Ep #113: Reparenting with Emily Heyer

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Hello hello, and welcome back to the show. I say that every week, it’s so funny right? I have a guest for you today, her name is Emily. I’m going to let Emily tell a little bit about herself and we are going to be talking about reparenting. We’re going to talk about healing unresolved trauma and how we bring some of these unprocessed experiences into our current relationships and how that can cause havoc in your life. So welcome Emily.

Emily: Yes, thank you so much for having me. I feel like I should have worn waterproof mascara getting into these deep topics. Yeah, so I’m Emily Heyer. I am an integrative life coach trained by Ms. Kim here. And I’m married and have a 20-month-old. We live in upstate New York and, you know, my husband works and I’m working as a coach and we’re learning a lot about ourselves in this process, big time. So, yeah, here I am.

Kim: Yeah, so I’m like ready to jump right in and start with the deep stuff. Of course, right? And I want to talk specifically to parents because that was a big moment for me also. When my first child was born and I looked at him and I was like, “How could anyone not love this?” And it took me back to my mom not keeping me and how that played out in my relationship as a parent, you know, and other relationships.

And there’s something that happens when you become a parent that you suddenly have this overbearing sense of protection and love. Like I was saying on the podcast last week or the week before, I was talking about my grandchild’s innocence and being born. And I just wanted to say like, “I’m just going to like beat your ass if you hurt him.”  Like, you know, that [inaudible] comes out in us.

And so I’m curious, in your case, if being a mom is what, whoa, woke you up? Or was it wanting to be a mom so that you can fix that in yourself? In other words, did you become a mom because you were like wanting that caring or did you notice it after?

Emily: I would say I definitely wanted to be a mom. Or I should say I’ve always wanted to be a mom, playing with my little baby dolls. But I wanted to be a good mom from when I was a little girl experiencing my childhood. You know, I think a lot of kids do this no matter if it’s actually like trauma or not, you know, but when parents are like, “You need to go to bed at nine.” And the kid is like, “When I grow up, I’m going to do what I want.” Like, there’s always a little bit of that. When you’re a kid you’re thinking, “Well, when I’m a parent I’m going to do it this way.”

And so when I was growing up, I definitely had a mental list of what makes a good mom and I was for sure going to do that. And yeah, of course, when I became a mom, where you think you’re fine, you’re living your adult life, and then boom, you have a kid. And like you said, all of that childhood stuff comes up. And if you have a mother wound, a father wound, it hits you right to your core. If you felt abandoned, or rejected, or mistreated by your parents in any way, the power of love that comes over you seeing that pure innocence.

Yeah, listening to that podcast yesterday I was crying too. Because holding your little baby, it does something to you. And it’s so powerful in a positive way, yet it also breaks your heart for your little self inside. And you feel, I don’t know how to say this in like a kind way. But it’s like, how the hell could my parents possibly ever have said things to me or mistreated me or abandoned me when I feel so much for my little boy?

That’s like you said, when he was born, it did kind of come back to me, all those feelings that I thought I had kind of gotten over. So I think becoming a mother definitely opens up some old wounds that bring up for healing.

Kim: Yeah, what’s coming to me is this protection of the innocence.

Emily: Yeah.

Kim: When you were like trying to think of the words, that’s what I kept hearing. It was like I am the protector of this. It’s like the little baby bird I talk about often or the little kitty. And we like step into that protection mode and no one better ever hurt you, and how could anyone ever hurt me?

Emily: Yeah, you feel both at the same time. Like I said, we end up taking it out on our kids and our partners. Because I completely trust my husband with my child but when they’re roughhousing a little bit too much, my need to protect my son takes over and I’m like, “Stop it, put him down.” You know, just his physical safety, my brain just goes into high alert.

Or if they’re tickling a little too much, you know, it brings me back to when my grandfather tickled me too much, made me hurt and cry in front of everyone. And, you know, it brings up all of these little flashbacks from your childhood. And if you’re not healed up you end up kind of lashing out to people around you or your kids. And so, yeah, I am continually getting reminded of certain situations and calming myself down in those moments.

Kim: Yeah, so the other side of this is, so you’re in the awareness.

Emily: Yeah.

Kim: But then there is being in survival and being a mother or being a father.

Emily: For sure.

