On this week’s episode of the Fresh Start Family Show Wendy dives into effective & healthy leadership with parenting expert and creator of PreParenting, Muriel Wiesner.
Muriel and Wendy spend this hour discussing the unhealthy default parenting styles that many families unconsciously fall into and how to replace them with conscious, respectful parenting that leads to better connection and more effective leadership.
This episode is geared toward helping parents at any walk in their journey to show up lovingly and consciously to lead their children with unconditional love.
What you’ll learn:
- Why parenting is a truly honorable role that one should treat with deep reverence and respect.
- Why children are wise beings that are simply not as developed as adults and need respectful support to thrive.
- When it comes to healing and being the change in your family— the sooner the better but it’s never too late.
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Episode Highlights:
- Muriel’s background & story
- The purpose of “Pre-Parenting”
- Preparing for parenthood
- Taking on the role of parenting
- Default parenting vs awakened parenting
- Being a leader vs being a boss
- Respecting & supporting children
- Helping children naturally be who they are
- Being the change in your family
Resources Mentioned:
Not able to listen or want to read along with us?
Here is the episode transcript!
Wendy:
This episode is brought to you by the firm and kind parenting blueprint, a Fresh Start Family program that will teach you four steps to setting strong limits and sticking to them with consistency and kind of firmness. You can learn more at firmankindparentingblueprint.com. Welcome families to a new episode of the Fresh Start Family show. I’m your host, Wendy Snyder, certified positive parenting educator and family life coach. And I’m so excited that you are here. This episode is with Muriel Wiesner from Pre Parenting, and we are talking about how to truly embody a mature, healthy leader in our homes.
Wendy:
And gosh, you guys, Muriel is just an incredible source of wisdom. And what I love about her is that she doesn’t have kids yet, but she has such profound knowledge. And I think just such a, a wonderful spot on take on so many different things that we struggle with as parents. So she’s really used her own experience growing up and healing from her own stuff in her own life. And she’s taken that and her experience with childcare and doula work and combined it into this really cool service that she offers for families. And I just love what she’s all about.
Wendy:
So her business is geared towards supporting the journey of parenting from before conception and beyond. She’s super passionate about helping families to align with what she calls divine parenting path, healing generations, worth of unconscious programming, unhealthy family patterns, and trauma, so that parents can show up lovingly and consciously to lead their kids with unconditional love. She combined spirituality, energy and child and human development to help people align with their best, most abundant life. She is awesome. You guys, so without further ado, enjoy this discussion that we had today.
Wendy:
Thank you in advance. If you can take three extra minutes to leave us a review today over on iTunes, it would help us so much. It’s a great way to give us a virtual hug. We love it producing this free content for you. All of these episodes, we really love pouring our heart into them. And when you leave us, us, leave us a review over on iTunes. It helps us get seen. And when we get seen by more people over on iTunes, we are able to serve more families and more parents across the globe who really could just use some encouragement and support and an expanded toolkit when it comes to parenting. So thanks for listening. You guys enjoy this episode.
Stella:
Well, Hey, there, I’m Stella. Welcome to my mom and dads podcast. The Fresh Start Family. 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 loving 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, families and welcome to a new episode of the fresh start family show. I have the honor of sitting here this morning with Muriel Wiesner from PreParenting welcome Muriel.
Muriel:
Hi Wendy. Thanks for having me.
Wendy:
Yes, we are so happy to chat today. Muriel is going to share her beautiful wisdom with us about how to truly embody being a mature, healthy leader in our homes and our family and Muriel. Will you just get things kicked off by telling us just a little bit more about yourself, your journey, why you became passionate about helping families and what you do at pre PreParenting?
Muriel:
Yeah, so I have a background in childcare, so my background is in childcare and working with families in that way. And then when I was kind of going through a transition period from childcare, I entered into the realm of birth work. So I was also working as a birth doula. And when I went into this world of doing the birth doula work, I kind of had this intuitive, knowing that people weren’t really as concerned about birth as they were about becoming a parent after they had the baby.
