How To Parent The Young People Of Today with Teri Potter

Hi, I'm Maureen Spielman, and this is mystical sisterhood. I'm a soul Care Coach and lifelong learner committed to creating conscious conversations around joy and healing. Each week, I'll host healers, intuitives and other courageous women doing the necessary work of reclaiming our worthiness, honoring our intuition and letting the light in so we can more clearly see the light and others and ourselves. My intention is to plant the seeds that lead to insights and revelations. For you the listener, please join me in building this global magical sisterhood. And thanks for being here

Hi, welcome back to mystical sisterhood. This is your host, Maureen Spielman. And I'm so excited today to be sitting here with Terry Potter. Terry is a dear friend whom I met and Dr. Shefali is conscious parenting Institute. And Terry is a trauma informed Certified Therapeutic coach hailing from the UK, where she lives with her husband and son. And Terry is a deeply committed coach, supporting individuals, families, children, in their quest on this path to wholeness and authenticity, and stepping into who they're truly meant to be here. So today's topic is talking about our kids, talking about kids now, in the time that we sit here in 2023, the challenges that are out there, the the environments that are being called to be created, for them to learn and grow and thrive, and that same for us as their caregivers as their parents as their mothers. So that's what we're kind of setting the stage for today. And I want to say about Terry as well, that she's informed in many different teaching styles and modalities and methodologies. And starting with Dr. Shefali, he's going under studying with Dr. Gabor Ma Tei. And he does so much work about trauma and trauma informed therapist and coaches in his method of conscious inquiry. Internal family systems with Dr. Richard Schwartz and Tara brach of radical compassion and Eckhart Tolle. So you count many amongst your teachers, Terry, but I welcome you here, as also a beautiful teacher, because of your lived experiences, and, and everything that's occurred for you in your life. And every certification certification you've done, but how it's alchemize you into the person and the coach, you are now and the mother, you are. So welcome. And I'd like you to just say, hi, and whatever, you know, you would want to follow up with there to begin.

Wow, thank you. Wow, that was an introduction. That was beautiful. Thank you so much. It made me reflect a little, actually, as I was hearing you talk about all of that. I'm excited for this conversation that we're going to have. And I'm just really so overjoyed to be here. You and I began this conversation a year or two ago, I think that we're going to continue today about the young people in our lives and in the world. Absolutely, thank you. I mean, all of those certifications, really, in the end, none of them would have occurred. But for the one teacher that isn't in my bio actually is written about him everywhere else. But my young person, Eden, who really got me on this path in the first place. kind of nailed me to the wall in terms of learning the lessons on the fly. And now is my greatest ally in this world. Just super happy to be here. Thank you.

Yes. And I just thank you for sharing and just this idea, even when you and I stepped into our first kind of spaces together, and really just got down to conscious conversations and the conversations that were that we were wanting to have. But we knew based on what was appearing in our worlds like what was happening for us, that it just required us to kind of study and open up new ways of seeing things seeing the world. So I mean, maybe we can dive in right there. I think that you had said that let's just talk about the children who are in front of us, and they're they've arrived with sensitivities. With behaviors demeanors, you had you had noted with me. And so they're here for us, and they're here for our growth and transformation. But this is the work you do. So what where do you start with that?

