This week we will be talk about intuition and how we can learn to tune into and trust ourselves as parents and partners and create that beautiful relationship with ourselves as individuals. For many of us, our experiences out in the world have taught us to look outside of ourselves for answers, feedback, validation, and wisdom. Has that been your experience? It definitely has been mine! For me, conscious parenting more than tips, trick, and scripts has been about learning to tune out the noise and tune IN to myself and my child. That's what I want to share with you today!!

To help me in this conversation, I brought in a colleague, Cathy Cassani Adams, LCSW. She is a co-host of Zen Parenting Radio (one of my favorite podcasts!) and the author of Zen Parenting: Caring for Ourselves and Our Children in an Unpredictable World. She is a social worker, certified parent coach, former elementary school educator, and yoga teacher.

Here's a summary of what we talked about:

How do we hold our goals, vision, and purpose that loosely and make room for who our kids are
Practical things that we can do everyday to practice intuition
Practicing the pause with ourselves

If you want to get more support from Cathy, visit zenparentingradio.com and follow her on IG @zenparentingradio.

TRANSCRIPT

Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic, overwhelmed. 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! Welcome back to another episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast. I'm Dr Laura Froyen, and this week we're gonna be talking about intuition and how we can really learn to tune into ourselves and trust ourselves as parents and as partners and just in that beautiful relationship we have with ourselves as individuals. To help me with this conversation, I'm bringing in a colleague and someone that I'm a little bit fangirling over. She is one of the cohosts of Zen Parenting, one of my favorite podcasts, Cathy Cassani Adams. She is a social worker and just a beautiful soul and light in the world of parenting with authenticity and balance. So Cathy, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you here. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and who you are and what you do?

Cathy: Thank you Laura, I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me. So I guess that, you know, I would start with, like you said, I'm a social worker, I'm a clinician, I'm a therapist, I'm a former school teacher. I come from a family of teachers. My parents were teachers, my aunt's a teacher, my niece is a teacher. So that kind of always is my first thought when it comes to education as I feel like, very part of that family. You too?

Laura: Mine too. My entire family. Like literally I have one uncle who did not work in the school system in my whole family.

Cathy: Exactly how my life is. And of course, you know, growing up then, you're all of your parents, friends are teachers. So like every... Your whole life… So it's funny because I went to, you know, when I went to college, I was going to be, I was a journalism major. And then when I was a sophomore, I just remember being like, I got to be a teacher. Like it was just, it was like a cellular memory thing, I got to be a teacher. And the truth is I ended up in the, you know, the education system, you know, typical fifth grade teacher, kindergarten teacher, that kind of thing. And I wasn't great at that. Like I realized that I really wanted to focus more on people's emotions, people's feelings. And it… but it took me a bunch of different, you know, tries like I worked at organization and taught, I taught in a hospital in a partial hospitalization program and then I went back to school to become a therapist and now I'm a teacher at a university. So I'm still teaching, but it's had many iterations. Like it hasn't looked very traditional when I tell people I'm a certified teacher, I'm like, yeah, but not the way you are. You know, like I kind of did different things, but I'm a clinical therapist. And I also, after I had my first daughter, I have three daughters. Nineteen, 19 years old, she just turned 19 last week, which is why I'm having that response. Nineteen, seventeen and fourteen. So I have three daughters. But when I had my first daughter, I decided to… Because I had been working in a hospital setting, so long and kind of crisis management. I mean really literally because I was working in an inpatient unit. So it was pretty intense, I decided to become a parent coach, which was at the time kind of novel like talking on the phone to people, you know?

Laura: Yes. You know, it's funny, I think about when I started my undergrad degree in Psychology, the career that I have now literally didn't exist. It's wild, right? So, okay, so then you had a little one at home and you became a parenting coach. Yeah?

Cathy: Yes, I became a parenting coach and that was like a whole different world because to your point, like we we didn't see that as an option. Like as a therapist, you think you have to have an office and you think it has to look a certain way. And Laura even the way that, you know, coaching and coaching and therapy are different, like they are told they are different paths and I'm very clear about that. But as a therapist, there's a lot of like keeping to yourself as far as you are a little more of a blank slate when you're with people, you know, there is a sense of, it's not like you're always sharing your stories. There is a little more, you know, there's like this clinical way. And as a coach, I found that there's a lot more that I could do as far as relationship development with people. And I found it very… Do you use a coaching model too? Or do you focus… Okay, you do too.

