Speaker 1:
Hello, and welcome back to the Parenting Without Power Struggles podcast. I'm very glad that you're here. This podcast is really about helping you have more joy and fewer power struggles as you raise your children. I'm your host, Susan Stiffelman, the author of Parenting Without Power Struggles and Parenting With Presence. And it's my joy to share some of the things I've learned in my 40 plus years as a teacher, a marriage and family therapist, an educator, and the mom of a now 31 year old grown son, which is extremely wonderful. We cover everything under the sun in this series with guests like Janet Lansbury, Dan Siegel, Trudy Goodman Kornfield, Kristin Neff, Julie Lythcott Haims, Jessica Lahey, many, many terrific speakers. Before we get started, though, please make sure that you're taking advantage of everything that we offer parents by visiting Susanstiffelman.com. We've got a monthly Parenting Without Power Struggles membership support program.

Speaker 1:
For those who want my ongoing personal help, a Co-Parenting with a Narcissist support group, for those who need that kind of support, and over 30 deep dive, 90 minute master classes on everything parenting, including the gifts of ADHD with Dr. Ned Hallowell, the resilient brain with Dr. Dan Siegel and topics like meal times and money and chores and siblings and sensitive children and anxious children. So have a visit over at Susanstiffelman.com to get the whole lay of the land of everything available to you there today. My guest is one of my favorite guides and teachers on this planet. Martha Beck. Martha has been a bright light in my world for many years. She shares truth from the heart with humor and clarity and a light and joyful touch. I loved our conversation. It was a rambling one. We covered all kinds of ways that we can be in or fall out of integrity with ourselves as we raise our children. So have a listen and we'll come back for the wrap up. Hello, Martha Beck.

Speaker 2:
Hello, Susan. Just over the moon. Happy need to talk with you. Not only cuz you're so wonderful and magnificent, but this book that you've just written, I cannot wait to share it with our community.

Speaker 2:
Oh, thank you. Thank you. I am honored.

Speaker 1:
So I'll tell people a little bit about you, but they'll figure it out as they hear, you know, who you actually are. So Martha Beck is a Harvard trained sociologist world renowned coach Oprah favorite and New York times best selling author. She's published some of my all time favorite books, including The Joy Diet. Oh, I still recommended all the time Finding Your Own North Star, Expecting Adam, just on my top five list. Oh, and this newest book, the way of integrity, which instantly became one of the most impactful and important books that I've ever read actually.

Speaker 2:
Well, you're so kind. Thank you.

Speaker 1:
Well, I mean, Oprah chose it for her book club, so I'm certainly not alone. I've been enchanted by you ever since we met your kindness, your generosity, thank you for being who you are and showing up so wholeheartedly. And this newest book, the way of integrity, it came at a time when I was just about to start taking some time off after years of needing a pause and wanting to physically rest and then kind of reevaluate, how do I be of service, which is, you know, my heart song.

Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:
And not burn out. So I really could hardly put it down. We bought a second copy cuz my husband has one next. Oh <laugh> I mean, I'm really like truly a fan of the book.

Speaker 2:
Oh thank you, Susan. You so, I mean we have the same, I think our philosophies and our ways of being in the world are very aligned. So maybe we, maybe just you and I like it.

Speaker 1:
<Laugh> yeah.

Speaker 2:
I don't think

Speaker 1:
<Laugh>. Yeah. So one of the things that I, it really kind of reactivated was this commitment to trust my instincts to really listen deeply and not be swayed or influenced heavily by what you call culture. Yeah. And talk about how we come preloaded with the, the instinct that we need and the wisdom that we need, but that we often sort of yeah, look the other way. Can you talk about this? Like how we learn to pay better attention to what our body, a mind, heart spirit, or telling us? Yeah. Can you just sort of riff on that?

Speaker 2:
Yeah. So everybody's born obviously with their true nature, like unimpeded, but we're such social creatures that depending on the people around us, we take our behavior in very different ways. So culture to a sociologist means literally any group of people, it could be a couple, it could just be you and your mom. It could be your neighborhood, your religion, your ethnicity, lots and lots of different layers of culture. And those layers always put pressure on their members to be like the others in the group. So before we can even talk, we're getting tons of signals telling us all the people around us expect and want us to behave. And like it's especially true of something like gender where yeah, baby boys are treated very differently from baby girls and it helps shape the way they, they end up operating in the world because we have a true nature.

