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Embracing Emotional Sensitivity in Parenting: Transformative Insights with Catherine DeMonte · The Spiritual Parent: Mindful Tools for Raising Spiritual and Conscious Kids

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Children who are deemed high maintenance or too sensitive learn to silence their voice because they feel like they're too much.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: I'm too big, my feelings don't count, and these are the qualities.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I'll stick into my shadow Asking for my needs to get met.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: So when people do ask, I judge that Getting more assertive.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: I'll put that in my shadow because that looks like angry to the people who care for me and I don't want to get in trouble from them Because when they get mad at me they withdraw love.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: It seems like to me, to my little self.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: I don't recognize.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: They're just angry.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: I think they don't like me anymore.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: So that's too high of a cost.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: So I'll just learn not to show that so that gets put in our shadow.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Heart to Heart Parents.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Let's connect with our kids and learn together.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: I'm Carrie.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: I was a former teacher and speech therapist.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: I'm also a parent of two spirited, gifted, highly sensitive kids.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: 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
  Speaker 2: I will provide real life experiences and transform them into moments for connections and change for you to use in your house.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Hi there and welcome back.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: It's Keri, your friendly, intuitive mama here, and I have a real treat for you guys.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: I actually have a guest that's welcome back.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: It's Keri, your friendly, intuitive mama here, and I have a real treat for you guys.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: I actually have a guest that's coming back Catherine DeMonte.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: She's a marriage family child therapist and she's been providing a transformational therapy in California for over 25 years and she's also an author and, oh my gosh, this lady has really inspired me to dive into my own inner child healing.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: We recorded it was episode 13 a while back.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: It was right at the start of Heart to Heart Parents and it was just such a amazing path and journey that it opened for me myself when I listened to it and it was just so popular with so many people, I was so excited to reach out and continue to connect with Catherine.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: So thanks so much, catherine, for coming in today.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, you're so welcome.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me, Carrie.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: It's good to be back.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love connecting with a friendly face and man.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: You really opened the door to all of these inner child pieces for myself and I feel like it's just been reflected for the whole past year for me because we did our episode.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: I think it was in like April maybe.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: You and I were so excited to get back together and collaborate and we're working on a little project that we're working on and I'm so excited to have you here today.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: I wanted to chat with you.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: I wanted to jump right in and talk about this term shadow work that you have been mentioning to me.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: And.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: I'd love to learn a little bit more about it If you could tell our listeners and I.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Sure, sure, carl Jung is the one who came up with the concept of shadow, and it's the parts of ourselves would rather not be.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: It simmered and they grew.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: And then they stay there and get triggered when something that looks like that trait is shown to us on the outside.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: What I mean by that is, let's say, vanity is the thing we push underground, because we were a cute little kid singing in a mirror with a hairbrush and we were just having a good time.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: We weren't aware or paying attention to our face or our looks at all.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: We were just in joy, just in pure joy, and having such a good time.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: So we were fully confident and really happy.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: And somebody walked by and said don't be so full of yourself, you're so vain.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: And we may not have even known what the word vain meant, but we knew we didn't want to be that, because it brought scorn from someone we love and that we think knows everything.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: So we pushed vanity underground and so when we see that in somebody else, we really despise that quality and really notice it and are offended by it, and that will be whatever the trait is, and that's just one example.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: But that's what happens, that's what causes it to go into our shadow.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: Okay, so we can feel it as different feelings in our skin and in our bodies.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: We can feel it as something that irks us about another person um yeah, or maybe it could irk us about our own children.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Yes, doing something yes, yes, and when it irks us in our own children, we want to.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: We will try to push it down, without even realizing why.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Not only that we're suppressing them, but without realizing why it offends us, instead of seeing them as being whole children with a whole array of emotions, feelings and attributes.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: I was listening recently to a Bernay Brown.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: It was a live production that she had been recorded and she was talking about high maintenance.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: To give yourself a little bit of healing, if we're allowed to be high maintenance as a kid, if you weren't allowed to ask for something different because it was considered high maintenance as a child, and it really struck up something in me.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: I think about so many of our highly sensitive kids, highly sensitive parents, that maybe we grew up and it was too high maintenance to have something different.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, did she have ideas on how to be with that as the parent, if your child requires a lot of extra care or anything?
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: Or just named it.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: She was naming it yeah, she was naming it for herself and she was saying to think back on your own if you had that happen to you as a child.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: It's really interesting because as a parent, I've always been very I haven't always, but I think I try to be aware of how my kids are feeling and how they're dealing with situations and their struggles and challenges, as well as their personalities.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: So I think it's interesting to grow up as a kid having those pieces and then raising your own kids and trying to change it for them.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Yes, it comes back to them being our best teachers, doesn't it?
