Eps 431:  Finding yourself in the empty nest with Lisa Boate

What does joyful courage mean to you 

So often when we talk about the idea of courage is this notion of fear, right, that we have to show up with courage and fear and so becomes almost like this battle analogy of showing up with courage. But joyful courage just sounds like the ease that can exist, when we just have the courage to show up as who we truly are. And it doesn’t have to be a fight. It doesn’t have to be a battle. It doesn’t have to be hard. It can be joyful and graceful and easeful.

 

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Transcription

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
parent, life, experience, work, kids, living, realized, mom, children, abandon, relationship, find, educator, feel, people, good, friend, human, remember, clients
SPEAKERS
Casey O'Roarty, Lisa Boate

Casey O'Roarty 00:03
Hey, welcome to the joyful courage podcast a place for inspiration and transformation as we try and keep it together, while parenting our tweens and teens. This is real work people. And when we can focus on our own growth, and nurturing the connection with our kids, we can move through the turbulence in a way that allows for relationships to remain intact. My name is Casey already, I am your fearless host. I'm a positive discipline trainer, space holder coach and the adolescent lead at Sproutsocial. I am also the mama to a 20 year old daughter and 17 year old son walking right beside you on this path of raising our kids with positive discipline and conscious parenting. This show is meant to be a resource to you and I work really hard to keep it real, transparent and authentic so that you feel seen and supported. Today is an interview and I have no doubt that what you hear will be useful to you. Please don't forget sharing truly is caring. If you love today's show, please pass the link around snap a screenshot posted on your socials or texted to your friends. Together we can make an even bigger impact on families all around the globe. I'm so glad that you're here. Enjoy the show.

Casey O'Roarty 01:26
All right. Hey, listeners. Welcome back. Today is an interview show and I'm so excited to introduce you to my guest. Her name is Lisa Boate. She is a transformational coach that specialises in helping women who experience feelings of being lost and alone after their children leave home. Her focus is to support women and finding meaning, purpose and passion in their lives. She employs a range of techniques to help her clients reconnect with their authentic selves by guiding them through a process of letting go of guilt, shame, grief, and developing a deep understanding of self love. She aims to facilitate a profound transformation at a heart level. Her approach focuses on internal growth rather than relying on external factors. Through this process, her clients gain the necessary skills to trust themselves, leading to lasting and sustainable change in their lives. Hi, Lisa, welcome to the podcast.

Lisa Boate 02:25
Hi, thank you for having me. I'm really happy to be here today. Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 02:29
please share a little bit more with listeners about how you found yourself doing this work.

Lisa Boate 02:34
Yeah. So as you were reading it, I still find myself settling into that description. Because although I have been coaching for a long time, this is a new way of being for me. So the way I found myself here is a little bit windy, actually, because I was an educator for 20 years. So interestingly, when I was young, I did not ever want to be an educator because my dad is and I watched the way it completely took over his life. And I thought I wanted to make very different decisions. And as I was graduating from university and thinking about what would come next, there's always the dialogue that exists for women around well, what's going to be sure what's going to be good for you, but what's gonna be best for your family, because that's what matters most. And so I love working with kids. It's something I had done for the majority of my, you know, early and mid teen working years. And so I thought, well, you know what, it is a good career for a woman having a family. And so I went into education, and I did a lot of things. I did special education, I taught many grades. The last 10 years of my career, however, were working as a central resource teacher, which meant I was coaching other educators providing professional development and coaching, which I absolutely loved. And it also really surfaced for me how much the structure and the education system are not for me, I was abandoning myself over and over and over again in service of this structure that I knew. It's not good for most humans who are in the system. And simultaneously my own children were in their later teen years. And one morning, so I remember I sat on my deck and it just hit me all of a sudden of Holy shit. I'm in a phase of my life. I've never even considered it all I ever imagined for myself was, you know, school, career, young family. All of those things are now behind me. And I have never even thought about life, what life would be like, on the other side isn't and in that realisation realise just how much I had abandoned myself and how much work I needed to do to find myself and get reconnected to myself. And so in my personal journey, in conversation with other women, I realised, you know, I'm not alone, I know the only person who is having this experience. And while there is beginning to be some shifts around creating narrative for what it's like to show up, as your most authentic realised self at this phase, there's not a lot of narrative. There's not a lot of example. And so I left, I resigned as an educator and I started this business.

