On this episode of The Fresh Start Family Show, Wendy is showing up in her most vulnerable episode yet. During an intense healing season, she’s found some truths and discoveries that had been hidden for 3 decades! There is so much healing that comes through not hiding away from it, but rather facing it head on and letting go of shame. 

This episode will help US all see how we also can: 

• Use our children’s misbehavior to ask ourselves – what life skill are they developing that we also need help with, but are scared to admit it? 
• Focus on ourselves, which actually helps us to be able to teach them better & influence their behavior more easily 
• Confront any shame or fear of shame we may have buried down deep that we were using as an excuse to think we’re not enough, or something’s wrong with us, or we’re not capable, etc. 
  
  

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*How to work WITH your kids instead of forcing them to comply or trying to MAKE them change

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Episode Highlights:

Resources Mentioned:

Essentialism by Greg McKeown

Effortless  by Greg McKeown

Kill the Spider by Carlos Whittaker

FSF Show Ep. 90 with Carlos Whittaker 

FSF Show ep 55 with Chrissy Powers

Colin Farrell & Brendan Gleeson Interview

Scripture God brought to Terry’s heart: Romans 13: 10-15 

Amy Porterfield / Gabby Bernstein episode pod

Carlos Whittaker Podcast on Porn, Losing His Family, Hidden Sin and the Battle Back

Oprah Winfrey article on abuse

Jenna Kutcher health episodes

Psalm 23
Dr. Amen – Instagram videos on alcohol

Running on Empty – Jackson Brown Song –

Daylight (Stripped) song – Jordy Searcy –

Light Church Encinitas – https://www.lightsandiego.com/

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Not able to listen or want to read along with us?
Here is the episode transcript!

This episode has been brought to you by the Fresh Start, family Live Fast Track Cooperation Workshop happening on Saturday, April 22nd from eight to 11:00 AM Pacific details and registration info coming soon. So if you’re not on our email list yet, be sure to grab our quick Start learning bundle at freshstartfamilyonline.com/free to hop on our email list so I can send you a personal invitation to the April 22nd event.

Wendy:
Well, hello listeners. I’m so happy you are here for a new episode. I’m your host, Wendy Snyder, positive parenting educator and family life coach, and I’m recording this intro on one of the rainiest days we’ve had here in San Diego lately, which is just so fitting because this probably is the most vulnerable and open podcast I’ve ever recorded. And rain falling heavily just feels like it represents some of the shame and pain that is being cleansed in my own heart, body and mind right now as I navigate every day of this precious life with breath in my lungs.

So right now as I’m recording this, it is the beautiful season of Lent. As those of us who are Christians, we look at some of the darkness and pain that’s existed and happened leading up to the resurrection of Jesus and every dang year. It’s amazing. It’s like clockwork. God just tills my soil, so to speak, in the most beautiful way different ways every single year during these few weeks, he just, I, I make the analogy, or I have a vision of him kind of just pulling out some weeds in my life that are toxifying my garden that I call life, right? Kind of prepping me for the new life he’s prepared and fresh start that he’s called me into.

And so this year, specifically over the last month especially, it feels like God has just reached into the depths of my spirit and grabbed a giant bunch of toxic weeds and just yanked it out of me with wild abandon. I was super shaken at first, but now I’m settling into the feeling of total peace and joy and gratitude. And so I’ve just been feeling vibrant, which is the word that I’ve identified for 2023 that I want to encompass in all areas of my life. I’ve been feeling vibrant and healthy and just full of hope about a more settled soul moving forward.

Because surprise, surprise, I know I’m a positive parenting educator and family life coach, and I’m a very po, I’m a, I really am like naturally just a very positive, optimistic person. And I’ve got my own struggles, right? Like we all do. I, I often have my students, you know, they’re like, gosh, I just wanna be Wendy when I grow up, or I just wanna be you or I, I want bracelets that say, what would Wendy do? And I just laugh and I’m like, I get it. I have mentors that I look up to and respect so much, and I’m just human, just like you guys. I’m going through stuff and I’m learning just like you guys are, right? That’s the beauty of life as we all are learning. So during the season of Lent this year, every tear and every raindrop, I really, I’m pretty sure that we’re gonna have a record this year for the rainiest winter San Diego has ever had.

Really, the most precipitation that I think I think California has ever had are local mountains. I mean, they’re like, it’s crazy this year, the amount of snow and precipitation that has come out of the heavens, but every tear and every raindrop that’s been happening over the last few weeks really does feel like shame and emotional stuckness is just falling off of me, which feels so good. So a lot of this episode is about healing through the mirror, and it’s gonna be about all that stuff, right, of what I’ve been experiencing. You’ll get to hear just my story about what’s been happening inside of my soul lately. But really at its core, besides you guys being let in on my story and, and what’s been happening for me, this episode is about what can happen with healing, growth, and connection when you allow your child’s misbehavior to invite you into an honest assessment of possible life skills that you yourself have not mastered yet, or behavior is that you may have, that you’re really hard on yourself about, or really scared to admit that you struggle with, that your child is now presenting before you as a misbehavior or a mistake or a challenge.

There’s just so much beauty parents, when you stop trying to fix your kid and instead look inward to ask yourself, what is it that I need support with so I can really teach from a place of modeling, empowerment and grace? What is it that I need so I can heal and make moves in my own behaviors in life, but do it from a place of empowerment, not shame, right? I, I know so many of you, especially once you find fresh start family, you fall in love with the idea of, of changing your ways, right? When you come into our Fresh Start Experience program, it’s pretty fast.

Is that right? You’ll realize like, oh dang, there’s a lot that I’m doing to contribute to the chaos in my home, right? There’s a lot that I’m doing saying the ways I’m disciplining, the way I’m communicating, the tones that I’m using, the yelling that I think that I have to do, whatever it may be, you, you learn fast. Like, oh wow, okay, I realize that I’m actually part of the problem and I don’t need to feel shameful about that. So really like finding this way to want to have change in your life, but not do it from shame, if that makes sense. You wanna do it from a place of empowerment. So thank you for holding space for my story today and for just listening without judgment.

Thank you for being a parent who cares about making humility, vulnerability, honesty, and bravery, the most admirable traits in our world. I truly believe they are superpowers. So I am leaning into them as I bring you this episode into your heart and ears. So without further ado, enjoy this episode and please, if it moves you or you get something unearthed in you that you had been hiding or suppressing, or even if you just have a major aha moment from what I share, please screenshot and share to Instagram tagging me I’m @freshstartwendy, and then shoot me a DM about why this episode blessed your heart.

I love chatting with you all in dms. It’s one of my favorite things to do. I will say that if you’re not on Instagram, it’s totally works too to just shoot me an email cuz I have this vision that this episode is gonna break some major chains off people’s lives. And I want to hear your story. Your story matters to me. What’s going on for you matters to me. So my email, [email protected]. I am always open arms to your messages, so please shoot me a message one way or another and share if this episode really moves you. And last thing, I’m gonna make sure that I link all the songs and scriptures and podcast episodes, et cetera, that God used to bring this lightning bolt of healing to me.

They all were these like what I see as like just these incredible earthly signals and representations of his guidance that I want you to have access to also. So look for those in the show notes. There’s quite a bit of them that just all of us, like within one week it was just like, boom. But you can always find the show notes for this episode over at freshstartfamilyonline.com/166. All right guys, enjoy this episode. And I love you all so much. Thank you so much for listening to the Fresh Start Family Show, and for helping us spread this beautiful message of connection firm and kind parenting and healthy relationships and homes across the world.

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 new families and welcome to a new episode of the Fresh Start Family Show. I’m your host, Wendy Snyder, positive parenting educator and family life coach. And today I have a really cool episode for you guys all about healing and new life because this time of year is like clockwork. Every year, God puts it on my heart right around Easter to record a new episode about my own healing journey. I’ve been on a healing journey for I guess quite some time since I found the work of Positive Parenting 13 years ago. For many, many years, I was just figuring out like how to make parenting more easy, right?

