82 Sarah MacLaughlin Sarah: I talk about how we all have this manual that we bring to parenting whether or not we know it is, which is how we were parented. Like that's the first imprint. The first manual that we get is the parenting we observed in our home when we were growing up. And if, if that doesn't get like some conscious attention. And maybe some, you know, I use the metaphor of like, you know, dusting it off, seeing what's in there, seeing if it needs to be rewritten, you know, are you just going to kind of need your parent from all of that information you're carrying around in your pocket and not really paying attention to it? Or are you going to scrutinize it a little bit and maybe process some of the painful hurts that that happens too. I'll just go ahead and wager and say most of us, Monica: For sure. Sarah: Even people who didn't did not experience big T trauma. Nearly universally people experienced small T trauma where your developmental needs are not met in the most elegant way. Like it doesn't have to be a big, bad trauma for it to have an emotional impact and to, and to cause grief and being able to revisit those places and process through them. Bring awareness and consciousness and insight really does change the parent child dynamic once you're in the parent position. Right. Because your role in the family has changed. So fundamentally from the time you are a child to when you are parenting, parenting someone else. Monica: [00:00:00] Well, welcome to the revelation project podcast. I'm Monica Rogers, and this podcast is intended to disrupt the trance of unworthiness and to guide women, to remember and reveal the truth of who we are. We say that life is a revelation project and what gets revealed it gets hello. Hello everyone. And welcome to another episode of the revelation. Podcast. I'm with a dear friend today, Sarah McGlaughlin. And Sarah and I actually met through rockstar camp. And you yay. The beauty of course, of just circling with incredible women and all women I include in that statement honestly, is the ability to truly witness each other. As we dare to shine. And I knew Sarah was a rock star as well in the parenting world, but she recently launched a new book and I'm just so celebrating her today and her. Because again, impeccable timing. This book is exactly what the world needs now. So Sarah is also a social worker. She's a parent educator and she's an author of another award winning best-selling book. What not to say tools for talking with young children. And then her new book is called raising humans with heart, not a how to manage. She works full-time as a writer, trainer, and content expert for zero to three, which is a national nonprofit dedicated to ensuring that all babies and toddlers have a strong start in life. Sarah writes the parenting toolbox column for Portland Maine's parent and family magazine. And her writing has been featured online at the Huffington post and the good men. She's a human development nerd. Yay. Dedicated to the wellbeing of children and their families. And Sarah is also a mom of a teenage son who gives her plenty of opportunities to take her own advice. So welcome, Sarah. I'm so happy to have you. Sarah: [00:02:18] Yeah. Thank you so much it is so lovely to. Here's somebody just talk about you two, you and take it in and thank you for, for that. And it is, I am celebrating and I am noticing the differences between the first time I published a book 11 years ago and publishing one now and just how I'm in a very different place of being able to step into the spotlight of launching a book and really celebrating it in a way that feels right. Really lovely in, in contrast, I think I was just was a lot of nerves. Last time. One of my first book came out in them noticing that, Monica: [00:03:00] Oh God, yes. Sarah: [00:03:02] I'm just feeling really, really good and excited and to share with the world. Just letting it in, you know, and it feels good. So thank you. And Monica: [00:03:12] I love, I love what you say right. About stepping into the spotlight because you know, this hails back to our training with rockstar camp for women, and again, for my listeners who aren't familiar, Sarah and I, it was really a leadership development program. And. The song, you know, or that the singing was a small aspect of what we were really learning, how to do. It was more about daring to show up in our own magnificence and to claim it and to own it. And so you can only imagine how revealing and provocative that is because of course, everything that comes up that gets in the way of that happening is something for us to really look at Sarah. Is there anything else you want to say about that? Sarah: [00:03:57] No, that's exactly. It, it really is just being willing to soften your own ego and worry about how you look or what people will think, or, you know, you use the word dare like that. You would dare to do that. But you know, sometimes that gets twisted around on women in particular, like how dare she? And we kind of grappled with that and it is a very nice outcome to feel. More comfortable with the daring. Monica: [00:04:27] Yes. Yes. And to really practice that. Thank you. Yes, it's true. When you get a compliment and you know, to really just embrace that we can be humble and shine, right? Like it's fully permissioned to places that don't have to mean arrogance or ego. That, that there's room for these things to co-exist that we can soften into them. And, you know, that's taking a note right out of what you just said. Cause I love how you said that. Right. Softening the ego. Like it doesn't, it doesn't have to be these hard edges. Sarah: [00:05:10] Yeah. And it's paradox. Right. And I have found, I mentioned paradox a couple of times in my new book because it is often. Where the most truth. The truth is right, is in those paradoxical places where, you know, it's, it's hard and soft at the same time. It's, it's hard and delightful at the same time. And like where opposites seem to coexist where there's paradox or pluralism, it's the most distilled truth you can really get to. So I think \about that a lot. Monica: [00:05:41] Well, and it makes, it makes for the kind of intimacy that's available. To us when we include the grit with, uh, you know, with the good stuff, it just gives, gives a conversation and a connection, so much more depth and honesty. And I feel like, you know, that's just such a perfect segue into what we're talking today, because what we're talking about today, which is of course, raising humans with heart and Sarah: [00:06:12] Yeah. Monica: [00:06:12] Those souls