Kimberly Sleeth: [00:00:00] Parenting is definitely one of the most dysregulating experiences you will ever encounter. It's a paradox because you've never loved anything so much in your life. Also, you've never been so triggered by anything in your life. And it's completely normal. You have this child, sometimes younger, sometimes older, that's, screaming, crying, throwing tantrums, throwing things, whatever.
And it's a natural response to be like no I need to get away from this or I need this to stop.
Dr. Erin Hayford: So the big question is this. We know spontaneous remissions and so called miracle cures exist. We also know they aren't so spontaneous after all. I'm living proof of this, having cured my quote unquote incurable illness.
There's something to how this happens. So how do we as humans with chronic symptoms tap in to this so called miraculous healing capacity? That is the question and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Dr. Erin [00:01:00] Hayford and welcome to the Sacred Illness Podcast. Before we begin today's episode, just my standard medical disclaimer, this podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only.
The content should not be considered a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consider with a qualified healthcare professional regarding any medical concerns. Hi everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Sacred Illness Podcast. I'm so excited to have Kimberly Sleeth back with us today.
If you didn't catch her previous episode, she and I had a lovely conversation a few episodes ago about her own healing journey. And we got into a lot around parenting in the second half of our conversation for that first podcast episode we did together. And so she and I were talking after we recorded that episode I think you actually suggested, Kimberly, that we should do maybe a more in depth parenting conversation because there's just so many parallels between the work that we do on a healing journey that involves inner child work.
And [00:02:00] then when we become parents ourselves, how that can bring out different layers of healing work. And we decided to come back together and do this episode today. So this episode is a little bit of a hybrid between what I just mentioned, inner child work and parenting. And you might, for those who are not watching the video, you'll hear some baby sounds.
I have my three month old Julian with me for part of this episode today too. So he's here to help us stay on track with inner child work. So I just want to kick this episode off by introducing generally just this idea of inner child work, how it fits into healing journey, why it matters and why basically why it's part of our conversation today.
So the idea of this podcast is to help folks to essentially change their relationship to what illness is. I think of illness as a red flag or just a way that our body is trying to get us to tune in to understand that we're off track, that something is we're not in alignment with who we came into this world being, our innate personality, our innate self.[00:03:00]
And in a sense, I think all of us wander off track. It doesn't mean that all of us have to get sick in order to get back on track, but for some of us, that's just part of our journey. For whatever reason, illness is the thing that is trying to call us back and say, you need to tune in and reconnect with yourself.
And so when we think about that piece of reconnecting to ourselves, really what we're doing is we're reconnecting to our inner child, all of the younger versions, all of the earlier versions of who we are or were in this lifetime, trying to figure out who they are, what they needed, all the things that maybe they didn't get to express when they were growing up, depending on life circumstances.
So when we think about the things that influence who we become, the things that influence our nervous system, the things that can inevitably or eventually lead to health or illness, depending, the ages of zero to seven are actually the most impactful. And that's just because those are The years of life when we are essentially the most helpless.
We are most [00:04:00] dependent on our caregivers at those ages. And so we are the most reliant on whoever is around us to keep us safe and keep us alive. And so our brain, specifically this structure in the brain called the amygdala is getting programmed with what is safe, what keeps me alive, what's good, and what's a threat, what is a threat to my safety, what's going to harm me.
And so I think there's normal things, right? Like we all get programmed with normal stuff, don't walk out in front of a car. That's not good for your survival. Don't eat bad food or don't, there's certain things I think all of us are going to learn are, Threats to our survival.
However, depending on our caregivers, we, might be programmed, for example, to believe that being angry is bad. If we express anger, we might get in trouble. And that would be a threat to our survival. Or if we cry, that we might get in trouble. And that would be a threat to our survival.
If we express a certain part of our personality that gets teased or bullied or something, that would be a threat for survival. And so while there is normal programming of [00:05:00] absolutely, that's a threat to your safety. And this is safe. This is going to keep you safe.
This is good for your survival. The gray area really comes down to who were our caregivers? How were they showing up in the world? How did they express emotions or not? How safe did they feel in themselves? How safe were their nervous systems? How regulated were they? What were their beliefs?
What were they taught as kids? We start to see how, when we think about this idea of cycle breakers, their parents, passed down these ways of being in the world of raising kids and. When we become parents, we just default to that way of parenting unless we learn otherwise we have to actually actively do it differently or learn a different way in order to break that cycle.
So to bring it back around, when we think about the healing journey, we are going back into these inner child years. Mostly ages 0 to 7, working with, again, who was raising us, what was the state of their nervous system, what were they teaching us was not safe, and how did that lead to us suppressing [00:06:00] aspects of ourselves in order to survive, in order to be safe, and what is our illness now?
Inviting us basically to uncover, to bring back to the surface of who we would have been in this world had we never encountered those threats to begin with. That's the whole premise of sacred illness and that's the premise of inner child work in general. So Kimberly, I'd love to turn it over to you in general to having this discussion around how you found working on your own inner child, healing your own inner child, positively influenced your parenting experiences or maybe in retrospect would have or whatever that looks like for you.
Kimberly Sleeth: Really, when I first started parenting a long time ago, this information wasn't out there. Nobody knew what an inner child was the idea that your parents parenting affected your parenting and that you had things from childhood really was non existent. And it wasn't until my children were a little bit older that I started learning about this stuff.
And I do think, when I first started parenting, I definitely just did. What I was [00:07:00] taught what my parents did my husband, too. It was like this is how we grew up. This is just how you do things. And the more I started learning about the typical types of it started out with punishments.