Yeah, I mean, you just you hit the nail on the head, right? We started this conversation, and we learned all of this stuff. Because first and foremost, for me, I needed to just show up, I needed to show up and understand how to be around my child how to be in this world, which was seemingly so so different than one that I, you know, had been aware of before. And, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of expectation in that in that last line that I use them. And that's something that I've learned to, to have less of, till I'd like say, let go of and still have a work in progress. But I've come a long way. You know, the young people were talking about, I mean, specifically stay late, and maybe I need to be a little bit more open and black and white about it. And my son was diagnosed autistic, at seven years old. And that 15 Now he's been through every roller coaster that I could ever have tried for him not to have gone on. You know, his journey is one that he's very okay with me talking about, because he feels now he's gone through what he has, in order for me to be able to help him forward order for him to be able to help others, he's still very young. So at the moment, I'm the person fronting all of this, but that, you know, he, he was diagnosed autistic, he had a lot of school trauma, a lot of behaviors that I had to get my head around and understand difficulties with communication, his anxiety got so great. At seven, he didn't want to be here anymore. And he was attempting to do something about that. And to be told that you have a suicidal, seven year old is quite something you don't expect. I didn't even think it was possible, I'll be honest. And then again at 12. Simply because the environment, the setting that he found himself in was just not sympathetic, it was not understanding, regardless of how hard we tried to put the right thing in the right, you know, put them in the right places. Often, it's just like to see, you know, the subtleties that weren't that weren't working. So we've, we've come a long way, I began doing the conscious parent training when he was 12 years old. Because we didn't know what else to do. And, you know, we were in a catastrophic situation. And then, once we began to do the work that work, my husband and I on ourselves, and we turned everything around in our home really quickly, you know what I mean? The work is ongoing, right. But it was like the differences that we explored and experienced just by doing the things that Dr. Shefali recommends, in her work, conscious parenting, just, you know, so many little subtle, subtle things. All of a sudden, we got our child back. And it was really incredible. So we were making huge progress. So at the end of all of that, and don't get me wrong, that wasn't about curing his behaviors. It wasn't about trying to get him to do anything differently. But it was about letting go of expectations. It was about acceptance. It was about looking at what's coming up for us and each and every moment. And being able to show up with him without an agenda. Without some fixing energy, but just with an openness and a lot of listening, and a lot of stillness. So it made sense, from that point to retrain. I went from garden designer to conscious parenting coach in the course of a couple of years.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah, that we'd really okay. Did it wasn't so bad. I'd left all my clients behind anyway. So yeah, that's pretty much where we started from where that might be, you know, we're talking about these, these young people who are, you know, the label, highly sensitive, they labeled autistic, they're labeled ADHD that hold us to account in every moment, you know, and how they're, I mean, gobble Marty talks about autism, for example, is he's got his own views on, on what that is and where it's come from, and I don't dispute them at all, but his quote is that autism is the child of social disconnection. And that hand what's happening to the brains of children, that we need to look at what's happened to the child rearing milieu over the last few decades, I get that, right? Because what he's basically saying is, our kids should be raised by a tribe. And you know, the every adult should be responsible for every child. And it makes perfect sense in this day and age where we all go into our homes, and then we close our doors, and there are little nuclear family of three or four or even five, you know, the kids, the wiring in their brains has kind of developed in such a way that it doesn't need the social connection anywhere else so that it doesn't isn't able to make those connections in a sphere, it is inevitable that our neural pathways which adapt over time, but you know, that he's my mentor, and he's been my teacher for what, two years now. And I understand informed just how exactly that makes perfect sense. And yet at the same time, I'm also a parent of one of these children, right. And as a parent of such a child, my experience is really personal, directly and personally informed. And I know that there's way more happening here than in the formless, as well as the forms. Yeah.

Yeah. So I hear you saying, Terry, you're just these parts of your journey, and how, maybe at one point in time, it seemed almost like out of your hands, and you're escorting your child through the institution through the system through being labeled through, but not really yet having the tools to be able to understand it, and kind of know that when we learn maybe even a few beginning things, we can really start to turn the tide of the type of interactions that are occurring in our homes. And I'm wondering, you know, what were some of those things when you first said, Oh, my gosh, this is an epiphany, the things I'm learning and, you know, what were some of the just even simpler, like, what we see is simpler. But we know there are profound changes.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think it's the things that I add, they're always the first things that sort of tumble out of my mouth when I'm coaching nowadays, as we start, I wonder what it would be like if you were able to sort of approach your child and just be you know, I walked around when I first learned that one, it was tough. I thought, can I do this? And I had to then come face to face with all the voices in my head that were telling me, I wonder how we use and wonder if he's had a good day? I wonder if he's upset about something. I wonder if I wonder if he's done his homework. I wonder if he's wonder if he's hurt himself today? Because we were going through that at the time. So I learned to do work. You know, I think it was Shefali suggested just before you walk in the door, just zip the mouth. Walk in with your mouth shut up. And I wonder what it would be like to just sit down alongside your child? No agenda? No agenda, right? If he's, if he's sitting there looking at his phone, maybe I can look at my phone for a bit. I'm just sitting right and just sitting or maybe he's playing a game. Oh, maybe I play a game and maybe then, you know, some some little synergies will occur. So yeah, that was huge, because it took a long time for him to realize that I had no agenda. Of course, I had an agenda in my heart and in my head. I so needed to know what was going on in his life. I just couldn't. But I had to take myself out and sit with that. Or journal about it or write about or phone a friend, a friend and just vent or in the teacher even ask the teacher what's cope. I really needed to know what happened at school that day. But yeah, my child was one that just wouldn't speak. There's selective mutism never ever would he do he doesn't. He rarely tells me now what's gone on in his day, but he's much more open than he was. But before he could have the most extraordinary of days. I remember one day he was at school and I was at an open evening, the teacher said, Oh, it was incredible to see him the other day. He was he was he had the fireman's hose. We had the fire engine and he'd sprayed the whole the whole school yard and and then he got this certificate for for getting an A star and whatever it was, and I'm like, you know, he was six years old. I don't know what this happened when he brought this prize home and I hadn't he hadn't given it to us. He hadn't told us about this fire engine. I mean, it was just kind of crazy stuff. Right? All the other kids So talking about it, and he wouldn't tell us anything. So I learned to zip it because my kid really needed me to shut up. Okay, he wasn't going to talk to me because there wasn't space for him, really. So that was the first thing.

