The Good Intentions Podcast
Good Intentions connects with experts and storytellers around social impact, psychology, mindfulness, personal growth, and health.
Each conversation unpacks the beliefs and rituals that drive and ground each guest. You will hear about achievements that go beyond the conventional and tangible to a deeper level, finding the meaning and intention behind what we do.
I believe that there is a deep longing in our culture and society for something more: something higher, something deeper. Material possessions and technology do not satisfy our souls. As human beings we long for connection.
I'm on a mission to spread positivity, drive connectivity and to inspire others to live a more meaningful life.
The Good Intentions Podcast
Ep 45 - Why Your Job as a Parent Isn't to Make Your Children Happy - Joanne Jewell
Joanne Jewell is a therapist, educator and speaker. Born in the UK, she became an expat at just 12 years old when her family moved to South Africa for her father’s job.
She says she spent most of her adolescent years trying to fit in or to avoid fitting in – not appreciating then the theory behind the need to belong and feel securely attached.
Jo lived the life that was expected of her by her family and society until she was 30, but always knew there was something missing. That despite her constant efforts, the answer to happiness was not in the world around her, but instead in the world inside her – something that I think will sound familiar to so many of my listeners.
Watching her three boys grow and fearing that she would not be the mum they deserved was a catalyst to starting her mindfulness journey, and this, combined with a family loss, gave way to a new phase of her life. Jo entered into therapy, started training as a counsellor and read everything she could find about healing ourselves from within.
Jo says: “My greatest learning has been that through mindfulness I can change my blueprint; whatever I was taught and no longer want to use can be changed, and this is true for all of us.” This optimistic thinking gives me hope that we all can change, and is something that I explored in our conversation.
We also talked mindful parenting and it’s power when it comes to raising resilient, optimistic children, how it isn’t our job to make our children happy, and we also discussed the genocide in Palestine and how to talk about this with children.
Jo is so wise and brilliant and every time I talk to her I learn something and feel uplifted. I know you will too – please enjoy the conversation.
Follow me, and the Good Intentions podcast:
https://www.instagram.com/kellyharvarde/
https://www.instagram.com/goodintentionsuae/
Find Joanne Jewell here:
https://www.instagram.com/joannejewelltherapist
https://www.joannejewell.com/
Immerse yourself in some of the books we discussed:
Why Love Matters - Sue Gerhardt
https://www.amazon.com/These-Girls-Hope-Muscle/dp/0446672106
How to Do The Work - Dr Nicole Lepera
https://www.amazon.ae/How-Do-Work-Sunday-Bestseller/dp/1409197743
Welcome to Good Intentions, the podcast where we explore the world around us to find meaning and intention in what we do. I'm Kelly Harvard and I'm on a mission to spread positive stories that will inspire you to live a more meaningful and connected life. Jo Jewel is a therapist, educator and speaker born in the uk. She became an expat at just 12 years old when her family moved to South Africa for her father's job. She says she spent most of her adolescent years trying to fit in or to avoid fitting in, not appreciating then the theory behind the need to belong and to feel securely attached. Joe lived the life that was expected of her by her family and society until she was 30, but she always knew that there was something missing, that despite her constant efforts, the answer to happiness was not in the world around her, but instead in the world inside her. Something that I think will stand familiar to so many of my listeners, watching her three boys grow and fearing that she would not be the mom that they deserved was a catalyst to starting her mindfulness journey. And this combined with a family loss gave way to a new phase of her life. Joe entered into therapy, started training as a counselor and read everything she could find out about healing ourselves from within. Joe says, my greatest learning has been that through mindfulness I can change my blueprint. Whatever I was taught and no longer want to use can be changed. And this is true for all of us. This optimistic thinking gives me hope that we can all change and is something that I explored in our conversation. We also talked mindful parenting and its power when it comes to raising resilient, optimistic children. How it isn't our job to make children happy. And we also discuss the genocide in Palestine and how to talk about this with children. Joe is so wise and brilliant and every time I talk to her I learn something and feel uplifted. I know you will too. Please enjoy the conversation. Morning Joe , thanks so much for joining me on the podcast.
Speaker 2:Morning Kelly. Lovely to be here.
Speaker 1:So happy to see you and to hear you. It feels like you're sitting next to me in Dubai, which is just such a great feeling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that , that would be quite nice as well at the moment 'cause it's getting a bit cold here. I
Speaker 1:Know, right? Of course. Yeah,
Speaker 2:The sun is shining today. Next
Speaker 1:Time you're here we'll do it in person. We'll do another one maybe.
Speaker 2:Yes, that would be lovely. Yes. So
Speaker 1:I've been dying to have this conversation with you for ages, so I really appreciate you finding the time and I wanna kind of go back to the beginning 'cause I met you sort of when you were this sort of maybe more fully formed , what could we say? But I wanted to go back to the beginning and what sort of made you start your career in therapy and you said that parenting your three boys really played a role in your journey to becoming a therapist. Could you tell us a bit more about what started you on that journey and how the boys played that part in it as well?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean definitely I don't think I probably would ever have done this if I hadn't become a mother. I didn't start until, so my, I have three sons and I think the eldest was probably about two when I had this very clear realization that I had absolutely no clue how to be the mother that I wanted to be. I was very clear on the mother. I didn't want to be. And I even remember from the age of maybe five or six having conversations with myself about all the things I wasn't gonna do as a parent. So when I was very young I used to have those conversations myself. And as I got older I was more, I'm just not gonna be apparent because it feels like hard and I'm really not really sure how I'd do it. And definitely I was very much reliant on the coping strategies of a perfectionist when I was younger. That was a big part of the way that I lived my life was if I'm perfect at something then I can avoid pain and judgment and shame and all of those things. Of course that never actually really works. But I tried really hard at it. So becoming a a mom , I think particularly if the way you've cope with the world is to try and be perfect when you become a parent, I mean it's virtually impossible. Whatever you try to sell perfectly, a child will come in and probably trash it, right? Because that's what children are meant to do. They're not meant to be to fit into that mold. They're there to teach you what it is to be free and joyful and chaotic and all these amazing things the kids before . So my eldest son is probably, I mean they've all taught me something, but I think because he was my first real teacher in that way, he was quite brutal to be honest. He wasn't taking any prisoners, you know, he was like, I'm here. I will not fit into your like well organized life. I'm going to throw chaos wherever I can and I won't be quiet about it. I'm thank goodness for that, thank goodness. So I have a vivid recollection of him being about two and me sitting on the stairs in my house with my head in my hands just thinking, I just have no clue how to do this. Like my body wants to go into fights or slights , you know, it wants to shout or it wants to get away and I really don't wanna do that. So I better figure something out. Really I need to, I think for me the , the first sort of focus was how do I deal with this anger? I don't think I'd ever felt anger like I did as a mother. And I really didn't want it to be propelled towards my son. I had, my second son was already more , he was like a baby at that age. So toddlers are great teachers and the only issue around that is whether we are open to learning or not. I think with him, whether I'd been open to learning or not, I was gonna learn. Right. 'cause he was such a force of nature really. Which is interesting 'cause he's turned into the most calm, compassionate like ol So I would say actually often reminds me of you Kelly . 'cause he's always taken in stray animals. <laugh> . Oh no God help him stray lot . I think we taught him that a little bit actually. So he is always taken , always wants to take care of somebody or something. Right.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful. I love him already. Yeah,
Speaker 2:He is. He is wonderful. He has his own challenges in the world because the world is really made for people like that. Right,
Speaker 1:Right . Painful. When you have that caring, empathetic, very open mind and heart, it's very easy for it to get crushed.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Uh ,
Speaker 1:Yeah , squeezed quite hard. I definitely know that experience. So you had two under two Joe and you're thinking, okay, I dunno that I can do this and you had a job, you had a life, you had a career . So you just kind of left that behind and then moved over into doing this. I mean how did that work?
