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The only person I’ll ever acknowledge as my guru is my son, Oliver.

Motherhood has provided me with profound spiritual development, and a deep connection to my own child parts. It’s a topic I’m delving into today on the Dear Gabby podcast.

Our children present us with a unique chance to confront our inner child aspects.

Parenting has also been a humbling experience, showing me my limitations, triggering my insecurities, and highlighting young unhealed parts within me.

When I find myself reacting strongly to a situation with Oliver, I now pause to ask myself: 

What is this triggering in me? 

What unhealed part of myself is surfacing? 

This self-inquiry has been instrumental in my personal growth journey.

If you’re a parent and you feel like you are struggling, even the tiniest bit, then don’t miss this week’s episode of Dear Gabby with Dr. Aliza Pressman.

Dr. Pressman and I share simple yet profound ways in which we can be a loving support system for our kids and raise them to feel safe, resilient and most importantly, how to be ‘good humans.’ 

In this episode you’ll learn:

  • How to communicate boundaries without causing fear
  • Practical ways to create a safe space for navigating and processing emotions
  • The five Rs: Relationship, Reflection, Regulation, Rules & Repair
  • Strategies to foster resilience in your children
listen now

Enhance your practice today with my

FREE MAGNETIC ENERGY MEDITATION

to supercharge your manifesting power

  • Dr. Aliza Pressman is a developmental psychologist with nearly two decades of experience working with families and the health care providers who care for them. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling book THE 5 PRINCIPLES OF PARENTING: Your Essential Guide to Raising Good Humans, and the host of the award-winning podcast Raising Good Humans.
  • If you feel you need additional support, please consult this list of safety, recovery and mental health resources.
disclaimer

This podcast is intended to educate, inspire, and support you on your personal journey towards inner peace. I am not a psychologist or a medical doctor and do not offer any professional health or medical advice. If you are suffering from any psychological or medical conditions, please seek help from a qualified health professional.

dear gabby #220 Aug 19, 2024 spiritual connection

spirituality and parenting: raising good humans with dr. aliza pressman

[00:00:00] The following podcast is a Dear Media production. Hi there, Gaby here. This podcast is intended to educate, inspire, and support you on your personal journey towards inner peace. I am not a psychologist or a medical doctor, and do not offer any professional health or medical advice. If you are suffering from a psychological or medical condition, please seek help from a qualified health professional.

Hey there, welcome to Dear Gabby. I'm your host Gabby Bernstein. And if you landed here, it is absolutely no accident. It means that you're ready to feel good and manifest a life beyond your wildest dreams. Let's get started.[00:01:00] 

Welcome back to Dear Gabby, my friends. So much going on in my world. So many things, so many cool things happening. I just finished the audio book recording for Self Help, my forthcoming book. It's out on New Year's Eve, if you have not heard. It is out on New Year's Eve, but I am shouting from the rooftops.

When you pre order the book, you're going to get this new manifesting, full day workshop with me. It's all about the new manifesting and it's bringing the book to life, teaching you the four step method from the book and how when you master this method, you learn what I'm calling the new manifesting. So it's a full free day live workshop with me.

All you have to do is pre order self help at DearGabby.com/selfhelp and you get yourself enrolled. It's in November. It's a big event celebrating anybody who pre orders this book and teaching you the methods from the book and how it relates to manifesting. Go to DearGabby.com/selfhelp.

I am [00:02:00] so pumped to prepare you for what's coming this new year. There's no better self help book in the world than the one that is coming into your hands on New Year's Eve. So head over to DearGabby.com/selfhelp. If you know you're going to get the book anyway, definitely enroll in that free training.

It's a full day. Live virtual event. Okay, so today on the show, this is selfish to me because it's someone who I need in my life, someone who has given me great wisdom, and it is my friend, Dr. Aliza Pressman. Dr. Aliza has this great New York Times bestselling book called The Five Principles of Parenting, and it's Your Essential Guide to Raising Good Humans.

And we've been wanting to do a chat for a really long time on the show, and we finally made it happen. And we sit down and we talk about what it means to raise a good human. So whether you are a parent, a grandparent, a step parent, a person who has a child in your life. that you love and want to [00:03:00] nurture and support into becoming a good human, then this is your show.

Because we have a lot of work to do to support this next generation of humans, a. k. a. spirits in a human form. We need to support these little spirits to becoming humans. Soulful, grounded, compassionate, kind, connected humans. And this episode has a deep dive conversation on how we can support our kids, how we can support our teens, and how we can really also give some meditations for teens.

I'm going to be adding a lot of those to the Gabby coaching membership as well. So if you're a member, do not miss some of these kids and teens meditations, but really We show up as parents and caregivers and we're just kind of like, what the heck are we doing here? And we need the guidance and support from the experts.

