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Working Toward Your Passion While Raising Kids w/ Megan Gibson
146 Plays1 year ago
Megan Gibson is a Life Alignment Coach, Podcaster and Author. An expert in the transformative journey of deep self-discovery, Megan's specially formulated one-to-one process guides individuals to uncover deeply held intrinsic values and unique gifts. As a mother with grown up children, she understands the importance of leading by example in a world that lacks authenticity and vulnerability. Through the Freed To Be You Podcast, Megan inspires women to imagine a life and business where they no longer have to pretend to be something they're not. Instead, she empowers us to embrace our authentic selves, step out of self abandonment and into full self expression. As a speaker, Megan shares profound insights and practical tools for unlocking personal clarity and emphasises the importance of aligning one's life and business with your values and vision, enabling you to take ownership and create the life you desire.
Connect with Megan:
Website: https://freedtobeyou.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freedtobeyou
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/freedtobeyou
Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com.au/freedtobeyou
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/freedtobeyou
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/megangibson3
Christian's links:
Health Consulting (book your free 15-min session with me): https://christianyordanov.com/health-consulting/
Children's health consulting (autism, ADHD, gut dysfunction etc.): https://christianyordanov.com/childrens-health-consulting/
Pregnancy preparation and recovery health consulting: https://christianyordanov.com/pregnancy-preparation-and-recovery/
Supplements I use/recommend (adults): https://christianyordanov.com/supplements-adults/
Supplements I use/recommend (children): https://christianyordanov.com/supplements-children/
Get my book Autism Wellbeing Plan: How to Get Your Child Healthy: https://amzn.to/43ah6yD
Use this link to get a discount on my Detox Workshop: https://members.christianyordanov.com/detox-workshop?coupon=CM25
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Transcript
Introduction to Christian and Megan
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome back to the podcast, guys. My name is Christian Jourdanoff. I'm a certified functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner, and I'm author of a book on autism and children's health. And I just want to say if you're suffering from a health issue or a family member or your child is suffering from some type of health issue, whether it's gut problems, fatigue, skin stuff, autoimmunity, and you've been disappointed with the care you've received thus far, please check the episode description for my website.
00:00:27
Speaker
Uh, go to my website, book a free consultation with me and let's see how I can help you. Remember you don't have to suffer in silence. You can get better. You deserve to thrive and I can help you get there faster. Now enough about me today. We have an awesome guest for you. Her name is Megan Gibson. She is a life alignment coach, podcaster and author, and I will, I will add a mom of seven. So that's, that's big. And we'll definitely be discussing that.
00:00:56
Speaker
She is an expert in the transformative journey of deep self-discovery. Megan's specialty formulated one-to-one process guides individuals to uncover deeply held intrinsic values and unique gifts. As a mother with grown-up children,
00:01:10
Speaker
She understands the importance of leading by example in a world that lacks authenticity and vulnerability. Through the Freed to Be You podcast, Megan inspires women to imagine a life and business where they no longer have to pretend to be something they're not.
Embracing Authenticity: Megan's Journey
00:01:27
Speaker
Instead, she empowers us to embrace our authentic selves, step out of self-abandonment and into full expression. As a speaker, Megan shares profound insights and practical tools for unlocking personal clarity and emphasizes the importance of aligning one's life and business with your values and vision, enabling you to take ownership and create the life you desire. Megan, thank you so much for coming on the show.
00:01:54
Speaker
Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me. It's always interesting to hear someone read out your bio and hear it back to you. I'm very happy to be here and I definitely have a lot of things to share based on our aligned interests, let's say.
00:02:12
Speaker
Absolutely. The bio thing, the reason I read my spiel and the bio at the start of the recording is because I've gotten podcasting down to a fine art where I can record and publish within 30 minutes of it being recorded. I can publish it using this app. So it's a little bit of a lazy man's way of getting shows out more. But if I didn't do that,
00:02:35
Speaker
I would probably post one, two shows a month, and that would not be great for anybody. So it's a bit of laziness. But the reason I said it, because you feel self-conscious, people talking about you in the third person like that, when they cross from you. But it's so good, I think. So yeah, let's start. There's so many, because we already had a chat with you before this recording. So we had so many things that we could touch on. Let's start with your story and how you got to where you are right now and the work that you do right now.
00:03:06
Speaker
Well, that's a long story, so I'll have to tell you the short version. Sure. It will be an episode of Be Over. Sure. But I think the best place to start would be to say that I am the person I am today because of the work that I've done and I'm the mother I am today because of the clarity that I have around
00:03:31
Speaker
who I am and how I want to show up for my children. And so the reason I do what I do, the reason I help other women to gain that kind of clarity about themselves is because I believe that without that we lack confidence and we can lack the ability to make choices and decisions for ourselves and for our children that are authentic,
00:04:00
Speaker
in nature and that we can back 100%. Because if there's any kind of self-doubt, then we're always going to be second-guessing ourselves. And as a mum, that is the last thing we want to do. So I do have the care of seven children. Three of them are my own and four I'm blessed to bring up with their dad. And most of them are over 15, except for one little one that's eight. And so we have a variety of challenges.
00:04:31
Speaker
that we deal with on a weekly basis, but it's also a lot of fun. So bringing up my children, I always, I was always doing something alongside that to be able to feel like I was contributing to the family, but also to my own growth.
00:04:56
Speaker
And I know that that's not always easy to do. And a lot of the people that I've worked with have found that being a parent is a big enough job that to try and have a business or try and follow a passion or something alongside that can be very, very exhausting. And I'm going to tell you, it was, but I'm very glad that I did because one of the things that I've been able to do, Christian, is
00:05:26
Speaker
continue to grow and continue to live into what I believe we need to be as a parent, which is an example for our children.
