Changing the way we go about life: parenting, lifestyle, and more!

[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. Now, let's jump into today's episode. 

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Corinne Powell: Hello friends, how are you? How's your week going? And did you catch the episode last week about bringing fun into your life and how important it is for us as adults to include good clean fun in our life? I'd be super curious to know how it resonated with you.

Are you great already at making time for yourself to do the things you love that are lighthearted and you enjoy? Or is this an area that you want to create a new practice in?

It's definitely been on my mind. I've been thinking about the ways that I allow things to be fun or not. For example, yesterday I was with my kids at the beach and I realized that there were ways that I could allow it to be more fun for me or I could allow it to be more of a chore. And of course that does depend sometimes on how emotionally regulated we are in that moment, how stimulated or not we are, what the stressors are in our life, if we're stuck in an emotional flashback or not, all of that does affect us in our everyday. But then I noticed that it is easier to have a good time when some of the underlying reasons, that used to hold you back from having fun are no longer there, they're resolved. 

And it's like you walk into a similar situation and you respond to it completely different than you would have in the past because internally, you're not dealing with what you were previously dealing with.

Anyways, we're not talking about fun today. We're talking about standing up and standing in and ensuring that we support our children with the boundaries that are important to them or with the boundaries that are important to us for them. Think about other adults that you interact with, other people you have in your life, whether they're relatives or friends or whatnot. Sometimes even just the strangers we meet in the stores and how they influence and impact our children and sometimes they pressure our children into doing things into obligatory acts that are not best for our kids. 

Consider the family member who expects a hug from your child whenever they come over to visit or a kiss from your child and if your child is one who does not like giving hugs or kisses or doesn't like doing that with just anyone, maybe with you as their parent, they're a little bit affectionate, but they don't want to be that way with just other family members or outside people. It's going to be so important to not have the internal war going on within you of needing to appease the outside family member or needing to be respectful or appropriate or whatever the term might be in that case, because your child is saying they're not comfortable with giving this person affection or receiving affection from them and it's so vital we respect our children and we support our children in those ways. I can think of my, I have four children, one of them does not want to receive hugs and kisses from outside friends and family.

I've had to support that child by coming behind her and alongside her and saying to some of our guests, some of our friends, that they don't want to give hugs and kisses. And sometimes the friends or the family members feel a little bit offended. They seem hurt. They say, why? What's the big deal? They, you know, have a response to it.

And people are allowed to have their own response. They're allowed to feel their hurt, their disappointment, their confusion. They're allowed to disagree with how we parent and how we allow our children to be raised. Bottom line, we are here as a support and a protector for our kids. No, we cannot keep them from all harm. That's not our job. That's not our responsibility. Shake it off. If you're feeling like I need to make sure no harm comes to my children. I'm sorry to break it to you because it would be a wonderful thing to think we can protect our children from all harm, but we cannot. 

And I know what it's like to try to control in order to protect. The older I get, the longer I'm on the healing journey. That's really what it is for me. I recognize that controlling less is to my benefit. Controlling more creates a lot of stress for me. It creates toxic relationships where I'm dominating them. It creates a really toxic relationship in so many ways because people don't think they can make a decision until I approve it or they can't live their life in independence because I'm basically saying, no, you have to check in. You have to be attached to me. And that's not just kids. I'm talking about letting go of control within the adult relationships I have. 

It would be my tendency, my conditioning made it really easy for me to think it was not only normal, but actually good and okay to tell people how to live and that they had to live up to my standards. And it's just not how it is. You as an adult don't have to live up to what I think is appropriate, what I think is okay. You have your own inner wisdom that's between you and whoever you make it be between. It's not my job to dictate how you live and to push my opinion and project my beliefs, my mindsets, my ways of going about life onto you.

And that's even when it comes to the way that I approach the support I offer people. I'm not here to tell you how to do things. Yes, I can offer you feedback when you want it. Yes, I'm going to give you actionable steps. Yes, I have wisdom to share because I've been on the healing journey for almost two decades. Because I've helped hundreds of people. Because I've listened to thousands of people. But that doesn't mean that I sit or stand across from you thinking I know it all, thinking I know what's best for you. In fact, I used to think that and I've learned the longer I've been on the healing journey that that is not how I want it to be. That that’s is not the way I want to live. 

I know a lot of people who think they know it better, who think they've got a handle on different areas of life and that everybody should do it the way they think. And I don't want to sit in that circle. It's not my goal. My goal is to be in the crowd that says, I have learned a lot and I trust that you know much as well. And you are the one who can access the inner wisdom within you to go about living your life in a way that is beneficial to you, in a way that is freeing for you. 

I do think it's important to bring in outside wisdom and support. And that's why I offer mine. I don't think that any one person should dictate for another person what is the best way for them. I think we take a bit too much power in our hands when we do it that way. But I think it's worth looking into deeper, the deeper reasons why, if we interact with people that way, why is it? Why is it we're doing it that way? What do we believe? What are we afraid?

So getting back us as being a support and a protector for our children. This isn't about control, but sometimes another adult won't respect what a child asks. Think about the child who's already in the hug, the embrace from the adult, and they're trying to get away from it. Because they're a child, they're probably weaker than that adult. They probably actually have less ability to break free from that hug. And I was a child who didn't wanna give hugs and kisses to certain people. And I didn't have a family member, a parental figure stand in for me and say, no, she doesn't want that. You need to leave her alone.

And set a boundary for that other adult. And if that other adult wouldn't respect the boundary, then they wouldn't be welcome in our home or around me. I didn't experience that as a child, but I needed that. And I recognize that I can offer that in a way uniquely to my children that maybe someone outside of being their parent can't.