So enjoy this episode with Dr. Eliza. Make sure to listen all the way through to the end because it gets really juicy towards the end. And if you're somebody out there and you're like, I really want to do the work on myself so I can also care for [00:04:00] the people in my life, then Definitely raise your hand and say yes to this next journey with me, the self help book journey.

That's literally the title, self help. This is your chance to change your life. And head over to DearGabby.com/selfhelp. Register yourself now for the free live masterclass where I teach you the methods from the book that I've coined now, The New Manifesting. When you learn these self help methods from the book, You actually become a real super attractor, and that's when you really can ground yourself in the manifesting practices.

So listen to the show, enjoy the show, and then make sure you take that next step and join me for the live training. It is totally free. Go to DearGabby.com/selfhelp. We are here in the house with Dr Aliza Pressman who I have been friends with from I think we've been Zoomy friends for a long time.

That's why I didn't realize that I had not actually touched you. I saw you in the hallway and I was like, wait, we've never met before. I didn't want to say it [00:05:00] because I was being awkward, but yeah, we've never met in person, but it feels like we know each other for a very long time. Yeah. It's lots of mutual admiration and I just think you're super cool and also one of my gurus because I have a mom and I rely on you.

And you have this gorgeous book that is, as a parent, is like one of those books that you just have to go back into and go back into. It's On My Bedside. You sleep next to me every single night. The five principles of parenting. I like this idea that you've led with for your career, which is raising good humans.

I want to start there. What does it mean to you to raise good humans? I mean, that is the big question and I really not to. mess with anyone, but with the humbleness of like, I don't know, but I know what it means for me. And so my assumption is that each of us kind of knows what that is, and it may take on different forms.

And I would never presume to say like [00:06:00] a good human is fill in the blank. Yep. But I know that we know what it is. And so if we can consciously sort of decide for us what that means, we can be really intentional in our parenting and like, let go of all the other noise. Yeah. I know what it means for me. For me as a parent, I think it means that my, my son has compassion.

He elevates the energy in the room that he is safe in the world, because I know that if he's safe in the world and safe in his mind and in his world, then he can be a good human. Yeah. And other people will feel safer. Every people will say around him. So I've been a big, big fan of all kinds of parenting work, and you're at the top of the list.

And this conversation, particularly these days, is we see just such a rise in depression, anxiety, self harm. The data is so [00:07:00] alarming. Has your why, like the why behind your work, been even more intense in this day and age? Because you've been doing this longer than most at this point. Like you've been in this field before the internet was destroying minds.

Yeah. I think what I will say is, There's some things that are more heartening than we realize, the worries are the same. Like it's not like all of a sudden I'm hearing worries that are different from like the inside of people about their kids and their lives. But I think they feel bigger now and there's more at stake now because it's amplified everywhere and it's really scary.

And I don't think we're doing parents any favor. amplifying how terrible things are and scaring the daylights out of people, but it's so [00:08:00] compelling. And we also are adults who are noticing like things aren't like our insides aren't so perfect. So what could have been different? I think when we all go back to our childhood experiences and those moments that you remember, like I just had an experience with someone saying something to a teenager in a store and I just was watching because sometimes I do.

Dissociate and watch like I'm on safari. Mm. And. I saw. That's funny. It's really weird. It's like I can't help it. It's so magical to me. But it is definitely like you're just witnessing the families. I just witnessing so much. I gotta be scared to be in there with you. I know. Because that's a terrible thing.

Don't think I would be in my son. Don't be like, what? What you thinking? I'm not doing it when I'm interacting. I swear. But I know because I know people must think that. But it's only when I'm like not, I have nothing to do with them and I, it's not judgment. It's just witnessing. And I witnessed someone, the, the salesperson saying something to [00:09:00] this teenager.

And I had this moment of like, that flippant comment will be in that teenager's mind as a story for her to tell in perpetuity. And I was so struck because I was like, it's such a precious thing. time in our lives when we're wiring so much and we're figuring out who we are and we still have a lot of space to let other people tell us who we are.

And it feels so heavy. At the same time, I don't want parents to be like, stuck and tied in knots because if they don't do this all right, that one moment is going to be the thing. I think that as a parent, I can actually respond to that and say that I trust that the one thing things will happen because he is living in the world.

But what I can give him, and I think this is the very much at the core of what you teach, what I can give [00:10:00] him is the foundation for, for real resilience. Yep. And if I can instill that foundation of resilience and also a safe place to go to, to feel seen and heard. Or place to process, then I can know that what happens will have a greater chance of, of not being that damaging lifelong trauma.

