The Art of Conscious Parenting: 3 toxic parenting beliefs and how to reverse them

Do you ever feel like you can problem solve almost every area of your life, but when it comes to parenting feel like you don't have a clue what you are doing? Just when you get over one hurdle, or developmental stage or think you have it figured out, the game changes. Then before you know it, adolescence sneaks up on you, and next comes raising a teenager which is a whole other story. I think the most stressful time, even with the sleepless nights and endless feeding and diaper changes of the infant stage, was raising my teenage son. I have often felt like I have no idea how to handle certain aspects of balancing setting limits with allowing him to spread his wings and make some of his own choices. And I probably made some mistakes with him, and will continue to make mistakes with my children as long as I live. But the one thing I have always used as my parenting inner- guidance system is to ask myself at the end of the day- did I do my best to love?

In my practice working with clients, I have the advantage of learning and observing what the after effects of unconscious parenting can be in adult life. I work with people as they grapple and unravel the messages they received,  and things their parents used to say, and how they were treated as children and I am starting to observe a real pattern of certain parenting behaviors during my work with people, that seem to create the most damage into adulthood. I will cover 3 big toxic parenting beliefs, and follow with a conscious parenting alternative to each in this blog.

The truth in parenting is that as much as we love our children to the depths of our soul, we are often operating from our fear place in our discipline and parenting - fear of what might happen if a certain behavior continues, fear of what kind of person our child will be if we let certain behaviors slide, fear of what other people might think, fear they will make the same mistakes as we feel we made, and so on. I think many parents are in the same boat, we are all just winging it trying to do the best we can, taking it day by day. What works for one child likely won't work for your others . It is an art that we master as we go along.

There is a lot of parenting advice out there, and an overwhelming amount of parenting books at our fingertips, and as a parent of 3 children I know I have felt really overwhelmed and confused much of the time as to what really is the most important thing to focus on when it comes to parenting. I have read countless parenting books over the course of my 17 years of parenting, and much of the advice out there really didn't resonate with  me. The crying it out method tortured my soul, time outs made me feel like I was abandoning my child, and the reward charts and systems just never seemed to stick. I will share with you what I feel are universal principles we can all practice no matter what the age and stage in this article. I hope you can take away at least one piece of new information and inspiration and use it for the good of your family. Here are 3 areas to focus on to get you started on a more holistic approach to parenting:

1) Toxic Parenting belief: " Children should be seen not heard" " my child should do as I say not what I do, "children need to do as they are told even if it feels wrong to them" " I know better about what my child need than he does"
Know your core values- and the ones you want to instill in your child For me the most important core values I want to instill in my children are my guiding post to how I parent them. I want to raise them to be thinkers, feelers, and believers. To know that their thoughts are powerful and that their body 'speaks' to them through physical sensations and feelings. I teach them about intuition, and listening to their body when it comes to being in certain situations, and when they eat certain foods -  I will often say "how does it feel in your body?" and they are already learning how to discern what to eat even when I am not with them. At birthday parties they will often tell me they only ate a few bites of cake because it started to make the feel sick. Or that they ate extra vegetables with their pizza lunch. I teach them that it is all about balance and being mindful of what they put in their bodies. And I am also very careful to practice what I teach. They see me living in this way, so we always have an open dialogue about it.

2) Toxic Parenting Belief: "My child should stop crying and fussing when I tell her to", "I have to toughen my child up so he/she is not such a wimp", "My child shouldn't be upset", "children cry just to get attention"

