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Heal Your Inner Child and Connect Better with Your Kids with Catherine DeMonte · The Spiritual Parent: Mindful Tools for Raising Spiritual and Conscious Kids

• 0:01
  Catherine: I think it can also be a catalyst to looking at our own inner child.
• 0:06
  Catherine: You know, like what got triggered for me in this particular instance, when normally I can be pretty patient with my children.
• 0:14
  Catherine: So what happened this time?
• 0:15
  Catherine: Was it just that I was tired, or did something about the pushback make me feel voiceless, for example, like when they got louder than me and I didn't feel heard and I didn't.
• 0:26
  Catherine: I wasn't, you know, using my voice, or my voice wasn't heard.
• 0:30
  Catherine: Does that remind me of childhood, when I couldn't stand up for myself or I wasn't allowed parents the way my children are?
• 0:40
  Catherine: If I had, I would have been smacked.
• 0:42
  Catherine: So that brings up that for me.
• 0:45
  Catherine: You know like what's going on for me and age.
• 0:50
  Catherine: Might I have been when this happened?
• 0:52
  Catherine: Can I think of examples?
• 0:53
  Catherine: I don't mean that we ask it like that.
• 0:55
  Catherine: We just settle in and see what shows up.
• 0:58
  Carrie: Welcome to Heart to Heart Parents.
• 1:00
  Carrie: Let's connect with our kids and learn together.
• 1:02
  Carrie: I'm Carrie.
• 1:03
  Carrie: I was a former teacher and speech therapist.
• 1:06
  Carrie: I'm also a parent of two spirited, gifted, highly sensitive kids.
• 1:11
  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.
• 1:22
  Carrie: I will provide real life experiences and transform them into moments for connections and change for you to use in your house.
• 1:30
  Carrie: Hi there and welcome back to Heart to Heart Parents.
• 1:35
  Carrie: I'm Carrie.
• 1:36
  Carrie: I'm your friendly mom here discussing all things parents and mama chat and all of that.
• 1:43
  Carrie: And I have a really sweet friend here today, Catherine and we actually met through a podcast group, which is really fun.
• 1:54
  Carrie: But once we connected, it was so fun to see how many of our background pieces align, even down to loving to study about deaf education, which was something really unique, and I loved that.
• 2:07
  Carrie: And, Catherine, would you love to give us a little bit of an intro about you?
• 2:11
  Carrie: Sure?
• 2:13
  Catherine: Thank you for asking and thank you for having me as well.
• 2:15
  Catherine: It's really an honor to be here, Carrie.
• 2:17
  Catherine: Thank you.
• 2:18
  Carrie: Thank you so much for being here too.
• 2:20
  Carrie: I forgot to mention that.
• 2:21
  Carrie: Oh, my pleasure.
• 2:23
  Catherine: Thank you.
• 2:24
  Catherine: I'm Catherine DeMonte.
• 2:26
  Catherine: I'm a psychotherapist in Southern California and I see people online for a variety of issues relationship issues and individual clients and things like that.
• 2:38
  Catherine: I'm also the creator of an Abundance Circle group that meets online for attracting what has felt missing for people, because I found that it felt like every one big thing that felt missing for them in their life like life might be going pretty well, but money was really tight, or they had money but they didn't have a partner and they wanted somebody to share life with.
• 3:00
  Catherine: So I use tools from my um practice, my psychotherapy practice um, that I use there, but um put them together to create this eight session abundance circle group and I've also written a book about those tools.
• 3:16
  Catherine: It's called beep beep, get out of my way.
• 3:18
  Catherine: Seven tools for powerful creation and living your unstoppable life.
• 3:23
  Catherine: I'm about law of attraction and manifestation, with ancient and modern tools for calling in what's been missing, what you are really desiring to have.
• 3:35
  Carrie: Oh, my goodness, I didn't even know you had that piece in your background.
• 3:39
  Carrie: I love that so much.
• 3:41
  Catherine: It's so rewarding.
• 3:44
  Catherine: I love seeing people get what has felt missing for them by using the tools when they felt it was so out of reach because they wanted it so badly for so long, so it's really satisfying.
• 3:56
  Carrie: Okay, wow, I love that.
• 3:59
  Carrie: I didn't even know.
• 4:00
  Carrie: So you learn something new every day.
• 4:02
  Carrie: You have such a great background, catherine, I'm so excited, yeah, and we've been chatting, you and I.
• 4:11
  Carrie: We had so many interesting conversations.
• 4:14
  Carrie: I love how you specialize.
• 4:17
  Carrie: You have a background with the inner child work.
• 4:20
  Carrie: You do with a lot of your clients and that, oh man, I love chatting about that, so I'm so excited.
• 4:26
  Carrie: So what can you tell us about jumping right in?
• 4:31
  Carrie: Can you tell us a little bit about, um, how we speak to our children and what that can do for them?
• 4:39
  Catherine: Yeah, oh, absolutely it can.
• 4:41
  Catherine: How we speak to them shapes how they feel about themselves.
• 4:46
  Catherine: If we're kind and patient when we're upset with them for their behavior, we not only model how to behave when we're upset when one's upset so that they can implement it, but we show that we're still connected to them, that their behavior can't dysregulate us and I know that's a tall order but because we are going to get triggered not only by their behavior, but it might bring up our own stuff about our parenting style or things that happened to us as children when we got in trouble.
• 5:16
  Catherine: But if we can be as calm and kind and loving as possible when we're speaking to them as often as possible and I think it's such a beautiful reflection back there- yeah, yeah, okay, I love it so much.
