41. Be Human. Raise Badass Humans: Thriving in Parenthood with Dr Luz

Are you ready to challenge the conventional norms of parenting and embrace a new approach? 

In this episode of New World Normal the podcast, host Debbie Harrell, engages in a thought-provoking conversation with Dr. Luz, a seasoned life coach for young parents with nearly 30 years of child-development experience. Together, they explore the idea of redefining parenting beyond mere survival, focusing instead on personal growth and self-awareness to raise resilient and empowered (badass) children.

Highlights/Takeaways:

• Redefining Parenting Norms: Dr. Luz and Debbie discuss the importance of moving past outdated societal expectations and embracing a more holistic approach to parenting.
• Emotional Honesty: The conversation underscores the value of being emotionally honest with children, which helps in modeling healthy behaviors.
• Personal Growth: Both speakers emphasize the necessity for parents to prioritize their own development, creating a nurturing environment where children can flourish.
• Empowerment and Resilience: By focusing on self-awareness, parents can raise children who are not only resilient but also empowered to face the challenges of the modern world.

This episode is a must-listen for parents looking to foster a supportive and thriving environment for their families.

About Dr Luz Casquejo-Johnston: 

Dr. Luz is a Life Coach for Moms, dedicated to helping them discover their INNER Parenting Manual. Through her 8-week individual coaching program, she combines nearly 30 years of experience in education with a powerful life coaching toolbox, guiding parents to embrace their unique approach to raising resilient children. She helps moms reclaim parts of themselves they’ve hidden or let go of, break free from limiting beliefs, and step into their full power as parents. Her mission is captured in her motto: Be Human. Raise Badass Humans: Parent Resilient Children while Becoming a Badass Yourself.

Connect with Dr Luz:

• Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/raisebadasshumanswithdr.luz/
• All Links - https://drluz.live/links

Connect With The Podcast

New World Normal

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Transcript

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What I began to understand, and what my therapist helped me to grasp onto, was that you can both love your parents and also not love what happened. There is always a deep, abiding love for my parents and also things. Things went down. And that's not to disrespect them, but my job is not to hold them on a pedestal that doesn't honor the humans that they are. My job is to be a whole human so that I can be a whole human for the young people in my life, for my children. Welcome to New World Normal podcast. I'm Debbie Harrell, your host and the normal coach. This podcast is all about examining our norms, whether these are societal norms or personal norms. These are the systems, the cycles and the patterns that are keeping us stuck there, often keeping us overwhelmed and under fulfilled. So if you're less than excited by the status quo and you're ready to create, change, disrupt and do better. Challenging the norms we've all been told will make us happy. Asking the questions that we've been conditioned to ignore and change our lives and our communities for the better in the process than stick around. As a lifelong questioner and someone who prefers to operate outside of the box, I've designed this space for us to do this together. The disruptor. The cycle breaker. The rebel. Welcome. And now for today's show. Welcome back to New World. Normal. It's me, Debbie, your host. And today we're diving into a conversation that challenges one of the biggest parenting concepts or norms out there. And that is the idea that parenting is something we should just survive. My guest today is here to flip that script and show us how we can actually thrive while raising resilient and empowered kids. She is a life coach for young parents. She has nearly 30 years of experience in education, and she is blending all of that child development expertise with a big dose of her own deep personal transformation work into an eight week coaching program where she helps parents uncover their inner parenting manual, reclaim the parts of themselves that they've buried under expectations, and break free from limiting beliefs that keep them stuck and overwhelmed. Her motto? Well, it's easy to be human and raise badass humans, and spoiler alert you will likely become a badass in the process. So if you've ever felt like you're failing at being a quote unquote good parent, or if you've wondered how to show up for your kids without losing yourself in the process, then this episode is definitely Finally for you. So without further ado, here is Doctor Luce. Welcome back to New World Normal Podcast. I am super excited to have this conversation today with Doctor Luce. We are talking about parenting a different spin on parenting. Welcome to the show. Yeah. Thank you Debbie. I'm so excited to be on this podcast talking about my vision of, um, sort of the like how I want to turn the idea of parenting on its head. I come to this from just knowing that there wasn't for me what I needed. So my children were born in 1995 and 97, and the standard book was What's What to Expect When You're Expecting? And then you read What to Expect. You just read the series. I don't know if you have that experience. I did read that, that one. And then I read a parenting book by a doctor. Sears. Yes. Yeah. There were like two, but they were all about, I think what I understood when my son was born was that I was, quote