Episode 108 - Fostering Resilience in Teens with Keri Cooper

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Conversations that Matter with your host, amber Howard. Each week, amber dances, in conversation with inspirational leaders, out to make a difference for what matters most to people. She brings you incredible guests who share their real life experience of being a leader and what it looks like to live a truly created life of service to others. And now here's your host.

Speaker 2: 0:25

Welcome back everyone. Welcome back to the Conversations that Matter podcast. I am thrilled this morning and super grateful and excited to be speaking with Carrie Cooper. Carrie is a holistic psychotherapist, certified hypnotherapist and speaker and author, who specializes in working with teens concerning their mental well-being. Carrie firmly believes that an integrated approach to therapy produces better results than one using one method alone. Carrie is trained in many frameworks and modalities that allow her to meet the needs of her clients. Carrie is a published author of the book Mental Health Uncensored, which teaches parents the foundations they need to know about mental health and well-being. In her work, carrie takes an integrated, solution-focused approach. Carrie works to assess the underlying problems and help parents learn to communicate more effectively, handle difficult situations and give their teens the support they need to thrive. Carrie, it's so great to have you on the show today.

Speaker 3: 1:20

Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 2: 1:22

Yes, we were just getting a little related. Before we hit record, I shared with Carrie how grateful I am personally for the work that you do. Having been a young mom and with my family having as I've shared on the show before my family having dealt with some significant mental health and mental well-being concerns over the years. It's so important that there are people out there having conversations and supporting people and dealing with what I think is probably one of the most important things we deal with as human beings, because everyone who's listened to the show at all knows that I believe our lives are literally created in our minds.

Speaker 3: 1:59

They are that's a really great way of putting it.

Speaker 2: 2:03

Yes, tell me a little bit about your journey to get to where you are in life today, carrie.

Speaker 3: 2:08

Sure, I was lucky in high school. I always wanted to know this was my path. I wanted to be a therapist. That really came out of having a pretty challenging teenage years myself. I didn't excel at school. School was really challenging for me. It wasn't until I was in my 40s that I realized I'm dyslexic and that's probably half the battle here. School was really hard for me. I checked out. I wasn't really enjoying life. I was just like why is there nobody to talk to who actually gets it, who can actually talk to these kids without judging them? I saw a lot of my friends dealing with the same stuff. I was like I just need that adult in my life who's like I get it, I get it. Let's think of other solutions. Let's not say you're the problem. That's why I want to become a therapist. I always want to work with the teenage population. That's always what I've done.

Speaker 3: 3:04

I went on through schooling. After schooling I worked in really tough areas of mental health. I worked in residential treatment centers for kids. I worked in home therapy. I was in it. It was tough. I worked in psychiatric schools. This whole time these kids have teams of people surrounding them. Every resource, mental health wise, is right there. They're getting better, but not 100%. They're not living their best life.

Speaker 3: 3:34

That really bothered me. I couldn't put a finger on it. What are we missing here? I knew something was missing. It wasn't until I had my own children and one of my kids not your typical two-year-old poor behavior. It was horrendous. I was like I have no to do with this child. We found out she actually had a dairy sensitivity which was impacting her behavior. Listen to Sonny. It was that clear cut of like oh, there's sensitivity and this is what happened with behavior. But it opened my eyes to what are we missing from our physical well-being that's impacting our mental health.

Speaker 3: 4:11

I actually went back to get a certification in health coaching to learn more about food and the nutrients and how that impacts mental health. I just started diving into research. I was like we're missing. We're missing it. We can't have good mental health if we're feeding these kids crap. We can't have good mental health if these kids aren't sleeping. We can't have good mental health if they're never seeing the light of day, if they're not moving their bodies.

Speaker 3: 4:37

You have to build up the foundation. That's how I really turned my career. I went into private practice. I was like I'm looking at the whole person. We're dealing with the actual foundations and this is how we're going to start our journey together. Then I actually started seeing kids really change and really improve and really take control of their life. That's why I wrote a book about it how to implement those foundations. I wrote a teen workbook so they could do it on their own. This is important stuff. It drives me nuts when I see, especially in school systems, so much money being spent on therapists and resources, which is great. Then look at the school lunches, then look at the five hours of homework where the kids can't sleep. It's like wait a second. There's a disconnect here. So that's my very long rant about how I got here.

