Megan Barella Talks about Navigating Parenting as a Trauma Survivor

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Transcription

Casey O'Roarty 0:00
Welcome to the joyful courage parenting podcast episode 41 you

Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. I'm so grateful to have you here, so honored that you are taking time to listen in on this week's conversation. So I don't know if you've had this experience, but you know, I've talked about it a few times on the podcast. We all have kind of the the plan, right? The plan on how we are going to parent our kids. Or maybe we don't have a plan. We're just rolling with it and figure that it can't be that difficult. And then we're actually confronted by the child in front of us, and we think to ourselves, whoa, I don't really know what to do. Does that happen to you? Or is that just me? I'm pretty sure it's not just me. And you know, we all have models. We all have our own life experiences that play into the choices that we make in parenting. We all have our own level of emotional intelligence and emotional regulation. We all have the skills that we come to parenting with, and it varies from person to person. Well, I'm really excited about today's conversation. I'm talking to Megan Barela, and Megan is a certified positive discipline parent educator, and she brings a holistic approach to help people live and parent in connection with their highest selves. And what we're going to talk about is parenting as a trauma survivor. So if you or someone you know had experiences as a child and in childhood that left you traumatized, that left you with some patterns that you're finding aren't necessarily helpful on your parenting path, this is a great show to be listening in on. You will hear tips from Megan on how to continue to grow in self regulation and to grow into the model that you want to be for your kids, and also help around how to support members of our community, members of our family, people we love, who might have some patterns that were born Out of the traumatic experiences they had growing up. So listen in. Let me know what you think. And you know, by the way, you know that you can always follow me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, right? Joyful courage on both all three of those. But I want to be hearing from you. I want to specifically hear about feedback from this conversation and how it landed for you and what your growth has been in parenting. So you want to meet Megan. Let's meet Megan.

Welcome to the show Megan. I'm so excited to have you here.

Megan Barella 3:17
Oh Casey, thank you so much for the invitation to be here today. My

Casey O'Roarty 3:22
pleasure. Please tell the listeners a little bit about yourself and your story and how you found yourself working with families.

Megan Barella 3:29
Okay, awesome. Well, I am a mom of a seven year old son, and he really is my greatest teacher. We have a lot of fun together, and I find that becoming a parent is really the way that I've done the most personal growth work. I have a 20 year background in education and youth development, but I find it, even if you come from that background of working with children, when you become a parent yourself, it's a totally different ball game. It sure is. And really, I think there's with my life, I've really wanted to help people and make a difference in the world since I was a small child, and that's been at the forefront of my life when, after my son was born in 2008 you know, I heard his little baby spirit, whisper in my ear if you want to help children, the best way to do that is to serve their their parents, you know. So I really, within a month, my sister recommended, why don't you become a positive discipline parent educator? And I looked it up, and there happened to be a training within the same month, and then that was in 2010 and so I've been that's, this is really, I feel like my life's work is supporting parents. That's so

Casey O'Roarty 4:48
great. That's so great. And I love the trainers in Portland too. I'm dying to know who are your trainers.

Megan Barella 4:56
Um, I trained with Glenda and Steven.

Casey O'Roarty 5:00
Them. Shout out to Glendon Steven Foster, love those guys. Okay, so today we are going to talk a bit about how parenting can facilitate trauma healing. And I love that we're going to talk about this Megan, because I think regardless of the story, we all show up to parenting with some model that was a part of our childhood, right? And try as we might, we quickly find out that it's not as easy as we would hope to get that model, you know, out of the mind, and it's not so easy to get that model from continuing to influence us, right? So tell us a little bit about what shows up around this with the families that you serve,

Megan Barella 5:57
right? So, you know, in an ideal world, our parents form our blueprint for all our future relationships and the way that we parent ourselves, and ideally, that we get this blueprint that's good enough, like there's enough positivity and positive modeling and positive imprinting that we're good to go in life. The reality is, I would say 20% or less of the parents I serve, and I don't know what what you would feel about that, that percentage, but about 20% or less have this positive blueprint, and the rest of us have a deep longing to raise our children in a different way than we were raised. And that's not to say like my mom. I loved my mom. She passed away in 2014 she was amazing person, one of my best friends. There's so much positivity I took from her parenting, but at the same time, she didn't protect us from child abuse, and my father was severely schizophrenic and sexually abusive. So I have first hand experience what it's like to have a really a faulty, sub optimal blueprint. And a lot of us, there's this whole movement going on where we're we're longing to do something different, and yet we have these knee jerk reactions where we find ourselves triggered and yelling when we want to be patient and calm.

Casey O'Roarty 7:16
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I don't it's not just the sexual abuse survivors that have that as well, right? I think that that's really common. You know, I know parents that I work with, it's just, it's they love the concepts, they love the content of the work that we do around positive discipline. And then it just becomes, I can't access it because I'm already flipped. I'm already flipped. So talk a little bit more about how trauma can get in our way when raising kids. So you mentioned the knee jerk reaction. How else does it manifest in the parent child relationship?

