Finding Your Bliss in Motherhood
with Irene McKenna
This is an unedited transcript.
There’s been a few episodes, I was surprised. I
didn’t know I needed to tell people that but
I usually tell people the opposite on mine. I’m like you can, so it rarely came up. But
the reason the reason being is I actually have had some moms say to me, we would rather you just tell people not to because I’m listening to with my kids. Well, it’s I’m making dinner. Yeah. I’m like, let’s just I don’t care either way, but you’re gonna rule? Yes, absolutely. That’s a blessing. I don’t want anyone to be worrying about me bad words because of me.
Yeah, yeah. All right. Okay.
Let’s get going. So welcome to this week’s episode of The Mondays podcast, I am very excited to have a chance to talk with Irene McKenna. And I, the reason being, I’ll tell you, I was fangirling. A little bit I’ve followed your podcast, and I’ve been listening to some of the episodes that really spoke to me. And I’m loving what I hear. So I love your style. I love what you do. Irene is a life coach. She is passionate about moms thriving and just being a mom with joy. And I think that’s something we need to hear. I think that’s important. you specialize in conscious parenting relationships, and finding peace in the chaos of motherhood, which is a lot of what mom days is why I named it what it was, is that idea of us just getting through the days. But we can do this with we can do it with joy. Right? I think that’s possible. So tell me what that means to you.
So I call it blissful motherhood, I just think it’s more fun word to say. But to me blissful motherhood is if I focus on my happiness. And in the foundation that which I need to build it. It’s not that I’m always in this blissful or happy state, it’s that I have access to it. And I create that access. And what I do more often, I can catch myself in the moment I can connect. When I want to react, I have choice. And I’m energetically attracting more of what I want in my relationships. Because I’m in a state of connection, I think we’ve been trained so often to live in a state of problems, to live in a state of seeing what’s wrong, that when we live in that state, that’s what we see more of. So when I create this foundation of bliss, it’s about accessing the part of me that is connected to me first, so that I can show up and connect in my relationships in my parenting, and I naturally am going to parent from a place of consciousness, I’m going to set boundaries, I’m going to engage in a way that I’m asking for what I need or want, so that I am sourcing myself to be the mom that I want to be I always say patience. And parenting should never be the goal. Like it’s a limited commodity. It’s a limited amount like decision fatigue, there’s patience, fatigue, which is like bedtime is usually so impossible, because we get to the point. And we’ve been basically, what patience is, I’m going to stuffed down my emotional experience. So that on the outside, I can appear to be calm. And that just doesn’t work because I’m it’s brewing underneath and it’s brewing and I’m constantly depleting that. That’s that bank of patience, until it just burst forth. So this is where we build this foundation of bliss.
I love that. And it’s true, because I think we’re demonstrating for our kids as well. If you know, on my side of things, I look so much at our kids mental health and what we’re teaching them if we’re just always showing that simmering under the surface, right, and then the exploding. Our kids are not learning healthy habits to deal with their emotions and they run out of patience. Yeah, I mean, they can’t live in a blissful state all the time, but they can certainly connect to it and learn how to connect to it at a young age. So I love that foci
and our ability to hold space when they’re not in that blissful state and they’re having a big emotional experience also comes from our foundation. Not getting dirty. Really. It is it is it’s it’s I’m not getting wrapped up in their emotional experience. And it doesn’t mean that we sometimes don’t need to take space to process the other day can hold on. My son had spilled his blueberry smoothie all over the couch in the carpet. And I was like, I need to process this for a moment. I’m gonna walk away and then and then I’m going to come back and it’s my childhood. I’m so sorry. Mistakes happen I’m not angry and I need to process this without trying to jump on in because often what we do when we try to have enough patience is I’m trying to stem the frustration that I actually feel that now I have this purple thing all over the place, versus Let me deal with my emotion. And then what we’re also teaching them is, it’s okay to take space, it’s okay to deal with your emotion without just having to show up, like, Oh, it’s no big deal. Because in that moment, it was
or or it’s a huge deal and the overreaction happened, right. Yeah, it’s true. Because if we’re not in tune to who we are, and what our needs are, and how our emotions tend to come out, yeah, we will have a reactive state rather than intentional, right, being intentional with our exactly,
I like to use this what I call my quantum self model, which is really the most authentic part of you that knows how we want to respond to those moments, but so often get hijacked. And the way I explain it is, it’s, it’s almost like this molecule, but on the outside of the molecule is these four pillars, and it’s what I say the four pillars of self awareness. And when we create balance in those, which is unique to all of us, we can access this quantum self and the behaviors of that quantum self. So I love acronyms. So self, to me means that’s my sovereign, like I’m making the rules for me and how I want to respond, I’m not responding how I’m told a parent should respond or how I grew up with, it’s my own, I’m stepping out of that programming, then he is empowered, I’m showing up in a way that I’m confident connected to this piece of me. And then l is love, which is unconnected to love. And then f is focused within because if I’m focused within, I have the answers of how I’d like to respond. Yeah, that’s what I’m focused outside that I’m in that reaction mode. And so we access this quantum self with self love, which is self care, it’s the things that we do to help us show up this way, and also the voice in our head. Because if that voice in our head is always beating us up, it doesn’t matter what we do, it just tanks. The second one is self regulation, which is our emotional intelligence, what it is taking radical responsibility for our emotional state while releasing responsibility for others. And then it’s self discovery, which is witnessing the thoughts and beliefs in our own head that are driving our feelings and reactions. And then the last one is self worth, which is really, to me setting boundaries. When I feel worthy, I will set these boundaries. So when I create this balance in this, then I can access this quantum self I can show up in this way. And so when I’m not I know to look within what am I missing here, there was a period a couple weeks ago, where I was much more snappy patience was just I was just not in it. And I’m like, okay, what’s going on for me? And it was like, Oh, I gave up my morning routine mostly a couple weeks ago, and it’s finally catching up with me. I haven’t been working out I haven’t been, you know, using my time and in an empowered way. And it’s catching up with me. And by shifting that my kids behavior changed because I was engaging with them differently. Yeah,
well, and you come with a different energy as well, boy, were depleted and where and I know that the term self care has been misused. I think it’s been abused lately, right? There are very powerful component to self care for moms. Self Care is not getting you know, two minutes use the bathroom. That’s, that’s just like you, you should have those boundaries in place for your kids understand? Sure, they may want one but whatever my kids now know, if I’m in the bathroom, and you come in, you get what you get.
