Embracing Wholeness: Parenting with Empowerment, Healing, and Authentic Joy

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hello, this is Blair Stanisleo, with the Happy Lion Center. Welcome to our podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:07

Mystical and Infamous where we have playful and easy conversations about anything mystical, getting to the heart of all things strange and weird. Join us in a bit of magical tomfoolery, spreading the alchemy of love and light, and now we invite you to enjoy the show. Ok, well, I'm really excited to kind of explore that because, coming from I did work in a public school system in Florida. My mother was a teacher for 41 years, so I am very familiar with how it works and it's interesting looking at the dynamic of how children OK, I don't want to say the word that they usually say, Because usually the school systems are all about performance. Right, how do you perform when you're at school? Right, but they're little human beings, they don't need to perform all the time, right, they just exist sometimes and that's OK. But that is kind of the way school systems are usually set up and I have noticed, like we actually this morning, I have a group that meets and we do meditation and so forth, and I don't remember why we were talking about this, but oh, somebody had heard something about ADHD and we oftentimes are talking about, for example, if you're, there's a, there's some phrases that go around and say about protecting your energy, and then you know, oftentimes the very intellectual ones are like what do I need to protect from?

Speaker 1: 1:31

And so we kind of clarify that it's not really protection, it's more of you're getting an alignment with your true energy, and so you strengthen that energy. And when you strengthen that, those that are not aligned with essentially what you're radiating, which is pure positive energy, right, Essentially they kind of fall away. So it's kind of how we manage. You know, somebody's coming into my space that is causing me conflict, right, they're causing giving you triggers or what have you, and if you get yourself aligned, usually that conflict either resolves or that person just kind of magically, for whatever reason, kind of winds up, not being in your space and we so somebody was mentioning that they're doing some research with ADHD and the frequencies you can actually play music that will help those kids, and one of our, our group members was saying something about autism and I reminded them that one of the things is we have to make sure that we see each other as whole and complete and healed, right, so the parents would benefit from knowing, not that they don't know that, but sometimes they have to get reminded because society tells them over and over oh, your child is autistic and these are the problems we're having and so forth.

Speaker 1: 2:46

But just to go back to that space where you remember that they are perfect the way they are and then then being able to approach okay, how do we make adjustments so that you have a better interaction with other people? But it is very easy to get in to. We could just add this part in you know, like the more aligned adults we have, it's going to become much more natural. So what?

Speaker 2: 3:10

I love about that is that also, the more aligned adults we have, that means that they are also healing and going back to their inner child, to the child that they're still have within them as they're interacting with their children. Yes, so that's the other piece as well. So a lot of people are like, oh, it's too late. For me it's not, because what you're choosing now can be unraveling and undoing and healing those wounds and then also empowering you now to move forward and whoever else is in your family, in your circle.

Speaker 1: 3:44

Yeah, and I think that's a real concrete example of what they mean when they say healing yourself heals your lineage backwards and forwards. It can be dynamic. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 3:59

What do you want to do? I can resonate with you because I have both my parents were bilingual educators, so being raised by educators is a very different childhood.

Speaker 1: 4:09

It is, it's fun. I mean, I'm kind of addicted to learning, I love it, and I was just thinking how, sometimes, when you have a teacher that you know a lot of times, the student doesn't always get wiped. Most of the time, the student always doesn't always understand why am I being asked to do these things? So we could put that in the context of a classroom, we could put it in the context of a parent child, you could put it in the context of life. And you right, it doesn't matter If you don't understand that there is a, that things are coming from a loving standpoint and that there the reason you're being put in that environment is so that you can learn and grow and get better.

Speaker 1: 4:50

A lot of times there's a lot of like resistance, or it sometimes turns into conflict, whereas if we come to it again, we're looking at ourselves even as being healed. Right, if we see ourselves, our higher self is putting ourselves in these positions where we can have these struggles so that we can then grow from it, we see it from a place of love, then there's so much life is easier. So what do you do for your families? When you talk to them, what do you find are common problems and what are the kind of suggestions that you give to them?

Speaker 2: 5:28

Well, you know we're talking about and I love that you said this. There's a book that I love recommending to people. It's called Would you Teach a Fish to Climate Tree. It's called A Different Perspective on Autism, adhd, add and OCD, and in there there's a chapter saying like what if your child is perfect?