unquote, a good parent when I had a good day and I was quote unquote a bad parent when I had a bad day. And that had a lot of variables to it. You know, did I, did I get breakfast or did I shower? Like all the things had to line up in order for me to feel good. And I had this really a big sense of, you know what? I don't think this is about the strategies. I don't think this is about what the books say it's about. I think this is about me learning how to be what I want to be. So it was a really different take than I was seeing out in the world. And you came to that take when you were parenting or was it? Oh that's amazing. Yeah. Great timing, because all my epiphanies came after my children. Yeah. Yeah. Older. That's why I kind of got excited about this, because I think it's a great space to support young parents in, in examining some of these. Yeah. Uh, standards or norms. But why don't we back up a little bit? And how did you come like, before you were a parent? How did you get to there? How did I get there? Um, being in my 20s and not understanding basic biology. Oh, that was nice. Yeah. You know, I turned 24, and, uh, I had this moment of, like. Oh, there really were serious about that. Okay. Um, yeah. So, uh, my husband and I were married just over a year and had gone back and had a church wedding because that was what was expected. And the birthday after that church wedding, um, just had this moment of like, oh, I guess we're going to be parents. And for me, you know, there wasn't there wasn't this like, oh, are we ready? Are we going to do that? And I know that's not the experience for everybody. So I do want to honor the fact that that's not the experience of all people. That some people do struggle with fertility. Also keeping a child. Are they ready? And I was in the very fortunate position. I completely, 100% understand that where we were both in a place of like, let's give this a go. I think the attraction between my husband and I, we've been married 31 years and counting, was that we both came from these families where we had experienced Experience things that were not. I'm going to just, you know, I'm going to sort of, you know, make it more if we're not, we're not optimal is how I will say that. Um, you know, Debbie, you and I share the experience of, um, growing up in the 70s and 80s and there was a lot of free range children. And while people paint that with a wide brush of like, oh, we had all this freedom and stuff, there was a lot of going on that probably should not have been going on. And there were a lot of things that we experienced that were not explained to us. And I don't know, did you have that experience? Debbie, I don't want to speak for you. Definitely, definitely things going on that shouldn't be going on. Um, and not recognizing that some of the things that went on, although I recognized that they were problematic at the time but didn't recognize that they were technically traumatic at the time. Yeah, yeah. And you're just like, yeah. I mean, and then the tolerance for, um, emotional regulation and mental health was not there. So, um, you know, we have different cultural backgrounds. My parents were immigrants from the Philippines, a very patriarchal kind of situation. And also, you know, like, that's just how it is. That's just how it is. You don't need to cry about that. You know, I heard. Don't be so dramatic. What did you hear? Um, the typical, uh. Don't cry or I'll give you something to cry about. That's a. Classic. Children should be seen and not heard. Um, and my mom was a single mom, so I get it. Like, she had a lot on her plate, and she was just like, she didn't have time. Like, we don't have time to deal with that. Like, pull yourself together. There was. I mean, I do feel like I heard that specific thing. Like, we don't have time for that right now. Um, you know, again, my parents were immigrants. They both came to the US with, um, college degrees and walked into careers, which is not the experience of all immigrants, but they were experiencing their own set of what, you know, not being treated fairly. Having to fight for what they wanted. And so all of that stuff that they were like, well, I just got to get through it. All of that shit around, like, I just got to get through it. That comes to roost and it comes to roost in the home. And those tensions that we feel when we are not treated in our highest come out and they come out sideways. You know, they come out with like a little person saying, like, I don't actually want to eat whatever is being served, right. And then the big reaction of like, what do you mean? And it's like, oh, um, I guess Lima beans are okay. You know what I'm like. And it's not about the Lima beans. No, it was like it was never about the beans. I mean, I, I, I it's funny because I have had, um, conversations with people in our generation, and a lot of people have the experience of sitting at the table to finish whatever gross thing and like, insert gross thing and some gross thing might have been somebody else's, like, not gross thing. But a lot of people have that that experience of like, well, you're going to sit there and now it's 930 and ten. You know, it's like, how is it? I mean, when you think if you step back and we can step back because we were in the other side and now we're adults and we can go like, that's messed up, man. Like, what do you care if I eat Lima beans? I mean, I honestly, I, and I think all of us had the experience of, like, you know, Starving kids in China. And I at one point was like, well, then send it to him. Yeah, well, we'll boxed up and ship it over there. Yeah, right. And I'm like, I 100% no, they don't want it. So, you know, I