08:32
Free, right? Whatever. Yeah,
I need to do, but when it’s something that is really, you know, intentional, as far as I need an hour out, you know, three times a week, just to be with me, right? Even if you’re an extrovert, sometimes they actually have a harder time with us, I think than introverts, but taking that time to focus in on who you are, besides being Mom, I work with that challenge with in our business leaders all the time in our business and, and moms who come into a business and an entrepreneurial side of things, and they lose themselves. they’ve forgotten, had, you know, you had things that filled you up and there were things that you love and that attracted you, you know, to be the person you are and working in with those and even just taking a timeout as needed. Or like you were saying was keen or if it’s a fitness you know, activity.
It’s, I say there’s these like three buckets. It’s like what do I need to feel energized, rested and connected connected to me connected to others connected to something greater? So for me, like self care for me is I have cuddle time with each boy there’s, you know, almost nine and 10. But before bed every night, we have our cuddle time, self care to me because I like creating that connection with them, which is vital to me. So I think it’s a balance of setting those boundaries where I’m going to sit down for my dinner, I’m going to drink enough water during the day I’m going to do these things. And it’s also recognizing that maybe on a weekly or a monthly basis, I need a girls night I need an hour to myself. So it’s kind The balance of the little things. And the bigger things I like to say though the small things done with intention matter more than the big things done without purpose. Yeah, I can go get a massage. And then I could be thinking about that to do list in my head the whole time. It’s not doing a thing for me. That’s right,
yeah. And then it builds up, right, those little things like he said, he could go on for a few weeks, you don’t catch it, and suddenly, it’s there. You’re like, I have hit my point where I realized something’s going on with me. And I think it takes you know, a certain amount of slowing down to maybe we live in such a fast paced society. And I don’t think that’s ever going to change. But as moms, we take on it all, we take a son, we hold the verb at all. And having that timeout, or having that little break, or whatever that looks like in your self care routine. It allows us those moments to breathe, and to be a little more introspective, putting our phone down for you know that time. Yeah, I take my phone. And when I take a bath, I would I would scroll while I was laying in the bathtub, which is super thick, because I know when to drop in the tub. So far, I have it. But I actually had to stop I pulled away and stop because I realized that if I took the time just to soak it just when my kids were all asleep, and I could spend half an hour 45 minutes in the bath, I would have the most amazing kind of brain freeing time to just think, right quiet time to think ago. Now I am connecting it to who I am. Now I recognize what’s going on with you know, inside of me. Or I can reevaluate how things went through the day, whatever that looks like. So I love that idea of cuddles with your kids. That’s our bedtime routine. I’ve got three, my oldest is 13. My youngest is six, and they’ll all pile into our bed. And we read a chapter of a book every night together. So it’s just our little moment. It’s our time, even when we’re traveling. It doesn’t matter if we’re in a hotel or anywhere. Yeah, teen and they look forward to it. So it’s important to do what works for your family, do what works with your kids, but find that connection where you find some joy, right? We really get lost in struggles. Between a day we
lose a lot. I mean, we have the potential I should say to lose a lot, we have the potential to lose our voice, which many of us do, we have the potential to lose our space, our time, our schedule, like all of those things, that gives our mind that veil of control. You know, parenting takes takes that and kind of crushes it in so many ways. And it’s learning to interact with the change from an empowered place versus kind of resigning yourself to what is because that’s where the resentment lies. That’s where the frustration lies. That’s where I become depleted. Because if I’m just reacting to what it is, I’m not going to ask for what I need in a way that I’m actually going to get it. I mean, I remember, you know, back in the early years, my kids are 15 months apart. It was crazy. In the beginning, it was it was it was because I wasn’t doing anything. I’d say okay, I’m gonna I’m gonna work out but then, oh, they need me. Oh, you know, I don’t know how they’re going to be Oh, they need something to eat. And it was just finally be the end of day. I’m like, Oh, I never did that workout have the clothes on. But I never actually did anything. And it was learning to be like, No, I’m taking this time. And so at first it was like, my kids were little they had like the the iPad with a snack in my in the basement where I was working out. And they tried to ask me questions. I’m like, I’m not talking. I’m not talking. And I would just hold that boundary. And they learn it over time. But it had to be a learning experience for me first that it was okay to not almost invent their needs, so that I didn’t have to meet mine, right like, not that they don’t have these needs, but that I was putting those in front of me. And it’s that most of parenting, I like to say 95% of parenting happens outside of the moments we’re actively parenting. That’s so true. Because if I’m not doing all of this stuff here, in the moment, I’m just reactive, I’m yelling, I’m pushing, I’m throwing out consequences. It’s all the things I do the rest of the time. Because otherwise, it’s an either or if I’m not taking care of me, and my child needs to eat, then I have to choose them eating. And it’s either or. But if I’m creating the space for me, it gets to be a both and I met my needs, and I can show up for them in this way. So it doesn’t have that resentment, and then guilt, and then all of the things that brew under the surface that continue to play out and how we’re engaging.
