Parenting Collective

Calm Your Nervous System When Parenting Through Chaos

• Donna Moala

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 45:02

Parenting can feel overwhelming, especially when you are exhausted, triggered and trying not to yell.

In this powerful episode of the Parenting Collective Podcast, host Donna Moala, a Certified Sleep Specialist & Conscious Parenting Coach sits down with Dominique Fletcher (@heldbydominique) a nurturing coach that supports women with overwhelmed souls, to help them explore how nervous system regulation changes everything in parenting.

If you have ever:

• Felt rage bubbling under the surface

• Tried to “fix” everything for your child

• Felt guilty after losing it

• Been stuck in people pleasing or perfectionism

• Wondered why your child triggers you so deeply

This conversation will shift your perspective.


⏱️ Chapter Stamps

00:00 Meet Dominique Fletcher

00:56 Why Nervous System Matters

02:35 Stress and Parenting Regulation

03:31 Dom Joins the Podcast

04:59 Perfectionism and Compassion

08:52 Rest Before Fixing

11:09 Tools Need Consistency

16:00 Body Memory and Triggers

20:58 Modeling Over Fixing

22:19 Giving Kids Space

24:41 Fear of Losing the Bond

25:19 Building a Parenting Circle

25:40 Regulation Tools in Crisis

27:28 Pause and Name the Trigger

28:59 Discharging Anger Safely

31:43 Grounding and Movement Resets

33:25 Somatics and Body Wisdom

35:41 Rupture Repair and Ownership

38:07 Sharing Your Story with Kids

41:49 Offerings and How to Work Together

43:41 Kindness Joy and Closing

This isn’t about being a perfect parent.

It’s about becoming a regulated one.

When you learn to calm your nervous system, you stop parenting from survival mode and start parenting with awareness, connection and compassion.

Follow Dominique Fletcher: 

Website: https://dominique-fletcher.mykajabi.com/workwithdom

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dominique.beddard

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heldbydominique

Youtube: www.youtube.com/@heldbydominique

  Regulate to Rise: Personalised

I would appreciate it greatly if you could please LIKE and FOLLOW this podcast and if you are not following me over on instagram, head over there for all of my top tips and advice around sleep and parenting @parentingcollective.au.  I also offer a free 15 minute phone chat to run through all your questions CLICK here to book your FREE 15 minute chat

Much Love 💞

Donna Moala 
Parenting Collective              

                                 SLEEP & PARENTING ESSENTIALS

🩷  For your daily walks, coffee's & travel

     CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE COZIGO  

🩷  Favourite room darkening product

     CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE SLEEPY SUNDAYS

🩷 Favourite Goat's Milk Formula

    CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE LITTLE OAK FORMULA.

🩷 Favourite Rice Milk Formula

    CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE ...

SPEAKER_01

Hello and welcome to this week's episode. As we know, I'm very, very excited for my guest today, as I always am. Dominique Fletcher. She is actually a friend of mine, but she was my nervous system coach at a time when I really need her. I started to work with her just because I've met her and I thought this will be nice. But then as we started working together, it was nearly the worst year of my life of parenting. And both girls had been suffering from mental health and I couldn't fix it. And my nervous system was shot. It was already shot before I even understood what a nervous system was properly. But I had Dom in my pocket for that time. And she really was my lifesaver through that time because my nervous system was so shot, I was absolutely close to having a nervous breakdown without a doubt. And I couldn't control the uncontrollables. And the kids were getting bigger and I couldn't protect them the way I wanted to. And my nervous system was always on red alert anyway. When I worked with her, I really then understood the deep dive into the nervous system, somatics, which is actually just understanding your body, where you're feeling the stress, how to release the stress, which we do somatic works and stuff, which is can be super breathwork things in the moment, going grounding yourself, going to the ocean, lots of simple things without it being too complicated. But she's a nervous system coach and somatic practitioner. So she supports humans who are stressed, overwhelmed, and a bit anxious, possibly. Maybe anxious is not the right word, but just nervous system overload for the modern life that we live in. Her work is all about creating that safe presence, the sustainability so that life is achievable even when things are stressful, our relationships going from chaos to calm, really. Because especially when it comes to parenting, we can't remove the stresses often because they're our children, and it's not their fault. We all have what's called limiting beliefs that is like a bully in our head. We're trying to do the best we can as parents, and often by trying to fix and wanting to do the best, we indirectly cause ourselves a lot of stress and dysregulation. And I always talk about this. Our children's frontal cortex is not fully developed until their mid-20s, and that is the decision-making regulation space in the brain. So we're the prefrontal cortex for them till then. And so if we're dysregulated and losing it all the time, which is again very normal to have our nervous systems feel stressed, they're going to find it really hard to regulate with their mentor and their model, their parent is finding it hard. So it's no blame or shame here. It's just the understanding of what we can do when our nervous system is just on fire. So, really, what we want to talk about today is stress management in parenting and really understanding the nervous system and about how we can regulate that. Because maybe you've heard that, maybe you haven't. But our nervous system and our bodies are incredible machines. But when it's under stress, we can get sick, we don't sleep, our brains won't function properly. So today we have another beautiful conversation about all the things that she can do and support parents in stressful times. And as I'm in the background creating my very important conscious parenting programme, Dom has a whole module in there on implementing somatics and nervous system regulation in times of stress with our parenting. So I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as we did. All the links will be below to find her, reach out to her on her DM. She is an angel on earth. I'd love to hear your feedback and we'll speak to you next time. Bye. Hello, my beautiful Dom. Welcome back to the Parenting Collective podcast. Thank you, my love, for having me here. Well, you know, we love each other very much. And if you go to part one, which I don't know where that was, 22, 23, um, if it you don't have to go back to that one if you don't want to, but Dom has been in my life at a very critical time. And I've shared this a lot with everybody. We've um really traumatic times with the girls, with their mental health, and I was lost, like a lost person because I was trying to fix, fix, fix, fix, fix. I'm a people pleaser. It no one was getting fixed. My nervous system was absolutely wrecked. It always had been my whole life anyway, not knowing that. Um, and then, you know, again, universe, God, everyone aligned us. And uh, at the time that I needed you the most is when I started working with you, not knowing the absolute shit show that was going to happen. And um, you know, you were just we will talk about exactly what you do, but what you did for me was that person to just stop. Stop, sleep, surrender, stop trying to fix, and really, really shining lights on parts of me that I knew were there, but like instead of shame or guilt or fixing, it's like that is why you're reacting that way. That's why your nervous system's reacting that way. And so you were like one of my pivotal parts of my puzzle, my life puzzle.

