Stepping Into Peace: The Power of One Hour a Week

Today’s episode is a little different. I’m pausing our regular programming to share something close to my heart: The Pathway to Peace Coaching Community.

This podcast connects us week after week, and still, sometimes we need a space to go deeper to actually live out the things we talk about here. That’s what Pathway to Peace is. It’s part coaching, part community. A place for special needs moms to rediscover themselves, reconnect to their own power, and find peace in the middle of chaos.

Inside the membership, you’ll get access to weekly coaching calls, small “Power Pods,” and a private online hub filled with tools and resources. It’s designed for real life, flexible, supportive, and genuinely transformative.

If you’ve ever wondered what the next step after listening might be, maybe this is it.

Click here to JOIN PATHWAY TO PEACE

Connect with Kara, host of The Special Needs Mom Podcast:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thespecialneedsmompodcast/
Website: https://www.kararyska.com/

Transcript

Speaker 0:05

Hi, I am Kara, life coach, wife and mom to four incredible and unique children. It wasn't all that long ago that my son received a diagnosis that had my world come crashing down. I lacked the ability to see past the circumstances, which felt impossible and the dreams I once had for my life and family felt destroyed. Fast forward, past many years of surviving and not at all thriving, and you'll see a mom who trusts that she can handle anything that comes her way and has access to the power and confidence that once felt so lacking. I created the Special Needs Mom podcast to create connection and community with moms who find themselves feeling trapped and with no one who really understands. My intention is to spark the flare of possibility in your own life and rekindle your ability to dream. This isn't a podcast about your special needs child. This is a podcast about you. If you are a mom who feels anxious, alone or stuck, then you are in the right place. Welcome.