Speaker 2:
But when it bumps into culture, if the two don't agree, we tend to sell out our nature hard <laugh> yeah. As babies, because we're so dependent on the Goodwill of those around us. So we adapt, we modify. And by the time we learn to talk, we're already in some ways performing what the culture wants us to do. Yeah. Or we're in total rebellion against it. But very few babies are and we've already potentially lost a connection with the true self. With the part of us that is innate would be the same in any culture and knows our destiny. And then as we grow, we might, that's lit might get larger and larger. So the way of integrity just means being one thing, integrity be means intact. But most of us are in duplicity, which means two things, the nature and the culture. And, you know, we develop new selves for every new culture and the separation from self causes, emotional suffering. And I actually came after 30 years of doing this, I came to believe that it's the only cause of psychological suffering. And so integrity is a return to wholeness. And I think most people need it. <Laugh>

Speaker 1:
Well said. Yes. And you know, I heard you on you know, I love Glen and we've been, and some parenting classes together, Glen and, and Amanda and Abby's podcast. And you were talking about a very common phenomena that I'm sure that parents listening to this podcast can relate to, which is the push, the push, the push. So there you are as a parent and maybe your inner instinct is saying, please rest, or please go and read that novel or please go play the drums for a while. And yet you've got these little kids sort of scrambling. Can you kind of dive into how you navigate that commitment to your own integrity and being who you are and not being influenced by what other people might be thinking of you and the demands of, you know, real life with the kids.

Speaker 2:
Right? Yeah. So I, my first three kids, boom, boom, boom. When I was 23, 25, 27. And I was also getting my doctorate at Harvard, which is not the easiest thing in the world. And then I was trying to be match the culture I was raised in, which was Mormon, which is like completely different again. So I was totally exhausted by parenting. I probably gave my children, I, I tried so hard to be good that what I was bathing them in was actually anxiety. Cause I was trying so hard to be good. Wow. I mean my first child, I kept her in a front pack on my chest. So she would never be away from the sound of my, my heartbeat for like six months. I was absolutely determined that she would feel loved. And now we laugh because I said, what I was doing, I was mashing you up against a source of immense anxiety <laugh> so when, when they were about, I think about five, seven and nine, I just got burned out.

Speaker 2:
Yeah. And I said, you know what, actually, it was earlier than that. When they were really like 2, 4, 6, I said, I am performing parenting according to the Harvard model, which is how to make your child smart. My middle child had down syndrome so that I, I, I was stepped away from the culture on that one. And that was redemptive because what it meant was that I then saw, I was being performative about mothering from a Mormon mother perspective, from a, you know, an ideal psychological, I was studying psychological stuff and I realized none of it was me. And I just said, I'm gonna have to be like me. And what do I like, I like wildlife biology. I like science. I like novels. I like, I just started doing what I liked and what happened was I realized my kids genetically are more like me than, than they are. It was just general population of children. And I knew that I had scored when my kids came running and my two girls came running in at like midnight when they were about tan and, and six and they're like, mom, wake up, wake up. I was like, what? And they're like, just in Japan, just got the first line footage, squid. And I was like, you are my people. <laugh>

Speaker 1:
Oh my God. Amazing.

Speaker 2:
Yeah. So I became more myself and as I became more myself, my children felt me relaxed and they felt free to become more of themselves. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> and of course I didn't do it. Ugh. I would take so much back if I could, but yeah. Was a good thing. Becoming more myself was the best thing I ever did for my kids. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
Amen. I mean, you know, all the time that we're raising our children and maybe we're making sacrifices and we're exhausting ourselves to the point of burnout and we're baking, you know, homemade things for the snack for the soccer, our children are watching us. And we forget that, that, that they're not just watching with our O their eyes, they're actually internalizing the message of how we're conducting ourselves in relation to honoring ourselves, loving ourselves, you know, perpetuating the idea that we're only worthy if we're in motion or performing.

Speaker 2:
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1:
So yeah, let's talk a little, a bit more about how that might look for a parent who has to confront the collision of culture tells me I should be doing X, Y, Z, and P for my kids to be a good mother, but I'm actually would really like to curl up with some books, you know, and popcorn and, you know, have that kind of a night.

