Episode 106: Making Meditation Accessible for Ourselves & Our Kids with Keli Carpenter
/First, I want to check in with you. How are you? I hope you are doing well and if there's anything that you would like help with, please do not hesitate to contact me (just hit comment!) or my assistant, Eugene through team@laurafroyen.com. We are always here for you and cheering you on!
For the past couple of episodes, we have been focusing a lot on mental health and how to overcome the many hurdles we are facing in our lives. And you've likely heard A LOT that meditation can be a powerful tool for mental health and wellbeing, right? Well if you're anything like me, when I first started dabbling in meditation it seemed like a tool that is "ideal" but not really "doable". And as a recovering perfectionist, if I can't do it "right" then I may as well not do it at all. Sound familiar, or is that just me??
I had to learn how to make meditation and mindfulness work FOR ME instead of it being yet another thing I was failing at. Here are some things that helped me get started:
- Giving myself permission to keep it short and sweet. Even 30 seconds was "enough"
- Inviting mindfulness into everyday moments, like washing the dishes or observing my kids play
- Offering loving kindness to myself and others during natural "downtime" like waiting in line or at a red light.
- Seeing it as an opportunity to model imperfect action to my kids
These practices have been instrumental in helping me be a more present, aware, and attuned mom AND have directly enabled me to be able to get the coveted "PAUSE" so I can respond rather than react when I'm triggered or overwhelmed.
If you're wanting to learn more about how mindfulness and meditation can help you as a parent, and maybe even your child when they are overwhelmed, you'll definitely want to check out this week's episode!
To help me in this conversation, I am joined by Keli Carpenter. She is a Chopra Center certified Transcendent Meditation (PSM®) instructor, Forgiveness Coach and Breathwork Practitioner, and a mother herself! Her commitment to maintaining her practice has allowed her to raise three beautiful children with mindfulness, overcome limiting self-concepts, and experience unity consciousness.
She will be helping us learn:
The impact of meditation on the different stages and ages of your family
How and when to introduce meditation to kids
The qualities of consciousness and their role in your ability to respond versus react
The five parts to emotional overwhelm and triggers and how to unravel them
How to build a safe emotional container and discover the gift in the center of your difficult feelings
To get more resources, follow Kelli on social media and visit her website.
Instagram: @theothersideofaverage
Facebook: www.facebook.com/theothersideofaverage
Website: theothersideofaverage.com
TRANSCRIPT:
Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic overwhelm. In one moment, you're nailing it and the next you're losing your cool. I want to help you find your way to the messy middle, to a place of balance. You see balance is a verb, not a state of being. It is a thing you do; not a thing you are. It is an action, a process, a series of micro corrections that you make each and every day to keep yourself feeling centered. We are never truly balanced. We are engaged in the process of balancing.
Hello, I'm Dr. Laura Froyen and this is The Balanced Parent Podcast where overwhelmed, stressed out and disconnected parents go to find tools, mindset shifts and practices to help them stop yelling at the people they love and start connecting on a deeper level. All delivered with heaping doses of grace and compassion. Join me in conversations that will help you get clear on your goals and values and start showing up in your parenting, your relationships, your life with openhearted authenticity and balance. Let's go!
Laura: Hello everybody, this is Dr. Laura Froyen and we're back with another episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast and I'm really excited to share this guest with you today. We're gonna be talking about mindfulness and meditation and how we can share these beautiful practices with our kids in a way that's supportive of them and of us.
So please welcome to the show, Keli Carpenter. She is a transcendent meditation teacher and a conscious healing coach and she's going to help us with this conversation. Keli, welcome to the show, why don't you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do?
Keli: Wonderful. Thank you, Laura. It's a pleasure to be here. My biggest passion is meditation that really for all of us coming back home to ourselves and the impact that that means for not only, you know, our own fulfillment in life, but for the impact that it has on our children.
And I was actually a child of meditation that started when I was six years old and I've also raised really three beautiful human beings. My children are 16, 18 and 21 with meditation and mindfulness as their foundations for life.
