The Broken to Brave Podcast

The Power of Inner Work in Parenting with Crystal Haitsma

May 07, 2024 • Dr. Stephanie Lopez • Episode 50

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Have you ever felt like you're battling against the tide when it comes to parenting and personal growth? Today I'm joined by Crystal Haitsma, aka the Parenting Coach, to share our intimate stories of transformation. This episode takes you through the trenches of motherhood, especially when faced with the unique challenges of raising neurodiverse children. We uncover the surprising ways in which our own healing can dramatically influence our children's behavior, and reveal that the quest for perfection might just be the obstacle standing in the way of genuine progress.

As we navigate the complex dance of relationships within the family, we discover the strength that comes from vulnerability. Together with Crystal, we reflect on the hardships of finding community and the significance of personal development in the parenting journey. You'll be inspired by how redefining our parental expectations can lead to a deeper, more meaningful connection with those we love.

In this episode, we talk about the following:
1. Challenges in parenting.
2. The importance of inner work and personal healing.
3. The power of reparenting and emotional regulation.

You can connect with Crystal on:
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/the.parenting.coach/
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/crystaltheparentingcoach/
Website https://www.coachcrystal.ca/

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Speaker 1:

Hi, I'm Dr Steph and I'm here to guide you on your journey to healing from a difficult relationship with your mother, whether she was narcissistic, emotionally immature or just plain toxic. I want you to know that you are, in fact, not broken and you do not have to suffer from anxiety or explosive emotional reactions like lashing out. You can break the cycle. You are a strong, capable woman who can handle any challenge that comes your way, and I'm gonna show you how to have the ultimate control over your reactions so that you are unstoppable. Welcome to the Broken to Brave podcast. Welcome back to the Broken to Brave podcast.

Speaker 1:

I am here with Crystal Heitzma and I am so excited to have her on the podcast today. Funny story she is actually one of the very first entrepreneurs that I met. Just context, because I don't think I've talked about it on the podcast before. I made my first post on Instagram, like with a business idea June, mid June 2020. And I signed up for a program with Brooklyn Jolly, and Crystal was in that program and, and and we just stayed in touch since then for four years.

Speaker 2:

Wild yeah, so wild. I remember taking that. So I was at the beginning of my business also, and so it only been a couple months in. I just started getting clients and didn't know anything about Instagrams. Like there were so many little things that I did not know about, so that was my very first introduction to like how to do business on Instagram.

Speaker 2:

And I think it's awesome that we've stayed in contact, because I had you on my podcast a couple of years ago. I've still been podcasting. It's been like I don't even know how many years, but a long time, at least two or three years and yeah, and I love everything you do, so I was super excited to come on and I love everything you do, so I was super excited to come on.

Speaker 1:

Me too. I know whenever we chat, we have so much that we believe that's similar and so many things that we're aligned on. So I can't wait to share you with everybody today. Let's go ahead and dive in and say a little bit more about who you are.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. So I'm Crystal. Some people know me as the Parenting Coach on Instagram. I like got into this I think so many of us do from not actually being good at the thing, so parenting was that thing for me where I really wanted to parent. I had a pretty specific way. I wanted to parent when my kids were really little. I got into learning more about attachment and parenting and relationship styles and stuff and anyways, I loved the work of Dr Gordon Neufeld, who wrote a book called Love to your Kids, which I just recommend to everybody, even if your children are adults. It's amazing and but I hold on to your kids.

Speaker 1:

I haven't actually read that Okay.

Speaker 2:

And then also Rest Play Grow by Dr Deborah McNamara, so she works with him.

Speaker 2:

So I love this whole style of parenting and I was like, yes, that's my jam, I love it, yeah and then I just felt like I had this higher like mentality of how I wanted to parent and I was like felt in my mind like I was even more failing. So it didn't actually I loved the ideology behind it but I could not figure it out. Like I would go to people in person like this is actually. There was like parent centers where they would teach this kind of parenting to people in the community.

