Why Healing Yourself Is the Most Generous Thing You Can Do: a conversation with Karen Green

What if the most generous thing you could do for every relationship in your life is to come back to yourself first? 

This week I'm joined by Karen Green, therapist, professor, and creator of Conscious Care Cards, for a deeply honest conversation about attachment wounds, nervous system regulation, and why healing yourself changes everything around you.

Karen has spent her career working with families, and what she keeps finding is the same truth at the centre of it all;  that the quality of your inner world determines the quality of every relationship you have. And that it is never too late to do that work.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Why attachment trauma is not a private family issue but a public health issue and why it starts with you
• The fractures we carry from childhood and how they quietly shape every relationship we step into as adults
• Why one attuned, present relationship can rewire everything — and why it is never too late to experience that
• The neurobiology of "we": how a regulated nervous system is the foundation of every authentic connection
• Moving from sympathetic chaos to parasympathetic presence and why connection simply cannot happen in survival mode
• Reparenting yourself: meeting your own unmet needs so you can stop running on empty
• Why your triggers are not problems to fix but invitations to finally tend to the part of you that was never held
• The research-backed truth that one person, even for 45 minutes, can change the trajectory of a life

Karen's work is a quiet reminder that showing up whole for the people you love begins with showing up whole for yourself and that the path back is simpler than you think.

Karen A. Green, MSW, LSSW, is a tenured professor and Director of the Mental Health, Social Service & Addiction Counseling program at Mt. Hood Community College. With over 16 years of experience as a K–6 school social worker, she has worked alongside children, parents, teachers, and administrators navigating anxiety, trauma, and behavioral challenges.

For more information visit her website www.consciouscarecards.com

Her Instagram or her Youtube 

Christina Fletcher is a Spiritual Alignment coach, energy worker, author, speaker and host of the podcast Showing Up Whole.
She specialises in practical spirituality and integrating inner work with outer living, so you can get self development off of the hobby shelf and integrated as a powerful fuel to your life.

Through mindset, spiritual connection, intuitive guidance, manifestation, and mindfulness techniques Christina helps her clients overcome overwhelm and shame to find a place of flow, ease, and deep heart-centered connection.
Christina has been a spiritual alignment coach, healer and spiritually aware parent coach for 11 years and trained in Therapeutic Touch 12 years ago.  She is also a meditation teacher and speaker.
For more information please visit her website www.spirituallyawareliving.com

Want to uncover where you need the most energy alignment?
Take her new Energy Alignment Quiz to identify which of your energetic worlds (mind, body, heart or spirit) needs aligning the most!

Or Follow her on her social media accounts:
Facebook
Instagram
or
Linkedin...

Transcript

Alignment For The Next Generation

Christina 0:00

Hello everyone, welcome back to Showing Up Whole, the place where we discuss alignment in mind, body, heart, and spirit in every aspect of our lives. And today we are having a really important conversation because we're talking alignment for the next generation. We are talking with Karen Green, who's a tenured professor and director of the mental health social service and addiction counseling program at Mount Hood Community College. She has 16 years of experience as a kindergarten to six school social worker, but she's really been focusing on navigating anxiety, trauma, and behavioral challenges for the 4 to 11-year-old range. Karen specializes in attachment-informed prevention education using neuroscience, nervous system literacy, and attachment theory into practical tools for everyday families. You see why we are having her as a guest because you know this is things that we talk about all the time. I'm going to be sharing all of her links later on, but let's dive into the conversation with Karen. Hello, Karen. It's wonderful to have you here. Hello, it's so great to be here. Thanks for having me. I am so eager to dive in. There's so many different um places that we can go with this conversation.

Introducing Conscious Care Cards

Christina 1:16

So we really are coming in to talk also about how you have created a system based on these cards. What are these cards called again? Just to remind us.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Yeah, it's called conscious care cards. And there are 72 of them divided into six different categories: empowerment, resiliency, emotional regulation, connection, happiness habits, and caregiver kindness.

Christina 1:41

Okay. So the the, I mean, talk about a brilliant pack. And so I want to kind of I'm the reason why I'm mentioning that right away, and often I don't start interviews with like, let's talk about what you're actually bringing to us today. But I wanted to kind of dive into it because it seems like the various sections of these cards, the topics of these cards are such a good framework for how what we can talk about here. So are these cards specifically for the carer? Are we redirecting this conversation for the carer or um as as how they can help themselves, or is it to help the children?

Attachment Theory Made Practical

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Great question. Actually, the answer is both. So what we know is like if we take a 30-foot-foot view of attachment, a fully integrated self, a securely attached self. So either that's the child or the caregiver who is whole, is capable of accessing their internal structures of right and wrong and their intrinsic sense of self and worthiness. And this all gets developed within a relationship, a healthy relationship, which is what we know in the research as secure attachment.