Speaker 2:Well what happened was my father-in-law died very suddenly. He was only 49 actually when he died. And as a result of that he was , he had a , his a a business that was quite a new business and there wasn't really anyone to manage that. And just letting it go wasn't really an option because he invested a lot of his retirement pot into it. So at the time I was working in finance which fitted well into my perfectionist, you know, overachieving lifestyle. Right. And I was starting to just become aware this job doesn't fit with being a mum . It just does not work. I was traveling quite a lot for work and it just started to feel really painful to be away so much. Even though I had great support, like really amazing support, not from family but from my husband and, and we had a nanny, this is when I was living, this is , I was about living in the UK at this time. So when my father-in-Law died, I was like okay, realistically I'm probably the best position in in the whole family to step in and try and help sort this out. You know, my husband had a very big job at the time and he wanted to support but with there not needed someone to be like on the ground really to do it. So I took redundancy from my work and that was really the thing that started it. So I did that for about 10 months to 11 months and just got the business into a position where it could be sold , which is what we did. And then I was left with no job and no income and no, and by now I had three children. I was
Speaker 1:Gonna ask you where the third one came in . Oh my goodness. There's a lot going on. Yeah,
Speaker 2:So we , in that year, my third son was born as well. So I was like okay, I don't, I don't really know what I'm gonna do. It's like, you know, when you get a a space in your life, I'd never really had a space. I'd gone from school to uni to work the getting married to having children and working and didn't really take much maternity leave and, and then I just had this space and I was a bit like, okay, this is slightly scary really. I think I'd always wanted space but when it came I didn't really know what to do with it. And I got a part-time job working for an adult education center in the UK and one of the bonuses of having that job is that you can attend some of their courses for free and you don't have to pay . And one of the courses was introductions, counseling. And I was like, oh that really interests me. Part of my job had been people management. I'd done a lot of people management particularly later in my job, quite a lot of supporting people through change. We , I worked for a company where there was a lot of change so I did a lot of change management work and I really enjoyed listening to people and found, I recognized that when you connect with people it's actually much easier to build a really good working relationship with them. So I really enjoyed that part of my job. And so this counseling thing as I called it then seemed like oh let me check it out and see what it's about. But that was really the beginning of my journey and when , and my studying was in the evenings so I was doing some part-time work from home and literally my husband would come home from work, leave the car running in the drive, I'd hand a baby get in the car and go to college and do my studying. Your
Speaker 1:Second job of the day
Speaker 2:<laugh>. Yeah, I do vividly remember at times thinking like what am I doing? This feels really overwhelming 'cause it's quite a , there's a lot of when you study in that way or when you study counseling rather than, I didn't study psychology, I studied to be a counselor and when you do that there's you, part of it is a requirement to do personal therapy. So this was really the first time that I'd really engaged in personal therapy and it brought up a lot of stuff. So I'm parenting, studying and on my own personal journey as well.
Speaker 1:And then everything that you're doing with the studying and the personal journey is obviously then gonna be impacting you so much in the daytime as well when you're just living your life and you've got three children.
Speaker 2:Yeah, more children. Yeah . So my goodness. Yeah. So it was really, when you look at it, it was how it was meant to be. It was always meant to be that way. I'd also taken on a little child minding job as well, <laugh> as well. Well you know, the thing is I gave up a very well-paid job and we had three children. I have a mortgage and so I took on this little, which was really just a friend of mine was a teacher. So she dropped her kids at my house before she went to work. I'd taken school with my children and I'd pick them up and have them about an hour and she would come and pick them up. But it was the first time I'd ever really taken care of anybody else's children. So it also makes you realize that children are , have lots of things that are the same and also the way that they respond is quite different. And so I learned a lot and I think I sort of started to really become aware that you can't respond to every child Exactly you're saying because they are little people in their own right. And of course in a way I already knew that about my own children. But when you're getting on with the business of parenting, there's not a lot of time for self-reflection to be honest with you. And I think that's one of the hardest things about parenting's. Like you're on the treadmill all the time. There's not a lot of time to actually sit and think, okay, what happened today? How do I feel about what happened today? When I think we do reflect on when we've had a really bad day and when I say reflect, I mean probably just go , well that was a hell of a day and that's probably as much as we do. Right? Or we may be go into a bit of self-criticism or self blame or you know, I'm , oh there must be something wrong with me. Everybody else seems to be enjoying being a mother and everybody else seems to be coping well and you know, so we tend to be quite tough on ourselves as moms as well. But we rarely sit down and go, well actually today went really well. So what happened today? But there seems to be more cooperation in the house. The kids actually listened the , the third time I said something, you know what , what's all that about? This
Speaker 1:Is such a good point Joe . It's like maybe if I could just parent like every other day, it would be so great, wouldn't it? 'cause I need to have all this like reflection time in between <laugh>
Speaker 2:In between. You could take some reflection
Speaker 1:One day on, one day off. I could really, I think I'd be a much better parent anyway. Obviously I joking love very much love having my daughter with me every day . But my goodness, you make such a good point. There is no time to sort of, and you, so you were plunged into almost like a science experiment because you're learning all this great stuff and then you've got this laboratory which is your house with your children, other people's children. Wow, what a baptism of fire. But what a great way, what a great opportunity, what a great way to learn.
Speaker 2:Yeah because my boys were getting involved in lots of activities and you have to take them to all these things. My husband became like a , a football coach. So I there with all the competitiveness and children and parents, I mean just standing on the side of a football pitch watching parents is a learning experience on its own. And I also became a beaver Linda . So beavers is like the bit before Cubs
Speaker 1:Brownies,
Speaker 2:Yeah that brownies. Yeah. We had boys and girls and it wasn't all boys. You could have boys and girls. So I did that as well. I didn't know really while I was doing all of these things. 'cause I will say that was probably quite out of character for who I was then. But people might meet me now and go, of course she was a beaver leader. Of course she was a tar mine . But bear in mind that's not really who I was then.
