It takes PRACTICE for a child to smoothly go through the brain activities of correctly registering an emotion, labeling it, identifying the most effective way to process and release the tension of those feelings, taking action to make that happen, then returning to a calm state. 

I imagine a meltdown being the result of a brain that doesn't know how to process an overwhelming new, unfamiliar, dangerous, or unexpected input. Could be a sensation or experience or emotion. And meltdowns reduce when the brain learns how to process these inputs and they become familiar, maybe even mundane. 

It's my job as a parent to help her practice experiencing (which includes fully feeling!!) emotions like frustration, and practicing/experiencing the visceral embodied sensation of returning to a state of calm and reconnection; of adapting and healing via coregulation and acceptance. You are developing their innate trust in themselves that they will carry all their lives, and the knowledge that even intense feelings have an end, and that feeling emotions in their entirety is what heals and transforms them. You’ll have given them enough practice that they can do this healing process on their own one day. Because big feelings are a part of life!!

I have a spirited and sensitive almost 4 year old daughter who is an expert in practicing her meltdowns. What does a typical meltdown in our house look like? Let’s take a look.

***

My daughter wants something, so so bad. Desperately. And it can't/won't happen. Not getting something you really feel like you need, that would really make your life great in this moment, is truly devastating.

I can see when she is beginning to unravel, starting to get wound up with the first tendrils of frustration and upset taking hold. As soon as I notice that, I help her into our shared bedroom, which is a safe “baby proofed” space for her to rage in. I don't wait for her to do something “bad enough” to warrant a “punishment” of being removed to the bedroom – at which point we've devolved into opponents. Instead, it's early enough in the process that I’m not aggravated yet, it's more of a “I'm noticing you’re starting to have an uncomfortable feeling, I'm going to help you get it out of your body”. I haven't allowed it to escalate into a big overwhelming feeling and problem, I've intervened when the feeling and problem is still small. 

I bring her into our bedroom; sometimes I do snag her as she runs away and carry her as she thrashes and hollers. But because I'm early enough and I haven't knocked myself off her team, I'm able to keep my head and look at her with a calm head: she's having a hard time. Her brain is going haywire right now. No kid WANTS to be experiencing this red alert meltdown. As soon as we get to our room, you can see her body relax; we’ve done this enough times that she knows we're really gonna feel and get rid of all this gunk storming inside her. She is still MAD though, rageful, thrashing and screaming about both being in the room and whatever set her off. But there is a subtle relaxation in her shoulders and face; she knows now I can help her, now that we are away from prying eyes and distractions. That I'm not mad or frustrated that she is going off the rails–in fact, my matter of fact, blasé attitude indicates to her subconscious that her emotions are NORMAL. I have no judgement about whether her feelings are bad or good. They are her feelings, and they are real. I don't need to, and I SHOULDN'T, try to control whether she is “allowed” to have or express any emotion. My only job is to help guide her in fully and appropriately expressing and feeling the emotion to get to the other side where she will find adaptation, and then calm. That’s it! 

So I sit. Calmly, silently. Not much eye contact. I even sometimes pull out my phone and start reading an ebook. When a person (including children) is in the throes of a rage, they are processing and purging the tension from their bodies. Screaming, thrashing, punching, kicking, stomping, running–this is naturally how an organism processes adrenaline and cortisol hormones from their physical bodies. There has to be a physical element; rage and anger are felt under conditions of threat and induce an organism to MOVE and protect itself. Our culture’s discomfort with anger means that we are socialized to abort/stifle this process so those chemicals don't properly leave the bloodstream and continue to circulate. Your child is wise; they know what they are doing! 

In the throes of rage, most people (including children!) cannot tolerate bids for connection from their loved ones. Attempts at redirection, connection, offers of alternatives, soothing words, encouraging words, offering hugs or physical comfort, and even eye contact can feel like battery acid on your skin. It's amplifying this horrible feeling of acting incorrectly, because your witnesses are acting worried/frantic/upset/concerned in some way and trying to change you. It pushes you FURTHER into an overwhelmed meltdown. Instead, the best method to be a witness is simply quiet calm presence, only occasional eye contact with soft eyes. That's it. No words. Definitely no physical contact UNLESS she initiates and asks for it. I’m a statue in the corner. I get comfy, because it can take a while (sometimes as long as an hour for particularly charged stress releases).

But redirection and soothing is exactly what HELPS anger, right?? Yes!! But they help only AFTER the initial huge intense surge of feelings have been fully somatically processed. You can’t attempt soothing and connection and coregulation too soon, or it backfires. So I have to sit on my hands and wait. 

Because here is the secret. It's a mindset shift. My well meaning attempts to regulate my child’s emotions are frankly inappropriate. Unnecessary. For so long, I was inserting myself and trying to regulate (read: control) my child's expressions because of my own discomfort. Emotional expression of certain emotions is so taboo, that when we are confronted by immature little people naturally having these emotions, we are uncomfortable and uncertain and embarrassed and fearful. My attempts to regulate my child were actually very clever and subtle attempts to squash and minimize and rush to the end of it and make her emotions more convenient for me. That was my lightbulb moment. I was rushing my kid through the emotion because I was scared. But my kid can only mature and learn how to appropriately navigate these types of emotions if she is allowed to practice feeling it, properly and fully. Using the natural and powerful somatic processing abilities she was born with. Not rushed. Because skipping over the most rotten awful distressing bits so I can feel better makes it impossible for her to learn safer and acceptable ways to handle it when she INEVITABLY encounters those feelings again. 

Sometimes during the meltdown, she often asks for things that she knows I will say no to. It almost feels like she is asking so I will "thwart" her and so she can cry more and get another layer of somatic purging out when she feels the initial wave start to slow down. For example, she will ask multiple times to use her paci (which in our house, the rule is she can only use it for falling asleep). Or she will tearfully or angrily bargain over and over for the thing she originally wanted so desperately. I simply quietly say “nope.” 

At first pass this may seem cruel, but there's another reason I say no to using the paci when she is distressed during a meltdown. When she is in the throes of a meltdown, the emotion can feel so incredibly intense that she is desperate to avoid feeling it. She wants distraction to push it off, or is seeking a way to minimize or even mute it. Sucking and other soothing methods are very tempting ways to artificially lower the body’s alert state without having to actually engage with the underlying alarm. So when your child needs to be raging and somatically expressing, using a soothing method is actually counter-productive since you WANT your child to FEEL the emotion and process it.

Sometimes my child turns violent towards me. Which is not a surprise; she can't control her impulses, and angry impulses often protectively drive someone to inflict pain. But that is not a socially appropriate or acceptable way to express and process an angry emotion. In fact, this is the only rule I have as we process emotions: to be kind to my body. That means no screaming in faces, no hitting, no kicking, no aggressive nudges, no headbutting (all of which have happened!). And I was extremely firm with this rule. The first hit often happens on our way as I carry her to the room, and often she will wind up for another whack as soon as I set her down. I block her hit, and silently turn around and walk out the door, shutting and holding the door behind me. I mean it when I say I leave instantly. She knows the rule, I don't need to remind or defend my leaving to protect myself. I give her about 5-10 seconds (while she is often shrieking angrily) and then I will ask through the door, “Are you ready to treat my body kindly? No hitting?” And she will say yes. Then I say “Cool.” And I open the door, slip back inside, and silently go to my corner and get my book out with a nonchalant, relaxed air. If she ever approaches me aggressively or hits again, I silently and instantly leave the room again. And I do this as many times as is necessary. I don't get riled, and I might also recognize that her aggression might be because I'm inadvertently trying to rush her or I'm being too intense with eye contact or offers of hugs prematurely, and she is lashing out to prolong, almost protectively, her rage phase. Because she can sense me wanting to rush it to the end! It's almost like she is defending her space to purge. 

The only words I ever allow myself to say to her during the rage phase is the boundary of treating my body kindly (or a boundary where it's clear she is trying to get me to say “no” to purge more emotion). I back this violence limit up instantly with action and remove myself if she winds up for a smack or actually lands a smack. I will not argue or justify or defend myself with her. I silently remove myself for a few seconds, and even that short amount of time is completely sufficient to get the message across: “I'm not angry, but I will NOT EVER be hit. I’m ready to return when you're ready to treat me with respect.”
​
As a side note, she VERY quickly learned to never smack me again using this method. Any waffling or staying nearby after a smack just prolonged the hitting. Hitting is very cathartic to little angry bodies, it feels so good to inflict pain upon the object of your anger when you’re angry! But you have to be firm and confident in the absolute knowing that you don't EVER deserve to be hit, and you don't have to convince anyone to not hit you. Leaving for a few seconds but returning easily and without shaming for such a natural reaction sends a powerful and positive message. After only about 6 meltdowns, she stopped hitting me entirely and now redirects herself to more acceptable alternatives.

Anyway. I sit. My lips are zipped, and I sit on my hands, and I mostly look over towards the corner or read a book, not at her (too intense), and only occasionally glance with warm, soft eyes to her. The name of the game is low intensity. No inviting or questioning her which can be read as pressure or demand or discomfort with how she is processing. I let her flail and thrash and shriek and punch and jump – as long as I am treated well. And eventually… it begins to slow, without me doing anything. It slows and quiets. No emotion can be sustained in the body forever. And eventually, she turns meek… and I stay in the corner, I do not approach, I do not say a single word.

I let HER approach ME. I let her come to me and I may feel it's appropriate to open my arms at that point in a silent offer of a hug. Usually she will crawl into my lap. Tears usually begin to fall; her rage has transitioned to grief. She wanted a thing, and didn't get it. Anger is often a defensive mechanism to protect more vulnerable feelings like sadness and shame. Now that the rage has mostly processed, it's revealed the grief underneath. I rock, do soothing humming, cuddles. And sadness naturally abates under these conditions; you've probably experienced that natural abatement because adults in our culture are a bit more comfortable and natural with sadness processing.

Sometimes we cycle back to rage again, and she leaps out of my lap to go thrash and scream again. I give her space by looking away, and wait for her to approach again and get a snuggle.

Finally, I can feel the air shift. And I test the waters to see if she has truly reached that stage of futility and adaptation, that she has grieved and mourned what she desired and is now in a place where she can let it go and adapt. Now, I can talk again.

I do a low key test first. “You can't have the paci right now.” Typically if I read her right, she will finally respond back with a watery, meek “Okay”. But if she goes into rage again or tries bargaining, I know she hasn't quite gotten to the point of futility and acceptance. But if I get an “okay” with no caveats, I know we’ve finally processed and released a significant chunk of the big frustration feelings. 

Once we get through my first acceptance stage “test”, I test the boundary or situation that originally set her off. “You can't have XYZ (whatever item she wanted originally) right now either.” and I check and make sure this also doesn't set off rage again; because launching prematurely into problem solving when she is still activated and needs to be in purging mode isn't doing either of us any favors. If she can say “Okay” with no caveats to that too, I know we got to the end and she is ready to adapt and problem solve with me. She couldn't before, not when all these feelings were still activated.

But once she can accept both of those thwarting “nos”, she has somatically processed enough to fully reach acceptance at the other end of those biiiig feelings. I know we are ready for the second phase: reconnect (coregulate with my calm nervous system) and problem solve. 

She snuggles in my lap. I give her snuggles and kisses. We talk about what happened, what that feeling was called. I empathize with what she experienced (and be sure to study up on the module that actually explains what empathy is, because you're probably doing it completely wrong like I was!!). I sportscast replay the scene and her experience  with her, and my goal is to get her to say “yes, that's it exactly, mom!” to every sentence I say. That's it! That's empathy. She feels completely seen and understood and therefore like her emotions are normal and accepted and I have no judgement about them or her expression. I can feel her little body get more and more relaxed with each empathetic sentence. My mom gets it. She gets me. I am understood and seen and loved. I am ok. 

And finally, we chat about what we could try next time instead when something similar happens. At this point, she is usually eager and willing to engage in this and has lots of ideas and is open to mine. We make a plan. (But it’s ok if the plan doesn't work next time, since meltdowns are no big deal!)

When she is ready, I give her one last snuggle. I usually now let her use the paci for a few minutes as we snuggle. We both feel the big crushing wave of emotion was fully and completely resolved, catharsis and release was achieved, adaptation and problem solving during a calmed brain state happened, and our connection is rebuilt and rock solid. We leave the room; she is happy as a clam and I feel amazing because I just experienced, again, the amazing transformation that happens with even the strongest most intense emotions, if you just leave them be! If you are a kind and accepting witness to them instead of feeling like you have to control or guide or redirect the expression of it. You can let your wise child do this hard work, and let the meltdown do the work it is naturally meant to do. You help her by simply being a steady rock and guide her back to fully, FULLY feeling the emotion all the way through, so she can finally truly, deeply move on when she experiences healing acceptance from a trusted loving person. It is really profound to witness and participate as this happens.

During calm or silly moments, completely unconnected to her meltdowns, I might show her and practice some ways to get emotion out. We might be playing in the living room and I might pull a cushion over and say “hey, did you know you can scream into a pillow if you ever get angry? Like this!!” And I'll show her and make it kinda fun and silly. Then we take turns and maybe I'll show her how to punch a pillow. Maybe I'll make a grumpy face and say “wow, when I'm grumpy it feels so good to kick and stomp on this pillow–like this!!” And then I show her and then let my face become happy and relaxed again. But I cannot, ever (!) attempt to show or redirect her to do these things when her emotions are actually activated in real life. Once these emotions are activated, she cannot process your words and your good-intentioned efforts to redirect are just experienced as “my parent is uncomfortable/unhappy with what I'm doing and wants to change me”. So it only works to show these anger methods in silly, low tension moments, and cross your fingers that she will pick up on it a tiny bit over time. But also, you can trust that your child is actually somatically wiser than you are; you have had decades of being socialized out of your body’s natural ways of releasing emotions, but your child still has the instincts to follow their unique effective release mechanisms. 

I want to warn you, we had a period of about 2-3 weeks of INCREASED meltdowns when I started doing this. But I felt the correctness of this process so strongly in my body, I didn't waver. Instead, it felt like now that I had finally gotten my shit together and figured out how to allow frustrated feelings, all her accumulated feelings and gunk that for YEARS I had squashed and minimized because of my own discomfort were now flooding out of her in a rush, now that it was safe. And then boom, 3 weeks after my first competent handling of a meltdown, it suddenly stopped. Completely. No more meltdowns. Instead we had small spurts of minor frustration, or minor upticks during periods of brain development, where now the meltdowns feel properly contained to the present moment.

And with those small, contained spurts, she often could almost do the steps herself. A few times she brought herself to the bedroom for a few minutes, I heard her stomp her feet a bit, and then she walked back to whatever was frustrating her and she changed tactics. With only a few months of “practice” with me, she had developed the basic brain blueprint for navigating from frustration to adaptation and calm, and for simple scenarios, she could follow it herself.

All I had to do was get out of her way.

​

​I've just wrapped up a Clean Parenting group and the wonderful Areej who participated in it and who's an incredibly wise attuned mama and beautiful writer (much better than me!) offered to write this article for me.​

I love how beautifully she captures my teachings and their practical impact in a family's daily life and relationships, and the alive way she describes what the Family Homeostasis which is my goal for families feels like. 

"​I remember hearing Eliane joke in the past about the title of her book. She joked that she would title it “They’re people too, damn it!!”

As funny as this is, it saddens me to say that before I did the Clean Parenting Program (CPP) I wasn’t treating my baby girl like she was her own person - and I genuinely thought I WAS! Only after doing the deep inner work, module by module, cleaning up my baggage and old (debilitating) conditioning, could I really look in the mirror and see that the values I held weren’t being played out in real life. Because of this painful truth, my own behaviour was holding me back from the joy and peace I was so aching for in my family dynamic.

I don’t know where I would be today if it wasn’t for the CPP and Eliane’s guidance throughout these months. I so wish every parent would do this work, because I know just how much it would change their lives. I’m almost certain that each of us will have different takeaways, so I want to share with you what my favourite takeaways from the program are and how they have forever altered my relationship with my daughter, who arrived cannonballing, roaring and splashing into our lives.

 
1. Empathy
 
This was an absolute game-changer for me. Once I REALLY started to put myself in her shoes - and I mean Every. Single. Time. - that’s when the world opened up for us. She would get so angry and cry because the seams of her socks would bother her little feet. She would get hair in her face and would yell “HAIR” as she attempted to comb it back while growling and shivering with rage (mind you she wouldn’t even let me tie it up!) Instead of being frustrated and labeling her as “impatient” or “hyper sensitive” I began sitting with her through every single frustration and really empathizing with her. I would look at her with love and compassion and would tell her things like “That’s so annoying” or “Let’s flip the sock around, maybe that could help”. Little by little, she calmed as she felt heard and seen. Little by little, her anger subsided as we sat down, put our minds together and found solutions to her discomfort. Day by day and hand-in-hand, we learned how to honour her sensitivities, her intensity and her list of needs that came with it. It gives me goosebumps looking back and seeing how far we’ve come.
​

 it. Once I embodied it, not only did it change the dynamic with Amina, making it so much smoother, but I could also translate the situation for my husband to see her clearer and be more compassionate towards her and her experiences. I now say things like “She’s very excited right now”, “she wants to help and doesn’t know how” or “that was difficult for her to do and she’s transitioning back to the moment” -  he sometimes even thanks me for the translation! ​

4. Non-negotiables vs. Preferences
 
Practicing and refining this, writing it down, dissecting it and more, made everything so crystal clear! As the program progressed, I saw that I didn’t have as many non-negotiables as I expected! I was treating preferences like NN’s and getting unnecessarily frustrated with my little one who was just trying to comprehend the world around her. I really didn’t mind that she climbed up on stools, tables and did things that others deemed inappropriate. This allowed me to really “pick my battles”, for lack of better words - and in choosing what was truly worth speaking up for, there was so much less tension and arguing between us. Some things are just not worth it! When they ARE, she trusts that I am sharing this for a reason. And when they are, I have all the strength in the world to implement it, because I know what’s true for me, what doesn’t sit right, and what I have no problem letting go of.
 
