Episode 127

If there's one thing I think all of us parents need more of, know I definitely do. And I know every listener listening to this podcast does, and that is more self -compassion.

I think if you've been a parent for any time, you know being a parent is a really good way to beat yourself up for all the mistakes you've made and all the ways you're not doing it perfectly or the way in which you intended. So that's why today we're so excited to introduce you to our interview with Diana Yokely. And she's also a peaceful parenting coach, but one of her main passions is self -compassion and teaching parents the importance of that. If you want to be a parent,

who's not yelling as much, who's not having anger or shame or all those things kind of dominate your parenting day to day, self -compassion is the key. So she's gonna give you three specific steps to help you today have more compassion for yourself and definitely stay till the end.

Cause we're going to talk about an exciting summit that we are joining with her called the intentional life and parenting summit. It's coming up in October. It's all going to be for free, but she'll give you more details at the end. wait till the end to find out how to join that summit. Now please take a moment before you jump in the interview to pause, leave us a review, put some comments there, especially five star ones, ones that are really positive. We'd love to get the word out about the podcast. So more and more people have a chance to listen to it. And so.

I definitely think you're gonna enjoy this podcast and get so much out of it. So have a great time listening.

Hello and welcome to the Art of Raising Humans. I'm Kyle. Hi, I'm Sara. And you know, Sara, we've got a great opportunity to be on a summit coming up in October, you know? very excited. And so we're really excited to have our guest who's hosting that summit. It's called Intentional Life and Parenting Summit and it's gonna be in October and something that our guest, Diana, is really good at talking about is something I think every parent wants to talk more about or needs to hear more about and that is self -compassion.

Without further ado, I wanna say welcome Diana. Thank you for coming on the podcast.

Yeah, thank you guys for having me. I'm really excited to be here today.

And so Diane, know you also, we have a connection because you've also been personally trained by Dr. Laura Markham as well. And you are also a peaceful parenting coach, right? Right. And I'm sure that was a great experience and you learned a lot from Markham, but she's great at self -compassion too, wouldn't you say?

Yes, yes, she definitely embodies that empathy for self, is that like unconditional self -regard, which is self -compassion. Yeah, so I've been really blessed to be able to study under her and begin this journey of learning how to be more kind to ourselves as parents.

Why did you get into this work of doing self -compassion? Why are you so passionate about that?

Yeah, so in peaceful parenting, we have the three big ideas, right? So we have self -regulation, connection, and coaching versus controlling. And I think self -regulation, the first step, is the hardest for parents in general. Many of us, most of us struggle with, you know, we hear these great strategies in parenting and great solutions to challenging situations, but then we get stuck in implementation. And one of the biggest barriers parents get stuck in is they're not able to stay calm enough to be able to

pull up that wisdom that they learned, right? The skills that they practiced when they were calm, it works great when you're calm, but when something is happening with kids and it's stressful or you're triggered, it can be really hard to use these amazing tools of connection and coaching. And so in order to be effective in overall peaceful parenting, self -regulation is key. And I found that self -compassion is really a foundational element of self -regulation.

Yeah, yes.

Some experts would say that self -compassion is like reparenting. And if we know anything about self -regulation is that we need co -regulation to learn self -regulation. And self -compassion is like an adult way to learn to co -regulate with yourself. If you didn't have that experience as a child, you can give that to yourself today. It's almost like when you think about attachments, secure attachment, if you didn't have it as a child, you can have earned secure attachment as an adult. You just have to do

Mmm, yeah.

Yeah.

practices and healing and, and, you know, go into relationships that provide that to you. But with self compassion, you can begin this journey by giving that to yourself, which is pretty cool when I found these resources.

Yeah. So, okay. I think maybe we have some people who understand all of that and maybe we don't. Can you real quick fill us in what is a secure attachment? And just brief, I know that can be a whole topic in itself, but then what does it look like to be giving yourself that co -regulation and self -compassion? What does that look like?

Yeah, yeah, definitely. So we know with the latest science on raising children and children's brain development, that secure attachment is basically like if you're going to do anything for your kid, do this one thing to ensure like resiliency in their life overall, all factors of their life. It's all founded on the foundation of secure attachment, which basically has these four elements of the child feeling safe, seen.

Yes.

soothed and secure in relationship with at least one caregiver during their early childhood. So these experiences of feeling safe and soothed when you're upset, secure that your primary caregiver won't be the source of threat and fear for you, and seen like delighting in your child, or I wanna know what you have to say, it's important to me, tell me what you were thinking, share with me, I hear you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

These experiences all, if the child has these experiences in childhood, that will result in a secure attachment. And attachment varies by provider. So we have multiple attachments in childhood. Some could be secure, some could be insecure. It just depends on the relationship we have with each caregiver. But if we don't have these experiences of feeling safe, so let's say we have big emotions as a child, we feel disappointed about something and our parents aren't able to give us that compassionate space.

And we feel like we were left alone with our big emotions as a repeated experience if this happens on a repeated experience or maybe we felt like the parent was a source of Unreliable compassion right like sometimes they were compassionate sometimes they weren't or maybe they were the source of fear maybe we were afraid of our parents, know, and this would be extreme cases like You know, maybe they were they were like an alcoholic or they

Yeah. Yep. Yep.

they were abusive in some way. That would be the parent is a source of fear. Although we know that many parents have a hard time regulating and maybe they end up losing it at their kid, those children will sometimes feel safe with the parent, but sometimes not. And so there's this resistant pattern of like, I don't know if I can trust you this time. How are you gonna show up? Yeah, yeah. And so let's say we grew up in an environment like that.

confusing for sure.

we were, we basically concluded that we weren't able to show our parents all of our emotions because they couldn't handle them. And so we repressed some emotions and we built some skillful patterns in childhood of repression, which were really helpful so that we wouldn't irritate our caregiver and we wouldn't cause more like, we wouldn't cause more risks in the relationship in our childhood. And it was helpful back then, but now when we're the parent, it can be really hard to show up for our children.

when they have those big emotions because we don't have the skills to complete the cycle of like big emotions and then compassionate emotion coaching. so that's kind of a secure attachment background. But self -compassion has the ability for us to reparent the way that we operate with this cycle. So it gives us an opportunity to show up as that compassionate parent for ourselves today that we didn't have.

in childhood. And this is something that we do as an inside job, which is really amazing. The research on self compassion finds that everyone has a self compassionate part. We think about like, our emotions are kind of like different parts of us. And we have maybe an angry part or a sad part, you know, like some basic emotions, but like all the emotions like jealous, right, whatever. There's also a self compassionate part in there, which is kind of like your wise adult compassionate parent.

And we have to kind of wake up this self compassionate part if it's not a predominant part that comes into our how we treat ourselves when we slip up in parenting, when we make mistakes, when we lose it, when our kids seem to do something that triggers us. But really, it's like an old childhood trigger. We can rewire that circuit and give ourselves the compassion that we didn't get in childhood today and have a different outcome in our experience today. And over time, we can change the pattern.

and rewire our brain to be more empathic to our children and more peaceful as a parent if we can become more peaceful and empathic to ourselves because we can only give our kids what we have inside. And I can go more into details about the technical elements of self -compassion but just kind of wanted to pause there for a minute.

