Latest / The Spiritual Parent: Mindful Tools for Raising Spiritual and Conscious Kids / Help Your Kids Follow Their Dreams and Rediscover Your Own with Mel Findlater

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Help Your Kids Follow Their Dreams and Rediscover Your Own with Mel Findlater · The Spiritual Parent: Mindful Tools for Raising Spiritual and Conscious Kids

• 0:00
  Carrie: motherhood can feel rewarding in itself too, but something for ourselves that's different.
• 0:05
  Mel: It's okay to have those other things as well.
• 0:07
  Mel: You can love being a mom and you can love doing other things too, right, and you know, I think I think part of that is that when we become a mom, or this new identity, and then if we get to the point where we're like, okay, I'm going to go back, I want to see, like, this is how I used to get into flow, this is what I used to enjoy, this is who I used to be.
• 0:27
  Mel: It doesn't always have the same kick to it anymore right.
• 0:31
  Mel: Because we've adapted as we became a mom.
• 0:33
  Mel: So actually there's the work is in figuring out who you are now, alongside being a mom, because it may have shifted a little bit because of all the growth you've done as a mom right welcome to heart to heart parents.
• 0:49
  Carrie: Let's connect with our kids and learn together.
• 0:51
  Carrie: I'm carrie.
• 0:52
  Carrie: I was a former teacher and speech therapist.
• 0:55
  Carrie: I'm also a parent of two spirited, gifted, highly sensitive kids.
• 0:59
  Carrie: I was quickly brought to my knees as a parent when I thought that I would see a rosy lens version of parenting, just as they present on Instagram, but I quickly learned that's not real life.
• 1:11
  Carrie: I will provide real life experiences and transform them into moments for connections and change for you to use in your house.
• 1:20
  Carrie: Hi there, conscious parents, before we start today's episode, it's Keri here and I wanted to reach out to ask you guys for a quick favor.
• 1:26
  Carrie: As a follower of our show, we would love for you to give us a five-star rating and leave us a review.
• 1:34
  Carrie: It can be just a few words, that's it, and it really goes a long way with us with the podcasting community on Apple or Spotify.
• 1:42
  Carrie: So thanks so much for tuning in and I'm so excited for you to hear today's message.
• 1:46
  Carrie: Happy listening, hi there, and welcome back to Heart to Heart Parents.
• 1:50
  Carrie: I'm Keri.
• 1:51
  Carrie: I'm your friendly, intuitive, spiritual mama here, and I have an amazing guest for you guys Mel Finlater.
• 1:59
  Carrie: She is a changemaker mama, too, who believes that, as humans, we're designed to do things better than ourselves.
• 2:06
  Carrie: Together with others, through purpose, play and community, she brings people together and creates the space for world changing magic to happen.
• 2:15
  Carrie: She's a possibility coach and hosts the top 10 podcast, permission to be, the podcast where women share stories about their big, audacious dreams.
• 2:24
  Carrie: So, mel, thank you so much for being here today.
• 2:27
  Carrie: I feel so honored to have you with us.
• 2:30
  Mel: Oh, it's lovely to have you over on my podcast, which is Permission to be Human and also to be here with you and, you know, enter it from the family angle.
• 2:39
  Mel: So I'm really excited to be here, yeah.
• 2:41
  Carrie: Yeah, it's fun to kind of switch gears a little bit, because you're a lot of the times you're on the mom's side, so it's kind of fun to think about the kid perspective to this time.
• 2:50
  Carrie: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:52
  Carrie: So I love this term, the audacious dream.
• 2:56
  Carrie: I love that you use that and use the change maker term, which is so awesome because I've been using that as well.
• 3:02
  Carrie: I love that we overlap and the audacious dream.
• 3:06
  Carrie: I'd love to question you and think about what was your audacious dream when you were a child.
• 3:13
  Mel: Yeah, it's such an interesting question because I don't know if I thought about it in that way when I was a kid, but here's what I here's.
• 3:21
  Mel: What I do know is that I I always felt a little different as a kid and like I was a 40 year old in a 14 year old body.
• 3:32
  Mel: When I was that age.
• 3:33
  Mel: Um, you know, I wanted depth and I wanted to explore.
• 3:38
  Mel: So I think the the biggest dream that I can think of, which goes back to teenage years uh, because, honestly, my memory doesn't go much further than that um is I dreamt of traveling the world.
• 3:52
  Mel: I wanted to go to every single country in the world, and the reason was that I wanted to see what people did and who they were and what are these cultures that are different than mine, and I always had this curiosity around how people work and how we work together as in community.
• 4:09
  Mel: So well, I wouldn't have used those exact words back then.
• 4:12
  Mel: I was just like I want to travel the world, and that's shifted.
• 4:16
  Mel: I still have the dream of traveling.
• 4:18
  Mel: I love traveling now, but I don't need to.
• 4:20
  Mel: I don't need to go to every country.
• 4:21
  Mel: I can explore people every day in the people I meet.
• 4:28
  Carrie: I love that so much.
• 4:29
  Carrie: My husband and I kind of reassessed our goals and our audacious dreams right now for ourselves, and adventure is definitely our passion and we have lived so many adventures this year just opening up after COVID and everything, and so I completely understand that.
• 4:48
  Carrie: I was just thinking of my audacious dream as a child and it's really interesting because it overlaps with what my daughter's been asking to do.
• 4:56
  Carrie: I couldn't choose just one thing.
• 4:58
  Carrie: I was like I want to be a ballerina, I want to be a teacher, I want to be a vet all these little pieces and my daughter is asking for all of those as well.
• 5:07
  Carrie: So it's kind of interesting, very interesting.
• 5:10
  Mel: You know it's interesting because I think one of the reasons it's hard to answer this question is that the question we actually ask kids is what do you want to do when you grow up?
• 5:18
  Mel: Right, that's, that's the question.
• 5:20
  Mel: And I actually try to avoid that with my kids now because it feels like a really like there.