SPEAKER_00

I think one of the biggest moments I think was when you that shifted for you is when you started to bring compassion.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

How you were feeling.

SPEAKER_01

I was very hard on myself, wasn't I? Yeah. Because it wasn't working, and I'd spent my whole life trying to be perfect, trying to be a people pleaser. Again, that's another whole thing we'll get into in generational patterns. And, you know, understanding why I was like that. Um, I didn't really understand that, of course. I mean, I was in, you know, my late 40s, but had done a lot of that of growth and healing of a very long age, trying to be the best version of myself. But really, it was like, oh, poor you. Okay. You need to let the reins go a bit. And all of this is not on you. Like I was just always so hard on myself when everything was failing around me to the people that I love the most, and then friendships and all sorts of things were falling apart, I would always blame myself.

SPEAKER_00

But I think that's a as a parent, you know, I can speak as a parent myself. I think it does when we accept that that becomes part of this huge journey that we're on as parents, is we always doubt ourselves. And every parent doubts on us uh ourselves. And I think that's the biggest realization because we care so much is that we are doing our best and we love them so much. And if we didn't care, you know, then we would feel like a shit parent.

SPEAKER_01

Then we wouldn't be, well, no, I think actually, I think the people that don't care because they're probably not going to listen to this anyway. And if you do and you're a former not care parent, good on you. But I don't think they have these feelings, these I think, and not caring is not probably the right word. If you know you you're able to do what you want and sort of live that life and you are a parent, then typically what I've seen is they don't tend to get as affected as someone like myself who's a who was oversensitive.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and I think it's important to say, like, because we have when you start to the journey of self-discovery and you have more awareness, it can make it so much more intense in your nervous system. Terrible. But then when I think you start to have that awareness and understanding of learning about your body and what's going on in your body with your nervous system, then it's neither about getting it right, it's about constant recalibration of your body and tuning into making decisions from your body.

SPEAKER_01

I know. And I wasn't listening, I was sick all the time. Like I look back at my life and I was already had a stressful personality because of my dad and other situations and stuff like that. Again, he did the best he could, he was not regulated and all that. Um and then I was always in my head the victim. Like, poor me. I I was never across like that, but I always, my nervous system always felt like I was on fire a lot. Um, and that's why I traveled and I loved all that sort of stuff to get away from my life, I suppose, as I knew it here. Um, but we don't have to run away anymore, is the thing is like we can actually, you know, my life is still can be very chaotic, but I my whole body and my whole mind is so different. And I'm I just enjoy every day of the craziness because life is going too quickly.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and I'll never forget the time when you said I'll be okay once everything is like around me. And that was that was what was setting your nervous system. Totally when we work from the outside in, we're always going to be in this emotional cycle of pushing down. There is I think the the changing moment is when you kind of start tuning in and going, what's what what is my body doing? What's my body telling me? Like you just needed to sleep.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my gosh, didn't I? And I have to have an odie on. It was winter, and I didn't have the UDI thing on. And I'm gonna say, I'm so tired. And and again, it was a pick. My people pleasing perfectionist is like, I cannot, that's lazy. I can't sleep. Rather than that, my work, my life is falling apart. I'm trying to get this business together, and my kids are so unwell, and everything's just my fault. It's my fault. No one wants to see me, I'm crazy, whatever. And I was exhausted, and you just was like, put that woody on your head and go and sleep. And I think once you it was this, oh really, you the way you talk to me through it sounds so stupid, doesn't it? Have a sleep donor.

