On this episode of The Fresh Start Family Show, Wendy and Terry welcome back their incredible friend and mentor Pam Dunn of Your Infinite Life Training and Coaching Company. They are tackling the important topic of Emotional Literacy. Of all the areas we can increase our understanding and fluency, this is one topic that really will help us find success in all areas of our lives.
Emotional literacy means we are educated on our emotional cues that arise when we experience our feelings. We are meant to experience the full range of emotions we were given, AND, we can do so in a healthy way when we learn to see that feelings are neither right nor wrong, good or bad. They provide us with valuable information & guidance. This is a subject that is definitely worth learning more about so that we can be free from the harmful conditioned mis-beliefs about feelings and emotions many of us were taught.
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Episode Highlights
- Feelings are neither right nor wrong, good or bad
- Happy isn’t the goal. Being aware of and honoring ALL our feelings is the goal
- We don’t have to express or act on every feeling we experience
- Emotional literacy vs emotional intelligence = we are all capable of having it, and we put it into practice vs just being aware of it.
- The tones we use are the result of the thoughts we engage with
- Feelings give us more information about what we care about, help us bring out our courage, give us strength to ask for what we feel strongly about, show us the depths of our love, and help us see the joy and gratitude that is within us
- We don’t want to take on the job of “controlling” our thoughts. We get to decide if we want to engage with those thoughts or not. We can choose not to listen to the story we’re telling ourselves.
- When we pretend we’re not feeling something, we’re actually bypassing that emotion.
- When we need a minute alone to process a feeling, we can tell the person we are stepping away to take care of ourselves
- Overwhelm comes from not taking care of the feeling in the moment we feel it
Resources Mentioned
10 Minutes of Infinite Wisdom Podcast
Your Infinite Life Instagram
Freedom to Be in Person Course in Sunny San Diego, CA!
Sign up for the email list and be informed about the Free New Year Kick Start Challenge
Not able to listen or want to read along with us?
Here is the episode transcript!
Wendy:
Happy New Year’s families. It is officially 2023 and here at Fresh Start Family, we are behind the scenes getting ready for our biggest event of the year. That will be happening in late January. It’s called the New Year Kick Start: Fresh Start Your Family in five days with a live positive parenting mini course to educate, inspire, and empower. And like I said, it’s not gonna start till late January. I wanna give you guys time to catch up, catch your breath from the holidays. I know that a lot of us are just kind of exhaling after a very busy time. And then in a few weeks I will be inviting you to go over and register to be part of this very exciting event where you’ll be able to hang out, live with me, ask questions, get coaching on a daily basis, be part of our interactive and incredibly supportive community.
And it’s just gonna be a really great way to kickstart the new year, so you are headed into 2023 feeling really strong and inspired to implement and practice positive parenting in your parenting walk and also into the daily fabric of your home life with your kids. So stay tuned. That information is coming soon, but for now, enjoy the show. Well, hello listeners. I am so happy that you are here for a new episode of the Fresh Start Family Show. I’m your host, Wendy Snyder, positive parenting educator and family life coach. And today on the show to kick off the New Year Strong you guys, we have our dear friend and mentor, Pam Dunn on the show.
And we are talking about the most important skillset that you wanna be building in 2023. So this is a really rich conversation that I think is gonna bless you tremendously. You’ve probably heard Pam on the show before, but in case you’re new around here, Pam is one of our favorite people on the planet. She has personally mentored Terry and I both really for almost the last decade. I’ve worked with her really intensely and you know, intimately for the last three and a half years now. She is who I trained under to become a certified life coach and who I consistently am mentored on the program that she runs, it’s called Your Infinite Life, where she’s the owner and chief responsibility officer and the way she just continuously leads and guides and mentors, those of us who, you know, sit on her leadership board so to speak, is just truly a blessing.
And I just love her so much. So she is someone that I know you guys have enjoyed hearing from in the past, so I thought I’d bring her on so we could have this really great discussion today. But we are talking about the idea of building emotional literacy and why it is kind of the, the front domino, so to speak, to help everything else in your life go smoother, especially when it comes to parenting and marriage. When you have emotional literacy, strong or at least you’re developing and you’re building your awareness and and your self-acceptance, all the things we discuss in this episode, then life will just be smoother. So I really admire Pam because she is someone that as far as life coaching goes, she has this insanely acute ability to really get to the root of a situation or a life’s challenge when she’s working with somebody with grace and reverence.
And she just provides, when you learn with Pam, she just provides an unparalleled environment for growth and change. And so she is now who I co-teach our Freedom to Be personal development life coaching weekend course with which, which is happening by the way, the end of March. So the weekend of March 24th, it’s gonna be a Friday, Saturday, Sunday here in beautiful sunny San Diego. We will be having that in person life coaching weekend course that is just fully and beautifully transforming. So I’m really excited for many of you to come out to San Diego, meet me in person and experience this amazing course which you’ll hear us talk more about in this episode.
But I hope that you are as excited for the new year as I am. We have a lot happening over here at Fresh Start Family. We are celebrating our five year anniversary this year. And so we are doing a lot behind the scenes. We’re doing actually a total refresh of the website, both the front end that is seen by everybody, by the public, so to speak. And then also the back end. We have built a custom learning platform for our students that we’ve really just been pouring into over the last five years. And about six months ago, we decided that it was time to do a refresh and really make the experience for our students even better and easier.
And so we’ve been working behind the scenes on that and that’s gonna be really exciting. That will be really announced to the public or the doors will open for the new Fresh Start Experience on February 1st. So we are very excited about that. And then of course, in a few weeks we’ll do our annual New Year Kickstart five day free challenge where we come together as a community and we gather to make positive parenting. You know, learning positive parenting, fun and doable. That free mini course that I do each New Year’s is a great way to kick off the new year. Help you remember that learning positive parenting and changing up your parenting strategies and tactics and the relationship with your kids and your discipline, all that good stuff.
It doesn’t have to be heavy, it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. It can be done in these small bite-size pieces to really make it, you know, both fun, actually fun. We really do have fun here around here at Fresh Start Family when we learn and grow, but also just make it digestible, right? You can do a little bit each day no matter how busy you are. And that’s why we do that free challenge every year just to get families, you know, used to consistently learning. Because when you’re consistently learning and you’re consistently implementing and trying new things and experiencing failure sometimes and finding the courage and the tenacity and the perseverance to get back up and try again, that’s what actually creates long-term sustainable growth for families.
So we’re just really excited about the new year and we hope that this new episode of 2023 just blesses you tremendously. We hope that you feel filled up after you listen to this and excited for all the good things that are to come. So as always, thanks for listening guys. If you are not on our email list, make sure you hop on over to the website, freshstartfamilyonline.com, grab our most popular free learning guide, How to Raise Strong-Willed Kids with Integrity so You Don’t Lose Your Mind. It’s right on the homepage of the website, freshstartfamilyonline.com. And then that way you will be put onto our email list just so we can keep in touch with you. We can make sure you get special invites when we do our free courses and workshops and and programs when we have openings of the new Fresh Start Experience.
