29. Dealing with Overstimulation: Mindful Parenting with Christy Deniston

When Christy Deniston, a positive parenting coach and mother of three, faced her moment of truth, it led her down a path of self-discovery and transformation that she now shares with us. Her journey from stress to mindfulness is a powerful testament to the impact our own behavior has on our children and ourselves. Christy's personal narrative not only provides a roadmap for parents looking to foster intention and love in their family interactions but also serves as a beacon to those yearning for change. Her candid discussion about breaking free from reactive habits and fostering nurturing environments offers a heartfelt guide sprinkled with wisdom for reshaping family dynamics.

Her upcoming 'Mindfulness at Home' workshop, co-led with Ryan Sawyer, promises to equip parents with the tools necessary for improved engagement with their children and themselves. The positive feedback from past participants underscores the workshop's effectiveness in inspiring parents to embrace moment-by-moment awareness and acceptance. Don't miss the opportunity to connect with this transformative experience and become part of a community focused on intentional parenting and personal growth.

Connect with Christy
https://www.ihpcoaching.com/christy
IG @christydeniston

Get your ticket to her Mindfulness at Home Workshop: https://www.ihpcoaching.com/mindfulness

Connect with Heidi
Work with Heidi
IG @realheidisawyer

If you enjoyed the show, please leave a review!
Checkout the Heart First Leadership Podcast with Ryan & Heidi Sawyer

Transcript

Heidi : 0:33

I'm excited to bring you my conversation with Christy Deniston. We talk a lot about parenting and motherhood, and Christy shares insights from her own personal journey and her education as a positive parenting coach. Even if you're not a parent, I think you're going to glean some amazing wisdom from what she has to share. Also, listen to the end. If you're a parent in the Spokane area, she does have a workshop coming up called Mindfulness at Home. You're definitely going to want to get your ticket for that experience. Without further ado, I bring you my conversation with Christy. Christy, welcome to the show. Hi, thanks for having me. I'd love for you just to tell our listeners a little bit about yourself before we get going. Yeah, so.

Christy : 1:14

I am a mama of three. They are currently nine, 11, and 13. I got into the work of positive parenting, I think, when my oldest was I think it was around eight. So I have a positive parenting educator background and got involved then with a sister company with life coaching and was just on a mission to transform the insight. I could see there was a lot that needed attention and wanted attention and I was ready and so I have just done various programs, became a yoga teacher, working with you guys. Now with IHP running groups, I have my own business working one-on-one with kiddos specifically, and then I end up working with the whole family. So in this coaching world and I love it I was a school counselor too. Kids are a thread throughout my journey.

Heidi : 2:03

Yeah, I love that. So this show is all about reinvention. I'd love for you to take us to that sort of awakening moment or that moment in your life where you realized something needs to change. What was that moment for you?

Christy : 2:16

Yeah, the first thing that comes to mind is when my oldest so he's now 13, he was eight At the time, so I had an eight, six and a four year old and was super stressed out all the time and that was part of my journey too was getting my health to a better place, and it wasn't yet there and it showed in my reactive self as a parent, almost like there was no space. I couldn't find the space between what the behavior was from my kiddo and my reaction. I say reaction very specifically, not a response. There was no time to stop and so there was. I can't even remember what I said or what happened, but I know I blew up. I yelled at him. He had done something that wasn't okay, maybe with a sibling, you know. I went to cool off. He went up to his room. Probably I probably didn't tell him to. He just was like whoa, she's scary. I got a scooch and then, I don't know, maybe 20 minutes ish, it wasn't too long later, he goes mama, mama, come, look.

Christy : 3:19

So I came upstairs and his room was immaculate like perfection and to some you might be like, well, that's amazing. It was not amazing and that it hit me in that moment that I was telling him by my yelling I need you to be perfect so I don't lose it. And so he said look, look, I'm good. Basically, that's what he was. Look how comfortable I am, look.

Christy : 3:47

And I looked at his room and I wept and I said, oh, but you do not have to make things on the outside better for me to be okay. I love you just as you are. And I made a big mistake yelling at you. You do not deserve that. You never deserve to be yelled at. You are loved regardless of what you do. And so that was my big wake up moment and I was able to say those things to him. And I think, because it was such a pivotal moment for me and I am a verbal processor, so I was able to speak it right out to him I was trying to earn my favor and my love and connection by his behavior.

Heidi : 4:29

Isn't it interesting? You were noticing that internally, you were needing something to be a certain way, to be okay as the mom in the situation, and in a way, you were modeling that for him. His little mind is like okay, I need to be perfect, I need to do something to please my mom so that she can be happy. What a big realization and aha for you to go okay, wow, I see what this is doing and this is the opposite of how I want a parent.