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Because if we didn't have it but we allowed the eyes on us and the care we required, we would get the message we're too much or not enough, but in this case too much, so we would really repress our needs.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: But if we have a parent like the one you are and the one you're describing, that tends to those needs and makes space for them, that changes that entirely.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: That they're not.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: It's not that they're too much, it's that they're very gifted and really awake or very talented, and what a much better mirror and reflection to be holding yeah, it's, I feel lately I've been hearing, it's just it's so I've been hearing my heart.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: it's so important to help these kids because when they're coming with these special gifts, they're also coming with that heightened sensitivity which we could term as high maintenance, so it could very easily be not well received by the community or other humans.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: And it could very easily become a traumatic situation for these kids if they go out and they're wearing their favorite outfit and it's a tutu and rubber boots and a bucket hat that's how my daughter used to dress when she was three and it was accepted when you were three, but maybe, maybe, when she's 12, she wants to wear that.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: So teaching them how to empower them.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: I'm hearing this so often lately.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: So, they are very easily.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: They're so sensitive that it can be hard to go into the external world.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think less so than it used to be, but it's still out there.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: I think the generation you're describing has a lot more leeway that way than in the past.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: I feel like that's part of what you're speaking of that children coming in have been teaching adults certain things, and I think their being so free has taught parents and grandparents to be more accepting, more open, more embracing of things that I wouldn't have done or my generation would never have done.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: So that's incredible.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: There's also the oh.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: There was a theory.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: I was going to say.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: There's the theory I don't know it's been with the indigo children, the theory that my era is a version of the indigo children.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: And now we're here and we have these special gifts ourselves the millennials the gen x eras, we have these special skill sets and raising our kids because we are being prepared.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: We were prepared to raise this next era of kids with their new version of superhuman powers or special gifts that they're coming in with.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Oh, I love the order of that.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: That's got to feel good.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: What does that feel like when you really settle into?
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: I'm part of a generation that went through that came in differently and has gifts that previous ones didn't really access or have, so that I could parent this way and be this really and be even separate from parenting a really awake, intuitive person.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: What a wonderful thing to just know it.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it feels so much more empowering because my husband and I both were these very sensitive kiddos very we felt like the world was very abrasive when we were growing up and we weren't allowed to be the high maintenance quote unquote kids right.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: It wasn't.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: We were raised in that era that wasn't ready for it.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: So, I think our, our spirits are so happy for our kids, like you're, so lucky.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: You grow up in this era where you're allowed to be free, you're allowed to to be seen as who you are and cherish for who you are, and so it.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: It feels empowering, it feels healing, definitely that healing piece there.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: I think part of the thing too that I've been learning myself with my spiritual growth and connection as a mom is using this journey to connect spiritually, to grow in the inner child that you and I had talked about previously.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: But also, like when we talk about that high maintenance piece, there's still a little bit of pain and hurt there, right, so what's a way that we could work on something like that?
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Beautiful.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: I'd love to answer that and, in addition, I want to say that something you said just really touched my heart, and that was when you said my husband and I are both.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: We came from that generation and so we're very happy to support our children and we're excited about what we see in them.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: That's so different than previous generations and it made me happy for this generation and it makes me have so much love and respect for your generation, because you're so open.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: This generation is so open.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: The indigo children are so open, and then they're happy that their children are this way, as opposed to pressing it down.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: So I just wanted to acknowledge that really moved me.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: I love that I was just going to mention before we answer my question.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: I just wrote down hungry for spirituality, like this era of parents are literally hungry for it.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: I think as soon as I add more spirituality into what I'm doing, in my messaging, I feel like parents are like yep, that's me, that's what.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: I needed.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: That's what I needed to hear.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: That's where.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: That's what I'm seeking.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: And that's what helps me connect with my kids.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: That's what helps to get us through the challenging moments.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: I'm hearing that more too than I ever have.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's just this era Absolutely Light a little bit.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: And isn't it interesting that there's so much going on in the world that is in the shadow, just like with humans, and there's so much coming up on the planet that hasn't been okay the way we treat the earth, the way even some changes in parenting and just structures are dismantling and things.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: And so that's coming up at a time that parents and children are coming into the world who are highly intuitive, highly sensitive, highly spiritual or deeply spiritual, highly sensitive, highly spiritual or deeply spiritual.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: So it's interesting to see that more collectively and then individually as well, and then, of course, in the family as well.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: But it's really interesting to think of it on a larger zoom out and look at it on a larger scale.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: Ooh, I love it.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: So many idiosyncrasies right.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: We love when we see those, it almost seems like we've been prepared for this to come.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you might think that possibly, I love that.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: Yes, so, as this sensitive soul, sensitive parent who, as I, continue to go through this spiritual growth using this parenting process of oh my gosh, it's so hard sometimes, I think even just as an example, I recently my daughter is six and she's been going through a sensitive period and we've been thinking in our minds.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: This is really interesting because when our son, who's nine, was six, he also went through a very sensitive period where it was really hard for him to stay grounded.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: It's hard to remember if this was a developmental piece for him or it was also when we had a devastating fire in our community and we were displaced in a different house.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: So we're trying to think for a month or two.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: So we're trying to think was it part of that, or was it part of the developmental pieces, or both.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: So now we're thinking while raising our daughter, there's these moments where it can be so intense, and I recently was in a moment and I was thinking God, this is so hard, this is so hard, and I had why is life so challenging like this?