We wanna make sure that you are in the know about all of that and making sure that you are on our email list is the best way that we can stay in touch with you and, and just encourage you and cheer you on and empower you to be the greatest parent you can be. All right, you guys, without further ado, help me welcome Pam to the show and enjoy this episode.
Stella:
Well, hey there, I’m Stella. Welcome to my mom and dad’s podcast, the Fresh Start Family Show. We’re so happy you’re here. We’re inspired by the ocean, Jesus, and rock and roll and believe deeply in the true power of love and kindness. Together we hope to inspire you to expand your heart, learn new tools, and strengthen your family. Enjoy the show.
Wendy:
Well, hey there listeners, welcome to a new episode of the Fresh Start Family Show. Terry and I are really excited to be here with our dear friend and mentor. And let’s just say it, favorite guest in the world, Pam Dunn. Welcome to the show, Pam.
Terry:
You heard it. Sorry, other guests.
Pam:
I I heard it too. I’m gonna use it. Remember, I’m your favorite.
Wendy:
You are Pam, you are. Own it. Own it. I’m gonna get you a necklace. Yeah, you guys families you are in for a treat today because we are going to be talking about the most important skill that you need to build in 2023. Terry, can you do a drum roll? It is emotional literacy, you guys. Emotional literacy. And so today we’re gonna have just a really rich conversation with Pam who is just the wisest ever on this topic. And we’re gonna talk about a few things, but one is just what is emotional literacy?
What are we talking about that? And I’m gonna, I’m, I’m gonna speak to something I’ve noticed over the years that’s just beyond common in our society. We’re gonna talk about how our emotions relate to the tones that we use that often don’t help us get what we want in life with our kids or our spouse or in our career, whatever. We’re gonna talk about how the tones and the emotions play into our actual behaviors and either have us behave in a way that’s opened or closed. We’re gonna talk about the connection between our thoughts and emotions. And I’m really excited just to hear Pam’s thoughts on, we’re just gonna have a, that’s gonna be awesome.
And then lastly, we’re gonna talk about the idea of embodiment. Like actually understanding where in your body emotions show up and starting to pay attention, which gives us more wisdom and more know-how so to speak, on what to do with emotions. So let’s hop right in and just talk about emotional literacy. And when I was thinking about this and thinking about, okay, this, this is the first episode of the year for Fresh Start Family. And I was really thinking like what is, when I look at all the clients we work with inside of our programs and our, our membership and the students that, that we teach at the Freedom to Be Workshop together, Pam, I really looked at it and I was like, gosh, what is the one thing that’s almost like the domino, right?
Like if you were able to build that one skillset, everything else in life becomes easier when it comes to conflict and challenges. And because that’s life, right? Like life is just going to have challenges. There’s going to be conflict, there’s going to be imperfection, mistakes, kids are going to be kids, they’re going to have misbehavior. Like there’s just gonna be moments of your day and, and a lot of times seasons of your life that are, that are heavier. Same with career too, right? Like so what can we do to really make the rest of life easier? And that to me was up our emotional literacy. And to me and I, maybe we could each like speak to what we think of when we think of emotional literacy, but to me it’s really understanding like what emotions are.
Like the five basic ones really helped me and I thought you could speak to those five ones, Pam, but also like kind of looking at the spider web of like, of all the cousins of emotions and just having like awareness, right? Like, oh, okay, well if I’m feeling overwhelmed and, and we’ll kind of speak to a bunch of little ones, but like, I know overwhelms, it’s not little, but it’s seems to me like a cousin of scared, right? So, but just having the knowledge of like, oh, okay, this is just an emotion. Emotions are neither right nor wrong, they will pass. I I have the ability to actually feel them instead of push them away or suppress them. And to me that practice that that you’ve been pivotal in teaching Terry and I both over the last decade has really helped in life and I can’t imagine life without it.
So what do you think of, you know, when we use the word emotional literacy, Pam?
Pam:
Well first of all, I just love the phrase, yeah, I, I think I wanna take it as my thing in 2023 as well. It, it’s just, it, it’s defined so well that, you know, cuz we all know what literacy is and so imagine being, you know, so self-educated. It’s, that’s kind of how I see it as educating myself on my personal emotional, you know, cues and, you know, which goes to the embodiment. You know, like what, what’s going on inside of me when a tone is out of, you know, sync with how I really wanna express myself, what emotions show up when I’m thinking a certain way?
I think all those, you know, like you said, it really is the same, the thing that can, you know, get you in position to operate more from who you truly are and who, how you truly want to express yourself.
Wendy:
Yeah, I love it. And I wanna hear your thoughts too. Terry and I, I I switched from emotional intelligence to emotional literacy a few years ago because the, the term to me, emotional intelligence, you know, it denotes that like, you know, everyone’s got a difference, different, but really like, you know, I believe everyone’s innately designed in this beautiful way to have all these emotions and it’s just, literacy is more about learning, okay, what is, what does this all mean? Like, right, like, just like you study the body in medicine, like we’re studying the mind and the heart and the spirit to understand the perfect design, but it’s all innately there. There’s no like intelligence, it’s not like an IQ. Like you have a high, huge IQ cuz you’re female Yoda and I have a low IQ.
Like it’s, no, it’s, no, I, it’s it’s all, it’s everyone has it, it’s the same, but it’s just educate. It’s more of an education of, you know, being willing to understand more about it, in my opinion. What
Pam:
And the practice. I actually think that the difference between the intelligence and the literacy is that you put into practice what you learn.
Wendy:
Oh yeah, that’s a good point. Yeah. Yes. Oh, huge.
Terry:
I mean, just kind of like, I think zooming out, I know a lot of listeners will be listening to this top of the year, so, you know, new year, you know, fresh, fresh start, you know, a lot of people start to look at, oh, I’m gonna get in the gym, I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna do that, I’m gonna better myself. Oftentimes it’s a, it’s a physical thing, whether it’s like, yeah, fasting, getting in the gym, like whatever it is, you know, whether you’re listening in January or you’re listening in another month, there’s never a bad time I think to really dive into this subject because this is, I mean, this is the thing that connects every part of your life, you know, you know, emotional literacy to me is like, you know, you’re gonna walk around feeling the range, you know, some days more than others.
And like you said, Wendy, like life’s gonna happen no matter what. You know, if you’re, you know, let’s just say this like kind of imaginary captain of your ship, wouldn’t you be able to, wouldn’t you like to better navigate your, your life and so much your life, whether it’s gonna be calm seas or rough seas, you know, you can, you can kind of sense it coming by, by your emotions or what you’re dealing with at that moment through your emotions. So I think diving into this subject I think just unlocks so many things for you. And I think your relationships will be stronger. Even like your physical, your determination in the physical realm too. So you’re like, oh, okay, well I thought I wanted to have all these physical goals for, for the year and I want to be able to run a marathon.
I wanna do all these things. There’s so much, you know, there’s a mental game to all of that. So I would just say as you’re starting the new year, your brain and your emotions and your relationships, like if you could put that at the top of the list, all these other things that are maybe more typical New Year’s resolutions start to just kind of become an, an easier solve. Like you said Wendy. Yeah. It’s almost like tip this domino first, everything else starts to go.