that we've. Gifted to steward and not to control, not, you know, to actually I can't help Sarah, but think. Where we are at in our evolution as a human family right ]now, we're just about to really come back to the world. I think it's such an interesting time rate that we're spelling, rating, graduations, and, and commencements. Okay. You know, it, it really calls me to also think of our us as graduating in, back into the world and asking ourselves what have we learned from this experience? And one of the ways I think that we were all really challenged was in our family dynamic. With our children and right. Well, we really had to come to terms I think, and face a lot of things that maybe have not been serving for a long time. So anyway, I'd love to just really start by giving you an opportunity to tell us more about why this book, why now? Sarah: [00:07:31] Yeah. Interestingly, so I decided to write this book before COVID happened. But I hadn't written it. Like I had some seed material let's say, and I wrote it right at the beginning of quarantine last spring. So it actually, the quarantine helps me birth this book and it like created a space for me to hunker down. Right. We were all hunkering down and really get it done. And so I feel like I always compare now that I've done it twice, writing a book to like just dating a child and I write about parenting. So like a nice metaphor that, you know, this, this seed like implants itself, this being this thought or idea, and then it just stays. And like, if you could, if you could leave it alone, you would, because honestly it's like such a process. Right. And it's, it's so intensive and it's so personal and. But you can't like, you can't leave it. So like you just have to keep going back to it and it grows and gestates and changes. And there's, I love the term aloe parents. I introduced this term in my book. If you're not familiar with it, it's an anthropological term. That means the community members or the tribe members of the human family who aren't parents, but who function in a caregiving manner within your. Community or culture. And I always feel like my books have the best aloe parents. You know, I have these consultants and friends who, who give me feedback and editors and whatnot, and it's just, it really feels like a bat kind of gestating and caregiving process. And, and now I'm, I'm giving birth, right? Like it's launching off into the world. Not exactly in the same way that you bring a child into the world, but it has so many similarities. And the title of my book really has a double meaning in that we want to raise children with hearts, meaning that we are in our hearts. You know, we've softened our egos. We're not in our fear or in our, you know, cognitive brains entire, the entire time. Right. That there's some flow there, but that also, we want to raise children who have. And kind of the, the Venn diagram or the way that those two things intersect in that, you know, the primary, one of the primary ways that we teach children, how to be is through how we are. And, and I really was inspired in part by a quote by Dr.Julie Paul. Her quote was how you are, is as important as what you do. Meaning that, you know, the qualities of your, of your person that you bring to, to anything that you're doing is just as important as the action that you're taking. And I felt like that really applied to parenting and interacting with children and young people in general. So it really reminds me of that. W. E. B. Dubois I always say that wrong the first time a quote, which is children, learn more from what you are, then what you teach. So as much as we want to instruct children, how to be right, like as parents, we can get caught up in the anxiety of like the qualities we want them to have the things we want them to learn. The, the life lessons we want to impart to them and really. They're learning so much more from who we are in the relationship and how we bring ourselves and the everyday modeling that we're doing. Right. So, so those pieces are just easy to forget when you're in the thick of it. Right? So I hope that this book is an invitation to refocus a little bit on yourself and not from, not from a place of awful selfishness, but from a place. Needed a necessary selfishness so that you can have a good relationship with yourself, because that is from, from there is where every other relationship flows, particularly relationships that you have with your own children, these people that we, that we have for a short time. In this way, it's a short, short time. Monica: [00:11:32] It really is. Is, I mean, you're speaking to somebody, of course. That's just starting to I'm really. I was saying to Austin the other night, I have these moments of realizing how. I have one about to kind of go off to college. And even though she's decided right now to stay close to home like that her departure is eminent, that it no longer feels so permanent. Cause you remember when they were little, it looked like it, it seemed like it was going to last forever. Like that the days actually seemed so long when they were children, when it just it's like time does and has changed a lot for me. But I also really think about, you know, just, just what you were saying as the heart, and it's no wonder, right. That we got. We chose the card that we chose for those of you who might wonder what card we chose today. It was from again, the wild, unknown archetype, and we chose the tear and it was all about actually those tears that the emotion is what I really got from it that opens the portal of our heart into the more right. And when we're in our heads, as parents, there's so much of the lodge. That we need, of course, that goes into parenting, but it's truly what we're bringing from our hearts that I was hearing what you were saying in terms of who we are versus what we do, and that both of them need to be, to meet each other as we're parenting our children. And that what I heard behind that was. That, that has to first be available for ourselves because if we haven't, reinhabited our bodies and really processed our unreleased or unresolved emotions, how can we really expect to bring our full selves to our children? Sarah: [00:13:38] Absolutely. When you read the card, I wrote down and circled that the word grief came up. I feel like this is kind of a point that we sometimes would just rather not address. And I, at the beginning of my book, you know, the subtitle is not a how to manual work. The beginning, I talk about how we all have this manual that we bring to parenting whether or not we know it is, which is