreamlike. And that's the gate. Like that's the window into your subconscious mind where we store every single memory. Everything's there. Even those calculus, those calculus formulas, those history dates, it's all there, but your brain works very efficiently. It does something called pruning where it prunes these old memories so that they're not easily accessible so that your brain can really function like much better based on all the relevant information that you truly need right now. So when you can get into that very relaxed state, then you can really access these memories that you're like, oh, I didn't even realize I was there. And you have these aha moments and then you can reparent them. And what I mean by that is you give yourself what you needed in that moment, whether it was like, for example, like that four plus four is 10 example,

you could go in and see that moment that you actually see it in your mind. And you could have maybe someone that you love also come into that scene. It seems kind of crazy, but you actually who will see maybe an older version of you, or you'll see something you really cared about, like a grandma, they kind of come in and they're like, you know what? That kid was trying his best.

And just because those kids laughed, it's not that he's not smart. It's not that he can't share his opinion. Like they'll talk you through this process. It's just a really neat thing that happens. And it happens very naturally when you can tap into the power of your mind.

And I guide you through that process. And I do that a couple of ways. I can do it one-on-one, but I also have all these recordings that you listen to based on the emotion you're feeling. Like if you're feeling really self-doubt or you're feeling fear or guilt, you just jump into that hypno journey based on what you're feeling.

And you go on this incredible journey to figure out what is the root cause of the guilt, the anger, the sadness. And when you can get to the root of it, release it, neutralize it. You feel this energy. You'll leave that hypno journey feeling so much lighter.

It's just an incredible process. Our body's full of energy. We store all these emotions in our body is in our tissues, in our, like in our core. Like it's all there.

When you can release that energy, you feel so much better. So like you said, it's, it's not easy, but it does seem kind of easy. If you can have a session like this and get you through that and then continue to listen to the recordings, I'm guessing to really lock it in or to keep it out. You don't want to lock it in. You want to lock it in. You don't want to lock it in.

No, it's permanent. It makes permanent change. And sometimes certain layers are deeper and you have to do a little bit more digging and then you'll need that maintenance work where you'll just want to listen to like, say the fear hypno journey. If you're just really, you're starting a new business and you're just scared that you're not going to make enough money. You just keep doing that fear hypno journey to realize where's that fear coming from? Why do I feel like I'm not going to be a success? When in my past have I been a failure? And when you can get to the root of that and really start to love yourself and realize, you know what? I trust my intuition. I know exactly if I'm in alignment with what I'm supposed to be doing right now, exactly what's supposed to happens going to come to me. This is beautiful trust process as well. Your intuition plays a big piece in this. And for those of you that are thinking, you know what, I don't know if I can,

like, I don't have access to Beth. So what you can do a lot of times journaling really helps too. If you can just put on some music and get yourself very relaxed and just start journaling, simply say like, why do I feel so upset that my husband's lying on the couch when it's time to get dinner. And then I feel that because there's work to be done and I see him as being lazy.

And then you're like, why do I feel that way? Well, as a kid, I would never sit on the couch because my mom was always so busy in the kitchen. I had to help her. You can just keep going these layers and layers of why, and it can take you five layers down and you'll get to the root of why you feel upset because your husband's sitting on the couch when it's time to make dinner, which is such a surface issue, but it's probably an issue of contentment between you that's been ongoing for so long, but really it's your own kind of hangups. And then once you can heal yourself of that, you can express your needs so much better. You're not as triggered by them lying on the couch. Like it's such silly little arguments that add up over time. Yeah, that's for sure.