Wendy:
Yeah. Totally. I love that, Terry. Yeah. And I think it’s good to look at too, why this is kind of a little bit of a foreign like ideas to so many when they start, right? Because I mean we’re, we’re the three of us are so fluent in it at this point that it’s, I want, I like to remember like what it was like 10 years ago, right? When I first walked into a Your Infinite Life weekend course and I first started taking positive parenting and it was like, oh yeah, I was like conditioned, which most people are right? Like to think a few things. One, that the goal in life is to be happy, right? Like that when you were growing up, it was like, you know, especially if you were a strong-willed kid, like why can’t you just be happy? Like the goal was to be happy, like, right?
And most of us were taught or spoken to that it was like, you’re fine, don’t be scared. There’s nothing to be scared of. Like, don’t you dare fricking like use that pissed. Like, don’t you dare be angry. Like you were not allowed to be angry, but yet you watched your parents have anger all the time. A lot of, a lot of people listening, not everybody, like, don’t be sad. Oh my gosh, please don’t cry. Like I’ll do anything if you don’t cry. I’ll, let’s just make sadness stop
Terry:
Or comfortable
Wendy:
Or,
Terry:
Or the goal is to be uncomfortable.
Wendy:
Yeah. Because it was uncomfortable for parents to witness any, cuz they weren’t set up with it, but Right. So we talked sadness, scared, mad, and then hurt, right? Like hurt was more like, like, you’re fine, you’re not even bleeding. Like, get up, you’re fine. Like you, you fall. I mean, I see it all the time, right? Like with kids, they fall off off their bikes and the parents immediately are like, you’re fine. They like, are watching for the crying and they’re like, like they immediately pop in like anything to avoid the emotion, right? So get up, you’re fine. And then when it’s happy, it’s like, yay, happiness gets all the praise. So then we grow up and it’s like, oh my gosh, this. And then we become adults and we’re like, whoa, I experienced all of these emotions in one day.
So the four others besides happy must be wrong. I think. Like therefore we learned to suppress them, we learned to deny them, we learned to be embarrassed or shameful about ’em. And I’ve like, I’ve just been had a heightened, heightened awareness. I always think it’s so fascinating, like how what, you know, God uses like the situations in my life in certain seasons and I just am more aware of certain things at certain times. And the last few, the last year, I guess especially, I’ve just noticed how much suppression there is, like from like a physical, like not even this type of suppression that you can’t see, but like from a physical you can see it. Like, so we’ll have students in classes where women will like fan themselves to, to avoid the tears.
Like, right? Like they fan their eyes and they’ll do anything to not cry. Or they’ll say things like, I am not gonna cry. And they’ll breathe like, like almost like lamaze to like get themselves out of feeling. So it’s like this pattern, this habitual thing of like, no, no, no, do not go there. Do not let yourself go there. That is bad. Like stop it. And then you’ll hear people say sometimes, especially in our weekend courses, like freedom to be like, Nope, I promised I was not gonna cry, I’m not gonna cry. And even if it’s not crying right? Like sometimes it’s anger or anything else, but like you can feel and see the suppression, right?
Like it’s like you’re just like, don’t do that, don’t do that, don’t do that. So I just thought it’d be good to normalize, like, I think why it’s such a journey once you get older and you realize like, holy shit, this is like kind of the, the key to life is to emotional literacy and whoa, this is really new and foreign to me because why in the world would I wanna be okay with feeling scared, right? Like, so I feel like be looking at how most of us were raised is important to like just giving ourselves grace and compassion and time on this journey to like take as long as we need to like figure it, you know, to, to become more comfortable with the uncomfortable.
Pam:
Yeah, I love that compassion way of doing it. I think that, you know, to your point, it is really a valid point that we, we’ve been raised, but also for generations we’ve been conditioned to, you know, make sure that feelings are seen as good or bad, right or wrong. And Happy’s the only good one.
Hey families, I want to pause this beautiful conversation for a moment to share that registration for the Freedom to Be personal development Life coaching weekend course is open. And my gosh, is it so wonderful to be offering in person events again, there’s only 20 seats available. So if you’re interested in pouring into yourself, healing from your past, breaking free from limiting beliefs and taking charge to create the life and family legacy of your dreams, head on over to freshstartfamilyonline.com/freedomcourse to learn more. Snag a ticket and you’ll be able to come hang out, live with me in beautiful, sunny San Diego while you expand your heart. Learn new tools and strengthen your family.
Yes, please. Freedom to Be is the program that changed everything for me 10 years ago when I was new to positive parenting and loving what I learned in class. But when I came home to apply the strategies I was taught, I struggled big time after going through this life coaching program, Freedom to Be, I all of a sudden was actually able to respond versus react, implement compassionate discipline instead of constantly reverting to harsh punishments and actually stop blaming my beautiful strong-willed toddler daughter for all of my problems. I’m not exaggerating when I say the Freedom to Be course changed the entire future trajectory of my life. And I am completely honored to now be teaching this course.
During this weekend course, you’ll get both the heart and the soul, which is what I call the spirit side of ending, limiting belief cycles and healing from past generations and stories and experiences that are keeping you stuck in negative reaction cycles. And you’re also going to learn the step by step logistics, what is what I call the strategy side of changing your unhealthy behaviors like yelling or threatening or grabbing wrists too tight. Or some of us might be more of a withdraw or passive aggressive, silent treatment kind of people, but you’ll learn how to change them. Maybe it’s unproductive tones or negative self-talk and maybe it’s even broken communication cycles.
I’ll teach you how to switch those into healthy behavior patterns that you’re proud of and that actually work to make you feel good about the way you handle yourself each day. No matter what kind of challenges get flung your way in parenting marriage or career. Head on over now to freshstartfamilyonline.com/freedomcourse now to grab your ticket. The date for this year’s in-person program is March 24th through the 26th. And again, it’s in beautiful, sunny San Diego. Okay, back to the show.
Pam:
You know, when even in our classes when we teach the the five and how to move them through and out of your body, ev almost every time somebody asks, why would I wanna move happy out of my body? You know, which means that you believe at your core that that feeling doesn’t already exist inside of you. You know, so, so I do think that it, it’s important to normalize that yes, you are conditioned to suppress certain feelings and you’re also conditioned to believe that when you express your feelings that that’s how you’re feeling them.
Wendy:
Yeah.
Pam:
And that’s not necessarily true either. There is a place in between which is the literacy part, you know, that you’re talking about. I think that it’s not always okay to express mad in the moment that you’re mad. It is first important to feel that you’re mad. And then once that feeling, once you’ve embodied that feeling, then you can express yourself. Otherwise you’re going to fuel the mad, which is what we see. And I think it’s what, you know in your line of work, Wendy, what parents are often dealing with.
Wendy:
Yeah, it’s so true. And even like coming to mind, just again, like normalizing why this is such a journey for so many, I think of like the, the beautiful like anti-oppression work that you host Pam that I’m so blessed to be a part of, but looking at like dismantling white supremacy and realizing how many generations of us have been conditioned to ignore feelings when like you had to witness things happening society, right? Or like whether it be slavery or women being mistreated or whatever it was, but like the conditioning to not like to push away and not listen to your own body and your like to numb those feelings.