Or how to make parenting more joyful and how to get my amazing little strong-willed daughter to listen more and cooperate better. And through that I found the beautiful life coaching world and realized that there was a whole bunch of stuff that I didn’t quite realize was sitting underneath my tendencies to react or yell or blame my daughter for things. And so it was 13 years ago that I started on this healing journey that I just ended up falling in love with that I just, I got into these situations where I was learning and I just enjoyed it. I found joy in the journey. I found joy in being together with other people who wanted to become just different people in their lives and the way that they were currently showing up have, you know, different types of relationships with their kids.

I enjoyed being around people who had courage to learn and try new things and strengthen their families and end painful generational cycles really just all over the place. I loved it. So that was that journey. And you know, it took me, I don’t know, 5, 6, 7 years to become fluent with positive parenting. And then I kind of stepped into becoming an educator, right? And then it became all about learning how to be a really good entrepreneur, right? Learning how to be a great coach. Didn’t that one, that journey was like pretty, felt pretty fast for me. I had been doing the parenting work for so long that I was like, oh, I feel like I, I got this. Like I was fluent by that time. Once I became an educator, the actual coaching and teaching part was just so lovely and always felt really good.

Growing a business on the other hand just entered me into a whole different phase of healing and kind of, you know, exposed me to a lot of triggers, so to speak, that just caused me to really double down on my mentors and my personal growth journey. And so I founded Fresh Start Family five years ago. And so as I was coaching and teaching in my own town here in San Diego, California Encinitas, I was like, I just, I wanna preach this, I wanna preach this from the mountaintops. I wanna reach families all across the world. I don’t just wanna teach in my town. Nothing wrong with local teachers, love local teachers in your towns. We need more local positive parenting teachers in towns across the world.

But for me, I just felt this huge calling to create this like very large educational platform. So every single pa parent on the planet could learn and hear that they were at choice with they ra, with the way they raised their human little souls. I just had such a big vision and dream, which set me forth with my dream to create fresh Start family. And here we are five years later and we have a pretty big organization. We have families from over 15 countries now represented in our membership program, and we’ve helped thousands and thousands and thousands of parents and families and children thrive. But the last five years especially, it, it correla, it correlated right when I turned 40.

The forties are definitely like such an interesting phase of life where I think you just become, so if you’re in our type of spaces, fresh shirt, family, fresh shirt experience type of spaces, you just, it often is like a huge learning phase of life where you get so much wisdom, but there’s also just so much newness and just lots of obstacles to overcome. And so for me that was kind of like my, this has been my second journey of healing, if that makes sense. And it was very like internally based. And what I realized is there was just a lot around shame that I got my eyes open to. And so I’ve just been on this like digging path to figure it out. So this year the growth and the healing has been pretty darn profound.

So it’s whatever, February 20 something and yeah, this year and really the last two weeks. And so like I do, I’m here to share it with you because I just have, I’ve always felt like my main mission in life is to be a conduit of light to others. It’s my jam. It’s what motivates me, motivates me every day to do my work and to parent in the way that I do, to love my husband the way that I do my, my friends and family like I do. Like learning to let, for me, God’s light shine through me has been a journey to say the leach least, which means I’m human. Like we’re all human and we’re all on one giant journey called life with twists and turns and rainbows and butterflies and potholes and blizzards and moments of absolute bliss, right?

But for all of us, I really believe that there isn’t necessarily an arrival where you’re like, okay, I’m, I’m perfectly operating in the world exactly how I want to. I’m showing up. Everything’s aligned. I’m perfectly here. I’m perfectly here. Like perfection just does not exist, right? I really believe that God keeps chiseling us in my experience, in my faith journey, it’s looked like I just feel like he keeps chiseling me to be more and more like Jesus. The more I hang in there, the more I just stay connected to him. Now, I will preface like as you guys are listening to this, like, you know, feel free when I say God, Jesus, like you can replace it with your own things like the universe, like nature, like a higher sense of being whatever you connect with, right?

For me, I’m gonna, I’m gonna share my story through my faith lens, right? And just remember that you, you can still have inspiration and divine guidance and have it come in your own, you know, unique way. But I’ve learned that this journey is a sacred one and also a beautiful one. No matter if it’s a super challenging day where I’m like breaking old thought patterns and painful generational cycles, or if I’m celebrating something joyous or a spot I’ve done something that I’m really, you know, super inspired by and feel brave and like I succeeded. I think when you find joy in the journey, I believe the real magic of life starts to shine through no matter what comes your way.

So I’ll be, like I said, sharing today from a pretty faith pers- like a centered perspective, meaning for me, like everything in my life come like good comes from God. I believe that I am really co-creating the life of my dreams as long as I, for me stay connected to Jesus. So, and divine guidance, like I just don’t believe in relying on myself to have all the answers. So that I just believe if I can stay on that path, I am going to in one way or another, like have my life shaped to be exactly what I want. So again, if you’re not a family of faith, just stay open. I know hearing someone talk about God when you’re, you’ve been harmed or intimidated or ridiculed or just completely disgusted by, you know, religion can feel daunting and you may be tempted to stop, push, stop on this episode, but I just want you to stay with me because I do faith differently than some of the organized religious circles that you have run from in the past.

Okay? So I just wanna say that and for every time, like I said, I say God or Jesus, you may feel more comfortable speaking of how you know you believe the universe is taking care of you. Or how looking for signals and signs in nature make you feel more comfortable as far as your guides go in the end like you do. You, you guys okay? But you are safe here and this is a story for all to hear because I do expect it’s going to going to break some pretty massive chains from people’s lives. All right? So I could have named this episode lots of different things. My healing journey, part three, healing through the mirror when your child’s misbehavior prompts healing within you looking inward to become a stronger parent or shedding shame.

But I chose healing through the mirror because this is really a story about how my child’s misbehavior prompted me to go within and really examine what was going on in my own life when I was my daughter’s age 30 years ago. Which is crazy to think now you guys, but also like it’s just been really cool to look at what has resulted from the experiences, the thought patterns and behaviors I had formed at the tender age of 14 that now have me living life the way I do at 45. So the effects of looking inward completely from me, guided by God, have been profound on my heart, my mind, and my soul, and has led me to feel like I’ve had the craziest surge of healing, leaving to me to feel renewed and refreshed and refocused and just freed from so much freaking shame, limiting beliefs and hiding, which in turn, ding, ding ding.

Which has put me in a more influential position as a mother and brought me closer to my family. So this episode you guys is to help you see how you can also A, use your child’s misbehavior to ask yourself what life skill are they developing and making, making mistakes with that I also need help with, but scared maybe to admit it. B, how can focusing on myself here as a parent actually cause me to be able to teach my kids better and influence their behavior more easily? Remember relationship plus rules equals respect.

Humility is a superpower. And then C, what shame or fear of shame am I burying deep freaking down using it as an excuse to think I’m not enough or something’s wrong with me or I’m not capable. So as I’m speaking and you’re asking yourself those questions, I just want to be present with you through this story. I’ve got my fresh start experience community of families from all over the world here with me today to hold space for my story and to provide that unconditional love that I know my community and team has for me. Because one of the biggest things isn’t that funny, I’m like, I have this surge of emotion when I think about this community cuz I love them so much.

And if you don’t have a community like that yet, you’ll have to get into one cuz it’s just the best feeling ever. Like one of the biggest things I’ve realized is that doing things alone, you guys is one way to do it, but it’s not the only way and it often is the harder way when you let people like really be there for you. It not only builds them up but it builds you up and it forms connections. So remember people love supporting one another. So why do we all cage up and act like we’re a burden to others or that our problems are too weird or heavy to share? Like why do we do that?