Laura: So, I was a professor of Human Development and Family Studies and desperately missed working with families. So left that, and also realized that I had gotten completely burned out as a therapist. I wasn't able to bring as, like you just said as much of myself as I really wanted to. And so the coaching model fits much better for me and I actually prefer group coaching too. I like having a lot of people in a space where we are witnessing each other in a way that just, you don't get enough in this world, you know what I mean?

Cathy: I do Laura, we are so similar in this way because when I first started doing this was, you know, years ago, like the one on one coaching or one on one, you know, clinical work with people, it was too much for me and that's… What I mean by that is I think the labels have… I try not to be too lablely, but I definitely absorbed people's stuff. I'm an empath. I kind of get it. Like when people tell me something, I tend to jump in a little too far, I try and run it through my body. I use all these things that I would tell people to not do. And so when I was in group work though, I felt that we all kind of shared it and I was much healthier as the person who was running the group and I felt like people were getting a lot more, not only from maybe what I was offering, but just the group dynamics.

So I'm so with you, you know, and I ended up running a women's circle and I ended up running a new moms circle, like I just really enjoyed that dynamic. So, so anyway, I then, you know, you know, life goes on when I started doing different things as I was just telling you before I teach at a university outside of Chicago, ended up doing a lot of writing. You know, my husband and I started a podcast called Zen Parenting Radio about 11 years ago. Kind of before that's why we called Zen Parenting Radio because podcasts weren't really a thing. So we thought we were, we thought we were going to sell our show to the radio.

Laura: You’re one of the OGs. Yeah, I love it. That's awesome.

Cathy: It's so funny now because we're like, we really had an interesting game plan there, but it worked out fine, we're still doing it. So, you know, and why we're really talking today is because I did write three books over the last 10 years. Self published books that I adore, but they were kind of a different, I really made them more for my clients, for people who could read them and kind of we could have conversations, where this book then parenting, I tried to pull together everything that I have learned, experienced, witnessed, over the last 20 years as a clinician, as a podcaster as a teacher and as a parent. And bring all of those pieces together into this book. And so that's kind of kick starting our conversation here.

Laura: Oh, I'm so excited to share this book. So it's called Zen Parenting, Caring for Ourselves and Our Children In An Unpredictable World. Yeah. Just one thing that I really appreciated too is that how it's a, it's a book that is very well positioned for the time that we're in right now. It's clear that you were writing it in the midst of this time and things are a little different right now for all of us and we're gonna get to the kind of talking about instincts and intuition and trusting ourselves. But I guess I just wanted to kind of ask you, what are you seeing in the families that you work with and the kiddos that you get to hear about through their parents. What are you, what are you seeing right now?

Cathy: Okay. I am seeing…

Laura: I know what I'm seeing, but I don't get a chance always, to talk to a lot of colleagues who are on the ground with me.

Cathy: Yeah, understood. Yeah. I… And sometimes just the news reports alone can cloud our thinking of, you know, there's all this data collection, you know, here's, here's all this information and sometimes it clouds maybe what we're experiencing and families personally. What I'm seeing is a lot of kids and I'm gonna, I'm gonna specify that most of the people I'm working with right now are 12 and older. So I'm not working with younger children and obviously, my own experience as a parent of teenagers. I'm seeing them having to deal with a lot of mental health issues that I think is very uncommon. I'm gonna use my words very carefully because I also have a very optimistic take on this, but I really want to be honest about the conversations I'm having with teenagers. The level of anxiety that they're experiencing and unfortunately their experiences with depression are increased.