Casey O'Roarty 05:31
Yeah, well, and it's so interesting, just thinking about the juxtaposition of, I don't know if that's the right way to use that word or not, I'm gonna be real, but like this drive to be our authentic self while living in the world of social media, and influencer, and all of that. So that's just an interesting thing. And I totally relate. Yeah, and our kids are pretty much the same age and a little bit different, but pretty close. And yeah, it's like, we were talking before we hit record about, you know, even though we have nine long months of pregnancy, baby in our life is like, Whoa, that was sudden. And it's that same experience. You know, in this like, later, I loved how you said that, like, yeah, visualising being a mom. And I want to recognise, there's plenty of dads that listen to this show, too. So I'm gonna work on the word parent, being a parent of older kids, right? Even though we are all older kids of parents, right? But it's still in our own experience of that it just feels so wild, right? It just feels so wild. So talk a little bit more about that piece of finding your authentic self and how you support clients with this, and how specifically life transitions can kind of offer up this ripe opportunity for digging in there. What does that look like? And what does that mean to you?

Lisa Boate 07:00
So transitions offer up that opportunity? Because it is a time of destabilisation, right and everything that you have set up as structures in your life suddenly, either are no longer relevant, or they need to change significantly. So there is this opportunity. And we tend to define ourselves externally, we tend to define ourselves in terms of roles that we play. So for example, parent, right, wow, that's an important part of who I am, it is not actually my identity, it is a role. It's an a really important role that I play, but it's still a role. And the society creates conditions for us to define ourselves in that way. So when you were talking about social media, I mean, we see that proliferating and parenting, because of the notion of perfection, that social media and influencers in particular are creating around parenting, and what it means to be a good parent. And this idea of a perfect parent creates a perfect childhood. And so everything around that child is protected, hugely problematic for all kinds of reasons. And one of them being that we over identify in that role. And it becomes our identity, which it is not. So then when our children leave and move on as that is exactly what they are meant to do. They're not meant to be our children for forever. I think back to when I was pregnant. I had a midwife who I absolutely loved and adored. And I know this is unusual, but I loved being pregnant.

Casey O'Roarty 08:38
I like to do Yeah, I was so glad not to like I was really easy, right. And that's not everybody's experience. It is not I finally didn't have to suck in my stomach. I think that was like a leg up my ballet.

Lisa Boate 08:50
Yeah, I felt like such a goddess like my Yeah, for sure. 100%. That's great. After the first like three month hangover, which was fired, I felt really great. And so when I was getting close to the end of my pregnancy, I was grieving it a little bit because I had loved that experience. And also I got to like, this was all mine. And my husband was super supportive and really part of the process. But still, there's something different when you are you are the vessel of this song. Yes. And so I was reading that. And she said to me, Lisa, you didn't get pregnant to get pregnant, you got pregnant to have a human. And so that is something that has stayed with me and evolved through the phases of, you know, I didn't get pregnant to have a baby. I got pregnant to welcome another soul and another human into the world. And in that, that means it's not actually about me. It's about me facilitating space for that human.

Casey O'Roarty 09:48
Yes. Oh my god, I love this. Can we pause here for a second? Yes, that reminds me, you know of that. Who's the guy who's the poet? Our children are not our children, right? Yes, and And I so appreciate that. And I think we forget, like the ownership that we take. And like, I mean, we I say we, and I'm including myself inside of the we, yeah, me too. And the attachment we have. And then this, like pressure we put on ourselves that at the end of 18 years, we're sending this perfect person out into the world as if we can even do that. I mean, it's just so interesting, when we're not paying attention to how we're holding it, how we're actually holding the whole experience.