Kim: And knowing that you’re responsible and you don’t have your shit together. But you don’t know it, right? You’re just surviving. You’re just leaving them wherever you got to leave them and doing whatever you got to do. And so there’s also that aspect of it. It’s like we want to correct that.

Emily: 100%.

Kim: And sometimes become the over protector and we don’t let our child have their own experience.

Emily: Exactly.

Kim: Because we believe, right, we’re in control.

Emily: Yeah, we know better.

Kim: Oh yeah, we know better. So how has that experience been for you? Because I happen to know that you are somewhat that. You know, it was really you haven’t been able to leave, you haven’t gotten out of the house, you haven’t left him at a babysitter, you did not go back to work. And I’m curious about what’s the story behind that?

Emily: Yeah, I for sure have been noticing, either in the moment or after the fact, where I think I know better than either my own mom or other moms that I’m judging. And I think I should do certain things a certain way because that’s what I believe is right. I wanted to have an all-natural home birth, no drugs, I wanted to be this like warrior goddess mom. And then I had to have a C section. You know, it’s like, I keep learning these lessons as I go that life is a little different than what you planned.

I was offered, you know, by a couple of family members to babysit when Cory was a baby. And I was like, “Excuse me, no, you can’t take my…” Like there was this feeling that there was no one better than me to take care of him. Even if they were close family members who are trustworthy. I had anxiety attacks thinking about if I did go back to work putting him in childcare of any kind. I could not handle it. I feel like those postpartum hormones were still running rampant.

But yeah, I’ve been over correcting a lot, especially the first year of Cory’s life. And over the past six or seven months I’ve been noticing all of this and trying to heal those parts of me that think I need to do these things a certain way. Like you’ve talked about, being the wounded healer. It’s like I’m going to be the best warrior mom possible because I need that as a little Emily.

Kim: I need that.

Emily: I need that.

Kim: Not because he needs that or she needs that, but because I need that. And guys, when you can notice that that’s where it’s coming from that is that first step of awareness.

Emily: Yeah.

Kim: It’s like trying to over over correct.

Emily: Right.

Kim: What did that mean was going to happen to him? Whether it was a babysitter or a family member. Like your brain, what was your brain telling you?

Emily: My brain was telling me that he would feel abandoned.

Kim: Uh-huh. And he would be sad, he would be like [crosstalk] because you weren’t there. And what was the picture you painted in your head? What did it look like? Was he sitting there on the floor by himself crying?

Emily: Yes, I imagined him basically non-stop crying. I imagined him vomiting because he would cry so hard. Or he was such a, he still is, he’s such a sensitive baby that I didn’t think other people can handle it. I was the only one that could handle him. And people would tell me like, “Emily, I’ve done this before, I got it.” And I’m like, “No, that’s not how you change his diaper.” You know, and I would try to micromanage.

Kim: He’s different, he’s different from other kids.

Emily: Yeah, he’s different, he is.

Kim: He’s sensitive.

Emily: Yeah, he’s too sensitive. And so he whines a lot and he cries a lot. And the couple of times that I actually had like a one-hour errand and left him with someone, he would like fall asleep instantly, didn’t fuss at all, no whining. And I’m like, “What?” And so it makes sense that my energy was reflecting, you know, back to him. And he was being a little high strung because I was being a little high strung.

Kim: And that my brain is a liar.

Emily: Right.

Kim: My brain is a liar; it’s always going to present the worst case scenario. So let’s fast forward this a little bit because like I watched you through this whole journey. You worked before; you were very self-sufficient. I met you in Dallas on your own, had your own place, like it was just you and the workforce, right? You had it all together, you had the car, you had the job, and then you find your dream man and baby.

And then all of a sudden Emily disappears from the world, right? And what I’ve noticed in you is I can see that part of you that really wants to come back on board but you have bought into this story and made yourself super woman, super responsible. And what’s happening, I don’t want to speak for you, but I’ll let you say it. What were you experiencing that you weren’t even talking about because of guilt or because of shame? Or what was happening to Emily? Emily the woman, Emily the adult.

Emily: Having Cory broke down all of my barriers. Like all of my I’m super independent, I’m super tough, I can handle it, I can be there for everyone. So part of my, I guess you would call it complex, as an adult is that I was everyone’s savior, especially at work. That was my job, was to come in and save the day.

