Your environment either shrinks you or expands you!

We did it - we moved. And this episode is the real, unfiltered update: the "holy fuck, we're here" moments alongside the messier middle nobody shows you.

This week I'm getting honest about what it's actually taken to make this leap - the $800-a-week jump in cost of living, the old habits I've caught myself gripping onto as my nervous system tries to catch up, and holding space for Lach as he rebuilds his business from scratch in a new area while Eden finds her rhythm and safety in a new home.

I'm also pulling back the curtain on two investments that didn't go the way I hoped - losing over $20K on building plans we ultimately walked away from, and over $20K with a business mentor whose life and values I realised, five months in, I didn't actually want to replicate... Both cost me, and both taught me more than almost anything else has about listening to my own authority - including how leaning into my human design as a reflector (and what that means for how I make big decisions) has changed how I move now.

If you've ever looked at someone else's life and thought "that's just not possible for me" - this one's for you. Your environment either shrinks you back to what's safe and known, or expands you toward what you actually believe is possible for your family. 

Come sit with me in the in-between today.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello my love, welcome back to the Parent Educator Podcast. I hope you're all so well. I we're in the thick of it. T minus we'll be we'll be in our new home in two weeks, settling in, finding our bearings, really, you know, celebrating, taking this leap of faith. And with that has in the lead up, has come the tests and come the challenges around, you know, the belief that this is the right decision, the belief that it's all going to work out, you know, the stories and limitations of all the things that could go wrong. And there's been a lot of things that have come up, particularly in the last few days, to test that, to test our belief in ourselves and to test the belief that this is all going to work out. And I can honestly, how I have navigated this, and I think how we've navigated as a family has shown how far I've grown, come, come, come full circle, like can see the patterns that come up to test me and be able to really reframe them as an opportunity, like you know, to see every challenge as an opportunity to grow for of my growth of our growth, to see how you know, we're really can you hold this level of uncertainty and can you lean into surrender and trust that and see what conspires? And yes, I'm creating safety in my nervous system to surrender to that. However, my logical mind wants the evidence that everything's going to be okay. So it's it's like I I share this with you because honestly, like this is the whole point. The whole point is your evolutionary journey, and for you to be able to see every challenge as an opportunity for growth, every fear as an opportunity for you to see what it's trying to protect you from, and to and to see the growth opportunity on the other side, because fear it truly sounds like logic, and it's just your nervous system, the the stories that you've held, the beliefs that you've held that are trying to keep you in the comfort zone and safety. And honestly, this is truly the whole point. Like your evolutionary journey alongside your child, because the the generation that we are raising, they need to have self-trust. They need to be able to, you know, move with curiosity and belief in themselves and to have parents that are willing to lead that and do that as well, and not trying to be perfect at it or not, you know, not being willing to, you know, to fail or to fuck up or to, you know, make mistakes and see them as opportunities for growth. I just, it's the whole point. So thank you for being here. Honestly, the connections I'm making through the podcast. The podcast is honestly the space that I feel so safe to share. So, so safe to share. Like I feel like everything just channels through me here from my heart. It's probably the the space that I feel the safest to share, other than conversations with my husband. So I appreciate you all for being here. I appreciate you all, you know, those of you who reach out, who say that something's resonated, who who um who are coming into my world and you know, seeing that the the leaps of faith are opportunities for growth. And yeah, I just I'm so grateful. I'm so so grateful for you all being here and you know helping me create this safe space for us all because yeah, we get one chance to do this, and our kids are watching. So thank you for being here. This episode, I really want to go go into some things that I've been noticing. I've been connecting and working with quite a few women over the past couple of weeks. I've been completing some seeing your child audits where I pretty much provide families, mothers in particular, with reassurance and ways for them to see that they're already doing the most incredible things to support their child's learning, whether they're they're in school now, whether they're preparing them for homeschooling, whether they are homeschooling now, to let them see that, you know, the environments that they're creating at home, to be able to see their child in the real light that they are and how they're already supporting them. And honestly, the thing that I have, the major thing that I have seen, and it's honestly been my journey too, is that the real fear isn't homeschooling. The real fear isn't, are