how we were parented. Like that's the first imprint. The first manual that we get is the parenting we observed in our home when we were growing up. And if, if that doesn't get like some conscious attention. And maybe some, you know, I use the metaphor of like, you know, dusting it off, seeing what's in there, seeing if it needs to be rewritten, you know, are you just going to kind of need your parent from all of that information you're carrying around in your pocket and not really paying attention to it? Or are you going to scrutinize it a little bit and maybe process some of the painful hurts that that happens too. I'll just go ahead and wager and say most of us, Monica: [00:14:35] For sure. Sarah: [00:14:36] Even people who didn't did not experience big T trauma. Nearly universally people experienced small T trauma where your developmental needs are not met in the most elegant way. Like it doesn't have to be a big, bad trauma for it to have an emotional impact and to, and to cause grief and being able to revisit those places and process through them. Bring awareness and consciousness and insight really does change the parent child dynamic once you're in the parent position. Right. Because your role in the family has changed. So fundamentally from the time you are a child to when you are parenting, parenting someone else. Monica: [00:15:16] Yeah. Well, and I, what I want to also bring to this is of course, this idea too, that. We can have an experience of revisiting our past without necessarily needing to like linger for too long or to make it in, but make it into some big like thing. I think the reason I'm bringing this up is because I think. People are afraid to go back. They're like, let's just move on. Sarah: [00:15:50] Right, right. Monica: [00:15:51] I want to just that there it is true. That there's kind of a lot of truth. When we, again, I'm going to use dare when we dare to dust it off and look at it. Yeah, knowing that it doesn't necessarily mean that we don't love or honor our parents, that it, because there's also that stigma where, you know, like, I don't want to go there because, you know, I've got a good relationship with my parents today. And like, you know, I've forgiven them, I'm moving on. It's like, yeah. Yes. And right. Like, yes. Right. There's there can also be some unresolved stuff and. And when we're not in relationship with that when we're not, when we haven't actually addressed, maybe how we. What we needed and how I need student get met. We're kind of unable to bring that transparency and authenticity to our own relationships as it relates to our own human foibles with our own children. Right? Sarah: [00:16:52] Yeah, absolutely. It's interesting. So it's, it's one of those things that's very subjective. So whether or not a trauma is considered big T little T how much it impacted you or whether or not it still bothers you. That's the that's sort of the language. Researchers use around the adverse childhood experiences study, which is a big study that was done. Gosh, going on 30 years ago now. And the, you could have somebody that experienced all there's 10 ACEs that they studied, but you could have someone who experienced all 10 of them, like very, very, you know, damaging, traumatic childhood. But if they have done whatever that they need to do that. Traumas don't bother them anymore. And it is, it is up to the person, right. Only, you know, if something from your past is still bothering you, is it, is it hitching? Is it hitching your stride? There's no, nobody else can tell you that. Nobody else can say, oh, you experienced X, Y, Z. So you're going to be traumatized for life. That's not how it works. We have the capacity to heal from the hurts that we experienced, but only we know if we're done, right. Like we, don't only, we know if we have had the listening or the support or whatever it takes to be able to. Move through it fully and get to the other side. And there's been so many books that have come out recently about, you know, completing the stress cycle or being tuned into how trauma or stress are manifesting in your body so that you can be aware of it through somatic practices and breathing, humming, rocking, chanting. There's so many different ways to process through. Those emotions and that stuff that's in your body. And, you know, my perspective is you'll know when you're done. You'll you'll know because things that your family members and children used to do that trigger the heck out of you don't anymore because you've, you've processed those sticky places that would meet, make them stay stuck on you for lack of a better. Monica: [00:18:52] Tara. I want to give some examples if it's okay. Of like some sticky places, because I'll use my own life as an example, because it wasn't until 11 years ago that I really started to understand that some of my behavior was problematic. You were talking about the hitching. So one of the things that I started to identify, like there were symptoms, right where I was, I started. Just get really curious, like why is it that I have such a huge startle response, for example, when somebody kind of like just a normal, like they're not trying to scare me, but like, I wasn't expecting them to be there and suddenly they're there and it's like, oh, like my star, the response was so exaggerated. And there were ways that I started recognizing that in certain situations. I would almost like black out if the situation was stressful or somehow was triggering something that apparently was touching on a wound from the past that I hadn't revealed yet. And it still even happens today. I can tend to like disassociate and I started recognizing that like I was there, but I wasn't there. I started seeing these ways that I was. Unable to kind of stay at peace inside of my body, in the face of certain challenges. And that's what started to get me really, really curious about where those types of coping mechanisms originated. And it was fascinating because of course you bring up the ACEs study. And for those of you listening, if you wanted to Google , that was when I started to get more curious. And I actually took the ACEs test. It's a quick online, like 10 question test, right. And recognized that I was like a six out of a 10 and that. When you start to think about the impact of unresolved trauma, like Sarah was just pointing to meaning unresolved unrealized, unaddressed, meaning sometimes all we have to do is dare to look at it for it to begin the process of healing. But if we're kind of like ignoring it, sweeping it under the rug, running from it, running in the other