Spankings timeouts, things like that. It just for punishing your children for having feelings and emotions really is what it is. It's just I can't handle. This is too much. So go sit in a time out. That was just how things were. And so once I started learning about, oh, that's actually not a good thing.
You should redirect. You should have positive conversations about what they're feeling and such. It was a slow transition. The spanking stopped first. And then timeouts came later and the listening to the emotions. It changes things. But at one point I started recognizing a lot of my childhood wounds were affecting my interactions with my children. For example I had a [00:08:00] child who struggled with some neurodivergence and there was a lot of screaming, a lot of acting out a lot of whatever.
My inclination based on how I was brought up and just what comes naturally is to fight or flight against that make it stop. But as I started learning more, and as I started working with him specifically about just talking about how he's feeling and redirecting and all these other things It helped so so much more and I started to incorporate it to just with my other kids to where it's now completely normal there's just no, there's very little dysregulation when it comes to my kids anymore.
They're older, but being able to recognize patterns that came from my childhood that weren't the best and being able to work through that. To be able to help my Children and connect more with my Children has really been life changing for the entire family dynamic. [00:09:00] The one thing I noticed growing up is there's a lot of impatience.
There was no time to sit down and listen to what I was feeling. It's you just have to do this. This is what everybody does. I don't know what the problem is. No, we don't have time to talk about this or whatever. My childhood centered around invalidation.
I don't want to say emotional neglect, but there was just a lot of, my emotions weren't really allowed. There was no time for them. And this programming that there's something wrong with you. You're too needy emotionally. Your needs are too much. And so I, at one point, I just really recognized that I didn't want my children to feel the same way.
Like I started noticing the things that I needed as a child that I didn't get. And that I knew that my children would benefit from having the opposite of that. Sitting down, and it can be super time consuming. I think that's something that a lot of parents, when they're learning about this type of thing, they're like, I don't have [00:10:00] time for this.
And it's just so much easier to just sit down. Just go do this. No, we don't have time, that type of thing. But sitting down and actually listening to your children helps them feel so seen and heard and safe. And they can trust you. They can come to you for different things when they have a problem or just in it really creates this whole close relationship in general.
And for example, my 12 year old, he has a lot more on his plate this year than he's ever had before. And it's new and it's different and he wanted it. But it's a lot. And so I noticed yesterday that he was struggling with being able to, he just, he seemed really tired, moody. He, his answers were really short and my husband was like, what's wrong?
And he was like, I don't even know. And you could just see the frustration coming up inside of him. And I was like, hold on a second. Are you feeling overwhelmed? And he was like, Yes. And I said, why do you think you're feeling overwhelmed?
[00:11:00] He says, I don't even know. I just feel so overwhelmed all over the place. So I just sat with him and I started breaking it down. So I started naming the things that I thought might be contributing to the overwhelm. And eventually he started nodding along. And then, by the end. I had touched on all the points of the overwhelm.
We had come up with a plan to help make it sustainable and he perked up and he was off to go work on the things he needed to work on. But I think that the way I grew up, the way that I think came naturally to me previously was to be like, okay I don't know. What's going on? But you have this stuff to do.
You need to get it done. I don't have five minutes to sit here and talk about what your feelings are, but it is so helpful and it just, it changes everything. It often prevents, meltdowns and breakdowns and fights, but it really did take looking at myself, my patterns, and where I learned from to be able to break those [00:12:00] down and understand why I was Parenting the way I was parenting what kinds of things I wish I had or that I needed and wanting to pass that on to my children and that became a way that I just started thinking all the time.
Dr. Erin Hayford: I think that is so common in words that this is how we do it. This is how it's always been done. This is how I did it. This is how my parents did it. This is how people do it. So just do it. Part of it, I think, for parents is wanting your kids to be normal. Keep up with the Joneses, meet your milestones, whatever those things are.
I think it comes from a place of love. I want you to be on the same playing field as everyone. We just push them and we're not recognizing what feels good for you. We, how do you want to do this? Or maybe you don't even want to. In this effort to, I don't know, make our kids good. We're pushing them to become people they're not and it's not, not conducive to actually getting the outcome that we want.
And the other part of that too is that nervous systems brains are not done developing until they're 25 years old. The entire time we're raising kids, their nervous systems are not [00:13:00] done developing. And like you were describing your child being in that overwhelmed space. And we're like asking them questions what do you need?
What do you know? And you need to like, they can process right? The logical part of their brain. When kids are triggered, when anyone is triggered adults or kids, but when kids get into that fight or flight space, that's when we're really making demands of what's wrong with you?
Like you need to do this and you need to do that. They can't process it. They can't answer you because they don't, they can't think of a logical answer. Because that part of their brain is offline. And then following directions is also incredibly hard, if not impossible. So to me, I think that's a huge help to go back to the original question of how healing our inner child is positively impacting our parent or our parenting is.
Just recognizing like what we're even capable of allowing things to be imperfect, allowing us to not have to have the answers. When I think about my inner child work, it's all about letting me be a kid, right? It's letting me be the child who doesn't have to know who doesn't [00:14:00] have to have answers, who doesn't have to act like an adult or be a caregiver or step into roles that were older than I should have been stepping into, right?
This morning, for example, my son was sitting at the kitchen table. We were having breakfast. I gave him juice in a open cup, like without a sippy cup or anything like that. And he was playing and he knocked it over and it spilled all over the table. And it's one of those moments where again, it could be like, What you should have known better.
Like, why weren't you paying attention? What's wrong with you now? And it was just like, that's fine. Whatever. It doesn't matter. Like that do something is sure. It's annoying and it slows us down. But at the end of the day, it's he's a kid. He doesn't need to be paying attention to stuff like that right now.