Yeah.

Thank

Yeah, no, that's great. Yeah, that was a really beautiful description. I would say Diana, the man, the self compassionate person in me, I think it was really tiny, it really small. And so tying it into the ability to be calm and compose with your kid, I think was a huge insight into me. Whenever I was working with Dr. Markham and really working with my kids is, I found like what I was trying to do was not be mad. I was trying not to yell.

Mm

And I found myself, you know, I thought, okay, the way I'll fix that is by just saying, I'm sorry after every time I mess up, right? But then I noticed I was saying, I'm sorry, like every day. And then I remember my oldest daughter, who's now 14, she at one point just said, dad, I really appreciate that you always follow up and apologize, but why don't you just change it? You know? And then I was realizing like, man, the steps I'm taking,

it's not really changing it. And I realized when I listened to my internal dialogue after every time I messed up, my gosh, there was so, so much anger at myself. And I was so just pissed off at my inability to grow up and just do it differently, you know? And I realized all that language was definitely probably the language my parents had used in their own internal dialogue or the ways in which my dad interacted with me. And so I just,

Yeah. Yeah.

I realized that actually this little person in me, the self -compassion part, that's what I needed to focus on. I didn't need to focus on stopping yelling. I didn't need to focus on stop being mad. My focus was actually to love and accept myself better instead of beating myself up after every mistake. I needed to be more comfortable with being imperfect. I needed to be more comfortable with messing up.

Mm

Mm

And it almost seems like, if you do that, you're giving yourself an excuse then to just be a mess up. Whereas really the opposite was happening. It was actually giving me the power then to change it. And I think that's kind of what you're talking about.

Yes, yes, such a beautiful summary. Yeah, for, know, the audience listens to this podcast, if they're familiar with peaceful parenting, right, and emotion coaching our kids, being compassionate with ourselves is essentially to me, like the way that you would emotion coach a child. And it was interesting as you were talking about, like, you know, if I have these big feelings, and now I'm being self compassionate, letting myself off the hook, that's almost like saying with a child, my child is so angry and

So like, they're raging. And if I don't nip this in the bud, it's like I'm letting them off the hook. Yet we know based on child development and the research on the best parenting outcomes, when children's emotions are accepted, validated, empathized with, safety is created with the parent showing up as compassion, these emotions the child is experiencing are like information and messages. They want to be delivered.

and then they will begin to evaporate if there's a compassionate presence. But if we don't let this kid get away with it, we're actually just trapping these emotions of rage and anger inside the child's body and saying, it's too scary for me to handle and I'm not gonna let you get away with this. So we're gonna actually trap it in your body and you're gonna have to reparent yourself when you're older, right? So again, like it makes no sense, but it's so simple to kind of reframe like if parents are used to like.

Yeah.

and giving their kid empathy, validation, compassion, and they see the outcome of their work, which is the child is able to behave better. They're able to cooperate more. Their emotions lower in intensity and lessen in frequency. The same is true when we find ourselves yelling, triggered. We have to give ourselves that compassionate space of empathy, validation, and welcoming all of our emotions, not all of our behavior. So we put limits on when we...

feel like yelling at somebody, it's like, can I put some limits around that, but still express my frustration? Like, there's nothing wrong with anger. There's nothing wrong with rage. Something is so wrong that you feel this urgent need to express it. But can we do that without attacking the other person? Can we express our anger with more love and nonviolent communication also?

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I definitely was more. It's really easy for me to store everything inside and just keep going along. that's I know even as a child, it was like, okay, just stuff that down there, stuff that over here and be good, you know. And so I find even as a parent, you know, I will stuff and stuff and stuff. And then sometimes it starts leaking out everywhere. You know, you can only do that for so long before it starts coming out. And

Right, Yeah. Yeah.

when I started practicing more self -compassion, there's this just release that happens inside of you and you'll feel so, it kind of helped me then even provide it more to my child because I would feel what that felt like internally. it wasn't that I was like, okay, now I can just be a big old mess if I want to be. And you'll go back to what you're saying. wasn't a, now I can behave poorly, yes.

Indulging. Yeah.

but it was so soothing that those feelings would melt away. And then I could proceed on to be more of the way I wanted to be and interact to the way I wanted to act. And it was just amazing to experience that and then think, that's kind of what would happen. That's what's happening with my child when I can accept their gigantic feelings.

you know, because you do feel, no, if I do this, they're just gonna do it again next time, you know, next time, they really want that toy at the store and have a big old meltdown. If I don't stop this, they're gonna do that again next time. You know, you're always kind of concerned about that. But it was amazing to watch how it melts away. And I remember holding my child when she'd have really big upset feelings, and then feeling that switch in her when she would just sort of relax. And

But I feel like it took a bit to figure out how to do self compassion. know, what, do you begin to do that? How do you describe that to parents? This is what it can look like. These are some things you can do to put this in practice.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So just like there's like this myth that self -compassion is like selfish or self -indulgent, there's also a bit of a myth around, we do self -compassion so we can feel happy. Although that like long -term, you actually get relief from self -compassion. Ultimately, we do it to get relief, but not necessarily like flipping self -compassion so you can get joy and like happiness right away.

Mmm.

huh.

Yeah.

The place to use, so if you think about self -compassion as a medicine, the place to use the medicine, like the appropriate diagnosis for this treatment, is when you're suffering. So often big uncomfortable emotions, which express themselves in our body, present as discomfort in our bodies. And our bodies are like the vessel that our emotions come through. And so,

when we feel triggered or when our kid has big emotions, our mirror neurons are picking that up and we feel their big emotions and it feels uncomfortable in our bodies. And so self -compassion comes in as an ailment for that discomfort that we feel. It doesn't make it go away per se in this moment, but it makes it feel better. So it's an application to suffering and there's plenty of suffering in parenting, right? The challenges of raising children because it's such an emotional, it's such emotionally like emotional love labor, right?

Yes. Yeah.

And I'll give you the three kind of frameworks of self -compassion, think of this example. So let's imagine, and we know from research that when children have big emotions, when we have big emotions, it registers in our brain as actual pain. So it's no different than physical pain. So a child skins their knee and they have a bloody knee and it hurts. That's physical pain. That's the same as when they feel really, really disappointed about something.

depending on the intensity of the emotion, but it registers as a physical pain. So if you imagine a child that's having these big feelings, or imagine yourself as having these big triggers, or you feel so angry and irritated, imagine a child that has a fever. The child wakes up in the middle of night, and they have a fever, and they're just burning up, and you will give them medicine for the fever, but it doesn't work like this.

The child still is gonna be uncomfortable for the next maybe 20, 30 minutes until the medicine kicks in. So what do we do then? In that time period, when they wake up in the middle of the night and they have like the flu or whatever, and they're feeling so uncomfortable in their body, they're experiencing physical discomfort. What is our instinct in parenting if we're compassionate? Our instinct is to soften, soothe the child, create safety, security, show them that they feel seen, right?

Mm

Yes.