Speaker 2:

And my aunt ran one of them, so I'd known about it for a long time. I was even going to their people in real time and still feeling like I could not do it at home and the big part that was missing for me was like my own healing, which I didn't recognize or realize. I was like it's my kids and I do. My kids are neurodiverse. We deal with ADHD, high functioning autism, anxiety, just so many things and so it was really difficult and so their meltdowns were getting more and more severe and more intense and more long, and I was getting more and more worn out and burnt out and also just feeling like this wasn't working at all. And it really wasn't until I started to shift things inwardly myself that I started to notice changes and those changes happen like slowly, over time, and once I noticed how big of a change it was for my kids and like huge difference in behavior, with no behavioral therapy for my son with autism, no medication for him, with no individualized therapy or learning plans or anything, his behavior was like 180.

Speaker 1:

therapy or learning plans or anything. His behavior was like 180. Just want to point out what Crystal said Her children at that time, when she started doing their work and showing up differently, were not on medication, were not going to behavioral therapy. I remember what else you said and there was still a significant difference. The way that we show up matters.

Speaker 2:

So much, yeah, and not just a significant difference. Like it changed them, like at their core, like it was like a night and day difference. They were not the same child and I kept looking back and thinking like what's changed? And literally the only thing that had changed with me. And I had friends and family with similar diagnosis who went a different path.

Speaker 2:

And I remember this one friend whose child was like in and out of, like outpatient facilities and like their mental health really just kept getting so much worse, and I really think that what changed was I was finally able to do this parenting modality that I really think is the healthiest for even neurotypical kids, and I was able to do it because of the changes that were happening in me and that made such a world of difference for my kids. So obviously it's not like perfect, and I'm still not perfect, and I tell that all the time on Instagram.

Speaker 2:

I am like the perfection is not the goal here and I talk about my mistakes all the time, but which I love. I think that change that happened within me was what perpetuated change for my children and continues to cause. I have more neuro birth kids, but that was my first kind of role with it when he was about nine is when I hit what I feel like was like parenting rock bottom.

Speaker 1:

Can I ask a specific example here, just how your son was showing up before you shifted and started doing the inner work, and then the night and day difference afterwards. Paint that picture for anybody who's oh my gosh, I can relate to this. I want to know more.

Speaker 2:

Yes, so I would say, if you imagine the toddler melting down, if you've seen the toddler at a store that wants something and you tell them no and they might lie on the ground, they might throw, they might hit things, they might just become violent, but also really extreme language, and so it would be like hours If it was happening in the car. We would have to actually pull over because they wouldn't be, they wouldn't stay in their seatbelt, they would just run around. It was like a toddler meltdown. So even though the age might be 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, it's pretty extreme behavior. And then their vocabulary is also much more advanced. So there's going to be a lot more vocabulary, really loud shouting words and as far as violence go, it might be like throwing things or hitting or knocking things over because there's just so much emotion in their tiny little body. So we would deal with this every single day at least once, sometimes multiple times a day, and it would usually be two to three hours, sometimes like four to five.

Speaker 2:

I think it's quite different than like neurotypical emotional dysregulation. Typically isn't that like intense or long lasting, especially at that age. Anybody that is a parent of a neurodiverse kid, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about. So that's what it was before, and definitely every single day. So it made it difficult to do things like travel, which we love. It made it difficult to go places. Usually, their behavior was better when we were out of the house, so I would try to just be like at museums or parks or with friends as often as we could be, because they tended to do a little bit better out.

Speaker 2:

But, I would say, in about a 12 month period and this is before I knew anything about coaching, therapy, healing, like by healing like I started to at least notice that my behavior was impacting their behavior. So my response to their emotional manipulation but not nothing like significant, like it was really small over the course of time. But I remember looking back a year later so it was like in January that it was getting really bad, and this is like 2016, 2017. And then the next January I remember looking back and thinking, oh, we only deal with this a couple of times a month. Oh, my gosh. Or so many hours either. Like it was significant.