It's survivable. It, and hopefully it's about the processing, right? It's, and I'm teaching you here, you know, you know everything, but, but, but the repair and being in the process and being the safe place and being, being a parent that creates an environment where a child can feel safe. Safe and resilient.

Well, so when, this was the thing that I thought was so beautiful is that I saw the parent, in this case it was a mother. I saw her attune. Mm-Hmm. To what? Like the tiniest little shift. Mm. [00:11:00] In her daughter that nobody else was paying any attention to. And I saw them give each other a look. Mm. And that is where resilience is.

That was it. That's the whole thing. To be that for them when they don't have it in there yet. Yeah. Like in that one look, I felt like she was saying, I noticed you're not crazy. That that just hurt. And also like, I've got you. You're not doing this by yourself. And I felt like she wasn't yelling at the person for saying it.

She wasn't fixing it. Mm-Hmm. . But in her just noticing, acknowledgement that that was it, that child is going to have a much better shot at resilience. That's right. That's right. Being acknowledged, being seen in it. I had an interesting experience recently. I am the parent that has been very alarmed by some of the data and has had the privilege of being able to rewrite the script because my son's only five.

So I can really redirect the technology path and how we [00:12:00] do things. And I started to just take things away, right? So I took away the internet on his iPad. Not that he had an iPad that he was cruising through, but he would go on to even Netflix. Yeah. And even on Netflix, on the kid's Netflix, like find his way to things that were horrifying.

And so we took away like any access to, you know, these children can find anything. Like they'll find their way to like download apps. And it's like, he knows, he's like, I'm like, where did you find it? He goes, the, the thing that had the A on it. Like, oh my God, the Apple store, you know, it's like, dude, so took away the whole internet on there and just downloaded two shows that were safe.

And that's like the one thing he can watch, you know, for the 20 minutes a day, whenever he's like, you know, in that after school, whatever our rituals are that we've created. Right. But prior to that, there was this Netflix was sort of on the screen. And Netflix kids, it had some bumpers, but somebody found his way to like a PG 13 thing.

And it was like a scary show where the kid had some alarming cuts on his face or something. And my son walked into the dining room and we were having dinner with some [00:13:00] friends. And he walked into the dining room and he goes, I just broke my brain. My brain is broken. My brain is broken. And I realized, Aliza, and this is why I wanted to ask your advice.

I've been dying to ask you this. I had said to him earlier that day, we're going to watch, we're only going to watch shows at this time, and we're not going to ever have a game for until you're older. And just really creating these boundaries that I think I can create in this living in a country town with nine kids in the class.

I think that I can really be one of those parents that can actually have a shot at this. And I was explaining to him, I said, you know, it's not good for kids brains. I said, it makes kids sad. And I was giving him the truth. Also here he is coming in now saying I broke my brain. Because he saw something and then he remembered what you said and he's connecting those dots.

Yeah, and I thought at first like, oh, he's just sort of saying, um, you know, didn't have the words to say I'm scared or whatever, but did I freak him out that his brain is broken? Well, I think probably you freaked him out a little bit in the sense that he's [00:14:00] growing and thinking about what all these things mean and it's just It's the same thing with, you know, most of the things that we tell our kids about, they're going to, especially at the younger ages, take more literally and, but he's not harmed because of it.

Because you can say to him, it's really important to think about and use using more simple words than dose and duration. But it is about like how much and how long. That's right. That's right. And so your brain is going to be taught. You have a beautiful brain and what your brain is beautiful and it's growing and it's built to grow strong.

And sometimes there are things that aren't good for your brain. And if you have too much of those things. this is when we get into a problem. But that's not breaking your brain. It's just not feeding things that are healthy to your brain. So sometimes you have chocolate and it's junky and you know it's not feeding your body with healthy stuff, but you have it anyway, it's the same thing.

I like that analogy too. It's like, you know, he knows that if he has too much sugar, his tummy will hurt. It's just about having a little bit. The thing that I [00:15:00] did do after that I think you'll be very proud of is His spiritual mom took him to his bedroom and we laid down. We talked to angels. We have a lot of angels in our world.And every night Ollie goes, night night angels.

He grabs them all and he goes, I love you angels. And he thanks them for no dreams. And we talk about angels a lot. Cause I know angels to be true for me. And so we talk about them and. We asked the angels to take this, the story, put it into a little ball of light, and then we sent it off into the grass.

And then we asked the grass to recycle it. And, and I was holding him and we did the whole process and damn is, is this child resilient? They so are. And he believed that the angels took it. He, which is, I believe, I know they did and alchemized it and he was right back on track. He moved along, moved along.

We processed it. I love that. And I think it also just again highlights resilience. And not in the like the big stuff, but these little tiny moments that start to help us realize stuff happens. Then we clarify with mom or somebody safe. [00:16:00] And then we figure out what to do and that it's not, you know, these, we can survive those moments.