Speaker 2: 5:47

But the other aspect of it as well is recognizing you're perfect too, like you're not in the wrong, and I think that one of the places I always start with with my families is acknowledging what they've done right, acknowledging what they know. What do I know about this? Where am I an expert? In myself, in my child, in my family? And starting there, because a lot of people like you mentioned earlier, which I totally see every day, every week, all year long, they'll fixate on what's missing, what's difficult, what's a challenge, where they're lacking, and then the parents also then start buying that and glopping them on to their own mindset and reality, and so it's harder for them to see themselves including all the things that they know and their child and all the things that are as possible with their child. So I think that's a really good first place to start.

Speaker 2: 6:40

I love asking what are everyone's strengths? Like no one really has those conversations anymore. They're so go, go, go over scheduled, adrenaline overload. And so I like inviting my families to sit with either themselves, with their partners, if there's a partner, with their children, if there's, if the kids have the language skills to do that. But even when they don't, I like having them around and then just them marinating in those energies of like collegements and be like what's great about us, what's a gift about us? And sometimes for the kids they'll draw it, the little ones, they'll draw pictures, but it is for the other ones. They might draw and do little words and for some of them they might journal or they might write it out.

Speaker 2: 7:22

But this whole like hey, what makes me a joy to be around, what lights me up, what brings me enthusiasm and excitement about my life, and it just totally shifts your, your vibration about things and it's a definite different place to start from and create from.

Speaker 2: 7:40

Then you're messing up on this, you're slow on that, you're delayed on this, and I find that a lot of my parents had those same struggles themselves when they were in school or they were socializing with their peers, and so when they're seeing their child it brings up all that stuff, and that's another thing that might make it more challenging for them to see the situation clearly, because they're like I don't want them to deal with what I did, went through, or they're like projecting all this stuff from the past into the present, which totally limits the future, and I'm like wait a minute, let's be right here. Is that actually relevant and true right now? Is that applicable to your child or to this other child? Because there's often multiple kids who have different needs and they're like wait a minute, you're right, it's just. It makes me think of this and this, and you're like breathe.

Speaker 1: 8:35

And that's their trigger right.

Speaker 2: 8:37

Yeah. But it's also for them to recognize that. And then the words and the thoughts that are affecting how they perceive the situation. So I really love starting with acknowledgement and that awareness and that and really being like you're not wrong and neither is your child. Now what can we create together?

Speaker 1: 8:58

That's a beautiful way to start. I think that's almost. I honestly can't even imagine, because even just doing this energy work, that's one of the things that you know, regardless of the school system or not, it doesn't matter as humans, if we're approaching, if we're focusing on that negative stuff, that's what we wind up bringing into our lives, right? I'll just share with you. I, my daughter, I Did some neurofeedback to try and get my husband died. I think he gave me some sleeping pills, get.

Speaker 1: 9:24

I don't know if I got addicted to them, but it was difficult for me to sleep without them, right? So, trying to get off of those things, I did some neurofeedback, which was wonderful, which essentially Taught me to get into a state of meditation. That's really what I did. Okay, they didn't use any of those words, that's what it was. So my daughter had trouble sleeping and so I was like, okay, you're gonna try this, it's not pills, we're gonna do this. She goes down there and Immediately when he looked at her report, he was, he would kind of whispered to me because I was in the room and said she's got ADD and I knew what that means because I have, you know, I've been a teacher, I've seen those kids okay.

Speaker 1: 9:59

And I thought, oh no, we're not doing that, I'm not gonna label her, I'm not gonna even tell her, because I mean, I already knew, you already know your child by the time they get to that point, you already know what they're like, right. And so I actually never even told her and she didn't even figured out until she was late middle school. And of course she asked me why. And I said, well, I'm not gonna, I didn't want to, I didn't want to have you be labeled. Yes, you have an active mind and yes, you, you exhibit some of these characters characteristics, but that doesn't mean that that's the only way you can exist. And I didn't want exactly what you're talking about, whereas Oftentimes educators not meaning to be, not meaning to cause this to happen that's kind of the way that we're taught to do things. But a true teacher knows that that's not really the best way to go, just because they kind of intuitively know what we're talking about here.