Laura: Amazing. Okay, I just feel really called to ask you this question because I say this phrase a lot and I don't know that we've ever defined it here on the show. This idea of coming home to yourself; I love that idea. It feels so good to me. What does that mean to you?
Keli: Good question. Well, you know, we have probably all experienced some sort of either prolonged stress, some sort of trauma in our life, some sort of difficult experience that has created fragments, fractures, you know, a disconnect
Laura: Cut off.
Keli: Yeah, exactly. And it really takes some specific tools, some space holding for us to, what I call, maybe make membership again. So to remember that wholeness. Because when we have those difficult situations, we kind of forget why we were here, we forget the innate gifts. And you know, for even some, I don't even feel like they knew they had the power.
Laura: Right. The trauma happened so early on that we don't even have a firm sense of who we are. Okay. So then I know one of the big goals for my listenership for my beautiful community here is that they really want. One of their biggest weights on their heart is that they want to prevent that from happening to their own kids.
They want their kids to come out of the childhood in their home with a sense of who they are, knowing deeply who they are and staying connected to who they are. And I'm guessing that meditation and mindfulness can help with this. So why don't we go in there? How can we share this with our kids? How can they support us with this big powerful goal as parents?
Keli: I'll talk a little bit about the three types of meditation, but in general, meditation is a practice of stillness because when we really come into the moment in silence in stillness, we get to reconnect again with that part of us that is bigger than the story, that's bigger than the trauma, that's bigger than our physical experience of the world.And mindfulness is really more the state of being or the quality of experience. We start developing mindfulness as a result of the practice of meditation.
So we develop that witnessing awareness, we see what, what is there to see instead of maybe what we want to see. And so the three types of meditation, there's observant, focused, and transcendent.
So observant meditation is we're just observing what is as it is without manipulation. So that could be mindfulness practices, sure everyone's heard of that or walking meditation where we're just walking and just really taking in the forest and nature. You know the sounds experience.
Focused meditation is we're focused on one thing. So it could be a candle meditation that could be even an audio. So we're focused on listening to the audio and that visualization that might be leading us to
Laura: This also focusing on the breath. Yes. Okay.
Keli: Yeah. So in observant, we could just observe the breath as it is without manipulation. In focused, we would be focused maybe on a particular breath pattern, so pranayama or, I'm a conscious connected breathwork facilitator and trainer. So you know, we're actually focused on a particular pattern of breath during that. and then there's transcendent. And transcendent is we're using the mind in just the right way with the use of a mantra. So it doesn't have a meaning, not English, it's used more for its vibrational qualities and ultimately it's just a tool for the mind.
You know, we've given so much emphasis on our cognitive intellectual status in the world and less on, you know when you think about children and we raised them right away, what does the cow say? What are your ABCs? You know, it's all on that. But how often do we teach them to listen within, check into their intuition to connect to that wholeness, that sense of self and to move through the world from there?
So we've given so much overuse to the mind that it's just a perfect tool and to disconnect the way that the power that we've given it, I guess. So if you think of the way thoughts work, we think of a thought we associate it with the fact separatism. That monkey mind is going and we're you know, off on ramblings in our head. And with transcendent meditation, it's like our mind can't grab hold of it and run with it because it doesn't have a meaning. So it just helps us settle the mind until we drop that much further into the body and access that place of stillness.
And if I was really to break down all three observant and focused, we start with the practice and we end with the practice. And with transcendent, we start with the practice but we transcend the practice.
Yeah. So that idea that you know, we just have this effortless repetition with the mantra but we end up because of the way that it, this really profound tool that it is, it just has a way of settling everything until we drop into more of that silent space.
So we might start, you know, might not even call it focused because we're focused on mantra, but really it's, we're transcending the practice. So we start on a walking meditation, we end, you know, if we start focused on a candle, we end focused on a candle and then with transcendent, we start with the mantra, but we transcend.
