Relationships Archives

Learning the Process: Grief with Guilt

It seems like more and more people are working to protect their peace, and for many of us that includes going no contact with friends, family, and even parents. The worry and anxiety that can follow that is overwhelming, and what do you do when there are curveball thrown your way while trying to manage an estranged relationship?

You see, I’ve got an exclusive membership that I don’t want. It’s not illustrious or anything, there’s no wait list, and it’s certainly not envied by anyone that I know. I’m a card carrying member of the “Dead Dad Club”. The hardest part of being in the club is that prior to joining I had been in therapy working on re-parenting myself and healing my inner child, when my brother showed up at my apartment one Monday morning in October, a cloud hung low above his head, with the news that granted me access to this club.

My father and I had a tricky relationship since adolescence and as an adult I was focused on managing the relationship as best as I could within a space that was healthy for me, which resulted in on and off periods of estrangement. We were in one of those periods when he passed suddenly and unexpectedly. There are times when I feel thrust back into those weeks following his death, when I forget that he isn’t just living in Florida, and that I haven’t heard from him in a while. As Kacey Musgraves sings in her song Justified, released the same year I lost my dad, “healing doesn’t happen in a straight line” and I had expected my journey through this grief to at least be some sort of roller coaster ride with highs and lows, but to at least have some sort of flow, but there are moments when I blink and I am back at the starting line.

The unexpected stage of grief

We all know the five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. No one goes through a picture perfect grief period however, and those stages come and go in whichever order they please. On my personal grief journey, wedged in there somewhere between Anger and Depression, is Guilt. Everytime I find myself in that phase, it’s almost like there is a separate group of stages compounded on that, where the normal stages of grief come to screeching halt, and I have to put all my attention on working through the guilt before I can allow my body and mind to get back to processing the grief.

I feel an everlasting amount of guilt that the last few times that we had communicated he was angry with me. I had been trying to set some boundaries with him while I worked through things in therapy, and he was not happy with it one bit. He always struggled with boundaries, and took them personally. My mom and him had been divorced for years but she still held out hope that if I kept explaining my boundaries to him that one day, a light bulb would go off and he would get it. That was a feeling that was hard to let go of while he was living, and I thought I had, but when he died I had realized how wrong I was. My dad was one of mushy-love kind of parents while my mom wasn’t as attached her own emotions, so from my Dad it always felt over the top, but he always had to tell us how much he loved us, so that if anything ever happened, the last thing said between us was from a place of love.

My first introduction to guilt within this personalized grieving process came pretty quickly in the week after. It started as a little intrusive voice in my head, telling me that I wasn’t allowed to feel so sad, because my dad and I weren’t even talking in the year before his death. In therapy I had been coming to terms with the potential that my dad might not ever be able to respect my boundaries, and that he might not ever be able to be welcomed back into my life. I was already grieving the death of the relationship that I wanted to have with my dad, and in some way I felt that others were more justified in their grief. It had been me that was pushing him away, and because of that, I wasn’t worthy of being equals with my siblings as we walked behind his casket in church. I was there to support them, but as the estranged daughter, I was the odd one out. There was guilt the first time I genuinely laughed after his death. The first fathers day, on his birthday, on the first anniversary of his passing. The biggest was when I was moving into my first home, since my dad was a borderline professional mover. He could always be counted on to rent the truck and show up, ready to haul boxes and furniture.

Forgiveness is healing

The cycle of the stages of guilt, within the stages of grief, are still there but I have learned the hard lesson of how to better process those feelings. There is always the glimmer of guilt that I could have done better at maintaining that relationship, that I could have told him one last time that I still loved him, even though I needed space. That I could have explained more clearly that my boundaries were an effort to maintain the relationship, that they were not designed to hurt him. I remind myself that I did the best I could as the child within the relationship, that the anger I felt towards him is the anger from my inner Teenager after healing the inner child, and to give grace to that inner version of myself, to find “therapeutic forgiveness”, as my therapist calls it. I am here now, and the person that I would ask for forgiveness from for that, is no longer living. So as I am working on my own reparenting, I must also now forgive myself in his absence.

