41. The One Question That Turns Conflict Into Connection, with Annmarie Chereso

Conflict is an inevitable part of family life. Whether it’s a bedtime battle, a sibling fight, or a disagreement with your child, these moments can leave everyone feeling frustrated and disconnected.

But what if one simple question could shift the entire energy of those moments?

In this episode, Nina is joined by conscious relationship coach, speaker and bestselling author Annmarie Chereso to explore how parents can move from reactivity to connection. 

Annmarie shares the powerful question she teaches parents and couples to help them recognise what’s really driving conflict and how to respond with greater awareness and compassion.

You’ll Learn

• The simple question that can shift parenting conflict in the moment
• Why most conflict is actually about unmet needs
• How to recognise when fear is driving your reactions
• What the “drama triangle” is and how families get stuck in it
• Simple ways to bring curiosity and calm into difficult parenting moments

 Why This Episode Matters
When we’re overwhelmed or triggered, it’s easy to react in ways that create more conflict. This conversation offers a simple but powerful shift that can help parents pause, reflect, and reconnect with their children.

Because often, one small change in how we respond can completely transform the moment.

Small Shift for Big Impact
The next time you find yourself in a tense moment with your child, try shifting into curiosity.

Instead of jumping straight into fixing, correcting, or reacting, pause and gently ask yourself:

What might be going on for my child right now?

Curiosity creates space. And sometimes that small pause is enough to shift the entire interaction.

Take the Next Step
If you’d like to explore Annmarie’s work further, her book The Perfectly Imperfect Family dives deeper into many of the ideas shared in this episode.

And if you’re ready to bring more calm and connection into your parenting, I’d love to support you.

You can sign up to my mailing list at mindfulparentinglifestyle.com.au for practical tips and insights, or book a free chat to learn how we can work together.

 Links and Resources

• Annmarie Chereso’s Website
• The Perfectly Imperfect Family – Book
• Little Seeds Journey – Children’s book

Let’s Connect
Want more support? Follow Nina on Instagram, or sign up for tips and updates at mindfulparentinglifestyle.com.au

Have a question or parenting challenge you'd like addressed on the podcast? Send a DM or an email.

• Follow Nina on Instagram
• Website: mindfulparentinglifestyle.com.au
• Email: nina@mindfulparentinglifestyle.com.au

About the Hosts
Nina Visic is a mindful parenting coach, educator and mum of three who helps overwhelmed parents move from reactive parenting to calm, confident connection with their children through mindfulness and practical tools. 

In this episode, Nina speaks with Annmarie Chereso, a conscious relationship coach, speaker and bestselling author of The Perfectly Imperfect Family and the children’s book Little Seeds Journey, who has spent over two decades helping families navigate conflict and build more connected relationships.

Transcript

Nina: You're listening to your Calm Parenting Path. I'm your host, Nina, a mindful parenting coach and mum, here to help you go from overwhelmed and reactive to calm, confident, and connected with your kids. This show is for parents who want to raise their children with more patience, less stress, and a whole lot more joy, because small shifts make a big impact, and you can build the parenting life you've always wanted. If you want to see what I'm up to, follow me on Instagram. Mindfulparentinglifestyle. And don't forget to hit, follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode. Let's get started. Welcome back. You're listening to your Calm Parenting path.

Nina: Conflict is one of those inevitable parts of family life. Whether it's a clash over screen time, a bedtime battle, or a disagreement with your partner, those moments can leave us feeling frustrated, misunderstood, and disconnected. But what if there was one simple question that could completely shift the energy of those moments, helping you move from conflict to genuine connection? Today, I'm joined by Annmarie Chereso, a conscious relationship coach speaker and number one international bestselling author of the Perfectly Imperfect Family and the children's book Little Seeds Journey. Annmarie has spent more than two decades helping parents and couples break free from reactive patterns, navigate conflict with clarity, and rebuild trust from the inside out. And I am so excited to have her as a guest on your calm parenting path. Welcome, Annmarie.

Annmarie: Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here. Nina, excellent.

Nina: Now, you've spent over two decades helping parents and couples move from reactivity to connection. So what inspired you to focus on your work of transforming conflict?