Speaker 2: 10:49

Um one of the things that I I wish was the case was that people would have the labels For access to resources that they need or supports, or to for people to do differentiated instruction Without the stigma. I think that most people they'd be fine with the labels and the diagnosis if it didn't come with a lot of stigma. I actually did a call. I'm sure you would have appreciated this if you, if we had known each other at the time. Um, it was actually asked of me by some friends and colleagues in India, because the Stigmatization and marginalization of those who have special abilities there is very strong. There's not really a lot of discussions around how to support them, how to teach them differently. They're just kind of hidden. They're just shoved to the side a lot. And this one woman, um, asked me to do a class, a workshop, online, and we decided to call it. Have you been told the world would be a better place without people with special needs? And All these people came from all over the world. That that chimed in with their experiences and how Sharing really, how either they had been explicitly or implicitly told that, yes, either they themselves, who had special abilities, or their siblings or their parents, would be the better. The world would be better without them in it, and I totally that resonated with me because my siblings I that's how I came into this work.

Speaker 2: 12:15

My sister has spina bifida and she also had stuttering when we were. She was growing up very severe stuttering, and my brother is hard of hearing. Both of them were in and out of the hospitals with surgeries and therapies. My brother had a heart murmur and a diaphragmatic hernia, so it was just like an ongoing thing ever since I was a little kid and Even the people, the very people that were there to treat them, to do these interventions, to do the surgeries not all of them, but many of them, surprisingly so were really Suggesting and focusing on what they weren't gonna be able to do.

Speaker 2: 12:54

Oh, they're gonna live with you. They're tell my mom and my dad they're gonna live with you for the rest of your life. They're not gonna be able to walk my sister learned to walk at four. They're not gonna be able to go to college. Both of them went to college. They're not gonna be able in all these things that they do, and one of the things that is my mission is to have parents be so clear and empowered that they know what's really true, what, and, and keep opening those doors to possibilities beyond what's projected and expected of them, of their child or of their family. Because, man, did we have to navigate and swim through a lot of crap? Yeah, we were growing because of that, and, and so I think that that's another big obstacle that I think I see a lot is Families knowing more as possible, but the people that maybe they're interacting with, from their own family, like extended family, to the teachers, to the doctors, are not seeing their kids in totality.

Speaker 1: 13:50

Yeah, it is. It's really rough and it's it's even rougher, I think, when you've got it coming from multiple angles. And I would imagine that there's some point at which, when you're, when you are able to sit down with your clients and you, you're pulling, you're causing them to have a conversation about what's beautiful, about the person. Right, just taking the time to spend that, I mean essentially, that's gratitude, right, I am grateful for this person being this way or myself being that way.

Speaker 2: 14:19

And what I love about gratitude is that judgment and gratitude cannot coexist in the same place. So here's the thing that I it blows me away is that it's not a small thing to really look at you're not wrong and really having these parents and caregivers and even educators.

Speaker 2: 14:37

I work with a lot of educators. They're like I know more is possible with the kids that I'm working with and I want some additional tools on how to Support them and how to be a better liaison and advocate with the parents and all these different things. But some people, when they start with just that like you know that movie Goodwill Hunting, mm-hmm, where there's that big scene with with Matt Damon and Robin Williams, and Robin Williams over and over again says it's not your fault, and at first he's like sure, sure, I know that, sure, sure. And he like deflects it and then he finally really hears it and receives it and he starts crying. It unlocks something within us when we start to acknowledge where we've been judging ourselves and start to dissipate it and get it out of our bodies and I've had multiple parents cry, being like you're the only person that I feel is really when they say that it's really true or that I can actually start to believe it a little bit more and it's not just words and then nothing Then we're going to take that and we're going to create a plan.

Speaker 2: 15:39

We're going to take some action steps. We're going to look at the home, we're going to look at these different ways in which each person learns and communicates and connects, and then go from there, but just starting that and being like, oh my God, because I'll validate, like oh yeah, so this and this and this, and then you're probably doing this. They told me not to. And I was like, yeah, you knew what you were doing. And they were like I didn't know, I didn't know, yeah.

Speaker 1: 16:03

Yeah, actually, I don't remember where I was just having this conversation. I think it was yesterday in a class and we were acknowledging the beauty of where we are technologically and somebody was saying, essentially, isn't it amazing that we've never had this platform in the world as of yet where we can connect with people and hear their authentic stories, like we can genuinely connect? We're having these conversations, right. We can genuinely connect with people all over the world. They get to, they feel empowered enough to actually share the truth of who they are, and we can hear that and understand and connect together. And I do want to chime in here just because I love astrology and it just happens to be an avenue, right. But and I do hypnosis too, and that's one of the things too, what I see is the person once they're seen. So that's kind of what you're talking about with that movie. He was being seen by Robin Williams character, right, and he was saying I see you, I see you, I see you. Do you see me seeing you? Right.