And I love that he has a way to do that. And the experience of processing something. Yeah. That creates resilience. For sure. And, and I feel like it also matters that you said to him or can say to him, you know, when I explain that to you, I want to clarify a little bit because I want you to understand this in a different kind of way so that the next time there will be a next time and these things are going to happen here and there or all the time depending.

And I want us to be able to talk about it. I'm so glad you told me that you thought you broke your brain. That is so helpful for me to know. And now I'm going to help you understand it in this different way. Yep. That's right. It's amazing even at five how a child can be in the mood to talk about something and then it's not in the mood to talk about something, you know, he's like, No, no, mom, we don't want to talk about that now, mom.

He's done. Yeah. Well, [00:17:00] and also I feel like they do move on. Yeah. Yeah, they do. They really do. Like we might not because we're, We just know we have the wisdom and sadly, the history of just like being able to write a much worse story, but they're just like, okay, and now we move on. And I think that one of the things that's happening right now is because there's a lot of research coming out and a lot of conversations happening about this anxious, almost framed as troubled generation of kids that We have to be careful as the adults not to panic every time our kids have like the normal wear and tear of being a person Because we're like, oh my God.

Here's another example of how they're gonna be Disastrously screwed up and it sort of feeds itself our sense that like our body is just tightened and terrified is In and of itself its own little [00:18:00] circle of anxiety for them And so yeah, I I don't love that That's how I feel. I mean, I am a mother, but also on behalf of mothers and parents and caregivers, we have to remind ourselves we're wired for resilience and work from there.

Yeah. Not, not to get into a place of like, Oh, I f ked everything up. Yeah. I mean, I'm in a different position than a lot of parents of your children's generation, because I have a little guy and I had him later in my life, but I have this little guy and I have this ability, a unique ability, that I'm going to really use this privilege wisely.

Yeah. But that I have the privilege of living in a small community. I have a privilege of him being in a nine person class. I have the privilege of him growing up in the countryside. Being outside. Being outside. Being this age with this information. Because I look at my friends and contemporaries and family members who have children that are in their 14, 15, 16, and they didn't have, it was a free for all, they didn't have this information.

And [00:19:00] so I see where I'm at in this circumstance, and I'm going to use my information wisely to do it the way that I think is going to be safest. Is it going to come up with its challenges? Of course it will. But I just feel very blessed to be here now. Yeah. And I hope it's awesome that you have the You really have to be watching your kids, nine kids in the class.

Well, we can, we're all talking about flip phones now. Yeah. That's not possible when you're in a class of 100 and out there already 39 year olds and whatever, exactly. If you're five, it's kids five and your parents are ganging up together, you know. It's much easier. It's much easier.

You know, I think there's a sea change and I think it'll be quite different, but it's true. I think parents of teenagers right now have a little bit of the wind knocked out of them. Yeah. Which I hate for them because it's not, you know, not all of these kids are screwed up. Not everybody's, you know, like we're mostly everybody's, I would reframe it as there is for sure a bump in mental health challenges.

Like there's, is it a crisis? I'm not sure if it's a total crisis, but it's [00:20:00] definitely something is not great, but I don't think it serves parents of the age group that we're talking about to spin out on that instead of just, right. Well, seeking solutions.

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So let me ask you this. So let's say that you're a parent of a teenager and they are sort of of that Now a generation that's more anxious, more depressed, they're living that experience. Mm hmm. And they've had a lot of access to the phone and they've become addicted to it, which is the majority. What is your advice to those folks right now?

I would go back to the core principles of just our raising our kids in a way that's intentional, which is we can lean very deeply into both our relationship and the rules that are important to us. Okay. I the boundaries and the limits. So if it's gone too far, like reminding everyone, focus on your relationship and don't confuse that with letting go of boundaries.

And I just call them rules because it's an R word, but it's the boundaries and [00:26:00] limits. And in, in that are the boundaries and limits that feel appropriate when it comes to devices that your relationship can withstand the pushback and that it's okay if it, Doesn't feel good. Yeah. Totally. And that. We can kind of regulate ourselves enough to be able to help support them.

And then we can make repairs when it goes wrong. But that these are all just as true when it comes to panicking about social media, as it would be if you have a five year old who's panicking about not getting, you know, the blue cup, although he probably is not, he's a little past attached to the blue cup situation, but, or though he was attached to the blue cup.

Yeah. So I, the rainbow straw. With a rainbow straw. So, so I think, I want to remind parents that yes, we have to make changes. Yeah. And also, look how your kid is doing. Because a lot of the people that are [00:27:00] panicking, their kids are actually doing fine. They're thriving. And a lot of the misunderstanding is that we have to look at the big picture and understand the trends.

