E 264 How to Strengthen Trust and Communication with our Teens

 ✨ What if your teen’s biggest challenges could actually become their greatest strengths?

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Blythe Metz-Mändmets—metaphysician, author of Dear Teenager, You Are Amazing, and holistic healing coach—to explore her 5 Keys to Creating a Life You Love.

We dive into practical tools for both parents and teens, including:
✅ How unconditional self-love builds confidence and resilience
✅ Why forgiveness transforms health, happiness, and relationships
✅ What “Imagineering” means—and how it helps teens shape their future
✅ The #1 thing parents can do to strengthen their connection with teens
✅ Simple shifts to reduce stress, anxiety, and negative thinking

🌟 Free Gift from Dr. Blythe: Get the Connection Blueprint: 10 Keys to a Thriving Parent-Teen Relationship here → https://blythenaturalliving.myflodesk.com/teens

💬 Let’s connect:
Subscribe for more tools to help parents and teens navigate anxiety and life’s challenges with confidence.

📌 Chapters:
0:00 Intro – Meet Dr. Blythe Metz-Mändmets
2:15 What is a Metaphysician?
6:40 Teaching Teens Self-Love & Intuition
12:00 Imagineering Explained
20:00 The Power of Forgiveness for Teens & Parents
27:00 Strengthening Parent-Teen Connections
31:00 Free Gift: The Parent-Teen Blueprint

🔔 Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share this with another parent who needs encouragement today! 

 Struggling with anxiety in your family? If anxiety is causing tension, fights, or disconnect in your home, you don’t have to face it alone. I help parents bring more peace, confidence, and connection to their families. Let’s talk—schedule a free consultation today or email me: ccoufal@cynthiacoufalcoaching.com

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Transcript

Cynthia: [00:00:00] What if your teens biggest challenges could actually become their greatest strengths? How do unconditional self-love and forgiveness transform the way that we experience life? And what is Imagineering and why is it important for parents and teens? Well, today I am joined by Dr. Blythe Mets Mad Mets. She is a meta physician, author of Dear Teenager, you Are Amazing, and a holistic healing coach who helps youth and adults alike quantum shift their health and happiness.

We're going to dive into some or all of her five keys to Creating a Life you love. And that, and if you're ready for fresh tools to help your teen thrive and maybe even transform your own life, this episode is for you. So [00:01:00] hello and welcome to the show. Hi, Cynthia. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you. Well, I am so excited that you reached out to me.

I love meeting new people and you are a perfect addition to the show and what we talk about. But first of all, I would like to ask, what is a meta physician? 

Dr. Blythe Metz-Mändmets: Absolutely. So we're all familiar with the term physician, right? A doctor that works for the body? Well, a meta physician is someone that works with the energy, the mind, the emotions, and the body.

So I help people, uh, step into their unconscious, remove their blocks, work with their energy so that they create health, vitality, happiness. So it's the unseen, it's working with the unseen instead of the scene to improve the scene. 

Cynthia: Hmm. I love that so much. And it's really just been, well, probably in my later adult life was when I started hearing about energy more and, and learning about how all of that works.

But I never really realized until I started hearing about it [00:02:00] that I have always felt like the energy shifts with people. 

Dr. Blythe Metz-Mändmets: Mm-hmm. And 

Cynthia: now that I am, and, and I haven't studied up on it a lot, but I just, I can feel. Almost like the energy of the room. When I'm with people, I can tell kind of like where it is, and I think that's really helpful in, in our kind of work where we're helping people and we're, we're trying to get people to have their best lives where if you can feel those shifts or you can feel that some things lower, like how you can step in there and help them.

So I think that that yeah, totally makes sense. 

Dr. Blythe Metz-Mändmets: We all have those senses, but we're not taught that. We do, we're only taught the physical senses, but we have the non-physical senses as well. Mm-hmm. And we all feel it. I mean, you're right. It's like, you know when you walk into a room and there's been an argument or there's been tension or you know, when there's been joy, we can, we can feel all we know if we're.

Around someone that's not for our highest good. Even if we don't know them, we're like, Ooh, you know, I teach my kids, it's [00:03:00] like read energy. Because you know that fear of like, don't talk to strangers. You know? And it's really hard when you're like raising kids and they like wanna talk to other people's parents at the park and you know, you don't wanna put that fear on them.