 
5. Setting Boundaries
 
Boy was this a hard one to do! Living in a society that doesn’t honour children’s emotions or needs left me living at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. Learning about the Window of Tolerance, the wall of futility as well as seeing my conditioned fears and unhealed childhood wounds allowed me to feel not only like I deserved to set my boundaries but also that I knew where the lines were to be drawn - I couldn’t see it clearly before! It was so relieving to be able to look at what wasn’t serving me, what I wasn’t comfortable with and actually speak up about it. Amina took it like a champ, honouring my needs as I asked her to cooperate, respecting my boundaries even though it was tough for her at times to do so.
 
 
6. Seeing Clearly
 
I started the course with a specific vision and intention for my family. In the end, I looked back and saw how unrealistic (and almost harsh) I was being with myself. I conjured up this fairytale story in my head of what I wanted for my family without really considering who we are as individuals and who we are as a family. We’re all HSP’s and we have a Dragonborn for a daughter. She hasn’t breathed fire yet, but she’s well on her way. Seeing each of my family members individually and as a whole clearly, really lifted a weight off my shoulders. I was being unrealistic and unfair to us. Once that was cleared up, I could finally appreciate everything we had, who we were and what was available to us and then created a new intention that supports us in this journey of life.
 
 
7. Finding my inner CBL
 
I’m definitely still working on this but discovering my inner Clear Benevolent Leader makes me feel like I have a hidden super power I never knew I had. I had to practice and find the right tone of voice, the right intention and set the boundary that was true to me all before I was able to rip my shirt open and see the letters CBL (in big & bold) engraved across my chest and embedded into my bones. There IS resistance sometimes, because she wants to go in a different direction, but ultimately, there is an underlying sense of peace in knowing someone benevolent is in charge, steering the ship and handling the crew on deck. Thinking about this even gives me a special feeling of safety and I want to melt into the PHEW!
 
 
8. Nurturing her autonomy
 
It was so incredibly difficult for me to not help her while she was cooking eggs, getting dressed or doing chores - especially when she would get impatient! When she asks, of course I help her, but that need to make things go “smoother, faster or more efficient” used to override me and it took all my energy to keep my hands pinned behind my back and my mouth shut until guidance was necessary. It is way easier today than it was before the course started. Now, she washes dishes alone, sometimes I just need to dry them off. She takes out the recycling, cleans up the toys on the floor in preparation for a vacuum - it makes me heart soar to see her participate in her environment and be part of this team!
 
 
9. Trust
 
There’s a newfound trust between us that is something I never expected or imagined I would feel. I believe in her goodness with all my heart, in her desire to be part of this team. She believes I want the best for her and knows I will be there for her whenever she needs. I can FEEL this with every little bit of my being and it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever experienced in my lifetime. Just for this and this alone, the program will continue to give, because this is the feeling that I understand more than ever in the entire course. This is what will most anchor me down when I feel lost, when we lose balance and when we need to find our way back to family homeostasis. This trust is the window back to my foundation and to everything I’ve learned in the course.
 
 
10. Being birthed anew
 
The CPP woke me from a deep slumber and with Eliane, walked me ever-so-lovingly, back to myself. Coming home to myself has allowed me to tear down this self-image I’ve built over the years. This image built through conditioned fears, behaviours and more. I discovered my inner truth, my authentic self and as I continue to unravel these encasings, my relationship with my daughter gets deeper and more intimate. As I shed layer after layer, she sinks deeper and deeper into herself and blossoms into the fire-breathing dragon she was born to be. I’m reminded of a quote from the book The Blind Spot by Kelly Boys:
 
“But if I’m undefended yet compassionate, and truthful with clear boundaries, there isn’t anything in it for the “me” that is my idealized self-image. And ironically, I get a lot more out of the interaction when I approach it in this way, with vulnerability and clarity. Only when we have hacked all the way through it and gleaned insight about why a behaviour isn’t working and hurts us do we become free.”

 
The course has ended, but the teachings remain and will continue to do so. Parenthood is a journey and the richness of our relationships with our children is an endless pursuit. In the words of Dr. Shefali Tsabary (that continue to echo in my ears from Module 1):
 
“We need to sit up, pay attention and raise our children differently”

 
The CPP gave me all the foundations I needed to make this a reality -  for that I am and will be forever grateful."
 
Areej El-Heloueh, with Amina 2 1/2, Montreal Canada
​

​How does reading Areej's experience and insights land for you? 

Are you feeling inspired by it? 

Can you see what you could tweak in your parenting to make your life more harmonious, what might be missing in your parenting?

Would you like to be able to tell your own similar story by summer time? Are you wondering if this could possibly work for you as well?

If you deeply resonate with what I talk about in my work and Areej describes here, you most likely WILL be able to write your own heartwarming story to inspire my readers in a few months!

IF you're willing to put in the same work Areej did. 

It is very intensive work. It takes your willingness to dive deep for 3 months and invest lots of time and some money.

But it is way more work to parent without the kind of clarity, alignment, connection and skills that come from clean parenting!

And the results from this work!! You and your children and generations to come will experience its benefits in ways you can't even yet fathom. The ripples from it are endless.

You do NOT have to struggle through parenting. There is a path out of that struggle and to the ease, flow and harmony described in today's stories.

Reply to this email if you too would like my help in achieving it (I have a Clean Parenting group that just started and is waiting for you if your time is now!) I would love me to guide you to YOUR family's harmony, as I have Areej and hundreds of parents in the 35 times I've run this program.

I really REALLY hope that you get from these mama stories I share that parenting does NOT have to be hard! 

And that you commit yourself to achieving the ease that is possible, whatever your path to it may be.

You and your children deserve that. 

Lots of love,

​
If you want my help in achieving what Areej described above, in attaining the ease, flow and harmony I call Family Homeostasis, I would LOVE to work with you! ♥

Please fill out this questionnaire and the sign up form below and I'll contact you to set up a time to chat to determine the best way to get you there.

I have a Clean Parenting group that just got started and in which I still have a few spots, and I'd love to have you join us if this work is right for you! 

Read this wonderful account of one mom's experience with Continuum Concept parenting. (If you're not familiar with this book and want to learn more about it, click here.)

She originally posted it in a Continuum Concept forum and gave me permission to publish it here. 

I want to share it far and wide because I so want parents to know what's possible when we parent in alignment with children's nature, owning our role as a parent but doing so respectfully, as many tribal societies have done for millennia!

As I tell you over and over, parenting CAN be easy. With the right approach, the right attitude and a little bit of skill.

But don't believe me. Believe Laura. ☺

"My name is Laura Fraticelli and I wrote for a long time in this forum. My son Dario is 11 now and when he was younger this forum supported me in so many ways. I am so extremely grateful for it.

So now, I would love in some way to give back all the connection, inspiration, love and support I got.

For the ones that have young kids I would love you to know that for me raising a child in the continuum way, has been the best “investment” ever that I have done.

When my son was born, I was teaching guitar in a school. I was supposed to go back teaching after 4 months but as I couldn’t leave him more than 30 mins alone, as he would cry really desperately, I couldn’t leave him not even with his father. So I decided to stop teaching and became the manager of the guitar duo we had with the father of my son.

I felt that I could give up teaching but not playing concerts. So, since he was 6 months, I would bring Dario to the concert with a babysitter he knew, nurse him till I would go on the stage for 20 mins, then there was a break and I would nurse him again in my concert dress (that was a bit tricky sometimes ;), and I would play another 20 mins.

When he was 1.5, we got our first USA tour and now I got very worried as we had to get new babysitters every concert we went. So, I contacted Eliane Sainte-Marie of Parenting for Wholeness for a session. 

She was truly amazing. She didn’t make me feel bad in any way that I had to leave my son with somebody he didn’t know. And she had an amazing plan for me!

She told me that I could create the same routine for every concert so he will feel safe with the routine even if the person taking care of him was different.

So, every concert we brought Dario to the venue and we would ask the babysitter to come one hour earlier and we would buy him pizza and he would watch Dora! And that really worked! It was really amazing.

Also, really connecting with Eliane’s work made me understand so deeply that Dario was going to feel whatever I was feeling so if I would align with the travelling, he would feel happy too.

This together with talking once with Scott Noelle and asking him: "Do you think I am selfish that I take him everywhere with us?" And he replied: “No! He will be a citizen of the world”!!

We started travelling all over the world. His father didn’t drive so I drove, nursed and played the concerts too. Dario would sleep, and breastfeed in trains, airplanes, restaurants, bars, guitar festivals. And he adored to travel (still does!)

Because, I completely aligned with this life and the continuum way, knowing that it was a wonderful thing for him, everything flowed. He would go to bed late but then fall asleep at the right time in the car, we didn’t have any routines, but everything flowed and worked out so well.

And the other thing that made this life possible is that I studied the work of Eliane so in detail and did the Clean Parenting Program with her.

Before doing her program if Dario would want something, he would shout so loud that me and his dad just gave it to him, so he would stop shouting…

But after Eliane, I learned to be a benevolent leader and be so clear so Dario “behaved” always so well, but also because I learned to be really on his team.

For me the most, most important thing was that his sense of self stay as intact as possible. So, if I would have to correct him about something I always did it in a way without making him bad with himself.

​And I really believe that this is why he “behaved” so well.

For example, when he was around 3,5 we stayed in a very posh house in Florida with a private beach, etc. The house was full of very, very expensive art, that Dario could reach but he could really understand what was expected from him.

Many times, we were hosted by the concert organizers who were very conservative and also had delicate rich houses and Dario behaved like a gentleman. Sometimes we stayed with friends’ musicians who swore and were rough and Dario would become wild and funny and adapt to their energy.

We had sooo much fun travelling, and he got to know so many places and interact with sooo many people.

I would literally be in a guitar festival at 2 am in the morning chatting with people (without drinking,) wearing Dario while he was sleeping and people would come and say to me: "Wow! I didn’t know you could do this with a baby.”

And in 8 years of travelling, as I was so aligned with it, not once somebody said any negative comment (also about breastfeeding,) the opposite! Everybody adored that we were coming with a kid, and loved to see what is possible. 

But at the same time, he is super creative and free. Now he is 11 and he does soooo many interesting things. He plays piano, bass and sings in a band in the school. He plays football 5 times a week, he is making his own movies and he also ever wants to do courses together with me from MindValley! Like the Silva Method and Superbrain (a course about learning fast). 

Every day, many times a day I am so immensely grateful that I got to be his mum. 

I feel so grateful, that I found the Continuum Concept book and this amazing community. 

And if you have a little baby, I want to give you all the inspiration to keep being close to her/him. Because I can promise you that raising a kid in this way is the best investment you could ever do for the child and for yourself. Sometimes it can feel like it takes so much time but I can ensure you that in the long run you are even saving time! 

And I wanted to share my favourite article from Eliane and if you still don’t know her work I highly recommend you read her amazing articles and find out about her course. It made my parenting so easy and joyful. 
​
I send you lots of love."

Laura Fraticelli, Argentina​

I was incredibly touched this past month by an exchange that happened in a Continuum Concept forum. 

(If you're not familiar with this book and want to learn more about it, click here.)

It was started by a mom in my current Clean Parenting group (she was a third of the way through the program at that point,) and then 2 moms who did my program 3 and 6 years ago jumped in with their own experiences.

 
Hello everyone!  

I hope you’ve all been having a colourful and cozy start to the fall season, and if you’re elsewhere in the world, I hope your days are just as lovely. :)
 
I’m writing to you today because I would love to share a special joy I’ve recently been experiencing. After 2 years and a few months of a very difficult start with my highly spirited daughter, Amina, I finally feel like I’ve found a peace and balance with her. I’m more hopeful for my relationship with her and my future kids. Just thinking of my future kids at this moment makes me so eager to imagine her taking on her role as a big sister. A few months ago, this thought made me very anxious and sad.
To give you some context, she’s extremely sensitive and very intense. She feels every emotion of mine before I even realize I’m feeling anything. Her physical activity needs are beyond what I ever imagined so our tiny living room is now an indoor jungle gym, equipped with a mini trampoline, stall bars, swings, ropes and she GOES! Very practical for rainy days in Quebec!
 
She has a LOT of energy to release. She loves screaming, singing, talking, jumping, hugging and tickling. I wish they started kids in Brazilian jui jitsu at 2 years old because that’s where I think she’d shine and I believe she’s ready to start. My little fireball. It’s wonderful and exhausting and it used to be an absolute rollercoaster. And I didn’t know how to deal day in and day out!

Yet, over the last two months there’s been a palpable difference in my relationship with beans (that’s Aminas nickname :) ) including the relationship with my husband! It’s so refreshing. And now when I feel myself losing my patience, getting frustrated or resentful I try to see them as red flags and get curious about them, rather than flat out rejecting or resisting them. I simply can’t afford to let things fester anymore when I know how much they have affected my health and my family in turn.
I remember SK {forum member} once mentioned working with Eliane Sainte-Marie through the Clean Parenting Program and that’s exactly what I’m doing! Thank you for the extra nudge SK. :)
 
The atmosphere at home has been so much calmer and although not without issues, it’s so much more fun to live and be together today than it was just 2 months ago. My husband joked that he got a new daughter and a new wife! Even the communication between him and I has improved a lot. I shared my intention/vision for my family with him (something we do at the start of the program) and we’ve been able to have more productive conversations since then.

Before the program started, I wouldn’t even try to make things better. I would just get angry and not even attempt to find solutions. I wasn’t raised in a place where my needs mattered so I didn’t know how to ask for what I needed (still working on it). Now that I have space to see this behaviour, I can see how heavily it was weighing down on me and naturally my family. There are solutions to be found, win-wins, (one big part of the program is learning how to find win-wins)! And yes, my needs do matter if I want to contribute my best self forward. How can I be my best self if my needs are not being met? I only came to this realization very recently after a lot of deep (and often uncomfortable) work, some of which was done in private sessions with Eliane. Thinking about my self worth just 2 months ago brings me to tears as I write this now, just remembering what it was like.

I feel like I’m melting into my role as a mother. I knew theoretically and factually that I am a mom, going through the motions, doing what had to be done in the best way I knew how. Yet for some reason I wasn’t seeing, feeling or embodying (I think that’s one of my biggest takeaways from the program) my role as a mother, parent or leader. I was just coasting and trying to make it work. There’s something different now. Instead of resentment, there’s an embrace. When I drop her at daycare, I’m hesitant to leave her and I’m giddy on the way to pick her up.

The program and the direct connection with Eliane has shifted something so deeply within me and my family. I’m feeling such gratitude to Eliane every day. I know there’s so much more work to be done and it hasn’t been easy but the results are giving me a breath of air and a nudge and a half. Like Eliane always says, it’s simple but it’s not easy. That’s how I keep feeling.
 
I wanted to share some links below if this resonates with anyone here, or you think someone else might benefit from it. I know there’s a program starting soon so I hope by sharing this information, someone may find the same peace, guidance and healing that I have.
 
Much love to all,
Areej
Daughter 2 years
Montreal, Canada
​
Continuum Concept Interview by Geralyn Gendreau
Applying the Continuum Concept Parenting Philosophy to Modern Day Parenting ​

​Hi Areej,

I haven't written in this forum for a long time but when I saw your post I felt so touched as I had also an amazing transformational experience doing the Clean Parenting Program with Eliane Sainte-Marie.

My son Dario is 11 years old now and many, many times I told him and I still tell him that he would have been such a different child if I wouldn't have met Eliane!

It was the best investment I have ever made to have raised him the continuum concept way and really studying in depth Eliane's teachings.

I am so immensely grateful to have found her work. Before I met her, like it happened to many respectful parents, I wanted to be so nice and respectful to my son that I didn't realize that at a certain age the child's needs become preferences. So when my son was around 2 - 2,5, it felt literally like he was a little tyrant, when he wanted something and he couldn't have it, he would shout sooooo loud that me and his dad couldn't take it so we made the mistake to give him whatever he wanted just so he would stop shouting!...

So of course, when I started reading Eliane's blogs I started to realise that we were literally teaching him to shout...

From Eliane's work I learned how to be a benevolent leader and be very clear with my energy.

I learned to hold space for him and allow him to express his emotions but without allowing behaviour that I didn't find acceptable.

