Aware Parenting Stories with Joss Goulden

This episode explores death, loss and grief and how Aware Parenting can support us in the deeply painful process of grief. It is another conversation with my wonderful friend and colleague Danni Willow. Danni is an aware parenting instructor and mother to 2 girls. If you are currently experiencing grief, we are sending so much love to you and encourage you to reach out for support. In this conversation, we share some of the ways that we experience grief in our lives and some of the many intense, mixed feelings that we often experience in response. We talk about how our imprints around grief were not very supportive and we therefore often have a lot of accumulated unexpressed feelings about loss and death. We talk about the on-going, individual journey of grief and how Aware Parenting is so helpful in grief because it validates and welcomes all feelings. We share how grief can be a portal to access and release lots of other intense painful feelings. We share some of our own experiences of grief and how aware parenting helps us to support our children to process and integrate their grief. And we talk about bringing ceremony and ritual to support the on-going grieving process. Here are the resources that Danni has found helpful for her and her children on their on-going journey through grief. For kids: The invisible string and the invisible leash by Patrice Karst The Memory Tree -Britta Teckentrup Beginnings and Endings with Lifetimes in Between – Bryan Mellonie & Robert Ingpen Let’s Talk About When Someone Dies – Molly Potter & Sarah Jennings Adult books: The wild edge of sorrow by Francis Weller The grief deck by Adriene Jenik Bearing the unbearable by Joanne Cacciatore If you want to know more about Danni’s work, please visit her website https://www.thewayofthewoman.com.au and follow her on social media at Danni Willow, The Way of the Woman.

Carly Facius is mother to three beautiful children, who are her greatest teachers on this journey. She is a Registered Midwife, International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC), Aware Parenting Instructor and hold a Master of Primary Maternity Care. For more than a decade, she has supported parents from conception throughout the childbearing journey and into parenthood. She believes that people's intuition can be their greatest asset, and is passionate about offering a space where people can feel held and deeply seen, and know that they are not alone. In this conversation, Carly shares how she discovered Aware Parenting from a place of depletion and exhaustion and understanding how crucial it is for us to be finding ways to meet our needs as parents too. We talk about supporting our children’s big feelings, in particular how to respond when they are being aggressive in a way that bring us back to compassion and connection. We talk about the importance of us getting listening and care in order to us to be able to offer aware parenting and the profound shifts we see in our children’s behaviour after we have been supported ourselves. We talk about the power of moments of intentional presence and self-connection in parenting. To learn more about Carly please visit www.seedpodfamilies.com or find her on Instagram at seed_pod_ To learn more about Marion Rose’s Inner loving presence course, the link is here https://innerlovingpresenceprocess.com

In this episode I talk with Sarah Martin. Sarah is a mother to 2 now grown up children. She has taught handcrafts at the local Steiner school, worked as a birth doula, is a Hakomi Somatic Psychotherapist, and worked as a child and family practitioner for Relationships Australia, offering parenting support and child directed play therapy for children and various support processes for teens facing life challenges. She has also developed and run Rite of Passage Camps for mothers and their teen daughters. She is now taking her birth support role to the next level as a midwifery student working towards being a home-birth midwife for our local town alongside her women's rite of passage work. In this episode we talk about our own on-going journeys with body image and how the messages and imprints we received as children have affected us as adults. We share how we have supported ourselves (and continue to do so) as we have tried to create an accepting relationship with our body. We talk about how we have tried to support our children to have different experiences about body image, in the face of immense pressures of social media and global marketing. We talk about how Aware Parenting can support our children with this and how we can encourage a deeper spiritual connection with our bodies for us and our children, full of wonder, celebration, self-acceptance and compassion. To learn more about Sarah, please visit her website www.redtempletherapy.com.au and follow her on Facebook and Instagram at Red Temple Therapy.

This episode explores what we can do when the feelings aren’t flowing for our children. This comes up so often in sessions with many clients and something that we all struggle with at times. I share some thoughts about why it is hard to truly welcome our children’s feelings, how we can support our children when their feelings and behaviour seems stuck and how we can support ourselves to shift what is there for us. I share some ideas for how we can come back to trusting the journey for ourselves and our children. If you are finding this challenging in your family, I am here to support you. If you want to connect with me please visit www.awareparenting.com.au If you would like a copy of my free Introduction to Attachment Play eBook, please email me support@awareparenting.com.au

In this episode I talk with Candice Morse. Candice started working with children and parents in 2012. She has crossed through many different rolls from face painter to art therapist. Having always been driven to inspire a deeper sense of wellbeing to the littlest members of our world, she is now a deeply loving mother of two. Since becoming a mother she has become passionate about the natural process of birth and devoted to cultivating and inspiring healthy and respectful relationships with children. In this episode Candice shares how she found Aware Parenting and how quickly she noticed big changes for her daughter and for a deeper connection to her authentic self too. She shares the stories of her births, what supported her and how she came to have a very empowering birthing experience for her second child. She shares the support in birth of aware parenting teaching her how to sit in the discomfort of big feelings and how to deeply listen in times of intensity, as well as bringing her back to connection and trust. Candice shares some of her own healing journey in motherhood and the power of aware parenting in that work. We talk about the benefit of rewind and repair and attachment play in parenting and the power of aware parenting to change the world. Here are the resources that we recommended in this conversation to support women in preparation for birth: Birthing from Within: An Extra-Ordinary Guide to Childbirth Preparation by Pam England and Rob Horowitz Face to face with Childbirth by Julia Sundin Reclaiming Childbirth as a Rite of Passage by Rachel Reed The Art of Giving Birth: With Chanting, Breathing, and Movement by Frédérick Leboyer The Orgasmic Birth Podcast by Debra Pascali Bonaro Attachment Play by Aletha Solter Playful Parenting by Lawrence Cohen If you want to connect with Candice or learn more about her, please visit tending.the.temple on Instagram. If you want to connect and get support from me, please visit www.awareparenting.com.au or follow me on social media at Aware Parenting with Joss