Speaker 2:

And I will mention relationship made a big difference. We also made some really big changes with screen time, and screen seemed to affect neurodiverse kids a lot more. I think they affect all of us more than we think that they do, but especially neurodiverse kids. And then we also had some made some changes with just some food stuff too, that we noticed were bothering him. So there was more than just that, but that was, for sure, the most significant change that happened.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for sharing that. I just have a feeling somebody needed to hear that today and that's going to be really helpful for them. So let's switch gears here a little bit. Tell me what you were like, what life was like before you really started inner work, because you said, okay, I had this moment where I did doing it and noticing, oh it's me, but what was life like before that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I would say I really did not think it was me. Maybe at some deeper, lower level I did. I probably did, but I wasn't conscious of my thoughts. I didn't know anything about emotions. I didn't know what emotional regulation was. I'd never been taught any of these things in my entire life, did not have a super regulated household that I grew up in, so I wasn't modeled things like that Probably more typical to what a lot of people talk about where their parents were very dysregulated themselves. So that's what was modeled to me. So I would say consciously what I was like aware of and remember thinking was like my kids are the problem. My kids are really difficult, parenting is really hard. I'm not cut out for this, like we are not meant to be together. I don't know who gave me this child and me in the same household, but like we don't fit.

Speaker 2:

And when I actually only had one meeting with a therapist, she was like a psycho educator and she was specifically from the Neufeld Institute and so I wanted somebody that knew this modality, that, like, was going to help me in the way I wanted to be helped. And I only had her come over one time because we were poor students, my husband was doing his graduate studies and we were living in a totally different place and I wasn't working and all these little kids. So I was like I can afford one session. And I don't know what it was that she said in that session, but there was something that she said that really just shifted things for me in understanding that there might be some neurodiversity going on which I didn't realize before, and it might that way for a long time, and this just might be who he is. And if that was going to be the case, then what for me? Then how do I respond? What am I going to do? And I think just something shifted in my expectations around his behavior, because I think I really felt like they should be so much higher, and that would just lead to so frustrated every time that they weren't right

Speaker 2:

and it was like a light switch or something came on and so it wasn't huge. It wasn't big, but I just started to notice like my behavior is impacting his and then I'm getting inflamed, when he gets inflamed, and then I'm making it worse and then anyways, this whole balloon would happen. So I think that's where the shift started. So even that whole year when I was doing like inner work was really just understanding that I had a role to play in this relationship and it wasn't just him.

Speaker 1:

That makes sense. Oh my gosh, I don't know if this resonates with you, but as you were describing that, I was thinking it sounds like before that expectation shift, there was a lot of resistance on your part, was making it worse. Does that feel true for you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, all the resistance. Like I read all the books, I was like doing all the things and I'm like this is not working because of my child. Yes, they don't understand. I remember having an argument with her over email actually, because she said that she only works with parents and I'm like, no, I need somebody to work with my child. And she's like, no, that's not what we do. We help the parents support their kids. And I'm like, no, but he's a very unique case and in this one case, I just know that you need to come and fix him. And she kept emailing me back and I kept giving her descriptions upon descriptions.

Speaker 2:

I remember writing this essay-long email of specific things that had happened, email of, like specific things that had happened. And she was like why don't we meet at your house? Because I think she probably knew the whole time that like it was really me that needed the help from her, but I think she wasn't going to get to me any other way. So I think she was like and then I can also be there with him and meet with him. So I like introduced her to him and stuff, and she was like okay, now let's just chat. And they just went and played and we had a discussion, but zero idea that it was like I had the most responsibility in changing in that relationship.

Speaker 2:

And I think that's hard for people to hear sometimes. If you're listening to that and you're just like no, like you're feeling the same way that I was, it's not to shame you or give you so much intense pressure that like you have to do all of the work, but it's to just realize that if you want a change to happen, you don't have to wait for your child to change. You have that power. Yeah, yeah, like it's to me. It feels empowering. Now I don't know if it feels empowering, then I probably just want to tell people I'm stupid and I'm going to change it.