Rediscovering Self Post-Parenting
00:05:36
Speaker
And there was a period there, which we can dig into if you want, where I was
00:05:45
Speaker
Parenting at a very high level one of my children Who had a lot it was a lot more spirited the other two a lot more challenges and that took up a lot of my time and in that period of a couple of years, I really found that I What I've really lost a piece of myself in that journey because it was really challenging and
00:06:10
Speaker
It was challenging on my relationship. It was challenging with my other two children and making sure that I gave them the amount of care. And so I developed a lot of anxiety, but I also developed
00:06:23
Speaker
uh just a i just felt lost at the other end of it and so when he got older and things got a little easier he's still yeah he's still my most spirited child but i he's a fully functioning adult now thankfully uh when he got a little bit older and i found myself with more time that's when i really felt a big void in terms of who am i who am i now that i'm not a mum well still a mum but who am i now that i'm not
00:06:53
Speaker
a full time in the trenches, mum, right? They get older, they don't need as much of your time. And I went on a, yeah, you got the little ones. They don't need the same amount of time or they don't need your time in the same way. And I found myself at 40 completely rediscovering who I was on the other side of everything I've just shared because
00:07:21
Speaker
it is a busy time and we do tend to not always as a bad thing we do tend to abandon ourselves in a bed in our own hopes and dreams and then when we come back around and we then have to have that time to then go oh maybe I could do something they're all at school or you know there's some of them are older got more time what what do I even want to do who even am I and I had to answer that question I also had to answer that question on because uh in amongst all of that
00:07:47
Speaker
My 28 year relationship also ended for various reasons and I had to discover who I was without that as well. And this work that I do is the reason that I'm on the other side of that. I'm with an amazing man now. We have, as I said, seven kids. I'm doing work that I'm passionate about and helping people get the same result that I've gotten.
00:08:17
Speaker
And it comes from, like I said before, is that clarity, gaining that clarity around who we are, what's important to us, and then making choices that are in alignment with that. It just, it frees you up so much to be able to just be, we are human beings at the end of the day. And so who are we and who do we want to be? Who, who, we want to be who we are. We want to do it in a way that doesn't feel like we're constantly having to uphold some image or some
00:08:47
Speaker
you know, role that we've decided to play because that's what we think we should be doing.
00:08:53
Speaker
It's a very long answer to your question, but there's a lot in it and I wanted to try and really make sure that I told this my story in a way that was going to resonate with what you already talk about so that we could dig into that a little bit more. Absolutely. I've seen it firsthand with my wife. My daughter will be two years old a month from now and we kind of
00:09:22
Speaker
got pregnant somewhat unexpectedly or maybe much sooner than we expected it would happen. And we had moved country here to Portugal. So my wife had to leave her established ballet teach. She's an ex-professional ballet ballerina. So she moved from Lithuania to Ireland.
00:09:49
Speaker
that's where we met and she had started establishing herself as an authority in the ballet teaching space and I had the bright idea of moving country so she came here she obviously at first she wasn't going well so she established it well it was going well despite the the pandemics and the lockdowns and the BS
00:10:11
Speaker
And then she got pregnant, and then that kind of put a cork in it. So after our daughter was born, she definitely had a period now. She's starting it back up, and it's hard. So she's going through the struggles. And I can see with myself, I put a lot of things on hold for about a year and a half. And let's talk about that. I'm sure many moms and dads, the dads that do listen to the show, I'm sure many of them
00:10:41
Speaker
are or were stuck there or feel like they haven't completely been out, gotten out of that sort of rut, if we can call it that. How does, let's say you, I'm a woman coming to you with this particular issue. How would you help me to get myself back on track towards, you know, working towards my passion or even finding my passion, what that is and creating a plan?
Aligning Life with Personal Values
00:11:06
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, that's a
00:11:09
Speaker
a loaded question. I love it though. The first thing that anybody needs to do, male or female, you're right, this doesn't just mean that it's just mums that go through this, dads go through this as well because no one expects their parenting journey to be easy. But when it finally happens, you're like, oh, wow, yeah, this is... Life is... Don't get me started on the baby weight I'm still carrying.
00:11:37
Speaker
The baby weight you're carrying. My wife lost it and I found it. For sure. Sorry, I don't want to interrupt. No, no, not at all. But I think it doesn't matter when you start this journey of discovering, rediscovering yourself. One of the things I think is really, really important to understand is that it doesn't matter whether you're a parent or not. We're not the same people we were when we were 20, that we are when we're 30.
00:12:04
Speaker
or when we are, when we're 40 or beyond, we do change and we do evolve and we do grow. So it is a, it's a, I think it's a really important thing to learn how to be introspective and learn how to continuously evolve in a healthy way. What do I mean by that? What I mean is we need to actually understand who we are and what
00:12:30
Speaker
is important to us and what I mean by that is our values if we're going to give it a name. Really what a value is is something that has become meaningful to you in a unique way over time. Generally most people
00:12:46
Speaker
or pick up values from their parents when we're children. And then we'll start to go through adolescence and start to come into our own through that 15 to 20. And as we go through our own life experiences, some of those values will stick and some of those will fall away and we will develop new ones based on things that have become meaningful to us on our unique perspective. So we need to uncover that.
00:13:11
Speaker
So the first thing that I think is really important before you can figure out what you're gonna do and before you can figure out what you're passionate about is to uncover who you are. And so when we uncover that and we answered that question in terms of languaging that in a way that gives you something tangible to relate to and to call it, then we can start going, okay, well,
00:13:38
Speaker
If that's what's important to me, where in my life am I not aligned with those things? Because that's where we can uncover what's missing and where we don't feel freed up to be that new or that rediscovered version of ourselves. That uncovered meaning that's authentic, that's you.