think my realization getting back to the question was like I had, um, the great gift and experience and I've mentioned this in a few different places that I had the gift to have given birth to myself. And what I mean by that is I had a strong willed daughter, and I had a daughter who knew what it was about, like hours after being born. I mean, she was born wide a freakin awake. Um, and I remember when she was like 2 or 3 days old, my mother in law had left, my parents had left, and I was alone, and my husband had to go back to work, and she was just wailing and crying. And I was like, clearly she's broken. Like I said, a return policy. I was like, oh, I. Something is wrong. Was she at first? Yeah, she was my first. And the look on her little three day old literally looking up at me like, is this, like, all you got? You clearly have no idea what you're doing. What? This doesn't. I feel like you should be doing a much better job. I mean, it was really like. I'm gonna give you a two star review. Yeah, she was like, one star. I do not recommend. I do not recommend. Please do not avoid this, mother. And I had this moment of like, oh my God, my child is awake. Oh my God, my child knows the score and I need to figure out my shit out because I know what it felt like to be on the other side. To be forced to be subjugated, to be not heard, not seen to be invalidated. And again, this is no shame. No shame. My parents were not evil monsters. My parents were parents in the 1970s. Um, from a culture that really was not even talking about mental health, was not talking about positive discipline, was not talking about any of the, you know, love and logic. It wasn't even like, you know, no John Bradshaw. No, like Wayne Dyer. I know I'm not that time. So I'm glad that you said that, because a lot of people have that misconception of we can't even have these conversations without implying that our parents were bad people. And I'm like, no, they they can have done the best job that they can and still didn't harm they they could love you and be good people and still. Right. And I created a situation that wasn't ideal. Everybody's relationship status with their parents should be hashtag. It's complicated. Do you know, because, you know, um, so I've been through some mental health issues, and I think I shared this with you most recently. I took a mental health leave and then, uh, resigned from my position. And during that time, really leaned into psychodynamic and trauma therapy. And one of the realizations I what I began to understand and what my therapist helped me to grasp onto, was that you can both love your parents and also not love what happened. There is always a deep, abiding love for my parents and also things. Things went down. And that's not to disrespect them, but my job is not to hold them on a pedestal that doesn't honor the humans that they are. My job is to be a whole human so that I can be a whole human for the young people in my life, for my children. Um, I really believed that when I looked at that three day old baby. I was like, I, I really had this moment of, wow, I can repeat the past or I can do something different. And that's going to require something different than what to expect when you're expecting. And again, no shame, no shade. Those books are great, but it wasn't in there. So how did you do it? You recognize that? What the way you were raised wasn't the way it was going to work for you. You have this awake child, infant, and the books are, like, not hitting it for you. So how did you. Yeah, I also like the gift of my circumstance was that I graduated from a top tier college. You know, I graduated from UC Berkeley with no marketable skills. That's just how it is, right? You graduate from your undergrad and it's like, well, I can't do anything with that. Great. So I had there was no way for me to make enough money to offset childcare and also contribute to the house. So we made a decision together in our cute little 24 year old selves like, well, you know what's cheap is breastfeeding. Like all the, you know, people are like, oh, that's so great. You're like a natural mother. I'm like, I'm a I am doing this out of subsistence, my friend. I not only is it cheap, but it's way easier than making a bottle at 3 a.m., right? Right. And I'm not, like, carrying that crap around. I'm not like heating no shit up. It's just like, here you go, kid. You hungry? There you go. Um, and so I did it for convenience because I knew it was the best. And it was like it was going to work for our family. And again, you know, um, we I had the opportunity to do that. I totally get that as well. So. Yeah, I mean, for me, I had the gift of not being employable, which meant I got to stay home with my child. And I realized that this is not going to be the situation. So at some point, we're going to outlive what? We're going to outgrow this living situation. And we're going to need to move into a different place. I'm going to need to find a job. And so this like whatever it can be a year or whatever is short lived. So I leaned way the hell into like all the self-development books, and I'm looking at all of them now. You know, I was looking into Myers-Briggs stuff. I read all that stuff. I read the seven Spiritual Laws of Success as Deepak Chopra. I leaned into even books like The Alchemist. Right? These are not books that one thinks of when they're thinking of parenting books. Exactly. And that's why. So I've been on this journey of trying to market what I do, and people are like, well, you got to tell them, you know, you got to pick a person, you got to pick an age group. And I'm like, no, I am just looking for parents who understand, like I did at 