Transcript

Tanya (00:00.142)
Hi everybody! How are you? Let me just bring on my partners in crime tenure.

Tanya (00:13.454)
you

Tanya (00:24.11)
Beautiful.

Yeah, there's Tanya. Hi Tanya! Hello! How are you? Good, thank you. It's the first time I'm seeing myself in my camera this morning. So yeah, hopefully I look okay. beautiful. You see we're all both snuggling up. It's a cold melon. It's so cold. Yeah. Is it saving energy? Yeah, well, where I am.

It's kind of rainy and grey and yeah, just we're starting to feel the real autumn weather at the moment. 100 % here as well. And everybody's got colds, including me. Oh no. So I'm fine, but my nose is a blocked, so if I sound a bit funny. I have taken some cold and flu so I should be

How are you? Yeah, yeah, I'm good. I'm good. I'm busy week, but yeah, glad we're sort of coming towards the end and still have bits and pieces on over the weekend, but it's a bit of a slower pace and yourself. Yeah, yeah. Yes, I spent a busy week like I said, a busy week. And yeah.

I just, always find school term times quite busy and quite discombobulating on the old nervous system. But it's also, you know, it's really cool to see, you know, some of the things that the kids are doing and stuff. But they kind of, as you, I'm sure you know, there's an advocacy side of things can be a bit more encompassing. so, yeah, so.

Tanya (02:22.626)
I think it's nice to take a moment to chat with you and take a breath. It always is really lovely to catch up with you too. I was sitting last night thinking about what we should call this podcast episode that we've been talking about doing today. And first of all, I was thinking about pressure and I was thinking about

like the demand side of things. But then I was, the reason I thought, what matters most is because it's, for me, I think I had an experience the week before last, which I shared with Tanya as well, where I got kind of all caught up in.

the pressure of our world and I started to forget the work that we've been doing in our family and it happens to me all the time. I think it's quite common, know, to reduce those pressures and to celebrate, you know, ourselves and our wins and sit with those.

rather than pushing through. And to give the specific example, my daughter had been doing really a lot of extra stuff and she has chronic fatigue and she'll be doing rehearsals and all sorts of things. And I kind of started to take back into myself that sort of conditioning that we have to kind of push on through and keep going.

you know, yes, you've done well, but come on, there's more to do, which is very much my upbringing. And it's been really, you know, it's been a big journey to change that and absolutely fundamental, the important. But I was shared with Tanya that during that process, I forgot.

Tanya (04:47.052)
that my kid was this person who was doing so amazingly in comparison to what she'd done last year for her in terms of her energy levels. And she was really starting to get out and make some friends and do some different things and really like, you know, for herself feeling like she was coming back to the world from burnout. And then I found myself putting pressure on her and I saw her little face crumble and it broke my heart.

And I was also talking to some clients at Bide who a lot of my clients have had that kind of pressurized parenting in their childhood. And often that's what leads to them being a burnout or drinking or using another coping mechanism to be able to keep pushing through because we've never...

because our childhood and our generation's childhood and the generations before us, we were forced to push through and the impact that that has on all of us now kind of coming into midlife or being a midlife. And I just see so many burned out people who are using things like alcohol or, you know, other, other.

other coping mechanisms to help themselves continue to force through. that's one of, so I was thinking about that. It kind of broke my heart a little bit last week. And we said, we might come and talk about this kind of area, because it's something I think that's very common.

parents of neurodivergent kids. Oh, it's so common. And I think not even for parents of neurodivergent kids, you know, I think it's just part of human nature. Sometimes I was thinking of an example here, it's not burnout related, but I kind of feel like it's sort of like

Tanya (06:56.816)
It's kind of related to sort of like why this happens. So my eldest has always been incredibly tall for their age. And so when they were one, people thought they were two. When they were two, people thought they were three. You know, all throughout their childhood, like someone actually offered them alcohol at 13 because they thought they were 18.