direction. I used to say things like, I don't have time to go there. Right. Like that was, Sarah: [00:21:24] Yeah Monica: [00:21:25] and so those are the places that I think again, I was more willing to go and invest in because I had two small children at home that I was starting to recognize were in distress. They were in distress and I knew it as a parent, but I didn't know why. And so guess where the place to look was my own stuff, right? Sarah: [00:21:54] Yes. And there is a whole fascinating area of research about how about the epigenetic of stress and trauma. It is, it affects our DNA and, and it also affects our behavior, but it's like, it affects us on a much more granular level. That's really profound. Monica: [00:22:15] Auto immune diseases. I mean, there's so many ways that it physically then manifests. Sarah: [00:22:22] Yes, absolutely Monica: [00:22:23] . Yeah. So there's, there's repercussions in mind, body and spirit, because of course. That's all connected, even though we know, oftentimes we learned that it wasn't. Sarah: [00:22:35] I know, I love something that you said I wrote down where you said get curious and I feel like that's such a, an important kind of. Idea to is an important takeaway for me and something that I'm always encouraging parents to do is to get curious, like, get curious about your child's behavior. Get curious about your reaction to your child's behavior. Get curious around about the story you're telling yourself about that dynamic, because there's always multiple things going on at any given moment. There's what's happening. Actually like the actions people are taking, but then there's how each person is interpreting it. The story that overlay that you're dropping it into. And then what happens after that, as you perpetuate the story and, and kind of being able to pull back and get curious about all of those different pieces and dynamics and one of the little. Tips that I share. I try to, I try to not, it's impossible to not offer ideas, right. It's not a how to manual, but couldn't help myself. I couldn't stop myself from offering some, some tips and approaches. One of my helpful hints for folks around self-regulating. So this is that piece where if your nervous system starts to, you know, because of chronic hyper vigilance or whatever, if your nervous system starts to get ramped up and you feel those ways in which you're triggered or escalated or whatnot, The first thing you need to do is notice your emotions and where they are on your body and what's happening. And then watch for that story where it comes in and how you might be perpetuating the drama of the moment with the, with the story you're telling yourself about it. And then try to reframe it and tell yourself a different version of the story. You don't have to keep going with your original interpretation of things. Almost always multiple ways to interpret child behavior and even your own behavior and those pieces, like you said, you had this sort of like visceral fear that was coming in. I tell a story in the book about a time where I had a visceral shame spiral come on and how I kind of was in a place where I could observe it and be like, huh. And be able to get curious about it and what what's this about and all of those sort of little spots that trigger those emotional rushes that don't seem totally pertinent to the current moment are good places. Just to get curious about the annual, right. Monica: [00:24:57] Like it's true. That's from. Right. And like, we don't see the relationship at first. And then as we start to get closer and closer to it, it becomes like painfully obvious. Yes. Sometimes it's just it's. I was actually laughing with a friend this morning just about, you know, how, how absurd it is that we. That we can protect ourselves from knowing something for so long. Yeah, it's fascinating. And then like, and we were kind of joking that that's what laughter is for laughter is like the antidote for our absurdity. Sometimes it's like, it just gives us that freedom to be like, oh, you know, you silly human. It's just, we are, we are imperfect. And that's the place that I. Love to dwell. I love to dwell in my own imperfections because when I'm okay with the fact that I'm not perfect, my kids get to be okay with that fact too. And I'm modeling it for them to be, to have permission, to be imperfect. Sarah: [00:26:05] Absolutely. Yes. Monica: [00:26:07] And I wondered Sarah, like, I really wanted to get curious, speaking of curiosity and ask you, why do you do this work? Like, how is it related like you as a child advocate and a parent educator how's this work related to your own experience? Sarah: [00:26:23] Yeah, so, I mean, you know, I have my own handful of ACEs and, you know, my parents were gracious enough to be really responsive. When I, as a young adult was like, Hey, this stuff that happened was not okay. And being willing to be, they modeled accountability and as gracefully as they could in the moment. And I always have. So that was a personal motivation. And then I also, always from the time I was a very young child, this, this path that I'm on, kind of grew out of a fascination with babies and their openness and innocence. And why isn't this, even though they can't talk or say anything at first and then looking around at people so much later in their lives and seeing how things could sometimes just go really sideways. And I'm wondering about the why. So I think I say this more eloquently somewhere at the beginning of my book, but like I got so curious about if the thing that changes a child's trajectory between when they come into the world and they are fully, you know, I feel like all children are born good. Something happens if we end up with some of the stuff that happens between humans. Currently, if you just turn on any news story, that's a, if it bleeds, it leads type of, uh, a story. And I just, I couldn't stop thinking about like what happened, and I know that this is becoming more of a conversation and, you know, Oprah and. Oh, her coauthor for the book, I'm totally blanking, but they wrote a book called what happened to you? Because that's the fundamental question that folks, social workers, psychologists, et cetera, ask around the ACEs is with regard to adverse childhood experiences. Instead of saying, you know, what's wrong with you because people behave in these wild constellations of ways as a result, potentially of some of these ACEs. And the question for so long was like, what's wrong with you? What's wrong with you? What's wrong. What's wrong with you? That you're addicted to drugs. What's