How does it make it better though? I'm just going to ask a Captain obvious question. So you'd go through that, you do all of that and your husband's still laying on the couch. What changes? Yeah, that's a great question. So you and your partner will kind of upgrade with you. It might not be as fast, but they'll sense your energy. Like they realize that you're not nagging them to get off the couch, that you're not judging them for being on the couch. And all of a sudden they feel more open and secure and safe to actually share how they feel. And when you communicate differently, they'll communicate differently because there's no arguments happening. Like you're not going to engage in the arguments because you see that it's not,

it's, it's not how you're going to act anymore. You don't need to, because you're not triggered the same way. So often there's just a huge shift and it's hard to predict. Maybe he'll stay, stay on the couch, but you know what? He'll feel more open to share. You know what? I just had a really long day at work. I just have 20 minutes on the couch and then I'll get up. Like he'll share his needs better too, because you're open to hear his needs. It just opens the dialogue up so much more. If we're not feeling so stressed or upset or irritated or frustrated, we're not going to portray that. And, and maybe it won't really bother us anymore that they're laying on the couch and we can come from, you know, an understanding if they had a rough day,

we can even give them permission to lay on the couch. Hey, honey, I bet you've had a long day. why don't you hang out? I've got the kids. I've got dinner tonight.

Oh, it's so true. And I do that with my husband all the time now. I'm like, you know, just go take the time you need. Cause I know he'll show like, he's not doing this on purpose.

He's not trying to be evil to me. He's not trying to make me like someone who's going to just cook and clean. He just, he has his own needs too. And I need to honor those. And you do that with such love and kindness and you articulate your needs too. Like, of course there's boundaries, but it's just amazing what can happen when you don't feel so triggered and you realize like your emotions are yours and you're not going to project your anger onto him or make him feel less of a person because he's quote unquote lazy, but really that's not what it's about. He's everyone's doing the best they can with what they know how. So then how does this help relate with the kids as well? You know, if you're that frustrated parent and feeling like your kids aren't listening to you and then they're always, you know, late, how does this help with the kiddos?

Oh, it's amazing. And I can just give some examples from my own household. like number one the energy is better in the house those sensitive little creatures of children like especially when they're under seven they spend a lot of time in that theta brain state that I was just talking about that kind of dreamlike state like their subconscious is wide open it's that's they're taking in everything in their environment so if they see mom and dad are acting a certain way they start to form that as a belief around what a healthy relationship is so it's really important that when you do this work it'll change them as well and number one they see healthy role models, but they also, they'll feel the energy in the house is happier and more comforting and more enjoyable. But then they also learn to manage their own emotions. My kids are so good at naming their emotions and you don't need to name the emotions. Sometimes I'll just be like, where do you feel this in your body? Like if my son's feeling really anxious about going to school,

I'll be like, where is it? Is it in your throat, in your chest, in your belly? It's in my belly. And I was like, what does it look like? And they can actually visualize it. They're like, it's black and it looks like sludge. And we'll just talk about it. It's amazing when you can identify what's going on in your body physiologically or name the emotion that there's a lot of comfort and freedom in that too. Cause I'm like, what does that mean? What do you need? What is that telling you? He's like, it's telling me I'm scared to go to school. And then we can kind of dig into why you feel scared going to school. So it's amazing how they will become more in touch with their feelings. They learn about their triggers and how to process them. They'll even call me out sometimes. Like there was once that my computer died and I was just trying to send a really important email just before the battery went and it, it died. And then all of a sudden we were leaving to go somewhere and we weren't moving fast enough. And I started to snap at the kids and my middle son's like, mom, you're projecting your anger onto us because your computer died.

I'm like, I love you. Like, I'm just, thank you. You're right. You're so true. Like this isn't about you. This is totally on me. And they don't take that. They don't take what I do to them as personal, like, right. That could be one of their traumas, like later on in life, if they didn't recognize that they might be like, mom doesn't love me because I don't get ready fast enough.

