Finding Balance: Exploring Sobriety and Emotional Resilience with Jacintha Field

Building Emotional Resilience and Sobriety: A Conversation with Jacinta Field

In this episode of the Samantha Parker Show, Samantha talks with Jacinta Field, a family and child counselor, art therapist, breathwork coach, Reiki practitioner, meditation teacher, and founder of Happy Souls Kids. They discuss Jacinta's journey towards sobriety, the drinking culture in Australia, and how it influenced her decision to quit drinking almost 10 years ago. The conversation also delves into the importance of emotional resilience, mindfulness, self-regulation, and the role of Happy Souls Kids in providing these tools to children and families. Jacinta shares practical tips for parents on connecting with their children, advocating for self-love, and using art therapy, breathwork, and other modalities to manage emotions. The episode provides insights into redefining community and relationships post-sobriety and emphasizes the significance of building a supportive environment for both parents and children.

00:00 Introduction and Guest Introduction

00:50 Jay's Journey to Sobriety

02:26 Cultural Perspectives on Drinking

05:21 Happy Souls Kids: Mission and Impact

08:16 Connecting with Children: Practical Tips

13:29 Art Therapy and Breath Work

17:24 Redefining Community After Sobriety

18:25 Choosing Your Path and Setting Boundaries

19:33 Finding Your Tribe and Building Community

20:50 Parenting with Connection and Understanding

24:21 Embracing Emotions and Teaching Resilience

27:16 Happy Soul Kids and Global Goals

31:42 Self-Love and Personal Growth

Jacintha Field Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jacinthafield?igsh=MWw2Nm02NzJiejE2dA==

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Transcript

 Hey guys. Welcome back to the Samantha Parker show. I'm honored today to have Ja Cynthia Field, also known as Jay. So do you go by Jay?

It's jacin tha so it's like a tongue twister. So it's like Samantha and Jacinta put together. Everyone in practice, especially the kids call me Jay 'cause it's way too long for them to say.

Okay. Yes, that's way easier. But so you are a family and child counselor and art therapist, a breathwork coach, a Reiki practitioner, And a meditation teacher. And you're the founder of Happy Souls Kids. A platform dedicated to helping Kids and families build emotional resilience, mindfulness, and self-regulation tools.

I have a lot of questions for you and I wanna make sure today that we dive into Happy Souls Kids, you also have a really cool story and a lot of people listen to my podcast. They're here for the sober tea. So we are gonna talk about sobriety today, and it sounds like to me that you've been sober for quite a while.

Yeah, I used to party a lot and drink a lot. I used to mask all my problems and emotions with alcohol and going out I stopped drinking almost 10 years ago. I made that decision for myself, which if you knew me at the time was pretty tough. I'd go out a lot. So I think when we choose ourself, that's just sends us on a much different path.

Okay, and you live in Melbourne, Australia, so this is fun. It's early in the morning there, right?

it's eight o'clock, which isn't too bad actually. We are in the winter coming just about to come outta winter. We're starting to get a little spring in our step, but it's completely different to where you guys have your beautiful sunshine over there at the moment.

I know where winter is coming,

Maybe you should just come to

It doesn't snow where I live, so you know, I'm like, that's okay. You know what I mean?

When it's cold, don't you want it to snow? So at least you have that element of it's just so beautiful and it's fun

No,

think it's different going to the snow and living in it, isn't it?

I lived in Salt Lake City, which the Olympics have been there, the Winter Olympics have been there a few times. I came from up north and now I live more Southern and it's so much better. It's just, it's a better, it's so much better. You can't change my mind.

totally get it. It's different, as I said, going snowboarding for the day or a weekend and living in snow. Very different story.

Yes. I'm like, I don't wanna drive, I don't wanna deal with it. I don't wanna do any of it.

It.

It's fun to talk to you because I don't think I've had anyone on my podcast, from Australia. So I just feel like this is a fun, new perspective. So I kind of wanna dive into this real quick. What is the culture, like the drinking culture, like where you live?