Lisa Boate 10:35
Yeah, absolutely. Because it sounds spiky when I say it. And I always preface it that way, when he's talking to clients, because they say, if you're holding on to your child like that, you're living your life for them. And it's about you, and it's not about them at all. Yeah, for sure. And that can be a really, it can be a challenging dichotomy to hold of light, but it's my responsibility to love and keep this human alive. And you also need to step back so that they can live their story and not on try to overlay your story on them. When we do that, and so much of our culture is set up for us to do that. Now, when they do fly, and they do leave it means, like, our meaning is gone. Because I have wrapped up my entire purpose of being in being a mother to these people. You know, it's the Barbie movie had this line in it that I really was like, huh, like, as a writer, I understand the like, draw, because it is a beautiful piece of language, but it's reappear. Almonds character says, We mothers standstill so our daughters can see how far they've come. And I was like, No,

Casey O'Roarty 11:46
yeah, I get that. Yep. Um, so I'm with you,

Lisa Boate 11:49
I, I am a human still living my life and my journey I have not standing still. So you can see how far you've come. Because that means you are relying on me as your marker when you also need to be living a life of self reflection and looking back and seeing how far you've come in yourself. So it's all the intersections of realising those things of asking yourself one, who am I? And what do I actually want? Yeah. Because we're not given space to ask ourselves that question, what do I want? And you know, I break those questions down, because they're really challenging when we have completely created an identity for ourselves that exists in roles external to who we really are. So that's the heart of the work. Yeah, that's

Casey O'Roarty 12:35
so interesting. I was recently a part of a group ritual, and that my girlfriend was facilitating and one of my friends who's, you know, extremely dedicated mother. I mean, of course. Uh huh. And that was one of the questions that my friend who was facilitating asked, you know, in a series of questions, the final one was, what do you want? And it was, you know, I'm like, a total personal growth junkie, and I journal all the time. And I'm like, Ooh, yeah, ask me that. Again, I can write five pages on that. And this other friend of ours, I don't know that that's a question that had been posed to her because she couldn't answer. Right, like, and I feel like there's so many. And I know, listeners, I know, you're out there probably having your own experience with that question. So when you work with someone, and you ask that question, and they realise, oh, I'm in a place where I don't even know how to answer that. Like, what's the baby step towards discovering what it is that we want?

Lisa Boate 13:35
The baby step is doing some reimbursement work, and thinking about a time in life where you did? No. And sometimes the answer to that is actually, but I have never known. And so then it's still embodiment work. Because what we tend to do over our lifetimes is living in the skin becomes more painful, we end up moving up and out. And we just live in the cognitive world because we trick ourselves into thinking that that's the safer place.

Casey O'Roarty 14:06
Yeah. And I want to just tell listeners, what I just saw, Lisa do and she said that, like she lifted her hands up. And I love this, right. And I want to dig into what it means to be embodied, but like lifting up and so spending our time here in our thoughts, right, versus acknowledging and experiencing what's happening in our body. Exactly. Yes.

Lisa Boate 14:28
Okay, exactly. That's a really great description of it. And what happens when we live in our brain is that we are constantly living in a place of evaluation. So there's not a time where we're able to just listen to ourselves because we removed ourselves from the vessel that allows us to censor to experience the world in a sensory way. And so it removes all kinds of all those different pathways of how we receive information

Lisa Boate 15:04
So I work with women on dropping back down into their bodies and using their senses to experience the world again, and in turn be able to listen to the voices that are coming up that they hear when they actually live in their hearts and in their solar plexus and in their roofs, because it's a totally different story than what's happening up here.