Speaker 2: 5:28

I was just thinking about the movie Patch Adams, because I don't know if you've ever seen it, but it's a movie, yeah, and the whole idea about treating the whole person. But that was looking at it from the physical perspective, that you need to consider the mental well-being of the person as well and the whole human, and so it's just so. I never really thought about it from the perspective that you're bringing forward, but it makes so much sense, like you can't just focus on the mental either, because we live inside of a body and how that body is doing it. Often there's a huge correlation between our physical experience and what's happening in our mind, but of course the relationship goes both ways. So if we're not sleeping properly or eating healthy foods and all of those things, then we're going to be. We're just making the environment harder for our mental well-being to thrive, right?

Speaker 3: 6:17

So I think that's Making it an uphill battle and I tell that to my clients all the time. It's an uphill battle until you get your foundations set and I actually even went back for another certificate. I really like certifications to become a sleep science coach to help actually adults sleep, because as I'm talking to kids about sleep, I'm hearing about their parents' sleep and I'm like what do you mean? Your mom's up at three in the morning doing dishes? Like we're not modeling this properly for our kids either.

Speaker 2: 6:50

Yeah, that relationship with the parents is so sourceful, right, you know, to who we end up being in the world. I'm just participating in this coaching program right now which is coming to my mind, where they talk about you know, that judge or that voice we have in our heads and the origin of where that comes from. And you said something a couple of minutes ago that made me think about that, like this idea that, as a young child who's in a very dangerous world for you know, for someone, regardless of whether they have a good home environment or not, it's like there's a lot of dangers for a small child and they have to create a construct in their mind to deal with that reality. And it can never be that there's something wrong with their parents because they literally depend on their parents for their very survival. And so what?

Speaker 2: 7:30

Well then, who else could you make wrong and start judging yourself right? And that's where a lot of those I think it's an interesting concept that a lot of those ideas about worthiness and whether we're bad or you know, come from those early childhood experiences, and our parents will inevitably reinforce those over time, right Through their behavior and what they model for us. So I think I think you're spot on, carrie, in terms of like it's holistic for the whole child, but that it's also the whole family and the relationships and the interactions that children have with those key people in their lives and how healthy those are.

Speaker 3: 8:08

And you know it's hard as a parent as well. You know, when a kid is acting out because they're suffering, because they're not happy, because they have their own challenges, we take it almost personal as a parent, like we're failing, they're being disrespectful, they're being disrespectful and we almost get angry with them and all we're doing is really continuing to bring them down. And it's so hard as a parent to just kind of step back and say, yeah, my kids being so disrespectful, they're lashing out so much at me, but I know it's because they're hurting. And when you switch that and you look at it not as they're being disrespectful and they're coming against me, but they're hurting, as a parent you approach it differently, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 8:54

And I think for a lot of parents not consciously or intentionally, but our children are part of how we validate ourselves, yes, and there's like what it is to be a good parent and what it is to be a good child and other people's expectations of what that is and it becomes really personal.

Speaker 2: 9:15

I don't know where I picked it up for myself, but I feel very blessed of. I never really thought my kids belonged to me and maybe that was because I was younger when I had them, but I often parented from that place of well, who are these people, these humans, going to be when they grow up? Because I have them for a period of time, Not like I'm not going to have a relationship with them after they're adults, but really that you know I'm the custodian of their upbringing. You know it's their life and I still made their behavior or like parented through my concerns. I think that's what a lot of parents are often doing is parenting through a concern, whether it's a concern about their weight or their studies or how life is going to go for them or their relationships or screen time, but it's, and the concerns are rarely the children's concerns. They're inevitably always the parents' concerns, coming from that need to be a good parent and have good children and that whole network of conversations.

Speaker 3: 10:15

Yeah, it's funny, I have parents in my office a lot who will say to me I just don't get it. Like she walked past the you know the sink. It's filled with dishes, did she not notice? No, she didn't notice. It's not her priority, it's your priority, it's not ours. She's not going to notice. And that doesn't mean she's not going to be a functional adult who does her dishes, but at her time now she's not going to notice the dirty dishes.

Speaker 2: 10:37

It is not on her radar, it's okay, totally that, mom, but it just robs us of so much joy, right, carrie? Like you know, you need to focus on the big stuff.

Speaker 3: 10:52

You know, the dishes are not the big stuff. I always say if your kid's room is a mess, close the door. It's not worth the fight. Your relationship is more important than whether or not their room is messy.

