Happy Parents Are Effective Parents

How can you handle overwhelmingly stressful situations and remain effective at what you love to do?  Whether you are a parent, teacher or medical care professional, you will benefit from hearing this conversation with Stef Skupin, “Professional Development Meets Personal Transformation.”
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Emmalou Penrod
I’m talking to Stef Skupin today. She is the owner of Leaders Work, and she helps medical professionals become stress proof. And she can do the same thing for parents. That’s why I’m so excited to get to talk to her today. Stef, welcome!

Stef Skupin
Thanks, Emmalou. I’m very grateful. Thank you for having me. I’m really looking forward to this.

Emmalou Penrod
Well, we’re looking forward to learning more about you. And let’s start first with where you’re from. And then I want you to tell us how you became a business owner and a facilitator advocate for happiness and free living.

Stef Skupin
Thank you. Where I’m from is a long story. So I generally refer to myself as a global citizen. I’ve grown up in Germany, born in Germany, and then spent the greatest part of all the other places in South Africa, and I’m now in the US.

Emmalou Penrod
Glad you’re here.

Stef Skupin
And yeah, so the way I got my own career, my own business, helping medical professionals be stress proof, is because I am one. I’m a veterinarian by profession. And so I know all about the stress. I graduated in 99. And I’ve worked for many years on large animals, small animal practice, and it’s been stressful. And so during those years, I learned a lot of techniques that helped me cope better, helped me get to a place where I’m really seeing that, not all of it, not 100%, but a good 80-90% of the stress that we put ourselves through is optional. And I’ve also seen that that applies to not only our careers, but it applies to, like across the board and our lives also in family life.

Emmalou Penrod
I agree. I agree. So it sounds like you’ve learned some techniques or tools that can help people.

Stef Skupin
Yeah, yes, I started with meditation and pranayama, like the breathing techniques. And that has helped definitely somewhat, and then also doing yoga, and I’m someone who exercises regularly. So all of those things, obviously help getting out. But the biggest, the most effective technique that I’ve learned in those years, and that I’m also using, as the main thing in the Leaders Work process, is something called The Work of Byron Katie. And that is a way of questioning the thinking that’s causing us to feel and then act or react as a very, very powerful technique.

Emmalou Penrod
So can you give us an example like for parents? We know parents are under a lot of stress.

Stef Skupin
Absolutely. Especially now, like, you know, I can testify to it. As I’m sitting at home with two teenagers, we’re homeschooling and running a business. My husband is working full time. And we don’t have that many bedrooms.

Emmalou Penrod
I get it, running out of space. So how could a parent apply this?

Stef Skupin
So, I think first of all, what we need to do as a parent is you need to say like, okay, yes, this is causing me stress. Because a lot of the time, the first thing that we’re trying to do is walk away from it and you know, try to navigate not doing it, not even having it, not feeling it. And that is the place where it’s just going to get worse and worse and worse. So really, the first step is to say, yes, this is stressful times. Yes. I’m being stressed right now. And from then go forward, and you’re like, Okay, what can I do? And one really, really easy thing is to take a step aside, sit down and do some real good breathing. And not like okay, yeah, I know, breathing works, and I’ll just do like one and a half breaths, and then I move on, because that’s when it doesn’t work. But rather really, okay, I’m going to sit down now and I’m going to feel the breath all the way from my nose to the base of my lungs, and I’m going to do that 10 times. And it sounds so little, and it’s really such a powerful thing to do.

Emmalou Penrod
So say that they are realizing that their their child keeps interrupting them when they’re trying to do business meetings on ZOOM. And so they acknowledge this is really stressing me. And they take that break and breathe deeply. For 10 times, and then what,

Stef Skupin
And then what most of the time happens is that either the situation will actually dissolve, because the moment we allow ourselves to be with what really is not what we think should be, actually things move, and then a solution will become more apparent. And that could be anything. It could be, like in my world, that any number of things happen. I know my husband’s following meetings. My kid needs extra homework. They’re stuck with something or they’re having a fight. And I’ve got three meetings lined up. And what will happen if I’m going like, oh, okay, either one of my meetings will cancel, one of his meetings will cancel, they’ll find something bigger, and just all because I’m going, Okay, I need to take a step back, and I need to find a solution now. And then the solution will become obvious. The hard part is that we often go, it shouldn’t be like that.