24, that, um, I have to do something different. and I don't have the model. Please help me, because I do have a very deep and broad experience. Um, when Sophia was rounding to like she was coming into two, I had the opportunity to become a classroom teacher. And so from 1997 until now, I have been working with families, and I have a deep knowledge of TK, like four year olds all the way up to 18 because I worked in the classroom. Then I led a school for seven years, and now most recently I was a professor and a teacher education department. And so all of that human development stuff and all of the adolescent psychology stuff, so I get it on a deep basis. And I also have the practical skill. And how did that how did that all play out with your parenting style? What what did it look like? Well, it was just reaffirming. I mean, um, let's let's be clear. When I was raising my children, there was a lot of seedy. Your pants. Let's just, like, lean in and breathe. Breathe deeply. But now I have. I have the research to back it. Right. So the most important thing for me, and the thing that I want to give to parents, is this understanding that, you know, my tagline is raise badass humans. And that's two fold. The two fold is, number one, raise yourself to be a badass. And then just by default, by seeing you claim and heal and grow, your children are going to want to come along. They're not going to want to come. They do. They love you. They role model. They say that we learn how to be in relationship from our families, and if our families of origin are showing us the picture of something that we do not want, that we have to create that for ourselves. And hopefully that breaks the cycle for our own children. And I think that's what bears it out, because I'm doing the reading. I'm talking with Patrick. We're implementing things, um, you know, based on being being slow, like responding versus reacting, leaning in to the work of Jane Nelson and positive discipline, knowing that, um, often children are doing things, but they're doing things to meet their developmental needs. So it's not just doing it to mess with you. They're not feel like at the sometimes like, yeah, it is going on. Yeah. I have like three videos on YouTube, but one of them is about the prepositions. And so what I say about the prepositions is that people often think that children are doing things to them. It's all coming at them. It's all personal when really children are doing things around them well. And I love what you said. I just want to back up a little about raising badass humans, and that the fact that you've got to raise yourself to be badass first, or maybe alongside if if you're coming to this after you've already had children. Because that's true. Especially I always thought it was so. I don't know, because like I said, most of my epiphanies came after my children were older and I was like, damn, I wish I would have known that 15 years ago. Yeah. Um, so that's another reason I was excited to have you on, to get this message to younger people that are that need to hear it while their kids are young, before the damage is done. Right. And so, yeah, what does what does it mean to to raise a badass human? So if you think about in, in my estimation, about us and how I define it, um, is a badass to somebody who knows themselves, you know, they, they know like, that's not for me. That is for me, their yes is a strong yes. And they're no is a strong no. So they're not Swayed by whatever's in the culture. I think you can be culturally aware. I think you can be like, that's that's awesome. I like, you know, I love fashion, I love whatever, I love music, you're not. And that is how I earn my worth. Right? So they have an intrinsic a really deep feeling of self-worth. And that feeling of self-worth gives them self-confidence. And so they can walk into situations and say, you know, this isn't right or this doesn't feel right, and then claim a space at the table to change how it is, because there's a lot of defaults out there. I mean, there's a lot of like, well, that's what I experienced. Well, and it sounds it sounds so simple to know yourself, know what's for you and what's not for you. But we're not encouraged to do that kind of work on a regular basis, you know, like, what do you want? Uh, I don't know. Right. Yeah. And that's what all this stuff is about. And I think as I think as a parent of, um, if you come to this, you find me and you're like, well, shit, Doctor Luz, my kids are like, out of the house or, man, my kids are middle schoolers and they already hate me. It's never too late. And I've helped parents, um, of middle schoolers and high school age. It's never too late to repair the relationship. As long as you're able to own what's yours and work on the rest. Um, and I think there's nothing stronger for a child to see that their parents fall down and get up, make mistakes, and make repair, and are just humans like all this? I think we have kids. And then we're like, well, no, I am a parent. And I never did. I didn't inhale right. It's like. You're that. That's B.S. and I've worked with children for over 20 years. They can smell it. They know when you're lying. We all have the experience. Some of us earlier than others, where we're like, you know, my daughter at three days old. But I remember having a clear experience at seven. Oh, I don't think you're the gods, but I have made you out to be mere mortals. I feel that you. Are just making it up. And there's that other culture, too. I'm just making it up as like I'm just trying to survive this. And my message to you is you don't have to survive this. You can thrive in this. It's not like linear. First, I become a