Episode 81 - You Are Not Alone with Joss & Danni by Aware Parenting Stories with Joss Goulden

In this episode I talk with Cath Hakanson about how to talk to our children about sex. Cath is a mother, sex educator and founder of Sex Ed Rescue. Bringing her 25+ years clinical knowledge, a practical down-to-earth approach, and passion for helping families, Cath inspires parents to talk to their kids about sex so that kids can talk to their parents about anything! Sex Ed Rescue arms you with the tools, advice and tips to make sex education a normal part of everyday life. In this episode, we talk about why it can be hard for parents to talk to their children about sex. Cath shares how to start having these important conversations with children to counter some of the unhelpful and often dangerous information and messaging that our children are now exposed to from a young age. We talk about supporting children with puberty, the prevalence of pornography, consent, masturbation and staying safe online. If you would like to learn more about Cath's work or explore her resources for parents, please visit www.sexedrescue.com. If you would like to learn more about my course for connected parents, Aware Partnering in Parenthood, please visit https://awareparenting.com.au/my-courses/aware-partnering-in-parenthood/

In this episode I respond to a listener’s question about what we can do when we are triggered by our children’s behaviour. I talk about how normal it is for us all to have many moments when we are activiated in response to our children. I share about some of the main ways in which we were wounded and hurt as children and how this can affect us as adults, underlying some of our reactions to our children. I share some of the ways we might be triggered by our children. And I share how we can get support and support ourselves to make this less likely to happen, less painful and intense so we can be more often the parent we want to be. I also describe the power and importance of offering rewind and repair to our children when we are triggered, As always, I end by sharing what I wish I had known 18 years ago at the beginning of my aware parenting journey about this. Information about my Aware Partnering in Parenthood course is here https://awareparenting.com.au/my-courses/aware-partnering-in-parenthood/ For more information about my circles, please visit https://awareparenting.com.au/circles/

This episode is another conversation with my wonderful friend and colleague Danni Willow. Danni is an aware parenting instructor and mother to 2 girls. In this conversation we talk about the aware parenting perspective on supporting our children with food. We share really honestly some of our own stories about food and how that has played into us learning to offer self-directed eating with our children. We talk about learning to trust our children and ourselves with food when we are able to process our feelings about it. We talk about eating/feeding control patterns and offer practical strategies for how to encourage more self-connection about food for our children. If you want to know more about Danni, please follow her on social media at Danni Willow or visit her website www.thewayofthewoman.com.au. Her webinar on Self Directed eating is available here https://www.thewayofthewoman.com.au/shop/p/the-self-regulated-eating-seminar Our Monthly Mothers Circle is available here https://www.thewayofthewoman.com.au/shop/p/aware-circle-with-joss-and-danni-2r78m If you would like to learn more about my offerings and courses, please visit www.awareparenting.com.au

In this episode I have a powerful and inspiring conversation with Dr Greer Kirshenbaum. Greer is an Author, Neuroscientist, Doula, Infant and Family Sleep Specialist and Mother. She trained at the University of Toronto, Columbia University, New York University and Yale University. Greer has combined her academic training with her experience as a doula and mother to lead The Nurture Revolution. A movement to nurture our babies’ brains to revolutionize mental health and impact larger systems in our world. Greer wants families, professionals, and workplaces to understand how early caregiving experience can boost mental wellness and diminish depression, anxiety, and addiction in adulthood by shaping babies’ brains through simple intuitive enriching experiences in pregnancy, birth and infancy. Her book is called The Nurture Revolution: Grow Your Baby’s Brain and Transform Their Mental Health Through the Art of Nurtured Parenting. She offers resources, workshops, and coaching. Her work aligns closely with many aspects of Aware Parenting. Greer brings her neuroscience lens to share information about some of the physiological brain changes that mothers experience in early parenting and how they are perfectly designed to support and enable deep connection, bonding, protection and safety with our babies. She describes how supporting the emotional development of babies is the foundation of physical health and mental health for life. Greer shares why she changed her career from research science to science communication in order to share with parents that early maternal care has profound impacts on wellbeing and to counter the beliefs in our low-nurture culture that are harmful to babies, children and parents. She shares how we can support our children’s needs for connection, for emotional responsiveness and with sleep. We discuss how important it is for parents to be getting support. To learn more about Greer, please follow her on Instagram at nurture_neuroscience_parenting and visit her website www.nurture-neuroscience.com