Paradigm U. Podcast
Paradigm U. Podcast
Episode 148: Embracing Self-Love and Releasing Expectations Amid Back-to-School Season Chaos
As the back-to-school season unfurls, wrapping us in its unique swirl of emotions and expectations, I sat down with the inspirational Lisa Sarnowski to dissect our personal experiences. We pondered the powerful concept of releasing expectations, managing our emotional responses, and the importance of self-love and self-care amid the chaos.
Our conversation flowed, unveiling the transformative role self-love can play in our lives. We explored how detaching ourselves from specific outcomes, being honest, and modeling these behaviors for our children can catalyze growth. We dug into the relevance of these strategies, especially during conflicts. We even teased out the concept of zero attachment, a self-awareness tool that could help us become better role models for our children.
As we wound down, Lisa and I reflected on the shifting landscape of education and the pressing need to balance traditional learning with the skills our kids need to thrive. We exchanged personal stories about parenting, the evolving expectations with each new season, and how the right mindset can ease the journey. We discussed the importance of self-advocacy and carving out moments to breathe. So, take a moment for yourself and join Lisa and I as we share our stories and wisdom. And, if our conversation resonates with you, we encourage you to share it with your friends and family, as we aim for a thousand downloads.
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Welcome to the.
Speaker 2:Paradigm you podcast. You're listening to the Paradigm you podcast. On this week's episode, lisa and I dive into the topic of going back to school how important it is to love up on ourselves and everyone else around us, and the importance of releasing expectations and being intentional with how we're showing up during this unique and delicate season of life. Listen in.
Speaker 3:You're listening to the Paradigm you podcast. You're about to start transforming your life by growing your mind and expanding your paradigms. Here we'll cover real life topics, just like the stuff you'd share with a good friend. This podcast will serve up topics that weigh on our hearts and keep us up at night, whether it's navigating parenthood and becoming an adult, or wayfinding, personal development, marriage and money. You, my friend, are in the right place. I'm glad you're here.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, welcome to the Paradigm you podcast. It is another great week and here today I have the lovely Lisa Sarnowski joining me and, for a lot of you listeners, you probably have someone in your life who's going back to school. We are in a season of back to school, back to some routines, some are maybe back to work and we're all coming off of a three-day week. Well, not all, but most people are coming off of a three-day weekend, and I just had a conversation with somebody who said this is the most delicate time of the year, because emotions are high, energies are perhaps low or all over the place, and some people have different expectations of what this season is going to look like. But before we get into any of that, I just want to check in and say, lisa, how's it going?
Speaker 4:I'm good April. It's so good to be back with you.
Speaker 2:Another week. You are literally listening to Lisa and I each week showing up and figuring out how to do this, and we are having so much fun figuring it out. So thank you for all of the listeners who are cheering us on and coming back every week.
Speaker 4:Absolutely. It's so good to be back here with you and I'm excited for our topic today. Really am.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that there's a lot we can cover, but I would love, before we get into any of the main topics that I was hoping to cover this week, to just check in. How's your week then, lisa? We had a full moon, we had a holiday weekend. I'm guessing your kids are back to school by this point.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you're right. By the time this airs they will be back to school. Hopefully. We're a part of the Milwaukee public school system and our school unfortunately does not have air conditioning, so it's shaping up to be a pretty hot week. So it's actually there's a lot up in the air right now, as we're recording this, whether or not they're actually going back to school.
Speaker 4:It says it's been a really good week, but to your point, it's been a delicate week and one where I've noticed and sat in awareness of OK, my energy is a little bit off and I'm going to just sit back and be in awareness with all of it and figure out how I can best present myself to the world and engage with how I need things to go. And basically what that has meant is I just I kind of defaulted into a whole lot of love pouring this week, just going to out pour love everywhere I go, to everyone I meet, not that I never do that, I do that but it was a very aware moment where my energy was so off. If I hadn't trained myself a little bit more previously, I think I could have maybe not presented myself as well. Does that make sense? I don't know if I'm articulating that as well as it could be it totally does.