They've always had, like, been really tall. But also, I think, you know, sometimes when you are an autistic person, or autistic young person, you can be a lot more sort of serious about things, and that can sometimes make people think that you're a bit older too. And even though in my brain I knew their actual age,

I still found myself sometimes expecting more of them because of like my perception or like of what I was seeing in front of me. And I think that that can be something that happens to parents as their children come out of burnout too, because our self, the identity of our child, we

we think back to before they were in burnout and we're automatically sort of just comparing or expecting that level of...

capacity or that person to be who our children are now. And I don't think we do it consciously, but I think it's like an unconscious thing sometimes. And then we have to of stop ourselves and go, hey, wait.

Tanya (08:59.236)
they're no longer that person and where they are at the moment is actually amazing to where they were a year ago. But I think it's part of that grieving process too, where you're having to let go of like not just our identity as parents and the things that also like grieving and working through that sort of like productivity culture.

the worth that we assign ourselves depending on how much we can do. But then also like the shifting identity of who our children are. And that kind of comes into expectations as well. I don't know, am I making sense? Totally, totally. You're totally making sense. I was thinking, know, similarly, not just for children as well, but for us as adults.

You know, I see most people who come to me and I imagine a lot of people who come to you are in some form of burnout, be it carers or some other kind of burnout. Most people are usually neurodivergent who would come to us, imagine, because if they're children, then it's more likely that they will be. For me, it just seems that that's the type of crowd that I attract. But there's so much.

like I hear people, people go back to drinking a lot of the time because they're not satisfied with their body's brain's performance and drinking allows us either to shut down the dissatisfaction or push through the exhaustion and it's a really interesting thing that people don't talk about or don't think about with regard to alcohol but

when like you're talking about the children's identity and I think it's very entwined in our identity as well and because of course we still have much as we want to separate and not be that parent you know and this is the constant work of you know it's not a reflection of you and your children

Tanya (11:18.945)
But there is this, I think there's this crazy cultural expectation that we will internalize that like your children are a direct reflection of you and your worth as a person by how well your children are doing. that the current, know, they're a whole human being who's being influenced by

things sometimes outside of our circle of influence. And like as they grow up, they're exposed to more of that and they make their own decisions. We can help them sometimes and give them advice, but sometimes with, especially with our PDAs, where autonomy is really important, as much as you

would like to help or guide or you have to come to this place of accepting that they are their own human being. exactly. It's a tricky one, isn't it? Because it's also, think it must be anxiety driven, right? Yeah. The need to control, like if I can control, it stops feelings that you've got no control. There's no...

It gives us the illusion of control, think, sometimes. And underneath there's that fear that, you know, there's actually no control. I know, I know, like, I was actually thinking about this the other day. I heard someone say something and I was like, yeah, that is actually like super scary. Like if you're driving on the road.

The only thing that stops you from a collision with somebody else is the white line in the middle of the road, right? And yet we think we have so much control. And there are so many things in our lives that we wish we can control, that we wish that we could have control over. And when it comes down to it, we don't. But somehow or other I feel like we've

Tanya (13:42.097)
been kind of tricked into thinking we do. Oh, absolutely. If I stress out enough or I have enough anxiety about this particular thing or I try harder, I'm just going to be able to control absolutely everything in my life or control what happens to the people around me and... By myself.

and myself and a lot of times.

we just don't have that level of control that we thought that we did. No, 100%. And I think it's quite, I think it's quite shocking when you start to realize, because it's kind of like one of the lies of like the, societal conditioning, I think, I don't know, because there's a lot of it, like, I think upbringing wise, you know, and I hear a lot of people talking.

Like if I'm not worrying about this hard enough, it's, you know, something bad's going to happen. You know, because I'm not giving it my hello. I tend to say hello to everybody who joins us. Hello. But you know what I mean? It's like that if I'm not if I'm not doing the due diligence of concerning myself with the thing, it'll be my fault if it goes the way I didn't want it to go. Oh, 100 percent.