Emmalou Penrod
Yes, yes. In other words, this isn’t how you had pictured your day would go. But being able to accept this is how it is. Yes, and I totally agree. If you calm your mind, you think better. And ideas will come that don’t come when you’re stressed, in fight or flight mode.

Stef Skupin
Right. Exactly. And that is so beautiful for the work. So, The Work of Byron Katie is on the internet. I’m not the only person who facilitated and so I want to put it out there. It’s free for everybody to look at, videos, and look it up. So what one does with that is, in that moment, so what we think is, they shouldn’t pester me right now. My husband should take over. I don’t have time, right now. You know, this situation is XYZ. So then what the work does is to take one of those thoughts and really look at what is this thought doing to me right now? Like, so they shouldn’t pester me right now, right? I’m having a business meeting. And here they come, very embarrassing. So the thought is, that shouldn’t happen. They shouldn’t pester me right now. And so the moment I think that and I believe that, my breathing gets shallow, my shoulders get tense, my face is going to go. And you know, I might get a headache. And then that’s the way I am going to react to them. I’m going to start to, you know, be short with them and not helpful. I’m not even explaining, like, in a normal, calm voice, what to do. I’m not able to give any solutions. Because I am thinking like, this is not what should happen right now.

Emmalou Penrod
Yeah.

Unknown Speaker
So then without the thought, if I then look at the same situation, without the thought, all of a sudden, I have a lot more space, and then I can go from there.

Emmalou Penrod
If your thought is my husband should take over, you’re now putting really an unrealistic expectation. He may not be aware of it. He may feel like you’ve got it.

Stef Skupin
Right.

Emmalou Penrod
And now you’re gonna be angry with him.

Stef Skupin
Exactly. Exactly. And the amazing thing is that most of those thoughts we have countless times. It’s not like we have this stored once. But if we really start to look at what it does to my world, and how I could live differently, it’s like preventative medicine to all the other next times that it will come up is really like you know, all the stressful situations that are coming at us. They’re coming because we live in life for. So, this is what you want to learn. Like how do you act in a situation like that? Relaxed, connected to everybody supportive service of your family, and then learn how being like that is a joyful life for you.

Emmalou Penrod
It is. I can totally see that. That is the way it is. Now you said it is a specific technique. Did you say the worker theory?

Stef Skupin
It’s no, it’s called The Work of Byron Katie.

Emmalou Penrod
So this is a resource that’s out there, The Work of Byron Katie, and that anyone can look up but you use this with other techniques to teach this managing your mindset?

Stef Skupin
Yes, it is your mindset. It’s more than your mindset, it’s really about questioning your thinking and finding out that your thinking is A not something you can control. B is something that you can influence your belief into. And that unless you inquire whether your thinking is true for yourself, you have to believe it, there isn’t a choice.

Emmalou Penrod
Yes.

Stef Skupin
So those thoughts come and you believe them? Unless you question them.

Emmalou Penrod
Okay, so question your thoughts. And I can see this, you know, that the parent who is going into that business meeting, “Okay, I’ve got to login in this business meeting. My kids will interrupt me.” Oh, and then they’ll start stressing out even before it happens, right? But if they can analyze this, and you’re right, there are solutions. There are different ways of handling it. But you’re not going to think of them when you’re in the moment.

Stef Skupin
Exactly.

Emmalou Penrod
Maybe there’s some preparation that can be done first, some training with the children, some coordinating.

Stef Skupin
They can even be. . . Yeah, Emma, you know, Emmalou that’s like all of those things. And also, then one of the thoughts will be, I will be embarrassed if my kid walks into the meeting. Whereas if the kid walks into your meeting, and I mean, think you’re interviewing to be the CEO for a big company, right?