Speaker 1:Well you were fresh from your corporate job. You were still dusting off your work shoes and hanging up your suit from coming in from work every day . Yeah, I can totally relate to that. That must be so strange.
Speaker 2:Yeah and it was definitely a big learning curve for me that was such a privilege. Like what a privilege to get to spend time with children in a role that isn't like as a mom but also in a different type of role. 'cause you really get to experience that. So when I got to a point in and I'm doing, I'm still doing my training, my counseling training in the background and going to therapy and you have to do a lot of self-reflection as well, like written self-reflection. And I always used to do that on a Monday and it would literally almost take me the whole day. Like I'd drop the kids at school and go home and it just, it was so difficult to do that 'cause it wasn't a skill I had at that time in my life. So I'm always really feel so much compassion for people when they're starting to learn to self reflect because it can be a really painful process.
Speaker 1:Yeah . Painful and difficult. Yeah , definitely. Yeah. And it's , so you have this focus as with all your sort of therapy and training you , you now have this focus on mindful parenting, which I think is so interesting that we talk about this a lot. I think, you know, most parents trying to somehow incorporate this sort of into their life into the way they are with their children. But sort of can you kind of summarize what mindful parenting is to you sort of like in a nutshell and how does it differ from other approaches, you know, other parenting approaches that we might hear or know about?
Speaker 2:I think for me it really comes from what I shared a bit before, which is children are not like machines and no child is the same and no child is the same on any given day because they are bundles of emotions, particularly when they're small. They're just bundles of emotions basically with no filter and no way to manage those emotions. So if you can be present in your own body and I know that people are like present in your own body, what on the earth does that mean? That just basically means like I have some awareness of what's going on inside of me, how I'm feeling, how my body is feeling. Maybe I'm aware that my shoulders are a bit tense though maybe I'm aware that I'm being a bit sick in my stomach today. Maybe I'm aware that I'm tired or if I can have some awareness of myself and have some ability to be able to soothe myself, right? So that I'm not behaving based purely on my emotions, but that's what it is. 'cause if we don't have the ability to soothe ourselves in some way, then our behavior's just gonna be based on whatever it is that we happen to be feeling in that moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, reacting. Yeah,
Speaker 2:That's great. If you live on a , there's an island and you don't have anything to do all day long and you're super chill, then there's no responsibilities and nobody's asking, then probably you'll be naturally fair in a calm , in a regulate state, right? But the reality is, most of us, that's not the life that we lead. So if I can be more aware then, then what that means is I'm able to be present for what's happening to my children. So I can see that they're , you know, having a a , a difficult day. That they're struggling a little bit, that maybe they're having a big feeling or maybe they are wanting to experiment with something. It means that I'm looking at them in a more compassionate, aware way because that's how I look at myself. Because I look at myself in that way. I look at them in that way. And I'm not trying to change everything. I'm not trying to be in control. I don't want people to think that I'm saying you have to be in control of your emotions. That's not what I'm saying. I can be feel really tired, I can feel frustrated and because I'm an adult I can still choose how I speak. But if I'm not aware that I'm tired and frustrated, I won't even think about choosing how I speak. It's just gonna come out. And all that means is effectively your parenting like a child, right? It's like having two children in the room just acting based on how they feel in that moment. And that's a problem because our children need to learn from somebody whose brain's more mature than theirs. That's the way we learn as human beings. We learn in a hierarchical way. So we need to learn from people who are more than more mature, you know, have a brain that is more mature and wiser than ours. So for me, mindful parenting, I mean I could give you the definition of it, but it's just about being in my life, like actually being present in my own life. And one of the things that's really important is, and I'm not judging, I'm not spending my time, I'm not saying, oh you're tired today. Well that's really bad. You should have gone to bed early last night. It's your own fault that you're tired and you know, you don't need to do all of that. I'm tired today. Okay, so what could I do to help myself if I'm tired today? Is there anything I could do that would help me right now? Not, oh I'll make sure I'll go to bed earlier tonight. Well that's great, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm tired right now. So can I do something to help myself? Can I maybe, I don't know, go and stand outside for two minutes if , especially if it's that if there's day like that could help a little bit. Can I put a piece of music on that helps me when I feel tired? Can I just have a glass of water? You know, is there something I can do that will support me in my tiredness? And you see, when we do that for ourselves, it means that when we see our children are tired, we're more able to be supportive of them or more compassionate to them. And you can use that for any feeling. It could be, I'm feeling, I dunno , angry today, I'm feeling frustrated today. I just want to not be in the world . I just want stay in my house and and not leave today. It can apply to any feeling that we're having and it shifts from judging myself for having that feeling and needing to fix it, change it, ignore it, any of those things that we do and shifts us more into, okay, so how can I support myself? How can I help myself right now? And sometimes just even taking a breath just oh okay, right, we can do, you know, we can do this. Like I know it's hard today Joe , but come on, like we'll be okay. We can do this. I'm just supporting myself rather than like going into a rant. Yeah,
Speaker 1:No I really like that asking, you know, what can I do to help myself rather than going straight to judgment, which I think is where a lot of us tend to go to .
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And when parents are coming to you, I'm really curious, are there sort of certain themes that you see? Like why, what are the most common reasons PE people come to see you when it comes to parenting and sort of how do you sort of address, address these issues that they're coming to you with?
Speaker 2:I would say the , the most common question I probably ever get is how do I get my children to listen to me? That's probably the most common question, how pa parents come for all sorts of different reasons. But I think the thing that we struggle with the most is this idea that somehow when we speak a child should respond right in the way that we want them to. So one of the things I talk to parents about is, and they'll come and say, oh my children don't listen, I have to shout or I have to bribe them or I just give up and I walk away or, and it's so frustrating and now me and my husband are arguing about it and it leads to a lot of conflict and it's all because we live busy lives, most of the three busy lives we are generally probably realistically trying to put too much into a day and we're often rushing for one thing to another and we feel overwhelmed. I would say most people feel overwhelmed and that then puts us into a higher gear and we want to get things done more quickly because we're all got trying to get to this place where we feel calm. Have you ever noticed that you go through a day and we want to do is to get to the place at the end of the day where you can just be calm?
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness. Honestly, Joe , sometimes I've recently, because with everything that's, you know, happening in the world, I'm almost rushing bedtime, which is like one of the most, like it should be for me it's like sacrosanct, right ? You know, my daughter's at school, I'm at work, but bedtime I can feel myself getting a bit agitated because I wanna rush through it a bit more just because it's eating into my time. So yeah, I am always trying to sort of rush. There's this halian period of time, it's about like eight 30 each evening where I have like one hour to myself. So yeah, I totally identify with that. Trying to get to that magic window of time. That's for me really hard.