Teach them that it is healthy to feel their feelings (including boys!)
Teaching our children from an early age, that it is healthy and necessary to feel their emotions, to cry and to express their feelings, worries or concerns to someone they trust, and to listen to their heart when they are torn about making a certain decisions is a life skill that will serve them greatly for the rest of their lives. If they are unsure about something, which friends party to go to, whether they want to stay at home or go camping with Dad, or what dance class they want to take, I will ask them "what does your heart say"? and they always get an answer. All the mental chatter or anxiety they are expressing melts away almost instantly when I ask them this one question. Try it next time your child is confused or unsure about a decision. It never helps to say "You are making too big a deal about this" to a child, because to them it is a big deal, and they are upset for  their own valid reason. Even if we don't understand why, it is toxic to invalidate and shut down a child's emotional experience. This can be especially true when parenting boys, the belief that we need to toughen them up by shutting them down when they are crying or emotional. They will likely grow up to be shut down adult men who are not comfortable with emotion or intimacy later on, if this is a consistent message they receive in childhood.
Teach them that they know what is best for them, and let them make decisions about some things (but not about the non-negotiable ones) and allow them to practice listening to their 'gut feelings'
If we were all taught this simple skill as children- to listen to our body, heart and soul, just imagine how different the world would be!

3) "my child must believe what I believe", "there is only one God"

Teach them how to experience a Spiritual Connection that feels right for them

I think it is important to resist pushing my beliefs on my children, but when they ask me about God, I tell them what I believe. That "God" means love, and it is something that is within all of us, not a bearded man that lives up in the clouds. We read Buddhist teachings, and have Wayne Dyer and Louise Hay books written for children which we read regularly. And it comes up in conversations at times, but I don't force them to believe any specific thing. Using the word Spirit, or Universe, and talking about a power that is greater than us that guides us along is a good place to start. My youngest daughter loves crystals, and saying a short prayer with me to her guardian angels before bed, she loves when I give her Reiki treatments, and being in nature grounds and calms her instantly. As a child with really intense anxiety at times, she needs these elements to stay centered. As we all do!
Children books I recommend to teach kids about spirituality are: "I Am"  and " Unstoppable Me!"by Wayne Dyer, "I Think,  I Am" by Louise L. Hay, and Buddha a Bedtime by Dharmachari Nagaraja.

I hope these ideas have inspired you to take action and embrace a more conscious and holistic approach to parenting. One of the most important things we can do for our children is to grow ourselves. Becoming conscious of our own childhood wounds and how they affect our parenting is essential. Often we parent how we were parented, and toxic patterns just keep continuing on until someone does the work to break the pattern. A great book on this subject I highly recommend is "Parenting from the Inside Out" - if you want to stop the past from continuing on in the next generation, it is invaluable and insightful.

Enjoy the journey...



~Leanne

Leanne Oaten
Registered Holistic Counsellor
info@leanneoaten.com
leanneoaten.com

How your Beliefs are Keeping you Stuck, Sick and Depressed (and what to do about it)

Are you feeling stuck in the same old patterns, and same old life story that never seems to change or go anywhere near the direction you say you want to go?

Personal growth, healing and transformation requires deep inner work, reflection, and a strong desire and determination to have a different life experience. 

Making excuses, and staying stuck in old limiting belief 

patterns will surely lead to nowhere positive. 

In order to change any area of our lives, we have to examine our beliefs very closely. If we want more money, more prosperity, better health, more loyal friendships, a successful career, for example, we must change our beliefs about the story we are telling ourselves about [insert issue here].

Is your health suffering because you believe that vital health is not possible for you? Do you believe that something "runs in your family" and therefor you are destined to experience that same illness?

Do you believe that you have to work hard, and stay in a job you hate because you will not make money doing anything else that you might love to do more?

 I was raised in a household where money was a constant struggle, and my Dad was always saying things like "we can't afford it",  " I don't have it to give you", "It's a tough world out there" and so on. Living around this kind of lack mentality and negative talk around money, I learned that in life, there is never enough. Carrying this deeply embedded belief around has had a detrimental effect on my relationship with money throughout my life. It is only now that I am really looking deeply into what I truly believe about abundance, money and creating wealth.

As I examined my deep rooted beliefs about money I discovered they were: "you have to work hard to make money", "it is a struggle to survive", "I can't have the nice things", "I will never get ahead", "I will always have to scrape by", "Money goes out faster than I can make it". Wow, right? How could I possibly have a different experience while carrying around these beliefs that contradict what it is that I am telling the Universe that I want!