• 5:36
  Carrie: And, um, when we're, when we're working on, uh, working and staying calm, I'm just thinking, sorry I was trying to think of we've had a rough weekend in our house.
• 5:47
  Carrie: Yeah, I do have fresh material.
• 5:52
  Carrie: We've learned recently our kids are really sensitive to red dyes and I let them have a popsicle at their dad's take bring your kid to work day.
• 6:03
  Carrie: And it was just so much emotion in our house for both kids and so much energy and just that cycle.
• 6:11
  Carrie: So what are some tips for us as moms and dads to stay calm in those moments?
• 6:16
  Carrie: It just kind of kept tumbling through.
• 6:19
  Catherine: I bet, I bet.
• 6:21
  Catherine: Just a quick question, or a sidebar.
• 6:23
  Catherine: Did you know at first what it was, or did you just think they were out of sorts?
• 6:27
  Catherine: Did you immediately go to this must?
• 6:30
  Catherine: They must have had a tie, or?
• 6:32
  Carrie: how did it was?
• 6:33
  Carrie: So I I kind of I read the label on the on the Popsicle and I was like, well, I'm not 100% sure that this will cause issues for them, and my kids are very, very sensitive with anything.
• 6:47
  Carrie: Certain things they eat, like we're gluten-free, dairy-free, and we've been working on trying to just regulate our diet.
• 6:53
  Carrie: So I knew that this was something that was really different that we were introducing into our diet this weekend on Friday afternoon, and it was kind of just very, maybe an hour or two after we gave it to him.
• 7:07
  Carrie: We were having dinner and my son was kind of slurring his words a little bit, like it was like it's like it's not something that you would really notice.
• 7:16
  Carrie: But unless you're kind of like me with that diagnostic mind where I'm going, this looks a little different.
• 7:24
  Carrie: This doesn't look normal.
• 7:27
  Catherine: Yeah, oh, I love that you're that discerning and that in tune to go anywhere to try to assess behind it.
• 7:36
  Catherine: That's already half the battle.
• 7:39
  Catherine: And the reason I asked about background was I was thinking if we don't know what's going on with our children, yeah, it can be a lot more react.
• 7:45
  Catherine: Um, just have a reflex rather than a reaction to their behavior.
• 7:51
  Catherine: Um, so that was going to be part of it was to try to figure out where they're coming from.
• 7:56
  Catherine: And you did, yes, which is a big piece of it.
• 8:00
  Catherine: If we just look at the behavior and not what's underneath it, we're going to have a stronger reaction.
• 8:06
  Catherine: Yes, so maybe asking questions would be good too.
• 8:10
  Catherine: Like what's going on for you?
• 8:11
  Catherine: You seem out of sorts or you seem really upset, like we've speaking what you, what you see, called name it to tame it.
• 8:20
  Catherine: It's from Tina Bryson and Daniel Siegel's book.
• 8:24
  Catherine: Yeah, I love them.
• 8:25
  Catherine: Remember how they talk about naming name it to tame it.
• 8:30
  Catherine: That's what I do too, to help them regulate.
• 8:33
  Catherine: Like you really look mad right now, or you seem pretty sad, something going on, or you look frustrated.
• 8:39
  Catherine: Is that right?
• 8:40
  Carrie: You know things like that can be really helpful that right, you know, things like that can be really helpful.
• 8:47
  Carrie: I love that and I think sometimes we might not know like, hey, this is the red dye, that's the trigger going on right now.
• 8:51
  Carrie: So I love asking those questions of the kids, especially when they're even six years old, nine years old.
• 8:58
  Carrie: My son I did say how does your body feel right now?
• 9:02
  Carrie: I know I noticed you're pretty short with your words right now and you're feeling dysregulated or you're feeling quick, quick to be upset.
• 9:10
  Carrie: How are you feeling?
• 9:11
  Carrie: And he said I feel really tired.
• 9:15
  Catherine: Wow, you're doing that, then you're already saying what you notice yeah, take a beat and look inward as well.
• 9:24
  Catherine: As opposed to speaking to the behavior itself or telling them what to do and that's what I think most parents do is say what they need to stop that's hard.
• 9:36
  Catherine: Yeah, stop behaving like this, or knock it off, or if you don't do, if you don't stop, you're going to have to go to your room, things like that.
• 9:45
  Catherine: Like, instead of stopping the behavior, I think it's important to look at what's causing the behavior.
• 9:50
  Catherine: Yep.
• 9:54
  Carrie: And I think it.
• 9:54
  Carrie: I think I agree with you that if I know what it is that's causing it in him, then it's a little bit easier for me to have more passion or compassion, I mean for him.
• 10:04
  Carrie: My husband, he's an engineer, so he really likes he's that science side, so he's like, well, I don't know if it is the red food dye, and they said let's give it a 48 hours and see what their systems are like.
• 10:19
  Carrie: So then Saturday they still were pretty grumpy.
• 10:23
  Carrie: Sunday it was much, much easier, and today they woke up and went to school and were happy, happiest I've seen in a long time.
• 10:33
  Catherine: Oh, wow, wow.
• 10:34
  Catherine: That's amazing that you linked the two.
• 10:37
  Catherine: By the way, I never would have linked it to that.
• 10:41
  Carrie: I know it's also part of the intuitive piece too of trying to understand and tune in and hear my heart and not be in my mind of, oh, this is so hard, Parenting can be so hard, oh that and we can take it personally, like we just took them to this fun thing and you know, like if we've, if they're overexcited, spend all that money and all that time going to the circus.