Yeah. So Terry, that's, that's a huge, I can hear you, it's a huge first thing, to be able to, even if you have the internal agenda, which you're working on all the time noticing the fears that you might be bringing in any sort of projections onto him. And to be able to back up and just be in silence. Is what I'm hearing you say is it created an energetic shift within the relationship. And also, I always think of that quality of safety. So for, you know, him to be able to know that he was being held in a safe space not having things come at him. Also, that idea of selective mutism, because I think that whether it is selective mutism, or even I hear parents say all the time, just a very quiet child, who doesn't really say much, that that's okay. I always feel like, yeah, we want information in the here and now. But I remind myself that is that while we're creating these, the safety and the container, it is a season we will pass through and come to the next season where more is able to bloom sort of feels like

Yeah, and what seems like a question to us as adults is a is an interrogation to the child. Right? It really is. And then you know, some things, they're just and they're not ready to talk until they're ready to talk. So yeah, also, I, I know that my child and he's reflected this to me many times now is when I'm able to sit with him, and particularly back then and just sit with him, he feels so valued. Because I just want to hang out, right, I just want to be with, right? I remember when the kids was small there being this playful parenting, when it first sort of got talked about. I remember them saying five minutes of play one to one without any interruptions, you don't look away, you know, if your phone rings, you don't answer it. Just five minutes, it's gonna buy you three hours with your child with your terms of how they're regulated, that's just co regulation. Right? So we kind of forget that when they get to be young people, I think sometimes. And I'm really witnessing the fear factor and a lot of people when when they become adolescent, there's a lot of fear in us, you know, as to how we're going to be met, or understood or overlooked. not heard, misinterpreted. You know, it's, there's a lot of fear out there. And we're talking about all of our young people. I think the reason that these, this particular demographic of this highly sensitive child, and is I keep using the expression nailing us to the wall, because it's it's almost like, they've come here to bring word, but all of the young people and all of the children, here's what needs to change, because it's not the education system isn't just not working for these kids. But these kids are shouting loud about it, these kids are catastrophizing, but this for real, right? They really, really, really can't do it. There's a lot of a lot of kids that are behaving very, very well go in under the radar, enabling the system in a way, you know, because because they're just showing up as they're told to.

Yeah, yeah. And I was reflecting on that, that idea of the change that's being called for directly from our children. And so you're telling me that, hey, just sitting down with you, we don't even have to quantify the time it doesn't. It's really the essence of the quality of the time we spend with them. But that they're almost I was thinking about it. They're guiding us like I think the old paradigm was that either your parents are absolutely there to guide you. Now. I think of that different lay like that we're each other's guides. And we're to kind of advance ourselves but also with the idea of institutions. I think that schools like we've always put all of our power in the institution, the school to know how to guide but times have changed so much and there's just there's the call for change. And so we've always said out of the mouths of babes. But have we truly listened to it? Yeah,

so yeah, absolutely. If we're if we're really going to like, tune to the essence of human being, what, how moreso than by hearing a child, but really a tuning? That was the other one, you know, and when you ask about what are the key things? You know, I think attunement was the word that Dr. Shefali helped me to account about. And what does that mean, Terry, tell me what attunement is. And that idea that we could perceive for a moment, what the world is looking like, through our child's eyes. You know, if we sit with that young person, we just observe them just with real curiosity. I mean, the definition of love, right is an attempt at understanding the definition of love is an attempt at understanding. So let's attempt to understand how can we understand without curiosity, let's get really curious. I wonder what's going on for him today. I wonder what I look like through his eyes. I wonder if I walk into that room? I know what he's going to see. Hold on, let me just check myself. Right. Then we sit in his seat, let's do a bit of Gestalt therapy, and we just sit in his deep suits. It's see me coming. Oh, you know, sometimes I'm so guarded or preoccupied or, Alright, got a list of questions, you know, I can't help myself. Now, even with all this training, and all this time focused on a subject, it's so instinctive because it's how we grew up. It's what it's what the generations that preceded us, only knew how to do nobody's to blame here, right? It's just the way of it. So yeah, that attunement is the is the other part of this. And so you're talking about it. As with the bigger picture, that idea of attuning to what it is, these young people that are so who was so close to their essence, in their in their childhood, and even in adolescence, they've still got the still so much closer than we are, there's so much that we need to learn so much we need to tune into and listen to right.