Speaker 2:
Well, I had another gift besides my son down syndrome. I had a series of autoimmune conditions that just kept accumulating. So I had, I think, four diagnosed autoimmune diseases that were all poorly understood and incurable, and they caused among other things, chronic continuous pain. So it very, very rough for me to just, and I would take my kids to the places they had to go while I was teaching a class, then I'd go get them. Then I'd go home. And then I try to do my work. And then I try to write on my dissertation and all that. But I was in so much pain that I didn't in the end have a choice about whether I would lie down or not. I had to lie down to tolerate the amount of pain I was in. So I basically raised my first three kids on a king size bed where I was lying there and they had their toys and I could show them wildlife videos.

Speaker 2:
Cause that's what I like. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. But that was, that was the best I could do. And I got so much flack for it. I got so much judgment and criticism, but I had no other option. And you know what? I don't care about the people who gave me flack anymore. Like, yeah. I, it just, it's not worth it. It's not worth, it's like Mary Oliver says, tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life really? Are you gonna just run around the house frantically for years on end? Because you know, the people will be upset if you lie down when you need to.

Speaker 1:
Right. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
I could say things to those people in four letters.

Speaker 1:
Stop.

Speaker 2:
Yeah. Stop. For example.

Speaker 1:
We both love Byron Katie, just so much. We love the work of Byron Katie and and the, the way that she has brought about the opportunity for us to question what we're believing. And of course our actions, you know, I need to be a good mother, a good mother does this, this and this. Right. My kids really need me to play this game with them or iron their shirt for the band practice. And so let's kind of talk a little bit about stepping back from those beliefs and I love the way you describe it. So if you wouldn't mind, if you could share a little bit it about how we can start to question the things that we believe that push us.

Speaker 2:
I remember, I can't remember. Maybe it was the first time I went on the Oprah show and now it was a couple of times in anyway, they had me go work with this woman who was completely exhausted. She was taking care of her five year old daughter and her baby, the five year old daughter had 24 pairs of dress shoes alone. She had so many outfits and five or six times a day, her mother was taking off her clothes, putting on a new outfit, washing and ironing, the first set and put it, I mean, it was out of control. This woman was, and she, she didn't enjoy her parenting. She hated her life. <Laugh> yeah. And I was like, yeah, I can see that. So one of the things I did was I talked to the little girl, she was five years old and it frustrated her that her mother ran around doing all these things and she didn't get to play with her mom and she didn't get to help children are very helpful.

Speaker 2:
Yeah. By nature <affirmative>. And so I said, and this little kid was very financially motivated. She wanted money. I figured that, you know, so I said, here's the deal I said to her mother, would you be willing when you do the laundry? She gets to fold the kids, the towels for the kids' bathroom. And every time she does a lot of laundry with you, she gets 25 cents and they both loved it. The idea the kid was over the moon and was, she was such a cutie pie. So I mentioned this on the Oprah show, we go to commercial. Somebody in the audience said, wait, those towels aren't gonna be folded for. And I was like, who cares? The, they, they nearly killed me. I seriously thought I was going to be puled to death. <Laugh> they were so angry that I would allow a child to fold the towels because that's how strong the culture is. And there was no, like I was trying within the 92nd commercial break to say, really truly does it matter that the kids' towels in a downstairs basement inside a cupboard are folded perfectly as opposed to, they're not folded perfectly, but you have a great relationship with your child. Wow. And they were like, no, it's all about the towels.

Speaker 1:
Holy cow.

Speaker 2:
I saw it's just, that was that culture. Yeah. And Y all I can say about it is if you have Jesus used to say, if you have ears to hear, then listen, like, is the opposite of the ORP conviction equally true? Like, it's the towels downstairs have to be folded perfectly. Is that true? Right. Could it be equally true that they don't have to be folded? Right. What is the consequence, right. Yeah. And, and so to put that the mother hadn't done what I had the luxury of doing as a visiting expert, which is to sit down, play with the child, talk to her, find out what motivated her and what she wanted to, how she was feeling about her life. I mean, I'm a life coach, her life coach this five year old <laugh> and it was so clear what she wanted. Yeah. And was so happy to do. She was the sweetest kid and her mom was missing it.

Speaker 1:
Missing it. And this is where Katie's work can be so powerful. And you describe it so beautifully in the way of integrity about asking these simple questions. And, and the way I phrase it sometimes is arguing for the opposite point of view. Like, I love that using three, three reasons why the opposite might make as much or more sense, or, you know, visiting the child's planet so that you can see life from their perspective. And, you know, as a family therapist, for many years, I worked with kids, they'd come in the office, the parent would say, oh, my teenager won't even open his mouth. Won't tell me anything and they'd leave. And I couldn't get the, the kid to stop talking. Right.

