Conditioned for Confidence a conversation with Nellie Harden

[Intro] Hello, and welcome to my podcast, Empowered to Thrive. I'm your host, Corinne Powell, and I'm the owner of Change Radically. In this space, we'll talk all things inner wellness, and parenting will certainly come up too. Because I'm a mom to four kids, so parenting is a huge part of my life. 

This space is designed for safety. Your inner child is welcome. Your past self is invited to listen as well. And no matter what type of day you're having, I want you to know I'm glad to be with you.

I live out of vulnerability and transparency. So come and be, be yourself, be messy, invite a friend, and please stay a while. Keep coming back. I want you around.

Corinne Powell: Now let's jump into today's episode. I'm excited to have Nellie here with me today. Nellie Hardin is a wife, a mother to four teenage daughters, and an author and speaker in the space of family life and leadership. 

She focuses on helping parents love and lead their teen and tween daughters in a way that teaches them to love and lead themselves while building a strong foundation of worth, esteem, and confidence all before they leave home.

Her background is in biology and psychology from humpbacks to humans, and she has invested decades of her life into personal, family, and faith and leadership development. Most of all, she believes the best way to change the world is through one living room at a time.

And I definitely agree with you on that. So today we're going to talk about how we can prepare and empower our own kids so that they know who they are before they're out on their own. 

Nellie Harden: Absolutely.

Corinne Powell: So thank you for being here, Nellie. 

Nellie Harden:  Thank you so much for having me. 

Corinne Powell: So I know you were just telling me you have four teenage daughters. And I'm sick of it, so we want to hear your wisdom and your tips.

Nellie Harden: All right. Well, yes, I have four teenage daughters right now. My oldest just went off to college, so I am in that very fresh wound phase of that right now. So my daughters are 18, 15, 15, and 13.

So, yes, I have twins in the middle there. We had after going through years of infertility, which was, you know, one emotional crazy, we went into four daughters in four years, which was another emotional, you know, flavor of emotional crazy. So but yes.

And so it's been a beautiful ride. And I am right there with all of you right now, you know, that have your teens and your tweens and even the younger ones. I you know, they say 18 years goes by fast. It goes by fast. Cherish it.

I cannot believe how fast it went. And, you know, the the saying I remember when my twins were born, I was a part of this this mom's group that had, you know, multiples. And there was a saying written on the wall that said the days are long, but the years are short. And I was like, I don't know, it feels really long right now, you know, during those middle of the night, everything's that happened. And but it's so, so true. 

And I made this this slideshow for my daughter's grad party this past summer. And just going through there was so, you know, reflective on, you know, for me as a parent. And it was great. 

It was playing in the background of the grad party and everything. But just making it was so reflective as a parent to see everything we had gone through and everything we had to overcome. 

And, you know, getting into what we're talking about today and empowering and thriving and, you know, becoming that strong foundation for yourself as a parent and then being that also for others in your family and then teaching your children how to start building that as well because the whole point is to love and lead them in a way that teaches them to love and lead themselves. 

You know, one of the things we have in our house is discipline yourself so others don't have to. I say that so many times, you know, probably definitely at least once a day. 

And, you know, I have a 13 year old going into eighth grade, probably more so with her than anything. You know, middle school is a hard time.

It's a it's a difficult time. And helping them learn how to have that self-discipline. That's the culmination of what this beautiful foundation of worth and esteem and confidence can result in. 

And that's where we really want them to be before they leave home. You know, will they know all the answers? No, absolutely not. I mean, I'm 44. I don't know all the answers yet. And I don't know if I ever will. Life is a seeking journey. 

But will they have the foundation that they can build their strongest selves on? Yes. Like that is the hope and the prayer right there. And you mentioned in my intro that I had worked with humpbacks before. So my first career career part one was working in the animal field. 

And one of the most beautiful things, I think, in the work that I do now for the past decade plus that I gleaned from those years is that you can look at the animal field and the animal realm and look and see what the black and white purpose of childhood is. Right. 

And so the black and white purpose of childhood without the monstrous big, you know, juicy layers of human messiness on top of it and human beauty and human emotion and complexity, the black and white nature of childhood is to teach them how that they how they can live on their own, how to become self-led leaders of their own lives.