Emmalou Penrod
Right.

Stef Skupin
Your kid walks into your meeting. When are they going to take you? When you can calmly say, “Oh, I’m sorry. I have an emergency right now. You see, I’ll be back in 30 seconds.” Or when you go, “Nee, nee, nee, nee, nee.” Right?

Emmalou Penrod
You will have the perfect opportunity to demonstrate how you can handle stress.

Stef Skupin
Exactly.

Emmalou Penrod
And if you think about it, I think we’re all starting to see children more often in meetings. And we just accept, you know, that’s family life. And that’s okay.

Stef Skupin
Yeah. Did you see mine?

Emmalou Penrod
Perfect demonstration! Stef just had one of her children, and I noticed she knew that. And she was very quick. She just kind of ran by. Yeah. So yeah, I like that. I like that thought. You said something earlier before. When we talked earlier, about parents who have the religion of the children should pick up their socks. We can make one thing the most important when it’s out of perspective.

Stef Skupin
Yeah. For me, that was one of the stories that really brought it home early, when I just started to learn these techniques. And I’ve been doing them for now many years. Now I came across it in 2008. And I did the school in 2012. And it’s been you know, so I have a lot of experience in it now. So that’s what I’m bringing into with my process. And that was the one of the stories that really made it click for me. And, and that was that, like I had the religion that my children should pick up their socks. And so and against that religion every day, that’s what happens there are the socks on the floor. And then really looking at what happens for myself with such a comparatively small thing as a sock on the floor, and how much stress it can cause. Because there it is, again. I have to pick it up again. They really should do it themselves. They should have learned it by now. So now I’m going to turn around. I’m going to shout at my kids, or my husband leaves his socks everywhere as well.

Emmalou Penrod
Just another kid to raise!

Stef Skupin
And so like you can widen it out from there. You know, like oh, especially the women or the people that do most of the housework or think they do most of the housework. You know anything, the dishes, the beds not made, like whatever.

Emmalou Penrod
Yes, I love that concept. That sometimes parents will make a moral issue out of something that really doesn’t matter.

Stef Skupin
And the thing is, though, what we need to say to this, I think is really important, Emmalou. And that is, you can’t help it. It just happens, you can’t help it. And you just really have that feeling like, hey, if they just help me, I would be feeling better. You know? So it’s so innocent. You know, when we talk about it, it sounds like, “Oh, no one shouldn’t be doing that.” But that’s not helpful. Because it is an innocent belief that we really have in that moment, like, if they would just help me, I would be feeling so much better. And so when we take these thoughts, through inquiry, we discover all of those underlying beliefs and ways that these things influence our lives. And then we are empowered to actually let them go, to just go like, you know, if we just tell ourselves, hey, I shouldn’t be making such a big deal out of it. We’re just add to our stress. That’s to anything. It’s like putting the lid tighter on the pressure cooker. Yeah, that’s not helpful.

Emmalou Penrod
Well, and isn’t it also true that anytime, if we’re depending on someone else, if we’re saying, if they would help me, I would be happy. If we’re relying on, depending on someone else for our happiness, aren’t we giving away our power?

Stef Skupin
Yeah, 100%.

Emmalou Penrod
And when we understand that we are the only person we can control.

Stef Skupin
Right.

Emmalou Penrod
And we don’t choose how people treat us. We can only choose how we react, how we respond, whether or not to let it bother us.

Stef Skupin
Yes. Now. Absolutely. You’re totally right. And you really start to see that when you become aware of your thinking, and how you can influence your thinking. Because what you find is that, to what extent you influence how you think. Like a lot of the time, you don’t even influence how other people think. They do the same thing. You know, they hear you say something, and then they put a whole story on top of that.

Emmalou Penrod
Yes.

Stef Skupin
And to that they react.

Emmalou Penrod
Yes.