And my life became SOOOOO much easier. Before I lived so stressed out not knowing when he was going to start shouting again, I felt a bit literally scared of his behaviour. My life was so complicated as I would plan my day according to what he suddenly was demanding! So I was stressed as I didn't know what he was going to come up with... not being myself the leader at all...

After the course, I could be very clear to him. I learned that when he asked me something I had to decide very quickly if it was Yes or No and then stick to it. And he responded so fast to my change.

I could plan my day and what I thought it was best to do, while of course also taking into account what he wanted to do, but I could really be the leader, so my son got calmer and calmer.

When I learned to be very clear his shouting got less and less. And it was so interesting because his dad had a harder time being a leader so if he would ask for an ice cream and I was alone and said no, he would stop asking for it, but if his dad was around even if I said no, even if he would not say anything my son will keep asking for it because he could literally feel the doubt in him.

Another thing that I turned around completely doing the course, was to take care also about my needs. Before, I would always put my son's needs first until I ended up exhausted and burned out. And Eliane taught me to take into account my needs too, to be really authentic with my son. Because I thought I was doing him a favor by always putting him first, but the opposite was true. Then I learned that the best I could do is to give him an example of how to stay in balance by taking care of myself.

So even when he was very young, I would explain to him that I needed to meditate and he would leave me to be quiet by myself. So he also learned to do that with friends. If they would stay for many hours he would say to them "I need to play a bit alone for a while so I can be balanced again,"

And now he is 11 and I am so immensely proud of the child he became. He is so creative, confident, he cares so much about other people, he always behaves super well, he is really, really honest. Most of the time he is with me as his dad is travelling and he really helps me around in the house, he really takes into account my needs too, even at this age!

And on top of all these things (and many more) which I got from the course, I grew immensely as a person.

 came so in contact with my own Inner Child, I learned to hold space for my own little girl every time I got triggered and this transformed and healed me so deeply and it started a deep journey to find my authentic self.

Now, not only is my son authentic and really connected to himself but I am too. There is so much power when somebody is there for us holding space and unconditional love, and this is what Eliane did for us during those weeks in the program, like you said Areej. I highly recommend it too. It is so, so worthwhile.

hank you for writing your post, I hope this helps lots of other families too.

And I love this forum so much! I would write more often! All the best to all of you,

Laura Fraticelli
Dario 11 years old
The Hague, The Netherlands
 

Hi Laura,

Thank you for sharing your experience. I was so touched and had goosebumps the whole way through. I had tears in my eyes because I totally resonate with what you’re saying. There’s a special magic when you can connect with your child in a real authentic way. To WANT to be around each other (something I don’t see a lot in the families I’ve known in real life and it makes me sad.)

’m so glad you were able to connect with Eliane and that your relationship with Dario (love his name btw) is loving and harmonious even until today. I think that’s the beauty of the program. Like there’s no one size fits all, what to do when… it’s really about cleaning up our baggage so we can parent from our instincts. This is so incredibly valuable.

It’s so awesome that you worked on being a clear benevolent leader and cleared your energy around that. I’m still working hard to find that clear leader in me. To be clear also about the non- négociables Vs preferences and then having realistic expectations. There’s so much work to be cleaned up in my old conditioning but I’m so committed to this, especially with the results I’ve already had.

I totally get how Dario responded fast to your changes. I couldn’t believe how fast Amina did too! It’s so cool that he can already ask for space and balance when he needs it! That’s so beautiful. He sounds like a wonderful little man. :)

YES! The inner child pain came up a lot for me too. Realizing I need to take care of my inner child, facing the mother I have vs the mother I thought or hoped to have. It was such powerful work. So much came up that I never imagined. I had a lot of baggage. A lot of healing. And while it will never end, Eliane’s been guiding and nudging me in all the right directions.

You say it perfectly when you talk about someone holding space for you to process emotions. I didn’t realise how much deeper I could go with the right kind of support.

So touched to read your experience. Thank you again for sharing.

Much love to you and to the group!

Areej
​Daughter, Amina 2 yr 3m

​Dear Areej and Laura,

I wanted to follow on from your glowing emails about Eliane's Clean Parenting Programme. It was so great to read how much she has helped you both! I have taken a while to respond because we've just welcomed our second child to our family. Something happened last night with our first daughter that made me feel even more passionate about replying here and adding my praise for the CPP. I really hope some other readers will be able to experience the life changing nature of this course!

Although I did the course when my first daughter was 18 months old, and she is now 4.5 years old, it still is having such long lasting effects on our whole family. In fact I'm certain I wouldn't have been able to have another child just yet without the course - particularly without the inner work that I then went on to do as a result of doing the course and realising how much anxiety, past trauma and stress I was living with which was negatively affecting my life (in a huge way).

Last night, our first daughter was having a really hard time with my husband. I was feeding our baby Willa (an almost constant job at the moment) and he was trying to get Ottilie to sleep. She was really tired but just would not settle, was so angry, was pushing him away, saying everything is wrong, even shouting and screaming at him. This is very unlike her. I felt exhausted and out of resources, I felt like I didn't have the capacity to meet her where she was but there was something tugging at me that knew that I needed to step in because I could see what she was going through (thanks to the CPP - it's like it gave me a new set of eyes that can really SEE what she's experiencing, from her point of view, which in turn helps me to access deep empathy even when I'm out of energy/lacking capacity). So I brought baby into the bedroom with me, carried on nursing her, but also helped my oldest daughter reach her wall of futility (another term I learnt thanks to Eliane - probably one of THE most useful and life changing terms I have ever learnt!), which in turn led to her going from 'mad to sad', which meant she let me curl up with her in bed (having been hitting and screaming 'go away' beforehand) and really try to tune into what was going on. I said to her "do you miss our old life?" and she just broke down into huge sobs - yes, this was it. I let her cry, I hugged her, I told her that sometimes I also miss our old life too, life before her little sister came, because it is really intense at the moment, these early days with a new sibling. And I also told her how much I love my big sister, how incredible it has been having a sister all my life, and how all of that is to come for her and Willa. We really really connected. For the first time since Willa's birth 2 weeks ago. And she curled up in my arms and fell asleep, and since then has been SO much more 'herself' and seems to have had a weight lifted off her shoulders. Without the course, I would have been so worried if Ottilie had said anything like "I don't want a baby sister anymore" - I would have panicked! How to respond to that?! How can I take away that pain for her? But I would probably also have felt cross at her for daring to feel that way, etc etc. These were all learnt behaviours from my childhood, but now I just know that it's all ok. Anything she's feeling is welcome, and in this instance I was able to talk to her about how it's possible and ok and normal to feel like she misses our old life AND that she loves her sister - it's confusing, but it's natural to feel both things. To let her know that what she is feeling is welcome, isn't bad, and isn't a major disaster is just such a huge blessing after the childhood I had where I felt that any negative feeling was to be avoided.

​I really wouldn't have been able to do any of this without Eliane's programme. And I'm so excited to experience life with a newborn from the perspective Eliane has given me. It's so much more than a 'how to' parenting course - it's more like a deep dive into human nature, touching on relationships, trauma healing and topics like empathy and family homeostasis.

If anyone is hesitating, I really couldn't recommend it anymore highly, and same to her one to one coaching sessions too!

Best wishes to you all,

Alice UK
With Ottilie (4.5) and Willa (2 weeks) and my husband Alex

​Hello everyone,

Alice, congratulations on welcoming baby Willa into the world! What a magical and cataclysmic time this must be for you. I love how your experience with the program allowed you to process that situation with your daughter. I'm also learning through the program that being authentic and letting emotions be there without trying to resist them can create such healing and deep connection. I resisted pain for so long but I know it has much to teach. I’m so glad for you that you can be there for your daughter from a clean authentic place.

Thank you for sharing your experiences with CPP Laura and Alice. I’m only halfway through the program and reaping the benefits so much. Seeing that you guys are still reaping the benefits gives me even more hope for the future. May your families (and everyone’s here) continue to thrive and be harmonious.

Eliane, I love the idea of having a “parents” stories section! What a great opportunity for the community to be able to get to know each other more and learn from one another. Thank you all for this beautiful thread.

​Areej

Did you love reading these stories? 

Are you feeling inspired by them? 
Want to be able to tell your own similar story next year? 
Wondering if this could possibly work for you as well?

If you deeply resonate with what I talk about in my work, you most likely WILL be able to write your own heartwarming story to inspire my readers in a few months!

IF you're willing to put in the same work Areej, Alice and Laura did. 

It is very intensive work. It takes your willingness to dive deep for 3 months and invest lots of time and some money.

But it is way more work to parent without the kind of clarity, alignment, connection and skills that come from clean parenting!

And the results from this work!! You and your children and generations to come will experience its benefits in ways you can't even yet fathom. The ripples from it are endless.

You do NOT have to struggle through parenting. There is a path out of that struggle and to the ease, flow and harmony described in today's stories.
​
Fill out the form below if you too would like my help in achieving it. I would love to guide you to YOUR family's harmony, as I have these 3 amazing moms.

I really REALLY hope that you got from these stories that parenting does NOT have to be hard! 

And that you commit yourself to achieving the ease that is possible, whatever your path to it may be. 

You and your children deserve that. ♥ 

Lots of love,

​If you want my help in applying the Continuum Concept parenting ideals in your family and in experiencing what Laura, Alice and Areej have,  fill out this questionnaire and the sign up form below, and we'll set up a time to chat to determine the best way to get you there.

I'd LOVE to work with you if we're a good fit! ♥
​

As you may know, one of my goals when I work with parents is to end all parenting struggles and to get to a place where the vast majority of the time, as it was for me, parenting becomes straight up EASY. 

So they can enjoy their children and their lives with them, instead of parenting.

To help them achieve what I've come to call Family Homeostasis, which I wish every parent knew is possible and is accessible through the right approach and with the proper support in getting there.

This happens in my work with parents not through me teaching them any techniques or providing them any tools, but by:

• helping them access a deep connection with themselves.
• helping them access their truth, their values and their inner guidance, and their ability to live in accordance to them.
• helping them live from a place of deep connection to their children so they really KNOW them, understand them, understand what's motivating their behaviors and what's alive in them when they're behaving in undesirable ways, a place from which they can then provide them the proper support needed in each moment.
• guiding them in clearing what's in their way of being fully present to the child, to the moment and to the situation (free of triggers and conditioning) so they have access to their inner guidance and to what can be experienced as the support of Life, the Universe, God's guidance, universal intelligence, intuition, etc.

 
Only from that place can parents have access to exactly what is called for in the moment, what, if I remember correctly, Buddhists calls 'right action.'
 
We just had our last Clean Parenting call in my current group yesterday, and the sense of ease and wonder  about that ease was palpable.
 
Most of the moms' faces were beaming, their bodies relaxed, knowing that they were in a great place in their parenting, seeing all the possibilities ahead, KNOWING that their children were going to be okay and that things were only going to keep getting better for them and their families.
 
Because they are now solidly connected to themselves and the truth for their family, and know how to fully connect to and meet their children's needs.
 
There are A LOT of things we worked on in the past two months that supported them and guided them in reaching this place.

But there is one powerful and very simple way of accessing that pure place, which you can start practicing TODAY!

It is a simple shift of attitude which can make a world of difference in your interactions with your children, and in their response to you: 

MAKE IT A HABIT TO LOOK AT SITUATIONS THROUGH YOUR CHILDREN'S EYES.

Do you ever stop and wonder what life and situations feel like from your children's perspective?
 
Making a habit of doing so is a powerful way to:

• easily have empathy for them
• be on their team
• have them trust you because they feel understood and that they matter and
• be able to come with solutions or strategies that will work for them

 
All of which are important clean parenting principles.
 
Here's an exercise I suggest you do (which is part of one of the early modules in my Clean Parenting program:)
 
Take a few minutes to look at each of your children's lives from THEIR perspective.

• Imagine what it's like to be their height: for example, to be a 2 year old and only see people's knees, and have nothing at your height level.
• Imagine what it's like to not know what's going on during the day, and just be told your next activity at the last minute.
• Imagine what it's like not to be able to meet your own needs.
• Imagine what it's like to live in a society where children are considered inferior beings, with limited rights.
• To live in a world where no one outside of your family talks to you like an equal person, but talks to your parents instead.
• To maybe have a baby or toddler in the house who just grabs whatever they see, without concern for who was using it or who it belongs to.
• To excitedly want to share something that just happened to them and be met with a tired and maybe even irritated 'what?' from their parent when you call them.
• To be left in a room alone at night, when you feel most vulnerable.
• To be left with a stranger at preschool when you've always been cared for by your parents who you feel connected and safe with.

 
These are just a few ideas to help you start looking at life through your child's eyes.
 
Think about the unfolding of their day.
 
Regular situations they encounter, and that you experience as struggles.
 
If you have multiple children, do this exercise with one child at a time.
 
And whenever you're about to approach a situation that you think could be a struggle or lead to disconnection, take a moment first to also see it from your child's eyes.
 
If you can get in the habit of automatically looking at what's going on from your children's perspective and looking for win-win's so everyone's needs can be met or at least have real empathy for your children when they can't get what they'd prefer, you'll be well on your way to also getting to a place where parenting can become straight up easy.
 
If you want help in making clean parenting a reality in your family, to experience the ease I promise you is possible in parenting, to truly enjoy your children and be the parent you long to be, and to insure that you raise whole children, I invite you to join my next Clean Parenting group!
 
I'd LOVE to have you join us if while reading this, your heart is communicating to you through an aliveness, stirring or maybe even fear, that this is right for you.
 
Imagine how different your life will feel if in just a few months you too are able to say what loads of former program participants (and these experiences ARE typical if I tell you the program's right for you when we meet) describe on the program page!
 
Just fill out this questionnaire and the sign up form below, and we'll set up a time to chat to determine if this program is right for you. I'd LOVE to work with you if it is!
 
And I hope you make a point, today and from now on, to take the time to look at what's happening in your family through your children's eyes.
 
With much love,

I'm currently working with a wonderful woman who had started my Clean Parenting program in 2018 but was unable to complete it due to extreme circumstances.

And I find myself so grateful that she's doing my program now instead of 3 years ago!

Because I didn't then have the experience and knowledge necessary to skillfully support her in the unique challenges she faces.

I have learned A TON through the 27 Clean Parenting groups I've run over the last 7 years, as well as through my own journey of healing from C-PTSD and narcissistic abuse.

As a result, through the journey of my program, I'm now able to help parents with issues that go far beyond their parenting.

Which is wonderful!!

Deeply rewarding for me (and makes all the shit I've been through worth it!) and impactful for participants.

There are many concepts and phenomena I've learned about since starting Parenting for Wholeness, many of which I've integrated in the program, which are highly beneficial in terms of understanding and supporting children as well as parents.

Things like: 

• Really understanding the importance of a healthy sense of self and of feeling deeply safe. And what it takes to create this.

• Understanding the importance of boundaries and how to set them.

• Understanding the functioning of the nervous system and how to heal and regulate it.

• What the Window of Tolerance is, how to live within it and the importance of creating a life which allows us to do so.  

• The importance of hitting and fully processing feelings of futility (or mourning.)

• An understanding (to various degrees) of conditions like C-PTSD (that one I'm an expert in because I have it!), PTSD, attachment disorder, CEN, ADHD. ASD, sensory processing, etc.

But I want to talk today about 3 types of childhood traumas, plus one condition, which I've found many (actually most) of the moms who choose to participate in my Clean Parenting program have experienced, and interfere with their ability to function properly, thrive, be the parents they wish to be and which often block access to their most important parenting tool: their inner guidance.


     1. The first one is the obvious one: physical or blatant emotional abuse.

This often includes children of alcoholics or mentally ill parents.

This type of abuse and trauma are well documented and commonly understood, so in many ways the easiest to make sense of.
​

Over the years, I've come to the clarity that there are two primary things children need in order to develop as healthy whole human beings which are rarely focused on in our society and which are what the bulk of my work is intended to create: feeling emotionally safe and developing a healthy sense of self.

(I cover this in my audio 'Creating a Sense of Safety in Children and Helping Them Build a Healthy Sense of Self.')
I've been talking extensively about the importance of supporting children in developing a healthy sense of self ever since starting Parenting for Wholeness.

And claimed for years that it was the most important thing for parents to focus on.

Though all my work was inherently designed to create a relationship with children and a life in which they'd feel safe, I've only started directly talking about it and prioritizing it in recent years after I realized through my healing work the extent to which I NEVER felt safe!

The topic of safety is one I've become passionate about and on which I keep gaining ever deepening levels of understanding as I continue my journey in healing my complex PTSD which is the result of the damaging way I was parented.

I had an insight this past week that I believe is powerful based on the way it's been landing with moms I work with, so wanted to share it with you today.

But first a bit of general information on children feeling emotionally safe:

It's important to realize that children feeling safe has nothing to do with our knowing that they are safe and everything to do with how they personally feel. What they're experiencing in their bodies and how they experience their lives.