We get a badge of honor for being the drunkest person in the room in Australia. It's a huge drinking culture here. It's starting to slow down a lot with younger children. Now they're making better choices for themselves. But my generation and even my parents' generation, it. big in Australia. We to the pub on a Friday night universally, but especially in Australia is such a big thing. We've got a FL here, which is our football. I went with my son we go most weeks. The entire stadium is drinking and a way to connect to friends.

It's not, Hey, do you wanna catch up? It's, Hey, do you wanna go for a drink? So it's a massive culture here. And yeah, as I said, you get celebrated for being the drunkest person in the room. When I started it was such a taboo subject and it was very. Challenging to make that decision for me 'cause I was certainly isolated from a lot of different people and my peers who were drinking at the time.

And I took it personally during those times and then realized that it was just because there was something in me that they weren't able to do. That isolation comes from a place of them being triggered. And I think that's where you really need to learn that self courage to be able to say, you know what?

This is not for me. This is not who I wanna be. This is not how I wanna live. And I think that's really important.

Know here in the United States, they just came out with a study. It's the Gallup Poll, and every year they poll everyone and. 52% of Americans actually do not drink. Do you feel like it's that way in Australia, or is it just kind of like, this is what everyone does?

No, definitely not. It's slowing down. A little while ago we were talking, and I was actually talking with some investors about this as well, opening some alcoholic free bars. And there are a couple around, but no, definitely not. I don't know what the statistics are here, but it would not be statistics that you've got in the us.

People are slowing down. Absolutely. But there's still a huge drinking culture here.

Yeah, I think where I live, I see religion kind of plays into it. So a lot of people where I live are Mormon because I live in Utah. They don't drink. So I feel like I've always known people who weren't drinkers. But then I gravitated more to those who did drink. It'd be interesting to live somewhere where that's what everyone did.

I went to Ireland, a couple years ago, and everyone went to the pub. Like everyone went for drinks. Even there was kids in the pub, you know?

Irish, she was born in Ireland. So I have that kind of ing culture. I've been to Ireland myself that's my family. I have 36 aunties and uncles and a huge family. My mom was one of eight, my dad was one of nine. All of them drink pretty much, all of my family.

We've got our Irish part as well, which love port I think it's a really big culture that we've got in Australia and different nations, but it depends on the generations. The younger generation that's coming through see things a little bit differently and I think that's really beautiful. I,

I love that. And so are you guys kind of tapping into that with Happy Soul kids?

yep.

What is your mission behind that?

Sorry, I'm just recovering from being a little bit sick. Our target market is really, it was five to 12. We've moved it a little bit to eight to 12, the purpose of Happy Soul's Kids in 2019, 2020, we separated. My son started school and it was COVID all at the same time, and he was not okay.

He was throwing bins around the house. He was running up the street. His emotions were so well beyond anything I could support at the time. I, studied as much as I could to support my own child, even though I'd done meditation and breath work and been on my own healing journey. When it comes to kids, that's not their language.

They're not gonna sit there and meditate. It's really hard for them. So we use something called Cosmic Kids as a yoga platform, which is a universal YouTube platform, my child is hyperactive. He is the child that just wants to jump around, so yoga's and meditation's hard for him. So I started to learn a language with children that, spoke to them. My son is my unofficial co-founder. During COVID, we saw that kids couldn't gain access to psychologists. There was a six to 12 month wait, which broke my heart. Unfortunately Samantha, that's how it is today. It still is today, that kids can't get help, parents can't get help.

People can't get help 'cause there isn't enough help available. And so that was the purpose of Happy Sales Kids. I had a private practice in Torque on the surf coast here, where we moved for four years. I worked out the pain points that children and parents were facing and there's just so much disconnection between the parents and children.

Parents are so busy working so hard that they're not actually connecting to their kids. They're building a life for them, but not with them. I learned play therapy. So I studied play therapy where I learned the modalities that children really relate to, such as making slime. We would make slime in practice and it's that self-regulation tool of like really pulling, or we'd play even games like hide and seek, I dunno if you've played hide and seek lately, Samantha, but that you get like little butterflies in your tummy.