I felt like I finally needed help and I needed a savior. I couldn’t do for myself what I could before. You know, when you’re recovering from major surgery and you can barely sneeze or go to the bathroom, you have to ask for help. It broke down this false identity I had of being super independent, I don’t need anyone, I can do anything for myself. It just kind of opened up this huge wound.

And I was struggling. And I didn’t want anyone to know I was struggling. And so I was trying to build up a barrier again. And, you know, it causes problems in relationships. It did not work with me and my husband to need him and then say I don’t need him. And thankfully, I have people like you in my life who can kind of see through that and be like, “What’s going on?”

Kim: Where’s Emily? Like, “Hey. Knock, knock, knock.”

Emily: Yeah, like, “Come back out little kitty.” You know?

Kim: Yeah, you came clean though. You were just snotty nosed and raw. And just like, “This shit is hell.”

Emily: Yeah. I had been reading so much online about moms really needing to be honest about what true postpartum life is like. And I was like, “Yeah, I’m just going to tell people this sucks sometimes.” And sometimes my brain did go to like, “What the F did I just do to myself?”

And the times where I was so sleep deprived and crying alone in the bathroom, you know, in my closet, trying to get coaching online from you guys. Like I’m hiding in the closet and I don’t know what to do. I just decided I need to be authentic. Like this is the moment these are the things that I know I need to talk about now and finally come out with it.

So because I know what it’s like to live in that cave and keep going down further and further and land in deep dark depression, and I knew I couldn’t go back there. So this past year and a half or so has been a kind of relearning of reaching out for help, accepting help, receiving help, and healing those parts of myself that I haven’t seen in a long time.

You know, I went through a lot of that with you in coach training, you know, discovering what little Emily needs. But yeah, having a baby yourself brings it out.

Kim: Yeah, I think it’s just like being able to see what you’re giving and then there’s this self-pity about what you didn’t get. It’s so weird because it’s like wanting the best for your best friend, but then they win all the things and they get all the prizes and then you really feel like shit. And then you don’t want to tell them and then you’re ashamed that you’re even thinking it because you love them so much and you really want them to succeed, then why do I feel so crappy?

And it’s because we’re not wanting to acknowledge the envy, and the shame, and the guilt for thinking that about them, right? But it’s honestly just jealousy. I wish I had what I am giving. And the problem is when we cross that and we try to compensate for what we didn’t get, that’s when we see, we see the children, the results of that, you know? And it’s not allowing them to have experience, not allowing them to ever get hurt, you know, or feel anything that’s uncomfortable. And then they get out in the world and it’s full of discomfort and they have no tools.

Emily: Right.

Kim: And until we see that we’re not doing them a favor because we’re trying to fix ourself it is so selfish.

Emily: Yeah.

Kim: It is so selfish to put yourself first about fixing your own needs, and then putting the child in that space.

Emily: You have to be selfish enough to go get help and heal yourself, to then come to parenting from a clean space. You’re acting out of those wounds; you’re recreating new wounds in your children.

Kim: Rather than standing in the gap of the change, right, first generations. And I think one of the stories that really worked with you was Andee, who is our integrative parenting coach, that she tells a story about the seed and, you know, God has just given you this seed and then it’s growing into maybe it’s a fern, maybe it’s a rose, maybe it’s a daffodil, you know. And here we are trying to make it something else that we like and relate to. And I think there was a shift in you after that, after she talked about that.

Emily: For sure, And she kind of put into words… I’m glad you brought that up because I wanted to as well. And I talked to her about that this past weekend. She put into words what I’ve been thinking and feeling, and it just finally clicked.

That if…this is a weird story, but you know the clearance rack of plants at Lowe’s when you go to the gardening section? There’s always this big rack of little clearance plants and they’re kind of wilted and sad? And like I personally would probably just walk by or throw them away. But Chris always stops by and like picks a couple up and he wants to rehab them. And I want the pretty new flowers. You know, I want the ones that are already blooming and blossoming. And he has this like heart for rehabbing these plants.

And I was kind of thinking about that with Andee’s connective parenting approach. You know, her idea of planting as a parent, and then the reparenting is like rehabbing the plants that are wilted. So we’re taking ourselves, this little wilted plant that’s like, “Give me water, please.” Or like dried up and we’re like trying to produce seeds and like nothing’s happening. There’s, you know, maybe one flower.