So we are like the self compassion, ailment to the child when they're in physical pain. So I want you to kind of think about when we're experiencing the same thing, we want to give ourselves that same compassion we would give a child that has a fever. And the thing is like, our compassion to our child isn't going to make the fever go away, the medicine will, right? But what it will do is help the child while they're in this state of suffering.

it's going to help them feel more like they can handle it more. we're supporting them in not feeling alone. I'm right here with you, you're okay. I know this feels really bad. What can I do to help you right now? I'm gonna give you a minute, so maybe I can give you a washcloth to cool off your head.

Yes. Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

Maybe we can, I don't know, they take a lukewarm bath or whatever, or if they need a breathing treatment, if they're having a hard time breathing, whatever it is. But we're doing these things that are, first of all, mindfulness. This is the first element. Mindfulness with self -compassion. It's like, is really hard right now. We're not pretending like it's not. This really stinks waking up with a fever at midnight. It feels horrible. You feel discomfort in your body. You feel tingling. Your head hurts. It's throbbing.

Yeah.

This is no fun. This really hurts. So in parenting when we're feeling triggered, it's like, this is really hard for me right now. These kids are fighting constantly. I can't handle it. I'm so overwhelmed. I've got so much on my plate. Like this is really a moment of suffering. It feels so overwhelming to me. So acknowledging that mindfully, this is what's happening. We're not repressing the emotion. So again, this is the opposite of repression, but it's also not like over like blowing up the emotion like

like dramatically like it's an emergency. Like I'm so overwhelmed. It's an emergency. It's more like this is really hard right now. Like your kid wakes up with a fever. It's not like they're bleeding out. You're like, okay, this feels really bad right now. I know this is not fun, right? So mindfulness, because if we're not mindful of what's happening, we don't know what the next step is. Like we don't, like we don't know where we're going. Like where are we going from here if we don't know where we're at? So mindfulness is the first step. Then the second step is this common humanity. So we know that we're, when we feel like

Yes, yeah.

triggered, often feel we're feeling threatened. And the sense of threat is like, I'm gonna, I could die, right? Like spider flight threat, predators gonna get me, I'm gonna die. What gets tangled up in that is this statement of like, I'm all alone. We're designed to live in community, we're designed to live in social settings, because in nature, if we were out on our own, we would get attacked by predators and we would die. So we have this constant thing in our heads like

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

I'm the only one, this only happens to me, I'm all alone. And what does that make me feel like? I'm at risk for attack by predator. It's just our outdated system, Our amygdala is like, if you're all alone, you'll be cast out by the group, you don't belong in society, nobody likes you, shame, shame, shame, and now you're gonna die. Because if you feel extreme emotions of shame over time, you basically feel like.

Sure. Yep.

Exactly.

like the other people don't like you and you could die because you have no back. Nobody's got your back, which is a sense of threat. And so self -compassion involves this like other people feel like this too. This is really hard for everyone. Parenting feels hard because it is hard. People don't always talk about it, but they feel it in their homes. If you were to look into their homes, you'd realize other people have kids waking up at midnight with a fever too, you know?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yes, I know. Yes. Yes. Yep.

Or everyone has a fever sometimes, like telling your kid like, I know I hate being sick too. I've been sick like this too, and it doesn't feel good. You're not the only one. Like other people have felt like this before too. So we're really tapping into this, like this sense of threat by the antidote is like common humanity. You belong. And it also like minimizes shame because often when we feel like we've made a parenting mistake and we're no good at parenting and like we should just like, whose idea was this anyway? It's like.

Yep, yep.

these feelings of shame, they can overcome us. And then it just perpetuates the cycle of lashing out at the child because we don't like feeling shame. And so instead of suppressing shame, let's give it compassion. Like you're not the only one, everyone feels like this sometimes. Self -compassion is a perfect antidote to shame. And then the third element of self -compassion, then I'll pause because I know it's a lot. The third element is kindness. And so it's like,

Yes. Yep.

Hmm.

it would be really brutal to be mindful of what's happening without a sense of kindness. So like maybe other people feel like this and maybe we're mindful about how uncomfortable it is. if there's no like, if there's no like kind tenderness around it, it's like, man, this really stinks. And this is like, this is brutal. Like there's no there's no softening, there's no soothing. So the kindness is kind of soothing. And there's a question that in self compassion, they always propose.

and we should propose to ourselves is like, what can I do now to support myself? Just like you would with your child, like, what can it what would feel better? Do you want like a cough drop? Like do you want a spoonful spoonful of honey? How about some warm tea? It's not going to make the fever go away instantly. We know that but it will help them feel better because of this kind like something feels a little soothing, right? Maybe maybe a cuddle.

Mm -hmm.

Maybe if you just like cuddle up to me so that I'm not like scared and alone or it's like the intention to be kind. And so we can do the same thing with ourselves. How can I be kind to myself right now? And often what's suggested in self -compassion, well, there's two things really. One is the inner dialogue. So parents will often be like, well, who has time to do self -compassion? I already have a bazillion things on my to -do list, but the thing you can always reframe is how you talk to yourself in your head because you're always doing that anyway.

Yeah,

And like out of the 80 ,000 thoughts we have every day or 60 ,000, 70, 80 % of them are negative. And so that's our negativity bias. So can we reframe how we even dialogue with ourselves? Because if we can say something like, my goodness, this is really hard. I'm really struggling and I know I'm not the only one. Like, I'm really doing my best. Like I'm trying to my best, but sometimes it doesn't feel like it's good enough. And I'm on my own side. Like, can we kind of give ourselves some kind words and not

Yes.

beat ourselves up intentionally. And this takes practice obviously. And then the other piece of that kindness is like a soothing touch. So research shows that we release oxytocin when we give ourselves a soothing touch. And we also release oxytocin if somebody hugs us. So if your child was upset, you give them a hug, they're gonna be flooded with more oxytocin, which is the antidote to cortisol, to stress. We can also stimulate that in ourselves by giving ourselves like a self hug.

Yes. Yep. Yep.

Often people will do tapping, there's different tapping things that also help stimulate oxytocin. And so we can intentionally take action to help ourselves feel better. What can I do now to help myself feel better? Maybe I need to call a friend and vent about how hard it is to have siblings that are always fighting. Maybe I need to set up some coaching sessions with somebody. Or maybe I just need to get a cup of warm tea and take a break because I've been doing a bazillion things and my body needs to just stop and rest.

Yep.

And I'm important too. And it's like, I give myself permission just to like slow down and just like pause and just take care of like what I do what I want, not like everything that everyone always wants from me all the time.

Yeah, yeah, you know, I remember distinctly those three steps as you're talking about them, Diana, how all three of those were so helpful in me just being able to shift back to being more loving and kind to my kids, even when I was upset. Or, you you're talking about the shame thing and a picture that came to me was one time.

I was helping my daughter, Abby, when she was probably like seven, and she was doing some schoolwork. And she said, hey, dad, what is a predicate? And I remember as soon as she asked that, I thought, my gosh, I have no idea. What an idiot I am. How stupid can I be? My seven year old daughter is asking me a question. I don't know the answer to like, all these thoughts are going so fast. You know what I said to her? I looked at her and said, you don't know what a predicate is? Are you serious? Like I immediately turned all of that shame back to her.

almost like in an effort to keep her from asking me questions like that in the future, because I don't want to appear stupid, you know? And after this happened for a few minutes where I'm like upset about this and annoyed at her for not knowing this answer, finally I sat next to her and just said, hey honey, that was a really bad dad moment. I'm really sorry about that. I have no idea what a predicate is. Let's actually look it up. So then we looked it up and it was like, it turned into this moment of like connection where like,

Mm

Yeah.