Speaker 2: 17:11

So you see yourself yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:12

Yeah, and it's just that acknowledgement, that just honestly, it just kind of like chips off the outside ice and then you can go into those feelings and once you get there, then that's when you have real healing and it just a really good job at sticking, because I see that once somebody has experienced that with another person, not only do they kind of shift the way they're looking at themselves, they stop telling themselves the stories that they hear from everybody else and they start going back to our heart and acknowledging they know who they are, and so that means that every, every conversation in their head and every conversation with other people, they always know I am okay the way I am.

Speaker 2: 17:52

It's not a small thing and I love that image, blair, of the ice because that's it's so congruent with so much of what I see Like. Think about the last obstacle you overcame, and before you even acknowledged that it was something you wanted to address, before you really were like I got this and I can do it, before you created a plan and took some steps to move out of it. A lot of us feel stuck, but stuck in a way that feels like we're frozen, like in case in ice, and for each of us it's something different that's going to get us out of the ice. Maybe for you I love that you said chip, chip, chip and away at the ice. For some people they need to be fire, they need to like blaze and actually not let themselves like limit their passions and limit their desires and what they know and their power and just like light up and melt it like from inside out. And then other people, it might be that they need somebody else to come in. It's not them chipping it away. It might be somebody else or a combination of them with somebody else doing those different ways of getting out of this ice. But the key thing is what's going to get you unstuck and what's going to get your child unstuck.

Speaker 2: 19:04

And one of the things that I think is really important for this is to also acknowledge how much your kids are picking up on what's around them and that they're watching you more than what they say. So a lot of my parents want to talk the talk, but they're not walking the walk. They'll say all these different things and then the kid is like but you're not doing it, or you're saying this but you're not. Wait, this isn't match up and it's confusing. Or you'll see them have behaviors that will alert you to how they know the hypocrisy that is showing up right here and they're trying to point it out to you with their behavior.

Speaker 2: 19:45

So one of the other things that we look at is hey, what's your child's behavior telling you? And let's look at how we can move these undesired behaviors to more desired behaviors. Not that they're bad, not that they're wrong. It's information, it's communication, and so how could we? I have different worksheets that I give my parents and we walk through it together so they have that to take home and they can have it to refer to together, especially if there's more than one parent involved. I had a. I had a particularly interesting case where there was three households that I was coordinating through my coaching program, where it was the grandparents of the dad, the parents of the dad, the grandparents.

Speaker 2: 20:25

Then there was dad with his new wife and new kids, and then there was the mom with her new husband and this one kid again another example of a kid with ADHD was hopping around these three different households, very different parenting styles, very different priorities, very different gifts for each of the parents and just strategies, the layout of the house, everything we had to look at and also work on how they were communicating between each other. Wow, wow, wow. How much progress did we do? But part of what we needed to do with that was looking at she is telling you something with her behavior. What do you know? Okay, now, what do you know? How are you know?

Speaker 2: 21:08

Cause sometimes it's different pieces of a puzzle or different angles of it, and when they started, actually acknowledge that and say, oh, you're getting this piece, I can actually hear and see you and acknowledge that's valid and a valid way to receive that information and then also not making her wrong or any of the other parents wrong, cause there's a lot of finger pointing yes, which we need households, as you can imagine. And as soon as the finger pointing stopped and they looked at what they had control over and what would work within their households, it was a total change, like it was so amazing she's doing really, really well. And that was another case where you know I remember you saying about your daughter that you didn't want her to excuse me to, to get the label of ADHD for her. She actually embraced it. She really wanted to know. She's like I already know I'm thinking differently, I don't know what's going on, and so for her it was this framework to understand herself. And then they they didn't actually talk to the school about it. It was really for the kiddo.

Speaker 1: 22:08

Oh, beautiful.

Speaker 2: 22:09

So it was. So it was for her to know hey, you're different, but not less than right, and this what you need to learn. And then, what else do you know? So it was part of the conversation with her of, okay, what else do you know? Do you want to have background noise while we're doing homework? Do you need to have a certain seat? And she would ask and advocate for her needs better, knowing that it was okay for her to ask for something different than her other siblings, then her parents and then her peers.

