Aware Parenting Stories with Joss Goulden

In this episode I welcome Kirsty Fernandes back to the show. Kirsty joined me in episode 44. Kirsty is an Aware Parenting Instructor in New Zealand and is passionate about supporting mothers in the post-partum period and offering birth debriefing. She is the mother of 2 children and shares her work supporting mothers through her business Honouring Māmā. In this conversation we share our own experiences of trauma in giving birth. We talk about what birth trauma is and some of the ways in which the current system often results in trauma for parents. We talk about how birth trauma can affect birthing women, their partners and children and share the profoundly transformative experience of receiving support to process and heal, by sharing our stories and having all our complex, layered feelings about our births welcomed, witnessed and validated. To learn more about Kirsty’s work, including her birth debriefing, please visit https://www.honouringmama.com and follow Kirsty on Instagram and Facebook at Kirsty Fernandes Honouring Mama. If you would like support on your parenting journey, in relation to birth trauma or any other aspect of aware parenting, I am here for you and I encourage you to get in touch support@awareparenting.com.au Or visit my website www.awareparenting.com.au/parenting-coaching/

This episode dives into why children so often need to cry. I talk about many of the different challenging and stressful experiences that children face, from their time in utero all the way through childhood and share some of the painful feeling they then experience. I offer compassion and support to parents listening so that they can offer compassionate understanding and support to their children. I normalise frequent big feelings for all children and remind parents how important it is to be taking care of ourselves and finding ways to try to meet our own needs in order to be able to take care of our children. If you would like support on your parenting journey, I am here for you and I encourage you to get in touch support@awareparenting.com.au or visit my website www.awareparenting.com.au/parent-coaching/ To learn more about needs and feelings, please visit www.cnvc.com

This episode dives into how we can support our children when they suck their thumbs or fingers. Often in sessions parents express their concern and frustration about these behaviours so if this is happening in your family, you are not alone. I talk about why children suck their thumbs/fingers, how we can support ourselves and how we can support them to not need to do this anymore. To learn more about the Exploring Aware Parenting Community with Danni and Joss, please visit www.awareparenting.com.au/community To learn more about my new Aware Parenting Workshop, please visit https://awareparenting.com.au/my-courses/parenting-workshops/

In this episode I have a conversation with Lavinia Brown. Lavinia is a trauma-informed psychodynamic coach who supports mamas to become the conscious parents they want to be through healing their inner child. Through acknowledging and integrating unprocessed pain from the past, overcoming unconscious patterns and learning how to accept, love themselves and assert healthy boundaries, mamas stop feeling ashamed, anxious, guilty and angry, and can show up as the authentic parent, partner and woman that they want to be, instead of who their primary caregivers thought they should be. Lavinia lives with her partner and 3 children in the UK. In this episode Lavinia shares how she came to do this work after feeling overwhelmed and desperate as a parent herself. She explains what an inner child is and how these younger parts of us show up during the course of our day-to-day life as parents, as partners and in many of the interactions and experiences that we have. We talk about how to connect with our inner child and explore what is coming up for us, going towards the feelings and then supporting the integration of those painful experiences so we can become freer from the activations of our inner child wounding. To learn more about Lavina, please visit www.laviniabrown.com and follow her on social media at the.innerchild.healing.expert. The link to her podcast is here https://open.spotify.com/show/0NvSnxZWCG4uVTAUR4WRdc. Her partner’s work with fathers can be found here www.andrewlynn.net and https://www.instagram.com/life_coach_for_dads/ To learn more about Marion Rose’s Inner Loving Presence Process course, please visit https://innerlovingpresenceprocess.com To learn more about the Exploring Aware Parenting Community with Danni and Joss, please visit www.awareparenting.com.au/community

I really love that I get to have regular conversations about Aware Parenting with Danni Willow. In this episode we talk about the parallel journey of parenting our children and reparenting ourselves. We share the on-going invitation that aware parenting our children offers us to be tending to ourselves, to be exploring our emotional reactions, unpacking our cultural conditioning and core beliefs, reconnecting with our own authenticity and learning to speak the language of compassion in order for our children to be able to be who they truly are, without having to also carry our baggage. We share examples of how we have seen this in our own families. We share how important it is to be getting support, compassion and connection with others on this journey. And we describe more about our Exploring Aware Parenting Community, which is starting its 3rd year in the coming weeks. It is a compassionate and connected community to support parents to develop a truly embodied understanding of Aware Parenting. And it also powerfully supports members on their own reparenting journey. If you would like to learn more about the Exploring Aware Parenting Community, please visit www.awareparenting.com.au/community. If you would like to go on the waitlist to receive a significant discount only available for the first week of sign up from 9th September 2024, please email support@awareparenting.com.au. If you are listening to this at another time and would like to join the community at a different time, we re-open the doors every September. To learn more about Danni Willow, please visit www.thewayofthewoman.com.au

This episode is in response to a question from a listener about how she can explain Aware Parenting to her parents. I talk about how important it is for us all to keep learning more, getting clearer and deepening our understanding of Aware Parenting in order to be able to explain it to others. I describe the key assumptions of Aware Parenting and outline the main aspects in a way that is easy to share with others. I talk about why it can be hard to explain this to our families and friends and how we can support ourselves when we are wanting to have these conversations with others so that it feels empowering and enjoyable. If you would like to access my free introductory course, my attachment play ebook or any of my articles or previous episodes, please visit my website www.awareparenting.com.au. If you would like more support, with this or any other aspect of aware parenting, I invite you to get in touch.