wrong with you that you behave in this way or that way? When the question we really should be asking is what happened to you? So if parents can be a protective factor, which we know they can, and other caregivers and aloe parents can be protective for children as their brains are developing. Right. That's the other thing we know is how children's brains are sensitive to their environments and that they grow through both nurture and nature, that what do parents need to know to, to make that happen? Speed bump free as possible. There's no, that we haven't figured out like, oh, this is there's no formula. Like this is the most beneficial way for optimal human development. But like we know somethings and I want as many people as possible to know as much as possible about how they can get right with themselves so they can be right with their kids so that they can create the conditions for children to flourish. Like that's what we all want. And don't sometimes know how to do so. It's just like this ongoing burning passion in my, my own heart that keeps me moving forward and curious about gaining as much information as possible because we all benefit when children turn out well and we all suffer when they don't, we are a community and we are connected and it's, it is. Monica: [00:29:49] And Sarah, I, couple of things here. One is I want. Point to what you just said, which is, you know, like get in right relationship with your children, with ourselves, with our children and right. I'm just so sensitive to this, like right. Wrong, bad. Good. Because, well, and I know what you mean, but one of the things I want to continue to emphasize is that. I look at right as authentic. I really do. It's like authentic, transparent. Yes. When I can say to my child, when I am behaving badly, which I often do, because let's just face it Sarah: [00:30:24] Same. Monica: [00:30:25] It's just like, you know, I've really gotten to the point where I love that they can be like, they can notice how I just address them. They can pause and then they can reapproach me and say, You feel any better mom because they know, right. And I'm like, I'm really feeling tender about the way I spoke to you earlier. You know, it wasn't it wasn't right. And my kids can now say to me, Which I can, I'm like so happy that they can, they have the freedom to say, yeah, I knew something else was going on. And I knew that you would tell me when you had a little space and it's like, oh my God, I raised children who raped, but it's not because I did everything right. That they ended up in this way because I, right. It's because I interrupted sweeping and under the rug and I started to train myself. To say to my children, what's really here right now is my fear. What's really here right now is my own sense of inadequacy. What's really here right now. And to allow them to see what is behind my behavior in this moment. Sarah: [00:31:42] Absolutely. Right. And you have to cultivate that awareness that self-awareness, that's the piece that's, that's tricky. And why curiosity is such an asset, Monica: [00:31:50] Such an asset. And with curiosity, I would say that curiosity is, you know, best friend is gentleness. Yes. Because we have to approach ourselves with a sense of curiosity and also a gentleness. And I think in this world, we have a such a tendency. To go immediately for the jugular to blame, to cancel, to add insult to injury. And I think the more that we can just recognize that we're all doing the best we can even ourselves. Right. Absolutely. And give ourselves that grace yes. Race that just allows us to give ourselves. That compassion. And the other thing I wanted to really go back to is what you said about Oprah's book, but she also has that beautiful program. The me that you cant' see. Sarah: [00:32:55] Oh yeah. Yeah. Monica: [00:32:57] I've started watching these episodes and, and also just a quick aside, it just cracks me up that there's this narrative in the world that she. Something other than she is, right. Like, I just want to be like, okay, you can have these conversations produce this kind of work and have suffered the way that she did. And it just, again, I, you know, sometimes it's these polarities, these paradoxes that I'm just like, okay, whatever, I don't need to make sense of them. I just want to highlight that the program itself. So revealing that there is always the me that you cannot see underneath. And oftentimes the me that we can't see is the wounded child is the child that never got seen the child that never got the opportunity to really feel that it was okay for them to be. Their whole messy human magnificent self. Sarah: [00:34:00] Right. And even like in terms of, you know, in our children or whatnot, even if, uh, if you, if you find a person who had like the most responsive parenting or like, hopefully as we learn more about parenting and children have have more responsive parenting and get more of their needs met, et cetera, all children as humans grow up inherently get left behind. So even if you had a quote, perfect childhood, your inner child, some poor, some version of your inner child, not abandoned because by you, because they had to, for you to grow up. And that's another one of those sort of paradoxical situations that there's always going to be grateful with. Growth comes grief with love comes grief. That is part of the human experience that is inescapable. And frankly, I wouldn't want it to be escapable cause it's. It humbles us. It connects us. It it's important. It really is important. The other thing you said that I wanted to touch on is this idea of gentleness and the thing where we can tend to be, we might know, and be able to pull off being gentle with our children, but then we're still harsh with ourselves and how our children see that. Don't I, I can't hold the illusion that I might be able to be kindhearted and loving to my child and then turn around and be no harsh, abusive, Monica: [00:35:29] and abusive and stuff. Sarah: [00:35:29] Yeah. To myself. And that he, and that he would miss that, that your kids are not missing. That if you are, if you are not being kind to yourself, it shows. And that is a revelation for a lot of parents because in our efforts to be good parents, we can just beat ourselves up. And it's not helpful. I know that it, it becomes a bad habit. I've been there myself. And it's just not and the guilt and you know, all of these things that should just can bog you down, finding a way. And I there's no prescription, but finding a way to let that go or reframe it or process through it is so beneficial to