Like I want him to be able to play and feel free in his body and to know that he can make mistakes and he's safe to do I think there's a lot of that for me of just like, how can I just let him. Be a kid like learning things that are developmentally appropriate, but not pushing him to be like an adult
Kimberly Sleeth: Yeah.
And I think that what we [00:15:00] don't understand is a lot of times we are just so triggered with the juice example. It's so easy to just, freak out, just become overwhelmed, oh my gosh, juice, whatever. We're trying to have our children regulate their nervous systems while we're completely and totally dysregulated.
We're reacting more like a child in these instances that we often, we don't recognize that. And I think that when we're reacting in that way, not working on our nervous system causes us to be more in a fight or flight mode most of the time when we're triggered by our children. And that's also teaching them How to respond to their feelings and emotions and things like that.
So I think that's one reason why inner child work and nervous system regulation is so important because you're literally teaching them how to regulate your own nervous systems. Yeah. I just think, especially growing up and whatever, like just seeing your parents stressed and flustered and all that kind of stuff was normal, at least for me and a lot of my friends.
[00:16:00] And I think that now we have A lot more understanding and resources to understand how that's negative affecting our children. Once we realize that, like it's not, you said earlier about keeping up with the Joneses and forcing kids to do things. And I resonate with that experience as well.
And when I said that I was working with my inner child and seeing all the things that I needed and then giving that to my children, I don't mean that. Because we can say we needed a lot of things, right? So some people, what they needed was their parent to care more about them being popular or, other types of things.
I think the idea is not so much just that they're getting popular. What we need is not the same thing as maybe what they need, but it's about listening also to your child, what they need specifically, which is a challenge when you have multiple children, because they're all different.
And that was probably my biggest struggle is trying to figure out [00:17:00] Which child needed what? What was best for each child?
Dr. Erin Hayford: But it's worth it. I think that's a really good point too because what as you were saying that I was like, I think really the biggest thing I learned doing inner child work on myself.
And then with other people, it's you just learn how to listen or how to put yourself in the shoes of a child again. Because essentially that's what you're doing. When you do inner child work, you're going back into your own inner child shoes and being like, what did I need?
What did I want? And. Yes, exactly. It's it's it's not saying okay, so I needed this in this situation. So that's what every child needs. It's saying, yes, that's what I needed. And I can feel that and understand that in my body. So then when I think about my kids, so just to like Id my own parenting situation, I have Julian here, who's three months, almost four months, and Felix, who's gonna be four years old in March.
Felix is in the throes of tantrums and, just like the big toddler behaviors right now. And so a lot of what I'm constantly having to do is put myself in his shoes. Where is he coming from right now? And what does he need? You just learn how to [00:18:00] get into that orientation of what does it mean to be a child?
What does it mean to not have a regulated nervous system? What does it mean to be fully dependent on somebody else? And therefore, what do I need if those were all true for me? And given the situation that's in front of me right now, what do I think is happening? And at the core, it's always Some form of safety and connection, right?
But how that looks for each child is going to be very different. What if your illness, your wounds, and the emotional challenges you're facing aren't obstacles, but invitations? Invitations to reconnect with yourself, to realign with your path. And to uncover the medicine within you that the world needs.
In the Sacred Illness community, we believe that illness isn't something to be feared or fought against. It's a sacred opportunity. Your mind, body, and spirit are calling you back to yourself, asking you to heal on a deeper level, so that you can step fully into your power, your purpose, and your work as a healer.
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See the notes below for links and information to sign up. And now let's get back to the podcast. [00:20:00] Okay, so the next thing we want to touch on is. Just the amount of pressure and challenge pressures and challenges that modern parents face. We are both technically modern parents, but again, we have different experiences, me having younger kids and you having older children, but I think it's important no matter what age your child is, right?
If you have a child now, you're facing these modern parenting pressures. So do you want to speak to that a little bit, just what you're seeing and what you maybe have experienced yourself?
Kimberly Sleeth: Yeah even since I first started parenting in 2000, things have changed drastically. There is so much pressure, I think, on parents now to get it all right.
I think today, most, Families have both parents working financial pressures. Things have gotten really difficult. Financially, you've got like a wealth of information. And I think like parents, especially moms are bombarded with what's healthy and not healthy for your kids.
How to parent them, how to feed them, what car seat you need. [00:21:00] It's almost like everything is a danger to your child, and you have to pay attention to every little detail, and as moms, we want to get this right, and so when we hear of something that's supposed to be better for our child, we're like, okay I need to do that, and I need to do that, but I don't want to cause trauma, all these things that previous generations, and even my early parenting, We didn't have to think about or worry about, it was like, there was food, basically you keep them alive, you do your best.
Modern parenting has a lot of pluses in that we can make more informed decisions for our children and for their lives. More child centered parenting type stuff, but also it can be very overwhelming and stressful and really easily lead to nervous system dysregulation, which is why it's so important.
It's so important, especially now to work on that stuff, because I think, and I don't know if this was the case for you as well, but like working on my inner child, regulating my nervous system brought me more into a place of being able [00:22:00] to look at my parenting from the perspective of my family, not so much society, not so much the world, just understanding what my children need.
And it's not going to look like what society is necessarily telling me is best for them all the time. One of the challenges of modern parenting is following all of society's advice, but then that's really leaving out what the child wants, what's best for the parent. Because if you put too much on a parent, you're running around doing all the activities, you're trying to make sure they get everything they need constantly, you are going to become dysregulated and maybe even sick because you're not taking care of yourself.