Speaker 2: 11:03

Well, and the only reason we care about whether their room's messy is we're afraid that they're going to grow up to be people who live, like you know, like that don't have value. Cleanliness or having a clean space I mean not that that's the only reason. I do know there's a correlation for me anyway between my space and my own mental wellbeing and ability to deal with life.

Speaker 3: 11:22

And yeah, so I talk to kids about that a lot. I say, like when you have an organized, clean space, the kids are saying, well, we're going to have to move out of the family and maybe have to take the kids home. But I think they're really trying to find actually functions better. But again, it's not a battle I want the parents getting into with their child. It really needs to come from the kid. Especially when we're in high school, you know we're prepping these kids to kind of go off on their own. Parents need to take a step back and let their kids have some independence.

Speaker 3: 11:52

That something that has been really really hard in the last few years. As I'm seeing with parents, it's mental health and kids have shifted a lot the last 20 years that I've been a therapist primarily because of social media, to be perfectly honest. But there's a whole lot more anxiety and there's a whole lot more fear from parents. They are fearful of letting their kids go out, they're fearful of letting their kids go to the mall, they're fearful of many, many things and that fear is being put onto these kids and they are now fearful of literally everything.

Speaker 2: 12:26

Well, and it makes sense, right, I think, because you know someone who comes from a family with a history of, you know, childhood sexual abuse and stuff like that. There was a period of time where we didn't talk about anything right. Anything that happened in families or you know was swept under the rug or denied or you know not in this family, and so I think there's partly a backlash to that. Right. It's like, okay, so people had very bad experiences when we weren't fearful and we you know if we're harking back I know it said a lot in the United States, but probably everywhere this notion, romantic notion of going back to a better time, not like that time didn't have its own challenges too. I don't think that better time ever really existed.

Speaker 2: 13:05

It's a romantic notion that we create, but I think there are people parents, people who are parenting today who had very bad experiences in life because there was no open communication and things were not talked about. So instead of completing that, like getting that stuff handled and getting freedom from it, they parent from that place, and so then we just project, you know, and, as I said, I really do believe everything gets created in the mind. So we get what we fear, right, and the impacts of what we fear because we're attracting that. We're attracting that, those experiences to ourselves and really, as you said, impacting the mental wellbeing. It's not a very enjoyable life when you're constantly. How could you get enjoyment out of life if you're constantly afraid of what's gonna come next?

Speaker 3: 13:53

Right, yeah, and you know people are especially kids, stuck in their own mind. So much about what if this happens, what if that happens? And I always say you have to come back to the present moment and know that you have the skills to be able to solve whatever problem happens. And I think that's a big piece of it them realizing that if a problem does happen, you will have the skills to figure it out.

Speaker 2: 14:21

It's like you know, it's so interesting you're having this conversation, so I was talking with the father of my youngest son, who will be 18 next month, which is a little hard to believe. We were chatting about Keegan and just the other kids who, you know, on paper are much more resilient because they went through a lot more difficulties in their younger years and had more trauma that they were exposed to just because of our lives and what was being done within our families. And so as a function of that, like when you have to go through, when you go through those things, you become tougher per se. And then we look at Keegan, who didn't go through a lot of those things, and so he's not as resilient. And it's kind of like not that you want your children to go through trauma, but I think what you're pointing to it doesn't have to be.

Speaker 2: 15:03

I mean, children go through trauma and this is why I love the work of Goubaumatae. It doesn't matter whether it's extreme trauma, like in some families, but it's just those experiences of disconnection or not being good enough or not belonging or being rejected by your peers. Like all kids go through trauma. And what you're pointing to, I think is so important, is that parents give kids the ability, or young people the ability, to be able to solve some of those problems for themselves or solve them in partnership with their parents, instead of solving them for them and trying to protect them. Because, even if they don't have hugely traumatic experiences, that process of dealing with a breakdown and then having to look and see how do you resolve this For example, it could be like there's a deadline for an assignment that they've and they're late, and so I think oftentimes these days, parents will be in communication with the school or the teacher to try and resolve it, versus no, like you didn't get your homework done. There's an impact of that.