I would say I'm having these conversations more often. Now while that can sound really daunting and it feels daunting to me sometimes. They also understand what it is, which is different. Because I would say before, when I was working with families, especially teenagers, there was a lot of: I'm overwhelmed, I'm stressed, I don't know what it is, I don't know how to combat this. I don't know who to go to. Where I feel like the language that I'm hearing from the teenagers I'm working with is I feel very anxious because I'm not being honest about, like there's a little more understanding of, and asking for support and not having a problem, having a therapist or asking for coaching support or even getting more intensive, you know? IOP, you know, inpatient treatment or it's, there's a willingness to ask for what they need. Are you experiencing something similar?

Laura: Yeah, you know? Yes, absolutely. I work primarily with folks with younger, younger kids, the middles and littles. So what I'm seeing with a lot those kids is that there seems to be kind of just some lagging and development of social and emotional regulation and skills. But overall what I'm noticing in families is that especially for kids raised in families, like the ones that we tend to support, ones that are emotionally aware, accepting of the ups and downs of life, that these kids do seem to be more well equipped. To be very able to seek out and open to the support that they need at various times. Do you see that too? That there's, and I just, I sometimes I think this teenage generation like this generations that are the, the teens right now are just kind of so cool. Like they're so much more sav… like savvy and well equipped on one end of things than we ever were as teenagers.

Cathy: A 100% agree. I am so in love with teenagers. I am so in love with the way that they experience the world and see the world in all the different. I mean, and I'm very aware of their brain development. They're risk takers. I'm not always psyched about some of the things they decide to do, but I appreciate where it's coming from and their willingness to be creative and hopeful and thoughtful and conscious and so this is kind of, I think it all goes together. Like they expect things that are more… How do I say this? They would like the world to be different. A that's a very big, you know, macro way to look at it. And they also feel like they should have more joy than they have.

And they're like, I'm going to kind of figure out ways to rest. Or I would like to figure out ways to be more mindful. Or I don't love what is being expected of me and this is for some of the older kids that I work with who in their twenties, you know, my college students. I don't like the idea that I have to work all weekend and then I'm getting paid less than these people. And what's so interesting is some of my friends who are in charge, you know, they're, you know, they're the Gen X people who are in charge now, get very frustrated with these young kids because they're like, I had to work this way. I didn't ask any questions. I didn’t, you know, do what they're doing, and I'm like, yeah, but see this is they're not lazy. They're not unwilling to work. They just want more meaning, they just want to understand, right? They want to be like this, this makes sense, and I'm using my skills and isn't that how we raised them?

Laura: Yeah, isn't that what we wanted all along. And it's so trippy too, to be, to see this generation of kids doing this and experience are kind of like: how dare they, the audacity. And then almost all of the parents that I work with were working through like how do you claim some of that for yourself? How do you, you know, how do you exist in a world that doesn't want you noticing and waking up to the way that our expectations don't serve us? You know, a world that thrives on us valuing productivity over, you know, all else. And so, so many of us are waking up to that and I guess and that I feel like this leads us beautifully into this conversation about intuition, and trusting ourselves, and slowing down, and it must be hard for kids to be going like, going through this process and not have very like, well, you know savvy guides. Because we don't, we're learning how to do it at the same time, right?

Cathy: I know. Well, and that's what's so interesting is then we become kind of, I don't… We’re guides, we’re not super savvy, but they are watching us and learn a lot of things. I think that you know a lot of what this book, this Zen Parenting book is about, is it really is, for parents. It's about you. So I know everyone would say well yeah of course, but so many books about how to get your child to do something or how do I understand my child and that is part of it. But my lead into that is, this is really all about you. And if you can kind of take a look at yourself and your beliefs and your history and where you began and why do you think the way you do? Like even those simple questions are like, why? You know, when parents will tell me that they are like, this is my line in the sand and they cannot, you know, they have to take this higher level math course. There's no other way around it.

And I'm like, where does that come from? Why? And it doesn't mean it's wrong. It just means you have to be clear about why am I asking my kids to do something, be something, say something, where does it come from? And you may investigate it and find that it comes from a place where you're like, this is really my value system, then amen. Like, you know, it's not about that there's a good and bad, it's about why. And so I think our generation, we're doing a lot of unlearning. We're doing a lot of shedding of our history. We're doing a lot of dealing with our trauma. And so our kids are kind of watching that alongside of us. If we are willing to talk about it, for example, the opening of my book is all of these issues that are difficult to talk about, sex education, inequality, race, sexuality and gender. That's the whole introduction of my book and they're very… It's very short. Like it's not in depth enough. You know, I would really request that people, you know, read beyond this text.