• 5:22
  Mel: And I actually try to avoid that with my kids now because it feels like I've really like there's a lot of pressure on that question and like it's actually more about who do you want to be.
• 5:29
  Mel: And I remember being asked what do you want to do when I was in grade four so that's one of my few early memories that I still have and I had to draw a picture of what I wanted to do when I grew up and I remember sitting there there and going don't say fire, or don't say police person, don't play police person, and and then I drew that's all I could think of, and then I was like crying because that's like this is not what I wanted to do or who I wanted to be, but I didn't know the answer and I felt like so much pressure to know that answer.
• 6:00
  Mel: Um, I probably would say I still feel that right, I don't know, I don't have a title, one title that defines what I'm doing or who I want to be.
• 6:11
  Mel: Yes, and how can?
• 6:12
  Carrie: we dream that when we're so young, how do?
• 6:15
  Carrie: We know what the world is going to look like Exactly.
• 6:19
  Mel: But we still have dreams, right.
• 6:21
  Mel: The big, audacious dream could come from anything like it might just be like to make everybody happy is probably what my dream really was as a kid yeah, right yeah, that's the role I seem to put myself into, so interesting.
• 6:36
  Carrie: that was the same too.
• 6:37
  Carrie: I used to always say my name was Carrie, caring for others and caring for those around me, yeah, oh that's lovely.
• 6:45
  Carrie: Do you feel like you, um, you help to guide your kids toward their audacious dreams, or help them to kind of understand or think about those or find a passion now as they're growing up?
• 6:59
  Mel: Yeah, I think I do it.
• 7:00
  Mel: I don't think I use the same words with them as I do with adults, like I don't say big, audacious dream, but what I do say is what is your like?
• 7:10
  Mel: Just things, help them really figure out who they are.
• 7:14
  Mel: Like, what do you enjoy?
• 7:16
  Mel: And lately we've been looking a lot at like sensory needs and what they really enjoy that way.
• 7:22
  Mel: So, like my son is really very physical, right, he's very you know, and I've started to notice that as I've been learning more and more and I'm like, oh, that's really interesting, that that's actually his need, right.
• 7:35
  Mel: So for his birthday we put a climbing wall on the room, his bedroom wall, and we have this like indoor play structure that he can swing on and just like do monkey bars and do the opposite of what everybody tells you you should do before bed.
• 7:50
  Mel: Right, I'm like, yeah, off you go.
• 7:52
  Mel: You got 10 minutes, just get it out, get it out of your system yeah
• 7:57
  Mel: right, um, so for him, yeah, like really helping him figure out what those are by us just experimenting with him and being like, oh, that's really interesting, you seem to really like doing this, right, yeah, what are your?
• 8:27
  Mel: What do you?
• 8:27
  Mel: What makes you feel good?
• 8:28
  Mel: You know, what are your interests?
• 8:28
  Mel: She would say to the answer what do you want to do?
• 8:30
  Mel: Because, of course, other people ask ask that question.
• 8:32
  Mel: She wants to be a scientist, artist, which is beautiful, and because she wants to somehow use both of those things to change the world.
• 8:39
  Mel: That's, that is her big dream.
• 8:41
  Mel: And she's like collected cardboard tubes and all sorts of recycled goods and is going to make a car that won't ruin the earth, like.
• 8:50
  Mel: That's, that's the vision, and I have no doubt in my mind that one day, should she wish, she will continue down that path and and and do that.
• 8:58
  Mel: And it's okay if she changes her mind.
• 9:00
  Mel: That's totally fine too, yes, but what a beautiful dream to tap into that early on.
• 9:05
  Mel: You know, the question of what is a dream for a kid is really funny one, because I was literally just this morning, um speaking to our our sitter, who came to hang out with the kids today, and um telling her about the podcast and we were talking about dreams and I was like my daughter was like, uh, well, I just dream.
• 9:26
  Mel: We have to be asleep to dream and I was like, oh, that's interesting.
• 9:30
  Mel: And then instead it's like, oh, but well, I daydream quite a lot.
• 9:35
  Mel: I was like, oh, those are two really interesting way of dreams.
• 9:37
  Mel: Those, the dream I'm talking about is more like a wish or like a belief, that like and you want to happen or be, and she's just, you know, just looking at you and it's it's interesting that that word actually isn't used very much with kids Like what's?
• 9:51
  Mel: Your dream has made me think today.
• 9:55
  Mel: How could it be?
• 9:56
  Carrie: I love that, that piece of the puzzle that you're thinking about, because I think with dreams in our house it's often associated with a bad dream or, like mom, I had a bad dream, so I'm going to start actually using dream more often during the day when we're talking about it my son loves to talk about.
• 10:14
  Carrie: So I talk about my own gifts, like oh, mom has a gift of being able to work with people and knowing myself.
• 10:21
  Carrie: Those are my gifts that I'm drawn to, and so my son always goes around bouncing around like I, my dream is, or my gift is building and I'm going to help the earth with something I'm building one day.
• 10:35
  Carrie: So it sounds like our children need to get together to play.
• 10:42
  Carrie: Yes, yes, it's great when we can foster these pieces of them, when they're already have little pieces that are coming up and we're listening and we're not guiding them toward what we think they need or something that's missing from our past and our childhood, that we want them to go toward, so I love that Definitely.
• 11:02
  Mel: And just showing them through our own work and our and work, I mean, and the broadest sense of the word right, the work in our life.
• 11:09
  Mel: Yeah, that like dreaming is fine.
• 11:12
  Mel: So the other thing my daughter said in that moment is like, oh, mama dreams a lot, she's got a lot of dreams.
• 11:18
  Mel: I was like, yeah, you're not wrong, right, and she was just like pleased with that.
• 11:23
  Mel: She's like, yeah, this is just factual, and you know, the more I think we show them that that it's good to dream and it's okay to change a dream and you know a possibility these are all the possibilities in the world and beyond, what I can think of then you know that just opens up doors for them to figure out what they want to do.
• 11:44
  Carrie: Yeah, I love that and yeah, you gave me some good ideas.