I was working on the positive thinking, and practicing affirmations like "money flows to me effortlessly" and "what I need will always be provided" however the missing link was that deep down I truly didn't believe this was true! I was seeing the evidence of my beliefs in the circumstances of my finances. It is now that things are starting to turn around, and I know it is because I am changing my inner programming and believe I can have wealth, abundance and more than just enough  to survive.

What you believe you will achieve whether you want it or not, so it is essential to work on the deep rooted inner-beliefs in order to create real and lasting change.

This is just an example of how our inner beliefs keep us stuck in negative patterns that never seem to improve no matter what we do. I encourage you to try this exercise to uncover your beliefs around all areas of your life. Here is what you do:

Freedom through Uncovering Limiting Beliefs Process:

Find somewhere quiet to go within with a pen and paper. One sheet per area of your life.

Family, Relationships, Love, Money, Health, success, work, friendships, parenting, people in general. Add any other categories you would like to explore, these are just ideas to get you started. 

Now for each category ask yourself : What do I believe about [insert] ?

Do not judge or second guess what comes up, just write it down. Trust your intuition to bring forward what you need to know. Just write them, all of them, every single thought or message you receive while reflecting on each area.

Once you have them all filled out and feel like it is complete, the next level of work is to figure out where you learned this belief. Usually it is rooted in our formative years, the messages we received and the circumstances we lived in.

The next step then, is to start using positive affirmations that feel correct for you. The only way positive affirmations work is if you truly resonate with the message and it is your hearts true desire.

It is like de-cluttering a closet. You have to clear it all out, examine the contents and decide if you want to keep or discard what you find, and then make room for the new to flow in. 

If you would like to learn more about positive affirmations, what they are and how to use them, Louise L. Hay is the queen of this arena. I recommend any and all of her books if you want to change your reality by changing your beliefs and thought patterns. Find some affirmations that feel inspiring and uplifting to you that are the opposite of what you have been believing in each area. I recommend only working with 1-2 areas at a time. Pick the 2 that are the most bothersome for you right now, and work on those. Then work your way down the list.

This is not easy work, but I promise you it will be worth it!

If you would like some support and guidance, you can book a breakthrough session with me and we can get to work breaking through your old, worn out and expired beliefs that are keeping you stuck and miserable!

Remember, what you believe you can achieve, it all starts within. 

Leanne Oaten

Registered Holistic Counsellor R.P.C

info@leanneoaten.com

leanneoaten.com

Preventing the 3 p.m Energy & Mood Crash: Tips and a smoothie that will keep your energy steady

Do you find yourself experiencing a daily 3 p.m. energy crash? It feels like a sudden need to take a really long nap, along with possible headache or tension behind the eyes, irritability, anxiety, or even low depressive mood.
If this sounds like you, it is pretty safe for me to say that you likely have some level of adrenal fatigue simmering below the surface, and high cortisol levels (or stress hormone) are the culprit. So many things that go sideways in our body and mind are related to STRESS! 

Research suggests that 98% of doctor visits and medical interventions performed are related illnesses and symptoms caused by out-of-control and chronic stress levels. 

For more about this read  How I healed Adrenal Fatigue

Today I am going to talk about that afternoon- usually 3:00 p.m- energy crash. The energy crash that typically happens at this time is a signal that the adrenal glands are not doing their job. This is when most people will instinctively reach for a double- double latte or soda, sugary snacks and carbs in the form of white flour to get a boost, and crave it as is their life depended on it. This used to be me! I am a recovering sugar addict and would habitually reach for a dose of sugar, usually dark chocolate or cookies (with chocolate in them)  and maybe an iced coffee in the afternoon to give myself a 'boost' I would literally feel out of my mind until I had my 'hit' of sugar! I knew this was definitely not a good thing, but it was what worked (so I thought) to get me through.