Laura: Okay, well I hear a lot of people thinking, you know, sometimes I hear my audience in my head asking questions and so I'm imagining lots of people are thinking about right now are like okay, yes, but Keli, when I try to meditate my mind just keeps rolling. You know, I can't stop the thoughts coming and I can never be perfectly still. So what would you say to that kind of question?
Keli: Well, two folds. The whole never be perfectly still is correct for everyone. I often say that, you know, we don't meditate for the experience in the meditation. We actually meditate for the other 23 hours in the day when we're more present, when we're more you know, engage when we feel more alive or creative intuitive, you know, those kinds of, there's more flow.
And then the other piece of that is that's what I hear the most as well. I can't meditate and you know, it's probably just an experience of ill-informed. There's something really important about having a teacher that can really navigate, you know, support, guide you through all of the experiences that might come up in meditation.
The one thing that I say for certain, I mean, my students hear me say it a number of times over and over again is you can't avoid that which you seek if you implement the practice.
So even if you start with that monkey mind that’s just going crazy, with the right tools, so you know, the right practice for you, you will settle that mind. You know, even just focus in our body and being present with that, with a consistent practice, the mind will settle. We just can't avoid the benefits of meditation. The only way we can actually, is to not meditate.
Laura: It’s to not do it. It's not just some means to an end; it's the means itself, it's the process.
Keli: Yeah, that's right.
Laura: Absolutely, for sure. Okay, many parents understand the benefits and even if they are like, well I can't do it myself, I want my kids to have the benefits. Right? And so how can we start that conversation with our kids? How can we introduce it to your kids? What are some of the benefits of various ages? Get us started.
Keli: Yeah, absolutely. And to frame this ahead of time, which I know I loved from actually listening to some of your podcasts, is that idea of perfection. And it's the lowest standard that we can hold for ourselves.
So as I go through the different stages and ages and the impact meditation, you know, has is to remember that it’s really about the journey. It's really about the learning, it's really about, yet the implementation and and the absolute flows and what we learn from those.
So in the prenatal stages, that's where it's really about our own inner connection. There's tapping into our own wisdom source, really connecting to our baby. I actually have had, it sounds really strange, we could do a whole separate podcast on this, but I've had blissful pain free childbirth from bringing that much presence to them. You know, really, again, that prenatal stage for you brings that trust, that is the birth, that, you know, there's a lot of fear that comes up for moms, that for women that are pregnant, fear of something–complications or different things.
So it really helps us connect in a whole new way to ourselves, our inner wisdom and our, you know, children. Then the 0 to 5, you know, I kind of break that down a little bit more at the 0 to 3 and then, you know, 3 to 5, but again, that's mostly about our wellness, you know. It's our presence, our patients, you know there's so much that's going on all the sleepless nights, you know, you know, the soy meatballs, you know. Everything that it means to be a new mom again, that's really forefront is our wellness and our inner connection.
Laura: The sense of like, am I going to screw up my baby? Am I doing this right? Yes.
Keli: Yeah. So you can imagine even just that you know if that chatter was settled, you know by half even the impact,
Laura: You could be different with your kids.
Keli: Yeah, exactly.
Laura: So I love how you're talking about right now that in this kind of 0 to 5 range especially or even the 0 to 3, that really it's about us. So when we talk about meditation with our kids really, when they're very young, we mean meditation with us and how that impacts how we are with our kids.
Keli: Absolutely. And I mean, how many of us had parents that weren't present? We completely know what
Laura: Everybody just put their hands up
Keli: Exactly. We know what that's like out there in the world. There's somebody in somebody's life who is not present. We know, we sense, we just feel what that feels like and so you know mostly it's for our own wellness but then you notice that impact.
So if we were really present, even just the act of, you know, breastfeeding and being, you know, extra present in that moment. It's just the impact that it has a sense of safety that it develops for our children is really quite profound.
Laura: Yeah. And no matter how you're feeling, not just with breastfeeding but bottle feeding too. Those are moments of you could drop fully into the present moment–put your phone away and be fully present.
