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Transcript

I’m Ben Pugh and you’re listening to Impact Parenting with Perspective episode 151. This podcast is all about helping parents manage the mental and emotional drama that comes with Parenting teams so they can focus on what’s most important, building rock solid relationships and having a powerful impact on their team’s life. Join me each week as I dive into real tools to help you and your team turn struggles into strengths.00:36

Alright, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for being here with me. Thank you for just going on this ride. As I go on this ride, I am kind of just doing episodes as they come to me. I’m having some awesome interviews. I’m doing my secret Parenting tips that are my favorite, and I just kind of have all the stuff coming out at once.01:01

And I just wanna thank you for being here along for the ride, listening and being an amazing parent. Today we have another interview and I’m super excited because guys, I’ll be honest with you, I ask lots of the parents that I work with to come be a guest on my podcast. I don’t know if I’m super scary or what, but most of them turned me down.01:25

And I have another mom who said yes, and I was just super excited. And so I have a real life mom here to talk to you about her experience with coaching. And Melissa, why don’t you just take a couple seconds and tell us a little bit about you and why you’re here. Thank you. I cannot not believe that I’m on the podcast that I found,01:52

I think in the fall of last year, just was feeling at my lowest point as a parent, really feeling like things were spiraling out of control. And so I was just typing in search words into the podcasts and about, you know, out of control, teenagers or parents with Teens or what to do, and stumbled upon your podcast and started listening.02:16

And it just, from the very first one, I love that you say that be the change that you wanna see in your teen. You had started saying, and that for me, that was a concept back in the fall that I really couldn’t understand, but for whatever reason it resonated really strongly. So I kept listening and out of all the different podcasts that I had started to listen to,02:42

yours just kind of kept me coming back to listen to more and more and more and going all the way back to the beginning episodes and just listening my way that way. And so part of the thing that drew me to your podcast was when you talk about the woo and you talk about energy and you talk about manifestation or you talk about where you know,03:07

where our thoughts go, that kind of helps to create our reality. And I had been going through my own kind of spiritual awakening in the last year and a half now, I guess it started back in October of 2021. I had been a social worker for Department of Human Services, so working in foster care for the last 17 years of my career.03:33

So I went through a traumatic experience at work and that kind of upended my life from where it was for kind of going on an autopilot. I really had to look at what I wanted the rest of my life to look at my career. It was a, it was a dark time for me. And so then fast forward to a year later and in that year I had started to see,04:05

you know, Max, my son at the time, or my son, he’s still my son, but at the time he was 14, going on to 15, you know, and just starting to make choices that maybe I didn’t necessarily agree with or that I had thought he would make. Yeah. And it really kind of put me, the crux of it all happened kind of in the fall of 2022 and it really spun my mind out of control.04:37

I had already started to re make realizations about the power of our thoughts and how our thoughts create our reality, whether we, whether we want to or not. It’s happening all the time. So if we’re thinking thoughts of my job sucks, which is stuff that I would tell myself or I hate my job or it’s so stressful or you know, well,04:56

I had 17 years of a very stressful job that was really difficult to go to every day. Lots of traumatic things happening constantly. So just kind of getting into that pattern of, of my own thinking. But for whatever reason, when it came to the Parenting piece, I didn’t apply those same methods. Yeah. Until I found your podcast and you were talking about being the change about looking at yourself about what is it that’s going on with your teenager that might,05:24

you could make a change in yourself about. And that really started me thinking back on my own childhood, my own years as a teenager with my parents. And, and I knew that it had been rough. I knew that the way my parents showed up for me at the time, I know I didn’t appreciate it when I was a teenager. And even all throughout my adult life,05:49

you know, my mom passed away when I was 23, but my dad still lives with us. And I got in a big argument with my dad two years ago about me being a teenager. He still brought up things that I did as a teenager, and I’m, at the time was 47 years old and he lives with me and I’ve done countless things in my life that you would’ve thought he could have put my teenage years behind us.06:13