I noticed as I reflected on it in slow motion, I was showing myself no compassion, first of all, for not knowing the answer, as if I should know all these answers. Like, why do I need to know what a predicate is? I still couldn't tell you what it is. But then I was also showing her no compassion for not knowing, right? And so that's where we kind of perpetuate this lack of compassion, as if she should know the answers to all these questions, otherwise she's stupid.

I don't, yeah, me neither.

Mm

You know, and like, just thought, wow, this is so sad how if I hadn't been able to shift back to this place of kindness, then I would have just perpetuated that in her mind where she would have learned to be more and more scared to ask me questions. She would have felt like it was her job to know things all the time instead of just being curious, right? Which is really what we want to raise, right? So I just hope the listeners can hear that. That's how those moments happen in real quick time where

Mm -hmm.

Mm

where if you can pause and do these steps you just said, like I got mindful, then I was able then to connect with her and that's kind of second step, understand the shame that was there, call it out. And then the third one was actually be kind. Then it didn't turn into this moment where there was like a toxic rupture, there wasn't this wound. Instead it was like both of us got to grow in that moment and I actually got to love myself for not knowing.

Right, right. And was there a part of you that kind of was like, well, I'm probably not the only one that doesn't know what that is. Okay, so that was the common humanity because if you were like, well, it's hard to be self compassionate if you're like, well, I guess I'm the only one that doesn't know what it is. Everyone else on this, all the other eight billion people in this world know what it is, but I don't. So it's okay, I'll still be self compassionate. It's like, no, that's really hard because I'm the only one, I'm excluded. But if you're like, wait a minute.

Yes, of course, yes. That's right, was the second thing. Yes.

Yes.

Yeah, exactly.

Most people don't know what this is. Why am I beating myself up?

But that's what Shane was telling me. Shane was like, Kyle, you're a 40 year old man. You should know what a predicate is. What is your problem, right? But then yeah, was like, no, that's lots of people have no idea. If I pulled a bunch of That's right. Nobody knows what this thing is. And it's okay not to know. And it's okay for my daughter not to know. This is the joy of learning. This is what we want to learn together, you know? So I love those three steps. And I just want to say to all listeners, I have done that myself. know Sara has, and it is dramatic.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Yeah.

Mm

dramatically helped not only ourselves personally, but our children be able to do that with each other as siblings too, to show each other that the, when they are getting upset with each other, to eventually move back to those same three steps to where now they're not judging each other and criticizing each other constantly, but instead showing each other compassion, know, because they don't hold themselves to this unrealistic standard that somehow is trying to be achieved, you know.

Yeah, yeah. And I love how you highlighted the shame piece because parents are in the population, parents are a group of people that are very, very shame prone. And shame, what shame is, really, shame is an, it's like, it doesn't happen. It's not an inside job. We're not born with shame. We experience shame in relationships. So shame is somebody else's negative evaluation of us in our own head. So in our head, we are

Bye.

Yeah.

you

thinking that the other person or maybe they have actually shamed us and said like, you're no good. I don't like you. What you're doing is bad. That would be shame. But then afterward, if we integrate that into our body and we're like, okay, so when I do bad things, I need to tell myself that and then later we're like, okay, like we kind of project this like the brain is very like efficient at projecting into the future. It's like, if I do this, this person like if I if I don't know what this word is, my daughter is going to think I'm stupid. And then

she's really gonna like then she might not look up to me and then she's gonna think like, I don't know anything and why should she even listen to me? And she's just gonna find somebody else to listen to and like, my gosh, I just lost my daughter. And the point of shame, it's a very innocent emotion, even though it can be very toxic in behavior externally and internally, but the intent of shame, it's very innocent in that it hits just a desire to be loved and belong.

Yeah. Yes.

I love that. Yeah, yeah, that's so good. Yeah. Yeah.

like if we can think about when we feel shame, when shame comes up for you, try to reframe it to yourself that the only reason you feel shame is because you want so badly to be loved by this other person and to belong. And the shame is trying to keep you in relationship with them. Because if you can at least like sacrifice yourself and tell yourself you're bad, you can make them happy enough to be in the relationship with them.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah.

But what if it's not a win -lose? What if you can come to a win -win where they can still be in relationship with you and you can maintain your sense of goodness and lovability?

Yeah, man.

Cause you can get to that with like self compassion, right? Like two things can be true. I just made a mistake and I'm still a good person. I just yelled at my kid and I'm still a good mother. I don't know what this word is and I'm still a smart dad that I can teach her stuff, right? So two things can be true.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's so good. Well, well, Dan, if you could take a moment to tell the listeners about the upcoming summit and what they can get from from joining that or being a part of.

Thank

Yeah, sure. So the Intentional Life and Parenting Summit is all about looking at doing things with more purpose and more intention, right? So doing things that really matter to you, whatever that is, like identifying like, what is the priority for you? What is more important for you? And how can you do more of that and less of the things that aren't so important? Even if you think about like the 80 -20 principle, it's like, what are the things that you really enjoy in life that you really want to thrive in?

that you want to create more space for in your life. So we talk about taking care of ourselves and like, how, what helps us be in our best selves and how can we do more of that in our lives? We think about like our homes and there's gonna be a day on like, kind of how your environment around you influences like the way you live your life, right? But also show up in parenting. And so how can you be more intentional with the space that you have, but also like mentally the rooms in your head, how can you create more intentional

dialogue that's actually supportive. And then we have a specific day on parenting and then another day on supporting yourself with resources around you, which we're going to show you guys this interview on that day where we talk about how your partner in your home is part of your support and how you can support each other in parenting and how you can build teamwork and help each other become the best parent that you want to be.

all things parenting and raising children and children's big emotions and all of that, but also in the context of what is most important in your life and how can you get more of that?

Yeah, and this will be October 7th through the 12th and it's going to be free, right? Is it a free summit as well? Yeah.

Yes, it's a free summit for five days so everyone can register for free and watch the interviews. They're free for 24 hours, I believe. And then if they want to keep them for ongoing access for lifetime access, they can purchase the VIP upgrade always. Yeah, it is.

That's great. That's exciting. Yeah. So we will listeners, hope you definitely, we will include the link to do that as it gets closer. So this episode will drop about a week or so before that. So that way you can grab ahold of that, be a part of that, get all that information totally free, which is awesome. And you're going to get so many great resources from each of the speakers. mean, Diana is going to have over 20 speakers involved in this. And so

five days of just really being able to get support and encouragement and probably some more compassion on how to be the parent you are wanting to be. So just want to thank you so much, Diana, for sharing this thoughts on. Definitely something that we needed to hear more of and we're excited for the listeners to hear more about this as well. So thank you for coming on.

So.

