"The Shift That comes Outta Your Mouth" The Subtle Art of Parenting and the Power of Listening

When my marriage began to crumble, it felt like my world was ending. But as I navigated through the chaos of heartbreak and self-discovery, a startling truth emerged—one that would ultimately stitch the fabric of my family back together and teach us the invaluable lessons hidden within our missteps. This episode is an intimate journey into the silver linings of life's most challenging moments and the profound healing that can ripple through a family when we face our shadows with courage.

No one warns you about how your own unfulfilled dreams might weigh on your children's shoulders, or how the ambition you instill in them could blur the lines between inspiration and pressure. Alongside my siblings, Noel and Lena, we unravel the complexities of parenting and sibling dynamics, revealing how the quest for perfection can sometimes overshadow the need for empathy and self-forgiveness. We navigate these emotional waters, exposing the delicate dance of guiding our loved ones without losing sight of their individual paths and the generational patterns we strive to break.

Communication is a delicate art, and in this heart-to-heart, we explore its transformative power. Through stories of active listening and mutual understanding, we illuminate how truly hearing each other can foster trust and empower intuition within the family. Reflect with us on the importance of validating each other's experiences and the humility needed to learn from the wisdom of our children, as we peel back the layers on the journey to deeper connections and enriched family bonds. Join us, and you might discover that the echoes of your own family's laughter and lessons resonate within our shared stories.

https://www.serenitycovetemecula.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

Hello and welcome to the Let that Shift Go podcast. I'm Noel.

Speaker 2: 0:10

And I'm Lina.

Speaker 1: 0:11

And this is where we talk about the good, the bad and all the shift in between.

Speaker 2: 0:16

We just talk mad shift. Let's get into it.

Speaker 1: 0:21

And on this week's episode, sometimes the shift that comes out of your mouth Is not helpful. Yeah, it's just not so helpful. All right, not to everybody, no, specifically people. Yeah, in our families. But first let's get into these skin deep cards. Okay, I'll go first. Okay, you go first. Okay, what's a mistake you've made that affected our family for the better.

Speaker 2: 0:48

A mistake I've made that affected our family for the better Gosh. I mean, it would be hard to say it was a mistake, but-.

Speaker 1: 1:04

At the time if you thought it was like oh my God, I totally fucked this up.

Speaker 2: 1:07

Well, I would say, like you know, when my marriage fell apart, that I think was something that was like oh my gosh, this is deeply painful, deeply shameful, deeply all the things. And it was something that, like, our families did not expect because, you know, everyone thought we were the perfect couple and so there was a lot of pressure there to be that, and so, when it fell apart, it felt like, oh my gosh, I've just crushed everyone and this is terrible, and you know, it's a huge mistake and, of course, lots of doubts and fears.

Speaker 1: 1:44

Did you think you made a mistake by leaving, or by making choices, or what was it?

Speaker 2: 1:49

Yeah, I think, definitely. I felt like there were times that I thought, like I had been, I had made a mistake, absolutely. I think anybody who's been in a relationship that fails or it looks like it's failed feels that at some point, like I've made a mistake. But I do think that in some way it helped our families for the better, because it led me on a path of healing and discovery of myself and that then led to so many other amazing things. It led to one Armando and I getting back together years later and starting our own healing journey, really being able to look at ourselves much more deeply, heal our relationship, and by that you know creating a space to help our families, heal, you know, on individual levels and as a collective whole. So that would be my answer.

Speaker 1: 2:42

Yeah, I think that's awesome. That's the best answer, I think, because watching you guys, I did agree Like you guys were like superheroes to me. I thought like, wow, that's goal, relationship goals. And then, when it was falling apart, when I had no idea, it was like, oh my God. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 3:02

But it did show me a couple of things that I had to pay attention. It made me really pay attention because that was I think that was a significant time in our family where I was willing to kind of just live on the surface and I really wasn't looking deeper. And when you guys said the shit hit the fan, it was like what? I had no clue.

Speaker 2: 3:29

Yeah, you couldn't live on the surface anymore.