Speaker 1:

That's how I hear it too is empowering, for sure, but that's a good point. And when you think about, before doing the inner work, how were things in your other relationships, with your friends, family, how were you showing up so people can see? Oh yeah, that does sound like me too.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I don't know if there was, like, anything significant that pops out, but I think it's mostly because my husband is very mild mannered, like he's not as easy to like trigger, I think, as I am, and so even though I would often be triggered, he wouldn't necessarily respond to that, and I think that I don't know if we really met each other at the depth of vulnerability that we do now. Because of that, I don't think I really shared what was happening inside of me in such a deep way. So, even though we did have a good connection and a good relationship, I don't know if it had the depth that it probably has now, because we have such different tools and also just understanding and more open to being vulnerable, but for sure, at that time, like it was all me and more open to being vulnerable, but for sure, at that time, like it was all me, like I was at home with the kids, with him being gone 14 hour days and we had lived. We moved to the other side of Canada, so I live in western Canada.

Speaker 2:

We moved to eastern Canada, so it was French, and it was an area that we'd never been in before and we didn't know anyone, didn't have any homeschooling community. We homeschool, didn't know anybody at the time, so we were searching, trying to find people, things, support, and didn't have any.

Speaker 1:

So it was pretty like disconnecting oh that must have been such a hard time, especially given the move. And then when you were talking about, like your husband having a good relationship, and you were like, oh, we probably didn't have the depths of vulnerability. There's something that you said earlier where you're like I wasn't in touch with my thoughts and my emotions, so if you weren't, you couldn't possibly share it with him either. So that makes sense, totally Like.

Speaker 2:

I wouldn't even have the language to be like, just so you know. This triggered me and this is what I was thinking about and this is how I'm feeling. I had none of that At the very beginnings of my change or my shift. I remember my child having a meltdown and he would slam the door or whatever and I would just walk away and I would just all I could do was just like close my mouth so I wouldn't say anything or do anything and just go into my room and usually cry or fume or whatever, but I just tried not to respond.

Speaker 2:

To react Like that's all that I had capacity for was like, can I go take myself somewhere else and not say or do anything? And it's amazing to me, looking back on it, that the tiny shifts I had, with the pretty much no awareness that I had even then, made such a big difference. And the difference kept coming more and more, but it made such a significant difference, even though it was such a tiny shift, coming more and more, but it made such a significant difference even though it was such a tiny shift.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Tell me about like those initial shifts where maybe it was like a leap in. Oh my gosh, like this kind of unlocks something new.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think that initial conversation was, and I think then it was just in those moments really trying my hardest to keep everything in and not react in the moment, which was so hard for me, and just to step away, walk away, do my own thing. And I think I also realized, okay, relationship and connection is important. So I would try to just go and do it, go out of my way to do things with this child that were fun, that they enjoyed. So I tried implementing more of that and I think that made a difference also. But then I think I just was a little bit more open to maybe new ideas that came in.

Speaker 2:

I remember the screen time thing happening. I just happened upon a book which obviously wasn't like it was meant to be in that moment in time and it's called Reset your Child's Brain by Dr Victoria Dunkley and I read it and it like really stuck with me. And I remember having a month that summer where we could do a screen reset and I was like I'm just going to see, I'm just going to see how this changes things. And she has you write down observations that you see and then you do this kind of screen reset thing and then you go back and write down observations and behavior, and that was a really again a significant leap that we made behaviorally, just noticing how it was impacting them and also their siblings, and just started changing our relationship with tech at that time, which we hadn't up until that point, and I think that was like 2017 or 2018.

Speaker 2:

And then again, I think the next shift that happened for me was things were going well. I was feeling pretty good about myself and about my kids' behavior and our relationship were pretty good. I've always been interested in mental health health. I've always thought I wanted to be a therapist, even though I'd not been to therapy and I didn't know what it was, but it was like.

Speaker 1:

I think you had this something in you.