Heidi : 5:00

So how did you start turning things around from there when you recognized you were in this pattern?

Christy : 5:05

I was on a mission. I did some health reclamation journey where I got my blood sugar levels back to a good place. My adrenals were shot. I did all kinds of that work so foundational how is this body that I live in, how is it? And then simultaneously I started working with a positive parenting coaching company and learning from them and quickly became a coach with them as I started integrate I mean, I am very much on a mission to integrate what I learned to because it doesn't feel good, right. Like we say, information without integration leads to frustration. So I just started integrating everything I was learning and practicing, having grace for myself when I went back to my reactive yelling was my big one. It was my go to.

Christy : 5:53

It's what I knew. And then race grace. Those are old patterns, right? That are three ways in my brain. No wonder I go back to them and just being relentless, to just keep trying again. Fresh start, fresh start.

Heidi : 6:06

So that's where I went to and I think a lot of people listening can relate to that. A lot of moms listening, and we've all had moments where we've lost our cool and maybe even you know you're taking something out on your kids that has nothing to do with them in the first place. You know mom's not feeling good, she's exhausted, she has other stressors going on. It's very relatable what you're saying and I think that everyone listening has had a moment like that, if not lots of moments stacked on top of each other, and maybe some people are in a pattern of doing that right now, and it feels awful. It feels awful when you're going to bed at night and you feel guilty about the way that you interacted with your kids or your family, and that's just not who anybody wants to be. So what is something that helped you the most in your journey?

Christy : 6:59

Well, I love it because, as a yoga teacher too, my breath and I think we've talked about this on another broadcast too, but finding my breath so literally placing, I'm very image oriented and even like being in my body, so placing my hands on my heart, closing my eyes, for me that feels safe. I'm getting rid of all of this extra out here because I just felt constantly, I mean, my adrenals were really shot, so I was constantly cortisol, cortisol.

Heidi : 7:25

Like over stimulation.

Christy : 7:27

Yeah, way overstimulated. So to my system and try to bring it back to homeostasis, literally stopping my body, placing my hands on my heart, closing my eyes and taking a breath as long as nobody was dying, right, no one's bleeding. I can do that, and that felt scary, and I imagine families that are listening, mamas that are listening, can relate to that too. Really, like I don't have to solve the problem right away, it was a big epiphany. You don't have to. If it's not a 911 emergency, you can stop, take a moment for yourself and get yourself to a good place because you're the adult, and that's what I started to see. I'm the adult, right, and there's the little girl, christy, which we'll talk about, that still needs care even to this day, right, we just didn't get all our needs met and I'm not meeting all my kids' needs either. So stepping more into it, literally stepping into adult Christy, I've got this, I've got myself. I can be a safe harbor for myself and offer that to my kids.

Heidi : 8:34

Yeah, it's really beautiful because when you can model that kind of safety for yourself, that psychological safety, emotional safety, they start to learn and they start to model what you're doing too, like I remember a conversation that you and I had about one of your kiddos and they were doing the breathing they were doing what you were doing, like okay, I need to stop right now, I need to pause and take a breath, and so when we can model those behaviors for our kids, we're teaching them. We're teaching them through actually showing them what to do instead of just telling them.

Christy : 9:07

Even if I was still feeling super angry and I paused and I put my hands on my heart and I'm still feeling angry, I didn't actually really go in and do the work. They can still feel that. So for me to really say, nope, not just the outside has to look okay, but inside has to come to a place of okay. Then I open my eyes, then I do the work and then they know it's okay to not be okay. Yeah.

Heidi : 9:36

I think so many times we try to put a smile on and act like everything's fine, and what we won't realize in those moments is that kids are really intelligent and there's neuroscience behind all the little micro movements in our face and the direction that our eyes are gazing and the way that our breath is. Without even being conscious of it, they are aware that something has shifted. They can feel the shift in energy. So we're really not fooling anyone slapping a smile on. We might as well be real with our kids and let them know. Hey, it's okay to feel a range of emotions. Yeah, and when you do feel anger, you do feel frustration. Here's some tools.

Christy : 10:21

Yeah, it's really important. Otherwise it's very confusing because they feel that you're not okay but you're acting like you are, and from a child consciousness standpoint that's very confusing, yeah. And for them to then get to, if you do do the work and you go in and you are coming to a place of homeostasis, you literally radiate that off of you and then they get the benefit of it too, Without you even teaching anything to them. They get a little piece of what that feels like already. You don't have to teach it, it's literally they feel it.

Heidi : 10:55

Yeah. So what has shifted in your life since you started doing this work and been working with families and kids? What things have shifted in your motherhood?