And that, it's just something just super nerdy that I know about child development, that when babies are born their eyesight range is the perfect distance so that they, what's clear to them is your face when you're holding them in your arms in a feeding position, whether you're breastfeeding or bottle feeding doesn't matter. They are perfectly primed biologically to see your face and connect with you. So anyway, go ahead.
Keli: Yeah that just gives me like the truth bombs that this is like, just, you know that
Laura: Yeah, we are designed for each other.
Keli: Yeah, totally agree more. Yeah. And so that 3-5 age range is perfect where you can introduce the awareness of breath. You know if we're going to be you know ABCs and what does the cow say? Why not be implementing, you know, where they are with the breath? It's the first thing that people start shutting down when life is difficult so you can imagine other than swearing, what's the first thing that somebody does when they stub their toe? Yeah. It is hold our breath.
And that, if every single mom took this one thing away from this time today is that if you could, you know, teach your children to breathe into that stub toe, to breathe into that skinned knee, it has a massive impact on their life as a whole. That, you know, we're teaching them to turn towards and to be with and to bring presents to things that are difficult.
And you know, how would that be even for us as adults if you didn't try to numb, dissociate, you know, project, avoid things that were difficult that we turn towards and we learned how to be with them and receive the wisdom in them.
Laura: And this is so different and so radical. And of course it is, of course it makes sense that it is our instinct to turn away from pain. Of course it makes sense that we don't want it to be true, that our kids will suffer. You know, of course we don't want them to experience pain and it's the unavoidable truth of being human. And you know, it is instinct to say, oh, you know, you're fine, you're fine, you're fine. But what you're offering is the opposite turning in. There it is.
Keli: And there's such an amazing, such a gift that all the shames, the pains, the hurts, they're not the gift, but there's a gift in the center of it when we learn the skills to unravel, to be with, to hold, to listen.
Laura: What is that gift?
Keli: Oh, it's unique for everyone. You know, that might be for some, different triggers that overwhelm, that might be, you know, a reclaiming of their innocence that maybe they lost at some point in their life.
Laura: Yeah, I love that. I think about all of my triggers. I'm so grateful for every time I get flooded or overwhelmed by something with my kids because it's a chance to be kind to myself. It is such a wise thing that my experience, my life is offering me just like, oh yes, here's a chance I can be kind, you know?
Keli: Yeah, beautiful. Yeah. Okay. Okay, so, and then we move into more of the 6-12 year range and this is where we have a really captive audience. This is where children can actually develop the practice of meditation in a whole new way.
Laura: I just want to say, I love that you're not talking about like sitting down and attempting to meditate with a five year old. That you're talking about bringing presents and mindful awareness and curiosity to these children as a matter of practice and in the context of a relationship. I think too often we get a message that we have to teach these skills and tools like as a checkbox to young kids and that's, I'm so glad that you're talking about it in this different way. Thank you for that. Okay, and then when they're older and they're ready.
Keli: Yeah, exactly. And then even when they're older and they're ready, there’s different; not every seven year old could sit for five minutes, but many seven year olds would. So how do we, it might be a more structured meditation practice but still unique to them because when they're older, you know, even much older, they will sit.
Being with them at every stage of it and one of the words that you chose when you were talking, you know when you're talking about the five year old is that word curiosity. As we know it from, you know, raising small children, you know at 5, they ask 40 questions a day and at 40, we ask 5. And it's usually the same ones like, what? You know, where's my keys? What do we have for dinner? So for all of us, do, you know, maintain that beautiful curiosity in life, you know, to question everything.
Laura: Yes, I will never stop saying that curiosity is a superpower to be cultivated and yes, context, I will never stop saying it, it's a superpower sometimes. And I'm some of my more skeptical, like especially dads would be like she's kind of lame for us, you know, she’s kind of silly for saying that, but it is, it's a superpower. I love it. I love curiosity, it’s the best thing in the world.