Annmarie: You know, I think, like most of us, our own life experience. Right. I'm sure it's not dissimilar from you, but when I saw how I was creating that in my life and learned how to create something new, I got super excited. I'm like, well, everyone needs to understand and know this. And you, uh, know, anyone who's a parent out there understands how incredibly challenging it is to parent.

Nina: Yes.

Annmarie: Even under the best of circumstances. Um, but most of us are not living under ideal circumstances. So how do we become the best version of ourselves inside of crazy and unexpected circumstances? So that our children can thrive, we can thrive, and we can create the kinds of relationships that we're seeking, that we're desiring, that we most want. Because we have kids, because we wanna. We want relationships with people.

Nina: Exactly.

Annmarie: Yeah.

Nina: And sometimes, you know, we find that we change and we're not the person that we thought we were or the person that we used to be. And I really like how focusing on that and trying to be the person that you want to be, the reason that you had kids, going back to that, I think that's really important.

Annmarie: Yeah. Yeah. And we're definitely not the person we used to be. We are a new version of, uh, the person we actually are because we're constantly discovering ourselves through our relationships.

Nina: Yes.

Annmarie: So our children are beautiful portals or gateways. They're gifts to us, discovering ourselves and getting to know ourselves even more deeply.

Nina: Yeah. Beautiful. And in terms of transforming conflict, was there any particular areas of conflict that you struggled with, um, in your transformational journey?

Annmarie: Yeah, all of them. Every single one of them.

Nina: Every single one.

Annmarie: You know, I really. I was raised in a home. I had a really beautiful family and upbringing and all the things. You know, there wasn't any major, like, childhood trauma stuff, just your typical, like, little T traumas that we all experience, because that's just the way of life.

Nina: Yeah.

Annmarie: Um, but I also was raised in a. In a pretty rigidly Catholic home where, you know, there's a right and a wrong and there's the way kids behave and the way kids don't behave. And so there were a lot of rules about what was permitted and what was not permitted. And so I brought that, of course, into my role as a parent, like many of us do, because, of course, there are things that seem obvious, like you don't say mean things, or, uh, you don't lie, or, you know, all these things. Um, anger, you know, sadness. There's all sorts of emotions that are acceptable and unacceptable.

00:05:00

Annmarie: But as I began to parent and my life started to sort of crumble, you know, my storey was I went through a divorce when I was eight months pregnant with my third child. And then, wow, my life sort of collapsed and everything I knew and believed sort of fell out from under me. And I had to rebuild everything. And I. I didn't have a lot of capacity when I was in that stage of my life. I was just surviving, you know. And so my third child, she, um. She was. She was fiery. And she cried for, like 10 or 12 hours a day as an infant. She had colic. You know, they. They called it colic. The doctors called it colic, I think label colic when they have no other explanation for what's actually going on.

Nina: I think you might be right.

Annmarie: Yeah.

Nina: Yeah.

Annmarie: And, like, do something. Um, it. It turns out, I later learned, you know, my marital problems started when I was six weeks Pregnant with her. And I was incredibly anxious throughout that whole pregnancy. And she was literally growing inside of an activated nervous system.

Nina: Wow.

Annmarie: So she entrained with that and she came out highly activated and had a lot of unprocessed emotions that actually belonged to me. Wow. That she didn't, you know, she was processing as a, as a 3 week, 8 week, 10 week old baby. However, I was, was also still in my process. So the two of us were really like butting heads while I was trying to also parent a toddler. You know, two toddlers. So, you know, I was a mess. I was an absolute mess. And I was trying to control everyone around me. I was trying to control her, I was trying to control my other two kids. I was trying to control my divorce. And you know, you know how that works when you try and control life. Life does not want to be controlled.

Nina: That's right. Uh, the more you try, the less

Annmarie: you do, the less you do. So and especially with kids. Right. Your, your kids are going to resist control. So what I learned in that period of my life as a parent was, oh, control isn't the path. Surrender is the path. How can I surrender now? This didn't take me a minute. It took me a bunch of years, like to figure this out.

Nina: Yeah.

Annmarie: Uh, once I started really dropping in and surrendering and getting curious and becoming more present, I was able to enter a different vibration or frequency in my body.

Nina: Yep.