Like, don't talk to strangers, but it's like, read the energy. 'cause that's when you know if you can talk to people that you don't know is read the energy. 'cause we all can. Yeah. Mm-hmm. We just don't have context for it. 

Cynthia: Yeah. Well, I remember telling my daughter that, um, when she was, I think she was late elementary, maybe middle school.

She was around this guy a lot. Well, he went to our church, unfortunately, and he, she would say, I, I feel really yucky when I'm around him and mm-hmm. And I said, pay attention to that. That's right. When you feel that feeling with any person, girl or guy or whatever, just. That means you probably need to not be alone and you, you know, maybe need to distance yourself or not spend very much time with that person if you can.

And I remember thinking, I want [00:04:00] her to know, 'cause no one told me that I could feel that or that I, that that meant something. Or I didn't want her to think she had to be nice to everybody if Right. You felt scared, or if it wasn't, it didn't feel right. So, and I think there's more and more of that now where they're, they're teaching kids.

You don't have to do what adults tell you if it's something scary or something. Like it's a secret or whatever. You, and I think that's a great way to teach kids instead of like, do what adults tell you to do or whatever. Absolutely. Because not all, all adults are gonna tell you good things. 

Dr. Blythe Metz-Mändmets: They're not.

Right. They, we have our own guidance system. It's part of the guidance system. And when we know that, that's communication, how we feel in so many else's presence is actually communication. And you know this, this ties into anxiety. So beautifully because so often what we're seeing especially in teens is they, they've not only not been taught to honor that as communication within them, but they've [00:05:00] often been taught to not listen to it, to ignore it.

Like the way that we've set up so many aspects and the conditioning of our culture, it, it dismisses that communication entirely. And so they're left with anxiety. Because they don't have the guidance system within them. They're not attuning to their own intuition in regards to making choices, in regards to friends.

It's like, you know what, if you don't feel good around someone, don't try to be your friend. That's like, that's the helpful hint that says, okay, you know what? They're not meant to to be, you know, to be friends and that's okay. You know, really? Yes. Teaching every, every child that who they are is perfect.

Who they are is exactly who they're meant to be. You know, when I give talks at high schools, I always say. We are the, the para, the great paradox of the human is that we are all the same and that we are all unique, like we're supposed to be so unique. And weird. Weird is good. Like if you feel like mm-hmm you are [00:06:00] so different than everyone else.

Like that's your genius. That's awesome. But also, we're all the same in that we all wanna feel accepted. We all wanna feel comfortable at school. Nobody wants to go to school and feel like they have enemies or people that, that they're, you know, not jiving with. We all want that so. Let's just have that, you know, like, let's do, like, that's what's so great.

Like when I give a talk at a high school and I just call it out, it's like, Hey, guess what? We all get to choose right here that everybody feels comfortable at school, that this is a safe place for everybody to shine in their most unique way, because let's celebrate how we're each unique. Mm-hmm. It's not like, oh, that person's weird.

It's like, wow, that person's weirdness is gonna. Save the world one day, you know, or is gonna create mm-hmm. Something that has, has so much value to other people and just calling it out. Yes. Be weird. And yes, we're all the same. Let's, mm-hmm. Let's just all be good to each other so that we all can feel comfortable.

Um, especially in the confines of a school [00:07:00] environment where when you're not, when you're at odds with someone, there's no one nowhere you can go. You know, that person is just there every day. And as adults, we know. That's not comfortable. As adults, we don't like that. We don't wanna have to be put in a small room with someone that we're at odds with.

And so kind of just helping, and this ties in really to the first key of self-love. It's like when we can all truly and deeply have have unconditional self-love for ourselves, then that allows us to just have unconditional love for everyone and just let everyone be who they are. Hmm. 

Cynthia: I love that. And so in your book you're probably teaching like how to go about that self-love.

How do you have it, how do you, um, show other people love in that context? 

Dr. Blythe Metz-Mändmets: Yeah, so unconditional self-love is so. Crucial to our health, to our vitality, to our happiness, to our ability to have success in the world is our feeling of self. Like it comes [00:08:00] down to that feeling of self, but we're not, again, we're not taught to have unconditional self-love.