Almost, almost probably the systemic issue of like white supremacy probably plays into this too, of like, no, no, no, no. Don’t be mad.
Pam:
Well, the system of good girl, boy, good person and bad person is built from that white supremacy system. So good and bad, that binary is built out of that system, which I think a lot of people don’t realize because it’s so ingrained, it’s so natural for us to think that way that we don’t even think, we don’t, we don’t interrogate, I love that word, even though it sometimes sounds harsh, but we don’t interrogate our beliefs enough. The systems that we’re operating from enough to ask ourselves, is this a system number one that I designed?
And if I didn’t, is it a system I wanna play in?
Wendy:
Right? Yeah.
Pam:
What we are doing at Your Infinite Life and what you’re doing with parents is really dismantling those systems or at least saying what do you wanna participate in?
Wendy:
Yeah. And then you layer on also like the way men have been conditioned over the years to believe that it’s weak, right? Like, and again, there’s probably intentional, I mean it’s not like one person originally was like, ha ha ha, I’m going to condition men. But at the same time, like it did pour into a system right? Of like a lot of things. So anyways, but maybe Terry you can speak to over the years. Yeah. Just like what you see, like conditioning for men, like, like is like, it almost seems like for men happiness is okay, but anger is okay. Like we’re women, it’s not, but the, the cultural conditioning for men is that anger is okay.
Terry:
Yeah. It’s, it’s pretty much like how you’re talking about, there’s a range of emotions. I think for men it’s a light switch. You’re either happy or you’re angry, you should be happy most of the time. And then boom, you flip the switch to anger when you need to protect yourself or just to like show people what’s up type of thing.
Wendy:
And it’s strength, like anger is related to strength for men. Yeah.
Terry:
But like the idea of like, you know, being scared or sad or anything like that, it’s like push those way out as far as possible into the neverland. You know, it’s like there’s nobody that, that’s not going to happen to, but yeah, you just, you don’t really go there at at all. It’s very, very few and far between that there was like moments where that was even like, felt like a space you could be in with, with somebody else, another, you know, guy or parent or anybody. Yeah, yeah.
Wendy:
Yeah. And I think a lot of it is not so like, it’s not that your parents set, you know, set you down and was like, Hey, just so you know, welcome to the world young man be, you know, if you’re scared you’re weak now. Now some do, some actually have that message, but it’s more just that it was never taught that feeling scared and feeling hurt and feeling sad, you know, was like actually human and actually like very, very strong to be able to know what that’s like and all the, some of the things that we’re gonna have you speak to in a minute here about what’s on the other side and like, you know, the, like the full spectrum of these emotions. Like, because that was never taught to 98% of us and then add onto it all the cultural conditioning. I think so many men end up being like, oh my gosh, like the, the, like you, you take away the message of sadness and scared is like weak anger is strong and it is just an absence of teaching.
And then like I said, for some there is like a don’t be a pussy. Yeah. You know,
Terry:
And, and scared can show up a lot of different ways. Like it’s not just like, I’m scared to do this, like physical feet, like I’m scared to, you know, climb this rock wall or drop in on this thing or whatever like that that, that’s I think one way I chose that. But like, I’m thinking as you guys are talking, like, Hey, how have I tapped into my emotional literacy? Like lately, I mean, I still have a ways to go. I think, you know, everybody, we’re all work in progress, but like, even last week, like in the, in the workplace, I found myself in talks with a colleague and I found myself not on the same page as, as them starting to get like angry.
And then I was like, oh, okay, I’m, I’m feeling this. And then what I realized was like that anger also had like some scared in it too. Cause I was like, and then like to your point, Pam is like expressing the anger. Like I’ve had people in the professional, you know, realm that like would’ve just popped off and just like flexed on this person as a way to get what they wanted. And I was like, okay, that’s not necessarily what I want to do. And then I also was like, well I could just kind of push this down or just keep this status quo, get through this conversation and then maybe revisit it later.
And if I’m still mad then, or angry or scared I could, you know, maybe address it then. But I just like, you know what my, my way of dealing with it now is like, state the facts and say what I’m feeling without like pouncing on somebody.
Pam:
Mmm.
Terry:
So with this person, I was like, okay, I’m, I’m gonna feel the feeling that I’m just gonna say, hey, because of A, B, C and D I’m feeling scared and uneasy about this situation. And I’m just like, I’m just gonna just leave it right there.
Wendy:
And you actually said the word scared?
Terry:
I said the word scared.
Wendy:
Nice.
Pam:
That’s amazing.
Terry:
And well it was interesting cuz like, I felt like there was like confrontation getting ready to, to start and I could tell like, you know, it was hard for me to swallow. It was like hard for the other person to swallow a little bit. I’m like, oh,
Wendy:
The embodiment piece, yep.
Terry:
Yeah. Yeah. So I know we’re getting to that. Anyways, I just thought I’d put that out there because that was like, you know, starting with like yeah, you’re not really taught traditionally as a guy, like how to deal with that. And then it’s gonna come up in places too that are like, it’s not just like gonna be like fist fistfight in high school. I’m angry, you’re angry at me. It’s like you’re gonna be in a business situation at some point where you’re like, you gotta choose like, hey, am I gonna read this feeling? Am I going to just act on it and do something that’s not in line with who I am that I’m gonna have to clean up later? Or can I just like read it for what it is and be vulnerable enough to put it on the table and realize that putting on the table is not weak at all.
I’m just like, I’m actually just letting somebody know how I feel and we’re gonna,
Wendy:
It’s Very disarming. So do you feel like it was disarming for that meeting when you expressed that you were just, just feeling scared about whatever deadline or like, was it disarming for the, like did there, did things settle a little bit?
Terry:
Yeah. Things, things settled. But it also like, I think it had a strength to it. Yeah. And this isn’t my words, but like, I had a third person in the room with me on this and afterwards I said, you know, how did you think that goes? And she goes, like, the person who was in there was like, oh dang, I thought at one point this, this guy’s not getting the work. Like it’s not, it’s not happening for you. And I was like, oh,
Wendy:
That’s, oh, as a contractor,
Terry:
I’m like, oh that’s interesting. I’m like, so like my vulnerability actually did come through as a strength. Like it was like
Wendy:
The boundary, like you could feel that the boundary was about to be set. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not that because you were flexing, because you were expressing that you were scared the project wasn’t gonna be, you know
Terry:
Yeah.
Wendy:
Done like you wanted it to.
Pam:
Yeah. That’s a good, it’s such a good example of letting your courage lead and, and that’s, you know, because that’s where, where courage is found is when you’re afraid. And so you let your courage speak to your fear.
Wendy:
Right.
Pam:
And in the group, which is just brilliant and it, you know, it it it real, I think it’s such a good example cuz it’s what brings people in rather than pushes them away.