Annmarie: And then, uh, she was able to entrain or co regulate with that. So rather than me resist her tantrums or resist her anger or, or try and stop it or push it down, I became more open and curious about them. I became more available for them. I created more space for that to come through so that it could naturally transform. So when I talk about transformation, I'm talking about like letting the emotions have the life that they need in a safe container, of course, uh, um, so that they can transmute themselves rather than us try and get in there and control them.

Nina: Yeah.

Annmarie: Does that make sense?

Nina: That does make sense. And it's so powerful because, you know, we talk a lot about how part of being human is experiencing the full range of emotions, but we often don't allow ourselves to do that. And so I really liked what you said about letting her move through her tantrum in a safe place and not making her feel bad about it, not putting pressure on yourself that you have to stop it so that you're not a bad parent in quotation marks. And I love that safe space that you provide. That's really beautiful. Yeah. Perfect sense.

Annmarie: Really hard.

Nina: Really hard.

Annmarie: It's really hard because you're activated as the parent when your kids are having a tantrum and you're trying to get out the door or they're just causing a big disruption. You know, you, you also have an agenda. You want calm, you want peace, you want all the things you, you're offering your audience, Right?

Nina: Yes.

Annmarie: And so when you're dysregulated in your own body, you don't actually know how to get back to that peaceful place in that dysregulated state. So learning how to do it for ourselves first is so important.

Nina: Yeah.

Annmarie: In order to teach our children how to do that.

Nina: Most definitely. Yep. Now if we talk about so the conflict. So moving through conflict. Do you often say that the root of most conflict isn't what's happening on the surface? Can you explain what's really going on underneath during those reactive moments?

Annmarie: Yeah. There's always a need. Right beneath the conflict is a need. And

00:10:00

Annmarie: the reason kids in particular are so messy. And when I talk about kids, I even mean like your 22 year old kids, right?

Nina: Yeah.

Annmarie: If they haven't been taught these things, then it doesn't matter how old you are, you're still going to navigate conflict in the same ways. If you can't get your need met or don't know how to get your need met, you're going to drop into, um, a reactive state. And it's kind of, it's scramble. So maybe a good metaphor is like if you're drowning in the water and you can't get to your life vest, you're gonna panic. You start to panic. Yeah. And the same thing happens inside our bodies and our hearts and our minds. When we have a need, it's not getting met and we don't, you know, we don't know how to get it met. And so we're just sort of like blindly fluttering about and it creates disharmony in the body and in, in the relationship and in the system. And so depending on how that disharmony is met by those, the adults around it, we're either going to create more disharmony or we're going to create more peace. So, um, if we can help our kids get to their need in a safe and loving container. Yeah. They're more likely to be able to enter from a non conflictual place.

Nina: Yes. And I think also helping them figure out what they need, you might need to think more about what they want and what they need. They might be two, uh, very different things. So they might be asking for something, but you know that the need is actually that they need to have a nap, for example, even though they're asking for chocolate. Because I think that's what they want.

Annmarie: Yes.

Nina: And I guess it's figuring that out and then helping them realise that they need the sleep, not just the chocolate.

Annmarie: Yes. So, I mean, we have to be the adults. That's the, you know, you're pointing out a very important thing. We have to be the adults. And often what happens, I see this all the time, Nina. You know, the kid says, I need chocolate. The parents like, okay, okay, I'll give you chocolate. You know, anything to quiet you down. And then it exacerbates things, which is totally. Makes sense. I get it. But we have to really step out of that reactive role ourselves and go, oh, no, you. I know you want chocolate, but you actually need the nap. Or, you know, my. My daughter's 22, um, my youngest, and she's in college right now. And, you know, she's in midterms and studying and, you know, it's very stressful. And this is the one, the one that I had a lot of issues with. Yeah, um, she still, you know, her, her sort of baseline is reactivity and anxiety and all of that. And she was having, uh, trouble with a test recently, and she came back from all dysregulated and I knew that she needed to just trust that everything's gonna be okay. Like, you know, she was like, I'm not gonna graduate and I'm gonna spend another two years in college, you know, like, you know, go in that place. And what she needed was not me to talk her out of all those crazy storeys that she was making up in her head. She needed me to be a calm presence so that she could calm her nervous system down and then she could navigate those crazy thoughts in her mind.