SPEAKER_00

Um, but it's like it's the conditioning, yeah. It's the conditioning that that is so deeply rooted and that we're living this life of this rule book, which doesn't even exist. It was our own. It was my own. We keep that I'm failing. Like, why am I gonna sleep when everything's failing? I've got to go straight into fixing. What happens is whenever we're feeling any emotions, whatever's going on for us, we go straight into fixing when really the empowerment in it is to go, well, nothing, nothing, I don't like using the word good or bad, but nothing productive comes from I'm depleted and I'm tired, the ego's loud, everything seems worse, your nervous system is dysregulated, so it's not gonna you've your thought patterns aren't gonna work, your brain's not gonna work, it's full capacity. It's like take that step back onto your body first, then you'll have the wisdom that will come in, then you'll have the guidance.

SPEAKER_01

And we're making it sound so easy, but I do want to say to everybody, and you know, I'm working so closely with so many families and parents of older kids and marriages, and you know, I'm really supporting so many people around this. And it it takes, I keep saying to everybody, because they're like, oh, that's amazing that you that's happening for you. And I'm like, I'm I keep saying it, but I have to say it because I feel like I'm only just starting though, I'm 51 and I've spent 30 years of healing, growing. I've been in the fast lane with that. I wasn't someone that was like, oh, plodding along. I was like, right, got to fix it. And I said, so it's a muscle. If you've got a bicep you want to train, you have to have, you have to do those bicep curls for months, don't you? And so all of this goodness is a muscle you can train, and it's going to feel uncomfortable and wobbly and lazy and completely against the grain of of of maybe what you have been, but it just comes back to yeah, our nervous system, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00

And you do. And the the key thing, a lot of these tools that I teach seem really, really simple, but it's the continuous embodiment and it's the consistency. I know. You know, and and Donna, you know my story, but you know, if you're listening to me for the first time, I've lived my whole life in survival mode with an alcoholic mom and been going through a really difficult um marriage and a and a separation that has brought me to my knees. But something that I had to do for my mental health and my well-being, and to be a single mom now of two young kids, it it tests me to my max, but I also have these tools that I can feel what I need to feel and I can pick myself back up. And I feel this joy in my body and this deep sense of connection that I never, ever, ever knew existed. Yeah, and that has been through keeping showing up and using these tools over and over again, especially when I doubt the process, especially when I'm scared. Those are those are the juicy moments. Those who are we being in those moments of complete polarity and something that I teach, I'm not gonna come in here and tell you that that you get enlightened and that's it. It's like there's this there's no top of the mountain. It's this continuous. Some days you're gonna feel like you're all over it and you feel joyful, and other days you're gonna be on your knees. And when we accept that and show up for ourselves when we're on our knees, this is you our kids are watching how we show every single day.

SPEAKER_01

And I think I reflect back on all of that because you know, it's like a review, as Eloise said. Um, because our podcast that I did one part one and part two with Eloise, and we've heard such great feedback. But a lot of parents are either in it, they're like, Thank you for sharing, or I've got the older kids go, Oh my gosh, I'm going to ask my kids that question. Because what we do as parents, we either hide our emotions. Like I'm oh wait, I can reflect now because this is I'm sharing my stories, but you know, when I was at my worst, I felt like I I hid a lot. But you know, but understanding that yeah, our body language and our tone is 93% of communication, 93%. So then I could be coming out going, yeah, everything's fine, everything's no way, my heart's not fine. And they would have felt that. And on reflection, you know, I of course I've had to work through shame and guilt, and I did the best I could, but it's not all we don't have to hide it from our kids all the time. We don't have to show them the messiness all the time, but the real emotions of being upset, and then, you know, again, age appropriate, like explain to them you've had a tough day or you're tired, and then there's repair, uh, and then your tools of like your breath work.

SPEAKER_00

And and you know, yeah, and and there's gonna be many times that we absolutely lose it as a parent, or we, you know, and that that again is us showing this full humanness of of who we are, and you know, talking, I I am very conscious, don't always get it right, but I say, hey, mom's her nervous system's feeling really heightened at the moment. I feel really like on edge. I need to go diffuse this, or I've had a really tiring day, like this is how I'm feeling, and be able to communicate. We can't always communicate in those moments, but well, and this is this is what um I teach, and um, you know, we're gonna be working with Donna to to help teach these, teach you these tools, um, is having these like tools to go right. I notice I'm heightened, my body's charged up. Okay, I need to go into my cocoon, I need to go and process this, discharge my body, use the tools, then come back to that center point and then communicate. Yeah, and going through that process of, oh, I'm triggered. Where am I feeling this in my body? Okay, let's release this first. What do I need to learn about this? You know, it's a process. And it's like I I just had a client now, just come off for a client now who's going through some parenting um difficulties, challenges. And straight away, when we discussed them, I said, Where do you feel that? Straight away, she went, Heart on the stomach. No, and because of the work and the integration that we're doing, she's able to have that sense, deep sense of knowing in her body where she's feeling that, and she knows why she's feeling that, and she knows she's triggered.