they going to fail? The real fear isn't, are they going to fall behind? The real fear isn't, do I know enough? The real fear isn't how are we going to make it work financially? The real fear isn't, you know, what if it doesn't work out? The real fear isn't socialization. The real fear when we, you know, sit back and really peel back the layers is can I trust myself? And honestly, like it just makes me realize how full circle my work is. Is this is the so much of the deep inner work that I was doing in the coming home collective when I was when I had the label for myself as the coming home coach. It's it's the deep I I had a program that I was having such incredible success with women in in seeing how important it is to honor themselves and come back to themselves. And one of my core programs was called Back to Self. And yeah, the core of what I'm still supporting families with is that, you know, can I trust myself? Because it truly is one of the deepest limitations, wounds that us women carry. And I'm going to unpack that today because it is a hundred percent being my journey, it's a hundred percent the journey that the women who come into my world are navigating. And so I want to provide this space for you if if it's what you're navigating to to allow yourself to be seen and held in this and know that you're not alone. Because, like I've said and I have mentioned in previous episodes, like women, us women, we are not born disconnected from ourselves. We're not born disconnected from our intuition, we're not born disconnected from that inner knowing. I I think where we are conditioned away from it, you know, our soul chose to come here at this time to have these experiences to be conditioned in different ways. And this whole journey is about coming back to that connection, to our intuition and trust in something bigger always supporting us. And, you know, to really think about it from the time that we were young, you know, we were taught to seek answers outside of ourselves. So much of this work that I do is to build back that trust within yourself so we're not seeking it outside of ourselves. And I get it, like, think about it. Parents knew best, teachers knew best, experts know best, doctors know best, the system knows best, you know, everyone has some type of authority over us other than us. Someone always seems to know better than us, and so slowly we stop listening to ourselves. You know, I see this so much now, not only in the education system, but in the medical system of, you know, how much we oh, I just I think of my a whole nother episode, but my whole journey around my menstrual cycle and my bleed and how I just instantly went on the pill from the age of 14 because I had I had very painful periods to the point that I was, you know, about to pass out. And it wasn't like there wasn't the question of let's look at the root cause, what's the stress in your life? What's the environment like? Like, what's your schooling experience like? Like how are you feeling? It's like, yeah, this is super common at this age. Here's contraception, it will get rid of the pain. Stay on it, it will also help you not fall pregnant. There was no questioning, there was no, yes, of course, you know best, you know what's best for my body. This disconnection starts so young. And the fact that, you know, we're taken there with our parents who then trust the system, trust like trust experts in their field. It's of course we don't ask questions because the ones that we trust the most, it's not ourselves, our parents, like they're they're leading with that too. So thinking of like so many experiences, how we've learned to outsource and not trust ourselves, it's like we stop asking, what do I know? What feels right within me? What is my body telling me? What is because our bodies are so innately wise, they're constantly communicating with us. Again, the core of the work that I not only do with myself and with my daughter, but what I do with clients is like, what is your body telling you? I have a client right now that I'm working with, and it's so interesting that she's she's noticing the mental load a lot more and how she wants to communicate her needs with her partner and yeah, really create more safety in leading her child's education. But what we've been working on is doing this from overflow and her prioritizing her needs more and you know what lights her up. And it was so interesting as we lent into this that she started to have will experience pain with ribs, like she's actually will well, lungs and around she's just recently was about to celebrate her son's birthday, and she coughed, I think she said, and literally was in so much pain around her ribs and lungs from coughing that she literally bruised the rib and had to have x-rays and was like pretty much bedbound. And it's just so interesting how these things come up when we're starting to, you know, look more internally, trying to make shifts. It's like the body saying, Yes, finally, you're going to slow down, you're going to listen, you know. And how many of us like disregard those whispers from the body? You know, because we we stop asking, what it what do I know? What feels right? And instead we ask, what should I do? Who can tell me what to do? Who has the answers for me? And I think school plays such a huge role in this, you know, not only from my own experience, but seeing how I was operating as a teacher in the system and how like I refuse to do anything that I did within there, knowing that, yeah, some things work, understanding children's learning styles and