Wendy:
Exactly. Yeah. Well look, let’s, let’s go ahead and into that Pam. You know, these are concepts that we cover in depth in our Freedom to Be course, which our next one, next one by the way is March 24th in beautiful, sunny San Diego. Make sure you guys go check that out. I think by the time this airs we’ll have the registration page up, but freshstartfamilyonline.com/freedomcourse. But talk to us about the five emotions, right. That we, we cover in Freedom to Be and just not like a super deep dive, but the, just the overarching idea of like what is on the other side. So you mentioned courage being on the other side of scared and using courage Yeah. To like drive your behavior, but what, maybe speak real quick to the five.
Pam:
So it’s mad, sad, afraid hurt and happy and with mad when you, you know, there’s a process to learn how to move that feeling through and out of you. That’s the embodiment piece. So, you know, sort of like what Terry was saying, it’s acknowledging that, oh, it’s in my body. I can feel that he was, you know, nobody else could see, but he was pointing to, you know, his heart. And so I, I think we all have a place in our body where we notice it. So with mad for example, you feel that feeling through. Then what’s on the other side of mad is actually the inner strength that gives you the firm kind way to set a boundary to ask for what you want and, and get it, you know, to, to be able to say no and mean it, you know, and have it heard.
Wendy:
It’s so good in parenting.
Pam:
Yeah.
Wendy:
Because it’s a totally different execution when you actually feel mad in a, in a healthy way and then act with your children. Okay, awesome. That’s mad.
Pam:
Yeah. Because your projection of mad can instill fear, so
Wendy:
Yes.
Pam:
You know, and, and then you’re, you’re operating from triggers. So the next one is sad. Sad is so important because not everybody emotes tears when they’re sad. A lot of people do, a lot of people cry when they’re mad too. So, and afraid and happy. So tears are not an indication that yeah, tears are not an indication that you’re just sad. And so it’s important to understand what sad feels like. And, and, and once you embody sad or feel it in your body, what you’ll recognize on the other side is how much you care and exactly what you care about.
Sad is linked to care. And so rather than try and get somebody to stop crying or stop feeling sad, how about getting curious about what they care about? And then the next one is afraid, which we did cover, but afraid takes a lot of strength to feel. And the reason it, it feels like it takes so much strength to feel is because when you’re feeling it, what you’re doing is accessing your courage. Courage is born in afraid. Courage isn’t just something that you, nobody has access courage without fear. So, so I think it’s just important for people to understand that the, and normalize fear and then hurt is what’s important about hurt.
And, and I think hurt is something that you begin dealing with, with a little bit older kids and adults for sure. And that’s when you feel hurt by somebody’s action or inaction. And what’s important about hurt is that you, the way that you learn to love yourself is to nourish and affirm and nurture your own hurt. It’s like a way to say, I love you to you. So rather than try and get somebody else to stop hurting you or doing what it what they did to stop hurting you, you need to first acknowledge that and nurture that for yourself.
Yeah. And, and then when, you know, we also, I wanna say here, because a lot of parents listen when we go into the school system and we work with second, you know, second through fifth graders rather than hurt, we don’t really focus on that so much because they don’t have a relationship to that as well as they have a relationship to embarrassed. And, and I think, you know, as adults, we definitely do whatever it takes to avoid feeling embarrassed. But what we teach kids is that embarrassment is something everybody feels, everybody has an experience of embarrassment.
So it’s an opportunity to strengthen belonging in the moment that you feel embarrassed that you’re not alone. We even teach the kids how to be present to someone who’s embarrassed or how to ask for presence when you are.
Wendy:
Hmm. That’s so cool.
Pam:
And then finally, I think happy, the, the normalization of happy is that it’s, it is triggered by outside circumstances, just like every other feeling
Wendy:
False!
Pam:
And so when when you feel happy throwing out, you can begin to understand that appreciation, joy, gratitude, all of that lives inside of you.
Wendy:
Yeah. It’s, it’s not the outside experience that’s necessarily causing the joy sometimes. I mean it can be, right? Like it can be,
Pam:
It’s a trigger. Yeah. It triggers your joy.
Wendy:
Yeah. Yeah. But it’s so much of a thought pattern behind it too. Right? Right. Like, I’m learning so much about this in like my mo emotional eating and drinking journey, like working on like not having a second glass of wine some nights, cuz some nights I just wanna have one. And I’ve been working on like, it’s not the wine that is triggering the happiness, it’s your thought pattern. Like, I’m gonna sit down on this couch and I’m gonna relax and it’s gonna be amazing and I’m gonna watch America’s Funniest Videos with Terrin. And it’s like, that’s what causes the happiness, not the actual liquid in a container. Right, right. But it’s like the same thing, right? Like yes. If you have someone compliment you that your kid’s like well-behaved and amazing, you think that’s what causes the happiness.
But really it’s like your own thoughts about your children and being just able to catch those thoughts. I don’t know, it’s, it’s so fascinating. They’re all very fascinating to look at. I definitely feel like hurt is the one that is, has been the longest journey for me and a lot of our students in the Fresh Start Experience to help them understand what to do with that one. Cause it is, it is like, it’s just so fascinating, right? Like the idea of like, it’s a really to let that pass and then you bring, it brings in forgiveness and grace. And then it’s, it’s a fascinating segue into looking at how our feelings and our thoughts are so interconnected. So this is where the tones come in, right?
Again, which we do a ton of work around in the Freedom to Be weekend course and is just life changing. When you understand that so many times, it’s almost tones to, in my opinion, almost come out as like a little bit of a passive aggressive way to express your emotions. But at the same time, you’re suppressing your emotions and you’re not actually asking for what you want, you’re just using this tone, but, and people can feel it, right? Like people can feel it so clearly, but so like all the tones that, you know, the tones that we cover and we teach about some highlighted more than others, but we, we look at angry, disappointed tone. We look at disgusted and complaining.
We look at irritated and annoyed. We look at frustrated, rushed, indecisive, dissatisfied, guilty and stressed tho those are the ones that we teach about in Freedom to Be. And a few of them we go really, really deep on. And again, it’s very life-changing. But let’s say for example, the irritated and annoyed one is, is so fascinating to me because it is a tone, but people say, I feel irritated and annoyed, right? So, so it’s like we think it’s a feeling, but it is a self-induced feeling that is a result of the thoughts, right? And so
Pam:
Yes
Wendy:
This will spin us the freak out like it, and then, then you’re causing yourself to go crazy, right? So it’s like there’s so many, that’s why I find the tones and the emotions so fascinating because once you start to understand how the tones show up, and maybe we can just speak to irritated and annoyed first, then you realize that you have so much power to change your experience in even a very challenging situation or when you were triggered just by being able to redirect your own thoughts, which so many people think that they’re like, we almost feel like we’re victims to our own minds. Like, you can’t control your mind. Well actually we can, right?
Like, but it’s just such a process that requires courage and learning.