Speaker 1: 22:38

Yeah, that's. You know, I always found that really, it's always, it's always a strange dynamic, but I always found that really interesting how the education system, whether it be a school or the, you know where you're going to get your degree and what they teach you or what have you. They all have different approaches to how do you make the accommodations right. But at a minimum, I would say pretty much all people who go into education, who go into DG, and realize that there is a need for that and of course then there's that balance and unfortunately in our society we're we're highly litigious and there's a lot of finger pointing, right. But if you're, if you're coming from a place of love, I think that was the most frustrating, for it still is the most frustrating. When I hear about people who have 80, they're labeled as 80 or 80 HD or they have. You know, they have some sort of ability. I love that you say a special ability, because that's really a derogatory term to say this ability, right, but that is how they label it. Anyways, they're, they're unique and they have unique needs.

Speaker 1: 23:44

And I actually had a client come in. He was a hypnosis client, full grown adult I think. He was like mid thirties and he had gone through school his whole life and meaning his parents contributed to this, his school system contributed to this. He felt he was wrong and he felt that he was, and so, of course, in our session, this is the first time he's ever been seen, and I say no, I've never met somebody with ADHD who is an incredibly smart. It's all over the place. I can see it. I can tell you five different ways right now how you are this intelligent being. It's time to acknowledge that. Yeah, it's really kind of I don't know. It's difficult to kind of navigate both of those. You know the dynamic of the outside world and also what you know with your own family.

Speaker 2: 24:33

Well, and one of the things that I love with this it's helping this conversation and kind of to dissipate a lot of this judgment and just energy around it. With so many adults that unfortunately had just really from uncomfortable, horrible to traumatic like continually traumatizing experiences in their childhood that's gone into their young adulthood and adulthood is actually seeing a lot more celebrities and innovators and creators out there that say, hey, I have ADHD, hey, I have autism, hey, I'm neurodivergent. And then seeing these positive examples that they can go to to be like, well, if we have a similar thing going on, it's not exactly the same, but oh, there is some, there is some synchronicities here. Wow, I wonder where else I could be using this difference to my advantage. And that's one of the things I work on with the. Some of my parents will come to me with concerns for their child and they're like, wow, I have to actually work on myself first. Can I work and do individual sessions first, and then we go back and it has this beautiful cascade effects on their family, especially if they're like the manager, leader, person of their family. They really realize, oh, I have to do some self care, I have to check and see where I'm functioning with these limiting beliefs, like ignoring my gifts and capacities, or using my gifts and capacities against me instead of for me, Like a lot of these people, unless what I love about the book Would you Teach a Fish to Climate Tree.

Speaker 2: 26:07

It's written by Dr Dane here, Gary Douglas and a social worker by the name of Anne Maxwell and, excuse me, I've been talking all day today, sorry and in there they talk about how those who have these different labels and diagnoses are super, super, super aware of energy, and so they're actually functioning and perceiving energy faster than other people, and so that's part of why some of them don't want to really talk, because they were like I already sent you the picture to your head. How are you not getting this? Why do you have? Are you asking me to slow down, to use words, when I already sent it to you? And so even them recognizing the parents how much they're picking up on their kids' messages without them talking, and then using that gift of them being able to perceive that and receive those messages to leverage it and actually help facilitate better communication is a wonderful gift.

Speaker 2: 27:10

Or even them recognizing how much they're picking up on other people's stuff and it's like okay, is that yours? Is that someone else's? Is that something you want to keep? Is that something you don't want to keep? Because some of those ideas are inspiration and so it's like you want to use that. It's like, oh, I got this from this person's head, I got it from their body. Now maybe I want to write a book about that, or maybe I'm going to use this idea that I got from this book or movie or TV show. I'm going to cook a really yummy meal for me and my family. So it's not all blocking it out the things that can come in, but being in the question with those things, I think is one of those things that I really love. Empowering people to do, especially the young ones, because they do it really easily and really quickly.

Speaker 1: 27:55

Yes, yeah, pretty much with everything. And you mentioned earlier how much are the children picking up on that the parents think are not happening? I think that in my personal life, the biggest, most clearest explanation of that is big things happen in people's lives, like my husband died, or their parent, their father died, or my father died too, but guess what? My father was also an alcoholic and I know I've lived with alcoholics he and other people and even as a child I knew things that we never talked about right, but it was something we all kind of dealt with. And so when you meet somebody else who has had a similar experience and they say something like oh well, my father was an alcoholic, you know immediately the things that they're dealing with, that you don't necessarily have to have the conversation, but it just. I think it's naive of adults to think that the children don't pick up on all that stuff, and I think adults pick up on it too. They just maybe they haven't had experience talking about these kinds of things.