Speaker 3: 15:59

You call the school or you go talk to your teacher and you solve this problem, and if you need me, I'm here, I've got your back Right and those are the skills that a lot of these kids are actually missing, because parents are very, very quick to intervene and then the kids don't know how to do it on their own. I have, unfortunately, every December I get phone calls constantly from parents being like can you see my college kid? They just failed out of their first semester. And it's not because academically they can't do the work, it's because they don't know how to problem solve. It's because they didn't know how to reach out to our professors, because they didn't know how to ask for help. It's because they didn't know how to conflict resolution with their roommate. They didn't know how to do these things and that's something that we're not teaching them.

Speaker 2: 16:44

Yeah, let me imagine you were away at college for the first time, our university, without your parents around and all of the influences.

Speaker 2: 16:52

And you said it earlier, kerry, it's tough for parents.

Speaker 2: 16:56

I mean, or 50 years ago, 100 years ago, we were still having children just for the sake of helping out on the farm or make sure that we could get all the chores done or we could have enough money to survive, and we've gone, so no one cared about what homework was happening.

Speaker 2: 17:12

I mean, it wasn't even a conversation. And now we live in a time, I think, talking about the influence of social media and I don't know if it's that in this case, in this instance, or what it is exactly but it seems like there's so many more expectations that are on parents about how they parent and what they deal with and what they're involved with and what it means. Like that definition of what it means to have a good child or be a good parent has expanded so much and I think parents feel so much pressure is on them to make sure that their children grow up to be what I like to call successful, happy, successful, happy humans, and it's not usually based on what the child wants to be a successful, happy human. It's based on the parent's view and in society's view of what success and happiness look like. Right.

Speaker 3: 18:06

And that's how social media really impacts parents as well. You see all the other parents posting oh, my child, my child made Dean's List and my child's doing the summer internship. And you see all of these things and it's like, well, what am I posting about? What is my child doing? And it's constantly comparing. And kids are doing the same thing and I always have to tell them you don't know what else is happening in that person's life besides what they're posting on social media. Social media is just your biggest, best filtered moments. It's not reality and that you're not in competition with anybody. We're all on our own path.

Speaker 2: 18:42

I love that biggest, best context, the filtered part right, because even if the one of the things I've learned as an entrepreneur is the way we put ourselves out there, there's a lot of authenticity that we want as human beings Because we really need to look good or avoid looking bad. So to a point, we don't share the bad stuff, and even the good stuff is filtered to make it look better.

Speaker 3: 19:06

Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 19:08

Yeah, it's interesting that keeping up with the Joneses on a mass global scale, now that we have access to social media, to be able to just share all of the moments of our life at any time.

Speaker 3: 19:23

Right and it's really harmful. And I know as a parent I try really hard. I actually don't post much about my kids at all Because even if they have a great moment, that's our moment. It doesn't need to be the world's moment.

Speaker 2: 19:39

That's beautiful and I see that more and more with parents actually, like friends of mine who are having children today are not sharing parents.

Speaker 3: 19:48

Yes, I'm definitely staying a new trend, which is great.

Speaker 2: 19:54

Yeah, well, I think it. You know, if the parents aren't doing it, then it's probably just not gonna become normalized in the family, so the kids won't be on there as much either. Yeah, so you talk about getting outside of your comfort zone, kari, and I like that idea because I think you know miracles a very exciting, juicy life is available to us on the other side of our comfort zone. But I'm wondering you know that concept it can be hard enough to do when you're not dealing with any kind of mental illness or mental unwellness. How do you encourage people who are dealing with depression or a lot of the things that your teenage clients may be dealing with, to get outside of their comfort zone when they're also dealing with their own mental unwellness?

Speaker 3: 20:41

Right, it's one of the hardest things. And you know, like when we talk about like okay, let's, they're like I wanna start going to the gym, but like I'm too afraid to and I'm too depressed to, and I know it's gonna make me feel better, but how do I do it when I already feel awful and don't wanna get out of bed? And that's like always the thing we talk about in my office. Right, like you know, this thing will make you feel better, but you can't get out of bed to do the thing that you know is gonna make you feel better. So we always try to break it down to really small, achievable goals and even if that means I'm like, all right, just roll out of bed in your pajamas and start with like five minutes stretching, that's a win. Like any change, any change is a win. And when we think of really big goals, they just feel too big, they just feel too overwhelming. We break it down to the smallest little pieces because when you feel your first win, it's like, oh, maybe I can do this.

Speaker 2: 21:36

I really love that.