This hit of artificial stimulants works for a very short while providing a little 'high' but soon after will be followed by yet, another blood-sugar crash. The cycle can continue like this unless we do something to break it. Instead of reaching for a sugar, and caffeine hit, I encourage you to try adding these to your regime for a whole week and just see how much better you feel! Remember:  It's all about making small, sustainable changes, slowly- not all at once. :)

*A note on Vitamin C: This vitamin is super-healing for the adrenal glands. You can easily research this yourself online about the benefits, so no need to go into great depth in this blog. Here is a good article to get you started. Vitamin C benefits
The best thing to do is to take Vit C to bowel tolerance to determine how much your body needs. Start with taking 1,000mg ( I take Ascorbic Acid with Bioflavanoids) with breakfast, your 3 pm snack and dinner. You can not overdose and it is not harmful to take more than you need- the worst you will experience when you reach your tolerance level is loose bowel movements, and if that happens scale the dosage back until this subsides.

 Option 1: If you are at home and able to whip up a smoothie, this is a fantastic way to boost energy and help with fatigue.
This is one of my favorite super-food recipes using natural sources from whole foods to give you sustainable,real energy to carry you through until dinner time.
Supplementation 
Take with a good quality Vitamin C- 1000mg. at 3pm.

Energy Boosting Smoothie:
1/2 cup lite canned coconut milk
1/2 cup water or coconut water
1/4 dropper of Stevia (Sweet Leaf brand is the one I prefer as it does not contain alcohol or glycerine)
1 Tbs hemp hearts
1 tsp maca root powder (available at health food stores)
1 Tbs cacao powder
1/4-1/2 tsp of a high quality greens powder
1/2 cup frozen blueberries
1/2 cup frozen strawberries
few ice cubes
Blend in high speed blender- and enjoy!
(good quality protein powder-optional)

Option 2: If a smoothie is not an option for you, it is really important to make sure to have a good quality snack around 3 pm that consists of some protein. Do not allow your body to run on your lunch all the way until dinner! This really stresses the body out. When blood sugar drops, cortisol rises. Not what we are going for here.
Raw nuts with fresh fruit are a great portable option combined with my alkalizing lemonade-green tea.

You can make this drink at home and bring with you to work in a mason jar. Pop it in the fridge and have it with your afternoon power snack. Green tea has so many health benefits, and loads of antioxidants, and only small amount of caffeine. Green tea is not as hard on the adrenal glands as coffee or black tea, and is a way better option than reaching for a can of soda. And trust me, this is really good!

Lemonade-Green Tea Refresher:

Make ahead: Brew 4 organic Green tea bags in 4 cups of boiling water. Once it is steeped (about 10 mins), transfer to a large mason jar or other glass pitcher (topped with more water if it is too strong). Store in the fridge for up to 3 days. 

If you are heading out for the day, simply fill a mason jar with: the juice of 1 lemon, 1/4-1/2 dropper of liquid stevia (or to taste) top with chilled green tea and you are set!

*Tip: This recipe is also really good topped with sparkling mineral water if you like a fizzy drink. Leave the tea strong if you go for this option unless you like a really watery lightly flavored version. 

These are some simple ways to nourish your body to keep you going for the rest of the afternoon, however it is also a really great time to take a 10 minute relaxation break. Stop whatever you are doing, and just breath deeply with your eyes closed and intentionally relax your mind and body. Stretch if you are able to do so. This practice of nourishing your body along with your mind will have a powerful effect on how you feel. I find that the days when life is busy and I skip my 3:00 power snack, or grab something on the run that is not the best choice, it has a really big impact on how I feel Try adding these tips to your afternoon routine, and let me know how this works for you! Drop me an email with any questions you have.

For more information on healing your adrenals, improving depression, anxiety and fatigue join me for my upcoming seminar Getting Beyond Burnout

Work with me 

I assist you with healing from the inside out  through treating the root cause of your 

health issues ~ mind, body heart and soul.

info@leanneoaten.com
www.leanneoaten.com
250-319-3630

Leanne Oaten
Registered Holistic Counsellor R.P.C