And when we can grab that plant and start to put in the soil, and the nutrients, and the sunshine, and the water that we need, then we can all of a sudden become the plant that we were supposed to be. You know, maybe our parents couldn’t be the gardener, for whatever reason. And we endured all the weather, you know, like you mentioned with was it the little sweet pea pods?

Kim: Yeah, inside of the sweet pea, the lima bean.

Emily: Yeah, whatever beans. It’s like I’ve endured a lots of weather as my plant and now I can be my own gardener and give myself what I need. So that’s kind of what I think of reparenting as. Like no, we can’t go back in time. And we can’t keep blaming our parents. But we can now water ourselves and see the fruits that we’re supposed to be producing. You know, you might become this huge oak tree and you might become this beautiful flower, you have no idea if you’re not giving yourself the nutrients.

And that looks like in practical terms learning how to set boundaries, learning true self care, and it’s not just a bubble bath. You know, learning how to receive help from other parents, other family members, taking time to do something for yourself, your creative life, business ideas, whatever you want to do, that is reparenting to me.

Kim: It’s like rather than taking your dried up self and sticking it in your child and trying to pull that nutrient from them. Because you see this, right? Because so many women want babies or want children because they want to feel loved. They want to feel their own love. But you can’t have enough kids to over love yourself, it doesn’t work.

Emily: Right. That’s what I think. My mom has brought this up so I’ll say it because I know she’ll probably listen to this. But she admitted this herself that she grew up one of 10 children so food was very much rationed. So when she had me, she said, you know, I thought to myself, “Well, I don’t want to limit her like that. I want her to feel like she can eat whatever she wants.”

And I remember her trying to limit me and saying, “No, you’ve had enough.” Or whatever and end up giving in. If I asked a little bit too much she would give in, whether it was healthy for me or not. Because I think she was trying to meet those needs that she had herself to feel nourished and taken care of. And it just, there’s a good intention behind it, you know. I do believe she loved me but in those moments, she wasn’t thinking about what my body, Emily Rose, needed for nutrients. She was just trying to feed herself.

Kim: That’s fascinating because I’m thinking of how often as parents, we keep wanting them to eat all that food and they’re doing uh-huh. Here we go with sacral authority, right? Or that, “Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.” And we’re like, “Say yes ma’am and eat it.” It’s like we’re totally overriding.

Emily: Yeah, I’m watching myself do that with Cory. You know, he’s a toddler and sometimes he doesn’t want to eat the thing that he devoured yesterday. And I’m sitting here like, “Crap, I just made this food and now he’s throwing it on the floor, trying to give it to the dog.” And I get all upset because how dare you? I did this for you. You should want it because I love you and I’m doing this for you. So many times I’ve said that like, “Cory, you don’t understand. I love you so much, I just want you to eat food.”

And of course he doesn’t understand, he just doesn’t want it at that moment. And I’m watching myself stopping right before I try to force him to eat, come back to presence, “Okay Emily, put it away for next time and not eat it yourself.” Because I’m thinking that’s a waste of food.

Kim: This is some deep stuff though, right?

Emily: Yes.

Kim: It’s like there’s so many minutes in the day whenever you’re a parent. It’s just like all these things.

Emily: So I don’t blame my parents anymore. I worked on truly forgiving them and understanding they didn’t know what they didn’t know. And so that’s what I would offer to any parent listening now, is if you’re like, “Oh crap, I’ve been forcing my kid to eat because I don’t like wasting food. Oh wow, that’s because my mom didn’t want me to waste any food and she made me feel so bad.” You can start to understand where some of these things come from. You don’t have to shame yourself, or shame your parents, you can just recognize what is happening now and move forward. Learn something new and move forward.

Kim: Yeah, I love that. I love that you bring that into your coaching. And we’re going to put a plug in down below for Andee’s connective coaching, because we’re talking about it so much in here. And just so that you have access to both.

So Emily, when you talk about reparenting, and you started practicing this, because it is a practice, right? It’s not something you just do one time. I mean, how many times do you have to remind yourself? What does that dialogue look like for someone who is like, “I don’t even know what you’re talking about. My parents, you know, didn’t take care of me. I for sure am in the mix. You know, I can see where I’m people pleasing and trying to, you know, get my needs met through giving or whatever that looks like.” So could you just take them through a little example of that?