Muriel:
And so I created this program through my birth doulas business that like each client I worked with, I worked with for six weeks. And instead of it just being like a labor support, it was more like a full, spiritual, emotional transition into the actual role of parenting or, you know, adding another member to the family. So while I was doing that work, I just realized that being on call and doing birth support was not where I was most helpful. I love it. I think it’s amazing and important. But what I realized was that I was most helpful in supporting people through these programs of helping to prepare them for parenting and working with how to, you know, make that transition and be really confident and healthy leader so that you don’t take your own childhood trauma with you.
Muriel:
You don’t take your own programming that you don’t want to. And granted, I mean, nobody’s perfect and parenting is a learning process, but it kind of came out of this place of like, well, if we had the opportunity to prepare, I think it’s helpful to do so. So that’s where PreParenting was born from. Was this just realization that people, a lot of people, I think, feel like, what am I doing? You know, once they have a baby in their arms, they’re like, what is this? And so since then I started PreParenting about a year and a half or two years ago, and just have focused on parent support and specifically PreParenting support when those people are in my realm too, because it’s so new.
Muriel:
Most people don’t actually think of preparing for parenting before becoming one. They think about it once they’re in the thick of it. So that’s kind of what PreParenting is. My passion is really just helping to have families start off on the right foot so that they don’t have as much repair to do on the other end. And just really creating this. It’s kind of a revolutionary movement, honestly, where we’re creating this new way of entering into parenthood, where people are thinking more deeply about how to take on that role. And also while you’re in that role, how to maintain it when all of this stuff comes up, as you are parenting your child, because every child brings something new through the parent, there’s always going to be new things to unpack, but with the right tools, we can really, we can really kill it.
Muriel:
We can really do a great job and raise healthy kids as opposed to kids who have more adult felt, feeling, work to do once they grow up. So, yeah.
Wendy:
Yeah. Oh my gosh. It’s so good. I’m like, I’m here. Just nodding my head because when I first found you and the work that you’re doing, I remember just chatting with my team about it and being, oh my gosh, like she’s, she’s doing this PreParenting work that we are so passionate about here too. And it’s actually, when I created Fresh Start Family, I, you know, and I built out my business plan. We built, we had a mission and then we had a vision and the mission was like to serve the families who needed that support, who honestly, all day long, the families that usually find me mimic my story. So my story is, you know, thought, but I was like gonna enter into parenthood and be like, this is easy.
Wendy:
I’m good with kids. Like I got this. And then I got blessed with this beautiful strong-willed girl. When she became a toddler, I was like, what the heck just happened? My whole world got rocked. And I just like lost my identity. I didn’t know who I was. I became this like angry yelling. You know, it just became aware all of a sudden, but that, you know, I call that like, it was a crisis moment in my life. And we know that so many parents that’s like the breaking point where they finally get the support that they need. However, here at Fresh Start Family. And I know you share a similar vision. Muriel is our vision is for the future of our society to not have to get to a crisis point where they are like, holy smokes.
Wendy:
I am, I am like, I’m depressed. I’m anxious. I have no idea what to do with this strong-willed beautiful soul. And I’m now reverting to using fear and force and intimidation. I’m pretty much passing on the same general painful, painful generational cycles and holy smokes, like, how did I get here? So it’s, it’s so beautiful to know that you’re out there doing this work and trying to get support into family’s hands before it, they reached that crisis point because it really is avoidable. You know, I always say like, if you, if parents had the tools that I teach at Fresh Start Family, that I’m sure you teach too, before they have the kids and before they start to have tantrums or pushed back, like they’re supposed to, because they’re human souls, not robots.
Wendy:
Like it would just be such a different game. It would just be, you’d be able to handle it so much better. And then I know your work just goes so much deeper in the layers of like releasing trauma and healing from the painful generational cycle. So it’s just awesome. I love it. I love what you’re doing Muriel. So
Muriel:
Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Thanks to you as well.
Wendy:
Yes. Yeah. My dream one day, I always tell my kids, like my long-term goal is to like change legislation around corporal punishment. Like I picture myself being like 80 on the, like, like going into the Supreme court and like fighting to end that legislation. And I hold that vision strong every day. And then the other vision is to have parenting education, positive parenting education, gentle grace based connection based parenting be taught as like a prerequisite in high school and college. Like, yeah, we have to take, we have to take home-ec. We have to take math. We have to take English. Well, I don’t know what the statistic is, but it’s pretty dang high of like how many of us are going to spawn other human beings.