In fact, we're taught the opposite. It's like, don't you know, don't be self-centered. Don't just think about yourself, you know? And, and of course we need to. Be conscious of everyone else's feelings and all that. Is this, having unconditional self-love isn't narcissistic. It's not saying nobody else matters.

No, of course not. It's honoring thyself. Right. And I think the best way to teach that to the teens is to model it. Mm-hmm. And for a parent to model that, it's taking care of yourself, you know being kind, you know, showing up. As love for yourself and for your teen, and that's the first step is modeling that.

And then also like real tools of asking, you know, if someone's struggling with depression or anxiety and if they ha, you can just sit and ask the question, what does it feel like to [00:09:00] love myself more? They don't have to know the answer. They can just sit and feel it and let that higher knowing. Flood their system with the feeling.

What does it feel like to love myself more? To have unconditional self-love? And the first time someone might sit and ask that it, it might be hard to feel into it because our brains are so distracted, right? There's so many things going on. There's, there's shorts. Now I always tell my daughter, do not ever watch these shorts.

Kids are watching these shorts like crazy that are. Talking about one thing while they're showing a visual of another. And not only is the visual not matching the audio, but there's two separate videos. So it's split screen showing two different random things. While it's a story about something entirely, kids are watching these shorts and it's teaching their brains even more how to be fractured.

So you're not focusing on anything. And in order to create anything in life, anything new, we have to be able to. Focus, right? Mm-hmm. And so the thought of unconditional [00:10:00] self-love coming back, it can be challenging to get the answer. To those questions at first, but stay with it because you're building the neural pathways in your brain every time you sit even for two minutes.

Mm-hmm. Even if you sit for just two minutes and go, I'm gonna feel self-love greater than I've ever felt it. Having the intention to feel self-love greater than you've ever felt it, because you're allowed to be greater and greater and greater every day. You're allowed to feel greater love every day, and inviting that in makes all the difference.

Hmm. 

Cynthia: I love that so much. I think about when I was hearing about more about the self-love and to kind of take it out of that narcissistic, they were saying, you know, you're not thinking you're better than other people. You're just thinking you're equal with everyone else. Like, my, my time is as important as the next person's time.

Or, you know, my ideas are just as important as my friend's ideas and kind of [00:11:00] keeping you. Loving what you're thinking, but also then still loving and thinking other people's things are important too. So I love that. And I try to teach that too with my clients and, and their parents. Yeah. So what is, what is another key in your book?

Dr. Blythe Metz-Mändmets: So, um, and another one that we talk about is imagineering, as you mentioned. Oh, yes, yes. Tell us about that. Imagineering, Imagineering, you know, this word has really only ever been used by the creative minds at Disney. For, for what they use. They use that word imagineering. But I'm using it in the context of the quantum field and our consciousness.

And so there's a very famous experiment called the double split. The double split experiment, where physicists were able to see that their observation. Of a particle turned it into, or their observation of a wave turned it into a particle when they didn't have a camera observing it, A wave stayed a wave.

So what this and this double slit [00:12:00] experiment has been redone over and over all over the world, and it is profoundly shifting to our worldview because it shows that what we observe changes what we observe. So when things are just waves, when we observe it, it becomes a particle. So in Imagineering, so this is to say our life, what we observe, we create.

So in metaphysics there's a tenant that says that you create what you're conscious of being. So if you're conscious of being left out. You don't have any friends, you're stressed about school. If this is your consciousness, then you're collapsing that reality more and more and to, you know, peel back the layers and sort of paint a picture.

If you think that people don't like you in school and you, you, you, you think. Whatever you think about how people feel about you, you're feeling that way actually repels them because now you're over [00:13:00] here, you're not showing up in your excellence. Hey, how, how are you? You're feeling insecure. You're not showing up.

And so those people aren't drawn to you. And so you know that that's like how it kind of collapsed. We can see it right there working, but this is how our entire lives are created. We're always creating what we're conscious of being. So how do we use that to create a life we love? Well, we go, what do I wanna be conscious of being?

For a student, I wanna be conscious of feeling comfortable at school. I wanna be con I wanna be conscious of being confident. I choose to be confident. I, and the thing too, with students, it's like, or with teens, it's like, teach them that you can choose, you're not just this way. Mm-hmm. I'm shy, I am awkward.

