Aware Parenting Stories with Joss Goulden

Welcome back to another episode in the series about embracing imperfection in Aware Parenting. In this powerful episode, Danni Willow and I share some reflections from our recent extraordinary Aware Parenting Retreat about the truths of motherhood and how embracing imperfection as mothers can be both liberating and deeply healing. We talk about the mother wound and sisterhood wound, two often unspoken pains that show up in our longing for connection, in our guilt, and in the quiet ache for holding and unconditional love. Whether it’s the absence of nurturing we craved from our own mothers or the comparison, competition, hurt and disconnection that can arise between women, these wounds carry a weight that many mothers silently bear and that make embracing our imperfection harder. We share the transformative power of what unfolded on our retreat and how being vulnerable together with other women, and being deeply held supports transformation and healing. If you’ve ever felt like you’re not enough, or if you’ve longed for a kind of mothering or sisterhood that you didn’t receive, this episode will speak to your heart. It’s an invitation to step into compassion, find connection and holding and offer yourself radical acceptance. We talk about the power of receiving deep support to bring more closeness, connection and capacity within our families and the need for mothers to be held in order to mother. To learn more about Danni's work, please visit her website and follow her on social media at Danni Willow https://www.thewayofthewoman.com.au To learn more about my upcoming Aware Parenting Workshop, please visit https://awareparenting.com.au/my-courses/parenting-workshops/ To join the waitlist for our next Aware Parenting Retreat, I invite you to get in touch and if you would like support with this or any other aspect of Aware Parenting, please contact me at support@awareparenting.com.au

Welcome back to another episode in the series about embracing imperfection in Aware Parenting. In today's episode I am offering a guided meditation to support listeners to learn to embrace their imperfection in parenting and to bring themselves more acceptance, more ease, more self-compassion. If you would like support with this or any other aspect of Aware Parenting, please contact me at support@awareparenting.com.au

Today's episode is a short acknowledgement, celebration and honouring of all Aware Parenting mothers in the run up to Mother's Day. It is a message of love to all mothers doing the often invisible work of offering Aware Parenting in their families. For everything that you are doing for your child/ren, for yourself, for your families and for the world, you deserve appreciation and support. I am sending you all lots of love and wishing you a happy Mother's Day.

Welcome back to another episode in the series about embracing imperfection in Aware Parenting. In today's episode I am talking with Gwen Dunlop from Ontario Canada. Gwen is mother of an adult daughter, a violinist, a yoga teacher, an animal advocate, a qualified and experienced ESL teacher, a certified Facilitator of Self-Healing, a certified Aware Parenting Instructor for a long time. She lives off grid and is passionate about sustainability. In this episode Gwen shares how she found Aware Parenting and how motherhood was a portal to start the painful process of releasing and healing her own childhood trauma. She shares how powerful Aware Parenting has been, both in her family and in her wider work and connections in her community to bring more emotional safety. She shares the challenges of coming to Aware Parenting later and how she has supported herself to deeply understand that any mistakes can be healed. We talk about the power of attunement, connection and contingency play. Gwen shares some of the ways that she supports herself and we discuss the power of Aletha Solter's amazing work to change the world. If you would like to connect with Gwen, her website is www.gwendunlop.ca If you would like support with this or any other aspect of Aware Parenting, please contact me at support@awareparenting.com.au

Welcome back to another episode in the series about embracing imperfection in aware parenting. In this episode I talk about how normal it is for us all to have painful moments of rupture in our families and how to come back to connection again. I talk about how important it is for us to tend to the source of our behaviour at times of rupture, to support ourselves and make it less likely in future. I share ways we can support ourselves with our thoughts, our needs and our feelings so we can offer authentic apology. I offer a description of what rewind and repair might look like and I share why doing this with our children is so powerful for them, for us and for our relationship. If you would like support with this or any other aspect of Aware Parenting, please contact me at support@awareparenting.com.au

Welcome back to another episode in the series about embracing imperfection in Aware Parenting. In this episode I am delighted to welcome back Maru Rojas, who was previously on Episode 10. Maru is an Aware Parenting Instructor originally from Mexico now based in London. She is particularly passionate about supporting families with potty learning and elimination communication. supporting families with children from 0 to 6. Maru shares her journey with embracing imperfection. She shares some of her own experiences in childhood that have contributed to her perfectionism and the power of offering her children unconditional acceptance. We talk about the power of repair and Maru shares her understanding that repair matters more than rupture and what that looks like in her family. She shares how she has supported herself at difficult times and we normalise that we all need support at times in parenting. We talk about the affect on the world of practising aware parenting. To learn more about Maru, please visit www.parenttogether.co.uk and follow her on Instagram at _maru.rojas_ If you would like support with this or any other aspect of Aware Parenting, please contact me at support@awareparenting.com.au