New, Personal Story, Relationships
May, 26, 2023

The Importance of Reclaiming Ancestral Roots

The integration of ancestral roots are a forgotten joy in our society. Reclamation is forthright. Separation has kept us fighting, arguing, and our nervous systems careening for far too long. Anthropologists study the changes humanity has grown through from past to modern day, and while great accomplishments are rife, we are lacking community. Par for the course, trauma causes the body to see connection as a threat to safety. Turn on the news and unsafety is the primary messaging. Nothing is ok. Everything is wrong.

Remedying this scenario doesn’t need to be as complicated as we make it out to be. By going back to the basics and back to our roots, community is second nature to our drive for evolution and survival. It clings to our blood and bones; passed down through our ancestral DNA.

For as long as we’ve been human, we have been with plants. They have always been an integral part of nutrition, ceremony, first aid, and healing from illness.

Women were the primary carriers of this sacred herbal knowledge. Each house or community had its own wise women who provided herbal remedies for those that became unwell. Wise women tied communities together through health and tender loving care.

A love of plants remains a missing link in today’s society, though with a grand resurgence of allyship with the natural world, society is growing closer to reclaiming our intimate connection with nature; that which in turn teaches us how to connect intimately with fellow members of society. When we see the relationship of the natural world and the intricacies of interdependence, we see a blueprint for how to climb out of the pit of disconnection and isolation. No plant exists nor survives in isolation. The answers lay as a mirror right beneath our feet.

Understanding herbalism brings communities together in a place where we can set aside differences and see with clarity the needs we share. The need to create, the need to dance, and the need to grow. These are all things herbalism emboldens us to embody.

With mainstream herbalism hitting the market and the industry projected to undergo massive growth, let us not forget the underlying philosophical themes that guide us in defining the necessity of interdependence and connection throughout the constructs of humanity.

Relationships
May, 11, 2023

A Mother’s Greatest Fear

Imagine sitting in a room of 100 people. A spokesperson walks onto the stage at the front of the room and announces that twenty five of you will be selected. You have no idea what is awaiting you, though know that one in four means your chances are not too bad.

At random, you get selected and are directed to move into the room next door. Part of you is excited, while part of you is nervous. As you make your way through a doorway and into the next room, you wonder to yourself, “Do I get a prize? What is this about?”

The spokesperson walks into the room and stands before you and the other twenty-four candidates. He looks very formal and has a flat affect. It’s hard to tell if the information he is going to share is good or bad. You find yourself holding your breath in anticipation of what you hope to be some kind of reward.

Without hesitation or remorse, he tells you that you will experience the death of your baby.

Your throat tightens. A heaviness creeps into your chest and you feel like you’re going to be sick. What kind of cruel joke is this?

It’s not a joke. These are the actual numbers faced for women experiencing pregnancy. I share this not to scare you, only to reinforce a reality faced by so many women.

Statistics reveal that approximately 25% of all pregnancies, will end before the second trimester. Some studies have calculated this number to be as high as 50%. Additionally , the CDC calculates that approximately 1 in 100 pregnancies will result in stillbirth.

Do these numbers shock you? I was certainly shocked when I came to discover the facts.

The truth is, the conversation I had with my healthcare providers about pregnancy loss was brief. So brief, it could be captured in four words, “it’s a small percentage.” I wish I had known more and felt better prepared.

Because in my case, I am not even considered 1 in 4.

I am not even considered 1 in 100.

In the scenario above, I didn’t get selected.

I thought I was safe. I made it into my second trimester. Then into my third.

It was a challenging pregnancy, though at each of my ultrasounds, my daughter was content. She was stubborn; she refused to allow any photos of her face to be captured, though she was what we all thought to be healthy and strong.

It wasn’t until a few days before my daughter’s birth that we were told she wouldn’t live independently outside of my womb. The only reason we found out when we did, was because my membranes ruptured early at 31 weeks gestation. As a result, I was flown out of the province and to a larger centre with advanced equipment. It was this equipment that revealed a long list of complications that would make our baby’s survival unlikely.

Her diagnosis? We don’t know.

We may never know.

July 2023 will mark three years since her passing. Immediately following her death, we began collaborating with a team of researchers within the scientific community to try and find a cause. To date, the team is not aware of any other known cases or what would have caused our daughter’s complications and symptoms.

Not having answers has weighed on my mind over the years.

Just as others who experience pregnancy and infant loss, we are left with “why?”

“Why me?”

“Why my baby?”

“What could I have done differently?”