Speaker 1: 3:32

Yeah, so really, I mean, it shifted a lot for a lot of people, I think. And as you guys were healing. It was kind of an invitation to kind of watch and see. But yeah, I mean I would agree that that was the best mistake you ever made. I thought I was mom's best mistake.

Speaker 2: 3:47

Oh, stop All right.

Speaker 1: 3:49

What's your question?

Speaker 2: 3:51

Oh, my question is what is something I taught you that you now know is wrong? Oh, wow, what is something you taught me, hmm.

Speaker 1: 4:06

God, I don't know. Yeah, you're right, what is something?

Speaker 2: 4:10

you I told you it might stump you.

Speaker 1: 4:12

You taught me. Hmm, gosh, I really can't think of something that you taught me.

Speaker 2: 4:18

Okay, I win. I was wrong If by the end of the episode you figure out something-.

Speaker 1: 4:24

I'm going to think of that because there's got to be something. I was like she totally screwed me on that and lied to me yeah, have I been stumped before what? Ask the question again Something.

Speaker 2: 4:35

What is something I taught you that you now know is wrong?

Speaker 1: 4:42

Sarcasm.

Speaker 2: 4:44

Oh, okay.

Speaker 1: 4:45

Yeah, sarcasm is a form of anger, and I would like to say that siblings hold great power over their younger siblings because we look up to you and I really did feel I had to hold my weight with you.

Speaker 2: 4:59

So oh, okay, that's good Okay.

Speaker 1: 5:03

Okay, all right. So let's get into this. Sometimes, the shift that comes out of your mouth, the shift that comes out of your mouth.

Speaker 2: 5:08

So this one, you know this isn't one that's based on a book. It's not based on this new knowledge we picked up, although it is in some ways new, you know knowledge that we've picked up. But there's, you know, a situation recently that came up and it was a big realization for me and I realized that all of us are either a parent or we're a child right, because you couldn't get here if you weren't yeah, at one time. You're-.

Speaker 1: 5:33

At one.

Speaker 2: 5:34

You're either a child or you're a parent or you have a parent and you know, in like doing this podcast or being on this healing journey, or being able to look at yourself and realize your mistakes and then change and do your work and be like, oh my gosh, I realized all these things that I did wrong. I realized that, you know, I was living in authentically and now I have this new way of looking at life and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's also for me, as a parent, that I was not perfect. You know, I absolutely made a ton of mistakes and actually, when I started on this path of being, of self-discovery right, of being able to work into my own shadows and the compassionate inquiry training that I did really illuminated how much our parents affect us, which then illuminated for me how many mistakes I had made.

Speaker 1: 6:26

Yeah, cause when you're looking at your parents and you're going to look at the patterns and maybe how you repeated them, yes, for sure.

Speaker 2: 6:32

And so for me personally, one of the things was, you know, I was Armando and I had kids really young, I was 17. And we kind of grew up with this complex really, or raising our children with. You've got to be the best, you've got to do this, you've got to stand out, you've got to you know all of these things right. And a lot of that was based on my own fear of not being a good parent, of my kids, not doing well, and then I look like, oh you're the Because you had a baby young.

Speaker 2: 7:05

Yeah, you're the typical teenage mom who couldn't raise a kid and your kids are not successful now and you're not, and so for me it was like I have to outperform to prove everyone wrong, that I'm not a loser, that I didn't just completely go off the rails and mess up my life or whatever, and so that came at the expense one of deep perfectionism, of trying to do everything right.

Speaker 1: 7:24

Have people been telling you that? Was that something that they had said to you? Like, if you have a kid early, you're going to throw away your life and all this?

Speaker 2: 7:30

I think everybody was. I'm sure that was like a thought in my head that if you're a teenage mom, you didn't go to college. I didn't even finish high school the regular way.

Speaker 1: 7:40

You were always good at school too, from what I remember.

Speaker 2: 7:42

I was really good at school, but I didn't know the value of it, and so later on I really wanted my kids to have that. I wanted them to be everything. I wasn't.

Speaker 2: 7:53

Living vicariously, yeah, I mean, I remember the books I read. Raising my oldest was like All that she Can Be. And this reviving affiliate, it became this goal to be like. It was like became this goal to be like don't be like me, Don't get pregnant in high school, Don't, don't ever look for your worth in another person. And still, yeah, of course, Right, but it was almost to the detriment of my kids that we instilled this. I mean it's great to have work ethic. I think that's really important. I think it's really served my kids really well.