00:14:01
Speaker
So once we can uncover that, then we can start to then the second step is really to actually go and then work out what we want to do. What we're passionate about. And as a mom, we tend to put those the things that we want to do on the shelf.
00:14:21
Speaker
so that we can put our heart and soul into being a mum. And that's amazing. And I wouldn't say that that's at all the wrong thing to do. That's the perfect thing to do. But sometimes we're going to go back to that shelf later and dust those things off and realize that actually they're not really what I want anymore. Now that I've gone through this experience of raising a child and
00:14:44
Speaker
You know, we all have our own unique, like I said, stories and experiences with our children that we go through. Once you've gone through that, that may not be what you want anymore, but there'll still be elements of it that are aligned with you and the things that you find meaning in, the things that you want to see reflected back to you in your experience.
00:15:12
Speaker
Right. Yeah, I think that's really well put. We do grow up sort of assimilating the values of our parents. In our late teens, early 20s, to be honest, I actually only started articulating my values. I was probably 30 or 31.
00:15:37
Speaker
And that's what one day i realized whoa okay so now these are my values that is such a valuable. Exercise to go through because now that's it for example my number one value turned out to be freedom.
00:15:51
Speaker
That's why I always hated being stuck in menial office jobs and being told what to do. And I liked freedom, independence. I valued learning. So I could explain to my wife why I'm constantly buying books that I haven't opened in years and probably never will open. I'm buying these books and they're chipping over them in the house. But if you do that, then you suddenly are able to
00:16:17
Speaker
check what are you doing on a daily basis. It's like, is it aligning with my values? It's actually a very beneficial mental exercise to say, well, I'm doing this whole thing here eight hours a day that is not aligning with any of my values. I think
00:16:35
Speaker
A lot of folks, they're kind of in a job they don't particularly like, but we tell ourselves the story. We like this job. But what it is is just a means to an end. Money, income, pay the bills, look after the family, be responsible. So I know folks that have shifted from that to maybe a part-time job, a small business like photography, whatever else, and they make less cash, but they're so much happier. And I think, honestly,
00:17:05
Speaker
You really, once you go into that, I think a lot of people are scared to make that leap. But once you actually go into that, you realize, well, you can actually put a price on that happiness. What do you think? Yeah, look, happiness is an inside job. Definitely. I know if you've heard that before, but I think that we do need to make a living. Yes, we do. We have to apply our skills to something that's going to be remunerated. But the thing is,
00:17:34
Speaker
that we need to make sure that life is short, right? So we want to make sure that whatever we're doing still fulfills us. And in the world that we live in now,
00:17:45
Speaker
When our parents were younger, there was a lot less options. Now, there are so many options with the internet, with the digital economy that we have. I'm talking to you on the other side of the world, in the future, I might add. In the future. There's just so many options, which can be a good thing and it can also be a tricky thing because then we have so much to choose from that that can actually stop us as well.
00:18:14
Speaker
So that's where I'll come back to when you know what is important to you, and you know the things that you want to have more of, you want to know the things that you want to move towards, then you can start to, if we're talking about work, well, we can apply it to that, you can go, okay, well, if freedom, a lot of people value freedom, and if we were to dig into that a little bit more, we would probably uncover why freedom is important to you, which may be different to why freedom is important to me, because we're all unique.
00:18:43
Speaker
But if you know that that's something that you want more of, or you know you want to control your own clock and have that independence, then that's going to determine what decisions you make. It's going to determine what choices you make. But that's only one element of it. When I work with people, we uncover 10. We uncover a broader spectrum.
00:19:06
Speaker
that's still very, very core and very, very meaningful because we need to be able to create balance because you could have too much of that as well. And then you could be, you know, not making any money. So we need to make sure that, you know, you can balance that out. And then that's just one area. If we look at your relationships, which is the area I'm most passionate about, not just your, you know, intimate relationship, but any relationship, parent-child relationship, your mother, your father,
00:19:36
Speaker
If we look at those relationships and then we look at how we can align your values there, that's going to be a whole other conversation. But it's still the same work. It's still really, really important to have that clarity around what it is that you're actually trying to achieve and how you actually want to feel as well, which is another big thing. Because feeling, you talked about happiness.
00:19:57
Speaker
When, when we achieve a goal, if it doesn't feel good, that's probably not what we actually wanted to achieve anyway. So if we focus on the feeling first, well, how do I want to feel when I achieve that goal? And if you get to the goal and it looks slightly different, but it feels like you want it to feel, it's going to be better outcome, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's why when I said goals now, I'm like, I want to, when I achieve this goal, I want to feel like I made $6 million.
00:20:25
Speaker
I kid, I kid, of course. It feels like like I have five million nine hundred thousand nine hundred and ninety nine thousand dollars more than I currently have. My donation button is below. I'm kidding.
00:20:47
Speaker
Yeah, let's talk about the big, in my perception, there's two really big challenges in all of this. This all sounds great, but what I find is
00:21:01
Speaker
Time and energy are a scarce resource, especially for newer parents.
Balancing Parenting and Personal Growth
00:21:07
Speaker
My frame of reference is two years as a parent. I'm guessing up to about maybe five years, the kids are quite a handful. Judging from my sister and my sister-in-laws, they have each two boys and they're
00:21:23
Speaker
quite a handful. So how do we, just my personal thing is, I sometimes wake up at 3am in order to be able to work until like 9-10am in the morning before my daughter wakes up, but not everybody can do that. So how do we
00:21:41
Speaker
do all of this whilst having scarce time, constantly being pulled away. And then at the end of the day when the kids are asleep, we might be too exhausted to even do anything. Any tips you have? Because you've had three kids raised obviously from birth. So I'm sure you've struggled with this more so than us folks with just one or two kids. So I'm sure you have plenty of experience with that.