Keli: Yeah, I love that you brought that up. Wonderful. Yeah, so 6 to 12, this is where they can also answer deeper questions, different inquiry like, where is that emotion in my body? So you know, as a parent we can implement any of the three types of practice and you know, they can listen to guided audio meditations.
They can do, I mean I learned transcendent meditation at the age of six so we can implement any of the three as a more structured practice. Best to pick one or two, you know, that is kind of consistent, that could be a breath practice. It can be transcendent meditation, but where there is some sense of consistency or regularity or is it part of the routine?
Laura: Yeah, building it into the rhythm
Kelly: I wasn't asking to meditate at six; just meditating because I was told. I had my kids you know, either at least try everything on their plate or maybe on the days you didn't want her to go to their sports. You know, things. It's like, nope, we're going, you know, unless there was something really big.
So it's we really can without, you know, it's a fine line between making it a struggle and really difficult. So you navigate that and we set those kind of deals with those routines as a parent. So we have that ability.
Laura: I was going to ask you, what if your kid is resistant to some of these things like what do you do with their resistance? How do you meet them in their resistance?
Keli: Well, I think that's beautiful, just what you said, let's meet them in their resistance. And that again, that can look like breathing. It's hard because it would be different for between 6 and 12 and such a range in there. But I would say, you know, we meet them there.
Laura: Yeah, part of me is feeling like you know, there's a kind of instead of for some kids, a lot of my listenership has has at least one child who is maybe would be called strong willed or spirited or quite resistant to outside influence as a firm sense of who they are and their boundaries. Yes, I feel like that's more empowering to say than to say they're like a difficult child or challenging, but, you know, whatever label you put on it.
And so for me and with a practice like this, inviting them in, leaving it open, leaving them space, because when we push it, we back them into a corner and we don't give them any other option with their personality and temperament than to push back and resist.
So if we leave a kind of open, we invite them in this is what we're doing as a family right now, if you'd like to join us, okay, you know, and just leave that open, that consistent invitation and with no attachment and no meaning to what it will mean if they do or they don't
Keli: Yes, so important. And my oldest, you know, to be honest, was more like that. And at night I used to do a lot of just guiding again, just helping them live in their bodies. Again, it's like that, breathing into the toe, embodying being in our bodies, it just has such a profound impact. So it doesn't have to be in that really structured way where that invitation is open, but there's so many opportunities for us as a parent to invite an inquiry and remember that inquiry isn't so much about the need for the answer. It's actually about the inquiry itself is the most important piece.
So if we're helping them asking questions of them in reference to their body or their feelings or where things are, not so much that they have the answers if their strong willed and not really wanting to answer, that inquiry impacts them.
Laura: Just as an example. My almost six year old had a performance recently at school and she was very nervous and very reluctant to participate in it. And so we just did an inquiry, just curiosity with her. You know, as much as she needed to.
What's going on? What are you thinking about when you think about doing it? How does it feel in your body? Where do you feel the nervousness? What does it look like? What color is it? Was it telling you? What did it feel like to do this? Using her like all of that? And eventually she decided to perform. And she had a great time and she was so happy that she did. But it was two days of kind of near constant inquiry about it.
Keli: So what you were doing with that inquiry is you were helping her turn towards it.
Laura: And what's important for parents listening to know is that process, that practice, that skill of turning in and listening to yourself, listening to your internal compass, what your body is telling you, what your heart is telling you–that's the exact same process that is going to help her when she's at a party and someone brings out pot or she's with a partner and they're ready to do something she's not. Those are the exact skills we want them equipped with as they grow.
Keli: Absolutely! Hell yeah to that. And so let's talk about the teenager because they’re the difficult ones for, you know, we from the experience them and they're challenging for, you know, the teen and they're challenging for the parents.
You know, when you look at, kind of done a survey before with the number one fear of parents and you know, it's like high 90s, it's the fear of death, of losing them. But when I dug a little bit deeper into that fear in the younger years, it looks like death, like the physical aspects of losing them, but actually in the teen years, it's emotionally being disconnected from them.