Here are some key conditions that need to be met in order for them to feel safe:
​

• Feeling that they are loved, accepted and supported exactly as they intrinsically are. Knowing that they don't need to change themselves into someone else or behave in ways that aren't in integrity with their truth and the way they're wired in order to receive love. acceptance and support.
• Knowing that their needs will be met. Not just their physical needs but their emotional ones just as importantly so.
• Knowing that their experience and feelings are taken seriously, believed and honored. (This doesn't mean limits and boundaries cannot be set but it has to be done in a way that doesn't invalidate their feeling and is respectful of them. For some information on and guidance in this, read my article '7 Problems with Avoiding Saying ‘No’ at all Costs.')
• Feeling that they'll be taken care of, that there's someone competent they can trust and rely on (a clear benevolent leader.)

My latest insight came through doing my own inner work this past month, working diligently on healing a feeling of powerlessness which often causes me to go into fight/flight mode in the most banal and inconsequential of exchanges and situations.

I feel unsafe because in me lives a deep belief that I don't have the power to affect change in the people around me, therefore don't have the ability to get my needs met.

It caused me to feel unsafe with most people or in anything that I deemed a potential source of disagreement or conflict.

Part of me saw almost everything and everyone as a threat so I lived in a constant low level or activated state of vigilance, alertness and even defensiveness.

(Thankfully I'm finally freeing myself from this!!)

This happened because I was raised by parents who ignored, invalidated and denied my feelings and needs when I expressed them, so as a child I had no ability to get my needs met, to affect change in my life where needed.

It's what we want to make sure doesn't happen for our children.

In order to feel safe and develop as humans were meant to, they need to know they have the ability to impact their lives and the people responsible for meeting their needs.

They need to feel they have the power to get their needs met, to affect change in their circumstances when they communicate their painful feelings and unmet needs.

Can you feel that?

If you too had parents who were unable to or uninterested in attuning to you, can you imagine how differently you might have developed if you'd grown up in a world and with people who were responsive to you, where you had the power to get your needs met?

And again, please understand that being responsive to children doesn't mean giving them everything they want! In fact doing so will lead to them NOT feeling safe.

It's about honoring their feelings and respecting them as human beings while leading them and setting boundaries.
(This can easily be done through what I call Clear Benevolent Leadership, demonstrated in the video below.)

All this leads to children feeling truly safe so they can live relaxed in their bodies, able to behave their best and available to take others' experiences into account.

WANT SOME HELP IN THIS?

If as I did you want to make sure that your children grow up with an intact sense of self and healthy relationship with life and people and would like my help doing so, let me know by emailing me.

It's what my Clean Parenting program is designed to create, in addition to helping you honor your truth and your needs and create a life that fully works for you so you can all thrive.

Lots of love,
​

​
P.S.: For a sense of what an adult with a healthy sense of self looks like, you may enjoy this video of my oldest daughter.

Though I recorded this video so Cassandra could provide a wonderful example of Clear Benevolent Leadership, several moms contacted me after watching it for a completely different reason.

They were moved to tears watching it because they could see and feel in Cassandra what a healthy and thriving human being she is, and it's something they so long for for themselves as well as their children!

​And they expressed gratitude that through the work they've done with me they had confidence that their children will also thrive as adults as mine do.

​Here's what Amanda Lambert from Australia wrote about her experience of this program:

"I am SO grateful that I did this course. This program is not just another parenting technique course, but is an in-depth exploration of how you see yourself and your children, and how you understand your role as a parent. My family life is so much more peaceful after completing Clean Parenting! My children are much more content and happy, and when they are having a meltdown, or are whining or upset, I know what I need to do to help them back to being calm and centered. And it works!!! As a result, we have a more trusting relationship. I feel much more confident in my parenting. I have changed from just wanting to be respectful, gentle, and effective to being a lot closer to living those daily.

 I really felt that Eliane personally invested in seeing me grasp and live what she was teaching. I also loved the fact that she encouraged each of us in the course to figure out how the practices would look in our lives – there were no standard solutions – but each person was encouraged to figure out how to make life work in their particular family and context. The individualised, specific feedback to our issues and problems was very powerful, as was the participation in an open, honest group. I felt truly mentored and guided through applying the principles of parenting to my life – able to work on the nitty gritty, day-in, day-out interactions."

RELATED RESOURCES:

• The Amazing Power of True Empathy 
• Does Your Child FEEL That You're On His Team?
• The Magic of Win-Win's
• How to Raise Kind Children Who'll Have a Positive Impact on the World
  
• Creating a Sense of Safety in Children and Helping Them Build a Healthy Sense of Self 
  
• Do Your Children Feel You Have Their Backs?
• 7 Problems with Avoiding Saying ‘No’ at all Costs ​
• My FREE report 

Related resources:
​

• Are you an HSP too?​
• A Conversation with Dana and Eliane on Trauma
• Trauma In Children
• Understanding the Window of Tolerance - Yours And Your Children's
• The Importance of Doing Your Inner Work As A Parent
• What Is Family Homeostasis? (And why it's important for you to know)

​

​One of the things that can be a big factor in children's behaviors, sense of wellbeing, and responsiveness to parents is unresolved trauma.

But because the link between the behavior and the trauma often isn't obvious, it's easy to overlook this all too common cause of difficulties for children.

Yet uncovering those traumas and addressing them is an important factor in being able to raise whole children and having the ease and harmony I promise you is possible.

We're accustomed to thinking of trauma as dramatic and/or one time events.

But in my work with parents as well as through my own healing journey, I've discovered that many of the traumas that impact our daily lives and ability to lead happy fulfilling lives are not events, but things that we've experienced over time, often times chronically.

And that many of the experiences that leave lasting damage to our sense of self and sense of safety in the world, as well as in our ability to trust people come from incidences that are considered normal in our society.

If your child has experienced some of those because of unavoidable circumstances or decisions you made, please do not see this in any way as criticism or judgement on my part!!

I’ve personally done many things that led to my children experiencing trauma and they are living proof that children can thrive in spite of it and that you in no way need to be perfect in order to raise healthy children!

I’m just providing this information so you can be informed and help your child heal if needed.

Here are some of the most common trauma experiences that the children of moms I work with have experienced:

• Traumatic birth
• Being in the ICU as babies
• Circumcision
• Other medical procedures and hospitalization, at any time, including getting shots or being forced to see a professional alone, if they don't feel comfortable with it.
• Mom going back to work, if not left with a caregiver they have a secure attachment to and are comfortable being with without the presence of mom
• Sleep training
• Spending time away from their primary caregiver before they're ready - like being left with a sitter, going for an overnight at grandma's, or going for visitations at dad's if parents are separated
• Being put in pre-schools or daycares before they're ready, or in environment that aren't respectful and attuned to their needs
• Birth of a new child

But here are also less obvious traumas that can have just as much impact on the child:

• Parents regularly trying to control their behaviors instead of providing support in challenging situations
• Having their feelings and desires ignored or being talked out of them, instead of being heard with empathy
• Spending time in situations where their needs aren't met or they aren't treated respectfully - even if they enjoy them!
• Experiencing their caregivers as adversaries instead of truly feeling, moment to moment, that they are on their team.
• Feeling that their parents love and like their sibling more than they like or love them
• Not being truly seen and treated as a person
• A fight with a friend
• Not being as popular as other children

This might be a upsetting and even scary to read, but it doesn't have to be.

First of all, certain conditions can be changed, once you realize they have a negative impact on your child. (And if you're not able to change them on your own, I'm here to help.)

Also, it is possible and often times even easy to release trauma when the conducive space for it is provided.

You can help your child by allowing him to fully feel the unprocessed part of the trauma, providing loving presence and space, understanding, and apologies if needed.

Here's an example of Kim beautifully supporting her daughter in releasing trauma, which she posted in our Clean Parenting group, and allowed me to share with you:

Mateya (8 years old,) was upset because she felt her friend was being mean to her. She was venting to me and normally I would have tried to talk her out of her feelings so as to move the play date back into a positive one. Instead, I observed her and realized she was feeling insecure and needing physical reassurance rather than verbal. She needed me to empathize with her! I sat on the couch and she sat next to me and at first I just put my arm around her while she was telling me everything she was feeling. I kept wanting to refute what she was saying especially as it was escalating into how she felt her friend was better than her and that she wasn't good at anything she tried, etc. My heart was breaking at her words and as my mind was going to that place of ‘what have I done to make my child feel like a failure,’ I stopped myself and reminded myself that this wasn't about me and she had a right to her feelings even if they weren't entirely true. So, I pulled her on my lap and held her like a baby while rocking back and forth with her. I let her spill it all out while I rocked and whispered love to her and kissed her forehead. She relaxed into me and let the tears come and fall while she spoke of her feelings of inadequacy, fear about the future of the world and frustration at being unable to do the things she wanted perfectly and for the world. My sweet sensitive soul, Mateya! Soon she got it all out and jumped up to "go see where all the other kids were". She spent the rest of the day playing happily with her friend. I felt I had experienced my ability to give real empathy without trying to fix anything or try to make it better. Such an empowering feeling and I'm so very glad to have been able to give that gift to my daughter."

Practicing empathy and holding loving presence can go a long way toward supporting children in releasing trauma. It's downright magical when people learn to truly be empathetic, vs 'doing' empathy which many parents I work with realize is what they were doing and the reason it wasn't 'working.'

For most of the families I work with, as we integrate parenting from a place of knowing children are innately good, being on the same team, seeing unwanted behaviors as calls for support, meeting needs, developing crystal clear communication, empathy, benevolent ​

RELATED RESOURCES:

• The Amazing Power of True Empathy 
• How Trauma Shows Up in Children and How to Heal It 
• Why Children Need to Experience Feelings of Futility 
• 7 Problems with Avoiding Saying ‘No’ at all Costs 
• How Setting a Limit Helped a Boy Heal his Trauma
• My Clean Parenting program ​

Here's what Erin Reindl, a child and family therapist from Denver, USA, wrote after completing my Clean Parenting program:

“My kids used to have big feelings almost daily, certainly at least weekly. This has changed immensely. My being matter of fact and holding out positive expectation and being a leader has shifted this. My kids TALK to me and with each other during challenging times, things that used to explode don't anymore...we breeze through them calmly. My life doesn't revolve around my kids unless I decide I want it to at any given moment. My kids respect my time and space and they play well on their own. I feel much more relaxed around things that caused me stress before.

This class should be taught to everyone - instead of birthing classes. It should be taught in schools.”

If you're like me, you care about people and about the world. Deeply.

And you would love to be able to contribute to their wellbeing by raising children who will make the world a better place, who will be a loving, kind and positive influence on people around them.

Though I can unequivocally say that all 3 of my grown daughters ARE indeed those people (and most people who know them would wholeheartedly agree!) when I saw this image on Facebook recently I shared it on my Cassandra's wall.

Because it epitomizes her.

I call her "my sunshine" because she truly has the effect depicted on this image on people around her.

(And if you know the source of this image, please let me know, so I can give it proper credit! I just found it on a friend's Facebook wall. TIA)​​

I frequently hear myself saying that it's pretty much impossible to spend time with Cassandra and not feel happier, uplifted and have our energy feel lighter afterward. 

Because there's such a light, a lightness, a purity, a kindness and a genuineness in her energy that I honestly don't see how we can be around it and not be positively impacted.

She's generous, seeks out how to support people, make them feel better and bring out the best in them.

And she is very capable in it.

She's constantly helping her loved ones and co-workers.

But she's also strong.

She knows how to take care of herself and how to set boundaries.

She's not a doormat. At all. Though she has had to work more on honoring her own needs and preferences than her sisters, in part because her nature is so incredibly kind, considerate and attuned to others' needs but also in part because of something that connects to the topic of this article which I'll describe later.

Reflecting on this graphic and on Cassandra on my walk this morning, I started thinking about what creates kind compassionate human beings who end up being such a positive influence on those around them.

And decided to write about it. ☺

Really, it boils down to one thing: MEETING THEIR NEEDS.

Happy people whose needs are met generally are kind and want to help other people. 

Just think about it in terms of your own life.

When you feel good about yourself, happy, fulfilled, how do you interact with people?

How do you relate to people in need?

How do you respond even if someone says something negative or is a little triggered?

Chances are you have more patience, more compassion, more willingness to understand them than you would on a different day when you don't feel as good.

When your needs are met, you have energy to spend on other people, because you're not requiring it to deal with your inner experience.

Whereas if your needs aren't met, if you aren't happy or feel triggered, then you will be a lot less patient, kind and generous.

Your energy will be spent dealing with your inner experience or trying to change circumstances so you can feel better, therefore leaving you little to dedicate to others.

If you do end up having to give to others you're a lot more likely to end up feeling resentful.
​

​So really, that's the bottom line.

In order to raise kind children who'll be a positive force in our world and on people, we need to make sure their needs are met.

And that they develop a positive expectation of their needs being met.

(I'm talking here about real needs, not all whims and desires which many people confuse true needs with. Read my article 7 Problems with Avoiding Saying ‘No’ at all Costs for a discussion on the difference between desires and needs.)
​
Once children know what it feels like to have their needs met this becomes what feels right and natural, what I think of as their operating system, and it's what they'll keep striving toward.

​They won't put up with people or circumstances that don't feel right.
​

​FOR GUIDANCE ON PARENTING that leads to children's needs being thoroughly met, 
request my FREE REPORT: 

The Magical Formula for surprising EASE and HARMONY in your family while fully honoring your children’s spirits.
​

Now back to Cassandra having had to work harder than her sisters to set boundaries and honor her own needs and preferences.

I strongly believe that in addition to her unusually attuned nature it's because her needs were not as well met from birth as her sisters' were.

This happened because she was my first, my guinea pig as I jokingly call her (which she thankfully finds funny because she actually feels good about the way she was parented.) Which is often the case for firstborns as I've written about here.

In my case with Cassandra, what we experienced that was different from what I learned to do later on was specifically that:

• I had to find my way with parenting
• She wasn't attachment parented from birth. She was separated from me at night while in the hospital. She slept in her nursery for several months. I didn't wear her (though I never let her cry and she's wicked smart so never let me put her down and nursed about 21 hours per day! ☺) and I spent my days trying to put her down so I could get stuff done.
• It took me 5 years to get rid of my urges to control her and sometimes even inflict pain on her, which I never had with her sisters.
• I didn't read what instantly became my parenting bible and the last parenting book I ever read, The Continuum Concept, which led to the incredible ease and harmony I write a lot about and experienced in my family until she was 2 years old.

​
The good news for you in this is that we definitely do have quite a margin of 'error' in which we can fall short of ideally meeting our children's needs and still have them grow up into wonderfully healthy adults.
​

FIGURING OUT CHILDREN'S NEEDS

Figuring out what our children's needs are and then meeting them is our work.

We need to educate ourselves about what humans need in order to develop properly and even optimally.

I do believe that the book The Continuum Concept does an amazing job in this. I dive deeply into specific areas of focus in this article which describes the approach to parenting that in my experience leads to incredibly healthy children, as well as in this audio on meeting children's needs. 

It's important to note that it's not about only intellectually figuring out what we think our children's needs are but we need to practice tuning in in the moment to this specific human being given their specific makeup, life experience so far, nervous system, what this very unique human being needs. 

This requires us to be present. Present to ourselves, present to our child, conscious of who our child uniquely is and has been experiencing, aware of the particular circumstances of this moment. 

And it requires us to look at all behaviors, especially those we deem negative, as communication.

What are those behaviors indicating about any need that might be unmet in this moment or more chronically in their lives? I provide a lot of information on this in this article.

(And incidentally the same is true for you of course!)

They could also be caused by unrealistic expectations, feelings they need help dealing with or past experiences that are still affecting them and that they need help processing.

Once the issue at the root of the behavior is attended to, our children (and ourselves too) then spontaneously go back to their kind, generous, compassionate nature which is really how we are all wired as human beings.
​

MODELING

Another factor in raising kind children besides what they experience personally through the way they are treated in their family is what they observe in their primary caretakers.

How do you treat strangers, checkout clerks at the grocery store, servers, other drivers on the road?

How do you treat your spouse?

How do you talk about people? Including your ex if you're separated from your children's father?

What are your values? How do show up in the world? Conduct yourself in your work life?

How do you treat yourself? How do you accept being treated?

Our children learn from all of this. And depending on how they feel about the way you live, will adopt your ways or do the opposite (or find their own nuance in it.)

One of the nicest compliments I ever got, from my daughter who's least complimentary and most opinionated about pretty much everything, was how grateful she was that her dad and I had such great values.

She's realized it in her early 20s, after observing that some of her friends' parents didn't necessarily live with values their children agreed with. And she felt we'd made her life easier by her not needing to reinvent the wheel because she pretty much agreed with everything we believed in and the ways we both live.

​
TEEN YEARS

One thing I'd be remiss not to mention here because it can be tricky is what can happen in the adolescent and teen years when children start focusing on figuring out who they are apart from their parents.

They are very likely to take on the values of the world and other people around them, temporarily.

My advice is to LET THEM.

They do need to discover who they truly are, what they believe and what their values are for themselves. 

They need to explore, figure out how they fit in the culture and find their own truth within it all.

Trust them!!!

If you've met their needs properly and have modeled what you value, I'd be shocked if at some point in their 20's you didn't find them coming back to having similar values as yours if they are real values connected to humans' innate good nature as opposed to agendas and arising out of clumsy attempts to meet needs (which is how so much of our society unfortunately function.)