Christy : 11:06

journey so much that I mean, really what we've talked about too is being okay, not being okay. It's such a big part of I mean, if we had hours I could share, you know, the first part of my life and how everybody was like she's, you're amazing, you know you did all the things right, all the cultural things that you're supposed to do, and you're a good girl and, yeah, I did all the outside stuff. So to that huge shift of living in not feeling okay has been huge and continuing to have a growth mindset learn and grow, learn and grow. Like you say at the beginning of your podcast, I am not evolved, I'm not going to be evolved, I'm evolving, I'm growing and that, that mindset of I'm just, I'm on a journey and let's have fun with it. Whoops, I made a mistake, oops. I love that sort of tone and language of oh, there I go again. How interesting. And getting curious about what. What was that that triggered me or what is the disturbance within and making it fun.

Heidi : 12:10

I really feel that compassion and curiosity are superpowers when it comes to relationship, especially the relationship that we have with ourselves, because that's where the parenting relationship comes from, that's where pure inner partnership or marriage, that's where that relationship stems from. When we can be compassionate and curious with ourselves, it opens the door to be able to really authentically connect with other people.

Christy : 12:35

Yeah, and with my kids. I mean, sometimes I forget all the work that I've done with them and I, I get a reflection of a different way and I think, oh, how interesting. It's just so. Just the more that you're willing to practice, you will shift. You just have to hang in there with yourself and trust and realize, oh, it's just so natural now for me to ask my kiddo when they're screaming, hey, what's going on for you? Versus stop, I still. I mean, the other day I was like stop it, yeah, and then you catch yourself, right. So it's like there's no perfection. And to realize in those oh, yep, I said, stop it. How interesting, Okay, what I wanted to say, what I'd like to say now is hey, what's going on for you? Okay, let me know when you're ready. Right, they might be like, okay, you just let me know when you're ready.

Heidi : 13:25

Yeah, I think that's an important point. There's no perfect parenting, there's no perfect mom. There's just you being a human being, doing your best every single day, and sometimes we fall short and we make mistakes. A friend of mine was saying I blew up at my kid on the way to school and I feel so guilty about it. But I apologized and I said that's.

Heidi : 13:45

The best thing you can do for your kid is to let them see that you're human. Sometimes you lose your cool, but you also take the appropriate action to repair. They need to see what rupture and repair looks like. That's important because one day they're going to be in a relationship and if we gaslight them or are defensive about our behavior when they try to call us out on it, we're teaching them that what they're feeling is invalid and that we don't take personal responsibility. They will be in a relationship someday where they say something that goes over the wrong way or they lose their cool and they need to know, through modeling, how to repair those relationships. When that happens, I think it's wonderful to realize yeah, we're not perfect and it's by design. We're modeling what it looks like to be a human. Yeah, exactly.

Christy : 14:39

Yeah, I just had a conversation with my youngest the other night. I was trying to explain to him why I wasn't available for what he needed. This is my current thing is I'll say I am not available for that right now because I know I'm like up here, like getting overstimulated with things.

Christy : 14:57

Yeah, they know what I mean by that. I'm not available right now. Mama needs just a minute so I can come, and so I can come and be present with you. And he wasn't willing to hear it. I just was like, ah and anger. When you go into anger, there's nothing wrong with anger, it means like I need something, I need you to stop something, I need something else to happen. And so we came back later to it. I explained to him yeah, I had this going on. You weren't willing to hear it. That's okay.

Christy : 15:26

It was me that lost it. And then me willing to just come back to him and say that wasn't okay. Here's why. And it wasn't okay. And then here's an add-on for him. He yelled at me too, and so I said, hey, would you be willing to try practicing? And I literally said that I need to him Exactly what you just said. I said you're probably going to be in a relationship someday. You probably don't want to be the one that's not willing to repair your relationship, you know. And so he was like okay. So I had him practice, you know, and it was a safe place, because I've done that so many times for him, modeled it. He even has a schema for it. He has a way to talk about it and has felt the inward feeling of what it feels like.

Heidi : 16:14

I'd love to hear from you. This is one of my favorite questions. But what's one piece of advice you would give to your younger self?

Christy : 16:22

Yeah, I think of my like two-year-old that was very, very strong and wanted to feel her power. And I would tell her you're not bad for wanting to feel that power. Not bad. This actually is your superpower. You're willingness to speak up and you're willingness to say no. I want this, I see this, I want to go for this. So I would tell her you're not bad. You're not bad for one of that.