Wendy:
So that is another part of me that I’d want to change legislation, that this is a requirement that you have to have gone through an educational course before you actually have kids. And that would change everything too. So, yeah.
Muriel:
Cool.
Wendy:
Okay. Well, let’s talk about this idea of how to truly embody a mature, healthy leader in your home. So what, tell me more about what that means to you. And then we’ll, we’ll talk a little bit about your takeaways you had prepared for us today.
Muriel:
Sure. So often, if we, so there’s two kinds of parenting that I like to differentiate when I’m working with people are talking about this stuff, there’s default parenting, which is kind of like what you have described, where, you know, you reached that crisis point because kind of just following what you’ve learned and haven’t really done any healing work yet or any like, you know, parenting discovery yet. And you kind of just by default repeat the same parenting that you received as much as you don’t want to, even if you really, really don’t want to, you kind of fall into this default parenting.
Muriel:
And then there’s a wakened parenting, there’s parenting from a gentle, like you said, a gentle space, a conscious space where you are aware of your own triggers and your own stuff that might come up when you’re dealing with anybody in relationship, because really children are just a relationship that you have. It’s a very important relationship that you have to learn how to communicate and work within. And the difference with a child is that first of all, they’re developmentally different than adults. So they don’t live in the same world that we live in as adults.
Muriel:
And they also have their own life. Like they come into the world to do their own thing. We all have a higher purpose that we come into the world to fulfill. So I think traditionally, what happens is people kind of take on the default role of thinking that leading is being in control and having a really strong authority in a very like often like demeaning way where we kind of de-humanize children, not in, not intentionally. Again, I work with so many parents and that’s always what I want people to know is we don’t, it’s never intentional.
Muriel:
Everybody loves their kids and wants to do the best, but when we don’t know better, we don’t necessarily do better. So it’s this shift from thinking that leading is controlling children with a strong arm and, you know, an iron fist and with, you know, just making them do everything as you want and turning it into this leadership role of kind of what I like to describe as like a teacher, like your very favorite teacher that you had when you were a kid, like they honored you, they worked with you, they, they respected you.
Muriel:
They listened to you. And what you had to say, and then worked around that in order for you to learn. So embodying a leader, truly true leadership role has nothing to do with actually being in control in the sense of like breaking down a spirit and having a child just blindly obedient to you. And instead it has to do with a child actually looking up to you and really seeing you as their most wonderful example in life.
Muriel:
And like you said, even when they have that strong will, which is great, it’s so important because those children grow up to be adults like us who are doing transformative things in the world. And if we can support that early on and really lead that and, and be in tune with that within each child early on, then they have a much greater likelihood of not having those self that self-conscious like self-healing work that they have to do once they grow up and become adults, because someone kind of crushed them down as a child and told them, you know, like do, as I say, and you can’t talk back or whatever, and it has nothing to do with being a pushover.
Muriel:
You just it’s like you’re a leader instead of a boss.
Wendy:
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Wendy:
Just use code Toniepodcast at checkout for 15% off. Okay. Back to the show. Yes. Oh my goodness. Yeah. It’s like using connection overcorrection as your main goal. It’s like, because connection is so powerful. Right. And yeah. You get to be a teacher instead of like thinking that you have to be a correctional officer. So I always put it right. Look, we love, yes. We love our policemen and women. Thank God for them. And we don’t, we don’t need to feel like we need to be correctional officers in our parenting walk. Yeah. I love, gosh, everything you just said is so beautiful Muriel.
Wendy:
And it made me think, you know, when you’re, you know, you shared how kids are on their own journey, right? It’s like, it’s not, we, especially those of us who get blessed with these strong-willed kids it’s we think it can feel so at times, so triggering, like they’re, you know, they’re purposely trying to push her buttons. They’re just trying to be a pain in the butt. They’re out to get us. But I remember I saw pink. Cher wants the artist pink. She shared this beautiful post online. She said, you know, when I was a kid and she shared it after she had her own kid, of course, like she realized, but she said, you know, when I was little, my mom used to get so upset with me. And because you could imagine what pink was.