And the most difficult part about this has been that I've had to release my people-pleasing tendencies to be able to stand up for my kids, to be able to say, “My child's not comfortable with that. Please don't, please don't hug them, please don't kiss them”. Or I've had to be the one to say to my child, “So and so is coming over today. But if you're not up for visiting, you can say hello and you can go off and do your own thing and I'll visit with that person”. 

That can be perceived as rude but when it boils down to it, that other adult is coming over because I invited them or they asked and I said yes. I don't believe my children should have to feel the repercussions of all of decisions, the relationships that I wanna keep. My children don't have to be so deeply involved in those relationships because the relationships I'm choosing. But previously I would have had my kids be involved in all of the interactions with that other adult as well because, hey, they're coming over and we're going to be friendly and kind and...we're going to interact with them because that's the right thing to do. 

Now, my kids can still say hello, but do their own thing, and I'll take responsibility for maintaining that relationship. And know that whenever I say something like this I'm not expecting it be something that's across the board. Of course, there are times when all of my children are going to be asked to engage with whoever's coming over, or we're going to have a get-together as a family. I'm really driving the point home that that's not always the case.

That how I grew up is not what I'm imposing on my children. And the only reason it's no longer what I'm imposing on my children is because I've been doing the inner work, because I've been recognizing where my patterns are rooted and been able to decide, do I want to continue with the patterns that my parents had, or do I want to create new patterns for myself and my children? But until we're aware, until we get to actually take a look, get curious, become introspective we may not even know why we keep the patterns we do, where they originated, and we may not be giving ourselves permission to do any differently. 

But you have permission to do differently than your parents because you're your own person. You are your own person. You have autonomy. You're connected with other people, but again, the other people's ways of living do not need to be imposed on you. We each need to come to our own decisions and actually allow ourselves the space and time to decide “How do I want to live my life?”. What type of lifestyle do I want to and how can I create it. How can I craft the life I want to live? Because otherwise by default, you will continue in the patterns that you are conditioned in. The way you were raised will be the way you go about continuing to live will be the way you probably raise your children. 

It's not something we will think about as much as we will do it by default. We will do it because it's the most familiar. And the most familiar may not be what is the best for us. It may not be what is the healthiest, but it will feel the easiest and it will feel the most comfortable simply because it is most familiar.

So consider for what are your children asking of you? What do they need and how can you support them in that? And then what limitations are coming up within you? What's making it difficult to speak up to that other adult? What's making it difficult for you to hear what your child's saying and create space for that to happen? Are you living? Giving yourself permission to do it differently than your parents did it?

Are you allowing yourself to create the life you want to, not the one that someone else thinks you should live, not the life you've always known? Have you considered what your dream lifestyle would be? What the ideal lifestyle would be for you? If you haven't, that can be super fun to just sit and reflect and just write down.

Just write down all the ideas that come to you. Doesn't mean they're all gonna happen, but you're allowing those ideas to generate, you're actually giving space for the authentic parts of yourself to say, here's what I wish it could be, here's what I would like.

And then if you allow that dream to become a reality you will transform the way you're living, and you will transform the way you're living by transforming yourself. How we live is a byproduct of who we are. If my husband and I structure our work schedules around our family life, it's because we have a high value for family. We want our children to grow up having had both parents super present in their life. We want to live a life. We were just having this conversation in the last couple of weeks. And I just want to share a little bit of it with you because we were talking about how some people work hard with this goal in mind that they're going to retire and they are going to live their dream life when they retire and they'll be comfortable. But we're not guaranteed a certain number of days, of years. Who knows if we're going to make it to this retirement age.

We prefer to live with a schedule, within a lifestyle that allows us to enjoy the and allows that to just be sustainable along the way. So perhaps we won't have this retirement fund that some people dream of and this lifestyle of ease that some people dream of, but we are enjoying our present life. We are hoping...and aiming to enjoy life along the way, not just in this distant moment that we may or may not get to, but in the present. And then allowing what is now to become a way of life that's sustainable, that we can enjoy always.

I could tell you I won't mind working when I'm 65 if I work the way I work now. I do something I love, I work hours that are manageable in between enjoying life, being able to be present for my children. prioritizing friendships and relationships. I'll be okay living life that way in 30 years. The way I used to live? Constantly busy, always fatigued, waiting for the next vacation because I just needed a break, because I needed to clear my head, because I needed life to slow down. Friends, that's not the way I want to ever live again. 

I'm really happy with the lifestyle that we've created. And I say it because I hope it excites something in you. I hope it ignites something in you that you can have this as well. We're not anything out of the ordinary. We may be choosing to live differently, but we're really typical people. You can have what we have. We're about seven, six, seven years into this lifestyle. And I'm sitting back and saying, I would choose it over and over again compared to the lifestyle I used to have, and maybe we'll change as we go. 

But I won't go back to grind hard now so that you can enjoy those where you don't have to work at all. Now I'll take a sustainable pace. I'll take a lifestyle that I can enjoy with connections along the way. And I'll just do that. I'll do that for the long haul as far as I'm concerned. 

So I hope that today's conversation is just sparking something in you because you know, you know that's what I love. You know that's how I go about living. When I listen to people, I love getting fired up. I love being able to pull something from what they said and being able to implement it into my life, especially when I can feel something on it. When I recognize that what somebody's saying was intended for me to hear. So I know there's a nugget in this for you. I don't know what it is because you know what it is for you. But don't just listen.

Do something with what you're hearing. Remember, the doing looks different for each of us. The action we take is going to be different. But the point is to let the fire under you ignite something. And until we chat again next week, I hope that you enjoy your week. And I hope you'll reach out at any point if I can be of a support to you, because I'm here and I sincerely care.

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[Ending] 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 not. 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.