Laura: There's a book out there for every, everyone of this.

Cathy: And I actually have a list in the back of like, if you really want to go deeper, go elsewhere, right? But I jump into that first because before you start the self awareness journey, you have to consider these things. How do you feel about this and why? What's your history? So it's a lot of unlearning for us and that helps us talk to our kids about these things where they don't have to learn it and then unlearn it later. They can maybe pick up a more genuine connection to self and about what they need and then have less layers to shed.

So, and you know, our kids are also, you know, and again with, I'm with teenagers, they are teaching me all the time. That sounds so cliche. I mean this in a literal way, girls, how do you say this? You know, girls, when you're experiencing this, what language should I use? They are helping me navigate this generation. Some of it's fun and carefree and some of it's serious. You know, how do I speak these things and make sure that everybody feels seen and heard and valued. So I guess, you know, to your point, we're kind of going through it together.

Laura: Yeah. Right alongside each other. I love that I do, you know, it's in the parenting world, it's really common to tell parents that they’re the expert on their family, you know? And I always have like the caveat of… But your child is actually the expert on themselves. And they have a lot, they always have so much good information to share with us. If we go about seeking it with curiosity and compassion and grace, you know, with just this open hand of like I've never parented you at nine before, tell me what I need to know. I've never parented you at 12 before, tell me what I need to know, you know?

Cathy: And which is why this whole process, like if we tap in, to our own self awareness and have an understanding of how we think, feel, experience the world, even simple things like what's your favorite color, right? You know, like what is your favorite color and why? When we start to recognize we have this really deep internal world and we kind of have our own experience and we have a deep respect for how we see things, then we take those glasses and that's how we see our kid. Then we're like, oh they have that too. Even at 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and of course at 15, 16, 17, 18. It can be more obvious as they get older.

But a two year old kid as I know, you know, they know who they are. And they're very, they're very willing to tell you and it doesn't mean that, then we say, oh sure you can run into the street, no problem. Obviously we have safety norms, we have boundaries, we have bedtimes. But we can listen to what they're telling us. This is what I like. This is what feels good to me, rather than telling them who they are going to be and why they should like certain things. That's, that's a dream from our brain. That's like a creation that may have been things we didn't do, things we wish we would do, something we want to see in our children versus showing up for this person in front of us and allowing them to be who they are.

Laura: Okay. So, Cathy, you're making me want to ask you about. So when we do have this vision for our kids and we're very carefully tuning into like, what's mine, you know, what's my stuff? My unfulfilled dreams, let's know what stuff am I holding onto too right. But at the same time, we want, we have goals, we have a vision, we have a purpose for our family. How do we hold that loosely and make room for who our kids are? Who they are? The reality of it, while still guiding them in the way that feels right to us.

Cathy: Right. And I think it's got a lot to do with the goals and how broad or how specific they are. Because I always kind of, I've always, you know, I don't know, most people will be listening to, so they can't see my hands, but there's like, when we're talking about like goals for our kids, like I always say you got to get big in that what do you want for them overall? Like for it all, just speak for myself right now because I'm not gonna tell anybody else how to do this. I would like my kids to live a genuine life. I would like them to feel that they're in alignment with themselves, I would like them to feel that they know how to create connection with people? I would like them to feel like relationships are important. I would like them to find work career that is meaningful to them and something that they wake up in the morning and say, yeah, it's still work, but man, I really feel like this is something that's important. So I'm saying that because those are very broad ideas that a lot of different things could end up making those things true.

Laura: You’re right. They could look a lot of different ways and you got it like everyday living.

