Embracing the Mess: Blaize Reveals What Shaped Her Parenting Journey + Special Sauce Recipe

Single parent Blaize joins Reesa to share a heartfelt conversation about parenting challenges, healing, and practical strategies for staying grounded. Tune in to hear an honest take on real-life struggles, personal growth, and a special family recipe.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How Blaize balances single parenthood, work, creativity, and a house full of animals
• The story behind Blaize's "special sauce" pasta recipe and why it matters
• Navigating the challenges of parental isolation and finding support
• The importance of somatic (body-based) healing practices for managing tough emotions
• Setting boundaries and reparenting yourself while building healthy family dynamics

Don't forget to check below for Blaize's links and resources!

Instagram.com/weepingWillowWellness

www.weepingwillowwellness.com

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Special Sauce Recipe

Cut tomatoes

Basil

Feta cheese

Olive oil

Mix and pile over any pasta, we like spaghetti

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Host: Reesa Morala, MA, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. Reesa is a parenting specialist with a niche in supporting couples. Find Reesa hosting couples and parenting workshops nationwide!

Make sure to like, follow, and subscribe!

For the video version of this episode find us at: https://www.embracerenewaltherapy.com/

If you are a parent ready to share your real-life parenting struggle and dish up a recipe with Reesa, apply here:
https://www.embracerenewaltherapy.com/real-family-eats-guest

If you are experiencing a mental health crisis or need personalized support, please seek help from a licensed mental health professional. If you are in immediate danger or experiencing a crisis, contact emergency services or a crisis hotline in your area.