Speaker 2:I think we've all been in that moment where we are responding to something, perhaps from an old paradigm, from an old behavior, and maybe we've been triggered by something. Our energy is off, maybe we're just feeling fatigued and we get triggered and we respond a certain way, and I think that there's usually two routes we can go. I mean, we've all seen that person who just kind of loses their crap. I've definitely been that person. My kids witnessed it one time and they don't let me forget that easily.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that was a great moment of unpacking and recognizing like, okay, this wasn't my best self and how can can we learn from that? And you know, especially role modeling how to go apologize to someone is, I think, a really important piece, and I had that opportunity when I did lose my mind on someone one time. But I think also you touched on a piece of.
Speaker 2:You've retrained your brain in a different way now, and now you have that awareness that maybe your energy is off a little bit, maybe you're you know, feeling those fatigues, maybe you're feeling the overwhelm or just the delicacy of you know a lot of things happening right now. But having that awareness allows you to shift that and say, okay, how can I show up the best version of myself, even when maybe I'm not feeling it?
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely, and I love that word delicacy, I think it really.
Speaker 4:It really speaks to me.
Speaker 4:This you know this last week and going into next week, my son's birthday is an early September birthday, so we have birthday parties coming up on top of everything and just learning to to love myself enough to show up in a way that does present as well as it can in this moment.
Speaker 4:That was definitely a journey for me. In fact, it was a few years ago that I realized, through the journey that I had undertaken, I had gotten to a point as a mother, as a professional, as a spouse, that I didn't it's not, it wasn't that I didn't love myself, I didn't even like myself. And so the journey to really get there and to retrain myself and to get back into that core gratitude and loving myself enough to say, okay, in this moment I'm feeling low and what I can do to support myself and love myself enough is to love others as well and really be that, be the person out in the world that I need, also in the world right now, right Cause I think we're all kind of treading water a little bit going into this back to school season.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know that when you're talking about loving yourself a couple of years ago, I had a practice because I realized something very similar.
Speaker 2:I just was really unhappy and I didn't realize it, but it was like this constant thing that was running in the background of my life, like I was showing up every day, I was pouring out into other people, I was doing, doing, doing. I was trying to do the best I could, but at the end of the day I wasn't feeling the love so deeply that I would actually choose to love myself. And I got this message. At one point. I got a nudge, we'll call it that said, when you take care of yourself, everything else gets easier. And boy, oh my gosh, I'm feeling emotional just saying that. When I heard that, I was like that seems so simple. Yeah, and really that's probably been one of my bigger lessons to work on this lifetime, today For sure.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's like daily. Yeah, I agree, and you know there's so much out in the world today about self care, especially for moms, and, quite honestly, I would see those messages and I would actually be repulsed by them because I would internalize it at that time when I had this negative story going on in my head that it's just another thing to do and who actually takes two hours to have a morning routine that's just like perfect, journal and run and do all the things. And then when you take a step back and you go, okay, do I love myself? Just as an honest question, no judgment. You're having the conversation with yourself. And when you realize, of course I do.
Speaker 4:Well, what do you do for others that you love? You take care of them, right, and you show up for them. And when I realized that I mean, there really was a big part of my journey as well where I was not showing up for myself and I loved to play the martyr as the mom, I gotta take care of everybody else. Why isn't anyone taking care of me? And I thought what a horrible role model I was being to my kids and even my spouse, and I was training them to not to equally not take care of themselves right and to expect other people to take care of them, and wait, wait.
Speaker 2:can we pause right there To expect we were teaching others to expect someone to take care of you? That's how.
Speaker 4:That's how I interpreted it. Yeah, that when I really took a step back and I thought, what am I really? What's, what am I doing here, right, and that was that season of life of people have listened to the podcast where I just looked around and realized that I had the life that I had created, but I just didn't know what was next. And so, yeah, I realized, holy cow, I'm teaching my kids to expect other people to take care of them. I'm teaching my kids to be upset when other people just don't magically know what their needs are and do all those things. And I they deserve better. I signed up to take care of them and a role model for them, but, most importantly, I also deserve better. And so how interesting for that to cycle through through the genre, if you will, of self love.
