SYPM 017: Reparenting ourselves to create empathy in the world with Amy

Hi, I'm Jen and I host the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. We all want our children to lead fulfilling lives, but it can be so

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Hello, and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo Podcast. Today we're here with a parent Amy, who in many ways feels like a kindred spirit as Anne of Green Gables used to say, way back when I was still working in temp jobs, Amy was graduating from college and she actually had a plan to go and work on Wall Street and disrupt the patriarchy from the inside out. Unfortunately, that ended up being a little bit more difficult than she had planned, and then after her mom died, she ended up taking over the family business, and now she's married to a Black man, and she's raising biracial children as she runs that business as well. Even though I'm in an interracial relationship as well, there was much less pressure on me as I went through this and became a parent to confront my own racial privilege, because my daughter is mostly White presenting. And so the world is set up to make things relatively easier for me as a White parent of a White presenting child. And Amy really sees how White supremacy caused her parents to project this image out to the world of a happy loving family behind closed doors she tells us in this conversation, that things were anything but that it was kind of a volatile and scary place at home. And she learned early on that certain behaviors were acceptable and certain behaviors were not. And you shouldn't show those unacceptable feelings or behavior because you would be reprimanded, you would be guilted, you would be shamed. And so it really isn't a massive surprise thing that she went on to portray this kind of supermom image like I'm the one who's got it under control at all times, I should never ask for help, and I should certainly never accept help. So fast forward to a few months ago. And Amy is now the parent of four children under the age of 10, including a new baby. And even though she already had a lot of knowledge on how to disrupt patriarchal power structures, and she knew that this was super, super important to us, she could see the harms that White supremacy had wreaked on her own family of origin. There was a massive gap between the values that were so important to her as a person and as a parent, and the way that she was able to show up in difficult interactions with her children. And so as you'll hear in the conversation, there was a specific incident that really stuck out in her mind where her older children were fighting and she separated them pretty roughly, and she's yelling at the older ones saying why are you doing this, even as she's seeing the fear in her child's eyes. And so I see this often with the parents that I work with, Amy is not alone in this by any stretch of the imagination, I think it's super, super common to hold these values and to know what's important to us as parents, and yet have this huge disconnect between the ways that we want to show up for our children and the ways that we're actually able to do it in the difficult moments, particularly when we have so much stress going on in our lives right now. So if you are finding yourself in the same boat and you want to learn new tools for navigating these situations that you're finding yourselves in, then I invite you to join my taming your triggers workshop registration is going to open between February 13th and 23rd. And we will start together as a group on Monday, February 28th. And when you enroll in that each week for 10 weeks you get an email with super concise content that is not super long, will give us a new perspective, some new tools for ways to understand why you're feeling triggered in the first place, and also to help you show up in these difficult situations differently with your children. But even more than that content, because in our culture, we're typically taught that way if you just know what to do, you'll be able to make that change. So yes, we provide the information but more important than the content is the community; the community of parents that are going to be alongside you on this journey, processing this information with you, asking questions that you didn't even know you had, and working together to answer them and to really take this learning and not just have it be something that happens in your mind but something that is embodied, something that you take on in your body, and can also have the opportunity to be paired up with an accounta buddy so that you can have a one on one relationship that really forms this sort of safe, nurturing space for you to learn and grow alongside each other. So you can find more information on the workshop, and also, if you want to go ahead and do that now go ahead and sign up to receive updates when it's going to be live and available for enrollment, you can sign up at youparentingmojo.com/tamingyourtriggers. And if you do that, before we open the doors, we'll send you a discount coupon when the doors are open on February 13th. So let's go ahead and meet Amy. And I should let you know before we start, we actually recorded this interview twice. Because the first time we did it, you will hear we'll talk about it as we go. She was sort of in this supermom mode, she had her baby in her lap, and there was construction going on in the house and she was very much in this sort of, I have it under control, and I'm going to show up in this and everything's going to be fine. And everything kind of wasn't fine. And she was trying to power through it. And we realized that the experience of the conversation was actually a kind of a metaphor for the transition that she's making in her own life. So we decided to come back together and rerecord so that she could really be fully present in the conversation and take a deeper look at some of the shifts that she's seen in herself, as well as in the ways that she has been able to show up for her children. So welcome, Amy. It's so great to see you again.

Thank you likewise.

So I wonder, can you start out maybe by telling us a little bit about you and your family and some of the stressful things that are going on that led to the last time we talked being a little bit challenging?

So our last interview, I was nursing a baby, and occasionally there'd be this like hand reaching out. There were electricians literally drilling in brick like right outside the room I'm sitting in, we have four kids, so it's always beautifully chaotic and noisy in our house. Yeah, there's a lot going on. And despite all that, I was feeling sometimes, internalizing the role of being a supermom. And in this case, being the gentle parenting supermom. And so it's like, I'm going to model the growth mindset for my kids, I'm going to do this even though it's hard. And it was very hard, and so part of the journey of kind of parenting in a different way is not getting it right the first time but having the opportunity, and the insight to kind of go back, and reflect, and think about what happened. And so here we are now round two, because we both gotten to reflect

Yes, and show up in a very different place, I think from where we were a few days ago. So tell us a little bit about your family where you are in the world?

Yeah, and it has no value or place here in this family now, right? Because your parents didn't have any tools to or skills to deal with it. Maybe there'll be something you can get out of it in the future, this thing that's really central to who you are.