• 11:05
  Catherine: And now they're in a bad mood and take that really personally, as opposed to they're going through a rough time.
• 11:12
  Catherine: They seem really tired.
• 11:13
  Catherine: I wonder what's going on and what they may need or what they may be feeling.
• 11:17
  Carrie: Yeah, yeah, that's so perfect and so helpful.
• 11:20
  Carrie: And if we're in the heat of it and say we don't understand the cause, maybe we have spent a lot of money and an investment in our time and we were at the circus so we're exhausted.
• 11:34
  Carrie: If we start to feel like sometimes I just feel this anger kick in of enough.
• 11:40
  Carrie: Enough.
• 11:41
  Carrie: Mom has tried to be here for you.
• 11:44
  Carrie: We've done all these fun things.
• 11:46
  Carrie: I didn't want to go to the circus, but I went.
• 11:51
  Carrie: I would have rather gone on a hike outside with you guys, something like that.
• 11:55
  Catherine: If I feel this anger kind of boil up, is there something I can do in that moment or there are a couple things you can do and I, if a self, if one of the first things might be a self-imposed timeout, um, just getting away, then that can look like anything.
• 12:11
  Catherine: That that a timeout away from being on, uh, what that looks like for you.
• 12:17
  Catherine: Like I need to go take a walk because I I really missed being outside when we were at the circus and stuck there and, yeah, you know, having my own issues come up around those poor elephants that are brought over here or whatever is going on for us.
• 12:32
  Catherine: But yet, you know, I brought my kids and they're not the aftermath of that or the after effects of that.
• 12:38
  Catherine: So I sometimes think it's a good idea to get away ourselves, and I don't think we have to announce it necessarily that I need to get away ourselves, and I don't think we have to announce it necessarily.
• 12:45
  Catherine: You know that I need to get away from you, from everybody.
• 12:48
  Catherine: I'm going to be going to walk, but just get outside um, ground ourselves, take a bath, have alone time, ask our partner to step in.
• 12:58
  Catherine: Anything we can do to nourish your own soul can be really helpful most times.
• 13:02
  Catherine: I also think breath work can be helpful.
• 13:04
  Catherine: Putting a hand on our heart and one on our solar plexus and breathing in can be settling and grounding, deep breath work things like that.
• 13:17
  Catherine: Okay, I love that yeah.
• 13:18
  Carrie: I need to write all these things down.
• 13:19
  Carrie: I'm really internalizing it.
• 13:21
  Carrie: It's wonderful, oh good, and I'm really internalizing it, it's wonderful.
• 13:24
  Carrie: And then, if I do, sometimes my husband and I, if there's an extreme moment, we may lash out like I can't believe you did that, you're a bad kid, or I don't think we've said that exact phrase, maybe unless it's something really extreme.
• 13:38
  Carrie: But what can we do to keep the compassion for ourselves after those moments happen?
• 13:52
  Catherine: Such an important question because we all are going to do that at some point.
• 13:54
  Catherine: It's part of the package, unfortunately.
• 13:54
  Catherine: I think it's really important to have kindness and sensitivity to ourselves in the way that we do for our own physical child.
• 14:02
  Catherine: I think it'd be important to look at our inner child.
• 14:04
  Catherine: We would never talk to our physical, uh children like we do to ourselves, so we've done something that's out of alignment and not our highest place and wasn't kind.
• 14:15
  Catherine: If we can just speak to their ourselves, the way you teach people to speak to children and speak to your children, um, if you can say the same kind of thing to yourself like you were really out of sorts, you really got triggered and make sense.
• 14:29
  Catherine: Yeah, I think it can also be a catalyst to looking at our own inner child.
• 14:36
  Catherine: You know, like what?
• 14:38
  Catherine: What got triggered for me in this particular instance, where normally I can be pretty patient with my children?
• 14:44
  Catherine: So what happened this time?
• 14:45
  Catherine: Was it just that I was tired or did something about the pushback make me feel voiceless, for example, like when they got louder than me and I didn't feel heard and I wasn't using my voice or my voice wasn't heard.
• 15:00
  Catherine: Does that remind me of childhood, when I couldn't stand up for myself or I wasn't allowed to my parents the way my children are.
• 15:10
  Catherine: If I had, I would have been smacked.
• 15:12
  Catherine: So that brings up that for me.
• 15:14
  Catherine: You know like what's going on for me and age might I have been when this happened?
• 15:21
  Catherine: Can I think of examples?
• 15:23
  Catherine: I don't mean that we ask it like that.
• 15:25
  Catherine: We just settle in and see what shows up, when we just open the door for our inner child to show up and she might show us that time when.
• 15:34
  Catherine: And then there's suddenly a memory.
• 15:38
  Carrie: Yeah, that's so powerful, catherine, that's so powerful I.
• 15:43
  Carrie: I actually that was like red light that's from you for you, carrie, and so I.
• 15:48
  Carrie: You've given me food for thought of things to think about.
• 15:51
  Carrie: So if I have a piece that comes up from my childhood, that voiceless piece, I think is one for myself too, and what are some tips that we could do to get there, to figure out which piece it is?
• 16:09
  Carrie: You just were saying, and then how do we work on that for ourselves?
• 16:13
  Carrie: I?
• 16:15
  Catherine: think it'd be important if, if our inner child has shown us memory and there's um wounding around it and that's why it's showing up now.