“What if I did things differently?”

So many questions, most without answers. Questions that loss moms carry with us, alongside our grief.

Pregnancy and infant death is something we carry with us each and every day.

It’s heavy. It can be loud. It can be all consuming and messy.

Our babies were small, though the experience of baby loss is not.

Finding the path forward

The current culture and societal views on pregnancy and infant death command that women suppress, hide, and isolate the pain, grief, and experiences that accompany baby loss. It’s important to highlight that within this silence, shame, resentment, anger, and stigma breeds.

I am here to advocate and demonstrate that by doing the opposite, each of us can contribute to changing this culture.

When I began sharing my story, almost immediately following I had family, friends, coworkers, and acquaintances step forward and open up about their own experiences of baby loss. Some of which had never spoken about or processed the death of their babies previously.

The death of my daughter Kailani not only opened my eyes to the realities faced by others, though it also guided me to create safe spaces for my fellow loss parents. It’s through our stories of pain that we can connect and support one another in being seen, heard, and valued.

Based on the statistics alone, someone you know or someone you love, has experienced pregnancy or infant loss. What’s needed is a safe and supportive space to be able to openly share and grieve the death of our babies. I invite you to create these spaces for others by offering a listening, compassionate and non-judgemental ear for those in your life.

Grief is not meant to be done in isolation or in hiding. No parent should have to navigate the life long pain and grief that accompanies baby loss.

Each of these babies has left an impact and an everlasting change in our world. They will always be carried in the hearts of those they left behind.

Together we remember. Together we keep their memory alive. Together we carry the weight of our grief.

Forever Loved
Kailani Mary Randall
July 25, 2020

Parenting, Personal Story
May, 09, 2023

Why You Might Be Attracting Unhealthy Partners

Video Transcript

I get this question a lot: Why am I attracting partners that are emotionally unavailable or physically unavailable? There can be a few answers for that. But the most common answers I find are:

Self- Protection

They’re trying to protect themselves from being vulnerable, from being hurt, from loss. It’s really hard for some people to open up to someone and allow themselves to feel that joy, knowing that as much joy as they feel, they will equally feel as much sadness if something were to happen to them or if they were to leave.

Which is inevitable, right? In this world that we live in, there’s a constant cycle of death and rebirth. Sometimes that just means you break up, or it wasn’t meant to be, or it’s run its course… No matter what the outcome is there’s always lessons—no matter what, in any relationship we have. There’s good stuff for us to learn from, take in, and integrate.

Unworthiness

The second reason that people tend to attract people who are physically or emotionally unavailable is this feeling as though they’re not worthy of anyone. Or as though they will inherently ruin something. Or they’ll open up to someone and that person will eventually see them for who they truly are. And they may believe that who they truly are is unworthy, undeserving, or terrible.

This can lead to self-sabatoshing by purposefully choosing partners that are in a relationship with someone else, or who refuse to commit, or who refuse to treat them with integrity, love, and respect. This idea that we are inherently broken is really prominent in people who attract unhealthy partners because if they were attracting people that were giving them their full attention and their time, they would be in their worth—and they’re not. They’re attracting people that are:

Disrespecting them
Not being present with them
Not giving them everything they deserve

These are the main two reasons why people attract unavailable people, and if you’re one of those people ask yourself these questions:

Why do you attract them?

Why do you want them?

What does it serve?

Does it protect something?

Does it help something?

Does it help keep you small or safe?

Does it save you from having to see if you truly are worthy and deserving of someone who is just as incredible as you are?

Is it to stop you from taking responsibility for yourself in the way you need to show up for somebody else?

There’s lots of questions you can ask, and if you’re curious about this visit Mystic Rose Medicine or connect with me on Instagram—we can talk about why you may be attracting people who are not on your level and are not helping you get to where you want to be.

Relationships
Jan, 11, 2023

Honoring Yourself During the Holidays

How to pay attention to your triggers during the holiday season—and how to return the focus to yourself and your values.

Video Transcript

Something really interesting happens around the holidays. People get tested and triggered by their families, by society, random folks on the side of the road, social media… Everyone gets triggered by something—and it’s our job to figure out why it triggers us, why it bothers us, why it brings up something within us that is frustrating. Or maybe it’s bringing up a feeling of lack or unworthiness or a feeling that we are alone or unheard, or unvalidated.