Nina: Beautiful.

Annmarie: So, you know, they graduate, right? We, our kids grow. When she was three, I might have done something different. But now I know she doesn't need me to tell her the answer. She needs me to help her co regulate, calm our nervous system down so she can get the answers herself.

Nina: I really like how you're examples that you give are just as relevant to young babies, kids, toddlers, which is my age, kids. Uh, but then it's the same thing going up. The actions might change slightly, but the principles are the same.

Annmarie: Absolutely.

Nina: Regardless of how old your children are. And I guess the same thing will apply with partners and with friends or co workers, colleagues. Um, it's thinking about what is that need that's causing the conflict in the first place. Great advice.

Annmarie: Absolutely right. And I think what's important, uh, for me, when we talk, I talk now my kids are older and you're right. Like, you know, it's the same m. And what's important to me is when you think about your kids going through school right. In the early stages, they're learning the ABCs, you know, you're not teaching them to read Moby Dick. Right.

Nina: Like they don't have the Skill set yet 100%.

Annmarie: However you're, you're giving them the building blocks to, so that they can one day read

00:15:00

Annmarie: read these complex texts. And this is, this is the same thing with emotional intelligence and self regulation and all these things you want to build, give them the building blocks. So when they're three, of course they're not going to be able to say I need a nap. Like they're just not, they're not capable of that.

Nina: No, but three year old does want a nap.

Annmarie: Yes. So, but you are giving, you're building, you know, you're scaffolding these things. And then maybe later you might say, do you remember when you were playing with your brother the other day and you whacked him on the head with the truck and do you remember that it felt really good after you woke up from your nap? That sometimes when you feel you so. But then you start to build those ideas in their head that, so that they can then go, oh, when I want to hit my brother over the head, maybe I need take a nap.

Nina: Yes. Building those connections in the brain. Love it.

Annmarie: Exactly right. Exactly right.

Nina: Yep. And that again, that positive reinforcement is just going to help that as well. Great.

Annmarie: Exactly right.

Nina: Yeah. Now I'm dying to know your approach centres on a one simple question and I'm dying to know what that simple question is that can shift conflict instantly. And can you share it and why it is so powerful?

Annmarie: Yeah, I do live workshops every month on this question and my husband and I are hosting one tonight for couples.

Nina: Yeah, nice.

Annmarie: Uh, and so the question I teach. So your, your audience is getting a sneak preview.

Nina: I can't. Thank you.

Annmarie: I was introduced to this question many, many years ago around my daughter that I was just referencing. And the question is a locator question. So it helps you as a human locate yourself in these two states of being. You're either ever in any given moment in a state of love or fear. We know that. So the question, where am I? Helps you identify. Am I in a state of love or am I in a state of fear? And then there's a whole host of tools and things to really get you honest with yourself. Because of course, our mind likes to go, of course I'm in a state of love. I'm always in a state of love,

Nina: whether I like it or not.

Annmarie: Exactly. Right. That's not actually true most of the time. Yeah. So, you know, you. There's a lot to learn around getting radically honest with yourself, but that's the starting point. Um, it's a building block of awareness. And the more you are able to answer that question honestly, the more available you become to really creating authentic connection with. Raise your hand. Yourself first.

Nina: Yes.

Annmarie: Once you learn to deeply connect with yourself, then you are available to truly connect with others. But if you're not connected to self, you're not available to connect with others. That's just the isness of it.

Nina: Yeah. That's really beautiful. How can parents tell when fear, rather than trust, for example, or love, is driving their reactions? Do you have some examples of what each of these responses might look like?

Annmarie: Yeah, there's a lot of ways to tell. Um, one of the things I love to teach the most is just by tuning into your body. So if you do a quick body scan right now, anyone listening in, just do a quick body scan. You notice, is there any tension? Is there any tightness, Is there doubt? Are there judgments? Is there anything that you're. You're having a like, but what if kinds of thoughts, like, but my situation's different kind of a thing. Yeah. Um, then you're likely in fear, which is fine.

Nina: Yes, that's key. Right.

Annmarie: It's totally fine. It's actually hugely human and normal. And we don't want to then start going and judging the fear, which is what we do.