Speaker 2:In that hour you have for yourself, what is your aim for that hour? Like what is it that you are trying to get to in that hour? Is it job study around the house or is it No,
Speaker 1:No, no. Just to be with me. To be still usually with a book, usually with a cat, maybe with a cup of tea. But it's just to be still, just to be just a bit , I really like being on my own. My husband is around, but often with the weather being so nice I just, I go and sit in the garden now. So yeah, for me it's always been really important. I'm an only child not making listen to a session about me, but I'm an only child so I'm very used to my own time. For me, I like to be alone time whether and I could be alone with other people if that makes sense as well. But something for me. Yeah,
Speaker 2:Yeah. But I'm interested in that word still. You know, you use that word stillness. Yeah ,
Speaker 1:Because we're all rushing around, right? I , I leave the house very early in the morning, you know, school start here very early, we leave at seven, I go to school, I go straight onto Shaxi , I drive to work, I get into the car park , I go to the office, I go from meeting to meeting to event to event blah . Then I do it all the way in the reverse and come home and it's just non, it's like being on, you know, a house to wheel or a treadmill or whatever other image you wanna use and there is no stillness. So for me still, and I do try to create stillness in the way in myself, I think I'm pretty, I'm a pretty calm person, but still nothing compares to being on your own on a sofa in the garden, in your pajamas with a book <laugh>, nothing. You can't beat that feeling. Yeah,
Speaker 2:Parents might describe that word differently. They might use a different word . Like I want to be, yeah, on my own I want to be quiet, I want not no one to be demanding anything from me. We describe it in different ways, but what's what I've discovered over the years and it's actually all the same thing pretty much that we're trying to get to that place where we feel in our, and it's actually an embodied feeling, although we don't usually describe it like that. But you said still, which is an embodied feeling, right ? I wanna be, I want my body to feel inside. I want it to feel still. I want my head to feel still. I want the thinking to stop. You know? I just want everything to feel still . And you notice how when we get up in the morning, we're already trying to get to that at the end of the day. And we might try to create little spaces of it during the day, but as you've said, nothing beats that feeling of I've done all my jobs and now I can rest. You know, this concept that we have to work before we can rest like that rest can only rest, can only follow work. Yeah ,
Speaker 1:I know I , I hate this whole culture that we've got of this whole hustling, grinding. Like I've never subscribed to that . It's massively odds with my integral values and I dunno quite how I've ended up in the corporate world to be honest. I should be living on the side of a mountain somewhere or on a beach. I , this is not, yeah, with some chickens and some cats, I'm not really sure how all been terrible this state show as this is the case for many people, right? Um, you kind of end up where you are and then you're like, well you know, I'm here so how can I try and make the best ? It's kind of why I started the podcast, right? Because it's like there's loads of people. So the vast majority of people, we are not gonna give up day-to-day jobs or you know, we can modify them and change them so they suit us more. But you know, we can't all go and live on a desert island, you know , like you referenced, it would be great if we could, but most of us can't. So how can we try and find meaning and purpose and all that great stuff can't
Speaker 2:And bring some of that into our lives. So I think what most parents struggle with is that if we can get all of these things done, if the kids would just listen to me, if everyone would just do what I asked, we'd get to that place a lot quicker. And so the problem with that is we rushed through the day to get to a point at the end of the day that we've all been craving, anybody gets in the way of that. Like if a child suddenly decides that there's a dress update tomorrow and they tell me 10 minutes before bed or I suddenly realize there's something I haven't, you know, it's almost like grief comes, it's like panic, right? Because I was almost there and then you're just taking it away from me. So we were on this, on this path of trying to get somewhere all the time and we have such an attachment, like an emotional attachment to this thing. And I think we believe we have this belief if my children would just listen to me and do what I said when I asked them to, we'd all get to that place a lot quicker and everybody would be okay. But the problem with that is, is that's not how children are, are wire children aren't trying to get to that place. For them. Bedtime is a separation. They may want to get through school, but actually children are naturally way more present than we are. They're not always thinking of the next thing, the next thing you know, we train them to do that. As parents, we train children to start thinking about the next thing, the next thing, the next thing that , but children are actually naturally very mindful and the way that they practice mindfulness is play. That's when their most mindfulness play. And if you think about all the ways we've stripped play out of children's lives, so we strip all the play out of their lives and then we want to take them to mindfulness workshops and yoga classes and things to teach them the skills that they actually naturally learn through play. All we need to do is just put, play more, play back in. There's loads of research, Peter Gray has done a massive amount of research around the increase in mental health issues in children and how that directly correlates to the decrease in play in children in schools and the world. And there's some really excellent research around that. But one of the things I often talk to parents about is how much time does your child have to play each day and what does what actually is play? And it isn't going to a structured after school activity that isn't play. I'm not saying those things don't have value, I , I wanna be clear, I'm not saying that some of these things don't have value, but if there's no time for play, if they're being done instead of play, then that is a problem. So, you know, when we talk about children not listening, what I actually discover when you talk to parents, what they really mean is my child isn't doing what I asked 'em to do when I , when I asked them to do it. Because it doesn't mean the child isn't listening. They may be listening, they just don't. They either don't want to do what you've asked them to do and frankly I don't really blame them. 'cause lots of things we ask kids to do are really boring and repetitive or they're busy doing something that they want to be doing , which is often play and they don't want to come and do the thing that we are asking them to do, which is put their shoes on, pack their school bag , come and have dinner . You know, all of these.
Speaker 1:I do your bedroom, put your clothes away, put your Lego away. Yeah . Boring <laugh>. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So our job is actually to develop cooperation. It's not about listening. I think that's really important when you help parents understand it's not getting your child to hear you
Speaker 1:Ha what's the best way to get them to do that? Cooperation.
Speaker 2:So cooperation. If you look at the science of cooperation, it comes from relationship. It exists where there is a relationship where people trust each other and are interested in the relationship and want the relationship to be successful. And you know the great thing about children when they're young, do you know they actually want to please us? It's part of their DNA is to keep their parents happy. It's not always a good thing for the child by the way, but they want to keep us happy so they naturally want to help us and we sort of get rid of some of those things because we bring in things like we were , we start rewarding them for doing things. It's one of the worst things that you can do because you actually remove their natural desire to help you. Or we, we bring in punishment, you know, we love to use that word consequences, but most of the time it's really a punishment. And so we start to undermine some of these natural things. But what I always work on with parents first is, right, let's work on the relationship that you have with your child. I know you love them . That isn't in question. I know they love you, but it's not, that isn't itself isn't enough. They also need, there needs to be a sense of that this person sees me. They're not just focused on what I'm doing or not doing, that my parents actually see who I am. They see my feelings, they have empathy and compassion for me. And when I'm not immediately jumping to the thing they've asked me to do, they can show interest and come to me and go, are you okay? Did you, do you want some help with that? I get a feeling that maybe you didn't hear me when I said back 'cause I could see that you were busy with something. Is that I know you don't really wanna do that. You know, of course. Like who does want to pack their school bag at six 30 in the morning, right? And cooperation requires two people. So it often means us also cooperating with them. So parenting is a relationship above all. That's what it is. And when we start to shift away from it being a relationship and more into like a management management employee type of thing. And I understand that I've had three children, right? I , I like and sometimes my kids would laugh at me and go, oh, mum's going into sergeant major mode. And then they'd laugh at that. They were right because I'd, I'd start to get stressed and , and then I'd start, you know, barking out orders and they'd only have to say that and we'd all laugh and I'd be like, I'm so sorry guys . Like I'm really sorry.