00:22:08
Speaker
Yeah, I think I well, I am somebody who can stay up quite late. I'm not a morning person. But I think that's really the thing that's really important at that time. And if I could go back, I would definitely have and known if I know what I know now and I could go back, which is great because I can share that with you, is that they are only small for such a short amount of time. It feels like a long time while you're in it. But
00:22:38
Speaker
it goes so fast and they are bigger and older, longer than they're small. So if I could go back now and I knew that, like I know it now, I wouldn't be as much of a hurry to do anything else, to be really honest with you. However, I still think it's important for us to have a level of self-care and a level of growth
00:23:03
Speaker
a level of self-focus that's healthy in and amongst that because otherwise you can lose yourself and it can be a bigger, longer road coming out the other side to try and uncover who you are if you've not ever, ever given yourself any time.
00:23:20
Speaker
So one of the things that I would suggest and this is what we had to do back then is to divide and conquer. It's like well you know I'm gonna go and I know I'm better at night so I'm going to put them all to bed and then that's going to be my time and then you know on the weekends
00:23:40
Speaker
There would be times where I would be out and there would be times where he was out or whatever. But I think the most important thing is to remember that they're not going to be small forever and that it does go quickly. It goes so quickly. I still think it's valuable to know who you are throughout that journey because it makes you the kind of parent that you want to be and you can be more intentional about that. And then anything you add to that in terms of passions or jobs or businesses or whatever,
00:24:09
Speaker
that you can be really intentional with that too. One of the things I did when I, one of the things I, businesses I had when my kids were small, when my boys were small, I was actually a Tupperware lady, believe it or not. I sold Tupperware, it was my first business. And yeah, and so I was just going to do that in and around the kids.
00:24:32
Speaker
I was just going to, you know, do the odd demonstration here or there, make a little bit of money on the side, get out of the house and have some meantime, like I was just saying. But I ended up, because I am who I am.
00:24:44
Speaker
I'm quite ambitious and competitive. I ended up being a manager and I ended up doing a lot more work and a lot more time away from my kids than I'd planned. However, I was very successful and it was very fulfilling and I learned a lot about myself. But when my daughter was five months old, so I'd had another one in amongst all of that. So it was about a six year period. Um, when she was five months old, I,
00:25:13
Speaker
I just looked at her and I was putting her to bed to go out to work one night. I put her in bed and I looked down and I just saw ponytails and I just come out of that room, bawling my eyes out, so upset because I felt like that five months had just gone so fast because I was so busy.
00:25:39
Speaker
That's why if I knew what I knew now, I would have been a lot more intentional about how I went about that. So it doesn't mean that it was wrong. It just means that I would have been able to balance that out a little bit more and actually achieve more things than just the success that I was wanting to achieve in that particular business. So in the end, I did actually give that away because I chose my children over
00:26:07
Speaker
that business. But I felt like I'd lost an arm, like I'd really worked really hard and I was really successful and I loved what I was doing. But in reflection, I knew that that's not what I needed to be doing at that time. So that's where that piece of wisdom comes from in terms of a story. It's just, if I knew that then, I would have paced myself a little bit more and I would have been more intentional with how I applied myself to that because I loved it.
00:26:35
Speaker
And it gave me so much more to get out of bed for myself. But I just didn't know. I didn't know the other things about myself that I know now. And I didn't know that that was going to turn out like that. And I didn't know that I needed that balance and that my kids were going to grow up overnight, which it seemed like. Because when you're super busy,
00:26:59
Speaker
You don't notice it. Yeah. Time flies. Time flies. Yeah. You know, that's so true. Like I was reflecting on that. My wife and my daughter were visiting family for a month over the summer. And when I saw my daughter, she was one head taller and she knew so many more words. She was so
00:27:25
Speaker
She was like a little child. She wasn't my baby anymore. You know, she will always be my baby, of course. But I was like, damn, you know, I it just made me appreciate the fact that I get to work from home and I get to see her every morning, every evening or every day. And every day, it's literally especially the first couple of years, every day, it's literally something you they surprise you with. And it's such a magical experience. And I honestly feel like I feel sorry
00:27:53
Speaker
for all those dads that have to go and be in traffic for an hour to go to a nine hour work day and be in traffic an hour again, come back exhausted and not get to see all of that. And I really honestly feel empathy towards those folks because
00:28:12
Speaker
You're literally being robbed of something you will never be able to regain. The society is so warped. It's so messed up that the way we are almost brainwashed to define success is digits in a bank account, things that don't actually exist. There's no physical thing that exists there.
00:28:35
Speaker
And when you actually figure out the real metrics of success, okay, sure, monetary success, business success is one thing, but when you look at health, your level of health, your children, your family's level of health, your level of happiness, the amount of
00:28:55
Speaker
Teaching you can give to your child and not let just you know some teacher that's getting paid close to minimum wage that doesn't actually care about your kid anywhere near as much as you ever care for them and so when we actually reevaluate those metrics of success I think if we allow some of these other things like business and monetary development and stuff like that if we allow that to
00:29:17
Speaker
like you say, to dampen a bit, it allows us to amplify these other metrics. And I think those are the ones when you're on your deathbed, when you're hopefully 90 or 100 years old, those are the moments that you hopefully don't have Alzheimer's from eating too many Omega-6 oils. And you will remember those things, you know? Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely. And that's why I'm so passionate about this work. I mean, I do tend to work with
00:29:47
Speaker
most of my majority of my clients tend to be more with older kids. So they're on the other side, they're where they're kind of finding they have that time now to try to apply that, you know, the passion to something. But I think that, like I said, if I knew some of these things, and this is, I was really excited to talk to you. If I knew some of the things that I know now, when I was bringing up my children,
00:30:15
Speaker
I know I would have made different choices. And not just not just as a parent, but as a person for myself. And I think that, you know, that's invaluable, you know, advice or wisdom to pass on to new parents or to parents that are in the thick of it, you know. But yeah, when you get when you do get the opportunity to
00:30:39
Speaker
to give language to those meaningful things. And then you learn how to be aligned in your choices with that. That's a skill that you will use over and over and over again. And there's no right time to do that. It's like whenever you get the opportunity, that's when you want to do it because it's going to affect you, your life and your choices and your relationships straight away. Straight away with that knowledge and that clarity.