good person, and then I become a good parent. If you're working on yourself and growing, you can share that stuff with your kids. I've built out things like I have a regulation toolkit, and I tell them, you're not going to teach it. You're not going to let. No sit down and learn what curriculum. Is. No kid wants to hear that at bedtime. That's just not how it is. But you can say, you know what? I know that I've been working on regulating myself, and what I know is that I want to respond better. And so I'm trying out these techniques. So today, you know, this week I'm working on, you know, box breathing. And I found it really useful. Let me show you how. And if you just do it and then you just vocalize what you're doing. I'm feeling really frustrated. I'm going to take a couple box breaths and you'd make. It's no big whoop. We're not like having a teachable moment and getting out a whiteboard. We're just living and breathing and doing. Our children will start to go like, oh, regulating myself in tough situations is normal. It is also normal to be dysregulated. It is also normal to figure out I want to do something different. And we know that this is true because the things that we remember most about our parents are not like these big moments. It's the little moments where they showed us how to be, you know, this, that, or the other moments where like for me, my mother teaching me to cook or those kind of like small moments on a daily basis are what I remember versus these big, crazy moments that people spend so much time. That's right. Because like. It's a teachable. Teachable moment, but not in that big blown out of proportion way. It's all the little. Things we've compartmentalized so many things like these are people who are healers. These people are called teachers. For me, the thing when I was a principal that I would say is you're the teacher. You are the first teacher to your child, and you will continue to teach them either on purpose or on accident. Or by default. And that's one of the things, as you were saying, like the modeling, the box breathing. And I'm like, I'm having I'm having this feeling and I'm going to do this. Um, it's kind of the opposite of the way. One of the things I also heard when I was being raised was, do as I say, not as I do, you know. Um, so it's it's actually the opposite of it because you're like, yeah, no. We're actually saying like, actually do what I. Do. Yeah. Do this because this is good. Um, it's just being human. Like they already know. And you know, they already know because we already knew at six at seven, like, I don't think they have this figured out. That feeling is universal. Every child has felt it on the planet in every corner of the planet. I don't care what culture you're from. Everybody has had the feeling like, oh, my parents don't have it figured out. And that's when we clap back with, oh, do as I say. Not as I do. Well, how about you just learn to regulate yourself, learn to do something different, and then they can. They'll really want to be who you are, you know? Yeah. And again, it doesn't matter what age your child is. You can do this when they're infants, when they're toddlers, you can come to this moment when they're out of the house. It doesn't matter. Like sharing your journey is the way. I can attest to that because I came to this as my children were older. They were still in the house when I first started operating differently. When you woke. Up? Yeah. Oh, no. Debbie, you're one of these woke podcasts. You're going to be canceled. Don't tell anyone. No. And I it is good. Like they can see me behaving. And they've recognized and they've told me like, oh, yeah, I could see you're doing that differently. And being able to approach a Approach a conversation with my oldest and acknowledge, okay, we've developed this habit, this pattern, when we try and communicate. And I'd like to try to do something different this time. This is why I'd like to do something different. And, you know, just entering it different and owning the fact that it wasn't all on him. You know, that pattern had developed. It was just as much me. Yeah. Um, afraid of that because they think that parents are gods. And the crazy thing again, is that, you know, they're not gods because you know that you had this moment of, oh. You're a human. Yeah. And why do we try to pretend I am human? I'm doing the best that I can, I swear, I promise, and I'm going to screw up and. Yeah. And also I have screwed up. Yeah. I'm going to say that I have said in the most unloving way. You're good. We're all we have, you know, like. We love each other. We don't treat each other like this. That's not loving. Love me. God damn it! Yeah, like. Goddamn it. Love your. Your brother. Love your sister back. Which is like. Oh, that's gonna inspire loving good times, you know? But you say these in aggravated moments. I really leaned into it because once there were two of them and I was starting to enter the workforce, my anxiety was going up. Um, my bandwidth for being attentive emotionally was decreasing. Just a recipe for disaster. And they were coming into their own. It's the trifecta of pain. And so there were lots of unloving things. Um, I'll be honest, there was a time when there was, like a project due. Sophia was seven, and I got so frustrated, I was just like, oh my God. And the funny thing is that this is a project that I actually designed, and that the teacher in her room Was using the design and I'm trying to explain to her. No, actually, this is what it is. And she's like, no, that's not how the teacher told me. And I was like, oh, for crying out loud. I designed this project. I will tell you how this is done. It is