Pam:
First of all, you, you can’t control your thinking. I think that that’s important for people to understand your thoughts. What, 50 to 75,000 a day? You don’t have time to control that many thoughts. You got other things to do. So you don’t even want to take on the job of controlling your thoughts. What you want to do is decide if you wanna engage in that thought or not. And I think a lot of us engage with thoughts that we don’t even recognize we’re engaging with. So for example, somebody does something that causes me to feel annoyed. The process on that is normally to just start engaging more in the thinking about why I’m so annoyed and even, you know, just enhancing that, right?
Yeah. Building upon it, catastrophizing it even. But rather than take the U-turn that says, okay, if I’m in charge right now and they’re doing something, you know, I may not like what they’re doing. You know, I may not like that my kids are, you know, wrestling over in the, in the corner because I know what always happens when that, you know,
Wendy:
We freaking know.
Pam:
We do know. But the thing is, is that me projecting my annoyance is not going to be what solves the, the problem either. Because the thing is, is that I’m the one who’s creating the annoying, annoying feeling. And so what do I need to, you know, I need to first recognize that I feel annoyed. Yes. And I’m in charge of that. Yeah. So what do I wanna do in order to feel differently?
Wendy:
And, and it’s almost the idea of like thinking that like somebody else is driving us crazy versus us realizing that the thoughts that we’re engaging with, which honestly are very negative. Like it’s always a story, right? Like it’s a story about how these kids are crazy and the house is never peaceful, like just taking the wrestling one and they never freaking listen. And they’re always gonna, they always end up hurting each other. And everybody else has kids that just sit still and yours are constantly fighting like the, it’s the story and the thoughts that become like wildfire, right?
Pam:
Yeah.
Wendy:
And so you end up driving yourself crazy instead of just having like a really aware, like a heightened awareness to like what’s happening inside of you, like where you feel it in your body and then realizing that you do have the power to engage with different thoughts. Cuz they’re, they’re, they’re there like you, you can find them, right? Like sometimes it feels like such a task to be like, I’m gonna be positive here. Well, they’re healthy boys and they’re, you know, they’re, they’re, they’re getting their energy out and it’s, you know, but at the same time, right? Like we, we do have the ability to like,
Pam:
Well that’s called bypassing by the way.
Wendy:
I know, right? That’s, yes.
Pam:
That’s a great example of what bypassing is, which a lot of people do.
Wendy:
Yeah.
Pam:
You know, like that’s the way that I’m gonna change my tone is to pretend like I don’t feel that way. But it doesn’t, it doesn’t work. The thing that works is to really go inward because, you know, and my, it really, and what I’m was referring to, my annoyance wasn’t the problem. My annoy what’s really going on is that I’m afraid of them hurting each other. Well, that’s my fear. They look like they’re doing fine. So maybe I need to, maybe I need to leave the room and let them learn how to work on it. Or maybe I need to say to them, Hey guys, this scares me.
Wendy:
Yeah.
Pam:
You know, like, it, it, it’s a whole different conversation that you have when you’re being truthful with yourself rather than trying to get them to be different so that you feel okay.
Wendy:
Yeah. So it’s like the idea of practicing serenity as far as asking for what you want is so much more powerful to get anyone around you to like, you know, be influenced by what you want. Yeah. I’m laughing because I’m like, God, gimme the perfect example. Last night night I was like stuck in irritation and annoyance last night and it was a hundred percent not Terry’s fault. And like, that’s what’s so beautiful about this work is you, once you do it enough, like you realize like I, you know, have it at the end of our notes to talk about it, but I’ll just say it now, like after your, after increasing your emotional literacy skills, like you end up in the end feeling empowered, self-reliant, clear, creative, like dignified, that’s kind of a weird word, but like of integrity and dignity.
Even if you’re not perfect when you’re like having a trigger or a flare up or something hopeful that the light will return responsible in a good way and calm. And last night, like I just got kind of spun out in a little bit, stuck in like an irritated and annoyed tone. And although I’m sure it didn’t feel good, Terry, like the whole time I realized that it wasn’t Terry’s fault that I was feeling that way. Like it was my own journey to like be able to get to Serenity without blaming him. Like it was so silly, he was like late for a thing and then it was like Stella was late for a thing and then it was like the rest of the night I just kept like spinning out in my story of like, well I can’t relax now and blah blah blah.
And I’m like, but I kept catching myself all night going like, look at that, like you’re really, wow. But I couldn’t quite bring myself to come to Terry and be like, I love you. This is all me honey. Like, don’t even worry. But I didn’t lash out. I didn’t like, you know, but I, but yet I was just having an experience last night as I was just watching myself, if that makes sense. So it’s not like I’m a master at this yet. And it sure feels a whole hell of a lot better than being horribly unkind or like, you know, like I do have a tendency with to withdraw. And that is a question that I had for you, Pam, of like, sometimes, you know, when you have this surge of emotions or, and you’re trying to avoid like using tones that are disrespectful and un ineffective, ineffective.
Like how do you balance the, like I love to be alone sometimes, like those people who feel like they’re a little bit of an introvert, right? And I know when you have little kids sometimes that it feels impossible, but for me it’s so life giving when you like, can be alone for a little bit to like talk to yourself, but yet have it not come across as a punishment for others.
Pam:
I think that the practice there is to maybe at times when you’re not charged, you say, you know that I, I’m gonna get into a practice of maybe taking care of myself at times and removing myself from the situation so that I can have a conversation. So in the moment you don’t, you still don’t wanna get into the habit of just walking away. I think that you have to start accessing the courage to say, this is one of those times that I can’t seem, seem to get myself out of it and I want to, and so I, I need to remove myself.
You know, like even how you’re talking about you didn’t, you know, you didn’t say, I know it’s me. Like you didn’t verbalize something to Terry last night, even though you kind of knew that you knew internally. Yeah. That’s what was going on. Well I guarantee you probably there’s maybe the next time or the time after that you will start doing that. Yeah. Because you have that awareness and then once you have that awareness, you, the literacy part is gonna be to start practicing doing the very thing that you learned. We learn how to read and we read, you know, like that we, we learn how to express ourselves vulnerably and then we express ourselves vulnerably.
Wendy:
Yes. That’s, that’s so beautiful. The overstimulation in life can so add to the emotions and the tones that we use, right? And yesterday was one of those examples, I was like, shit, I worked myself too far and then when things didn’t go perfect at the end of the day I was already overwhelmed. And so, like again, just the general pendulum swing to just taking responsibility feels actually so empowered when you stop thinking that it’s other people’s fault and like everything when it comes to like feeling uncomfortable emotions sometimes if they just change then you change. It’s like that’s the core of what we do at Freedom to Be, right. And in the end, even though you still have uncomfortable moments and you’re not a perfect human, it feels more powerful to realize that you can work on yourself.
You can learn from how you behaved and how you didn’t behaved and, and find the courage to do it next time. Keep practicing rather than relying on the kids to ne stop wrestling or like they’re never to be a challenge at dinner time or whatever it may be. So to me it’s just been a very empowering process to to like, maybe it’s cuz I’m such a power person, but I like to be in charge of myself. I like, but when I feel like I’m trying, I’m waiting for somebody else to change in order to be happy or not feel stressed or angry or sad or scared or hurt, I’m just like, oh my gosh, this is a nightmare.