Christina 2:55

Okay, beautiful. Let me ask you this can you explain attachment theory? Because there's a lot of things, there's a lot of things about attachment theory. You know, we all right in my head, it's like attachment or avoidant theory. Like there's that whole department, but that is not what we are talking about here.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

So what so what I've done and why conscious care cards came into existence is that basically when I am working with children or families, and now as I am teaching the research around attachment theory, what the attachment theory is so well put by Dan Siegel, which is the neurobiology of we. So what we know is that children need a relationship, a safe container, a safe relationship with one primary person to attach to. And within that relationship, a healthy, secure attachment is where they start to develop their sense of me. So a healthy we translates to a healthy me. That's like the boilerplate for attachment theory, right? And so if you have an intrinsic sense of self and you believe in your own worthiness, then you're capable now of having authentic relationships, which Harvard is now saying in the long, long, longest longitudinal study, authentic relationships connect to longevity and happiness, right? And you can connect with people, you can be attuned and be present because you have an intentional inner emotional landscape of calm. And so then you can show empathy to yourself and you can show empathy to others. And so what we're seeing in what you just mentioned is the attachment trauma, right? Like so attachment trauma, I believe, is not a private family issue, it's a public health issue. And I see a secure attachment as truly the ultimate goal to help heal the world. And research concurs. Like, I'm on a mission to help heal a million kids by helping caregivers own their impact as their child's primary healer. You can take your child to therapy for 50 minutes a week, right? Yes, and that that intervention works. But what the attachment theory is saying, what neurobiology is saying, it's the primary relationship and the health of that relationship that is going to be the predictor of emotional well-being in the long run.

Christina 5:39

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Okay, brilliant. So, therefore, then, of course, working on yourself as that carer is going to provide, and of course, clearing and releasing your own attachment trauma versus and then creating your own attachment well-being, therefore, then is your first goal in order to be present with the people in your lives, the little people in your lives.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

The little people in our lives. And so, what we know is that the little people in our lives do need an attuned adult, they need a present figure that is mirroring and reflecting who they are, right? So, what we know around attachment trauma is it creates internal separation and fracture, right? And so these fractured people are capable of doing terrible things to themselves and others because they didn't have an internal structure developed within themselves. And so those fractures can detach you from your empathy or your internal need for connection, right? So, what we need is we need modeling and mirroring in early relationships so that they can intrinsically embed and become capable of empathy. Empathy being the bedrock. So if I'm empathetic toward myself, I can much more easily be empathetic toward you. But really, if I have a fractured or disassociated self, I'm not gonna be able to be present with you because it's chaos in here. So I'm gonna project chaos outside, right? So the way that we start healing our world is healing our little people by being present with them so that so that that relationship can be a perfect perfective, protective relationship. It can repair and we can intervene. And so then the resiliency research is saying that caregiver can help build the self, the internal self for the child.

Christina 7:49

Beautiful. Okay, there's like five.

Why Secure Attachment Heals

SPEAKER_00 7:51

And really, it's like that's very heady, you know, and yeah. Well, I gotta drive my kid to soccer, I gotta make dinner, I gotta pack lunches and do bedtime rituals. So what I saw in my work was that children are struggling with regulation because the caregiver is that stress that the caregiver is feeling becomes a divider in that relationship. Right. And so the parents need tools, simple, screen-free, research-backed micro-rituals that build inheritance right now. Like, okay, you have seven minutes, pull this card, sit down, and let's give you an idea for connection in minutes so that you can shift this system. Right. And what you know, the research is saying very clearly that it doesn't need to be two hours. It doesn't need to be this huge trip or this, you know, this expensive purchase. It needs to be literally 40 seconds. They've registered brain changes in 40 seconds of presence. So the parent that can put down the phone, put the, you know, put the dinner on simmer, sit on the floor, pull a card, and color while building emotional intelligence, just following this script. You don't have to, you don't have to read the books, you don't have to dive into the research. It's been boiled down into like inner regulation, outer connection, generational change.

Christina 9:41

Beautiful. Beautiful. Okay, I'm curious because I know that you work a lot with educators, and I know that we have a lot of educators who do listen to this podcast. Yes. Now, um, something that keeps kind of coming on a little bit on a loop for me is uh the consistency of this and the long-term attachment, which I know for a lot of people listening to this, they might say, Well, that's great. Okay, so I'll build attachment. Say if you are an educator, I'll build attachment for one year and then all of a sudden become the person that's hearing this child and therefore then sending them off into the jungle with just one term behind me. So, out of curiosity within that, um, and I mean it's probably too the same way when you're like an aunt or your cousin or you're a grandparent, we have various uh lengths of time. And and I mean also you have a busy parent as well. And actually, no, we're gonna shelve the busy parent. Hold on, busy parents, we're gonna shelve you for a sec because that's a totally different conversation. So, out of curiosity, for the educators listening, for the people who have children in and out of their experience, how does this support them?