00:31:11
Speaker
Can you give us some tips from the trenches about preventing overwhelm? I know a lot of moms suffer from some variation of postpartum depression.
00:31:27
Speaker
What in your opinion or in your view are some of the emotional sources of that depression? Could it be what we already talked about that you've lost yourself and you're like, whoa, is this all there will be to life now? Or could it be something else?
00:31:44
Speaker
Well, it could be that and it could be something else. I actually suffered with that twice because, well, the first time I've always wanted to be a mum. Like I've, it was just, you know, some little girls grow up just that's, they just can't wait to be a mummy and others don't, but I was one of those. And I, I had this,
00:32:10
Speaker
expectation of what that was going to be like and I had this idea of who I was going to be and when it all happened I was completely overwhelmed. I had trouble feeding my oldest one so you know that's not something that came naturally to me or him and I had help with that obviously but I just
00:32:37
Speaker
I just felt like a failure. And he wasn't even six months old yet. And though when I have dug into that, though, I mean, I had counselling and I had all sorts of things and, you know, within the year I was on the other side of it and on the way up and
00:32:52
Speaker
I was pregnant with my next one by the time he was 19 months old. So it was a bit of a whirlwind, but I did get over it relatively soon. And the thing that helped me was to reflect on where those feelings were coming from. Now, how does that relate back to
00:33:12
Speaker
what we were talking about which I do believe is definitely involved is that we because we don't have any enough self-awareness of who we are and what we're bringing to the table as a human being to become a mum and then there's things in that we've gone through in our past or there's things from you know our own childhood in the way as well these are all things that I went I uncovered in that therapy and and perhaps my first sort of
00:33:45
Speaker
was a coach. The reflection, the self-reflection and the self-awareness that come out of that and now knowing what like I said knowing what I do now how much more self-awareness we get when we have that clarity. I think that that's what a lot of it comes down to. Obviously there's the chemical side of it and then there's you know there's the the medical more medical side of it but if we just look at what's going on in our mind
00:34:14
Speaker
We need to self-reflect on what it is we're telling ourselves. What's going on in there? What are we telling ourselves about ourselves? And is that true? Most of it's not true. So I had a strategy presented to me in that period of time where when that voice started going, when those things, when I started saying those things to myself,
00:34:45
Speaker
I pictured a red stop sign, really, really simple, but it was like a beacon to just stop those thoughts in their tracks and then make a conscious choice to think something else or think the opposite or assess them or just evaluate them in general. And I think what happens is that when we don't have that self-awareness and we don't have that sense of self when we become a mum,
00:35:15
Speaker
And then we add the overwhelm of, of having a newborn baby and not having enough sleep and possibly having postnatal depression. When we add all of that together, it makes it a lot more difficult to try and see what's true and what, and, and, you know, what we're telling ourselves is not true. So we need to be able to.
00:35:39
Speaker
to have that self-awareness and that's why I believe that it is the answer. It is the answer to being able to be more intentional about what we think and therefore be more intentional about what we do. And that self-awareness comes in at a variety of times in our life. I got it gained a lot then and then obviously I've gained a lot out of uncovering the things we've been talking about this whole podcast so far.
00:36:03
Speaker
Yeah. It also is helpful to have someone, whether that's an older sibling or a friend that has had older kids that are older or has been through this period, to tell you it does get easier because, man, oh, God, the first three months, I just am getting... I think a lot of it I've blocked it out of my memory. I think a lot of people do because
00:36:27
Speaker
traumatic things, the human ego tends to block them out. We have to block them out or we'd never have any more. Yeah, exactly. We'd never go back. Precisely. So I just remember the feeling like waking up three, four times a night to change her and give her to my wife to feed. I remember
00:36:54
Speaker
I don't even know what, I remember the first couple of weeks, I was just waking up, hearing, crying, and I would just, in my mind, I would be like, God, please give me strength. Literally, that's what I was saying. God, please give me strength, please give me.
00:37:12
Speaker
It was so tough. And then the three to six months, for me, it was the golden period when they're super cute, they interact with you, but they can't really walk, run away, crash into something or crawl too fast and bump their head into something. So that was a magical period. It's almost like the universe gives you a moment of respite. And then six onwards,
00:37:38
Speaker
and then they start walking, so then it's like constant, oh, Jesus Christ. But then it does get easier. I think, so the first year, you could really, quote unquote, go a little bit insane thinking you're stuck in this forever. And I mean, as a dad, and we know, let's not pretend like the dads, basically, let's not pretend like the moms are doing more work.
00:38:09
Speaker
No matter what you do as a dad, you will never do as much work as the momma. Even last week, my kid was sick all week and she wants momma. She wants momma. Unless my wife physically leaves the house and my daughter has 10 minutes of crying to settle down, then we're like,
00:38:28
Speaker
dynamic duo but when mama is in the house I can't even put her to bed if she's not feeling well she wants mama and that's the end of it so yeah having someone to kind of give you that experience that level of experience another viewpoint and and then to remind you hey remember all those cute little things that you your your kid did in the first year the first two years well
00:38:50
Speaker
You know, enjoy that because if you don't, you will never see that again because because the second kid, it will all be different. So I think it's it's really awesome to have like a mentor or coach to to help you with that.