Casey O'Roarty 15:27
So how do we know when we're living in our hearts and living in our solar plexus? Yeah,

Lisa Boate 15:34
it's a really good question. And I would say the answer is probably different for everybody. But it is, how do you know? Yeah, so personally, it's really good. It's, I know when I am not because I am coming from a place of numbness. And we know that we're living in numbness when we can't have the same kind of sensory memory that you have, if you think back to when you were little, and the story changes for people who have had traumatic experiences as young humans. So it's very individualised work. But for me, specifically, when I was 17 years old, I was in my body, there was something about me at 17, or I was confident, I knew who I was, I walked through this world with like power and grace. And it was before I had been in any sort of romantic relationships. And so everything up until that point had just been me. And I can, particularly when I'm listened to music from that time, I can feel what the air felt like around me, I can feel the clothes that I was wearing at the time, I can remember the grass that was underneath me and the way the sun felt on my skin like it is such a powerful visceral memory. Yes. And then when I think about so this weekend, my partner and I went on a little weekend away, just the two of us. And we drove through Waterloo, which is where I went to university. And I remember almost nothing, because I was living in such a place of disconnect and numbness. I lived there and experienced that city for almost six years. And I have almost zero memory of it. Because I abandoned myself during that time. So some of the work is when people do have that memory, is helping them to reconnect to what that felt like, and then bring it forward and attach to where they are now. So they can use that as a platform for oh, I remember what that felt like. And if I remember what it felt like I can train my brain to get back to that space again, where I'm actually experiencing the world and being present in it rather than detaching from it.

Casey O'Roarty 17:49
Yeah, when you were describing being 17, I was remembering my friend Kyrsten, tan Volvo station waggon, that we would drive out to Palm Desert for spring break Steve Miller band on the radio windows down, my best friends around me like such a vivid picture. And then I think about college, which I do have a lot of memory from college, but I was also engaging in behaviour that was absolutely abandoning myself. And can we talk a little bit about what because I think I know what, for me it was like sexual promiscuity and a lot of alcohol and drug use. I mean, that was literally abandoning myself, and then not really processing any around any of the behaviour that I was engaging in. So when you talk about abandoning yourself, I'm sure there's a lot of different ways that that can look. What does it mean to you and your or how does it show up for clients that you work with?

Lisa Boate 18:44
Oh, gosh, it shows up in so many different ways. I mean, for me, I can think of it the way I was in relationships I was in my first serious boyfriend ended up being a really abusive relationship where I had to abandon myself in order to be safe in that space. And then as I think about it, through my career as an educator, it was the same pattern playing out where I couldn't ever show up as my whole self, because that would not have been acceptable to the very academic world that I existed in. And I had to abandon all those elements of myself to show up to a system that I knew wasn't good for me. And I see clients do the same thing and sometimes it is in their relationships. Yeah, sometimes they have abandoned themselves to make a partnership work. Sometimes the abandonment actually happens in motherhood. Right, especially if someone has had a traumatic experience as a child. They pour all of this extra energy into making the most perfect reality for their child that they can and we you know, cognitively understand why that is, but in so doing You abandon who you actually are and just give over to an identity of someone else's mom. Like, if you think about the way parents introduce themselves to each other, if you're like at a soccer game or whatever, it's like, oh, yeah, hey, I'm Will's mom. Yep. Right. Okay, but I think you haven't named. But we abandoned like, we literally like, that's how deep the abandonment goes, we let go of our names, we let go of who we really are, and just become this person's parent.