1:13

Hello and welcome to the Special Needs Mom podcast. Although I am tempted to not actually hold this a podcast and more of a break from the podcast as I am interrupting regularly scheduled programming, although this is coming out on our regular schedule. But I wanted to take a break from a typical, episode to tell you and just to be very intentional about an opportunity. And that being said, backing up for a second, I, I get, I mean, not to be like I get a lot of emails, but I do get a number of people reaching out every week saying some way or another how they wanna promote their goods or services on our podcast, of which I cheer them on in their endeavor. But. It has never been my desire to monetize the podcast. I love doing this podcast for you all. It is the thing that I think makes me feel well, not the thing. It's one of the things that makes me feel super connected to this community, and I feel like it's, you know, a gift that I have that I, get to do these episodes for you each week. And that being said. I do want some of you to take the next step in our relationship, as in, I don't always talk about my business as a coach, but that is how I support our family. That is the business that I run. It is in coaching and in a variety of ways, of which I will not describe all of them because I wanna tell you about the very specific one that I think is something that I want you to contemplate and really ultimately ask yourself the question. Kind of scratch your head, if you will. Is this the next step for me? Like, you know, I've listened to one or more episodes of Kara and her guests, and I've gotten value from it. Is there a next step for me to take? And so I'm going to kind of talk very specifically about path to peace coaching community, what it is, what it isn't, even the logistics. We're gonna go all in and so it'll hopefully answer some questions that you have, some concerns that you have. And my goal is to have you say, yeah, Kara, this sounds like it could be really great and. It's a safe thing, as in I can try it if it doesn't work for me, or the logistics aren't quite jiving. I don't have to stay. I mean, I want you to stay, don't get me wrong, but I also don't want you to be in a situation that doesn't work. It doesn't feel easy. So let's dive into the details. Okay. First off, what is Pathway to Peace? What am I talking about? It is, I call it very specifically. As I'm sure you've heard, pathway to Peace Coaching Community. Now what's a coaching community? I made it up. it's coaching and it's community, and so I just put the words together. Do you see how I did that? Well, and over the years it's evolved, so I've always. Well, I shouldn't say always. For the last five years I've run small group coaching and it has been so delightful and it's been small cohorts anywhere from like four to six women and it's intimate and it's impactful and it's just amazing. And I've always wanted to be able to offer it to more people. Running the small groups, you know, just to make the math work for myself, it has to, you know, it had to be at a little bit of a premium for pricing'cause I could only handle so many groups. And so that's one of the solutions that I, have come up with with this model that I have where we're not limited, in terms of having small groups because it's designed, the format of the program is a membership, so you sign on for a membership and you get access to all the coaching and to all the community and all the tools. Essentially a lot of the concepts that I talk about in the podcast, but you know, that's phase one. introducing some of the concepts and really the community, the coaching community dives into phase two and three. So first to phase two is like actually applying the concepts. It's coaching, it's actually a back and forth conversation where you're not just listening, you're engaging. And so that's kind of phase two, but then phase three. Is taking it out in your own world and again, applying it. It's using the tools. It's applying the coaching, and it is where transformation happens. So that is a format. The other thing that is, I mean I think I'm gonna use the word magical, is kind of magical about group coaching. Is that. When women gather, well, I should say when women gather in the spaces that I have curated,'cause it's not always true, but in the space where we have aligned ourself to, treat each other with love, respect, and kindness. We come together and we share the inner workings of what's really going on in our hearts and in our minds and our fears and our celebrations, and we hold space for one another. And what that looks like is just having no judgment or noticing judgment and letting it go. And just a space of love. Because you are a human and. You deserve it. And we hold that space for one another. And what happens oftentimes when we start to engage in the work of trying to be better humans or being better parents or any of the above is we start to judge ourselves is we see how we could be. We see how we are, we do the math and we're like, we are not measuring up. Yeah. And so we turn towards judgment and self-critique and a lot of guilt and condemnation, and that gets us nowhere very quickly, but more of all of those things. And so when we show up in this community, we practice holding space for one another, and I think you're gonna see where I'm going with this. And we're exercising that muscle of holding space, Not judging, granting love and compassion for your group mates. And they're like, well, by golly, they're basically dealing with the same situation I am, and I can see how this is just. Hard, or I can just see how they are giving everything they have and they are exhausted and they feel scared, and of course they're going to react that way. And you have compassion. And then like I said a second ago, you're like, well, that's weird because I'm in a very similar situation and it gives you that. Aha moment, and you can apply it and receive it for yourself in a way that I just don't think we can do without this community. So you see how this fuels a very productive fire and I mean, I don't throw around the word magical all the time, but I'm gonna use it here. I think it's pretty magical to see it happening in real life. So. The other thing that, I dunno if I've fully answered, what is Patho to Peace? It is in membership. It is a coaching community. And so what that means is that inside the membership you get access to coaching, to weekly coaching to topic calls. I've designed it to be about a one hour investment a week. Some weeks you can do two and you can find ways to do more, but. The minimum is one hour a week. And that still, I get, it might still sound like a lot. it doesn't