Check In With Yourself

As we move through the holidays, check in with yourself. Are you setting boundaries with your family? Are you prioritizing your own needs, your own rituals, your traditions, things that bring you joy? Not just things that bring other people joy or expectations that have been put on you due to generational patterns or expectations.

I think there is also something to be said about living in a society that is obsessed with consumerism and getting new and shiny things. In reality we can have values that align with certain things we want to get, but at the end of the day, we’ve turned these holidays into something less about what were grateful for—our traditions, focusing on the things we’ve cultivated and created for our own families or our own selves to find joy in something that is really meaningful to us. So, notice how you give in to “the norms” of the holidays.

Pay Attention to What Bothers You

What comes up?
Why does it bother you?
Is there a boundary that needs to be placed?
Does something need attention, love, adoration, validation?
Do you need to speak up for yourself?

There’s lots of ways to go about this, but simply checking in with yourself and feeling what’s going on in your body and noticing when things are frustrating. Noticing when things are agitating—like when you’re driving in traffic and someone cuts you off, because everyone is holiday shopping. Is that what’s really bothering you? Or is there something that’s happened earlier that’s getting you all riled up?

Relationships
Dec, 26, 2022

Tend and Befriend: The Feminine Response to Stress

There are new studies coming out that show that our trusty friend “fight or flight” is actually only proven to be true in the male physiology.

Yep.

Now, you can stretch fight or flight to fit the feminine—you can make it work—but the more accurate female physiological response to stress is something called “tend and befriend.”

It takes one flashback to middle or high school to see this played out. The mean girls are mean to you and what do you do? You don’t fight them. And you probably didn’t run scared either. What you probably did was anything you could to get back on their good side. You tended to the crappy frienemmy relationships…you were extra kind and friendly.

If that’s not quite clicking for you yet, let’s look at a more extreme example. Victims of domestic violence aren’t usually rushing to the door and leasing a new apartment at the first sign of trouble. And we usually ask why. Why don’t they just leave? Or why don’t they say something or fight back or get help? Well, because they aren’t physiologically designed to respond with fight or flight.

Instead, these women will stay and put up with the abuse because their bodies are hardwired to stay as safe as possible. They will go to great lengths to smooth things over, to make the abuser happy or calm, to appease. Because their bodies are working to make sure everyone is safe and protected. They truly believe that they and maybe their children are safer if they can just stay on the abuser’s good side.

This makes so much energetic sense. If you look at the feminine energy characteristics like:

Passive
Feeling
Relationship oriented
Allowing
Creating
Cooling
Cooperation
Intuition
Receiving
Nurturing

You see that this Tend and Befriend way of handling stress and danger is much more acutely aligned.

Now, we must step out of the abusive example to see the beauty in this design. This sort of energy and way of being is what keeps a village together. This sort of response is what keeps relationships from crumbling because of miscommunication, strong feelings, and mistakes. And this is exactly the sort of response we need to start leaning in to in order to heal women’s relationships with other women.

The culture has taught us that we just don’t get along well with other women. That women are too judgemental, too sensitive, read too much into every detail. We are taught that hanging out with the guys is what makes us “not like other girls” and also that being able to be in a room full of men and hold your own is what will make us successful.

We were also taught that the right way to respond to stress and danger is fight or flight, so we’ve been taught some particularly masculine things that aren’t aligning.

So we need to start leaning into the impulse to tend and befriend. We need to allow women into our circles again, without the expectation that she’s not to be trusted. We were designed this way for a reason. And aligned with that nature might be the answer to so much healing, renewing, and rebuilding for that world.

Relationships
Aug, 02, 2022

Feminine Anger

Anger. There is no shortage of it. And I think we can all feel that. But the lack of acceptance of it has me feeling a certain sort of way.

It’s been said by many that the patriarchal society we live in fears a woman’s anger. To that end we have to suppress it some way. We have to shut it down. Men, of course do this, but the patriarchy runs deeply, generationally, and so women do their fair share of suppressing anger as well.

We push down our own anger because we are taught “There’s no use being angry.” And we came to that conclusion after being told to:

Calm down.
Let it go.
Don’t let them get to you.
Rise above it.
Relax.
And don’t we love to blame any strong feeling on hormones.
Are you on your period?
I’m just hormonal.
Pregnancy Hormones
PMSing

They are all to blame for our “irrational feelings.”