Yeah. And so I didn’t understand that. And it definitely hurt. And then fast forward and my son is making a lot of the same choices that I made when I was a teenager. And for some reason because I thought I had parented him differently, I thought I was different than my parents. I didn’t understand why he was making some of those same choices.06:39

And it just blew my mind. And when I went down, you know, the, the rabbit hole of podcasts and books and trying to figure out how to fix him, and I found your podcast realizing it wasn’t him that needed to be fixed, it was me. That was another, essentially another awakening that I went through. Yeah. You know,07:03

I’d gone through this other awakening about the world and reality and my life and the impact I could have on my, my choices and my reality, but then really looking at it like, oh wow, this applies big time to Parenting and I need to figure this out. And so, you know, had been listening to your podcast, had been, had found other podcasts that resonated with Parenting Teens in a,07:25

in a more conscious way. Not like there’s something wrong with them, they’re the ones that need to be fixed. But more like, what is it? What is it about myself that I need to work on that will then have the impact that I wanted with my son? Which really, when it came down to it, I just wanna have a good relationship.07:43

I’ve always had a good relationship with him his entire life, and all of a sudden that was being impacted. Yeah. And I didn’t wanna get to young adulthood or then later adulthood to the point that then he was like, yeah, I can’t stand my mom. Like I don’t wanna have anything to do with her. I don’t wanna share with her.08:03

I don’t want in my life. Like that was, to me, worst case scenario would be he wouldn’t wanna have anything to do with me. And so I felt like I needed to figure it out pretty quickly. And you know, so I find your podcast, a lot of the, the episodes really resonated and, and spoke to me. And then I think it was in January you made an announcement that you had openings for your one-on-one coaching of Teens.08:30

And I was like, well, maybe this is the sign I’ve been waiting for. He’s got availability and let me, let me reach out and see if we could have one of those thoughts. I got my husband to agree to the, to meet with you and the three of us met and that was talk about Woo and synchronicities and all of that.08:51

The whole time that I had that appointment scheduled with you, it was scheduled for a Monday and I had made a decision in December to take Max out of the school that he was in. And he wasn’t starting his new school until January. And so he’d been home for four weeks and like the, I don’t know, the day before our appointment I re,09:15

you know, read the email thoroughly and it said that the team needed to be present for that interview and Max had already started his new school. I hadn’t even thought about it because he was home so long, but, and not that I’m saying that, that it’s a good thing that this happened, but literally the Sunday before the meeting that we were supposed to have,09:38

he was in a soccer game and within 10 minutes he got a really bad concussion. And so he was outta school on that Monday because of the concussion, but because he was home, he was present for our meeting. Yeah, that’s awesome. You know? Yeah. And so, you know, we met with you. Max felt comfortable right away and said he would be willing to work with you.10:02

I knew I really wanted to work with you. And so it was a matter of getting my husband on board to say it was okay to make this investment. And so luckily he said yes when we, we moved forward and it has been so transformative in our lives. The fact that I was able to join the Membership and do the group coaching and the group trainings,10:28

I mean, I look forward to those. Those are twice a week and I not only learn from you, but listening to the other parents and the things that they’re going through in their lives with younger kids, older kids, kids that are my kids’ age, and then being able to just have a community that I can tap into twice a week if I need it,10:50

if there’s something that’s come up that I need help with or tweaking or guidance that I have, that availability has been just priceless. So I actually remember the first time I met you. Cool. A handful of cool things happen. Number one, I love it when I’m meeting people who have actually listened to my podcast. That’s always just super fun. Like they already have the foundation.11:21

Max seemed really cool, just there are some times where I’m like, okay, I think I can help these guys. But when I was talking to you guys, it was like, oh my goodness, I know I can help these guys. And Max bless his soul, he is a fantastic young man, I love him. He was a little reluctant and he was kind of on my,11:44