Then we have to look at our individual kids and our households. And what's really going on in this household and it may even be different if you have two kids or three kids that one is thriving and one needs serious intervention with this device, for example. Yeah. And that if you keep cultivating a close enough relationship, recognizing there's going to be an enormous pushback, but that it's not scary to have a feeling.

Like, it's just, if you get practice, as you know, you start to realize, like, we can handle the whole range. And so this is going to be, like, a passionate, angry side of that range, potentially. But that we love our kids enough that [00:28:00] we're not scared of it. It's an early practice in working with addiction. Yeah.

And your child. Sadly. Yeah. It's an early form of addiction. And your love isn't dependent on the moment of that feeling. And that for sure, and from the addiction perspective, and this goes for littles that are on the phone and this is, I didn't mean to make this all about technology, but it is so in the zeitgeist right now, but this, this idea that.

And I actually really appreciate you being here, sort of this other side of this conversation, which I think is so valuable to sort of hear the practical approach to this, but there's this idea that, that we have this thing that is creating these, this addictive pattern and in Recovery. I mean, I've been in recovery from alcohol and drugs for nearly 19 years now.

And in my recovery, what I've come to understand is [00:29:00] that we can't enable our addicts in our life. And so some of that fear of disappointing the child and our fears of them being so upset or that they can't do it any other way, or what do we, how can I take this away from them? That's our fears. That's us.

That's us. That's us. And in many ways, if we let those fears stop us from creating the routines and the, I like the word routines. I'll kind of share my experience of that too. But if we, if we block that, then in a way we're definitely enabling the addiction. And so I think it's sort of like an empowering position to be in.

Are you going to continue to give your child money if you know that your child is using it for drugs? No. I mean, listen, dealing with addiction in any form, but this is an early experience of it for sure. And I think it's a great thing for. parents to even pay attention to. It's fascinating how this particular, these devices are sort of built.

It's very hard to, They are built to become addicted. Yeah. [00:30:00] And it's, it's, it's a rare kid that's so self regulated that they're like, I've got this, you know, trust me. And so we can just let them know it's not, this isn't built for you to be regulating this. Yeah. Kind of the conversation I'm already having with Ollie.

Right. It's going to make kids sad. Yeah. And I think that earlier we practice not only our own surviving their feelings, but also What a gift for them to know that we are not afraid of their feelings. Yeah, totally. That's exactly right. I mean, instead of, like, the alternative would be that they would say, like, I can't share this with you because you can't handle it.

That's right. So I'm excited for this conversation to happen and I'm excited for us to have that conversation. Sense of being empowered instead of focusing on what a disaster it is. I think we have to just remember ourselves. Who are we and what are we looking for in these raising these kids? We can do [00:31:00] this.

It's a lot easier if there was like collective support and action and community and all of those things make this easier, but for the individual who's just feeling helpless. I don't want everybody to feel helpless. Well, I love this. This one thing I learned early on, my son went to a Montessori school and I love Montessori, love it.

And he went up until this year, so now he's going into kindergarten outside of that school. So he's been there for a while. The, the routines are the boss. And that has been. It's such a blessing in my home. And even now with these routines around the phone, we don't have an iPad that's, that's locked and has no internet, but we don't have, we don't have the iPad with no internet, uh, in the morning.

We don't have it during the day. We have it for 30 minutes. And after you've had dinner, you sat at the table and that's the routine. So there's no even asking for it at another time, [00:32:00] particularly with little people. They get so into the routine and the routine is really healthy for them. And so maybe there's new conversations and alignment in the homes around new routines.

Yeah. And I think that's all it has to be is just, because as your kids get older, it's less about minutes and it's more about where and what are you not doing? What is this taking away from? And so once you've taken away, we're not doing this at mealtime. We're not doing this at bedtime. We're not doing this in the middle of the night.

We're not doing this in the car when we're having conversations about like to and from school or whatever. You're not doing it during homework. I mean, there's, It's not that much time. Hopefully not doing it at school. The school's gotta take them away. Yes. I think that's, that's happening. That's gotta happen.

Yeah. That's gotta happen. I think it's so. It's so ridiculous that it happened in the first place. How did schools let kids have phones in class? I think it's really interesting. A lot of parents, cause I assumed that parents would be thrilled that a lot of the schools are saying no phones anymore, but I watched parents getting [00:33:00] annoyed because they couldn't reach their kids.

Yeah. And so there were a lot of parents. Who actually were saying, no, we want phones. Cause what if something happens, get them a flip phone and also they don't, they don't need you during the day. They need to have it. No, they need to know that some adults is there. If there's an emergency that you trust, but they don't, we are not always available.