And so we put too much pressure on ourselves these days to make sure our children have these great busy lives. But really it's, Oftentimes just feeding, in my opinion, some mental health challenges, physical health issues. And I think that's one of the issues with modern parenting. It's just too much.
Dr. Erin Hayford: I agree. I saw a reel on Instagram the other day. It was funny, not funny, right? Where it was a [00:23:00] woman our age with her toddler at the playground and then her mom. And it was just like, no, mom, we don't say that anymore. We do this. Oh no, mom, we don't do this anymore. We do this. But it's just like, All these considerations all the time.
Yes. And, add on top of that too, like the work we have to do on ourselves, to re parent ourselves, to do our inner child work, and then to apply that in the moment with our child, I know personally, I have, this fear of, I don't want to mess it up. Like I don't want to mess up my kid. I'm sure everyone has that to some extent, but I feel like it's more in my brain.
Now I see how childhood trauma can impact our lives and cause illness. The regulation of our nervous systems is the most crucial thing to being able to be quote unquote, for lack of a better word, good parents. If we are Able to regulate ourselves and it's okay if we get dysregulated, if we can co regulate with our kids, just being, I think there's like a mindfulness that we're working to cultivate.
And if we have that, it's almost like the other stuff doesn't matter as much, right? If we can just [00:24:00] be present to what's going on and address it at face value, whether or not they're Cheerios or are organic or not, probably not as influential to their overall health and feel safe with you and in their bodies.
All that other stuff is secondary.
Kimberly Sleeth: Exactly, I'm glad you said that because that's exactly what I was about to say. Just, I think that I was having those thoughts the other day about like perfectionism and trying to meet all these bullet points for how to perfectly raise your children.
And it's just, it's too much. It's not sustainable. It's not realistic. And I think that I was thinking that if you work on your nervous system regulation. You work on your relationships with your Children and cultivating a safe, healing environment for them. Yes all those other things they may not have the perfect socialization and you can't afford all these activities are supposed to be doing or maybe you can't get the organic food or whatever it is.
It's just that as long as they have a safe environment that they feel Loved and [00:25:00] welcome and yeah, safe is just the word That's the biggest part like that is more important. I think than anything else because You're not going to be able to do it all but if they feel comfortable And that's, I think, more
Dr. Erin Hayford: important.
Absolutely, really, to me, the healing work, in general, is, about safety. It's about re establishing safety in yourself and in your relationships and how you feel in the world, because Your nervous system, if it doesn't feel safe is going to be in a state of activation and a state of activation is not a state in which healing can occur.
I think what you're saying is how we're starting to fall into parenting. It's okay, so maybe they won't have all the activities and have all the things, but they're going to know what it's like to be able to express their emotions. They're going to be safe in themselves and feel confident that they can show up in the world and be who they are and know that there's people who will always love and support that person.
And from there, like once they're old enough, they can go into the world and figure out those other pieces, right? I think that's [00:26:00] more of a personal journey than like a journey mom and dad need to I think, introducing them to stuff, teaching them about stuff. But I didn't really figure out who I was or what I liked until I left home anyway, like I'm not a soccer player now.
Could have done without that. To me, it would have just been more important to feel like I have a really safe, secure foundation. I feel really good in myself. I know who I am. And from that place, I can do anything I want. I think that's really the gift we can give kids.
And again, it doesn't come with a lot of bells and whistles. It comes down to how are you showing up in your body and how are you modeling that for your kids?
Kimberly Sleeth: Yeah. I've seen that with my 18 year old. He still lives at home, but we, for most of their lives, we had. Very little money.
We were not able to do the activities. They were homeschooled. It was different than a lot of kids. And I had a lot of feelings about that guilt about this and that. But, he's 18 and like figuring out who he is. And he's able to I feel like he, grew up in this environment where he feels safe and loved and comfortable and all that stuff.
[00:27:00] And that's good enough. Like he didn't need all the things. And now that he's 18 and he can drive and he has his own money or whatever he goes and he travels, he's figuring out who he is and doing the things he wants to do, he's never once expressed that he feels like he missed out on things that we couldn't provide.
But he has expressed that he feels safe and comfortable with our family and that is The best thing I could ever hear. They're gonna be okay. And, in my experience too with five, they're all different. And I know we talked about this a little bit on our other podcast, but they're all very different children and they all need very different things.
And some of them don't respond the same way as others. Like you, even if you're doing the things that you think are right it's not always going to turn out like results are not guaranteed.
It's just, it doesn't always work out that way. But I think that's something that especially those of us with like perfectionist tendencies need to realize. It is never going to be perfect and you can never do [00:28:00] enough to secure the outcome you're looking for. All you can do is focus on doing the best you can for your children and also for yourself.
And by doing the best you can, I mean you're trying to pay attention to your child's needs and listening to them and all those kinds of things. And if you're doing that, and it still doesn't turn out perfectly it doesn't mean that you've failed. There's so many nuances to it.
Dr. Erin Hayford: I do believe that every generation did the best they could with the best. They were with what they were given, and I do think that parenting has become more of an active than a passive process, because I think a lot of, old school parenting is like children are to be seen and not heard, right?
So it's just you're here, be quiet, don't do anything, follow the rule, like basically have as little impact. little influence, little interruption in the scheme of things as possible until you're independent and then you go. And now it's yeah, no, like we're getting in the guts of things, right?