Emily: First of all, I think, like I said, you have to have compassion for yourself first. Because trying to shame the behavior out of you doesn’t work, just like it doesn’t work with your children. So that’s number one I think, is coming at this reparenting yourself with compassion for yourself and your parents.

And practicing that witness consciousness and watching your thoughts. And it’s so hard in the beginning because as a parent everything happens so fast. All of a sudden, your kid is climbing out of the chair about to hurt themselves and you react and yell. And it’s that retraining process. But you don’t know about that until you start to watch your thoughts before those actions. So the actions don’t just stop because you thought about it once, it’s this continuous process all day, every day.

And so things like with the food, you know, I will stop myself when I’m feeling anxious about him eating and ask, “Okay, why am I feeling anxious? Where in my body am I feeling anxious? What am I thinking?” And kind of calm my nervous system down because it’s not an emergency. Watching at each moment of the day, knowing nothing is going wrong here, everything’s fine. Even when Cory has flung poop places, I have to remind myself, “I can just clean it up. I can just wipe his butt and move on.” So it’s calming down my own nervous system so that I don’t react on my child. Because I’ve done that, and it feels like crap.

And I don’t want to ever get to a place where I do something or say something that I really truly regret. It happens, I’m going to because I’m a human. But coming to that presence over and over and over, like in the Punch Line Approach, PUN, PUN.

And so, you know, sometimes it’s after the kids are in bed, taking a few minutes to write down what happened in the day that you didn’t like and unpack after the fact. You know, watching yourself from before. What was I thinking? What was going on in my head? And deciding to do something new the next time.

Okay, next time Cory throws food on the floor, or just starts waving his hands and throws everything off the table and slaps the table and is just done I’m going to take a deep breath. Okay, take some deep breaths, I’m going to ask myself what’s happening. And then I’m going to decide a new action from there. Okay Cory, I guess you’re not hungry, I’m going to clean you up and move on.” Just stop and interrupt the cycle right then. It’s when we continue that we get agitated and try to force the situation more and more.

Kim: Like I’m envisioning when you’re doing this, because it’s not what you want to do, right? Because you can’t think fast enough, it just kind of takes over. And so the way I describe it that has helped it stick for people is it’s like the frontal cortex is inaccessible.

So the front part of your brain, like right at your forehead is where you make decisions and where you take actions from. But it’s like paralyzed, it’s frozen, it’s inactive, because the party in the back is like taking off all the stress and all these chemicals are running through the body. And so it’s like you can’t make a rational decision. And then you’re just kind of spinning in it.

 It’s like your forehead is stuck in the freezer, and the back having a party, and your arms are flapping and yet your feet on the floor, all you got to do is back up. And so it’s like there is a true science behind it, it is not you. You are not at fault. You are not broken. It’s not because of your parents or anything like that. It’s truly the way the mind and body work. That when it’s inaccessible you’re seriously just running on emotion, just like a toddler. So now there’s two toddlers in the house.

Emily: Yeah. That’s what I was thinking about earlier is when you have the wounded parent, the unhealed parent, it’s the blind leading the blind. And we think that we know so much and we’ve been an adult for so long and so we have all these lessons to in impart in our children. But they’re lessons that are coming from a wounded place.

And like I said earlier, they’re just creating new wounds, different shapes, different colors. But we’re all just a bunch of children running around in adult bodies trying to save ourselves by saving other people. And if you’re a people pleaser type and your child isn’t pleased you don’t know what to do.

Kim: That’s a lesson. Good luck with that.

Emily: Right, it’s like children are their own unique individual selves and you can’t force anything.

Kim: So fun. And so you took this, not just through your child, but then you took it into your adult relationship also, this whole story.

Emily: Yeah.

Kim: And so I want to end with a fun note, which is you broke through that this weekend.

Emily: Yeah.

Kim: And so you basically just assumed that you knew how this was going to play out and so you weren’t willing to even go there. So you just like cheated on yourself.

Emily: Yeah. In my experience I had to start with some small things and kind of work my way up to a whole weekend, a whole four-day weekend. So over time I’ve, you know, gone and gotten a haircut, gone and gotten a pedicure. Little things where I’ve like trusted my husband or my mother-in-law for like an hour or two hours. And then it was like, three and four hours. And last week I went to the doctor and it was like a five-hour ordeal. And I was like, “Okay, well he didn’t die. If he has help, I think we can get through this.” And yeah.

Kim: I didn’t die.