Hey listeners, one last quick pause just to remind you that if you haven’t joined the email list, I wanna make sure that you head on over to freshstartfamilyonline.com, grab our most popular free learning guide, How to Raise Strong-Willed Kids with Integrity so You Don’t Lose Your Mind. That’ll pop you onto your email list and I wanna make sure that I can be in communication with you. So when registration is open for our biggest event of the year, our free new year kickstart program that starts on January 30th, registration will open usually around January 15th or so. And I wanna make sure that you get the invite to that and that you don’t miss the opportunity to come hang out live with me, to learn with me, to be in community with other like-minded parents.
This free five day mini course is going to give you a solid understanding of the root causes of misbehavior so you can redirect your kids towards better behavior and do it in a way where you use compassion and dignity and connection, empathy and firm kind limits. So you really feel proud of the way you parented when you lay your head on your pillow at night. Okay? So I don’t want you to miss this invitation. We don’t quite have the registration link ready yet, but once we do, we will be emailing that information out. We will of course let you know on the podcast here too, but it’s just best if you can make sure that you’re on our email list so we can definitely be in communication with you.
Okay? So again, hop on over to the website, freshstartfamilyonline.com, grab our most popular free learning guide about How to Raise Strong-Willed Kids with Integrity, and then I’ll be in communication via email and I will make sure that you personally get an invitation to join us for the free new year kickstart program that we will get started on January 30th.
Okay. Back to the show.
Pam:
I wanna speak if, if it’s all right for a second to overwhelm, cuz you’ve mentioned it. Yes, I think that it is, you know, I, I’ve just heard it a lot too in my coaching and, and I think that overwhelm is one of those things that needs to be unwound. So overwhelm is, is truly because you have not been taken care of whatever it is that you’re overwhelmed about in the mo you know, in the moment that you started the process, in the moment that you felt rushed or you felt stressed, you know, that’s a good time to take care of it. But if you don’t, then at one point there is a tipping point and you’re gonna think it’s because you’re overwhelmed by what just happened.
But the reality is, is you just haven’t been taking care of yourself and your feelings along the way.
Wendy:
Mm. That’s a, that’s a really good, I just wanna repeat that. You haven’t been taking care of yourself and your feelings along the way, right? So like for example, yesterday when I, like last night when I had that like triggered night of just being in like a little bit of a funk, I may be exercising and I actually did take a hot bath last night cuz I couldn’t shake my headache until I did that. Like those type of things, taking care of my body and myself. But taking care of yourself in regards to your feelings, right? Like I’ve had like just a lot of strong emotions on like the business front. Like a lot of things that like fresh new, like amazing big things that are going on behind the scenes at Fresh Start Family that I probably haven’t been slowing down to.
Like just be with those right feelings. Right? I had a really cool conversation with Mendy Klein who we both know through, you know, met him a few years ago through a Your Infinite Life workshop and he was telling me the story about a few days ago and about about how, you know, he got this, he was going on his way to to do a workshop and he got this phone call and something happened. It was like this either bad news or it was a triggering conversation, and it was so cute to imagine him doing this, but he is like, I just went, and instead of, I had like an hour before my workshop, and instead of calling my wife or doing anything, I just went to a coffee, like a deli or a coffee shop or restaurant. And I just sat there and I, he might have had a cup of coffee and he’s like, I just felt my emotions for like an hour.
And I’m like, he might have said a few hours. And I’m like, dang, Mendy, that’s amazing. And he just, just like that. It was such a great example of like, that’s a way to take care of yourself. Like you’re not meditating. Like you may not even be praying in the moment. Like you’re just, oh, interesting. Like you’re just being aware of it all, like processing, moving it. Like we teach you how to do in Freedom to Be, and you know, in all of our work at Fresh Start Family. But I just thought that was a cool story. And then he said, and then it was, you know, an hour or two later and I felt like, okay, I can move forward with teaching this workshop now I feel my body is settled.
And he’s a breathwork practitioner, so I’m sure he was doing breathing too, and then he was able to move on. But it’s like a way to take care of yourself is just to get good at identifying, feeling your emotions, and then moving on with like life, but to stop and pause and not, and he actually said like, I could have not taught that workshop that night. Like in his mind I could tell it was like an option to cancel. Like I, I’m still at the point of my life where I’m like, I could never cancel. Like, you push, you push, you show up at that workshop. And he said, he was like, well, I could have canceled. It’s my own workshop. I’m like, wow. So,
Terry:
So a bunch of things show up for me, like in here, like, you know, not necessarily about like your example of yesterday, but like, and I don’t think this is a guy thing either. I think this is like a society go-getter type of thing of like, you know, we are either setting expectations for ourselves or somebody is setting some expectations for us. Oftentimes those things are very ambitious. We’re going for it. We’re like, that’s what you’re supposed to do. We go for it. But it’s not a societal norm to allow for little gaps in there to do these, these feelings or take care of yourself or to like, do these things.
And I think some people like myself is like, oh, well, well if you allowed that 45 minutes in the morning to work out, well that’s taking care of yourself. But it’s like, but what about the, the moments in the, the day when it something else comes up and you just need to pause, feel your feelings, get yourself back up, and then keep going. Like, I don’t think we allow ourselves any slack any minute in there. And then the moment something doesn’t get done on the list, well then the day was a failure. You go into this negative self-talk and then you just, it just compounds from there. So it’s like, I think there’s this, like, there needs to be more of a norm and and habit forming around Yeah.
Anytime you ramp your expectations up for whether it’s your day, your month or whatever, like where are you putting gaps in there so that you can like be okay with taking care of yourself. Because I don’t think for a lot of people that that goes hand in hand at all.
Pam:
Yeah, it a good point.
Terry:
It’d be like, it’d be like running a triathlon and being like, I don’t have time to stop for water.
Pam:
Yeah. It is exactly like that.
Terry:
Right. My, my not gonna get my socks, not gonna get a hole in it. Ah, if I get a flat tire, I’m just gonna keep going. No,
Wendy:
That was a good analogy, Terry.
Terry:
Not like, you’re not like
Wendy:
Exactly.
Terry:
If you think you’re, you’re kidding yourself and then you’re just gonna sit there and, and just be riding on a flat tire saying like, what a failure this is. It’s like, no. Like you ju you gotta just take care of yourself.
Wendy:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think this conversation reminds us that it doesn’t always, especially when you have young kids, right? Like 98% of our listeners have young kids, they’re in a busy season of life. And then you add marriage and career and all the things this year’s triple-demic. Like, I’m like, what the hell? Oh my gosh. But it doesn’t always look like sitting down and like meditating and like being like, I’m gonna go. It’s just like, this can be what we’re talking about as far as emotional literacy. When you really learn about it, it can become a constant way of life, right? That you just as you’re driving them to school, or after you drop your kids off at preschool, or you hang up from a meeting, or you actually get everyone in bed and you go to brush your teeth.