Yeah. And I think it’s simple in our day to like you’re saying to let it get to the end of the day, and either you’re too tired or you’re done right, you’re right. You’re out of it all you’ve drained yourself up for the day. Yeah, there’s time management play into that. And I don’t love that term, but just the boundaries and just being able to say this is what our Monday to Fridays kind of look like and maybe the weekends are free for all well, you know,
I’ve recognized that I need that structure. And I say that to my kids, because I’m homeschooling right now. And I have a business and I need to take time for myself. So I need that structure. So for my kids, I’m like, I’m available to do school from eight to 11. These are your lessons if you don’t want to do with that time, that’s fine. And, you know, this is the expectation that’s kind of laid out. And I needed that structure to move through my day. And I recognized that I, I tried working at night did not work for me, I don’t function well that way. So I’m like, Okay, I’m getting up at 530 in the morning, and having that time having that time for me, so it’s recognizing our unique needs, within the structure of what we need. And often we feel like putting these boundaries on is selfish. It’s, um, it’s, you know, not recognizing their wants and needs, but wants and needs aren’t in conflict, like your child can, I shouldn’t say wants and needs but wants, preferences, desires, I mean, needs or needs, but once preferences, desires, it’s often the solution that we feel because we live in that either or, either I have to show up for them right now, or I get to show up for myself, it’s learning to incorporate the structure that we need to create that both and more and for sometimes that may be like, if you’re in the thick of it with the littlest little ones. I mean, there’s a time where Yes, there needs Trump hours, those first those first few, you know, first few months, absolutely. But then we can start to say, like, I just lost 20 minutes scrolling social media, was that the best use of my time? Or could I have gone and done a meditation? Or can I have, you know, or? Yes, I get that the dishes need to be done? And can I take five minutes to do some breathing or some stretching first before I tackle that, because the thing is, when we are doing those things? Yeah, it almost expands time because I’m much more productive. I’m much more engaged with it. I’m not constantly trying to like, check out my monitor in the early years was I can’t do this, I can’t do this. And what do you think every moment felt like, I can’t do. That’s how I was living my days. And living my life. I can’t do this. And the turning point was like, I was in my room crying with the door closed, my kids are on the other side crying for me. And I’m like, I can’t do this. I cannot do this. And I was like, okay, something needs to change. I don’t know exactly what it is now. But something needs to change. Because this isn’t what I want. Like, nobody’s happy here. Because our chaos underneath when we’re just trying to go through the motions in this way, is energetically creating that chaos in our kiddos. And that’s what’s playing out in their behavior. When I have clients come, they they’re focused on I want to change my child’s behavior. And at the end, they always say, this isn’t what I thought I needed to work. However, things everything has changed.
Hmm, that’s powerful. Because we are quick to point not point fingers necessarily, but we are quick to look outward. And we’re quick to look inward because that means work. We don’t have time for more work, but right read, like, you know, I know for me personally, if I’ve had to, if things have triggered me, for example, something happens and I like you were saying I know that I’ve hit a point where I’m losing my you know what all my kids more than I is necessary if there’s a necessary amount, you know, what I’m talking about? Just the typical I’m doing the same. I’m homeschooling running multiple businesses from home. Lin lockdown right now still in Ontario, like just craziness dealing with mental health, you know, with my kids as well, all these things. And it can be very easy to look at them and to just go, Okay, I can fix that. And I can help you do that better. But in the long run, it’s my wellness. It’s It’s where I’m at. And you’re right. If it’s something energetically that we’re brewing, or it comes out, I always I swear when we’re brewing it, it comes out in our kids. Oh, yeah. They’re like the perfect little conductors for energy. Right. And I know for a fact, and it took me years to realize that it really did. This wasn’t something I understood right away. But I worked with families, you know, in a birthing aspect and with you know, newborns and in those stages, where you’ve got moms who are dealing with postpartum depression and stuffing it down and are dealing with anxiety and are stuffing it down and you watch this come out in their babies, and you go, they’re not understanding how that’s possible. There is a very real energetic connection between us and the people around us. But especially our kids, like they are little conductors, right?
Absolutely, absolutely. Because especially up to age seven, they are living in their subconscious mind, which means they are in that low wave, you know, theta state, which means they’re just in almost like a hypnotic state, just taking taking everything in. So they’re super suggestible to things that we don’t even know we’re conveying. Yeah, and this is why trying to maintain that veil of patience on the outside will never work. Because it really and yeah, it is because it’s exhausting because I’m exerting so much mental energy, physical energy, everything holding the stem of these emotions back, just so I can appear to be calm, to get them to bed so that I can go vege out and whatever because I haven’t been managing it all day and they are giving it back anytime. I know. My son and my kiddos behavior start escalating. I’m like, how have I been showing up? Yes. How have I been showing up today? And if I can make that change if I have the capacity to make that change, because that’s what we’re really creating here, the capacity to shift the capacity to come back to a state of awareness, the capacity to let go of the feelings and thoughts are the thoughts driving those feelings? Yeah, it’s not just that we, we can do that we create the access to it. Yeah, we build this foundation that gives us the access. You know, this is why every time we go to bed at night, we’re saying, I’m just going to do better tomorrow. It never works. It never will recap, right, and you’re not doing anything wrong by the fact that it doesn’t, it’s just not how the systems altogether work, we can’t just quote unquote, be better. We have to create a change from the ground up, then we can show up better than we can hold boundaries, over and over and over because kiddos they’re hardwired to test boundaries, like that’s in their wiring. That’s how they learn to trust us. That’s how they learn what the rules are, when we hold those boundaries. But when we’re energetically not able to hold those boundaries, we’re just throwing out consequences. It it doesn’t work. But when we start to hold those boundaries and hold space for the emotional response to those boundaries, back, yeah, this is where the shift begins to happen. But that has to be something that we give ourselves capacity to do. We can’t just magically show up this way.