Well, I love words, I mean, I have used kind of words and kind of intellect to kind of protect myself and I was a good student, and I was a good athlete. And the people who knew me really thought kind of I had my stuff together when I went away to college, which I wanted to go as far away as possible. Right around that time my parents finally separated and my dad expatriated to Costa Rica, Vegas, you know, basically my whole 20s. After college, I was a women's studies major at a women's college, and I decided that I was going to go work on Wall Street because I was going to dismantle institution of patriarchy from within very, very well-intentioned, I'm going to change the world. And I found it to be a really toxic place. No surprises there. But also I learned a lot about myself, I learned a lot about how to continue creating sort of this outward appearance of how I show up as a woman what it means to be taken seriously as a woman on Wall Street that I basically, I would be listened to as long as it took someone to basically assess what kind of roll of White womanhood am I presenting. So I realized that kind of this outward appearance, or outward presentation was a tool that protects me that I can be a straight-A student in high school, I haven't been privileged, conforming to our culture's kind of standards of like, beauty, right? And that's a privilege. And then now even how I sometimes have the desire to kind of have this outward performance of being the supermom that I have internalized this like I can do it all. You know, when people tell me like, Oh, you have four kids, you make it look easy, It's like tada, that's been a really self-protecting thing to do. During this time, Wall Street, there was also passed kind of sexual assaults and traumas. And within Wall Street, this was before the Me too movement. It wasn't until the two movements many years later that I started to even think about my experience and just that I didn't have words at the time to kind of talk about like, wait a second, this isn’t okay, so I took all of that knowing that like, I wanted something to be different, something to change. And I had a spiritual and religious conversion experience. I was really deeply seeking belonging and community safety, stability, and all these things that felt really elusive growing up, but you know, again, these basic needs. So within a period of about two years, I left New York and moved to Boston, I made an online profile and met my husband and we got married. I decided to leave Wall Street and become a home birth midwife. When I began taking courses to be a midwife, we got pregnant with our first child. And then my mom was diagnosed with cancer, so we packed up everything and moved from Boston to Colorado to be close. And then she died for that was like a two year span of a lot happening in a short amount of time. All of that kind of moving towards wanting to build a connected, you know, belonging, secure family, when my mom died, she had been able to accumulate, you know, a lot of opportunities that passed on to us at a very kind of young age relative to our marriage. So we had a house, we got a lot of choices because it's very easy to sort of be an intentional parent when all of your needs are met. And, you know, we can spend our emotional energy today having conversations about, you know, the division of household responsibilities, so that both of our needs are met, as opposed to hungry talk about really, really tough, hard things together. That's kind of experience growing up into early adulthood. Now, we have four kids, as I mentioned, we are in the same area where I grew up, which is kind of Boulder County area. And our oldest is 10, with a seven-year-old, four-year-old, and a six-month-old, and like this is easy and chaotic and wonderful. As I mentioned earlier, of course, obvious for those in the video, I'm a so-called White woman of mostly Irish and English ancestry. And my partner, my husband is a Black man originally descended from Africans who were enslaved. And so, I say that because it's part of our story, and recognizing that we have a tremendous amount of privilege, you know, even in my husband's side of the family, you know, his family, both sides can obtain north and the great migration, my husband has as many degrees as you.

So there's been a lot of, you know, educational privilege and the opportunity to kind of access this myth of, you know, upward mobility, you know, to ascend to the middle class or, or beyond, and when my mom died, that became very apparent to us because the sort of the ladder to ascend had been placed really directly in front of her in a way that we didn't do anything to deserve, that it changed our lives in a way that gives us opportunity now to parent in a really intentional way, and kind of build a lifestyle that we can be home together. I mean, my partner has the kind of job where he's gonna get to work at home for as long as he chooses to. There's a lot going on, and I have always just desired to be a really attuned, attach, attend to person, I mean, so many books that I've read, and, and all these things, but culture, you know, we often think about the knowledge, well, it is just knowledge, just like, we can put this in a worksheet with these five things you do, and then, you know, once you do this, you will have attained this like commodity of knowledge. And I found that sort of this knowledge of knowing how to show up as a parent in a way that I really wanted to. You can't really learn it or you can't open your mouth and pour it down your throat.

Yeah, and coming from that whole history of trauma. I mean, the fact that you know, all the way back to your grandparents, your great-grandparents. The kinds of traumas that have been present in your family, that even though you are a White, financially, relatively well-off person, there is still all of this stuff that has come down and impacted the way each generation was parented, the way that you were parented, the way that you were allowed to show up in the world as a child. And I think you really put a point on it when you said sort of the search for belonging. I mean, that's what you were always searching for, right? You were a child, trying to assert your need for belonging, and having that know you're rejected. The way you show up in the world, Amy is not a way that we can accommodate, you don't belong with us until your behavior matches what we're able to cope with. And so of course, you become a straight-A student, of course, you become the model of success because that's how you become deemed worthy of belonging, right? Yeah, so profound

