I love being a mother, but the demands are never ending. Night or day, I feel the pressure of being a mom. I know what it is to wake up during the night, to nurse babies during the night, to have interrupted sleep, to have not a moment in your day to take care of your own needs because there's so many other little people who need you so desperately.

I had the chance at a full scholarship to the Culinary Institute of America, but my family needed me… so I turned it down and didn’t go to college.

What I certainly don't want is to have my children grow up and for me to consider all the good work I did, but at what cost? What's the trade? I want to have deep connections with my children… I actually want to have a thriving, fun relationship with my husband. I want to be able to connect with new friends and feel that I have the time, the capacity, energy to do all of this.

Compassion and understanding, acknowledgement with kindness, helps to move us forward. It helps us to get up and feel a little bit more empowered, a little bit more energized to go do the thing we need to do… deep down what we want to do.

We are free to let whatever we wish go. And we're going to talk specifically today about the stories that we think, the stories that determine our perception of others and of ourselves and of the world at large.

If we learn that “Oh, this is natural to feel, I'm allowed to feel it”...then we can naturally move through it and not get stuck.We didn't suppress it, we didn't repress it…we naturally processed through it.

Reflect on the people in your life that have started to set boundaries - and allow yourself to take on a new perspective. Challenge the underlying beliefs, the stories you tell yourself, and offer to other people what you hope to receive in return.

Sometimes we're drawn or pulled to the busier lifestyle because of our own trauma. When we slow down, we actually have to confront more of our inner world. Sometimes we have a hard time falling asleep at night because we've been so busy throughout the day…

Each one of us as a parent now, as an adult person, has the opportunity to heal ourselves so that we don't keep the patterns ongoing - we can notice the needs of our children and meet their needs alongside of us meeting our own.

We get to choose whether we're going to live our life and hold a perspective based on the perspective that people around us when we were growing up had, or if we're going to choose a different one.

One reason that some of us hate being misunderstood and why it hurts so deeply is when our earliest experiences, that with our caregivers and our parenteral figures, when those people don't speak to understand us, we learn the pain of not ever really being known.

What is one thing you can celebrate about yourself, about your progress this last year? And as you do that, feel gratitude in your heart. Feel the gratitude that things are able to be different.

If you’re open to connecting more deeply with your past self, walk through this visualization exercise with me.

Knowing the limitations you need to set and having boundaries in place; honoring yourself through this process and evaluating as you go; knowing what you want from this season and what is aligned; that will help you in making your decisions.

Do you want to connect more deeply with your inner child? Join me for this visualization exercise.

When you look in the mirror, how do you think of that person you see there? Are you kind to them? Or do you belittle them? Start by noticing…

Let's talk about how you can support yourself when you're actually in the conflict. Perhaps one of the most important things for the parentified child, the one who's learned to people please, is to have boundaries in place.

It can be uncomfortable to relax when you're used to being hypervigilant, when you're used to being the one in charge, the responsible, mature one. It can feel childish, silly, wrong to do these other things. But they are so necessary for survival, for thriving. You deserve to have a good time.

There's a time when we have to stand up from where we've been sitting, look ourselves in the mirror, literally or figuratively, and say, “I care about you and I'm here to help.”

A parentified child knows more of a give than a take. They know how to offer their support more than they know how to receive support. So when you show up in a relationship with your partner, you might be doing a lot more than you should be doing and you don't even realize it.