It's just so cute. I get why they like these games. Through all of that work that we've done, it's just like working out that language. But with kids. I was in practice with one of them one day and I said, Hey, do you wanna do some meditation? He just rolls his eyes at me whatever lady. I said, LeBron James meditates. And instantaneously he wanted to meditate straight away. And so that was the birth of Happy Soul's Kids, where we utilize their heroes to teach them the lessons that we now know as adults. Like they might see someone win a gold medal and be like, oh my God, they're so amazing.

And you're like yes they are. You haven't seen the journey that they've had to go through to get there. And that is included in drinking. Like a lot of people don't know how to, support their emotions. So they'll go out and drink or they'll go out and party, gossip, date too much, or be on social media or sugar.

That's a big one with me. And it's learning these modalities, but if we can give kids the tools that when they have an emotional eyes. They can say, oh, I'm feeling really angry. They can feel that emotion and release it. They're not gonna have the issues that we have. They're able to have healthy ways to self-regulate their body.

If you've been someone, where a lot of your, oh, so in the family unit, like so much of my focus was spent on drinking. Like, what am I gonna drink today? You know, I can't go back to when my kids are little, they're, teenagers now. But how do you kind of shift back into like, let's connect.

Let's, deal with our emotions. Let's do play therapy. What are some practical steps that parents can do?

is the connection. It is all about the connection. And if we really sit down and think about some of the things our kids have said to us over time Hey mommy, will you come and play with me? No, I'm too busy. I've got the washing, I've got the dishes to do. I can't play with you. if they said to you. I'm having a really hard day. We would respond very differently. So it's understanding kids' language. The first thing is, I would have a conversation and say, you know what? I haven't been the best mom that I can be to you, and I'm so sorry. There are so many times where I have been up in my head and I've. Been too busy worrying about all of these things, and I haven't been honest and authentic with you about that. So I wanna start today and say, Hey, I wanna start being really open and honest and having a beautiful communication with you, and start with apologizing to them. Have that really open communication with them that things are gonna change and you want them to be open with you because you are mirroring that behavior.

If you are shouting off to your kids, you are mirroring to them what to do we don't need to go into the story of things like, divorce and separation's big, and we don't need to go into the story of. Someone did this or someone did this, it's like just saying I've had a really hard time and explaining to them that I felt sad, I felt disappointed.

And so in the, when you're having dinner at the dinner table, if that's something that you do, it's how was your day? Rather than, oh, my day was fantastic. Which a lot of parents do. 'cause we wanna be superman, superwoman, have these big shields above us. We say, actually today was really hard and it was really frustrating.

And I had a contract that didn't work out. Found out that somebody's not very well, and we have these open communications with our kids, so then they can say, oh, there's nothing wrong with me like mom and dad or my carer. They have problems too. They have these emotions that they work through. One of the connection exercises I suggest is eye gazing, just directly looking at your child's eyes, not talking, but you can laugh, you can make faces and build that connection back. Another one is giving your children control. The studies state that if you spend even 20 minutes of undivided attention with your kids, is building that connection.

Now that doesn't mean sitting on the floor and playing Lego, depending on how old they are and going through your to-do list and looking around the house, it means. Wholeheartedly being in that moment. And parents will say to me, I find it really hard to sit on the floor and play with my kids because they find it

Yeah.

Find something you can do together that could be gaming.

Playing Nintendo together kids, especially eight to twelves. Love gaming. We try and get them to stop, but that's how they feel empowered. 'cause they're not getting that empowerment anywhere else. Go somewhere. Have a yes day with your kids. I'm big on yesterdays, I don't know if you've seen the movie Samantha, but giving kids control of what do you wanna do today?

When was the last time you asked a kid what is it that you wanna do today? How do you wanna spend your day? You could give them a time limit. You could give them a money limit. You could say, Hey, we're just gonna ride our bikes today, and get them to choose where they're going because you'd be really surprised on what kids need sometimes and what they want nine times outta 10.