Wendy:
I was a kid, I bet she was like a firecracker, but she said, you know, my mom just always thought it was like, I was out to get her. Or I was like, just try to be naughty and bad. She’s like, but what my mom didn’t realize is I was just me being me like, as pigs grown up, you could see like, yeah, I bet that was a big task to raise her. And it wasn’t against her mom. It was just her trying to figure out and, you know, figure out life as I always say, we all are trying to do. Right. But especially, especially the kids. So, yeah. Beautiful. And talk to talk to us about parenting, being a truly honorable role that one should treat with deep reverence and respect.
Wendy:
I love the kind of like the holiness I’ve I’ve heard you use that word a lot of like how beautiful that is, because it really is such an honor. Right? Like it’s a lot, but it is such an honor. So talk to us about your thoughts on that.
Muriel:
Yeah. It goes in line with that, that being a leader, not a boss and really seeing that, like, you have been blessed with this honorable responsibility to bring another life up into the world and that life, once they grow into full adulthood, they’re going to be a full on reflection of whatever you were able to provide for them. And what I do know is that, you know, maybe our parents didn’t have the time or the tools to do this healing work and to really dive into this kind of thing.
Muriel:
But our generation is really taking it seriously to, to realize that first of all, like having a child is not just something that happens to continue the human race. I mean, obviously that’s like the no-brainer, but it has to do with continuing our evolution as the human race. So when you understand it in that light, you, you look at it differently. You, you, you know, that everything that you do to and around and in front of and with your child is going to influence who they become.
Muriel:
And our goal is to raise adults who are healthy, well-regulated independent, successful people. And what happens or has happened a lot in the past is that there’s a lot of parents that are just children kind of competing with their own children. And so a lot of that comes from not understanding that becoming a parent means you have to kind of grow yourself up and also, you know, see it as this holy very like blessed experience that you’re getting to help a whole new being flower.
Muriel:
Essentially it’s like watering your flowers. Like, you know, you stomp all over them and what do you think is going to happen? Or you can talk to them lovingly every day and water them. And they’re going to bloom every year more and more, you know? So it’s really just about looking at it as that as something that is, that you were chosen to do, and that is, is meant to grow your heart and connect it with their heart and then bring them into a healthy human being as they grow up. Instead of, you know, I think there’s like a lot of keywords these days about healing trauma and inner child work and stuff.
Muriel:
And, and really it’s, it’s about seeing that children are whole beings. Like they’re not just many adults, like waiting to grow up and be adults. They are meant to be respected as children and just really changing the culture around that and, and seeing the reverence of, of their existence and who they are in our world, because they are the future leaders. They’re there. We all started as those children. And we’re the ones who are here changing the world now. So it really matters how we treat children.
Wendy:
Yes. And part of that is just realizing that they are often our greatest teachers, if you have the open heart, right. Like if you’re willing and you’re humble and you show up, which trust me, it is not easy. I spent years thinking like that. I just needed to show my daughter who’s boss. And then once I realized that, like she was actually part of, probably part of her mission on this earth, I believe she’s an angel to our family, to me, to the world photo of her mission, probably being here is, is to help me. Right. Like it’s, you know, it’s like, she is the reason why I’m a teacher. She’s the reason why I all of a sudden started to go, oh my goodness.
Wendy:
Like, that’s not, why, why do I yell? Why do I like, do I get so angry with her or whatever it may be. And then now, because of her, I get to help thousands and thousands of families every year. You know? So it’s like, in that regard too, it becomes such a holy, like, this is such an honorable role. And I know everyone always says that. Right. They’re like, yeah. So if, you know, especially if you hear like a mom stays at home full time, it’s like, yes, everybody respects it. And they, but at the same time, they don’t go like to this level where we’re like, we really need to understand, like, this is such a beautiful, honorable, incredible positioning that we have.
Wendy:
And
Muriel:
Yeah. Yeah. And I think, honestly, I have a quote that like becoming a parent is an introduction into higher consciousness. So I totally am in line with like this idea that every child you have is going to awaken something within you to heal in some sense, if that’s what you want to look at it as, or to change, to be more loving and open your heart more, it’s like, I’ve heard so many people say that kids cause more stress, but really what they’re just trying to do is open your heart.
Wendy:
Totally. There’s a book. I wonder if you’ve ever read it before. It’s one of my favorite books of all time, but it’s called the little soul in the sun. Do you have
Muriel:
That book library?