so forth. But I truly see the role of the education system and how how much it's about disconnecting you from your truth, listening to those inner nudges, like trusting your body. Because school rewards the correct answer, right? Not a range of answers, like your body might be telling you something different to what my body would be telling me if I was experiencing that, you know, and what you believe your body's telling you. School only rewards one correct answer, you know, the right path, the approved path, the measurable outcome. And so over time we stop strengthening our relationship with our own inner knowing and are constantly looking for the answers outside of ourselves. And I want to share this because, like, I am I am not here to sugarcoat this. Like, I have gone to the depths of my soul to see, to see some really frightening stuff of how I was operating and how I was projecting onto my daughter and how I could see patterns continuing to follow if I wasn't willing to change them, if I wasn't willing to shift my perspective, to trust my inner knowing and to surrender more instead of be constantly controlling and seeking answers outside of myself. And I really, yeah, I'm not here to sugarcoat it because until you have your awakening, until you are willing to choose differently, then the pattern's going to repeat and you're just going to be in this constant cycle of probably guilt and shame and you know, anger and frustration and wondering why you're feeling like this because you're so disconnected from your truth, from your inner knowing and what it's telling you that because you've been so far away from it for so long. And I'm gonna go into how this impacts our children because it truly the the reason this matters so much isn't actually about us, you know, it's about what we're modeling constantly because children learn self-trust, they learn to listen to their inner guidance, they learn to listen to their body from watching that happen within us. I was listening to something this morning, and what was it? And it hit me hard because I think about my early postpartum, and it was like children express what their mothers suppress, right? And it's so true, is like I could see my daughter being so expressive in the early years, and like you know, then looking for the answers of like, is this developmentally normal at this age to be having these many tantrums or to be, you know, crying at this time of the night, or to be screaming for hours on end, constantly looking for answers outside of myself instead of what is happening within me? And it was how much I was suppressing how I was feeling, how much I was suppressing what was going on in my mind, how much I was suppressing what was going on in my body, and they literally feed off our nervous systems and exactly they express it, and so they're so constantly co-regulating with us from the moment of conception to at least seven years of age. And like I said in other episodes, this time from zero to seven is not only when the brain's developing, but this is when the patterns, the programs, the brain is in that theta brainwave where that everything is truth. This is the programming, this is the conditioning, this is everything that we believe is true. So this is when I talk about is like we talk about being scared of indoctrinating our children or putting our beliefs on our children, but they're they're shaping beliefs everywhere they go. So if you're not willing to look at your beliefs and what you truly value, then they're going to get them from somewhere else and probably somewhere that you will not be will not be happy with as well. Like some something that they're not feeling safe in creating within themselves because they have free will to do so, and they're they're supported in that. So our children learn from watching us. Children learn confidence from watching confidence from a mother's nervous system who feels safe in herself and confident in her choices and confident in her decisions and confident in leading her life by her values and that inner knowing. Children learn their inner knowing from watching adults honour their inner knowing. And if we're constantly looking outside ourselves for permission, what are we teaching them? Right? We're teaching them that authority lives somewhere else, that somebody else knows better, that their truth isn't enough, and that their knowing isn't enough. And I can't preface enough, and I'm gonna go into the deeper spiritual Vedic teachings in this, and particularly in human design. But if you haven't noticed, something is shifting in the collective, like more people are waking up from the experiences that have happened over the past few years, something is truly shifting, and this is not by accident. Like there is a big shift in the collective because we're moving to a transitional phase where systems, structures, outsourcing, you know, credentials, they're they're not going to be valid in the future. Like people are not going to, they're not, they're simply just not trusting that anymore, you know. And I can sit here and tell you all my credentials and all the things I do, but you are drawn to me because of a feeling, right? It's not, oh, yes, there's a piece of you of like I want to know what she knows because she was an authority in the system and now she's doing it differently. But there's not like, oh, so what certification did she do in coaching? What certification did she do in mentoring following this? Like what certification, like, where's all the authority pieces now for what she's doing? So I know that