Cathy: Exactly. And that I then can stay out of, does that mean stem or does that mean acting? Does that mean you play the piano? Does that mean you run track? I don't care. Just as long as you feel like you are in alignment with who you are and that whole messaging of learning how to do that and tap into what's important to you is really what adulting is about. So the idea that we're going to train our kids and I'm using that word purposefully when they're young to do what we tell them as best or what society tells them as best or what teachers tell them as best and then we send them into the adult world and we're like, yeah, but think for yourself. It doesn't make any sense. No, so it's just this broad like, and again, I, you know Laura, I'm sure you get this all the time. You know, people will be like, but my kid has to play piano. You know, my kid has to stay in band. My kid has to get, you know, all A's. And those are very micro ideas. And there can be reasons behind those ideas and those are things most of the time, not all the time, but most of the time, those are things we need to work through in ourself. Like why, why is that important? What does that mean? What were you taught that that means? And is that true? Exactly, Yeah.

Laura: Oh yes, absolutely. I so, I so agree. Okay, I want to read a little passage from your book, Is that okay? I feel like I hope that's okay. Alright, so you say I, ironically right about parenting and have an office filled with parenting books, but I don't always love them. The idea that someone understands and has a final answer to your personal experience is too convenient. And while I know our society loves final answers and most experts are doing their best to help, there are too many variables to insist that there is one way effective decision making necessitates knowing yourself knowing your child and being present with the moment. So this is the thing that my coaching clients, the people in my membership, always gets so frustrated with me on, because I don't tell them the answer because that's not my job. You know, I just love that you're bringing this out. But it is, it's hard for folks who are feeling lost and overwhelm and looking for the answer because things are hard right now. They're in the thick of it with their kids. What? So when parents are looking for the answer and you know that you don't have it, that the answer is deep within them. What do you do? What's the first thing?

Cathy: Yeah, well, you know, you kind of already said it and there's so many different ways to come at this, like I don't have the answer because it's not my experience. I don't have your history. I don't have your child and you may have four children and the answer is different for every single one. There is… I know… This is… Let me come at it this way because I think this will feel less daunting because as soon as we talk about parenting, all these things, it's kind of like, you know how there's words Laura that kind of send us into discomfort, like divorce, depression, parenting and all of a sudden we're already in like fight or flight were like, well, you know, like we're… Totally… We're like so ready to be like, tell me what to do and I'm really like a story that I often tell on the show is that in the first like five years of being married, I really didn't use the word husband a lot, because I found when I use the word husband, it took me down a path of like expectation and annoyance and you know, you'd be in a group of people and be like, my husband doesn't do this, my husband doesn't do that. Yes. And I felt like you, you know what Todd is my bestest friend. He is the neatest person. I'm using, that's the cheesiest word, neatest person, but he's such a great person.

Laura: I love that!

Cathy: And he's not a perfect person, but neither am I, were very flawed, like human beings, but he's so great. So to like put him in this category and I'm doing this, I'm rubbing my hands together with this word. So I would just be like Todd or like, you know? I just kinda… Now I can use it and it's fine but it's like sometimes words carry too heavy of a meaning where it takes us down a different path. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna put the word parenting aside, I'm gonna put a pin in it and let's talk about relationships. Okay? Because that feels a little warmer and like what kind of relationship do you want to have with yourself and what kind of relationship do you want to have with your children?

And obviously these relationships grow and change and they're very different when your child is five versus 15. But if you view it through the lens of relationship rather than parenting, you show up more in present time with what they need in that moment, rather than a set of rules or guidelines of what parenting means. Because sometimes you may be thinking to yourself, I'll use something very benign. You know, 15 year olds should not be going to rated R movies, okay, maybe that's a rule you have in your head from your childhood. And then your your 15 year old is pretty mature and they have a pretty deep understanding of things and they talk to you about really deep things and it just so happens a movie is coming out about issues that are really important to them or heck, you know, maybe it's a marvel movie, even though I think they keep those PG. And you're like this kid and I are gonna go see this movie. And I’m… Instead of living in this dogma or this set of rules we’re with this child and we are dealing with them in present time and we're dealing with ourselves in present times.