Well it’s because of the anticipation of shame. Just last week someone shared this quote with me in a business mentorship group I was in and it was awesome. It’s one that I’ve never heard of. I’m like, I’ve been doing this for a long time, I’ve never heard of this one. Fear can be seen as the anticipation of shame. I will repeat that. Fear can be seen as the anticipation of shame. Boom. So dang accurate. So how many of you can relate to that? I saw this come up a lot over the last few weeks as I’ve been spending a lot of time with my private Fresh Start Experience community inviting them into our Freedom to Be life coaching weekend course, which at the time of this recording is in just a few weeks.

So amazing. But by the time this episode actually airs to the public, we’ll have just finished that event with 20 amazing parents who gathered in sunny San Diego, California to expand their hearts, learn new tools to thrive in life and strengthen themselves and their families in a in-person life coaching weekend workshop with me on the Pacific Ocean. It’s gonna be so good. So, but a few families have expressed the same thing and I know it’s the biggest reason so many never step forward and actually get to the root cause of their yelling or their reactive tendencies or other destructive and exhausting patterns like overworking, rushing through life, perfectionist tendencies, extremely negative self-talk with withdrawing from conflict, feeling like a victim rage, anxiety, depression, like pick your poison, right?

Like we all have it. Like we all have something. Like there’s a, what is that statement? Like be kind to people cuz you never know what people are going through something like that. It’s so true, right? So today like, I’m gonna take a sip of water everyone please make sure that you have your headphones on today. Like I’ll be sharing a lot. I’m not gonna, you know, I’ll make sure I tick the box when I publish this episode as far as expletives or whatever. But this is a day where I, it’s just very important for me not to like be someone I’m not. Like I’m gonna say some words that you just wanna make sure you have your earbuds in your earbuds. Oh my gosh, my teenagers are so embarrassed when I say that.

AirPods or your things that you plug into your phone, people with wires attached to them, whatever that is. Yeah. So I just see like so many people anticipating shame and so they live in fear of like just hiding stuff or never getting the support that they need. So I thought today, fuck it, I’m just going to be an open book today. There are no walls. I want to tear them down. So I am fully aware that when I need to, I have mortar and paste and bricks to build up a wall of protection around me. And that is something that I’m like so passionate about teaching families. Like you have the ability to protect yourself when you need to.

If you feel like you’re not in a safe environment. I feel like what I’ve built here at Fresh Start Family, whether you listen to my podcast or you’re within my private community as one of my members, like I feel so safe here. So you know, it’s like as, as we saw at church yesterday, there’s a song called My Heart is an Open Space for You to Come and Have Your Way, Dear God, in order to stay in that posture, I can’t have, and I don’t want walls like light can’t permeate walls, I want to lower walls, I want to let people in and I refuse to close in. So we all have so many moments you guys, where we can’t express the deep emotions within us.

It makes us human to feel pain like that. There are just so many like wells of deep pain within if you are living as a human being and we all have it in moments. But I wanna model for you what it looks like to not suppress and hide that and to have total anticipation of a total rush of love and strengthened closeness with my community team, loved ones, neighbors, families, et cetera, instead of the anticipation of shame, right? Like it’s just not even on my radar, I just have total anticipation that this is just gonna be such a beautiful time together. But I really have decided, I think through this experience and through everything I’ve been doing over the last 15, 13 years of my life, that life is too short to hide, to sugarcoat or to be ashamed of anything and sugarcoating or appearing that everything is okay is something that I’ve gotten really freaking good at over the years, which I realized over the past few weeks is something I started doing the, like when I was a kid, you know, definitely around probably the ages of nine or 10, which I’m gonna tell you a little bit more about.

But for sure once I was my kids’ ages, especially my 15 year old and I have perfected this practice over the last 30 years and I, I’m a life coach, but it’s a, it’s a backbreaking heartbreaking practice of sugarcoating or appearing that all is good and it’s gotta go. So I think so many of us hide things or act like, oh yeah, that’s a little bit present, but look over here, everything is so good over here. Like I’m doing great, I’m killing it at life. I’m totally okay. Don’t worry about me, don’t let me burden you. Please don’t judge me. I’ll be fine kind of vibe. Can anyone relate?

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Quick pause on this episode. So I can tell you to mark your calendar for April 22nd from eight to 11:00 AM Pacific because I am hosting a fast track cooperation workshop that’s going to be pretty darn incredible parents. I’ll be teaching about holding to strong boundaries with connection and compassion and providing step-by-step guidance on my signature firm and kind framework so you can create a rhythm in your parenting walk that creates cooperation and respect instead of disconnection and stress. Registration is not quite open yet, but once it is, parents on my email list are the first to know and we will have limited seating due to the live q and a that I’ll be hosting at the end.

So if you’re not already on my email list, click on over to freshstartfamilyonline.com/free to grab our quick start learning bundle and you’ll be in good shape to get a personalized invitation to the fast track cooperation workshop as soon as registration is live.

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I’m fine. Like I can’t tell you how many times I hear that from people’s mouths who realize that their childhood included some jacked up stuff, but they say I’m fine. Like who wants to be fine? I don’t wanna be fine. Like I wanna be thriving in life, right? But I think we do this because of the anticipation of shame, which Brene Brown has quite literally proven through her research and gazillion books that shame is detrimental to human souls and keeps us stuck in destructive or joy limiting behaviors. There is no zero research out there and there are amazing social researchers.

There’s zero research that feeling like you’re a bad person is gonna make you be a better person tomorrow. It’s just not the case. So since sugarcoating or hiding or acting like everything is okay, when it’s not is often a sign of a sign of fear, which can be seen as the anticipation of shame. The path to healing equals trust. That honesty, openness and willingness is the path to not only healing but connection, deep connection. So over the last few days since one day when my child had a misbehavior that felt pretty big in the moment, God has just been connecting so many dots for me and guiding me so insanely clearly towards the direction he wants me to move in, which I believe is total healing, total thriving in life.

My deepest desires and hopes and dreams. And I believe he wants those to come true for me. Like I don’t think I’m meant to stop at like 85%, right? And what’s so cool is that I’ve been on this interesting journey over the last year probably, where I’m just starting to feel called in like new directions, new directions in my faith, like new directions in my relationship with Jesus like and to like keep doing this important work I feel called to, to like honor and lift his name on high, but like in different ways. But it’s been kind of scary for me and I felt myself like backstepping. Backstepping from some of like the more traditional evangelical circles I was part of, even though I love them fiercely, like fiercely some of the, some of the friends and people I’ve met over the years and pastors and just started asking God, like, just take me where you want me to go.

Like show me a new path if that’s your will. But it has felt very scary and new at times. And although I was worried like I was drifting from in my relationship with God, I realized that he was actually pulling me closer and teaching me to trust him even more. So I think that’s part of the reason why I’m beaming like so much right now and just feel like I could climb Mount Everest, like my spirit is so high. That’s, I think that’s what healing feels like. I’ve, I’ve had moments of healing over the years, but this one feels like a really, really big one for me cuz it really, it literally feels like I’ve had chains on my body that I got like some superhuman strength and like She Woman-ed out of, and they just shattered to the ground, like freeing me out of a cage that I had self locked myself in.

So I do feel really close to God through this last two weeks, even though they’ve been so intense, if that makes sense. But there’s also elements to what happened over the last few weeks with me, you guys that felt so easy and natural because of what I’ve chosen to invest in over the last decade of my life. Because I feel like we co-create our lives with God, right? Like we, there’s nothing forced upon us, but just like so many of my students within the Fresh Start Experience choose to, I chose to invest in mentorship and life coaching and personal development, growth and liberation, so whatever you wanna call it. But like when these really intense feelings and convictions came my way, I knew what to do with them and they didn’t scare me and I felt prepared to process them entirety.

Does that make sense? So remember, like you, you reap what you sow in life and if you never find the courage to fully invest in an invest in learning tools to help yourself, there’s a good chance that you won’t be prepared when triggering situations happen that are an opportunity for growth or for more. But today, as I stand here, just feeling like a million bucks after what would’ve been for most families who are not in communities like we have here at Fresh Start Family who are not parenting in the way that we teach or the way that we believe so deeply in this would’ve been a punish shame and freak out kind of situation. And instead God used it and turned it into a magical healing, personal responsibility, mentorship, deep connection, and men and like full blown teaching in our home.