SPEAKER_01

And I think about again, I go always think, Oh, poor little Donna, is that I was so sick after I had Molly and my mum left my dad, and my dad has always been the most challenging, and you know, we worked through that forgiveness and everything, but not his fault. He came from a terrible childhood and stuff. But that's when I got my sickest. When my mum left my dad, I've always been a bit of a sick person in regards to you know allergies and stuff like that. No, but but when I had Molly and she was about six months old, my mum left my dad, and um he was all on me, and it was bad, emotionally bad. He would just rock up, and I got I got diverticulitis where my bow burst, which is like an old person's disease, I was like 34. I had all of these things happen, and I look back, and it was for 10 years, I was constantly sick because that was the beginning of underlying cortisol stress my whole life, not dealing with it. Then something big like that happened, and then my body just goes in and out of hospital, like yeah. And why I say that, I'm not scaring people, is that if we don't acknowledge the nervous system and push it down, push it down, and I can, I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay, it'll come out somewhere else, won't it, Dom?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and also like as I said, the kids learned that oh, it's okay, it's okay, and and then they learn to push it down. And you know, I can I can relate to that five years ago. I couldn't walk with fibromyalgia, yeah, fibro and adrenal fatigue. And I was a I was a personal trainer at the time. I mean, and the kids had to pick me up off the floor. I had to, I still had to carry on. I had to cook dinner as sitting down, and standing up was an effort. But what what I want to share with everyone today is your body remembers every single thing, every time you unheard, every time you unseen. And when you get triggered by your kids, it's usually because of your nervous system brings you back to then, and that's why you feel this overwhelming, you know, ball of emotions.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And we want to try go. We want to try and kind of rationalize it and fix it in the moment. You can't. It's I always say, right, go into the body, disfuse it, discharge it, because you can't fix it in the moment. We go straight into fixing mode instead of feeling, and then it's like fire with fire sometimes.

SPEAKER_01

Oh well, it was fire and fire with me, not fire, like, but I was emotionally charged and um gosh, anyway.

SPEAKER_00

Telling you to calm down would be the worst thing. Oh my gosh, totally it's like telling someone not to sweat when they're exercising is an optimistic reaction. It's like, okay, okay, Donna, let's get into the body. You get angry. I want to hear you scream, I want to hear you shout, I want to hear you express. Like that's right. Let that out. That little girl that froze herself and was unable to express this, express it now. Because when we keep doing this over and over again, we're discharging it from the nervous system. So you don't have to hold it anymore. That's right.

SPEAKER_01

And the thing is, again, reflection, you know, for me, lived experience and now understanding it, and you know, is um we talk about triggers, and rather than saying that our kids trigger us, it's actually the triggers within, like you're trying to say. So it's like when things start to get can get challenging as parents, um, is sort of toddler age, you know, they start pushing boundaries, teens. And usually if you look back, not you know, it's like, oh, I wasn't allowed to, you know, voice my opinion, I wasn't allowed to get angry, uh, you know, I was supposed to be, you know, whatever it might be, it's thousands of things.

SPEAKER_00

And it's yeah, like it's this internal human biology hormonal reaction, it's not you logically thinking, you know, like it might also be, you know, noise or conflict or that type of thing was was is is triggering for you because maybe you experience that a lot. Um and it's it's looking at the patterning, but once you kind of start to go, actually, I'm not gonna shame myself for having this physical reaction, it's just giving me feedback. Totally, it's just giving me feedback. And you know, say this situation with this client who was feeling challenged with um with her teenager of wanting him to step up for himself and do the things and and and learn the tools. Instead, she was jumping in there. And the reason she kept jumping in there was because when she was younger, she felt like she had to earn love, she had to be very independent and didn't have that support. So if she doesn't do this for him, then he's not gonna love her. No, I know that's where this core was coming.

SPEAKER_01

And this is all the work that we're supporting people with, isn't it? It's like show, like I said, it's not a diagnosis or anything's wrong with you, it's shining the light of oh wow, that's really and then the whole thing about conscious awareness and living and whatever of all different ways that we look at it, it is um understanding when you have a love of for your child, as we do with people that we work with for sure, is it it ends up being understanding that parenting is about modeling, modeling and mentoring. It's not about telling them. Like I was saying, if you were going to tell your kids um to learn how to fish by, you know, here's the book, read the book. Read the book. And I'm gonna tell you what to do when you go down there. How do you reckon that fishing's gonna go? You know, and then but you go down there and show, mentor, model, and that's parenting. I know it sounds so simple, but um they don't have to be, you know, coerced and put out on their own to learn it, like you know.