SPEAKER_00 10:59

That's a great question because I think bottom line, your question is do you have to be in your child this child's life for years and years and years for this to even help or work?

Christina 11:09

Well, I think a lot of people could actually even feel guilty if they become that sole person, and then all of a sudden, Serenara, you're gone.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

The good news that with that, and this is backed by Bulby, but also a bunch of other, you know, neurobiology research, it doesn't have to be the same adult. Oh, okay. And you're what you're doing as the the um regulated adult mirroring is you're creating an internal structure that once your relationship is, you know, changes and morphs, they're left with those gems inside themselves. And truly, it doesn't so you know, it could be with within my relationship therapeutically, it was 50 minutes for maybe six weeks, right? So if you think of any sort of really healing relationship, it doesn't necessarily have to be years and years, as much as it needs to be when it's happening, when you're calling pulling the card and you're taking the seven minutes, you are fully present for those seven minutes. Right. You are doing what the card's saying, you're reading the script because every word is um data driven, and then you're mirroring and teaching how to slow down enough to be emotionally attuned to them, and it's sacred work that your relationship you're building, right? Because we're healing in relationship, it's not a cognitive thing. We're healing in nervous system regulation, and those self-soothing skills are dropped into that child, and it's not like because you go away, those skills go away. Right, right, absolutely.

Christina 12:56

Got it.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

Yeah, got it. And so, so yeah, yeah, and so really it's the caregiver, it's the school counselor, it's the person in the hall that sees the child who's struggling to regulate, it's the whoever is there and capable of tuning in, that is it, that's where the architecture of the inner me you're developing, right?

Christina 13:19

Okay, so yeah, sorry, go ahead. Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

No, and so it's through the through the rituals, the micro rituals, that the inner me is being developed. But even if say you worked on the foundation and then I worked on the first floor in our relation, like their inner stability, it doesn't that it's not like that person is as important as what you're building inside, this sense of safety, this internalized safety, this internalized belonging and worthiness.

Christina 13:48

Got it, got it. It's funny because I think we can probably all look back at our childhoods and think of a couple of people here and there that have acted as, and I mean, ironically, the one that keeps playing on my head, and anyone who listens to this podcast for any length of time probably has heard me say this. One of my heroes has always been Fred Rogers, who, you know, Mr. Rogers neighborhood. And it's interesting because this is the kind of connection that he built even through the screen, you know. It was it, which is a phenomenal gifted thing to be able to do, but it was building that relationship, and it's it's absolutely you're you're absolutely correct.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

And that would be backed by the research around resiliency, which says it's only one person, truly. Yeah, and really we're lucky to have recall, be able to recall that one person. And I have a person too that I'm recalling, and that person only spent probably 45 minutes with me, and so it's the quality, not the quantity of the time. And it's when the two nervous systems regulate together that the internal regulation operation system starts really um embedding and so we're operationalizing all attachment theory by putting them into these rituals, right? Like by putting them into these cards that, you know, Mr. Rogers could pull, or who's the new Mr. Rogers, which is Miss Rachel, could pull, you know, like they could do this on the screen of TV, or whoever wants to, if your aunt wants to come over and get down on the floor and pull out a piece of paper and do like the spider web of support card, where

Micro Rituals That Rewire Stress

SPEAKER_00 15:28

you're doing an activity where you're drawing the child's name in the center and then three consecutive circles and then lines out so that it looks like a spider web, but you have the child name six people who do well with your feelings. So you just say that broadly. Who are six adults that do well with your feelings? Don't, as the adult, give them the names, right? So part of the magic of the card is they come up with those people who are my people, and then you're gonna ask them to put them how close they feel to that person, depending on where they are in the center. And they now have a physical artifact of who their people are. And then, like when I went into uh Malibu schools and we did a family event, then I gave scenarios to the child. Like you go out on the playground and you think you're gonna swing with your best friend, but you get to swings and she's swinging with someone else and totally ignores you. Who do you want to tend to that feeling? First of all, what was the feeling? Second of all, who who do you point to who in your circle in your spider web you want to go to? Well, what was really important for the so the mom that came up to me after that event, she's like, first of all, I would have never put those six people. Second of all, I didn't know she felt so close to and talks to the cafeteria woman and the bus driver so much. So I, as the mom, need to get to know those people more. But also, she's like, I was so relieved to know that she didn't point to me every scenario. Like she has a she has people, you know, and so then now this artifact is not only a really great activity you did with your person, right? But now you have a visual map of who loves you and where are you gonna, we decide we decided in that event, where are you gonna put that in your home, right? So that when you do get a sense of loneliness, look at your spider web.

unknown 17:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Go point to somebody and let's try and reach out to whoever that is. So then we're embedding skills without one piece of lecture, without one waggy finger, without, you know, without like blah blah blahing about it, but you're actually doing it.