Speaker 2: 21:37

One of the things that I'm learning is like this week is around like avoiding, avoidance behaviors and that avoidance saboteur which I think we just deal with as human beings, and so it's like there's something to do whether it's like getting out of bed to go to the gym or like dealing with your taxes or a fight with someone or whatever it is and you avoid it and then your you know internal voice tells you you're a bad person for avoiding and it just has this like repetitive cycle of like avoidance behavior, procrastination, judging yourself and then more avoidance.

Speaker 2: 22:09

And one of the things I talk about is like just ask yourself, are you willing, like what are the things that you're avoiding and are you willing to take those on? And if you're not willing at the beginning to take on the biggest avoidances, it's okay to take on the smallest ones because, as to your point, the more you interrupt that avoidance behavior and take an action you know to make something better in your life or to further your goals, you build that mental muscle up. So I think that's really, and the brain likes small things. Our minds get really overwhelmed with big things.

Speaker 3: 22:42

Yeah, they do. And I always talk about habits, like building in habits, and once you have like one positive habit, going more and more positive habits builds, like it's easier to get going. But you got to start small. So in my workbook for teens I actually, you know, I say like start whatever chapter feels the easiest for you to start with, and one of them is just like drinking more water, like let's just start small with a small goal and build from there, because also, you know, people don't realize hydration is a huge issue as well when it comes to how we feel. A lot of our kids are severely dehydrated and don't even know it.

Speaker 2: 23:18

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I would have been one of those human beings. I didn't really develop a water habit till I lived in a tropical country and you literally have to drink water to survive.

Speaker 3: 23:28

Yeah, I had no idea how dehydrated I was for my entire childhood, until, you know, for six years in a row, I wrote it on my New Year's Eve list I'm gonna drink more water this year, and it took six years. And then I finally got there, and now it's like I don't even think about it, I'm just drinking water all day long.

Speaker 2: 23:44

Well, we, you know, we've developed deeply group brain patterns before we even realized that there are things called deeply group brain brain patterns, like for me. I think this is part of the reason why, in my journey, I'm committed to really getting some of this education. You know, creating a world where children are taught about how their minds work and given those tools at a younger age so that, you know, they don't become teenagers who are dealing or, if they do deal with challenges as teenagers, they understand how their brains work and how their minds work, so that they can deal with whatever, because there are always gonna be challenges. I think it's not. The point isn't to create a challenge free life. That would probably be a pretty small, boring life if you had a challenge free life, right?

Speaker 3: 24:23

But what you just said is so true we need to teach our kids how their minds work. A lot of kids in my office just think like they're this awful person because they have anxiety. And then I'm like no, let me teach you how your nervous system actually works, how your brain is trying to protect you but it doesn't realize it's not an actual threat. Let me tell you what your brain is doing to your entire body when it does think that it's threatened, and this is a normal nervous system reaction. I love that. I can't be like oh, oh, I'm not just lazy. No, you're not just lazy. Your brain is in a fight or flight mode.

Speaker 2: 25:03

That's a shame piece, right, and I love the way Bernie Brown puts it. You know that shame is something. You know, that belief that there's something about us. If it was known by others, we wouldn't be worthy of connection and belonging. And I think that's the most important thing.

Speaker 2: 25:15

We're always trying to connect and belong, and, especially for teenagers, it's just such a period of time that is rife with challenge around not connecting and belonging, right, because of all of the dynamics of you know, and then many networks of conversations that impact how teenagers behave.

Speaker 2: 25:32

You know, teenagers are trying to get a sense of who they are, not their parents.

Speaker 2: 25:36

They want, they want to conform, but yet they don't, and so it's such a challenging time in terms of developing relationships and knowing where you belong and connecting.

Speaker 2: 25:47

And so I'm just again so incredibly grateful that there are people like you, kerry, out there doing this work and, you know, maybe we don't have it in the education system of every child yet, but there, you know, if we get them the tools that their teens, then they're going to not grow up to be adults who are, you know, constantly at the effect of their judgments and shame and making themselves wrong, because they understand that they're not alone, and I think that's the biggest part of it, because so much of people's experience with these things is it's just me, I'm the only one who has that little voice in my head and I can't share how bad that little voice like, because I'm bad and wrong and I don't want people to know that about me, because if they knew that about me they wouldn't like me and I wouldn't get to connect right. So then it just creates more and more isolation, mental isolation and then oftentimes physical isolation. As we, you know, we remove ourselves from people so they can't see us. Right?