There's a mor, yeah, and you know, it's that difficultness that can come in those years and if we have set them up with this ability to tune in this whole new level of conversation, not only with their own self, but then with us, it's amazing the tools that they have to make these difficult years, you know.
Instead of being lost, you know, they already know who they are and it's still going to be challenging, but there's a whole foundation that has been built and there's more opportunity or ability to meet future growth to meet life, you know, and navigate that. You know, maybe just adding in, you know, my kids are those ages, so 16, 18 and 21.
And it's really then that I, at this time, I mean, I've seen the impact all the way along with different scenarios that you go through being a family, raising three kids. But it's right now I love watching my three teens and how they support each other, how they meet life, and how they work through the processes. You know, one quick story. I, we’re running out of, starting
Laura: No, no, no, we love stories here, we love to see it in action for sure
Keli: I have so many stories about my kids, but, you know, my middle son; through these processes that I do with my kids it's like, you know, they lived through workshops over and over again.
My one son, 17, he was away on a ski weekend with some of his friends and something happened. I don't remember the details, but he was triggered and feeling a bit angry, you know, and then that's also some hurt, and because he's, you know, worked with his own emotions before, he knew that he just needed some time.
So, you know, he went somewhere kind of sat down, you know, just really checked and turned towards, you know, the anger and was with it and he came home and he had a grin from ear to ear and he was like, mom, I was able to just sit and love my anger, you know, I was able just to be with it and you know, he went on to have a great weekend.
But without these skills of being able to turn towards difficult emotions and to unravel some of the stories that we have attached to them, we all know where that could have gone. That anger could have been a bit more resentment, maybe some conflict over the weekend or you know, who knows what, you know, possibilities could have come from that trigger that arose for him, but he knew exactly what to do with it. And so I'm seeing them on their own, you know, really practice some of these
Laura: That’s so beautiful. As a mom to younger ones, I love thinking about what that might look like for me and for my kids as they move into the future. That's so beautiful.
Okay, so I just felt like everybody lean in when you're talking about your son having this moment where he sat and was present with his anger and grateful towards it. I think we were all kind of thinking about like, I have times as a parent where I'm overwhelmed by negative emotion, where I'm flooded by negative emotion, where I feel triggered by something that's going on with my kids.
And so many of us know here in this community that when our kids are pushing our buttons, the kind of, we are, our instinct is to focus on the person pushing the button, but in reality we need to focus on the button and the owner of the button. And so I feel like this would be just a really natural spot to dig in a little bit to kind of how do we go about, you know, when we are overwhelmed, slowing down so that we can respond rather than react from our trigger, like your son did.
Keli: The breath in that moment is, you know, such a powerful tool when you start really developing and noticing the difference between being present and not present. Again, it's just a skill that gets developed and when we have that skill and it's developed, we actually just naturally drop into presence when there's difficult things going on. You know what I mentioned, we see what is instead of what we want to see or
Laura: What we think we see or we've been conditioned to see. Absolutely.
Keli: So we just naturally, you know, tend to our garden and started to just trying to manage someone else's weeds. We, you know, breath is the biggest thing. And would it be okay right now to talk a little bit about the five parts? Let's do the emotional overwhelm because we can save that for another time where we can
Laura: No, no, no, let's get there now, it just feels good now.
Keli: Okay, so there's actually five parts to your triggers or our overwhelm that we're feeling. And the first is where it is in our body because our body is a storehouse of everything that's, you know, that's happening, that has happened. And it actually notices emotions long before we do. But typically we're so disconnected from our body that your body needs to shout to get our attention.
Then there's the actual emotion itself and emotions actually only take about 90 seconds to move through. So why do we hang onto emotions or grievances for 40 years? It's actually because of the narrative that's underneath it. The story, the meaning, the belief that's attached to it. But the emotion is there to be truly validated and felt and witnessed and held.