If you hear that enough, get dismissed enough, get blamed enough, it’s no wonder we don’t let ourselves feel the fullness of an emotion like anger.

Many of the women in my office hold back tears, minimize and hold back their emotional responses, apologize for laughing too loud or letting tears out. They cage themselves into a smaller, gentler version of themselves in microscopic ways. They have no idea they’re doing it.

And so I ask them if they have a hard time letting themselves orgasm.

Of course they do.

The reason for this is fear. What if the orgasm is too big? What if it’s too powerful? I have no idea what will happen if I really allow that to come in its fullness.

Along with orgasms, anger, sadness, rage, and even joy are all held captive in metaphorical jeans that are a few sizes too small. What if the anger consumes me? But darling, it already is. From the inside out, our anger eats at us. It takes things from us. But we hold it anyway. Anything to make others more comfortable around us.

There is a belief that women hold all of our anger, storing it up in the womb space for 28 days. And then we release it all at once with our menstrual bleed. That’s why your flow is heaviest on the first day, and that’s why your PMS symptoms might be so powerful. You’re finally releasing the stored emotion.

So what if you didn’t do that? What if you allowed yourself to release anger, judgment and shame-free as it came?

What if you allowed yourself that courtesy for every emotion, feeling, and orgasm?

Because the truth is, your emotions have purpose. Your experiences within your body are necessary and helpful communication. Feelings are the conduit for relationships—they are how we connect to ourselves, our higher power, and our people. And they won’t break you in half. You won’t burst from feeling too strongly. You are safe to feel fully.

And this is rather critical. This is why we need to allow for emotional release and expression every day, not just when we can’t take it anymore. This freedom would give way to healing, and power, and deeper connection and deeper love. Your body would be able to fill with love and light, rather than stored trauma, repressed anger, and anxiety.

That’s what you need. And just imagine what it could do for that world.

Relationships
Jul, 05, 2022

Energetic Un-coupling: Regenerating Depleted Relationships without Divorce

This pandemic has been intense for long term-relationships, no matter how solid they were before COVID came knocking. Extreme stress can be an incredible clarifier on where the pressure points are in a relationship, especially when the stress comes in the form of spending way more time together to survive and having our unhealed individual and relationship wounds get displayed in all their painful glory.

My husband and I have been together for almost 10 years. We met when walking the Camino de Santiago, a 500-mile pilgrimage that runs from one side of Spain to the other. So yes, we literally did walk 500 miles to fall down at each other’s proverbial doors.

Our courtship was EXTREMELY short before I became pregnant with our son, about 1.5 months from meeting each other to a positive pregnancy test. By that point we had seen each other in a variety of extreme situations. We had been exhausted, stinky, sore, trying to survive in a foreign country, cohabitating in a sailboat the size of a bathroom, and navigated the fallout of him having a live-in girlfriend when we met. From the very beginning, I used to say, “Well, we’ve seen each other at our worst so if we still like each other, it’s definitely a good sign.”

We became first-time parents before we had known each other for a full year, had moved from one country to another, and were living on my parent’s property when our son was born. We had life on fast forward and both of us had significant childhood trauma which at that time, was only partially recognized and mostly unresolved.

I can tell you, that wherever your relationship is at when you have kids is where it will stay unless you actively prioritize growing it. But with or without kids, at some point in a long-term relationship, you will come face to face with all the unresolved wounds you still carry from early trauma or abuse.

Over the next nine years as a couple, we weathered post-partum depression, chronic illness, miscarriage, brain surgery, starting a new business, going back to graduate school, and remembering abuse from childhood which had been repressed for over 35 years. We lost grandparents, beloved pets and grew more emotionally distant from each other without knowing why. Our sex life was virtually non-existant and had been for the majority of our partnership.

By the time we were two years into the pandemic, we looked at each other and realized we did not want to do another ten years like this. The moment came when we were in a group coaching session for a Sacred Union workshop about how to work with our wounded inner children within a relationship. In a moment of vulnerability and courage, I related the arc and highlights of our relationship and asked for their input on how to save our marriage. Without missing a beat, the response came back, “You need to write the energetic divorce papers, do your inner work, and then see if there’s something you both want to build together.”