Speaker 3: 26:43

we try to be invisible.

Speaker 2: 26:45

Yes, hard to be invisible as human beings. It is. What are some of the you know? So you talk in the book about the foundations and you know everyone's going to be able to get a link to get a copy of the book. So I'm not you know, but what are some of those foundational pieces and I think you've probably talked about some of them already, carrie but you know what are those foundational pieces for helping kids deal with their teens, deal with their mental wellbeing and becoming mentally strong.

Speaker 3: 27:13

So I really I have 10 foundations and I break them down into five physical and five more, like mental and the physical ones we talked a lot about already, like water, food, exercise, you know, meditation, sleep, because you need that strong foundation in order to be able to make better judgments, to be able to see things clearly. When you're sleep deprived, you're not reading any situation, well, you know, and you're cranky, like that's normal. But then when we talk about the more the mental health ones, you know, I do talk about giving kids the ability to say no, to put up their own boundaries, to make sure that they are taking care of their needs first. These are really important, especially in today's day and age, because a lot of kids feel like they need to take care of everybody else and, yes, you need to be a good human and a good friend, but not at your own expense. You have to take care of yourself first and to give kids, you know, really, that power to do so.

Speaker 3: 28:10

And then you know, I also talked to parents about giving your child responsibility, being able to let them fail on small things. That way they can problem solve and gain that inner knowledge of oh, I can do this, I can do this on my own. And that's where the self-confidence comes from. Every parent's like how do I give my child self-confidence? And it's like let them do things on their own. When your high schooler does not know how to boil water, they're not gonna feel all that confident about them surviving as an adult. And it's small stuff like that.

Speaker 2: 28:45

I am that relationship between responsibility and confidence, like knowing ourselves as people who can deal with life as it's happening. I think that's very important.

Speaker 3: 28:56

Yeah, that feeds back into the anxiety piece when we talk about it, when kids are like well, what if this happens or what if that happens? You have the tools. I always say real problems have real solutions. So is it a real problem or is it an imagined problem? If it's an imagined problem, we can't solve it. If it's a real problem, what's the problem? What are the solutions?

Speaker 2: 29:20

It's really great. Another way I've heard that said is you will never be able to fix a problem in reality, in the physical world. That was created in the mind. So any of these conversations about our worthiness, like I'm not worthy, I'm not good enough, well, that wasn't actually created out here in reality. Even if maybe some people told you that you had a teacher give you negative feedback or a parent made a comment or a friend said something, the source of the problem is created in your own mental map and you can't fix that out here. You've got to do that work to resolve that on the inside. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 29:53

It's like job is some of my friends like to say.

Speaker 2: 29:55

You also said something that really just kind of was interesting.

Speaker 2: 29:59

For me it's like to become healthy adults and I know I've really struggled with saying no in the past in my life and setting boundaries and all of that stuff. And so on the one hand, as parents, we want our kids to grow up to be people who can do that, but yet it's not really part of our definition of a good kid to say no to their parents, right? So that paradox of like here we have, and I would argue a lot of parents are also not, especially women, especially moms are not great, don't have a lot of capacity in saying no, and there's a lot of people pleasing behavior and not saying that men don't deal with that at all, but I think it's probably something that impacts women a little bit more culturally. So, yeah, what do you do? Right? You want your kids to grow up to be people who have boundaries and respect and honor boundaries, but you don't want them to say no to you, because when you're asking them things, you need them to help, right, right?

Speaker 3: 30:54

Well, there's a difference. You know there's a difference between them setting boundaries because of their own mental health or because of their own space, opposed to know, I just don't want to take out the garbage. You know, like, yeah, you're going to take out the garbage, but when they're telling you like I can't take another AP course, when they're telling you like you know, I don't want to be on that sports team anymore, like you need to listen as a parent and respect where they're coming from as well. But when you talk about modeling behavior, especially people pleasing behavior, I have a whole chapter in my book about it, because these are really especially moms well-meaning moms are burning themselves out and what's interesting is that the kids notice it and the kids will tell me my mom has no patience, she's overwhelmed, she does everything for everybody. She doesn't take care of herself. The kids are seeing it. I say, yeah, mom needs some boundaries. Mom needs to tell you no, I'm not taking you to Starbucks, I have things to do.