I am, you know, whatever thing. It's like, choose how you wanna be. And then by choosing that, by observing it consistently, you literally change. How you, how you show up in the world and the [00:14:00] world changes, how it's reflected towards you? 

Cynthia: Hmm. That I teach my clients the belief plan and we, we envision, what do you wanna be at the end of the school year?

You know, you got the grades you wanted, you had the school year that was just like the perfect school year. Who is that person? How do you feel? What are you saying to yourself? And then we just reverse engineer it back to today. That's exactly what you're saying. And I love that engineering. I wrote this, I wrote this down.

You create what you are conscious of being, and I didn't have the right words for it when I talked to them about, you know, you're your future self, but it's kind of like that same thing and thinking about like, you kind of, um, experience the world by what you're thinking. I had a student that came in one time and they said, I hate this class.

I hate this teacher. Everything's the worst. I never wanna go there. It's so terrible. I mean, everything bad they could say about it. They did. And I said, okay, I want you to go to that class [00:15:00] today, and I only want you to see what you like about that class. What is interesting, is there someone in there you like, is, does the teacher teach anything That's interesting?

Does you know? You know, like just only see. The good stuff because you, when you tell your brain, I'm gonna look for the stuff that's good, the stuff I like, then your brain is searching for those things and it's gonna bypass the stuff that doesn't fit what you're thinking about, which is, this is terrible and I hate it.

And it doesn't mean that something won't happen. You won't get in trouble, somebody's annoying, whatever, but you're gonna go into the room in a different energy. Than you were going into it, and you're gonna have a different experience when you're there. So I just love that this so fantastic fits with everything that I, that I teach.

Yes. Okay. And 

Dr. Blythe Metz-Mändmets: that's, that's the reticular activating system in our brains. I mean, we have like 4 billion bits of information being thrown at us all the time, so our brain has [00:16:00] to filter it. And so what you just said is like hacking the reticular, activating filter of your brain. You are telling your brain what to filter today.

Yes. I'm gonna look at, you know. The, the things that I wanna see that, you know, and that's another metaphysical tenant is look for what you want to see. 

Cynthia: Mm. I like that. I'm gonna write, I'm writing all these things down. This is so good for me. 

Dr. Blythe Metz-Mändmets: I'm glad. 

Cynthia: Um, okay. Look for what you want to see. 

Dr. Blythe Metz-Mändmets: Yeah. That's what we wanna, is that another I heard, I heard once from, uh, Sonia Chique. She's a amazing author intuition writer, and she, one thing that I love that she said is she said all day long just go around saying, I love that. I love that. I love that. And since I heard her say that. The joy that that brings to my day as I'm walking around my world and I see a flowering tree and I'm like, I love that.

And I see a mom and child holding hands walking. I love that. I see, you know, a Mercedes G wagon. I love that. I say, you [00:17:00] know, it's like you just, you see Yeah. A fig tree. I love that. And you and the energy. See, because. What we're create again, it's like we're always creating what we're conscious of being.

So the energy in the system when we're flooding love, we're projecting love. That becomes the frequency because we really are radio antennas. We are, we are projecting broadcast at all times and when, and the world collapses in congre, in coherence with our broadcast. And so when we're on purpose broadcasting love and goodness, well, you know, then the world definitely shows up different.

Cynthia: Yeah. Oh, and that's so encouraging too, because when we get down on, you know, the meanness of the world, or this bad stuff is happening or whatever, I've always felt like, you know, I can't. Change all of those things that are happening, but I want the people that experience my corner of the world to feel love and care and calmness.

And so I think that is like being the change you [00:18:00] wanna see. I want the world to be love and kindness and calmness, and so I am gonna project that in my area and I know that it spreads out from there. I know that people appreciate that about me, even if maybe they're not. So much that way they can kind of borrow it from me sometimes, which I.

Want to be that person. 

Dr. Blythe Metz-Mändmets: Isn't it great that you can see that too? That's also your intuition. Like you're aware when it's like you're serving others with your light, which you're always serving others with your light. You're, you serve, your podcast is so fantastic. Your light that you shared a year and a half ago is still serving people now, which is so wonderful.