And also I think, and I have a high-spirited child, and I have a lot of resources like workshops and books, and I still need a break from my high-spirited child. And so sometimes it's just too intense, I mean, I wish she had a little dial that I could switch to like soft jazz because her default mode is pretty intense. And so I think what happened is, you know, my parents they just needed to kind of like, shut down the noise in a way that I can very much relate to. And so what happens in that when you’ve come told your needs are too much or you're too intense, just simmer down now. I learned that are my needs need, are they need a question mark. And so I grew up, you know, really wanting to with this ideal view of changing the world, you know, wanting to advocate for the needs of other people, but it's like, how do you actually meet other people's needs? When you're like, I have needs question mark. So that's kind of where I found myself just not knowing anything I needed, but finding myself constantly in this very reactive place. So Tina Paine, Bryson, Dan Siegel, a lot of their work on a whole brain kind of yes, brain integration, we've talked about this in kind of repackaged our own understanding. But the reaction of fear that led to anger was really, really familiar to me. It was familiar for my parents or my dad, I think for most White men, there's a different sort of acceptance of anger as an okay, emotion for a man to be feeling a White man to be feeling a few other emotions are sort of allowed. But my mother, before she died, she had cancer. And I remember her sharing with me one kind of a connection, that the anger that she had felt just bottled up for so many years, she felt like that caused her cancer. And so I think I have a lot of fear around even the anger I experience because I know it's toxic but I can also see that it takes a lot of skills and work to know how to let out those big feelings in a healthy, safe way. And my parents didn't have those skills, most of us don't. It really takes some kind of deep personal work to do that. And so I remember the experience this summer. So I just had a fourth baby, like postpartum, sleep deprived, I mean, all of the things, it's just tense. And maybe my older daughter and the 10-year-old and four-year-old had a squabble that resulted in the older one hitting or hurting or something, you know, the younger one, I don't even remember because I just exploded with anger. And, you know, I remember pulling them apart and not in a gentle way, and I was standing over my daughter yelling, I mean, you know, “Why did you do that?” it such an interesting question because I think most of us, well, if someone asked me why I did something, when I'm like, reacting out of anger, nobody can answer that question. It's like, that's the whole point. I remember, just being so angry at my kids hurting one another, and seeing my daughter just kind of like, almost like crawling away from me, just with this terrified look on her face, and really broke my heart to see, she's afraid of me. That my anger is so scary to her. And it brought back a lot of just painful memories of ah, yeah, I used to feel really, really scared by my parents, big, volatile, I mean, explosive feelings, and that the people, it's children that we look to, to keep us safe, and soothe us and kind of comfort us when we're afraid are the ones by causing this fear. And so it's really painful to see that I'm causing this fear because that's not the kind of parent I want it to be. It's not the way I want to show up in any of the relationships or in relationships (I'm thinking of the people that I'm in a relationship with). But it's actually, I don't want to show up with anybody on the planet like that.

Yeah. So there's this huge discrepancy, right? Between your beliefs and your values, and your hunger for belonging yourself, and how you've seen that play out throughout your life. And then what you're actually able to do on the ground with your real kids in your real life in these difficult moments, and I see that there's so many times that parents hold these deep values about trust, about belonging, about safety, about justice, and valuing everybody. And then it just falls apart in these difficult moments. What is that like for you to hold those two things together? And to know what's important to you and to see what was happening in those moments.

Well, seeing that discrepancy is what kind of led me here in the first place. It's really uncomfortable, but I used to think it was about like if they would just stop fighting. If they would just stop doing these. If my partner would just stop doing these obnoxious things then like, I wouldn't get mad and we'd all be good. So it's a challenging duality to hold, it's kind of a reminder that it's not one extreme or the other, I mean, we live in the nuance in between. And so, again, the objective isn't to get it right every time, but to move towards showing up with my children, my partner, and just the world in a way that really kind of honors and values that every single one of us is made in the image of our Creator and truly worthy of respect and dignity, and that includes myself to as worthy of the same respect and being cared for. So throughout this process of being in the workshop, and kind of beyond, and I think it's important to distinguish that it really is a process, there's no kind of before this happened, and after now, I have big feelings every day still, but I'm learning not only what they are, but just how I interact with them, you know, how the way I was parented kind of plays with that, and how kind of these cultural factors of patriarchy, and White supremacy, and colonialism. And public school education sort of “indoctrinated” me; that's a very strong word. But just how I internalized or sort of engaged with those systems and kind of recorded those messages, it’s like, “Ah, this is who I am, this is how I'm showing up recently.” I mean, this is kind of like one story but it's like stories that happen every single day, so I immediately come downstairs, my bare feet, baby in my head, and step in a blob of oatmeal, and ahh! Like a blob of oatmeal, I mean, first of all, the like sensory sensation of stepping in that blob, it's like, find myself, you know, fist balling up, like, tightness just like shoulders way up here, you know, my heart's beating like, “Ahh! Why don't these kids clean up?” You know, as if it's a personal insult. Line that I heard a lot growing up was when someone created an accidental mess, It was, “Look at that, more work for mom.” So in stepping in the blob of oatmeal, it's like, there we go, again, more work for mom, that's all people do, just you know, scheme and think about how can we really make mama just fly off the handle today; oatmeal on the floor, bare feet. Part of this kind of change and sort of transformation is again, it's not all of a sudden, I'm okay, stepping in oatmeal, because I'm really not, that still bothers me. Just being able to come slow down the whole experience a couple of weeks ago, I took the slo-mo videos of my kids running and jumping in a big pile of leaves and when it's in slow-mo, you see like every motion, every sort of movement and thing going on. And so that's kind of what's happening in the transformation that the ongoing kind of process of changing is, we hit the slow-mo button. Doesn't mean I don't still react, but I can kind of see what's happening in slower than real-time. And often what's happening is, I have physical needs so, you know, when I stepped in oatmeal, like cold and sweaty because I've gotten up to take care of myself, I've worked out but I haven't drunk water yet. I haven't eaten, and so I'm like clammy, and nobody likes that feeling. And I find that I often go to this role of the resentful mother, I remember, even the other day, just like wailing, you know, nobody’s fed me, it’s two in the afternoon, and nobody's fed me anything. And I haven't eaten today because nobody made me food. And people did offer to make me food. I wanted like something else. And then I also hesitated to ask like, “Oh, can you make me something too?” You know, ask my children, “Hey, I'm nursing the baby, can you bring me some water?” Because I have this awareness that, hey, they're children, let them be children, you know, I don't need to make them into little parents. But it's really interesting to think about what's going on. I take on this role of a resentful mother that I'm not, I don't know how to meet my own needs. I don't even know that I have needs. I just have an adult tantrum because I'm hungry. That's happening. At the same time, maybe there's this like physical sensation that's causing kind of a reaction, I remember seeing the cast iron pot soaking in the sink.