We just don't want to justify the narrative or the story because that's usually about somebody else. It's either, you know, it's all those projections, you know, that we have on things outside of ourselves or we're beating ourselves up on the inside or both. Right.
So, it's looking at the narrative and, you know, what's truer because we might have a statement like, you know, I can't do this or I'm not good enough or relationships are difficult or the world isn't safe. And there's so many different beliefs that we have that kind of run the show that we live our lives through.
So when we can pause in the moment, we could just really validate the emotion coming to our body, wherein my body am I holding that, not just be with it. And then inquire into that narrative–what thoughts, what beliefs, you know, what reoccurring stuff is going on?
Laura: That’s the story I'm telling myself. Am I making this mean about me or my child? Yeah.
Keli: Exactly. And then look at what's truer–still part of the narrative, but what's true or how can we reframe that?
Laura: Yeah. I also like what else could be true? What is also true? You know, creating space for multiplicity and truth? I think so often we think there's truth with a capital T but most of the time there's multiple truths available to us.
Keli: Absolutely. And that's why every time we inquire, it's more about the inquiry than the answer, because, you know, just unravels so many different layers to it.
Laura: Absolutely.
Keli: And then the next is a need. We have a true unmet need that because that trigger, that overwhelm is from an old wound. It's from an old fracture. It's from something, you know, deep within.
So when we inquire, what do I really need right now? It's amazing what arises. And when we can meet that need, so kind of the next one in reference to that, that need is, how can I meet it? What can I cultivate? What can I, you know, ask for? How can I need it? What happens is, well, not only do we feel build up because our needs are being met.
We take other people off the hook because lots of times when we project that outside of ourselves with these false expectations that somebody else will really be able to meet those. We take it, it comes in all kinds of forms–passive aggressive, manipulative sort of behaviors. We take other people off the hook and it frees the space actually for people to step up and support us in ways that we couldn't even imagine
Laura: Tell me more about this kind of, this letting other people off the hook. There's a piece for this sounds like a lot like kind of I'm taking responsibility for my own experience and my own emotions. Can you dig in just a smidge there?
Keli: Yeah. Well, I mean, what you said is correct. I mean, even the whole process in itself is taking responsibility. You know, our feelings are ours.
Laura: I think so many of us grew up in homes where we were made to be responsible for other people's feelings. And so then we think that that's what love is, that's what family is. And so then we go out and we seek partners who are going to expect that we're going to meet their emotional needs and they're going to meet our emotional needs and you know, and that's going to be what it is.
And you're inviting us into considering something different; that in order to have a true marriage where we feel supported by our family, where we feel supported by each other, we first have to meet our own needs, right?
Keli: Yes, absolutely. I love what you said about growing up in households where we were made to feel responsible for someone else's emotional well being or triggers or anything else. And as parents it’s truly what we want, you know, how we want to show up as parents is to be responsible for our own self and teach our children to be responsible for their own emotional experience of life and you know, when we do that, is just so any victim narrative because that's essentially a victim narrative locks in powerlessness.
And you know, there might be some people listening that had truly difficult situations that they were truly a victim and I run a program where I called Evolve Behind Your Story; it's a really deep process work. And one of the things about people have really deep victim narratives because something wrong truly did happen.
However, 2% or 1%of that victim narrative can you now claim because we all want to be free, we want to feel empowered instead of enslaved by the circumstance. So when any portion of that experience that we can really step into and take responsibility in a healthy way because we can overuse that word–responsibility–as well, but really truly take responsibility for it, we step more into our own empowerment.
Laura: Yeah. You know, so as a survivor myself there, this delicate balance and line to walk between kind of accepting what is, what happened–it's unchangeable and there's parts of the victim narrative for me that kind of that I can get sucked into and kind of wishing it had been different and if only it had been different, then I could be this way and that's simply not reality, that it is what it is and it's not going to change.
