E29: Lessons from "Girl in the Spotlight"

In today's episode, I'm sharing a conversation that I had as a guest on the ABC's of Parenting Adult Children podcast hosted by James Moffitt.

James and I talk about breaking cycles, about communication, and about what it looks like to keep doing the work inside the relationships that matter most.

Guest Links

ABCs of Parenting Adult Children podcast with James Moffitt:

Website: https://www.parentingadultchildren.org/

Instagram: @parentingadultchildren125

Get Angie's Book: Girl in the Spotlight — available in print and audio 

Subscribe to Angie's weekly letter Hello Friday

Instagram: @angiemizzell

Transcript

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I just said, know, I've been your age. I know what that's like, but I've never been a parent of somebody your age. I am literally making judgment calls in real time.

I'm trying to like go with my gut and I'm listening to you. I don't ever really know if I'm doing the right thing. So we are just learning as we go here.

Angie Mizzell (00:20)
Hey,

it's Angie Mizzell and welcome to More Like You, the podcast about the moments and the perspective shifts that point us towards a life that feels true. Over the past couple of episodes, I've been talking about my memoir, Girl in the Spotlight, and the release of the audiobook. That story is a coming of age story. It happened before I had kids, before I became the person that you hear on this podcast.

It's about leaving my career in television news and all of the inner work that led up to that decision, the untangling from external validation, the healing and the leap into an unknown

But here's what I want you to understand about that story. It didn't end when I closed the chapter on that season of my life. The lessons inside of it are still with me. They show up in how I make decisions, how I show up in my relationships, and maybe most of all, in how I parent.

In today's episode, I'm sharing a conversation that I had as a guest on the ABC's of Parenting Adult Children podcast hosted by James Moffitt.

James and I talk about breaking cycles, about communication, and about what it looks like to keep doing the work inside the relationships that matter most.

speaker-1 (01:34)
Today we have a special guest, Angie Mizzell who's joining with us. Hey Angie. Hey. I'm great.

speaker-0 (01:39)
Hey there, James, how are you?

speaker-1 (01:41)
Yeah, thanks for being here. Introduce yourself to the listening audience, please.

speaker-0 (01:45)
So I am Angie Mizzell I am an author. I am a mom of three. I am a relatively new podcaster. My background is television news. the work I do now comes from that decision as I was approaching 30 to leave this rising career in television news

and then the transformation that led up to that decision and afterwards sort of launched me on the path I am on today, which is just through storytelling, just trying to inspire people to live a life that feels authentic to them and let go of things that are maybe keeping them afraid or stuck on a path that is sucking their life force out of them.

So this has been an evolving journey for me, but it has been a nice little ride.

speaker-1 (02:38)
Absolutely.

I've been following you for a long time and I follow your newsletter and I listen to your podcasts

talk about your book a little bit.

Tell us about your book.

speaker-0 (02:47)
Okay, so my book, my memoir, Girl in the Spotlight, is a coming-of-age story that took me almost my entire first two decades of parenting to write. when I left my career in television news, that I knew that it had changed me in some way, a fundamental way that I had viewed success and my own self-worth and my need.

to be validated, you know, the outside praise and validation. And I just reached a crossroads in that career where I, it worked for a while. I loved it for a while, but I reached a place in my life where I'm like, this isn't working. I don't think this is what I want. And I can't see myself doing this 10 years from now. So I leave this career. I did a lot of inner work to get to the place that I could leave. And then afterwards,

I had to do a lot of work to reinvent myself, but not in an outer way internally to really get connected with who I am as a person. So that book, Girl in the Spotlight, it's almost like two stories in one. I'm telling the story of my rising career in television news and interwoven is the backstory, the childhood stuff, the things that happened in my past that created a sense of loss and longing.

and also all of the reasons that I felt so compelled to pursue a career in the spotlight. And then untangling from that so that I could live a freer life. And also in a way that I'm still using my gifts and talents. I mean, clearly I'm a storyteller. There's an aspect to being in the spotlight that I enjoy. But I had lost sight of gifts and talents and this lights me up. And I just started

making decisions because I felt like I should. Almost like this was living in this place where I literally trapped myself in a prison of my own making and I had to break free from that. So the story starts the present day timeline. Starts right when my journalism career is on the rise. It ends right before after I've left my career and I make a decision that I'm ready to start my family. So the interesting thing is

People who've been following my blog for a long time were like, well, there's this whole other story, this life after the book. But I always saw the book as like, you guys have been following my life today. You know what my life today looks like having left that career. Now I'm going to take you back in time and give you the prequel, if you will, of how I even got here. Where are these perspectives that I have and the way I'm raising my kids?

and the way I'm just trying to be present in my life and live a life full of joy. It all came from the lessons in that book. So, but it took a long time to write because I'm good at writing short form stories and little essays and blog posts, but to try to compile things into a story, essentially, you know, had to teach myself how to do that. I have a broadcast journalism degree. I do not have an MFA in creative writing, but I spent a lot of time.

learning and working on it and working on it and putting it away.