00:39:05
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And as I said, making sure that you have time to yourself. So one of the things that I did do a lot was to get out and go and hang with other mums so that you feel like you're not alone and you can have that, you know, that time to kind of vent and, you know, obviously
00:39:31
Speaker
find out that you're not the only one that's going through sleepless nights and whatever, you know, you've got that camaraderie and that companionship and the compassion from each other. But I mean, that's kind of the obvious stuff. You know, on top of that, there's, like I said, there's making sure that you are being kind to yourself and that when you have those unhelpful thoughts in your head that you
00:40:01
Speaker
address them and that you don't keep them in. Because once you speak something out loud, then you can, it becomes tangible, it becomes something you can do something about. But while it's stuck in your head and while you're not saying anything, then it just goes around and you know, around and around and around and that's not always helpful. So self-awareness comes out of being brave enough to speak it out loud.
00:40:28
Speaker
and then reflect on that. And yeah, it's perfect if you can have somebody in your life and if you don't have someone that you know, then finding someone who can be that mirror for you to reflect back what you're not seeing or to reflect it back in a way that's actually going to help you to see things differently and to give you clarity.
00:40:53
Speaker
And so I just, yeah, it's such a big conversation. And, you know, I think now, like I'm on the other side of that, my oldest one turns 21 in October, if you're wondering. So that's the oldest one. So this is how long ago that happens to me, but I still remember.
00:41:10
Speaker
You had them pretty young then, right? I was 24, so I'll let you do the maths. But yeah, I was 24. And I mean, I was, we're not much more of an kid at ourselves at that age, really. But, you know, it was a long time ago, but I still remember it like it was yesterday. And you're right, the things that we don't remember so much of a little
00:41:37
Speaker
cute things that you know we take for granted. Obviously we have the amazing uh technology that we have now so we can go back and watch our videos and our pictures but we that's why it's important to take those things in and and not let you know the overwhelm take over and you definitely don't want to to forget yourself so much that
00:42:00
Speaker
that you have to do so much work on the other side to really rediscover that. And if you do, you do. And there's a process and there's something that you can do about that which is good as well. Yeah. So how did life change for you after the merger and acquisition?
00:42:19
Speaker
I love it. Well, actually that was a year ago on the weekend. So at the time of recording this, so that was an interesting, uh, we had a lot of self-reflection actually. It's been an interesting year and it's again, something that we've approached very intentionally because I, and he, we both have very, very clear understanding. We've done the work. We know who we are. We know.
00:42:49
Speaker
what we stand for, what we want, what we don't want.
Creating Intentional Family Dynamics
00:42:54
Speaker
And we know we were going. And as a couple, and you can recreate this in a partnership that already exists, obviously, but we were lucky enough to meet knowing all of that about ourselves. There's always more to know, just to be clear, the work is never done, but we've done enough work to know that what we want to create
00:43:16
Speaker
and what we want to instill in our family, in our new family, we can do that intentionally. We have that self-awareness. We're very intentional about what we do and why we do it. And we're both kids first. It's all, it's gotta be kids first. It goes through that filter. That's not, it doesn't matter whether they're yours or your partner's. They're still your children and they're in your family.
00:43:43
Speaker
And, you know, if we didn't have the same values, if he didn't feel the same way, it wouldn't work. Sure. So on the other side of it now we have, yeah, we have a lot of older children to be an example for, which is also really important as a couple to make sure that we are on the same page about how we want those young adults to be influenced.
00:44:11
Speaker
and how we want to mould and shape them and guide them so you need to make sure that whoever you decide to do that with or if you're a couple and you are your children are growing up that you revisit that work and you revisit those things so that you can stay on the same page and I could tell you that if you do that your relationship will be better as well not just for your kids but for you guys yeah
00:44:34
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's important to understand. Once you internalize the fact that you are literally these kids are going to mirror so much of you, especially in the formative years, the first 10 years or so. And then they will start trying to do the opposite. I suppose when they hit puberty or become teenagers, they'll try to do the opposite. But until then, they're going to unconsciously subconsciously mirror a lot of what you're doing. So it's a good
00:45:06
Speaker
incentive to get your stuff together and really, I guess, grow as a human. So this is where I think the beauty of having children is not just the knowledge you transfer onto them. It's a two-way street, I believe, this process of learning. I've learned. Actually, I have this really awesome book. It's called
00:45:29
Speaker
the secret language of birthdays. So that's the best book of the series, but the guy has another book called The Secret Language of Relationships or something like that. So you look at astrologically your birth week,
00:45:47
Speaker
with another person's birth week and it tells you where relationships may be more favorable towards certain... For example, with my daughter, it says this is the best type of relationship where it's a parent
00:46:04
Speaker
Child relationship between my my my week and her week and the two would teach each other a lot of things so it will be a very rewarding sort of relationship and with one of my parents I had where it will be very explosive very sort of There'll be a lot of
00:46:23
Speaker
incongruence or sort of sparks flying and that's literally how it's been all my life. So I believe there's a lot of this astrological stuff is very interesting but I was very glad to find out what myself and my daughter we're going to be teaching a lot of things you know and I have some I've already got bought 50 books that are way above her current age
00:46:44
Speaker
but I cannot wait to slowly start introducing these one by one by one. And as she learns, as I see things through her eyes, I will learn more about myself, about the world, about what is God's plan with this whole having kids thing. You get these sort of mini epiphanies that are internal, you can't verbalize them, but they're absolutely beautiful. And you have like these moments of joy and elation that I think
00:47:09
Speaker
this is you know you're not again to reiterate you're not the only one transferring onto the child knowledge and whatever through this relationship you are growing as a human i just think you cannot you cannot replicate this with anything in the material world no it's so true i've always said that my uh
00:47:29
Speaker
my children are my biggest teacher in particular, my middle one, who I, who I, you know, have the most challenge with. And, you know, he has taught me so much about myself. And it's interesting because we tend to learn more through the things that
00:47:48
Speaker
that don't go well than the things you do, right? Like if you just do something and it's successful without knowing why it's successful. Whereas when we do something and it's not successful or it's challenging, and maybe we get there in the end, that journey that we go on, there's so much growth in that because
00:48:12
Speaker
The only way you're going to get to the other side of that and be successful is if you figure out the steps along the way and figure it out along the way. And I think that's why, as parents, there's so much to learn and we gain so much from it because it doesn't always go the way we want it to. And, you know, that's that's one of the reasons I love working with with the moms that are on the other side of that journey and helping them see the wisdom
00:48:42
Speaker
that they have gained out of their own journey with their children, out of their own journey as a parent. There's so much wisdom in there. Even if you've just been, I'm going to rephrase that because it was not going to come out how I wanted it to. I was going to say, even if you've just been a stay at home mom, that's still a massive job. So let's rephrase that next. Um, you know, even from being
00:49:09
Speaker
at home with your children, there's so much wisdom in that. And without intentionally sitting down to uncover that and rescue that, that otherwise would have been left behind. And then going about going, okay, well, I'm really good at this. And I gained this from my journey. I learned this here and I learned that there. Obviously this, this that I'm saying is what we would be putting language to.