have to be all done at one time, but one hour a week. And why? It's because when we bring intention to our life, even just a little bit, so out of your whole week, one hour, it, it's almost like taking medicine every week. This might resonate for some of us that do a lot of meds. It's like taking medicine every week. And, right after we take the medicine, we feel good. We feel like, okay, we've got this, we see a possibility, our eyes are opened. Maybe we're like being more loving and kind and compassionate to ourself. We see ways that we can care for ourselves. And then, you know, couple days go by and the medicine is kind of wearing off a little bit and we kind of feel like, okay, maybe, but maybe not. And then by the end of the week we're like. Care help, please help me. and I'm obviously kind of exaggerating it and I'm not suggesting that coaching is medicine, but it's the best analogy I could come up with, you know, here on my feet and it's kind of like that, it's like it, it has this half life. And so coming back week after week to reengage in the concepts, in the coaching, in the connection to possibility, it's the cycle that has you step one step after another. Small steps of growth. And that growth is whatever direction you wanna take it in. It's all very individual. Even though we are collectively a group, you get to decide where you wanna go, and Pathway to Peace. Why? Because a lot of us come in experiencing not a lot of calm, but a lot of chaos, a lot of confusion. A lot of lack of confidence, a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety, a lot of overwhelm, and so Pathway to Peace is just the best words we could come up with to describe being on another route. It's almost like we, a lot of us have been on one route and Pathway to Peace community is like kind of saying, okay, I'm gonna take a left turn here, I'm gonna. Attempt at have this going differently and I'm gonna do it together with community. So that's path to peace in terms of a very high level concept. Okay, so what does this matter? I think it matters because. You matter, and as a caregiving mom or a special needs mom or medical mom or disability mom, or whatever you most identify as, or if you listen to my episode a handful above episodes ago, if you're an ultra mom or an extreme mom, same and you are giving it all, you are working so hard and so ultimately. We as mothers look around and we are taking care of everybody else, but nobody is taking care of us. And so this is a community where we are taking care of us. We are both, you know, individually saying, I'm stepping into this community because I want to care for myself. And I wanna learn how to do that. I don't feel like I even can at this point. But, we are also taking care of each other, as in what I was talking about a moment ago, of holding space for each other and caring for one another without, you know, I love one of the gals in the community says, I don't want this to sound the wrong way, but. I kind of love that. Like I only have to care about you all for the the time we're on the call to together.'cause we don't live in the same location. You know, we're not gonna be bringing casserole over to each other's houses when, when we are in hard seasons. And I'm obviously simplifying it, but there is something about having a place where you can have this level of intimacy and care, but not have to hold it like you might other relationships. You see, it's kind of kind of crazy, right? And it also matters because it's a space where you get to rediscover you. You're not just a caregiver, but a woman who has dreams or at least had dreams. And the goal is to awaken those again, and not just to awaken them, but to be on the pathway pursuing them. And if this sounds impossible, given where you're starting, that's okay. We take small steps. It doesn't happen overnight. Okay, next question and answer, who am I and why did I've developed this? And so, I mean, I am Kara Ryska of the Special Needs Mom podcast and maybe you've heard me mention, maybe you have not, but I am a mom to four and, ages now, 18, 16, 13, and eight. I have, my three oldest are sons and my youngest is a daughter, and my son Levi, who is 16, he's a multiple brain tumor survivor. So we come to disability, through cancer. And so that's a little bit unique to some of you. but ultimately it doesn't matter'cause we are living this, alternative lifestyle. We have disabilities in many categories. And actually it was right when I started the podcast that it was like this aha moment that I was like, wait a second, I can relate to this. Diagnosis group. I can relate to this diagnosis group. I can relate to this one. And it's almost like we have a step in, I don't wanna say all, I wouldn't say all, but like so many different categories. And in a weird kind of way, I feel privileged to be able to feel connected to so many different aspects of disabilities. So I've lived the overwhelm, the grief, the daily fight. And so, in early, early years, I did not have the skills to feel like I could do that and feel fully alive. I had many, many, many nights and many years where I went to bed utterly hopeless and only just thinking about. Okay, well maybe we have to do this as in like some drastic, like, sell the house and move in with my parents kind of thing. And I just could not see a way out. And so through a very roundabout way, I got trained as an ontological life coach. And what is that? It is a, a type of coaching that really looks at who we are being and not necessarily just what we're doing. So it kind of looks at the, Heart of the matter, and it doesn't approach you as in, Hey, this is the way to do it. Get on my system and I'll solve all your problems. But it relates to you as the solver of your own problems as whole and capable and helps you reconnect. With the belief I have in who you are, it helps you find your way back to that way of being again. So that is who I am. I have been coaching, I'm in my ninth year of coaching and I won't go into all the details, but I feel like. I don't know. I am just so genuinely excited to see the evolution of Pathway to Peace. It's gone through many different iterations, and what's really cool is, a solid handful of the gals in the program right now have been along the ride, so they've. They've said, Kara, hey, I miss this part of it. Can you add that back in? Or, Hey, I would really like this. Can you, can you figure out how to do that? And they know I'm game to try to figure it out and we will constantly be iterating, but I really feel like I finally tapped in to solving a number of the challenges that I had, over the years. And so, I dunno, it's just personally very exciting. So, what other questions are