Stef Skupin
And we often think like, it’s not really true. Like what you know, because, for example, somebody shouted at you and like calls you names, you know, of course you’re going to be insulted. But is that even true? Like, if you’re really at home with yourself, and somebody stands in front of you and calls you names, the only thing you see is that that person is upset.

Emmalou Penrod
Yes. You could just say, well, they’re having a bad day.

Stef Skupin
Yes. And that is possible. It really is possible to get there for all of us. It takes commitment. It takes intention, it takes working with our thinking, you know, mindfulness, meditation, the work, but it’s possible and really the joy of living a life like that is so worth it.

Emmalou Penrod
Oh, I totally agree. It’s kind of like, you know, we would put time and effort to be physically healthy. So why not emotionally healthy?

Stef Skupin
Yes, yes. One of my teachers says, “You wash your body every day. Why don’t you wash your mind?”

Emmalou Penrod
I like that. That ought to be done at least as often as we wash our body.

Stef Skupin
Yeah, absolutely.

Emmalou Penrod
So how do you help people? Yeah, sounds like you do education. Do you work with people one on one?

Stef Skupin
Unless they work with people one on one, yes. I do introductory sessions, which was just one session. So that’s just helping people, you know, like saying, “Okay, this is how you can do.” It is a little bit similar to the conversation that we’re having today. You know, more personalized, but ideally, obviously, it was always a little bit of a longer process. So ideally, it’d be a couple of months, because that’s how you get to really put that practice into your life. Because with all of these techniques, it’s easy to learn it. What’s difficult is to keep doing it, to keep the discipline, to create a habit of it.

Emmalou Penrod
And habits take time. So yes, they’re practicing these skills with you until the habit has been established.

Stef Skupin
Until the habit has been established. And also until they’ve come through like a couple of major knots in their stress existence, call it like that. And so that means then there is the positive reinforcement. There is, you know, the experience of like, “Yes, this is actually really working. And I’m actually feeling so much better if I keep using this process.”

Emmalou Penrod
I love it. And I can see why you are targeting medical professionals. You know, right now they are our frontline workers. But I think parents are our frontline workers, too.

Stef Skupin
They are. That’s so true, Emmalou. I completely absolutely agree. Yes. And I’m working. I mean, I’m working with myself. And I’m also working with one other parent right now who’s got teenagers. And so yeah,

Emmalou Penrod
I have heard the saying, I think it was intended as to be humorous, that there are two times in your life when you come the closest to insanity, when you are a teenager, and then when you’re the parent of a teenager. And I think I would have to agree those are two very stressful times in life.

Stef Skupin
Yeah. Yeah. I would agree with that, too. Of course, there are a lot of people. There are the teachers that like could tell us, you know that, most of our waking lives is fairly insane.

Emmalou Penrod
Yeah, yeah. Teachers would benefit from this, too. They have the interruptions and changes in plan. You know, just when you think you’ve got your routine down, suddenly, we’ll shut schools down for two weeks. Yeah, yeah. A lot of people can benefit from this.

Stef Skupin
Yes, I agree.

Emmalou Penrod
So how do people contact you?

Stef Skupin
I have a website, theleaderswork.com/ They can send me an email at Stef@theleaderswork.com I’m also on Facebook under the same name.

Emmalou Penrod
All right. And I’ll have all those links on my website. Stef, you’re doing a great work.

Stef Skupin
Thank you. Thank you. Emmalou. And so do you. And so do all the people, the teachers and the parents and the medical professionals out there, right?

Emmalou Penrod
Yeah, I think, let’s get through this as calmly and find a reason to be happy.

Stef Skupin
Find a reason to be happy and find a reason why this is a time that is supportive of growth, I think.

Emmalou Penrod
It is.

Stef Skupin
I really appreciate where we’re going and what we’re going through.

Emmalou Penrod
Yes, yeah. All right. Steph, thank you so much.

Stef Skupin
Thank you. Thanks for having me. This was fantastic.

Emmalou Penrod
You have a great day.

Stef Skupin
Thank you. You too.