And so now I get to choose, I get to step fully into my power in moving forward and living my life with this piece that is a part, you know, and I get to decide what to do with it. I think that that's probably what you're
Keli: Yeah, absolutely. You know, if you look at you know anybody who's truly overcome, you know, I mean some of the world's most influential people have been through horrendous things. You know, let’s use Oprah as an example, you know, that level of influence, that level of success that she, you know, has in the impact that she has.
And there's like a similar theme for everyone that, you know, falls into that category and one is they've connected to the truth of who they are–that essence, that meditation and stillness we talk about. They've connected to the part of them that is beyond the story that's beyond the physical and they've integrated their story because she has some, you know, you know, large parts to her story in her past where she was quite victimized so, and traumatized.
So, you know, in a really broad sense of word, trauma means an event that happened that we couldn't make meaning of; we couldn't integrate, we didn't have the support, we didn't have the tools, we didn't have the ability to unravel truly the gift that's underneath it. There's, you know, the pain, the shame, you know
Laura: Right. Or we integrate it in a way that ultimately didn't serve us; doesn’t serve us currently
Keli: Absolutely, yeah, we created a meaning that was way overhear about it, what it meant about us, you know, what it meant about life
Laura:: And about the safety of the world.
Keli: Yes. Yeah.
Laura: Absolutely. For sure.
Keli: Which kind of brings us to the last–that five part of emotional overwhelm is the last one is the gift because there's always a gift on the other side. So when we can turn towards, when we can unravel that narrative, when we can meet our needs, we just step more empowered. We reclaim our innocence. We find more love in our life.
Laura: We can start listening internal wisdom. Yeah. And that's where responsiveness as a parent comes from. It’s you know, hopefully there will be times when you can do this in the moment where you catch yourself, but most of the time and this is new, you will be doing this retroactively, you know, where you're like, oh, I lost it, let's figure this out, let's get curious, let's step into inquiry with myself, you know, and it will get, you'll get better and better and better. That moment of awareness will come sooner and sooner and sooner. But it takes time, luckily we've got our whole lives, there's no rush.
I think lots of parents feel a lot of pressure and urgency as they are kind of awakened to how I'm doing this. I'm doing this parenting thing, I'm stewarding a life and it feels very big and very urgent and I just want everybody to know there is time–there’s time for you, there's time for your child, and there's time for your relationship with your child. You have your whole lives for it.
Keli: Yes, absolutely. It's one of the questions I've had as well, you know-is it too late? Has the damage been done? And, you know, I answered this one particular person with a question and it was, and I know that she has a difficult relationship with her parents.
And I said, think about it if your mom–I know you have a difficult relationship wit–all of a sudden, brought more presents, more awareness, more love to the table. How would that impact you as an adult? It's absolutely never, it's never too late at any, any stage that we bring more presence. You know, we all crave to be seen, to be heard, that presence. And so yeah, it's never, it's a journey. There's no perfection and it's just never too late to bring more consciousness into our lives
Laura: Beautifully said, I can't think of a better way to end and leave, leave my listeners for the day. Thank you, Keli. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your heart with us today. I really appreciate it.
Keli: Thank you. Thank you for, you know, having this podcast and supporting so many moms. It's parents, you know, families, it's such a soft spot in my heart.
Laura: Yeah, it's a gift and an honor and we thank you for walking alongside me as we do this thing together.
Keli: Thank you so much.
Okay, so thanks for listening today. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and if it was helpful, leave me a review that really helps others find the podcast and join us in this really important work of creating a parenthood that we don't have to escape from and creating a childhood for our kids that they don't have to recover from.
And if you're listening, grab a screenshot and tag me on Instagram so that I can give you a shout-out and definitely go follow me on Instagram. I'm @laurafroyenphd. That's where you can get behind the scenes. Look at what balanced, conscious parenting looks like in action with my family and plus I share a lot of other, really great resources there too.
Alright, that's it for me today. I hope that you keep taking really good care of your kids and your family and each other and most importantly of yourself. And just to remember, balance is a verb and you're already doing it. You've got this!