Speaker 4:And every day I started asking myself if I really love myself. What would I do? I really love myself? What would I do now? What would I do in this situation? What would I like? Would I eat this? Would I? Would I? How would I engage in this email conversation? How would I respond to this teacher situation that I'm having? How you know anything? How would someone who loves himself enough, show up.
Speaker 4:What's fascinating is so much of it was showing up with honesty, because I realized in a lot of conversations and a lot of different areas of my life I was not actually being forthright and honest. I thought I'll just be passive, I won't use my voice, I won't, I won't stir the pot, because I've been known to always ask the hard questions right. And I realized, and that just led to a very, very tumultuous year for my son at school, one year. Now I'm on the flip side and actually just a couple nights ago, I started laughing at my husband because I'm like, haha, she's back. She's back with a vengeance, because I'm just being honest with people and not being attached to their, to to their agenda, not being attached to any outcome on my end, just truly sharing. This is what's happening. How do we best move forward?
Speaker 2:So I think what you just said about not being attached and showing up and being honest with yourself and also, I think, probably, trusting yourself yeah, something that I tend to struggle with, because if you don't trust yourself, then you question speaking up, you question is my voice worthy? Is this something that I should even be speaking up about? And I really like how you said that. That was a really, I think, a point in piece that I think all of us can learn from. We can all learn to trust ourselves, to listen and get quiet, take care of ourselves and to remember that if I love myself, how am I going to respond? Or how am I going to show up today? And if you have little ones in your life, you can also ask yourself if they're watching, how am I going to behave in a way that I am happy with, how I'm role modeling this?
Speaker 4:Absolutely. I had a moment a few months ago where I looked in the mirror and I thought would I want my daughter to turn out like me?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, such a good question, and it really gave me pause.
Speaker 4:I thought, holy cow, I need to sit with that one some more. And the short answer is yes, and and so it was a. Really I chose in that moment to saw the answer as an empowering opportunity for me to continue to grow and to role model for her and to use intentional language, and she's a hoot and a riot and she brings us so much joy. So I really have no concerns, I'm not worried there. But it was a moment of self-reflection For me to say, okay, where's the growth here?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, tony and I have that conversation for anyone listening who's unfamiliar. Tony is my partner and we've actually been having that theme conversation lease lately Because we've I've realized so I have I have a daughter who's the oldest of my children and she we joke that we should have just named her karma Go similar to me in so many ways and so different To me in so many different ways that it's fascinating. But the the similarities are the areas clearly of growth opportunity for me. And what I've realized is she's she's really Stepping into a lot of the role modeling that I've been doing, but she's so much more empowered and so feisty because I have role modeled for her ways to speak her mind and to have opinions and to have that confidence and independence, and I worked really hard to make sure that I role modeled and advocated that for her. But now what I've realized is she's picking up on a lot of other habits that I have and she's starting to Embrace, maybe, things that aren't my, my best pieces of myself, and so I'm having conversations with her on a regular basis like, hey, you need to do this. I'm gonna use this example Because this one's a full circle example.
Speaker 2:Lisa, I don't know if you remember this, but After I had my second child and for everyone listening, you may have not heard this full story, but after I had my second child, I owned a business that I felt like had run its course and, energetically, I was really struggling and I actually hired Lisa to be my coach To help me figure out what was the next step in that journey. And at the time I had had my second child and I was really struggling to take care of myself and At the end of probably our first conversation, she said okay, these are your daily ten things you need to do, and one of them was just a shower. Do you remember that, lisa? That was I do.
Speaker 4:I remember your non-negotiable list right.
Speaker 2:Yes, so I had to have on there. I had to shower every day just to just change my energy and to like set the tone because I had gotten into a Living off of dry shampoo. And just like throwing my hair in a ponytail and just going because I was just trying, I was spread so thin and what so clear you came up with that list.
Speaker 4:I didn't give you the list.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, thank you. Yes, that's a good point. So everybody's non-negotiable list of the things that they need to do to feel better. It's gonna be a little bit different, but what I realized was one of mine was I needed to shower just to change that energy. Yeah, here's the crazy part. I am negotiating with my child now how important it is to shower, to take care of herself, and it's so interesting and I'm not saying like I was a stinky kid, but I was like you know what I'm? Just, I'm fine, I'll just, you know, throw on a hoodie and a baseball cap and call it a day when, in reality, when I take that extra time to just take care of myself in a different way, I show up differently. And now I'm trying to have those same conversations, or I'm, I am having those conversations with my daughter and it's so interesting how full circle and how they pick up on things, whether you say it or not.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, they really do watch more than.