So I’m just gonna share some, some cool stories, some parts of the story that’ll kind of set you up with what ha for what happened. So about a month ago I felt called to listen to the book Essentialism again. I do most of my books on Audible except for fiction that I read about 20 minutes before bed each night. But I, I listen to a lot of books on Audible and the books by Greg McKeown, that’s how you say his name. He’s, he’s British. He’s, he’s written a book called Essentialism and then a second book now called Effortless. So this author, but I lo I love his work both as an entrepreneur and also just as a human being. Like his work has been really profound for me and I’ve read his, his first book before, but I’ve never read. But I was, I was guided to read them again. So I was like interesting, sure, I’ll pick this up again on my hikes or whatever.

So the author in his first book talks a lot about where there is one domino that if we correctly prioritize that one thing and take care of it or get it done, everything else behind just naturally falls into place. So finding that one thing, that one thing, if you can handle that one thing, everything else becomes easier. This concept is also talked a lot about in the book called The Power of One. Has anyone read either of these books? I forget the author of that book, but I love that book too cuz he talks about the same thing. But as I was listening again to Essentialism, I just kept scratching my head and thinking like, huh, like, I don’t know, as an entrepreneur, mother, wife, daughter of God, there’s like a friend neighbor, there’s a million things like what the heck is the one?

Right? Like, I definitely have felt like very spread thin over the last few years since becoming an entrepreneur and the c e o of a company of this size. Like everything feels so important. I’m not sure I totally get this concept like I want to author Greg McKeown, but like, what is the one, what is the one for me? Which by the way you guys remember is the best way to ask questions. I see families in my membership program where it’s like when you’re struggling to ask a question, remember the concept like you come to the table with, like, I see a lot of people come to the table, it’s like, this doesn’t work. What do I do? What the heck? Like nothing’s working, nothing. I try instead we really wanna come to the table when you’re in front of a mentor and expert with a question like, I wanna understand how it applies to my life, but I’m not there yet and I need help, right?

Like, but that was definitely, I could feel that posture within me. But after I finished the book, I felt called to listen to a second book Effortless where he teaches about the concept. They were, we were all designed to operate in an effortless state as human beings. Like breathing and talking for most of us is not something we have to think about. It’s effortless. So the more we have effortless motions and actions and rhythms in our life that are healthy, the more we thrive, not effortless. Like I scream at my kid in like one second, that’s not the kind of effortless I’m talking about, but just like breathing, you don’t really think about it, right? It’s effortless.

So, but so much cultural conditioning plus things that happen to us often when we are little get in the way of us thriving. And so many of us end up living in these non effortless states where our nervous systems are tapped and we live with low or high levels of shame and fear that are just like toxic mold that permeates into everything like our parenting, our marriages, our self-confidence, our faith walks. And there are just so many reasons how we make things complex or ways in which we tick away at our ability to thrive based on our actions, our mindsets, behaviors. And this is the craziest ones, our expectations of what’s gonna happen.

And it’s just, it’s gotta freaking go. So together, these two books that kind of set me up to be in this big place of examining, am I really thriving? What else can I do as a c e o, as a mom, as a wife, as a coach, as a daughter of God to thrive? And where in my life do I feel like I’m struggling to feel settled in my body and my mind? Like where does it not feel effortless is what I just really started to ask myself. And I also asked myself like, am I operating, do I feel like I operate in a effortless state? And the answer was clearly no in a lot of different ways. I felt like I’ve just, I still have an unsettled nervous system for some reason and I just was getting to the bottom of it.

So the last few years I really have like, all of a sudden, I think it was about three years ago that I started to realize that there was some shame deep down inside of me that was like, felt like it was clawing to get out and completely be uprooted from my soul. But I, I just kept seeking and searching and nothing ever felt kind of monumental. So there was a lot of like breadcrumbs being dropped, I think by God. I think he just kept using these little things to help me keep going. Like little moments that I now realize like all beautifully lined up to really like get to this place where I’m like, okay, cool, we’re ready to like pluck that mofo out and get rid of that shame.

But I like have, I’ve had a lot of experience. Like I, I went through my friend Chrissy Power’s non-linear movement program. She’s a licensed trauma informed therapist. And through her program I just realized I had so much shame I held in my body after six surgeries realizing that I kind of had this inner voice that would come up like even just around my physical body of like, there’s something wrong with me. What did I do wrong? And it was like when I would break a shoulder or when I like had a c emergency C-section to birth a baby. And I was like, whoa, that’s something I never thought about. But my body was like, yeah, it’s there, it’s something in you. And I was just kind of like, oh, that’s weird. That was like the first time I had awareness around it.

But like really my innate wisdom was like trying to speak to me that I, I realized through Chrissy’s class was no, these are just injuries and unfortunate events. Your body is perfect. You are complete, there’s nothing lacking. You’re safe. That’s like my innate wisdom, right? Or like divine guidance. But I just realized I had this like voice, I was like, what the f is wrong with you? Or like moments in personal development classrooms or like healing moments during Bible studies there was like these moments that I was like, huh, that’s really interesting. I felt something or shame just feels to like coming to the surface, right? But I just kept feeling like I hadn’t found like the really big spider that needed to be killed.

Which by the way you guys is a concept that Carlos Whitaker talks about in his book Kill the Spider, which is wild how God used him to like bring healing to me. So I’ll say more about that in a second. But he was actually, Carlos Whittaker was back on our podcast, I don’t know, probably about a year ago now. You can just google Carlos Whittaker on the Fresh Start Family Show. That episode if you haven’t listened to it, is absolutely amazing. But I’m just so inspired by him for so many reasons. He’s the kind of Christian that like gives me hope for the future of our religion and pulls me out of like my despair about the kind of nonsense that is happening in like particular circles of Christianity. But God pointed me directly to him on the Sunday morning. I’m going to tell you more about in a minute to hear his story fully and digest like what it really meant for me.

But killing the spider means finding the deepest root cause of your suffering and change the story you have around it. Essentially, he puts it into much better words cuz it’s its own concept. But, but asking like God to reveal something to you about the root cause of your pain and then identifying the agreement you made with the, with the enemy or just with yourself, whatever it may be about what that experience meant about you. And then cutting the ties with that lie, asking for healing and repentance sometimes for staying in that relationship and that lie for so long. But doing this like kills the spider instead of just clearing the cobwebs from your life.

So, which is so fascinating cuz for years I would always describe the freedom to be classroom experience as like clearing the cobwebs. And now I’m realizing like, no, we actually kill spiders in there. But killing the spider means like, you know, again, like just think of it this way, the cobwebs are kind of the mess. Our protection or our closed behaviors create. So for me as I’m speaking through this podcast right now, like hiding, suppressing, acting like everything’s okay, like overworking, right? Like those type of things are, are closed behaviors, but the cobwebs that they create in our life, that’s, that’s what happens. But the spider is the reason why the cobwebs are created in the first place.

So there’s something creating the cobwebs, right? So we all have to find the toxic spiders in our lives and kill them if we think that the cobwebs are gonna stop being formed. Cuz you can clear the cobwebs but then they keep coming back. Does that make sense? And what’s cool is that the way Carlos teaches this concept is just a variation of how I teach in my life coaching. So I use the same practice with my private coaching students or students that will come to our return to magnificence course one day, which will almost likely be teaching in 2024. But it’s all limiting belief reworking, which means basically we have these events that happen really early in our lives and a lot of times they are traumatic in one way or another. And just remember you guys, trauma doesn’t always mean a car crash or losing a parent or almost getting hit by a car or something.

It also can be things like you that you never had like unconditional love or safety or power in your home. Or it can be the moments where you were terrified of being hurt by your parents or being humiliated, shamed, or disrespected as a perfectly imperfect human being, right? Like trauma comes in all different forces. We have in all different ways, we have a bonus within inside of our Fresh Start Experience community. It’s a conversation with my dear friend Chrissy again, who’s a trauma informed therapist where we talk about trauma and it’s really incredible. But when those events happen, our early brains create thoughts and feelings around them. And in the best way we can as kids, we form beliefs about ourselves from those experiences.