Suicide and Crisis Line: Text or Call 988

Go to your local hospital or call 911

Transcript

0:22

Hey, everyone. Thanks for joining me. My name is Reesa, and I'm your host. We are talking to real families about real stories. Here on the real family eats where we've got food for thought and thoughtful food. So let's eat! Welcome back everyone. Thanks for joining us. I am so excited for today's episode. I have Blaize joining us today. Hi, Blaize Thanks so much for joining. I am so thankful for your willingness to come on and to chat with us as parents. Thank you so much for having me. Reesa. Yes. Okay, so for anybody who's listening who doesn't know you, can you introduce yourself for us? Yeah. I'm blaze. I run weeping Willow Wellness where I offer a one on one somatic healing program called the Whole Body Communicator. I'm sure I'll talk more about it later. I also offer clothing optional embodiment activities for that type of healing. I am an artist and entrepreneur, a single parent to one child and way too many animals. We have a dog, two cats, a foster puppy, eight chickens. We have a turtle. We have a lot of animals in this house at all times and I'm really passionate, is really passionate about sharing my voice as a healer and an artist. So I also make music under the name for Model Blaze. And I've written screenplays. I've an actor director, writer on all the things. Love it. That's so beautiful. Before we jump more into your story as far as your parenting journey or what you've experienced, what you've learned, you're sharing your recipe with us. Tell us what recipe were sharing with our parents today. And why did you choose this one? Yes. So this one is familiarly known as special Sauce. And it's a pasta dish. So usually we make it over spaghetti. My mom kind of invented it. She always had a garden when I was growing up. And so it's ideally as fresh as you can get it. Fresh tomatoes, fresh basil, green olives that a cheese and olive oil. Just super, super simple. Everything is chopped up. To just a nice size. You can always throw it on a food processor, but I like when it's more individually chopped up and more chunky as the flavors come through and I chose this one because it's super simple and easy, but it still feels like you made something kind of impressive. It looks really pretty and colorful on the plate. It's really healthy. And it's really fast. Which parents we need something that we can kind of put together. And I love, like you said, that it's something that we can maybe feel good about together without necessarily taking a ton of mental capacity that one family don't always have. Absolutely. I mean, if there are lots of guests and everyone's always been like, wow, this is so good, like, I'm going to make this at home, how did you do it? And then when they actually look at the ingredients, I'm like, oh, this is actually so simple. Yeah. Okay. So I'm speaking is it just I am just chopping everything up and kind of throwing it in a bowl and mixing it. Yeah. Pretty much. And you can kind of eyeball like some people like more olive I olive oil I like a little bit less. I don't like it to be just like smothered in olive oil. Yeah. I eyeball how much portion wise you know, how much looks good. So perfect. Well, I can do that. So I will get started on my end, while we chat. And so I know we were talking a little bit before this about, kind of your journey in particular as far as being a single parent and kind of what maybe challenges that presented in itself. But also it sounds like kind of learning, learning a couple lessons along the way. Is that a fair way to say. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I think it would be remiss to say any parenting journey doesn't have its lessons. That's fair. Say that if we're going with our eyes and ears and mind wide open, at least. So can you talk to us a little bit about, how that how that learning piece, how some of those challenges kind of started for your, your journey and walk us through some of that. Yeah. So I became a parent, right? When I moved to L.A.. I moved to L.A. shortly after college to pursue my acting journey. I've been in New York for a little bit and was looking for a change of scenery. I was in a super unhealthy relationship in New York, which definitely colored that experience. A little grayer. And so I was starting a new chapter, and then pretty much just a couple months after being here, I got pregnant. And so it was a really big, like disruption moment for sure. For me. I had to really reassess, like, what am I doing here? And I ultimately did make the choice to step into single parenthood, knowing that I'd be alone from the start. And something that you mentioned earlier is just talking about how parenting can be super isolating and that experience was especially true for me as a single parent. But I think it's really true for people and nuclear families as well. You know, when you first step into those early days of having a newborn, a lot of people will be well-meaning and well-intentioned. Well, wishing, a lot of people said, oh, yeah, I'm going to bring you food. I'll come hang out with your baby. And at least for me, I was in a new place and I had made a few friends, you know, in the first few months while I was here and during my pregnancy. But it wasn't like I had a longstanding community and, you know, friends and acting classes or whatever. Well, will have nice intentions, but it's not how it panned out. And so I had a lot of weeks and months where I was really alone and, and extremely challenging experience of being the sole caretaker of this tiny person and not really having like, the resources that, you know, what would have been great. And so it was a real, a real challenge to be with my own mind so much because I was giving her so much presents, of course, but she's not giving me a lot back. Okay? Babies can communicate, of course, but it's just me. Like I'm the only adult. There's no one else to talk to. So there's just a lot of time to just be with my own thoughts and my own mind. I'm curious for you because you're. You're so far in think I've heard that from so many parents as far as going into that. And you know, this desire to. Yes. Want to kind of pour and pour into this child and hope that, you know, they're they're successful and they're thriving and they're doing all the things, that sometimes it can kind of really drain a parent, of themselves and kind of like you mentioned, maybe even some of the