Speaker 4:More you know even more than they listen. Right, I was having a conversation Stella asked me yesterday. So, for all the listeners, I have two kids. My youngest, stella, is six currently, and my oldest is 11, about to be 12. And my oldest and I have our own Humor and you know he's my karma. We get each other and if other people are listening, I think they think he's being really mean to me. So I'm equally aware of that, because I and so Stella had asked me why is Desmond so mean to you? And I said he's not. And I said that's a good observation.
Speaker 4:What Desmond is doing right now is he is learning how to be funny and what works and what doesn't. And in our house you need to learn these skills for life and the people you practice them on, or mom and dad, so you can always practice them on me. And I said part of what you don't see Stella is. Sometimes I will tell him hey, does that really miss the mark? You know, I know you're trying to be funny, but that was too far or that was really inappropriate. I go, but he's not mad. You know he's willing to go there and test things and I think you know continuing to foster that environment For our kids to be able to learn from us by what we do. Karma is a great word for these children.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, it's a way to empower them, isn't?
Speaker 4:it.
Speaker 1:For sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and my hope is that when we're role modeling this, it's not just our children. When we're showing up in the world and we're. If we have that voice, then we can go out there and say hey, I think you actually missed the mark.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Or you know you can actually call things out and not in a way where you're being disrespectful, but you're actually establishing those boundaries in a really healthy way. You know, I don't I, for those who are listening I have a property management company and we had a person reach out to us who had a vehicle accident this week on one of our properties in a very large parking lot, and they managed to completely rip off the bottom of their vehicle on one of our speed bumps. Whoa yeah.
Speaker 4:Is everybody okay.
Speaker 2:Everybody's perfectly fine. The car is not drivable because they're missing a lot of pieces.
Speaker 2:Here's the interesting thing. This is a good example. This is what happened to me this week. This person reaches out to me and says hey, I was driving in your parking lot and now my vehicle doesn't have, like the oil pan, all of these things. He listed off all of these things that are now not attached to his vehicle. And I'm like gosh. I've owned this property for many years. Many of people come through this on a, you know, a monthly basis. This is a very large, popular property and I've never had anybody have this example like issue with this property. And he said the first thing. He says I need to contact your insurance because I need them to cover all of the towing and my car is totaled. Hmm, Right, that's the first thing, Not a? Hey, I might have been driving too fast, Right, Can you?
Speaker 4:imagine, don't assume responsibility. No.
Speaker 2:And that was the interesting piece. So I I could have easily been like whoa, whoa, whoa, back off man, like what are you doing? But instead I chose to just witness how he was showing up, what he was saying, and to pour out love, because I'm like gosh, you know what. That would be really stressful if my vehicle was missing all of the pieces down below and in that moment, if I wasn't equipped to have the awareness to actually recognize, like oh, maybe I made a little bit of the the choices that would have, I mean, if you're hitting a speed bump so fast that you lose half your vehicle, right, Good job yeah.
Speaker 2:And I'm trying so hard in this moment to, like you know, be compassionate but equally not try to giggle, cause I also was a young person at one point cruising very fast in vehicles, but I could have easily flown off the handlebars or been triggered in different ways.
Speaker 2:Or I could have been really angry or defensive, and because I had that awareness that you were talking about and because I've been working so hard on taking care of myself, I had a lot more compassion and I was able to step up to that conversation and to have those conversations with that person and with my team so that we could actually respond in a really respectful way and not necessarily just immediately jump to you know all the negative things or placing blame or anything that could have happened.
Speaker 2:So when you're saying like eyes are watching, we can also role model how we show up to any of these conflicts or situations and and show up with a lens of love, Like I went into this and I'm like, okay, I'm going to pour out love under this guy because this has got to be pretty hard. He doesn't have a vehicle anymore. Obviously, that's working. He's immediately looking for my insurance information instead of like, hey, you know, here's all the steps I took. Yeah, you know, it was very interesting to witness how he responded and then how I was able to role model how I responded, but then also how I could teach my team to respond.