she can help me. You're drawn here because there's a feeling, there's a connection to a feeling, and this is paving the this is this is what's going to move to in the future. This is the future. This is what people are going to be drawn to, especially with AI. People are so much more drawn to authenticity and real life connection. So if we're teaching our children that authority, authority lives somewhere else outside of themselves because we're not willing to pretty much walk through the fire to go to the depths of our soul to start to trust ourselves, then they're just repeating a pattern, and it's going to be so much fucking harder for them in the future to get to a point where they feel fulfilled, where they see opportunity, where they see, you know, challenges as an opportunity for growth, because they'll still be outsourcing and needing someone to tell them what to do. And I share this because this is so much of what I'm seeing in the women that I'm working with, and how this is attaching to all the work, all the progression that I've done myself. And I've been sitting with a teaching recently that has completely changed the way I see this, right? And I've spoken about this in other episodes, but it really is, it's like my progression of this work, taking leaps of faith, trusting, and relearning alongside my daughter. Is the teaching is attachment is the root of suffering. I think it's a um very um a Buddhism teaching is that the attachment is the root of suffering. And the more I reflected on this piece and this quote, the more I realized attachment and lack, the energy of lack and lack of self-trust, they're so deeply connected. Because when we don't trust ourselves, we attach. Again, this is the control piece that comes in. And so when we attach, we attach to outcomes, right? We attach to certainty, we attach to guarantees, we attach to specific results, we attach to timelines or things looking a certain way. We attach to needing things to work out in in a particular way for us to feel a certain way. And underneath all of that, we're looking for safety. And so when we can start to see where we're attaching and thinking that if I do this, it will create this result again. This is where structures, systems are going to all collapse because this is where authenticity and being your true self, this is what's going to thrive in the future, and this is already what people are drawn to. Right? This is the thing that is what is creating the suffering, what is creating the stories, this is what's creating the beliefs that we think we can't do this. That we believe the the that we believe the the main person in our child's life, we believe that we cannot lead this for them because of our own self-trust. And like I said, I see this, I'm seeing it all too too much now, and there's such a profound reason why so many people are being called to homeschooling, again, for the reason that I just said a parent wants to homeschool. I hear it all the time, I see it all the time. I'm currently working with families this way. They feel called to it, they know it in their body, but then the attachment starts, the control starts, the stories, right? Like, what if it doesn't work out? Like, what if it doesn't work? How are we going to make it work financially? What if they fall behind? What if they lose friends? What if they don't have friends? What if I can't do it? What if I'm not smart enough? What if I'm not good enough for them? What if I fail? And notice how quickly with those stories, the mind is then jumping to needing certainty, needing examples of how it's going to work out before actually doing the thing. Right? And honestly, knowing this and seeing this attachment. Attachment is the root of suffering because it really is. The more you attach, the more you suffer, the more you create the story, the more you don't do the thing, and you just stay in that loop of suffering because your inner knowing is telling you something, your intuition is telling you something. It's trying to speak up and you're pushing it away. And I've said so many times, I have pushed that inner knowing away, and it's only got louder and harder to ignore. And when it becomes harder to ignore, it really becomes explosive in our external world. And that might be our children suffering more. You know, I'm hearing of children having like severe anxiety issues, and you know, not even feeling coming home and not having anything to give because they've held it together all day in the school environment and the anxiety that's causing, or because we're not willing to look at ourselves and to build back that self-trust within ourselves. And I say this with so much love because you know, I have been there. I have been there deep in my stories, deep in the attachment to things, and it was fucking horrible. And it wasn't until, like I've shared on previous episodes, I had my wipe out. It felt like everything was crumbling around me. And I truly don't believe everyone needs to get to that point. I don't think we need to get to the point where we see our children completely suffering because at our expense, because we we're not willing to look at ourselves and shift and change. Like I truly don't believe it needs to happen. Sometimes it just needs a permission slip, whether that's what you see, something within me that is definitely within you, for you to go, fuck it. Let's do this and see what conspires. I really don't think you need to have your wipe out for things to shift. And so seeing that attachment is the root of all suffering, like the fact that I