I'm in awe of how much all 3 of our daughters live by the exact same values their dad and I do. It's incredibly heartwarming.

And healing for this Canadian, healthy, non materialistic woman who was appalled at all the materialism, lookism, and junk food eating her American daughters engaged in in their adolescent and teen years.

So take a deep breath for a few years and trust in the long term results of the good parenting and good values you've modeled and instilled in your children.
​
It's such a joy to watch them come around to them, once they've had their time exploring and finding their own truth!

I hope this article has provided you clarity on what's needed to insure your children turn into the compassionate adults you'd love them to become.

And that you realize the importance of all the work you're doing to respectfully parent them in an attuned way, focused on meeting their needs.

It's such an incredible gift you're providing our world, dear mama! ♥ 

If you'd like my help in insuring that your children's needs are properly met, so that they can grow up into healthy human beings, if you'd like my help in fully stepping into what I've come to call clean parenting and in reaching the beautiful place of ease, harmony and peace I've come to call family homeostasis, check out my Clean Parenting™ program.

I​t's designed to and very effective in supporting you in achieving all this and so much more! 

I would LOVE to work with you if this program is right for you! ♥

Lots of love,
​

​

​

​Related articles:
​

• Audio: Creating a Sense of Safety in Children and Helping Them Build a Healthy Sense of Self
• Why It's Critical That You Trust Your Children
• Audio: The Importance Of Focusing On Meeting Needs
• Why Parents Need to Find Their Own Answers and Be Authentic
• Two Keys To Resolving Behavior Issues
• The Key to Well-Behaved Children Who Listen to You, While Fully Respecting Them
• Does Your Child FEEL That You're On His Team?

Here's what Reut Katz from Israel wrote after completing the Clean Parenting program:
​

​"Wow, asking how is your life different now than before you did the program is like asking how is your life different after you've learn how to talk. It's like nothing changed in the world but you suddenly know how to talk, act and react to everything that's happening to you. All my situations, except one, resolved, not because they don't happen anymore, but because I know how to react to them. I've been changed drastically. I don't get upset anymore. I'm much more empathic. I'm learning how to respect myself, my needs, my desires. I'm learning how to be the leader my family so desperately needs. 

Last night I looked at my son after he fell asleep and all I could think about is how happy I am because I KNOW he'll grow up just fine because of these changes in me. I KNOW he'll be an amazing kid and an amazing grown up. I KNOW he'll be whole, confident, independent, connected to his inner self, respect and accept himself, LOVE HIMSELF - all I couldn't be and didn't have."
​

Guest post by Alexandra Harris
Parenting for Wholeness Parenting Coach

Why the lovely feeling of connection and peace that social media is talking about might not be happening in your family right now. 
​(Catchy title, I know!)
 
It is all very well imagining cosy days of tucking up together reading stories and watching films, enjoying the slow pace of life, and soaking up all this wonderful connecting time with our children. 
 
But what if, despite our best efforts to achieve this state of connected bliss, our children are quite frankly revolting? Whiny and controlling and demanding and angry and sulky and everything else all day long?
 
How on earth are we meant to cosy up on the sofa with them when they feel the need to continuously kick their sibling under the blanket, or complain loudly that they didn’t get to choose the film the entire time it is playing?
 
How do we read stories when they are in some hyperactive irrational place and need to keep emptying pots of small beads around the room while laughing manically and appearing not even to hear the pleas to stop?
 
We are exhausting ourselves attempting to exercise them properly, and feed them properly, and educate them (vaguely), and Facebook is full of a thousand and seventeen fun things to do with your child during isolation, all of which our child wants to do immediately and then loses focus equally immediately.
 
Why can’t we have peace and connection too??
 
Well, I am going to suggest that the root cause of this behaviour for a large number of children is likely to be anxiety.
 
“But my child does NOT look anxious!” I hear you cry.
 
And that is completely true.  An anxious child very often does not fit our picture of what an anxious child is supposed to look like.  It is not actually very common to find an anxious child being quiet, and shy, with a worried expression and a series of worried questions for us. 
 
It is MUCH more common to find an anxious child who is loud and angry and aggressive, and thug like.  To find ourselves as parents struggling not to say the words ‘spoilt’ and ‘ungrateful’.  An anxious child might be silly and annoying and spend their time deliberately irritating everyone.  Or they might appear controlling and overbearing, interrupting everyone else’s activities, and insisting we do things their way.
 
Anxiety is an emotion that children find very difficult to identify.  It is hard for them to be aware that they are feeling it, or to be able to admit that they are feeling it.  Their energy is poured into battles about what to wear, or what to do, or where they can or can’t go, or literally anything they can possibly have a battle over.  And it is very, very hard as parents to step back and see that the battles are not actually what it is all about.  That the battles are just a symptom and while we keep engaging with the battles we don’t get anywhere at all.
 
So we need to work on understanding what is going on underneath.
 
Right now it is so very easy for our children to be anxious.  And there are two main reasons for this.
 
Firstly, there is anxiety all around them.  Emotions are contagious. Our subconscious midbrains are expert communicators, and our children are fluent in this language.  So when we feel anxious (and a very large number of us are currently feeling at least some degree of anxiety), we give off signals that we might be completely unaware of, but our children pick them up as easily as if we have spoken them aloud.
The news is everywhere.  It comes to us on our phones, our computers, our televisions, our radios.  We need to make a concerted effort to prevent ourselves from becoming overwhelmed by it all, and yet we need to keep a degree of information coming in so that we know what the current regulations are.  We cannot help but be exposed to it. And our children are exposed to it alongside us. If at any time we manage to get our anxiety levels to dip a little, the news is sure to top them up again.
 
Secondly, as humans, we all have a basic need for a certain level of predictability in our lives.  Some of us need higher levels of predictability than others.  But we all need some. 
And for our children, all of their predictability has just vanished.  Their schools have closed, their parks and playgrounds have closed.  They don’t see their friends.  They don’t play their sports or go to their clubs or activities.  Their food looks different as we struggle to get hold of the usual ingredients.  Their holidays have been cancelled. Their Easter plans to see family have been postponed indefinitely. 
And critically, nobody knows how long this is going to go on for. 
When they ask us when they can see Granny again, or when we can go to ballet, our only answer is that we don’t know.
And suddenly they have nothing to look forward to.  Nothing to anticipate.  Nothing to count down the days for, and get excited about.  The only thing in their future is this indistinct idea that one day they’ll be able to do all the things they are missing right now.  But no concrete idea of when that might be.
They have no predictability.  
 
So it is no wonder that our children might be struggling. What can we do to help?
 
Here is my list:

1. We can start with recognising where we are. We simply notice the anxiety in ourselves and in our children.
2. We can allow for where we are right now. We can accept that life is likely to look a little messy for a while.  We can allow for us all to have limited patience, limited tolerance, limited energy. We don’t need to have it all worked out just yet.
3. We can reduce the influx of anxiety. We can cut off the news channels, and protect ourselves and children from the constant updates.
4. We can remember that we are individuals, and think about the particular things that each of us find soothing. For some of us schedules might be helpful, and for others of us letting go of the pressure of schedules might be helpful. 
5. We can remember that our children are individuals and each of them might find different things soothing.
6. We can proactively choose to engage in those activities (or lack of activities) that feel good to us, and help our children to do the same.
7. When we notice a battle developing, we can choose to engage with the feelings underneath, instead of the details of the battle. My favourite mantra is: “Speak to what they are feeling, not to what they are saying.”
8. We can give them a few things to look forward to. In this fluid time of no deadlines and instant availability, assign some random dates and times to activities.  Plan a film watching session on Friday evening.  Plan a skype call with Grandpa on Tuesday. Keep it low key and manageable.
9. We can keep hold of some fundamental boundaries.  Hold onto the things that help our children feel safe.
10. We can look for ways for everyone to have a degree of autonomy. When anxiety rises, and predictability drops, we all tend to have an increased need for control.

 
There is a lot packed into these 10 steps, and we don’t need to tackle them all at once. I am going to go into a lot more detail around each of these steps in coming posts, so if you want to know more then just like and follow this page. 
 
If you want more support, join the Parenting for Wholeness Quick Start program which will give you access to ongoing coaching from me as well as regular support calls by Eliane Sainte-Marie.
 
For now, if you can manage just the first two steps in the list, noticing and allowing, then this will go a long way to helping you all cope.  
These are strange and challenging times. Our children need plenty of understanding and acceptance right now.
And so do we. 
 

Watch this conversation we recently had together which describes what you'll get from the program, how Clean Parenting™ helps you uncover and live by your own truth and values, and shows you how we don't take ourselves too seriously. ☺

We'd love to work with you if you decide to sign up!

Related resources:

• Understanding the Window of Tolerance - Yours And Your Children's
  
• Are You Treating Yourself In Ways You'd Never Dream Of Treating Your Children?
  
• Video by Eliane and daughter Cassandra: Parenting and Homeschooling Guidance During Lockdown
  
• The Amazing Power of True Empathy
• Why Children Need to Experience Feelings of Futility​
• The Importance of Acceptance and Mourning in Parenting​ 

I have some wonderful news for you mama!

You know that child of yours who gets you sooooo frustrated?

Makes you lose your shit?

Makes you sometimes behave and react in ways you promised yourself you’d never do? Maybe in the way your own parents did, which you absolutely HATE that you do?

That child who is sometimes so freakin difficult to parent?

Seems to pick up on any negative mood you have, and then reacts to it?

Seems to pick up on any inner conflict you have when you try to get him to do something and fights you to death to get what she wants?
 
Those children are not actually here to make your life miserable!!
 
On the contrary, they are here to free you so you can live in a way that you never imagined possible.

They are your angels, leading you back to your own wholeness.

They are here to help you, to guide you to your true life, how you were meant to live.

Really.


HOW YOUR CHALLENGING CHILDREN ARE YOUR ANGELS

One thing I've realized, through decades of working with women (starting in the early 90's in La Leche League,) is that many moms are willing to put up with the excruciating pain and limitations of their unresolved issues, their baggage, as long as they’re only affecting them.

Because they don’t feel deserving of thriving, or don’t believe that it’s possible.

And because, like I did up until 2016, they generally spend their lives trying to ‘fix themselves’ into who they think they should be, and trying to ignore or even suppress their feelings and needs. 
 
But, ONCE THEY REALIZE their issues are negatively impacting their parenting and therefore their children, then they become motivated to heal themselves. 

To doing the work that will lead them to happiness and to thriving, for their children.

Only once they realize it will benefit others in their lives do they feel deserving of spending attention, time and resources in taking care of and healing themselves.

What I observe time and time again is that women sign up for my Clean Parenting program because they want to become better moms.

Want to stop yelling.

Desperately want to parent their children in a way that feels right and good to them.

Many of them are petrified that their children will grow up feeling the way they did, 
 
And throughout program, they start realizing that the only way they can achieve those deeply heartfelt goals and longings is for them to start:

• honoring their own needs
• listening to their feelings
• taking their experience into account 
• bringing themselves to a place of living within their window of tolerance.

And once they really, deeply, get that, then they start doing the needed work to meet their needs. Start giving themselves what they've been striving to give their children since birth.

And start THRIVING...​
 
This is why I've come to view challenging children as our angels who, if we're ready to do the work, will lead to some massive healing in ourselves, which we never would have done had we not birthed that special child and committed ourselves to doing whatever is needed to show up with them in a clean way.
 

For a detailed discussion of Clean Parenting, request my FREE report

The Almost Magical Formula For Surprising Ease and Harmony in Your Family While
Fully Honoring Your Children’s Spirits.
​
It describes the four principles which when used together, truly lead to astounding ease and harmony in families.

FOR SOME MOMS ONLY EXTREMELY CHALLENGING CHILDREN CAN LEAD TO THIS HEALING

And here's something else I've realized, since working intensively with hundreds of women in my Clean Parenting program in the last five years.
 
Some children provide a pretty wide margin of ‘error’ in terms of how they are parented, in order to thrive and be relatively easy to be around.
 
While others require our parenting to be fully on point. These children will be affected by the most minute lack of attunement to their needs, the most minute disconnection, or negative emotion in the parent.
 
Though those numbers are very arbitrary, and there are endless variations within the spectrum, here’s how I’ve come to see the various types of children:
 

• Most emotionally healthy children will require about 80% of their experience to be ‘ideally’ supported, in order to thrive and be relatively easy to parent.
•  Some children, like highly sensitive children (HSP’s,) children who have unprocessed trauma, and other uniquely sensitive children who may have other issues like neuroprocessing, ADHD, OCD, sensory processing, ASD, etc, will require 92%.
•  And then there are the really really challenging children, who for some reason will require 99.9%.

 
This last category of children will pick up on the slightest thing that’s off, anywhere in their inner world, the world of their mom, caregiver or anyone around them, or their life in general, and will be deeply affected by it.

​These children have an extremely low window of tolerance, and need our full support in order to grow it as much as possible.
 
I bless the moms who have one of those children, because I know how incredibly challenging it can be.
​

 
Actually, I don’t truly know, and I don’t know how I would have survived if I had had one of the children from that last category.

The most challenging child I had, at least in the early years (as in the first 14ish years of parenting ☺), was an HSP. But because she was my youngest and I never had a younger one to take my primary focus away from her, it was relatively easy to meet her needs.

I could also fully relate to her because I’m also an HSP, therefore fully understood where she was coming from, and I was deeply committed to giving her what I knew I had needed and didn’t receive (and was still not receiving at that point in my life.)


HOW TO MOVE FORWARD WITH THESE CHILDREN
 
For the moms of those most challenging children, the way I see that they can thrive is by:

1) receiving a lot of support to process all the feelings that raising those children have triggered, including any PTSD symptoms they might be experiencing (though that term might sound extreme for what you've experienced, it truly can have that effect on parents.)

2) get some skilled support to bring their parenting to a really clean place, and

3) to then do the healing work around what those children might be mirroring in them.
 
(That is exactly the kind of support I provide moms in my Clean Parenting program. If you’re interested in being guided in this healing process, check out the program page. My next group starts October 14th and I would LOVE to work with you if this program is right for you!)
​
 
What really excites me about this beautiful setup is that for some moms, simple good parenting is enough for some of their children to be happy, to have some sense of ease in their relationships with them.

So it takes that child who's just extra challenging to force them to do the inner healing work and to take their own experience seriously, because that child picks up on and mirrors any way in which the woman has unresolved issues and unmet needs.

This is why I consider our challenging children, especially the most difficult ones with whom what works with others doesn't work, our angels.
 
Because without them, we'd never do that work.​

​Is it possible to completely shift challenging children’s behaviors by doing our own work? I cannot tell you for sure.
 
But here is what I CAN tell you: When we clear our own stuff, people around us AUTOMATICALLY shift. When we heal something in ourselves, it frees our children from it too.
 
Here’s an example of it from my life:
 
My daughter Gaby used to be extremely dramatic. When she was about 12 years old, I attended a spiritual retreat that had a significant impact on my well-being and level of inner peace. In fact, I overheard my partner tell someone on the phone a few days after I returned: “It’s really amazing: there is just no more drama in Eliane!”
 
The very next day, Gaby, completely unaware of my partner’s new experience of me, came to me and said, “You know, Mom, I’m really tired of all the drama at school, and I’ve just decided that I’m not going to take part in it anymore.”
 
There had been NO discussions in the house about drama. Just by freeing myself I freed her up as well. And because the work I had done was deep, the drama never came back in Gaby OR me.
 
And I see this phenomenon still happening with my daughters now that they’re in their 20's, even though they no longer live with me!
 
I’ve been on the most intense healing journey in the last 3 ½ years, after having a complete breakdown in 2016. And as I heal wounds, learn to show up with more integrity, honoring of myself, my feelings and my needs, fully embodied, setting boundaries and speaking up for myself, I see similar shifts in my girls that are hard to attribute to anything other than my having freed and healed it in my own life.
 
It’s so hope giving!!!
 
Isn’t it?!?
 
How does it make you feel hearing that?
 
Hopefully, it makes you feel encouraged. And motivates you to take better care of yourself, to focus on meeting your needs, and to do the tough work to heal yourself from the wounds, triggers and conditioning that not only make your life miserable but prevent you from being the mom you long to be to your children, and get mirrored in them.
 
And if you want my help in it, well, I’ve made it my life’s work to figure out how to help women in it, and it turns out I’m really successful in it. So email me and we’ll see if and how I can help you ([email protected].)

Meanwhile, dear mama, always remember that you matter just as much as your children do, and that you deserve to take really good care of yourself too. ♥

Lots of love,
​

​
​Related articles:
​

• How To Raise A Healthy Child When You’re All F*cked Up
• The Importance of Doing Your Inner Work As A Parent
• ​​Are you an HSP too?
• For the Mom With a Challenging Oldest Child
• 4 Ways I Ask You to Treat Yourself Better, Dear Mama
• Are You Trusting Your Instincts And Your Inner Guidance?

"DOING THE CLEAN PARENTING PROGRAM WAS ON PAR FOR CHANGING MY LIFE AS HAVING MY FIRST CHILD."