SPEAKER_00

It's all it is all embodiment because again, we can listen to this podcast and we can be like, yes, yeah, okay, this is really spoken to me, but it's who are we consistently showing up? Like, how are we showing up? What's our energy? Are we being compassionate? Are we reading our body? Are we getting to know our bodies? Like constant keeps showing up, especially when we're in those depths of pain and frustration and nothing feels. Like it's changing. And I remember you you wanted to go into um who was it whose room? Like you knew that you felt this separation and you wanted to go into her room to try and fix it. She needed her space and needed her decompression.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

It was only out of fear that you were just like, let's just let's just build this bridge.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, totally. And you know, Molly, as much as it's Eloise is doing the um interviews and sharing her story, which I'm so proud of. And I've said this to Molly, Molly won't as anything, listen to them, because I'd love for her to be part of this, but she's just not that interested. That's fine. She's the one that we did all of the evolution for her, you know. Like I said, you're the one, babes. Like, you know, and it was going to the family counseling, which was the beginning of understanding conscious awareness of parenting, not like, this is not working. Why is she not doing what we're saying? We're such good parents. We provide for everything. That doesn't matter. And she was so, she's always been quite right, but because she's a kid or a 15-year-old kid, you're like, how dare you, kind of thing. You know, that's what people do. Like, you can't talk to me like that. But in that space when we had two family counsellors with us, she just said, Stop caring so much. And I was like, This is more. And it's like, yeah, but then the counsellors were really good at saying and turning it around for me to see is like, I am too invasive. Um, she's not like Eloise. Eloise was would sleep in bed with me and like besties, besties. And I Molly loves me, I love her, but she is a person that needs her space, you know. I was like invading her space of like, are you okay? What can I do? And it was actually making it worse. And so she needed that for a nervous system to recalibrate. Yeah, and I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I just wanted to know. And then when you start to read the the language of your body, you can read the language of theirs and say, My boy, I mean, he's he's eight now, but if he hurts himself or something he's experiencing, he doesn't want me to touch him until he's ready for a hug. And I have to just literally sit down, or he wants me to leave the room totally. And yeah, once you you see it in their body language, and I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_01

And because I because my relationship again, we get into generational patterns and stuff like that. My mum and I were really close, like um, in regards to she's just really, yeah, I I really needed her my whole life, and I was really close to her. So I as an egotistical thing without knowing it was egotistical, I'm like, she needs me. Molly needs me. Like, why is she pushing me away? But it wasn't that, it was just like her nervous system, the way her way her brain works, needed space. And so that's the thing is um understanding and supporting parents to understand it's not that they're not being loved, it's not we've got to really step out of our comfort zone and let things evolve rather than smother and fix.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, because there's obviously that fear that this this bond is gonna be broken, yeah, that was it. Not gonna need you or love you. And I I very much experience this with um when I don't have their kids because I'm at the moment the dad dad's starting to have them a bit more, and that's brought up a lot for me. Well, do they not need me when I'm doing something wrong? And how will that affect the bond? And I've just it's something we have to keep working through in our bodies.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's crazy. Love it. So, not that I've talked too much about it, but yes, a little bit about what I'm going to get you to be part of, which I'm thrilled about. I'm creating a very unique space in groups of like maybe 10 or so families, you know, that will sort of not interviewed, but really, really needing the support around um, you know, parenting, like maybe some strong-willed kids, maybe they're feeling like they're a bit lost on how to parent, um, but really a nurturing space in a group, in a group as well. But what I'm wanting you to do for one of the modules is regulation, nervous system regulation, short, sharp, uh, you know, because what happens with parenting, we can't think at times, and it's really stressful. But um, yeah, with that sort of in mind, when we're talking about a situation where, you know, you've been, you're already at your wit's end as a parent, and you're coming in and you've got a child that might be quite strong-willed, so they're not compliant, they're just a little bit fiery, and you are just like normally really upset, and you sort of please don't do that or whatever, really frustrated. What raging inside, yeah, raging inside, maybe raging on the outside. Raging on the outside, yeah. Same thing. So, um, and again, obviously, you know, as people get to know you, they can obviously work with him as well. Um, but what sort of things could they do in the sh interim, like in not interim, probably too much to ask, but I know it's all it's easy for us to say. I know it's easy for us to say we need to come back to ourselves and nervous system, but you know, where can people start when they if they might hear this and go, where do I start? Of course, contact you, we'll give you all the details in the in the show notes. But yeah, what in those consistent stressful situations, it might be dinner time, it might be going to getting them to go to school. Do you have any sort of like top a few top tips of like what to do in the moment and practicing for that, or like having breaks, leaving the space, like bridging conversations, like what anything?