Wendy:
Yes. It’s on the shop page of the Fresh Start Family website, but yeah, it’s just this beautiful book about that. Just remind, reminds us that like the, what, like we cannot develop, for example, patients, if there’s not somebody a little, a little like angel, who’s helping us develop that. So when you have a toddler, that’s a pain in the butt in air quotes. Like that is the only way you develop patience. Like you cannot develop compassion. If everything is just perfect in the world, nobody needs help. And you know, there’s nothing to be sad about or whatever it may be like, you, you have to have opportunities to develop compassion. And it’s just this beautiful children’s book, but it’s actually for adults too.
Wendy:
And it, it does just exactly what we’re talking about. It’s like, it is the whole process is a holy divine situation that every single part of it has purpose. Even the days when we super mess up, like those actually have amazing purpose too. So just like, I love like the whole idea of like, I, when I grew up, I was never taught how to make a men’s like my family would scream at each other. And then the next day he was like, Hey, would you like eggs, bacon? And I was like, yep. Just happened. Like everyone freaked out last night and my brother ran away and now you’re asking me like, we’re just moving on. So it’s like, yeah, just little things like that.
Wendy:
It’s like, yeah, well, nowadays after there’s an argument, you know, families that I work with and I’m sure you do too. We, we have the tools to say like, that’s not what defines us and we can have peaceful conflict resolution. We can listen to one another. We can look at what we learned from our mistakes and do it again today. Start fresh.
Muriel:
Yes. Yeah. And I truly believe that, like we choose our parents before we come into this world and like children who their parents are going to be like for that reason is to like, you get the kid that’s meant to awaken you like all of the kids, even if you have eight or 12 or one, or however many, you know, your child chose to come in to bring that new light into your life. It’s so true. So yeah.
Wendy:
Yes. Oh my goodness. We, we could go so deep with that. I feel like we should record a whole nother episode on like, just like the trauma side of things. Cause I know you are incredible with that, you know? Cause I think about the parents who are listening, who really did have that horrible traumatic, you know, and they’re like, gosh, did I really choose this? Fuck. You know, and I know that’s like a whole conversation
Muriel:
Of like,
Wendy:
Hey, you know, it is, it’s so intense of like just how we were matched up. And, and I know, I believe that God always brings good out of it. You know? Like there’s messy and it can so many people, nobody deserves to grow up in a home where there was gosh, you know, hurt and pain and, and all of that. And I know that God will, will bring the light if we allow him to. So,
Muriel:
Right. And it’s just in line with what you said about like, I never would have learned forgiveness on a deep, true level. Had I not have the childhood? I did. I never would have learned how to open my heart and make amends, like you said, so it’s, you know, like you said, we could have a whole podcast on just that, cause it really is. It’s deep stuff, but
Wendy:
Yeah. And it’s beautiful. Cool. Okay. And talk to us Muriel about your thoughts on how children are so such wise beings that are simply just not as developed as adults and need respectful support to thrive. You touched on this earlier, but tell us just a little bit.
Muriel:
Yeah. So it just goes right in line with just the fact that they are their own human. And if you look around the world, you’ll see that everything is created for adults. Like down to little stuff that probably nobody even thinks of like toilets in public places or sinks or things like that. It’s all geared toward adults, which kind of comes from this traditional idea that like, you know, children are seen and not heard. And like, you know, they’re not really seen as equal to adults in a lot of ways, but in reality, they are like you said, our teachers, they are here to bring something new into the world.
Muriel:
So their wisdom is really what they’re here to bring. They’re not here to appeal to our ego and what we want. Like, you might want to have kids because you want the image or whatever. But like the reality is that child’s going to bring their own wisdom into your life and family. And the best way to support that wisdom is through what we teach those gentle, compassionate ways of understanding and looking at children so that they can just naturally be who they are, because the reality is all of us come into this world with that.
Muriel:
And, and if we don’t bother it, we like thrive. Naturally. It’s just like the flower reference that I used a few minutes ago. Like if you don’t do anything but water, the flowers they’re going to bloom. So it’s just this gentle, loving support of who the being is within your child and their own wisdom that they’re meant to bring outside of what you think that they should be or how you think they should be or what direction in life you think they should go. And kind of like letting that part of yourself, be healed, doing the work to let go of your own ideas of what you think your children should be in instead like, like you said, like seeing them as your teacher, seeing them as their own wise person, that is a complete and total person.