• 16:22
  Catherine: I don't think we get this seems like a tall order, but it's true.
• 16:25
  Catherine: I think that we don't get triggered unless there's a wounded attached to it.
• 16:29
  Catherine: We might observe something and think you know, not like it and and think we wish it were different.
• 16:34
  Catherine: But if we're actually bothered by something that's bringing up up something, it might not be a specific thing but a wounding of ours.
• 16:41
  Catherine: Like I feel voiceless in general from my childhood, or I feel so.
• 16:46
  Catherine: It might not be specific.
• 16:48
  Catherine: So then doing going in and then talking to her later not in that moment or it might be but um, letting her speak, letting her speak about what it was like to feel voiceless as a child and reassuring her that she had wonderful things to say and it was a shame that that happened.
• 17:07
  Catherine: I'm here for you.
• 17:07
  Catherine: I'm going to listen deeply to you.
• 17:09
  Catherine: I care about what you have to say, because the adult part is now kind of acting like a therapist to a client or a loving parent to their own child, like I'm here in a way that nobody else could be because I was there when it happened and I know exactly what you're talking about.
• 17:27
  Catherine: You can also journal what's going on either from the child's point of view.
• 17:35
  Catherine: I really felt triggered when you're not speaking as a child, but you're coming from that more childlike, unprotected place instead of the adult place that tries to say well, they're only six, they're only nine, of course they're going to behave like this, they were tired.
• 17:51
  Catherine: Instead of bringing that element, there's some freedom in just writing and writing yeah, I've journaled since I was six.
• 17:59
  Carrie: It's been so powerful, yeah it's been good yeah, and now I use it to do some intuitive journaling, which is kind of wonderful, which we may have to chat about.
• 18:10
  Carrie: That I'll have to share.
• 18:11
  Carrie: I would love to know that, I think that's so powerful.
• 18:15
  Catherine: Yeah, it seems so pure when it's intuitive.
• 18:19
  Carrie: Yes, yes, it's true, your mind doesn't get into drive it, which I mean sometimes we need to clear our minds, I think with what you're chatting about too, but also sometimes it can let us know things that are festering that we might not know are there Sometimes?
• 18:34
  Carrie: It can give a new window, absolutely.
• 18:38
  Catherine: There's also a really powerful technique called non-dominant handwriting, where if you're right-handed, you're using the same part of the brain all the time to access that material.
• 18:50
  Catherine: But if you switch to your left hand, it's not because it's left or right, but I'm just using that as the example, since most of us are right-handed.
• 18:58
  Catherine: When you switch the hand you write with, you're switching the side of the brain that you're accessing, because you know how, if you're right-handed, you're left-brained and vice versa, so you're tapping into the unconscious material when you switch hands.
• 19:21
  Carrie: I love that.
• 19:22
  Carrie: That's so wonderful.
• 19:23
  Carrie: My grandma used to always, when I would get in my cycle, in my mind she would always say stop being so left-brained.
• 19:27
  Carrie: I love that.
• 19:28
  Carrie: I'm definitely going to try that exercise.
• 19:31
  Catherine: That would be good.
• 19:32
  Catherine: You could also start your prompt with your dominant hand and then switch.
• 19:37
  Catherine: Okay, yeah, so that the answer comes from your non-dominant hand.
• 19:43
  Carrie: I love that.
• 19:44
  Carrie: Okay, I'm writing all these techniques down.
• 19:47
  Carrie: These are wonderful, good, good, and I love that you've discussed a little bit of inner child work.
• 19:55
  Carrie: That's definitely a piece I feel like, as my children are hitting different stages in their ages, we have definitely had things that come up from my husband and myself have had things come up from our own childhoods that maybe we put a bandaid over when we when we had worked on it before, or as a child, I feel like, but it still kind of festers up.
• 20:19
  Carrie: Do you have any pieces that you'd love to share with us on that?
• 20:24
  Catherine: I do.
• 20:24
  Catherine: And first I want to say that really moved me that both you and your husband are aware that that's what that is and I also felt kind of tender toward both of your inner children in that moment, like they even had that.
• 20:36
  Catherine: But we kind of go through childhood unscathed.
• 20:39
  Catherine: I mean, we don't go through childhood unscathed, do we?
• 20:43
  Catherine: We're all going to have stuff, even with the most loving, most intentional parents.
• 20:48
  Catherine: It's just going to be part of the package.
• 20:50
  Catherine: So I'm sorry for noticing both of you that this is actually related to something in my childhood.
• 20:57
  Catherine: Just want to acknowledge that, um, and I also think you raised a good point when you mentioned that when they, our children, hit certain ages, our own material at that age can come up and that would be a really good time to do some of the exercises we're already we have already spoken about like noting that.
• 21:16
  Catherine: That's what this is bringing up, is half of it like when my six-year-old behaved that way, if I noticed that.
• 21:22
  Catherine: It brought up that memory of me at six, when, or it makes me think of being six and I don't know what it is, but something about six is coming up for me.
• 21:32
  Catherine: Maybe it was that move when we moved when I was six, so it wasn't a thing, that was a one moment thing, but uh, you know, but now as an adult realize was a trauma when we made that move when we were six.
• 21:47
  Catherine: So I think we have kind of, in a way, putting our six-year-old on our lap and talking to them and recognizing that that's what's going on, um, having a dialogue with them.
• 22:01
  Catherine: That was really difficult when that thing happened.
• 22:03
  Catherine: I remember that that was so tender.