Speaker 1: 8:24

Yeah, they're very successful.

Speaker 2: 8:26

They're very successful. I mean, our oldest daughter has two master's degrees, she's working on her PhD, she works full-time as a director of marketing. Beautiful drive was really self-driven, but it was from I think that it was actually from us kind of instilling this you have to do this, you must be doing this. If you're not doing that, you're doing it wrong and all of that and it was all with good intention. I wasn't knowingly programming my kids to work themselves to death to outshine everyone and all of that stuff right. A lot of that came from being instilled, probably from fear.

Speaker 1: 9:13

Yeah, from your own subconscious, just kind of trying to do the best you could.

Speaker 2: 9:16

Right or be everything. I couldn't be. You know you had.

Speaker 1: 9:20

Yeah, we try to give them everything we didn't have.

Speaker 2: 9:22

Yeah, and then actually shame them for not appreciating that and all that. It's just a cycle, and I had to do a lot of work on myself to really get to a place where I could forgive that part of myself, because there was times during my training I was like man, I was not equipped to have children and I just hurt them. But it is what we do as parents. You're not perfect. You're going to do things wrong. You're going to do things subconsciously, from patterns, from your own parents, from the way you lived, everything, and so here you know, my kids were raised with that, with this needing to outperform and needing to just be the best and constantly be doing, because we were always doing.

Speaker 1: 10:05

You got time to lean. You got time to clean.

Speaker 2: 10:06

Oh my gosh. I'm sure that I said that, yeah, like you couldn't even relax If I put the music on loud in the house and I'm cleaning. Everybody better be cleaning.

Speaker 1: 10:18

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:18

You know it was just do, do, do, and that was because of my own insecurity, because of my own trying to be something and make things look perfect, and they were trying to do that to keep you happy and keep the mood, yeah, kind of thing, yeah, I mean. So.

Speaker 2: 10:31

You know, in some ways I look at it like well, like great, it's awesome, you have my kids have an amazing work ethic, I'll tell you that, and they're good people, like at their core, they are good people and I know in many ways we did a really good job. We showed them to love people, love themselves, you know, to try to do right by people, to have integrity, all of those things wonderful. But we also instilled this, this like you must be doing more. You're not doing enough.

Speaker 2: 11:00

You know, and you know, being in the work that we're doing now, and I'm realizing when I talk to my amazing kids that I see those patterns in them and while now like, oh well, here you're doing all this work, like I literally work with people to uncover their unconscious patterns and bring them through to the other side and give this amazing advice, right Whatever, and and help people transform. And when it comes to my own kids, it's, it's not the same. And part of me was like, why isn't that? Like I can't, who am I? I can't, I can't help other people, I can't even help my own kids. And in conversation today, what I realized is like, when you're the person that instilled the program right, you are not the person they want to hear advice from.

Speaker 1: 11:50

No, your words can hold so much more weight.

Speaker 2: 11:54

Yep, and it's not even received in the way that you intend it and understand that that's because you're the one who in some way wounded them, and so when the person who wounded you comes and says you should just do this, you should go into your inner child.

Speaker 1: 12:15

They shut down or they have their own. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 12:17

What they hear is another thing they're not doing right. And that hit pretty hard, you know, because I realized, like it's 100% true, if my mom or dad had instilled a program in me that said you know, you're not doing enough. And here I am and I'm at work and I'm overstressed and I don't know what to do and I just need to keep producing. And they say you should just do less. All I hear from you is one more thing I'm not doing right, and if I were not in a place to be somewhat aware and I'm sure there's more work that I can do I could take offense to that.

Speaker 1: 12:57

Sure.

Speaker 2: 12:57

And I could be like listen, I do all this work. Why can't you just listen to me? I help people all the time. What's wrong with you? And it's like, oh, actually it doesn't come the same from the person who hurt you.