With soap, I hope.

I mean, I didn't even want to go there. But what I want to do is say before that I was you know, often received this message that like, you can use words and so words and intellect, I mean, that's kind of when something feels threatening, I go into my warrior mode and I fight. And sometimes I mean, there's different ways of fighting but like I'm really good at fighting with words. So when I see you know, a cast iron pot, soaking the sink, and I've just stepped in oatmeal, and I'm hungry and thirsty, what I want to do is just like march my little feet to my husband's, you know, the door, like bang on the door, doesn't matter what he's doing and just, you know, come in and just deliver this compelling speech as if I'm like a Roman Senator on the floor, then like, mic drop, it'd be like, boom!. And by the way, how could someone so intelligent as my husband, like, possibly do something that unthinkable? I mean, watering the cast iron. I made this after I sent him two YouTube videos. And so yeah, like, I want to control when I have a big reaction, where for some reason, something feels so threatening, It's, of course, we want to control and nobody likes to be told what to do like that. It's not about the cast iron. It's about this big feeling coming up and going into warrior mode because I perceive a threat. And also, in that same dynamic when I go into warrior mode and want to just like march in and like deliver a speech and like mic drop, and like leave, I'm learning instead to kind of pause. And in that pause, you know, literally, we talk about our sort of “yes, receptive,” yes, brain as it takes a little longer to power on as if it's a computer than just turning the light switch and having your reaction, place your brain kind of light up. So you have to kind of slow down and when I slow down, like, tend to be able to see that oh, right, so okay, here's actually what's going on this cast iron is in the sink, however, last night, after dinner, I went upstairs, and I was holding the baby, and I was nursing, and I was reading a book, and the light was soft and comfortable, and I had a moment to myself. And my partner, I mean, I could hear them downstairs, they're doing like family cleanup, cleaning the kitchen. They're like singing songs and playing, and then you know, he takes them all upstairs, gets them ready for bed, he's reading to them so that I could have this moment because you know, we are having these conversations about trying to meet each other's needs, and trying to understand what they are, but sometimes we miss that when we go to that kind of reactive fear place.

It seems like the only thing that can happen is somebody needs to change their behavior and it's not me. My partner needs to change their behavior. My kids need to change their behavior if they're the ones fighting, but it's certainly not my behavior that needs to be change.

Well, it's everyone else needs to stop doing things that make me mad. Going back to the idea of like the resentful mother, I mean, I kind of have these two sorts of false selves, I mean, resentful mother, and then also just like a protective warrior and both of those came about out of a need to kind of, all right, well, how do I take care of myself? I mean, this, how do I make my body strong, so that I can like, literally protect my body be a fighter? I will be a warrior. I will protect. And so I want to protect a lot of people and solve a lot of problems that aren't necessarily mine to solve, you know, it comes from a good place, in the same way that things—each of our parents have done come from a good place, we just continue kind of learning. And the same thing about the resentful mother, I mean, a lot of that, like, there's some sort of gender roles about who does what, I'm nursing a baby, and that's, I get the nighttime parenting, and it's not just nursing a baby but it's also our four-year-old who often wants to come in our bed, and so sleep is a really precious commodity that I don't usually get as much as I'd like. And then there's the sort of messy things that maybe on the way to the bathroom, someone had kind of like missed the toilet, and so there's just this, like, assault on my nostrils, you know, that's like, well, either I clean it up, or I just live with it. And so it makes a lot of sense, when you kind of really unpack and slow down the whole situation, see, what are all these things happening? What are the needs going on? Is it that my kids just make messes just to kind of plot against me? And you know, my husband, how dare he let the cast iron pan soak just to make me angry? Or is it that, you know, ah, these are a lot of like sensory overload. There are a lot of factors going on that maybe my kids are really needing to build the skills of like, well, what are the expectations for eating breakfast and putting away our dishes all by our own selves?