Jaw drop. In that instant both of us knew she was right. We had to do something profound if we were going to shift our patterns of abandonment, retreat, projection, and distance.

Immediately after the session I got on the internet and started searching for “energetic divorce process” and “energetic de-coupling” but found exactly nothing. The only resources I discovered related to Conscious Un-coupling which is a process meant to help folks going through an actual, 3D divorce heal and take responsibility for their part in why the relationship ended. Interesting, but not what I had in mind.

We both wanted to stay married but it needed to be a completely different experience than what we’d had up to that point. We needed processes, rituals, and ways to acknowledge the wounds of our relationship, heal them, release them, and then germinate our seedling of a connected, intimate, trust-filled, collaborative partnership.

As I realized that there were no clear templates for what we were attempting to do, it became clear that we would have to create the transformational crucible for our own evolution. Thankfully, we had both been doing deep personal work all throughout our relationship so we had tools for discovering our shadows and connecting with our wounded inner children…the tricky part would be weaving our existing tools together and supplementing with additional resources as we co-created our energetic divorce and reseeding.

To be fully transparent, we are still in the process of finding and creating our path for navigating a complete composting of our current relationship. It is my hope that by sharing the steps and skills we have called upon in this unfolding landscape, you will find the courage to embark upon your own regenerative relationship journey.

Personal Story, Relationships
Apr, 21, 2022

Five Ground Rules for Civil and Effective Co-Parenting

The Stepmother Stigma

I rarely refer to myself as the stepmother, nor to RB (my son by association) as my stepson, although both terms are accurate. And I think it has to do with the generally negative stereotype associated with this figure. For example, what’s the first image that comes to your mind when you think of the word “stepmother”? If you also pictured Lady Tremaine, the vicious stepmother character from Disney’s Cinderella—yay! And thank you for proving my point.

The other pop culture reference that comes up for me is Isabel Kelly, Julia Roberts’s character in the 1998 film, Stepmom. I’m closer to Isabel than to Lady Tremaine. Not only because I’m not a villain (I promise), but also because I haven’t birthed a child. And for a long time, I didn’t consider becoming a mother, either. Until I started co-parenting.

Co-Parenting

According to this National Library of Medicine article co-parenting refers to the ways that parents, parental figures, or both, relate to each other in their role as primary caretakers. It’s a relationship based on the shared or overlapping responsibilities of raising a child, and it’s independent from a past marriage, or other romantic relationship. The article highlights that the co-parenting relationship consists of support and coordination. And I agree. But for it to become a healthy, long-term partnership, it should also consist of respect, empathy, compassion and trust. Over the years, and through a lot of trial and error (until trial and success), we’ve managed to develop these into our partnership.

How it Started

It’s always easy and tempting to criticize another person; be it the other parent, or the ex-spouse’s new partner. What’s hard is to be accepting. And, I’m grateful for RB’s mother’s acceptance. For allowing her son to spend time with me, and stay with us. Because it indirectly allowed my husband to fully show up as the amazing dad that he is.

I would describe our first co-parenting years as awkward. I’d say they were the adaptation period, with limited communication, mainly between the boy’s parents. A time I spent waving from the sidelines (or, the car window when we picked him up or dropped him off), supporting my partner as best I could and creating my own connection with the kid.

How it Changed

My husband was on a business trip and my nephew’s birthday was coming up. RB was invited to the party and with his father out of town, all logistics coordination happened between the boy’s mom and me. Talk about relationship milestones. From that moment forward, our WhatsApp messaging started. At first, our convos were all kid-related. Then, they naturally evolved into the type of content you’d see in a women’s lifestyle magazine.

I consider we experienced our roughest patch as a family, when adjusting to elementary school. Understanding and establishing the roles and responsibilities in each household, the expectations management, and so on. Without disclosing all the skeletons in our closet (which would offer you some quality entertainment) the main learning from those years is that parenting styles will inevitably differ. And each parental figure needs to accept this, trusting that the other will act with common sense and in the child’s best interest.

My unsolicited advice: as long as your kid is being loved, fed, and safe—do yourself a favor and chill.

How it's Going

Not to fall into the silver lining cliche brought forth by a global pandemic, but for the first time in almost six years we’re seeing our kid grow up in real time. He’s spending the same amount of time with us as he spends with his mom.