I kind of raised that book as I was raising my family.

speaker-1 (06:02)
A labor of love.

speaker-0 (06:04)
For sure, for sure.

speaker-1 (06:06)
Well, I've, I've always found it fascinating that you were in a very upward mobile career in TV journalism. And, and I'm sure back then, you know, that there were people on the outside looking in going, man, I wish I had that. wish I would love to be a TV journalist and be in the spotlight and be in front of the cameras and have people watching me and recognize me when I'm at Publix or whatever, you know. So I find it fascinating that you.

came to a point in your life where you were like, well, this is fun and exciting and I like doing it. like you said, I don't see myself doing this in 10 years, right? And it's like I've been in IT for 30 years and you know, I was in law enforcement and private security for a good 15 years before that. And so I don't want to say that I feel trapped in information technology. However, there are days I hate information technology and I hate end user support and I hate, you know, fighting with

network issues and all that, all the junk that goes, that's involved with it. Right. there are days that, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll listen to your story or think about your story and go, why do I, why do I feel trapped? Right. And it's like, think it's fascinating that you were able to break free from that and go do your own thing.

speaker-0 (07:20)
arriving at that crossroads was very traumatic for me because I did not think that was going to happen. I was on a trajectory. I was building a life. had a vision and

for me to start feeling like something is off and then me trying to make it work anyway and just keep going. I was further and further trapping myself because I wasn't listening. And I have wondered, I have no regrets about any of that. think it led, it was a catalyst for inner work I needed to do. It was a catalyst for healing. And I don't know, and I never will know what would have happened if I had.

reached the crossroads like that and had been a little more healed. Would it have been as traumatic? Could I have looked at the stress and the pressure that I was under? Could I have looked at it all through a different lens? But as it was, I just kept pushing and pushing to where my mental health, my physical health, my emotional health was at risk. And I literally felt like if I stay on this path, I'm going to sacrifice everything else that is important to me. And what

finally helped me break free was this realization that the things about the job that light you up that you're good at, you don't have to leave those at the door.

It felt more like I was stepping into some sort of light. I'm stepping into freedom and I'm gonna leave some things that were dragging me down behind, but I'm gonna take the light with me. I was raised by this single mom she was always pushing me out of my comfort zone to see more for my life.

And I had achieved so many things at such a young age. But I think as I started to get a little bit older, you know, your needs start to shift. I just started to change internally and maybe want more or something else.

it sparked an unraveling, but I realized now how necessary it was for my own healing.

speaker-1 (09:16)
So talk about a little bit about external validation and how that drives you or drives us as adults, right?

speaker-0 (09:24)
external validation is great. I just gave a talk this past week when people nod their head and they, like they're listening and what you're saying is resonating and they applaud and then they tell you that they enjoyed the talk or that it meant something to them. And then they go buy my book. I'm like, yes, that's external validation, but it feels different now because

The validation feels connected to things that I'm doing that matter to me. And you have to be connected to what you're doing and why. Because there are going to be days when nobody claps. There are going to be days when you're like, why am I doing this? And those days are hard. And I just feel like what had happened was I was starting to grow and change. But that external validation

It really wasn't about being famous. It was about how when people approved of me, it created a feeling of belonging that I longed for so desperately. I was still following a very good worthy need. We want connection and belonging, but I was losing sight of my why.

The feedback is helpful. But you have to be standing on and within something stronger and deeper than that's the only measure. It can't be the only measure. that it's a good thing until it's not a good thing, until it becomes everything because that will wreck you.

speaker-1 (10:50)
think you don't only ask people who they are nine times out of ten they're gonna tell you what job they do well I'm a TV journalist or I'm an IT specialist or I'm an attorney or I am whatever the label is right and honestly that's just a small portion of your life that's not that's not really who you are it's just part of who you are and you know and so I'm sure you've had somebody do this to you before but

spend three minutes, give me your elevator speech and spend three minutes telling me who you are. Right. And all of sudden your brain's like, if you've never done that, you're on the spot and you're thinking, wow, who am I? Right. And so, so I think the older you get, the more refined and more developed your identity becomes.