Casey O'Roarty 20:28
Well, and it's interesting, too, because like, when you said that I have people in my phone, who are you know, Andrea, Joe's mom? Yeah. Right. So we're even doing like, we're doing it to each other as well. And then, you know, I mean, this is kind of a tangent, but I'm going with it. Like, even when we I'm thinking about those early years with my kids, and like playdates and you know, the kids find themselves and it's like, I'm gonna meet the parent and then mingling with the parent and keeping it very surface. Right? I mean, I can think very specifically about some playdates where I'm like, That person, I couldn't expose my whole self to them, because they would have been like, you know, what's up with this lady? You know, just Yeah. Or that's what I thought. Right? And yeah, it's so interesting how that happens. Like, there's so many layers to the why absolutely not gonna happen. And then fast forward, right, then fast forward. My listeners are parents of teenagers. Yes. And I think there's some transitions that I want to talk about here. So we go from being maybe the class mom and super involved in school, and then they go into middle school, high school, and they're like, stay away from high school, like, do not come on campus. Right? Or they move from being this really like happy to engage, wanting to connect with us, maybe even a lot of physical, snuggly affection. But then, which is very developmentally appropriate and not a character flaw. They move through individuation and teen brain development, and they push us away, and they need to figure out who they are. And there's this whole detachment, period, right? And it can feel really abrupt, just like, I was just pregnant. Now I'm holding a baby. It's like, Oh, my God, I just had an elementary kid who loved me. And now I have a middle schooler. Who can't stand me. Right. How do we be with that transition? And the abruptness I guess, of what can feel abrupt?

Lisa Boate 22:27
Yeah. And I'm glad you brought that up. Because I think, you know, when we're watching other people walk through their parenthood journey, especially when you're in the throes of toddlerhood and it's so energy expensive, and you're just exhausted. And you're looking ahead and thinking God, I cannot wait for that moment when I have some freedom again. And we don't realise how abruptly that happens and changes. I remember how when I gave birth, and suddenly, my life was completely different from the way it had been three seconds ago. And it's almost the same level of abruptness, the way it happens, it is just like a blink or a heartbeat. And suddenly you find yourself in this different relationship. And there's sort of two ways I want to answer this. And one of them is parents of little kids. This is where cross generational conversation is so important. And to be able to listen to each other and to say, like, Don't abandon yourself, don't give all of yourself into this. Because if you hold on to the core of who you are, and you're not making your value be your children, then this will be an easier transition. Because you are not making them the star of your story, because you were actually still the leading character of your own story, right? Yes, love it. But we don't let ourselves do that. So there's that element of it. And then the other side of it is just being really honest with kids around our own experience. Because we have this feeling like we need to protect our children from everything. And the reality is when we let them in, and we let them understand our humanity, right? We're not just parents, we're also humans. So I had my oldest was in his final year of high school last year. And he was doing all of the things that I remember doing being in my last year of high school, right like you are you are separating from the family, you know that your reality is going to be different. So there's all these behaviours that come out. And one evening where everything was calm, like neither one of us were upset, I just, you know, said hey, can you chat about something? And he was like, Yeah, sure what you said, I want you to know that, like, I see everything that you're experiencing, and I remember going through it myself. And at the same time, all of the behaviours that you are showing, because you mean to just start doing the separation happened to intersect with all of my most raw pain points.

Casey O'Roarty 24:58
That makes me emotional. Yeah.

Lisa Boate 25:01
And I don't want you to change, what you're doing is totally developmentally appropriate. But what we need to have is some language so that you know, when something you are doing is really just like digging into this wound that I have. And vice versa. Because it's a reciprocal relationship that's happening. And that was really helpful for us to be able to move through that in a way where we could be honest with each other instead of feeling like we were fighting each other.

Casey O'Roarty 25:30
Yeah, so my youngest is on a more traditional trajectory as far as finishing high school and, you know, applying to colleges, and he wants to get out of state and like my daughter moved to town, right, she's 20 minutes away, I get to see her. And what makes me super emotional is thinking about, like we were talking to as a college counsellor, and we were kind of interviewing her before we decided to use her. And she was talking about, like, excepted student days, and I burst into tears, because it's such an exciting time of life, right. And thinking about him inside of this time period makes me feel so many things. And I also think that I'm really good at, like, I know that when he actually truly, like derives away. That's going to be of course, and emotional experience. And like, I know, that's out there. And I'm not like, letting that future experience dictate how I feel and be with him right now. Right? Yeah. And I think that's really important, too. I was also a mom. I mean, I remember being like, Oh, my God, oh, my baby started kindergarten or Oh, my gosh, and I'm just like, yeah, hallelujah. I need a little time. Go do it. So you know, it's just so interesting how we all interface with the experience of transition, I think another piece of this particular period of time of adolescence, whether it's the start or the middle, or the end, is everything feels so precarious, right? And we want to know, and I know that you do work around uncertainty, as parents, we want to know that they're going to be okay. Right, we want to know that they're going to be able to take care of themselves, that they're going to get into college, that they're going to find a trade, that they're not going to become addicts, because they're experimenting with substances that they're going to figure out their mental health, like we want to know. Right? And we know, right? And so something that I talk a lot about and practice really add lots of practice in this is trusting the unfolding of life. And being with that uncertainty, how do you help clients with uncertainty?