Speaker 1:Yeah but come on . I mean look , sometimes the sergeant major are the right, you've got three kids. That's a lot of logistics to get people out the door in the morning. You can't be examining everyone's Lego creation at 6:30 AM when you've gotta be out in the house at seven. I mean come on guys. No.
Speaker 2:So it's not about, and actually they're much better at coping in those times of stress if most of the time we are focused on building a relationship, right? So don't do always say to parents, the one thing I'd really encourage you is don't do something consistently that damages your relationship. Because what will happen is at some point you're gonna have to come back and rebuild all of that. So do your best to maintain the relationship as much as you can prioritize that above everything apps because, because there will come a point when they're not as interested in the relationship as you are. And when that happens, it becomes much harder. When they're Niall , they crave the relationship, they want it , it's the most important thing in their life. It's to have a relationship with you. But that isn't always gonna be the case. So once they get to 12, 13, 14, their relationship with you is not the most important in to 'em anymore. Now it's their relationship with their peers. And in order for you to maintain your parental influence, which is really important for them and Ian , you need to have a relationship that allows you to have that influence. Because otherwise the only influence they're gonna have is their peers. And that's a really risk in place for them to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, very tap actually quite terrifying. Also, I mean I'm talking about like what our job is as parents. You once said to me something which like totally blew my mind but did make perfect sense when I reflected on it. You said to me, but Kelly, our job isn't to make our children happy. Which I just thought , what? That's my only job is to make her happy. It really hit me like a ton of bricks when he said it to me. But it did make perfect sense. Can you explain what you meant by that? I mean, if that isn't our job as parents to make our kids happy, what is our job?
Speaker 2:I mean, happiness is impermanent, right? It comes and goes. We know that we'd love more of it, but it something that comes in and out of our lives and can come in big ways and small ways. So I think our job is to create a life for ourselves that is our responsibility to live and create a life for ourselves where we have the opportunity to experience happiness and to see the happiness when it's here. I mean I could look out the window right now and there's seagulls flying around. I'm right up very high in my house and there's , I can see seagulls flying around. I could choose to look at that and go, that's amazing. Look at , look at those seagulls and that's an opportunity for happiness, right? Or I could go, those seagulls make such a mess of the roofs 'cause they poo all over them and then have to clean it all off. So in that moment I sort of have a choice. Do you get that? As to what I focus on? So our job is to do that for ourselves, to create a life which has meaning if , if you look at all the research that's been done on happiness and a lot has been done, one of the three sort of key areas is a life of engagement. So that's relationships. A life where there is where we get to experience lots of different feelings and a sense of purpose. So those are the three ingredients that bring happiness into our lives. And that's been studied for decades. Millions of pa of pounds of dollars have been spent studying happiness. Martin Seligman has done some really interesting work on happiness and in fact he did some consultancy work for the Minister of Happiness in Dubai. He come , he often comes to Dubai and to support them around happiness. So our job, definitely our responsibility to create a life for ourselves like that. And then role model to our children what it is to live in this world, what it is to create engagements. And we show them that by, they learn about relationships through their relationship with us, but the only way they will learn about relationships. But it's a very important way that they learn about relationships. So we show them this is what relationships look like and we either show them a relationship that has compassion in it and safe emotional safety and security and emotional availability. We are to show them that or we show them something different. But whatever we show them, that's what we're teaching them . So I would say our job as a parent is that we have a big responsibility to live the best life that we can. And it's all out there. You can learn what that, how to do that more for yourself and then show that to your children through your daily interactions with them and show them how to be able to support themselves as they get older, to take care of themselves, to find meaning in life. Do
Speaker 1:You think that by doing this, that's how you create that kind of stronger emotional connection between yourself and your child or all the things you were talking about, about listening to them, appreciating them, responding to them. That's what helps. That's kind of one the at the center of mindful parenting, right?
Speaker 2:It is. I mean I think we only have to, if you could think of one of one relationship in your life, the one that has the most meaning for you, or the one that feels the safest, the most secure. You know, it's so interesting. We think we have to learn what a good relationship looks like. But actually we already know inside ourselves, we know what love really feels like. Even if we've never fully experienced a relationship like that, we still have a knowingness in our body what it feels like to love and be loved without conditions, without judgment. Where we actually know that. And if we've had the privilege of experiencing that relationship, then we are probably more likely to be able to repeat it. You're probably not listening to this podcast to be honest. 'cause you're probably out there living your life for the full and that's awesome, right? If you didn't experience that as a child, then your life's journey is really relearning that you're not, it's not actually something completely new. You're like relearning what love really is. So I think our job as a parent is really to throw and teach our children about love so that they can love and be loved.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So beautiful. And how hard is it to do that when you weren't parented in that way yourself? I mean, I kind of feel like for our generation, you know, it was kind of that it's , I mean, very different parenting approaches, right? I'm not saying it was right or wrong, it was just very different. You know how I feel like we're the kind of generation that I've had of trying to relearn all these different things and you know, even the fact we're having conversations about this and this black , an area that you specialize in is, I mean, you know, my parents would just be baffled by the whole thing. You know, no offense to them. They're great people. How can we do it? Are we always gonna need to have help to do that? 'cause it's, it seems like it's quite a challenge.
Speaker 2:I don't know that we always need help, but I also think like supporting ourselves and seeking support from others is actually one of the ways we love ourselves. Right? Do I, I have to do it all on my own . I mean, I don't really like to throw in, I'm trying to stay away from jargon here, right? Because I don't think it's that always that helpful. But a lot of children develop independence too young as a way of protecting themselves. Because being dependent on somebody doesn't feel safe, it doesn't feel loving, it comes with a cost or it feels painful because I get let down or I get hurt. So I actually dev , you know, I start to develop this idea that I'll , oh , I'll take care of me. It's like called ultra independence or is another similar word where I actually start to parent myself, try to parent myself when I'm young. But of course children don't know how to parent themself . So then we grow up into this world, we're like, well I've gotta be able to do all of this on my own. And if I need to ask for help, that means there's a , that's there's something wrong with me and I don't need to tell people and I need , and even if I am struggling, don't let people know. Pretend you're not. So I would say I have a much better relationship with help and support than I used to. And I'm much better at going, I could do this on my own, but I don't actually have to. So why would I? And it's a privilege to be able to get support. It's a huge privilege. A lot of people don't have that privilege. So I'm going to use it. And that help comes in all sorts of falls . Could be a person, could be an animal, it could be a book, it could be a therapist, it could be a really good friend, it could be nature. But why do I have to struggle? I mean, there are times in our lives when we, when we struggle and it's really hard. So struggling is not a sign of , um, doesn't mean I'm better because I've struggled.