Yeah.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Ep 127 Transcript 

If there's one thing I think all of us parents need more of, know I definitely do. And I know every listener listening to this podcast does, and that is more self -compassion.

I think if you've been a parent for any time, you know being a parent is a really good way to beat yourself up for all the mistakes you've made and all the ways you're not doing it perfectly or the way in which you intended. So that's why today we're so excited to introduce you to our interview with Diana Yokely. And she's also a peaceful parenting coach, but one of her main passions is self -compassion and teaching parents the importance of that. If you want to be a parent,

who's not yelling as much, who's not having anger or shame or all those things kind of dominate your parenting day to day, self -compassion is the key. So she's gonna give you three specific steps to help you today have more compassion for yourself and definitely stay till the end.

Cause we're going to talk about an exciting summit that we are joining with her called the intentional life and parenting summit. It's coming up in October. It's all going to be for free, but she'll give you more details at the end. wait till the end to find out how to join that summit. Now please take a moment before you jump in the interview to pause, leave us a review, put some comments there, especially five star ones, ones that are really positive. We'd love to get the word out about the podcast. So more and more people have a chance to listen to it. And so.

I definitely think you're gonna enjoy this podcast and get so much out of it. So have a great time listening.

Hello and welcome to the Art of Raising Humans. I'm Kyle. Hi, I'm Sara. And you know, Sara, we've got a great opportunity to be on a summit coming up in October, you know? very excited. And so we're really excited to have our guest who's hosting that summit. It's called Intentional Life and Parenting Summit and it's gonna be in October and something that our guest, Diana, is really good at talking about is something I think every parent wants to talk more about or needs to hear more about and that is self -compassion.

Without further ado, I wanna say welcome Diana. Thank you for coming on the podcast.

Yeah, thank you guys for having me. I'm really excited to be here today.

And so Diane, know you also, we have a connection because you've also been personally trained by Dr. Laura Markham as well. And you are also a peaceful parenting coach, right? Right. And I'm sure that was a great experience and you learned a lot from Markham, but she's great at self -compassion too, wouldn't you say?

Yes, yes, she definitely embodies that empathy for self, is that like unconditional self -regard, which is self -compassion. Yeah, so I've been really blessed to be able to study under her and begin this journey of learning how to be more kind to ourselves as parents.

Why did you get into this work of doing self -compassion? Why are you so passionate about that?

Yeah, so in peaceful parenting, we have the three big ideas, right? So we have self -regulation, connection, and coaching versus controlling. And I think self -regulation, the first step, is the hardest for parents in general. Many of us, most of us struggle with, you know, we hear these great strategies in parenting and great solutions to challenging situations, but then we get stuck in implementation. And one of the biggest barriers parents get stuck in is they're not able to stay calm enough to be able to

pull up that wisdom that they learned, right? The skills that they practiced when they were calm, it works great when you're calm, but when something is happening with kids and it's stressful or you're triggered, it can be really hard to use these amazing tools of connection and coaching. And so in order to be effective in overall peaceful parenting, self -regulation is key. And I found that self -compassion is really a foundational element of self -regulation.

Yeah, yes.

Some experts would say that self -compassion is like reparenting. And if we know anything about self -regulation is that we need co -regulation to learn self -regulation. And self -compassion is like an adult way to learn to co -regulate with yourself. If you didn't have that experience as a child, you can give that to yourself today. It's almost like when you think about attachments, secure attachment, if you didn't have it as a child, you can have earned secure attachment as an adult. You just have to do

Mmm, yeah.

Yeah.

practices and healing and, and, you know, go into relationships that provide that to you. But with self compassion, you can begin this journey by giving that to yourself, which is pretty cool when I found these resources.

Yeah. So, okay. I think maybe we have some people who understand all of that and maybe we don't. Can you real quick fill us in what is a secure attachment? And just brief, I know that can be a whole topic in itself, but then what does it look like to be giving yourself that co -regulation and self -compassion? What does that look like?

Yeah, yeah, definitely. So we know with the latest science on raising children and children's brain development, that secure attachment is basically like if you're going to do anything for your kid, do this one thing to ensure like resiliency in their life overall, all factors of their life. It's all founded on the foundation of secure attachment, which basically has these four elements of the child feeling safe, seen.

Yes.

soothed and secure in relationship with at least one caregiver during their early childhood. So these experiences of feeling safe and soothed when you're upset, secure that your primary caregiver won't be the source of threat and fear for you, and seen like delighting in your child, or I wanna know what you have to say, it's important to me, tell me what you were thinking, share with me, I hear you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

These experiences all, if the child has these experiences in childhood, that will result in a secure attachment. And attachment varies by provider. So we have multiple attachments in childhood. Some could be secure, some could be insecure. It just depends on the relationship we have with each caregiver. But if we don't have these experiences of feeling safe, so let's say we have big emotions as a child, we feel disappointed about something and our parents aren't able to give us that compassionate space.

And we feel like we were left alone with our big emotions as a repeated experience if this happens on a repeated experience or maybe we felt like the parent was a source of Unreliable compassion right like sometimes they were compassionate sometimes they weren't or maybe they were the source of fear maybe we were afraid of our parents, know, and this would be extreme cases like You know, maybe they were they were like an alcoholic or they

Yeah. Yep. Yep.

they were abusive in some way. That would be the parent is a source of fear. Although we know that many parents have a hard time regulating and maybe they end up losing it at their kid, those children will sometimes feel safe with the parent, but sometimes not. And so there's this resistant pattern of like, I don't know if I can trust you this time. How are you gonna show up? Yeah, yeah. And so let's say we grew up in an environment like that.

confusing for sure.

we were, we basically concluded that we weren't able to show our parents all of our emotions because they couldn't handle them. And so we repressed some emotions and we built some skillful patterns in childhood of repression, which were really helpful so that we wouldn't irritate our caregiver and we wouldn't cause more like, we wouldn't cause more risks in the relationship in our childhood. And it was helpful back then, but now when we're the parent, it can be really hard to show up for our children.

when they have those big emotions because we don't have the skills to complete the cycle of like big emotions and then compassionate emotion coaching. so that's kind of a secure attachment background. But self -compassion has the ability for us to reparent the way that we operate with this cycle. So it gives us an opportunity to show up as that compassionate parent for ourselves today that we didn't have.

in childhood. And this is something that we do as an inside job, which is really amazing. The research on self compassion finds that everyone has a self compassionate part. We think about like, our emotions are kind of like different parts of us. And we have maybe an angry part or a sad part, you know, like some basic emotions, but like all the emotions like jealous, right, whatever. There's also a self compassionate part in there, which is kind of like your wise adult compassionate parent.

And we have to kind of wake up this self compassionate part if it's not a predominant part that comes into our how we treat ourselves when we slip up in parenting, when we make mistakes, when we lose it, when our kids seem to do something that triggers us. But really, it's like an old childhood trigger. We can rewire that circuit and give ourselves the compassion that we didn't get in childhood today and have a different outcome in our experience today. And over time, we can change the pattern.

and rewire our brain to be more empathic to our children and more peaceful as a parent if we can become more peaceful and empathic to ourselves because we can only give our kids what we have inside. And I can go more into details about the technical elements of self -compassion but just kind of wanted to pause there for a minute.