Raising a child can be a heart-breaking, frustrating, and overwhelming experience—sometimes. And other times, it can be immensely rewarding. To the point of canceling all of the above.

I’ve seen my kid grow from preschool to pre-teen. And witnessing him develop a personality and a sense of humor (geeky and quick-witted like his father) is the greatest gift I never knew I wanted.

Collaboration vs. Competition

Last Mother’s Day RB’s mom dropped him off at my in-laws, where we were spending the evening. We invited her in, chatted for a bit and before she left, we took a picture with RB. A few hours later she shared an Instagram story with our picture, and a caption that read: “RB and his two moms.” Yes, smiley tear emoji. Clearly my heart was warmed and bursting with gratitude. And joy.

I’m hyper aware that my son has one mother, and that I’m not her. But when she acknowledges my role in his life and gifts me this honorary title (which I adore, by the way), we’re breaking a stereotype. We’re proving that in the context of parenting, the mother and the stepmother can get along. Can champion each other. Can support each other.

The Ground Rules

Know that we’re human and imperfect. There are intrinsic factors to every backstory that will drive the tone of the co-parenting relationship, regardless of any ‘ground rules’ you might read here. I encourage you to take my family’s experience as what it is: only one example of how co-parenting can look like. We’re definitely not the rule, nor the exception.

It helps that all of us in this co-parenting relationship are good people, looking out for the collective well-being of our blended families. And after doing this for the past seven years, making tons of mistakes, and course-correcting, we’ve learned a thing or two worth sharing.

So, I discussed it with my fellow co-parents, and here are five essentials that keep us honest and on track:

ESTABLISHING HEALTHY BOUNDARIES. Having clear limits is the type of common sense that can help avoid misunderstandings and unintentional overstepping.
MAINTAINING AN OPEN COMMUNICATION. Trust and transparency are fundamental. In the words of RB’s mom: “This is probably the best one, because even though we disagree sometimes, we respect each other’s opinions and will find that middle ground.”
HAVING THE IMPORTANT CONVERSATIONS. Since we hold a similar set of values we’re typically aligned, and act in our kid’s best interest. When it comes to discussing priority topics with him (e.g. mental health, sex ed., inclusivity) we’d usually drop a message or a voice note in our group chat to share updates, questions, concerns, and so on. Overall, we avoid sweeping sensitive topics, or hard conversations under the metaphoric rug.
LEARNING TO ADAPT. Plans change and life happens. Protect your peace of mind by leaning into flexibility and cooperation. Remember: it really does take a village to raise a child.
CARING FOR YOUR RELATIONSHIP. You have to be well to parent at your best. And your ‘best’ can look different everyday. From my point of view, there are three relationships to nurture. The one each parent has with their child, the one each parent has with their partner (who isn’t a biological parent), and the one you have with yourself.

Friendly Reminder

No one has it all figured out. There’s no magic parenting book nor perfect parents. We’re all doing the best we can with the tools we have. And on this point, Modern Family’s Phil Dunphy said it best:

“We like to think we’re so smart and we have all the answers. And we want to pass all that on to our children. But if you scratch beneath the surface, you don’t have to dig very deep to find the kid you were. Which is why it’s kinda crazy that now we’re raising kids of our own. I guess that’s the real circle of life. Your parents faked their way through it, you fake your way through it and hopefully you don’t raise a serial killer.”

Hopefully.

Parenting, Relationships
Feb, 08, 2022

How to Become an Active Listener and Why it Matters

When was the last time you listened to someone speak, waited semi-patiently for them to finish, and replied with follow-up questions to learn or to understand more? (You know, vs. jumping in with a story of your own.)

Take a minute or two to think about this interaction. Maybe it was during an online course, a Zoom session for work, or a 1:1 with your boss. A conversation where you had to pay closer attention. Where you had to make an effort to keep your mind from wandering and staying in the present moment for as long as you could.

If it felt more challenging than usual, then you were practicing deep, active listening. Because it is an effort. A conscious effort to devote close attention to what another person is saying, to avoid distractions and to stop yourself from crafting comments in your mind while they are still speaking.

Now, think of a recent conversation with your partner or a close friend in an informal setting. They were sharing something with you and while they seemed to have your undivided attention—with all the nodding and uh-hums—in your mind you were formulating the response to that thing they said. To those words that snagged your attention and sparked a memory that became this story you could not wait to share. A series of unspoken words waiting in line to bounce from the trampoline of your tongue into the packed pool of conversation.