Speaker 4:Yeah Well, your ripple effect? It absolutely is. Learning how to respond versus react in that moment is quite a journey, especially when you find yourself personally triggered in certain situations, right, and so learning how to retrain your brain to say, okay, I'm going to pause and I'm going to choose to respond to this in a way that I would want to receive Ooh, that's a good one, right, like that's. That's been part of my journey even through the school system is trying to have these conversations with staff at administrators, particular teachers, to say, okay, how can we have a really healthy dialogue here and how can I respond in a way that's equally beneficial and accountable and show up also in a way that I would want to be receiving that back from a parent, you know, because I think we can. We can be entangled in attachment to what things look like. So good for you for being able to hold that boundary.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, thank you, but I think it's it's all about our intentions. Yeah, it's all about how we intend to show up and what we want the outcome to be, but then not being attached to what it actually is going to end up being.
Speaker 4:Right there, that one, the zero attachment. That's been fascinating for me to detach and I think I almost went too far on the spectrum of really embracing that that I almost feel like I'm so detached. I had to learn how to reattach to certain things. So just it became this journey of like, whatever you guys do, right, whatever, very laissez-faire approach to parenting and school and just everything, and finally I had to go. I think I'm way too, way too chill and I need to come back to some standards and accountability as well, as you know, approaching all this with love. But again, you know, school is really top of my mind right now and and I'm I'm excited for the year ahead because I really had to sit back and just embrace a new philosophy and a new belief system.
Speaker 4:For those of you that don't know, I started my professional career in higher education, much like April, and so I have my master's in higher ed. I hold a deep, deep passion for education and yet we can all agree that the world is changing and perhaps some of the traditional skill sets or degrees that people once needed to be financially secure or successful no longer exist right. So there's a lot more opportunities now and we're all kind of learning it together. Yet the educational system has their own pathway, and so learning for me that okay. Education can provide learning in a way that my kids will absolutely learn, but maybe not what I was always expecting them to learn, and they're learning different skill sets than what I'm going to be teaching them at home. And how can I, you know, marry all of that together?
Speaker 4:So it's been a really interesting year for me to just start the school year. This is the first school year we've started in gosh because of COVID and then things that were happening with my oldest, probably in four, five years, five, four years, excuse me, in four years, where I have just felt really, really great. That's pretty awesome, and I feel so great that I'm so exhausted because I'm like I forget what this feels like. I usually had my guard up and I just I felt like what if I just took that down? And what if I reestablished what learning means in the school system, and what if I reestablished my love and voice within, you know, the partnership of the school district? And what if I reestablished what learning means at home as well? And so it's really flipped my belief structure upside down and the outcome has been very positive for me, but it's still a delicate week overall.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think what you said about taking the guard down is a really important piece, because if we're not aware of what those guards are, you know those shields that we're putting up to protect some part of our hearts or our belief system or whatever we're doing a lot of times that's a lot of energy actually to put up those guards to combat whatever it is that we're trying to protect. Yeah, we might be fighting a battle that we don't even realize that matters to us, or that's maybe wearing us out For sure.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Do you ever did you have a part of your journey at all where you felt like you put guards up around your heart?
Speaker 2:I think I still do. I think I do especially in the relationships and friendship world, and that's probably a conversation for another podcast. But I think, well, probably relationships in general. Actually, recently I put some social posts out on social media about finding my voice and finding that confidence in my business partnerships because I had guarded myself and my voice and my opinion so much and part of that was because I didn't have that confidence. I didn't have that self-love enough to believe that what I had to say or my opinions mattered or were worthy enough to come to the table. So I would sit quiet a lot more and that's for another conversation. But I definitely had those. But one of the other things I wanted to share really quickly is kind of on a fun note, my youngest is starting preschool this year. How exciting, I know. Right, that's been quite the journey, holy smokes. But what's been really interesting? When you were talking about zero attachment and just kind of having that freedom or that sense of lightness it sounded like by coming into it with a different approach, it was so interesting.