thoughts are just that you're left alone, especially when you're out for those really. You know, I don't know about you, but those 2 a.m., 3 a.m. feeds when it's super quiet, you know, and even baby is just kind of chill out like, yeah, my, you know, that's real loud. And so I'm curious for you, what did you find was kind of coming up in those moments for you. Yeah. I mean I know you said we can be super on here, so I will be really honest. There were moments, especially when we were sick, when we were sick, it was really, really hard, being alone because, you know, when you're really not feeling well, that's when you just really notice how much you need someone else, because you're just struggling to do the bare minimum to take care of yourself. Like going and getting a glass of water feels difficult, right? That thing is like, man, I wish someone was here to just bring me some water because I can't get out of bed right now. But it's just it's just me and my baby. And so I had some moments during those early days where I really wondered, like, what if I just passed away? And like, how long would it take someone to notice? How long would it take? You know, how long would it take someone to come and like find her and take care of her at least? Like just really, really dark thoughts, you know. And so when that's happening especially like you mentioned being so alone and did you mention did you have any kind of family system out here. Was it, it was just you know. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean in that like how, how do you navigate that. Although while being, I imagine kind of sleep deprived and just emotionally drained, what was like what was that like for you? Yeah. I mean, like I said, it got really dark in moments. And even thinking back to those feelings, like, I can get choked up right now. Like I can hang right now. Just thinking back to how I felt at that time. And I think what really supported me was my strong connection to nature and to my body and to movement. So, you know, I think this recipe with my mom is that she always had a garden, growing up. And so she always had us outside gardening, hiking. We would play the listening game, noticing what sounds in nature we could hear and, you know, for everything that maybe I needed to repairing from my own childhood, that is one of the one of the many things my mom did do really, really right is instill in us this deep connection with nature. And so even when things were really, really hard and I was isolating, I didn't feel like I had a strong friend group or any family out here. I would get my daughter and my dog goddess for my dog. Also. Like literally, I call my dog my actual ex-partner because she's been the one who's been with me through the early days of single parenthood, my abusive relationship in New York, my battle with cancer, like so much so. So yeah. So I would get my daughter and my dog out to a hike and we would just be in the woods and I would be wearing my baby there, front or back, you know, in a backpack. And that movement and that connection with nature would bring me back into relationship with the world, even if I didn't feel like I had community. Yeah. And this is not all the time. I do have community. I do have friends. And I think like when we're when we're doing well, we can see that and we can reach out to people and we can build that. What I'm trying to highlight is like, in some of those darkest moments where you're really getting into the worst thoughts, like, what if I died? No one would notice that level of darkness. Like, yeah, it can be hard to realize who cares? It can be hard to realize who would be thrilled. If you call them, who would happily pick up the phone right? And so when I felt like I couldn't even reach out to anyone and I felt like I, I felt totally alone, at least getting outside and being in connection with nature brought me back into the world and brought me back into perception, brought me back into my sensory experience, brought me back into my breath. So that and then also, earlier in my life, I dabbled in yoga, and early in my pregnancy, it became clear that I could no longer body build, which was a previous chapter in my life. And so I had gotten really into yoga, okay. And my yoga practice had become a core somatic tool, throughout my pregnancy. And so that was something I leaned on. You know, even if I felt like I couldn't do anything else, I could come back to some of these poses and movements and check in with sensations, stretching and breathing and connecting back to movement. And that would bring me back. Yeah. What I love about all of that is, is it sounds just really kind of taking you out of that mindspace and really bringing you into your body, if I'm hearing you correctly. Exactly. And I love that because sometimes, you know, doing what I do, mindfulness is a is a big buzz word. And sometimes, you know, we think of mindfulness for, for a lot of folks, especially if you're not super familiar with maybe the different types of, of mindfulness and that it can vary that there's this kind of idea of like, I'm not very good at using my imagination and kind of, well, if my my brain is already super dark and I go into my mind like, that's just not helpful. And, and so that's why I love grounding and it doesn't I don't feel like it gets us much. Maybe every time there's like mindfulness and and the grounding piece that I love is it gets you kind of more like you said, into your body. And so really using it sounds like kind of those other senses that you have to really unlock, kind of even just a momentary pause to kind of get out of the thoughts that are really kind of weighing you down and trying to kind of because our brains are really good at telling us all those, like you said, when when you're in it, it becomes a really easy path to go down. There's no one. There's no one. I can reach out to you. I mean, I feel like it's it's such a natural thing that for whatever reason, our brains are just like, super good at it. So being able to kind of give your brain just enough of a break to, to get, like you said, into your body. And so I love that. Yeah. Our analytical brains are always going to try to take over and problem solve, because so much of our life puts us in a top down space, right? So our brains are always like, it's my job. It's my job. And so I almost think of real mindfulness as body fullness. Like, let's just change the word because our minds are freaking full. Okay? We