Speaker 1:Great point Joe . No it doesn't. And yet we did it to ourselves, don't we?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Because we learn often that actually asking for help wasn't safe or we wouldn't get the help we really needed. Or we'd feel judged through the help or something. And what I say to people is, if you ask for help and the help you say isn't the help you needed, that isn't about you. That's not a sign that there's something wrong with you. It just means that wasn't the right type of help to you at that time . So keep looking for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Find another source. No, definitely. Yeah. I wanted to ask you about talking and communicating to children about really big issues. Like I think today we're on, I think I wanna say day 49 or day 50 of the genocide in Palestine. And we've had conversations with our daughter about it. She's 10 and we , we found a great book, we read the book to her then we've had lots of conversations about it. What do you think is an age appropriate time to talk to children about this and how should we approach these kind of discussions? You know, they're very big, frightening, traumatic, inconceivable for us as adults. So how do we approach this with kids?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like the sadness when we talk about this, that is something that we even should have to talk to children about or that children should be experiencing it, right? So I just wanna presence that in the room. Like, I wish we didn't have to talk about this. And I think there's always a part of us that's like, we're talking about having to talk to our children about these things and at the same time there are thousands of children experiencing this . So I wanted presence it by saying we're not ignoring that, right? We are well aware that even the fact that it's something that we talk about rather than experience is just heartbreaking. And I know that you feel the same about that as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100% .
Speaker 2:And yet we still live in a world where we have to talk about some of these things. And that's true. I mean, I definitely would really ser if you are a parent living in a house with children, you really wanna seriously think about their exposure to the news and social media and TikTok , you know, this is everywhere. And like that is, I'm so grateful that people are talking about this on social media and also even an adult brain is struggling with it at the moment. So children's brains would be super overwhelmed by it. So I would say really, especially with children, certainly up to adolescent years and even early adolescents, you wanna really think about other than you, you know, you wanna filter anything that they're receiving from the external world, okay? Because you have no control over what might appear on this screen next. And all of these social media things have a way of giving you more of what you've seen. So it can feel very overwhelming. So I would say don't use those outlets to give information because receiving a piece of information from somebody that you love and you know that cares about you and is in person there talking to you about it, is very different to seeing it on the screen or reading it has a very different feel about it. So , you know, he talks about reading a book. Yes. If you're a parent who, I personally can't give you a specific book recommendation, there are lots of resources out there that would give you those. But I think if your parent feels like I need some support with communicating this, yeah , find a book that will help you talk about it and then read the book with your child. So however you're giving the information, do it in person. Do it through conversation. Don't overwhelm them, share something, but think of it as like, I'm just giving them a little drop. Just a little drop. And if they have questions, you know, say to them, look, you can answer me a question anytime you might hear something from somebody else that worries you, that you don't understand, that doesn't make sense to you, come and ask me. There's no question that you cannot ask me. Because if they don't, they can ask you. They'll either ask somebody else or they'll probably more likely just keep it in their heads and worry about it. They may or there might be children at school who have more access to information and they might share something with them. So, you know, I'd very clearly say to them, if you see something or you hear something that you don't understand or upsets you, you can come and ask me. You're not gonna be in trouble. I'm not gonna tell you off for watching something that you weren't meant to watch. Right? Children are na naturally curious and as much as we like to control what they receive , we can't control it all . So I think that's really important, letting them know they can ask any questions and also know you don't have to answer all their questions. They might ask you a question and you might think, well, if I answer that question, I'm gonna be giving you more information than I might want to . So you can say, you know, sweetheart, I know that's a really difficult question, I know that's important to you. I'm gonna answer some of that . I'm not gonna answer all of it . I would encourage you not to lie to them because lying is not great in a relationship. But you can be honest and say, I feel like right now that I can tell you a little bit about that. But I'm not gonna tell you about all of it because that's not something that you need to know yet. And the yet word is vital in every parent for vocabulary. It's really useful to use in lots of situations. This is not something that I'm gonna share with you yet, or this is not something that you're ready to do yet. Because it gives the brain the information that this will change at some point in the future. So it's not a no, it's not a like a hard no, it is just not, this isn't the right time yet.
Speaker 1:Yeah , that's a great point. But I think, 'cause I'm, I'm in a kind of a sweet spot because my daughter is 10, so we don't have a connected tv, she doesn't have a phone. So we have been able to kind of , we have been able to control it to all intents and purposes. But you make such a good point about going to school and Ming and I know they're having conversations about it at school, which I really welcome. You know, I want 'em to be able to talk about it. You know , my daughter came home the other day and said to me, told me, without me asking all the brands that we need to boycott, I was like, okay. And she's 10. I was like, okay, this is a great conversation. We're gonna have a conversation now about our values and how we live them and standing up for what you believe in. So it's actually triggered, you know, some really powerful conversations in our house. And I also wondered how, I mean my daughter, and I'm sure you'll, you'll understand this, you've probably been the same. My daughter has seen me be quite sad recently. She doesn't normally see me be sad. I couldn't even tell you the last time she told me cry, she saw me cry. But I have been feeling sad. I've gone through everything. Like everyone has sad anger , good . I mean, I'm really quite irritable. And the other day I said to her it was bedtime. And I said, look, I'm really sorry but I'm really tired and I'm really sad tonight. So can we just have a cuddle and we'll read our book and then like, let's, let's try and have a really relaxed bedtime, you know, not jumping all over the bed like we do sometimes because it has to feel so heavy. And, and she said, why? 'cause she doesn't , why? And I just said, I'm just, I can't stop thinking about all the children in Palestine. So I'm being a little more open with her than I might have been. And she's seeing more than she might have seen before. And I, I'm hoping that that's okay because I'm showing her vulnerability.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Does she also see you come out of the sadness?
Speaker 1:She does. I'm not always in it, but I mean, goodness at the , at the end of some days it's worse , worse than others, but yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really hard. I would say it's absolutely okay for them to see our emotions. I think what we need to be mindful is , is they see that the emotions shift as well. It's like if they witness an argument, you also want them to witness the making up that we made up, right? Because otherwise there's no ending to it, there's no movement, we're just in it. And now everybody seems to be okay, but I don't really know why. I dunno how that happened. So remember, they only get the information that you show them. So if you're only showing them limited information about your feelings, that's actually all they see . And they don't have the ability to think about what might be happening behind closed doors or they'll just make something up in their mind. And that's, you know, children making things up in their mind in a non play-based way isn't great for them . It can be quite stressful. So of course it's okay for you to show that you are sad and if you know, if you're a bit irritable and you are aware, like I know you didn't do this, but say for example you shouted at one of your children 'cause you just see something on Instagram and your body went into fight without you even knowing. And the next thing you know you are shouting right. Well you're human and that's going to happen. The important thing is that afterwards that you acknowledge that and you say, I'm so sorry, I was upset and I shouting that wasn't okay. And I'm really sorry that that happened because otherwise children don't know why you shouted. All they know is that you shouted,
Speaker 1:Yeah, we can't expect 'em to join the dots all the time, can we ?