So what would you say, let’s say to a parent who, you know, up to this point knows that things they haven’t been showing up in this way, or that they aren’t, you know, healed up in a hole themselves. And there’s, there’s obviously other things that need to happen. There’s healing and work that that we go through for it all the way we were raised, and all that is we learned and all that what undo those dances, I always say, like, learn to dance a certain rhythm a certain way, your whole life. And then you’ve got these little beings were given to you to literally undo it. Yeah. I mean, if there’s the good stuff that you’ve learned, but then there’s all the negative habits and rituals you’ve learned. So what would you say is something that a mom who or a parent who is in that routine, who’s fallen into that, you know, maybe stuffing it down or whatever? For example, what could be a practical like, step one, step two first steps for them to?
Yeah, absolutely. So I would say first, we’d love to say like, you’re just
gonna, you’re gonna get in there, and you’re going to find these, you know, all these parts of you, and you’re going to tap into your subconscious, we can do that over time, especially working with someone like yourself,
it’s always over time, it’s always over time. Sure, but the first thing is meet yourself where you are, like, Don’t try to get to step z, when you’re on step a, because so often, what we do is we focus on the outcome that we want, and we become so tied to the outcome of who we think we want to be that we only see tunnel vision of what that is. And what overwhelm is, is we’ve told the brain what we want, it can’t figure out how to get there. So overwhelm happens. And when overwhelm, we just start swirling, more frustration, more energetic attraction of chaos. So it’s meeting yourself where you are, what that could look like is, can I take five minutes a day to start meditating to give my car my stress response? Can I do what you know, even move my body for five minutes a day, because we’re living in that stress response, and we’re not completing the stress response. So those can be some just five to 10 minutes. Because the thing is, if we try to bite off a bigger chunk than that, the subconscious is like, No, no, no, this is too scary. We may not be happy here, but we’re alive. We’re good here. Don’t try to change this too much. So if I say 30 minutes a day, for five days, and we’re not going to do it, we might for the first two days, we get up we get going and then day three hits. And our mind comes up with some excuses to why we can’t or we’re too tired. And that’s because we’ve tried to bite off too big of a chunk. So chunk it down. Meet yourself where you are. And then what can I also what are the little things I can do in my day? Am I drinking enough water? Because 2% dehydration zaps our energy stores therefore our patients and our ability to access it. Huge. Yeah. So am I drinking enough water Am I you know, sitting down to eat my meals? Am I you know, showering regularly at the very least washing my face. You know, can I wash my face? And a couple of those are first thing when I get up in the morning Can I have a water bottle next to my bed and start my day with water? Can I go splash ice cold water on my face because that activates my Vegas nerve, which helps me to start the day with calm. So those are two ways is meet yourself where you are take off a tiny chunk of what you can start with and then how can you incorporate self supporting actions throughout your day and that will start to build your ability To then add a little more and to add a little more and to start questioning, either questioning your beliefs or working out more, whatever that may be, whether it’s having the capacity to work with a coach or take a program, because the thing is, if you if you don’t already have some capacity, now some of us even need that coach to hold us accountable just to start it right like that. And that can be fine too. Just know that it’s a long journey. It’s not a start and an end that we’re going to get to. And your kids are resilient. So if you’re on the 12 month plan here for creating some change in your life. Yeah, that’s okay. You don’t have to create this change in a week to save your kids from your yelling. Yeah, take one step tomorrow that you didn’t take today. And just one foot in front of the other. And if you keep going, even if you somedays take a break, or fall off, but then you step back into it. So being around like minded moms listening to podcasts like this, where you’re being supported, all of those things are vital to staying in it. Because change has, as I see it, four layers, we have the desire for change, we can stand desire, all the time, then we have knowledge. So we think we need to know more. So we add more knowledge, which is great, we add more knowledge, we learn something, then we adults learn by implementing. So we need to implement that knowledge. implementation is long and messy and hard. So what we do is we start implementing, it never goes like the book says. So we think we need more knowledge. And we jump back over to knowledge and we keep staying in that cycle. But implementation is it begins with reflection. How did today go? what went well, today? What’s an area of growth for me? What am I grateful for? What do I want to commit to tomorrow, then it’s awareness, where we’re able to, in the moment, catch ourselves before we can embody it. And that’s when we get to trust. But we get so off kilter in that messy implementation phase that we say stuck, I need to know more, I need to know more. Because Also, many of us have this story of like, I’m not enough, and how does that show up? I don’t know enough. So I need to know more, I need to know more. And I still remember, like reading the like when I first began my journey into conscious parenting and reading the books, and I’m like, Oh, my God, I’ve been doing it all wrong. I’ve messed up my kids, so that I’m stuck in that guilt. And that keeps me out of implementation. And so this is where beginning where you’re at? And what’s the first step? Am I in a community that I can lean on for support during this and ask questions, and then maybe I increase my capacity to learn some more and allow myself to implement, but it’s changed doesn’t happen on the timeline that we would love it to happen, and happens on the timeline that we give it when we commit to it long term.