Muriel:
But like you said, when they’re a toddler, they don’t develop mentally have the ability and capacity to actually embody that. Right. So when your toddler is freaking out and having a high emotional experience, it’s not because they’re trying to, you know, make life hard. It’s because they’re here and they have their own innate wisdom, but they’re not developmentally able to embody that fully yet. So in order for them to grow up and be able to embody that we have to honor that their development has different stages and that they’re different than adults and be able to support them lovingly, instead of assuming that like they can be adults or, you know, even adults, like, just so use an example of like timeout or sending a child to their room or something like you just got to think about like, how would you feel if your partner, your husband or wife or whatever was just like, oh, you’re really too emotional.
Muriel:
Like go away, like get away from me, right. Or whatever. It’s like, that’s not helpful. And that’s not even something that we would want. So it’s just like taking note of the fact that even though children don’t have the ability to regulate themselves, they still are very wise, inherently divine beings that here with their own purpose. And in order for us to fully support that we have to understand their development is just not to the space where they can fully express that in healthy ways, which is why we as adults have the capacity to heal our own triggers and inner child regulate our own nervous system, be able to be the leader and then they can co-regulate with us and learn how to have those better expressions of their own inner feelings and wisdom and all of the things,
Wendy:
Hey, there, families pausing this episode for a moment to say, thank you to Troomi wireless for supporting the Fresh Start Family Show and for helping keep our kids safe. Both of my kids have Troomi phones now, and they are just such a great alternative to an iPhone. If you’re like me and you’re trying to wait as long as possible to give your kids smartphones, Troomi devices, give us the parents the ability to get in touch with our kiddos at any time, but help keep kids safe by setting boundaries in the parent portal, which by the way, is so easy to set up, to include text and voice calls only because these phones do have the ability to add apps and internet. If you’d like, as your kids get older, I really do advocate to do that.
Wendy:
Only when they’re in high school, I do allow my kids to have apple music on their devices too, which they love for car rides and airplane trips and skateboarding or whatever. So when you use the code Fresh Start now through February 28th, you’ll get a free Troomi, a 12 device. When you sign up for a discover service plan, you guys, that’s $179 kid safe phone for free. So head to treme.com now to check them out and just use the code FreshStart. Okay. Back to the show. Yes. Gosh, that’s a whole nother episode. That’s another one.
Wendy:
How to regulate our own nervous system. Right? Like I just had a friend, I just had a client tag me this morning, actually on, on Instagram. She was like, just so much, she had done like a fun Q and a with her community. And they were like, do you ever yell? And she was like, yes. And she was saying all day long, it seems like I walk. I’m just trying not to be triggered by my kids and to hurt them a little video of her sweet little boy, he was just like, so emotional and crying and, and it’s just so true. Right? Like we’re all just trying to figure out how to regulate our own nervous system so we can respond and be neutral and let our children move through things because we all like we know as educators, right?
Wendy:
Like it’s the way for them to develop the life skills is to actually move through things and, and yes, we can support them, but when we don’t stop it and fix it and shame it, they have the, the, the life skill actually gets developed so much faster. Like when we basically allow them and, and encourage them and not rescue them, like, but say, you’re capable, you can develop this life skill and I’m going to support you. And, and I thought of like, when we’re talking about life skills or what we had said in that was like developmentally appropriate stuff. Right. Like I think of life skills and it’s like, everyone’s so they think of it when they’re like, yes, my baby doesn’t know how to eat.
Wendy:
Yeah. He can’t pick up. He can’t like eat with a spoon. Yes. Like he’s not there yet. Or my baby doesn’t walk yet or my kiddo can’t write their name yet. Right. Like they always think of these types of things, but they think less of just the developmental maturity of like, self-regulation like processing emotions, like, you know, being able to keep your hands to yourself instead of like act out or like, you know, be able to like, feel the feeling of hurt and not hurt back. Cause you think that that’s, what’s, that’s, what’s necessary. Like there’s so many life skills that come with like emotional literacy that is so associated with their actions. And it’s just part of, that’s just part of it.