speaker-0 (11:26)
Right.

speaker-1 (11:34)
One of the whys of why I do the podcast is because I want my listening audience, parents of children of all ages, I think the spectrum is somewhere between 12 and 40, And every age brings its own unique challenge. And so I want...

parents to receive hope. know, I want them to, because they're in the midst of the battle, they're, you know, they can't see the forest because of the trees. And I want them to be able to back up and to realize that parenting is important. And parenting is certainly a very vital role. Raising children is a very vital role of being a parent. But we talk about self-care, we talk about, you need to take care of yourself too. And it's not selfish to take care of yourself.

you know, body, mind, spirit, you know, your physical body and nutrition, your emotional, your spiritual, psychology,

And then you have the kids who are on a completely different spectrum that are, they're learning how to grow up. They're learning how to think. They're learning how to become a young adults. They're learning how to identify, figure out what their identity is. know?

speaker-0 (12:39)
I joke with my husband that I am the human resources manager of our family. I care about my kids' mental, emotional well-being. And I also want them to thrive and succeed. And I have standards for how I think they should behave and perform.

I'm constantly getting that, those expectations, like checked up and checked within myself. I believe in my heart that I'm trying to help them grow and become who they're supposed to grow and become, grow up and become. But sometimes I have to challenge that and go, am I really doing that? Or am I still trying to shape them into my own image? I feel like because

of what I went through though, I do have this awareness that I can stop myself when I feel myself doing that. I know that, so as I told you earlier, that my book ended with this realization that I was now ready to start a family. I brought into my parenting journey already a lot of, I'd done a lot of healing. So then I thought I'm gonna do so many things differently. And I do think,

there are things I've done differently, but I was immediately slapped with my own limitations. I didn't know I was going to be so tired. I didn't know that I would start to feel disconnected from myself and then that I wouldn't be as present with them as I imagined I would be. So that was the first, almost like a next level of healing where you realize that the people who raised us, it's possible they didn't do a great job.

But they probably did the best they could, even if it wasn't the best. Because you start to see what inner resources did our parents have? How mature were they really? How healed were they? And it doesn't give people a pass for bad behavior. But when I started getting, started butting up against my own limitations and work I still needed to do, I was like, think I'm starting to see this is difficult work.

And when I started blogging, I do feel like some of my main themes, I wish I could have seen it more clearly then, but they were what children teach us. So what raising them was teaching me and really just this art of being present to get in the moment. And actually I do think I spoke to those themes, but I wish I knew how strongly those were the main things.

These kids are teaching me too. And the biggest thing I'm learning is to be in this moment with them. And when they were younger, it was fun to write about them. They were funny. so it was always just pretty lighthearted. But as they get older, every parent realizes this. Now we're going through stuff and I feel so alone. And we don't realize that other parents are going through it too. And there's an issue of our kids' privacy because now they're older.

You don't know like how much of this behind the scenes struggle should I be talking about with anyone? And so we went through that also. And I think something that really broke ground in my relationship with my oldest as he was becoming a teenager and more independent. I just said, know, I've been your age. I know what that's like, but I've never been a parent of somebody your age. I am literally making judgment calls in real time.

I'm trying to like go with my gut and I'm listening to you. I don't ever really know if I'm doing the right thing. So we are just learning as we go here. And I almost feel like that did something to him where he saw me as human and he saw that I was trying. It's like, I want you to have fun. I want you to be a teenager, but I also need to keep you safe. And I see a bigger picture that you don't see. And that was hard, but I feel like I have, there's a couple of things I've tried to do as a parent.

is when I mess up, I apologize. When I think they're being jerks, I tell them to knock it off, because I have feelings too. And then I always try to make sure that we have processed hard things when they happen. I've almost learned that you can over talk. You can talk about something too much. But I think in just addressing what just happened is better than pretending like it didn't happen at all.

So everybody's holding all of this stuff inside. And I can honestly tell you that sometimes I joke, but I'm not joking. I'm like, I just have to give them to Jesus because you worry about them so much. And as they are out of the house, you know, now my oldest he's off in college. And I finally had to say there are going to be consequences now that I'm not, we're not gonna be able to save you from.