Speaker 1: 13:07

What makes me think of is like teaching a teenager how to drive. A lot of people have asked me to train their kids how to drive, and I don't even want to train my own kids how to drive. I would rather have somebody else do it, because something about listen. I think I'm a fantastic driver. Most people think they're great drivers, right, so I think that I could teach my kids. However, they wouldn't want to learn from me, I think. Yeah. Because it would be judgmental.

Speaker 2: 13:40

There's all these things tied to it, even though I feel like I've got the greatest advice and I've got their best. You're a great driver.

Speaker 1: 13:43

More so than anybody else who's going to teach them. I think my interest in keeping them safe is profoundly more than anybody else, because I'm their father. However, and the help is not wanted, it's not appreciated, it's not even appreciated. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 13:59

And you know what it's like, as if you're speaking in another language to them, because what they hear is not what you say. And understand that that's not personal, it's programming. It's just like when you know for Armando and I, you know, I have this thing like I don't want to be told what to do, right? That's just how that is. That's one of the things that I work on, right?

Speaker 2: 14:25

I don't want to be told what to do, especially not from my husband, even if he's the expert like he could you know, he's a painting contractor, so he could be like you should paint like this, and I'd be like, really, because I think maybe you should do it this way. Oh you're, he's an expert and I'm trying to you know he's been doing it for 30 some years.

Speaker 4: 14:43

Yeah, it's like. He's like I do this for a living, you know.

Speaker 2: 14:45

But because I have a complex about I don't want my husband to tell me what to do or whatever it is, you know that I'm not going to hear his advice the way I would hear a stranger come up to me and say, you know, lena, if you just use the paintbrush this way, I'd be like, oh my gosh, thank you. That's amazing, cause I have no entanglement with this person telling me something, as opposed to somebody that I don't want telling me what to do, because at one point in our relationship he told me what to do all the time and I hated it and it was a source of contention. So even to this day, even with the work I've done, if Armando tries to lead me through a meditation, I'm like, oh, that's probably not right, I don't want to breathe that way, but-.

Speaker 1: 15:31

Let that shift go.

Speaker 2: 15:32

Stranger Joe comes over and be like, oh, you just breathe this way and I'm like, oh, that's amazing, you know. So, just realizing, like one. I think I want to do this podcast with you because, because it was like, wow, this is really important for people at any you know phase in their healing journey, of like if you're the kid, if you're the parent. But for me, especially speaking to parents, if you've done your work, work, quote, unquote you've come to some realization. You're like, oh my gosh, I'm healed now.

Speaker 1: 15:59

Yeah, I'm doing my work.

Speaker 2: 16:01

I'm doing my work and I'm healed and I have all this great advice, but the person you were raising when you were in the worst part of your development and now you want to tell them what to do and how to do it it's not personal, but they probably don't want to hear it from you.

Speaker 1: 16:17

Yeah, I have that same issue with my kids.

Speaker 2: 16:19

Yeah, it's not going to be received the same.

Speaker 1: 16:22

Yeah, and I think some of it is. I wonder if it is almost an anger that now we see things differently.

Speaker 2: 16:30

Yeah, and you didn't then, and we're trying and we didn't then.

Speaker 1: 16:32

Yep, and now we're kind of getting a pass for it.

Speaker 2: 16:35

Yeah, yeah, you're just getting a pass for everything that you did.

Speaker 1: 16:38

Now, you know, but you treated me like shit for many years, and now you're telling me all of a sudden that you know how to fix it. But you were an asshole.

Speaker 2: 16:43

You're the one you're the reason I have this problem. Yeah. And you know, there's like a certain amount of like humility you need to access to be able to step back and say man, you know, you're absolutely right, and I can imagine what it would be like to receive advice from the person who hurt me, or not even knowingly right.

Speaker 1: 17:09

No, but I like that because it is a hurt. It is a hurt. It is Whether it was an intentional. It may not be a big T trauma.

Speaker 2: 17:15

No, whether it's intentional or not, you know you form you. Definitely if you're a parent, you help form the patterns that your kids now live by, subconsciously for you and now subconsciously for them. And so, just because you know I've done this work and I can help somebody you know work through it, it's not, it's not translated the same way to the person that you you've hurt in the past, in your former self.

Speaker 1: 17:42

Yeah, you know.