Megan Barella 7:50
Well, I think there was the last thing that you said which I don't know why it's lifting my mind right now, but I wanted to go off that a little bit. I guess the main thing are those, the knee jerk reactions and the stress response system. So we find our children's behavior somehow trigger something that is unresolved in our from our own childhood, and it might be abuse or neglect, or it might just be more on the lines of emotional abuse, or the old punishment and reward system that has a lot of fear connected to it. So really what we're looking at, what I tell parents, is you are an amazingly awesome parent when your needs are met. And really the two obstacles to being what I call like positive parenting are our stress levels, and then those unresolved issues from our childhood, they get in the way. And when that happens, we're no longer living in the present moment. Our present moment is taken from us, and something from the past, or just really high stress levels are taking over. And then we're we're operating from that knee jerk reaction or in the stress response system, and that that's what people might be familiar with, that fight flight or freeze response. And so really, our only options are to yell or try and avoid the situation or to literally freeze up. And we don't know what to do with our children's behavior. I

Casey O'Roarty 9:17
wish I leaned on freeze. Yeah, I'm sure my kids do too, yeah. And you know, the work that we do up here in Seattle with teachers, we do some work around working with kids exposed to trauma, and we talk about that overactive amygdala, right, and that our safety radar is on high when we are have, either, you know, lived with, or are continuing to live with trauma? Let's that safety Trumps at all. And I think that that's what I'm hearing, is, you know, the perception of the challenge that's in front of us becomes skewed when our body's response, our conditioned response, is to go into safety. Yeah. Yeah, right. And then something that might be really and you can tell me if I'm like, going on a tangent, but what I'm hearing is, you know, what could be just typical childhood behavior, pushing boundaries, exploring, you know, control can feel like it's triggering that place of needing safety, and in that overwhelm and need to be safe, we slip into that survival instinct,

Megan Barella 10:25
right? And that's exactly so. What's going on first of all, for a lot of us, or all of us, it first. This is a subconscious or unconscious response, so it's really that's often the first step is just begin to connect the dots with our own awareness, and that's something I wanted to talk about in a little bit. So we're bringing what's unconscious or subconscious, we're bringing that gentle light of awareness out to the open and then when you're talking about that, that safety, that's exactly what it is. The stress response system was is designed to keep us safe. So if a bear broke through our living room window, we would be in that stress response system. What's happening when the old stuff gets in the way or our stress levels are too high, our children's behavior, our brain and our bodies are reading that like they're the bear, right? They become a threat to our well being,

Casey O'Roarty 11:19
right? Right? Right? Yes, it's messy, right?

Megan Barella 11:24
It is, and that's why I really it's very uncomfortable. It can be re traumatizing, and that's why I think it's important. First of all, with that awareness, what comes with that is just knowing what incredible, courageous work we're doing every day as parents, yeah, and to have that compassion for ourselves.

Casey O'Roarty 11:47
Have you read Parenting from the inside out? I have, yeah,

Megan Barella 11:51
that's one of my favorite books. Yeah, yeah.

Casey O'Roarty 11:53
I'm like, it keeps coming to mind. I actually just had to pull it off my little shelf that's right here, because I want to make listeners, you know, if this conversation is resonating with you, and you're recognizing that there are perhaps some awareness choice points that you could be kind of leaning into and practicing that that's a really Parenting from the inside out by Dan Siegel, which I talk about brain in the palm of the hand a lot on the show. He's that guy, and I'm going to put a link in the show notes, because the subtitle of his book is how a deeper self understanding can help you raise children who thrive, which I think ultimately is the goal of every parent, right? We want our kids to thrive. And you know, like you said around being an educator and then becoming a parent, I remember thinking like, oh my gosh, parenting is going to be so easy because I know so much, then it's like, hello, reality track, check my children, the emotional triggers as the parent are quite different than as a teacher in the classroom, that's for sure. And this parenting thing, it is so emotional, and many of us who have lived through any type of abuse often carry this extra piece, this extra bag of guilt and shame right as we make our way out into the world, and then we have kids and find that the emotional triggers that we weren't aware of and perhaps, you know, exist and in moments, we Perhaps react poorly in our bag of guilt and shame

gets heavier, right? Because now, not only am I schlepping around this old bag from my childhood, but I'm actually adding it, adding to it as I, you know, criticize myself for my poor, you know, handling of a situation with my child. I mean that this head spin out, can go get crazy. So what conversations have you had around this I'm guessing, probably like, hey, maybe we should unpack the bag. Maybe it's not ours to carry and and like, how do you help parents navigate this whole guilt and shame place,