Christina 17:48

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, that's such a wonderful way. I mean, I've I've always loved to use crafts and different ways of embodying things for kids. Yes. Okay. Now, out of curiosity. So that's like a beautiful, beautiful thing. And I mean, like these are the types of things that I've always loved to do when my kids were little. This is the kind of stuff that I I was always really into to help them feel their way and embody concepts, right? So therefore, then it was fully integrated. So you've made a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Yeah.

Christina 18:18

Okay, out of curiosity, because um to bring it back to the carer's card so that they feel because it's very easy as a carer of any child, you are busy, you immediately it people and you know, self-care as well as connection time can turn into a should. It can turn into the responsibility of oh oh god, I forgot to do the card. Oh my goodness, I've got to do the card. Okay, let's quickly do the card, let's quickly do the card. It becomes pressurized and it becomes a sense of responsibility rather than the deeper inner work. And then the connection and attachment is lost.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

You're so brilliant, you're so brilliant to bring that up. And that is that that is definitely something that I had can I thought about very much because one of the things that we know about nervous system regulation and you know, moving yourself from the sympathetic state back into the parasympathetic state is is that parasympathetic state where connection happens. So you're talking about the parent being busy, the parent being like, I gotta do this, this, this, this, this, all before dinner. And they're now in the sympathetic state, and you're correct. There's no connection gonna happen in that state. And so every card asks you to set the ritual by taking

Educators And Short-Term Attachment

SPEAKER_00 19:44

some time, lighting a candle, making some tea or cocoa, and then pulling a card. And this is the practice of teaching both the caregiver and the child, how do I notice what state I'm in? How do I take an inventory of that? And then what are the skills I need to shift? And so, ideally, if the parent is feeling stressed, they can say, Hey, I need to take the time to light the candle and breathe the hot tea steam, and then really land here before we pull a card. Now you're modeling how you can shift. Yeah. And that is attunement, right? That's the beginning of the attunement. And then you pull the card. And like you said, you loved to do the crafts and the activities, but so many parents don't have the time to Google the activity, right? So here's 72 of those activities that truly repeating the activity is grooving the pathway even deeper in the brain of both the child and the caregiver.

Christina 20:54

Absolutely. Yes. We're gonna take a quick break. We'll be right back right after this. I know how there's nothing worse than your mind chattering away, feeling like it's out of control. It seems like the more you try to get it quiet, the louder it manages to get. It's even worse when you're trying to sleep. It's like the most stressful thoughts kick up a fuss just before you climb into bed. Energy alignment affects every aspect of yourself. Your spiritual connection actually can affect your sleep. And if your head is chattering, chances are you are in need of an energetic shift. Especially if you want a restful night. I have the perfect remedy for you, and best of all, right now, it's free. The spiritual sleep solution bundle shares powerful steps for energy alignment with you to get you aligned to sleep. From the physical practice of clearing your energy from the day and Meditation along with an energy healing to soothe you off to slumber. This bundle has you covered. No more restless sleeps, no more tossing and turning. Rather, simply spiritually connected slumber. You also get a PDF guide to a few ways to clear energy from your home and some tips to support your bedtime. All for free. Download it now at spirituallyaware living.com aligned to sleep or at the link in the show notes below. And sweet dreams. Okay, so out of curiosity though, because you've done large events, and I can I can feel the educators in listening to this being like, Yes, but I have a class of 25. How do they find their moments? Yep, that's that's actually probably cards aside, they're like, Yeah, wait, how do I find my moment?

SPEAKER_00 22:58

Yes, they don't have very many moments, right? No. Well, so this I have done large groups, and I've done large groups with parents and and children, or children and whatever caregiver, they they're special adult, we call them. And so we're doing cards together, but these cards are not meant for a uh like a teacher to pull for a whole class activity unless they have the ability to have one-on-one with all the kids.