don't need more full minds. But if we if we bring our awareness down into our body, that's where we can actually let go of the analyzer part. Yeah. And sensation try and connect with our breath and not need to make meaning of it all right away and not need to solve and just be in our experience. And then the freedom to kind of like you said reframe that. We don't need to solve it right now. But that's okay. And I wanted to take a pause for anybody who's listening, who's maybe not familiar with you mentioned top down versus, you know, body. Yeah. And so to me, you for anybody listening, kind of give us a little bit at least your definition of, of what that is. So they have an understanding of when you're saying top down, what do we mean by that. Yeah. So essentially we have a continuous communication loop between our thinking brain or mind we call it. But our thinking brain really is what we mean by that. And our body, our sensory perception. And a lot of times because of the set up of our life, right? We're on our phones all the time, we're emailing, we're on social media, we're taking phone calls right now, we're on a podcast talking. We end up stuck in our thinking brain where we're meaning making, we're using words, we're using analysis, we're creating narrative, and we start to disconnect sometimes from our we think like bottom half or our senses and tracking our physical body experience. And in order to stay in balance as humans, we need some some level of maybe not exactly equal, but some balance, input from our body sensations and our brain chatter. I love, I think it's doctor Dan Siegel wrote the book interconnected. I think it's. Yeah. Yes. Okay. And so, you know. Yes, yes. And so his book interconnected actually looks at a definition of the mind. Right. Because we think about the mind. But a lot of us don't have a definition for what that is. We think the mind is the brain and it's totally not. His definition of the mind is actually everything, every relationship. We're part of the entire world around us. Everything we can perceive. It's why when people are in solitary confinement or like me, early in my parenting two isolated, we lose our minds because our our actual mind is our interconnectedness with the world around us, with the natural world, with our loved ones and friendships with our careers, with everything and, you know, it's why also, I think a lot of high powered career people, we think that like, are are really focused on their career. We also think of them as kind of losing their minds because they're so focused on a certain part of their experience, their world, that maybe they're losing touch with the natural world. I don't know how. I don't know how political we want to make this, so I won't name which CEOs I'm thinking of right now. But we all know there's some CEOs in the world who are losing touch with the natural world and how important that is. Yeah. And they're so their minds are actually, I believe, not healthy because they aren't in connection with the natural world and with how important nature is. And so having a balanced mind means being connected in a balanced way with nature, with our loved ones, with everything around us and with our bodies. So when I say top down, it's when that thinking brain goes huge and gets stuck and we're not able to, what am I receiving from my connection to my breath? What am I receiving from. I didn't even feel the chair I was in all day. Like, what is the chair feeling? What is my whoa! My low back has something going on. I didn't even notice all day until I tried to go to bed. You know? Absolutely. So that top down processing is when when our thinking brain or analyzing brain is chattering away and we're not receiving anything. And then bottom up processing is something we practice a lot in somatic work, where we are intentionally turning our attention to sensation tracking, to what can we receive from the next down. And we're processing that way, like when I notice the chair, I feel the chair's texture. I check in with my hand, my breath. And now going bottom up. There's an entirely different mental experience happening now. And. Absolutely. And I think some of that and you can tell me if you disagree, I think some of like you said, that training brain of really kind of the brain is our thinking mind is is kind of king. That's where we get especially I find so many parents where we kind of almost train ourself out of that gut instinct and listening to the body. Yes. And and I think so much of that is, at least in my experience, is some of that because we just kind of, you know, are told from a really young age, we got it, you know, got to be in school, we got to be learning all these things. And it's my, my, my, my mind and, and we, we just get so good and going. My body's trying to send me signals. Well no no, no I don't have time for that because that's not serving me right. Absolutely. I think of my own child right now. And and she's been experiencing chronic pain for a little over a year, actually. And she's only seven, which is really, really disheartening. And we're doing a lot to figure that out. But she already has that, awareness, that introspective awareness where she's able to tell me when I sit too long, it's warm, my body tightens up, I can feel it. And she's being instructed, you know, to not do anything about that, basically. And so I've had a lot of conversations with the administration or teachers just saying, you know, we need to empower these kids to take movement breaks, to listen to their bodies, to advocate for their needs. Because I get that it's a lot easier if an entire classroom of kids will just sit still and go from one activity to the next all day with, you know, a 15 minute snack break and a 30 minute lunch break. But that's not how their bodies are designed to act at this age and not your body's way. Literally. So yeah, I mean, there's reasons why, you know, some of these big companies, or whatever they're doing right or wrong. You know, we hear about these companies like Netflix or Google or Facebook or whatever, having pong tables in meditation rooms and all this stuff for their coders, because they actually understand that, like from a sheer business numbers standpoint, like you're going to get the most out of your people when they're actually semantically resourced and effective, because you can treat them to a desk all day, but they're not going to get any more work done because their brains are going to max