00:49:39
Speaker
And then now I get to go, if I want to, and do something with that.
00:49:46
Speaker
and actually go into the second half of your life, because let's be honest, parenting, your parenting journey is only half your life, in the thick of it, right? You're always going to be a parent, but bringing your children up and setting them free in the world as adults is actually a really short amount of your life. It feels like a long time at the time, but I'm only 45, there you go, I said it, and I've still got a whole other half of my life to live.
00:50:16
Speaker
I don't, I know that I've learned a lot in that period of time and I know that there's a lot of things that make me who I am now going forward and to have language around that and to be able to have someone to say, you know, who are you? I'm not just my name. I'm like a whole lot more than that. And I know what those things are. And that is a really, really powerful place to be able to start creating from that second half journey. Yeah.
00:50:45
Speaker
And yeah, it's just, it's empowering. It's inspiring. And like you said in my bio, I think that you don't have to pretend it is the most freeing thing to just be you. Yeah.
00:50:59
Speaker
to drop the walls and hold on to the things that make you amazing. I think people would just if they can become their authentic selves without being so self-conscious which is again exacerbated all of the stuff is exacerbated by social media if you can let go of that and sometimes I you know if you take a break off social media even for a year which many people think is impossible
00:51:23
Speaker
But I was off social media for two years. No problem. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, everything. I was off of it. And the nice thing about it is you actually have been doing studies. Even if you get off social media for a week, they report increased happiness and feeling of well-being. But point being is if you discover who you are and you unabashedly live your authentic self, just things get easier. You become
00:51:49
Speaker
you become happier. So I think it's, again, it goes back to start with your values and understand those things. And I think a lot of folks, we're just so busy with work, life, then we have the kids and stuff like that, that we lose, we never get this chance to reflect or many of us don't get this chance to reflect. And that's a big source of resistance in relationships. And again, just our,
00:52:16
Speaker
even setting simple goals for our year or for this decade that we're in or whatever else. Actually, what you were saying earlier about even if you're just a stay-at-home mom, I think you can get away with it as a woman and as a mom. I think you can say that. But if I say that, Jesus, oh, yeah, I'd be canceled tonight. But I mean, even just the fact that I caught myself about to say that,
00:52:44
Speaker
You know, so many of us just have, we, we just, things come out of our mouth before you even think about it. We really don't have, like, I know that that would have been way out of alignment with two of my really important values, compassion and acknowledgement. Like I don't want to ignore, I don't, I, like those, we all need acknowledging as, as moms, you know, whether we working and raising children or whether we're just raising children.
00:53:13
Speaker
It's a big job. So, you know, again, we get to be really intentional. And I just wanted to also just mention as well with what we were saying before, if you can do the work that we're talking about sooner and you both do it, you're both committed, you and your partner are committed to growing into the best version of yourself.
Continuous Growth and Relationship Health
00:53:38
Speaker
And the best version is changing. So continuing to grow.
00:53:43
Speaker
And then you can be intentional about how you show up for each other as well as your children. That is going to enrich your relationship. And unfortunately, in the day and age that we're in, a lot of relationships, 51%, I think now it's more than 50% of relationships don't make it through.
00:54:02
Speaker
uh you know parenting and and that first part of our lives because it is hard and we do lose our sense of self and we do need to be really really really intentional about making sure that we are nurturing our children and also our relationship and so
00:54:22
Speaker
It's really important to make sure that this work gets done or that we at least are aware of the fact that it needs to be done. Sure. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. So tell us about your podcast.
00:54:35
Speaker
my podcast. Well, as you can see, I like to talk. So I actually started out as a hairdresser, so I have no problem talking. I like to say that's where my coaching journey began, because if you've been to the hairdressers recently, you know that we like to share everything while we're there. But my podcast is an opportunity for me to
00:55:00
Speaker
have these conversations similar to the one we're having now. My conversations are very much around rediscovering that sense of self and living life intentionally in alignment with that.
00:55:16
Speaker
And I have people come on the show who are on the other side of that journey. So they're doing that work. They're living a life that they're obsessed with, which I think everyone should be obsessed with their life. Be that, make that what you will. But I love every area of my life. I'm healthier than I've been in a really long time because I'm intentional about how much sleep I get and you know, what I eat. Obviously we can all be better, but I'm
00:55:45
Speaker
Overall, in a better place of my health than I've ever been, my relationship is amazing and I only see that improving over time. And as a mum, I feel fulfilled because I know how I want to show up for them.