Christina 23:32

Got it.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

But what the ways that the school districts that have bought bundles for their social emotional learning programs, it's the break rooms. So we have boxes in break rooms. We do have boxes in in principals' offices. Many principals, instead of like calling the parent and being like, your child is getting in trouble again, they're offering the box. Like, can we partner with you? Can you do these at home? And can we see if that helps behaviors de-escalate? And what we did see, like, for instance, we had this one child. I worked with this one girl, we'll call Mary, who um moved a bunch. She had, if she was in third grade and she's moved three times, and she was um verging on mute, selective mutism. And she was not wanting to eat, not able to sleep. We were very concerned, very concerned for Mary. And I was doing good work with her, and she was definitely opening up in my office, but then I would send her back to class and it just wouldn't land or wouldn't last. And so I there's an activity in this box called transitional object card card, and it really talks about um, it really addresses what like attachment in a tangible way. Like, I'm gonna put a string to my heart and I'm gonna tell you how much I love you, and you're gonna put a string to your heart and that same string and tell me how much you love me, and we're gonna blow our love into the string, and then we're gonna go a little bit further away, and then we're gonna go around the corner, and then we're gonna go to a completely different room, and we're gonna pull on the string, and that string is a visual representation of our connection and our love. And so I asked her mom if she had the bandwidth to do the transitional activity two times a week. And my God, after the third week, Mary was a different person. I had the recess woman come to me and be like, Mary was playing in the jungle gym, and she was like laughing. And then another the math teacher came to me. Mary is a completely different person. She raises her hand, she participates. And truly, what I learned was that the mom, there were reasons that Mary had to move three times that year, traumatic reasons. And the mom was disassociating, right? Right. And the activity, the mom came to me in tears saying, That activity helped me more than I think it helped Mary. You know, like we as parents and caregivers, we also need those somatic reminders that we're connected, the somatic co-regulation. Yes, that we're a team, you know, there's a team us card and a team, you write a team poster, and sometimes you the caregiver asks, like, what's one activity we do together that really makes you feel like we're a team together? And sometimes the kids will come up with you know, crazy times when you're like, really? Driving to soccer is like your favorite time with me when we're like in the car just talking, not you're sometimes just silent, like yeah, didn't know that was your your team time, but all right, we'll do that more, you know? Absolutely, absolutely. And I think all of that is is par for the course. And yes, you can use the cards. I, you know, PTAs have been using them instead of doing book clubs, they're doing conscious care clubs where they're pulling cards and then they're telling stories about what they did and how they learned and what they learned, you know. But it's of course nothing's perfect, you know, it's really the intention to connect is where we start.

Christina 27:20

Yeah. And that seems to be the

The Spider Web Support Map

Christina 27:23

um it it's as soon as a person, I'm I'm a really big one on the choice and on the decision and the commitment to aligning. And as soon as you set the intention of pulling the card, I mean it's interesting because it reminds me of like oracle cards, you know, kind of setting yourself to actually feel like the card. Yeah, and then you get the action and then you get the guidance of what your step will be, and you are trusting that the universe is going to nudge you in the the the direction of what's actually needed. So it there's a there's a beautiful connection within that.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

And absolutely, and I think like you're saying, if that parent is taking time to regulate and setting the intention to connect, that child is feeling that container. Yes, and that that container can hold this new relationship, right? Yes, and all the cards end with a model this activity. So now the parent, like for instance, the spider web of support, they did they focused on the kid. Now the parent is gonna talk about a time, who are their people? And then what was a recent time you needed support? And so you called, you know, Aunt Judy. And so that the child can see that the parent, even though we're grown up, we're still using skills to regulate, and the better we are at it, the happier we are. Yes, and so I don't think parents share those skills in like a metacognition type of way enough. Yeah. And the more they can talk about it, the more they can show they're reparenting themselves and soothing and repairing, the more the child knows that that's that's embedded in their relationship too, right? Mom isn't perfect, dad isn't perfect, but they're trying and they're working on it.

Christina 29:13

Well, and I think that I was actually gonna ask that because I was gonna ask whether you actually encouraged parents and carers to actually do the cards themselves. Because I think that I think that is such a powerful step. We often it's so so often these types of things can become, again, the things you do with the kids. They're important for the kids. Whereas as carers, as parents, as just human beings who have kind of gotten a little bit more mature, we have a tendency to be in that state of always moving, always going. Nervous system regulation, I mean, which is I'm passionate about, can so often become the deep breathing, deep breathing, deep breathing, rather than actually, I mean, that as a spider web. It's like, well, actually, who are your people? How do you know you're feeling safe in your body when you know that you are surrounded by people who are there if you need them? Like those types of things for an adult.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

It's for doing it to doing it shoulder to shoulder, having the focus be on the art, talking about your internal emotional landscape with your child, but also, you know, having the open invitation to your caregivers' internal world, that is such an authentic, grounded way to create that relationship. And what we, you know, Harvard's doing that longitudinal study about longevity and happiness, and they're all coming back to an authentic relationship. It's not quantity, it's not, oh, you're happy if you have five, it's quality, yeah, right. And if you have at least one authentic relationship where you can be safe to be you, that is that's where your happiness lies, and that's where your health lies.