Nina: Yep, definitely.

Annmarie: You're smiling. You have a big smile on your face. So it must be.

Nina: Oh, I do.

Annmarie: Yeah.

Nina: It's. It's all landing. It's all landing Ed.

Annmarie: Marie.

Nina: It's amazing. Keep talking, keep talking.

Annmarie: Well, so, for instance, when my daughter used to have her tantrums when she was little, I was immediately thrown back into my childhood. And, like, this is not okay. And I have to stop this, and this has to stop, and there's something wrong and I'm doing something wrong, and there's just that whole host of thoughts that are downloading in me because I was so afraid that I. That I was raising a, um, crazy kid, that I was doing something wrong. You know, all the things I had all kinds of storeys that I needed to move through to be able to access that place of unconditional love. The unconditional love is a place of.

00:20:00

Annmarie: There is no judgement here. There's just curiosity. And if I can just be. A tantrum is happening. If I can just be neutral.

Nina: Yeah.

Annmarie: About tantrum happening. And have no reactivity whatsoever. Which again, so hard to do. Uh, because they're wildly unpleasant, often very inconvenient, you know, like all the things embarrassing.

Nina: Yeah.

Annmarie: Yes. So what I had to learn first and foremost was to deeply accept the part of me that was in resistance to her tantrums. So I had to be, you know, she's throwing this tantrum and you know, we're in the grocery store and people are looking and I have to get the other kids from school and I'm in a hurry near the. And I'm like, you know, all of my body is attracting against what's happening. And the first thing I have to do is like, it's okay. It's okay to be scared. It's okay to want to control this. It's okay to want this to stop. It's all of that's okay. And the moment I bring that what I, you know, I'm just going to label that as grace. The moment I bring that grace to myself, I am, um, I'm peeling back a layer of fear and control. And now there's a, there's a little bit more there. Like then, then there's going to be a next layer of fear and control. And it's like, well, what are the people around me thinking? And you know, it's like, okay, give them some grace. You cannot worry about them. You cannot control them. Your attention is just here on the tantrum. Can you bring more love into the tantrum? And so the more I really accepted myself for my reactivity to her reactivity, the more available I became to really get creative about what's needed here now, in this now moment.

Nina: Oh my gosh, I love this.

Annmarie: You know, as women, we know naturally how to do these things. We, we just do. We, we just know.

Nina: Yeah.

Annmarie: However, all this fear and all this conditioning gets in the way of our knowing.

Nina: Mm.

Annmarie: When we take the space to peel back those layers, then we access the knowing. It comes really, really quickly. So one example would be, you know, when my daughter was tantruming. I remember a time she was just out of control and she was crazy. Like she would throw chairs and. Mhm. I mean it was, it was crazy and it was scary and I had my other two Kids that I was tending to. And when I started to really master this skill, and I really want to emphasise to everyone listening in, this is a masterful skill. Like, it's not like we just do it overnight. It really requires like going to the gym many, many, many, many times till that muscle is built. When I really started to learn to master it and I could get out of my own reactivity, I was like, oh, she needs a hug right now. That's what she needs. Mhm. I want to ask her, do you need a hug? You know, because you can't just go give the hug. You gotta, you gotta get consent.

Nina: Yeah.

Annmarie: Ah, one time it was like, oh, I'm just gonna mimic her. Okay. I'm gonna like tantrum. I'm just gonna mimic her. And you know, what she needed was playfulness in that moment. Or what the moment needed was playfulness. And I, um, wrote about this in the book that you mentioned at the introduction. When I started to sort of mimic her, it's. It broke something in her. It brought playfulness into the scenario and m just started laughing and then I started laughing. And so there's no one size, there's no one answer to the tantrum. There's no one thing. But when you're attuned, the answers arrive. And you know that this is the tool that's needed in this now moment.

Nina: Yeah, beautiful. I was thinking about adding a bit of playfulness. I was struggling with my boys not getting dressed in the morning for school. And so, you know, that whole resistance to getting dressed, getting ready for school. And so I always would get their clothes and I'd put them on me. So put, you know, their undies on my head or put their pants on my arms. And you know, straight away that's like,

Annmarie: what are you doing?