never smart to go to into battle with a child, but I didn't have the bandwidth. I didn't have the energy. I was not in my best self and I just freaked out and slapped her across the face. And I had this moment of like, Holy shit. Like, that is not who I am. And I stopped it. I just like, I'm going to shut this down. You know, I said, I need to walk away. What just happened is not okay. And it is not who I want to be. And I just said I got to give. I was like, mommy, time out, man. Because this is not okay. And I took a breath and, um, you know, like, oh, I'm getting, like, emotional over this. So I went to the bathroom and just started crying. I was just like, oh my God, I've screwed it up. I'm like. This is everything. I don't want to be. And I've screwed this up. And I went down like the slippery of all slopes, like I've messed it up. You know? This the beginning. I'm just going to become. This, like, physically abusive person. But, you know, I just really went there. And it's going to happen. That's going to happen in parenting. The, the moments of like the bandwidth, the we've got, the time crunch. They are little humans and they're not stupid, they're perceptive and they have opinions and they're going to express them. And if you're not in this space to receive it, things are going to happen and go sideways with it. But in that moment, you took the time to I did. I was like, all right, mommy, time out. Because clearly someone is I didn't have the terms dysregulated. I'm like, I'm not my best self. That's all I could muster. And I came back and I apologized. I said what I did was not okay. We it is not okay for adults to lay their hands on you. And I was wrong. Um, and that is something that we had to work through because I breached a trust and I owned that, and I grieved that. And it sucks that it happened, but we have to have the wherewithal to say, like, we are human and we have to have the humbleness to say, I screwed that up and I'm going to do better, and this is how I'm going to do better. And so that's when I really role modeled and talked about my strategies when I was feeling upset or whatever. And I would say, you know, I was in the classroom. So I'd be like. Oh. Today is a tough it was a tough day. I answered about 1800 questions and I am now tired, so I'm going to take a nap. You may watch extra TV. That is how it will be. And I'll sleep right here on the couch, you know, and I would just kind of I'm not saying that strategy is the strategy. I'm just saying, like vocalizing and making present who we are in all of our humanity, shows our children that it is okay to be all of their humanity. You know, there's no like, stop crying. Well, you saw me cry about, like. Every time. There's only one way to be all the time. Yeah, because life happens, right? For sure. And you're going to bring that back to the house with you. So, like, how do you. Yeah, I had a lot of I worked through hypervigilance. For me. There was a lot of listen for how Mom and Dad are entering the house. Do you know what I mean? Um, we had, like, a little tile hallway off the garage. So you come into the garage, open the door, and then there's this little, um, there's this little tiled hallway, and I would listen for how the how their footfalls were. Do you know you knew when it's quick and it's loud, you better disappear. We had, you know, two story house. So I better run upstairs. I better make sure that bed is made I better, I better, I better. Right. And I didn't want that. You know, there were all these things that I stood for. I was like, I don't want that for my children again. No shame, no shame to my parents. They were doing the best that they could. In a time where people were not talking about regulating. People were just default parenting people replicating patterns, you know? And so I grew up with that. And for me, I was like, If I'm going to be upset, I'm going to be upset, and I'm going to talk to my kids in a way that makes sense, because on the other side of it is parental defying our our children, which is making them adults when it's not appropriate. So it is appropriate to say, I've had a really rough day. I'm just going to go for. I'm going to take a walk, you know, or I'm going to take a nap or I'm going to. It's not okay to say, and you know what happened to me, Mrs. So-and-so, was to. Give me the play by play, right? She was such a bitch in the staff room, and that really pissed me off. And so she is not a nice person, is she? No. We don't commiserate with our children. We don't bring them along for the ride. We give them the information that's important to them. The information that's important for them in that moment is that I don't have the bandwidth to make you a sandwich. So if you can grab a piece of cheese, I will be with you in just a moment. You know, I come from like a drama and musical theater and I would say like, funny things like, oh, hold, please. Processing. Because, you know, you have to make light of situations. Um, but it's so important that they see you as a full human because then they can be their full human selves. And that's what we're meant to do, right? We make our little corner of the world brighter by shining our light. And another thing that I learned in therapy was that we think that we can tamp down uncomfortable emotions, and those happen to be anger and any anything in the anger category, fear in anything in the fear category, which is also anxiety. We think we can tamp those down, but there is no way to tamp one emotion down and not the others. They're all connected. So if you want to feel deeper joy, you also have to feel deeper sadness, deeper fear, deeper anxiety, and move through those