Speaker 2: 31:50

Well, and even the you know, even taking the garbage out, you know it's. I know for my own like, when I asked my kids to do something, my expectation was often like get off your butt and go do it now, like I want it done now, versus like I'm in the middle of something, I'll do it, you know. Like teaching them to say, of course they're going to take the garbage out and they're going to help, but they're not. They're not expected to just jump up and put out that they're doing. Maybe they're in the middle of homework or their having their friends is having an issue and they're supporting their friend and we don't see that because what we see is them on their phone texting. So they must just be like, you know, real, watching on TikTok or something like that.

Speaker 2: 32:26

You know we make a lot of assumptions, I think, as human beings, and I always used to say that the challenge for teenagers and children is they're so present that they don't see how actions that they're taking in this moment will develop, happen, habits and patterns that impact their life and their future. And parents are so never present in the moment because they're constantly in the dinner laundry, all of the things that they have to manage. So parents could be more present in the moment and children could be a little bit more like, not thinking about who am I being today and what's the impact that that's going to have. The decisions that I make today, what kind of future is that going to create for me? We might have some some easier relationships.

Speaker 3: 33:12

Yeah, we would.

Speaker 2: 33:13

Yeah. So what is next for you? What do you know? Like you're, you have this practice. You serve people in person. You also, I think, do work online or remotely, and your writing books and speaking. What is 2024 going to be? I know we're already a month in, or almost a month and a half in. Can you believe it? But I can't.

Speaker 3: 33:34

So 2024 is going to be interesting because I'm actually starting a whole another business. You're the first one to hear about this on any podcasts. I so strongly believe in these foundations that you know I went back to get a certification in sleep coaching and I'm actually going to be opening up a coaching practice really just for sleep, Because it's so important and so many of our physical health problems and mental health problems are impacted by sleep. So I want to really focus on that. So I'm still going to be a therapist and I'm still going to have this business and I'm still going to, you know, see people in person and virtually and do parent strategy sessions to help parents, you know, also get on a good page with their kids, which is a great part of my practice. But within the next few months, I'll be opening up a whole another business as well, which will be more just, virtual and really focused on some of the foundations that people need.

Speaker 2: 34:30

It's so good. You know, I became 45 not too long ago like that changes, right. So for most of my teenage years I was, um, like I could not sleep. It took me hours. I used to lie in bed at night and ruminate, or I would stay up until I was so exhausted that I would just pass out because I didn't want to be lying in bed ruminating. And then I took this course and I got a lot of freedom for that and for years I like literally would hit my head, would hit the pillow and I would fall asleep and it was great.

Speaker 2: 34:56

And then over the last three months We've been dealing with a lot of um circumstances in our family. It's been a season of loss in our lives and I've been having a hard time going to sleep again. And now that I'm hitting menopause and like peri menopause and I'm getting older, I'm like Getting up in the middle of the night three times, when I never used to get up in the middle of the night as my body ages and gets older, right. So I think that's important because this is something that we deal with in different ways throughout our whole lives and you know, um, just because you might have good sleep up until a certain point in time, once you become a parent or you know we hate your teenage years like that can change, so I really acknowledge you for adding that service to the the amazing work that you do, carrie thank you.

Speaker 3: 35:37

Thank you, and we'll see if the third book is on its way. I don't know. I've been asked a lot to write a book just for the 20 year olds, so maybe, maybe that's coming.

Speaker 2: 35:45

Very cool. I'm sure they would love that. Well, just, I mean, I just really want to acknowledge you again for the work that you do. I am as someone whose whole life has been impacted by mental illness and mental well-being and you know I see directly in my own life the impact of, like those generational patterns and behaviors that get passed down and and you know what's required to be a cycle breaker when you come from some of those more traumatic experiences. So it just warms my heart to know that there are people out there like you who are so dedicated to our children and to parents and to having you know freedom and people's lives work. So thank you for the work that you do.

Speaker 3: 36:25

Thank you so much.

Speaker 2: 36:26

Yeah, you're welcome for those listening. I hope you Enjoyed this conversation as much as I did and got some things that you can take away for working in your own life or with your own children. You'll be able to find out how to connect with Carrie in the show notes and I hope you have a great week and I love you almost. I'll talk to you next week. Bye for now.

Speaker 1: 36:44

Thank you so much for joining us for this week's episode. For more information on the show and our extraordinary guests, check out conversations that matter podcastcom.