• 11:48
  Carrie: I'm definitely thinking about, instead of saying, what do you want to be when you grow up?
• 11:53
  Carrie: Cause I have one of those little signs on the first day of school, you know.
• 11:56
  Carrie: It says at the bottom what do you want to be, and we've gotten all sorts of things.
• 12:01
  Carrie: My daughter used to always say a unicorn.
• 12:03
  Carrie: So I was like, well, you never know, one day that could be a version of something I don't know.
• 12:09
  Carrie: Very creative, yeah, I love that.
• 12:12
  Carrie: And we'll be right back after this message.
• 12:14
  Carrie: Hi there, changemaker moms and dads, it's Carrie here.
• 12:18
  Carrie: I hope you're enjoying today's episode.
• 12:20
  Carrie: If there's any pieces of this episode that resonate with you, we would love for you to share it with a friend.
• 12:27
  Carrie: A little helping hand goes a long way.
• 12:28
  Carrie: We appreciate you tuning in and here's more.
• 12:31
  Carrie: So you have pieces with the nature-based coaching you do with families or people, individuals.
• 12:38
  Carrie: Have you found, if you were describing it to moms, what would be some pieces maybe that you found could work for us in our situations or for working with our kids too?
• 12:51
  Carrie: Is there anything that we could use with what you've seen with nature-based coaching?
• 12:57
  Mel: Oh, there's so much out there and I actually did an interview for my podcast this morning with Caitlin Carey, all about this topic, and so it's fresh in my mind all the nature work.
• 13:09
  Mel: But nature is, you know, we are nature, we're not separate from nature, we are part of it and I think the more we can do to build that relationship back up, to recognize that you know we depend on nature, nature depends on us because we are part of it.
• 13:28
  Mel: And then, more specifically, you know, like forest schools, nature schools, all those things exist now and are expanding so much in the world for a reason, right?
• 13:40
  Mel: You know our kids need to get outside and get their nervous systems calmed by simply let them take their shoes off.
• 13:52
  Mel: Like, I challenge you to let your kids go outside in their bare feet and play, especially in your yard, where you know it's relatively safe.
• 14:00
  Mel: You know, just let them feel that on their feet and you do the same, right, I almost never wear shoes around my house and do I get step on something sometimes?
• 14:12
  Mel: Yeah, whatever, but it is grounding us to the earth.
• 14:17
  Mel: So that's like a really simple thing that you can do, but a fun activity you can do with your kids just to get them involved.
• 14:24
  Mel: Because, firstly, the research says that the main thing about nature is not so much about how much you're in it although there are, is some research around two hours.
• 14:33
  Mel: They recommend a week.
• 14:34
  Mel: That's not even that much.
• 14:35
  Mel: Right to get the benefits on your well-being, yeah, um, but what?
• 14:40
  Mel: What they really talk about is how, how much you notice nature.
• 14:45
  Mel: So how much do we go outside and we start to notice what we're seeing and where we are and what we're within right.
• 14:51
  Mel: So a really, really simple way of doing that is send your kid out with a camera and say go, take, send them on a scavenger hunt, take a picture of something in every color of the rainbow.
• 15:05
  Mel: You could do it with them.
• 15:07
  Mel: If you really don't have a moment and actually this is a great thing to do, if you have like a safe space for them to go out on their own and you're like I really got to get this thing done Send them 15 minutes by themselves.
• 15:17
  Mel: They'll love it, right, depending on age appropriateness, of course, but you, you know it's great to do together and apart, and then you can compare what you've got.
• 15:27
  Mel: Maybe you put uh caitlin on the earlier episode I was talking about.
• 15:31
  Mel: Uh had this idea of like do you put them all together in one spot and look at them at the end of the year?
• 15:36
  Mel: And you get this like collection and collage of all these photos, right, yeah, and what you're doing is you're helping your kids and yourself and I do do recommend you go out and do it, whether it's with them or on your own but you're forcing yourself to notice something.
• 15:52
  Mel: So you're taking pictures of things that bring you joy outside, right, so like, find that little snail or the caterpillar, or like the veins in the leaves, and notice the detail and how that makes you feel, and that's the simplest thing that you can do to make yourself feel good.
• 16:12
  Mel: Right, it's such a simple thing, so that's a really good example of what you could do with your kids.
• 16:19
  Mel: Also, free play I'm all for free play outdoors for kids, so have some like planks of wood or like old tires or you know just really simple things that they can build things, move things around.
• 16:33
  Mel: This is how we get those dreams we just talked about with our kids who want to like build the car or build the thing that's going to go and change the world.
• 16:39
  Mel: Right right because they realize they can build from the things around them and it allows them to build their creativity, allows them to build confidence in themselves and that they can handle the situations when they get, they kind of reach the edge of risk and they're like, oh, can I do it right?
• 16:55
  Mel: It builds up that courage.
• 16:56
  Mel: Um, so nature is like it is there for all of us, it is part of all of us, but it's also there for all of us and, honestly, just get out as much as you can and don't beat yourself up, for you know, like I didn't get out for an hour today or whatever yes, get out as much as you can If you're at the stage of being able to go out, for you know, I have an app called 1000 hours outside.
• 17:23
  Mel: I think, it's called amazing app.
• 17:26
  Mel: I'm following that, but I did it with the intention of if I don't reach a thousand, it's okay.
• 17:31
  Mel: It's more that I want to know how much I am actually getting outside.
• 17:35
  Mel: So it's just to raise awareness this year for me and not add the guilt.
• 17:39
  Mel: We have enough of that as moms.
• 17:41
  Mel: We don't need any more guilt.
• 17:44
  Mel: Enough of that as moms.
• 17:47
  Mel: Oh yeah, like yeah, we don't need any more guilt.
• 17:48
  Mel: Um, so if you're, if someone's listening and being like, oh my gosh, like my kids another thing, summer and I'm trying to work and my kids have been on tv too much today and all that, and I've just beaten yourself up and just just flip that around.