Speaker 2: 29:08

So we're all shut it down because the society, media, religion, other family members like you name it have told them that is not valuable, that is not okay to talk about, that is woo woo, that is woo do, that is whatever, all these things.

Speaker 2: 29:26

And so they're like oh, I guess it's not okay, I have to slow myself down, I have to wait for evidence, I have to wait for proof, I have to wait for somebody else to sign off on it, for someone else's approval, all these different permissions, and so next thing, you know, it's getting deeper and deeper and more shut down. When, as a kid, we were like bam bam, bam, bam bam. We got it so fast and unfortunately maybe we were well, there were repercussions to us being that fast. Or maybe we don't want to stand out and be really faster than everybody else because everyone else isn't willing to be that fast. But one of the things that I've learned in my own journey is that by me slowing myself down, I'm actually not being the leader that I could be and embracing my influence in my family and my loved ones, because there's so many people that by me doing it first, it opened the door for them to be like, oh, I guess I could do it now.

Speaker 2: 30:22

Like me, I came out as pansexual. I was one of the first people in my family before anyone really talked about pansexual. Like. I knew that I first said bye and then I was like, oh, this isn't really quite fit. And then it was pansexual. When that terms came about, and then all of my cousins after me because I'm the oldest grandchild, all my cousins after me were like it was so amazing to see you do it. So when we were wondering about that for us, we were like, oh, our cousin CDs did this and there are different types of identities that they've come out as.

Speaker 2: 30:52

But like that was one example and I didn't realize how much me slowing myself down in my youth and then in my early 20s and 30s, I was really keeping people captive, the very people I love and wanted to support. I was actually keeping them captive by waiting for other people to step up first. Especially if you know that you're maybe a little bit braver, a little bit more in tune than others, it's probably you. It's probably you that needs to step up first and be the leader and be the example to them, because your kids are watching, your loved ones are watching and you've got it, you can do it. And so as soon as I started really getting that like oh shoot, I'm actually disempowering people by not stepping up instead of empowering them like I'm hoping to it was like vroom, vroom, vroom from the air blare. It was like all right, I guess I gotta do it.

Speaker 1: 31:49

It was like permission to go to your heart space and follow your intuition and then you actually wound up fulfilling your passion in life anyways, which I think I mean of course it's gonna do it for you, but, like you're saying, it's kind of facilitating, laying the path, work for everybody, which is actually the real truth behind why I have such hope for our world, because I think a lot of times, you know we can, especially as adults, we can get bogged down by whatever's happened in the news and you know, whatever all that stuff is. But to think about how intelligent these young people are and if we do it a little bit and they do take it tenfold to just go into that heart space and follow and do what they wanna do. And one thing I was just thinking as you were talking is one of those things that I think causes people to hesitate is maybe they go to their heart space and they know that they wanna say or do something, but then they think, oh well, I don't think I should do that or that's gonna be really weird, right, but then when they get past that part, you know they're not gonna accept me or they're not gonna like me or whatever. When they get past that and go ahead and do it. Of course you run into that empowerment, but it's just like exponential growth. It's just so fast. It's like it's energy. It's just a shift in energy that changes everything so quickly.

Speaker 1: 33:13

So, I mean, I honestly really do have the biggest hope for where our world is going, because the youth is like this. Like, is it a little ironic that all these people are getting diagnosed with ADHD? I don't believe that people didn't have ADHD when I was young, but whatever they're labeling it, if it happens to come about because of prescriptions or whatever, it doesn't matter. We're at least to the point where we're actually coming at it from your kind of perspective, where it's like these young people are so incredibly intelligent and they really are thinking faster than us. Can we keep up Because they're the ones that are gonna be the leaders and we don't want them to be leaders when they've experienced so much trauma that they haven't dealt with because we didn't deal with our own right?

Speaker 2: 34:02

Like the whole hurt people, hurt people so like if they are in the trauma. It's not that all people who are traumatized are gonna hurt people, but it makes it a lot harder for them to navigate the world and they have those boulders on their back and I'd love to alleviate that and clear that off for sure. Now I'm curious for you too, like with your work, and have you worked with children and families, and how are you seeing some of the obstacles with supporting them and feeling empowered to know what they know?