If I say to a child in practice, if you could plan your day from start to finish, what would it look like? Nine times outta 10, they're with their families. They're with their moms and dads. That's all they want. That's all children want, and we find it really hard to do that with them. So it's just some of the things that I would suggest to do to build that beautiful connection and be really honest and authentic with them just like you would a partner. Be like that with your kids too.

I really like that my son is super into YouTube and the games, you know, he's 14 and I made him bring the PlayStation into the living room my husband's like, what are you doing? I'm like, we're gonna play Mortal Kombat. And he's like, you're gonna play Mortal Kombat with him. And I'm like, I'm trying to meet him where he is at.

You know?

beautiful.

I know how to play that,

and you know what, Samantha, it's fun. Like we play Super Mario and Donkey Kong and all of these games, like I have a ball. I get super competitive. I have fun. But thank you for bringing into the lounge room because I don't know if you've seen the show Adolescence, it was such a big thing in Australia and uk.

I know it made it over to America a little bit, but adolescence is a series that you can watch it's so powerful, so triggering for parents. And it really shows what can happen with your children. If a child is in their room with a door closed, having full access to the internet, we have no idea what rabbit holes they are going down. So just making sure that you do bring it into the lounge room, have the conversations together, watch the YouTube with them, play the games together, and actually be able to understand where they're going. It's just so important because if you are not having these conversations with them, someone on the internet is, and they're learning from somebody that you have no idea about.

And YouTube can be amazing. There are so many amazing parts to it, but it's also very toxic. There is hackers in there that are doing horrible things with kids so we just need to be careful.

I totally agree. Okay, so one thing you talk about a lot is art therapy and breath work, and that they're powerful tools for expression and calm. How did those tools help you reconnect with yourself when you were going through all this? Your separation, you know, breaking up with alcohol, all those things.

I actually, during my partying days, saw a meditation teacher, and this was deep into when I was quite broken, she got me to draw. I couldn't express how I was feeling at the time. I didn't even know what emotions were. I was always told to eat concrete, harden up, you'll be right.

And so that's when I started. Expressing myself. So her drawing of art therapy ends up being what I do with children subconsciously without even realizing. That modality helped me because I just got a sketch pad and I just drew my feelings. I choose a color and I just draw. And that's a great place to start if you are finding it really hard to express yourself. When I went into art therapy, I hadn't even connected the dots until many years later that's the path that really helped me. When I was studying it, it helped me with my separation. I did a Saturn A practice, which is like pranay arm mantra, Korea. Yoga sequences every single morning for the year after I separated.

And that really supported me and it helped my son at that time as well. And so then when I studied, it was helping me more than it was helping others like you. You gotta work on yourself first. Your body is like a garbage truck. So you're holding so much inside.

So you can yell, you can scream into a pillow, you can jump it out, you can do, ra, which is like dancing. It needs to come out in some form. If art isn't for you, find a modality. It can be boxing. Boxing's a really great way to get it out. And so journaling, that's another really great way. I also learned so much about breath work our bodies are like an air conditioner. If we are heated inside, we can use our breath to calm down. so we don't need to sit there, in that monk position like people think that we do. It's just literally when you are heated in those moments with your children, especially, 'cause they happen you can feel yourself going up, that is when you need to. Bring yourself back down again. And so it's just simply like closing your eyes or keeping them open if you need to, just focusing on your breath and coming back into the present moment. And so breath work mirrors to kids what they can do in those moments. When kids are in fight or flight states, when they are on a different planet, when they are dysregulated, they can't hear you. They cannot hear you. So if you say, calm down, take some deep breaths, do all this, go to your calm quarter. They can't hear what you're saying. But if you can sit there in that present moment, knowing that. This will pass. It's a great mantra to have. This will pass. This will pass. But if you breathe they actually feed off your calm. So breath work is really a way to help us deal with the big stuff that we've got coming up. But it mirrors to our kids as well what they should be doing. So in moments of dysregulation, when you are dysregulated, come back to your breath. You don't need fancy practices

they help, absolutely. Please do them if you can, just breathe and come back, and if you find it difficult, just follow the breath in and out of your body just breathe and calm yourself down that way.