everyone. Monica: [00:36:09] Yeah. So beneficial to everyone. I also want to get curious and know more about these times that we're living in, of course, there's. Not only are we as adults and parents kind of confronted in a lake. For example, when I think about the racism in this country, the way that we're starting to examine how we grew up kind of these unexamined biases. Absolutely. Yes. And we're actually starting to recognize and realize and become accountable to our own. Privilege in this case, I'm speaking of myself as a white woman. Right. But there's ways that again, it's like, I'm wondering Sarah. I know you have a lot to say about this and that this is also a part of your work is to really help parents create these conversations to raise anti-racist, you know, anti-biased humans. Sarah: [00:37:10] Yeah. The whole last chapter of my book is dedicated to creative, creating inclusive communities with an eye towards eliminating bias, which is nearly impossible. And, you know, gender based. Assumptions and stereotypes. You know, I first learned about anti-biased education as a, as a teacher when I was teaching preschool 20 something years ago. And it was just like a light bulb went off in my head. Like, of course, we're all of a sudden you see all the ways in which is prescriptive, stereotypical ways of behaving with children around their gender, race, et cetera, different ways of identifying how prevalent and pervasive they are. If you're not, it's like, if you don't know they're there, you don't know what you don't know. And then, you know, when you're like, oh my goodness. So trying to bring awareness to some of those places. Yeah. I'm a hundred percent sure. There are places that I have biases. I'm still not aware of like, that's the tricky thing about bias is you, it's hard to see. I recommend a lot of resources in my book. And what just came to mind is a book called blind spot, which is, you know, about uncovering uneatthing thing and addressing your own biases that are hard to find and hard to see them therefore hard to work with and abolish right. Talking about it or as you would say,, if it's, if it's not revealed you can't address it or heal it or anything. So, and then just knowing that as parents who are. Working with children from birth when they are literally wiring their brains and that our brains are wired to be biased out of convenience out of ways that we evolved to need, need each other and collaborate and be connected. There are reasons why our brains do the things that they do around bias and discrimination and exclusion. So the trick is to really bring awareness there and. It's one of these places where I have had to tell myself and I share with others, there's no done. There will be no done to this in our lifetime. There will be no box to check. This is going to be, be ongoing, durable, persistent, I'm going work. Um, particularly for white people that we will be doing full stop until the end of our lives. And hopefully doing it with as much heart and dedication as we can muster because you know, all of our. Wellbeing is tied up in each other. I just really believe in the, in the connectedness and inherent, I guess, in the inherent connection of all of us and I quote Glennon Doyle in the, in the book that there is no such thing as other people's children. And I think about that a lot just in the way that we can support each other too, as parents. Monica: [00:39:59] Yeah. Well, and it brings me back to the word that you used earlier when. You know, you talked about addressing your parents was accountability again, like they had, they had that fortitude that grace in that moment, too. To certain levels, right. To be accountable for the mistakes that they made and that helped you heal. And I understand that there are some people, many people out there that don't have parents that aware and that, and so when we cannot get validation or healing, Or exposed to opportunities to heal by somebody taking accountability for them actions.That can be hard. Sarah: [00:40:49] Absolutely. Monica: [00:40:50] And when I hear where you talk about how it's going to take all of us, it's not going to happen in this lifetime. What comes up for me is like, yes, because there's so much accountability yet too. Modeled. And we're not seeing that yet on a large scale in so many places. And so when you think about accountability as a catalyst for healing, it really starts to change our commitment to looking good, you know? Okay. And it loosens those rooted ways of being that don't want to face. What our ancestors did because somehow again, we're somehow demoralizing them or not honoring them when in fact their goodness and their shittiness gets to stand together. Right, right. They were wonderful. And yes, they had these big blind spots that created some kind of dynamic for them too. Do some terrible things and that's, those are hard truths. Those are hard, hard truths. And I think again, like none of us can escape these hard truths. And when we resist knowing the truth, of course, there's that what we resist persists and that absolutely, you know, really stands, you know, as somebody who. Survived, right. Like unintentional childhood trauma. And to some extent we all did. Yeah. There's just that when we can see ourselves from that gentle place, that's the same gentleness with which I think we need to address sometimes taking accountability, even if it wasn't necessarily. Our fault. Yes. Or we're doing it in a purposeful way. It's just accountability can mean all kinds of different accesses to healing. And I think it's just such an important conference. Sarah: [00:43:07] Right. I agree. And there is some nuance to the language that's used to. Like, I think that is, it's learned to be able to be accountable with that. Like just being accountable doesn't mean it's your fault, right? It doesn't mean you're to blame. Like we have all of these words that we think mean exactly the same thing, but it's, it's a little more nuanced than that. And I mean, that's, it's important to model for our kids. It's important to talk to our kids about it and, you know, we. We talked about that at my son's 13, he actually is not a tweenager anymore. He's actually a teenager. And you know, we talk about the difference between accountability and fault and tension, right? Like this is a big thing in anti-racist work that well, that wasn't my intention. Well, that doesn't matter. It actually does not matter. Your intentions can be good and you can still do harm and still need to be accountable for that harm. And that doesn't mean you are to blame for