Yeah.

Thank

Yeah, no, that's great. Yeah, that was a really beautiful description. I would say Diana, the man, the self compassionate person in me, I think it was really tiny, it really small. And so tying it into the ability to be calm and compose with your kid, I think was a huge insight into me. Whenever I was working with Dr. Markham and really working with my kids is, I found like what I was trying to do was not be mad. I was trying not to yell.

Mm

And I found myself, you know, I thought, okay, the way I'll fix that is by just saying, I'm sorry after every time I mess up, right? But then I noticed I was saying, I'm sorry, like every day. And then I remember my oldest daughter, who's now 14, she at one point just said, dad, I really appreciate that you always follow up and apologize, but why don't you just change it? You know? And then I was realizing like, man, the steps I'm taking,

it's not really changing it. And I realized when I listened to my internal dialogue after every time I messed up, my gosh, there was so, so much anger at myself. And I was so just pissed off at my inability to grow up and just do it differently, you know? And I realized all that language was definitely probably the language my parents had used in their own internal dialogue or the ways in which my dad interacted with me. And so I just,

Yeah. Yeah.

I realized that actually this little person in me, the self -compassion part, that's what I needed to focus on. I didn't need to focus on stopping yelling. I didn't need to focus on stop being mad. My focus was actually to love and accept myself better instead of beating myself up after every mistake. I needed to be more comfortable with being imperfect. I needed to be more comfortable with messing up.

Mm

Mm

And it almost seems like, if you do that, you're giving yourself an excuse then to just be a mess up. Whereas really the opposite was happening. It was actually giving me the power then to change it. And I think that's kind of what you're talking about.

Yes, yes, such a beautiful summary. Yeah, for, know, the audience listens to this podcast, if they're familiar with peaceful parenting, right, and emotion coaching our kids, being compassionate with ourselves is essentially to me, like the way that you would emotion coach a child. And it was interesting as you were talking about, like, you know, if I have these big feelings, and now I'm being self compassionate, letting myself off the hook, that's almost like saying with a child, my child is so angry and

So like, they're raging. And if I don't nip this in the bud, it's like I'm letting them off the hook. Yet we know based on child development and the research on the best parenting outcomes, when children's emotions are accepted, validated, empathized with, safety is created with the parent showing up as compassion, these emotions the child is experiencing are like information and messages. They want to be delivered.

and then they will begin to evaporate if there's a compassionate presence. But if we don't let this kid get away with it, we're actually just trapping these emotions of rage and anger inside the child's body and saying, it's too scary for me to handle and I'm not gonna let you get away with this. So we're gonna actually trap it in your body and you're gonna have to reparent yourself when you're older, right? So again, like it makes no sense, but it's so simple to kind of reframe like if parents are used to like.

Yeah.

and giving their kid empathy, validation, compassion, and they see the outcome of their work, which is the child is able to behave better. They're able to cooperate more. Their emotions lower in intensity and lessen in frequency. The same is true when we find ourselves yelling, triggered. We have to give ourselves that compassionate space of empathy, validation, and welcoming all of our emotions, not all of our behavior. So we put limits on when we...

feel like yelling at somebody, it's like, can I put some limits around that, but still express my frustration? Like, there's nothing wrong with anger. There's nothing wrong with rage. Something is so wrong that you feel this urgent need to express it. But can we do that without attacking the other person? Can we express our anger with more love and nonviolent communication also?

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I definitely was more. It's really easy for me to store everything inside and just keep going along. that's I know even as a child, it was like, okay, just stuff that down there, stuff that over here and be good, you know. And so I find even as a parent, you know, I will stuff and stuff and stuff. And then sometimes it starts leaking out everywhere. You know, you can only do that for so long before it starts coming out. And

Right, Yeah. Yeah.

when I started practicing more self -compassion, there's this just release that happens inside of you and you'll feel so, it kind of helped me then even provide it more to my child because I would feel what that felt like internally. it wasn't that I was like, okay, now I can just be a big old mess if I want to be. And you'll go back to what you're saying. wasn't a, now I can behave poorly, yes.

Indulging. Yeah.

but it was so soothing that those feelings would melt away. And then I could proceed on to be more of the way I wanted to be and interact to the way I wanted to act. And it was just amazing to experience that and then think, that's kind of what would happen. That's what's happening with my child when I can accept their gigantic feelings.

you know, because you do feel, no, if I do this, they're just gonna do it again next time, you know, next time, they really want that toy at the store and have a big old meltdown. If I don't stop this, they're gonna do that again next time. You know, you're always kind of concerned about that. But it was amazing to watch how it melts away. And I remember holding my child when she'd have really big upset feelings, and then feeling that switch in her when she would just sort of relax. And

But I feel like it took a bit to figure out how to do self compassion. know, what, do you begin to do that? How do you describe that to parents? This is what it can look like. These are some things you can do to put this in practice.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So just like there's like this myth that self -compassion is like selfish or self -indulgent, there's also a bit of a myth around, we do self -compassion so we can feel happy. Although that like long -term, you actually get relief from self -compassion. Ultimately, we do it to get relief, but not necessarily like flipping self -compassion so you can get joy and like happiness right away.

Mmm.

huh.

Yeah.

The place to use, so if you think about self -compassion as a medicine, the place to use the medicine, like the appropriate diagnosis for this treatment, is when you're suffering. So often big uncomfortable emotions, which express themselves in our body, present as discomfort in our bodies. And our bodies are like the vessel that our emotions come through. And so,

when we feel triggered or when our kid has big emotions, our mirror neurons are picking that up and we feel their big emotions and it feels uncomfortable in our bodies. And so self -compassion comes in as an ailment for that discomfort that we feel. It doesn't make it go away per se in this moment, but it makes it feel better. So it's an application to suffering and there's plenty of suffering in parenting, right? The challenges of raising children because it's such an emotional, it's such emotionally like emotional love labor, right?

Yes. Yeah.

And I'll give you the three kind of frameworks of self -compassion, think of this example. So let's imagine, and we know from research that when children have big emotions, when we have big emotions, it registers in our brain as actual pain. So it's no different than physical pain. So a child skins their knee and they have a bloody knee and it hurts. That's physical pain. That's the same as when they feel really, really disappointed about something.

depending on the intensity of the emotion, but it registers as a physical pain. So if you imagine a child that's having these big feelings, or imagine yourself as having these big triggers, or you feel so angry and irritated, imagine a child that has a fever. The child wakes up in the middle of night, and they have a fever, and they're just burning up, and you will give them medicine for the fever, but it doesn't work like this.

The child still is gonna be uncomfortable for the next maybe 20, 30 minutes until the medicine kicks in. So what do we do then? In that time period, when they wake up in the middle of the night and they have like the flu or whatever, and they're feeling so uncomfortable in their body, they're experiencing physical discomfort. What is our instinct in parenting if we're compassionate? Our instinct is to soften, soothe the child, create safety, security, show them that they feel seen, right?

Mm

Yes.