You know? So you're sharing your light, and that is true that we. For people that think that it's not, it's not okay to have joy and have love while there's wars. You know, the Gaza strip's, awful Ukraine. There's so many awful things happening. But we have to contribute light because as we contribute more light, we're [00:19:00] literally raising the vibration of the planet.

And so it is our job. Those of us that are aware to keep flooding with light. If we, I heard, I heard someone say once, say, you know, if someone's bleeding and you cut yourself and bleed next to them, how is that gonna help them? Yeah. So if we, if we just spend the day sad about the awful things that are happening in the world, if we just spend our time, like if we let it get us down, then we're just cutting ourselves and bleeding next to someone.

And what is that? Doing good. 

Cynthia: Yeah. Oh, that's so true. That makes me feel better. 'cause sometimes I feel like since I'm not just getting in there. Fighting everything and being angry all the time, then I'm not really doing anything. 

Dr. Blythe Metz-Mändmets: Mm-hmm. You're doing something by getting back. But I can do it 

Cynthia: with something that feels good to me, which is loving people and caring for people, which is why I've been doing my whole life.

So it's good to hear that I can, I can make the change in a, in a way that feels good to me, which is what I'm, and you're what I'm doing. 

Dr. Blythe Metz-Mändmets: Yeah. You're magnifying your light. Yeah. 

Cynthia: I love that. [00:20:00] Okay, so we've had. Self-love, and we're going to, we're doing imagineering, we're creating, and we're looking for.

What we wanna see in the world. Yes. What else? Yes. 

Dr. Blythe Metz-Mändmets: So another key in my book is unconditional forgiveness. And this is so important. There has been so many institutions that have spent millions and millions of dollars studying how forgiveness makes you healthier and happier. And so in, in the context of of teens and adults, we have to forgive the mistakes we've made.

And allow everything in the past. It's like not just forgive it, but true forgetting so that we can get in the present moment because the biochemistry changes in our body. And so the biochemistry is what creates healthy cells, right? Mm-hmm. And so when we are resenting, when we have a resentment or a stress of any way, we're in fight or flight biochemistry, so it literally.

Our body's biochemistry is [00:21:00] changed. If we hold grudges, if we stay in resentment, and when we forgive and we decide to just have peace, that biochemistry is then different and we regenerate optimally. So it's so important for physical health, for the physical health of our body, as well as our emotional health and our relationships and our happiness to truly forgive and forget.

And there's that old a adage that says, you can. Forgive, but you never have to forget. And I say that, that is wrong. You need to forgive and you need to forget. And that's not to say ever, to ever let anyone do anything that hurts you. No, of course not. Mm-hmm. You put up a boundary and you don't have to engage ever with someone that's not honoring and respecting you, of course.

Mm-hmm. Um. If you hold onto the past, like, oh, I forgive it, but, but, and you still, you are still plugged into that pain in any way. Mm-hmm. Uh, then, then that's it. You're still plugged into it. Yeah. So we need to forgive, we need to forget. We need to get into the present moment. [00:22:00] I know that, you know, and parents that I work with you know, a lot of them have to come to terms with like, oh my God, I made a lot of mistakes.

I parented as a bully. I thought that I was. Helping my child to, to stay on the right path, but I just com. I completely alienated my child, my child, you know, I don't know what they're doing now. They won't talk to me. And there's all these things and it's like. We just need to get the parent and the teen on the same page of forgiveness, truly let it all go.

Mm-hmm. And decide right now what kind of relationship do you wanna have with your teen and with your parent? And both of you get to decide that I have people can opt in. We can put the link in the show notes to get my, what do I, it's called the Connection Blueprint. 10 Keys to Thriving Parenting Relationship.

Cynthia: Yes. 

Dr. Blythe Metz-Mändmets: Gives ideas for ways that. Parents and teens can reevaluate and decide what kind of relationship they wanna have. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It's, how liberating is that to be like, you know what? I wanna have [00:23:00] a connected, fun relationship with my teen and the teen. Be like, I wanna have a connected relationship with my parent, where I talk to them about stuff.

This is something I wanna add in here. I, I, you know, I'm in a lot of you know, parents of teen Facebook groups and I, I hear a lot of stuff. Mm-hmm. And there's this like, kind of thought that. I'm not supposed to be my teen's friend. You know, these are frustrated parents that got, you know, teens are not acting right.