And then this creates a cycle in which we live by. And as we get older, when the same feeling gets stirred within us, remember I was talking, I was referring to myself as like a crockpot. God’s like God is a little spoon, he’s just crock potting Wendy right now. But what after happens to so many people is when the same feeling that we had when we were a kid or whatever, something happened to us, it gets stirred when we’re an adult. So say it’s scared, hurt, angry, we often go back to the same limiting belief pattern that might have kept us safe when we were kids, but now just creates most of the times toxicity in our lives and keeps us stuck. But over the past few years I’ve been building Fresh Start Family, which is, like I said now, a pretty large educational platform with families from all over the world.

And it’s, and it has been, it’s been intense to say the least. And let me tell you, if you really wanna uproot some limiting belief patterns and challenge yourself to grow, become an entrepreneur, hire a team of people to lead and support you, invest your life’s savings in something you care so deeply about, but is a big risk. And then try to create rhythms of work where you don’t break your own back or miss the moments of your child’s kids’ childhood. If you want to learn and grow, put yourself in that environment. So that’s exactly what I hopped into and I wouldn’t change it for the world, but do that and you really will. Like, I feel like I’ve been forced to grow because the other side of that is if you don’t grow, you let it take you down in distress, burnout, divorce, suffering easily, right?

But as I’ve been growing this business and enduring the many elements of stress that come with being a c e o on top of making it through the last three years of covid and civil unrest and what seems like just a nation at war with one another when it comes to politics, I’ve really pushed, I’ve, I’ve developed a pattern and I think it’s been there for a long time, but I’ve developed the pattern of just pushing myself to the edge and created rhythms of like what feel like desperate, like striving, which I think have a lot to do with perfectionism, which is a whole nother episode, but it’s become harder and harder for me to stop working at night, right? Like I’ve tried just about everything to create more balance in my life. And I, and I am, I’m doing like really good, especially with my team that’s beside me.

And I’m 2023 feels like it is like gonna be the year where I like really hit the nail in the head. But I’ve tried, I feel like I’ve tried just about everything to create more balance where I work with intense focus, but then I tap out and I’m like fully present with my family. And it’s, and it’s been a challenge to say the least. I’ve had headaches since I was about the age of 19 that come daily. And even though I’ve had seasons where they go away, really, I look at those seasons as like the seasons, I was probably the most, the least stressed, which is fascinating, right? But they, they are back at this point in my life, they come up a lot and they’re just kind of like this low level buzz of pain and uncomfortable isn’t uncomfortableness that I kind of live with on most days between like three and 6:00 PM So I’m back into this like, what the heck is going on with my body type of situation?

I started to become more tired, like over the last five years during the afternoons. Like I’ve always, I always heard that the forties would kick your ass, but I could just sense that like something more was off over the last few years. So as I’ve grown this business and the podcast and my positive parenting and family life coaching membership at the Fresh Start Experience, there have been like so many moments of utter joy and complete happiness. And yet I still feel so unsettled in my body so often. So when it came to fully listening to myself, whether it was in my faith walk in the new direction, I was being called to walk in or with certain experts or authored authors I wanted to interview for the show, but knew might be controversial, controversial or in speaking about my own faith in ways that was inviting and not alienating for anyone or making financial investments into the organization with a settled mind and heart over the years, my body just felt like it was becoming more and more like tightly wound, even though I had done all this work to help settle it.

Does that make sense? So I just have felt like something was still missing, something was still off. So on Valentine’s Day, Terry and I had taken a day off and were so excited to go enjoy a date day together. Who else loves date days? As I get older, I’m like, I like date days, I date nights. I’m like exhausted. I’m like, I can’t stay up till 10:00 PM together. Like, let’s just go out and have a day date, right? So it’s our favorite kind of date and at this point in our careers, like actually taking the day off midweek like just feels like such an accomplishment. So, but as I was going to say goodbye to one of my kiddos that morning, I stopped short at their door and heard them and their best friend chatting about what I came to realize was a conversation about vaping.

Now I really try not to make it a practice to like eased drops on my kids because it’s just not the way we do life in our family. Like we have so much trust and respect for our children and we expect the same back, right? But this day I just felt this calling like, Wendy, just stop before you knock on the door and just listen for one quick second. And what I realized was like, as fear rushed through my body, I did, I realized that my kiddo was vaping on a Tuesday morning inside our house with their best friend. And it really did. I I, it scared the shit outta me. Cause you guys, you see like, here’s how I feel about teenagehood. Like, I knew that the chances of my children being completely mistake free through life was an unattainable goal, but this child had always been so good at like being their own person about being different about leading and not following.

Right? I think that’s kind of our worst fear for all of us who have children when they become teenagers. Like I know so many of you have little kids right now, but if you think about them as teenagers, like you just want ’em to not be a follower, right? Like, but in other areas of life, like following is healthy when it’s like a healthy environment, right? But a lot of times the teenage environment is not a healthy environment. So you, I always wanted this kid that like didn’t follow. And so I just had these thoughts like surge over me that was just like, how could it be that this child is being influenced to do something so damaging to one’s health, especially as an athlete. Like both of my kids are athletes, right? Like I’ve just taught them so much over the years about honoring our bodies and our bodies are temples and like we thrive in life when we take good care of our bodies.

So the temptations to try tobacco, alcohol, and drugs, you guys is freaking thick and developing like, you know, like basically it’s like at the same time, I, I knew I wanted to teach my kids this and I knew I was teaching my kids this, but as I, I knew as I zoomed out, like this is such a common, not normal as Terry pointed out, because human beings are not designed to get hooked on drugs and alcohol. But this is such a common misbehavior or mistake that happens for kids once they’re teenagers. So I knew, like when I zoomed out as an educator and a coach, like it’s not the end of the world. It’s okay, we still can teach this child. It’s, it’s like we don’t need to panic really like the temptations to try tobacco, which is now vaping, which creates literal rage in me because what whoever designed the vaping industry is like, oh my gosh, it’s awful.

They took tobacco already, like a damaging thing and then decided to turn it into like cherry and bubble gum to target children. Like whoever was the founder of that industry. Like I would literally love to sit you down and look you in the eyes and be like, what were you thinking? But the temptation in our area, southern California to try tobacco, alcohol, and drugs is thick and developing the life skill to stand against it or, or more accurately. My students know I love to, to speak in what I stand for, not against as much as possible. So the ability to stand tall with who you are and who you want to be and what you want for your body, mind, and soul is quite the task. Like it is quite the task for all teenagers.

But there seems to be something in Southern California that just, it is, it is rampant. Like it is, it is wild how thick the, the dependence already is for 14, 15 year olds in our area. Not for all kids, I understand that. But I’m just speaking to like the circle that I’ve witnessed with my own children and what they’re up against and it’s intense. So the good news is, is that with a solid support system in place, this is just a part of life. It doesn’t have to take a child down or bring chaos or disconnection into a home. It’s just an opportunity to learn, to deepen a connection, to find out the why behind a misbehavior or mistake and to help a child get a need met in a healthy way, not an unhealthy way.

So, and I will tell you that 98% of what I’m witnessing in these friendship circles is not a mentorship happening. Like it is straight to punishment. It’s like, I just so look at the teenage like realm right now as I’m experiencing it through my kids and I’m as an educator, everything makes sense of why it’s not working, what these parents are doing to get drugs and alcohol out of their children’s lives. Like it’s just so heavy on the punishment or denying and looking the other way that it’s just, it’s, it’s really intense to watch. And yet we have this opportunity to mentor our kids through it.