Heidi : 16:54

And this is too kind of the age where we really do start wanting to have that sense of autonomy. And that's when, around that time, you can think of a baby kind of crawling towards the stairs and you can redirect them. You can pick them up and sort of point their body in another direction and they just go. But once it's a two-year-old and you point them in another direction, they go no, I was going there. Like they have this sense of no, that's what I want, I'm going for that, don't redirect me. And so I think that's a really natural thing at that age.

Heidi : 17:27

But sometimes we can get that messaging that it's not OK to want what we want and it's not OK to stand in our power. And a lot of us women have been told be a good girl and be quiet and sit down, and so it's wonderful to be able to hear that message and to see more and more women stepping into their power. And I think that is also where a lot of unresolved anger comes from, for a lot of us too is that we didn't want to be told to be quiet. It's just so great to see so many women using their voices to make a difference in the world now. So that brings me to my next question for you what are you reinventing in your life right now?

Christy : 18:10

Yeah, and it ties right in is realizing. It's very powerful to now offer what I have learned and integrated, and I tell families when I work with them I was just chatting with a family the other day I will not work with your child on anything I haven't already been working on and integrating. Oh my gosh, thank you. So very powerful to step into now this realization that I can offer. I can offer what I have been integrating and that it continues to be a theme and I don't have to have it all figured out yet. I mean, that is something I continue to have kind of in my mind. But, Christy, no, you don't know it all yet. You haven't maybe integrated that enough yet. So interesting listening to those voices and saying, yeah, true, yeah, Like you say, Heidi, we're evolving. So it's powerful to step in and offer. I'm offering what I have learned and I'm being present with what is and that needing the outside to look a certain way, even as I go into coaching.

Heidi : 19:21

Yeah, and nobody really wants a perfect coach or a perfect teacher. They want someone who has real experience with what they're struggling with. I just interviewed someone, actually earlier today, that is a coach that works with people on really having a better relationship with food and their body. Well, she's a perfect coach for them, not because she has every single piece of it figured out for herself, but she's a perfect coach for these women because she has been through what they are going through. She has struggled with it, she has been in those low moments, in those dark times, and I think that's what really makes a powerful guide for people, as someone who is not perfect but has walked in their shoes and understands where they're coming from. And that's really, I think, where we can all give a gift to the world through our own life experience.

Heidi : 20:13

So I know you have an event coming up, a workshop. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Christy : 20:17

The mindfulness at home workshop that I'm getting to do alongside Ryan. I think that's pretty cool to have Ryan's voice and his experience and he's very much in the coaching, the team sports coaching world and as he, we've done one so far and as he shares from that perspective. Of course it's the same conversation, it's just with teams and now we're with parents and the parents that were there were able to very much hear the thread and relate it, and then we could relate it to parenting and I am a huge fan of sharing my stories too, like you said, being relatable. So important to know we're not alone. And so this beautiful community of coming together of parents hungry, super hungry, to learn what Ryan and I have to offer and what we know and what we've been integrating and doing that together. I had one mama say I felt like I took a shower after going to that workshop, like I and I felt energized, not just like some of the old stuff got to come off, but I actually felt more energized, like renewed through it. Yeah, yeah, really renewed.

Heidi : 21:25

For those of you guys listening who don't know who Ryan is, ryan is my husband. He's also a coach, like Christy mentioned, works with teams, works with a lot of team athletes, obviously a parent as well. So you guys are going to be co-leading this workshop together and it's really going to be a powerful experience because they're going to have your presence there as a mom and then also Ryan as a male presence in the room. So I hope that we have a lot of dads who want to attend too, and the way that we've set up the tickets is that your, your spouse or your co-parent is included on your ticket. All you have to do is put their name into your signup and it's coming up.

Heidi : 22:08

It's going to be February. Is it February 17th? Christy 18th. It's on Sunday night, february 18th. Yes, so I'll put the link in the show notes. So if people want to sign up for that, if they're in the Spokane area, they can get their hands on a ticket and get to that class and learn in more detail some of the things that we talked about today, but really some good frameworks that they can take with them and feel like they have some tools in their tool belt to leave feeling renewed, but also resourced.

Christy : 22:38

Yeah, absolutely, and even it's. It's not you have to take a bunch of time out of your day. It's literally moment by moment, awareness and acceptance of what you're experiencing and maybe just a little shift. And these parents that already came have already they're, they're already shifting, they're trying out a few new things and just just the awareness they're having is wildly powerful. So, yeah, Wonderful.

Heidi : 23:03

I'm so excited for that. I will put the link to the workshop, also put the link to where people can connect with you online if they want to work with you and learn more about the coaching that you do, and I just really appreciate you. It's been fun having this conversation. Yeah, thanks, sadie.