And it doesn’t happen the way like he said the way we maybe expect. That’s why I rather just throw the expectations out the window and just started step one. Yes, there we go right now. And I like to work that, you know, through crap without getting froze somewhere in there, which is great for because you can kind of get yourself to a place of step one, and then have some hold your hand through the next things that you need a little hole, you know,
exactly, I like to say, preferences, instead of expectations, like expectations, or this future oriented, you know, desire, where we become laser focused on the only solution that we believe is going to get us the outcome we want, which means we don’t see all the ones around us. But if I, you know, if I have preferences, I could prefer it go one way and then oh, it did it. And then if it does, I’m like, Oh, look at that it did I have the same thing with my kids. I could expect bedtime to go a certain way. Or I could prefer it to go a certain way. When it doesn’t, I can adjust and course correct when it does. Oh, it feels like you know, unicorns are floating on rainbows. Right. But that’s so rare. That, but we often feel it. That’s the expectation we’re holding. Yeah. And we’re always working towards it and working towards it working towards so what are we doing every day failing? Really? Yeah.
Yeah. Well, and that’s it’s funny, because that’s something that I actually started doing with my kids before I even looked at myself, because I wasn’t there yet. But I knew that my kids needed to understand gratitude. And that was something that I was very conscientious of with them. And well, just in the situation’s we’ve been in with our family and some of the, I don’t know, it’s not special treatment, but they’ve had some great opportunities in their lives that I’ve never had and, and experiences they’ve, I’ve never, you know, as a kid never got to have and I’m very conscientious of that. And I want to make sure we understand how great that is. Yeah, but we started doing our you know, bedtime gratitudes where it would be what were your wins today and daddy was amazing at this to my husband was spent he’s very good this way. You’d be like what were your wins today? You know, what did you do? Well, would you feel proud of and we got a we did this not every night but we got into a pretty steady you know, conversation as our kids were growing. Yeah. It came to a point where they started asking us that then yeah, so we’d have to, they asked us and it hit me one night in the bathtub, one of those moments where I was like, feeling all the mom guilt and just feeling like an utter failure. And you know, that idea of I’m not moving forward, I’m falling into bad Pat, you know, habits again, those patterns. And all of a sudden that little voice was in my head saying, but what were your wins today? That’s a simple little. For me, it was like a simple one step. It
was like,
You know what, I do need to change how I end my day, I needed to change how I finished off, I needed to do a couple things, I needed to do a brain dump. At the end of the day, it sounds funny, but I really had to get like my tasks out of my head. For the next day, I would keep my my day planner, I’m a pen and paper girl. So day planner next to me, I’d look at what was coming up for the next day, I’d make sure I was planned for it before bed, I’d get down any info in my head, I need to get out. But then those gratitudes and just being able to say, you know what, I really rocked lunch today. Whatever it was,
whatever. Yeah, it’s those little things that was a write off. But those little things that we can come back to. And there were, I had two examples of something been reflected back to me recently, when I was kind of having those moments. And one was, my, my 10 year old tends to whenever his brother doesn’t agree with something he like, wants to like, beat it into him that this is the way it’s going to happen. And we were going for, we have an old Mustang and we’re going for a ride. And my night, my eight year old didn’t want to go. And my 10 year old really wanted to go. And so what I hear from my 10 year old is, how do we support you to be good with this. And I was like, oh, alrighty then let me just sit there care. Like, it was like such a shock. I was like, wow, I just want to acknowledge you for creating this this space for and then what happened is we all came together, we figured out a plan. And we went and then I had another moment where I was in the in the failure state I was kind of I was trying to work and hold a boundary and they just weren’t following it. And so my yelling is just really raised voice now. Like I rarely actually lose it. And so I kind of got that point, I was just like, oh, and then I kinda was like, I need space, I need you to leave, right? And so my son comes back in a few minutes. He goes, you know, Can I come in? I said, Sure. And he comes up. And he’s like, are you okay? And I was like, you know, but not really, I’m kind of struggling right now. And he and he just stood there, like held space for me to have this. And I was like, I’m just, I’m scared. I’m scared. I’m not teaching you I’m scared. I’m not getting this, right. Like, I just kind of shared what I was feeling. I wasn’t dumping the emotions on him, but just sharing my experience. And here’s what I get back. Something I’m paraphrasing, but it was basically like, you can’t be failing, because you’re trying, sometimes it doesn’t work. It can’t work all the time. But you know, what does work. And then you try again, and you just keep trying, like, he just basically reflected back to me everything. And so I sat there and I was like, literally I can’t be failing. Because the things that matter are happening. It just came out of your mouth. If I’m doing something, right, I’m doing something right, I’m holding space for feelings. I’m sharing how to communicate empowered way, we’re engaging differently. So all those times when I feel like I can’t get the schedule, right or, you know, we, you know, they’re not, I have to hold this boundary with doing school again, or they’re not learning the way there’s, you know what they’re supposed to do this year, we’re at the end of the year, and I just want to be done. Like all of those things. It’s kind of like then this gets reflected back. And you’re like, so it’s, we often are looking for these big tangible wins that my child is cooperative, or, you know, they held this bound, I held this boundary or bedtime went smooth. Like we have these tangible ideas of what success looks like. Yeah, what if it’s just how we show up every day? Yes. Yeah. And how are we showing up to because athletes
are the reflection, sometimes that can be a negative reflection. And we have to acknowledge that and, and we want to take ownership, right? There’s so many beautiful moments like those ones we’ve just shared, those are beautiful moments. And I have so many of them, the day that I go, and I’ll text my hubby sometimes. And I think this is important too. Because as moms, I know, sometimes we wear this and we own it, and we also see it but our person or sometimes our partners or whoever’s in their life misses some of these parts. And I’ll text him and I’ll say, do you know what, you know, our oldest just said to me, like, he just told me I’m doing a great job. And I’m like, you need to like, Oh, that’s so sweet. I’m like, yeah, you know, like, just having some acknowledgement from the efforts you make is yes, huge, right? And you’re not gonna always get that. Another thing. Another thing I realized, not that long ago, actually was probably about a month ago, is I started asking and this is a very vulnerable thing for me because I’m almost perfectionist in the way I attack things or the way I want to do self improvement even you know, those expectations. I love what you said about preferences. I’m so gonna take that away. Because that’s a big one for me is learning to set that aside, but actually involving my kids in my self development, you know, doing some webinars where I was being trained or I was doing some self development I did a tapping program training where I was learning how to do it. And the kids, I got them involved. Like we were practicing at bedtime doing tapping with bedtime things to say, yes. It but it was really neat because I also had a chance to say to them, Listen, you know, what’s your favorite thing about me?