Yeah. And it's such subtle messaging as well, right? I've shared this before, but I'm not on the podcast, but I think I have like on my social media. When I was like a really young mum, before I knew that my children were autistic, I saw this meme on Facebook and I thought, wow, this is just so inspirational. And it said, I am like

Tanya (15:45.681)
one goal in life is to raise children who do not have to heal from their childhood. And I thought, yes, this is like the pinnacle of good parenting, right? And so I, I like, I tried really hard to be that mum. And then of course, you know, things happen. And when my children were sort of hit the teenage years or just before all this, you know, all the

sort of mental health challenges started and things just started unraveling. And I must admit that, and I feel really embarrassed about this, but for a while, I really struggled to get help or get support from outside of myself because I was like, well, I'm not living up to this.

thing that I'd set myself as the gold standard of parenting. And I think also just in my childhood, somehow developed this belief that if your children need therapy or you need therapy or support, that that means that you're weak or you're doing it wrong. And, you know, in that moment or that

that sort of experience really made me realize that as much as I had really tried my best to give them a good stable childhood, I had no control about whether or not they were going to have to heal from that or not. Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting, isn't it? That sort of... It's almost like somehow or other we've been... I don't know whether it's so...

It feels like there's a shame, there? Like it's our fault if we haven't done things perfectly. It must be an us issue if things aren't right. And I guess it sounds like it comes from the childhood stuff, doesn't it? Where it lets us feel that we have some control again. You know, if it's an us problem, then we can resolve it, maybe, or not.

Tanya (18:12.334)
Yeah, but yeah, I'd say it's so, I totally hear you. And I think it's very common as well that like I'm going to talk to a friend of mine who, about a therapist, but

and she was like, you know, I don't want to go and do, I don't want to do that. I don't want people to think that there's something wrong with him. Like as in like, you know, faulty. It's very, yeah. It's a bit, you know, again, corresponding it with anything that we're doing, our society's kind of convincing us that there's something that we're the problem. Like, again, if you start drinking because you're

you know, life's become difficult for you to manage. And all of a sudden it's again, people want to seek help because it's something to be ashamed of. It feels like it's something to be ashamed of. Is it something, you know, it's a flaw in you. You're not this perfect person. And yet, there's no perfect people. no. And I think that's also probably like shows up and that with people who come and work with you.

that they might have to work through.

getting past some of that shame to even just admit to like, I have an issue here and I would like some help or I'd like some support with that. And I think it's the same in parenting, you know. A lot of like one of the biggest barriers I think for anybody getting help is that feeling of shame, like I'm not good enough. Or should be able to, I should know.

Tanya (19:59.346)
You know, and it's, when it comes to things like drinking or parenting or just life, it's, I've come to think of it more like we move throughout life and our experiences shape us, but we also, we don't like arrive here with just like 100 % knowledge on everything. We gather that over time. We gather tools over time.

We try things out and go, well, actually, that's for me, or this has worked and it doesn't work anymore, or this is something I'm going to carry with me for a while, and this is useful. Rather than I am this person who knows absolutely everything and the whole world and

everything kind of rests on my shoulders and whether or not I can control everything or whether I know everything. perfectionism again, isn't it? Like if we show a sign of weakness, then we might get hurt. People might take less of us. Yeah.

Bless us little humans. Yeah. Yeah. I read this really interesting article about masking recently. it was really interesting because a lot of people have this idea that masking is like this one sort of like layer that you can take off your mask or

But she was talking more about it in forming in relationship with other people and how it's more kind of like multi-layered. Sometimes we don't know who the real us is and who the mask is and that takes a while to work through. It's a bit of an ongoing process. Life work. Yeah. For sure.

Tanya (22:16.358)
Yeah, it's very interesting. I've been noticing a lot, we'll be talking about in our group a lot, the sort of desire to always want to be telling a upbeat story, rather than the desire, know, rather, you know, feeling like we have this idea that when we're talking about something where we're feeling sad or it's hurting us or we're not happy with the situation, that it's, that it's complaining and moaning and whinging and

And people don't like that. And so, you know, I see so much masking in that area because we want to be perceived of as being good and nice and likeable. And often you hear people's reactions, can be, or, you know, that person was always whinging or that person was. And so people are like, I've got to be really careful, you know, what I say so that

I don't get judged to be this thing that our society doesn't like.