I cannot handle. The breath work retreats and all the crazy breath work where you see them like screaming and wiggling on the floor. I'm like, no, no, no, thank you. But I like the way that you explained it. I'm like, I can take some moments to breathe.

I have done all of those crazy ceremonies, Samantha. I've done a lot of them, and it really is the simple practices. They're not for everybody, like you just said. And it does look weird and there's always weird stuff that happens and you

Well, I've done them.

Don't

I was like, did it check that on my bucket list? Don't wanna do it again.

It's just the calmness of having that connection to self is what most of us are missing, and that's what we try and teach kids, to have that connection to self, that's where we need to start.

Okay. Let's shift into talking about redefining our community, because when you go sober and you make these big changes, you kind of have to rebuild your life. So when you went sober, how did your relationship shift and did your idea of community evolve from that?

Big question I

I.

didn't get invited to as many things as I did, and to make it even more. Solidified. I went public, I started writing articles about how I've decided to quit drinking. And this was 10 years ago when it wasn't really spoken about. So you can imagine people were just like, yeah, no, we're not gonna invite her 'cause we don't want her to come because she's not drinking.

It was like, it was really lonely. It was a really lonely time in my life. And I quit drinking when my son was 18 months old. So I'm a new mom not drinking. Going public with all of these things, is challenging and people are inspired by it, but that doesn't necessarily mean they want you around. So it's first doing the healing work with you. Then it's having conversations with your friends and saying, I have no judgment towards you whatsoever. This is your path. You get to choose what your path is, but this is my path. Sometimes it's not going out and having dinners or going out and drinking with those particular friends.

It's going for a walk with them. Having a separate dinner with them rather than in the big groups. When I was pregnant, a friend said to me, you are more fun than most of the people here and you are pregnant and not drinking. It's just finding the people that love and respect that. I absolutely had to shift gears with different friendship groups. It can be very lonely. It is hard to find your tribe, but that's all part of the journey. And if you realize that at the time, you're like, okay, gotta start putting boundaries around certain people as well.

I didn't even know what a boundary was back then. I was such a people pleaser. Do whatever anybody wanted. And this was the first moment in my life that I said, no, I'm doing this for me. And I was like, whoa. That was powerful. You think that people are going to celebrate that, but they don't.

Samantha, as I'm sure you've experienced, they don't celebrate it. They are triggered by it. it's something within them that they can't potentially do. So I need that to be very clear. It's not you that's the problem. It's something within them that's being triggered. And then it's just finding, whether it's a yoga community that you go to or going to all these crazy breath work things where people don't drink.

And it's finding the communities that you can relate to and aspire to be in and finding people that you wanna be around. You know that saying you are the five people that you hang around with, so find the five people and you wanna be the least. You wanna be around more intelligent people, you wanna be able to learn from people that you're around.

So find the groups, find the people that inspire you, and start looking there. Now we moved to Toki, after I separated and I was a broken mess, like a little bird who wasn't drinking and moved up there. And I would join surfing communities, women's communities and all of these things.

It takes time to find your people, but they're there. These days, there's so many more people that aren't drinking rather than judging people that are, have love and compassion for them, can you imagine still being in that state where you were drinking? It's a tough place to be in. They're really not ready to deal with their stuff if they have stuff. Allow them that space to do that.

Yeah, and I just enjoy doing different things invite my friends, we go to cold plunges, we'll go for walks. It's different. And I'm like, if you wanna hang out, I'll be here at five 30 in the morning. It's just a different life.

at a different time zone.

Okay, so you build community through Happy Soul kids. What does real connection look like for kids and parents in your world?

First of all, change. I say that we just build a different language within the household. We often parent our children how we were parented without realizing how many times have you thought, oh my gosh, this is what my mother used to say. It's just finding a different language within the household

it can help you relate to your child rather than the hierarchy of I'm the parent, you are the child, you need to listen to me. What about if we listen to each other? If we have that deep connection with each other, where we give them a voice and they're able to also say what they wanna do within the household.