And then we get all the layers of complexity of humanity in there. And it becomes such this rich and beautiful foundation that you can build that, yes, is also wrought with complexity and hardships a lot of times. But so many times beauty and strength and resilience comes out of those challenges.

I mean, if I mean, you might know, I don't know anyone that has ever gone through life without a single challenge. 

And but I do know some people that have had minimal challenges. And then when a challenge does come, because it always will, they're not going to have that foundation to keep them upright and strong and resilient during that because they haven't been able to face anything on their own yet. 

So I think maybe a good place to start, if if you want. That's just some things about me. But is, you know, worth. I think one of the biggest, you know, issues that we have right now is in our world, you know, it was hard. It was hard raising kids. 

It was hard being a human when, you know, 20, 25, you know, years ago. But it's so much harder now with the advent of being on all the time, being compared all the time. Right.

And so self-worth has really taken a huge hit. And I just want to give, you know, your listeners these five pillars of self-worth. That's really the basis of this foundation that we're talking about. 

And I want you, as I'm saying these, to think about them for yourself, but also think about them in the manner of your family, maybe even your spouse and definitely your kids. Right. 

Am I helping them with these? Because when we're leaving, when we're letting our kids in these generations leave home without self-worth, then they find themselves out there. 

And I will admit that I was one of these chasing worth in all the places. And when you're doing that, it really leads to a lot of harm. To self-harm, to future versions of yourself, your future self. Right.

And so I want to just make sure that everyone understands that worth is it always has been and always will be. It's made out of these five pillars which are going to be. Am I seen? Do people actually see me? Am I seen?

Am I heard? Does my voice actually matter? Do my opinions actually matter? Am I loved? Am I really loved? Do I belong somewhere? Is there anywhere in this great big world that everyone seems to belong to?

And do I belong somewhere? And do I have a purpose? Is there something propelling me and pulling me in a forward direction toward something? So seen, heard, love, belong, and purpose. I challenge you and I'd love to hear from you, too. Do you is there anything that is a challenge out there today?

And I ask this because I've done so many polls on this and talked to so many parents and just people in general. Is there any issue that we're seeing, especially with young adults out there? But honestly, just any human that doesn't come down to one of those five areas?

Corinne Powell: I don't I don't know, but I know those five areas you're talking about are. You know, very pointed, very across the board, we all need you're saying. 

So I just know that for sure that these are core needs that are if they're not met, we're going to always search, always search to feel like we belong, that we're seeing that our voice matters. Like. Right. Yeah. 

Nellie Harden: And so what we're seeing out there today, though, is to your point, we all need these. 

We always have we always will need these. And what we're seeing, especially in raising our kids in this 24 seven social culture, is that they are trying to be fed their self-worth from the outside in instead of the inside out.

And so I know I want my daughters, everyone's, you know, children to wake up in the morning and not say, oh, what is the world going to do to me today? What is the world going to say about me today? How is the world going to define me today?

Right. I want them to wake up in the morning and say, how can I positively affect the world today? How can I go out there and be a light in the world today? Right. And that's a really big difference. 

And when we wake up and have these, you know, phones right next to our bed and they wake up and all of a sudden they are in this social world in comparison is their first thought in the morning. Then they are being fed this self-worth from the outside in instead of inside out. 

So how can we build? That's the question, then. How can we build this foundation of worth with seeing, heard, love, belong and purpose, our esteem, which is actually value and appreciation of self and our confidence, which is true belief in self? How can we build that from the inside out instead of relying on outside in? So you want to be able to have them.

And we have a faith-based house, right? So in our home, we are definitely faith-based. And so we say, OK, from the inside out, we are, you know, saying that we are seeing her love, belong and purpose with our faith.

Then we are saying that from ourselves, right, our self-talk. And then thirdly, and less, less of the, you know, strain on the stool, so to speak, is to go and find it from other people. But home, you always want home to be that place that they can find those five things out in the world. It's tough out there. It is really tough out there because everyone is trying to find these. 

And especially, you know, let's just use, you know, middle school, for example, late, late elementary, middle school. It gets really tough for a lot of kids out there.