And the phone has sort of given this strange. false sense of security. Go to the counselor's office, pick up the phone from the wall. Have the awkward conversation. And say, I'd like to call my mom. Yeah. And memorize her phone number. Because by the way, a lot of the phone calls are like about decision making that they should make for themselves and they just don't want to because they can reach you.

Or they're about like, A request that's just not going to happen. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what about this? Now, this major shift from gentle parenting, you know, Bill Maher is so down on it. He's like gentle parenting. He's like [00:34:00] these kids, they can't wipe their own. You know, I'm just making it up, but like, he goes off on it.

And that dude has no kids. He doesn't even like children, but, but he, but he, he's so, and he's not wrong. Right. I see this generation. They don't want to make decisions that can't make decisions on their own. They rely on their parents for everything. And it's, Yeah. So this is a whole other swing. Yeah. You know, first of all, I totally get it.

Like I love being needed by my children. Totally. I get a real, real out of it. So I get it. Yeah. And also, that's not our goal, unless it is. And then that's your thing. And that's why I, I wouldn't say globally gentle parent to hell with gentle parenting. For some people that is their reason good humans, like someone who really, really understands how they feel is centering themselves and really doesn't like to be uncomfortable.

I think that like everything. When things are just taken so to the [00:35:00] extreme, because I do prescribe to gentle parenting. I want my, his feelings are the most important thing to me, the most important thing to me. But at the same time, I'm not going to wipe his ass forever. Right. And that's autonomy. Like, I do think like supporting autonomy is super important for like raising confident kids.

It's when you're a mom, you like want, I mean, just the. I won't say who, but I was sitting with someone who I love very much who is in my family and this was many years ago and, uh, this person's child from the other room, meaning they were age appropriate to go to another room to go to the bathroom, said, you know, I'm ready to be wiped.

But I was like, what are you talking about? That is a child in grade school. Hmm. That means. We're okay. We can do it by ourselves. Yeah. So I think that [00:36:00] that's part of it. I think that autonomy support can happen in the context of gentle, loving parents. I think the confusion about gentle parenting, I don't even know what gentle parenting is because it has different, it's not like research based.

So it's out of my lane, but I do think the confusion is your feelings matter and I'm curious and I want to hear you. And I always say all feelings are welcome. All behaviors are not, I think. That some of the direction of what is perceived as gentle parenting is all feelings are welcome, period. That's right.

You gotta go watch Bill Maher. It's so funny. And I just, there was an article that I just saw the headline of today, so I don't know what it said, but it essentially was like, Millennials really wanted to get parenting right, so how come there are so many little assholes walking around? Yeah. And I don't know if that was the title or it was a version of that, so forgive me, but what I gather Aren't the millennials a lot of the little assholes too?

Well, that's the thing, is like, that, that was what I thought was so interesting, is I [00:37:00] was like, how many generations are we calling assholes? by one year or so, you know. I, um, my, Curiosity is like, can we look at this and notice that it is every generation that we're like, they're asshole. We were blah, blah, blah.

And like, but, but I do think what if I didn't read that article and I have no idea what it says, but along the lines of what maybe Bill Maher was talking about, I do think in the context of caring deeply about how our kids feel and having them understand their kids. They're feelings. We also have to let them know that there are moments in time when your feelings valid as they are, are not appropriate to bring to the table because you have to care for others.

Yeah. And you can know that like, you may have to show up at your job or just show up even though you don't want to be there because we don't always get to do what we want to do. You can't have vacation every week. You know, it's funny because I was just, somebody was just, my team was laughing. Sorry.

They said this to me yesterday and it happens all the time. They're like, I tried [00:38:00] that, whatever this this thing was. And they didn't want to do it. They still didn't want to do it. And I was like, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is where I think we have a problem. Oh yeah. There's the want twos and the half twos and there are still half twos in the world because we do live on a planet with other people.

Right. Those are the kinds of things that I think are getting. That's what Bill Maher was talking about, yeah. But I think you can still be attuned, not all the time, because that would be annoying to be the center of the universe to somebody. It would be a lot of pressure. I think you should be attuned to your child.

I think that, that, that there's a should. I would hope that that would be the case. I do think that there's, there's just all of it. It can be not all the time. Exactly. If you were 100 percent attuned. tuned. That would be first of all, impossible. And sec, cause I think it's 33 percent of the time when they look at mother child dyads, right there are tuned and the rest is rupture and repair.

That's beautiful and doable. Let's talk about that. So, so I love that 30%. You're attuned that you're connected. [00:39:00] Like, doesn't that feel doable. A hundred percent and then acceptance of the rupture. And then knowing that there's the repair. Yeah. It's the whole thing. And it takes away all the shame of being a bad parent.