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: Like I didn't feel, like I chose for it to be this challenging sometimes and all of a sudden I went this isn't my energy.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: This isn't my words.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: Whose words are these?
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: Are these my daughters?
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're hers.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: That's how she's feeling in this moment.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: When she was having this meltdown was life is so hard?
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: Why does it feel so hard for me sometimes?
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: oh wow that's really cool.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, how amazing that you could pull apart who does this belong to, like you did.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: And it also says so much about how connected you are, not only to her, but to yourself.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: You know, yeah, this brings up things for me, and it brings it as I witness things going on for her, and I think that, as parents, what we can do in those moments is remember that life isn't really happening to us.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: We feel like it's just this bad stuff is happening.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: I like thinking of it more like life is happening for us, for our highest good, our deepest development and growth, and it's an opportunity to see how our children's behavior in this moment is bringing up something in me, and sometimes you'll know right away like she's behaving in a way I never could.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Oh wait, that's actually an issue.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: I should have been allowed to use my voice.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: I should have been allowed to express I was not happy, and if we say things I never would have gotten away with, that means our parents squashed those times.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: So we had stuck feelings in our body and in our heart and messages we told ourselves I guess I'm not allowed to say when I'm angry, or express anger or frustration or a whole bunch of feelings, so those will go in.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Allowed to say when I'm angry or express anger or frustration or a whole bunch of feelings, so those will go in my shadow.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: So I'll be a really good girl or a really good boy and I'll never show frustration, anger or anything that I'm deeming as dark, because I get in trouble when I do.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: What is a first piece we could do to work on that shadow piece?
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: And I think it may be the high maintenance question I feel like goes under that shadow work right yeah it's connected.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: I think it's connected, because high children we're calling high maintenance or too sensitive are really such gifts, and those their expressions need to come out of their bodies and if we settled in and listen to them, we would learn a lot, not only about them, but how to express our own in their modeling.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: In other words, when they get to do it, maybe we'll be invited to do it as well.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: We'll also notice that they don't escalate when we hear them do it as well.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: We'll also notice that they don't escalate when we hear them lower on the scale of their upset, because they don't feel they have to be bigger to be heard.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: So that teaches us patience.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: But how it goes into our shadow is children who are deemed high maintenance or too sensitive learn to silence their voice because they feel like they're too much, I'm too big, my feelings don't count, and these are the qualities.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: I'll stick into my shadow Asking for my needs to get met.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: So when people do ask, I judge that Getting more assertive.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: I'll put that in my shadow because that looks like angry to the people who care for me and I don't want to get in trouble from them because when they get mad at me they withdraw love.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: It seems like to me, to my little self.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: I don't really.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: I don't recognize.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: They're just angry.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: I think they don't like me anymore.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: So that's too high of a cost.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: So I'll just learn not to show that so that gets put in our shadow.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: So your children and people of your generation, children who have learned that it's okay to have needs and it's okay for them to express them and it's not too much it's they're my teacher, is what it is.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when you say they are my teacher, do you mean our needs are teaching us personally, like the children, or their needs are teaching them, or is it their needs are?
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Teaching is probably both.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: That's a good question.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: I meant when I said it, but I think both are true.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: So what I meant is they get to use their voice and I create safe space for them.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: Maybe, if I express my voice in a way that says I believe I deserve to use it, maybe my energy changes and I will be heard.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Because we adults, who learn not to use our voice when we do, we have a bit of this energy around it, even if we don't realize it.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: If you don't mind, could you please stop yelling at me, or would you mind not doing that thing you're doing?