I don’t know, I have like this little, I was kind of on the fence like, will he be in enough or not? And it was really weird. It was like, I felt kinda like a calling like no, you need to work with him and you also need to work with Melissa. So find a way to make that happen. Which we totally did.12:05

And I loved, you said something in one of your emails to me, you’re like, lucky for my family, I believe in manifestation, abundance, all of this stuff, we’re gonna make it work. Like I hadn’t even gotten to the point where I’d sent you an email yet you had already emailed me saying, Hey, we’re in, here we go.12:27

And I wanna just kind of share this because you came to me in a point in my business where I was having an awakening where I was like moving on from some old partners and like leaning more into the woo. And that’s why I did a two podcast episode on the Law of Abundance and the Law of Attraction. And I just want you to like,12:54

you wanted permission to talk about the guru, like you’ve got it like you were brought, we were brought into each other’s lives because of that law of attraction. Like attracts like, and there’s this saying that I like when the student is ready, the teacher will appear like you had already laid the foundation, you had already started the work. And like we talked before I hit record.13:23

Like I can’t take credit for your growth and your transformation. Like that is 100% you, I’ve taught you some cool stuff. I don’t think I’ve taught you anything new. I’ve taught you stuff that your brain is like, oh yeah, I think I kind of always knew that. But you have like, I believe you are the catalyst in your family or this massive change.13:47

And that’s part of the reason I wanted to have you on my podcast because you’re just such a powerful example that when you get tired of trying to change everything outside of your control, bring your focus inward and change from the inside out. So one question real quick. Did you listen to my private mini podcast series? I did one, it was right around Christmastime.14:14

There are just four episodes. It was a little mini series. It’s locked now. Anyways, I was just wondering if I think I did and if I didn’t I tried because it wasn’t on the regular Apple podcast App. You had to go to the website. So I think I did if I, if I didn’t, I know I tried. Okay.14:38

Well the reason I asked, like it isn’t super pertinent, but like in that I just broke down guys, this is what most Parenting advice gets wrong. And this is the shift in focus. Like most Parenting advice focuses on Parenting this way so that your teen will blink. And it’s actually disempowering because rather than focusing on yourself and being true to who you want to be,15:04

you’re focused on your teen and who you want them to be. And then you’re living out of alignment with your values, trying to control your Teens model. Anyways, I feel like when you came to me, you already had a solid foundation. You had already kind of been awakened to this lie that we’ve been sold and you realize, hey, there’s gotta be a better way.15:31

And that better way is you go ahead. I saw you were about to say something. Yeah, I, I think you’re right in the sense that I had a foundation, but I, but I would also still give you a ton of credit though, because I had the foundation in other parts of my life, but I hadn’t, for whatever reason,15:52

I just hadn’t put it together with the Parenting part and the, and the awakening and the, and really being able to see how that impacts Parenting came from listening to your podcast. And then when I want to learn something or I’m curious about something, I do deep dives. And so that means I’m listening to one podcast after the other, after the other,16:13

after the other. And I’m doing it for hours and hours and I’m, as I do my housework or, or going for whatever, whatever I’m doing, I’m to music. I’m just like listening to podcast after podcast after podcast or reading or audio books. And so you definitely were that major step in that shift of like, okay, there’s this that I’m becoming aware of for my own life in reality and all that,16:41

but I really had not clicked that it also impacts Parenting until I started listening to your podcast. And then I, from your podcast, then I found another book on Conscious Parenting that I mentioned to you from Dr. Shefali, the Parent map. And then while I was in the, the group with you and listening to the podcast and doing all that,17:05

hearing that book and going down that deep dive of that book, that was like another step in my Parenting awakening of like, whoa, I, I had a vague idea about the inner child stuff. I had a vague idea about the ego and I had, you know, I’ve heard things about how it is all within us, but that book in conjunction with everything else I had been doing,17:31