things. Um, and when our children see us working through those things. They're like, oh. Mental health is important. When I started going to therapy, I told I didn't tell them the down and dirty. That's not appropriate. But I would say I'm going to a therapist. A therapist is somebody who helps you to look at your past and heal it. And so I'll be I'm going to be using some strategies. So I didn't start doing that until 2013. Um, and so my, uh, Ben was in high school and Sophia was, um, it was her senior year. Right. So that's a long way in. But I was already using strategies before that. And then to enter the equation and talk about therapy, I think was real game changer for my kids because they've had to work through their things and they know that there's no shame to it. No, there isn't shame like and. But people do hide that stuff from your kids. People hide therapy from their kids. I know I still work in maintaining my weight through Weight Watchers. People don't tell their kids about that. Do you know what I mean? It's like why it is important to say if I want to lose weight, why I'm doing it, and how? Because we're either going to get these lessons overtly, or we're going to get them covertly because we see, you know, we might. I know a lot of young I know a lot of women my age, younger, all women who received body image messages, covert and overt from their parents, which set them up for different ways of being, you know, with their bodies. So, you. Know, and I like that when you when you tell them intentionally and explain it to them in an age appropriate way, they're able to connect it. Okay. I'm working on maintaining my weight because I value my health. I want to be healthy and lead a vibrant life, whatever. So then it's not necessarily just attached to the body image size like. This is bad. This is not bad. I mean, we want to move out of any kind of binary thinking. We want them to understand the spectrum like, yeah, chips are okay. They're not bad. They're just like bad as a staple. If they're just like, not something that my body responds to in a I'm not getting the nutrients I need. And so I don't feel as good as a great way to talk about it. So I will eat them, but I won't eat them as the staple of my life. I know I would love to eat French fries every single day, but I also know if I tried that now at 53, my body would be like, come on doctor, lose. No, I went to a birthday party last night and ate all the things that I don't normally eat, and I could definitely feel it today. So food? Definitely. Okay. your body was like, what up with all that sugar? Oh yeah. Sugar. And I was like, what are these, like bags under the bags. Under the bags? Like, yeah, that's a lot of bags going on. Like, oh my bag. I wanted to, I wanted to circle back to another thing that you said about the feelings. If you want to tamp down the anger, you're going to end up tamping down all the other, because I think that's another thing that our generation did well. And it's partly dissociation, compartmentalizing to just get through the day. But like all the oh, no, like we shoved those feelings down because. Yeah, a lot of it, you know, so you when we don't have a loving adult that can witness what we're feeling and help us to understand, we have to make a message around it. We have to make meaning. Humans are meaning making machines, and we are also really driven to survive. So if in fact, I feel a feeling if I have something happen and I have a big response to it, then that thing becomes unsafe. And this can be positive or negative. I was told you're too much, which I am. But now I'm like, yeah, I'm too much. And dot dot dot you know, make your choice around if you want to be around me or not. If I hear I'm too much right, then I'm going to not be too much. But if I'm not being too much, that means, like, I'm not being as funny. I'm not being as joyful. I'm not being as, um, friendly or giving. And all of that means that I am tamping down those things. And then if those emotions aren't okay, other emotions aren't okay either. We can't tamp down one emotion. It just is not how it works. And that's something that comes to us from psychology, from neuroscience. You just can't do it. There's a huge study. There's huge studies around emotions and where they reside in our bodies. So, um, yeah, you can't do it, you know? I think and and also what I'm hearing is you're saying I'm tamping down my too muchness, which is then you're not being your badass self. Right? And that really bit me in the ass when I decided to leave academia in 2022 and start to be a business owner, because in this day and age, it's all about get on the socials, get on LinkedIn, do your Instagram posts, go live, all of the things. And if being too much is not safe, you're not making any posts. So the way through that is to understand that comes from a part of ourself that was wounded and got left behind Because the truth of it is, is that when these things happen and we have a response, a trauma response, that part of ourselves gets locked away to keep us safe from doing that ever again. So all the times that we think, like, why can't I just make that post? Why can't I just, um, you know, send an email to my list? It's because that younger self, the one who experienced the pain of being told they were too much, is, oh, we're not going to be hurt again. And so a lot of times people try to positively affirm themselves into I am a badass, blah blah, blah, blah, blah. But that that little person, um, and this is like my little I made this. I'm a master crochet for this little loose. Wow. For your listeners, you can't see it. But she is adorable. And, uh, my therapist had