SPEAKER_00

I think what where the change comes is the work that you do outside those before the situation, yeah. You are regulated and you're practicing the techniques so that when you are in those heightened moments, that you have those tools that you've practiced. Yeah, but you know, for something for for the listeners to take away from them is in those moments bringing awareness to go, oh my god, I I am at my I'm about to lose it, or I just have done. It's just it's a pause. Really, really simple. I know a pause, like hand on my heart.

SPEAKER_01

Yep. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I'm in it right now. I'm in it, I'm in it now. This is what happens when we're at the point of real, this is actually the juicy spot when we're really triggered. This is the point with that we rewire. Right. The the point that we embody a different way of being, it's so so uncomfortable, but this is the juicy spot, okay? And it's like, okay, I'm triggered, I'm angry, I'm frustrated, I just need them to eat their dinner. I'm really tired. You know, speaking that out loud, even in front of them. Yeah. You know, right now, I'm just I I I I'm I'm at my at my point. You know, this is what I do, my kids. I'm at that point. I am about to blow, or I have blown. Yeah. Those are the points where I take myself away.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Um, I know it's not always easy if you've got toddler. That's right. But it's also creating that that safe space. But, you know, even them actually seeing you diffuse discharge what's going on in your body. So I had an instant, and so I'll I'll take you through, you know, an incident with the dad that happened, and I was raging inside with what had happened.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Because it wasn't okay. And the kids saw that in me. They saw the change and shift in my energy and the tightness in my body. And I said, I'm really angry. Yeah. And there was a pillow there, and I hit the pillow, and I was like, oh. And they just like they looked at me and I was like, Do you want to do the same? Like mom's just letting out. I was I was talking them through the process of what I was doing. It's not like it's like if you are in that position where you've got tollers in front of you and you can't just disappear into a room and process that and shape it. It's like let them actually see and and be part of this journey because this is actually the human experience. Mom's being human or dad is being human right now.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And and anger is a anger.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And I had to do so much breath work and so many things to be able to, it was so trapped in because my dad never let me be angry. I was never allowed to be angry. And see, then my dad was angry all the time. So that's that was unregulated anger. So the anger that you're talking about is like not being flexible.

SPEAKER_00

You're not projecting it onto anyone. No. Like, oh, and you're showing them whatever that looks like, and um, you know, and and let that process happen.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And then notice, like you might have to do it over and over again and just notice what happens to your body. It might discharge it a little bit and then it comes back up again. And this is where you have to keep on going. And I'll never forget when I was in a workshop and a woman had said, and the facilitator has said that she was she was sexually abused when she was younger, and she did this rage practice every single day for two years to discharge it from her body.

SPEAKER_02

Wow.

SPEAKER_00

It's you know, sometimes things can be discharged there and then, but other times it takes this constant, constant, constant repetition. You know, from the gut of your belly, not from the throat. Like, and and even in those moments and having that rage, we're scared of making noise. Yeah. Washed ourselves down. But if you can explain to the kids, you know, this is what's happening in me, and it's there's nothing to be scared of. This is just mom letting out her feelings. So I can go back to my body just being, you know, however you describe that to them. But in those pinnacle moments, nothing great is gonna come from anything unless you discharge it. And it doesn't mean it has to be a long half an hour session, but it's like doing something to just scroll up, yeah, strain attack.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, totally. And the other thing that if people feel really uncomfortable about that, because they've never heard of this before, and if I'd not done all the work with you, I'd be like, What not gonna do that? You know, things like just actually going outside, like even if you've got a toddler, barefoot in the grass and breathing, right? Not only will that distract the toddler, but it just getting out in fresh air and grounding yourself. Like I used to do that, like sometimes I'd just actually not even be able to talk and I'd just leave. And as they got older, they kind of knew, but I just didn't want to explode anymore at them. So I'd like regulate and come back in, and they'd get a bit annoyed because it's not, you know, it took me a while to be able to be actually regulated enough to go, I'm feeling really frustrated, I'm I'll come back because that's what you should do as I get older, is like I'm really frustrated, I'm at my end, just I just didn't have a break, you know.

SPEAKER_00

But when they're little, yeah, and by yourself, and it can feel so isolating, and and then and then what can happen is if you do kind of have that explosion, then you feel guilty, and then you start questioning yourself and you go on this cycle, and then you feel even more isolated, then you feel like there's something wrong with you. Um it can be a very, very lonely space when you're in in those moments. You know, as you said, you went outside, or you know, going for a walk, moving your body, jumping up and down, things like that. Or, you know, I'm gonna say it like I my the biggest thing that even my daughter, my 10-year-old, does is we dance in the living room. Oh, you know what I was gonna say dance are we putting that means the body is so loud, move and we shake and we express and we make noise, yeah. You know, and I understand that in itself can be very, very uncomfortable. Um is something that I help with when uh people are in my spaces. I I teach them to start becoming comfortable with their bodies and that expression and movement. Uh that's the somatic um uh the word that takes time to get comfortable with, but it changes your life.