So it's sitting down as a family and saying, Hey, can we work together? To make this happen, how can we work together in the household? What are your needs? What are my needs? I need to make sure, I have my own self-love, like that's really important to me. I get up at five o'clock in the morning, Samantha, and go to the gym, try and get home before my son wakes up and I make sure that I have my cup lit up. Parents need to do that as well as children do so it's also. Asking your kids, and it's such a hard question because especially at your age, did you say 14 or 16?

My son is 14 and my daughter is 20.

So they're really hard questions 'cause they're going to be brutally honest with you.

Mm-hmm.

What can I do to be a better mom? That's where we connect with our kids. We can say, I don't like it that you yell. Kids hate it when we yell. I grew up in a household of yelling, so it became normalized to me. I had to really spin that back. As soon as I raised my voice, my son gets really upset. I have to come from a calmer place. I can be like, oh, I don't like it that you did that. And he's stop yelling at me. I'm like. Okay. It's really working out how you can collaborate together, when your kids get to that 16 or 20 age, you wanna be able to 14, 20.

You wanna be able to say, Hey, when they're out. Because kids will go out, kids make mistakes. They push the boundaries. That's what they do, especially in their teenage years. You wanna be the safe place for them to come back to. But that starts with, because even with drinking, they may or they may not.

It's an assumption, of course, push the boundaries with drinking. When my son comes to me and says something like, oh mommy, this happened at school. I'm like, Hey, thanks so much for telling me. I've become that safe space with him that I don't tell him off or get angry I just become a safe space for him to be able to say. If I go out drinking or if I go out and do these things I'm Mogo, I'm okay to tell my mom because she's going to support me. I think it's having those elements of, being that safe space for your kids, it's so important. Now, that doesn't mean letting kids get away with things. It just means in that moment, having that reaction and then having later conversations of, hey. How did you feel in that moment? Was there anything that you would do differently and getting them to think about it? As parents, we often try and solve our kids' solutions. Like we'll be like, oh yeah, you should do this, and this. But that doesn't help them. So if we can take a step back and say, how would you do that differently? It's really important.

You have some really good insights. We could just do this all day.

Thank you.

Wow, that's a really powerful, question to ask like, how can I be a better mom?

And

You know, how can I be a better mom to you

You gotta brace

How can I support you?

How can I support you?

Sounds.

What is the best way that we can work together in the family dynamic? So it just comes from a place of connection rather than that hierarchy of you will do what I say, which doesn't feel good.

Many adults wish they had emotional tools As children, what are the foundational practices you wish you had had growing up?

Everything that I teach kids that mistakes are our mates when we make a mistake, there's a part of our brain that helps us grow. There's a really great. Book. It's in America. Called Big Life Journal. I get all of their kids in practice to get this book. It's about self-regulation and growth mindset, and it's such a great book.

And in here it has a little moments, my favorite page in the book that says, when we make a mistake, our brains grow. So it's helping kids understand that they're not perfect, neither are we. And it's helping our kids understand that we make mistakes as well. It's really helping them understand that. Emotions are there to help us. And every emotion is welcome in our body. Even the anger, even the sadness I've spent most of my life trying to be happy all the time and trying to be a good person and happy. 'cause I thought that would make me be loved when. Sometimes I experience frustration and I experience anger, and all of these different emotions, and that's what makes me whole and that's what makes me human. And I think that's really important for kids to understand that emotions have their place, even anxiety, even depression. All of these parts of us have our place. I've just gone through some really big stuff and I had to sit in sadness that had its purpose to release from my body. I went up to the park I just couldn't stop crying. I was with my son and my dog and it was dark I just couldn't stop crying. My son said to me, that's okay, mommy. You just let your tears flow. What do you need in this moment? Do you need a hug? Do you need cookie to come over and give you a hug?