Lisa Boate 28:04
Oh, gosh, it's so hard, right? Because as humans, we're wired to know certainty. And the one truth about life is that nothing is certain.

Casey O'Roarty 28:13
So annoying.

Lisa Boate 28:16
Really annoying. I have to credit my mom, when I just given birth to Will was my oldest I was probably right on the cusp of having postpartum and one of the things I was experiencing was just terrified that something was going to happen to him, like I was locking out the doors in the house, I was sure that someone was going to come and take him like I was having all of those sorts of thing. And she came to me and she said, Lisa, you can not protect them from everything. This is their life to live. Yeah. And it was the best advice I could have gotten at that time. And so that has sort of framed my experience of knowing, we sign up for this knowing that there will be great love, but there potentially can also be great pain and great grief. That is just the reality. And so the work that I engage with with clients is sitting in the space of duality. And I'm not going to pretend that that's easy. It's not It's really hard. Yeah, there's also not an ending, right? Sometimes I think people come into coaching or therapy or whatever it is, with this idea of like, I'm going to be healed. Yeah, that's not the game. That's not the game. Because life continues to happen. You could reach a place where you feel really good. But the key is having tools that allow you to move through the hard parts. So that is mostly what I work with. And it is at the physical level. It is at the emotional level. It is at the spiritual level, because there's alchemy and all of those things coming together.

Casey O'Roarty 29:53
My good friend Jeannette, who I adore talks about life as the spiral, right and those less ones that were here, probably cosmically chose, uh huh. And how, you know, you move through the spiral. And there it is again, and another way and there it is, again in another way. And every time we meet that challenge or that lesson, we have more experience around navigating it. Yes. Right. And I think that there's gotta be something around this transition from parent with kids in the house, to parent of young adult, kids, there's gotta be something there for all of us. That is like, yet again, here I am, here's what's coming up. For me, it's probably something that's come up for us multiple times. And now it's taking shape as abandonment could be one, or you like you're talking about, like, I think there's a little bit of a murder and all of us right around, like, look at what I've done for you and everything I've sacrificed. And, you know, I'm so intrigued by, you know, kind of the Gen Z, younger millennials who are like, I don't owe you shit. Right. And it's true, like the delivery, you know, can be a little harsh. But

Lisa Boate 31:20
there's great lessons to learn from that, you know, I was having these conversations with people sort of close to the end of my teaching career as well, because they were Gen Z's were coming in as new teachers, and, you know, other teachers were like, What are with these people who aren't just like, staying after school for forever, and coaching everything and doing everything for free? The things that we've always done? And I said, Good,

Casey O'Roarty 31:40
yeah, take a lesson. Take some notes.

Lisa Boate 31:44
Because us doing that. What did that do for us? Or for the system? Absolutely nothing? And so good for them that they have those boundaries? Is there things that they can learn from us? Absolutely. But we also can learn from that. So yeah, it's really interesting to watch how that is shifting and changing. And I hope that some of the infusion of those kinds of boundaries around parenting are really important. And we don't often use the word boundaries. When we talk about parenting, it's like, no, you just give it all of yourself over to your kids. And the reality is, that is not good for anyone.