So the movie thing is it's a little more simple than, do I let my kid hang out with these kids? What do I do with my child? You know, in some way hurting their skin or making poor choices or you know, I know that it can become more daunting, but the same kind of thing applies where you're showing up with this child in this moment. Not worried about what happened yesterday, not focused on their sibling and not focused on your fear of the future. You're like, what do I do now? And that kind of, and I'll put the word parenting back in, that kind of parenting is connective, it's relationship building, it's authentic and you have left that this is something I can say after all these experiences, you have less challenges going forward. It doesn't mean life doesn't throw you unpredictable or difficult things. But feeling connected to your child, allowing them to share with you who they are and then respecting that, and honoring that, decreases, doesn't eliminate, decreases challenges later on.

Laura: Yeah, absolutely. And so I think whenever I feel like we kind of get to this topic in other interviews that I hear on other podcasts and stuff, I think that I can hear like the parents in the audience saying okay, yes, but how? And so like what are some like super just practical things that they can do on an everyday basis to kind of start exercising this intuition, turning inward muscle. What are some things that you, that you have your clients do or that you do yourself that helped that kind… Because it's a muscle, right? It's a skill, it's not just a tool in the toolbox, it's something you actually get better at using over time. It takes practice. And for most of us, you know, most of my listeners identify as women, most of us have been shutting down our intuition in our lives. We got the message very early on that it's not to be trusted, shut it down, you know? And so that process of kind of awakening within it, what do you, what do you have people do, what do you do yourself? That helps you kind of build that muscle, that capacity?

Cathy: Yeah, it's a great question and it's multilayered, but there is a beginning which is actually the book kind of goes through the process of the chakras. Which, chakras can sound really esoteric and I don't want them to be because chakras basically are the energy, you know, energy sources in our body, if you are, if you do yoga, if you like Reiki, if you like acupuncture, if you like any kind of bodywork you've probably heard about chakras because they're used very often and they're used to explain different, different ways that we can align with ourselves. But if you're not interested in any of those things, just think about them kind of as levels of personal understanding. Like just different kind of levels that tend to build on each other and go a little bit back and forth. They're all kind of interconnected. So you know, again, I just want to make sure that people don't feel like, oh I don't get that, you don't have to.

Laura: It was a really helpful way to frame the book. Yeah, yeah. You know in your book you definitely don't have to have a deep understanding or you know, lots of the folks that listen to my podcasts are very into the research and the data and the literature and sometimes things like that can feel a little flowery. I like that piece of the things I think the more I read research, the more I think we need things that aren't just only grounded in literature. But anyway, go ahead.

Cathy: Absolutely. Yeah. Like and you know what I try to do is in every chakra talk about data and research.

Laura: Yeah, It’s all there, like it's all there.

Cathy: It's just all there like the blending of for me, Western and Eastern is kind of the whole picture of a human being. I think if we just go data and we just go research and we just go dogma and we just go like you know, here's the four tips. We miss out on half of who we are. You know, like if not more, you know. So it's like how do we blend the two? So why I start with the chakra awareness is that you know, your question to me is how do we do this? What are the steps and it's not, it's not linear but it's beginning in ideas like I'll start with Chakra one. Like do you feel like you belong? Chakra one is all about feeling, like connected to the earth literally maybe with your feet or just connected to the world. Like what are your beliefs about being here? Like what… this gets so, it gets deep but it's important in that, how do you see life? Because that is what your children are gonna learn from you.

Do you think life is a slog that you have to get through and that everybody is out there to ambush you? And that you better keep yourself safe and protected because if that's your belief system which is understandable for people who have gone through a lot of traumatic experience or have a history of you know of a family where they experienced a lot of things that were unhealthy or traumatic then that is the way you will raise your children. You will raise them in a way where you want to keep them safe physically. You know, keep them away from people who maybe you don't know. It becomes your kind of modus operandi and how you parent.

And while some of it is very helpful because you're talking about safety and you're talking about making sure that your kids don't maybe have similar experiences that you do. It also is one of those things where you can for a moment and this is getting into a literal thing that you can do. When you're about to say something to your child about what they can or can't do to take a breath. And breathing is another one of those things that can sound really like, oh yeah, I don't practice yoga. Don't tell me to breathe, Breathing is the most researched thing. You know, this is what doctors tell us to do. This is what psychologists tell us to do. Clinicians, social work, the military uses it. Like this is not a task that is, you know, in any way…

Laura: It’s just part of having a human body.