SPEAKER_01

It does.

SPEAKER_00

It changes your life when you have this deep sense of knowing about what your body wants, you make decisions through your body. Does it want to eat this? Does it want to eat that? Yeah, you know, I'm around this type of person, it's making me feel this way. Yeah. Um, oh, that conversation's triggered me. Like it's it's it's life-changing. It's life-changing.

SPEAKER_01

I feel like sometimes it's like heaven on earth, but I don't know what heaven's like. But I feel like yeah, I don't know. I just I just think finding, you know, obviously people like yourself and other people I'm connecting with, and um, we're all on that similar journey to help others with our life experience and then having tools to support family.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and and so it's so important about these tools because if we start to have this acceptance of this polarity of life, and sometimes we're gonna be feeling great and on top of parenting, parenting, and other times we're gonna be on our knees questioning ourselves. When we accept that and go, right, I'm in this polarity now, I'm feeling all the feels, but I'm gonna make it through this. This is something that's running through my body, I'm gonna be okay, it's not gonna last forever. And when do you do this body work more and more? And then when you feel joyful and and um, you know, on top of it, then you milk that feeling and you enjoy it and you dance around the kitchen and you just go, Yeah, I I I feel this is really good. And when you have that acceptance of the two, to say there's never going to be a point where you feel completely on top of parenting.

SPEAKER_01

Oh no. And you know what? One day you might, sometimes one hour, but um, it's forever evolving. And that's what I say to, you know, I'm I'm working with newborns to 10-year-olds, could probably go up to adults. But um, you know, it's the more that we accept the humanness of life and that we cannot get it right all the time, we're gonna mess up. And that, you know, I always talk about rupture and repair. There's always room for repair if we've messed up, and that we're human, I think it just gives us a bit more. I don't mean go out and be an arsehole and like yell and scream at your children. We're not talking about that, but also stop being so unkind to ourselves, our limiting. And sometimes that happens. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And it helps them with conflict resolution. As long as you take ownership and say, hey, I yeah, I did lose it then, and and and have that conversation again. You're teaching them to have that conflict resolution and to take ownership for our own emotions.

SPEAKER_01

Take ownership, don't blame other people. Like now the kids are older, I'd probably have a meltdown once a month, you know, come home and dog shit on the dog shit on the um on the carpet that no one's cleaned up all day, you know, those sort of things. And I'm like on the floor like crying like a baby, they laugh. Which is quite funny. I think it's quite funny. Because then I'm like, you know what, do you want to hear about my day? Do you want to hear about my day? And they go, not really. But you know, that's a bit dysregulated, but but what what I have seen over time, and again, Eloise and I talked about it in the podcast because she we didn't have the conscious parenting when we were parenting her, but she was the easy compliant kid. But she has seen, and our kids have seen the way that Dave and I have changed the way that we parent and how it's changed the family, because it wasn't working. And what I say to families, if they hear this, because oh, what's conscious parenting? I'm like, if if you don't have any issues with your parenting, great. You don't need to even know about it. Like if we just had Eloise and she was just that kind of personality, we would never had to deep dive into this. You know, it's when things are pushing us and the mirror is in front of us and we're like, ugh, not liking this. Then you know, you either stay in it and you just have keep the chaos of like do as I say because I'm the parent, or you evolve a bit and go, right, we can mentor, we can guide, we can have boundaries. We're still the parent, but we just do it differently. I think more regulated.