see this in my external world right now, particularly with my own family, my parents, you know, the people in the external world around me, like this distinction changed everything for me because there's a difference between desire and attachment. And desire, we all have desires, we're constantly going to have desires, and this is what makes us move forward. And your desire is to homeschool and lead your child's learning and see how much more joy and safety and freedom that creates in your family, right? And this desire is I know this is what I'm being called towards, I know that this is what's right. However, attachment says, I need this outcome to happen or I won't be okay. So whether that's I need to know that my child can sit down at a desk for three hours a day for me to know that it's going to work, that's attachment. And these are completely different energies. Again, your child will feel it, those around you will feel it, whether it's in your partner, you know, to lean on them to say, trust me in this, and you're supporting them in the trust piece, they're going to feel when there's attachment over desire and inner knowing. They're completely different energies. One expands, one contracts. One creates possibilities and shifts in perspective and seeing the wider picture of what is available when you choose this, and the other one creates fear and sits in fear. One trusts, one controls. And like I said, I've I can't go over this enough. And I know this is so relatable, so I have to keep sharing it. Every pivotal decision in my life this far has come with this. It's come with the polarity, the attachment, and the desire. The desire, leaving a long-term relationship, knowing that it wasn't for me anymore, knowing that we'd outgrown, and then the attachment of what if this is the wrong choice? What if it doesn't work out? Like, what if I'm never going to meet anyone else? What if I how much I hurt them, you know? Same with leaving education, leaving my career. That would the desire was there. The desire was for more that I could create more, that I could have more impact, not only in my life for myself and my daughter, but for others. And then there was the attachment of control. Well, if I don't have X amount of um clients or people validating this, then it's not going to work. Same with selling our house, something that we've invested so much money into. The desire was, I don't want the pressure. I don't want, I actually don't want to build a house. I want a life of freedom and without a mortgage. And, you know, the desire was there. And then the attachment was like, but this is what success looks like. What if you never find a home that feels good? All the stories. Same with starting my business, same with this move into state, same with when we had the desire to homeschool every single time. And the fear wasn't actually about the decision. The fear was about needing certainty, needing clarity, having the attachment before I took the action, before I moved. And maybe this is your attachment right now. You're holding on to the attachment of needing so much evidence of how this is gonna work out instead of taking the leap. Right? And then sometimes when we take the leap, we need someone to hold our hand through it. And I'm not, I'm honestly, every big leap I've taken, every big leap I've taken, I've had someone there to hold space for me as I've navigated that. And so with that, I think, you know, people misunderstand self-trust. Like, I really need to acknowledge this. Self-trust, it's not certainty. Self-trust is not knowing exactly how things will unfold. And self-trust isn't confidence all the time, let me tell you, it absolutely isn't. Self-trust is actually I can handle whatever happens because it's all for my evolution, they're all opportunities for me to grow. And it's knowing that even if things don't go to plan, you'll find your way. You'll be okay. You're going to figure it out because the desire is stronger than the fear. And it's trusting yourself more than you trust the outcome, it's trusting your desires, and they're there for a reason. They truly are. They're not just a little thing that floats into your awareness and then never comes back. They're there for a reason. It's calling you to more for a reason. And honestly, when you know that trusting yourself more than you trust the outcome is the goal, that changes everything. And like I said, like why I think this matters for our kids, for the future, is that I genuinely believe one of the greatest gifts that we can give our children is our own self-trust and building that back up, you know, get trusting ourselves and that we're here for an evolutionary journey. Not compliance, not perfection, not achievement. That's not the gifts we're here to give our children. It's self-trust. Because, like I said, the future belongs to the people who can think independently. They're the people, they're the kids, they're the generation that's going to thrive, they're the ones that are going to thrive now. The people who can adapt, the people who can trust themselves, the people that can see that there's a bigger force, a life force around you that is constantly wanting to support your desires. It just needs to, it needs to see that you can hold them and that you're willing to see every opportunity, every challenge as an opportunity for growth. And that means people who can trust themselves, people who can create, people who can lead. And that starts with us, the parents. I remember leaving school, like I said, as a teacher, thinking I'd failed, I'd failed