Speaker 2:No, they can't join the , and if they do join the dots, they're gonna join them in the way that a child does. Okay? So who knows what dots they're gonna join up together and children are more likely to blame themselves than anything else. So I think sadly, you know, our children are gonna see a lot of adults having emotions right now. And I think that's life. And that's true and that's real. And the important thing is that we show them there is, they are still allowed to live and we are still living our lives as hard as that is. And that I'm sad. And maybe talk about what the things I do to help myself when I'm sad. Start to share some of your resources that you have to support yourself. Talk about the things that might help you when you feel a bit sad or that you might, ways that you take care of yourself when you feel sad or angry. 'cause that's also really good learning for them to see. These are things that we can do to help ourselves when we feel sad. Oh ,
Speaker 1:That's a great idea. I love that. Thank you . I will do some of that . I've been doing quite so much of it to be honest. Joe , I know you're a huge reader and you're sat in front of a bookshelf, which makes me terribly excited. Can you tell me about some books, a couple of books that maybe have made a real difference in your life? I mean , are there some that you give as gifts to people? Could you , you have to pick a couple and I know you , you read a lot, but if you could just pick a couple for me, what would they be?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that's such a lovely question . I have another massive bookcase over on one five that you can't, or that you can't see. I mean there's a couple of books probably on this bookshelf behind me that would definitely come into that era. There's a book at the top there. I dunno if you could see. It's the Purple book and it's called Why Love Matters by Sue Gerhart . It's a really beautiful, and this is one that I often give as a gift. This actually isn't my original copy 'cause I often give away Marianne and then I like have to go and buy it again. If I've ever been invited to a baby shower, this is the book that I would take along. Or new parents or even somebody who's had a baby. I mean, I wouldn't give it to them in that first crazy weeks where they're beside them. But it could be a book that you could read while you were feeding or something like that. It's a really beautiful book because it's all about love really. And it's all about the way we love children and how we show love and the importance of love and how love shapes a baby's brain. So there's quite a bit of neuroscience in there and it talks about, it's that , there's a quote from this book actually that I often use when I'm talking about mindful parenting, which is, you know that our job as parents is to teach our children how to feel and what to do with their feelings, which is really what we've been talking about all the way through this, right? To teach them what feelings are we give them language for feelings, we show them how we behave when we have feelings, we show them that feelings come and go. We show them how to support ourselves and we're having feelings. So we teach them how to feel and what to do with their feelings. And I think that is such a, an amazing thing , gift to give to our children. Like these things you're having all day long, you know, everybody has them and, and sometimes they're amazing and sometimes they feel really hard, but there isn't any such thing as a good feeling or a bad feeling, but it's language that isn't true, right? It's made up language and there's quite a bit of sciencey stuck in here . You know , I'm a bit of a neuroscience geek as well. So there is some science stuff in here for those of you that love the science, but it's written in a really beautiful way. And it sort of came out at the time when parenting really started to shift away from behavior management more into relationship. I'm just looking at when it was published 2004,
Speaker 1:God , it sounds like a fantastic book. That's not what I've heard of before. So I'll dig it out. Super.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a beautiful book. So that's one that I often recommend and give. I mean, I would say anything by Gal Mattai and I've got all of his books. I would say if you really, you know, for people who maybe want to do a little bit, want to start to learn how to support themselves, there is a more recent book, which I think has some really beautiful work around . We talked about it earlier. What if you didn't grow up in that way? What if you weren't parented in that way? And I think I really like this book. It's called How to Do the Work by Dr . Nicole Lapper . What a great title. It says Recognize your pattern , heal from your Past and Create Yourself. One of the things I really like about it is she talks quite a bit about her own journey in this and her own pain of having to remove herself from some of the relationships in her life that really hurt her and how difficult that was for her and I . The other thing I really love about it is she talks about the fact that look for people to support you on your journey, but nobody's journey is the same. Everybody's journey is different. There isn't like a manual that will work for everyone. So really start to discover what helps you and who helps you and and I would say that very much, I mean this is a recent book. I think this only came out maybe a year ago. Yeah, 2021. When I read there , I could definitely see a lot of parallels of in her life, of my own life, of the way that I came to this work. Sounds
Speaker 1:Fantastic.
Speaker 2:I would say if you want to start to do a bit of work on yourself and it's set out really good chapters and like you can really get into it quite practical. Yeah, it is practical, but it's, I feel like it's very authentic. I , I feel like she's authentic as well. I like her stuff. That's
Speaker 1:Fantastic. That's two super recommendations. Thank you so much. They sound great. Yeah,
Speaker 2:So those, those two are , can I suggest one relationship book? Like if you want to work on your marriage or your relationship or something like that,
Speaker 1:Please. Yeah, of course. Because
Speaker 2:I have a whole shelf of those as well. I'm gonna give you a modern one and it's written by a man <laugh> . Okay. So I offer , recommend this to clients when I work with couples. I offer , recommend this for the husbands or the men in the relationship to ring . 'cause for some reason they seem to think if it's written by a man, it's more ,
Speaker 1:Of course,
Speaker 2:I think maybe they just like the tone of it. Okay. And this is called The New Rules of Marriage by Terrence Real . I haven't heard this , but you don't have to be married. Okay. You might just be in a relationship. Yeah , it's very, very interesting.
Speaker 1:What makes it different? Jake ? What's so great about it?
Speaker 2:I think he's really caught the way that relationships have changed and the pressure on relationships today. I mean I could easily recommend you any book by Esther Perel . He has a very similar outlook to her. I mean I've hired , I've underlined the line on the very first page that says the roles of men and women have dramatically shifted and so have our expectations about relationships. We have never wanted more from one another, more passion, more support, more connection. But our new desires have not been matched by a corresponding new set of skills. And I think that's really true. And she talks about, Esra talks about that a lot, that we are looking for more and more and more from one person than we've ever looked for before. And is that realistic? Is it even possible? And most of us probably don't even have those skills to be able to give those things. So there's a lot of pressure on relationships
Speaker 1:Of course.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I'll throw that one in because it's a bit different.
Speaker 1:No, it sounds fantastic and nice to have something by a man as you say, you know, good to include someone in there . Um, I mean we're coming to the end now , Joe and I do like to ask a couple of big questions as we get to the end of my conversations. Why do you think we're here on earth? What's our purpose?