• 22:05
  Catherine: Do you want to?
• 22:06
  Catherine: Do you want to say more?
• 22:07
  Catherine: And then getting quiet and hearing what comes up.
• 22:10
  Catherine: And it can either be just start thinking and then imagine them speaking back, or it can be journaling, like in the way we spoke of.
• 22:18
  Catherine: We could also do the prompts as the again as the adult doing the dominant hand by the child writing, which is so laborious, but it also slows us down and ironically looks like child children's driving, which is interesting yeah so yeah, I love that.
• 22:37
  Carrie: That's, that's so beautiful and I love that technique.
• 22:41
  Carrie: It sounds, it sounds.
• 22:42
  Carrie: I can't wait to trial these.
• 22:44
  Carrie: As soon as we're done, during my lunch hour, I'm gonna be oh perfect.
• 22:49
  Catherine: When I have suggested it to clients, they've often been amazed at what came up because it was so deep, so unconscious, so not what they expected to come up.
• 22:58
  Catherine: They didn't think anything would sometimes or they would start and it would be kind of hard because it's not easy to write with our non-dominant hand and they thought about giving up.
• 23:07
  Catherine: But they just kind of went through it, got to material that was so important to know and so deeply unconscious at the same time.
• 23:16
  Carrie: I love that hearing from the inner child too and being able to hear those pieces.
• 23:21
  Carrie: Maybe that we don't always identify when we're in the moment to hear the inner child say it.
• 23:27
  Catherine: Oh, I love that.
• 23:28
  Catherine: I'm glad I do feel that way.
• 23:30
  Catherine: It's yeah, it's really important to bring it up, isn't it?
• 23:34
  Carrie: Yeah, yeah, it's a huge piece and also so many techniques that I've heard with dealing or working with your inner child.
• 23:40
  Carrie: It's usually, um, you know, we're working to heal that piece, but I don't think I always hear the inner child speaking as much or asking them what's wrong.
• 23:55
  Catherine: And I love that.
• 23:55
  Catherine: Thank you, I'm glad I don't hear it that often either, and I think because most of us were voiceless growing up again, even if, even in the best of circumstances, we just needed to be quiet Sometimes.
• 24:07
  Catherine: No, we were in school or I don't know.
• 24:10
  Catherine: We didn't have the words.
• 24:11
  Catherine: Know, we didn't have the words, so we didn't have the words for the feelings.
• 24:14
  Catherine: Yeah, or we just thought that's how life is.
• 24:17
  Catherine: Whatever it was that happened, and just noted but and do, duly noted and processed this way or stored this way, but not really spoken about, you know.
• 24:28
  Catherine: So there's a lot that does not get said, so letting her or him speak now is so important.
• 24:35
  Carrie: Wow, that's really interesting.
• 24:37
  Carrie: When you mentioned when we're at school sometimes and we're not able to have our voice heard, I was feeling that for myself.
• 24:44
  Carrie: With the voiceless piece when you were talking about it, I was like, oh, it's cool.
• 24:48
  Carrie: And so the school piece.
• 24:51
  Carrie: I think it's so common, right?
• 24:53
  Carrie: We're?
• 24:54
  Carrie: We're all taught um auditorily.
• 24:57
  Carrie: So as a child, you're often having to sit there and listen to these lectures.
• 25:02
  Carrie: And I'm thinking about my kids as I move them recently to a project-based, social, emotional based school.
• 25:09
  Carrie: They feel so happy and they don't come home drained.
• 25:14
  Carrie: So it's just, it's so interesting to think they have like community meetings.
• 25:20
  Carrie: If somebody is having an argument or disagreement or somebody wants to say something that's going on in their life, they have these meetings where they're allowed to have discussions.
• 25:31
  Catherine: Oh, that's incredible.
• 25:33
  Catherine: That's so empowering, right Know that you can speak about these things and to be in a classroom where it's not just listening.
• 25:41
  Catherine: Yeah, it's a lot of not speaking time.
• 25:47
  Carrie: Yes, yes, my son was in a preschool a long time ago.
• 25:51
  Carrie: It was a very special type of preschool.
• 25:54
  Carrie: They had a special technique and it was like a lot of self-led learning, which is great, but my son really wanted to communicate and really wanted to socialize.
• 26:06
  Catherine: And he was only three.
• 26:08
  Carrie: So that's the time when they're socializing.
• 26:11
  Carrie: Yes, he would get in trouble because they were like, well, this is independent work time and so I don't even know the word independent.
• 26:21
  Carrie: I'm three he knows that did not last very long in our house.
• 26:28
  Carrie: But as much as we try to find like that consistency, my husband and I I changed schools like six times maybe before fourth grade mid-year, sometimes back and forth between Idaho and California.
• 26:43
  Carrie: So yeah, I was a lot more sensitive person.
• 26:49
  Carrie: So, um, so my husband and I really want to have consistency for our kids but we find you cannot control the universe.
• 26:58
  Carrie: There's just so many times they're in these schools and we're like, okay, we found the perfect fit for them.
• 27:04
  Carrie: Nope, that's not it.
• 27:07
  Catherine: I love it, even though consistency is extra important to you and your husband when you know that it's not right.
• 27:14
  Catherine: You don't have that sort of like blanket over what you're picking up or a decision Like it doesn't feel right, but consistency is the only thing that matters when a person who's not as in touch might go with something they've already preordained as as really really extra important to us, which is consistency.