And it's like, no, no, we're going to do our best in this 30%. Yeah. And then we're going to do a great job repairing when we f k up. And if we don't have that 70 percent of the time, or you get the gist of the math. Yeah. Whatever math. We're not here for the math. If we don't have opportunities to grow the muscle because we're making the little tiny tears in the muscle.

The relationship isn't as strong when we are attuned. And let's talk about the value of the repair because the repair is the moment when I go back to Ali. This week and I say, Hey, we talked about the brain and it was getting broken. You know, I actually want to just give you a different way of thinking about that.

It's kind of like if we have too much chocolate and it can make your tummy hurt, it's not like you're going to break your brain. You know, that's a repair, right? Because I might've said [00:40:00] something and I could go walk away and be like, and I'm sitting here with Dr. Lisa and I'm like, so I came up and you're like, no, and I didn't, especially now I can go do the repair.

Yeah, because you're not sitting in like a shame spiral and can't even activate like we have to be easier on ourselves and I'm not saying like easier on ourselves like in this way that makes us just self so selfish that we're not even paying attention to our kids but just. Come on. Yeah. We're going to make so many mistakes.

And how much better are our kids for it? Totally.

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The five principles. This is actually, I think the thing I wanted to make sure we get to because the foundations, I think people love, and I love that you have the, ours, the, we've already talked about repair. We've touched on the rules. I want to just sort of go gently through each one and how people can think about it, particularly in this day and age, given the circumstances.

Okay, so I would start with relationship [00:46:00] because I feel like relationship is everything that we know helps humans flourish and thrive, but being in close connected relationships is hard and sometimes we can become enmeshed and all the things codependent put the list of things that you're worried about in relationships.

And so what I want to encourage people to think about is the power of relationships. Just good old fashioned, 33 percent of the time attuned, I'm here, I see you, I'm, I'm in this. I love you for who you are and not your accomplishments or what you do. It's really, truly, I love you for you. And so let me help you grow.

The, the exact flower that was planted. And then I also think the power of relationship is so incredible. And I just want to say this because I think it's a [00:47:00] way to sit in calmness, which is that when scientists look at stress and they talk about toxic stress, tolerable stress, and positive stress, and that every kid needs positive stressors to grow.

Like, we have to not get invited to the party. We have to get rid of the pacifier. We have to, you know, like, not get the blue cup. These are ways for us to see that we can survive any weather that comes our way so long as we're dressed appropriately. But then there's toxic stress on the other side of it that is so harmful that we see health outcomes.

Decades later, they'd come from having experienced this like sort of chronic stress that floods your brain. And the thing that distinguishes toxic stress from tolerable stress, which is where resilience can really grow. Is just having one loving, supportive relationship. [00:48:00] I just think that's magical. You'd call that the strong attachment?

Yeah. Yeah. And so. You only need one. You only need one. And I just, and you only need one where it's more often than not. And it's like. What are the qualities of that strong attachment figure? It's that they are, they love you for who you are. They're not trying to make you someone else. That's different than having, they see you and love you.

And that doesn't mean that they're not going to say like, you know, you got to have some broccoli. Right. But they're, they're not saying you have to have some broccoli because you need to change how you look. And so it's about like giving you what you need to be healthy as a human. while growing that exact human that you were supposed to be.

And I think the qualities are like really good listening, low agenda. That's really hard to do, to [00:49:00] just sit down and have like availability to be present and not have an agenda, especially as. They grow and get older and we're in adult relationships and we know when we sit down with somebody who has an, uh, an unspoken agenda.

I think if you say it out loud, that's fine. And I think another quality is some figuring out like how you co regulate physically, like what happens in both of your bodies when you can see that everybody feels safe. So that you can call on that when words are not useful. Mm. Mm hmm. Beautiful. But I do, I hold onto it like for dear life because like I had a, I'll call it an altercation with my daughter.

I don't know why I use the word altercation, but I, I had like a brawl with my 17 year old. I've [00:50:00] never had a brawl with her. Like we, we've never You know, have normal arguments here and there. But in general, she's 17. So she's 17, but I've never, I haven't had a moment where I really loathed myself as a mother.

Like I was like, Oh my God. And I left the room. Not by, you know, not calmly. Like I stormed out of her room and I've never done that before. I've never felt this feeling of like, I just blew it. Like this will be forever. And I just was so ashamed of myself. And then I just told myself. Um, if somebody were telling me this, what would I say to them?

And I was like, okay, what is our relationship? This was a moment of rupture. We're going to go back to repair. I just need to regulate myself and I need to reflect on why the hell that just set me off to the point of getting to this place. And then [00:51:00] I, Stopped thinking about what I would say to myself. And I was like, this is all bullshit.