​Here's what Kristen Phillips, of Cottage Grove Oregon, wrote of her journey to finding her way through parenting and working with me.
​

"I’m not sure I can quite put into words exactly what Eliane and her programs have done for me. When my first son was born, my world completely changed. So many things that I thought I knew suddenly didn’t make sense, and philosophies I believed in no longer resonated. His arrival shook everything up.

As I ferociously searched the internet to try to find some “parenting style” that did feel good to me, I came across The Continuum Concept. When I found it and started reading it, I could feel that this was THE book I was looking for. My whole body relaxed once it was in my hands and I started digesting it. As much as I loved that book, I could tell pretty quickly that I was going to need help applying it in this modern world. As I got back on the internet to find that someone, I of course came across Eliane’s work. And while reading the first article of hers I found, I again got that familiar feeling of this is THE person. Every single word she wrote seemed to hit straight to my heart, and I was like “yes! this is 100% it!”

Once my son got old enough, I did the Clean Parenting Course. Doing that course was on par for changing my life as having my first child. It's like someone finally helped me unlock my soul and helped me really see what the possibilities of life, love and relationships were. I felt I had the keys to becoming the mother and person I was destined to become, I learned so much about myself during that course.

Since then, I have worked intimately with Eliane and done the Deep Healing Program and Clean Relationships Program along with many, many healing sessions. Eliane has become somewhat of a “fairy godmother” in my life- someone who really gets me, is on my team, and is continually helping to guide me back to my greatest source of strength- myself. Between Eliane and the Sisterhood group, I feel like I have someone whom I wholeheartedly trust holding my hand along my journeys of parenting and life.
​
My life, my children’s lives and my husband’s life have all been impacted in the best way possible. I will forever be grateful for Eliane and her continual support. She has really become like part of my family and I cannot imagine my life without her and her work."​

​By Eliane Sainte-Marie, founder Parenting for Wholeness

​Sitting in contemplation this morning, I found myself thinking the words: I am happy.

And it touched my heart to such a deep level, to realize I’d finally made it.

After a lifetime of somehow, against all odds and in spite of all the shit I was living and pain I was in, believing it was possible to feel this way.

And about 25 years of working my butt off to get here.

I’ve waited a whole 50 years to finally say these words.


HOW I THOUGHT LOVE WOULD SAVE ME

For most of my life, even though I at times claimed I knew a love relationship wasn’t what would bring me real happiness, I still was on the search for the person who would finally give me what I needed to become happy.

From possibly as young as 5 until 45 years old, I was a love addict (I’m still working on the remnants of it to this day, though they are now incredibly mild compared to what they were even a few months ago.)

I remember even as a young child dreaming of being in love. Every day and every night. Of having a boy in love with me.

Which to me meant that I would finally feel loved.


WHAT I YEARNED FOR

I yearned for all I didn't experience in my family of origin.

I would feel loved.

I would finally feel that I mattered to someone.

Someone would truly SEE me.

Listen to me.

Be interested in ME, not who they wanted me to be or thought I should be.

I would finally feel that who I was was okay, just as I was.

I would feel accepted exactly as I was.

I would be validated and therefore would feel I had a right to be here.

And then I would be happy.

Of course, the media and entertainment industry totally reinforced these ideas.

Movies, songs and even ads are full of messages that the right partner will save us and make us happy.

Besides Alanis Morissette (I’m sure there are more, she’s just the one I’m most familiar with,) there aren’t a lot of messages that what WILL save us is a shit ton of inner work to heal ourselves and to develop SELF-love.


WHEN IT'S NOT POSSIBLE FOR US TO DEVELOP SELF-LOVE, BECAUSE WE DON'T FEEL DESERVING OF IT

And even when we do receive those accurate messages of what’s needed in order to truly be happy, for many of us who have been taught that our feelings are wrong, that we’re selfish for wanting what we want, that who we are is intrinsically wrong and needs to be fixed, developing self-love is pretty much an impossible task.

Because we don’t believe we’re worthy of loving ourselves.

We don’t believe we’re worthy of meeting our needs.

We don’t believe we’re worthy of honoring our feelings.

We believe our job is to work harder on fixing ourselves. And only once we’ve fixed ourselves properly will we then be worthy of loving ourselves. Not one second before.


HITTING ROCK BOTTOM ON FEBRUARY 7th, 2016

So for me, the only way, the only thing that gave me permission to start taking my feelings and needs seriously, the only way I could start being nice, kind, understanding and gentle with myself, was when I realized that otherwise I’d kill myself.
 
AND INFLICTING THAT TRAUMA ON MY DAUGHTERS WAS NOT ACCEPTABLE.

Though I didn’t feel worthy of treating myself the way I’d always treated my daughters and treat everyone else around me, I couldn’t stand the idea of my daughters losing their mother, and to suicide on top of it, and experiencing all the trauma that would have come with it.

And I knew learning to treat myself the same way I'd always done with my daughters and treat everyone in my life was the only way to prevent it from happening.

So I had to do it for THEM.
​
(Incidentally, a lot of it is true for most of the moms I work with, which was the purpose of me starting Parenting for Wholeness in the first place. I knew, given who my followers are, that once women realized that they needed to be happy themselves and take their needs and feelings seriously in order to be the moms they wanted to be, for many of them, only then would they commit to their own healing and thriving journeys, only then would they too move toward the same wholeness they all want for their children.)

I’m happy now (and alive!) only because I reached a desperate point in my life where if I did not once and for all address all this shit that’d been torturing me and preventing me from being happy, all the trauma, and if I didn't find a way to live that I literally could live with, I was going to end my life.

I could not go on in the same way, not even one more day.

This happened February 7th 2016.

A perfect storm of many many stressful and impossible things happened all at once, in insight likely by design, to bring me to my complete breaking point.

I got really scared that day that I wouldn’t see the light of day the next morning, because the depth of darkness and agony I was in would make me take my life before daylight broke.


THE HEALING JOURNEY

But I didn’t.

And I woke up the next morning, a complete, broken wreck, yet in a way clearer than I’d ever been in my life.

I set out to heal myself, for good this time, all the way.

Because I knew it was the only way that my daughters would not have to live with the trauma of their mom's suicide.

(Though I’ve done tons of healing work over the past 25 years, I would always eventually fall back into depressions, which I started experiencing regularly at age 10.)

You know how I mentioned how hard it is for someone who grew up with negative messages about themselves to develop self-love? For me, the fear of inflicting the trauma of my loss and suicide on my children was the only thing that was strong enough to give me permission do it.

So I committed to giving myself what I’d given my daughters and every single woman I’d worked with since starting Parenting for Wholeness.

One thing I knew how to do was parent. So I set out to apply the Clean Parenting principles I teach, this time to myself.

I started to question those beliefs that I wasn’t worthy, wasn’t deserving of having my needs met AS I WAS, now, instead of waiting until I had finally transformed myself into someone I believed would be worthy of it.

I let go of every single person who communicated any hint of that in my life.

And I dove deeply into myself to heal and clear all the grief, trauma and negative beliefs that lived in me.

I thought it’d take a few months.

It took 3 years. Almost to the week.

I don’t think I would have had the courage to take on this journey, had I known what its effect on me would be (rendering me completely non-functional,) how long it would take (one month short of 3 years,) the cost to my body (I was pre-diabetic, had very high cholesterol, all kinds of internal issues and was almost 100 lbs overweight) and all that it would damage and destroy in my life (including my most cherished relationship.)

But boy am I glad I did!!!!!


WHAT I'M LIVING NOW

The way I feel now, I had no way of imagining it while I was still carrying all the negative beliefs about myself, was paralyzed by them and therefore unable to live a life that lined up with my values.

I feel clear now. So crystal clear, where all there was before was convoluted thinking and confusion!

Decisions are so easy to make!! Because I know myself, I have access to my inner guidance, and whether or not I like what it tells me, the messages are unmistakable.

And MY NEEDS ARE MET. Having committed to clean parenting myself and working on creating a life where my needs are met as well as speaking up in my relationships and building new ones with people who do share my values, my life is so sweet!!

My heart feels full and happy.

I wake up at peace and fall asleep at peace.

I like myself.

It turns out that once I cleared all the negative beliefs I had about myself, I realized I’m a really good person with a huge heart and deep commitment to creating good in the world.

And I’m also pretty cool, funny, warm, wise and smart.

​I now LIKE who I am!!

And the peace and full heart that I feel, it’s what I’d been looking for all my life from love relationships. Turns out that the most direct path to it was learning to love myself.

I’m not saying everything perfect.

Not at all. But I have hope and trust and feel empowered and capable in what I still need to work through.
I’ll likely still be doing weekly sessions with my trusted Dana for months.

And I’m still dealing with health issues, a life that’s become a mess from years of not being attended to, I’m 75 lbs overweight (though that 20 less than on Jan. 1st!!) and still have several important relationships to work through.

But they’re relationships that do have what I consider the 2 critical conditions to have healthy relationships:
​

• People willing to be honest and take responsibility for the effect of their actions on others.
• People who care that their relationships feel good to both parties, and are willing to work to get there.

 
For those of you who have completed my Clean Parenting program, I am now creating a program where I will walk you through and support you in the process I took, so you too can heal and it doesn’t have to take you as long and/or be as destructive and lonely of a process for you. Even though this program won’t start till end of summer, I already only have 5 spots left in it, so contact me right away if you’re interested in it.

If you haven’t done my Clean Parenting program and are bummed out that I only offer this program to its graduates, it’s because a lot of the foundation for it, as well as the needed trust and connection with me gets set up in that program, allowing us to dive deep from the get go in the healing one.

If you’re not a parent or aren’t interested in my Clean Parenting program, I can recommend an amazing woman who has deeply supported me in the past years, is a cherished personal friend, and whom I would in a heartbeat designate/name as the legal guardian of my children, if I had young ones. That’s how much I trust her.

She is Dana DaPonte.

If you’re not interested in doing a program or getting support but would love to hear more about journey, make sure to sign up for my email list here, as I’ll be publishing a lot more on this topic, for probably the rest of my life.

It turns out that Whitney's been signing to me since I was a teenager was the message I needed all along.

UPDATE:

I wrote the above 2 months, and didn’t want to edit it because it represents where I was at at that point, and it feels meaningful to share it.

But I want to write a bit more about where I’m at today.

Right after reading this, as I got to work on healing one of the relationships I mentioned above, I realized something was really off in our exchanges, yet I couldn’t put my finger on it. So I dove deep into research, and realized that I’d suffered narcissistic abuse from this person. You can read about it here.

It’s been an incredibly intense realization, laden with tons more grief, but that has also brought me to a whole new level of thriving and delighting in my life. 

Here’s something I wrote on my Facebook wall just days after starting a healing program on narcissistic abuse recovery:

“What it feels like to heal from narcissistic abuse?

For me, after 3 days of intense healing (in addition to weeks, years, decades of healing, though I didn't know WHAT I was healing from,) I feel CLEAN inside for the first time in my life.

I feel lightness.

I know the truth that all I have to be is myself, and this feels incredibly easy and joyful.

I've dropped the constant orientation of looking at myself through the judgmental eyes of a deeply unhealthy person, and the feeling that I should be doing what would lead to her approving of me, which was the only way I could feel valid and good.

Since yesterday, I keep singing in my head the words of a popular 80's song: "The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades.""
 
I’ve been writing a lot about this specific healing journey separately so won’t go into this here (just get on my email list at the bottom of this article for more info on this.)

But the really cool thing that I want to share with you is that finding out about narcissistic abuse has led me to the answer to the questions I was left sitting with after writing the first part of this post:

How do I help other women, what do they do, when like me they don’t believe they’re worthy of self-love, so they don’t have to reach the point I did of getting to death’s door and then like me go through years of grief and putting their lives on hold in order to heal themselves?

Well through what I now see as the gift of having found out about narcissistic abuse, I found an amazing program that deals directly with this and that's been helping me heal, grow and come into myself at a speed I'm shocked and delighted by.
​
It gets to the heart of the core issues and beliefs that plague and paralyze those of us whose needs, experiences and feelings have been neglected or even made wrong.

If you know me, you know I rarely give advice, believing instead in encouraging people to follow their own inner guidance and trust themselves. So for me to be super pushy about something, it has to be really important.

And I AM PUSHING EVERYONE TO SIGN UP FOR AND DO THIS PROGRAM! Because I KNOW what's on the other side of doing this work, and for any of my loved ones who are not yet thriving and living the wholeness of who they are, I don't want them to stay on this side of it one more day.

If you're ready to heal, for your life to get better, to fully live who you essentially are, beneath the wounds, trauma, conditioning, please trust me, get this program and DO IT!!!

You will not BELIEVE how quickly things shift once you do. Everyone I've had try it has been delighted by its power and impact. And it's ridiculously cheap given what you get and comes with a 30 day no questions asked money back guarantee. So there's truly nothing to lose.

It's not worth spending one more day sitting in stuff when you could so quickly move it through this work!! I'm really going to be obnoxious about it, with EVERYONE, because it's just that powerful and I want everyone to live free and from this joyous place of being fully ourselves. ?

Though this program is ostensibly for victims of narcissistic abuse, I believe EVERYONE should do it and work with it, whether or not they've suffered narcissistic abuse. Because it's also about recovering from emotional abuse (as well as reconnecting us with our essential selves) and all of us in one way or another have suffered emotional abuse, from our society, our conditioning, schools, and through the way we were parented. This program addresses every aspect of this.

Here's the link for it. (And if you do sign up for it, email me and I'll send you a video I've created on how I use the program, based on my decades of experience doing healing work, to get the most out of each healing session.)

This program is not only incredibly effective, it is also ridiculously priced for what you get (I would have paid 10 times its cost given what I'm getting out of it!!), offers payment plans so you can start it for as little as $35 a month, and offers a no questions asked money back guarantee. It's so not worth NOT doing it!!
Melanie Tonia Evans's approach to true healing and empowerment matches what I've been teaching for years, in terms of how our challenges with our children can lead to our own healing and wholeness. The exact same thing happens with narcissists and any other kind of abuser, if we use the trauma and wounds for our healing.

Just like I've said for decades that I owe Jean Liedloff the wholeness of my children, I now feel like I owe my own wholeness to Melanie Tonia Evans.

And I am making it part of my life's work, as I have to promoting Jean's approach to parenting, to encourage everyone to do this life changing work.

Because I believe that between raising children in the way I teach and healing ourselves, we can change this world of ours to one we'd love living in.

Please take yourself, your thriving and your happiness seriously, dear mama. I can tell you from experience that it’s the only way you’ll be able to be the parent you want to be to your children. I’ve learned this the very painful way, once it was too late for me and my children had left home.

Yes, I did manage to do a great job maintaining their wholeness, but I was too caught up in my own trauma, in trying to cope with life, to really be present to them and enjoy them.

I’m making up for it now that they’re in the 20’s and just reveling in it!! ♥

But my wish for you, part of my mission in working with moms, is making sure that they can enjoy their lives with their children while they’re still home with them, while they’re still young.

You deserve it. ♥

Lots of love,
​

​Related articles:
​

• How To Raise A Healthy Child When You’re All F*cked Up
• A Conversation with Dana and Eliane on Trauma
  
• When Your Relationship Feels Off But You Can’t Put Your Finger on What’s Wrong
• Video: I'm So Happy!
• ​​Are you an HSP too?
• 4 Ways I Ask You to Treat Yourself Better, Dear Mama
• Your Most Challenging Child Is in Fact Your Angel

If any of this speaks to you, contact me and we'll set up a time to chat to explore if working together might be right. I would LOVE to work with you if it is, and to help bring you to this new place of happiness I'm finally living.

"DOING THE CLEAN PARENTING PROGRAM WAS ON PAR FOR CHANGING MY LIFE AS HAVING MY FIRST CHILD."

​Here's what Kristen Phillips, of Cottage Grove Oregon, wrote of her journey to finding her way through parenting and working with me:

​"I’m not sure I can quite put into words exactly what Eliane and her programs have done for me. When my first son was born, my world completely changed. So many things that I thought I knew suddenly didn’t make sense, and philosophies I believed in no longer resonated. His arrival shook everything up.

As I ferociously searched the internet to try to find some “parenting style” that did feel good to me, I came across The Continuum Concept. When I found it and started reading it, I could feel that this was THE book I was looking for. My whole body relaxed once it was in my hands and I started digesting it. As much as I loved that book, I could tell pretty quickly that I was going to need help applying it in this modern world. As I got back on the internet to find that someone, I of course came across Eliane’s work. And while reading the first article of hers I found, I again got that familiar feeling of this is THE person. Every single word she wrote seemed to hit straight to my heart, and I was like “yes! this is 100% it!”

Once my son got old enough, I did the Clean Parenting Course. Doing that course was on par for changing my life as having my first child. It's like someone finally helped me unlock my soul and helped me really see what the possibilities of life, love and relationships were. I felt I had the keys to becoming the mother and person I was destined to become, I learned so much about myself during that course.

Since then, I have worked intimately with Eliane and done the Deep Healing Program and Clean Relationships Program along with many, many healing sessions. Eliane has become somewhat of a “fairy godmother” in my life- someone who really gets me, is on my team, and is continually helping to guide me back to my greatest source of strength- myself. Between Eliane and the Sisterhood group, I feel like I have someone whom I wholeheartedly trust holding my hand along my journeys of parenting and life.
​
My life, my children’s lives and my husband’s life have all been impacted in the best way possible. I will forever be grateful for Eliane and her continual support. She has really become like part of my family and I cannot imagine my life without her and her work."