Like, I don't know. There's just amazing how it'll make, hopefully it'll create better human beings, right? Absolutely. I, I actually just, I love that. And I think I've been doing some of this with my kiddo without even knowing that I'm doing it, but he will say sometimes the same thing because when we can apologize to our kids afterwards, when we catch ourselves, we've lost our cool. We've blown up in the moment we've done when we can actually, when we're calm and say that to our kids, you know what, I was out of my body at that moment. I was out of control. I, you know, and really truly apologize for that and make it up to them. Then the kids eventually, as they get older, my son does this with me all the time. You know, if I'm really stressed out or having a busy day and I'm like, oh my gosh, it's four o'clock. How did this day? I'm not even done with half my to-dos, you know? And he'll say, mom, it's all right. You know, just relax. You've got this.

There's another day tomorrow, you know? And so they, they catch on to, you know, some of those things too. So I absolutely love that. You have a free download. Do you want to talk about that a little bit to, I think that's going to give parents an idea or people an idea of how this all works.

They have no journey stuff. Yeah, that's great. So I have a guide called three ways to save your marriage, but it's three ways that'll really help improve your marriage. So whether you're on the brink of divorce or whether you're like, we just need some tweaking, check out the guide. There's three really great strategies that'll get you started in this process. Even if you're the only one wanting to put the time into your marriage per se, like I know a lot of husbands, they just, They don't want to go to counseling for so many different reasons.

And some do go, but there's some that won't, or maybe it's a husband that wants to go and the wife doesn't. So one can really make such a difference in a marriage. So if you check out those three strategies, they're a really great way to move in that direction. And you can get it at www.freemarriageguide.com.

Awesome. And then talk about some of the services that you provide to also have the videos that people can like kind of on demand, have access to and listen and take it in on their own time. yeah absolutely so I have a 12-week program it's called save your marriage and what happens is again it's for those that might be needing some kind of tweaking with their marriage but it's a great program where you get one-on-one access to me through messenger throughout the week you get one-on-one sessions with me plus you get a whole portal full of like my formula and how to work through this and I hold your hand every step of the way for those that just want to access the meditations like the hypno journeys the ones that are they just say you're feeling angry so you the anger one, if you're feeling fearful or worried or guilt, you just hop in and do one of those to really loosen up the subconscious mind to figure out what that route is. I do have a yearly subscription to that as well. It's a library full of them. And I like that you have it for, you know, parents who are just, they're not, they're not divorcing that the D word hasn't come out yet. Um, but they're noticing, okay, we're off track. We're kind of not on the same page with things that we're just kind of becoming more and more distant. Now is the time people reach out, connect with Beth. She can help you get back on track, rekindle or reignite that fire

that you had when you, when you first got married. I guess my biggest piece of advice would be to really start listening to your intuition. I think that's a huge piece of this as moms that are so busy focusing on those kids and career and being a good wife. We often forget to listen to that little voice within us. So I would really start to take in every little, like even physical sensation, sometimes headaches, sometimes feeling sick to your stomach, heaviness on your chest, or just those emotions that I talk about and really taking a moment with those and asking yourself as simply as with your eyes closed, what are you trying to tell me? It's amazing.

If you just get still for that 30 seconds and ask your body, it'll tell you, it'll be like, I'm really overwhelmed right now or whatever it is that your body needs. And that's a great way to really start this work is just connecting with yourself and whether it's one minute or five minutes, just taking some time to just get still and ask your body how it's feeling and what it needs. I love that. There's a quote that I can remember from when I left my first kind of real job as a paraprofessional in the school system. One of my supervisors had written a note and put this quote in there and it says, we need to let our intuition guide us and then follow that guidance directly and fearlessly. The author is unknown, so I can't, I can't say who the quote is from,

But I love that quote. And it is true that we need to pay attention to our intuition. We really do have a lot of the answers inside of us. We just have to be still enough, like you said, to pay attention to that and to, you know, really discover what it is that that we're missing out on or needing more of in our lives.

So I hope people reach out to you, Beth. I'm so happy to have met you and been in contact with you. And I think we'll be doing some more collaborating events in the near future. So thanks so much for being with me today.

Thanks for having me. pays it forward and helps us help more families.