And it's, I could see it's so interesting thinking about growing up with, you know, how, you know, judgmental families can be about other people, you know, behind closed doors and pretending to be like, hello, and then behind closed doors, oh, she was a bit of a whatnot. And then, and then you wonder, well, why are we so scared of people seeing, you know, who we really are? But if you, if you grew up with any of that kind of hypocrisy going on in your head,

Which I don't for me because I always really confused me as a child of family. My family were Catholics and I always found that very confusing with like quite religious people being quite judgy. It didn't seem to make sense to me. So like, well, no wonder if you're so, you know.

Tanya (24:17.65)
Because we've seen what happens behind closed doors. Yeah. absolutely. I I seen, I saw big difference in that sort of judgmental thinking from my country of origin compared to where I live now. Yeah. You know, I grew up in like really conservative South Africa and there was a lot of that, and especially like growing up in a religious sort of

household as well. But then moving here to New Zealand, I mean, we still have that, but it's a lot more relaxed. think people are just a little bit more like, well, you know, yeah. I mean, there's still that, but I think compared to my experience as a child, or maybe I've just got into the stage of my life where I'm like, well, I actually don't really care. Yeah. And you probably don't.

do that in your home and so you probably your friends probably aren't people who do that so much because you don't like it. you're probably don't surround yourself. I always find it surprising when somebody you're introduced to like people who you know things and people who do behave like that again. You're like my gosh that does still exist. Yeah. It's very very interesting to me when I do encounter people who

say one thing and then like or react to a person and then that person leaves and then you know they they turn towards you and yeah and say something totally different and always makes me wonder like okay so if you find it so easy to talk about somebody else yeah behind behind their back like what are you gonna say about me when we finish this conversation right

It's dishonesty, it? Yeah. Dishonesty. It's lack of authenticity, I think, as well. think as a lot of us will be like, it's quite problematic. It is. is. Yeah, it's very interesting. Yeah, go on. No, no, Karen. No, I was just going to say I had a conversation with somebody about schooling to do with one of the schools I was working with, not not a normal school.

Tanya (26:43.984)
And the lady who I spoke to kind of downright lied to me and said that something had happened, which it hadn't. And after that, now I'm just like, whenever I speak to her, just like, I don't know if I can believe it.

Yeah, it's interesting, it? Because again, that's it's that masking, isn't it? I think like you're saying, it's of course we mask when we see these things happening, that that people say one thing and then they're, you know, they're really something else. It's like the

It makes it feel quite unsafe, I think, sometimes in the world. It's like, who can I trust?

It's interesting. And I think too, if you've got a level of hyper vigilance from your childhood as well, they can really feed into that a lot. You know, my reality of growing up with a parent who, you know, had a lot of trauma,

undiagnosed neurodivergent person and it was very difficult to judge when it was safe and when it wasn't because it was really unpredictable. I don't know if you ever

Tanya (28:21.117)
quite are able to move past that when you've had that as part of your upbringing or your early childhood. I agree. And I think it's unsurprising. People would be surprised, I think, how many people do have those sort of experiences as part of their childhood and how, you know, that level of...

I always find it when people are talking about things like people pleasing in a derogatory fashion, which I find happens a lot, as if it's like a sign of weakness rather than a sign of safety. It's just like a safety response to environments. They're like, know, when people, for example, a lot of people I work with and myself feel other people's experiences through our bodies, it can be very draining and exhausting.

But again, it's that safe, exactly what you're talking about. At some point in our lives, it wasn't safe for us to not know the mood in the room. We had to kind of be able to do that in order to keep ourselves safe from being told off or anything else. So of course we do that. And then just to say to people, well, know,

you need to not do that. Well, it's like you can't just not do it. You've got to save, you know, you've got to feel safe enough to not do it. You know, you don't even realise you're doing it half the time. Absolutely. And, you know, it really upsets me when I hear people say that people pleasing is manipulative. Yeah. Or that you're doing it to try to manipulate people in your favour.