• 17:58
  Mel: It's like, yes, they've been doing that.
• 18:00
  Mel: Yeah, and let's go outside for five minutes now, that's enough.
• 18:05
  Mel: That will help their well-being and yours.
• 18:08
  Mel: Yeah, right, or if you can do 10 or 15 or an hour whatever is can actually fit in Right Me and my kids.
• 18:17
  Mel: This last couple of weeks we've been we we're very lucky we live near lake um and it's been very easy in past years we've been here four years now to feel like we have to go and have like the four-hour stint to the beach yeah, you gotta pack up all the stuff, you gotta do all the things.
• 18:37
  Mel: You gotta bring all the things, etc.
• 18:39
  Mel: And we do do that sometimes and it's super enjoyable.
• 18:43
  Mel: I've realized I like it better when we bring a friend along and then I have people to chat with and the kids have kids playing.
• 18:49
  Mel: But what we've actually been doing is saying oh, it's like four o'clock, most people are heading home, we're going to the beach and we're going there for like half an hour, maybe an hour maximum, and then we're coming home.
• 19:01
  Mel: We're not even going to bring extra clothes.
• 19:03
  Mel: We're not even going to bring extra clothes.
• 19:10
  Mel: We're just going to get in the car wet.
• 19:11
  Mel: We're going to come home, make dinner and eat.
• 19:12
  Mel: Right, yeah, pardon me, and it's been great, because I didn't think that was possible.
• 19:15
  Mel: I thought it would.
• 19:15
  Mel: The transitions are hard and it would be like, you know, a lot of effort, but actually it's.
• 19:19
  Mel: It's rejuvenating for all of us and we're all in a better mood for it.
• 19:23
  Mel: So you know, find one little thing that you can do to get outside.
• 19:28
  Mel: Yes, little being the operative word.
• 19:31
  Carrie: Yes, when we don't have those expectations, it definitely goes along more smoothly and it's so much more fun.
• 19:38
  Carrie: I love that you mentioned noticing like being in the right mindset, and that was a great tip for keeping kids to notice, to help them to notice, Because you can tell them all you want noticing.
• 19:51
  Carrie: Let's look at this and oftentimes my son is maybe thinking of building something, but if I point out a bug doing something interesting, then he's definitely going to change his mindset.
• 20:03
  Carrie: So I love that scavenger hunt idea.
• 20:05
  Mel: I think my kids would love that too, and you can add, you can change that in as many ways as you want, like find three things shaped like a circle.
• 20:13
  Mel: Find, you know, five triangles, five, whatever right, yeah, three green things.
• 20:18
  Mel: Like you can change it in so many ways, yes, or just things that are enjoyable.
• 20:24
  Carrie: Yeah, yeah, I'm curious to see we.
• 20:26
  Carrie: We gave our kids um little digital cameras, because we don't have any devices or anything usually, and they take a lot of pictures.
• 20:35
  Carrie: So I'm like I'm gonna have to print this off one day and maybe make a collage of some kind.
• 20:39
  Carrie: But yeah, it's really fun kids they're.
• 20:41
  Mel: They're just in awe of nature and, you know, experiencing awe is one of the best things for our health.
• 21:00
  Mel: I think it's in the top two, or something like in terms of of enabling your well-being, and nature is where we often do that.
• 21:06
  Carrie: So yeah, find spaces to be in awe yes, and I um, oftentimes when we're hiking my husband's, he's thinking about the schedule, like we have to get back, we have to eat lunch, all these pieces, and he's the hurrying the kids along as we're hiking, whereas my kids are picking up the sticks, looking at, you know, the animals on the logs and finding all the neat things along the way.
• 21:30
  Carrie: So I often have to urge him like, okay, let's bring the lunches with us, so that way if we get stuck we can sit and eat and we don't have to rush back to the car or rush back to the house.
• 21:41
  Mel: Yeah, Honestly, my biggest tip for parents is if you're going out in nature for more than 20 minutes, and even if it's 20 minutes bring snacks, just bring snacks, everything will be fine if you just bring snacks for yourself too.
• 21:53
  Mel: Don't forget snacks for you, cause I always forget snacks for me.
• 21:56
  Mel: Right?
• 21:57
  Mel: We think of our kids.
• 21:58
  Mel: Yeah, but honestly, like kids can last so long outside as long as they have water and some sort of snack that they enjoy sunscreen, sunscreen, for sure, sunscreen depending on the time of the year.
• 22:10
  Mel: Yeah, exactly so you know, do those things first and then allow yourself that space to be out there, not on a time, on a time frame, or, you know, if you are in a time frame, maybe your husband could like put a little alarm on his phone so that he knows that he needs to turn around whenever it goes off, that you have to start heading back so that he can stop thinking about he doesn't have to hold it in his head anymore.
• 22:33
  Mel: Yeah, that's what your his phone's doing for him, and he doesn't have it.
• 22:37
  Mel: He doesn't, you know, it's just going to beep at him in his pocket or wherever it might be.
• 22:40
  Mel: That's good.
• 22:41
  Carrie: Or on his you know, old school watch on his arm, that's okay, yeah, we definitely, yeah, we enjoyed, um, my son, we would just went to Kauai recently and he wanted to spend the entire day at the beach.
• 22:57
  Carrie: So we would have to pack everything with us and I started to say, well, we could just go for, you know, an hour at a time.
• 23:04
  Carrie: We don't need to do the six hour chunks of being in the waves and just watching the wave crashing on the sand from underneath with the goggles.
• 23:13
  Carrie: So we definitely have learned we can do the small chunks instead of the six hour day where we start to get a little sunburn around the eyes or such, or as well as right?
• 23:23
  Mel: Yeah, that's true, because they have different benefits to each of those things.
• 23:27
  Mel: You don't have to do the six hour stint every single time of being there and I love those ones.
• 23:33
  Mel: And they're hard on my brain.
• 23:37
  Mel: Efficiency mode, right, yes, um, which is both great and why we should do it and why I can't do it every day sure, yeah, a solid week of it.