Christina 31:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

And so if we can show that to children early, as early as possible, then think of the change in the world. Like if I'm on a mission to help heal a million kids by helping caregivers own their impact as their child's primary healer. Like, yes, I'm a therapist, and yes, interventions, outside interventions are needed. But if you, as the caregiver, own this impact that you could have with the neurobiology of we, you're creating the neurobiology of we so that they can have a grounded sense of me. Yeah, absolutely. And that, yeah, and then that parent, you know, and that's why the next thing that I'm launching is the reparenting, the parent therapeutic guided journal, because you can have the intention and you can have the regulation, but if you have the blocks, your own blocks, which we all do of our own childhood trauma, that is the reason that we're unable to stay attuned and present with our children.

Christina 32:14

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

And so creating a safe place within the conscious care community and within the journal so that you can really investigate like where were my in wounds in parenting it when I the way I was parented, how are they showing up as a parent for me? And and what is my relationship to that shame, for instance? Yeah. And how, you know, meeting someone else's needs when your internal needs aren't taken care of is the most difficult thing to do, right?

Christina 32:46

Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

It breeds resentment and it breeds this sense of like, oh, I have to do this and this and this. But if you can translate the, you know, regulation and nervous system literacy into concrete skills that the parent practices in the journal and then they practice with the child, then now we're really changing the family structure, the generational emotional inheritance.

Christina 33:16

Absolutely. That's fantastic. That it really is. Um, and of course, I mean, this is um oh

When Connection Becomes A Should

Christina 33:24

no, I can't remember where I always had to put this, but it really is it's the advanced version of what we're really realizing parenting is about. And and it's about the fact, oh, that's what I was gonna say. That that when we're actually looking at being authentic ourselves, I mean, a statement that I've often said is it's like get rid of the role of being a parent. Rather, it is about a relationship. You have to be a person within that relationship, and your child is a person too. Now, within um the the interesting thing about offering these tools sometimes is when we're encouraging a child to really shine out as themselves, then sometimes the other people that they're dealing with in their lives don't necessarily understand. I mean, if a kid is at school and one teacher is offering them a conscious concept of living and they're present in themselves, then it can be hard for them to figure out how to navigate from a grounded whole space as well. So within relationships with other people, because again, they're short micro moments. Yes, how does this how does this translate into their empathy for people who are not functioning in these types of things? And as a carer, how do you encourage people to set them up for that?

SPEAKER_00 34:42

So that's a really great question too. And it kind of circles back to that initial question you had asked about like if you don't if you only know a child for a year.

Christina 34:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

If we're if we're really trusting the research and the the brain research around, we're developing, we're stacking skills inside of them, right? By stacking skills inside of ourselves, coming from a conscious, consciously aware place. Yeah. So we're consciously aware of caring for ourselves, we're consciously caring for our little one, and we're creating a safe container in our relationship where they can be themselves. This, these skills of resiliency and inner empathy, that is now embedded within them. And they're gonna go out in the community, and just like you and I, right, we have people that we resonate with and that we feel really understand us and hear us and and we can shine in that relationship. But you and I also, and every all your listeners, have people in our lives who just do not resonate in the same frequency, right? And so that is also a skill. How can I accept that relationship? How can I um, you know, be within that relationship without disassociating from my true authentic self? And then if I have created that because I've used these cards and I'm doing the journal and I'm going into my conscious care community, that's a this is a place where I can then open back up to that conversation. And how do I choose me? How do I come back to choosing my inner self and have inner empathy? This is also a great way of teaching kids how do you tune into that somatic compass, right? There are a ton of cards here that talk about that compass, and we use a lot of prop props for that. But when your internal compass is saying like a deep no, or even just uh, oh, this is off, right? Like I used to play with Bobby and I used to love Bobby, but now it's just kind of really my compass is feeling like it's not hitting, it's not right. Like, what can we do with that compass? And how can we choose you? How can without shaming or damning Bobby? Really, right? Like, yeah, and and then and how can we be fluid with the fact that relationships change and that even though you felt safe, you might not feel safe now. And all of that is within the learning of the we of that healthy attachment.

Christina 37:25

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 37:26

And got it because we we know that health that a healthy attachment is going to translate as a healthy self.

Christina 37:34

Yeah. So really within the card, because it's always there's so many different layers that we can work through these things, right? And we, you know, we have the nervous system regulation. I always kind of divide it up into those four worlds of self. You know, you have like your nervous system, you have your physical reality, you have the heart reality, you have the head reality, and you have your spiritual reality and the energetic reality. I'm hearing you use phrases as like resonance and choosing your inner self and your inner world, um, which is always a hard thing to translate into structures like education or structures, you know, we kind of have a few bridges. We have mindfulness, we have consciousness, a little tiny bit. There's like these bridges that we kind of shoot out and create them. Right. But it is it's important to have that kind of range of conversation. So um within this, though, really, when you come down to it, these tools of emotional regulation, of nervous system regulation, when you actually uh um whittle them down when you actually get into it, it is about actually understanding your own inner world from a spiritual space.