I'm not supposed to be their friend. I'm supposed to be like the authoritarian da da. Mm-hmm. And no, that's so wrong. Your teen is not your friend. You don't talk about your stuff with your teen, but you need right. To be your teen's friend. Mm-hmm. You want teen to come to you with problems about their friends with interest.

You wanna know when they're interested in someone romantically. Mm-hmm. You wanna know all this stuff so that you can just love them and hold space with them. You want them to feel safe coming to you. So I. That, that comment is like, [00:24:00] I'm not supposed to be Martine's friend is not helping your, your team, he or happier, and it's not helping you be healthier, happier, it's not helping the relationship.

Mm-hmm. I, I feel, I teach the most important thing is the relationship. Like connection, first. Connection. 

Cynthia: Yeah. 

Dr. Blythe Metz-Mändmets: You samari says connection before correction, and I love that. I 

Cynthia: love that, 

Dr. Blythe Metz-Mändmets: right? Mm-hmm. Connection. Mm-hmm. Before correction, we want to have a deeply connected relationship with our teens because you know what?

I love that teens feel connected, supported. It gives it, it, they don't have the anxiety. And they don't have the depression because they have parents have their back. Mm-hmm. And so many teens these days, they don't feel like their parents have their back. 

Cynthia: Yep. Well, I know when I, when I first start talking to any of my clients, if they have a good feeling about their parents, they like their parents, they feel crusting of [00:25:00] their parents.

I real, I immediately don't really worry about them. Like I'll help 'em through the things and we'll talk about stuff, but I know that they're gonna be fine because if they feel trusting of their parents and feel like their parents have their best interest at heart. There's hardly anything that can go wrong because even if there are things that happen, they're gonna work it out with their parents.

And their parents are the people that they most need to work it out with. And so I you know. I love having those clients, but I always, and I sometimes tell them, when they tell me how much they like their parents, I'm like, you know what? That is the secret sauce to getting through teenage life is getting along with your parents and liking them and 

Dr. Blythe Metz-Mändmets: feeling good 

Cynthia: about them.

And I always tell them, you know, you're so lucky to have that because a lot of people don't have that. But you know, not that bad things won't happen sometimes, but you. Are gonna be able to get through it and you're gonna feel better because you're, you have that relationship with your [00:26:00] parents. So it is really important to repair that.

And I like parents to know that even if they're on the wrong foot right now or things are not going well right now, there are ways to fix it. And your nice. And your, your 10 ways are ways that they can reconnect or repair that relationship. And I want them to know they can do that and that they should do that because that's gonna help them in so many ways.

Sometimes so much damage, or at least enough damage has been done where your teen or young adult is gonna be reluctant of that. You, you changing, you know, because they're gonna be like, is this real? Is this, you know, can I trust this? Or whatever. And you just have to keep putting out that effort to, to repair that relationship.

And if you keep doing it in an open, safe way, it is gonna get repaired. You just have to give them time to realize, oh. They're not gonna revert back to what was happening before. Or they, you [00:27:00] know, they are trying and they are learning, uh, ways of, of dealing with things. So, um, definitely try even if things have not been good.

Dr. Blythe Metz-Mändmets: Yeah. And you know, one quick, yeah. One quick way to do that is to find something that you both really enjoy doing together. Mm. You know, and, and, and if at first it's like maybe something that your teen enjoys a little bit more than you, okay, lean into that. You know, eventually you wanna really find things that you both like.

Maybe you both really like hiking, or you both really like playing tennis or cycling or, you know, ideally it's something healthy and, you know, life giving in some way, but it can be like watching a funny movie or, you know, just, you know, just some, some connection point that you really enjoy doing so you can get back to the.

Fun because let's get back to the family. Fun. You know, when they were little, you did some fun things, you know, and it's like, let's get back to that. How, how can parents and teens play? Let's play. Yeah, let's, I mean, bust out the magnetic tiles, bust out the Legos, like build something. That's great. We have these amazing Grims [00:28:00] Montessori wooden block sets that we'll have forever because they're so fun.

The bright colors. They're this art that you can make art and put it away, you know? Mm-hmm. You make something amazing as a family. Put it away and that's just fun. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I love that. My daughter and I used to have dance parties 'cause we both love music, so we would just blare some music and dance for a while and it was like, that was our.