Emily: I didn’t die, yeah. I was driving home from the doctor and I was like, “This is kind of cool, I’m kind of free now. Like I can do things in the world.” And that’s a whole other lesson in itself, because I was going to the doctor to like heal myself. So it’s like when I start to take steps here and there to really take care of myself as I would as a loving parent, then I’m able to give that opportunity to my son for experiences that he needs. And my husband for experiences he needs.

The beauty of me taking the time to go away for this retreat, of course, was learning, you know, about beautiful business coaching and getting clarity on all of that. But the actual magic was in me deciding to go ahead and do what my heart was calling me to do. Knowing that everything is fine, that everyone is taken care of, that people know how to figure things out and I don’t have to tell them what to do. And that my husband was able to bond with his son in a whole new way.

I gave them that opportunity that I was holding back from both of them. So it’s opened up conversation with us for him as a father to grow. And he just today said, “I wish I could have two workdays off just to take care of Cory for you.”

Kim: Wow.

Emily: Which was like, “What?” Like just today he said that. And it just warmed my heart because now he’s feeling that like I miss Cory feeling. You know, they bonded and now he wants to stay home with him more. And so now I’m like, “Okay, we can make this happen.”

Kim: It’s really when you realize that you were just making up that story in your head, you weren’t even allowing them the opportunity, you were actually stealing it from them.

Emily: Yeah.

Kim: When we don’t allow the guys to step up and play their role, which we see all at the time, right? We still kind of, it’s not as bad but we’re still kind of living in that, especially out here in the south. But I watched my boys, like my 25-year-old, he might be 26 now, I mean, he doesn’t even really want us to have her. You know, it’s like he has really bonded and I think it’s such a beautiful thing to watch that. I don’t know, I’m turned on by it, like in all kinds of ways. I think it’s sexy, I think it’s so manly, I love it.

But I remember being the doting mom who thought I was the only one who can do it and I didn’t want anyone else do it. And it was selfishly me meeting my own needs, right? Wanting to feel that love, wanting to feel safe, wanting to feel protected, I was the only one who can do it. And I realized that the siblings weren’t bonding and they weren’t bonding with their dad. And you know, I was taking that away from them.

And I still today kind of feel a little, I don’t know the word I want to use for it, but I’m a little jealous that my kids are so close. Like, yesterday my oldest daughter was babysitting just for a couple of hours. He was cutting the grass or something, you know, and she sent a Snapchat and I was like dying. Like, “What? They called you? Like what?” You know, and it’s really weird and like my two daughters will be in conversation and helping each other with the kids without me, you know, but it’s because they bonded. They went through some trauma together and they had each other’s back.

And it’s so beautiful to see, but my wounded self needed them to need me. I needed to be the hero. I needed to be there all the time. And I’ve noticed since I moved out of that people pleasing mode, they have to ask me directly like, “Would you do this? Or would you do this?” And that’s kind of how they became so independent and they really don’t need me. And so I went through some very uncomfortable phases of they don’t need me, they don’t care. What did that mean? And eventually we grew it into a different relationship. But I will tell you it’s very real.

Emily: Right, and it’s funny because I thought I would come into coaching with a client base of people my age or younger. But the conversations I’ve had with older women who are newly empty nesters, they’re like, “Oh, to go back in time and to do it all.” You know, they always talk to me like, “Oh, treasure every moment.”

And you’re sitting here with like sleep deprivation and like your boobs are leaking. And you’re like, “I’m not treasuring this, okay? This sucks.” But I think that their emotion is they wish they could do things over again because now their kids have left the house and they don’t know who they are. Or they don’t know what they like. Or they’re not needed anymore.

Kim: Yeah, they threw it all into the kids and all into the part that they were playing. Yeah, me too, me too. It was the same.

Emily: Yeah, so I hear that and I have so much compassion for that. And I think, “Okay, I’m going to be conscious of that as I parent, that I’m going to do things for myself now that I don’t want to regret later. I want to be a mom; I want to be a devoted conscious parent. And I’m reparenting myself so that I’m not missing out on my whole life just because I wanted to be a mom.”

Kim: So for anyone who wants to reach out to you, we’ll put your information in the show notes. Who do you work with specifically? Like, are you just generalizing or what would you say?

Emily: Yeah, so I love working with moms especially. I speak mom language so I get you and I can have that compassion for you where you are in this moment. I know it’s really hard. So I like working with moms.