• 27:37
  Catherine: So that really showed flexibility, showed listening to your voice and your intuition on both your parts.
• 27:44
  Catherine: So that's incredible and good, really good, that you, you know you pay attention to that.
• 27:51
  Carrie: Yeah, we definitely.
• 27:53
  Carrie: We have a spiritual center we go to which really helps us, and I had a lot of people at the spiritual center.
• 27:58
  Carrie: I would talk to them separately and they kept bringing up the word resilience when I would say you know we're thinking about changing the kids' schools, but you have to really think through it as a parent.
• 28:08
  Carrie: And they kept saying resilience and I was like, well, that's three times in a row with three different people at different conversations.
• 28:15
  Catherine: Wow, paying attention to synchronicity is so important.
• 28:19
  Catherine: It's like a little breadcrumbs that tell us we're on the right path.
• 28:23
  Catherine: You know, I'm noticing that I'm hearing this three times.
• 28:27
  Catherine: What's that about?
• 28:29
  Catherine: It really gets our attention.
• 28:30
  Catherine: So, there again, we paid it, we listened.
• 28:34
  Carrie: Yeah, yeah, and I love the way you mentioned um, as a parent, going up going over that or having that flexibility piece.
• 28:44
  Carrie: It's definitely not something that was ingrained in my husband and I.
• 28:48
  Carrie: We are not normally inflexible people.
• 28:50
  Carrie: We like try to control our environments, we try to control things around us.
• 28:54
  Carrie: But, yeah, just being a parent.
• 28:59
  Catherine: Yeah, I think that's one of the many, many gifts having children brings us.
• 29:06
  Catherine: They're one of our best teachers, aren't they?
• 29:09
  Catherine: Like that?
• 29:10
  Catherine: We can be, we can show resilience.
• 29:12
  Catherine: We don't have to do everything in such a structured way they don't, or whatever it is that they teach us.
• 29:18
  Catherine: We're open for the gifts that they're bringing.
• 29:21
  Catherine: They can stretch us so, so much in ways that we probably needed, on some level, to have more of.
• 29:30
  Carrie: Yes, for sure.
• 29:31
  Carrie: It's very true.
• 29:33
  Carrie: I love it when they're teaching us and we're constantly learning and constantly changing and it's really helped my husband and I.
• 29:42
  Carrie: Oh, back to the voiceless.
• 29:44
  Carrie: It's really helped my husband and I find our voices, Wow, oh yes, I can imagine.
• 29:51
  Catherine: I can imagine, yeah, and that's neat that you caught that, it was around, that it's a theme for today true for so many of us especially.
• 30:15
  Catherine: You know, on top of it, we were in a school where we sat and listened I didn't think about that piece before, yeah, but we weren't.
• 30:18
  Catherine: And then if we were mad and said we may have been expressing our feelings but done it in a way that got you know, we got in trouble for, like, it's not nice to speak to people that way, or that's not a nice word, if we said something you know out of anger, um, instead of you see, like you do, like we said something you know out of anger, instead of you seem like you do.
• 30:35
  Catherine: Like you seem really mad, you seem really out of sorts, you seem really frustrated Instead of feeling, oh it's, oops, it froze.
• 30:44
  Catherine: A lot of us get scolded for the way we express.
• 30:52
  Catherine: That makes us self-conscious to express yes, that's lovely.
• 30:59
  Carrie: That that makes it's interesting.
• 30:59
  Carrie: Sometimes my children are very they're they're very forceful with their, the way that they voice things.
• 31:05
  Carrie: And when they were two and it sounded forceful, I would explain to my husband.
• 31:08
  Carrie: They have a limited vocabulary so you know, they can't say, may I please have a cup of water.
• 31:14
  Carrie: It's like, um, I want water, or whatever version they were saying and it sounds demanding.
• 31:20
  Carrie: But now sometimes it can sound demanding still.
• 31:23
  Carrie: I'm trying to think back.
• 31:25
  Carrie: I'm like, oh, we might need to help them work on feeling like they have a voice.
• 31:29
  Carrie: Oh, I love that.
• 31:35
  Catherine: How loving and how respectful in terms of meeting them where they are, and I'm projecting ahead to somebody listening to this thinking yeah, but we have to teach them manners, we have to teach them how to move their and we can do both at the same time.
• 31:48
  Catherine: Like we might say something like oh, water, please, Okay.
• 31:51
  Catherine: Like we can add the please instead of say please.
• 31:56
  Catherine: You know, sometimes people say water, say please instead of water, please, Okay.
• 32:04
  Carrie: Yes, I love that.
• 32:06
  Carrie: Yes, the more we demand it from them, the less likely they're wanting to do that or to carry it over.
• 32:14
  Catherine: Yeah, and the worse it feels to be talked to that way, because all I know is I need water.
• 32:19
  Catherine: Yeah, so I'm telling you now I'm in trouble, kind of I'm not sure why, I'm sort of feeling reprimanded, so I'm not sure why I just wanted water.
• 32:30
  Catherine: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 32:30
  Carrie: That's beautiful, I love that I'm definitely going feeling reprimanded so.
• 32:32
  Carrie: I'm not sure why I just wanted water.
• 32:32
  Carrie: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 32:33
  Carrie: That's beautiful.
• 32:33
  Carrie: I love that.
• 32:34
  Carrie: I'm definitely going to try that.
• 32:36
  Carrie: I was going to ask you as far as when we're working on being a conscious-minded parent, what are some of the things that we can do with our mindsets to help the patterns we have, some of the things that we can do with our mindsets to help the patterns we have.