SPEAKER_00 38:41

From a research from a research space. I mean, yes, the spirit, it it is all backed by research and academia, but I think you and I are speaking the same language, we're just using different terminology. Yeah, I would, you know, the sense of self within Youngian therapy is definitely a lot of what we're talking about. Absolutely. We are using mindfulness and pranayama and breath work and that sort of thing in these rituals as well, okay, with embedded within the science of how is that translating to an integrated self. Yeah, absolutely. And that it that true self, you know, is connected to your inner world, your spiritual world, all you're accessing, you're able to access those other worlds. Yeah. But what we know within attachment theory, and just bringing back to how we we started, you have to be a fully integrated self to be capable of accessing your internal structures, right? Yes. So we know like attachment trauma with the ACE study, the adverse childhood experiences study, we know that that that fractured self, that that trauma that creates inside the little being due to attachment trauma, those fractured people are capable of doing terrible things. And they are doing terrible things to themselves, but to others. And if it goes unaddressed, it affects not only the individual, the families. It can it is affecting our whole community right now as we speak, right? Yeah, fractional sense of self leads to addiction, leads to violence, leads to exploitation and social harms because empathy isn't modeled or mirrored, and then they're capable of doing atrocities, right? So yeah. And on the other flip side, plenty of people who have had early trauma have become extraordinarily compassionate. And what do you what do you boil that down to? Well, the resiliency research, which says it's just that one person, it's that fourth grade teacher, right? Or it's that one principal that took extra time with you to stew and mirror these skills.

Christina 40:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

Sometimes your you your child is gonna bump into somebody who's remarkably present and capable of mirroring and sharing space, and you don't even realize the healing power of that relationship.

Christina 41:12

Absolutely. Well, and I think what's powerful about that statement too is the fact that we all have the opportunity um to be that person. You know, it it's it's the it's a it I am the stereotypical person standing in the grocery aisle smiling at the baby. That's me too. I love my husband's like, okay, carrot, it's getting creepy. It's like

Break And Free Sleep Bundle

Christina 41:36

time to take a step. Yes, I know. I have had my arm pulled away. Okay, stop talking to the little ones. But you know, it's like it's it's that that space, right? It's that smile, it's that connection. Every single drop of that connection, human to human, soul to soul, energy to energy, interaction to extra interaction. Um, so often children specifically are seen as children. Um, they're just given that kind of label as being a child, and with expectations of what children do. And that's always something that's felt very very bad.

SPEAKER_00 42:14

And and truly, why, in my view, children are the most sacred, the most tender, have access to their heart in a way that we've all been closed off from and taught away from, yes, and turned away from and turned into like consumers and producers. And so, how do we keep the child connected to that purity in a way that they can then grow from there into whole beings? Absolutely. And how do we teach the caregivers to take five minutes, seven minutes, twelve minutes, sit down and open to learning from the child's purity and that tenderness? How to connect back to that who you always were, like who you are, who I am inside that small girl who loves to climb pine trees. Like, how do how do we get those parents connected back into themselves so that they can hook into that sacred relationship that they have with that beautiful soul?

Christina 43:21

I think that to me, that that is such a powerful thing. Uh uh, you just you just said something really, really powerful. Because so often I think parents are presented with tools or concepts, and it does turn into the next have to and the next should. And if that what you're creating is giving them a moment to actually reconnect to their own inner childhood and with in their own inner child, then create a relationship and help the other child, is almost like child to child rather than ab of child. That is a powerful, powerful thing. Out of curiosity, uh when you are Offering these tools as an educator than and as a carer. Do you still have the opportunity of actually going within yourself within that?

SPEAKER_00 44:10

I really do. And I'm not perfect at it, right? Like I I have a I have a um coping mechanism to intellectualize, right? And that separates me from my from my tenderness.

Christina 44:25

Yeah, we can all do that.

SPEAKER_00 44:26

But I think these cards and the art, like the art in the cards, and each card has like a different art piece. And the I really worked with this artist, Jordan Kim, who's amazing, to try and make the art communicate to the adult as much as to the child about like, remember, you were a little one too. And you really love to watch the snails and you loved to like connect to nature and all the things that are still the little Christina is still there. And the minute you tap into that, I know a child can sense that immediately. Absolutely. And they're like, You there, you're my adult. I love you, you get me, I get you. We can crawl on the floor and you know, talk about feelings in a way that's so approachable because now we're acting like different animals at the zoo. You know, like how do you do that? Yes, these cards are an invitation for the parent to kind of take the hat off of all the shoulds.