And that, for them to truly be seen for who they are. When you're talking, I'm thinking about how our definition of whether we call it success or thriving, it was really narrow. And the margins are opening up really wide, where I think the the children, the kids, the teens who were marginalized, are being invited to be with the whole collective like we're all together this true, diversified sort of collective. So that means we have a lot of work as adults to open up our worldview of who's included, who's included in the success who's included in the thriving who's it's, it's for us, all.

Right, and I think as well, where we've got the resources and the wisdom to get beneath them, and support them in what they're creating, because they are creating, unknowingly they're creating something which is so spacious, so diverse. So much possibility here, or the collective of our young people today are so supportive of it don't even see it as supportive, supportive is not even the right word, because it just is that way, right? You haven't young person who's gender diverse, you have a young person who's sexuality differs from from the next. There is zero judgment. There's this, it's just the way of it. My son said to me recently, he said, I just, I just wish that there wasn't such a thing as gender. And I wish that everybody could just know each other's essence. I think he used the word Spark, you know, instead of essence because there's probably the word my my language but but I thought wow, and I said he's doing and then it wouldn't matter who showed up as each day you choppers whoever you felt like being you can be masculine, the feminine, you could be nothing, you could be everything. And this is what our young people are doing. They're doing this today, they're doing this in so many different ways. So I mean, I think the way I look at it, I mean, I was just going to quote here for are looking to my left, because I've got a quote here that sort of seems a bit irrelevant. Now. There's, there's an organization called pause for kids. It's issues of fact, the founder of that program is Carrie Bowers and she's the mom to Taylor cross, who's very much part of this organization they talk about when we celebrate possibilities in autism. I'm, and there's a reason I'm honing in with autism at the moment. But the intention isn't to divide the community, your child is a light, your child has something to contribute. Their mere existence is a light, even if the challenges and pain are significant. Parents need to refrain from placing their own perceptions and limitations on their children. They need to process their own shame, guilt and fear. So while I would go beyond that, and I would say that these young people are like beacons of light, actually. And they're actually guiding his home. I think they're turning the world upside down. I think they're debunking all the institutions. They're only beginning with this fabled institution of parenting, right, which is what we're trying to transform right now. But as their caregivers, I mean, look at all the ways that we're forced to grow. And to change. I, I wanted to I mean, I've got a few different quotes here. But I wanted to talk a little bit, though, about the transformation in us as a result of all of this is also equally phenomenal, because, well, it's exactly what you're saying, we can become a cushion beneath them, and provide them this platform, it's hard for them. But without even knowing it, unconsciously, they're all coming together. And they're creating this expansive, new world of understanding and largely acceptance, they've got a battle on their hands, they're going to war, these kids, there's no two ways about it. So with our wisdom and our understanding, I wonder if we can help to underpin that with education. Because even as a mom, of a young person who's on a gender journey, who's autistic, I continue to educate myself daily about the things that I don't understand, I continue to look my own prejudices in the eye that I didn't even know existed that stemmed from wherever I've come from generations and generations of thinking and being a certain way. And I wonder, you know, how much we I love this mystical sisterhood, because this is bringing together people who are all really not just thinking about these things, but they're stepping into this space of spacious awareness, right? Of Consciousness of like, okay, what do we need to be here? How do we need to show up here? We don't know what this is. So So what's being asked of us? And how can we bring it and let's all be in it together, this sisterhood is phenomenal. Because that's so powerful. as well. One person, I think there's more than two people to come together. There's a third, right? synergistic effect. I mean, it's just like, there's there's someone else in the room when there's two, there's three, there's this. Do you know what I mean with the energy and what we can do in a community like this is otherworldly?

Absolutely. It's otherworldly, it's exponential. And, yeah, I'm soaking in everything you're sharing about your journey and, and the hardships that the kids face. And I what I'm thinking of right now, is when children are working through, you know, being accepted their own self acceptance, and whatever is showing up for them, we can begin to work with parents. And I want to I want to talk a little bit more about that too. But also, we're often sending our kids into the, let's say, the, you know, the schools let's take, and we can foster the environment in the home and really start to work on that. But what's been your experience with working with schools? Or what, what are the beginning changes that are, where I'm not talking about the schools that are, you know, specialized to meet the modern day child, but the schools that are the public schools are the that are that haven't changed a lot. They might be bringing in more programming or social emotional, but we know when you talk, I sense that it's not about how do we fix it? And how do we, you know, approach it from the top down, but how do we approach it systemically from the inside out? And so what have you seen as possibilities in that realm for our kids within even our school systems? I know you're in England, but I think that we probably near a lot of things that, you know, I have here in the US.