out like. And so it's the same thing with these kids. Like unless we get them up and moving all day throughout the day, they're not going to learn anything. There's some quote, I think it's Einstein and maybe I just read it, read it on Instagram. But it's something about like we learn through play, like 20 times faster than any other way. Yeah. Yeah. So we gotta move. Gotta play. Yeah. And I think going back to when, on the parenting side and kind of getting. Caught in maybe this cycle of we need to kind of just push on ignoring some of the body stuff, and the signals that are being sent, for you. I'm curious, like, how I heard you mentioned, you know, you got back into nature, which I love. Was that your moment or was it still a journey for you? Kind of figuring out how how do you navigate especially kind of the single parenthood, being able to, to trust more of your body and to, you know, allow some of that space of even, you know, potentially, like I heard you mentioned, you know, I do have a community, like, where are you able to kind of find your way to reaching out to them? What does that look like for you? Yeah, I mean, I definitely was able to start reaching out to people. I think my real moment in my parenting journey where I realized I needed even more tools and even more change, like hiking was great, yoga was great, but I needed some more tools. And like you were alluding to earlier, some serious free parenting work on myself. My daughter was for, I think, a little over two and. Trying to decide how I was self deprecating. I want to go, yeah, I was not I was not showing up how I wanted to as a parent. I was having I was having kneejerk physical reactions to her triggering me, and was showing up completely overwhelmed, communicating in a way that was not it was damaging our relationship. And I didn't I didn't know how to discipline her in a way that would be effective, but also not harmful, because that was never taught to me. And so I was spanking her and that felt horrible, like, and I only did it a handful of times, but it felt so horrible every time in my body. And I, I just like, knew that this was not how I wanted to be treating this being is like the most precious being I've ever been in connection with in my whole life, and at one point in her daycare, she, was like roughly grabbed by one of the daycare teachers, like, on her arm or something. Okay. And she had a little bit of language, you know, she started speaking really early. I think she was like two and a half or something at this time. I don't remember, but. I don't know how she said this. Maybe she's maybe I'm just remembering somewhere around 2 or 3. And I said to her, like, how? Why did they do that? I can't do that to you. And I said, Kelly, no one is allowed to hurt you. And she said, okay, mommy, only you're allowed to hurt me. Yeah. And I like I don't think there's any clearer way to get that. What I was doing was not going to be okay. It was not okay. Anyway, I mean, it was getting to hear her say that, and, you know, there's still a lot of parents in my life who subscribe to spanking and subscribe to that, and it's just, you know, and yeah, it's I don't think it's right. And everything, everything in me was just screaming that there had to be a better way. And if this was the message she was getting, that it's okay for the one person who's supposed to keep her safe and is supposed to teach her how to keep yourself safe, is the person who's allowed to cause pain to her body. Yeah, like, what am I really teaching her? And so I had this huge moment, and thankfully, a friend at the time who had moved away, but, she was seeing this parenting coach and gifted me a few sessions, to see her so I could get started. Yeah. And and that just changed everything because I, I had someone to turn to who could show me a different way because my body didn't know a different way. Yeah. And it wasn't going to be a top down process. Yeah. How? I mean, for you, I imagine kind of hearing that and then like you said, maybe not knowing what else to do, how do you make sense of that? Enough so that it sounds like you were willing to kind of accept the alternative and in seeking something different because you think that's part of the barrier that I've heard as far as. The almost like a stuckness that when, when you get in it and you're like, well, I don't know, this is this is what was modeled for me or this is all that I've really ever seen. And so I don't really know anything else, almost a stuckness of like, well, it is what it is. There's really, you know. Yeah. You know, how how do you move, how did you move from that to do you find that you're, you know, maybe you're protecting yourself of like protecting your own identity and kind of your narrative of yourself. Did that try just to, to kind of get you stuck in and, maybe challenge your you're searching for something different. Yeah. So it is a process that like at the same time as I'm learning how to show up differently for her, it is a process of like that forces me to shine a light on what I need to work on in myself, and what I need to admit about my own past, for sure. Like you said, those are the only things I think part a we're going we're getting back into that top down thing like, I didn't need to make sense of it. Like I kind of liberated that narrative of like, I don't need to know what comes next. I don't need to solve it or fix it. All I know is that I feel bones deep, that what is happening right now is wrong, and what and what happened to me before that put these patterns in my body is wrong. And so if I knew that in my body, in my kneejerk physical reactions, in what I'm experiencing playing out day to day, if I know that's wrong, I feel that gut feeling, like you said of it, of how know in my stomach. Yeah. Then I don't need to know what comes next. I all I need to do is just keep listening to those gut instincts and it will reveal itself. Just keep trusting that doing the next right thing. So I didn't need to know. Like for sure it's going to be this parenting method. Or for sure it's going to be this coach or this book or this somatic technique. I don't need to solve it yet. I need to just keep trusting the nudges. And so that's ultimately like how I live my life and how I, how I teach others is, is to keep keying into those somatic feelings and create a somatic life where we're so connected to that inner knowing that, that sense that we don't we of course, we stop ourself in our