I feel like was another major step in my shifting how I was looking at my Parenting and how I have parented and you know, and now my son is 16 and so I kind of found myself in this battle of like, well, I don’t have much longer because he’s gonna be 18 and have I just completely ruined it? And no, I haven’t.17:51

And the amazing thing, not only with my son but with all children, is how resilient they are and how much they love their parents. And even when we mess up royally, because I have messed up royally many times, they have such forgiveness in their heart for their parents that what I’ve seen in Max, like, he is so forgiving and like,18:16

it feels like blank slate. I mean, maybe when he’s an adult going through his own awakenings and epiphanies, he’ll be like, oh, I remember when my mom did this. And then he’ll need his own therapy and have to go through all that process. But at least what I didn’t have from my parents is they never got there. You know,18:33

my mom passed away when I was 23. Luckily she and I were able to mend our relationship in the last like couple years of her life, thank goodness. But I didn’t have much longer with her to, to fix that relationship that was so important to me. And then with my dad, you know, I’m able to fix it now because like I said,18:56

even before he’s lived with me, I’ve done all these things, I’m what you would consider fairly successful. I, I, I’m a good person, you know, but I always felt like he was hanging my teenage years over my life. And, and honestly, I would always tell people about my teenage years, I’d be like, I wasn’t even that bad as a kid,19:15

but my parents really laid it on sick with how horrible I was. But I kept seeing all my friends or other people and it’s like, wow, I wasn’t doing any of those things. I wasn’t lighting school buses on fire. I never lit a school bus on fire, you know? And so, but the funny thing is about humans and human nature and whatB I’m learning about all this is that even though they didn’t show up for me the way I needed them to,19:45

even though I remember being a teenager thinking, well, when I’m a mom, I’m never gonna do this to my kids. When the rubber hit the road and my kids started making choices for himself, which is what he needs to do, it blew my mind and I didn’t know what to do and I was frantic and I was, you know, catastrophizing and,20:05

you know, one little mistake because he had been such a perfect young child, you know, like birth to 14. And I, when I say perfect, all I mean is that he was behaving in a way that I wanted him to behave, which I realize now was not a good thing, you know, because what I’ve been reading about are the kids that do push back and the kids that are more resistant to their parents when they’re younger tend to know more about who they are.20:39

And so when they’re teenagers, maybe they don’t follow the leader so much because they can set those own boundaries for themselves. Sometimes when you have a kid that is like so obedient, then they’re obedient to their friends as well, and so they can get led down tasks that maybe they shouldn’t be led down. And so those realizations were hard. Yeah. And I wanted to pause it right here.21:06

I think most parents, what we want is for our kids to be happy. Like when I started my business, I reached out to my dad once and I was like, dad, what is it that you want for your kids? And he is like, I just want my kids to be happy. And I feel like we secretly want ourselves to be happy.21:26

So we try and get our kids to obey our rules so that we’ll be happy thinking that’ll make them happy. It blows my mind. I read a study like 90% of people are dissatisfied with their job, they hate it, but because they’re such good rule followers and they’re so good at doing what other people want, they just stay in their job. I love my job.21:55

Like what I do seriously feels like play. And when I tell other people what I do, they’re like, what? That’s not a real job. I’m like, no, it seriously is. I just help parents be the parents that they want to be. Like when, when I see Teens that do not wanna play by the rules that everyone else is playing by,22:14

I, in my mind I’m like, okay, that is one of the future leaders and there’s someone that this world is going to need in the future to push against the common practices to question how we do things and why we do things, and to be a leader in doing it a different better way. So I just, I applaud you in just being willing to give max that space for anyone listening.22:44