And so when you think about this, a fair weather friend, maybe your child's experience this. I know mine has. Right. They have this person that talks to them. 

Maybe they come over and have, you know, time at the house or, you know, play date, so to speak, or what have you, when they're younger, just hanging out when they're older, maybe even a sleepover or something like that. 

And then they see them in school or they see them in some other social setting. And that person pretends that your child does not even exist. Right. That is a hard reality.

That is a fair-weather friend that is only friends with you under certain circumstances. Right. But also having your child, first of all, comforting them during that time, making sure that they that they know you are seeing her love belong and have a purpose right here. Right. 

And you will find your footing out there, but also flipping the script and having them see that from that other person's point of view of, yeah, they they made a bad choice. 

That was not OK behavior. But let's explore and talk about a little bit what was going on there.

Maybe they were feeling super insecure about something and they were trying to, you know, be friends with this other person. And they felt like that person wasn't giving them enough attention. So they were pouring everything into there and shutting out everything else. Right. 

And so helping with this perspective work with your kids, right. Hurt people, hurt people, right. Ashamed people, shame people, all of these things, helping your kids with this perspective work can really be helpful in order to help them understand it's not me against the world. It's not us versus them.

Right. We're all just people trying to do hopefully the best that we can. And our behavior is sometimes not fully expressive of what's happening on the inside. Yeah. And so that second piece, that esteem piece is all about trust in self. 

It's about building that relationship with yourself, which is your most important relationship you're going to have in your earthly life here is your relationship with self. And so a lot of the work that I do uses the normal functions that are happening anyway, psychologically speaking, biologically speaking, and using them for your betterment. 

So let's take the, you know, the thought cycle. You have a thought that comes from somewhere. We have thoughts that come from our past, thoughts that come from our environment, thoughts that come from yourself. 

Right. And what is going on at the moment or a task at hand. But you have a thought and then you develop a feeling about that thought. 

Right. If you choose to linger on that and you have choice in this, a lot of people don't think this, but you do have choice in this. And it's a beautiful process. And I don't have time to get into everything right now, but just a brief overview. 

Right. We have a thought. We have a feeling. We have a decision. 

We have a behavior. We have a result. And it's this constant cycle that's going on. And those results feed into thoughts again, of course.

And then it goes and you can have upward spirals and you can have downward spirals of those. But the more that you can trust yourself in getting in there and saying, you know what? I thought this. I'm going to throw away that thought. That doesn't serve me. That doesn't serve people around me.

That doesn't serve my future self. Right. Or I'm going to develop some feelings about this. I'm going to invest in this. That's what we're doing when we're developing feelings and then having that decision. And before it goes into action, asking yourself, does the action that I'm about to do actually serve who I am trying to become?

Right. So, there's a lot of talk out there today that we have to discover ourselves or find out who we are. The truth of the matter is we get to decide. Life is a choose-your-own-adventure story.

And I think about this big daisy field that's on the side of a mountain or something. And it's not that our physical self goes out and has to find our spiritual and our mental self like, oh, which one am I? 

Right. We get to decide and we get to go forth and build who we are trying to become.

And it's this beautiful journey that we get to do. So, decide where you want to go, point your feet in that direction and go there. 

Right. And so, that distinction or that journey between decision and behavior, that's a sweet spot right there, an identity checkpoint that you get to say, wait, is that actually who I am trying to become right now? And a lot of people are not understanding that. 

And so, when I can tell my kid who is hurt and heartbroken and feels like, pond scum, because this friend that they thought they had is ignoring them.

And I can say, you know what? You need to trust in your behavior. And if you can do that, you're winning. Right. And this person, their behavior didn't match their thoughts or their previous behaviors that they had toward you.

And that's a shame. And I really want them to be able to trust themselves. And so, let's pray for them. Let's give hope to them. And let's keep going on with our journey and making sure that you can learn how to trust yourself and where you're going. 

Corinne Powell: Yeah.  Yeah. As you're talking, I'm thinking about how, and you touched on it, but through all of this, when it comes to our kids, I remember a couple of years ago, my kid started at school and one of the other parents is a hairdresser, has her own salon. 