Cathy: You got it. This is neurobiology. This is everything. So it taking a breath and choosing how you're going to respond? Okay. So because the thing that we do as parents like the big question about like well how do I do this, is we're very used to reacting. We're very on autopilot. So we have a feeling we haven't experienced something happens in front of us and we react. And we say, well my child did this and I had to do this. You know, they didn't put their shoes away. I had to yell if you take a breath or just take a pause, you can respond. Which is different than reacting. Respond is ,what do I want to say? Maybe I say nothing right now. Maybe I, you know, laugh, maybe I walk away for a second, or maybe I say please put your shoes away, but I don't do the yelling part.

This is a very subtle shift where I think people will say, well, yeah, that's great, but that won't work for me. Just try it. Try a time when your child is struggling with something or you're frustrated at them in the morning. Try before you say something, taking a breath and then responding. This is what I tell teenagers to do with social networking too. Before you post anything, take a breath and decide. Do not do autopilot reactive posting. Do not comment, autopilot reactive. And these are things that shift every dynamic going forward. Because you know, if you have a kid in the morning who's you know, they have a difficult time getting their shoes on or they have a difficult time getting out the door, they're complaining or whatever. Those things can set the tone for the day. So everything is kind of dominoes after that.

What if you do something just slightly different in the morning and you respond differently. And see how that dynamic begins to shift. And this is why, the reason I started with the chakra one and grounding is you have to feel really kind of like, okay, this is important. This is something I want to try. This is, I feel like something that could be effective. In yoga, we call it root to rise, where you like, put your feet on the mat, you spread your feet, like now I'm strong and now I can reach for something new. But if we're on autopilot, kind of flowing around in the world, we're not even willing to do anything new, we just want people to tell us what to do. So there's a little shift in… This is important. I'm important, they're important. I'm gonna do something different.

Laura: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it's I think, thinking about this pause, I've been thinking about this a lot with my own life and in, you know, the life of the families that I work with, that, that pause, it is hard to get because we're in a state in the world of just reactivity a lot of the time, right? And I don't know about you, I'd love to hear your experience, but in my experience, practicing that pause with myself with my own flood of thoughts, my own narrative just within myself, even when my kids aren't involved. Like, you know earlier, just before we sat down, I mixed some stuff into my coffee and I had overfilled the cup a little bit. And so then when I put the mixer on it overflowed and there's a flood of thoughts that came along with having spilled my coffee.

And those moments, there's a little less pressure in those moments to practice the pause. Okay, hold on just a second now, what is real and true right now? Okay, I spilled my coffee, I love self compassion based mindfulness. You know, am I alone and having spilled my coffee this morning? No, likely thousands of other people all over the world spilled their coffee this morning too, right here with me. You know, like just that practice for me personally and that it builds that capacity within myself. And I think there's this transcendent piece of it, that the more we are deeply connected and accepting and able to have that kind of pause, full responsive relationship with ourselves, the more we're able to offer it with the important people in our lives.

Cathy: I mean, you just hit on everything that's important and everything we're trying to say, which is what we were saying before about parenting is not about your kid. Parenting is about you. And if you want, if the word parenting has that daunting feeling, relationships begin with you. And the relationship that is most important is the one you have with yourself, which is you this morning, you put the stuff in your coffee, it overflowed, and you're the most reactive thing that happens is our brain start to feel like it's threatened by this coffee that's overflowing like this is a threat and I need to do something and how could I do it? And what? And then your ability to be more in your conscious mind, you know, up here in your prefrontal cortex, you were like, this is, you know, you use the self compassion. You know, this is I'm gonna be here.

Laura: Yeah, I think I was in my brain, I think I was in my heart too.

Cathy: I love that.