Speaker 2:
I love working with teenagers. They just want someone to respect them.

Speaker 1:
Yes.

Speaker 2:
And listen.

Speaker 1:
And listen. And, you know, parents who say, well, I would sit down with my kids and talk, but they won't. We often teach them, you know, it's dangerous to begin talking, cuz I have a whole bunch of advice that you haven't asked for that I'm ready to give you because of my own anxiety, because of what I'm thinking and believing about what I'm supposed to be doing as your parent. Yeah. As opposed to just sitting in your presence and who are you? How are you?

Speaker 2:
Yeah. What are you interested in? What can we do together? Yeah.

Speaker 2:
Yeah. It it's just, when we do that, I, I didn't enjoy toddlers very much because I was so physically in so much pain when they got to be teenagers, oh. People told me, watch out and I was like, this is heaven. Yeah. They can walk by themselves. <Laugh>

Speaker 2:
And they're so interesting and so funny. And so, you know, brilliant. And they have these passions that I never suspected. And I I've known since, I don't know. Maybe you can tell me if this is true or not that people who are, who love the toddler stage, they have enough energy and the child isn't differing from differentiating from them that sharply. Right. They often have trouble with teenagers and people who are tired of toddlers because they're just so much work, I think, tend to enjoy the teenagers a bit more. I don't know if that's true.

Speaker 1:
Yeah. I think the goal for me is that as you're growing and evolving, while you're raising your children, you're also sort of raising yourself and retroactively healing. A lot of what went on in your own childhood that you didn't. Oh yeah. I get, I think that we can become someone who rises to the moment. And I wanna talk about the exhaustion, you know, in terms of resistance. Like I loved the book expecting Adam more than I can say, truly, I've given it as so many gifts. And I wanna in your book, you, you quoted, you wrote something that like to quote by dropping resistance to whatever's happening right now. We're always able to cope even when we're not coping, allowing ourselves to not cope gets us through this moment over and over and over presence is the sanctuary, integrity offers us. As denial comes to its dreaded end, you are already coping right now. And right now is the only thing you'll ever have to cope with. Can you talk about that? Cuz sometimes we look at our life and our kids and we go, this isn't what I wanted. This isn't how I pictured it. I don't like this. I think I'll do something else instead. And then of course, you know, I don't, I love my children. I'm not, I'm not gonna do that. Can you talk about that?

Speaker 2:
I had this experience this last weekend because I was in a very small apartment now I've had the, we were just talking before the show. I've had this weird, rare opportunity to have another child much later in my life. And if you want to do this, I, I will tell you how become a lesbian <laugh> and get a younger wife who wants to have a baby. And so now we have a 19 month old and I have like the years on me of a grandmother and the experience of the first three and a chance at fresh meat <laugh>. So we were in this tiny apartment in New York and she was, she is just tearing around at 19 months. She like the ingenuity with which she dismantles furniture is almost beyond comprehension, you know? And there's so I was like, oh, this is not ideal.

Speaker 2:
I'd rather be in our home where we have baby and everything. And so I had a chance to practice this and I, you did it right before we started the broadcast. I it's as simple as stopping and taking a deep breath and letting it out, which takes your fight flight response offline and puts in the tend and befriend response. And then I just acknowledge that in that moment, my, I wasn't intensely enjoying it. I'm usually intensely enjoying parenting and being with, and being home and everything, but I wasn't intensely enjoying it.

Speaker 1:
<Laugh>

Speaker 2:
And then I sort of, well what's keeping me from complete enjoyment cause I really believe that if we're one thing, if we're in integrity, we have complete enjoyment or a complete present and, and a sense of meaning. If, if you were like, if somebody's dying in every moment, like it's always a sweet experience. And what was keeping it from being a sweet experience for me was that I had the thought that she, I wished she would stop running around dismantling things. And then I thought really, is that true? Do I really wish that? And of course not, she she's delightful. I just needed to stop thinking she wasn't doing something that was completely pleasing to me. So then I stopped thinking about my own agenda for the day and I just began following her around the way I would follow a wild animal in the forest, which is one of my favorite things to do. And I just became a naturalist of my own kid. Wow. And gosh, we had the best time. It was just, it was so wonderful once I'd just let go of this one little attachment.