If the above feels based on a true story (join me in the hand raising), then probably without even realizing it—because it’s painstakingly common and we all do it—you were not listening to understand nor to discover. You were listening for your turn to speak. You were waiting to be heard. Because…we all want to be heard.

An Act of Kindness

Have you given any thought to how you show up for others? And when I say ‘others’, I’m not talking about everyone (who has the energy, right?). I mean the people you care about, your loved ones, your people.

And I’m also referring to your everyday interactions. From navigating coffee talks in the morning with a forward gaze, resisting the gravitational pull from your phone to keep scrolling over your next clean beauty purchases (W3ll People anyone?), to turning your face away from the computer screen toward your spouse’s face, for whatever follows “today was awful.”

The way you show up for people who you care about might inevitably reflect on the way they show up for you. And this fast-paced living doesn’t make this self-reflection any easier. It barely allows some of us to pay attention to our own self-talk and to make sense of our own thoughts. Which, by the way, spend most of their time running around like energized toddlers in the playground of our minds.

All judgment aside (hello, humanity and imperfection) the art of active listening is demanding. In any scenario, it requires the full attention and emotional presence capable of taking any of us to the edge of exhaustion. However, with some basic notes to self and a little practice it is possible for anyone to become a more mindful, attentive listener when the moment, the person and the situation calls for it.

The Generosity and Practice of Showing Up for Others

Well, it doesn’t hurt to remember how phenomenal you feel when you have someone else’s complete attention and full presence. When you’re able to speak without interruptions. When the awkward pauses are not filled with a series of haphazard words, but are holding the space for you to continue expressing yourself.

Like everything, it starts with practice. And these are five actions to support you in building up those skills. From that deep talk with your besties, to a relationship housekeeping session with your partner, to that team meeting or feedback session with a colleague.

1. Be Present

Prepare for this interaction. A quick grounding practice like closing your eyes and taking three deep breaths in under a minute might do wonders for your focus. Keep your posture, body language and other non-verbal cues in check and eliminate distractions. Whenever possible disregard your phone, TV, and other devices (be sure to remain conscious that we all have diverse living situations).

2. Provide Silence and Space

Give the other person time to process and fully say what’s on their mind. It’s about taking the time to observe, to read between the lines, and to notice the unspoken. It’s not only about not interrupting them mid-speech. And make friends with the uncomfortable, awkward silences—these may prove to be enlightening moments for either of you.

3. Provide Acknowledgement and Convey Understanding

Build empathy and connection through the nods, sounds, eye-contact and uh-hums. And if relevant, ask appropriately timed powerful questions. Trust your intuition and the flow of conversation to determine this.

4. Embrace a Beginners Mind

Remember that we tend to see things as we are, not as they are. So, make an effort to quiet your mind, to ask questions or make reflections rather than assuming you know better (from your own biases and experiences). Listen with curiosity and without judgment. I know, easier said than done.

5. Check Your Ego Coat and Bag of Needs at The Door

We’re often inclined to stop listening attentively because the volume of our desire to be heard is too loud. And when you decide to devote your attention to someone other than yourself, you’re touching base with your ego. It’s a challenge that involves reminding ourselves that this moment is all about being present for another person, not about seeking to get our own needs met.

A Note to Self

Remember to practice self-compassion. It’s unlikely you’ll be 100% focused all the time. Your mind will naturally and inevitably wander. And that’s OK, you’re still human. Just start training her to notice the wandering, and to come back.

And take care of your own process. As much as practicing deep listening and showing up for people you care about feeds your soul, or strengthens your purpose to become a better version of yourself (most days)—it’s necessary to find outlets that meet your need to be heard.

It could be via fulfilling conversations with a supportive friend, sessions with your therapist, counselor, or coach (and no, these professions aren’t interchangeable)—or through a creative outlet of some sort. You are the expert on you, and the choice is always yours.

Giving the Gift of Deep Listening

Being aware of the actions we can take to become better listeners and choosing to put them into practice, has the potential to strengthen our most cherished relationships. And developing the habit of active listening, when and with whom you determine, might unexpectedly contribute to your own healing process.

Relationships
Dec, 13, 2021

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