Because they have to be in charge of their own life. And then where is the balance of you can't wash your hands of them, but you also have to let them live their life and experience natural consequences. And this starts before they're 18.

and you can see I have some insight, but I don't have the answers. I don't think I've done it all perfect. I do think in trying to keep communication open and just do my own work has helped.

man, it is not for the faint of heart. I think it's the moral. That is the moral of this story I'm telling.

speaker-1 (18:02)
Something

can be exhausting in so many levels, but one of the things that we've discovered or I've discovered and revisited multiple times is that we're all transitioning. Whether you're the parent or the child, we're all transitioning. it's like you said, our parents did the best they could with what they had. Were they perfect parents? No. Did they screw up? Yes. Did they say, I'm sorry when they yelled or screamed at me from time to time? No. know, and so yeah, it's, we're human.

We make mistakes and as we're transitioning, think parents get stuck in a rut because they think they're so mentally geared towards, I'm here to protect you. I'm here to feed you. I'm here to clothe you. I'm here to put a roof over your head. I'm here. You know, all those things were constantly involved in those many tasks, right? And so we forget that just as your children are transitioning from one age to the next and one, one level to the next or one season to the next.

We as adults are doing the same thing. We're growing older. Hopefully we're growing more wise, you know, and hopefully we're learning from our mistakes. And one of the things that I encourage people, parents to do, you're going to blow it. And when you, when you blow it, it's okay to say, I'm sorry. It's okay to say, after the episode is over and everybody has cooler heads, then you can come back together and go, Hey, I reacted like my dad used to react to me and that was wrong.

I reacted in anger, frustration, whatever. I think it's important that we understand that we're all transitioning at the same time. And that's what makes that dynamic so complicated at times, because while, well, we as adults are healing from the emotional baggage that we brought into the parenting experience, from our messed up childhoods, we're dealing with that at the same time that we're trying to deal with your stuff, right? That's right.

So that can be complicated and it's okay to go to therapy. It's okay to ask for help. In the 60s and the 70s, I don't think parents had the resources available to them that we have today at our fingertips. And so a lot of parental or family turmoil, my parents always told us kids,

Whatever happens in the house stays in the house. You don't go outside those front doors and you don't talk to anybody about any of it. Right. And so, so there was a lot of repressed anger, a lot of repressed frustration. And so today we have a lot more resources and it's, it's more acceptable for parents to reach out for help,

And so there's nothing wrong with that. That's all part of self care and it's all part of raising a balanced, emotional.

relationship with your kids. It's like you said, one of the transitions that adults or parents go through is that once your child becomes an adult, physically that's 17, 18 years old, right? But we know that their frontal lobe's not really fully developed until they're about 26, right? They think they know everything. I thought I knew everything about everything when I was 20 years old. Wow, I was a dumpster fire. I realized I was just a little idiot running around on planet earth.

It's by the grace of God. I'm even sitting here talking, right? Because I had no clue. remember coming to the realization that my parents really understood what they were talking about and had a grasp on reality. I remember picking up a payphone, remember payphones where you had to a quarter in them? I remember standing at a gas station at a payphone and putting a quarter in the phone and calling my parents' phone number in Quinlan, Texas. And basically eating a lot of humble pie and telling them, know what? And I don't know how old I was. I was in my...

early twenties, you and I was like, you know, you're not an idiot after all. You know, some of the stuff you've been telling me is, wow, it's coming home. and you know, when you're, when you're a young adult and you're, like you said, we, the parent child relationship turns into a support relationship and a mentorship. were, you're a mentor now, you know, and, they've, they've, you know, hopefully at 18 or 20 years old, they, know what their identity is. know who they are. They know.

speaker-0 (21:46)
It's right.

speaker-1 (22:07)
They have their own dreams and aspirations. and so they're running full tilt ahead into life, right? And life, life is a, a ⁓ great teacher. If they don't get it at home, they'll get it out there on the streets because life will.

teach you some pretty harsh lessons. And what is our hope and dream as parents? We want our kids to not have any harsh realities when they get out into the world. We want them to be well equipped and have the resources they need to have a safe, harmonious, balanced life, right? We don't want them to experience the heartache or the harsh consequences that we experienced as we were learning.

speaker-0 (22:46)
That's right. And I think that in trying to save them from that or steer them away from that, sometimes we fall short because we either don't have the tools to communicate that in a way that's effective. And the truth is, even if you're communicating it fabulously, they're not going to listen when they think they know everything. But I think that one of the things that happened after my son left

for college is when he truly got to see that we are a safe place, that if he is in any kind of need, he can 100 % call on us, even as we're letting him be independent. And then there's still a layer of accountability, but I'm noticing that it's more effective when it's almost like a calm firmness, so that we're not crossing the line of enabling.