Yeah, and I think that pause is the critical moment that allows you to do something different to make a different choice. And one of the things I want to pull out from what you said is that these false selves and anyone who's listening to this thinking, false self? and what kind of hippie was that? I think that so often, our left brains are the parts of ourselves that tell these stories that get into this, well, I see a cast iron pan in the sink, and therefore my husband is dadadada, he doesn't care about the other thing that's important to me, and he might be lazy, and all the rest of the stuff. We are the story that we start telling ourselves, and oh, and now it's my responsibility, and I get to be the one who has to clean it up. And so you have this narrative about you as the martyr. And so what I love about giving it a name, I see this often happens with people, if you give that thing a name. Sometimes you can even give it a humorous name, yours is not so humorous, but I've heard of people using cartoon characters for their sort of their narrative name that they find themselves dropping into that when you see that you can say, “Oh, yeah. Hello, resentful of martyr. I see you there. I see you telling me this story and I see that it's a story. And thank you, I know where this came from, I know that that you're trying to protect me from this situation that came up over and over and over again. And now this story isn't serving me anymore, and so I'm just going to gently set you aside, and I'm going to make a different choice here in this situation,” that's what that kind of thing allows us to do. And then you get to make a decision that's actually based on your values instead of the story that dropped the needle into the record. And the only place it can go is around in the same old circle, right? You're turning the record over and playing a different song.

That's interesting that you brought up the sort of a naming things because in our family, we also learned together at home, and I've been reading aloud, just some indigenous authors, just stories. So Joseph Rujak, and Luis, and we've been having his really juicy conversations about kind of the names of characters, so sometimes you have like a really just an adjective and a noun, just really descriptive, and sometimes it's an action verb. And so we've been looking at this. So as I'm kind of practicing these skills of trying to find the pause; I noticed that I would like balance on one foot, and kind of like a flamingo, and I put my hands here and in realize, and I did it intentionally. And I kind of talk out loud to myself, I'm bouncing on one foot because I'm in my red zone, I'm having really intense feelings, I'm really angry, and I know that if I balance my body, then I'm going to help balance my brain. And so it's just kind of talking through with myself what's happening. But we made it into a pause called Fluid Flamingo Floating Love, just a good alliteration as well. So having kind of a named tool to kind of go to in those tense moments, I mean, again, it doesn't mean that I'm not triggered, it doesn't mean that I'm not, you know, sometimes reacting instead of sort of slowing down and responding. But even after the fact, it's like, all right, I'm recognizing that my nervous system—my body is something's going on, that I'm feeling fear, and so I'm often responding with anger, reacting with anger, what's happening here? I'm going to do my Fluid Flamingo Floating and just stand here until I feel like my head's on a little more straight, and I have a little more balanced, and there's no more wobble.

That's an interesting parallel between the physical pose with no wobble and the sense of knowing what your values are, and then parenting in line with those values without wavering from it. That's a really interesting way of putting that. And so you were in the taming your triggers workshop recently, and I know you had an accounta buddy, as you went through that. And I'm curious about how that process of having somebody to check in with and to learn with work for you. Because I know some parents who are listening in who may be thinking about joining the workshop or thinking, I don't know this person doesn't know any more about this than I do. How could this possibly help? Can you just tell us about what it was like for you? How you found this person and what you were able to process, maybe differently through that relationship than you would have done by yourself just reading the materials?

Yes, my accounta buddy. The workshops are over and we're still connecting and accountable to each other pretty much on a weekly basis because we realize what a gift it is for each of us. So we kind of found each other. My accounta buddy, a woman named Sarah, and she's in Canada, and she is a mother of three boys, and she homeschools as well. And like our family, she's there at cross-cultural dynamics in her family as well, so you can kind of relate to a lot of things. She's of the Muslim faith, and so we had just a lot in common on sort of wrestling with big questions of having, you know, as spiritual belief and connection, and again, that desire for belonging and what does that look like as parents; how we show up in our relationships. So we started one time we did like a live zoom chat, where we kind of shared our sort of things I'm like stories together, but most of the time, we just send each other little video clips on WhatsApp. What was really interesting is, we were kind of off sync, or asynchronous, I guess is the term (the term that we use these days). But to send a video, and when I watched it, I would feel it and it truly kind of made me a better listener. So you know, we built a friendship without ever seeing each other, you know, truly face to face, we've never met each other in person. But there's kind of this time delay and in receiving, and hearing her story, and really, really listening and just, you know, connecting like, you know, I get that. And then later, in a different moment, me being able to send a video and respond and be really honest, you know, today at the pumpkin patch, you know, when I lost it, and my kids, I mean, it's really uncomfortable to share that kind of the way we feel we fall short as a parent, I mean, again, there's a lot of cultural messages about what kind of parents we should be, you know, I've reflected on my identity as a White woman, and just what value I have as in motherhood, right? And that's being a parent who looks like they have it together. And so having a safe place with each other to really be honest about when we don't have it together in the moments we're really struggling with, is really powerful. And what was really great about, you know, being in a different timezone and different country, and having this friendship built on sort of a time delay is, there's this kind of inherent pause, which is a really appropriate metaphor for sort of how we are also at the same time learning to kind of receive, observe with our senses, kind of have this insight, you know, what's going on with us and then respond, sort of after the fact for, not in the heat of the moment. And so, my accounta buddy Sarah, and I called me, “Dear friend, I'm going to show you wearing this little turtle necklace. And she sent me a picture one day, she got this turtle necklace, as a reminder that even though we're moving slowly, we're still moving. And this is a long journey, doesn't have to go fast. And so we just kind of shared with each other what a metaphor that is for how we're learning, I mean, again, neither of us are moving quickly, and in fact, this is not the kind of process that one wants to move quickly through, because it takes a whole lot of going back and saying.. So even though I got really upset in this moment, if I could go back, I would respond this way, you know, I see that you were wanting my attention here, and it must have felt like I wasn't listening, and so we can kind of repair, and connect. And so Sarah and I have gotten to kind of learn that alongside one another in a way that's been, it's just felt really safe, I mean, there's it's made space for just a lot of vulnerability. And it's hard to do really deep work on ourselves without being vulnerable, so we were able to kind of build that alongside each other.