• 32:54
  Carrie: If we want, if we tend to go toward oh gosh, he's having a, he's having a sensitive moment where he won't put his socks on, or how can we change our mindset to feel more.
• 33:04
  Carrie: Do you have any tips for us in that?
• 33:08
  Catherine: area.
• 33:08
  Catherine: Yeah, I think, um, not to be reactionary and just be more in the present moment, um, is that so I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think when we become the way you're describing it's, we've sort of taken something personally.
• 33:28
  Catherine: You know, if, if they're struggling and now we're frustrated which I get, by the way I'm not saying we shouldn't, but I think that's what's happening is that we're we're somehow taking it personally or it's affecting our personal life, like now we're going to be late or now we're, you know, just sort of come back to now.
• 33:48
  Catherine: What I think can be helpful is remembering that it passes, and one day I'll even miss this, believe it or not, you know I'm going to miss when they needed my help tying on their, you know, getting their shoes tied, and, um, you know, I also think the breath work we spoke up can be really helpful there.
• 34:04
  Catherine: It helps so much to get, it helps us so much, uh, to get into the present moment by taking deep breaths and centering, focusing on what they need versus on what it brings up or where we need to go, which is now also out of the present moment.
• 34:21
  Catherine: Like if he doesn't or she doesn't do this, we're going to be late is not being in the present we're just coming back to.
• 34:28
  Catherine: It's amazing how quickly that can happen, the getting back to now by by putting our hand, a hand on our cart or a hand on our solar plexus or both, and it's.
• 34:40
  Catherine: I love it because it's inconspicuous.
• 34:42
  Catherine: It doesn't draw a lot of attention, like sometimes we do that one anyway when we lean into our children, like oh, you really, you know the rest of the sentence, but we, we do that instinctively, like I see that you really, you know, go like this.
• 34:58
  Catherine: We can do that when we're feeling out of sorts, it also settles us as well.
• 35:05
  Carrie: Yes, I love it.
• 35:07
  Carrie: I love that.
• 35:08
  Catherine: I'm going to try that Simple which is so nice, yeah, and the beauty of it is, since we're already doing it, it's not going to have to be a learned thing for anybody listening, I don't think we're already doing that.
• 35:21
  Carrie: Coming back to now, yes, and along that path you also.
• 35:27
  Carrie: I think you had a book that you wrote that talked about watching our thoughts and and the mindset that we have.
• 35:37
  Catherine: Yeah, yeah, that includes um.
• 35:40
  Catherine: So that's the.
• 35:41
  Catherine: Uh, beep, beep, get out of my way.
• 35:43
  Catherine: Book on attraction, but it also attraction and parenting both deal a lot with our thoughts so one of the.
• 35:53
  Catherine: That's sort of the inner work, and the book also has outer work we need to do, but the inner work would be including things like watching our I am statements.
• 36:03
  Catherine: I am are the two most powerful words that we have that we can speak, because everything you put after it is now a declaration to the world.
• 36:13
  Catherine: Whatever we we put after those two small words I am is a declaration to the world, and the world will tell us that it agrees with us.
• 36:24
  Catherine: So if we say things like I am powerful, I have a voice, or I am beautiful, or I am kind, I am loving, it comes back to us.
• 36:33
  Catherine: If we say I'm so forgetful, I'm so dumb, I can't believe I dot, dot, dot, the world will show us they believe that too.
• 36:41
  Catherine: So it's really important that we watch them.
• 36:45
  Catherine: So I am statements are one of the places that um, I speak of watching our inner thoughts, and and the brain doesn't get the difference between joking or just saying something like in, in jest, or declaring it to be true.
• 37:02
  Catherine: So that's why it's important if we can't find our keys and things to say I'm so forgetful, or I'm so dumb, or I'm so old, or I'm old or I'm, no, I'm, I can't get this because I'm old like that's.
• 37:14
  Catherine: You don't want to declare that?
• 37:17
  Carrie: that's a good point.
• 37:17
  Carrie: I didn't think about that, because sometimes people like to use that.
• 37:21
  Carrie: Um, I can't think of the sarcasm, so yeah, yeah it makes sense, yeah, but the brain doesn't know.
• 37:28
  Catherine: it's sarcasm.
• 37:29
  Catherine: It all is neutral.
• 37:31
  Catherine: It feels like you mean it, it feels true and it gets locked in.
• 37:36
  Carrie: Okay, that's really powerful.
• 37:38
  Carrie: I love these.
• 37:39
  Carrie: I am statements.
• 37:40
  Carrie: I think they would be so good for kids.
• 37:42
  Carrie: I I'm thinking I'm going to have my kids write some down and we might have to just tape it to our bathroom mirror.
• 37:49
  Catherine: Oh, I love that.
• 37:50
  Catherine: I love that.
• 37:53
  Carrie: Yeah, Just to have some empowerment.
• 37:55
  Carrie: Before we go to school we do a little white and gold light around us to just keep our own energy, keep out the negative energy, and then we can empower ourselves with some I am statements in the morning.
• 38:06
  Carrie: I like that.
• 38:08
  Catherine: Oh, please do take that.
• 38:10
  Catherine: What a gift you'd be giving them.
• 38:13
  Carrie: We try, we're trying.
• 38:15
  Carrie: I know there's a reason that they chose to come to us and chose us as parents so absolutely.
• 38:24
  Catherine: I believe in that very much.