Speaker 2:

Yes, it was put in my soul. I remember the moment that it happened. I was in grade 10 in the option class that I'd taken called psychology. That had never been like done before at the school and our teacher was not good and I was sitting at the back of the class not listening to what they were saying because they were speaking monotone and never did anything creative besides just read from the textbook I was just reading on my own.

Speaker 2:

I remember just feeling like this is your future, which I'd never been to therapy. My parents didn't talk about therapy. There was no logical reason why I should have felt that way, and so that's what I went into school for. That was my undergrad was so fast forward. I'm feeling good about things and I'm like I think I'm going to look for a master's program. And as I'm looking for a master's program again, the universe is like hey, here and I go to this evening that a friend invited me to, that a life coach was putting on and as she's doing her thing and describing and talking about relationships in a way that I'd never heard of before and I couldn't tell immediately, but it was very helpful and I thought this is exactly what I want to do and sign on to be a life coach.

Speaker 2:

And I had no, literally no idea what I was doing. I just thought this is a cool tool that I'll be able to learn to help people. But of course, you're your own first client. So I start like doing this on myself and I'm like whoa, opening up a can of worms. I love it. I had never, never thought about my thoughts before. I had no idea what emotional regulation was like. It was mind-blowing. Every week was leaps and bounds in my own progress. I just I feel like I was so not awake to what was going on in my body. So, yeah, that was probably my next really big jump.

Speaker 1:

I was thinking like you were somewhat in touch with your intuition and you, like, honored yourself, which there's so many women who deny themselves of that. So I just wanted to point out what you know that about yourself, but that was a big deal.

Speaker 2:

I think that has grown for sure. But I remember we were literally living in my in-laws basement with our four kids sleeping on couches and floors with all the student debt, because my husband had just graduated and was applying for jobs and did not have one. When I found this program. That was very expensive. It was going to cost around the same that my master's programs was that I was looking into but we had enough on our student line of credit from his schooling to pay for it, like almost exactly, and it just felt like the right thing. But I remember being so scared because I'm like this doesn't logically make any sense at this time, but it was for sure the right thing for me.

Speaker 2:

But yeah, another thing that I noted was like that was the first year I stopped yelling and it wasn't because I was trying to stop yelling. I'd done these programs before that were like stop yelling at your kid programs and they were so like just shift your brain out of it. Literally one said go into a freezer and open the freezer and put your head in it, just something to like shift your mood or state or something. Looking back, I'm like how does anybody think any of those things worked?

Speaker 2:

But one of them is like putting an elastic band on your wrist and you flick an elastic band every time you go, so that you're like getting the negatives whatever.

Speaker 2:

Anyways, none of those work. So if you're doing those, don't do those, understanding what's happening inside your body and doing the healing work. And so I remember I I can still remember the moment that I lost it on my child same child and I remember the last time that I lost it on him and it was in 2020, maybe late 2019. And it was like when I was in certification for this program, and I just remember pausing at that moment and thinking, holy cow, I'm thinking a lot of that and I was feeling really out of control and like I could tell what was leading up to it. I could tell what was going on in my head and I paused halfway Like I was like losing it. And then I like stopped and left halfway and I remember thinking I don't ever want to be like this again, like I just do not want this.

Speaker 2:

And I did not stop yelling because I decided to stop yelling. I stopped yelling because I was doing the work that produced that result. Yeah, and I haven't yelled clinton, so I love that.

Speaker 1:

So, oh my gosh, in testament to how powerful inner work is, like, how much it matters, yeah, yeah, it's huge and I also think there's been times where I've been like irritable or just like don't do that or stop that or whatever.

Speaker 2:

For sure I'm not just like this perfect human, but the yelling that was like out of control or like where I didn't know, no longer felt like I was control of what I was saying or doing, which I don't know if any of you can relate to, but that was definitely very present in the first years of my being a parent. That stopped, like that was no longer a part of my life. And now, when I feel those feelings bubble up, I know what to do with them.