Wendy:
But like just yesterday I was watching a friend who, a neighbor, her little baby, just sort of walking and secured his thing ever this little walk that she has, she like kicks her legs. And you know, in three weeks, four weeks she’ll be kind of walking normal, you know? And it’s like, it’s the same thing with kids. And just remembering that, like, they’re not just trying to be bad and naughty. They’re just smaller humans with less developed brains who are in developmentally appropriate stages. And the, the behavioral side is just as important as the like functioning side writing. You’re not speaking up
Muriel:
If not more because yeah, if not more seriously, because it’s really hard. I mean, I’ve worked with families. A lot of my inspiration to create this work comes from working with families who have severe like energy, where they like were not able to have that emotional connection and regulation, which impacts the ability to actually develop those regular, so to speak life skills of being able to talk and walk and eat and all of the things. And so, yeah. I mean, honestly I think from my perspective, I would say it’s more important because that emotional component allows a child to be regulated enough, to be able to feel safe, to develop accordingly.
Wendy:
Yes, absolutely. My mind just goes into a ton of different directions. It’s like I could go on so many different rabbit holes with you, but I’m not going to, I’m just going to keep us out. Okay. Number three. Okay. Talk to us about when it comes to healing and being the change in your family
Muriel:
This sooner, the later, but it’s never too late. I said that wrong the sooner, the better, but it’s never too late. That’s right. And that comes back around full circle to the introduction of just the PreParenting in general. What I have learned, I think I said this earlier on, was that the majority of people who have these significant struggles have just this, this misunderstanding of the parenting role and, and haven’t really been led in taught how to actually be a parent. Like it’s honestly crazy to me that we have to take a driver’s ed test to drive a car, but you don’t have parent ed.
Muriel:
So like, I truly believe the sooner, the better and healing your own stuff. Meaning, you know, when I work with clients who are trying to conceive or who are pregnant currently, it’s about healing. Those triggers that you have already, like, you know what your triggers are, you don’t need a kid, a kid is going to accentuate them. Absolutely. And they’re going to put a light on to things that you might not have seen before, but if you have the skills already to down-regulate your response and heal the things that come up, because what happens when you get triggered is a lot of times you go, you revert to your own childhood.
Muriel:
So you revert to that child who is, you know, trying to keep their power when someone’s trying to take it away. And then you parent from that place. So the sooner that we can realize that and start to get a hold on our own triggers and, and heal our own nervous system and reactivity through healing, kind of how we see parenting and the way we show up the better. But at the same time, it’s never too late. People can, I didn’t repair my relationship with my parent, with my dad specifically until I was about 20 years old, but it’s fully repaired and it’s really healthy now, but you can heal as late as it goes.
Muriel:
It just takes this, this humble ownership of your own role in things. So you never, you never, it’s never too late. If you feel like you’ve messed your kids up. I mean, what is Gabor Matesa? He says like, you have, don’t worry, like count on it because it’s kind of true. Like that’s also part, I feel like of the parent child relationship is that there’s going to be those lessons of repair that like, you know, the human experience in general is about rupture and repair and coming back to ourselves over and over again.
Muriel:
So never too late. I mean, we are resilient beings with powerful spirits and bodies and plastic brains that can change at any point in time. And it really just takes your courage to do so. So
Wendy:
I love that. And, and when I, when we use, when we use that word healing a lot, right? Like I, so here at Fresh Start Family, so I’m a life coach too. And I do a lot of healing through feeling. So tell us a little bit more about like, where do you like, is that something you do within your own practice where you’re like, you’re, you’re really like sitting with people and you’re like saying, okay, he let’s look at the trigger. What’s like, for our, for example, in our membership group, we often kind of start to talk about limiting beliefs and protection behaviors and like, what is the feeling underneath there? And then in my life coaching work, we go really deep with like the childhood memories.
Wendy:
Is that similar to what you do in your work? And is that where you would guide people? And then lastly, I want you to tell listeners where they can find you because we’re coming to the end of our episode.