Speaker 1:
<Affirmative>

Speaker 2:
It shouldn't be quite this busy. And then when I was okay with her, her being busy, we had the, yeah, yeah, it was done.

Speaker 1:
It's it's amazing. This phrase, this word attachment, you know, I, I can't remember. I was hearing Jack cornfield give some kind of a presentation and he, he was quoting one of his teachers as saying, and I don't remember the story well enough to try and cobble something together, but it had to do with somebody getting really upset about something. And the teacher's simple line was must have been kind of attached. <Laugh>

Speaker 2:
Like

Speaker 1:
Just an attachment to a particular way. And when we're raising our children, we can have this idea culturally informed about how it should look, how we should look, how they should look, how they should behave, what the family unit it appear to be.

Speaker 2:
Yeah. Oh yeah. All those things. So much pressure,

Speaker 1:
So much pressure.

Speaker 2:
And I haven't really, you know, ever since my son was diagnosed, when I was about six months along in, in that pregnancy, he was diagnosed with down syndrome and I had to choose within about a week whether to terminate or not while it was still legal. And I was very bonded to him already. I've given, you know, I've totally supported other mothers making the opposite decision, but I decided not to terminate. Also we knew from the ultrasound that he didn't have any grave, life threatening birth defects, mm-hmm <affirmative> he would just be a little different. And I was at Harvard at the time where it was all about intellect and the whole thing. I went to look for books on how to deal with having a child with a disability and in the Harvard bookstore, all they, there was a huge shelf of how to make your baby a genius <laugh> and they had one tiny nasty little book from the fifties about down syndrome that told me, you know, usually you can potty train a child using loved ones and friends as validators.

Speaker 2:

But since your child will have no friends or loved ones, it won't work for you. And I threw that book against the wall. So hard Susan, and it was quite a long way across my, but it hit the wall so hard. It exploded and all these pages just rained down. And I was like, I'm not buying into this anymore. I'm not buying into anything that tells me who this baby's gonna be. I'm gonna find out from him. And that became the most positive transformation my life. So yeah, just getting away from all the, and then as I raised my other girls and then I'm raising my fourth, it's like, I really, when I was writing about Adam in a book, once I, I wrote other people's perception, I have a child with a, an intellectual of disability, my perception, I live with a spiritual master and I went back to correct that so that it would be more digestible to the academics. You know, if you don't agree, of course, I could just be making it up. And I thought, no, that's not integrity. So I just wrote, I live with a spiritual master. If you disagree, I respectfully do not care. And that is my phrase. Now I, you think I should be raising my kid differently. Let me check with my integrity. If you're right. You're right. And I will accept it and thank you for the correction. But if I don't feel what you're saying, I respectfully do not care. <laugh>

Speaker 1:
Oh my God. And imagine how, how it would be for us, if that's how we just move through the world, you know, you might have something useful to say, and then again, I'm gonna check in with it myself. No, thankyou though. Right?

Speaker 2:
Kinda, that is how I go through the world and it's awesome.

Speaker 1:
I know it's liberation. I mean, there's still, I snag myself all, all over the place, but thank God. And the book, the way of integrity is such a support of that. I, I actually wanted to do a book club. I just thought, oh my God, this, oh, It, because we could make such a shift, not just for us, but a lot of the work that I do is about changing generational patterns. You know that as a parent, if you start doing some serious healing and re reimagining your insides and what you inherited and the instincts and habits and reactivity, mm-hmm, <affirmative>, you get to pass that on to your kids who will internalize how they see you living your life.

Speaker 2:
Yeah, they've shown, I, I read Wednesday that showed that children who were in their sixties were actually benefiting psychologically when their parents who were in their eighties, went to, to therapy. <Laugh> I mean, it's never too late.

Speaker 1:
Crazy town. Yeah. So there, there was one thing that you talked about that I have incorporated a little and of course referenced you, which I love. And you were talking to Amanda Doyle about the overwhelm and all the things that, you know, kind of fill the, to do list. And I know everybody listening, you guys can relate. You talked about course correction and this idea of 10 minutes. Can you sort of spin off of that or share a little bit about that?