the kids, and then it dropped in that it starts, like I said, I need to work with the parents. How can I develop a nervous system regulation program if I'm dysregulated with myself? It starts with the parents, knowing so much about co-regulation, knowing that our kids express what we suppress, knowing that that was what I was here to do, that what I was here to serve. And, you know, I have shifted with the coming home coach to now the parent educator movement and the parent educator mentor. And honestly, it's just full circle. It is full circle. Homeschool is the doorway to your expansion. And when you expand and learn to trust yourself, watch what happens with your child, watch what happens with your family, watch what conspires in your life. It is full circle and it starts with us. So, like I was just saying yes, homeschool is the doorway. Maybe the question isn't can I trust myself to homeschool? Maybe the question is, can I trust myself? Because once you answer that, once you see that, once you shift that within you, everything else changes. And honestly, like I said, like this is the work. I honestly think this is the work. I know it's the work because it's it is what has transformed my life. Not homeschooling, not a curriculum, not the right program, not education. The return to self and self-trust, and seeing that there is always a bigger energy, a life force behind you that is pushing you to your desires, and it is constantly there to support you. And it's helping our children grow up, never losing that and building that back up within themselves. Right. That is my download for today. And like I said, it's it just came through today because of what I have been noticing and the women that I'm working with and the families that I'm working with, and honestly, just a reflection of my past self of what I have navigated and moved through. So honestly, I am. If you can't tell, I'm so lit up to support families with this. I'm so lit up in already supporting families with this. Like, because what is truly available for you when you're willing to work on building back your self-trust and that inner knowing and following those desires to see what can happen for you and to see how for so many of us we've been controlled not only by our attachment to things, but the limitations that our mind makes, the can the stories that our mind makes. And honestly, I get it, like I see it, and it's so much of it is to do with school and that journey there. So thank you again. Like I said, I'm so grateful for you for being here. I mentioned at the start of the episode, I have been completing some seeing your child audits where I just provide families with an opportunity to see how much you're already doing, to see the perspective shift in how you can start to trust yourself again. And with that, I am moving into offering clarity sessions where we can formulate your next step, what feels right for you, to name the desire, name what we want life to look like, and to start building that self-trust back up within you. So if that sounds like you're something you're ready to lead, lean into and really shift the trajectory, not only for yourself but your family, that's where I suggest you start. I have a couple of spaces left for my one-on-one mentorship, and I've got some other really amazing things in the works, but yeah, the one-on-one is where we where we move quickly in yeah, creating these desires, a reality, and seeing that your fears are just limitations of the mind, and again, attachment, it is the root of all suffering. So, thank you for being here. I love what we're building here. Like I said, I feel so lit up to share here. The community that we're creating is incredible. So, thank you again for tuning in. I love to hear from you. Reach out if something landed for you today. If you want to step into a clarity session, you want an audit completed, or you're ready to move into just getting it done for you. The one-on-one mentorship is the space, and like I said, I have two spots available for moving into next month. So, six weeks, we go deep and watch what transforms. Honestly, this stuff lights me up, and yeah, it's been the work that's transformed my life. So, next week, I'm actually, yes, I've got guests coming on the podcast. I am so excited. Next week, we're gonna have I'm have two interviews next week, so they'll probably be the next couple of episodes, especially while the moves are happening. So I think I'm recording them yep early next week. So they'll be the next couple of episodes. I'll probably do an extra one to just give you an update of how we're going, the navigation of it all. But yeah, it's happening. There is big shifts happening internally, lots of duality of emotions. Honestly, I truly am so excited. Like, I truly know that this move is going to be huge for the embodiment of this work, what I'm here to serve and do. And like I said, I it doesn't make logical sense. I do not have a plan or how it's gonna all work out, and so to be able to, you know, hold myself in that and hold my husband through that, he's holding me too, but the logical mind for him, it has been such a growth period in our relationship, not only for ourselves, but side by side and parenting at the same time. But yeah, this is the work, guys. This is the work, and you know, what I say is just fuck it and go all in and see what happens, hey. But yeah, I'll give another update and some incredible guests coming on the podcast over the next couple of weeks. Again, thank you for being here. I love you all so much, and I will speak soon.