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: That makes me uncomfortable.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: We have that energy even if we're saying it as confidently as we can, because people feel our energy more than they get it from our words.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: But when our children say it, that doesn't feel okay.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Stop it.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: And they have no qualms about saying it I'll have what she's having.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: It's what happens to us.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: I like that confidence.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah it.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: It makes me think really hard.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: My, my grandmother, was a special ed teacher.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: I think you and I had talked about it previously, but when her kids would get angry and have meltdowns, she worked in special ed.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Or even when I would see with other little kids or myself when I was like a teenager, I would go to her for help and acceptance and she would say get it out, get it out, don't sit on it, get that energy out.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: And I love to try that with my daughter now because she's having a meltdown lately.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's the opposite of what most people hear and what most people say.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: It gets out of the body.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: When emotions aren't, it does get stored in us and there are whole schools of thought on where things are in our body that are.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Dis-ease are created from having something uncomfortable that got stuck.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Wow, wow.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: How do we stay mindful in as a parent right now, hearing this, I also feel a little bit I'm going to put my hand on my heart because I feel a little bit of pressure Like what if I react in the wrong way?
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: I'm not in my get it out mood, I'm having a rough day, I'm tired.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: How do we not worry about being the perfect parent and always?
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: being in that connected realm because we are human and also my husband and I are very sensitive.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: A lot of moms and dads that I speak with are very sensitive and it can be hard sometimes to maintain that level-minded version we want to be.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: That's such a beautiful question, keri, and I like that you brought in that you and your husband are highly sensitive, because I hadn't necessarily thought about that.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: I thought about sensitive parents being sensitive to their children's needs because they could relate, but you're so right as sensitive parents and people on the planet, things are going to sting more.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: It's really common.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and these are beloved children that we love so, so much and so it hurts extra much and do so much for too.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: I think a common thought often is I do so much for you.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: How can you talk to me that way?
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: But the doing, what we do for them is part of our job and their reactions aren't really the same, aren't really connected.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: They're not thinking that in that moment I shouldn't do this because they do so much for me.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: The first thought would be if we had first thing I think would be if we have that thought, I do so much to honor that thought as true, that I do and that's not what's happening here.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: And the second thing I would do would be to breathe and let out of your own body.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: And then I would acknowledge to my own inner child makes sense when they say things like that, because it's really painful and it makes you feel like you're not enough or you're too much or whatever is the emotion.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: So your adult part is talking to your child and I would I sometimes touch my heart and my my stomach at the same time in my solar plexus and just say that was really rough.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: I hear you feels really bad when you do so much and you love so much and they have a hard time and they let it out, and they let it out at you, and I say you as if we're a separate being from our inner child in that moment, and I hear you, and sometimes that's plenty.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: And then the next thing I would do would be reparative work if we did react to our child, and all of the things I just mentioned can actually happen pretty quickly because they're so powerful.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: They can shift us immediately.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it also gets easier.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: Right, practice over time helps.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, giving ourselves that compassion and practicing it maybe when you're not in that moment too.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's so helpful because I have met so many parents now that say, oh, parenting can be so intense, and it's just, it's intense.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: And I bring up to a lot of these parents are you sensitive too?
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Make sure you're thinking about yourself, because we do talk a lot about highly sensitive kiddos and, like you said, also acknowledging highly sensitive parents is so important.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: They forget to take care of themselves and forget these pieces for themselves.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: Along with that I love thinking about lately I've been thinking about the mindset when it does feel so hard kids.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: So sometimes I'm dealing with the human pieces of insurance companies and therapists and evaluations and schools and all of those not as exciting pieces of parenting.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: It can feel so hard and or if there's a moment where the kiddo is having a meltdown and I've been like I've been doing all these insurance billing things all day for you and you're in that point.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: you're like why is it so hard?
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: I'm learning to think about the mindset and how I can change the mindset into being so hard, but also, what am I meant to learn about myself right now?
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: yes, yeah.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: What's the lesson in this?
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Is it patience?
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Is it compassion?