Like we're staring the tantrum in the eyes. We're letting it unfold. We're being with it. It's just a wholly [00:29:00] different experience. Obviously. Don't know. Cause I wasn't a parent back in the day, but it just feels like it's more of an active process than before, and I think the unfortunate reality is there's less of a village than there was before, so I think back in the day, it was very common to have lots of. Relatives and people around to help raise the kids for better or for worse, right? But nowadays it's like there's more of an active, like an active engagement on parents parts, but then there's less people around. At least I know that's true.
Absolutely. Yeah, it's true for you too, right?
Kimberly Sleeth: Yeah.
Dr. Erin Hayford: Yeah, which is, I think that's something that maybe we're starting to, I don't know if we're shifting the tide on that, but we're recognizing the need to bring that back. I think we're trying to find those communities like, like minded parents.
But I think a lot of parents are starting to move in these gentle parenting directions anyway. Hey, Sacred Illness listeners, Dr. Erin here. I'm quickly interrupting today's episode to put out the invitation to you or anyone you know who has a chronic illness or chronic symptoms that would like to come on to the podcast and [00:30:00] share your story.
Our goal is to invite folks onto the show who have worked with MindBody's medicine modalities and noticed an improvement or even a complete resolution of symptoms using this potent medicine. If this describes you, check the link in the show notes below that will take you to a quick application to fill out that will give us some information about who you are, what your story is, and we'll take it from there.
Alright, let's get back to the episode. So another topic that we have talked about a lot together is this idea of how dysregulating, just being a parent, can be in general.
And I touched on that earlier, and I wanted to circle back to it, just how being a parent is to naturally be Triggered a lot and maybe more than we're used to, but I really want to talk about that because it's really important just in terms of the healing work and healing journey, if we're talking about it from an illness perspective, but just as a human.
Parenting is definitely
Kimberly Sleeth: probably one of the most dysregulating experiences you will ever encounter. It's a paradox because [00:31:00] you've never loved anything so much in your life. Also, you've never been so triggered by anything in your life. And it's, I think it's completely normal. You have this child, sometimes younger, sometimes older, that's, screaming, crying, throwing tantrums, throwing things, whatever.
And it's a natural response to be like no I need to get away from this or I need this to stop because it feels scary and dangerous. And especially if it's your first child and you've never experienced this before, it can feel like everything is just crashing down.
Everything you know about regulating your nervous system everything you know about who you are and how you function in the world. It's who am I now? I don't know how to, respond to this. Anyway, I just, I think those are completely natural responses and it takes time to learn how to regulate yourself and help your child regulate.
It's not going to be. Usually an instant process. It's an ongoing process and it will change as your child [00:32:00] changes the way they react to things. But yeah, I think parenting is like the most overstimulating, extreme sport that
Dr. Erin Hayford: there is. I love what you said how it's a paradox. I think that nails it on the head.
You've never loved anything so much and you've never been so triggered in your life and it doesn't make any sense. I was saying that to my husband the other day, like you would think that they would have made this easier for people to like, it's the most important job and you are a wreck like 24 seven.
How is it so hard? But I think again, that kind of circles back to it takes a village and this is why. Yes. So to speak to the nervous system parks, I always like to. Land it in our system for us. When we think about getting triggered, what we're talking about is the fight or flight response.
And first of all, when you get triggered, it's because you're perceiving a threat. And as you had mentioned, consciously, you're like, this thing is two feet tall. It's not a threat. I'm fine. Like you don't, yeah. It's something that's actually going to endanger your life necessarily. But all your nervous system knows is things are being thrown at you.[00:33:00]
You're being hit or scratched or screened. If this was an adult, this would be a very bad situation, and so there's just this perception of this person is unstable, right? Like they're essentially their dysregulation dysregulates us because our nervous systems are. They're almost like little, I don't know what the right word is.
Like they, they sense other nervous systems. So there's a saying that's the health of your nervous system is dependent on the five people you hang out with most or are around the most. And so if you're around five, little dysregulated nervous systems, your nervous system is probably not going to be great.
But anyway. We pick up on that instability. We pick up on that dysregulation and it dysregulates us. Our nervous system detects a threat, goes into fight or flight. And the name it's in the name, either we fight it or we get away from it.
We fly most of the time fighting is not going to work. Like I think spanking and like more of those like physical things used to be that fight response, right? And even like yelling is a fight response. Anything [00:34:00] that's that loud like anger expression is the fight response.
And then fleeing obviously is like leaving the room, telling them to go away, like making them move away from you. Just like that creation of space between you and them is flight. And obviously if it's really extreme or if you're really dysregulated then you can shut down move into freeze and that's when you're just zoned out and just not present anymore, it's going to happen. It's not if it's when, because that's just the nature of nervous systems. They pick up on each other. They respond to one another. It's normal to go into fight or flight, but it's all about inserting that pause. This is where the work, this is the work, if ever there was the work, this is the work where you have to really learn how to insert that pause between your body feeling that charge and that activation.
And the response, but again, you have a choice, you have a choice on how to respond. It's okay if you mess up sometimes you're going to, but it's that repair of coming back around. But I think it's just really important to validate the fact that, yeah, you're going to be dysregulated.
You're going to feel so challenged, [00:35:00] even if you were the calmest person, even if you've done all this work, it's going to happen. So I think it's having those strategies for me personally, what has been really helpful is to think of it in more it's almost like I have developed an objective perspective.
I take a step back and go into an analysis mode around it. I was talking to my husband around my son, Felix, who is very physical when he gets triggered. And I was like, we have to remember when he is being this way, he's in fight, he's in fight mode right now. His nervous system is dysregulated.
He can't, and he cannot come out of this on his own. I think that's the other side of it is he can't stop this. He's dysregulated. He himself can't stop. If we're just like, stop doing that, calm down. He has no idea what that means. He has no idea how to do that. And so that's where co regulation is really necessary.