Speaker 2:We rolled into preschool orientation the other night and we rolled in hot.
Speaker 2:We were trying to cram in every ounce of summer and so we literally came from a park straight to orientation, like take out food in the car in the parking lot before we roll in, and my youngest was ahead of me.
Speaker 2:She was so excited that she ran up ahead and she went into the auditorium ahead of me like so far that they didn't know I was there. And she gets to the entry and the people who are welcoming her are her new teachers and we knew them already and so it wasn't a stranger that she was walking into. But it was so funny because she was walking in with all these other families and they're like oh, froggy, are you coming in by yourself? And they were looking around and I was behind a couple other families and so I heard them ask her that and she's like yep, I am, I'm actually here. And so I'm like raising my hand like I'm here, I'm just not right next to her. And so we walk in and what I realized was that all of the other family not all of them, but for the most part all of the other families that were going into orientation this was their first child that was going in preschool and I'm rolling in third child, literally sending her clearly into orientation all by herself.
Speaker 4:All by herself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I've gone through this journey already so I have a different understanding and so I can have different attachments and different expectations and I can show up really differently. And it felt so much more calm, I read. I very clearly remember sending my first out into the world a little bit more and you know, sitting in my car many times I'm sure I even maybe called you at one of those points, just bawling my eyes out, because I'm like, oh my gosh, am I doing the right thing?
Speaker 2:I can't believe. I just sent her, you know, on her own into the world for a couple hours, whatever it was.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we get into orientation and those are the conversations that they're having in orientation. Be graceful with yourself on those first couple of days. It might feel harder for you than it might feel for other, for your students or for others.
Speaker 2:Don't look outward at how other families and parents are responding, because they may be in a different path or journey. And I was like man, these are such good lessons and realizing that. You know, I had time to talk to some of the other families afterwards and One of them they were like oh my gosh, we are so nervous, we're. You know, this is a big, big deal and you know I'm sitting there like rolling in with my flip flops, you know, and they're all dressed up like totally dressed. Yes, yes, first kid going in, right, totally. But what was so interesting was their expectations and how much pressure that they were putting on themselves and how I did that. I could relate to that, but I'm at a different season because I've already gone and walked that journey. So now I can roll in a little bit differently, a little bit lighter, and know that everything's gonna be okay.
Speaker 2:And it reminded me of how important it is to surround yourself with others who are maybe a few steps ahead of you, to kind of gut, check you a little bit and then, also to have that grace for others, because they may be going through a different part of their journey and they have some of those lessons to learn still that maybe you or I have already learned. So, it was a good reminder and expectations, because I rolled in like, yep, this is gonna be great, I'm sure whatever information we're gonna have is wonderful, and I saw other families. They're literally like taking notes, yeah.
Speaker 2:I didn't even bring a pen or paper. I was lucky I had, you know, my kid and you know, rolled in with my water bottle.
Speaker 4:Perspective and experience is just a fascinating thing in the parenting world, right and to your point, being able to hold that compassion and grace for the newbies and just say, hey, we got you whatever questions like, without being condescending, and just a genuine offer to support and connect. That's truly what makes communities so great, and it sounds like you have a really good one there and they're so lucky to have you as the hot mess mom, as you were first.
Speaker 2:Why wouldn't call it a hot mess? I think it's the intention, right Like I'm trying to model that this isn't a big deal for Froggy right. Because if I make it a big deal because I've done that with other kids I realized it's like ripping off a bandaid really, really slowly and it's more painful for me and it's more painful for them.
Speaker 2:And so I've realized, if I can roll in and say you know what, I'm not too attached to this you're gonna do great, you're gonna do amazing. My intention for you is you're gonna go out into the world and be an amazing human being and you're gonna learn from other people completely different lessons, like you were talking about what you're learning in school is different than what you're learning at home.
Speaker 2:And it's my job to make sure that I'm giving you all of those opportunities. I'm filling all the buckets because I can't do all the teaching myself and I don't expect any of the teachers of my children to do that too.