Speaker 1: 34:34

I don't work with a lot of well, I do work. I work more with individuals now, but when I was a teacher, of course you're absolutely with children and of course you're teaching them right, you're getting to know them, but then you're dealing with the families. But I would say, just for me as a person probably my whole life has really kind of been about this kind of thing I just it finally just clicked with me. It's not that it hasn't come through before, but it just clicked with me again. The reason people like to come and work with me is because I do look at the person as whole and complete, as they are right, and like there's no two bones about it, like I don't, there's no wishy-washy. It's like, oh, you have this behavior that might be a problem for other people. Like let's see if we can help you to get along better with other people, right, but that doesn't mean that you yourself, there's anything necessarily wrong with you.

Speaker 1: 35:25

So I mean I do see when I work with individuals, they tell me about their families and it's a dynamic. It's just like you're talking about with parents and children, you know, even adults with stepchildren, even if they're grown. We see the people that I work with are working on themselves, right. So they're doing the same kind of work, except they're doing it on themselves. And they and I'm one of those too, right, I do this work on myself, but I have normal, I mean like average kids. I have married to a man who doesn't know anything about any of this stuff. He thinks it's okay, whatever, but I do the work.

Speaker 2: 36:06

He's like do you boo boo?

Speaker 1: 36:08

Yes, but I do the work and then they wind up shifting. And what I find with my own children, which is really interesting, is that you know they can, we can play the game of this is how the world works, or whatever. But when it comes down to it, when something's really emotional or really hard for them, they open up and they say, okay, well, what do you think about this mom? You know, and then I'll tell them the truth. You know, like well, here's the situation. This person is kind of uncomfortable about how you display affection and you're not uncomfortable, and that's okay that they're uncomfortable with it, but that doesn't mean that there's something wrong with you because of that right. And so how does that play out in your life and your decisions and what you pick and how do you choose to speak to people and that kind of thing?

Speaker 1: 36:52

So I do see the dynamic with other people, but I usually do more one-on-one and so I hear it from one person's perspective. You know, whereas when I was in the education system, you you're one-on-one with the child and then you're talking with parents, so you might hear like little bits you know, teachers got 150 or more students a day, right, and that's a lot Like you can't be on one-on-one with every single person. But yeah, and of course in the classroom too you have dynamic. I taught mostly middle school. I taught a little bit of high school, yeah.

Speaker 2: 37:31

Yeah, because the elementary school teachers don't have 150, but then they have other considerations right and high school is different too. That's really interesting. One of the things that really stood out for what you were saying was this idea of really listening to what you really would like and not living based on other people's expectations. So, like I love what you did with it, it was your daughter that you're mentioning about how she shows affection differently than the son.

Speaker 1: 37:57

It's actually my son, which is funny because, of course, with you know, we have certain expectations, societally right With the way that people are. But he's got I mean this shows up in astrology, he's got a really solid Venus, like he is comfortable in the way he shows affection and so you know he's old enough now that he's had a girlfriend. But that was one of the things is that he was comfortable showing affection, but she was not and it wasn't like Was it verbal affection?

Speaker 2: 38:22

or verbal affection.

Speaker 1: 38:24

I think it was honestly. I think it was everything. It was like he was just really comfortable in how he did that and she wasn't. And I mean it was. It was very obvious that you see that. But you know that's one of his lessons to learn okay. Well, I need to learn boundaries. I need to learn to be able to read somebody else and figure out what's okay. But it wasn't-.

Speaker 2: 38:42

And also does that gonna work for me to be with someone that-.

Speaker 1: 38:45

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 38:46

Is judgmental of mine, like it's one thing that they just don't really like it or they don't get it, but it's like they judge how I show up in the world. That's a very different conversation.

Speaker 1: 38:55

Right, and that definitely was essentially the biggest lesson for him which he's not dating that person anymore, but that's essentially what it really was. I think that-. I think that I think that I think that-.

Speaker 2: 39:06

Yeah, that's one of those things that all of us navigate over and over again with work, with relationships, with friendships. It's like, okay, where do I meet somebody in the middle or modulate, and where does it just not gonna work and we have to part ways? Yep, over and over again. And that touches upon one of the things that I address with my coaching as well is that's one of the limiting beliefs that some people have is like, okay, have you been functioning where you're living based on what everyone else expects of you, and you're not really living what's gonna work for you? Like what's gonna work for you now and in the future and in like a really sustainable, joyful, nurturing way?