Everybody's full of it. It's all a lie I've ruined things and I just sat on my bed Questioning my motherhood and my career all at once. Is it all a lie? And then I don't know five minutes later. She came into my room and she was like I'm assuming you want to make a repair right now, but that's the foundation right there, right?

That was relationship. That's right. That's beautiful. And she just sat down and then seconds later, while I'm still like, maybe we need to talk about this, whatever she was. Telling me about what a 17 year old is thinking about having nothing to do with me, and she was not ruminating. She was like, I'm on to what I really was thinking about.

Yeah. And I was so. And she knows she's safe with you. Yep. And she knows that the repair is there. And the most important relationship to her is you. So when she even just says, repair, it [00:52:00] was, that was like the safe word. And I was so glad that I didn't have to quit my job and end this whole, in fact, it's showing you the proof in the pudding.

Right? Totally. I was like. Oh, this works. I do care about this , this works, this, this really matters. And so we can be, you know, we're gonna have moments of being completely undone and brought to our knees. And I have a lot of content in my head. I have a lot of content knowledge, let's say, like you wanna know about how a human develops emotionally, cognitively, whatever.

I am. So there, I'm brought to my knees daily. Mm-Hmm. like. I know how to do things. I could give like the right answer, but it doesn't matter how much you know. And that's why I think we're always searching for like, if I just read a little bit more, I mean, I have a book, so I know that's a ridiculous thing to say, but if I just get a little bit more, if I know a little bit more, I'm going to be that mother.

And the truth is like, I don't know how much more in this [00:53:00] particular niche topic I could know about, and I'm not that mother. Like I am still a flawed. I think Proudly Flawed Mother, and I just want everybody to know that like we, we won't get to anything with. You know, just one more script or piece of information.

Yeah. It might help soothe us. Hmm. I think that's a beautiful place to close because it's such a compassionate way to speak to the parents, to say, you can, you can always return to your repair with yourself as well. Yeah. You can always return to your repair with yourself. I think that all the parenting tools that I've learned from your book through my friend, my other friend's books in this field.

I've applied it on my own and our children as well. So I think that as much as these are perfect for our relationship to our children, they're for us. I like to apply them to myself first. Totally. I wanted to call [00:54:00] this raising good parents. Mmm. That's the next one. That's your next one. The publisher should not like it.

Well, um, I'd publish that. Next one. I love that. Who are these publishers? No offense, publishers. But I think they thought it would be confusing, but I was like, I guess you're sitting with the title whisperer.

Yeah. I should have checked. You don't, don't you? I mean, this is a place where I would say, listen up.
I should have checked with you raising good parents. Done. Are you kidding me? I will publish it. Done. Gabby, Gabby, Gabby imprint, which is coming, I'm sure, one day. I'm telling you, that is a great title. I know. I feel like we just heard this now. Yeah, exactly. We just announced my imprint. But I, because That's ultimately Good Parents.

Are you kidding me? That's an incredible title. Oh my God. Heidi, go put the press release together. Okay, that is so damn good. That is so damn good. Please write that I check with you? Well, no, because it's your next book. Okay. It's your next one. It's your next one. [00:55:00] Because it's true. And, and, and I think that, and I think that, that is the whole thing.

For me, I believe that. In order to be a good parent, I, I, I wasn't blessed with my child till at 39 years old. I just turned 39 when I birthed and I tried, I've been trying since 34. I know that that was God's work because by the time I was 39 or I had remembered a dissociated trauma at 36, I had done a tremendous amount of trauma recovery.

There's no accident that that came at a time when I was safe enough to do it. And I can look back in retrospect and I can say even now, this experience of raising myself first. is what allowed me to be a vessel to hold a child in my womb. There is nothing more powerful and more predictive of a secure attachment relationship than a mother who has parented herself.

Yes. Yeah. All right. Raising good parents. If they don't publish it, I will. Just come to me. It's done. [00:56:00] It's just so done. I can't believe you're the title whisperer and I didn't check with you. No, I'm, because you weren't supposed to. It was supposed to be this first. Please, trust. Okay. Okay. That's right.

That's right. I'm not even kidding. I love you. We've been friends forever, even though we just met today. That's so weird. But no, we're best friends. I'm so excited. We're going to go and we're going to relax and we're going to sit by the pool and hang out and have teas and talk about the future. This is the Mayflower.

The Mayflower. I, I really do love you and I'm so grateful for this conversation and you're so cool.
If you made it to the end of this episode, that means you're truly committed to miracles. I'm really proud of you. If you want to get more Gabby, tune in every Monday for a new episode. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss any of the guidance or special bonus episodes. Your experience at this show means a lot to me, so I really want to welcome you to [00:57:00] leave an honest review.

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