But specifically, yeah, I want to work with people who have some childhood trauma, they don’t know where to go, they don’t want to repeat these generational patterns that they grew up with in their family. They want to break cycles and they don’t know where to go now. All the self-help books, the podcasts, everything has worked so far until it’s not and they need to go deeper.

Kim: It kind of just covers the surface of it, even like what we’re doing here today. So we’re giving a lot of information so you can get an aha, but the transformation happens in the work, you know?

Emily: Yeah.

Kim: And I love that you actually piece together the relationship part, because that’s something you wanted for so long. And then when you got it, and then it was like, “Whoa, wait, I don’t know about this.” And so I love that you bring a big part of bringing that relationship together and having each other participate.

Emily: And even if you are a single mom, you have relationships with people, and people that will help you raise your kids. There is a village around you and if you feel like you don’t have a village, we can work on that because they’re everywhere if you just look. If you just learn to receive the help.

So, you know, we’re right here. This is part of your village, the people that are educating you and talking to you and helping you along the way. It doesn’t always have to be a huge family down the street. That’s what I was thinking that I have no village, I have no friends, I have no family. And yet when I started to open my mind and open my eyes to the people that could be there for me, people start showing up. So I would offer that you’re not alone. And we’re here, we can help you.

Kim: You moved to another state and then he left for what, two or three months?

Emily: Almost three months, yeah. So that was the breaking point for me. I screamed louder than I ever wanted to and I threw a toy against the wall. And I realized I needed to really look at myself and take care of myself again and not just be supermom.

Kim: Yeah, the interesting part is that stuff was always there. It wasn’t the toy that you stepped on, it was just an opportunity for it to bubble up. And that’s what we love about this work, is we don’t have to go break things open. We actually just have to be present and life will present it exactly on time.

Emily: Yes.

Kim: Is there anything that you wanted to add before we hop out of here?

Emily: If you are, you know, in that place where you want a community and you want to village, I would highly recommend Self Healing Masters. It’s what I joined back in September when you just started it and that was, the very first call we got on I cracked open and cried all over myself because I was so raw and vulnerable. And since that moment things have just been happening left and right for me. And I recommend it to everybody to join Self Healing Masters.

Kim: Would you say that’s where you kind of started to open back up again? Because that’s when you had gotten kind of really quiet and distant, huh?

Emily: Yeah, I was starting to give up on a couple of dreams and thinking, “Well, now my life is really just about what Chris wants. We moved up here and we’re going to start this new path. And I really hope I meet some friends because this is too hard for me to do alone.” I was just kind of thinking more and more negatively and really questioning life choices at that moment. You guys kind of pulled me back up.

Kim: Well, up until then it was really just coach training. Like we really didn’t have anything on that level. I think it just came up just in time, you know, it’s like we all started seeing the need for it. So Self Healing Masters is really the place where we do the personal work.

Emily: Yes, because I can get business coaching, and I can learn marketing. And I, you know, I’m very technical. I can do all of that stuff. But what I was craving was, you know, community of people, like-minded people. But also the opportunity to get coached by you, but I wasn’t quite ready to just commit to a three- or four-month program with a coach. I wanted to go deeper and long term.

And so that’s what I love about Self Healing Masters is that you’re having new courses all the time, working with human design, you know, guest coaches. It’s like a fuller program. And so now I’m thinking about doing some one-on-one coaching because I’m seeing again, how much value there is in that one-on-one space. But I love the community aspect of Self Healing Masters, especially because of some future retreat ideas that are happening. I love getting together in person.

Kim: Yeah, and it’s been really fun, like bringing Chanci in with the body stuff. And then, you know, just the different areas of our life that are everyday life, right? It’s never going to go away. We’re always going to have a body. We’re always going to have people and relationships, you know? And I love it too, because I felt like at first it was like, “Oh, this is like a four-year degree, a four-year coaching thing.” And then I realized, heck, it’s lifetime. It’s really what we’re always going to need, you know?

Emily: Yeah.

Kim: So I love that personally having that conscious community.

Emily: Yes.

Kim: All right my friend, I will see you on the other side.

Emily: Thank you for having me.

Kim: Thank you for guys for tuning in again this week, and that’s what we got for you.

Thanks for listening to this episode of More Than Mindset.