So we are like the self compassion, ailment to the child when they're in physical pain. So I want you to kind of think about when we're experiencing the same thing, we want to give ourselves that same compassion we would give a child that has a fever. And the thing is like, our compassion to our child isn't going to make the fever go away, the medicine will, right? But what it will do is help the child while they're in this state of suffering.

it's going to help them feel more like they can handle it more. we're supporting them in not feeling alone. I'm right here with you, you're okay. I know this feels really bad. What can I do to help you right now? I'm gonna give you a minute, so maybe I can give you a washcloth to cool off your head.

Yes. Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

Maybe we can, I don't know, they take a lukewarm bath or whatever, or if they need a breathing treatment, if they're having a hard time breathing, whatever it is. But we're doing these things that are, first of all, mindfulness. This is the first element. Mindfulness with self -compassion. It's like, is really hard right now. We're not pretending like it's not. This really stinks waking up with a fever at midnight. It feels horrible. You feel discomfort in your body. You feel tingling. Your head hurts. It's throbbing.

Yeah.

This is no fun. This really hurts. So in parenting when we're feeling triggered, it's like, this is really hard for me right now. These kids are fighting constantly. I can't handle it. I'm so overwhelmed. I've got so much on my plate. Like this is really a moment of suffering. It feels so overwhelming to me. So acknowledging that mindfully, this is what's happening. We're not repressing the emotion. So again, this is the opposite of repression, but it's also not like over like blowing up the emotion like

like dramatically like it's an emergency. Like I'm so overwhelmed. It's an emergency. It's more like this is really hard right now. Like your kid wakes up with a fever. It's not like they're bleeding out. You're like, okay, this feels really bad right now. I know this is not fun, right? So mindfulness, because if we're not mindful of what's happening, we don't know what the next step is. Like we don't, like we don't know where we're going. Like where are we going from here if we don't know where we're at? So mindfulness is the first step. Then the second step is this common humanity. So we know that we're, when we feel like

Yes, yeah.

triggered, often feel we're feeling threatened. And the sense of threat is like, I'm gonna, I could die, right? Like spider flight threat, predators gonna get me, I'm gonna die. What gets tangled up in that is this statement of like, I'm all alone. We're designed to live in community, we're designed to live in social settings, because in nature, if we were out on our own, we would get attacked by predators and we would die. So we have this constant thing in our heads like

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

I'm the only one, this only happens to me, I'm all alone. And what does that make me feel like? I'm at risk for attack by predator. It's just our outdated system, Our amygdala is like, if you're all alone, you'll be cast out by the group, you don't belong in society, nobody likes you, shame, shame, shame, and now you're gonna die. Because if you feel extreme emotions of shame over time, you basically feel like.

Sure. Yep.

Exactly.

like the other people don't like you and you could die because you have no back. Nobody's got your back, which is a sense of threat. And so self -compassion involves this like other people feel like this too. This is really hard for everyone. Parenting feels hard because it is hard. People don't always talk about it, but they feel it in their homes. If you were to look into their homes, you'd realize other people have kids waking up at midnight with a fever too, you know?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yes, I know. Yes. Yes. Yep.

Or everyone has a fever sometimes, like telling your kid like, I know I hate being sick too. I've been sick like this too, and it doesn't feel good. You're not the only one. Like other people have felt like this before too. So we're really tapping into this, like this sense of threat by the antidote is like common humanity. You belong. And it also like minimizes shame because often when we feel like we've made a parenting mistake and we're no good at parenting and like we should just like, whose idea was this anyway? It's like.

Yep, yep.

these feelings of shame, they can overcome us. And then it just perpetuates the cycle of lashing out at the child because we don't like feeling shame. And so instead of suppressing shame, let's give it compassion. Like you're not the only one, everyone feels like this sometimes. Self -compassion is a perfect antidote to shame. And then the third element of self -compassion, then I'll pause because I know it's a lot. The third element is kindness. And so it's like,

Yes. Yep.

Hmm.

it would be really brutal to be mindful of what's happening without a sense of kindness. So like maybe other people feel like this and maybe we're mindful about how uncomfortable it is. if there's no like, if there's no like kind tenderness around it, it's like, man, this really stinks. And this is like, this is brutal. Like there's no there's no softening, there's no soothing. So the kindness is kind of soothing. And there's a question that in self compassion, they always propose.

and we should propose to ourselves is like, what can I do now to support myself? Just like you would with your child, like, what can it what would feel better? Do you want like a cough drop? Like do you want a spoonful spoonful of honey? How about some warm tea? It's not going to make the fever go away instantly. We know that but it will help them feel better because of this kind like something feels a little soothing, right? Maybe maybe a cuddle.

Mm -hmm.

Maybe if you just like cuddle up to me so that I'm not like scared and alone or it's like the intention to be kind. And so we can do the same thing with ourselves. How can I be kind to myself right now? And often what's suggested in self -compassion, well, there's two things really. One is the inner dialogue. So parents will often be like, well, who has time to do self -compassion? I already have a bazillion things on my to -do list, but the thing you can always reframe is how you talk to yourself in your head because you're always doing that anyway.

Yeah,

And like out of the 80 ,000 thoughts we have every day or 60 ,000, 70, 80 % of them are negative. And so that's our negativity bias. So can we reframe how we even dialogue with ourselves? Because if we can say something like, my goodness, this is really hard. I'm really struggling and I know I'm not the only one. Like, I'm really doing my best. Like I'm trying to my best, but sometimes it doesn't feel like it's good enough. And I'm on my own side. Like, can we kind of give ourselves some kind words and not

Yes.

beat ourselves up intentionally. And this takes practice obviously. And then the other piece of that kindness is like a soothing touch. So research shows that we release oxytocin when we give ourselves a soothing touch. And we also release oxytocin if somebody hugs us. So if your child was upset, you give them a hug, they're gonna be flooded with more oxytocin, which is the antidote to cortisol, to stress. We can also stimulate that in ourselves by giving ourselves like a self hug.

Yes. Yep. Yep.

Often people will do tapping, there's different tapping things that also help stimulate oxytocin. And so we can intentionally take action to help ourselves feel better. What can I do now to help myself feel better? Maybe I need to call a friend and vent about how hard it is to have siblings that are always fighting. Maybe I need to set up some coaching sessions with somebody. Or maybe I just need to get a cup of warm tea and take a break because I've been doing a bazillion things and my body needs to just stop and rest.

Yep.

And I'm important too. And it's like, I give myself permission just to like slow down and just like pause and just take care of like what I do what I want, not like everything that everyone always wants from me all the time.

Yeah, yeah, you know, I remember distinctly those three steps as you're talking about them, Diana, how all three of those were so helpful in me just being able to shift back to being more loving and kind to my kids, even when I was upset. Or, you you're talking about the shame thing and a picture that came to me was one time.

I was helping my daughter, Abby, when she was probably like seven, and she was doing some schoolwork. And she said, hey, dad, what is a predicate? And I remember as soon as she asked that, I thought, my gosh, I have no idea. What an idiot I am. How stupid can I be? My seven year old daughter is asking me a question. I don't know the answer to like, all these thoughts are going so fast. You know what I said to her? I looked at her and said, you don't know what a predicate is? Are you serious? Like I immediately turned all of that shame back to her.

almost like in an effort to keep her from asking me questions like that in the future, because I don't want to appear stupid, you know? And after this happened for a few minutes where I'm like upset about this and annoyed at her for not knowing this answer, finally I sat next to her and just said, hey honey, that was a really bad dad moment. I'm really sorry about that. I have no idea what a predicate is. Let's actually look it up. So then we looked it up and it was like, it turned into this moment of like connection where like,

Mm

Yeah.