Your Teens really do need the autonomy to think for themselves. They need, they need enough rope to get themselves into trouble. That is when they develop experience, that’s when they learn, that’s when they realize that like real trust and real confidence in Parenting isn’t trusting and being confident that your team will do what you want them to do. It’s trusting and being confident that,23:13

that your team can handle the consequences of whatever they choose to do. And that’s powerful because then you don’t have to parent from fear and your teen doesn’t absorb that fear. They’re like, man, if mom believes in me, I believe in me. Let’s do this. And that helps create just a more full teenage slash Parenting teenage experience. So we’ve had a couple technical things you hopefully you guys won’t even notice,23:43

but I have a call in three minutes that I have to go to. Here’s what I’d like to do, Melissa. I would like if a mom were on the fence, my one-on-ones are very limited. Like I don’t even, I only have a spot or two open. You can reach out if you would like to learn more about that. What I would like is for you,24:05

if a mom was on the fence, talk to them about like what advice would you give them about being the change? What advice would you give them about like letting go of your Teens choices and bringing that focus inward? It would literally be to do that deep dive into conscious Parenting and and what that means. And it’s hard and it’s painful when you have to look at yourself and you have to look at maybe things that you’ve done in the past or really it’s all about that.24:38

I guess the, the thought is that Parenting isn’t about Parenting your child, it’s about Parenting that inner child that maybe hasn’t healed from their own childhood. And then you end up taking out those things on your own kids. So yeah, I would just say do that work to look inside of yourself and that it truly, truly is being the change that you wanna see in that in your child and doing the work on yourself and really,25:05

really letting go of the stories that we create of what our children are supposed to be or what they’re supposed to do. And just letting them be who they’re going to be and and really accepting that. I think as parents, we want our kids’ lives to be perfect and happy and sunshine all the time. And I’ve kind of been able to do that for my son,25:28

luckily most of his life. And, but that’s not really doing him a service and it’s struggles and it’s adversity and it’s mistakes that we learn and grow from. And so really realizing that it’s okay that our teenagers are gonna make mistakes. It’s okay for them to get in trouble. It’s okay for them to to to do pretty big major mess-ups because that’s how they’re gonna learn and grow and become better to themselves.25:54

And the same goes for us as their parents. Yeah, I love that. And what would you say has been like the biggest benefit? Like has Parenting gotten easier? Do you feel more confident? Like what would you say has been the biggest benefit for you for having done this work? Oh my gosh. I’m just happier. You know, I’m not stressed out and worried all the time.26:22

I’m not living in fear all the time. I’m not catastrophizing one small choice or one mistake and thinking it’s the end of the world and the end of time. It’s just, and it’s, it’s, it’s made my relationship with my son even better and stronger than it already was. And it was already pretty great. Yeah. But it’s made it even better and I’m just so thankful to be here versus where I was even just a few months.26:55

I love that. And I would just add, it doesn’t mean all of your Parenting problems will go away. It doesn’t mean that like all of a sudden Parenting is now easy. I think of like the old Staples commercial with the easy button. Definitely no easy button. It’s hard. It’s hard work to go. And I’m still doing that work, that internal work and,27:18

and looking at myself, I guess what has been easier is just the feeling towards my son. So instead of that heaviness of, you know, whatever it is we were going through, it’s like that’s done. And that’s the lightness that I feel that gives me the time then to continue working on myself and know that however his life shapes out however he decides to live his life,27:47

I love him. Yeah, Yeah. Even if it’s not that Netflix series that I had in my mind of what it might look like. I love him, I love him, I love him unconditionally. No matter what he does, who he turns out to be, I want him to know that he has my love no matter what. Yeah. So like no matter who he turns out to be,28:10

you get to choose who you turn out to be. You get to be the parent of your dreams. This is so awesome. We might just have to do this again because this ended up being shorter than I wanted. So I don’t know. Someday there might be a part two to the Melissa Saga. I would love that. It’d be awesome. I have a call right now,28:32

so I got to let you go. Okay. Thank you for being on my podcast everyone. Thank you. Thank you for listening. If you want to come experience the same growth, I think we’re gonna read that book by Dr. Shefali. Stay tuned for that. But if you’d like to join the Membership, go to BenPughcoaching.com/FFP and I will see you later.