And what an honor, what an honor. So, but back to that Tuesday, Valentine’s Day, Terry and I were pretty thrown by it. And as we’re processing everything, we did what we’re really good at. Like we were, there was strong emotions happening. Like I was full of tears that morning. I I I remember just feeling so scared, like, what are we doing? What if this isn’t working? Like, oh my gosh, is she hiding? Is like, are they lying? All these things. So we did what we’re really good at. We went and we got a really fancy lunch at my favorite fancy place. Like my just so cute. And we amaz we enjoyed amazing food and amazing drinks. We had mimosas for brunch and then a nice craft cold beer afterwards and a crisp glass of chardonnay afterwards at the bar next door because drinks always make us happy, right?

And as we’re sitting there at the bar in a cold, rainy day here in San Diego, I looked at Terry and I said, babe, ugh. I was like, I just feel bad that we’re sitting here drinking alcohol. And the same day we realized that our kiddo is struggling like to, to turn, not to turn or to resist the temptation to use vaping drugs and alcohol to have fun or to like fill the space, right? Like the same day that we’re talking about how to mentor our child to experience life in its natural highs instead of thinking that external substances will make it more fun or make a depressed and challenging day, day better. And then we both just kind of shrugged and said, well, well, we’re full blown adults and it’s our day off, so it’s fine.

We can do whatever we want. It’s completely okay to have drinks on a Tuesday afternoon. It’s Valentine’s Day. And then we went home and we slept before the kids got home because everyone knows day drinking makes you sleepy. And a nice afternoon nap is just the best after a few drinks. But you guys, I’m telling you, it all just felt wrong. And all of a sudden I started to feel this internal pool to look inward instead of outward to help my child with a struggle that was happening in their life. So I just started taking walks with God and asking him like, huh, this is weird. Like, what’s going on here? Like, I feel something shifting within me, but I’m not quite sure what to do here.

Show me, reveal to me your ways, like, guide me. Like I don’t, I don’t, I don’t know, something feels like it’s shifting. And to add that, add to this interesting few days, we ended up having just the best talk with our kiddo with such deep connection and firm kindness and everything just felt so right, but it also was like messy, right? There was emotions, which I always tell people that’s what positive parenting looks like. It’s not like all rainbows and butterflies, but it is beautiful. Like it’s so intentional and beautiful and connecting. But there were logical con consequences to put into place, like big ones that taught in the most beautiful way about responsibility and respect.

But there were reasonable and directly related to the missing life skill. There was big emotions including sadness about logical ecological consequence that we had the honor of coaching our kiddo through refusing to let them go to a place of shame, but instead lean into the natural God-given gift of guilt, which by the way is, darn, I wish I wouldn’t have done that. I made a mistake. Versus what the heck is wrong with me? I’m such an idiot. Do you guys feel the difference there? The mentorship through that conversation alone is to is enough to make any parent feel for warm and fuzzy inside. But like, like I just, I look, I look at that and what’s happening with this stage of life with my kids and I just think like, can you imagine having that kind of mentorship as a kid?

Like, I don’t know about you, but I didn’t have that growing up, right? Like, I felt very alone often. Like I, I couldn’t talk to anybody and I sure as hell couldn’t reveal a mistake. So when I made a mistake, it was often accompanied with shame on you. What were you thinking? Like message and like the most disappointing tone or like when I was little, especially like a threat of punishment. Well, actually not just when I was little, there was gra you know, it was the classic stuff. It was the classic stuff. So one of the logical consequences that we incorporated was a break from a pal who seemed to be having like great influence on our kiddo. So it just gave us some time to put our roots down, so to speak, into our own home, to focus on connection and growing within our walls.

But a few days later we said yes to taking our kiddo and a few of their friends to a destination that was the ultimate natural high, a defying rollercoaster park with high intentions. Really we had to like help our kids learn that if a certain group had a lot of influence in it that wasn’t healthy, then try to find other groups like start branching out. Like, you know it, you don’t have to stay with just this one group, right? So, you know, there was high intentions to like really keep mentoring our kiddo through the life skill that they hadn’t quite mastered yet, which is, I’ll say it again. The ability to have fun as a human with the natural highs of life in a human body without external substances.

And I look at that when I think about teenage years, like roller coasters, junk food, falling in love like Terry and I fell in love when I was 17 years old and it was the biggest high I’ve ever experienced in my life. Laughing, like giggling with your friends, scary movies like Boba Drinks, milkshakes, right? Like just being a human at that stage of life is really like what we just wanted our kiddo to like be nurtured in. Like remember this is one way over here to do like to create highs in your life, to kill the boredom, to numb the pain, right? But we want you to like re we’re gonna nurture you to do more of this over here.

So all the while, like we’re still taking a break from you know, a kiddo that we were just like, okay, there’s a lot of lot of stuff going on here so we’re gonna take a break. So I signed up for this three hour car ride that Sunday morning and woke up really excited to spend time with these amazing kids on a long car ride. It’s one of my favorite ways to spend time with teenagers these days just cuz you get to be around them, you know, and you just get to experience their joy. I should add music to that list, like concerts, good music, which is questionable now with these kids. Anyways, so I signed up for this long car ride and as we’re driving and I just, I’m realizing right now like just how much passion I have like to help these kids do life differently than the way I did it.

And I feel just so filled with joy that I’m embarking on this season where I have a real opportunity to mentor my kids and and their friends through this extremely challenging season of life. I mean think about teenagehood you guys. Like was it easy for you or were you like, would you describe it as the most challenging season of your life? Like for most of us it was so tough but something was different. When I woke up that morning and while I had a slight hangover from having, having a few glasses of wine at the F mo fancy movie theater showing the night before of Antman, which was hilarious. I was used to like kind of feeling like shit in the mornings because I swear since the day I turned 40, my body has been telling me that it doesn’t like alcohol.

But I’ve spent all my days trying to figure out how to make it like alcohol instead of just surrendering and saying no more alcohol. So the slight alcohol, like the slight hangover after a crappy night of sleep tossing and turning, dehydrated and with night sweats because like I had become accustomed to this like a few glasses of wine. What’s the big deal? It’s culturally, it’s culturally appropriate. Like this is what we do. Like every single one of my friends like been doing this for 30 years. Like this is what we do. This is like, it almost become part of my identity. But like then waking up early in the morning because sleeping in after a night of air quotes fun, never aligned well, but I woke up and it was just like some freaking l felt like a lightning bolt shot straight into my heart and broke it wide open.

And I literally got out of bed and I was like picked up my journal and I was like, oh my gosh. And I just felt this biggest conviction come over me and it was like, call it a voice from God, call it my own whatever. It was like Wendy, it’s time to surrender. You’ve been trying for five years to make your body like alcohol because you think it serves you so well and makes life more fun, but you’re actually poisoning yourself. You’re not listening to yourself, you’re not listening to me. It’s time to get help. You don’t have to do this alone when you keep putting something into your body because it feels too hard to live without. It’s called addiction.

There’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s just an addiction you formed very early on in life and your family genealogy makes it you much more susceptible to addiction, essentially stopping at one or two drinks. So the voice just kept coming, it’s time to get help. Sweet girl. Those of you who are in my programs, like you know the re mothering is so important, right? Like, but this voice just so smoothly and clearly came over me. It’s time to get help. Sweet girl. This doesn’t make you weak or broken or weird. This makes you human and it makes you brave. Just trust me and I’m going to put all these helpers in front of you this morning to show you the way.

And so with the oddest bit of excitement but also terror as I thought, oh my god, what is happening? I opened my phone and Googled AA groups in my area and I popped up like 10 meetings that day in Encinitas California and there was like a surfer group, there was a newbie group, there was a women’s group, there was a men’s group. Literally every kind of group you could imagine they had it and it was like two miles away. So easy yet also terrifying cuz you guys, you see I have been kicking around this idea of getting help to eliminate alcohol from my health for good for years. And I mean years at the age of 42 I got a tattoo that says one.