Speaker 2:

And I never knew and I know where they come from, which is amazing, and I just love that. The more that I do work with other people, the more it's like doing work for myself, and I just see some of myself in my clients.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, if anybody sits right now and they're like okay, like tell me more about that. Do you have anything else that you want to add?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I would say like fast forward four years. Looking back on it, that was a really great beginning to coaching, but it was very. The program that I went to was very like in the brain. It was very cognitive, it was very action-based because there was like a tool that you use on your brain to think about your thoughts, and that was like what I needed. I think of it I think it's like a weird metaphor, but I think it is like the gateway drug into all of this whole world that I did not know what existed. So I'm really grateful for it. But I don't often resonate with that as much anymore. What I do, what I've noticed now through a lot of Brene Brown work I've done a training through her also.

Speaker 2:

So underneath all of the things, all of the ways that we're responding, is always shame and when we feel what we call a trigger is a strong emotional activation, there is something underneath of it.

Speaker 2:

There is a root of it.

Speaker 2:

There is a reason that we feel activated by what our partner said, by what our child said, by what happened in business, by a mean comment on social media, by the amount of likes that we got by our email.

Speaker 2:

Open rates, like anything can trigger us, and that is information, that is a message to our souls of there is something underneath here, so we can either take that as an opportunity to just move on and forget about it or as an opportunity to internalize and to figure out what's happening, and so a lot of people call it like inner child healing or reparenting, and I think that's where my biggest shift has been, is like now I've noticed what I feel like.

Speaker 2:

What I was missing from the amazing books that I was reading that taught about this great parenting style is that we actually parent that way, naturally, like it comes literally from our nature. When we are moving the work of reparenting and reparenting as in noticing what's emotionally activating us, understanding what's under the surface, supporting ourselves, figuring out what we need now processing it in our bodies in a more somatic way, not necessarily in the brain, but more in our bodies 80% of emotional regulation is in the body, but so many of the modalities and the trainings and things like that out there are just teaching people like from their head.

Speaker 2:

I think I probably needed to learn it in the way that I did in the time that I did, for sure looking back on it.

Speaker 2:

But now I'm like, oh, it's in the body, it's in the body and so, and so is intuition, and so what I've noticed is that you don't actually need to have read the books.

Speaker 2:

Every client that I've ever coached, even if they don't know at all about connection-based parenting, is what I call it now, even if they don't know about what that means, which, in a nutshell, is relationship and connection being the focus, and that your children learn from what you model, and not using rewards, punishments, bribes, yelling all of the traditional parenting methods that we've seen not using that to mold and coerce behavior, but to really help shape behavior naturally and intrinsically. That's what I call connection-based parenting and that comes naturally from healing, and it doesn't come all the time. We're never going to just be able to perfectly be able to do that, but I think that it does come over time and continue to get better and better. So that's kind of that's where I feel like I am at now, with my own inner work and the work that I do with clients, in a very different way than four years ago, when I didn't know how to use Instagram yes, I was just speaking to a client recently.

Speaker 1:

Her children are adults but there's some conflict between her and one of them and I was going over like some key pieces of repairing and I said what's the purpose of life If we really think of it? What is the purpose?

Speaker 2:

This could be part of the purpose, but for me connection Absolutely, and I think, like whenever I can zoom out in that moment and think, like what matters most In my mind, it's always relationship, it's always connection, and it's more so than being right, and also even being right comes from our childhood. Everything comes from childhood.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I remember thinking all I thought about psychology was like all I think is that everything comes from childhood and whatever it does it does, really does, and it's not only from our parents, it's from how we were related to, so that would be in church, in community, in home but it's because our self-concept was developed in those years so of course everything came from childhood, because that's when our concrete beliefs about ourselves were being formed and that's how we then. Now, unless we've done the work to actually shift those, then it'll still be like that we'll still be related in the same way.

Speaker 2:

So I knew none of. I feel like. Looking back on it, like every year, I feel like I'm a new person and I just can't wait to be like what's going to happen next. I bring intuition now into everything I'm like. Intuition is like how I shifted to like through parenting and notice that connection-based parenting came more naturally from that intuitive space. But then I was like how can I relate this to business? So then I started doing it in business and more recently starting to do it in travel, because we were traveling full-time as our fam, as a family, for the school year and anyway. So I'm just excited for the future.