That's all right, mommy, I've got you, and you'll come over and give me a hug. And I've mirrored that to him, over time. It is such a beautiful moment with him that he can hold that space. And I think that's where it comes from that we need to hold space for ourselves first. Allow us to understand that we have different parts of ourselves, and that's okay. it's accepting. that sometimes we are gonna make a mistake and we're not perfect. And I think that's really important for kids to know. Through Happy Soul Kids in the app that we've developed, or the filming that we've done, is implementing a lot of these things that we've talked about today into the stories of the athletes and helping them understand that, even the biggest athletes in the world have hard days.

They've had times where it's really challenging. They've had times where they've had a lack of self-worth. They've had times where they haven't wanted to show up. They've had times that they've found it really hard. so everybody's human. And I think that's really important for kids to know. My parents would, if they would shun me out, I would think, oh, they don't love me.

They did love me. They just loved me in their own way. And so having that connection. Another thing I'll mention that's just come up for me now is telling your kids that you're proud of them. Not when they get a goal in basketball, not when they win a game, actually telling them every single day.

I am so proud of you just for being you. I.

I like that. Okay, so Happy Souls kids. I saw online that you guys have a goal to reach a hundred thousand children.

Yes. A hundred thousand children globally by 2027. It's a big goal. I've seen it in private practice, the differences when a child's come in to when they've left it's so beautiful and heartwarming. If we can do that all around the world for kids, it just makes my heart sing.

It's not just kids that need help, it's parents. The app isn't for a child to do on their iPad. It's for you and them to do together so you can learn the lessons. Parents can learn just as much as children can.

So the parents can do it too,

they can do it

like on the app.

Yeah, we suggest even just five minutes a day of just going on, it's still in a prototype phase, so if anyone wants to be one of our beta testers, you're welcome to send me an email at hello@happysoulskids.com. We encourage parents and children to do it together. So in moments of dysregulation and when they've got those big feelings, or in a moment where they've played a soccer game and they've lost. You can say, oh, remember what, Archie Thompson, he's a soccer player. Some of, we, we have a, we are starting with Australian athletes at the moment, but we're going to America soon. Archie Thompson told us that he found it really difficult in these moments, and this is what he did to help him through. So you can have those conversations with your kids in real time with what you've learned in the app. That's the purpose of it.

My gosh. I love that. You know, this just reminded me. So we have a conversation cube. Have you seen these? They have cards. Do you have one? I have one and it's on the shelf by our table mine's on this weird cube, but it's kind of fun to pull.

I know which one you're talking about.

Yeah, it's in like a glass cube or plexiglass.

But I do pull it out sometimes at dinner. It's so funny. My son the other day was like, oh my god. Not the conversation cube, you know? They'll start talking 'cause it's funny questions. But then the other day he's like, I don't wanna answer these questions. But we started building a tower out of the conversation cards.

Love it. And that's connection. That right there, Samantha, we don't have to do that. Like a child can see something from a different perspective and we just need to accept that perspective. And that is a perfect analogy that you just said then, is that they looked at the cards and saw a tower, great, let's build a tower.

How wonderful.

It is funny 'cause both of 'em are like, no, not the conversation cube, but then they start chatting, you know?

It's important to them and they like it. They don't wanna talk about feelings and emotions 'cause it's uncomfortable. So the more in a family dynamic, if we can normalize it, the more it helps kids.

So for anyone listening who's holding tension, disconnection, or just trying to feel steady, what's one piece of permission or healing you want them to hear right now?

That you are enough, that parenting is hard, you're gonna make mistakes, and that's okay.

I mean, yeah, it is hard and I think all of us screw up.

You don't get given a rule book when your child's born and said, this is the genes of your child. This is how to parent them. And especially when you have multiple children, they're different. You've gotta go through and work out, oh, this is my child, this is what they like. And then you've got another child that likes something different.

It's challenging. It's hard. Please work on yourself and make time for yourself, because otherwise, if you are living for your kids, you are coming from a place of resentment without even realizing. It's really important to make sure that you fill up your cup first, whatever that means to you.

Go back into your childhood, go back to joy. I started surfing at 40 years old. I, roller blade. I've got a skateboard. Like they're things that make my soul happy. something for you, whatever that might. It might be knitting, it might be even just walking, hiking. That really makes you happy.