I noticed as I reflected on it in slow motion, I was showing myself no compassion, first of all, for not knowing the answer, as if I should know all these answers. Like, why do I need to know what a predicate is? I still couldn't tell you what it is. But then I was also showing her no compassion for not knowing, right? And so that's where we kind of perpetuate this lack of compassion, as if she should know the answers to all these questions, otherwise she's stupid.

I don't, yeah, me neither.

Mm

You know, and like, just thought, wow, this is so sad how if I hadn't been able to shift back to this place of kindness, then I would have just perpetuated that in her mind where she would have learned to be more and more scared to ask me questions. She would have felt like it was her job to know things all the time instead of just being curious, right? Which is really what we want to raise, right? So I just hope the listeners can hear that. That's how those moments happen in real quick time where

Mm -hmm.

Mm

where if you can pause and do these steps you just said, like I got mindful, then I was able then to connect with her and that's kind of second step, understand the shame that was there, call it out. And then the third one was actually be kind. Then it didn't turn into this moment where there was like a toxic rupture, there wasn't this wound. Instead it was like both of us got to grow in that moment and I actually got to love myself for not knowing.

Right, right. And was there a part of you that kind of was like, well, I'm probably not the only one that doesn't know what that is. Okay, so that was the common humanity because if you were like, well, it's hard to be self compassionate if you're like, well, I guess I'm the only one that doesn't know what it is. Everyone else on this, all the other eight billion people in this world know what it is, but I don't. So it's okay, I'll still be self compassionate. It's like, no, that's really hard because I'm the only one, I'm excluded. But if you're like, wait a minute.

Yes, of course, yes. That's right, was the second thing. Yes.

Yes.

Yeah, exactly.

Most people don't know what this is. Why am I beating myself up?

But that's what Shane was telling me. Shane was like, Kyle, you're a 40 year old man. You should know what a predicate is. What is your problem, right? But then yeah, was like, no, that's lots of people have no idea. If I pulled a bunch of That's right. Nobody knows what this thing is. And it's okay not to know. And it's okay for my daughter not to know. This is the joy of learning. This is what we want to learn together, you know? So I love those three steps. And I just want to say to all listeners, I have done that myself. know Sara has, and it is dramatic.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Yeah.

Mm

dramatically helped not only ourselves personally, but our children be able to do that with each other as siblings too, to show each other that the, when they are getting upset with each other, to eventually move back to those same three steps to where now they're not judging each other and criticizing each other constantly, but instead showing each other compassion, know, because they don't hold themselves to this unrealistic standard that somehow is trying to be achieved, you know.

Yeah, yeah. And I love how you highlighted the shame piece because parents are in the population, parents are a group of people that are very, very shame prone. And shame, what shame is, really, shame is an, it's like, it doesn't happen. It's not an inside job. We're not born with shame. We experience shame in relationships. So shame is somebody else's negative evaluation of us in our own head. So in our head, we are

Bye.

Yeah.

you

thinking that the other person or maybe they have actually shamed us and said like, you're no good. I don't like you. What you're doing is bad. That would be shame. But then afterward, if we integrate that into our body and we're like, okay, so when I do bad things, I need to tell myself that and then later we're like, okay, like we kind of project this like the brain is very like efficient at projecting into the future. It's like, if I do this, this person like if I if I don't know what this word is, my daughter is going to think I'm stupid. And then

she's really gonna like then she might not look up to me and then she's gonna think like, I don't know anything and why should she even listen to me? And she's just gonna find somebody else to listen to and like, my gosh, I just lost my daughter. And the point of shame, it's a very innocent emotion, even though it can be very toxic in behavior externally and internally, but the intent of shame, it's very innocent in that it hits just a desire to be loved and belong.

Yeah. Yes.

I love that. Yeah, yeah, that's so good. Yeah. Yeah.

like if we can think about when we feel shame, when shame comes up for you, try to reframe it to yourself that the only reason you feel shame is because you want so badly to be loved by this other person and to belong. And the shame is trying to keep you in relationship with them. Because if you can at least like sacrifice yourself and tell yourself you're bad, you can make them happy enough to be in the relationship with them.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah.

But what if it's not a win -lose? What if you can come to a win -win where they can still be in relationship with you and you can maintain your sense of goodness and lovability?

Yeah, man.

Cause you can get to that with like self compassion, right? Like two things can be true. I just made a mistake and I'm still a good person. I just yelled at my kid and I'm still a good mother. I don't know what this word is and I'm still a smart dad that I can teach her stuff, right? So two things can be true.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's so good. Well, well, Dan, if you could take a moment to tell the listeners about the upcoming summit and what they can get from from joining that or being a part of.

Thank

Yeah, sure. So the Intentional Life and Parenting Summit is all about looking at doing things with more purpose and more intention, right? So doing things that really matter to you, whatever that is, like identifying like, what is the priority for you? What is more important for you? And how can you do more of that and less of the things that aren't so important? Even if you think about like the 80 -20 principle, it's like, what are the things that you really enjoy in life that you really want to thrive in?

that you want to create more space for in your life. So we talk about taking care of ourselves and like, how, what helps us be in our best selves and how can we do more of that in our lives? We think about like our homes and there's gonna be a day on like, kind of how your environment around you influences like the way you live your life, right? But also show up in parenting. And so how can you be more intentional with the space that you have, but also like mentally the rooms in your head, how can you create more intentional

dialogue that's actually supportive. And then we have a specific day on parenting and then another day on supporting yourself with resources around you, which we're going to show you guys this interview on that day where we talk about how your partner in your home is part of your support and how you can support each other in parenting and how you can build teamwork and help each other become the best parent that you want to be.

all things parenting and raising children and children's big emotions and all of that, but also in the context of what is most important in your life and how can you get more of that?

Yeah, and this will be October 7th through the 12th and it's going to be free, right? Is it a free summit as well? Yeah.

Yes, it's a free summit for five days so everyone can register for free and watch the interviews. They're free for 24 hours, I believe. And then if they want to keep them for ongoing access for lifetime access, they can purchase the VIP upgrade always. Yeah, it is.

That's great. That's exciting. Yeah. So we will listeners, hope you definitely, we will include the link to do that as it gets closer. So this episode will drop about a week or so before that. So that way you can grab ahold of that, be a part of that, get all that information totally free, which is awesome. And you're going to get so many great resources from each of the speakers. mean, Diana is going to have over 20 speakers involved in this. And so

five days of just really being able to get support and encouragement and probably some more compassion on how to be the parent you are wanting to be. So just want to thank you so much, Diana, for sharing this thoughts on. Definitely something that we needed to hear more of and we're excited for the listeners to hear more about this as well. So thank you for coming on.

So.

Yeah.

Yeah, thanks for having me.