Casey O'Roarty 32:23
Yeah, and it's a long journey, you know, like, I think about my relationship with my mom, you know, and I've moved in with my dad when I was 15. And we had a very rough go of it, and then invited her back into my life and wanted her to be in my life as I became a mother. And it's funny, because I called her recently I realised because I'm always wanting my daughter to call me, right. And I realised, oh, my gosh, I haven't called my mom in a while, I teased my daughter about this, I was like, I just called grandma. Because I was like, it was such a fun conversation that I had had with my daughter, and the relationship evolves as it should write in a healthy way. I'm so grateful for the ways that my parents, my mom, in particular, has chosen and been willing to grow and evolve over the years of our relationship. You know, and it's interesting, how resistant, I have people in my life who are like, Oh, my mom, you know, like, it's still this domineering, or, you know, whatever relationship. And so I think as we move through our own transition with our kids, when I think about my kids and the relationship that I want to have with them, I want them to want to hang out with me. Yeah, right, which means I get to check my shit. Now I get to check this stuff. And remember, like, as I have worked to do the whole time, like this is their life, this is their narrative, how can I fit inside of it in a way that feels encouraging to them? It feels good to me, of course, to write at 100% Not just an of course, like, while also nurturing who I am, as a mom of young adults.

Lisa Boate 34:08
Yeah. And I'm really glad you brought that up, because that's one of the conversations that I'll have with clients often is I don't know how to have a relationship with my adult children, because they still only see me as a mom. And so that goes back to that idea of why it is so important to show your children, your humanity, that you are also a human. And that allows for space where they're not looking at you as a monolithic thing. Right as the stereotypical mom and that you feel like that's the role you have to continue to play. Yeah. But if you were honest about who you actually are, and let them see that, then they also are set free. Yeah, because they don't feel like they have to play the role of like the monolithic child's

Casey O'Roarty 34:53
right. And I think there's something in the conversation around experiencing I think when kids Experience this expectation like they owe us something. Yes. Like, what a deterrent for relationship. Right? Like, absolutely. No thanks.

Lisa Boate 35:09
I was listening to a podcast recently with Gabor Matej.

Casey O'Roarty 35:12
I love him. I'm glad I love him.

Lisa Boate 35:15
I know I could listen to him. She's just so soothing, right? Oh my god. Yeah. But he talked about, like, the role of family is not to protect or to change things for a child, the role of family is just to provide a space where that person always knows that they're loved. And so they can go out into the world, and they make mistakes, and they do hard things. Yeah. And they have those experiences, it's not for me to stand in the way of them having that. It's just to have a place where they can come back, and it's soft. And they know that they are loved no matter what the experience is. Yeah. And I just thought that is such a heart led place to come from, right where there is everybody is recognised as having their own story when we can come at it from this place of love.

Casey O'Roarty 36:06
Yeah, we talk about dignity and respect, and positive discipline. And I was just talking to another parent educator about this and the power of sending kids off regardless of the skills that they are in the process of mastering, if they are confident, and know that they are capable, and that they have worth and that they're accepted and loved. Like you just said, I mean, that is going to be what will lead them into a place of contentment and fulfilment and life. Like that's where that's where it's at. So I love that. Love that.

Lisa Boate 36:42
Yeah, absolutely. So as we

Casey O'Roarty 36:45
look ahead, you and I both, uh huh. Uh huh. And all the other people that are looking ahead at you know, the very real reality that our kids will launch and leave us Do you have any tips, anything to think about? And to start maybe some practices or things that can support us in the upcoming transition to that emptiness place?