said, you know, we're going to do some inner child healing. It would be good for you to have a picture of yourself to talk to. So I made Little Lose Crusader, and she's the one that's holding the reins. She's the one that's saying no no no no no no no. That's unsafe. That's unsafe. So we don't like shut her out because that's what happened before we say to her like, yeah, totally. That is super scary. I feel it I feel how scared you are. And I am in charge and I'm the adult, and we're going to do this, and you're going to feel scared. And I am going to hold the space for you to be scared while I do this scary thing, and then we'll debrief. So I also have the gift of having being able to hold the space for. My first teaching positions were in kindergarten, but I've supported a lot of teachers in early childhood and so to to to teach them to witness for children what they're feeling and to help them make meaning is such a big part of high quality early childhood experiences, so we actually have to do that for ourselves. And when I first heard about this from my therapist, like inner child healing, you have to go back and repair yourself. I was like, um, no, I'm not doing that. You know why? Because my mother should have done that. I guess I should have done that. My dad and that sucks. And screw them and I hate it, I just. But then when you hear that, when I speak in that way. Who is that? That's a four year old response. Yeah, exactly. You're like, oh, okay, there she is. Needed. Yeah. She was like, fuck you. I mean, obviously that's the teenager, right? But it was just like, no, that's not fair. I should have gotten one. That was not. Fair. I don't like it. Right. That's totally fair. So we have to go back in time and to and to repair it. Because to put our needs and how we see ourselves with these parents that are not resourced. They're never going to be resourced unless they do the work, and if they're not doing the work, then that's just how it is. You're never going to get it. So what are you more? What are you more interested in? You're healing or you're feeling of injustice. So I don't want to like I did experience. Um, you know, when I learned about adverse childhood experiences, I was like, check, check, check. Yeah. So I did experience those things. Um, and again, my healing is much more important than my feelings of. They should have done this now. But that is through lots and lots and lots of therapy. And also lots and lots and lots of. Oh, it does work to soothe, to soothe little lose. It does work to heal. Address those responses that have become ingrained that are no longer serving me. So the proof is actually in the doing and the healing. You know, I'm a much different person than I was like two years ago. So yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing your story so vulnerably. And yeah. Um, I feel like I could talk to you forever, but we are coming up to the end of our time. I have a couple more questions for you. Yeah, absolutely. One would be. Or one is, um, if there was one parenting norm or myth of good quote unquote air quotes, uh, parenting that you could, you know, just get rid of, what would it be? You know? Uh, just to trust your inner wisdom. We're in a culture when we're told that there are experts out there, but we actually do have an inner wisdom because we have been in contact with people in our lives that were the adults that we needed in our own family of origin. So get in contact with that inner wise person because they're there and there's ways to do that too. You know, there's ways, there's ways of being. And it does feel overwhelming. But you can do it like that. And then when do you feel most badass? Um, I'm getting to be like more and more. I think, um, my gift is storytelling and my gift is being, you know, sharing my message. But my most badass self is when I'm coaching and I'm witnessing for people, their younger selves that really need to be healed. So that's totally my gift, because there's a lot of coaches out there and they coach about business or career and stuff like that, and like, what is more important than yourself and your children? Nothing. Nothing. And raising bad ass humans. We need that, right? If the world is crazy right now, we need some people that are going to. That are going to be like hell to them. No. Yeah. We're not doing this again. Thanks again for your time. I feel like there was something else I was going to say, but it has escaped me. I can record an outro later, but I really enjoyed the conversation. Yeah, this has been great. Thanks, Debbie. Well, I completely forgot to ask Doctor Luce where she hangs out online. Where is best to connect with her? But you can find all of her links in the show notes. Of course, she is raised badass humans on TikTok. She is raised badass humans with Doctor Loose on Instagram and on Facebook. She's parenting on purpose with Doctor Loose. But as I said, you can find those all in the show notes. I hope that you enjoyed this episode as much as I enjoyed speaking with our guest. And until next time. Thanks. Thank you so much for being here and for listening to the New World Normal podcast. I really appreciate each and every one of you. Hope you enjoyed what you heard today, and if you did, feel free to head over to Apple or Spotify and leave us a review. It's a very easy way to help us get the word out about the show, and if there is anyone in your life who might benefit from hearing the information that we shared today, please send them this episode. Let's get the word out that normal isn't always better. A lot of times it's what's keeping us overwhelmed and unfulfilled. Let's keep questioning it together. Thanks again.