And
when do we ever have? I don’t know, I don’t know that I’ve ever thought to say that. But we were asked to say ask someone close to us that question or ask somebody in your life that question. I’m like, why would I ask my kids? Yeah, it’s like, they’re the ones that I’m in direct, you know, responsibility for me to work together as a team to a certain extent, I’m still the boss. But there’s work that happens, right? I don’t know what they need from me, or how they view me, how do I even know what said you do get tunnel vision where you only see their issues, or you only see your failures, right?
We have to do is acknowledge their experience, we don’t have to give them everything they want, like just just this week. So we have a stray cat, I don’t know where it came from. It’s obviously not a feral cat. So I’m trying to find who its owners is but in the meantime, we’re kind of beating at my boys would love a cat and it’s just not gonna happen. It’s just you have a dog, you have a guinea pig, it’s not gonna happen. And so in my son kept, you know, pushing the boundary pushing, pushing, pushing. And finally, I what I said was, I wish we could always give you everything that you ever wanted, I would love to be able to do that. And in this instance, we’re not getting a cap. And it was like finally being heard and recognizing that, okay, mom gets how important this is to me. And I said, I know how much you love animals, I know that you’ve seen this cat outside is hurting you right now. And we’re not bringing the cat in the house. Like it can be both situations. But this is where we often fall off is that we think there can only be one truth. But when we’re actually connected to our quantum self, as I like to say, there can be two truths. You can really want this, and we’re not bringing the cat in the house like both can be true. I don’t have to fight against you wanting it to make my life easier. So I don’t have to hold this boundary that it’s not coming in the house.
I think that’s as as adults are grownups even it’s almost that assertion of of you need to see and feel and hear and believe what I do. And it is missing that idea that there are other truths. Like what, what you, Jen, it’s one of those optical illusions where you look at a picture one way and one person sees one letter. That is literally how I see our kids is they’re all little people. They’re all human beings. And we all have our own version of the truth. So yeah, I love that example. Because my daughter’s the same. She’s the one who would rescue every animal there is we now have chickens in our kitchen.
So that oh, we had a we had a little a little baby that would duck. One time it came up till it imprinted on us it would follow us around. I had the kiddie kids kiddie pool in our kitchen, I’m like, pure rying like blueberries and melon for it, like, when you don’t know about ducks is when they don’t have their flock. They cry all the time. The only time to sing with sleep is I have my hand right here a cup right in my hand here. I’m like, okay, we’re finding a rescue because I’m not doing I’m not doing this. But yes, it’s
hard we learned with her was that same idea of it can’t be everything right now. But it’s been interesting to have the conversation about what she might like as she gets older.
Okay, it’s been fun to talk to her about what it might be like as she gets older. Right? Do you want to have taken animals what animals like to have? And it’s that almost that detour of, Hey, there is there’s a place for this. And I you know, I honor that in you. It’s not my right now.
I’m already taken care of a guinea pig. And this isn’t happening. And we can hold space for the heck that you would love it to happen. It doesn’t have to feel like this conflict. So often, we feel like we’ve been his kids because conflict was it didn’t feel good in our bodies. But all you know, conflict is there’s a difference in opinion. There’s a difference in want. There’s a difference in desire. But that doesn’t have to mean animosity. But what we often learn is kids that that’s what it was because we wanted things. And most of the time, we were told in a way, that didn’t feel good, because we didn’t, we may not have had parents who had access to validating our experience to validate the feelings. We felt their body. So it felt like conflicts and now we avoid conflict. Yeah. Which means we feel like I can’t validate that he wants this because that’s giving that’s giving in when really it’s always humans want to do is to be heard or be heard to be seen.
Yeah, yeah, acknowledge what I’m feeling acknowledge what I’m saying. And again, I think because they’re smaller than us, it can be easy to just override it, right? It’s pretty common. We I fall into that all the time where I’m like, you know, I’m too busy or I’m being impatient or something’s going on that I can’t focus at that moment, and learning something, a strategy of some sort to be able to say, I’d love to hear more about that right now. Or I’d like to run About that, but I can’t right now, can you get in five minutes, you know, let me finish up what I’m doing. So I’m getting better at that.