I kind of feel like manipulation has like a thought process behind it or there's like a different intention to what's happening for a lot of people when we are people pleasing, which is very much a feature of safety. And thinking about that with the little PDAs as well, like for me, that would

Tanya (30:42.578)
really, I remember when professionals were first trying to get diagnosed with Daisy and they'd be like, oh, she's still, you know, grandparents or, or she's just being manipulative. I'm like, she really isn't. I really don't think she's being manipulated. Yeah. But what they mean is, think it, I think it's a power control thing from adults often in that circumstance, because they're not compliant.

Yeah.

you know, they're not compliant. Yeah. And, you know, in that lens as well, often that level of non-compliance is seen as they don't respect you. Yeah. Or as disrespect. And actually, it's got nothing to do with respect or like non-respect. Yeah. It really has a lot more to do with like

safety behavior or protective behavior rather than respect. You you can respect somebody, you can respect another person and whether you react from that sort of protective part of yourself and it comes out in aggression, rudeness, it's got actually nothing to do with respect. No, exactly right. Respect is a funny word, isn't it? It is.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like you say with the people pleasing, we get so cross with ourselves, I think, people pleasing behaviour, which I like to call fawning behaviour, it's, none of it is being done, in my opinion, on the conscious level. Yeah. You know, and it's being done because we don't feel safe to do otherwise.

Tanya (32:42.703)
absolutely. And I still catch myself like this has been a work in progress for me to like.

re- I don't know, not reprogram, but I help myself to feel safe enough in a relationship not to born. Yeah. And I still catch myself sometimes doing something or acting in a certain way and or feeling like I need to say something or act in certain way and and then

recognizing myself just before I do it and go, okay. What's behind this behavior? But you can't always catch it. But I am, I'm starting the process of learning how to support myself through that a little bit more. But I really do feel like for a lot of us, it really depends on your capacity and how safe you feel in the moment, right? If your capacity is zero, it's so much easier to just go,

down the well-oiled route of least resistance, then constantly having to work on yourself and trying to stop yourself and put in that work so that you don't use that particular way or that particular survival route. That's exactly right. And that's what, you know, it's so...

important even though, you know, we talked about it a couple of weeks ago, didn't we? That's the sort of self care, the idea of self care. It's like taking it back to its true meaning and that, you know, we can't expect ourselves to.

Tanya (34:38.228)
We can't expect ourselves, our brains to be working to their optimum capacity when we are depleted and under-resourced and exhausted. you know, it's just, it's impossible to expect our thinking brain to be making all these great resourceful decisions when we're in distress, basically.

Yeah, you know, sometimes self care is survival, right? Like what's going to help me survive this next moment until I'm able to have a bit more capacity so that I have more resources to then make the next decision for myself and what's going to be supportive in that moment. I'm a big believer of like when we can obviously when we do have the capacity to

Instead of like.

you know, feeling under pressure from some sort of external source of like, you need to take care of yourself too. If you have the capacity to just stop in the moment and say, what is the next caring thing that I can do for myself? Or what is the most caring thing I could do for myself in this moment? And it might be, you know, canceling something or it might be

I've just got to get through this so I can get to the other side and then I can deal with it then. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny, isn't it? Because we were always trying to give ourselves, know, I should go for a walk or, you all these kind of things. And I think you're right. It's like sometimes it's sometimes as well. It's for me, I think it's getting a bit out of resistance to, you know, often I'll be making up all these stories in my head.

Tanya (36:34.983)
which is probably what led to me having that situation with my little one last week, you all the stories in my head about, you know, what this means about me and all this kind of like, you know, these negative core beliefs that kind of sit at the bottom of all of this stuff. You know, I'm a bad parent or what this means about us and, you know.