So it's okay that he's triggered. That's normal. It's okay that we're triggered. That's normal. But what has to happen from there is co regulation where we're coming together and showing them what it looks like to calm [00:36:00] down. And that's hard. It's really hard to do that because I know when I'm triggered, flight is my go to like I want to get away and it's hard for me to co regulate and calm down in his presence, especially if he's continuing the behavior.
I'm curious what it looks like for you.
Again, I know it's different for you because your children are older, but co regulation, what does that look like for you guys? It is very different at this point because they're all so old.
Kimberly Sleeth: But I guess really when one of them gets irritable or sassy or, something like that. It helps me to step back and not, I used to take everything very personally.
They're hurting my feelings, right? It's helpful for me to just step back and be like, okay, he's feeling Disregulated. He's feeling overwhelmed, whatever. And then telling myself, this is not about me. I don't need to snap back at him that doesn't do any good. That doesn't help anything. So really, telling myself a logical story first, what is actually happening.
Sometimes I take a deep breath before I [00:37:00] respond, or sometimes I even just Say, let's come back to this conversation later when I'm feeling a little more calm yeah, usually with co regulation at this stage, it's just listening to what they have to say, not taking it personally and not reacting and then talking it out together, really just allowing, like having empathy and allowing them to.
Express what they're feeling, but and I don't experience this very often anymore with the kids that are here, there have been times in the past where I've had to let them know that it is not okay to yell at me or to say certain things to me or whatnot. And we just. Start focus on focusing on what they're feeling is.
And just, it really just helps to just be there and listen as much as you can and try to talk it out. But when they were younger, especially my 1 with sensory processing disorders. So there was a lot of dysregulation. They're just being with him, which, like you said, is hard when you just [00:38:00] want to run away when he's screaming when he's, Okay.
And, hitting his head against a wall or whatever and, saying, okay, I know you're upset, but, putting your hand there and saying, I know you're upset but you cannot hurt yourself. Let's sit down over here. Let's talk about, rubbing his back, and just letting him cry and he'll.
He'll calm down, but you're there with him, and I'm over here, my heart's pounding, and I'm feeling, jittery or whatever, but I'm like, taking these breaths, and just being able to logically tell myself what's going on keeps me from spiraling into, this is I can't handle this.
This is too much, whatever.
Dr. Erin Hayford: Yeah. And going back to what we were saying at the beginning, this is where it really matters, the inner child, putting yourself in their shoes, right? What did they need? No matter what age they are, like, what do they need right now?
And how can I provide that for them? And again, essentially what they need is safety and connection. So again, you know what I had said the beginning of this podcast is zero to seven is the most influential in [00:39:00] terms of how we're showing up in these moments because we have to be there.
And obviously eight, nine, 10 is still pretty young, but they're more capable and your kids are very capable, they might be like, I just need to go to my room and listen to some loud music, right? Like they have more skills. They have stuff they can do. But little kids don't
and all they have is us and they probably feel scared. I think the scary thing is that anger is a naturally, again, for lack of a better word, damaging emotion, because it can threaten your attachment to someone.
If you get mad at someone, there's a chance they're going to move away from you. And so when kids get mad and they see their parent, Getting mad back or moving away from them. They're like, Oh my God, that anger is threatening my attachment to my parent who I need to survive. So I guess I'm not going to do that again anymore.
And so I guess in a weird way, and I'm like saying this to myself as well, if your kid continues to have tantrums or continues to express anger. Good job because it means that they feel safe doing so if they didn't feel like they were safe to have a tantrum or safe to have those emotions they [00:40:00] would have stopped if it gets basically scared out of them or beaten out of them or whatever it is right we like and I think you know when I reflect on my own childhood I was thinking about how I don't remember Having tantrums.
I don't remember being this really intense, toddler. And maybe that's just my personality, but I also think to some degree, I did not feel safe to be a big presence in the world. So rooting back into how do I preserve to the best of my capacity, my connection to my child, to let them know that they're safe, to have these emotions that they literally cannot control.
They cannot control for, and again, it's going to look different. But until they're 25, they don't have the emotional and nervous system regulation down yet. It just doesn't exist. Like I said, it looks, it's going to look different, but it's still going to be, there's going to be some need for connection and safety regardless of their age.
And so it's just continuing to root back into that objective perspective. It's a weird thing because I think. What we were talking about earlier about the amount of pressure on modern parents, it's this double edged sword [00:41:00] where knowing these things is incredibly empowering because it can help us feel more, I think, just confident in okay, this is normal.
This is why it's happening. This is how I can handle it. I feel so much more peace having that information than versus just being like, what is happening to my child and why am I failing at being a parent? But then it's a lot of pressure on us as well to be like, okay, these are the skills I'm supposed to be doing this.
And this is how I'm supposed to, but I think having a simple way to root into it is important.
Kimberly Sleeth: For sure. And I think that as far as like dysregulation and overstimulation, like we're talking about tantrums and things like that, but also just Having kids is overstimulating.
The noise, the touching, the never having time alone, the constant needs. I want people to understand that's so normal. There's nothing wrong with you if you're annoyed because your kid is touching you for the 50, 000. time today or telling you the same story about Minecraft over and over we're people too and we need our own space and our own time to be in our own heads and in [00:42:00] our own bodies and that can be really hard when we have kids who are always around us or needing us.
So part of regulating the nerve system isn't just around Those big moments, but also the small ones too, because we are going to experience a lot of that overstimulation.