life. I'm not saying we never do that, but that's not what's driving us. And we're so aligned with our own inner knowing that that becomes our safe space. We become our safe home. And we learning that for myself, help me to make sense of everything else. Eventually, that really it's a long journey once again. Yeah, yeah. And then working with multiple different therapists, the parenting coach, multiple somatic healers. Retreat process is a long journey. I was able to actually come to terms with naming things that happened to me as abuse as a song, you know, whereas before, like they were so normalized into my personhood and into my body, like I didn't call them that, I was just like, well, that's just stuff that happens to people like. And I had like normalized it and so then that was causing the, you know, generational pattern, the repeat. And so I had to actually eventually, like you said, finally make sense of it all at what it was, allow those into my identity of like, yes, I have been abused. Yes, I have been assaulted. Etc.. Yeah. And I want to pause just for a moment because I can absolutely. Really and I think I want to make sure to also mention that for a lot of people, sometimes when our brains do that, that normalizing piece, like you mentioned, because so many of us do, sometimes I get folks that are like, well, that doesn't make any sense. Like, why would my, my, my body, my brain kind of betray me in that way? And then normalizing some of that, and many times I find it does come from our, our body, our brains job is to kind of keep us safe. And sometimes, especially when you're a child and you're experiencing some of those things, it's a lot safer narrative to kind of normalize and be like, well, this is, you know, this is what it is, and this is maybe what that looks like or these are the exceptions. Because that's easier, safer to swallow. And for our brain to kind of wrap our heads around versus like, this is something really damaging or this isn't loving, like, okay, if if they don't want me. Right. And if this is how I'm being treated, gosh, that that doesn't feel great. So I don't want to even go there. And so sometimes we do kind of create these narratives. And I see that this is a way hopefully for anybody listening to kind of also have maybe some compassion and grace towards your brain and body that was trying to kind of keep you safe for all of these years and being able to kind of survive that because 100%, you know, I, I go, I, I remember my first ever therapist when she kind of when I told her these things and I said, it's a matter of factly of like, oh, this is just what happens, you know, the look, the dumbfounded look on her face of like, that's not that's not okay. Yeah, it's not normal. Like, what's what's, you know, and kind of doing that work. So I can absolutely kind of relate. I wanted to, to make sure to point that out as well. Yeah. I really I wanted to go back if it's okay with you to that idea of giving yourself permission to not necessarily know what the next step was going to look like, how did you get to that? Was that like a an easy shift for you? Was there something that you took to be able to kind of give yourself that, like releasing of pressure? That's a really good question. Well, this one parenting coach actually has it, like, in her sign up, cause she's like, as long as you're going to work with me, you're committed to not spanking and not using, like, punitive, like, you know, you're not going to yell to get your kids do what they need to do. And so she has it all laid out. And so that definitely helped me commit to like, okay, we're closing the chapter on that. And I don't know if these tools that she has are going to work. Yeah. But I'm at least closing the door on what I know in my body. And my heart is not working. And I'm going to try I'm going to try her way. And, you know, some of what she said was great and some of it wasn't as applicable for me, but like, that's the beauty I think, of working one on one with someone because whether it's a therapist, a coach, a support person like you have that accountability to help you commit to at least step one of the change that you're inviting in. And then in terms of releasing the pressure, I think it's just that idea of like, sometimes it has to get worse before it gets better. I've seen that so many times in my own creative process. Like, you have to make a real mess of something, a script, a song, an idea before it actually gels back into something that you're proud of. And so I think it's the same thing with our healing journey. Sometimes. Well, what has served us in survival mode has held things together to a degree. And we're essentially asking to, like, unravel that whole billion year or smash that glass jar or whatever. Yeah, whatever visual analogy works for you. And it can be a big mess when we put it together in a way that is functional again. And so just trusting, trusting the mass for the moment and, yeah, giving yourself a lot of grace, a lot of self-care might not coach every single call she had. And it was, be gentle with yourself. This is hard. Be gentle with yourself because it would feel so messy. And so I do really, really advocate for working with a support person because if I had just tried to, like, read a book and figure it out, I mean, I had already tried that actually quite a lot. And so having someone to kind of help remind me how to give myself that grace, reflect back to me ways that she was seeing actual change take place, even when I couldn't see it, even when all I could see was the mess and the chaos and the I don't know what to do. I don't know how to do this. You know, it's important. What do you see? That's that's the best way that you found to kind of stay connected through those messy times. Because I can imagine when you're in it and like you said, maybe it's getting worse before it's getting better, but it can be really easy to kind of be like, this isn't helping at all done. And we kind of get that. Yeah, yeah, I think definitely staying connected, either a coach or like group coaching programs are also really great. Or even at least like a Facebook group or a meetup group. Like there's so many ways to stay connected with people who are on a similar journey. So yeah, having that accountability and having people who will help remind you how great you're doing. Yeah. And it doesn't feel like it is really important. Did you find that there were some times where you encountered