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: What it's taking a breath being here now is a good one, because a lot of times, even though we're in the now doing these things, something I think usually is the trigger that gets us out of beat, because while we're working on those things we're not usually upset, we're just we're tending to mode, tending to these, these papers and getting this task done.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: It's the overwhelm comes, I think, right as we're finishing and have to start something new, or if we get interrupted.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: But if we can just come back and do some deep breathing and settle in, I really find what you mentioned about placing a hand on our heart can be helpful in getting back to now.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: And mostly I would want parents to watch their thoughts, that they don't tell themselves something about themselves in that moment.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: That's not accurate.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: I'm not a good parent because I just snapped or I'm not organized, so I'm not a good parent.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: I should have had this paperwork done by now, or just to really be compassionate toward themselves.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that compassion piece.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: I think you and I are chatting about feeling a little scattered as we become more spiritual and, yes, it's giving myself the compassion of wow you're, you have many hats as a mom that you're wearing right now and as we become more connected, it's so lovely to live in that space.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I forget, oh, I didn't get my groceries for today.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, giving myself that compassion for that.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: Forgetting the groceries time, yes, and everything will be okay yeah, we'll go to Chipotle that night.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: We will run to the store with the kids or something.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: I will figure it out.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: It's not life or death, it's just being a human.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, for some reason that made me think of the Buddhist expression.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: But first, mud, like the lotus, comes from the mud and just embrace where we are.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: Tell us about the.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: Tell us about it.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: I actually was saying this one the other day on social media, so it's really fun you bring that up.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: And also I tell my daughter about this one a lot, because her name is similar to a Lotus flower, but they go down at night and then they come up, so you'll have to tell us what the expression is.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow, just that there's what looks like gunk and slow.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: We might be in that for a while, but with patience and mindfulness and time, this beautiful flower comes from that and that what we see from the top looking at it, is just that and we marvel at the beauty of it, but we don't realize how much work went into it, unless we're mindful of that and just appreciative of what's underneath the surface, not just focusing on the outcome, honoring the work.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Yes, for, for sure, and think about that energetically too.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: If we're honoring the work, if we're honoring everything that we're putting into this process, I think if we're coming, if we're honoring what we're doing for our kids and we're putting in that energy through our hearts to our kids, they're're receiving that energy.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: I think that's where I was going with it energetically.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: Wow, it was hard to put into words.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Oh, you said it beautifully.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: It really got me.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: It was really beautifully said actually, carrie, and it also made me feel it energetically.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: If we're honoring the process, we are going to have different energy.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: You're so right and that's what they feel.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: And if we sometimes forget and we're out of that, then we just do the reparative work that we talked about of either telling them to let it out if they have a big reaction or we apologize, or both.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: We're also modeling that you don't have to be perfect, which comes back to how some people feel they have to be perfect to be loved, whatever perfect means to them.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: But you can never really quite hit it.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: But to say, as a parent, I'm sorry shows that sometimes we make mistakes or we would have done something differently if we could have, if we could have and any kind of many ways of languaging that, whatever that might look like.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: But I didn't.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: I'm not proud of that moment and it hurt you and I'm really sorry.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: I know that didn't feel good.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: You have some big feelings about it that you want to talk about or what's up for you or however you, however one wanted to say it, but I recognize that wasn't very nice and I'm really sorry being able to have that option for the repair and reconnection and compassion for ourselves.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: I think that helps me to take off some of that perfection pieces fear that I have of messing up.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: So, thinking it's okay, you have a safety net, You're doing your best.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: And.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: I think that helps me a little bit to not be so nervous about being perfect as a mom.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Good, yeah, I'm so glad that helps.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: It's really hard to have perfectionism in our parenting, isn't it?
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Because we're going to get triggered so much, but it's such an opportunity to look at what's coming up.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: We don't have to do it necessarily in that moment when we're engaged with our child, but to or we can, or we can.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: That really brought up that wound and, like I said, it can also bring up something akin to I could never have done that or said that.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: So that's also getting us more in touch with our inner child.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: A memory might even come up, but they're reminding us that we don't have to be perfect and they're reminding us that we have a wound of perfectionism and I'd like to tend to it.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: That's another way our children are our teachers.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: They show us where our stuff is.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: Yes, always the teachers and always learning to be the student.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: as a parent, connecting spiritually is being okay as a parent, in reflection and growth and willingness to learn and then teaching our kids that we're doing it too with them and modeling it.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: I love that Good good Me too, me too, yeah, yeah.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much for being here, catherine, so excited.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: I've loved having you and I love that we're working together on this special collaborative.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: That was the name I was going to use it was a workshop yes, workshop was the name I was going to use the special collaborative workshop that you and I are creating, talking about spiritual growth, connection, shadow work, your perspective, and it's been.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: I think we're on the path for something really neat in mid-January.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm looking so forward to it too.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: I think it's going to be so exciting.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: I'm really honored to be a part of this with you and doing this with you, and I think there's a need for it.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: Well, that's a wrap.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much for tuning in.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: Change makers.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: This is Carrie, and 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.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: If you guys would like to ever message me, I would love any questions you have or any feedback.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: At info at heart to heart lifecom, we also have a brand new website which we're super excited to share.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: It's hearttoheartlifecom.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much for tuning in and happy life, happy times.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: Change maker families.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: Bye.