Dr. Erin Hayford: Yeah. Thanks for speaking to that. Cause I think as you're saying that I'm realizing, obviously, like I can only speak to my own parenting experiences and my assumption is like he's a toddler, so that's why it'll get easier.
But I think it's like you're saying there's always going to be some, just in general, I think ever since having my child, my first kid, Your brain is just different. There's always a part of your mind that's like on your kid, in some ways are they safe? What are they doing?
How are they, so that alone, even if they're technically like leaving you alone, there's some part of your brain space that's forever occupied, but yeah, it is important to zoom out and recognize that just being a parent in general, even if they're not in the throes of a tantrum, just not having that brain space is hard.
How do you, or do you have ways that you get back into your own mind and into your own [00:43:00] body and have some downtime?
Kimberly Sleeth: That's something I've really been focusing on over the past few years because I made parenting my identity like so much because I was, I had five and we were homeschooling.
So they really were like my whole life. And I was really, I didn't know how to be myself so much. So that's what I've been working on over the past few years. And it seems every second I was thinking about my kids and what they needed and whatever. And so I finally realized like that, is very draining.
That's not necessary. And so I, now when I'm feeling overwhelmed by things or I just, need a break to, I realize I'm in my head too much thinking about my kids and what they're going through or how to help with something. I go on walks. I don't have to take them with me anymore because they're older. So I walk a lot.
It depends on the day, but it really helps with my mental health. It gives me clarity, of course the exercise, All those [00:44:00] endorphins and everything. And it helps a lot. Other times I will just go in my room. I'll say, Hey guys, I need 10 minutes. And I will go in my room.
I will just lay flat on the bed and I'll turn on some ambient music and just like breathe. And that really helps me a lot. And then I can like. come back out and be amongst the chaos or whatever's happening and be in a much better space. But it is definitely so much easier now that they're older.
When they're younger, especially if you don't have a strong support system or your partner's not there a lot or whatever, that's really hard and you have to just, Steal moments whenever you can, whether it's in the shower which sometimes you don't even get that . Sometimes the baby's in the bathroom while you're in the shower or whatever.
I don't remember a lot of time that I had to myself when they were very young, and I think that really contributed to a lot of my emotional dysregulation because there was no breaks.
Dr. Erin Hayford: I have nothing to add because I literally this morning took a shower and he was in the car seat. Yeah. So it's hard. [00:45:00] And it's a time of life. There's, I think to some extent there's just this acceptance of this is what it means to have kids. There's not a way to make it not be this way. So it is just going to be that time of life.
And I think it's hard. Because you there's, I don't know I just feel like you I've heard people talking about parenting is hard. Parenting is hard. Parenting is hard, but you're like, yeah, whatever. And then you have kids and you're like, Oh, this is what you were talking about.
It's hard to fathom the extent to which it changes your life. And as it should, you have a little thing that you're now responsible for and it's a, Big deal, right? Like you're raising up the next generation of human beings and it's a big, it's a big responsibility.
And it's going to be intense and it's going to be hard and it's going to be the most heartbreaking and frustrating and beautiful and magical experience of your life. Parenting has both humbled me in many ways, like with my own nervous system work.
And then it has also expanded my resiliency because my husband and I feel like I keep referencing him, but obviously we're parenting together. My son goes to preschool and [00:46:00] then we, he and I went to the store today together. And I was just like, What, why is this so easy? It's just you have this new level of capacity where you're constantly able to, do so much or be so on top of things your nervous system is geared and ready to go at all times when you have kids.
And so I feel like I have a much bigger expanded window of tolerance where like normal day tasks now without my son around are like too easy. I think one of the big things I was Googling, when I first started going into these toddler years, is this really what it's like? And as long as I know that this is normal, then I can sing into it.
As long as I know this isn't something to be worried about, I can figure it out. And so I think the more we have these conversations and normalize how intensely intense it is and how normal it is to not only obviously have your kid go through very normal dysregulation and obviously as adults we have problems too but normalizing that and normalizing our own dysregulation I think are the most important things we can do for ourselves and for parents everywhere.
Kimberly Sleeth: Yeah. And I like what you said about acceptance, too, because I think a lot of parents get caught [00:47:00] up in this is so hard. It feels never ending. You feel like you need to fix it, to make it stop. When are they going to start sleeping through the night? How can I make that happen faster? When are they going to stop doing this?
When this happens, I'll be way more relaxed and whatever, but I think just accepting it and working with it, because It will literally end like it just does and yeah, just working with what you have at the time that I think that helps a lot and that's funny what you said about the grocery store. Because when my daughter was old enough to babysit the younger ones, my husband and I would go to the grocery store for a date. Because it was like, we didn't have to take all the kids. It was so relaxing.
Dr. Erin Hayford: So we just wanted to wrap up today's episode with a talk about essentially what is inner child work.
And then also some resources and how to maybe get into inner child work if you haven't started yet. Or maybe deepen your inner child work. So Generally speaking, it's what we talked about earlier where you are going back and identifying the places in which your inner child [00:48:00] was not allowed to express themselves to show up authentically or show up in the way they needed or to have their needs met.
All of those sorts of, little moments in time that really had a big impact on who you are today. That programming that our brain undergoes in those early ages in life, ages zero to seven. They will continue to impact us for the rest of our lives until or unless we go in and reprogram them.
I was just writing a paper about this, actually, how what we think of as our personalities is actually really a lot of programming, just running the show, right? Like how we show up in the world, how we feel in our bodies, how we think or how we talk or, what parts of ourselves we let show up and which parts we hide away.