Speaker 4:Absolutely. I almost wish there was a roadmap to say you know, this is what educational instruction is meant to. You know, here are the outcomes. I'm sure DPI in Wisconsin has those for us, right. But equally, where's the gap for the parents to be filling, especially with things surfacing nowadays like AI, and how does that integrate with education? You know that that's a big hot topic button for me right now because I don't think we should just be dismissing it as a educational tool. So there's so many opportunities.
Speaker 4:My kids this week for Open House. They both have their own different reasons for a little bit of trepidation, simply because of classroom friends, right, they either don't have any friends in their classroom or none that they really know well. And I just kept it light and breezy too. I'm like it's gonna be a great year and you know what. You might have classroom friends and then you might have, you know, lifelong friends. But these are different buckets and they're all great. You know. Just, we're gonna figure it out together and really selling it that way and reframing it for them Absolutely, I think, is the healthiest thing we can do. But equally, parental advocacy is a big deal for me and learning that, and again, we can park that for another conversation. But there is this dance of all right. Also, I'm gonna be here as your parent. So when things surface and you need to talk about it, I'm here for you, I'm gonna listen, we're gonna support you and we're gonna figure out how to work through anything that could possibly surface together. I think it's equally good.
Speaker 2:So I think it's all about setting the tone setting the intention and then just having that awareness. And when you take care of yourself and you have that love for yourself, you have more capacity to do those things and to be that person for others.
Speaker 2:So as we're going into this new season. I just wanna advocate for anybody who's listening. First, we are here for you, friend. We are right there alongside you, walking on the same journey, maybe a different path, but we are right there with you, high-fiving you any chance you need it and a willingness to lift you up as you need it as well. And then also advocating for all of us to give ourselves and others a little bit of grace during this delicate season.
Speaker 4:Absolutely. And love upon our teachers, right? I mean, teachers are wonderful humans, so let's show them some extra love at the beginning of school year as well.
Speaker 2:Anybody in education right Like yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, at least you know. I think this has been a really great conversation For listeners. We wanted to keep this really late because we know that this is a season where you might have a lot of other things happening in your life.
Speaker 2:You might have a lot of other things just swirling around in your mind and we wanted to give you an opportunity to maybe just like catch your breath a little bit, to know that there's someone else in the world who can relate, who is here to support you, to advocate for you and to be here when you maybe you're sitting in your car crying right.
Speaker 1:Like holy cow. What am I?
Speaker 2:doing when you start to question like, oh my gosh, I have this weight that I'm feeling. What do I do with that? Maybe I'm feeling a little bit more stressed this time of year, overwhelmed, or maybe I'm just having that low energy. We want you to know that you're not alone.
Speaker 4:Not at all. We are right. Yeah, absolutely, April. We're right there with you and truly, from our experience perhaps because of the age of our children or coaching journey but really having that awareness and loving yourself enough to just love up on other people as well and really be the person that you want other people to be in return, because that's what you need. I think that's the best way through these delicate times, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would agree with that. Well, on that note, I wanna wish everybody a great start to September.
Speaker 4:We are gonna be amazing.
Speaker 2:Oh man, we are entering into fall season. Who's ready game on? I can't wait Whoo well. I really appreciate the conversation with you, leigh, and for all of you listening. We are just so grateful for you and for the journey that you are on, and we're so grateful that you have welcomed us into your world.
Speaker 4:Thank you so much and do us a favor. We have a big goal. We've set a big, audacious goal for ourselves to reach a thousand downloads here on the podcast. So, if you would not mind, please go ahead and share the podcast with other people, because we are just getting started and we're super excited for fall to kick off, because we have some really big, deeper topics that we intend to share with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. Share this with your friends, your family, for that mom who is dropping off their kids right next to you, that's right, you guys got this game on All right. On that note, it is closing time. Cheers to good karma.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to this entire podcast. I hope this episode has left you feeling curious and inspired. This podcast is intended to create expansion in your life through unique stories and shared experiences, and if you enjoyed today's episode, I have a request. I'd like to ask you to share this podcast with your friends and family. I bet they'd enjoy it just as much as you have. And, if you found value, please share this on your social media outlets. That is good karma in action, my friends. All right, it is now closing time. Cheers to good karma and the power to choose joy. If you like this, tell your friends. Thanks for listening.