In this episode I talk about how Aware Parenting supports us to understand our children’s behaviour and to make sense of the challenges in our families. I share how we can see behaviour as communication and explore the reasons for our children’s difficult behaviour. I share how we can bring compassion and curiosity to our children, support them and create the safety for them to use their innate healing mechanisms to return to balance. I also share how we can bring the same compassionate care to our own behaviour and find more support and capacity in parenting. I talk about why this is important, how significant it is for us to understand behaviour in this way and the power of our often bumpy and imperfect parenting for our children and for us. If you would like more support, please visit my website www.awareparenting.com.au/parent-coaching/ to learn more.

In this episode I talk with Raluca Stefan. Raluca is mom of two beautiful children, a certified Peaceful Parenting coach, an Aware Parenting instructor, and the founder of Peacefully Parenting. She helps families to find more balance, peace, and joy in their lives, running support groups for mothers, webinars, and offering 1-1 coaching for parents. She says “The first step into peaceful parenting is more compassion for our children and us. Our children can change the world if we raise them with respect, love, and compassion”. English is Raluca’s third language and yet she shares so beautifully her Aware Parenting story. In this conversation, Raluca describes how she found aware parenting and how she supported herself to be able to listen to her children’s feelings. She shares how raising our children in this way gives such profound learning for us as parents too and supports our children to have deep emotional awareness and self-connection. We talk about the power of journalling regularly to support ourselves to stay connected to our thoughts and feelings and internal world. Raluca shares how she supports her children with control patterns and with attachment play as well as bring joy, laughter and playfulness to herself. We talk of the effect of Aware Parenting on the world. If you want to learn more about Raluca, please follow her on Instagram at peacefully_parenting or visit her website www.yogalifeparenting.com

In this episode I talk with Kirsten Cobabe. Kirsten is a former therapist turned coach, teen and parent whisperer and artist, and specialises in supporting families navigate the waves of adolescence. For over two decades, she has guided parents in learning how to listen to, and talk with, their teens. She engages parents in personal reflection, embracing their evolving role, understanding the teen brain and restoring harmony in the home. In recognizing this unique stage of development, her hope is to bridge the widening gap between parents and their children, creating conscious, stronger bonds. Through compassionate guidance, intentional, sound strategies and tailored techniques, Kirsten empowers families to pilot these pivotal years with deeper awareness. Her work is not just about addressing immediate concerns, but about lighting the path to a more empowered future, ensuring that today's challenges become the foundation for tomorrow's brighter relationships. Her work aligns closely with Aware Parenting. In this conversation Kirsten and I talk about some of the stresses and challenges that our teenage children face as they are growing up. She shares how we can communicate with our teenagers in ways that support a strong, respectful relationship, whilst also guiding and modelling to them. We talk about some of the different ways parents need support and community in raising teens whilst also doing their own re-parenting work. Kirsten shares how she brings more care and joy to herself and encourages the parents she works with to do the same. We talk about how to bring more connection to our teenagers in ways that also respect their needs for privacy and individuation. We talk about cultivating trust in our families and the results of raising our teenagers in this way. If you want to learn more about Kirsten, please visit her website www.kirstencobabe.com and follow her on Instagram at kirstencobabe. If you want to know more about my Parenting Teenagers Course, please visit www.awareparenting.com.au/my-courses/aware-parenting-teenagers/

I am so excited to share this conversation with Meg Rankin about her journey with Aware Parenting, and the power of Birth Debrief support for healing trauma. Meg is a mother and Social Worker with 20 years of counselling experience, working predominantly in the pregnancy, birth and early parenthood space. She currently works in a tertiary hospital offering training to health professionals supporting women and babies who have experienced trauma. Meg also runs her own business, offering Birth Debriefing, Counselling for Parents, and Clinical Supervision to care professionals. Meg is an Aware Parenting Instructor-in-training, and is also currently undergoing Women’s Circle facilitation training. In this episode Meg shares how she explored the theory of aware parenting and then slowly learnt how to put it into practice. Meg shares how learning to take care of her own needs has enabled her to have capacity to listen to her daughter. Meg shares some of her expertise with birth debriefing – why it is so powerful and how we can heal from birth trauma. Meg shares the deepening in her understanding and practice of loving limits and we talk about the balance of offering limits whilst also meeting needs for autonomy and choice. We talk about attachment play and how powerful it has been in Meg’s family. If you would like to learn more about Meg, please visit her website www.megrankin.com.au or follow her on Instragram @meg.rankin.counselling. Meg offers Medicare rebates for parents who have been pregnant within the last 12 months to get up to 3 sessions rebated by Medicare, per pregnancy/child.