Yeah, and that's really the gift that you gave to each other, right? Neither of you brought any specific knowledge, any specific skills to this that helped you to get the answer that's going to help the other person, the miracle that you're going to be the one who finally gets them to see why they're doing this wrong, and what to do differently. It's totally not that kind of role. It is your gift to them and their gift to you is you're showing up with your vulnerability, and just being raw and being honest with each other. And from there is where the learning happens. And that learning, yes, your accounta buddy might say something that shifts something for you or helps you to see things in a different way, but a lot of the time, it's you writing this stuff, explaining this stuff to this other person, and it's like, “Oh, yeah. Now I see!” Is that the kind of experience you had?

Yeah, well, it's interesting, the thought of being able to hold space for each other, I mean, that's maybe kind of a loaded term, but we were able to listen to each other without needing to fix. And so that's something you know, again, I mentioned my family's story and kind of having this Protestant work ethic, we're not only is, you know, on the floor, like a sign of morality, and virtue to have a clean floor but also this idea that we work hard and we fix things, if there's a problem, we fix it. And that's, you know, my parents are really good at solving problems and fixing things, and finding solutions. And that's an important skill and we want that. And my partner is also very, very good at this. And I'm also very good at this. But one thing that's really hard, probably most of us is knowing when it's our responsibility to fix and solve our children's conflicts or whatever it might be or tell our husbands how to, you know, wash the cast iron versus just sit back and just know, I mean, I never questioned that Sarah could figure out what she needed to figure out in her relationship with her boys when they had a tough moment. I never questioned that. And so the relationship with an accounta buddy kind of gives us an opportunity to start learning that nuance of when do I come in and fix versus when do I just stand back? The work I'm doing, that's helping my children is actually just standing in my Fluid Flamingo Floating, saying in my place where even if I'm having these big feelings bottling up, I'm breathing, I'm checking in with my needs, I'm slowing down, I'm hitting the slo-mo button. So we can just kind of, you know before we go marching in, banging on the door to like, get out our big feelings, and have the last word, we're just kind of checking in, all right, what's actually happening here to may solve this? And so with my accounta buddy, we didn't ever have the desire or the impulse to try and fix anything that was happening and that made a huge difference.

Yeah, it really does. And before we move on for that topic, I just want to acknowledge that you told me earlier, you had talked to Sarah and that she had said it was okay to share these stories. I want to make sure folks who are listening know that. Okay, so you went all in on this workshop, you process verbally, and I mean, I can't tell you how much it helped other people in the workshop. In every workshop, there's somebody who processes very verbally, and everybody else looking on is kind of like, “Whoa, oh, yes, it's the same for me too. And I didn't even know it until you said it.” And you were one of those people in the workshop this time around, and so we kind of got to go with you through this journey. And I think it's fair to say that you've kind of been in something of a liminal space for a while now, right? A space where you're almost like you're inside the cocoon, and everything's kind of mushy. It's not the caterpillar anymore, but there's not the butterfly, either, not that we're going towards the butterfly, and then everything's going to be perfect but we're in this space, where we're not quite sure what's coming out yet. I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about that and if you're seeing signs of what's coming out, and what that's like, what does that feel like, where are we going?