And my girls, I forget if they had gone to her salon yet, or she just interacted with them because of being another parent at the school. And she said, you know, I really love how your girls carry a confidence, self-confidence. And, you know, I cheered up immediately because I said to her, well, really, it's a by-product of the work I've been doing on myself.

Yeah. Because I believe there's a direct correlation to what we are battling as parents within our own self. I mean, there's a transfer in the DNA right out the gate and not, it's a hopeful thing. Like things can be changed. Things can be affected. 

Neuroplasticity is a thing. Like our brains and our bodies are fabulous, but what we struggle with oftentimes inherently is reflected in what our kids are struggling with. So this idea that we know our worth starts with us and then our children are watching it be modeled. 

They're hearing, they're hearing our interpretation of these interactions. So the friend that you hung out with, who now you see in a social setting, isn't interacting with you. If we're not causing to witness our own self, we're going to interject our subconscious beliefs onto this situation.

Because we as a parent feel like, oh man, I've experienced that. And that means this, this, and this. It's going to be just natural and easy for us to convey that, oh, that's the same thing happening for my child. 

When in fact, it may not be. It may be and it may not be. But allowing, allowing ourselves to step back and pause and reflect on what's coming into play in this interaction with my child, that's actually not about them, but about something going on within me. And then of course, like you said, being able to meet our kids in the place of their pain and of their heartbreak or their disappointment or their confusion.

Obviously it's not all about the parent in that regard, but just that I can't help but keep thinking of that as we're talking of what we want for our kids. We have to take time and make sure we're investing in doing the work within ourselves so that it's easier for our kids. 

Nellie Harden: Yes. Yeah. And I touched on earlier, I'm a person that when I left home, I was seeking worth in all the places. And then that led down to some really difficult pathways straight out of the gate, freshman year of college. And then it took decades. 

It's taking decades, healing and processing and going through that. And then, so I am a woman then that I'm still very much in this process. And then I have four daughters that I have to raise in this, in my healing. 

And so it is very, you do, you share everything. Right. And even if they don't know, if you're raising kids and they don't know all of your stories, right? Or all parts of your story, they know the byproducts of it. They know the fear, they know the shame, they know the sadness or the happiness and joy that come from it. 

They know the byproducts of your story. And yes, you can 100% transfer your baggage in. It's really important as parents that we take an inventory of, hold on a second, what am I bringing into parenting? 

What are my mindsets, my core values, my core beliefs? What am I bringing into parenting? And what maybe don't I want to bring into parenting? Right. And so I just, I'm a very visual person. So I think of all this baggage in front of me, all these pieces of luggage. 

And I'm like, I would love to bring that with me and pass that on. That one, no, thank you. We're going to try and put that away. I do not want to pass that on. But how does that look? It doesn't look like shutting it behind a wall as a parent, right? Because we all know that eventually whatever's in that baggage is going to be down that wall, right? 

And then it's going to crumble. And so what you want to do is bring light on it. I heard this quote recently that what you shine a light on then becomes a light, right? And so you can shine a light on it.

And so what that looks like for me, if I had issues, and we'll just keep on with this scenario, right? And I definitely had that happen to me when I was young, having many fair-weather friends. And first of all, empathizing with your kid, I get it. 

That really, really hurts. And I'm sorry that you are going through this. I've been through this too. Know that you're not alone, but know that you can get to the other side of it, right? And when I was in fifth grade, seventh grade, twelfth grade, whatever, when this was happening to me, I of course did not have a great response to it back then. 

But as a parent, as a person that's reflected a lot more life now, I can say, you know what? It's going to be okay. And this is why it's going to be okay. There's going to be more friends, and we're going to try and understand what is happening right now. 

And we're just going to sit in the hurt for a little while, and that's okay. Life is not easy, and life is not always rainbows and butterflies, and you're going to go through challenges, but know it can and will get better, right? 

But the other side of that coin is a parent that sees this and is like, they're terrible. They're awful. They're never coming over to our house again, and all of this. And then that breeds this hostility, and it defines for the child, this is what I do in this situation. If someone hurts me, then I become a bigger hurter of them.