Speaker 2: 17:45

So in that space, like, well then, what do you do then? If you're watching somebody hurt and you think, oh, I know what could help them? There's this practice I learned, or whatever. It's just knowing, like maybe the best thing you can do is just be available.

Speaker 1: 17:59

And let them.

Speaker 2: 18:00

And let them and let them know like I love you and I'm here for you and I can imagine that this is hard, but whatever you're doing is absolutely enough and it's okay Like there's a space that maybe there could be healing there. But there will take a certain amount of humility and really being able to look at yourself in that situation and even doing this podcast I don't want my kids to listen to oh, now you're talking about me One. I don't think they listen to it because they don't want to hear my advice.

Speaker 1: 18:35

Yeah, that's what this is about.

Speaker 2: 18:37

Yeah, they probably won't, and that's okay, but it's just to be able to step back and go listen. Just because you have the best advice doesn't mean it's going to be received by everyone in the same way. Just consider the history that you've had and whether or not you are the person to give that advice.

Speaker 1: 18:54

Yeah, some of it is like, if I have to flip it around and we've had this conversation before where I looked at having a conversation with dad and it was like I have to imagine my 48 year old son having a conversation with me at 79. And then how would I want that to go? Yeah.

Speaker 1: 19:11

You know, and when I'm looking at that, you know sometimes when dad tries to, you know, talk to me. Even now I could see he tries to give me advice today and I see it. But what I recognize in myself, even as we're having this conversation, is that I've lost some respect there because of how I was hurt. So I don't really believe that he knows what he's talking about, because he hurt me. Yeah. In the exact way he's telling me how to fix it, kind of a thing.

Speaker 2: 19:43

Exactly. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 19:46

So his advice is not well received, I think.

Speaker 2: 19:51

Yeah, it's like who are you to tell me? Do you know that you're the one who pushed me to do A, b and C? Yeah, you're the one who pushed me to do A, b and.

Speaker 2: 20:01

C, you're the one who made me feel like I was never doing enough, and then now to say you know, just slow down, you're doing enough. It's like you're the reason why I don't believe that, and it doesn't matter what stage of healing you're in. Now I am carrying this hurt and I'm trying to work through it, and while I could probably hear that same exact sentence from someone else, we see everything through the past. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:28

We see everything through the past. Just think about how you see a cup of water. You only know it's a cup because you've put something in it before and you drank it. You see it through the past everything. If this was the first time you're ever seeing this thing, okay, well then you have no reference for it. But now, when I'm saying something to you, you're viewing. Now it matters who you are to me and what that means, and it's beautiful when your children, or you as a child of a parent, can recognize that that's a thing and be able to say listen, I love your wisdom or your advice, but when I hear it, what I hear is I'm not doing enough. Right, when you say you should do this.

Speaker 1: 21:20

Well, but I recently read something that said that when you try to solve your kids' problems, you rob them of their ability to create agency within themselves to solve their own problems, and so the advice that I heard was you shouldn't really be giving them advice.

Speaker 2: 21:42

Or you shouldn't be shitting on them.

Speaker 1: 21:43

No, you should be active listening, Kind of like what you said earlier about somebody with a thorn in their arm, rather than pulling it out for them say hey did you notice you have a thorn in your arm?

Speaker 1: 21:53

What do you think you should do about that? What do you think the options are? Like? Letting them do the thing? And that is what I read that it made sense to me because some of the things that we do as parents who grew up without is we try to give our kids everything that we didn't have, which robs them of some of the grit that we gained by grinding for that stuff or trying to figure out. We were on our own and trying to figure things out as kids, but making adult decisions, which is why we have agency earlier than other kids. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:28

Yeah, you're not going to get away from making mistakes. That's the thing. You're not going to get away from making mistakes as a parent. You're going to make mistakes. It's like a given.

Speaker 1: 22:41

Even when you're trying to create the perfect life, it's going to it's rot with, like you know, pitfalls having a conversation with my oldest son and rather than having a conversation where I'm gonna give him advice, which is what I want to do deeply because here I am in the health and wellness realm.