Lisa Boate 37:08
Yeah, one of them is going back in time. And having that conversation early, like, maintain relationships, maintain things that you love to do, don't give yourself over. So there's that element of it. And then in the truth and reality of where we are. One is giving yourself grace and knowing it's going to be fucking hard. It just is there's going to be grief. And it's okay, that grief is not going to last forever. Yeah. And that you can hold two realities. At the same time, you can grieve and miss that human that's been, you know, you've known every detail of this person's life for 1819 20 however many years it's been, and suddenly you don't,

Casey O'Roarty 37:52
oh, God, that's gonna be so annoying. Yeah,

Lisa Boate 37:55
um, there's like, there just is there's pain and grief and that, and at the same time, you can be excited to know that you can do whatever you want. Yeah, like I had a taste of it this summer, both of my kids worked at a residential summer camp. So they were gone all summer. It was kind of it's a nice little sort of testing ground for us. Yeah. And it was both things. I missed them because I enjoy them as human beings. And I didn't have to have a weekly schedule for what we were eating for dinner. I didn't have to think about, you know, who needed to go where what game at bowl like all of that strategy. Yeah, evaporated. So you can hold both of those things at the same time. And then a couple of things. If you are in a partnership, start getting to know each other again, before the kids leave, so that you aren't looking at each other, like who's this stranger? And what are we going to do now?

Casey O'Roarty 38:49
Couples Therapy is important people.

Lisa Boate 38:53
Yeah, do things that are fun. Yeah. Right. Because often when I'm talking to somebody, it's they've gotten to a place where they literally don't know where to begin. And there's all these Heart to Heart conversations to be had. But I say, start with something fun, start with something that you enjoy doing together. So start building those practices back into your day to day, and actually just make time for conversation. Because often with partners, everything becomes transactional, because you're just constantly like strategizing and figuring out what needs to happen when. And so you lose that ability to just

Casey O'Roarty 39:30
sit and talk. That's so real, Lisa. Yeah.

Lisa Boate 39:33
So there's that and then just start letting yourself imagine because that is something we don't do as adults, we leave the imagination go and we're kids that start imagining, like, if you could just design the life that you wanted to have, what would it look like? What are the things that you would do? What would you feel like what do you really want to feel in this next chapter and That was for me, one of the big shifts was when I realised like, teaching is going to be behind me. I don't know what's coming next, but I deserve for it to be great. So lean into your worth, lean into knowing that you deserve for this next part to be great. And just let yourself imagine.

Casey O'Roarty 40:20
Hmm, thank you for that permission slip. I love that. freedom, joy connection. Those are my things. Beautiful. That's how I want to feel. Yes. And lots of travel.

Lisa Boate 40:32
That's a great chapter.

Casey O'Roarty 40:33
Yeah, I'm into it. Ah, thank you for what you bring to the world. My new friend, I'm so happy to have had this conversation with you. Where can people find you and follow your work?

Lisa Boate 40:46
Yeah, so you can find me pretty much everywhere. So I also have a podcast called Transforming 45, which is available wherever you listen to podcasts. My website is lean in find home.com, where you can find all the ways to connect me. I am on all the social places at L boat. And yeah, so you can find me pretty much anywhere. And you can also send me an email. I don't know if you have show notes. But I Yes, I do. Okay, I can send you other places to find me.

Casey O'Roarty 41:15
Yeah, we'll put all your contact stuff in the show notes. Absolutely. So my final question that I leave my listeners with and I asked my guests is What does joyful courage mean to you?

Lisa Boate 41:26
Yeah, so that's such a good question. So often around the idea of courage is this notion of fear, right, that we have to show up with courage and fear and so becomes almost like this battle analogy of showing up with courage but joyful courage just sounds like the ease that can exist, when we just have the courage to show up as who we truly are. And it doesn't have to be a fight. It doesn't have to be a battle. It doesn't have to be hard. It can be joyful and graceful and easeful.

Casey O'Roarty 42:01
I love ease. Yes, thank you for that. Thank you for that. And thank you so much for coming on and talking to me today. This was so great.

Lisa Boate 42:08
Thank you for the show. I think you're doing really important work.

Casey O'Roarty 42:18
Thank you so much for listening in today. Thank you to my spreadable partners, as well as Chris Mann and the team at pod shaper for all the support with getting the show out there and making it sound good. Check out our offers for parents with kids of all ages and sign up for our newsletter to stay connected at B spreadable.com. Tune back in later this week for our Thursday show and I'll be back with another interview next Monday. Peace

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