I like boundaries in like this closed container that creates good success. So what does that look like? Well, so if I need so my, my child asked me for a glass of water, I’m in the middle of something I say to him, you can get it now, or I can get it for you five minutes when I’m done, like I’m creating you choose, but this is what I’m available for, this is what I’m open. But often what we what we do is we’re just like, you know, I’ll get it in a minute, I’ll get it in a minute. And then they keep asking because we haven’t created that container for them. Or we just say, No, get it yourself. And then it feels like anger, but we can still connect with them and hold the boundaries around what we’re doing. And it doesn’t mean that boundaries. Boundaries don’t necessarily get easier, they seem to flow a little bit more, but they’re always there. Because often the expectation is I’m just gonna set it and it’s gonna it’s gonna happen. But what boundaries are to me is you put like you put anyone but you put a child in a dark room. And I like to say you have two doors out, I’m and it’s there’s no lights, there’s no windows, the doors are closed, they learn where the doors are, by feeling their way around, if we’re always moving the walls, they can’t relax their energy to figure out where the door is to open it to go out. So boundaries are a sense of trust. The other analogy I love is you get on a roller coaster, and you pull the bar down. And before it takes off, the attendant goes around and checks the bar, you don’t want the bar to give, you want to see that it’s locked. So now you can relax and enjoy the ride. Kids kids want to relax. But when we’re moving boundaries, or we’re using boundaries from a reactive place, versus a proactive place, I can’t change the past. But I can be like, Okay, what can I put in place to create maybe a different choice next time? Yeah. And that doesn’t mean that like, we’ve never moved a garbage can. And my 10 year old still leaves the wrapper on the counter. And every time I’m like, okay, but you seem to have forgotten the garbage is still weird, you know, still in that cupboard? And I could get angry every time. I absolutely could, because he’s 10. I’ve told him so many times, or I could just be like, Oh, fine, I’ll just throw it away. But neither of them are holding the boundary that, you know, this, this is what’s going to happen. And so yes, it takes more energy. But it’s a long term process. It’s not like punishments and consequences are short term fix, but usually creating a long term problem, because behavior is the downstream effect of not needing have wanting to express a feeling or trying to meet a need. So if all I do is focus on the behavior, and I don’t focus on what’s behind it, I’m getting more and more of the behavior if I punish the behavior, I’m getting more of the behavior.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it’s almost like a reimbursement at that point. Right. Yeah. Your itself becomes the focus, not
what it absolutely does become the focus. And I’m trying to correct the behavior. When behind it, you know, there’s an example I love to share, where’s my son, my younger son was turning six, it was the day of his birthday, and I’m trying to get everything ready. And my seven year old was just first he like, threw something on the floor. And then he like through something that hit his brother in the head. I’m trying to comfort his brother, I say, Can you get me an ice pack, he goes and dumps the ice trays onto the floor. I’m like, I just wanted to send him up to his room and be done. Like, I don’t have time for this, right? But I was like, okay, something’s going on here. So I sent him out. And I kind of cleaned up. And then he came, you know, it came in and I gave him what I put them in what I saw, were my hug handcuffs. And he wasn’t free until I gave him 100 kisses. And he was kind of laughing and behaviors disappeared. Because here was a day that was all about his brother. And he needed to know he was still loved and worthy of attention. But if I had focused on the behavior and punished behavior, he still needed to feel loved. Yeah, so often, we’re told that, well, if I give my child the attention, I’m reinforcing the behavior. However, if I can look beyond the behavior, and once he’s calm and connected, I could say, hey, next time you need my attention, yeah, just say, Mom, I need a hug. Yeah, Mom, I need I need a few minutes to cuddle or whatever the case may be. But they’re using the best strategy that they know. Yeah. To meet that need or express that feeling. Yeah. And and sometimes negative attention is attention. That’s right. So if I had punished him and given him that attention, he would have gotten what he needed, but not in a way that actually filled his cup. So he would have used the behavior again.
Yeah, so true. One last thing I’ll share with you and this I’m pulling it in only because I know our audience will will understand it. So in my business, we do a lot of energy scanning, biometric scanning, and I remember we have moved from the house that my daughter was born in she was born at the at home in this house and grew up in it until she was who almost four hadn’t started school yet we moved to New house. She started school six, like a half year earlier cuz she’s a January baby. So she missed the deadline. But I asked Can she start and just go because she was more than ready and wanted to go to kindergarten. So we started early and she just kept repeating it when she got to September via a move, we had a new baby and started school. Well, the the yelling, she was just yelling and angry all the time. And she’s more my more feisty one. But like it went to attend. And I remember the same thing I would just respond with, you know, what I thought was good parenting at the time was, you know, well, I got to deal with this issue. There’s an I’m, that’s all I did was as an EC was learn, you know, the child psychology of how to deal with the child. And I wasn’t in a good place emotionally at the time either all the transitions I was going through not even thinking how that’s affecting a four year old. So I actually pulled up my scanner, and I was a friend who’s like, Well, have you done a scan on her? I’m like, No, why? She’s healthy. Like, why would I do that? Like, I think you should. So I scan I put on her belly and I scan her. And nowhere a lot, I started crying and I don’t cry easily. And I she was sitting on my lap while I did this, and I just didn’t see me. But I had tears poured on my face when I saw her results within a minute. Because they were all they’re all emotion based. So it comes up with suggestions on what you know, essential oils to use energetically. And it was all the oils for grieving. And I’m like, what she’s for? What is your grieving, right. And it was all about grief and forgiveness and those deep emotions. And it regardless of what I use with her, you know, in a more oil based eye, it opened my eyes to go, I’m gonna give her a hug the next time she starts losing it. Because I’m not that’s not my natural response. I’m not a hugger. I’m not a physical love. You know, Mama, I have to remind myself to be touchy with my kids. So I see it. And so I grabbed her I remember the next time doing this. And she was like stiff as a board grabbed her and just asked her if I could hold her for a few minutes. And she melted. Like just fell apart in my life. And it makes me emotional now even thinking about it, because we did this for months afterwards. And there were times I still got it wrong, you know, I still want to go Right, right, right. This is what’s happening right now. But it got her through it in a really powerful way for me, because I just needed that reminder that these guys are struggling to this is a big change in her life. So even for our younger mamas who have you know, toddler stage is going through a new baby coming into the house, these all play a pretty vital role that in our own life, we can miss that, like you said up to the age of seven, they are operating in a different realm, operating in a space and our energy