I become hostile toward them, and I shut them off, and I don't do them. I don't interact with them. Well, then how does that feed into a future marriage, right? Marriage can be hard. I mean, you see different perspectives. You're trying to do things differently. And then in that marriage, if they do something you don't like, you're going to become more hostile. 

You're going to shut them off, and it's not going to be a healthy marriage. Raising kids, when you're talking about your future grandkids even, raising kids is not easy. Those children will hurt you at some point.

And we have to be able to rise above and have that firm foundation of knowing my worth is here, my esteem is here, my confidence is here. And even though you are being explosive toward me right now, you are not being kind to me. I can be kind to you. I can be calm. I can be kind to you.

And so everything that we are teaching our kids is what we are asking them to do, whether we're actually verbatim asking them to do it or not. And so how we react to things, like you said, they're always watching, right? So if we're in the car and someone cuts you off, and whatever that reaction is, you are then defining to your child, this is what you do in this situation in the future, right? And so that's not a walk on eggshells, everything perfect moment. 

I do not believe in being perfect. It's impossible. And if you're trying to portray that, we really are hurting our kids. You need to screw up in front of your kids. You need to lash out or do whatever, and then go apologize and make amends, right? 

And so there was a situation that we had not too long ago, where my husband and I had something happen to us when we were on a vacation, and someone got upset with us for something that was totally out of our hands. And then that triggered a response that we were like, hey, listen. And later on, we're both sitting in the car, and the kids, all six of us in a minivan.

And so we're like, so guys, listen, earlier today, that guy really upset us and made us angry, and it was nothing that was in our control. But we should have responded with more grace and understanding and just calmness instead of what we did. 

And we didn't yell or make a scene, but we were just shorter than we could have been. And I was like, we could have done better. And so they see, okay, this is what mom and dad did, but they understand that they could have done better. And so that's the way that I should go, right? That's what I want to try and do.

So everything we're doing is teaching them something. And that takes us having some healing and thriving internally, and a lot of self-reflection as adults. 

Corinne Powell: Yes. Yeah, I'm thinking about last night, I was having a moment where I was so frustrated, and I was vocalizing it. And my son says to me in the middle of it, mom, why don't you just do some X's because we're in the middle of a brain reorganization program. 

And so one of our exercises is left and right, crossing up and down. And I was like, you know what, I didn't even think of that. That's a great idea. And it probably sounds more put together. The scene didn't feel so put together, but it was like, what you're saying there? 

Our kids are watching and together, we can do it together. And I didn't feel, there's actually, as I reflect on it now, there's no sense of shame of like, oh, but my son's suggesting, no, it's like, this is wonderful. 

Together we're doing it. He never needs to parent me. But it wasn't that sort of situation, right? It was like, oh, here's a resource. Are you considering this resource? Oh, thanks, buddy. I can consider this resource. 

So then when one of my other kids is very dysregulated and expressing it in ways that aren't beneficial, then they are saying, AJ mentioned to me, I could do X's, if you want to do that right now, because I didn't even think of it, right? And so it was just this moment that I felt like was not full circle, but like, okay, yeah, this is how we're doing life.

We're doing life where we aren't able to, I say able, we aren't able to hold it together all the time. The goal isn't to try and it's also not, for someone like me, it's just not even possible. I probably did that for a period of my life. 

And then I realized, you know what, that's like taking such a toll on my body. I cannot hold it all together all the time because my body's telling me, you can't do this. 

You can't. But that's just not the point. I'll hear someone say, like, I just don't want to cry in front of my kids. And it's like, you can tell them, they don't have to make you feel better. 

Mommy's just sad right now. Mommy is crying, or maybe she's not even sad, right? You could be crying for all sorts of reasons, but you don't have to make it better. I'm just feeling my emotions right now. 

And I think what's important in that is, like you said, our children are able to see the reality of like, what's real, that this is a real part of life. Otherwise we easily presume that tears are unnatural or not appropriate. I hear people apologizing for their tears all the time to me.

I was like, no, if your tears are showing up, that is wonderful. You feel safe. Your body needs to release this way. And yet our kids also need to hear at the same time, they don't need to fix it. Because empathetic children will very quickly be there to, I need to take care of mom or dad. 