And when people asked, I would always say, you know, like, what does that mean? I’d say, you know, one love, one life, one God, like the Bob Marley song, you know? But then I’d also sneak in at the end and you know, one drink, ha ha. Because I was on such a quest to moderate alcohol in my life. And I told Terry as we were getting this tattoo, I said, babe, this is it. If I cannot have just one drink like my body wants, cuz it wasn’t tolerating anything else, it was just in the way I slept, the way I felt in the morning my, the way my joints felt achy, like the way it interrupted the way I want to eat gluten-free, dairy-free like I am, I have Hashimotos, like my body does not want toxins inside of it.

But I looked at him and I said, honey, if I can’t do this, like it is time to go to aa. And that was four years ago you guys, four years ago. And after so many tr times of trying to stop, I did naturopath health. Like I can’t even tell you how much money I spent on naturopath health. Maybe it’s the diet that’s causing me to not sleep well, maybe it’s all these things that are causing inflammation and causing dehydration. I did fast through church, I tried willpower, I’ll just give it up for six months and be done and just felt like I kept returning to not one drink moderation. And I just finally freaking decided you guys that it was time to surrender and just get help

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One last quick little pause, parents to ask for your help. As I mentioned earlier in this episode, I’m hosting a live event on April 22nd that’s going to be amazing. All about fast tracking cooperation in your home. I’ll be teaching you how to use our signature four step process to setting firm limits and sticking to them with consistency, connection, and compassion.

But I’m gathering info before the event to help me best serve you. So I want to hear from you, what is the number one area in your parenting walk where your strongest willed child pushes back the most? Is it bedtime? Is it cleaning up? Is it sitting still at the dinner table? Where is it that you say do this? And they basically say no, whether it’s with their words or they’re inaction, or where is one area you wish was easier to get your wild and wonderful kiddo to say, okay mama, instead of why do I have to do that? It’s not fair. I don’t want to, you can’t make me shoot me a DM on Insta, I’m @FreshStartWendy.

Or just send me an email, I’m [email protected] and spill the beans. I’ll use your examples when I teach on April 22nd workshop. So thanks in advance for helping me make it a great event. Registration’s not quite open yet, but I’ll keep you in the loop as soon as it is. Okay, back to the show.

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because what is the big deal?

Like why did I have such shame on myself? Like why was I covering this up and acting like it was okay? Why did I feel like I had to hide this and why was I doing everything under the sun to avoid getting help? And the answer is twofold. One, there’s cultural conditioning. It had me living in this lie that alcohol makes you fun and is the way to make life more fun. And that lie that it’s no big deal. You guys, again, Terry and I started using alcohol to numb, feel powerful and belong as teenagers at 15 years old, maybe even 14.

But, and by the way, you guys, alcohol is not bad. By no means do I want you to feel like I’m advocating for you all to stop drinking. Like please. I just know that for some of us, it’s creating hardship in our lives and when we go to stop, it feels impossible. I have four close relatives who were all raging alcoholics. And so when I look at it that way, I’m like, I’ve done a pretty good job. Like getting to three or four is the problem for me, right? Like I can easily, like I barely ever get buzzed anymore. Like it’s just crazy my tolerance, but like my body the next day is just like, no. But then at five o’clock I’m like, ah, a nice glass of chardonnay, we’ll just make everything better. And for about an hour or two it makes me feel better.

And then I, it’s like a cycle. I just feel like crap the di the next day. But so many people who I’ve met just stop or so many healers are like, Wendy, why don’t you just stop drinking? Like that’ll, that’ll probably fix it all. And I’m like, huh? I’m like, I can do everything else. I’ve literally told people everything else like sugar, dairy, gluten, easy peasy alcohol. I’m like, I don’t want to let that go, but yet I’m living in this like suffering state. Does that make sense? I’m pretty sure that’s addiction, but yet I was so scared to tell anybody about this. And the day that I finally was like, I’m just gonna go into a support group and get some help, I walked into those doors and it was like, oh my gosh, I cried forever.

And it was the most kindest group of people that were literally almost, they, they all had different stories, but they were so like me. Like, you know, you imagine like, am I gonna walk in and like, it’s gonna be like a, a bum with like a paper bag, you know, with a beer in it or something? And it was like, no, it was like girls with cute style that were like, my age one was like 25 a world class top 10 CrossFit athlete and then a father of three who was like a financial investment banker, right? Like it’s just, I had put so much fear and anticipation of shame around getting help and I’m still like figuring out like, is this where I, I wanna get the support because I’m not sure I’m exactly that.

Like the stories I hear are different than my stories. Like it’s a long, that’s, that’s a different story for story for another day. But I still just, I feel so comforted by just breaking the chains of fear around walking in the door and meeting these people because they are the kindest, most inspirational people, some of the most kindest and inspirational people I’ve ever met in my life. And I’m just like, oh my gosh, where have you guys been all my life? So that’s one aspect, okay? But cultural conditioning tells us here in America and the world that like alcohol is good, it’s fun, do it, do it, buy it, do it. It’s awesome. And when you’re a teenager, so many of these circles, it gets introduced so young that it’s like this is the way to find happiness, this is the way to numb the pain, fighting with your parents, feel like you don’t belong, feel ugly, like confident in your body.

Boy breaks up with you, your older brother sucks. Like you get punished all the time. So you feel like you’re not powerful and you want to give it to your parents. Like there’s so many reasons, but it starts so young. And when you add up the years of habit, like that’s what I’m trying to figure out right now and I’m on my own journey and it’s gonna be a beautiful one, but is this a habit that I’m breaking or is this true alcoholism, right? Like that’s what I’m trying to figure out. But it’s, it’s just, there’s no arguing that we’ve been doing this for 30 years and it’s like, no wonder it’s hard to f to stop. So why, why was I doing it alone? So the next part I’m gonna share with you is the other reason is I felt like it was easier to hide the problem than ask for help because this entire situation, which again started with my child having misbehavior that I, I had the honor of supporting them through was because I had something that I had buried deep down and basically not told anyone about, which I now realize is the root of where I learned to hide and hold shame.

And that is the fact that I was sexually abused by an older cousin when I was nine years old for a period of time. And that Sunday morning as I was driving those kids and they were blasting their wild and wonderful music in the back of my Sequoia, I had my AirPods in and I was just listening to all these podcast episodes, God had guided me too. And after I dropped them off I was just bawling because I realized I had this spider that I had never given much thought to. I mean, yeah, it happened to me when I was young, but I never felt like it affected me that much. So whatever it was in my past, like it was just in the past, it was just another reason why my family of origin was so weird.

Like this older cousin was weird, right? Like I could, I think, look, thinking back I’m like, it was definitely creepy. Like definitely pressure, dark room, just exactly your greatest fears about your kids. It’s like happened to me when I was nine years old by a cousin that was way older than me. This cousin had an alcoholic father and just a really bad dynamic where I just remember the mom was yelling all the time. So I think back with compassion that there had to be some type of abuse happening to this cousin for them to pass on the abuse. To me, I was like the easy target, right? I mean I was probably like, I, I was, I was like this easygoing like cute little kid, right? So to get me to say yes was probably a pretty easy, but what I’ve learned in just the last week is that the stats on sexual abuse, which most of the time the victims know their abusers by the way, so much of the time it’s a family member.

And, but the stats are staggering. Like depending on what study you look at. And I’m gonna interview Rosa Rosalia Rivera from Consent Parenting and I just cannot wait to have that conversation in like two weeks. I’m like, thank you God for lighting that she’s a sexual abuse prevention specialist. She’s a survivor turn prevention specialist. But for women it’s something crazy you guys, can you guess what the stat is for sexual abuse? Like one in what? Go ahead and guess why I take a sip in my water? It is one in four. Some studies show that it’s one in three and that could even be low because here’s the crazy thing, like the stats show that people wait on average 25 years to tell somebody about this.