someone else's feelings. It just means that you need to be accountable for the impact of your behavior or words or whatever it is. And that is something that a lot of us are still kind of trying to figure out how to do that and how to convey that and how to. Not defensive in that and to know how to knock shame, spiral in that. Cause I know for me and my patterns to shame spiral and then get really defended and then I'm no good, like I'm no good at the holding process at that point because I'm Monica: [00:44:34] shut down armored Sarah: [00:44:36] I'm armored up as Bernie brown would say, and I'm not able to continue. Connection with the other person that I might be having a conversation with whether or not that's my child or someone else. And it really does shut it, shuts things down. Monica: [00:44:49] It really does. Yeah. Sarah: [00:44:51] Being able to soften, I like your words often to those places where you might get defended and to own it and admit it is kind of a, an inroad. Monica: [00:45:00] I think my so many of our tendency, right. Is to like, Get up in her head. So it is really about coming back to like the heart. Yeah. And even if we can metaphorically and I think metaphysically take that armor down. You know, and dare to get vulnerable. That that's where the connection is. Again, not only to the other person that we're trying to reach, but it also opens the connection back to self in alignment with ourselves. Um, even if it's messy, um, and sometimes the best. The best things are produced in that messy, muddy, fertile place. So it's really feels counterintuitive sometimes, but it's exactly the places that we need to go. Sarah. Um, I really, I kind of laugh because I think the next question is right. Like, what are some of the biggest challenges parents face right now? And it's like, maybe it would be easier to it's like, everything feels like the biggest challenges parents are facing right now. Sarah: [00:46:14] I think the biggest, I mean, I can actually answer that question because I think the biggest challenge that parents are facing right now is their own stress and their own dysregulation because of this larger experience that we have all been in. And I've said this from day one, I put a video up at the beginning of the pandemic around lockdown for parents. I said, what assess in your life? Things that cause you stress and things that reduce your stress. This is my one missive. Assess it, decide for yourself, do more of the things that reduce your stress, do less of the things that add to your chest. That's it. That's all I got for the next, until this is over. Do that one thing, because if you're not in a good place, which most of us have not been, this has been so hard. We can't do, and we can't lead. We can't. Be a calm, consistent, compassionate guide for our kids. We just, we can't do the things we need to do as parents, if we are stressed and dysregulated to all get out. So it's been rough. It's been really rough for a lot of people, myself included. I feel like I'm just like constantly suffering from forgetful pandemic brain, just because of the added stress and anxiety that has come along with this larger experience that we've all been having. And, and then there's tons of things that happen because of that. But I think that that's really the root of a lot of, a lot of issues and different families have been impacted. Speaking of equity, you know, in, in very different ways. And certain communities have been more impacted for various reasons and causing even more stress to families who probably didn't have the bandwidth to add more stress to to their load. So, you know, Doing things that can help calm your nervous system down, if you can identify any of them and do them more consistently, that is my one piece of advice to parents until we are collectively in a more settled place is to figure out how to settle your own nervous system in any way that you possibly can. Monica: [00:48:22] That's great advice. It's great advice. It's uh it's so that disregulated nervous system is. So tricky. Yeah. How does that show up for you, Sarah? When you're disregulated. Body sensations and stuff. Sarah: [00:48:39] Yeah. So I get kind of this like buzzy feeling in my body. Like my nerves are frayed, crackling and firing and sprayed. And I've always related to the, to the saying you're working my last nerve. Like all of my nerves are shot except this one. And now that one's about to go to, and just not being able to inhibit my emotional. Heatedness is how it is, how it displays. Like I'll be, I start yelling. I started slamming doors. I start talking really fast. I start talking over people. I stopped, I stopped listening. I stopped listening to my own body and self and therefore stopped listening to other people. So for me, it's really like a anxiety nervous, buzzy. Flipping my lid majorly type of thing. Monica: [00:49:26] Yeah. Well, and I, I love that you were able to go right to it and share it because again, I think. I think those are those things as parents. Like, again, that can be super unconscious until we start modeling. What does it feel like to start disregulating? How does that show up? Yeah, for me, sometimes it's noticing that I'm not breathing freely, that I'm wearing my shoulders. Yes and no. I'm starting to kind of curl around myself versus kind of like be open. And that's always a great reminder to that. You know, hunching over is almost like symbolic of like the armoring up, the protecting the defending the, and usually there's a voice narrating an experience on the inside that is so not helpful. And so part of my dynamic too is to really. Notice, and I don't have to intercept. I don't have to know what the voice is saying anymore. I just have to know that the symptoms manifest on the outside as all of these hunching over were tense. I'm not breathing. And that's when I actually start to kick in. A lot of affirming, a lot of approving, a lot of, you know, kind of self, self regulating, self love practices that starting to notice what has to come off my plate right now. Sarah: [00:50:57] Yeah. Monica: [00:50:57] Like right now, not like, oh, tomorrow I'll look at my schedule and redo it. It's like, Nope. Right now, what has to come off my plate in order for me to. Tend to myself. Yes. Yes. I love that. Because then that, that tending, then we tend to tend toward regulating versus then carrying out harm, which is what I do when I don't tend to myself. I then I harm others and that that's a hard truth, but I, to be accountable for it sometimes. Forces me into self care. And to know that like, whoever