Nina: That's not how you do it. You do it like this. And um, then straight away they'd grab the undies and put them on, you know, and do it all the right way. And it's just kind of shifting, isn't it? Seeing what's needed and shifting your reaction. Because yelling and getting cross and angry and frustrated is so easy. And that's our default. And it's being able to take that pause to then decide it's okay, you know, this is happening. What can I do? How can I, how can I help them with this situation? Yeah, very nice.

Annmarie: Yeah, I love that. You just, you take that pause and then you get curious like, well, okay,

00:25:00

Annmarie: what can I do? What are the other options here besides, um, punishing Yelling, whatever. And I love that you're playing with them. And that's what kids need. They need play, they need levity, they need lightness. And then. And that's how they connect with you. So then it becomes fun, and then you've created a beautiful connection. I love that.

Nina: Exactly. And I was talking to a girlfriend about this the other day, and she did it with her daughter. And her daughter came out the next day with her undies, um, on her head to try to trick her mum. It was very, very special.

Annmarie: So sweet and so fun, very cute. And I just want to say. And in two weeks, that strategy might not work.

Nina: Yes. Yeah, that's so true.

Annmarie: They might be on you and then you're like, oh, my God, now I gotta think of something new. Back to the drawing board. Exactly.

Nina: Right.

Annmarie: They get bored. You know, kids. Kids get bored and they want novelty and newness and.

Nina: Yeah. But then, you know, a, uh, year later, it might come back again, so just like fashion.

Annmarie: And that's the nature of kids. They're always evolving, they're always shifting. And you have to. That's why we have to be so adaptable as parents, because we have to adapt to whatever they're bringing to us. And we're constantly trying to get them to adapt to us.

Nina: Yes.

Annmarie: And they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not how it works here.

Nina: It's all about me.

Annmarie: It's all about me for sure.

Nina: Okay. Now, you often talk about the drama loop, and I'm just wanting to know what that is and how parents can begin to step out of that cycle when tensions rise.

Annmarie: Yeah. So when we're in fear, we hop onto something called the drama triangle, which is, um, a model designed by Stephen Cartman, a 19, ah,'50s psychologist. And the drama triangle has three roles. And the role is, um, hero, victim, or villain. They're called, you know, persecutor. You know, there's. There's other names for them, but hero, victim, and villain is how I refer to them. And when we're in fear, um, we develop strategies to try and, like, figure out how to get our need met. And, well, we develop these patterns as children so they come with us into adulthood. And our kids are developing them now as we parent them. And you'll. You'll try and do the best you can from fear to get the result you want. So, you know, one example might be, no, you can't have a cookie, it's time to go to bed. And they'll throw a tantrum. That would be villain. You Know like, oh, I want a cookie. You know, I kept cooking yesterday and my brother got a cookie and what's wrong with you? And you'll be, nope, you cannot have a cookie. Or you might be the parent who goes onto the drama triangle with them and goes into villain with them and starts yelling back at them. So that's an option.

Nina: Double villain.

Annmarie: If you're in. If you're present, you're not going to do that. You're going to stay centred and grounded and. And then they might go, but, mom, please, please, can I have the cookie? You know, and then they get into a little bit of a, yeah, victim, um, you know, role. And basically what they're doing is they're trying on all these roles to see which one works, which strategy works so I can get what I want. You know, the last one might be something like, okay, I promise I'll go to bed if you give me a cookie now. And one storey.

Nina: The hero.

Annmarie: The hero. Exactly right. And so you as a parent get to learn about yourself by seeing how you react when they pull out all these roles.

Nina: Interesting.

Annmarie: You're either going to jump on the drama triangle with them and go, you know, into your victim, villain, hero roles, or you're going to stay up there and be in an empowered state and hold your boundary. And this is how we develop our patterns. It's how we engage with our parents as we're growing up and how we jump on the drama triangle with them.

Nina: Oh, I love that. I've not heard of that before. Excellent. Thank you.

Annmarie: Really fun.

Nina: I'm going to be really, um, observing my boys now to see what, what is their default, what they go to. Very good. Okay, so as we get towards the end of our, um, chat today, can you suggest some simple daily practises that help parents integrate their mind, body and heart to create this more authentic connection, to be able to stay outside of that drama triangle.