dramatically effect. And to be able to offer that connection, we need to be connected with ourselves first, to be able to you know, give that that hug from a true place of affection. Not like like I had a client one time. And she was hugging on application like her daughter would have her daughter was a little older, you know, with anxiety and she was like I’m supporting her through it. But she felt like she was trapped like she had to hug her. So it wasn’t offering like the she was resentful that her daughter couldn’t process this on her own right so she had to hook her and when it came through was that she was actually creating the codependency her daughter thought she needed her to hug her. She you know, because right when they hugged it didn’t actually support her. So her daughter like, right. So all we did was like shift to how can you offer connection in these moments? How can you trust that your daughter’s fully capable of handling that she doesn’t need you to fix it, I just need you to hold the energetic space for it. I talked to her the next week, and it had gone down by like 80%. Like just by changing how she energetically ship you know shows up and to be able to do that. We have to create that capacity within that’s why I talk about blissful motherhood because it really is about finding our joy when we are so incredibly just tuned in and happy not that we live there all the time. I keep saying that. Because I think we think that I’m then searching for this happy and if I don’t feel it, there’s something wrong. But it’s looking like what is keeping me out of this state of well being what is keeping me out of there. I’m not sleeping right now. I’m not eating healthy, you know, foods that nourish my body. I’m not drinking enough water like all of these things. It’s like there’s concrete reasons you can’t access it. You’re not failing, you’re not doing this wrong. It’s about building that foundation. And then when we can show up, and we focus on not from a place of guilt, right? We focus on our happiness, joy, bliss First, we naturally are rippling that out into our family. I love it. But we so often feel like to get it to be happy. I need my husband to do this for me. I need my kids to behave like this so that I can be peaceful and happy when we shift the focus to finding that within first. Yeah. Then everything else changes.
That’s such a key thing to remember and we’ll leave it at that. If I want to know more about how people can work with you, but it’s so important that I love that you brought that up that we recognize that our happiness is not dependent on anyone else, not dependent on anyone. We are 100%, the masters of our own happiness and that blissful mothering is 100%. With ans it’s in our power to create. So tell us where we can find you. We’ll make sure it’s all up in the in the show notes as well. But we’re Yeah,
absolutely. So my website, I read mechanic coaching comm that’s where you can kind of learn more about me, you can also find the link to I have a membership, which has a free basic community level to it. So you can join us over there, that again, will be linked on the website, and you can find it at the the blissful mom collective.com. And there’s also I have a course finding your bliss, which is you can upgrade to that if and when you’re ready within the membership. But what I’d love to just invite you to first is just joining the conversation be with like minded moms, where we are asking questions and having conversations. And if you’re called to more the option the opportunity is there. But first, like I said is meet you where you’re you’re at, and just begin there. Awesome. I love it and check out your podcast. Yes, check out the podcast it’s actually on hiatus right now because sometimes we have to learn what our capacity is. And and being that I preach this I should say I needed to also work on that myself to be okay, you know, be okay with it. But yes, the podcast is linked on the website so you can catch old episodes, thrive and motherhood is the is the podcast as well.
Yeah. And there are lots of good episodes in there. And so you’ve got good content. It’s all there for people to enjoy. So that’s amazing. Thank you so much. I mean, I hope we can talk. Incredible.
Thank you. Well done. That was so good. Yeah, it’s so fun. I could talk about this stuff all day.
Alright, cool. I will ended up that. So when we have it up and ready to go, we kind of just give you a little heads up. Make sure your stuffs on for I usually do most of it on Instagram. And then we’ll connect for just doing a little live in there too. Sounds good. From live group as we get more what your
schedule looks like right now just so I can kind of keep it in mind. Um,
I have to actually check cuz i don’t i don’t know if it was my on my end. I have to see there’s supposed to be a way for me once we finish to be able to send you that to schedule it. Oh, let me double check. I have not mastered my schedule at the moment. I let calendly schedule me.
Oh, no worries. No worries. I met Do you have any idea when the podcast goes live? Like what’s your? Oh, I think we are so right now. I think we’re all the way up to we’re full up to June I think at the moment so. Yeah, okay. Yeah, because some I do it’s like four months out summit. So I just like to have kind of an idea. So I know to look for it. Yeah, I don’t I outsource it all. So my amazing that is well, that’s why I had to put it on hiatus because my VA quit it was a barter but she was like it’s too much. I can’t do it. Totally cool. At the same time, I launched my group program at the same time I launched my membership and I was just like, okay, a lot like I had the guest episodes there. I just didn’t have time to edit them and create the blog posts and stuff. So I’m like, okay, we’re gonna, we’re gonna do one last episode, where I have an intro that lets you know, old episodes are there to connect with lots of great content in there. So that’s, yeah, I mean, I love doing it. I love having the conversations. That’s why like, Okay, if I can’t if I’m not doing my own right now that I can be guests instead of these amazing conversations, so great. Well, your programs are brilliant. That’s
such a good idea. If you need anyone for the podcast, let me know because our team is incredible. And they’re really well. They’re not in Canada. So
awesome. Yeah. Awesome. Cool. All right. I think it’s good though. Okay, sounds great. All right. Yeah.