And we spent a lot of time in the car together because she was involved in things where we had to travel to them, which I think a lot of families probably experience now too, where they have to take him to these competitive things or practices or whatever. And we would listen to audio books. We would listen to soundtracks, we would sing, we would, oh no, you know, we just always had like those times.

Or you could just talk when you're in the car. There's, you know, a lot, not a lot of things and I don't. I mean, headphones were probably, some kids were using 'em at that time. She's a millennial, so like there was a [00:29:00] time where not everyone had headphones in all the time. 

Dr. Blythe Metz-Mändmets: Mm-hmm. 

Cynthia: Yeah. And so, you know, I didn't have to fight that.

So I think that's a whole new thing. People will have to just like figure out how they. Let's not have our headphones in for 30 minutes so that we can talk for saying that I know 

Dr. Blythe Metz-Mändmets: we really, nowadays as parents, we ha we have to be okay with creating boundaries around technology because mm-hmm. We wanna save their brains.

Like we just don't, you just, you can't have headphones in all the time. It's not good for your brain, it's not good for your focus for the, the neuro pathways, the way that they're being developed and you're just constantly looking at something so close to you instead of taking in the whole world. Yes. I mean, so much of depression and teens.

Is simply because they're not looking far away. They're not looking up. They're like our, mm-hmm. We're designed to take in the world and when we only take in a very small part of it all the time. Our brains aren't developed correctly and that like physicality is leading to depression and anxiety. Mm-hmm.

When it's like, oh guys, we don't [00:30:00] need the screen. Go outside and run around, shoot baskets like we as parents nowadays, we have to be so conscious of like, okay, go outside and play. Draw me something. I tell my kids, I'm like, can you draw me something? 'cause then they get excited about, my kids are little still.

They're, they're 10 and six, but they get excited about. Drawing me something 'cause I've asked them to. Yeah. Uh, you know, it's like we just have to be so intentional because Yeah. Mm-hmm. Culture will suck them into the screen. 

Cynthia: Yeah. You have something else special for my audience that I, um, that you're gonna offer.

So tell us about that. 

Dr. Blythe Metz-Mändmets: Yes. The Parent Teen Blueprint, I am looking for parents and teens that wanna take my course for free. I'm gonna give it to you because it's in a beta testing, um, space right now. It'll eventually be a $3,000 course, but I wanna give you the course. It's six modules and it's gonna help you.

Connect with your teen and it's gonna help you. It's gonna help parent and teen fall in love with their lives again, fall in love with each other again. It's like, one thing I always wanna tell parents is like, be [00:31:00] in love with your teen. Like, they're being such a pain. I know. Like there, there's so much energy resistance, there's so much going on, but it's like, I, I really, I wanna help you.

Let all of that go. Connect back to this soul that you brought into the world and that soul's genius, innate genius, not what you think they should do, or what you think they should say, or how you think they should dress, or how you think they should look, but their unique expression and just fall in love.

Not to say that you ha that you're not, but you know, really connecting into that love that you have with your, with your teen. And so there's all these exercises and you know, um. Writing exercises and ideas for connection. And I would just love for the people listening to this to take the course and let me know what you think for free.

Cynthia: Yeah. Oh, I love that so much. And I'll put all the information on how to get that, um, in the show notes and in, in other places, newsletter, everything, where [00:32:00] people are gonna get this information, they'll be able to, to tap into that. Oh, that sounds wonderful. And it is such a. A wonderful gift because they, and they can be helping you create the best product too, because with the feedback you'll be able to revise if needed to, or like come up with something new like, oh, we need another module about this.

So yes, thank hope that they take you up on that and, and let you know what they think. Sometimes I'm like, Hey, lemme know what you think and I don't hear anything. So I hope, I hope you get to hear from, from them. Yeah, I, I appreciate. I'm so glad that you were here today. This is all just fascinating stuff.

I love learning new things and I love my families to find out more, um, about all the people in this world that can help them. You know, we, there's a lot of us out here trying to help the teens and their families, and I just want my families to know who are they and how do I get ahold of 'em? So thank you for being one of those people.

Dr. Blythe Metz-Mändmets: For being one of those people. I appreciate all that you do as [00:33:00] well, Cynthia. Thank you. It was great to be here and thank.