Most of time nothing means anything about anything, right? Yeah. Yeah. So just major doesn't mean anything. Yeah, you know, and I think that's one of the core things about like rehumanizing parenting for ourselves is like realizing that we are just two humans in relationship with each other.

ourselves and our children and sometimes we're going to get it right and sometimes we're not. And I don't think we're ever going to know everything that we need to know about relationships because they're constantly changing and we are constantly changing. you know, to be able to know that repair with our children is always possible. Yeah. And repair with ourselves and

that sometimes, even though it's not the best outcome in that particular situation, we are still just trying our best with the capacity and the resources we have in that particular moment.

And I also think that one of the most beautiful things that you can have in relationship, even though it feels really horrible at the time, is that, you kind of you've gone through something really sticky and horrible and hard and you might not have behaved particularly well. And you've and then you've repaired and you've rebuilt. don't know why, but for some reason for me, right at this moment.

Tanya (38:45.074)
And I'm talking relationships with adults as much as myself and children. There's something about the repaired relationship that feels truer even than the relationship before. The rupture happened like it feels stronger and more.

real. I 100 % agree. You know, before we had burnout, you know, my children went into burnout and we had this I was such a

Tanya (39:26.492)
I mean this in terms of like, when I say fragile, I mean this in terms of like, you know, when you have a solid structure, and then you put like, say, like nitrogen on it, and then it kind of like any little thing just like, even though it looks strong, every little thing is just gonna like break it into like a million pieces, right? That's how I felt about myself as a parent.

any little thing that I would, and RSD totally plays into this as well, but like any little criticism or thing that my child said to me, automatically I went to, I'm a bad parent, or I'm not living up to that core belief that I had about parenting. And then we went through this rupture and I sat in rooms where I

my children talk about how hurtful some of the things was that I'd done or how damaging their childhood was for them. I had to learn instead of just like reaching for defensiveness and saying, it wasn't like that, or I'm just doing my best or just that kind of thing. had to actually sit with that and listen and

figure out ways that I could repair with my children coming from that. And now, if they said to me something about like, well, you you did this wrong, or I didn't like that, or that felt awful. I definitely don't reach for that like, my goodness, I so much shame on the person. I'm more like, okay, they had a point there. Or...

Yep, we can have this conversation and we can still be OK after this conversation, right? Yeah, I think it's a really great thing to demonstrate to kids too. Because I think growing up for me, when ruptures happened, everyone pretended nothing happened. Get up the next day and we're like,

Tanya (41:42.516)
I was crying yesterday and this was really awful. Did that happen? don't think it doesn't feel like that. I think it's the beautiful thing about raising autistic children or PDA children, right? Who just will not let it go until it feels prepared for them. And I think that that is just one of the beautiful gifts of authenticity our children give us. Because they would get with deaf

not washed in my family 100%. But I do, when I was growing up, there definitely was this, everybody had to be happy all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we just don't talk about hard stuff or yeah. It's so damaging, I think that, and I talk about that when I'm from the perspective of working with adults. We've been talking about it in my group this week, this like,

this idea that we can't, that if we say anything about anything on the other side of the feeling world and happy happy joy joy, that it's, we should be slightly ashamed of it's something to be ashamed of. And I think that's really part of our cultural upbringing is everyone's, you know, fine. absolutely.

You know, I think you've had the similar sort of training with me, with me about like, you know, the emotions coaching parent and I mean, are parts of there that I find problematic for raising neurodivergent children. the number one lesson I learned from doing their training was around feelings and was about like the feelings that feel safe for us and the feelings that we've

really struggled to be with because of our upbringings and the way that we've been taught to see those feelings. And that was such a pivotal part of me being able to change my parenting approach to support my children. Yeah. And that not finding solution. remember because Tanya and I both did tuning into kids and tuning into teens.

Tanya (44:10.908)
Yeah, great program. But I really remember that, that, you know, whole thing about not trying to fix because I always remember growing up and I know with a lot of friendships as well, when you share a problem, people are trying to fix your problem for you or give you solutions. yeah, and really what people want when they share their problem with you is for you to sit next to them and say, that sounds really tough. Yeah, really hard.