Speaker 2:I mean, I suppose one of the word that comes into my mind is that , is caretakers. Our job is to take care. I feel like most of the time we're just focusing what we can take from the world. And I know you've got cop coming up soon in Dubai. What can I take? What can I get? What can I give to my, you know, I feel like we've moved way too far away from a community based into a very individualistic society. And I think we are not meant to live on this earth alone . We're meant to live together and support each other. And now I think our role is to take care of the earth and to hope and to leave it better than it was before we were here. So in some, how do we do that in some way? And it won't look the same for each of us. I want to be clear, I'm not trying to say never take anything for yourself. I , that's not what I mean. But I think it is important that we, for me, one of my se a sense of purpose is that I haven't lived a life that is just individualistic, that is only focused on myself. That there is something, some sense of community that I've created somewhere sense
Speaker 1:Of care, some sense of service .
Speaker 2:Yeah, some sense of service. And I've taken care of . And I think for me, honestly, that's where mindfulness comes back in again for me. Like be conscious of the choices you make. Think about how you live your life, not in a critical judgey way. Because actually the less judgmental we are, the more compassionate we are . So I can be compassionate to myself and others. I'm a vegan, I have been for about eight years and that came about very much through mindfulness actually. When you really start to think about the way you are living your life, it just doesn't feel right to me to eat other living creatures. And I'm sure there's people that will hate me saying that and will super uncomfortable and won't agree at all.
Speaker 1:It's one of those things I can't believe when I tell people I'm kinda like 99% vegan. And when I tell people like, I just don't tell people anymore. Or I use the words plant-based. 'cause it seems to be less inflammatory that there's so , like , it's just something that I , you could tell people about the way you live your life and people wanna attack you for it. It's just the bizarrest thing. But I love that you said about being mindful because what brought me to that point, I've been vegetarian for a long time. It was one of Oprah's podcasts and it was called Mindful Eating. And I thought it was all gonna be about, you know, thinking about what you eat like on , you know, not gorging. And actually no , it wasn't, it was a woman who was talking about exactly what you said. She said, if you actually think about the effect you are having on another living being and the feelings that it has and the fear that it has as it goes and it's sentient and it knows, and then you're gonna take that energy and you're gonna eat it. So it was just like a completely different way of thinking of mindfulness to me. And I was just like , that was like the final push that I needed. I was like, wow, okay. Yeah. Got it. Oprah's mind was blown as well . 'cause Oprah's like, you know, she's trying to live a, she's trying to live a life of service and, but she loves meat and she was kind of a bit horrified by all and she was kind of joking, saying, well what about if I eat Turkey? And all was like, you're missing the point. And it's not about the health benefits, no, it's about the energy and the ,
Speaker 2:It's the energy that you are putting into your body and where that that's come that where that's coming from. And I find myself more and more drawn to that, to being more connected around energy. I think particularly living back in a place where we have seasons again and that you really see how energy shifts throughout the year. And I'd sort of forgotten that. I think. So I think we have a responsibility to take care of this world. And I was reading an article this morning about the use of private jets in one year and it's just horrific. They, it was the something like 11 people used up, you know, the , the allowance of 40,000, the equivalent of 40,000 people by using private jets . I mean, at what point are we gonna go? It's not necessary.
Speaker 1:Well isn't it , we're here trying to, you know, not eat any meat and do a little bit of recycling at my bin <laugh> . Well , Jeff , Jeff gets on another, sorry to call out Jeff. You know, obviously I do order from Amazon, but you know, Jeff, come on. <laugh> .
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Drop in the ocean, isn't it? Yeah . <inaudible>
Speaker 2:A big push towards eating, you know, shopping locally, buying things. And I know that's so difficult when you live somewhere like Dubai where it's very hard to access things that are local. But I, I think we just, we do the best we can and we do it consciously. I think often we become unconscious as a way of removing ourselves from the pain of being conscious. And yes, being conscious ca does bring pain at times, but it also means I'm actually in my body living my life in this world, making choices for myself.
Speaker 1:God , what a great way of putting it. I love it . And if you had to look back on your career and your life and your , your sort of personal journey that you've been been on, what's your greatest achievement?
Speaker 2:I would say probably one of the things I'm proud of and I'm , I'm , I'm proud of lots of things. Okay. But, and it's hard to look at it. I could talk until the cows came home about all the people I'm proud of in my life. It's much harder to direct that lens towards myself. I think one of the things I'm proud of was, you know, leaving the workplace and saying on my own business, like I'm proud of that because it was something that I thought about doing for a prolonged time when I did it. When I left, I worked as a school counselor for many years and I left that environment and set up the business that was called Mindful Parenting. And at that time, parenting wasn't something that, it wasn't being talked about. There weren't parents and coaches. And I'm so grateful all those people have come, right? I think it's great, but those things didn't exist then. And I remember talking about it and people like, parents aren't gonna want to come and talk to you about parenting. Like, like nobody's gonna want to do that. And, and what's this mindful parenting thing anyway, what even is that? And I really felt so strongly from all the work I'd done with children, that if you really want to improve a child's life, don't work with the child, work with the parent that has the biggest impact on that child's life. So I really felt strongly having spent 10 years working with children and adolescents, the the greatest service I could do for them was to support parents and to do it in a way that wasn't clinical right? That wasn't medical, that wasn't like, I'm better than you. I know more than you let come here and let me rescue you and let me tell you how to be a good parent. I didn't want to do it from that. Wanted to do it from a perspective of, hey listen, there's some things I've learned and they've really helped me and they might help you so if you are interested, come and we'll share and we'll sit together. And in those times it was mainly group-based learning that we did. And I still love that. I love group-based learning. So I really want to do it from that perspective. I'll share some stuff with you and you may take something from it that might help you and that's great. So I think it was pretty scary to work, to move from having a salary every month and knowing what you working hours were. And I still miss all the school holidays that I used to get off and then going into basically having a new baby. 'cause starting a business is like having a new baby. It's like having a newborn. And I look back now and I think I'm not even really sure what pushed me ultimately to do that, but I'm probably the most proud of that. Gosh,
Speaker 1:What is in so incredible, if thank goodness you did, Joe , my goodness, we'd all be lost without you. And yeah, what a powerful, powerful achievement to end on. I love it. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thanks Kelly . And
Speaker 1:Thank you for the conversation. Joe , it's been amazing to chat to you. We've , I think we've covered so much and it was just such a fantastic conversation. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:Thanks. Your great questions.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for listening to the Good Intentions podcast. You can find links to issues and to books that we discussed in the show notes. And you can look for the podcast on Instagram. It's good intentions, UAE. Please do make sure you subscribe to the podcast and if you enjoyed this conversation, I'd so appreciate a review on whatever platform you're using. It helps more people find out about the podcast. See you next time.