I need to take care of someone. Well, that's not the goal either. It's to be able to in your emotions sometimes and let your child be with you and know this is actually a normal part of living. And I mean, there's a lot to that, right? It's not like we want to do this all the time. 

Like, okay, then we need to find resources to help ourselves. But you know what I'm saying, generally. 

Nellie Harden: Yeah. Well, this has been, I mean, it's funny you bring that up. This has been very much part of my life, especially for the last two weeks. We had such a busy packed summer.

And there was all these buffers in the way of, we're a very close family. And the six of us, four daughters, four years, the sisters are close. And so the thought of my oldest going away to college has been very daunting, right? And not because she's not ready. She's so ready.

She's so capable. She's wonderful. I don't have fear of that. It's just that the six of us, right? The tribe that we have had for 18 plus years, part of that is breaking away. And it's this reality, this mourning coupled with excitement. And it's all of those things.

And it was all of those things for each one of us individually, right? And I was the first, I was the oldest in my family. So I totally understand where she was coming from too. And I feel like I'm going to miss out on all these things because I'm the only one not there.

And that's a really hard place to be in too. So we had so many discussions over the summer. But when we came back from our last family vacation a couple of weeks ago, we had a one week buffer, six day buffer before she was moving out then. And once, I'm sorry, a six week time period,all of our buffers from over the summer that were like, oh, yeah, that's later, but we have this first. 

Oh, that's later, but we have this first. All of the buffers were gone. Oh my, that week I could have filled an ocean. I live here on the Atlantic Ocean. I'm pretty sure I could have filled the ocean with my tears I was showing. And to your point, I was hearing a lot of, and I had people telling me too, don't cry when you drop your kids off at college. 

You don't want to have them see you cry. You don't want them to leave sad and all of this. And I was like, first of all, it can't help it. And second of all, it's okay. 

I had to be able to let myself release because if I was trying to hold in that torrent of Hurricane Nellie that was happening inside of me, there's no way I would have exploded. But also at the same time, just saying, yeah, I'm sad, but I'm going to be okay. I'm going to be okay. 

And I'm only sad because it's been so wonderful. I'm only sad. This only hurts so much because of what we have built and loved and created together as we have a hashtag, the happy heartens. And so we talk about that a lot. 

And actually the one that went off to college, she's the one that came up with that. She had a little cheer when she was in fourth grade that she made a t-shirt on that said H-A-P-P-Y, happy, happy heartens. And so anyway, we've built this beautiful thing and it's changing. It's not breaking, but it's changing. And that's a transformation process right there. 

And so having your kids see, wow, there's a lot of emotion mom is carrying, but she said she's going to be okay. And I believe her, right. And I believe her because I've been able to grow in trust with her because of all of the other things that she's said over time. I'm being very accountable for your actions and all of that. 

So yes, letting your kids see emotion and knowing that life is not just this very sterile path, conveyor belt of going through events one after another is really important because if they don't see it and they don't understand how to then recover and get through these things, then when it happens to them, they're just going to crumble. 

That foundation that is built, it just will fall right through like the movie Money Pit with Tom Hanks in it, right? He's going up the stairs and just falls through the stairs, right? That's what I think about. This foundation will not be strong enough. It's strong because of these experiences, these challenges, and yes, sometimes these hardships that we go through.

But yeah, having them see that is really, really important. 

Corinne Powell: Yeah. Yeah.

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Well, I'm interrupting the episode just for a moment to invite you to the upcoming group session. We’re talking about how to navigate the holidays with difficult family members. It’s all happening Thursday evening, November 16 from 7:15-8:30p ET. Come from the comfort of your own home because we meet via Zoom. Watch the replay if that date and time doesn’t work for you. Only $25 to join. Go to https://changeradicallyscheduler.as.me/ to register!

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Nellie Harden: I just want to say that no matter where you are as a parent or a woman or what have you, wherever you are at in your own journey, there's still building that can happen. And it's harder as an adult because we don't have as much of that plasticity of our character that we're building, right? We have so many more years. You can't teach an old dog new tricks.