Speaker 1: 23:07

But what I've been invited to do by somebody who mentored me was just explain to him that I have a deep respect for his thoughts and his emotions and how he's feeling, and I'm ready to listen and I'm ready to learn from him, because your daughter taught you something today.

Speaker 2: 23:28

Oh, she teaches. She's taught me so many things.

Speaker 1: 23:31

I mean, the conversation brought up this podcast, and so, while we were initially thinking about how to give better advice or why the advice that we try to give the ones that we love is not well accepted, it may be that we shouldn't be giving them advice. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:50

Because what do we do in this field? It's not so much about coaching. It's about teaching people. They have their own innate ability within themselves to heal. Not that they need us. We're just waking up and reminding them of who they are and that they have all the gifts within them to be their best selves. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:09

Yeah, and that deep belief in them. That's one of the things too is in them. You know that's. That's one of the things too is. Had I been able to go back? In time and reparent. You know I I would have been, I would have, I would have hoped that I would have been more. You know that you're doing enough, like whatever you're doing.

Speaker 1: 24:30

What would you have done different? Is there a moment where you would like we talked about early, earlier with a mistake? You know in the family that was better. Is there a moment? Where you would like we talked about earlier. With a mistake, you know, in the family that was better. Is there something that you could look back on your kids?

Speaker 2: 24:42

I think I would have encouraged them to trust themselves more instead of you should, or why you should know.

Speaker 1: 24:51

Yeah, that's building the intuition.

Speaker 2: 24:53

Yeah, and really just really being able to trust yourself, because you know, as you become adults and you start to you know, go into the job or go into the world is to really be like, well, what do you think you know? And yeah, that's whatever. That is, it's enough. And if you would like advice, like I can give it to you. But I trust that you know and that you can believe in yourself. You know, and that you don't have to push yourself to exhaustion in order to feel worthy. You know that your productivity is not where your value is.

Speaker 1: 25:27

You know, you say like listening to yourself, and I mean we've been talking about the word knowing and it's just knowing that you're doing the right thing, trusting your knowing. Yeah. And trusting your intuition. Yeah. And I wish that's something that I would have done different with my kids is just to teach them to trust themselves, their gut feeling.

Speaker 2: 25:50

Yeah, how to be connected with their body, with their own knowing and trust their judgment. How to be connected with their body, with their own knowing and trust their judgment, Because you know, when they become adults they need that, instead of looking for some outside source you know, or just relying on this old pattern and really recognizing what the patterns are. I mean, I think that that would have been it.

Speaker 1: 26:09

Parts of me feels like I protected them so much from all the hurts that were going to come up in life that, now that they're into their early adult lives, that things are hitting them hard and fast and they don't have the coping mechanisms that I wish that they had.

Speaker 2: 26:28

Yeah, the world is moving much faster too.

Speaker 1: 26:30

Yeah, and it's moving way faster than even when you and I were growing up. So you know, in some ways I do believe what I said earlier about robbing your children by solving things, everything for them, because they don't develop the skills.

Speaker 2: 26:45

Yeah or the yeah the ability to trust their own judgment.

Speaker 1: 26:48

Yeah, to trust exactly, to trust their own judgment, yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:51

So I mean, I don't know, that was that felt like something really important to bring up, just because you know, I, I think back, okay, like I man, even like two years ago, if I had heard this and someone said you know, when you are on your own journey of healing and discovery and really looking into your own patterns and, and you know, working through your triggers, all the things we talk about, right, is that when you are now dealing with your own kids or your own family or people that you've hurt and you want to come in like I got all the answers now and look, I, you know I'm healed. It's like it is. It's bypassing what may have been how they may have been affected by you in the past. And just because you have great advice now doesn't mean that it needs to come from you.

Speaker 2: 27:38

And there is this ability to just find humility and to sit back and just be there, just be a space for them to find their way and let them know that they can trust themselves. And if there is something that you know that you instilled like this, you should do this. You're not doing enough, you should do more is to recognize that and to acknowledge it as a possibility that that may have been something they experienced and that you're open to hearing about it. But to also recognize, like yeah, your newfound help. But to also recognize, like yeah, that your newfound help how to advice you know that needs to come after you've recognized the role that you may have played in their own pain and the thing that you're trying to advise them on now.