• 23:47
  Carrie: It was like, okay, we need to kind of take breaks and go do some cultural pieces that mom's seeking as well and yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, mom's needs.
• 23:56
  Carrie: So I wanted to ask you I love that you are helping adults to curate spaces.
• 24:02
  Carrie: I recently was recording a podcast about curating spaces for kids and I've worked with my kiddos to create little spaces that they have in their bedrooms, in their closets.
• 24:15
  Carrie: That's the only we had an empty space in the closet and they like the cozy feeling.
• 24:20
  Carrie: So I wanted to check with you what your ideas are for moms and dads and looking, I don't know.
• 24:28
  Carrie: Also, I know you're talking about physical space as well as emotional spaces too, so I wanted to check in with you about tips about, maybe, things that you may have had for your own childhood, for yourself, or maybe for moms and dads listening.
• 24:45
  Mel: Yeah, I think you make a good point there.
• 24:48
  Mel: So to me, so I say I create or curate space.
• 24:51
  Mel: It is both of those things, right?
• 24:54
  Mel: So the physical one is the easy one to answer first.
• 24:56
  Mel: And I've learned more and more throughout the years I've been leaning into the fact that I love designing spaces.
• 25:03
  Mel: I love to kind of figure out what's going to go in them.
• 25:06
  Mel: Um, you know, if, if you're watching on a, on a video, you can see like my, my bookshelves are like color-coded, you know, because it just makes me feel good and they're, you know, tilted at certain angles and I'm not, you know, anal about it just makes me feel good and they're, you know, tilted at certain angles and I'm not, you know, anal about it or anything.
• 25:22
  Mel: But I love creating that space that is there and makes me feel good.
• 25:24
  Mel: And I was recently at an event called the Do Lectures in Wales, in the UK, gifted a course to design events and I've been watching it recently and they talk about the magic, how they.
• 25:42
  Mel: You need to have the magic, and not only at events, but I think this is what we need in spaces as well.
• 25:47
  Mel: So how do you create the magic, that sense of awe, that sense of joy, that sense of wonder, that sense of whatever it is that you need in that space, right?
• 25:57
  Mel: So, like my office, I have purposely set up to have plants everywhere, some of them real, some of them fake, depending on where they are in the room and whether I think I can keep them alive there.
• 26:08
  Mel: I have a spot over on my side here where I have a sign on the wall that says and breathe, dot, dot, and it's like a little yoga nook over there If I want to do some stretching or and don't get me wrong, like I don't do yoga very often, but it reminds me that I can go over there and lay on the floor and just be for a moment in my day.
• 26:29
  Mel: Um, I have a balcony right outside where I have a hammock that lays there so that I can lay down in that sometimes and just look up at the sky.
• 26:39
  Mel: I have a bike right beside me so that when my brain stops functioning, it's because my body needs to move Right.
• 26:45
  Mel: So I don't have to go hard, I don't have to sweat, I just like we'll sit there and like listen to a podcast or something for 10 minutes and and spid my legs a little bit and you know, all of these things in a space are what creates they, they, they each have a purpose, right?
• 27:04
  Mel: They remind me that I can have.
• 27:07
  Mel: This is a pretty small space.
• 27:08
  Mel: I'd like to say, too, like it's not huge in here, but you can have all these things in a small space.
• 27:12
  Mel: So there's a physical space.
• 27:15
  Mel: Right now I'm we're redesigning this little 13 foot bowler style trailer that we have.
• 27:23
  Mel: My daughter came along.
• 27:26
  Mel: She's so excited as well.
• 27:27
  Mel: I realized this is totally like she's inherited this part of me to a fabric shop and she got to help me choose which fabrics we're going to use for like, just some decorative curtains and we'll just do some like pillow pillowcases in there as well, and she was so excited, she was literally shaking with excitement and it was just beautiful to be able to share that moment with my daughter and actually I think kids naturally do enjoy doing doing that and they'll have their own angle and twist on how they like to do that, but you know, involving them in the creation of space right in the.
• 28:05
  Mel: We first moved from the UK back to Vancouver Island in March 2020, so like there wasn't anything else to do, right, and I had basically left my business there.
• 28:16
  Mel: I wasn't't, I wasn't doing it here, and me and my kids just designed their bedrooms, right, and that's why, like, well, now we have like the climbing wall and climbing stuff for my boy, but we also like designed a bed and a tree house in his closet and like all these just cool things that I was like I wish I had this as a kid, right, and my daughter's more into fairies.
• 28:40
  Mel: So we like made that all over her walls and this cool space in our closet.
• 28:44
  Mel: And so you know, spaces are spaces help define what energy we're going to have in that when we are in that space, right, and those little bits of magic really do matter you know, like a realtor's often say like bake a loaf of bread or put some cinnamon sticks in water on the stove because they bring about emotion, right, if you're showing your house and we can do the same same little tiny things in our own house to create the energy that we want.
• 29:18
  Mel: So I love doing that, mostly for myself, at events that I run in coaching sessions.
• 29:25
  Mel: You know, it's the little things.
• 29:26
  Mel: Like I bring a little fold up thing that someone can sit on if we're going to sit on a log, if they want it, right, cause I live in a very wet place.
• 29:35
  Mel: It's beautiful and green, but it because of it, but it is wet.
• 29:39
  Mel: So you know, it's like thinking of the little things there.
• 29:43
  Mel: And then the other side of it is the curating and creating space, as in space to be right, and how can we as people step back and look and be like, okay, I need to take the space to feel heard, I need to feel, feel like I belong, I need some space to simply be me.
• 30:06
  Mel: So that that trip I was just talking about, I went for 10 days to the UK by myself, no family, right, and it was incredible because it gave me space.
• 30:17
  Mel: It wasn't so much it gave me space.
• 30:18
  Mel: It wasn't so much it gave me space away from my kids, which is what it will look like and that, I mean, was the effect of it.
• 30:25
  Mel: It was more that it gave me space to breathe.