Luminal space. I first heard that term, a couple of days before I gave birth to our fourth, and just, you know, thinking about this time during the pandemic is, it's like the shore on the beach between what was and what will be, and what was, I can't go back to kind of the reactive way of just sort of repeating I mean, of feeling these big feelings of anger, not knowing how to help my children who are clearly having a hard time and like whacking each other, and I don't want to be the parent, you know, shouting at them, and that they're frightened and terrified of me. But I'm still sort of figuring out well, how do I encourage my partner to give them the freedom to choose, how many crackers they want on their plate with a hope, you know, let me send you a YouTube video on that, too. So it's a lot like labor, and again, all of our babies have been born at home, and even though I'm the one who carried the baby, our family has given birth, so it's like, it's my journey, but it's actually kind of all of our journey. And, you know, each of our children were present at the birth of their later siblings, and that's been kind of a transformative sort of theme in our family. And so it's like, we're not there, and I think maybe that's kind of an idea that I would attach to kind of like, White supremacy is like, if only I get there, you know, once I have it figured out, then life will be good. And I know that that's never the case. But what's been really profound about this experience is seeing the growing, the changing is not just happening in me, but it's happening with my children, my family, and how we're kind of engaging in the world, you know, with my children, they have big feelings, too, just like I do and was noticing that kind of my triggers and their triggers were like, buddy, buddy, you know, I would often find myself feeling these big feelings because they were struggling with big feelings. And so, you know, I want to help or fix or just make the problem go away. And in this process of kind of learning alongside one another, we're sort of all learning that like, “Ah, okay,” as we're going on this journey, I've been really incorporating including my whole family and everything that I'm learning. So I recently been reading the yes brain, so we came up with this idea of these magic mindset goggles, and so we'll use those words. We like drew pictures of it. And so our magic mindset goggles, we have our insight. And so that's paying attention to what's going on inside here, you know, maybe your brother takes an object of great desire and you're feeling these big feelings or maybe you step on a blob of oatmeal on the floor and you're having these big feelings, but it's just kind of building an emotional vocabulary and tuning in and understanding what's going on inside us. And then the other part of that is this other side, which is often referred to as empathy. And it's putting yourself in the perspective of another, to see the story through their eyes. And once we do that, then we can say, “Oh, okay, so you know, you have needs I have needs, let's move to the place of the win-win, where we can both get our needs met,” you know, so, even though this workshop has really been about my experience of changing how I respond to situations that challenged me, we've all kind of built skills along the way. And you have just been able to reframe things like, oftentimes, you'd hear you know, so and so won't let me you know, so and so gravity won't let me stand up, I mean, really ridiculous, almost, you know, the baby's not letting me do this, and being able to reframe that in into this kind of receptive place of “Ah, we actually just need some new ideas,” you know, maybe Papa came up with one idea and doesn't work for you so now you come up with an idea. And so which, ironically, as my children have learned, these skills have come tuning into their own feelings, and really learning empathy, which I used to think, like empathy was like a worksheet that you could like learn, as opposed to a practice that you practice every day. As my kids are building these skills, they're learning how to solve their own conflicts, and so I used to get really, really triggered by, you know, my seven-year-old, my four-year-old getting into this, you know, cartoon chase scene where they are just tormenting each other and know exactly how to press each other's buttons, and so that smokes coming out of their ears, and the four-year-old, thinks it's quite funny to do something, you know, to make the seven-year-old, just kind of go up a wall. And so, as we've been learning the skills for kind of slowing it down, they're also learning that, “Ah, okay, it's not that we can reframe this, we can come up with solutions,” if they're kind of actually learning to problem solve, and when they're solving those kinds of problems, all of a sudden, I'm no longer you know, freaking out because they're chasing each other around the kitchen counter, and there's like cutting boards in nice and hot liquids. So, you know, it wasn't about changing their behavior but interestingly, as I have been changing, I'm seeing changes in them. So it's not just changes that I'm noticing in my children, I'm seeing a lot of really cool things happening with my partner and that's obviously impacting our relationship in a really positive way. Example of this was we never FaceTime or zoom or anything before the pandemic so this is kind of like a new area for us, and so when my kids were very excited to meet Jen and say, Hello, because Jen is a household name, and they hear, you know, Jen Lumanlan says this, and so they know you and they wanted to meet you, and they wanted to come in and say hello, and then they had a plan to go downstairs and watch a show. They were very, very excited for. So my partner, he works from home, and often has meetings where he's wanting a clear boundary that children don't come in and interrupt. And so he sees the kids coming in, and he's like, “Let's get them out of here,” and then all of a sudden, I'm like, “Oh, I'm so anxious,” and didn't really understand what was going on that I was having all this anxiety until we had our little post mortem about the experience and realize, “Wow, there was a lot more going on.” And so you know, what was really going on, is that my partner is wanting to help me set a boundary and is wanting to keep this space sacred for you and I Jen to have this conversation because he knows how meaningful and important it is, and so he's thinking, I must keep the kids out of the room. And he sees me executing my plan. So you know, how are my kids going to learn how to sort of show up appropriately on a computer screen with other people, you know, realizing that it's really hard to hear when all of them are talking at once. We kind of talked about it ahead of time to come up with a plan that they'd say hello, and then they'd go. And so, FRC didn't see that, all he saw was like wait a second, I thought we were setting boundaries and consistent limits, and you know, it makes it really hard for me to set a boundary and a consistent limit when you know, they're in here and confused. And one of the tools in the module is this communication process called NVC or nonviolent communication, which really is a terrible name.

It is. I have always thought that too.

Yeah, communication where you're starting with your feelings, and in then you're meeting each Have your needs. And so we were able to kind of slow down after the fact and talk about oh, yeah, this is what this is like for you. This is what you were observing. This was what you were wanting to support and help with, you know, this is what it felt like for me. I had this value of how can I incorporate the kids so that they can come in, say hello to Jen, and learn what adults do on Zoom calls because it's really fascinating, I guess sort of, it's fascinating to a child who doesn't have their own computer. And so we were able to like, “Oh, right. Okay,” so what is it that you're needing, and this past week, we just had this amazing insightful discovery, and all of this is coming from this, like, as opposed to scarcity mindset of the electricians are not letting me have this time, you know, things are chaotic, “Ah, my needs aren't being met,” we kind of shifted this approach to “Okay, well, what other resources we do have? What do we know? What can we do?” We have this little saying that anything possible is possible. And so it's like, all right, well, what's possible? And turns out some of the things we have, our six-month-old baby is really just an easygoing, mellow personality. We have a very comfortable baby carrier and my husband when working at home, he has a standing desk, and so, we realized like, oh, yeah, he can work holding the baby, my hands are free. And so what all of that kind of boils down to is, we learned in our sort of learning how to meet each other's needs, based on what we do have as opposed to kind of what we don't have. All of that is sort of mirrors this approach of how are we supporting our kids to grow up into the kind of world we want to have because it's really easy to get feel a whole lot of despair, about everything that's not going well in the world. And I feel that deeply. And it's hard to kind of wrap my head around, I mean, with race, and just some of the very salient things that we think of as being an interracial family and a community that's like 1%, Black, and also just exploring the journey of what it means to have received a lot of unearned opportunities, and based on things that happened, that were really unjust for other people. And so how do we shift how we kind of show up in the world? And a lot of that, I believe, starts with what are we moving towards? What are the values? What kind of world are we wanting to build, I mean, this idea of belonging is at the core of it. How are we building and creating belonging together in our interactions in a small family, and then going outwards. And through that has given me the opportunity to realize how truly deep my influence as a parent is heard the term a lot like parenting as an act of resistance. I very much relate to that. But I've realized it's kind of more than that because I want to do more than just to resist what's not working and what's out there because I spent my life trying to resisting the things that I knew from my childhood and from the cultural expectations that were kind of placed on me by you know, patriarchy, and you know, my parents dynamic, and their stresses and all these things. I can resist against that. But it's so much more powerful when we think about parenting is actually an act of like persistence, and, you know, perseverance, and sustenance, and nourishment, and realizing that I'm re-parenting myself, as I'm learning how to be a different sort of parent to my children, and I hold on to the belief that that's moving us in the direction of sort of building the kind of world that I would really hope that every single human being can experience where each of us is valued and respected. Truly treated in a way that reflects the dignity inherent in each of us.