I like to say it's just harder to teach a new dog or an old dog new tricks. But it can happen, and there's always work that you can be done. This is 100% a journey. Life is a journey, and there is no end destination point when you're 21 or when you're 25 or when you're 85 or 95, right? We're always becoming. We are always becoming. The question is, what are you trying to become, right? Are you going in the direction that you want to go in? Are you building? 

And you are strong. You're so strong. And if you're raising kids, then the beautiful thing that we get to do as adults when we're raising kids is use our resilience and our life experiences to turn around and help them, right, become stronger. 

As an adult, like I said earlier, I've been through so much leadership training, faith training, personal growth training, family growth training, all of that. And I remember taking my kids, because we just always traveled together. So they would come to seminars with me, and I would be doing some personal growth work. 

I worked with Brene Brown for a while, those type of things. And we would have these discussions afterwards. They would be like five, seven, nine years old. We would have these discussions afterwards. And I'm like, wow. At that point, I'm in my 30s. 

I'm like, what if some of this work is done and is given light to in the childhood, in what I call the 65-70. That's how many days are in 18 years. And so, what if some of this work is brought to life in the 65-70 instead of possibly being done in 30s, 40s, or never even in a lot of adults' cases? 

There's this 65-70, the space that the brain is in during that time, the space that our life experiences are in during that time is such a rich, fertile soil for growth and building. And so, we get to do that and build that foundation of worth. Like I said, seen, heard, loved, belong, purpose. 

That's what you want to be building in them from within and on the outside, especially in your home. You don't have any control over what Susie or Luke or whatever does in the school hallway, but you do have control over what is happening in your home and how you react to situations.

And if you don't react well, that's okay. Have accountability for that and go make amends and let them know, you know what? I screwed up there. I'm sorry I screwed up and this is what I should have done and this is what I'm going to work toward doing better next time. 

We all need to be accountable to ourselves and we want to teach our kids to have accountability to themselves as well in order to become that self-led leader. But yes, worth, esteem, trust in self, and confidence. Building it for you, helping them build it for themselves. That's what it's all about. 

Corinne Powell: Yeah. Plus, we hear about what happens in the school hallway if we've created a relationship with our kids. Yes. They can safely tell us. I can feel every time one of my kids comes to tell me about something that I otherwise would not have known about, the gift in that. And I just don't take it for granted.

Like I sit with gratitude because I recognize that's the beauty of it all, right? I didn't have a relationship with my parents where I had the ability to, or where it was cultivated, where it was easy to talk to them or to tell them these things or the belief that they would even be interested. 

So what you're saying, I just love talking about the realness of life with you because I feel like that is what it's all about. For everyone to be hearing, this isn't some pie-in-the-sky thing. 

How are we just doing the everyday? And then creating this, you use the word firm foundation, creating this space that our children are just able to stand strong because of it. So thank you so much for what you're sharing, for what you're doing, for the ways that you are changing the culture because I appreciate it. 

Nellie Harden: Oh, thank you so much. And right back at you. 

Corinne Powell: And I will list in the show notes, but where is the best place for listeners to find you and connect with you? 

The world's complicated enough. I love to keep it simple. NellieHarden.com, you can find everything there from our communities that you can become a part of, resources, masterclasses, all of that is available there, a book. So, yep.

Corinne Powell: Fabulous. If you enjoy the conversation that Nellie and I get to have today, I want to highlight for you a few previous episodes that I've recorded that will expound on what we were talking about today. 

If you want to go ahead and take a listen, the season two, episode 32, Conscious Parenting, and from season two, episode 30, Emotional Triggering, and season two, episode 31, Emotional Triggering Continued.

Here we are. We've come to the end of another episode.

Sit back and reflect on what you heard. What's the one thing that resonates with you that you can take away and do something with? Let's not just listen. Let's listen and take action. Now, action may look very different for us, but it's doing something with what we hear.

I hope that you'll share today's episode with a friend that you think would also enjoy it. And please come back next week. 

I hope that you have a fabulous week and that you remember when you pillow your head at night when you're going through your days, that who you are is good, and I'm glad that you're alive.