So much of that is from our early childhood programming. And the reason for that is because again, our nervous system is programmed based on threat and safety and the main goal of the body or the main goal of the nervous system is to keep us safe, is to keep us alive. And so it's going to be much more geared toward what are the threats [00:49:00] that we need to avoid.
And so those things are running in the background all the time and those threats can start to build on themselves. Let's say for some reason you're afraid of the color red or the color red has a bad, is deemed unsafe by your nervous system, or maybe it's like red hats or something like that.
And then slowly it's red shirts also and then it's red pants and then it's a red backpack and then it's red and right so our nervous system can start to expand what it thinks is unsafe based off of one unsafe experience. So it might be anger from one specific person, but then it's anger from these people or, anger in general, like it just can start to build and build.
And what can happen is that can just make our world smaller and make the way that we show up in the world smaller and smaller. So inner child work is about identifying where those things happened, what you needed and giving that to yourself instead. And giving that to yourself by doing, essentially doing an active imagination process and reparenting yourself through [00:50:00] subconscious work, which is hard to explain through a podcast.
And that's why I essentially put this into my sacred illness, program that a big part of the work that I do in helping people identify why your illness is here, why your symptoms are here, what is your body holding on to, is to help guide people through that inner child work and reparenting experience.
So the information for the sacred illness program is down below, but this is a big part of this work, right? Because any healing work is going to involve earlier versions of who we are. You had mentioned to Kimberly, the book, the body keeps the score, which is an incredible book. If you haven't read it yet, it's must read, right?
If you're doing this work, if you're on a healing journey, If you're doing mind body work in general, it's just a very essential understanding of how does the body keep the score? How does our body hold on to these childhood events or lifetime events? How do we get traumatized essentially? And what's the impact?
Two other books that I really like particular, that are particular to parenting. They're by the same authors. One of them is how to [00:51:00] talk. So kids will listen and listen. So kids will talk. I love this book because it has cartoons and I'm a very visual person.
And it really illustrates understanding where the child is coming from and speaking to them at that level that is really validating and really safe and really connective. And then the other book is called siblings without rivalry. So this is really helpful if you have. Obviously more than one child.
The authors for those books are Adele Fisher and Elaine Maslisch. And again, I'll put those down in the notes below. If you have a partner or family member or other people who are helping to raise your kids and maybe who are not on the same page as you, so if you have different Ways of thinking about things.
If you're maybe really into this way that we're talking about and your partner is not, these references and resources can be really helpful for them as well. And then I recently started taking a parenting class called circle of security. I'm working with a social worker who teaches this and we're doing it in one on one sessions together.
I'm not sure if that's the way that it typically is taught, but I'll put the link below circle of [00:52:00] security international. com And it's all about teaching about attachment theory and how kids need secure attachment, need that secure base, how they will, move out into the world, but always come back.
Like there, it's just really fascinating work. And so attachment theory is really, that's what a lot of these parenting methods are built around is how to be That secure figure, that safe attachment figure that a child knows they can come back to and that you will be there for them, but that they, can then go into the world and be themselves and feel safe doing so as well.
So those are all some resources and references that I personally have been using that I think are the more modern versions of this way of parenting now that are and I'm sure there's gazillions, but those are just the ones I know. Anything you want to add to any of that? I use an
Kimberly Sleeth: app that I like for meditation and nervous system regulation called calm.
Probably a lot of people have heard of it, but it actually, they actually have some programs. If you're a teacher or even a homeschool teacher, you get it free for life. I think they have some [00:53:00] financial programs that can help too.
I like Enneagram work. I like to learn about the different types that my children are and that I am.
Helps me to understand them better and understand myself better. And we can work with that, which has really helped our relationships. There are a lot of resources on the internet for any of your work. And of course I have also taken your program and I'm in the community and that's been really helpful.
Thank you.
Dr. Erin Hayford: Yeah. The idea behind the community too, is that like we were saying, we need community. I think with, we're talking about a healing journey, it can be more of an individualized journey or individualistic journey, but it's still that feeling of doing it together, being in it together.
You're not alone walking this path. Parents are not alone walking this path. People who are working to heal chronic illness are not alone walking this path. So it's just to cultivate that idea of yeah, togetherness.
and I'm so curious, what is your Enneagram type? Four. Four? Okay. That makes sense. I'm a nine.
I love the Enneagram too. And astrology is really helpful if you're into astrology or human design, I just think all those ways [00:54:00] of understanding personalities too, because like we said at the very beginning of this podcast your two children will not be the same children.
Your child will not be the same as you. Everyone is just different. And I think the more you can normalize this is who they are, this is why they're showing up this way. It just helps. To root you into that. So how do I learn to show up for them and, meet them where they're at and meet their needs in the best way that I can at being who I am and knowing it, that it won't be perfect, but again, that effort is more than anything else,
and that repair work, I think it just, for me, comes down to just being real, being a real human with your kids, admitting when you mess up and letting them know you're trying and that you love them and that, you're here for them, being a human being is like, to me, like the biggest breath of fresh air, when I think about parenting.
It's been such a pleasure talking to you again, thank you for this idea to do this kind of a podcast, I think, this work is Crucial just even if it's as a concept for what we needed, even if we don't have kids, it's we're all technically parents to our inner child, right? We're all reparenting our inner child when we're doing healing work.
And so it's putting [00:55:00] ourselves in that position of what was I needing? What was I thinking? What was I going through? What was I not able to express? And what do I need now? Or what do I need to give myself now? So thank you for being here. Thank you for doing this again. And who knows, maybe we'll have another one.
We'll see. Until then, thanks so much, and we'll see you next time. All right. Thank you. Bye.
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