Latest / LIVING WITHOUT FEAR / 153. Living Without Fear - How to Break Toxic Parenting Patterns (And Raise Confident Kids) | With Esther Buerki

Transcript

153. Living Without Fear - How to Break Toxic Parenting Patterns (And Raise Confident Kids) | With Esther Buerki · LIVING WITHOUT FEAR

• 0:01
  What if the way you were raised is exactly what you need to
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  break so your children can finally feel free?
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  I want to start with something very honest today, something
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  that took me years to understand and even more years to leave
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  this episode. It's not about perfect
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  parenting. It's about breaking something
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  inside of you so something new can grow in your children.
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  My name is Esther. I'm your host speaking to you
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  from Switzerland. And today I want to take you
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  into a personal part of my life because my two sons, they didn't
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  just grow up, they raised me. They taught me something.
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  I was never taught what it truly means to be humble.
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  I grew up in a very authoritarian family.
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  My father, he was the patriarch, strong, dominant, and very clear
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  about his rules. And my mother, my brother and I,
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  we obeyed. And there were consequences.
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  Anger, tension, fear. And without realizing it, this
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  became my blueprint. Because as a child, you don't
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  question your environment, You absorb it.
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  You become it. So when my elder son entered
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  poverty and he started to push boundaries, to question me, to
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  stand up for himself, I reacted exactly like my father, with
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  anger, with control, with intensity.
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  And at the same time I felt something else, something much
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  deeper. I felt powerless, not just in
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  that moment, but like a little girl again, standing in front of
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  her father, feeling small, unseen on the worthy.
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  And suddenly it was all mixed together.
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  My son, my past, my pain, everything collided.
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  I didn't know how to handle it. I didn't have another model and
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  the first part at the same time my father told me I was a
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  failure. Can you imagine what that does
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  to you? To be triggered by your child
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  and charged by your parent at the same time?
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  Maybe you know this feeling, being hit from two sides until
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  you don't know who you are anymore.
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  I felt like I was failing as a mother, failing as a person.
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  And honestly, if I hadn't had someone in my life back then, a
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  partner who reminded me that I was doing better than I thought,
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  I don't know where I would be today.
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  But I don't want to stay in that pain because something shifted,
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  and that shift changed everything.
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  It started when I began to work on myself, when I met mentors
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  like Tony Robbins and I started to understand something
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  powerful, that my life is not controlled by what happens
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  outside of me, but by what happens inside of me.
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  That was the moment I stopped fighting the world and started
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  taking responsibility for my state.
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  Until then I blamed everything, my father, my past, my
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  circumstances. But I had never asked myself,
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  what can I do with what I feel? So I started to learn something
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  that was incredibly hard for me. Not to react, but to pause, to
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  go inward, to regulate my emotions, to choose my response.
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  And let me tell you, this wasn't easy.
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  It felt unnatural at first because reacting was my pattern.
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  But slowly, step by step, something changed.
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  I became softer, more aware, more present and most
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  importantly, more humble. Not weak, but open.
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  And this changed everything in the relationship with my two
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  sons. I stopped trying to dominate
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  them and started to listen. Really listen.
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  I took them seriously, their thoughts, their feelings, their
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  opinions, something I had never experienced myself as a child
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  because I was often belittled, made small, not truly seen.
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  So I made a decision. The cycle stops with me and step
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  by step our relationship transformed.
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  Today my sons are 20 and 22 and something beautiful is
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  happening. My elder son calls me, not
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  because he has to, but because he wants to.
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  He calls me to talk about his future, to reflect, to think out
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  loud. And do you know what I tell him?
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  Not what to do, but something much more important.
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  I tell him. Listen to yourself, listen to
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  your heart. Because if you ask 10 people,
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  you will get 10 different answers.
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  But only one voice truly matters, yours.
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  And even if you make a wrong decision, there is always
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  another path. There is no right way, there's
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  only your way. And I want him to trust that, to
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  trust himself. Recently he started military
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  service and after just three days he felt this is not my
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  world. And after one week, he left and
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  I was so proud of him because he didn't stay to please others.
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  He didn't stay out of fear. He stood up for himself, for his
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  values, for his truth. That moment meant more to me
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  than any perfect decision he could have made.
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  Because that's what life is about.
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  Not getting it right, but being real.
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  So today, if you are a parent or even if you're not, I want to
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  leave you with this. You don't serve others by
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  controlling them. You serve them by empowering
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  them. Let people think, let people
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  feel. Let people choose and trust that
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  they will find their way, even if it looks messy, even if it
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  looks different than yours. Because the real love doesn't
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  hold tight. It gives space to grow.
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  And if you recognize yourself in my story, if you feel triggered,
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  overwhelmed, unsure, you don't have to do this alone.
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  Ioffer free one-on-one coaching sessions, a safe space where you
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  can look at what's really going on inside of you without
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  judgement, with honesty, with depth, and with heart.
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  If you feel cold, reach out to me, I would truly love to
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  support you because change doesn't start outside, it starts
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  within you and from there, everything else begins to shift.
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  Be kind to yourself, trust yourself, and I'll talk to you
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  next week.