Welcome back to another episode in the series about embracing imperfection in aware parenting. In this episode I talk about why it is so hard to be trying to shift so much in parenting in just one generation. I talk about how our own childhood experiences and cultural conditioning effect who we are as parents and how we feel about ourselves. I talk about what we would have needed to receive as children ourselves in order to be able to be "perfectly" parenting now. I talk about some of the things that we need to be receiving and experiencing now as parents in order to be find it easier to offer aware parenting. I offer lots of phrases that you might find helpful to bring more compassion and acceptance of yourself. I offer words of celebration and acknowledgement for all the things you ARE doing to support your child with more awareness and love and why they are all so powerful for your child, yourself, your family and the world. If you would like support with this or any other aspect of Aware Parenting, please contact me at support@awareparenting.com.au

Welcome back to another episode in the series about embracing imperfection in aware parenting. In this episode I talk with Shelley Clarke. Shelley is a Physiotherapist, CranioSacral Therapist, Aware Parenting Instructor and Parent Mentor. She is the mother to three beautiful children and is passionate about the nervous system, human body and helping families thrive. She is the host of the Mind Body Parenting Podcast lives and works in Adelaide. In this episode, Shelley shares her journey with learning to embrace imperfection in her parenting, learning to support herself at the challenging times and how she has come to see that getting support and listening for herself has transformed her ability to offer compassion, support and repair with her children. We share some painful moments in our parenting and Shelley shares the practices and phrases she offers herself to bring more compassion and acceptance to her parenting. To learn more about Shelley please visit www.shelleyclarke.com and follow her on instagram at _shelleyclarke_ and Facebook at Shelley Clarke Mind Body Parenting. If you would like support with this or any other aspect of Aware Parenting, please contact me at support@awareparenting.com.au

I am delighted to share another episode in the series of conversations I am having with Aware Parenting instructors about embracing Imperfection. This is a powerful conversation with Belynda Smith, who was on episode 75 of my podcast. Belynda has been a hand in hand instructor since 2017 and an Aware Parenting instructor since 2023. She lives in WA with her 2 boys. In this conversation Belynda shares her painful experiences of starting parenthood wanting to be perfect and the shame, judgement and hurt that she experienced when she realised that was not possible. We talk about the power of listening partnerships to receive validation, safety and unconditional acceptance to enable us to offer compassion to ourselves and our children. She shares some of her favourite phrases to increasing self-compassion and shares some examples of difficult and painful moments in her family and how she has found her way back to connection and love. To learn more about Belynda, please visit her website https://belyndasmith.com.au and follow her on social media at belyndasmithparenting. To learn more about The Aware Parenting Retreat with Danni Willow and Joss Goulden, please visit https://awareparenting.com.au/aware-parenting-retreat/ To learn more about my Aware Parenting Teenagers Course that Belynda mentions, please visit https://awareparenting.com.au/my-courses/aware-parenting-teenagers/ If you would like support with this or any other aspect of Aware Parenting, I am here for you.

Welcome back to another episode in this series of conversations about embracing imperfection in aware parenting. In this episode I have the absolute pleasure of talking with Mary Walker. Mary is a writer and poet from Aoteroa New Zealand and she lives in the countryside with her husband, 3 teenagers and 5 cats. She discovered Aware Parenting in 2015 when her children were 7, 5 and 3. She has been writing and sharing her poetry since 2017. Her first book of poetry Lullaby for Mothers came out in 2019. Her book of nature poems, called The Land Will Hold You, was published in 2022. Mary’s third poetry collection is about to be released, and it is called Home: poems for becoming who you are and releasing who you are not. In this conversation, Mary shares some of her journey with Aware Parenting and how she has learnt to bring more compassion, connection and healing for her children and herself. We talk about the challenge of discovering Aware Parenting later and power of trust and repair. Mary shares some of her exquisite poems to inspire and support listeners on their own aware parenting journey. We talk about learning to see the gift of crying with loving support. If you love poetry and Aware Parenting, this episode is for you. And if you have never enjoyed poetry before, hearing Mary's profoundly beautiful words will enrich your aware parenting experience and invite more self-compassion and trust. To learn more about her work, please visit www.marywalker.co.nz and follow her on Instagram at Mary Walker Writer. If you would like to sign up for her free email poetry subscription called A Beautiful Beginning, inviting readers to start each week with a poem and a moment of quiet reflection, the link is on her website. If you want to learn more about the Aware Parenting Teenagers Course that Mary mentions in this episode, please visit https://awareparenting.com.au/my-courses/aware-parenting-teenagers/ And if you want support with this or any other aspect of Aware Parenting, please get in touch support@awareparenting.com.au