Which for me it’s 30, 30 years. No, no more than that. 35, I don’t even know. It’s a lot. It’s more than that. So if with a stat of let’s say one in four women and the, the men’s stat is lower, but it’s still a crazy stat, sexually abused as a child. And again, most of these people were, most of these perpetrators were family members. So out of 10,000 downloads this episode will get almost 2000 women will hear that they’re not alone if they were victims of sexual abuse as a child or almost 2000 people will be exposed to the fact that they do not need to be ashamed of this happened to you too. Like you might have like disassociated this like I did and blocked it outta your memory, but now you’re like, Ooh, I remember something.

Well I want you to know you’re safe here, you’re safe here. I’m with you. But the craziness is that, like I said, most people wait 25 years. And as I sat there bawling my eyes out telling Terry this last Monday morning, my husband, I said, honey, something happened to me and I never told you. And I’m realizing that I’m just having this crazy aha moment because I think this is where I learned to hide things and to feel shameful. And then this led to this and this led to this. And then I used alcohol when I was a teenager cuz that’s just what we did in Maryland growing up. And like it just numb, numb, numb, avoid, avoid, avoid. But I don’t hide anything from Terry, you guys, like he is my bestest friend in the world.

We’ve been together like 27 years or something. He’s the numbers guy, not me, but he’s my be I like, I literally have never hid anything from him in the world and I never told him about this. But to realize that I had been hiding this and covering it up for so long was such a huge signal that I have been suppressing deep down shame. And thinking back to when it happened, it seems as though I made some agreements with myself about like, and it, you know, it’s a, this is such a process, right? Like it has to be self-guided. Like, like if you’re with a therapist or someone you trust or whatever, like they can walk you through this if you choose.

But like to think back and think like, what, what? Like what was that feeling? But what were some of the agreements I made that are total lies? But the one that comes to me is like, what the hell is wrong with you? That’s so weird. But you didn’t stop it. Or like, shame on you. Which was the common statement in my house. So over time, I think that those agreements that I made so young about being alone or something being wrong with me or feeling incapable to listenable, incapable to listen to myself when things feel off, it just seems to have become a deep internal track that I’m just now realizing is the biggest spider in the world running rampant in my brain that needed to be killed.

So all of this just came over me within a matter of days and I was just like, oh my god, literally, oh my God, thank you, thank you for bringing clarity to me, like I’m ready. Like where is the freaking shoe? Like I am ready to kill this tarantula. So it’s like I was so ready to like, like wrap onto the truths because nothing is wrong with me. I am not weird. I didn’t ask for that to happen to me. I didn’t ha I felt like I didn’t have anyone to talk to because things were done differently back then. But now I am changing that by the way I’m raising my children.

You are changing that by the way you are raising your children. We don’t use shame in our house. And when we sniff it out in our children, we help eradicate it immediately. Okay? So here’s a truth. Alcohol is not my ticket to happiness and my life will be absolutely incredible without it. If I decide one day that once my kids are 21 and I wanna partake again when we go to Ireland or something together, I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. But for now I’m listening to myself and it’s time to take a break from putting toxins into my body.

And I’m so thankful for my support system of my personal mentor, Pam Dunn, to walk me through this next season of life. My husband, the amazing AA crew that are now like, I don’t know they’re gonna become my best friends. I’m like obsessed with them. They’re just the coolest people on the planet. But not sure exactly. Like again, like I’m not sure exactly where that I need to be cause I’m I, whatever, I’m figuring it out. But I still love them and I plan to see them often and and for now I’m just as far as hiding, I’m done. There’s no more sugarcoating, there’s no more lies, there’s no more suppressing memories like I was a victim of sexual abuse as a kid and so are so many others.

And together we can heal instead of suppress. And through that healing, we can help our children way more than any kind of parenting or protection strategy. Okay? So that is the bulk of my story. Since this all happened, I have felt so happy and healthy and connected to my kids and spouse. This all has brought me closer, not more distant. This has all brought acceptance, not judgment into my life. This has all brought deeper compassion, not condemnation. And just remember you guys, everyone has something that they’re struggling with. So just know that I hope that by me going first and sharing the truth, that your children really can be your biggest teacher if you allow them to be those triggers that like send you into manic like freak out mode.

There is something under there that I want you to really take a deep breath and just start looking a little bit deeper about. And I hope this brings you some courage just to go deeper with your own spiders and to find the help that you need, whether it be through the frustrated experience or through the freedom to be life coaching course or through a personal therapist, if you have the financial means for that or a private session with me to not just clear the cobwebs, but to actually find and kill the spiders that are biting you every fricking day and making your life suck. They don’t need to stay and it’s time to get rid of them so you can thrive.

Okay, so next steps for me. You guys are just reading stories of more and more people who are choosing to live life like me. There are so many famous stars and inspiring authors and entrepreneurs and athletes who choose to live life alcohol free, but don’t place judgment on anyone else who loves to air quotes party, but can freely be in the world without feeling pressure, pressured or struggle to have fun. And so as I’m learning this as, as I’m surrounding myself with the truth that not everybody like lives, this life that I air quotes can’t live anymore. Like as I’m learning this life skill of thriving just in this natural state, guess who’s also learning it beside me, my children.

Okay? Like it’s so beautiful to be teaching and and and inspiring from that place. And I’ve already seen in the way that this kiddo of mine and their best friend have already like been coming closer to me, asking me for mentorship guidance. Sit down with me, let’s go have coffee. We wanna hear more, we want you to teach us, we want you to help us. Like that’s what this has created. It hasn’t created some like, oh mom’s a total weirdo in a mess up. So we can’t like, no, it’s like no kids are drawn to humility. Kids are drawn to someone who models it for them, not just tells them to do one thing and does another. Like that’s hypocrisy, right?

Like so wherever it shows up in your life, I want you to accept the invitation to just look at it. And I just want us not to expect our kids to be able to do something that we haven’t shown them the way about. Okay? And also like there are so many who have been victims of sexual abuse, who have used their pain to help others heal, in addition to get their own healing and use their suffering to prevent it from happening to others. Okay? In the end, I love what I do. I love helping parents, I love helping families. But really I think like I know that at the core of who I am, I’m a child advocate. Like everything I do and I teach, I know that it changes the lives of children.

And so every move that you’re making as you choose to parent in this way, as you choose to find healing for yourself, just know that you are not only healing yourself, but you are healing the next generation. And I believe you’re healing the past generation who never had the opportunity to get help, ask for help, and get the healing that they needed. That’s why so many just pass it down. They just pass it on down. But that’s not how we roll around here. We will not be passing this down. Okay? So I know that went a little bit long today. My episodes are normally an hour or less, but that’s not too bad. We’re a little over an hour.

But you guys, thanks for listening. Thanks for holding space for me. Please shoot me an email if this, if this episode has touched you. If you are someone who feels less alone because I have shared my story, my email is [email protected]. I’m also on Instagram @freshstartwendy, I don’t pretend to have all the answers you guys. All I know is that I know what healing feels like and this is it. Like I know what freedom feels like and this is it. I feel like my shoulders are more relaxed, I feel like I can breathe easier. I feel like my mind is clear, like I’m just so certain and I just want that for all of you.

So lots of love. Thanks for listening. Thanks for supporting the Fresh Start Family Show and please share this episode. If you loved it. Please share this episode. Tag me on Instagram. I’m @freshstartwendy, it is time to get real, honest and open with each other, you guys cuz that’s where real change happens. All right, lots of love, and I will see you on the next episode.

All right, families, that’s a wrap. I hope you love today’s episode. As much as I loved recording it for you, don’t forget to shoot me a DM or an email to let me know what is the biggest place of pushback, where you are getting the most nos and the more resistance from your kids when you ask them to listen and cooperate.

I really wanna hear from you. It’s gonna help me prepare for our Fast Track to Cooperation workshop that’s happening on Saturday, April 22nd. So shoot me a dm. I’m @FreshStartWendy, over on Instagram. Or you can reach me via email, Wendy @freshstartfamilyonline.com. All right, I can’t wait to hear from you.

For links and more info about everything we talked about in today’s episode, head to freshstartfamilyonline.com/166.

Stella:
For more information, go to freshstartfamilyonline.com. Thanks for listening, families, have a great day.