Like these can be things that you’re integrating into your self-care practice that are just, you’re, you’re talking to yourself, you’re listening to yourself, right? Like more Pam knows I’m so good at talking to myself, but I don’t know if I’m good at listening. I’m, I’m working, I’m working on listening. But these are things that just become a way of life. Like, and that’s where fluency comes in and you just, it just starts to become more of a way of life. And that’s what we wanna encourage you guys to, to really focus on in 2023. And of all of our programs here at Fresh Start Family will help you do that. The Fresh Start Experience will just give you the consistency and community and coaching on, on a like day-to-day basis to be able to, to do that.
And then the Freedom to Be Weekend, you guys, I mean, it is, it’s life-changing. We can’t speak enough to it. Terry and I both just had such beautiful transformational results, you know, a decade ago when we first went through it. And now it’s just such an honor to teach that program with you, Pam. So come hang out with us listeners, come hang out with us. Let’s increase some emotional literacy this year. Let’s learn about how, how our emotions really have a play into what tones we use. We are at choice with what tones we use. Once we become more aware with what tones we use, we can become more effective in our relationships and influencing others, especially our children.
Come learn with us about open and closed behaviors. We didn’t quite get into that today cuz we talked about so many other beautiful things. But that’s another thing we do at the Freedom to Be Weekend course is we teach you like how these emotions often come into play and cause those kind of knee-jerk reactions sometimes. Not that the emotions cause them, but there are behaviors that we have that we later regret. And so we do a lot of work around Freedom to Be. So whether that’s yelling at your kids, withdrawing, you know, freaking out, grabbing wrists too tight, threatening, whatever it may be. Like everybody has closed behaviors and they’re related to your emotions or related to your thought patterns and will teach you all about that and Freedom to Be.
But yeah, March 24th, you guys come hang out with us in beautiful, sunny San Diego. Go check it out. freshstartfamilyonline.com/freedomcourse. This has been so fun, Pam. Thank you for being here. Thank you Terry for being part this conversation.
Terry:
You’re welcome. And so much, and even if you don’t have kids or you’re not experiencing some of those things that Wendy just listed with your kids, you definitely have a relationship in your life that will benefit greatly from diving into this type of space. I’m not even gonna call it work because work sounds like it’s a, it’s beautiful. It’s so, it’s like, you know, taking yourself to the 2.0 version of yourself, you literally will walk around a new version of yourself more in tune to who you really are and who you were designed to be.
Wendy:
And closer to God, right? Like, I feel like our relationship with God has been so strengthened by this work too.
Terry:
All of it. I mean, I remember coming out of
Wendy:
Calling it work. Oh my gosh,
Terry:
Not calling it work. Not calling it work. Sorry. Experience. Yeah. I, I remember coming out of a, a weekend and I was like, what’s that smell?
Wendy:
Oh yeah.
Terry:
Yeah, yeah. What’s that sound like? I feel like my senses like increase, and I know that sounds all like woowoo or whatever, but like, it just meant like I was, I I wasn’t as like captive to like those 50,000 thoughts that went through. I was actually just more present and at that moment able to just be more like myself.
Wendy:
I remember that you were like, that’s why you, I can smell my surfboard wax like crazy. Like my, like everything was clear. Like that’s why I said like, those, those feelings you have when you come away from this, this doing this type of learning or Freedom to Be is like that’s one of ’em on my list was clear. Like you’re very clear. Like the cobwebs get almost like pulled away and you just feel so like in line with who you are. You can smell better, you can feel better, you can love better, you can forgive better, you can have show compassion easier. Like everything is just so naturally like more smooth with the way you were designed after you come out of those weekends.
Terry:
Yeah. You’re like a parenting ninja.
Pam:
The one thing I wanna just have, leave everybody with from, from me is that the concept that a settled body settles bodies and that, you know, you in our, in our weekends and in our classes, you’re gonna take deeper dives to get those really nagging places that you’re challenged with. But on a daily, hourly moment to moment basis, you can actually just give yourself a minute or 30 seconds to stop and s focus on your body. What am I feeling right now? Do I need a deep breath? You know, do I need a glass of water? Do I need a drink of water?
Just in that moment it will settle your body and we underestimate how valuable that is. And the more often we do it, the more settled we’ll be and that will be modeled to the people around you.
Wendy:
Yeah. And we all desperately want settled children.
Pam:
Yes.
Terry:
Amen. And I think just the decision too, to invest in yourself and your own wellbeing, just making that decision and saying yes is one of the greatest things you can do.
Wendy:
Seriously, Terry, I love you. Well, you guys, thank you Pam. Now listeners,
Pam:
you’re welcome.
Wendy:
Of course, like Pam’s, we’re gonna be teaching together at the end of March in beautiful San San Diego. We have an online Freedom to Be that we do in the fall, but then Pam, through your Infinite Life, you guys make sure you go check out all of her work. She has a beautiful podcast called 10 Minutes Infinite Wisdom, is that correct?
Pam:
That’s correct.
Wendy:
Yep. Podcast on all the platforms. And maybe just end us real quick with, with all all that you have available where you, where you want listeners to go find you individually with your infinite life because your infinite life, you guys, is a wonderful supplemental learning and consistent program to be involved with in addition to Fresh Start Family.
Pam:
It’s so true. So we have lots of opportunities to just work on yourself. So if you go to your infinitelifeonline.com there, you know, we send out weekly inspirations, like you said, we have a couple different types of podcasts that you can listen to and lots of different offerings, you know? Yeah. So yeah, check us out.
Wendy:
Yay. All right, you guys. Well, thanks for listening and come see us at Freedom to Be. We love you so much, Pam.
Pam:
Thank you.
Wendy:
All right, families, that’s a wrap. I hope you love today’s episode as much as I loved recording it for you. If you don’t follow me yet over on Instagram, make sure you come find me. I’m @FreshStartWendy. I love to show up over on that platform in just a really real, authentic, vulnerable way so you guys can get to know me kind of more on a day-to-day basis on, you know, what I’m, what I’m doing with my kids and what I’m, I’m loving. You know, I often share books that I’m enjoying reading or faith practices like right now at the time of this recording, I’m really loving some of the advent resources that I found recently.
And I also do a ton of free education and tips over there in kind of bite size formats, right? So I’ll share reels or informational posts that are just quick little hits to inspire you. And so it’s just a fun place to hang out with me, and I really think it’s also a great way to be able to message one another. I enjoy doing voice memos sometimes for students or for listeners of the podcast f you know, Fresh Start Family Show over there. And so please come find me. Okay. I’m also going to be sharing a lot about the free Kickstart program that starts on January 30th. Once registration is live, I will make sure that I share links for you to be able to go save your seat and get registered for that incredibly life changing event that we’re gonna be starting in late January.
And so it’s just a, it’s just really good to make sure you are following me and that you’re in communication with me over there. All right, once again, I’m @freshstartwendy, over on Instagram. Thanks so much for listening. I appreciate every single one of you who cares so much about your family and your kids, and for your support of Fresh Start Family and the Fresh Start Family Show.
For links and more info about everything we talked about in today’s episode, head to freshstartfamilyonline.com/153.
Stella:
For more information, go to freshstartfamilyonline.com. Thanks for listening, families, have a great day.