Speaker 1:

I love this healing world space me too, and I noticed the more I tune into my intuition. Years ago I would like even have this like pros and cons list to make a decision like OK, if I want to do this thing, then these are the pros, these are the cons. And now I'm just like, what is my intuition telling me? Boom, I'm in.

Speaker 2:

Or I'm not in. Oh my goodness, I am exactly like that and I was like that even as a teenager. I remember as a young maybe even a young child, writing down pro and cons list to make decisions and like also getting confused because sometimes they would be equal and sometimes I just would like still be indecisive, like after that and now I feel so decisive, I feel like I can get an answer to anything that I want at any point, when I'm open to receiving the answer.

Speaker 1:

Yes did you anything about travel?

Speaker 2:

because you like briefly mentioned yeah so I'll just briefly say that I have always wanted to travel the world. That's an also a thing that has just been inside of me again for no logical reason. I grew up with like a single income household. My dad was a teacher, so not a great income eight children and my mom was a stay-at-home mom, so that was not something in our wheelhouse. We never traveled, but I always wanted to. I talked to them a lot about it.

Speaker 2:

As soon as I could travel, I started traveling on my own and just in like even small little like road trips, cause we didn't even really do much of that. I've always wanted to. And then I got married when I was a university student. There wasn't really a lot of time for that, but we always tried to make travel be something that was important for us, even if we didn't have a lot of funds. We would make it happen in sometimes crazy ways, but I've always had this idea of I want to travel, and so we have done some pretty wild things, like we bought a truck and a trailer and lived in that for a few months on our way over to moving to Eastern Canada, because we'd sold all our things and lived in a trailer, anyway. So we did some kind of more wild travels, but then I still have this like really desire to do international travel. It's called world schooling, when you homeschool and travel the world.

Speaker 2:

I just found that was definitely another very intuitive thing that happened. We've been doing for 11 years and my son is graduating this year whatever that means in the homeschooling world, because it's also very different, but anyways. So he's going to college in the fall. So that is wild. My oldest is, but we I have wanted to do this for so long and I feel like intuitively, like that is how it happened. Like I landed into this life coaching space, which I was not planning on, started my business, which I also was not planning on. I was like, oh, I'll just keep this in mind and then in a few years I'll start a business.

Speaker 2:

But started my business. It was going pretty well. My husband was helping me with tech stuff. He works at the platform called Kajabi and he was like figuring it out for me so that I could figure it out, and then we became affiliates for them. And then he started getting my friend clients as his clients, because he was like everyone was like who's doing stuff? Anyways? So, fast forward, he finishes his internship after his MBA and, as they actually have a lot of clients, I wonder if we should do this, because we could finally do this thing that you've always wanted to do. So he launched his business three years ago and we started traveling around Canada because it was like during COVID, um yeah, and then yeah went on our first like flight as a family of six in January of last year and it went pretty well and we got home and we're like I think we can do this and we also had no, I was writing down the pro and cons list and whenever that's happening.

Speaker 2:

I know it's the wrong direction, but I was like trying to figure and we also had no, I was writing down the pro and cons list and whenever that's happening, I know it's the wrong direction, but I was like trying to figure out where we should live next and I could not figure it out and I was like, no, we actually need to go travel. So it again logically wasn't like the best time, like financially, but I was like you know what? I think we could probably do it for around what we pay in Canada if we like budget. Well, so we left so we could do it as a family of six before my son left for college. And we have been traveling from September to I guess it's like almost May right now. We just got home a couple of days ago and we went all the way around the globe, so we started West. Is that where we started? Yeah, we started West and we like went all the way around and back again.