• 30:29
  Mel: It gave me space to not have that list of things going in my head every like, constantly and all the time.
• 30:35
  Mel: Right, it gave me space to simply get on with my day and not worry about what we were going to eat next, because I knew I could survive another little bit until I got something from the corner shop, right, like it was.
• 30:48
  Mel: It just gave me space.
• 30:49
  Mel: So I encourage everybody to take that space not for themselves, and one of the things that I the main thing I think I actually do for people through my coaching practice, through my podcast interviews, through all of the work that I do, the events and such is create space and I invite people to take space for themselves, to grow and develop.
• 31:11
  Mel: And I invite you to think about, as moms, how can you create space for your kids.
• 31:18
  Mel: I invite you to think about, as moms, how can you create space for your kids where they're not running to the next activity, where they're just allowed to be right.
• 31:30
  Mel: How do we do that?
• 31:31
  Mel: The answer is multitude.
• 31:31
  Mel: There's so many answers to that right and each of us will have our own depending on what our life looks like.
• 31:38
  Mel: But I do encourage just think about how do we create space for ourselves and how do we create space for our kids physically and emotionally.
• 31:45
  Carrie: Yeah, that's where the creativity happens, right when there's nothing planned.
• 31:50
  Carrie: That's when it kicks in, and I think I read research once.
• 31:54
  Carrie: You might've read it differently, so you'll have to correct me if you've heard it differently.
• 31:57
  Carrie: I heard that the I think it was the prefrontal cortex that's developing at fourth grade.
• 32:04
  Carrie: That's when we see a huge decrease in the creativity that kids are bringing in to art or to school, and so trying to keep that creativity going for us right and giving them, instead of going from activity to activity, is having them have downtime, having them be outside without anything planned in that moment, sometimes not even playdates, sometimes they're on their own and they just have with their brother or sister and have to figure out, like, what are we going to do with our time?
• 32:37
  Carrie: Permission to be bored?
• 32:39
  Mel: I think it's one of the terms Definitely permission to be bored.
• 32:44
  Mel: My son says he's bored all the time and his go-to is like so, can I play Mario Kart?
• 32:49
  Mel: And I was like no, sweetie, it's okay to be bored, it is okay to be bored, you'll figure it out.
• 32:54
  Mel: And then he's just beautifully recently he was.
• 32:57
  Mel: He's been quite scared to go in his room by himself and he's beautifully started going upstairs into his room and playing on his thing and playing the music he wants, because music is quite big in his life.
• 33:06
  Mel: He's quite into techno right now.
• 33:07
  Mel: Um, that's really I don't know how but, um, and, and it's.
• 33:14
  Mel: It gives him that space to build up that.
• 33:15
  Mel: You know, he wouldn't do that if he wasn't bored.
• 33:18
  Mel: He would still think it was too scary to go by himself, right?
• 33:25
  Mel: So giving them that space to be bored and let's be clear, as adults, because our brains have changed, because our culture has gotten us into a certain way, like space is intimidating for many of us.
• 33:35
  Mel: It's like, well, what do I do?
• 33:37
  Mel: How do I relax?
• 33:38
  Mel: Like, how do I choose the 10 million things that I want to do with this space that I have?
• 33:44
  Mel: And we can get up, all up in our heads, and it's, it's much harder for us to simply be.
• 33:50
  Mel: And so my hack for that would be plan a little bit of it, right?
• 33:55
  Mel: Plan a little bit of it with flexibility that if you change your mind, you're allowed, okay.
• 34:02
  Mel: So maybe the plan is like to go sit on the balcony for half an hour with your cup of coffee, like that's the plan.
• 34:12
  Mel: But anything else you want to do, if you want to get up and go look at the garden over there, if you want to, like you know, start singing a song, I don't know, whatever it is, you decide you want to do you want to get up and go look at the garden over there?
• 34:19
  Mel: If you want to, like you know, start singing a song, I don't know whatever it is you decide you want to do, you are allowed to.
• 34:21
  Mel: To change the plan.
• 34:24
  Mel: Right, if you start going out to drive for, to go somewhere for a walk or whatever, and you just change directions, it's okay, like a lot of that happened.
• 34:34
  Mel: But the the little bit of a plan might just be like a little hack to get you going.
• 34:39
  Mel: Um, because it's efficient or do you know little ones for me is like this is more of like a noticing nature type result.
• 34:47
  Mel: But I take my dog for a walk every morning, I could just let her out in the backyard, but when it stresses me because she'll probably start barking at the neighbors early in the morning, so I'm like I'm just gonna take her for a 10 minute walk, do the whole potty thing every morning, I could do that as a task.
• 35:00
  Mel: It is a task.
• 35:01
  Mel: I get to check, tick my box, it's done.
• 35:04
  Mel: While I'm out there, I don't bring my phone and I look around and allow myself to be and to notice and to just enjoy the fact that I'm walking down the street.
• 35:17
  Carrie: Yeah, I had.
• 35:19
  Carrie: Yeah, there was an intuitive person that our coach that I was working with years ago and she said go outside and walk, but don't have a path in mind.
• 35:32
  Carrie: Just when you're going to the corner, you, whatever direction you are guided toward, go that direction and just let yourself go.
• 35:41
  Carrie: And it's a great way to train your intuition and hearing your heart and what you're drawn toward, and I loved it.
• 35:48
  Mel: It's possibly my favorite thing to do, and it always has been if we're walking, my husband will look at me If I see him, if he sees like a random path and he's like you're going to go that way, aren't you?
• 35:57
  Mel: I was like, oh yeah, I am, I got to know where it goes.
• 35:59
  Mel: Or if you're like on a beach, I got to go walk to the corner to see what's around the corner.
• 36:04
  Mel: But then there's another corner and like when does it end?
• 36:06
  Mel: I don't know, yeah.
• 36:08
  Carrie: You got to eventually go back home.
• 36:10
  Carrie: But yeah, yeah, it's so fun to take the new path, the path less traveled, or to see where it ventures toward.