Annmarie: Yeah. The most important practise I do is something I call a cheque in practise. And cheque in practise is super simple. It helps you mind, body, spirit. So you cheque in first with, um, the body. Start with the body and you really just start to tune into the sensations that are occurring on the body and get to know your body. Most of

00:30:00

Annmarie: us ignore the body pretty much and pay very little attention to it.

Nina: Yep.

Annmarie: We really want to get highly attuned to the body and the sensations in the body such that we're going, there's a tiny little pit in my stomach on the left side. That's a little contracted and that's how attuned you want to get to your body.

Nina: Wow, great.

Annmarie: Once you cheque in with the body, then you cheque in with the heart or the emotions. So you notice. And I've, I teach five core emotions. So is there anger, sadness, joy, fear or creative feelings here now? And often there's many of them that you start to get really attuned to what's present in the field right now. And then last we'd pick one thought. So the thought might be like, oh, my God, I have so much to do today, or I have to get peanut butter at the grocery store. Or, you know, Bobby, um, can't forget his homework, you know, whatever it is. But you're going to have just pick one thought. Because we think 60,000 thoughts a day. So let's not go down that loop.

Nina: Could be a long cheque in.

Annmarie: It could be a long cheque in. So the cheque in processes body sensations, feelings, thought, and that's it. And if you did that every day, it's a, it's a two minute practise maybe.

Nina: Fantastic.

Annmarie: And you start to get to know yourself better and know what's going on and bring your full awareness. And then for me, I start using the cheque in all day long at the red light, when my kids are coming home from school, when I'm sitting down to dinner with my husband, when I'm before this call, you know, constantly checking in to see, like, what is here now, what's actually here now. Because that's what I'm creating from, that's my foundation. So if I'm not aware of what's here, then some unconscious thing is going to be driving me and I better, I better get ready for the ride if I'm not the driver.

Nina: Yeah. And I guess part of that is accepting what's here and not trying to change it as well. Right?

Annmarie: 100% M. 100%.

Nina: Fantastic. Uh, so I ask all my guests this, Anne Marie, if you could share one small shift that has a big impact in transforming conflict into connection, what would it be?

Annmarie: Curiosity.

Nina: Oh, uh, yes, I love that word.

Annmarie: Yeah, yeah, it's really curiosity. Like, like you said with your boys, when they wouldn't get dressed, you got into a state of curiosity, like, what can I do now? What do they need? You know, like, what are the other options here?

Nina: Yeah.

Annmarie: And, um, when we open ourselves up to curiosity into that, to get to that place of wonder, all kinds of solutions arise. So put m the underwear on your head. You know, that's an option too.

Nina: Just do it. Yeah, I love that, uh, curiosity is in my definition of mindfulness that I share with all my clients as well. It's part of the big part about being a mindful parent. So that's fantastic.

Annmarie: I love that.

Nina: Okay, so where can listeners learn more about your work, your books, their perfectly imperfect family and Little Seeds journey, which sound amazing, by the way. And when can they connect with you online?

Annmarie: Oh, thanks for asking. So I'm sure you'll put it in the show notes. It's Annmarie Duresso me. It's not an easy thing to spell for people, but if you go to my website, you can take a free quiz. It's like, what's your conflict style? And I also have a free mini masterclass there that people can take. It's a 10 minute class, so those two things are available on the website. And then you can get to all the other places from there. So that's a good place to start.

Nina: Fantastic. Look, Annmarie, it has been so lovely talking with you tonight. Today, this morning, exactly all three. And I really appreciate you and I look forward to talking to you again in the future. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Annmarie: Thank you, Nina. Thanks for the work that you do and the parents you're supporting and the mom that you are.

Nina: Likewise. Thank you.

Annmarie: Thank you.

Nina: Thanks for listening to youo Calm Parenting Path. I am so glad you're here and I hope this episode gave you something useful to take into your parenting journey. If you'd like to dive deeper, sign up to my mailing list@mindfulparentinglifestyle.com for more tips and insights or book a free chat to learn how we can work together. And don't forget to hit follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode. I look forward to speaking with you next time on your calm parenting path.

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