Muriel:
Yeah. It’s very similar. I actually work with, I call it like your levels of consciousness. It’s something that I learned from Dr. David Hawkins. He’s like a really renowned guy he’s, he’s passed, but he’s awesome. I’ve learned so much from his teachings. And really what, what I help people to do is identify where they are on an energetic level, because guilt has an energy. And then, you know, happiness and joy has an energy and you can’t just hop straight from guilt to happiness.
Muriel:
You have to go from the guilt, through the shame, through the anger, through the pride, and then finally reach a space where you’re kind of neutral and accepting. And then you get courageous and you, you know, you, you have to level yourself up. It’s not like you can it’s there. The work is not about spiritual bypassing, which a lot of people are using that term these days too. But like that just means that you are like, oh, I’m just going to positively think my way through it, you know? No, you do. You have to feel each thing. And also learning how to identify that. Because I think traditionally we’re not taught emotional intelligence. It’s not in any curriculum that I’ve been taught when I was growing up, identifying the feelings of fear, the feelings of anger and all of that.
Muriel:
And, and then being able to level yourself up from there, honoring it. And then there’s this cool rule. I can’t remember the doctor who came up with it, but it’s called the 92nd rule. You might have heard of it. But essentially like when we feel a feeling, if we add any of our own stories to it, and if we don’t try to resist the feeling within 90 seconds, the bodily sensation of it will actually dissipate and we can kind of move forward from it. So if we can reach a space where we can let go of the stories that come up to meet that energy, to meet that emotion, energy in motion, and actually let it ride through without resisting it, without trying to change it or label it, then we can actually level up to the, to the place of being able to reach a compassionate space where we are able to connect or a loving space where we are able to connect.
Muriel:
So that’s really what I teach people, how to do is how to get from those lower spaces, from whatever the situation may be, whether it’s from their own childhood or a trigger that like brought some of that stuff up with their own children, into a space where they’re continually creating this habituation of coming back to their true self, which is regulated centered in the heart and able to reconnect. And if you are interested in learning more, I have a website which is pre-parenting.com where you can read basically an article to learn a little bit more about kind of my work and what I do.
Muriel:
And then at the very bottom, if you scroll down and click the orange button, I created this little booklet that’s called like the intro to cycle breaking. And it’s really good for people who are ready to do this work and like have a few steps for how to kind of be more aware of these things and actually embody that cycle breaker who is not going to be the yeller or shut their kid down or not apologize. Like you said earlier, not make amends. So if you just go to that website and click that button, you can get that free guide as well.
Wendy:
Beautiful. And you’re very active on Instagram too, right?
Muriel:
Yes. Yeah. So at PreParenting so P R E parenting.
Wendy:
Yes. I love all your quotes that you share and just the such thought provoking stuff. And yeah, the emotion stuff is just so fascinating to me. I mean, I just love it all. I just, I’m just thinking about like some stuff I, yesterday I like had a crappy few hours and I feel like what happens once you, you get the support and you get the healing, it, it always will be continuous. Right. And yesterday, as I was processing this, I realized that you just become more aware of it, like you said, and then you have some tools and you give yourself space and grace, and once you have those things, right, then you’re able to like figure it out, feel through it, move to a higher level and then not pass it on, which I think is so, so the goal, so
Muriel:
Yeah, yeah. Yes. Thank you. And just for anybody who like really feels like they want to connect, my, my email is also PreParenting at gmail.com and I offer a free like healing discovery session for people who do work to just go ahead and dive in based off what they heard in the podcast. So that’s the last two that you can have to reach me.
Wendy:
You’re such a source of wisdom and light Muriel. Thank you for spending time with us today. Thank you for serving families and parents, and the way that you do your work is so important. And I definitely want to have you on the show back again. We’ll talk about one of those other incredible topics that we didn’t get to go deep on today, but thanks so much.
Muriel:
Thank you
Wendy:
For links and more info about everything we talked about in today’s episode had to FreshStartFamilyonline.com/117.
Stella:
For more information, go to FreshStartFamilyonline.com. Thanks for listening. Families have a great day.
Wendy:
Well, Hey there families. If you loved this episode today and want to jump in to one of our Fresh Start Family programs, I cannot recommend our firm and kind parenting blueprint as a starting point, highly enough. So Head to from a kind parenting blueprint.com, and you can learn all about this simple affordable program that will get you started with learning our four steps to setting strong limits and sticking to them with consistency today.