1. 3 yo changing his mind all the time about what he wants. Mom is able to deal with it easily when feeling good but hates how she reacts when tired. (at 2m)

Discussion: 2 main ways to address this, which are so important! Healing triggers. The difficulty, even horror, of first feeling negative feelings toward children, which often happens to very attuned parents when children are 3 - 3 1/2, and what to do about those feelings.
​
Resources:

• The Biggest Mistake The Most Caring Moms Make
• The Magic of Win-Win's
• The Importance of Doing Your Inner Work As A Parent

  
2. Children hitting (at 14m)
 
Discussion: It's always a symptom. Roots cause of it. And my pat response to children who hit, which moms love!!!

Resources:  

• Audio: Creating a Sense of Safety in Children and Helping Them Build a Healthy Sense of Self 
• Two Keys To Resolving Behavior Issues

 
3. 2 yo having emotional outbursts over everything, refusing to wear diapers but not using toilet. (at 22m)
 
Discussion: A step by step guidance for supporting child in accepting diapers if not using toilet. The importance of consistency in this, and when it's okay to change your mind. 
 
Resources:  

• Differentiating Between Non-Negotiables And Preferences
• The Key to Well-Behaved Children Who Listen to You, While Fully Respecting Them
• Audio interview: Why Leadership Is the Missing Link in Conscious Parenting

 
4. 4 yo being dramatic. Highly sensitive children. (at 31m)
 
Discussion: Just symptom of being an HSP, which makes life a lot harder. How to support children with that unique challenge and help them learn how to function well with it. How each meltdown can be seen as the equivalent of one (or even more!) therapy session. Difference between and power of full connection and patience/tolerance.
 
Resources:

• Are you an HSP too?
• Understanding the Window of Tolerance - Yours And Your Children's

 
5. Issues with screen time. (at 38m)
 
Resources:  

• Should I Limit Food and Electronics?
• Supporting Our Children to Feel the Wall of Futility to Nurture Resiliency

​

 
6. Child play hitting dad. (at 48m)
 
Discussion: Need for clarity and clear boundaries
 
Resources:  

• Brené Brown on empathy, compassion and boundaries...
• 7 Problems with Avoiding Saying ‘No’ at all Costs

 
7. Issues with children all coming down to needing to do inner work. Difficulty in giving unconditional love to children when we didn't receive it. Highly sensitive children (at 50m)
 
Discussion: How much harder parenting HSP children is than more naturally resilient children. How hard it can be to take care of ourselves when we don't feel deserving of it. 3 beliefs that get in the way of self-love. The difficulty of the beginning part of the healing journey. How your children will need to do inner work but might not need therapy because they're strong and wise enough to do it on their own. The difficult of being in the nightmare phase of healing. What's needed for full recovery to happen. How our challenging children are truly our angels, leading us back to wholeness.
 
Resources:  

• The SELF-LOVE program with Annemie
• How To Raise A Healthy Child When You’re All F*cked Up
• When Your Relationship Feels Off But You Can’t Put Your Finger on What’s Wrong

8. Working with inner critic, how inner critic affects parenting and teaching. Screens. (at 1h04m)
 
Discussion: Importance of recognizing progress, how once we clear an area of trauma/damage, the next areas of healing pop up to the surface for healing, the importance of trusting our own guidance and recognizing old programming as false. What inner guidance actually feels like. Our right to feel dignity.
 
Resources:  

• Are You Trusting Your Parenting Instincts And Your Inner Guidance?
• Stephanie Lyn Coaching
• How to STOP the DISEASE TO PLEASE! Attn: ALL PEOPLE PLEASERS!
• 12 Ways to Create More Self-Love

 
9. Extending ourselves grace and compassion once we realize that our issues with our children could all be prevented by addressing them differently. Importance of mourning. (at 1h16m)
 
Discussion: My issues with Radical Unschooling, and why it doesn't work for many families.
 
Resources:  

• The Importance of Acceptance and Mourning
• How To Raise A Healthy Child When You’re All F*cked Up
• Could You Be TOO Child-Centered?
• 7 Problems with Avoiding Saying ‘No’ at all Costs

 
10. Problem with sharing a video game between siblings. Challenge of having 3 or more children. (at 1h23m)
 
Discussion:  Our power lies in our authenticity and in valuing our own experience. Hence the importance of getting rid of inner critic and starting to value our needs. Setting limits vs preaching and justifying.
 
Resources:

• Why Parents Need to Find Their Own Answers and Be Authentic
• Are You Treating Yourself In Ways You'd Never Dream Of Treating Your Children?
• The Biggest Mistake The Most Caring Moms Make

 
You can also access and download the call here or here.
 
 
If you'd like to be able to participate in those calls which I offer 4 times a year (the next one is June 1st,) have access to all past calls recordings and be part of my Parenting for Wholeness Tribe Facebook group, check out my Quick Start program.
 
And if you want my personal support as several of the moms on the call who you can tell I worked closely with have received, check out my Clean Parenting™ program.
 
You can probably tell after listening to the call HOW MUCH I love working with moms, and my level of dedication to their parenting and well being in general.
 
I'd love to do that with you as well if you can feel yourself being called to it. 
 
In the name of trusting your intuition as your primary guidance, as discussed on the call, I'd honor that if you're feeling the pull to do this work.
 
You could be just months away from living the family homeostasis which I my wish for all families and is my deep intention and focus for the ones I get the joy of personally working with. ♥
 
Lots of love,

​By Eliane Sainte-Marie, founder Parenting for Wholeness

​I’ve been doing lots of healing and research in the past month, to try to understand and work through what, for the bulk of my adult life, has been my most important and precious relationship.

My background is that I was raised by an emotionally immature mom who, though a good person (I've actually realized since writing this article that she's like actually also on the narcissistic scale or at the very least pretty toxic,) was unable to meet our emotional needs and honor and validate our feelings, and created a narcissistic family environment.

When I was 5, she divorced my toxic father (who I no longer talk to as of about 5 years ago) and a year later moved in with who eventually became my stepfather, a narcissistic man (who I no longer talk to as of 12 years ago,) with whom she stayed for over 35 years.

Given the parents I had, once I reached early adulthood and realized that I couldn’t turn to them for any of the emotional support I needed nor to learn to healthfully maneuver life and relationships, I banded with and clung to my sister, who up until a few years ago I thought, unlike any of them, shared my values and my life trajectory.

But after having a complete breakdown in early 2016 and working through all the negative beliefs about myself that caused me to hit rock bottom, in order to re-find the will to live, I realized how many of those beliefs either came from her or were kept in place, alive and well, through my relationship with my sister.

This happened because I valued her opinion above my own (as I adopted her as my parental figure) when it came to my character, personality, sense of worth and even of reality in general. And also because of a bizarre sense of competition and comparison she has with me, which causes her uncontrollable impulses to put me down, shame me or make me feel wrong when she perceives me as superior to her.

After distancing myself from her in order to create the space to heal myself and prevent me from ending my life (and leaving my beloved daughters to cope with that trauma), I was able to heal myself of childhood trauma, CPTSD, attachment disorder, lifelong history of depression and anxiety, etc.

I then set about reconnecting with her, having always believed that once I’d clear my side of the relationship, we would find our way back to each other, into the arms of our beloved sister and bff, and finally build a healthy relationship.

But my exchanges with her have just been crazy making. Or my expression of my feelings about the relationship completely ignored.

This led me to start doing intensive relationship research.

Interestingly, shockingly, and heartbreakingly, what always most resonated, even though she doesn’t check all the boxes for it, is the experience of interactions with narcissists (covert narcissists, to be precise, who are much harder to identify than classic narcissists,) and the guidance in how to engage with them.

I’ve spent dozens of hours of research on this topic in the past week (hundreds by the time of this update,) to try to understand what the hell is going on as well as in the hope of getting some guidance as to how to connect with her in terms of her taking seriously our relationship issues and to work together toward a healthy relationship.

In the past few days, I came across three YouTube channels on that subject that I recommend, if you too are interested in this topic (updated on 10/16 to provide you with the ones I've found most helpful since:)

• Melanie Tonia Evans - I've now recommended her incredible NARP healing program to all my clients, friends and even daughters! And I use it myself, almost daily, with amazing results. (See the bottom of this article for more info on it.)
• Inner Integration
• Stephanie Lyn Coaching

​

Though I got a ton out of many of the videos I watched, something finally fully clicked for me when watching this video, after taking a quiz to analyze whether or not I was in a relationship with a narcissist.

My number, doing it relative to my sister, was right down the middle of the middle section, which means that you might or might not be in relationship with a narcissist, but either way you’re in a seriously unhealthy relationship.

In the video, Michele provided an analogy that deeply resonated with me:

She compared identifying narcissists to identifying fake from real money, in that experts in it don't study counterfeiting money, but become experts in exactly what real money looks and feels like, so they can spot the fake one instantly.

She recommended doing the same with relationships.

This resonated deeply with me because it's essentially what I've been doing in the past 5 years as I have formed many new healthy relationships and transformed the ones that weren't quite there yet.

And the bottom line with my sister as well as another person who's led to me to dive into this research as well, is that the relationships and exchanges with them DON'T feel clean and healthy. They feel noticeably different from what happens in the healthy relationships I'm in, even the ones that are far from perfect, still have unresolved conflict and that I know require work.

Something feels off and even crazy making, and it's not my job to identify what specific condition they have nor to convince them that something's off.

It's my job to trust myself and my feelings and to not engage with them in ways that aren't healthy for me.

And one very helpful thing to understand and gain from the learning I've been doing in the past days is that it's fruitless to engage in conversations with them with the purpose of convincing them of anything or getting them to understand us.

And that giving up that intention is key to maintaining our sanity, our dignity, our center and our sense of sovereignty over who we are.

If you have a relationship that you’re also curious about, you can take the test I took here.

But whether or not you take the test, and whether or not you are in a relationship with a narcissist, here are some questions I’d encourage you to ask yourself, which I’ve compiled as a result of my interactions with three people (two of them who I don't think are full narcissists while one undeniably is,) and watching videos from the authors recommended above:

• Does this person hear you, strive to understand your point of view?
• Do they take responsibility for the effect of their actions and attitudes on you?
• Do they ever apologize to you?
• Do they honor who you are as a person or make you feel like you should be different?
• Do they celebrate your successes and show happiness for you when you're doing well?
• Are they interested in and committed to the relationship feeling good to you as well as to them?
• Are they open to your sharing your feelings in and experience of your relationship with them?
• Do you feel crazy when trying to have discussions with them, especially about your relationship?
• Do they make you doubt your own version of reality?
• Do you feel the ground constantly shifting under your feet as you’re trying to work something out with them? Do you think to yourself things like ‘this is just crazy making!!’?
• Do you know what healthy relationships feel like, and this clearly doesn’t feel like that?
• Do you feel like something’s not lining up between what they tell you and what you’re feeling?
• Are they sometimes super nice to you but can turn against you and even vicious for no apparent reason, out of the blue, to the point where you never know which will show up, if they’ll be the nice one who’s on your team or the other one who is judgmental, contemptuous and even cruel, and you don’t feel you can ever fully let your guard down around them?
• Do they feel like they’re always in competition with you and/or judging you?
• Do they make you feel wrong for doing what feels right to you?
• Is the relationship good when you’re struggling, but bad when you’re doing well?
• Do they seem like the good guy and you seem like the bad guy, and no one believes what they do to you, or just dismisses it because 'they're such a good nice person!'? Which makes you doubt yourself and what feels true to you, because how could everyone possibly be wrong?

If you get the negative response to most of those questions, like me, you might give up on trying to figure out whether or not the person is a narcissist, which can be crazy making in and of itself, especially if they do have lots of great qualities.

Focus instead on trusting your own perception and getting clear on what you need in order to be in relationship with someone.

One thing which also helped me a ton, and I've since recommended to numerous people, was watching the video I've embedded below, Narcissistic Victim Syndrome: 20 Signs You Have This.

I found that I had 19 of those signs!!!
​

​So though my 'abuser' is not a classic narcissist, and that few people have ever even believed me when I talked of the abuse I experienced with her (which added to feeling of craziness!) the results of that test made it very clear to me that something was seriously wrong in our relationship.

​Down to the complete breakdown I had 3 years ago, which is a variation of something that happens once we can no longer live with the internalized beliefs we've developed about ourselves as a result of their treatment of us and we just crack.

What I've learned after writing the bulk of this article two days ago, is that finding ourselves in relationships like the one I described happens to people who were raised in narcissistic families and/or where their own needs weren't met and their healthy sense of self was not allowed to develop.

Because of this, we don't know what healthy relationships feel like and we don't value or trust our feelings. And are therefore very susceptible to the abuse of toxic people. We don't know to stop it because, in many ways, it just feels normal and familiar to us.

So the work for us is to learn to trust our inner guidance, our gut feelings, our perception of reality and to learn to value ourselves, feel deserving of honoring our feelings and having our needs be met.

In my case, and from my research it seems to be the case for most people raised in similar environments, I needed the support of someone I could truly trust to reflect back to me true reality instead of the twisted one in my mind and the messages I was receiving from my sister, in order to be able to do this tough work.

​I am blessed to have a friend who could play this important role for me.

In fact I told her just a few minutes ago, crying, that one of the greatest acts of self-love I took toward myself, two years ago (after a crazy making exchange with my sister in which she helped me identify truth and repeatedly guided me back to my center,) was to ask her to be my conscience, my compass, to replace the voice of my sister in my head, for when I could not trust my own feelings and version of reality, until I built up my own strength and center and trust in myself.
​

I want to share with you one of my two favorite songs, which I always play and dance to when I want to be uplifted or feel celebratory. I now see it as speaking to the lifelong yearning in me to feel sovereignty in my being, to be free of all the crap described in this article.

​That’s as far as I’ve gotten in my clarity on this topic, but I’ll likely be writing a lot more on this in the future.

Because I'm now feeling passionate about this shit getting identified so women like me can get help in it much earlier!!

I consider myself an aware, conscious, sensitive, strong and pretty wise person, yet it took almost 40 years (this has been going on since we were teens) to finally see what was going on!!

It makes me sick to think of how differently my life would have been had I spotted and stopped this pattern in my 20's or even 30's.

But now I can at least help others see and work through this and hopefully prevent them from entering their 50's or even 40's with it still active.

I do believe that a lot of my clients have suffered this as well, because it's what often leads moms, especially, to commit themselves to a style of parenting that they trust will insure that their children don't grow up with the same baggage they've been dealing with their whole lives.

And now I can help them free themselves from it so that they can trust their instincts so much more as well as take their needs and feelings seriously, which is what is needed to achieve family homeostasis, my goal for all families who work with me. ♥

I hope all this information helps you too if you also were raised in an emotionally destructive environment and/or have also suffered narcissistic abuse!

With so much love and compassion for you if you've been through this as well! And I cannot recommend enough for you to get some help, whether with me, one of the persons from the videos I've linked above, or a therapist or other type of professional you FULLY trust and resonate with, who makes your heart feel good.

You too deserve to be able to say and feel, as I was finally able to state and fully feel in an email today: 
​

"I value myself now. I know my worth, I know that I have the right to be who I am, that I deserve to be happy and treated with respect, to feel dignity in who I am."
​

Every human deserves this, not just our children.

Lots of love,
​

​PS: I did the free course offered by Inner Integration and am now working through the 12 week SANA one. I highly recommend them!

Related articles:

• 
  
• I Am Happy (And How It Took Me Almost Dying to Get Here)
  
• Video: I'm So Happy!
  
• How To Raise A Healthy Child When You’re All F*cked Up
• ​The Importance of Acceptance and Mourning
• Are you an HSP too?
• Understanding the Window of Tolerance - Yours And Your Children's

Back then, I thought it was just a developmental milestone, but now I know that her shift happened as a result of mine.

She’s such a happy, easy going person who lights up any room she walks in! I call her my sunshine. ♥

And I would guess that had I not succeeded in shifting my approach and clearing my drive to control her, I would have ended up with a much more challenging oldest child, rather than one who is so easy to be with, happy, wholesome, cooperative (while still being strong!) and who everyone adores.

I’m happy to say that most parents, through my Clean Parenting program, are also able to clear, heal and align what was at play with their oldest child to also find the ease I found with my Cassandra.
 
After a lot of courageous work in the program, they often move on to have ease and joy in their oldest child relationship that they never dreamed was possible.

Many even achieve what I call family homeostasis.
 
There are three specific ways I work with these moms in order to reach this beautiful place of ease and harmony which I wish all families could live:

1.        Establishing a clean parenting foundation

First, we work on clearing their conditioning and false beliefs, and connecting them to their inner guidance.

I help them find their way to parent from a place of presence and connection to their children, and provide them the support and examples we all would have had if we'd grown up as have mothers-to-be for most humanity, in tribes in tune with human's needs with lots of good parenting modeling.