we gonna ask in answer, what's inside, what's included inside? so like I said earlier, we meet an average about an hour a week. there's this really cool calendar tool where like you kind of like sign up for it and then it. Integrates with your own calendar function. And it's really cool because it kind of just, is easy. I like easy things. So that's really the heart of the program is these times where we get to meet virtually live together. And of course, it's designed for you who has appointments and who has kids that have things come up. And so recordings are always available, and I'm gonna say equally impactful. So I feel like if you're like, okay. But like I work full time, I would say don't let that stop you from giving it a try. it may work or it may not, but I think that you deserve the opportunity to try. Okay. Also different tools. So during coaching, sometimes I reference tools or, different resources that can help with whatever it is that we are talking about. And so those are all available in what we call the hub. We have been working so hard, I was gonna say day and night, but really mostly just the day, to get the hub ready for you all to come in. I mean, kind of fixing it up. basically Andy who helps with the podcast, has made it beautiful. I made it practical. She made it beautiful, and then two of us together we're a great team. What else? We have what are called power pods. And so it was a tight race, tight running for the vote of what to call these groups. second up was connection circles, but I was like, you know what, everyone calls'em connection circles. I'm calling them power pods because. You know, it's not all women who necessarily resonate with being powerful, but it is how I relate to the people in my community, and I think discovering your own power is one of the best feelings of all. So, I mean, who wants to feel powerless? Nobody, it's one of the worst, worst feelings. And so hence we're reconnecting to our power. And so the power pods are small groups. They are optional. You do not have to join one, but you are very encouraged to. It's where you can find that extra accountability. It's where you are not lost inside of a big group. It's where you're not a number, you are a valued member of the community. And so those have been. Kind of the thing that's been most surprising to me as we've been building this community on how much you love your power pods. And it's been super fun and I will say logistically the hardest thing to figure out, but I think we have a good plan right now. So. Let's see. we have a community space, so if you like connecting in like the Facebook style community space, we have that available. Not everybody does, and not everybody uses it, but you know what, like it's designed so that you can connect. That is the whole. Point of community is connection. And so there are many different ways to connect and you are going to find the style in the place, in the structure that works for you. And we have a couple other things I'm not gonna mention, but that is not completely, comprehensive in terms of what exactly you get. But it's what I wanna mention here to not go on too long about it. Okay, so that's a little bit more about the actual what's included. And let's talk about the price, the way that I've structured this. So in your mind, what do you think that's all worth? No. sometimes I just can't help but being the little. Corny goofball that I am, no, I am very proud of how affordable I think I have made this, and that's been a huge evolution as I have changed the group. It used to be hundreds of dollars a month, hundreds, and now everything that I've mentioned, the access to the community is$47 a month now. I mean, things are expensive these days. I actually just went to Texas. so I live in California in San Diego. I went to Texas for this amazing retreat and I. I was blown away with how much cheaper it is than California. I was like, oh my gosh, my coffee only costs$5. Like this is incredible. And so, for some of you you might be like, whoa,$47 a month. That's still like, I mean, that's not nothing. And I agree, it's not nothing I wanna have. Enough of a commitment from you to where it's like, I don't wanna go waste my$47 a month. I wanna show up. It's not money that you're gonna just wanna throw away every month. So you're gonna be inclined to show up and to participate and to ask for support if you get stuck. So that is the design and where we are at in terms of what it takes to join the community. Now, lastly, why am I talking about this right now? Why did I interrupt our regularly scheduled program? And it is because, I'm also changing the way that I had run this group previously where it was kind of always open and now I'm opening it only several times a year, and I'm being vague about that'cause I don't actually know exactly when I'm gonna open it up again. it depends on what's going on in my life and what, you know, what's going on in the community. But I, I do know for certain that it is open now and it is going to be open until Monday, October 20th at 11:00 PM Pacific. To be abundantly clear and I don't know when I will open it again, whether it'll be sometime this year or early next year. but I think that. Fall is a great time to invest in yourself. I mean, I think any time is a great time to invest in yourself. Is it an easy time to invest in yourself? No, I don't think it's ever easy, but I, I do think it's a great time. So. Doors are open. And so on the show notes of this episode, there's gonna be a link, and that is for the page that ultimately will reiterate some of this information. There'll be some other information I didn't go over. but then ultimately there's a button where it says, join now. And so the invitation I have to you. Is to invite you to join. To join now, to join this week and to jump onto this. again, I wanted to also make this a very safe decision, as in if you, are like, okay, yeah, probably. Okay. Try it. firstly, you won't be locked in if you say, okay, I tried it. It wasn't for me. It didn't quite work. For what I thought it was gonna be, then you'll let me know and you will cancel and you will say, okay, it wasn't for me. Or if you're like, whoa, really? Like I got a little crazy. I pressed the button too soon. I didn't wanna join. We can work that out too. So what I want you to know from me to you is I would never want to keep your money if you don't feel like it was the right thing for you. Okay. All right. I just heard my doorbell ring, so that is my time to go. And thank you if you're still with me here at the end, and I do really hope to meet you. Also, reach out if you have any questions. I'm here to support you. We'll see you on the next episode.