I love that. I actually have a friend who lives in Australia and she took up surfing 'cause she was like, I've lost myself. So she started surfing. It was pretty fun to watch.

is the hardest sport I've ever done because you are not in control. The waves are, and it's really challenging, but when you get up on a wave, you feel like Wonder Woman and ride that wave and it is so much joy. But to get to that place, there's not many things that teach you resilience it's tough. If you are having hard days, watch Wonder Woman, I always people watch this. Or even the little gifts on your phone, going to that energy of oh, I can save the world, it's so beautiful, especially during separation and you feel completely broken. Watching films like that is just empowering.

It is a really good movie.

Yeah. You're like, oh, I could save the world. It's beautiful.

Okay. Where can people find you online? I think we skipped over this, but you have a 21 day self-love program too. Correct.

so it's, we're rejigging it at the moment, but I actually wrote

Okay.

before I separated, so I had to use my own program that I wrote for, obviously for myself during that time, where it really teaches you just to love you really, people have this perception that self-love is that you're vain or you're selfish or all of these things.

But Samantha, I'll ask you a question. Who do you love most in the entire world?

I wanna say myself now,

Yeah, but usually what would

but I actually.

answer? Our kids, our family, our friends. And it's like that analogy of when you're in the plane and you put your mask on, you do need to look after yourself.

You need to. Put your mask on first because if you are broken, your kids are gonna be broken 'cause they feed off you. The self-love program teaches people that it's you is just so important because if you are not solid, no one else around you is, and you become snappy with everyone else without even realizing.

Finding you again and having that connection to self is so incredibly important.

Awesome. So where does that hang out and where can we find Happy Soul kids

we've got Happy Souls Kids as a website. So our website is Happy Souls with an S and kids with an s.com. We're on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and then my name is Jacinta, which it's a bit of a tongue twister, so it's like Samantha and Jacinta. So it's J-A-C-I-N-T-H-A-F-I-E-L-D. Dot com.

As a website. I also have Instagram and TikTok LinkedIn. So yeah, please reach out if you need some support and help because this journey isn't easy. Sobriety is not easy, especially when parenting. So if you need some tips and tricks, thank you Samantha for creating this space.

We appreciate you so much for having these conversations 'cause it really does help people.

Thank you. I appreciate that. We'll, have you linked in the show notes. Do you work with people all over the world or just specifically where you live?

I've got sessions in New York and all around Australia and I've got a couple of sessions in a few other countries, UK. So yeah, we can book sessions all over the world, so that's what we call telehealth. If COVID taught us anything, it's that, we can connect with people everywhere.

I love that. Okay, well thank you so much for being on the Samantha Parker Show and thanks for sharing your light in the world I appreciate you coming on early in the day

Oh, this is like

and.

Where 5:00 AM is, this is like by eight o'clock. It's like lunchtime.

I did get up this morning at four 30 to go to a spin class, but I don't know if that's something I like to do.

No, I

Four 30 is a little too early.

up this morning and I go to the gym every other day, apart from Friday mornings, and I was like, yeah, no, I don't wanna get up today. But that's also another self-love thing feeling into your body if you don't wanna get up. Don't get up.

I'd rather get up at like five 30 or six 30. Feels good to me. But yeah, four 30 just felt a little early.

Yeah, it's at 4 45. I could get up at 4 45 and go to the gym and I enjoy it, but it's the three, like when you're in perimenopause and all of these things, I don't know if you're in those areas and you

Yeah.

15 times

Yes.

It's the three that kills me. The four or the 4 45.

Great. Three. Not good.

No, I know my dog was like, I don't know what she was doing and why. The dog woke me up at like two 30 in the morning and I was like pissed.

Because

So then I like, you know, like,

just we need our sleep so

yeah, I know. And then I was just kind of lucid dreaming and then my alarm goes off at four 30 and I was like, what is this?

Exactly.

I feel it.

Yes. Okay. Well thank you so much for being on the Samantha Parker show and thanks for sharing your light with the world.

Thank you.