• 36:17
  Carrie: Yeah, it's definitely.
• 36:19
  Carrie: And those times that's when you can often hear great ideas too is when you're not on your phone, when you're out walking and you're just walking and you've cleared your monkey mind.
• 36:31
  Carrie: You're just hearing your footsteps.
• 36:34
  Carrie: I feel like walking meditation has become so popular.
• 36:39
  Carrie: I'm hearing so many people with it.
• 36:41
  Carrie: It's been interesting, yeah.
• 36:44
  Carrie: Interesting, yeah, I described skiing once to my grandmother, who was very spiritual when I was growing up and I love the feeling of skiing and the swoosh swoosh and the sound of the wind and the feeling of the wind on your face as you're going fast and the muscle movement and the sound of the wind in the trees or when you feel it feel snowflakes on your face.
• 37:06
  Carrie: So I described all these pieces and the rhythm piece of the swooshing.
• 37:09
  Carrie: She said, carrie, you're meditating when you ski like this is why it feels so good when you're done.
• 37:16
  Carrie: Oh, I didn't I.
• 37:19
  Carrie: This was in 1995.
• 37:21
  Carrie: I don't think there was active meditation at that time being discussed regularly.
• 37:25
  Carrie: So it was really cool to hear those pieces.
• 37:29
  Mel: Yeah, that's beautiful and it's just, and, and you know another, the term that would probably be used for it is just getting into flow and finding those, those places where you can get into that space of flow.
• 37:41
  Mel: It requires little thought, but just enough, you know, just enough.
• 37:46
  Mel: It can't be nothing.
• 37:47
  Mel: It has to be a little bit of a challenge, but not over-challenging, and really, um, yeah, just getting into that space of meditation essentially.
• 37:57
  Mel: But flow, yeah, it's a beautiful, beautiful space to be.
• 38:01
  Carrie: Yes, I've been thinking about that flow piece too and the passions we have as moms, and I feel like so many times we switch our gears when we become moms and we get into the mom flow right.
• 38:12
  Carrie: But it's hard to come back to a flow that we feel that's for ourselves, or something that that flow that we can find that feels so rewarding.
• 38:23
  Carrie: I mean, motherhood can feel rewarding in itself too, but something for ourselves that's different, that's definitely and it's okay to have those other things as well.
• 38:31
  Mel: You can love being a mom and you can love doing other things too, right, and you know, I think?
• 38:37
  Mel: I think part of that is that when we become a mom, or this new identity, and then, and if we get to the point where we're like, okay, I'm going to go back, I want to see, like this is how I used to get into flow, this is what I used to enjoy, this is who I used to be.
• 38:51
  Mel: It doesn't always have the same kick to it anymore.
• 38:55
  Carrie: Right.
• 38:56
  Mel: Because we've adapted as we became a mom.
• 38:58
  Mel: So actually there's the work is in figuring out who you are now alongside being a mom, because it may have shifted a little bit because of all the growth you've done as a mom, right.
• 39:11
  Mel: And you know, I would say, just go out and like, try thing, try new things, try things that you maybe have never done before or you haven't done since you were six or 20, or whatever, and just see what you, like you know, as hard as that first year when we moved here during COVID and everything was I, I learned to use a whole bunch of power tools.
• 39:32
  Mel: I started doing scroll sign, making signs.
• 39:35
  Mel: You can do such cool stuff with that.
• 39:37
  Mel: I like just learned all these things.
• 39:39
  Mel: I learned how to sew, you know, like, and, yeah, like I didn't necessarily, I don't necessarily do all those things for a long time anymore, but they got me into my flow because it was that.
• 39:48
  Mel: It was that learning of a new skill.
• 39:51
  Mel: That was just hard enough but not overly hard, right.
• 39:55
  Mel: So you know, what is it that you are craving, trying?
• 40:02
  Mel: I have a friend of mine.
• 40:04
  Mel: We've been going to like a few new things and we're like what's the next one?
• 40:07
  Mel: And we're like let's go do pickleball.
• 40:09
  Mel: I've always been curious about pickleball.
• 40:11
  Mel: Like I have no idea, like how it works and it's new and I I don't understand it, and that's kind of exciting right um, so we're gonna go play pickleball so you know, great it's easier to do these things with other people too.
• 40:25
  Mel: So that's my other tip is go and like, find someone who also is like maybe either in a rut or just like they just want to try some new stuff, they want to build up that courage muscle.
• 40:35
  Mel: Yeah, go do it with them.
• 40:37
  Carrie: Try it out.
• 40:38
  Carrie: Yeah, I love those.
• 40:39
  Carrie: That's great Trying it with somebody else and I.
• 40:41
  Carrie: We moved in 2020 as well.
• 40:44
  Carrie: We moved into our new neighborhood and then we moved from our rental into our house.
• 40:48
  Carrie: We were purchasing in 2021 and we couldn't buy furniture.
• 40:53
  Carrie: So COVID made us get creative and so I started buying like older furniture, solid wood pieces on marketplace for very reasonable prices, and my husband was a woodworker so he taught me how to sand it down and refinish it, and so that has continued.
• 41:14
  Carrie: Four years later, my house is getting pretty full.
• 41:17
  Carrie: I'm gonna have to start finding some people that need furniture, because it's all about the self care.
• 41:22
  Carrie: It's not necessarily about the furniture anymore, but getting that flow piece for mom yeah, it becomes the process exactly.
• 41:30
  Mel: Yeah, and then you and and it's that designing of space, it's designing something that you're like, oh wow, this is beautiful.
• 41:36
  Mel: Yes, you know, I was talking to my daughter, who gets excited about that, and I said so we had this business idea recently of having this indoor playground.
• 41:45
  Mel: Um, that we were going to build in our local vicinity and I it's not going to look like that indoor playground that we were going to build in our local vicinity and it's not going to look like that anymore.
• 41:52
  Mel: But while we were designing it, my daughter has like 10 pages worth of designs of what exactly what it's going to look like.