Agreed. Yeah, absolutely. And I think, well, it asked me that a few years ago, I wouldn't have known how to answer that call. Often it's taken a lot for me to actually breathe my way through the education system. My child has been pretty catastrophic at times, I've, I, you know, a lot of my friends, and a lot of my son's friends parents had just been, wow, my goodness, I can't even begin to tell you some of the journeys they've been on. And it's it's not a very supportive institution education right now. However, there's a huge grassroots movement of, you know, well, from homeschooling to unschooling, but more importantly, than that, people going into education and re educating, re educating the institution now, my son is now eventually in a specialist setting, and it was it was much needed. That specialist setting you know, what specialist about it? Shall I tell you what specialist about it, honestly, aside from everything else, nothing else matters. They're trauma informed. Now, trauma informed today is a tagline that people have started to get all excited about in the last couple of years, God Almighty has become a bit of a rock star, you know, talking about all the trauma work, and rightly so phenomenal work, because it informs people as to how to be around these young people, every young person, actually, but here we go, our kids are pioneers. So, you know, they go before everybody else. And they they see that, whether they are highly sensitive, of course, are going to be traumatized by things that might just pass another child by, or they might just be a good kid, that's not going to say they're traumatized. However, this work is all about acknowledging the spirit, the essence of a person. It's about listening. It's about a tuning. It's everything we learned in conscious parenting is saying, You know what, you're meeting human beings, you're meeting the essence of a human being, you're stopping, you're looking at them, you're attuning to them, you're listening. And you're compassionate. Really, there's lots of tools and tricks to learn in amongst all of that, because that doesn't sound like very much, but it's everything. If we can bring that to the education system, we can see what's working, what's not working, stop ticking boxes, and actually just begin to understand the trauma work. Those children are getting traumatized day in day out. We did as kids, you know. So I mean, everybody's been more gentle these days. Even with the best of pastoral care, these kids just are being rushed from one thing to the next, being overloaded with homework being expected to show up on time. Be quick, be quick, be quick, you know, what if? What about what if it was open? What if it was a bit more spacious? That's a word that keeps coming to me to breathe, and to be and to notice. I don't feel so good in this situation.

Terry, so many important comments there when you talk about trauma informed. I've, you know, you've learned through Gabor Matta and several other teachers. But when I think of trauma, you know, the old, the old definition was that something really big and catastrophic happened in your life. And I want you to talk about that, just how that's not the definition strictly anymore. But it also when you talk about honoring the child that's in front of you, it's just like we are learning to honor one another in our adult form is that you come to me, and Terry's not just Terry in front of me in this moment. Terry's been informed by every single moment of her life. And I honor that and that's the Terry that's coming to me right now. And that's what it says about just what you're talking about trauma, like you're really honoring the child in front of you for all of their all of their experiences all of and you're holding them when in such a gentle and compassionate way.

Yeah, and isn't that every human beings God given right? To be received like that? It's just truth. And when you when it's truth, you know, there's not a belief, you know, you know that all of these different techniques and ideas and ways of parenting and ways of teaching and, you know, I believe or I've learned or what do you know, to be true? Let's go with what we know. Let's trust this instinct. This is not an instinct that need instinct less trust on knowing what's what's coming up. But we have to be still for long enough to know to feel to hear it. That voice. There might not be a voice it might just be a sensation of feeling. She was so squashed with squashed in teacher land were squashed in parenting them. Everybody seems busy, busy, busy that there is no room. So when I say to people, what about, I wonder what it would be like if you just sat down next to your child and just I don't have time for that I got to cook dinner, I got to do the washing? I got it. I know, I know, I know, I've been there. I know. I understand. I understand. And I wonder what would happen if you sat down the child and just I just want to gather in your head, you know, just wonder. Because when you realize when you know, because I think any one of us can do that exercise, and just sit and close our eyes and say, I can imagine I'm sitting down next to my child and not speaking. And imagine sitting there for five minutes, just imagine, there's a knowing that comes up that this is the right place for me to be, you know, you don't have to do together in your head, you know? Well, time.

I think you too, I love listening to the conversation right here at hand because it's so incredibly calming. And the work that you just described in that parents scenario of a parent saying, Oh, no, I gotta get up, I got to do this, it almost feels like that's, that's our nervous system calling to be calmed. And to be reassured that all as well, even when we stop, we can. And then the conscious parenting work is so special to me, because in so many ways, it's allowed me with what, at first may have felt like a threat of looking at myself. And the way that I showed up. It became, the more I was willing to look at myself and guide my husband to, into looking at ourselves in the way we were showing up. I think that things that felt threatening about it, or that were going to make me wrong, or that I hadn't done this for so many years. And therefore that was wrong. When I started to allow it in, it became more of a compassionate mirror for myself. So it was a place that I learned and grew. And I think that that's what I hear from the container you're building within your own home. But then in your coaching sessions, it's just like this really soft, it's honest, these new qualities that are being called for. Now, right just in on Earth, in general, we're we're being called to more kindness, compassion, softness, expansion, spaciousness. I mean, we're using all these words, but there's a lot of there's a lot of shift and transformation occurring within them.