And I just remember that change for me was like, really? People don't want a solution? Surely they want my expertise, right? It was such a confronting part of that process for me because I didn't think of myself as a dismissive parent at all. And then I realized just how dismissive I was being.

You know, I was the parent, I was like always trying to fix things, always trying to find a solution, always trying to get through that difficult moment to the happiness. Or, you know, trying to turn this negative situation into a positive as quickly as I could. Right? And then the whole idea of like, no, we're not going to fix this, we're just going to sit with us.

my word, that was like months and months and months of learning for me. Yeah. And I think it's still a big one, isn't it? For a lot of us and in adults particularly, it's like, you don't want to, you don't want me to fix this. You want me to sit in empathy with you. And because we don't learn it, we don't know how to do it for ourselves either, right? So. Yeah.

And again, that's another reason why people end up using coping mechanisms and because no one showed us that we can do this. can be with ourselves in our distress. We don't have to distract ourselves from it. Okay, it can be a bit upset and sad sometimes. Yeah, mean, a huge part of that learning for myself was around self-compassion.

Tanya (46:23.798)
Yeah, and learning how to practice active self compassion. That's been huge for me as well. And I almost feel like self, self compassion is more important than self care. Yeah, I agree. I totally agree. I totally agree with you. Yeah, because self compassion is self care. You know what mean? Like the moment that you tell yourself, there's a saying I love and I use it a lot. It's like, you know, when you're loving yourself, not

to get, you know, like say for example, your child is sick and you don't love them or care for them in order for them to get well. You love and care for them because they deserve to be cared and loved, cared for and loved. And that's the difference I think with ourselves is like bringing that love, like unconditional in all our messy humanness when we fuck up, when we...

make mistakes, like, and it's the hardest thing, I think. it is because of course the cultural narrative is like, you feeling sorry for yourself here, right? Yeah. And no, you're not, you know, you're actually just treating yourself like you would treat any other person that you loved and cared for. You know, and we don't often have one of the biggest learnings there as well for me is that

I don't actually have to wait for somebody else to say something kind to me or to be there for me. I can't be that person for myself. Yeah. And I think the problem with CPTSD, which a lot of people have, a lot of my clients have, and I think a lot of neurodivergent people have as well because of the sensitivity anyway, along with the fact that we don't fit the neurotypical mould.

It's like that we, you know, we've we've we we're always looking for something outside of ourselves to make us okay, because we've been, you know, kind of believe that we're faulting in some way. And so we couldn't possibly we couldn't possibly be the solution. Yeah. And that's not dismissing all the, you know, knowing systemic stuff and knowing that we're not solution to everything, but we're a solution.

Tanya (48:49.555)
You know, one of the solutions can be like not to be being so hard on ourselves for being a human being who's fallible and still learning, you know? Yeah, I love I think you shared this on your stories the one time was that our whole idea of that it's not grief that's the problem. It's the it's the split that happens between

It happens in us. The part of us who is grieving and then the part of us that's trying to tell us that the grieving is not okay.

And I think that self-compassion is bringing those two parts together. Yes. Yeah.

Tanya (49:45.559)
And really, you know, circling us back to where we started with this like, what matters most? You know, what you're talking about there is like coming back to our common humanity, our fallibility, all of us. And again, you know, with the masking thing, it's like nobody's perfect. We're all silly fools. Yes.

Tanya (50:16.249)
Yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah, yeah. And I think when we learn to internalize that, lessen ourselves, and it's easier for us to be with our children. And to make it safe for them to actually be their whole selves with us. And also to remind us that, you know,

when we're going, course, like your dear child said to you, And for that to be okay, for that to feel safe and okay for them, you know? And I think that your daughter being able to say that to you shows just how much trust there is in your relationship with her that she's able to verbalize that to you. Yeah, it's so, yeah, thank you for saying that because I think it's true. I think also, you know, it's that

Tanya (51:17.27)
Sometimes we need to course correct. Yeah. Sometimes we're like, we're going off. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Someone's got to go, on. Yeah. And, you know, like, I think that sort of comes between the, that sort of definition of like guilt and shame, right? Like guilt is like,

I did something wrong. I did something that hurt somebody and now I need to do something to repair versus shame. my goodness, I did this so I'm a really awful person.