Speaker 1:

So incredible. When you announced that you were doing this, I was, oh my goodness, how inspiring and freeing. Of course, it's not going to be just great happy days every single day, because there's challenges and things that I couldn't even anticipate. Things that I couldn't even anticipate, but just I was in awe, just like watching you even take the first step, because there's so many people that didn't have the courage.

Speaker 2:

I just wanted to share that well, I think part of it was like insanity, because I didn't realize how hard it was going to be. I just thought this will be so fun. So it is actually really hard. It was like whiplash. I got started thinking like, oh, this is going to be so amazing again. So it is actually really hard.

Speaker 1:

It was like whiplash.

Speaker 2:

I got started thinking like, ah, this is going to be so amazing. Again, expectations were like really high. And then it was like whoa. Typical people probably already thought about the things that were going to be hard. I had not thought about those, so it was really so much harder, but again, again, so much growth that happened.

Speaker 1:

So much growth.

Speaker 2:

And I'm so glad that we did it. I know that a lot of people think it's pretty crazy, and it probably is, but it was a really great experience for our family all around and just a really stretching experience for everyone, especially my teenagers. It was pretty tough on them like connection, social, wise and also just interesting to see what do we need, what do we want, what's important to us, and I don't think I realized how important community was.

Speaker 1:

And also language barriers. Thank you for sharing. Okay, so before we end for today, I wanted to ask you a lot of the women listening to this podcast. They have some feelings sometimes of feeling broken or what's wrong with me. They may have these feelings of shame there. What advice do you have for women who have asked themselves why am I like?

Speaker 2:

this. I wish I could quote this quote perfectly, but I won't be able to. But my favorite author and anybody who's listening to this go have her be your favorite author too is Sue Monk Kidd, and I love her kind of early spiritual writings in like the 80s and 90s, before she became a fiction author. But she said when is the last time? I think it's something along the lines of not listening to the voice that's inside you, and if you continue to not listen to the voice inside you, when will she stop calling? It's a very beautiful quote and I cry every time I read it and I wish I knew it off the top of my head. But I remember reading that and just thinking I do not listen to myself.

Speaker 2:

I have spent years achieving. I've spent years deciding that achievement was based on what someone else said it was that it was based on numbers. That was based on income status straight A's, 4.0 GPAs, like getting into the best schools, like that was what I number. That it was based on income status straight A's, 4.0 GPAs, like getting into the best schools, like that was what I wanted, because that's what society had said was wanted for me.

Speaker 2:

And I think that I've just continuously been silencing that voice that was probably there all along because a world voice was so loud. And with this like information age that we're in, especially with tech, we have so many opinions from so many experts and the world can be a really loud space and it can be really hard to listen to our inner knowing. And for me, the biggest shifts that have happened from my inner knowing not from logic, not from what makes sense, not me figuring it out or what success is supposed to look like They've come from inside myself. And I would say, if you are a high achieving woman who feels who's resonating with all of this, take time every day to listen to yourself, to build trust with yourself, to have a relationship with the self before anyone else and be how much of your life changes because of that.

Speaker 1:

That was so beautiful. I haven't heard that quote before, but I can relate so much and think that it's so important to tune back in and stop like ignoring, abandoning and betraying ourselves. So where can listeners find you? Thank you.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for asking. If you want to connect with me, the best place is my podcast, the Parenting Coach Podcast. I love what I do over there, and then also I speak a lot about intuition and about connection-based parenting, and about travel at Instagram, at theparentingcoach, and those are probably the two best ways. My website is coachcrystalca and I have a lot of things on there that are probably seemingly disconnected, but all have a common thread underneath of, I think, of relationship to self being the most important.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much. I'll put that in the show notes. So if you want to go listen to Crystal's podcast or her Instagram, you can just click the links there and it'll take you right to the right place. Thank you for listening today. If you're ready to heal so that triggering situations no longer control you and so that you can feel empowered, brave and thrive in any situation, DM me the word brave on Instagram and I'll send you a training where you will learn three of the most common mistakes driven women are making that are keeping them stuck in negative emotions, and what you can do instead.

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Dr. Stephanie Lopez

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