gets adjusted in my schedule or whatever it gets adjusted, whatever gets rescheduled is supposed to be there. It's just starting to trust that that, that gets to be the first priority so that I don't yeah. More harm. Yeah. Sarah: [00:51:58] I'm just bringing the acceptance instead of them. Because you could go down a road of then judging that and then making a whole story about that. And instead, if you just, I love affirm, except those are all really helpful practices for cause cause those other things don't help you calm down, which was your whole, which was your hope, the whole point. Right, Monica: [00:52:20] Right. Yeah. Or to, you know, do what we've been trained to do, which is. Life is hard. It's, you know, work is hard. That's why I call it work. You know, like all the bootstrap at nose to the grindstone, fake it till you make it, like all of that bad advice just needs to go away forever. Sarah: [00:52:39] It is bad advice. Yep. For sure. I concur wholeheartedly for sure. It doesn't serve. Monica: [00:52:46] You know, it doesn't serve, it doesn't serve us and it doesn't serve those. Hello. Absolutely. So what else, Sarah, would you, cause, I mean, I know we have a few minutes left here and of course I feel like we've covered a lot of ground, but I also feel that there's like, if we were to really summarize what's the most important thing. Parents can do to like raise good humans. Is that like too general of a question? Sarah: [00:53:16] The most important thing? I mean, I feel like in a way you just said it is to, is to attend to yourself first so that you can be the best version of yourself when you are showing up with who you are and that that's going to always be as important as what you do. And. It is so vitally important and there, you know, we have the oxygen mask metaphor on the airplane. Then we have the saying, you can't feel from an empty cup, just all of these sorts of things are so it's so vitally important to not abandon yourself in the, in the pursuit of raising good children, right? Like you're raising humans a bit harder, raising, raising, um, raising kids. Because it doesn't work, you know, and there's obviously a balance to that, but there's, you also, ourselves also are responsible for our kids. They need us, but they need the best version of us that we can provide in any given moment so that we can be our most authentic self. So we're modeling for them how to be authentic. We're armoring up and gritting our teeth and bootstrapping. They're seeing that that's what grownups do. I've made a, sort of a cheeky comment in my, um, in my video when I was first promoting this book, is that, that the good news is our kids are always watching us. And the bad news is our kids are always watching us and sort of the paradox and the double-edged sword of that to bring us back to the beginning, when we talked about paradox, That is the piece. We, we can't abandon our kids in pursuit of our own selfish, happiness, yet in some ways we've, we do have to a little bit pull back. Our boundaries have to be in the right spot for us to thrive for us to thrive so that we can help them thrive. It can't be either, or it can't be one or the other. It absolutely has to be both and figuring out for yourself. Everybody is different. There's no magic bullet or prescription what that balance looks like, where that boundary needs to be, how much care you need to give yourself so that you can have a flow of then offering them care. That's the, that's the piece to be curious about. I would say Monica: [00:55:28] You had told me that your best friend gave you a birthday card a few years ago. That says you're a sunshine and rainbows and cocktails and curse words.. Sarah: [00:55:37] Oh, yup. Monica: [00:55:39] Right. And that, I know that you had kind of quit drinking. Sarah: [00:55:44] I did yeah. Monica: [00:55:45] A year ago, but that the sun to, for you really still stands and I love it. Kind of that place to stand too is for parents to really, for us to embrace the duality and the paradigm ex of who we are. Right. Because yes, you know, we, we are not just one thing or the other. We are so multi-dimensional and all of those parts of us. Are valid. Yes. And so, so it's so important to be able to really include all of those parts in ourselves and not exclude a part of ourselves because chances are that the part of us that we exclude is the exact part of us that needs to be seen that needs to be revealed in order to be healed. Sarah: [00:56:43] Absolutely. I love that so much. And it's, I think it can be a tendency or a pitfall to watch for that place where we might like sacrifice our own full human hood in all of its spectacular multifacetedness. As you said, on the alter of parenthood, Monica: [00:57:04] Uh, the altar of parenthood. Yes. Sarah: [00:57:08] Ever motherhood, particularly like you have a whole other separate conversation about the sexism inherent there, but like even just the responsibility of parenthood that we still need to have fun. We're modeling for our kids, whether or not we have fun or all of those different things that make up our vastly complex humanness. Hanging onto that is so important and modeling it with that authenticity for our kids. I think you just nailed it. Monica: [00:57:33] Yeah. Well, I mean, thank you that the whole of this conversation is like, just so it's like, you know, just said, like we could now do a whole episode on other aspects, right. Because what we're really talking about today is. Exactly like celebrating your book and raising humans with heart. And so how do we raise humans with heart? It's by getting really curious about our own and daring to show up with our hearts versus our heads, having all of us get to belong and be involved in this thing we call parenting. And so, Sarah, I just want to thank you, you know, for your time today. And your beautiful work with parents and children. It is, it is so important. And I just obviously love you to death. And for our listeners, we'll make sure to put Sarah's links in the show notes. Thank you. Love you too. And I was so delightful to be here. Sarah: [00:58:39] I absolutely loved our conversation. I appreciate you and your work, and I'm so glad that it intersected here today. Monica: [00:58:47] So thank you. Thank you, sir. And for our listeners more to be revealed, We hope you enjoyed this episode. For more information, please visit us@jointherevelation.com and be sure to download our free gift, subscribe to our mailing list or leave us a review on iTunes. We thank you for your generous listening and as always. More to be revealed.