Speaker 2:

When I decided I was going to like try to be in complete integrity, I was 29 years old and very unhappy. And they said the truth will set you free. So I decided not to tell a single lie for a calendar year and I did it. And during that year it was the best of times it was the worst of times I lost kind of everything. My family of origin, my my community of origin, because I left my religion. I left my job. I left my industry, decided not to be an academic figured out I was gay. So that it, that was the end of my marriage. And basically I lost everything except my kids. And so it was incredibly liberating, but horrible. And I don't want anyone out there to do that ever <laugh> unless you're obsessed with it and you love risk taking.

Speaker 2:
But what I recommend to my clients and in this book is that you change your life by one degree turn. So if you're in an airplane and you just shift you your direction, one degree north every half hour or so, you won't even notice that the plane has changed its course, but you'll end up in a totally different place. Yes. So what I suggest is just make a list of the things you're doing. Look at the ones that bring you joy and don't lie to yourself about what should bring you joy. It has to literally make you feel a little lift your body and look at the ones that bring you down a little bit. And then 10 minutes by 10 minutes this week spend 10 minutes more every day doing what you love and 10 minutes less doing what you don't love, and then go 10 minutes more in that direction. So it's like the game you're getting warmer. You're getting colder. You just edge into the warmer, warmer, warmer, warmer, keep it up a few years. And you'll, your life will be like very warm

Speaker 1:
<Laugh>. Wow, wow. These small incremental changes and, and listening to ourselves and honoring ourselves. And in some cases with those that we love saying, you know, I can't really do that. Or I'm feeling really tired. I love that you would talk about that in, in something that I heard you say, just telling your loved ones. Here's how I am today. Being honest.

Speaker 2:
Yeah. It's, it's a crazy idea, but it just might.

Speaker 1:
It just might work. Oh gosh. Thank you so much, Martha. This is this is always a joy to see you and to chat with you, but more importantly, you know, to kind of feel that there's this momentum that is being built around being who we're supposed to be in the world. Each one of us unique and being brave to do that.

Speaker 2:
Yeah. And I just wanna end by quoting the German poet, who said when you trust yourself, you will know how to live. And I would also say, when you trust yourself, you will know how to parent not. When you trust other people, when you trust

Speaker 1:
Yourself, it's that is it. I mean, so many times people refer to me as a parenting expert and I go, no, please don't call me that. I am not an expert. You listen to yourself. My job is to help you listen to your instincts, to trust yourself, to clear out the noise, because you do know, I mean, we have this just nominal, magical, mystical relationship with our children.

Speaker 2:
Mm-Hmm

Speaker 1:
<Affirmative> if we honor it and listen to it. And what happens is that we just become distracted. And the way of integrity is about coming back to listening. Deep listening.

Speaker 2:
If you don't wanna do it for yourself, do it for your kids.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you. The book again is the way of integrity and your website

Speaker 2:
Marthabeck.com.

Speaker 1:
Yeah. Anything you want people to know about what you're doing? What

Speaker 2:
You're, I don't remember anything I'm doing. <Laugh> I like to be present to the moment and leave planning for a different time, but I'm doing things and they're on the website. Yes.

Speaker 1:
They're on your website. There's all kinds of beautiful, wonderful things that you do. So thank you so much. Thank you, Susan. I look forward to our next conversation.

Oh, I hope you enjoyed that. I had such a great time chatting with Martha. It's so comforting to talk about those parts of parenting that we often keep hidden, like resentment and exhaustion. Hopefully you got some ideas of things that you can start incorporating into your daily life. I love the 10 minutes a day shift, replacing something that kind of dampens our spirit, or brings us down with something that lights us up. So give it a try. If you're finding these episodes interesting or helpful, please take a moment to leave a rating or a review. We've reached hundreds of thousands of parents with this series in part, because so many of you are sharing and cheering us on.

Speaker 1:
So thank you. You can also hit the subscribe button and that way you'll be notified just as soon as we release a new episode, stay in touch, get your regular doses of parenting inspiration Susanstiffelman.com. That's where you can sign up for our free newsletter and see all the different forms of practical parenting support that I offer, including a wide range of deep dive, 90 at master classes. And of course our two parenting membership communities. All right, then let's just take a moment, acknowledge that you were here, be here, maybe place your hand on your heart in appreciation for making the time from a busy day to show up, to learn and grow together. It truly can a real difference in your day to day parenting life. When you just little by little, those little incremental changes, they really do add up to a life that's more of a match for how you envision your parenting experience than the lives of your children as they grow into who they're meant to be. So that's it for today. Remember that no matter how busy life gets look for those moments of sweetness and joy, stay safe, stay well. And I'll see you next time.