In the in the kindest way, isn't it beautiful? Because we're everything, so nothing hurts, right? It doesn't hurt. I think one of the most liberating things that happened to me when I understood conscious parenting was when I look back at all the things that you could, you could label as having done wrong, right? Oh, my God, I wish I hadn't done that. I wish I had that. You know, and I look at the younger people now coming into conscious parenting as parents and starting with their babies. I'm like, Oh, wow, all that time I missed. You know, however, what I understood is, everybody is exactly where they're supposed to be. And when you kind of get your head around the fact that note, you know, nobody could have done any better. Everybody showed up the very, very best that they could with the tools that they have at the time. So how can we have any regrets? How can any parent have any regret? Every parent loves their child? If they're just if they're unable to connect to that love? That's not their fault. That's not their fault. That's where they are right now. So what's the best way around this for this time? And how can we help mom? And how can we help dad because, you know, right now, they're really got their own stuff going on. And this is, this is real life. And this is how it was meant to be. Everybody's got their own sovereign journey, we show up on this planet to be how we are in every single moment. So rather than say, Oh, I wish it could have been different. Let's not waste that energy. Let's attune to Hey, this is where we are. I can see how much you love your kid. I can see how tired you are right now. I wonder what we can do to to, you know, to work with? No, because here, everybody, kindly, zero everywhere. That was really freeing for me because I suddenly thought, I don't have to carry this guilt. And I had so much parent guilt, Mother guilt. Oh, yeah. Right. And I always had so much anger towards my family of origin as well. And again, when you understand that everybody's doing the best they can at every given moment, then.

Yeah, I agree with you. I was I was in that guilt for a long time to questioning everything and having a lot of anger and resentment, but that was also pointing to me to what I was being called to heal within me. And within those relationships, and I think think that the, our kids are really calling for us to trust them. And so many of us were led away from what we really knew to be true, that it is our honor and privilege to be able to know that we can help kids younger and younger, stay close to their intuition stay close to their knowing, use their voice to express their deep needs, wants and desires. Because so many in our generation and what came before us, we simply weren't really given that space.

Yeah, we were terrified of big feelings, right? That was one of my biggest lessons was I had to learn for myself why I was so afraid that my child was so upset that my child was so in so much pain. Why was that sending me into fight flight, you know, I needing desperately to fix them. When you know, when I really broke that down, I realized how absolutely terrified I was of having big feelings myself. And what that would have meant was nobody to hear them. So as a child, and you just think I'm almost gone, I'm going to disappear. Because I've got these big feelings, and everyone's looking at me like you shouldn't have them. You know, there's no way for you to go as a child. So you're just left with this trauma response. That's it. So now I can sit with my child and he's upset and I say, hey, yeah, I can see is a tricky day. That sucks. Okay, well, I'm here if you need me, I'm here. I'm not smothering. I'm not sticky. I'm just, I'm around if you need me, you know, rather than, okay, I'm gonna go sort this out, or, you know, whatever it was I was doing, there was a big fixer.

Yeah. And my, I think around strong emotions, who I used to be really uncomfortable around strong emotions, and it's still a part of me that I walk through that is still I have to talk to myself actively when it's occurring, and be with myself to say, like, it's okay, you can, you can be in this space, and you can support what's happening right in front of you. And at the same time, you know, giving myself just really loving language to it's so understandable why you want to flee or you want to leave, or you just want to make this stop, because I was always suppressed in that way. And so to meet our do you do, like do you do work around working with the voices and giving compassionate language for parents to use with themselves.