• 38:26
  Carrie: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:27
  Carrie: It's, it's been so much fun talking to you today, catherine, my pleasure.
• 38:34
  Catherine: Thank you so much for having me, yeah.
• 38:38
  Carrie: I know it's been.
• 38:38
  Carrie: It's so fun to use our voices, our two voices, and share everything.
• 38:46
  Catherine: Yeah, and isn't it ironic that both of us have a background or had an interest in deaf studies?
• 38:53
  Catherine: Come to think of it.
• 38:54
  Catherine: When, oh, that's kind of ironic.
• 38:56
  Catherine: Not that, not that they're voiceless, but it's a different language, it's.
• 38:59
  Catherine: You know, I'm not heard, I'm not listening to myself.
• 39:04
  Catherine: Yeah, that's so interesting.
• 39:07
  Catherine: Come to think of it.
• 39:08
  Carrie: Yeah, you can't hear.
• 39:09
  Carrie: You possibly can't necessarily hear yourself in that.
• 39:12
  Carrie: I didn't even think about that, or even the history with the um, some of the education and the techniques they used back in the day.
• 39:20
  Carrie: Like it was hard to have a voice during those times so um, that's really interesting.
• 39:28
  Carrie: Okay, now we're finding the reason why we really were drawn to that.
• 39:32
  Catherine: That's right, finding our voices.
• 39:35
  Catherine: Never thought of it that way before.
• 39:38
  Carrie: I love it and I always wear.
• 39:40
  Carrie: I'm not wearing it today, but normally I'll have a Larimar ring on and Larimar is drawn to communication and finding your voice.
• 39:53
  Catherine: Oh wow, did you choose it because of that, or did you happen to be drawn to it?
• 39:56
  Catherine: And then you found it out?
• 39:57
  Catherine: That's what I thought.
• 39:58
  Catherine: Yeah, I was drawn, drawn to it, yeah.
• 40:02
  Carrie: Yeah, I just want everything.
• 40:03
  Carrie: Larimar, you know just, I always joke I want all the crystals.
• 40:06
  Carrie: So I'm just weighted down, but I'm feeling good crystals.
• 40:11
  Catherine: So I'm just weighted down, but I'm feeling good.
• 40:12
  Catherine: I'm weighted down, but feeling good.
• 40:13
  Catherine: I love that.
• 40:14
  Catherine: Oh, I also love again how you just listen to things like I'm drawn to this and I don't know why, and then it's that that's exactly what you need.
• 40:21
  Carrie: Yes, it can be really confusing for those around me, I mean my daughter's like.
• 40:25
  Carrie: Well, my daughter, my mom's favorite color is magenta right now, but it changes.
• 40:30
  Carrie: That's what she's drawn to my mom's in the flow Go with the flow Trying to work on that, guys.
• 40:40
  Carrie: We're working on that little by little with the little people.
• 40:43
  Catherine: It's also good modeling, though, isn't it To be drawn to things, listen, be in the flow.
• 40:49
  Carrie: Yeah.
• 40:50
  Catherine: That's amazing modeling, not rigid.
• 40:53
  Carrie: Yeah, we're working on it.
• 40:55
  Carrie: It's definitely healing for ourselves as we're raising these people and finding things that they need that we didn't know we needed as well.
• 41:04
  Catherine: Oh, that's so beautifully said.
• 41:05
  Carrie: Yes, yes, yes and yeah, not being afraid to make the change.
• 41:12
  Carrie: So that's how you know, I termed I didn't even know it was a trending term being a change maker.
• 41:18
  Carrie: My, my girlfriend and I both changed our kids' schools.
• 41:21
  Carrie: She went to a different school with her kids and I changed and I said, you know, we're not going to stick in the mud, we're going to make the change, we're change makers Wow.
• 41:30
  Catherine: That's an empowering word and I love that.
• 41:33
  Catherine: You didn't even know it's trending, it's just, it's just my truth.
• 41:37
  Catherine: I just you're very clicked in and clicked on I guess we're.
• 41:41
  Carrie: you know it's yeah, and I'm trying to learn to jump full speed into the pool.
• 41:46
  Carrie: I just have my toes dipping in right now.
• 41:49
  Carrie: But, as you start to get more and more into the water.
• 41:52
  Carrie: It definitely as you're a change maker and raising change makers.
• 41:57
  Carrie: I just got to jump in that pool because it seems really warm.
• 42:01
  Carrie: Yeah, it's been so much fun talking to you today.
• 42:08
  Carrie: Catherine Is there a way that we can find you for our listeners.
• 42:12
  Carrie: Yeah, sure.
• 42:16
  Catherine: Probably the best way is my name wwwcatherinedemonte, Catherine's with a C yeah, would be the best way.
• 42:24
  Catherine: I think I'm on social media under that name too.
• 42:27
  Catherine: I'm on Instagram, Okay, Catherine Demonte.
• 42:30
  Carrie: Okay.
• 42:35
  Catherine: I'll put it in the show notes as well, so that will be great, yeah, thank you so much for joining us.
• 42:39
  Carrie: It's been so lovely having you.
• 42:41
  Catherine: Thank you so much.
• 42:42
  Catherine: It's been so lovely to be here too.
• 42:44
  Catherine: Thank you for having me.
• 42:46
  Carrie: If there's a parent that you think this could resonate with, please be sure to share it with them so we can all benefit from each other.
• 42:53
  Carrie: Follow Heart to Heart Parents Podcast on Instagram for daily fun ideas and tips.
• 42:59
  Carrie: Happy week.