people because, you know, reaching out and finding a group especially like, let's say, a Facebook group, there'll be some people on there that are super supportive, and I feel like you still run the risk of potentially having those people who like to, to judge and to have comments based off of what you're feeling. Did you find that you encountered that? And if so, kind of was there anything that you did to kind of help navigate that? Yeah, absolutely. There are those people and groups. I that's I definitely do. If you can advocate working one on one, or at least in a group container that's facilitated by a leader who will kind of help with that. Mitigate that, at least to a degree. But then also that's where I come back to that, continually relearning your own body and your own inner knowing your own self sense as your safe place. Because the more you keep learning to trust yourself and keep reminding yourself all the reasons why you can trust yourself and trust yourself, then you're fortified for when these kinds of comments come in, whether it's from a random stranger on a Facebook group or a lot of times it'll come from the people in your inner circle who aren't ready to see you change. And maybe you don't want to face what they would need to face within themselves to be able to fully witness your healing. That'll definitely come up in a lot of us. So the more you can keep fortifying that safety within yourself and more prepared you'll be for those kinds of comments. I was there when it comes from maybe somebody in your inner circle have you journey through kind of navigating like boundary setting and limit setting within that and what maybe did you find most helpful for you? Yeah, absolutely. And it's it's an ongoing journey, I think boundary setting, you know, it's not something we learn once and we set our boundaries. And then again, like it's it's ongoing throughout our lives of each person that comes into our lives. And, and also as we navigate relationships, as they change. I still was on a call with my therapist yesterday talking about how there's a family member that, I'm realizing I don't really feel supported by every like pretty much every time we talk, I leave the conversation feeling like like a tightness in my chest and like a defensive energy, like, wow, I just had to, like, defend everything I said or everything I'm doing for like, most of the call. Yeah. And it was almost liberating because I was able to name that and then realize, okay, that's going to inform how I show up to that relationship. Now. It's going to inform how much of what they say I take in as fact, and how much I'm letting them into my my innermost thought life and my inner circle. Yeah. I think it's a continue evaluation process. And continuing to check in with those physical sensations will help because your body will tell you how you feel with people. Yeah, if you're listening in. So if you're realizing, wow, every time I hang out with this person and I'm feeling this like tension, maybe this is someone that I need a little renegotiation of my boundaries with. Yeah, yeah. Or maybe this is someone that I just don't discuss certain topics with because I actually don't value what they have to add to these topics. And so that's definitely something that I realized where, you know, someone, one of my loved ones, a family member, might be someone that I feel so happy when I get to joke around casual stuff about, make little jokes about whatever old memories. And I might love to talk with them about stuff that they're excited about, and I might love to talk with them about, you know, the animals or whatever. But parenting is not on the table for discussion. And I know I'll have to just say that. Listen, I'm not really interested in any anything you have to add to that. So let's talk about something we like to talk about, you know. Yeah. And just continuing to show up to those boundaries of love and consistency and reset them as many times as needed. And if people flat out aren't respecting them, then there's even more communication that needs to happen. You know, maybe this is one I only exchange emails with, or since they weren't respecting boundaries on the phone, you know, you continue. You have to like reassess how things are going. But, it doesn't have to be combative. It can be done with grace. With grace, I think is something I believe. Yeah. And I love that you mentioned that, you know, kind of consistently checking in and do do we need some renegotiations here. Animal sounds kind of like a flexibility. And that something that and that maybe you do have to kind of seed it multiple times, which I absolutely can appreciate sometimes. That's really frustrating. And but that's exactly anything for when I, when I, I remember kind of reading when I was learning about something that, you know, in grad school, even just that it was, it was like a broken record. And some of the key pieces were, you know, some considered to be a broken record. That's just really kind of knowing and trusting, like you said, that. Then what's your body sending you? What is your body telling you that? Yeah. This doesn't sound great, that this is kind of really draining. A lot of my energy. And so that in itself, I imagine then also impacts how you're able to show up for the people that you really want to show up for in a different way, and, you know, and solutions and kind of tightened up. And so, but then there are ways to set those boundaries with respect to that, but also very much respect to yourself as well, because I think sometimes people are like, oh, I'm going to set a boundary. And so it has to like it. It's almost like a reactive boundary where now like we're like shouting at them and you know, it doesn't land boundary. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't have to be combative. Exactly. So I love that. And I appreciate you kind of pointing that out because I think that that's such an important one. Because it does come up and like you said, sometimes it does come, from those people that are closest. And when you are making those changes and there's girls that it's it's difficult to even change is hard for anybody, especially to kind of if you've been going in a certain kind of pattern for so long with a particular person, especially like your family of origin women, we've been doing that pattern for years and years and years that it can have a lot of those growing pains and, and I love, like you said, kind of really, really finding those ways to honor the signals that your body is trying to, to send to you because, yeah, they're likely not coming from just nothing past when one thing that was helpful for me was learning about hard boundaries and soft boundaries. And so sometimes we have a hard boundary that's like, I will never, ever be around anyone who hits me like hard boundary. Most are not available for that at all. But then a soft boundary might be like, I might sometimes work through someone who raises their voice a little bit, like if they raise their voice and it is very short and they catch themselves and they take ownership of it and apologize, and I can see that they are doing the work on themselves to get some external help with that and learn, learn nonviolent communication. I still stay in connection with that person. They might they might not be someone that I have in my home. But I might still call them. I might still meet up with them in public. I might still, you know, happily spend time with them, maybe even in their home, and watch their healing journey. So, like, a soft boundary would be like, I usually want to make space for someone who, like, loses their shit and screams. But like this instance, I soften my boundary for this person because it's a specific case where I can see the growth and I can see that it's a changing process and a healing process. So yeah, or it might be something where like a soft boundary could be, I don't I don't share finances with lovers. Could be a boundary. But then I soften it in certain situations like, there's something we both really want to go in on together, and we've discussed it, and it feels safe and good. I can soften that boundary or, you know. Yeah, absolutely. And I love I love that reframing, like you said, a firm, versus, like, the softer lines. Yeah. So as we close up today, one of the questions that I'd like to ask my guests is if you had access to a Delorean, is there a particular age range that you would want to go to and not to change anything but to offer yourself, whether it's a hug or maybe some words? A Delorean is like a time machine. Yes. So. So I'm from the age where we watched back to the future. I have seen this movie as like a long time ago. I forgot that I was like, literally just like the Delorean time machine. It's the car, right? Yes, it is the car. Okay. When what what age would you go back to and what would you offer yourself? The the first age it's coming through is age eight. I think that I think they just need to hear you right. Because there's just a lot of undermining of my own instincts and my own. Intuition of what was happening. And. Yeah, I think they just need to hear. You're right. And you can see how right you are. Okay. Yeah. I love that information. You know, it's it's two words, but it's so powerful. I absolutely love that. Thank you. I love that question. And it's like internal family systems. Time machine. Let's go. Yes. Well, thank you for journeying with me back inside. And thanks for the invitation. Absolutely. Okay. Before I let you go, when we say goodbye to everybody, for anybody who wants to connect with you or receive any of the services that you offer, this is our shameless plug section. So please plug away. Where can people find you? What are you offering? Yeah, amazing. I'm on Instagram as a Weeping Willow wellness. And if you're interested in music, it's for please f e r m a to b r I c e. And my signature one on one coaching framework is called the whole body Communicator. It's a holistic modality I created where we use somatic tools to heal communication with the body. So as I referenced a lot during our chat today, re learning how to listen to those gut instincts, re learning how to keep that communication, that bottom up communication flowing through how our day to day life, communication with the body we heal communication with the self. So we use transformation language, mindset work, motivational interviewing, different forms of somatic cognitive behavioral therapy to work with any mental blocks, or unhelpful language patterns that are not supporting our change communication body communication self and then lastly communication with others. So that's where we would work through boundary setting or how how we're making offers, how we're asking for our needs. And work on the actual communication strategies. A lot of communication coaches just start to dive straight into the interpersonal communication, which, if it's not supported by, a soothed soma and an empowered mind is not going to stick, we're not going to be able to actually make a change, because we can't we can't make change if our nervous system is in hyper or hypo arousal. We can't make a change if we have core beliefs or character statements that are blocking us from even being a growth mindset. So that's how my program starts with those two things. And then we work on the communication aspect. So I'm really proud of yeah, I'm really proud of the results of this program as having for people. I would love to help more people. And there will be a group version of the program coming out later this year. So I'm super excited about that. Okay. Yeah. Make sure to look out for that. As always, all of that information links are going to be in our show notes. So for anybody listening make sure you pop down there and check it out. And connection plays that that resonates with you. Please. Thank you so much for sharing your special sauce recipe. I'm excited to try it and, for sharing your story. Helping us pull back that curtain in and normalize with the thing is really, really hard as a parent. And thank you everyone for listening. And today, make sure to come back next time for more, food for thought and thoughtful food. We'll see you next time. If you or anyone that you know is struggling with any of the topics that we discussed in today's episode, make sure to check out our show notes for support and resources. You can get help. Thanks again for joining us on today's episode of The Real Family Eats. If you're a parent ready to share your real life parenting story, make sure to reach out to us and our website found in the show notes. And that goes for today's recipe social media's support and resources. All of that can be found in our show notes, so make sure to check them out and make sure to follow, like, share, subscribe, and stay up to date on all things the real family. I hope you'll join us next time for more food for thought and thoughtful food! Enjoy your eat!