Speaker 2: 39:46

A lot of us it's like, oh, it's all about being of service to everyone else, and so then you don't include yourself, your body, those needs, into the equation. And next thing, you know, you wake up and you're like how did I get here? Oh, because, piece by piece by piece, you've been chopping off bits of yourself giving it away to everyone else and then there's nothing left of you in your life.

Speaker 2: 40:08

And that's what happens with a lot of my parents, especially parents that have kiddos with special abilities. I actually have quite a number of parents that work with me that have more than one child, that have special abilities, and the completely different profiles. And so between all the appointments, all the surgeries, all the follow-ups, and they're like going, going, going and they're not getting sleep, they're not nurturing their partnership if they have a partner, they don't have time with friends or decompression time, and then actually, you know they're like, they're like is this what I signed up for? Like, is this what my life is gonna be for the next who knows how long? And it gets them really sad and really depressed, and I get it. If we don't include a sense of joy and we don't include ourselves in it, it would be really sad, because where are we? Where are we in our lives?

Speaker 1: 41:00

Yeah, and I think a lot of times people feel like, when they're in a situation like that, that they don't, there is no outlet, there is no place, they don't have help to. I mean, you know they could, they can, they can find it, but ultimately when you get in that position, you feel like there's no way to get out of it. It's that stuck feeling again. But there is a way to get out of it and it starts with like taking care of yourself.

Speaker 2: 41:23

And also I love working through like systems and routines. Like I look at the family's routines, I look at the systems they already have in place, from like organizational systems to communication systems, and seeing if it's even if it's 15 minutes here, if it's 30 minutes there, wherever they can find it, and then what are the activities that they can do in those 15, 30 minutes that that they or they're nurturing themselves, where they are having those little bright spots. That is like, oh, here I am, oh, here's what brings me joy, oh, this is who, this is who I thought I wanted to be, and I actually am becoming that person more and more. And it doesn't have to be put to the side on the shelf until my kids turn 18 or 25 or 35, whenever that is. It can happen now.

Speaker 2: 42:09

And it and what's interesting, is even my most overwhelmed, burnt out of parents, as soon as they start finding those 15, 30 minute increments that we find very creatively in their schedule, they are like no. At first they're like, no, it's not possible. I was like, trust me, I've not met a parent or family yet that I haven't been able to find those nuggets. It starts to create this little wedge where they start to peek and open it a little bit more and more and they're like oh, I actually can be really creative in how I use my time and I create these systems and I'm willing to receive help from other people more, I'm willing to ask and advocate and not make myself wrong and not isolate myself so much anymore.

Speaker 2: 42:51

And the next thing, you know, they have a full hour. What? Oh, my god, they have a little bit more time here. Maybe they can go for a walk, they could take a bath, these different things that are so small but they're so powerful, but they could do. That gives them more breathing room, and man don't? We all need some more breathing room. My goodness gracious, what's going on in the world right now? Every breath.

Speaker 1: 43:19

Yes.

Speaker 2: 43:20

Let's have more of that.

Speaker 1: 43:24

Well, thank you so much for joining me today. I want to make sure that they know how to connect with you, anything you want to tell them about how to connect with you and where they can go from there.

Speaker 2: 43:36

Yeah, yeah. Well, if people go to my website, empoweringlightlanguagecom, if you go to the library, like slash library, there's a bunch of free like nine-page, 10-page little PDFs that you can play around with. One is a being, a different possibility for children that provide different five tools so kids can be more successful, happier, more connected to their gifts. There's also one that might be beneficial to your listeners. That is five questions to ask to stop self-sabotage in your relationships. That's like another nine-pager and so these really clear questions, simple, that when you sit with them, you can see if any of those are running in your life, these limiting beliefs that we were talking about, and then some ways that you can pivot away from that so you can have more of you, exuberantly lit up, more of you.

Speaker 1: 44:28

Yeah, awesome. It kind of feels like you're helping people to remember who they really are.

Speaker 2: 44:34

Yes.

Speaker 1: 44:35

Yeah, and it feels good and that is absolutely expansive. So once they get to that place, then just things go better, more aligned.

Speaker 2: 44:43

And I'm on most platforms too. If anybody wants to find me on YouTube, on Instagram it's all empowering language. On Facebook, I try to make it as easy as possible and yeah, and I love getting emails and just make sure, if you email me, please add me to your contact so when I reply, you actually get it and it doesn't go to your spam or your hidden junk mail folder.

Speaker 1: 45:07

Yeah, OK well, thank you so much.

Speaker 2: 45:10

Thank you, blair, I really appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 45:14

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