• 41:58
  Mel: And I said what was it about that and about the trailer and redoing that?
• 42:03
  Mel: That like gets you excited.
• 42:05
  Mel: She's like just being able to think of what we put in it.
• 42:08
  Mel: I was like, yeah, she's like and making it real, like those are the parts, so like the furniture is like that right, like you think about what new thing this can become and you make it happen and then you prove to yourself that, oh, like I can make really beautiful things that are perfectly imperfect, right?
• 42:31
  Carrie: Yes, yeah, we.
• 42:33
  Carrie: You'll have to look in your area.
• 42:35
  Carrie: So we just started going to um a year ago.
• 42:38
  Carrie: There's a woodworking class that my kids are going to and it's beautiful.
• 42:44
  Carrie: I wish they would expand.
• 42:45
  Carrie: Um, it's.
• 42:46
  Carrie: It comes from I don't remember where in Europe.
• 42:49
  Carrie: I have to double check, but they're teaching character development with building and woodworking.
• 42:54
  Carrie: Brilliant Sounds like your daughter would love something like that.
• 42:58
  Carrie: But they use little hand planes and everything, so it's no power tools and it's been really cool to watch the kids create with their hands.
• 43:06
  Carrie: I'm having so much fun chatting with you.
• 43:08
  Carrie: It's so hard to remember.
• 43:10
  Carrie: I wanted to ask you what is your superpower, mel?
• 43:17
  Mel: What is my superpower?
• 43:18
  Mel: I think the space thing is it.
• 43:21
  Mel: But in the way of like, I'm not afraid of silence, right, I will chat to someone and I will just be like, yeah, okay, like, what is it?
• 43:34
  Mel: What's the dream, or what's the like, where are you at?
• 43:37
  Mel: And sit there until they have an answer, right, so really, creating that space of, of belonging, I think, is what it is which we all need in the world, yeah, um, so I would say like I'm learning.
• 43:53
  Mel: I'm learning about myself every day, really, as we all do and.
• 43:59
  Mel: I keep going back to this point, that, like, that's what I do and I actually have it written on my wall.
• 44:03
  Mel: Um, so my um, I do an exercise with people that a coach taught me uh called core process, and you come up with your purpose in two to three words and mine is risking love and um, that really defines the like.
• 44:20
  Mel: The risking is the adventure part, it's taking risk, it's trusting, it's trusting intuition.
• 44:25
  Mel: All those things and the love is is community and belonging and people and you know them together is exactly what I think needs to happen in the world.
• 44:34
  Mel: Is more of is like, is what I'm doing?
• 44:37
  Mel: Helping risk love.
• 44:38
  Mel: And on my wall over here I've written just yesterday for myself as I was trying to answer this question like, what is it I do?
• 44:45
  Mel: Who am I like?
• 44:46
  Carrie: what's this?
• 44:47
  Mel: thing about and I go, I create space to create, to risk, love, and I think that's what it is.
• 44:52
  Mel: That's the superpower, if you want to put it that way.
• 44:54
  Mel: Right, it's the?
• 44:55
  Mel: It's space for people to be who they need to be and to take that risk.
• 45:02
  Carrie: That's so beautifully said.
• 45:04
  Carrie: I love it, and you're helping so many with this that we can all use that in our lives.
• 45:09
  Carrie: So tell us, where can our listeners find you?
• 45:13
  Mel: Yeah, so do go check out the podcast.
• 45:16
  Mel: It's called permission to be human dash the podcast.
• 45:18
  Mel: To write that in your search?
• 45:20
  Mel: Uh, definitely on Spotify and Apple.
• 45:22
  Mel: Um, you can also just go permission to be humanca and find me on there.
• 45:29
  Mel: It'll tell you all about the stuff I'm up to.
• 45:32
  Mel: Got a cool new uh project.
• 45:35
  Mel: I guess I could call it totally like a freebie that you can so, because I work a lot with people with big, audacious dreams.
• 45:43
  Mel: Perhaps you're like I have this dream but I'm too nervous to like tell my friends because maybe they'll like question it or say something like wholeheartedly, like trying to be nice, but they're like, oh but, and so you can send me basically a little voice memo with your dream and I will send you as many as needed back and cheer you on, and it gives you that space to voice it perfectly and perfectly.
• 46:07
  Mel: Essentially, I love that, so you can head on over to permissiontobehumanca dash the dash dream dash, haven for that one and check that out, because I get so much out of listening to other people's dreams Like you're giving me a gift as well, and I would love, love, love, for more and more people to send that over so that I can cheer you on and be that person who will always say yes, and there's no butts coming out of my mouth.
• 46:35
  Carrie: I love that.
• 46:36
  Carrie: I'm going to go send my dreams in there as well, cause.
• 46:40
  Mel: I love that support.
• 46:41
  Mel: That sounds so wonderful, please do, and of course, I'm on Facebook and Instagram.
• 46:46
  Mel: You can find this on there as well.
• 46:47
  Mel: Just stick in permission to be human coaching on Instagram, but yeah.
• 46:51
  Carrie: Yes, I'll put that in the show notes for everyone as well.
• 46:54
  Carrie: Thanks so much for being here today, mel.
• 46:57
  Mel: Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
• 47:00
  Carrie: Well, that's a wrap.
• 47:01
  Carrie: Thanks so much for tuning in.
• 47:02
  Carrie: Change makers.
• 47:03
  Carrie: This is Carrie.
• 47:04
  Carrie: If you haven't done a review for us, five stars and a little few words about what you've enjoyed in our podcast episodes, we would really appreciate it.
• 47:13
  Carrie: If you guys would like to ever message me, I would love any questions you have or any feedback at info at hearttoheartlifecom.
• 47:22
  Carrie: We also have a brand new website which we're super excited to share.
• 47:26
  Carrie: It's hearttoheartlifecom.
• 47:29
  Carrie: Thanks so much for tuning in and happy life, happy times.
• 47:32
  Carrie: Changemaker families.
• 47:33
  Carrie: Thank you.