Laura: You know, I think that, there's, that I've been doing this thing when I am interacting with kids lately in my work. I've been asking them where they live in their bodies and kids almost always say they live here. And when I ask grown ups often times they, say they live up here and there's the shift with teens to where they… At some point they moved to thinking they're up in their brains, you know? When really like we're here, you know? Sorry, that was a total divergence. But yeah,

Cathy: No, I love that, you know, in the book, I actually, I think it's in the chapter in chakra four. The first thing I say is point to yourself right now and everybody listening point to yourself, you point to your heart, so we know nobody points to their head, even though you're right, adults say I live in my husband says it all the time. He's like I live in my head. He feels like a floating head and he says that not to be self critical but to keep recognizing that he really is. He feels very disconnected from his body, which is again, another big part of chakra awareness when it comes to, you know, all of them, you know, one through seven is how to bring, how to bridge that mind and body. They've really never been separated, but we have maybe put too much energy into the mind and so we forget how most, I love that you say you felt it in your heart because really that's where the feelings begin. It's all body based.

And sometimes it takes a while like the beauty of the, you know, certain areas of the brain is they can kind of help us be more rational and not so primitive and autopilot so we can utilize. But you're right. So much of our instincts really come from what's going on. You know what we feel and how it ends. And Laura, right there, like some feelings are so uncomfortable in the body. That's why we jump to reaction of course because we want it gone like gone. Do not make me feel this way. Like this, you know, this jumps into again a self awareness thing with our kids that whenever they're feeling something it would be anxiety or sadness or depression or grief or just you know, fear. We, you know, everything starts firing because we're human beings, our mirror neurons start firing, just the connection to our kids.

And we feel, we're feeling that too and we want it to stop because maybe we were never taught that it was okay to feel those things. So we don't want our kids to feel it. And even though we say yeah, we want to help them, we really just wanted to end like what's the best feeling for parenting? You know, teenager or I should say, parents of teenagers is when you say how are you and kids are like fine, we're like, good, you know? Now, I can go on with my day because you're fine. And we know that that word means nothing, but there's a relief in it, right? Because when we say to our kids, how are you and they start to tell us the truth, things get real. And it can be really uncomfortable and a lot of it, it's because of what that feeling feels like in our body and we just want to jump right over it.

Laura: Yeah, Yes, and that's the work right of recognizing our our very human, you know, response to that, it makes sense that we would respond that way and coming back to what we also know to be true that right here in those moments, that connection, that relationship, we don't have to know the exact right thing to do and say. We can just be there at that moment. Yeah. And stuff.

Cathy: It is and that is why, you know, we're kind of substituting the word relationships for parenting is, that's what we're trying to teach our kids right? We're not trying to teach them to be good kids to us. We're trying to teach them to be human beings in the world and how to have healthy relationships. So that whole process begins with their relationship with us. Do we have… And when I use the word healthy, I don't mean perfect. I don't mean always happy. I mean typical, like you can have an argument and respect each other's perspective. You can be frustrated at each other and resolve it and repair it. That's what a healthy relationship is. It's not about constant joy, that's not reality.

Laura: It's the full range of human experience and resilience, you know? Yeah. Oh gosh, okay, Cathy, I do feel like we could probably talk for hours. I so appreciate your time and your and your, your presence and your… Was sharing your wisdom. Not just here but in the world. Why don't you make sure our listeners know where to find you and I'll make sure everything gets into the show notes, but sometimes folks like to hear it out loud, so…

Cathy: Sure, sure. So zenparentingradio.com is where everything is. We actually, even when you get to that page, there's like a resource page where it has everything that we do. The podcast has obviously been around for 11 years. So there's like, what do we have like 660 podcast to choose from. So we pretty much talked about everything and I, we still have plenty of found there or wherever books are sold. And you know, just zenparentingradio.com is the best place to go and you can find everything. Yes, instead of going through each individual thing will just say that.

Laura: Okay, well thank you again so much Cathy. I really, truly… Your work and your work with Todd is just so, so lovely. So please everybody be sure you do go check out. Check out her podcast and her book. Thank you for being here.

Cathy: Thank you Laura. Thank you for your work too. I'm glad we're in it together.

Laura: Yeah, we are. It’s so good. It's so good to have colleagues.

Cathy: It is.

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 um 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.

All right. 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!

Laura Froyen, PhD

Laura Froyen, PhD

Balanced Parent Podcast

Laura Froyen, PhD

Welcome to the home of The Balanced Parent Podcast!

Episode 142: Learning to Trust Yourself as a Parent with Cathy Adams