Christina 45:32

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

Take the, you know, like enroll them in soccer, do this, do that, you know. Brilliant. And take seven minutes and do some art and and maybe do it with your non-dominant dominant hands so that you can really tune back in brilliant to who you were.

Christina 45:47

Yes. Oh, that's brilliant. Yeah, that's beautiful. Out of curiosity, because um we're we're almost out of time, but I didn't really get to dive into this. How

How Schools Use The Cards

Christina 45:56

did you discover this? I just love to know a bit of your story. Like what how did you actually wake up to within this and actually create this?

SPEAKER_00 46:04

You know, I I am in love with kids. Kids, kids light me up in a way that no other nothing else does. And I really started connecting to the purity and the tenderness and the beauty they have and the and how I've learned so much from kids on how to be present and how to, you know, we've all read the spiritual books, but I swear spending an afternoon with a kid is basically what the kid's telling us too, right? Absolutely it's all temporary. Mo just connect to the now, let's play, you know. Absolutely. And so, and I was a school counselor working with families, and I would ask, you know, did you talk to your child or your yeah, your child about what we're doing in session? And inevitably the parent is like, oh no, I'm not a therapist, or oh, I don't talk about emotions, you know, these kind of things. And I was like, I just started writing scripts and giving them to the parent between sessions. And so pretty soon I had like 400 scripts, and then I became a tenured professor, and then I'm teaching all the attachment theory stuff, and I'm like, parents don't need another book, parents don't need another list of shoulds. Parents just need an invitation to sit on the floor and and connect. And how do you build emotional intelligence without being so in your head, right?

Christina 47:30

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 47:30

So this is this is like the a metabolized way of like connecting to that tenderness. But but but get out of your head, have fun with it. Parenting is a blast, kids are so fun, yes, you know, absolutely we can access the fun and do some good.

Christina 47:47

Yeah, absolutely. So well, I think actually when we do access the fun, that is when we do good. Really, like it's it's an amazing thing how stop stop being really the tall one and pointing your fingers at the kids. Yeah, allow yourself to be human and have some fun and know that you are going to create that safety.

SPEAKER_00 48:06

Absolutely, and remember that small little one of you in you, yeah, absolutely. And that and they and they need tender and care too. And so, how can you and the more you show that, the easier it is to tend to the child, yes, right?

Christina 48:22

And also, you know, so often we hear people talk about, oh, well, parenting, um, you know, our children are the teachers. And I've had so many people say, Oh, well, I know children are the teachers, children are the teachers, and you can see this kind of blank look of, but what's the lesson? It's like, I know that this is what's supposed to be, because it's become such a um a catchphrase. It really has. And when you actually it has lost the meaning, and when you actually give yourself the opportunity of getting on the floor and playing and having some fun and reminding yourself of what being a kid is,

Mary’s Story And The String Ritual

Christina 49:00

yes, then suddenly that's what the lesson is. It's kind of that's the lesson. The lesson is feel things through and stop being in the shoulds and stop being what everyone's told you to be.

SPEAKER_00 49:10

Absolutely and feel like find laughing, art, crafts, all these things that uh that you know we've yeah, playing in general. It can that is those are the healing moments. Yes, that's the connection moments, that's the time that you're looking you know, pupil to pupil in your child's eye, and you're flooding your both of your brains with oxytocin. And this is the moment that this is connection, yes, right? Absolutely. And if there's a block, then this is an opportunity. All these triggers are also growth moments, they're invitations to get open that door and sit down and light a candle and get some tea and fill out one of the reparenting journal prompts and figure out like why is that a why do I resist play? Yeah. And then likely, you know, so many parents, when I'm asking them these questions that I put together in this journal, it boils down to a wound. It boils down to that when I was four and I asked my dad to play, and he said he, you know, what those moments of wounding block you from being the parent you really can be.

Christina 50:24

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, beautiful, beautiful. You have created beautiful, beautiful systems. This is fantastic, and I'm so excited that everyone can come and check it. Um, your links will be below, but just in case anyone's listening and they don't know where to type, can you just say what your website is and where they can find it?

SPEAKER_00 50:40

Very simple, consciouscarecards.com. Consciouscarecards.com.

Christina 50:45

There you go. Easy to remember.

SPEAKER_00 50:47

Easy to remember. Yes.

Christina 50:48

Brilliant. Well, thank you so much for sharing all of this with us. And um, I'm sure that we will be seeing your cards absolutely everywhere because they're quite the gift. And yeah, I hope to hear from you again soon. We'll talk again. Thank you so much, Christina. It's so much fun. So much fun. Okay, bye now.