You know, what I what I really love and I am and I've got so use familiar with it now that I'm noticing that I'm, I'm talking about my child. And I'm not even really mentioning what I do when I when I step away. I've got some wonderful practices now. There's, you know, one of the one of the ones that everybody should should know about is rain by Tara brach and working through the radical acceptance there. But I tend to do some work with just noticing what's going on in my body. One thing I was taught very early, was every day, you got to go and close your bedroom door for as much time as you can muster, maybe five minutes, 15 minutes an hour, if you can phenomenal every day. Just be with yourself. And when you're with yourself, it's not doing, it's just being it's existing, it's noticing, it's feeling into whatever's happening in your body, breathing into it, noticing the sensations, not labeling anything, we don't have to call it anything, which is feeling. You know, it's really all about getting better at feeling and being with the feelings, carrying the feelings, and knowing that they're not going to eat us up, knowing that they're not going to swallow us whole. Getting comfortable with the feelings is the most important factor for me. Because once I learned that I could actually ride those waves and they weren't going to kill me, I realized I could just do that all the time. And whenever I got into a panic, I could just sit with Breathe, allow, you know, whatever practices allow us to get back to ourselves like that and getting out into nature. And I know we all hear this. I mean, people used to say this never went in with me get out. Today, you know, yoga was really good be meditation. But I didn't really understand what meditation was until I made it personal. And that making it personal for me is everybody experiences their feelings and emotions are different in their body. I have a real strong sense of the vibration, the sensation, and I can just allow myself to drop in to that and just be with that. But you listen to somebody else in their experience might be much more much more sensory. It might be much more about listening to sounds or you know, noticing something in the room. So Everybody's got their own way in. Being in the shower and just being in the shower. That was a challenge for me early on when I started this work to feel the water landing. Nothing more. Yeah, I'm in the shower. I'm not in the shower, thinking what I'm gonna do next I like being in the water landing, noticing it on my body just like in little things.

It's so beautiful. Terry, I, when you say that right there. I'm thinking attunement to yourself. Yeah, right. And so we were talking about attuning to our children, and taking the time for the exquisite attunement to ourself. And so in those spaces really getting to know you're like you're saying, like, what's occurring for me and my body, I continue to say that the emote the land of emotions, and the work of emotions, and why emotions are here for us and how intelligent they are. And really noticing our discomfort with certain certain emotions, you know, we have this column that are good, and this that are, and that's kind of conscious parenting 101. But I think it's like, for me as an adult learning that, you know, just a few years ago, it is life foundations, 101. And I and, and I always say that, and I'll say that in every episode is that, hey, I'm doing this stuff. Right now I am working out, you know, actively on all of these things.

Yeah, absolutely. There's no good or bad to me just to really get my head around that all emotions are good. All emotions with me more about that we ride a roller coaster, and it's all good. Even the downbeat. So you're screaming your head off, this is Whoa, this is the bit and then you get to the bottom you got I did that, you know, it's all there. For us. The only the view that we have that we were brought with to adulthood from childhood is that if we have these huge, huge feelings, they're gonna overwhelm us and we could die. That's the sense that we have, it's a child's view, because the child, you know, just born when the parent isn't looking at them, and that they're having a real meltdown and the parent walks out. I mean, that's the truth for them. They really believe they die. And that's the imprint, and we carry that imprint into adulthood. Yes, so just spelling that myth, having a word with Dr. bugaboo articles that are stupid friend, that part of us that defends us, and protects us when we're when we're a small child. And so being able to say, don't have big emotions, because you might die. Well then introduce that stupid friend to your 4050 year old self, and just say, Hey, thanks for being there. Or this time, I really appreciate you. But how about you take a backseat, there's another job you can do write in a quiet

house, get them to meet your kids the age that you are and that you don't need that protection anymore.

It's so true. It's so true, Terry. And I'm thinking to have your experience with not only your own home, your own family, but the families whom you've worked with is the thing that I want people to know and I think you can really speak to is when we begin to do the work whether it's with ourselves in tandem with with our showing up in a new way for our children, change occurs, change occurs right in front of you can you speak to that? Because I think that that's a message that's really important for parents to hear that that this you've seen this work in action so what do you see

what I see when a child is heard, whether I'm coaching them or whether it's a child of my own in my family is that they they are what's the word I'm looking for? They feel valued. And with that sense of value, that sense of self worth. They become

who they are,

let him become who they remember who they are. And when you've got people walking on this planet who remember who they are as human beings, then everybody around them has a different experience a positive experience of that person. And you know the the knock on effect of that is just forever and ever right. I know that one particular for So I've been working with recently, I just got some feedback from mom, which was amazing. And they said that their child is talking to them again, the, you know, the more sort of physical contact, there's more just openness you have people just need to be heard. There's so much more to this. I know, I'm simply oversimplifying, perhaps, but But yes, and no, I think we just need to learn a new language, the effective change. I mean, there's so much I could talk about here, we've got our young people that we began talking about, you know, that are either on the spectrum or highly sensitive that are going through so many different journeys, that puts them in the minority, you know, we've got the disability factor, we've got them loneliness, the isolation, the sort of being gender non conforming, and, you know, all of those things that, that stopped them from fitting fitting in the world, like a jigsaw piece, you know, everyone's expected to be the perfect jigsaw piece to fit in, in this world. And they just, they just aren't. And then so the odds of, you know, the sad the sad part about that is the, you know, the people with these kinds of in these kind of minorities, you know, I mean, people with ASD, I think, three times, the odds are three times higher that they're going to self harm than than somebody without ASD, you know, autistic spectrum. So it's not even ASD. Now, it's ASC apologize. But, you know, they're at an increased risk for suicidality and all these behaviors, but we, so when we listen to young people like that, the world's a kinder place. They listen to each other, you listen to one person, one person listens to another person, everybody's paying it forward all the time. So I think the world just continues to change, you know, mental health problems improve overall. And, you know, this minority stress, that's a real thing out there. It lessens its communities grow, and people are hearing each other, acting each other and valuing each other. Absolutely. Yeah.