Yeah, I 100% agree. And it's such a profound shift, right? I mean, just tracking the course of the things we talked about in the last hour or so. Coming in and thinking if you all would just stop doing these things drive me nuts, then I wouldn't need to be angry—"Oh, okay. I'm learning some new tools. How about we all learn together? Okay, now I see when I show up differently in my relationship with each child, they can show up differently. And also, now I can see, Whoa, they're starting to do this between themselves. They're starting to take on these ideas and look to understand what is the other child's needs,” so then they're not fighting as much anymore and they're not fighting over the thing it is that they're trying to get immediately. They're also not fighting to get your time and attention make because they know that they don't have to pick a fight to be the squeakiest wheel to get your attention that you see their needs, and you're trying to meet those needs as well. And from there to the broader vision of yes, we're doing this for you so you can show up as a whole person in the world. Yes, we're doing this for your children, so they can show up as whole people in the world, but we're also doing it for so much bigger reasons. We're doing it so that everybody can show up as whole people in the world. And I don't know that we fully know how to get there yet. I know that I don't, but I am pretty sure that this is a really solid step in that direction of where we want to go. Not just I want to resist that this is a solid step to where I think we want to go.

Yeah, and here's another really quick example. So my two older kids have birthdays two days apart. And then the four-year-old is a month later. So the two older kids and their cousins gave them LEGO sets so they each got a new set of Legos. And the four-year-old didn't get anything away—he have to wait an eternity. Yes, yes. I mean, that's truly. That's unfair. I mean, if we can look at this as adults, and kind of judge a child's perception of fair, unfair, but from her perspective, there's nothing fair about that. And I wouldn't like that either. Once we sort of had the opportunity for them to really kind of have that other sight of like, what would that feel like for my younger sister, you know, she didn't get anything, and I just got this and this, and then they go out, and they put together some Legos for her too. She loves Legos too. And so they shared with her because they realized what that felt like. And it seems to me, like, we have to be able to do that with each other first with your siblings, in order to be able to say, you know, now is another sort of chapter of our sort of family exploration is learning about the history of the land that we're currently living in, where the US government forced the Arapaho and Cheyenne people off the land. And it wasn't by choice. And then there was their massacre at the Sand Creek Massacre, under the protection of the government, and truly, to be able to empathize. What does that feel like? What must that feel like? Because you sort of empathize with other people without first empathizing with the people close around you. And so it seems to me like a necessary step. But instead of saying, like, “Wow, that's so big,” like, how do we move into the right relationship and correct, you know, hundreds of years of sort of oppressive policies and things that, you know, maybe we didn't personally have responsibility for, but we also still have the opportunity to be part of kind of the reconciliation and healing. And I believe that has to begin with empathy. And so when we really, truly practice and learn empathy within our own small bubbles and families, we build the skills, the capacity to be able to do that, in the rest of the world. And also, I mean, the whole thing about like thinking about our needs, like if, if I'm 39 and a half, I'm still learning how to identify a name, my own needs, and truly acknowledge that like, “Oh, yep, yep, yep, every single day, nourishing myself is a need, period.” If once I can start recognizing and honoring my own needs, that you know, just as much as any of us were made in the image of our Creator, that I'm also worthy of being cared for, and I begin to kind of care for myself, then I can also begin to truly, truly care for others and see the needs of others in a way that leads to kind of meaningful change. So that's, that's the kind of hope I'm moving forward and operating out of.

Well, I am going to bring your father's prediction true and give me the last word on that. So yes, thank you so much for being here. And really sharing how deep this work has been for you is obvious how deeply this has touched you and the kind of transformation that you're seeing in your family and how that fits with your values, and how you're taking that out into the broader world as well. It makes me so excited to see so thank you so much for being here and sharing your story with us. Thank you. And so if you would like to take the taming your triggers workshop as well or just find out more information about that you can do that at yourparentingmojo.com/tamingyourtriggers.

Hi, this is Jenny from Los Angeles. We know that you have a lot of choices about where you get information about parenting and we're honored that you've chosen us, as we move toward a world in which everyone's lives and contributions are valued. If you'd like to help keep the show ad-free, please consider making a donation on the episode page that Jen just mentioned. Thanks again for listening to this episode of The Your Parenting Mojo podcast. Don't forget to head to yourparentingmojo.com/recordtheintro to record your own messages for the show.