00:56:01
Speaker
And so obviously the work as well. So I like to have those kinds of conversations on my show. And a lot of my guests are people who, you know, who I've either worked with personally, as a coach for me, or they've come through and done the work with me for themselves. And then just people that can add a wealth of, I don't know, like just add depth to that conversation.
00:56:27
Speaker
awesome because I think it needs to be had and I'm really excited to be here today and be able to have it with you which is just another whole opportunity I suppose to come and chat on your podcast for sure like for me the podcast my this podcast started first as a way to share the research from from my book on autism then eventually I realized that a lot of the concepts I was talking about
00:56:54
Speaker
They apply to everybody, all families,
Podcasting and Connecting with the Audience
00:56:57
Speaker
all kids. All kids' health is important. It's not just for autistic children. For them, it's all the more important because they tend to often suffer from a number of underlying health challenges. But then I realized that it's not just about the kids' health.
00:57:13
Speaker
We have to talk about the parents' psychological and physical health as well, because if you don't fill your cup, as I've heard it being said, you can't fill other people's cups. So it's like you have to put your own mask on, you know, before you put your child's mask on. It's probably not the best analogy. It's a bit dark. Perfect. Well, it can feel like that sometimes.
00:57:38
Speaker
It can feel like that sometimes. Perfect. It's so easy to lose yourself, especially I see for moms, it's so easy to lose yourself. For some reason, guys, we have this, maybe it's this hunter-gatherer sort of historical field around us, but we're able to go out, like for me,
00:57:58
Speaker
I just, if I need to get out, I'll be like, all right, I'm going, I'm going to the store. And then I put on a podcast or I blast some, some loud music to just reset myself a little bit. And then I'll go to the store, buy some food. So I come back, I've done something for my family, but at the same time, I've, I've gotten a little bit of a refreshment of change of scenery. So for some reason, guys, guys are able to do that more without feeling guilty as well.
00:58:24
Speaker
Mama guilt, I was just going to say that. Yeah, the mama guilt is for sure it's a thing. Yeah, it really is. And that's what I think stops a lot of us from doing more for ourselves, is because we feel guilty. We feel like we should be, we have so much other things to do that if we put any of those things down to look after ourselves, then we feel bad. If we are
00:58:50
Speaker
you know achieving something that's got nothing to do with our children or our family will feel bad and those are the things that we need to that's that's the thoughts I was talking about before that we need to address those because you are right we can't can't give from an empty cup and it is it's a it's our responsibility to feel it
00:59:09
Speaker
Because if we rely on a partner to fill our cup or we rely on other people to fill our cup and they don't, then we're going to start getting resentful. And then you have a whole other issue on top of that. So it's a, it's, it's, we need to take responsibility for that. It's another value of personal responsibility. There's responsibility, but then there's personal responsibilities. I'm responsible for my personal wellbeing, my happiness. Yeah. Like you can be responsible for a lot of things, but.
00:59:38
Speaker
to be responsible for your person, your health, your mindset, your energy, it's important. And yeah, I didn't know that for a long time, but I know that now.
00:59:54
Speaker
That's from doing that discovery. But yeah, our sense of self absolutely takes a battering when we become a parent and we need to be aware of that. And I love that we got to have this conversation and bring awareness to that because it's okay. It happens. It's supposed to happen. It's what we do about it and how we go about surviving that or thriving through that more importantly.
01:00:21
Speaker
And what we've been talking about, I believe, is the way to do that. Yeah, absolutely. It's also important to see people that have been in there through it and out the other side. Look, you're 45. I would never have said you're 45, not just by the way you look, but by the way you act. Behavior is another way to
01:00:47
Speaker
Let's say if someone is listening audio only, like certain people, they exude the energy of youth. And then when you see them, for example, one guy I interviewed on my podcast, I only heard him on his podcast.
01:01:02
Speaker
So I thought this guy was in his 60s. Then when he came on my podcast, I saw this guy. He looked like he was my age, you know, and then he told me that he was very close to 50. And I'm like, whoa. So the the converse can also be true. You can you can be old, but you sound useful. You have this energy and pep of you. So the life hasn't ground you down and crushed you. So, you know, this is what I like to see in the coach. You want to you want to
01:01:30
Speaker
Walk the walk, talk the talk, but walk the walk is even more important. I'm sure you've helped a lot of women. You're an inspiration to women. This is what I want to do with my podcast is share.
01:01:45
Speaker
other people's work that are actually making a good contribution to society, to the world, to our evolution. So, you know, love what you do before we let you go. Tell us where folks can find you on the internet, how they can connect with you.
01:02:02
Speaker
Yeah, I'd love that. So I am an Instagram girl. I mean, we all have our preferred platform, so you'll definitely find me there at Freed2BU. If you've put Freed with a D to be you in any platform and you search, you'll find me if I'm there.
01:02:20
Speaker
If you don't find it, I'm not there. So I'm not a Twitter girl. But that's the best place to kind of come and hang out with me. If you'd like to get in touch and have a call with me, you can do that through my website. One of the first things I think is really, really important when you're going to step into this work is to make sure that you find your person.
01:02:42
Speaker
because there's a lot of different types of coaches out there and there's a lot of different types of ways of approaching this work. And it's right. Energy is everything. So I think the easiest way for us to do that is to jump on a call and see if we're a good fit, if we're aligned. And if we are, then we can talk about what that looks like. But yeah, that'd be the two main places.
01:03:07
Speaker
Cool. I'll have the links in the episode description. Megan, this was a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. It's been awesome.