SPEAKER_00

And it's it's it's I never forget when it was Dalai Lama that actually said like he would never have patience to have kids, and it is the biggest like spiritual journey that you can go on because it pulls every every fear, every um story, everything, it pulls it all up. Sure, and I and I also think it was just this session I had with a client as they get a bit older, a bit older, like I I communicate and I my kids understand what went on when I was younger. Yeah, um, you know, it's age appropriate, but they understand me. And I it really helps to build an intimate relationship with them to say, hey, mom, mom isn't perfect, mom's got her own stories and her own wounds, and sometimes they can come out, and yeah, it it develops the level of they understand you.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And yeah, it's awareness, you know, like if it's age appropriate, you know. Yeah, like if if anything, if any, you know, communication, it's very little that I have with my mom. If you know, my my daughter comes straight up to me and hugs me, you know, there's no other words that is needed. I know knows that that's a trigger for me. It's horrible, yeah, emotional. And that's because and it's interesting having the comparison to my sister who was staying with me. Um and I'd we'd had some big conversations, and I said, you know, about my niece, does she know anything about this? And she says, No. Yeah. And we all kind of sat down and had a bit of like a chat about it, and she was quite intrigued and wanted to listen. I think she wasn't even about seven at the time, you know, doing it in an age-appropriate way, but it gets it lets her get to know Mon more on a deeper level, and I think that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, I think it's what we should do, but like you said, you don't need to bombard them with everything like, you know, nothing, none of that. But again, the the journey of getting into the being more conscious, and that it was the family counseling, which wasn't called conscious parenting, but a lot of it was sitting down with Dave, myself, and Molly, and they would lead questions about our childhood. Yeah, yeah. And you know what? Nothing was really said from Molly or whatever, but like I was like, oh, they don't know, they don't know we're human. And and you know, like, especially dads, you know, dads are like, Yeah, I'm right, I I I'm fine, I'm fine. And again, you know, they were like very much sort of saying, Oh, that's that would have been pretty tough, Dave. And you know, as dads and day, you know, they go, No, it was fine, everything's fine.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, but when they see that, I remember the first time I saw my dad cry, and you know, he he um struggles with emotional tungens or sharing his emotions, and uh that made me feel so much closer to him. Yeah, it's funny, isn't it? When his dad was my granddad was casting away, and it made me feel so close to him, like the one thing that you know, all these people that I have in my spaces, the one thing that connects us all is this human experience. Yeah, and we all want to be loved and liked, yeah, all of that. And so when we see that, when we see mom having a cry or dad getting upset, um, it's actually a beautiful thing. Yeah, it's them expressing them being human.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, totally. There's always a fine line.

SPEAKER_00

We don't want to be crying all the time and like, but you know, like yeah, and not it's not about dumping, it's just about yeah, it's just about expressing and and being able to say, this is going on for me. So say I I had um a conversation, I've been doing a lot of ecstatic dance. Um, and for those of you who don't know what that is, it's a very much a journey that you go inwards and you move your body and you express in any way that you want to. And it's brought me so much like this joy and aliveness that I feel inside of me. And and I say to my kids, you know, I I I I'm starting to feel that. Yeah, that's why I don't think I've already said that in the in this, but you know, sharing this this journey of I never I never felt like this, and now I do, and yeah, I'm exploring this. So beautiful.

SPEAKER_01

I think I am no no look at this all beautiful. Um, look, I will finish off here, but um, I will give um everybody's show notes in regards to because you work, you've got so what have you got at the moment going on? You always have one-on-ones, don't you?

SPEAKER_00

Like one on one. So we we work one-on-one where we work with the mind and the body. So that's involved. Um, every month we do breath work and somatics, and we also work with the mind and the reframe.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um, if and if you still have availability, like because it was quite a few years ago. If people work one-on-one with you, do they still have access to you all on WhatsApp?

SPEAKER_00

Yes, they it they're like uh once a week we kind of touch base and that type of thing. But the the deeper work goes into um these these uh monthly two two sessions a month that we have these touch points with. And um, if you're in Perth, I do um spaces, I'll do breastwork spaces as groups, I do women's circles. Um so that's in Perth. But we really work with the somatics, we really work with making these changes and integrating them into body.

SPEAKER_01

That's right.

SPEAKER_00

Um and what else? There's always something. Do you have a membership?

SPEAKER_01

I know.

SPEAKER_00

No, no, not membership. No, I'm always changing, involving.

SPEAKER_01

Well, so am I. So that's the whole like when we're entrepreneurial women that we want to help save the world, we're always like, okay, what next? What can we do?

SPEAKER_00

But I I think um I think anyone that wants to anything that's resonated with you, or you want to ask any questions, just reach out to me on socials. You may voice note from me. Yes. But there's this there's there's lots of inspiration for your nervous system and living in alignment with this awakening this love and joy that's within us. It's um it's taken me a long time to get to this point. But it's also very, very magical and it's very beautiful, everyone.

SPEAKER_01

And it is ever and particularly mothers, you know, that's is such an important role. And the more that we can learn to forgive ourselves and be kind to ourselves and be the best we can, um, it helps our children, you know.

SPEAKER_00

We can't be perfect, but and I I want my kids to remember seeing me in moments of joy. And happiness and doing things for herself that make her feel good and nurtured. And I want them to see that. I want them to see that modeled this divine feminine that feels a polarity of different emotions.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, all the time. Um yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, beautiful Dom. Thank you for having me. Hopefully, lots of people will hear this and uh reach out because you are much needed in this crazy world that we live in. Bye. So if you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave me a rating and review. I love reading all of your messages. So shoot me a DM over on Instagram. It is parentingcollective.au. I also offer a free 15 minute no obligation phone chat. If you'd like to book one, head over to my website, www.parentingcollective.com.au, and request one there. So try to remember to be kind to yourself and always know you're doing the best you can every day, no matter what your day is looking like. Until next time, much love.

Head Shot

Donna Moala

Host