Some of the specific things we work on are:

• tapping into the knowing that children are innately good and cooperative, and learning to fully parent from this place.
• Getting on the same team, and having all our interactions come from this place.
• Establishing ourselves as clear and benevolent leaders.
• Communicating with them from a place of respect and empathy.
• Identifying and meeting their unmet needs.
• Looking for win-win solutions to problems, where everyone’s needs can be met.
• In general, creating a life where every member of the family’s needs (including parents'!) matter and are met.

 
2.      Helping the child heal anything unresolved in them

Once their clean parenting foundation is established and often times more trust and openness is then present in the children, we work on them developing the empathy and space holding skills to bring out and process what's in the way of the child fully feeling good in their skin, trusting their parents and life.
​
The points that I most actively work on with those parents, which relate directly to the topic of this article, are:

• Having every interaction with them come from a place of seeing them as innately good and being getting on the same team.
• Uncovering and meeting the child’s unmet needs.
• Seeing all behaviors as communication and addressing what the child is trying to communicate over addressing the behavior, in order to heal and meet the child’s need.
• Guiding them to help the child process the painful emotions that are causing him to act out.

 
3.       Working on and healing what’s triggered in the mom
 
Once your Clean Parenting™ foundation is established, you're likely to still find situations where you get triggered, where you don't have access to the positive attitude and responses you've now developed.

This happens when your 'stuff,' your conditioning, your unhealed wounds are activated.
 
So the second step is to do inner work to clear your stuff and heal your wounds which are impacting your ability to parent.
 
This is what follow up PFW programs like my Clean Relationships and Clean Parenting YOURSELF ones, Annemie's Self-Love program, as well as healing sessions are designed to do.
 
I'm truly amazed at the results parents I work with experience, when they start with the Clean Parenting™ program and then (either with me or with their trusted and effective counselors) do inner work on their leftover issues.
 
WARNING: It is NOT an easy journey.
 
It requires you to:

• look at everything objectively

• be brutally honest with yourself
• FEEL
• take responsibility for what's happening in your life and your family.

But it's so worth it!!!
 

​Related articles:

• Audio: Creating a Sense of Safety in Children and Helping Them Build a Healthy Sense of Self
• How To Raise A Healthy Child When You’re All F*cked Up
• Why Parents Need to Find Their Own Answers and Be Authentic
• The Amazing Power of True Empathy
• ​Are You Trusting Your Parenting Instincts And Your Inner Guidance?
• Two Keys To Resolving Behavior Issues
• Understanding the Window of Tolerance - Yours And Your Children's

​

The motivation to write this article came a few days ago, while chatting with a mom who completed my Clean Parenting program about a year ago, and reached out to me because she was really struggling.
 
At first, I thought she was in a really bad place.

But, as our conversation unfolded, it became very clear that she knew exactly what to do, and was, in fact, already doing most of what was needed to regain the balance, the family homeostasis, that she had attained last year by the end of the program.
 
All she had been lacking was the distance from which to look at her life, and an objective, safe and supportive space in which to think through what she wanted and needed to do to bring her family back to homeostasis.
 
(And for me to teach her how to nurse her new baby in the sling, but that’s a completely different topic. ☺)
 
This conversation reminded me of how much I'd been wanting to find a way to connect all my Clean Parenting program graduates who would love and deeply benefit from a listening partnership with another graduate who also has the exact same parenting foundation, beliefs and expertise, and is also committed to a life of authenticity and integrity.
 
I started my current listening partnership myself about 3 or 4 years ago, after being connected with the wonderful Dana DaPonte by a mutual acquaintance on some random Facebook post. (I owe this woman so much for connecting me with Dana, and I don’t even remember her name!!)
 
We've been meeting weekly on Skype for most of this time, and our meetings are one of the most important support I have in my life.

They help me:

• look at my weeks and my life with a bit of a distance so I can better be proactive about it.
• keep my life on track, moving deliberately in the direction I want it to.
• celebrate the win's with someone who 'gets it' because she's been with me all along.
• have a way to process each past week and leave behind what's in the past because I've been able to name it and be heard in it.
• process pain, upsets, disappointments, grief, in a welcoming and safe space (with someone who values crying as much as me.)
• see the progress I'm making (when I otherwise wouldn't see it) because I regularly check in about where I'm at. Seeing this progress (instead of otherwise believing I'm stagnating) is at times profoundly helpful in making me feel positive about my life, optimistic, and keeping moving in the tough projects and areas of life.
• best prepare for each week.
• feel seen, heard, understood, that I matter.

 
My meetings with Dana are one of the things I most look forward to each week. And are valuable to me no matter what mood I'm in, whether I'm high on life or in despair, or anything in between.
 
We talk business.

We talk about our children.

Our breakdowns and breakthroughs.

We talk health issues.

We cry.

​We bitch about stuff.

Whatever is needed to clear our energy and align with the life we want.

We really listen to each other and we get to empty our hearts in an exquisitely safe space (not unlike the beautiful process Sofia taught us to do with our children in my last article.)
 
And in the process of those weekly meetings, we have become cherished friends... ♥

So now, on to you.
 
How does the idea of you finding your own Dana, your own perfect match for a listening partnership sound to you?

How does the idea of being able to count on a trusted ear and safe listening space every week (or at whatever frequency you choose) sound to you?

​

General Instructions for Listening Partnerships
 
Here are some suggestions to help you make the most of your partnership.
 
But they are just suggestions, based on my experience. Use them as guidelines to get started, and then feel into what will best serve you and your partner. As always trust your instincts if you feel that something different is called for and would be of greater benefit.

• I strongly suggest you keep your calls to one hour. It may be tempting to talk a lot longer, especially at first or if you’ve desperately been hungering for meaningful conversation. But if stretching out your calls causes you to feel like you don’t have time for regular ones because they take too long, this will actually get in the way of you getting as much as you can out of your connection. If you want more connection time, schedule an additional call for just chatting, in between your official meetings.
• Use video chat: Skype, FaceTime, Facebook messenger (free and super easy to use!), Zoom. It is so much more connecting and easy to stay fully present to another when we can see each other! Though you might think you’d get much more out of an in-person meeting, this might make them much harder to schedule. So if you do have the flexibility of meeting one-on-one with someone very regularly, go ahead and do so! Just make sure though that you do find a way to have deep sharing and listening time, and don’t just end up doing normal chatting (which is also awesome and needed in our lives, but doesn’t provide the same value.)
• I would recommend setting a regular time for your meetings, whether they’re weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. This is so you don’t have to think about planning them, don’t have to spend time looking for times that work. Otherwise, they’re a lot less likely to happen. What we decided to do, with Dana, is that we have a weekly set time, and when need be, we skip it or move it to a different day. So we still have flexibility in case we’re busy, need a quiet day or want to plan something else, but we never have to worry about our meetings dropping off our radar.

 
FORMAT FOR THE MEETINGS 

I’ve had two listening partnerships of at least two years each, and used different formats for each one.

You can choose one of them as is or use them as inspiration to create what will most support your duo and you’ll most enjoy, adding and removing elements until it’s such that you both can’t wait to meet each week. ☺

FORMAT 1

I used this format with my engineer friend, when we were supporting each other in building our practices.

You could use it if you have a specific focus, like achieving your parenting intention or meeting for parenting support:

1. Take 5 minutes each for check in. Use this time to connect and share whatever you’d like, both to initially connect and as well as to express whatever needs to be gotten out of the way so you can turn your focus to your intention for the rest of the call.

2. Decide who will speak first and set a timer for 20 minutes (or just keep track of the time.)

3. The person who speaks answers the following questions:
​

• Where are you at in your life right now? It can be in general, in your parenting, in your primary relationship, or anything else that’s up for you. Whatever’s alive in you, in your life, that you’re focused on. I encourage you to speak from your heart, what’s alive in you, instead of describing situations. This is more about feeling than talking.
• What’s in your way of having what you most long for or are focused on today?
• What can you do to address what’s in your way?
• Come up with one cross-off-able action step (a word I made up meaning one concrete actionable step that you can write down on a to do list and cross off when accomplished) to address each thing that’s in your way.
• Only if you have extra time, and you genuinely want it, the other person can give feedback. Make sure that this is a conscious decision, so each of you gets your time and so you stay within the time limits that work for your family.

4. Once the 20 minutes is up, switch roles and repeat the questions with the second person.

​

Some of these guidelines might feel awkward and new to you, but I highly recommend trying to follow them at first, so you can get a sense of the power of that kind of setting, before deciding to make changes to it:

• Except for getting feedback at the end, the person in the listening role ONLY listens.  
• Make sure to ask permission before offering feedback.  
• Say NO if your partner wants to offer you feedback and you don’t want it. Stretch into being honest here, if it’s not something you’re comfortable with. You’ve created a safe space where you can both practice what may be out of your comfort zone and that you’d like to eventually be able to do in your ‘real life.’
• Ask for feedback if you’d value your partner’s input on something.
• When giving feedback, word it as ‘what I’m hearing is… ‘ ‘my experience when you were talking was…’ ‘how I’m interpreting...’ Take ownership of your experience of the other person and DO NOT ASSUME that you know what’s going on for them, that you know the truth of their situation or have the right solution for them.
• Honor your instincts. If you feel a strong pull to say something, you may be the messenger for just what they need to hear. But… make sure that it’s not just a mundane compulsion to give advice, to share your similar story, to be helpful. When you find yourself wanting to give feedback, check in with yourself. Ask yourself where the motivation to offer what you’re wanting to is coming from. Is it on some level for your own personal satisfaction? Or have you truly put yourself in their shoes, seeing the experience through THEIR eyes, and feel an inspiration to share something that you deeply believe will be of benefit to them? Another way to inquire into it is to tune in to if it’s coming from your head or your heart/inner guidance/gut.

 
CONCLUSION
 
I wonder if you’re able to get a sense, from reading this article, of just how powerful having this kind of support in your life could be.

How transformational to your life it could be to have a dependable practice where you regularly and proactively empty your heart in the loving presence of a good listener (not unlike the practice for children described in my last article!)

Where you proactively think about what you want for your life for yourself and what’s not working.

Where you get practical about what’s needed in it now, what’s blocking you, and how to address those blocks.

Where you can create and heal your life systematically and on purpose.

​Writing this article, what came to me is that a listening partnership is a soul feeding gift that we give ourselves.

If this in any way resonates with you, I sincerely hope you'll put in the work to create one for yourself.

And if you’ve been eyeing my Clean Parenting program for a while, or didn’t know about it but are also interested in receiving very effective support in creating family homeostasis in your family, email me and we’ll chat about if this program is right for you. And if it is, and you complete it, then I will get you set you up with a listening partnership with another CPP grad. ♥
 
Lots of love to you,

Hello dear mama,

I know it's a bit late to be talking about the New Year but I have an IMPORTANT MESSAGE THAT MOST CONSCIOUS MOMS REALLY NEED TO HEAR.

And I figure since we're still (albeit barely!) in January, I can probably still slide by with this recommendation for the new year, which I'm sure you'll be happy to get behind.

Because it's not about eating better, exercising or pushing yourself to do anything, but about being kinder to YOURSELF.

TREATING yourself better, having a kinder relationship with yourself.

Treating yourself more like you strive to treat your children.
​
In 4 very specific ways, which I describe for you below.
​

WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT

But before I dive into the HOW, I want to talk about WHY I'm urging you to do this, and would love for you to make it one of your resolutions for 2019, if you do this kind of thing.

Or if you don't do resolutions, that you make it a COMMITMENT TO YOURSELF this year.

First of all, it's because as a human being, just like your children do, you deserve to be treated well.

Period.

Also, the way you treat yourself is what has the most impact on your quality of life. And that's something you actually have control over!

But the last reason I urge you to heed my advice, since I'd bet it's why you follow me, is that it is critical in being the parent you long to be.

It's so obvious when you think about it!

Just picture a day, or time in your life, when you felt great. Rested, well fed, your body felt good, you enjoyed your activities and your friends, and felt close to your partner. 

How would you react to your children's challenging behaviors when living from that place?

Now think of a different time, when you were tired, didn't have time to eat properly, your life felt like drudgery, you were worried your bff was more interested in a different friend than you, and you had a fight with your partner.

How would you THEN respond to your children's challenging behaviors?

Pretty obvious, right?

​

I LEARNED THIS THE HARD WAY, ONCE IT WAS TOO LATE FOR ME

A lot of what I'm sharing with you in this article, I learned the hard way.

And once it was too late for me, in terms of my life with my children growing up.

Though I was blessed to experience ease and harmony in my parenting, through an unwavering commitment to raising my daughters to be WHOLE and getting the support I needed to make it happen, I completely failed when it came to learning to care for myself as well.

And my family suffered quite a bit as a result of it.
​

On this photo, I was 30 or 31, a young mom to 3 children, crushed by one of the worst and the longest depression of my life (I've had many, ever since I was a child.)

Because of how I was myself parented, though I very quickly learned the importance of fully meeting my daughters' needs, I was absolutely clueless that mine were also worth meeting, never mind knowing how to go about meeting them.

It took a complete breakdown 3 years ago, when my little Gaby who's on the photo with me was 18 and the other 2 had left home, for me to finally realize how critical it was that I learn how to treat myself in the way I'd always treated my children.

My biggest regret in life is not having known this when my girls were little, so I could have enjoyed my life with them more, and been a lot more present to them.

I do not want you to experience this.

I don't want you to, like me, look forward to having grandchildren, as a second chance to get things right with your children, to be able to finally be fully present in their lives.

Which is why I'm so committed to teaching moms what I wish I'd known at the time of that picture taken 20 years ago. 


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4 WAYS TO BE BETTER TO YOURSELF

So here are 4 specific ways I would love for you to be better to yourself this year, if you're not already practicing them.


1. Find ways to meet your own needs

One of the biggest mistakes I notice in peaceful, attachment, Continuum Concept parenting and homescholing moms is that like I was, though they’re acutely aware of how important it is for their children’s needs to be met and single-mindedly focused on making sure that they are, they ignore the fact that they are humans too and therefore also have needs. 

And that it’s critical for themselves, in order to be the best possible mom to their beloved children, in order to have a chance of thriving as a family, and just because they deserve it like all humans, to have their needs met too.

THE ONLY WAY you can thrive as a family (and in relationships in general) is to ensure that everyone’s needs are met.

That includes yours!

Your needs and ability to enjoy your life are equally as important as your children’s.

It is true that for the first year and maybe a tiny bit in the next few, you sometimes need to set your needs aside as parents, or at least postpone them a bit, because babies are unable to meet their own needs and theirs are more urgent.

But this should shift very quickly as children grow. (And you should always look for a creative way to get your needs met as well your children’s, if at all possible.)

Children need to know that others have needs and feelings too. And they are totally able to accept that if you strive to meet yours and others’ in a way that doesn’t conflict with theirs and is respectful and honoring of them.

If you’re familiar with my work, you know that my goal is for families to live what I call family homeostasis.

And this goal is impossible to attain and maintain if moms don’t commit to making sure that their own needs are met, as well as their children’s.

So my wish for you for 2019 is that you get very good at meeting your own needs. 

And I would love, if you do this kind of thing, for you to make it one of your New Year's resolutions or a commitment to yourself this year.


2. Honor your feelings

Another very common mistake I see conscious moms make is ignoring and even judging their feelings.

Our feelings are not right or wrong.

They provide information.

They let us know when some of our needs aren't being met. Or that something that's happening in not in alignment with our values.

Ignoring our feelings always backfires in the long run.

And prevents us from addressing issues that need to be.

If you're in the habit of judging or ignoring your feelings, I suggest you try instead to pay more attention to them.

What are they telling you? What are the unmet needs they're pointing to that need to be addressed so that you can be kinder to yourself and can more sustainably be the loving mom you aspire to be for you child?

Read this article for more on this topic.


3. Tune in to and trust your inner guidance

Your inner guidance is the most powerful tool you have to:

• know what's right for you as well as your family
• know how to best respond to your children's behaviors
• create the kind of life that will best serve you and your whole family.

When trying to make a decision, our mind can only consider a limited number of factors at a time. But our inner guidance is usually taking ALL of the pertinent factors into account.

Factors like:

• Our values
• Our child’s unique personality
• What he’s been through and what he’s going through right now, which might affect/influence his behavior
• Our life as a whole, including our schedule, other people involved, etc.
• Our intuitive sense of what might be going on and what might happen given specific responses.
• Factors that aren’t directly related but still have an impact on the situation

So learning to tune in to it and trust it is a wonderful gift you can give yourself and your children.

It will insure that you're moving in the right direction for you and your family, making the right decisions and can lead to a beautiful quality of life.

After working with hundreds of families, it's very clear to me that there's rarely a right way for anything.

But there's often a right way for a specific family or situation.

And the only way for you to know what that is for you is through your inner guidance.

No one else can know what’s right for you, for your children, for your family!

For a lot more information and guidance on following your inner guidance, click on the two articles linked above in this section.

And one kind way you can start following your inner guidance is to notice when you want to talk yourself out of your impulses or feelings.

Then ask yourself if this might not be your inner guidance speaking to you.

And if you think it is, start honoring them (and you!) by taking action on them.


4. Set needed boundaries

One of the 2 videos I most frequently share with moms I work with is the one below, by the incomparable Brené Brown, on compassion and boundaries.