Speaker 1: 28:26

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 28:27

You know it's just leave space for that and leave space for forgiveness for yourself, because forgiving ourselves is one of the hardest things to do.

Speaker 1: 28:35

Yeah, and I think that's, you know, forgiving myself. You know I talk a lot about wanting to have conversations with the people that hurt me my dad, our dad or my stepdad but I haven't really even had the conversation with my son the same kind of conversation that I know that he wants to have with me, or maybe he doesn't or isn't ready, but I think I'm thinking about what I wish my dad would have done for me, and I think that's just to listen.

Speaker 2: 29:04

Just listen, check your ego.

Speaker 1: 29:06

Don't say a damn thing.

Speaker 2: 29:07

Check your ego at the door. Sit down and just listen.

Speaker 1: 29:11

It's not the time to come up with excuses. It's not the time to come up with excuses. No, it's not the time to tell them why you're an asshole, why you failed. Why make excuses? This is what happened to me. This is why this, this is all the things that I want to say to defend myself, because that's my ego. I was a bad dad because of this.

Speaker 2: 29:29

It wasn't my fault, yeah, but that doesn't do anything for them.

Speaker 1: 29:33

But if I say it wasn't my fault, I'm not taking responsibility and accountability for my actions, and maybe it wasn't necessarily my fault, but it is absolutely my responsibility. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:49

Yeah, this is. I mean, this was this, for me was a powerful moment of like realization and I thought it would be important to share it. You know, because you think, oh well, here we are, we're doing this podcast, we're doing it, we've learned all these things. It's amazing. It's amazing Sometimes the hardest people to help are the people closest to you, and it's this is one of the reasons you know. So I hope it helps. I hope it helps someone just to stop and think. And if you're on your healing journey, you're doing all your self-discovery and you're doing all the breath work and realizing all your wounds Cool, but also take into account that you know you may have left a trail behind you that needs to be addressed. Not for you to go back and I got to fix all that is just to realize, stay in humility, that that may have happened and kind of know your place.

Speaker 1: 30:37

Kind of an atonement you think Like a 12-step program will make you. You know they have something in there where you have to, you know, apologize to the people that you've hurt, kind of a thing.

Speaker 2: 30:45

I think that that is absolutely important because it gives those people like an opportunity to move through that hurt if they choose to. But it's not something you demand because you want it Like I'm in my step, so I, I, this is one of the things that I I'm doing this for me. If you're doing it for you, like really kind of check yourself, you know, and just have some humility to understand how that may have affected the other person. And if they're in a space to want to hear it at all but you know I wouldn't I would say just don't go about spewing all of your advice of how they should do it now.

Speaker 1: 31:19

Yeah, how they should do things. Unsolicited advice. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2: 31:21

Because all they're going to hear is another way, they're not doing it right. Or you, this person who you messed me up in the first place. Now you want to tell me what I should be doing with my life, and it's like uh no, I don't know that my kids have ever said dad, I need some advice.

Speaker 1: 31:36

I don't think they've ever said that to me. It's always me. Sit down, we're going to have a conversation.

Speaker 2: 31:42

Oh, here we go. You're going to talk at me.

Speaker 1: 31:44

I'm going to talk, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2: 31:45

You're going to talk at me.

Speaker 1: 31:46

Yeah, so here's an invitation to active listening Love.

Speaker 2: 31:55

Recognize when someone is fighting with you or they're lashing out at you or they're angry and upset. It's just like to see this other person in their anger, and that must be painful.

Speaker 1: 32:06

They've been telling you all along. You just haven't been listening because, even as I'm having this conversation with you, even as I'm having this conversation with you, I'm re are rehearing texts and messages and things that were just like oh, they're so obvious.

Speaker 2: 32:25

Yeah, it really is Just zoom out, see it from a higher perspective, but yeah, Get curious. Get curious. I hope this helps I hope this helps.

Speaker 1: 32:38

All right, that's been another episode of Let that Shift Go podcast. I'm Noel.

Speaker 2: 32:42

And I'm Lena. Let us know what your questions are and we'd love to use them on a future episode. Or check us out on Insta at Let that Shift Go, or visit our website, serenitycovetomeculacom.