So inspirational. You inspire me so much, Terry. You know, and I think of I know that we're coming to a close here soon. But, you know, you've mentioned here and there, you know, just labels in general. And is there a way that you guide parents to gently hold the label while meeting their child? Where they where they are? Or is there some work around there that are any kind of words of wisdom?

Yeah, I mean, for sure. I mean, I work a lot with young people that are perhaps on a on a gender journey, the early stages, actually parents a lot, because I know when that was, first us, it was a shocking situation for us to be in, we didn't understand it. We were terrified for a child. But the diagnoses, autism, ADHD, all of those young people that the children that are gifted these late, gifted these levels now, that's an interesting term phrase, but I use it because I remember when Aiden was diagnosed at the age of seven, that the man who did it he, the psychologist gave me this diagnosis and said, This is your golden ticket. Now, at the time, I'm like, I'm sorry, I've no idea what you're talking about. But it became obvious that this was your pass, you know, so they're important and relevant. From the perspective that way the institutions are set up, we have to be able to go with our ticket and say, I need this, I need this, I need this. But hold it lightly. That would be my message to myself going back was hold it lightly. Because there's so much more than the label and let's talk about the root cause rather than the symptoms of how our kids are showing up. They why are they so exasperated, frustrated, anxious, why have they got all of these behaviors that we're all struggling to work with? Why, why because what they require from us, is just a different way of showing up and it is specially tuned.

Yeah, thank you for that. I really enjoy that. Just holding the golden ticket very, very lightly, very loosely, very lightly. And just kind of imparting to, to those who might be listening, that it's all so worthy of our time and our energy to make space to learn about these ways of being and you know, whether we call it conscious parenting, we don't even really need to put a label on it at all. It's just a manner of intending to, to form deep connections and lasting ones with our children. and that will, will not only change their lives but affect the generations to come. And that, if I found anything is it's a, it's a multi year, lifetime journey that I'm on in creating change and creating the types of relationships I want to experience and there's no, there's no rush to it, there's no. So I'm holding that lightly to or just just so gently and compassionately to know that there's not a quick fix. But when we put our energy and intention into it, shifts began to occur. So I

said that because the lovely Alicia, you popped into my head after your podcasting of the day, I haven't had time to comment, but I was listening and I, I, you know, when you talk about time being nonlinear, this exactly that because here we are doing this work and the world is changing. Eckart Tolle calls it a new earth. And here we are showing up doing this work. Because to do this work, is to meet the new the new breed of people that are populating our planet. And we don't know enough. So perhaps we can reframe education as an institution, what if we were to overtake education as an institution and begin to talk about all of these things that matter energetically, kind of in terms of supporting the future for these young people and a future let's also acknowledge that we really don't, we really don't know what it's going to look like, either. Be the people that are setting our kids up for this phenomenal future when we actually, nobody knows what that's gonna look like? Because it's so what if we listen, what if we listen?

Yeah, it's so infused with love possibility. And the things that I choose to see falling away are the judgment and the shame that has so close to everything, because the conversations we're having today are to just open up the field of possibilities for for our kids for ourselves. And there's no judgment on what what's occurred in the past. It's just we are moving with the times, we are not reacting to the times, but responding to them. And living in New very, like it's a choice. It's I want to live this way. And I'm seeing evidence that it is it is helping with the thriving, so yeah.

Yeah. Utah, right. Resistance is futile. Let's let's flow. Let's adapt, let's just be with it all, let's, let's hear what they've got to say. And that's beautiful. I love this company.

I know it's a beautiful conversation today. And in just the beginning. I always love to hear from our listeners, what resonated with them, and I have a feeling this is going to be really impactful. So if they want to find you, Terry, do you have an online presence a website? What can you share with our audience so they can look into your work if they'd like to? Yeah, it's

real easy. It's Terry potter.com. That's T ri. Potter, as in Harry potter.com. Yeah, and all of my details, contact details are there too. And a blog, feel free to jump on take a read all my socials are on there as well.

Beautiful. Thank you for sharing. I'll put it in the notes of the episode today. And I just want to thank you so, so deeply for being here and sharing with us. I love the conversation and can't wait for our next one.

So grateful for the opportunity, man. Thank you. Thank you. All right, well