So true, so true. And I think that interaction with your daughter also just shows, know, relational safety in action because, you know, people often think relational safety is all just like, you know, soft, soft place and, you know, just like the really nice stuff. But I think I have this theory that when our children show up,

things or advocate or say things to us that sometimes are hurtful. Yeah. It's them demonstrating. 100%. That. Oh, my friend, Ali. Lovely to see you. Lovely to see you, Thank you for your comment.

But yeah, I just think that that's a beautiful example of relational safety between you and your daughter, because, you know, when you are feel like you're in a safe relationship, then you are able to let the mask down. That's right. able to show that. Right. Things or say the hard things to people. And you can't do that in a relationship that doesn't feel safe. No. And funny enough, when you're saying that, I'm thinking back to when Daisy went into burnout, you know,

Tanya (53:28.374)
in after COVID. And I wasn't safe. Do you know what I mean? I wasn't safe in that way. And so I imagine there was nowhere for her to go, but into herself, you know? Yeah. I think that now she can, she knows the work we've done together. She knows that she could say, and I will, of course, correct.

I won't keep being unsafe, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So thank you for reminding me of that. It's quite touching actually. Appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah. My pleasure Emma. I just, I really see all the really hard work that you put in with your children and I can really echo that same thing that you said about, you know, before.

Yeah, my children went into burnout, but I wasn't a safe person either, you know.

And, you know, just shows the amount of work you have put in. Yeah. And we as parents do because we love our kids, right? That's our parents are incredible, really. Yeah. Yeah. Of love we have for these these these other people. Oh, 100 percent. Yeah.

That was a beautiful conversation. Thank you so much. What's the pleasure? Do you have a little magic moment? Do you have one? Because I'm going to think of one. haven't got one. And anyone else, put your magical moments in the comments. Absolutely. 100%. It's just beautiful.

Tanya (55:29.802)
Thanks, thanks a lot, lovely. Appreciate you so much. I have this beautiful book that I read every single day and it's called The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo. I don't know if you know it. No. So he wrote this book when he was fighting cancer and every day for a year he wrote, like he's a very poet person, very wise, but he wrote a

like a diary entry or an entry every single day for a year. And so I follow it every single day. I'll read the passage that has that date on it. And I just, read something this morning into this morning's one and it just, it just really touched me and I was like, oh, wow, that is just so beautiful. And I'd love to share it as my magic moment. Okay. So he says that, um,

We are not responsible for all that befalls us, only for how we receive it and how we hold each other up along the way. so nice. And I read it this morning and I just thought, yeah, yeah, it just really touched my heart. And so I thought I would share it as my magic moment today. That was really lovely.

lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely thing. You could feel my nervous system. did a big sigh that went to my nervous system. like, nice. That was lovely. Well, I couldn't think of anything and I'm sure I have lots of things. then I just well, Ellie was Ellie is my friend from the UK and we trained together. So it's it's lovely having her come on.

our little live together and text and comment and so that's made me that's a little joy moment of joy right here right now that I'm having which is really lovely because when Ellie came out from the UK I was so burnt out with the kids I couldn't even see her so I felt I felt bad so it's lovely to we had a colonic together in the UK.

Tanya (57:55.736)
And it helps you retreat. So it's lovely to be in communication as well. So Ellie, thank you. You've sparkled my day with a magic moment, even talking of bottoms and colonics. In fact, even more so. Thank you. Thank you so much, Tanya. Thank you so much.

everyone who's watching us, including Ellie and I saw Kate was watching us as well. lovely. Been beautiful. Thank you, everybody that also will be listening to this on our podcast and just sending out love to all of you. beautiful conversation. always makes me very happy when I finish talking with you, Tanya. So thank you. I'll stay here.

Take care. Bye everybody.

Thanks.