any sort of bad behavior. But if they can't call us, if they can't come home, if they can't ask for help from their parents, you know, who can they call? And so it is, we're always holding what seem like opposites in our hands at the same time, but they're really connected. Like we have to be a safe place. We have to see them. They cannot be afraid to call us because they know they'll get, and I told you so, even as you're thinking, I told you so.

speaker-1 (24:11)
Right, right.

speaker-0 (24:12)
They're

thinking it, but you realize you have to let them call and be humble and go, I really need your help. And then you help them, but you still hold them accountable to their own decisions in the future. And there's no handbook for that, but that is as I'm launching these children that I would keep in my house forever. I realized that what we're trying to create is a relationship.

that stands the test of time even as they leave the house. Like we want, I wanna be home for them even as they leave home. And it's heartbreaking. a friend say, I don't want my kids to live in my house until they're 40, but I also want my kids to live in my house until they're 40. It's hard to let them go, but we have to, but we're still their parents. And that, we'll be walking that tight rope forever. But you raised a great point that,

we're all in transition. So I have carried that with me too. It's like I'm getting older, my kids are getting older, and there will be a time where all of them are adults, but I'm still gonna be mom. But I'm not gonna be dictating the terms of their life and telling them what to do. But if they need help, I wanna be their first call.

speaker-1 (25:27)
there's a particular psychologist that comes on my show and he, wow, this guy's sharp. He knows his stuff. I wish I'd have had his ear, you know, 30, 40 years. But anyway, he was talking about how children have the need to empty themselves out.

speaker-0 (25:37)
Yeah

speaker-1 (25:43)
children need to be heard. need to be, they need, they need the validation from their parents that, okay, I'm going to shut up now and I'm going let you tell your story. I want you to tell me your story. Tell me what's going on. Tell me about why you're frustrated, why you're angry, why you're hurting, what's happened. And we need to be quiet and I'll give them the space to empty themselves out. And when he told me that I was like, wow, that's deep. Right? Cause he said, he said until they can

until they can reach the space where they feel validated by you and that they are safe in a safe place where they can talk about what's going on in their hearts. It doesn't matter what you say. can sit here, you'd be like a little chipmunk sitting on a tree limb, just yapping at them. Well, they're not listening to what you're saying because they've got all this stuff in themselves that they need to get out. Right. that's not just parent child relationships, that's husband and wife.

Right? We can't be yapping at each other and not allowing the other person to be real and say, well, this is, why did I do that? Because this is what's going on. This is what happened at work or this is what happened on the ball field or, you know, whatever.

speaker-0 (26:46)
That's right. The listening, it's slightly, it's the same and slightly different with two adults because I feel like this is something my husband and I are still practicing, letting each other share how we feel without immediately jumping to either the defense or the explanation of like, the way you interpreted that wasn't right. It's hard to sit there when someone is telling you how it feels to be them in the relationship.

my husband and I will be married 25 years in June, and this is something we're still practicing. And then with our kids, so my mom passed away last June. She had me when she was 18, but I always feel like one of my biggest issues with her is that it's as you said, didn't realize it until you put it in those words of the psychologist, but I wasn't ever able to empty myself out because me emptying myself out would hurt her feelings.

And then it became about how I hurt her feelings. And what I can see now as the 50-year-old woman who has lost her mother is that I imagine it was painful for her to hear me say the things I was saying. And she probably felt like that's a bunch of crap. That's not how it is. But I think if she had just listened and then validated feelings and then also helped me reframe, reframe.

the way I was seeing things. If she could then calmly say, see that that's how it felt. This is where I was coming from and maybe it didn't land. but she didn't have the resources or the tools internally to do that. in hindsight, I see now that's really all that I needed was her to listen and.

not validate everything, but just help me feel heard. And I try to remember that, especially now that my kids are getting older. I'm like, what did I need? And I still needed to be parented. I still needed her to rise up and be the adult and the authority, but I also needed to empty myself out. I'm so glad you gave me that language from the psychologist because that is really helpful. And it's definitely something I'm gonna remember as a takeaway from our conversation.

today with all of my

Angie Mizzell (29:03)
That was my conversation with James Moffitt from the ABC's of Parenting Adult Children podcast.

full conversation in the show notes.

If this conversation is resonating with you, Girl in the Spotlight is the backstory beneath everything we talked about today. It's available in print and now in audio.

You can find the book on angiemizzell.com on Audible, Apple Books, Spotify, and anywhere you read or listen to books.

Thank you for listening to More Like You. I'm Angie Mizzell and I'll see you back here next week.