Megan Barella 14:04
right? And that's why Becky Bailey of Conscious Discipline says awareness is the first agent of positive change. Love it, and that's true, right? We need to be able to see what's going on in our life clearly. Well, as I was I mentioned earlier, that's it's one of those things that is great in theory, but the reality is, when we start to see what our challenges are in life, where we're getting triggered with our children, and then if that is connected to any prior life trauma, hello, that can, just as you said, it can be a huge head trip. It can be re traumatizing, and it can actually send us backwards into the past. So with the families that I've served, I've developed a tool called being a gentle observer, and that's when you have the awareness, and you see clearly what's going on and what your triggers are. And as soon as you have that awareness, you follow it immediately with compassion. Yourself, and what I found, particularly with the moms I serve, extremely conscious group of parents who want to do the best for their children, but they've taken this power of awareness and kind of turned it into itself, where we can really be self judging and self critical. So we want to turn that awareness and couple it immediately with compassion and one of the most powerful tools. I don't know if you're familiar with this Casey. It's from Dr Kristin Neff in the self acceptance project, and it's called hand over heart. And so if you're noticing really anything in your life, let's say we're working with a trigger that you're having as a parent, when you see clearly what's going on, you just immediately put your hand over your heart. There's all this research coming on right now about the power of the human heart and how the human heart can actually help guide the brain. So really, by coming into our heart center, there is such power in that, and that really unlock, unlocks our compassion and our self love. So often we're willing to extend our love to our children or our friends or a spouse, but to really give love to ourselves has been huge. And I know some parents are, like, kind of uncomfortable at first, but then they try out this hand over the heart, like, whoa. This really works a lot of times, just while I'm driving, if I know I have a big day ahead or coming home, excuse me, after a stressful day, just kind of placing your hand over your heart, and it's a very powerful experience. Well,

Casey O'Roarty 16:32
I'm doing it right now, yay. And I'm thinking about I've been out of town a lot in the last couple weeks, and I'm feeling these last few days, the what, how the disconnection is showing up in my relationships with both kids and I'm just recognizing, like, I know, you know, and kind of speaking for the listeners, right? We know when our stress response Well, we know. We don't always know. Sometimes we're in it, right? We're in it. We call it the emotional freight train. Sometimes we're on the train. But then there's a difference between being on the train and actually realizing that we're on the train, right? So what I'm hearing from you is in those moments of recognizing, like, oh shit, I'm on the train. You know, that would be that moment of hand over heart, like hand over heart, shoulders down, deep breaths into the hand, you know, and helping to develop that lens of love for self and for the person in front of us, right? The person in front of us who is making us crazy, right? Well, they aren't making us crazy. We are choosing to be crazy, but we have been triggered, and we're in this not, you know, we're not in the greatest place as far as being the parent we want to be. And so I love that tool, yeah, it's that tool. And I love a gentle observer. And I, you know, that's the other thing I was going to say, and positive discipline. You know, there's a couple mantras that I love, one of which is mistakes or opportunities to learn, right? And we know that in our heads, but in the practice of really being with that and moving with that, I think it's it's more difficult. And I found through my own personal work and working with parents that often. You know, what I notice is it isn't enough to read a book or to think about I'm going to do it differently, but you have to actually practice a different way of being in your body. How do you support do you do body work with the parents? Like that, like that. One example would be hand on heart.

Megan Barella 18:39
Yeah, right, right. And that's so important, because our body, just like our children, is one of our greatest teachers, and so we can. I work a lot with parents on connecting feelings and thoughts with body sensations. And one of the Yeah, one of the dads in my coaching program. I mean this, this just, I was like, That's it. Exactly. What he said is, Oh, you mean I have to notice the trigger before the trigger, yeah. So what he meant is our body's giving us signals all the time, and when we're on that emotional freight train to notice it's very uncomfortable about what it feels like in our body. And then notice before were we hop on that train, and eventually we're developing that muscle to stay connected to our highest self longer. Well, what does Dad recognize is actually my body's talking to me before I even get that first trigger. So when we can recognize that first trigger, then we can most parents need to take physical space, and that's going to be different for all of us, depending on the developmental needs and the temperament of our children, whether it's stepping into another room. And you know this is when you get your like power alone 30 seconds to five minutes. Or you open the door for a breath of fresh air, but that physical state space is necessary once you can begin to notice the trigger before the trigger is that dad so eloquently pointed out. And

Casey O'Roarty 20:12
I love talking about this with kids, right? Because we want kids to become ever more aware of the signals of their body, and they're only going to do that and learn that if they see their people, they're they're adults in the practice of that. So I love that, um, the other piece too. And just coming back around to that, you know, that bag of guilt and shame, Jane Nelson, our favorite PD person, founder, PD talks about having the courage to be imperfect, right? And I think that, and speak into that. I mean, how difficult is that for a trauma survivor to really embrace that idea, courage to be imperfect.

Megan Barella 21:05
Yes, yes. Could I go back? I just had a thought talking about kids, and then I want to come back to that really powerful concept. But, you know, talking about with this, with with our children, and modeling it. So there's kind of two different facets of this. One is that we've been in our patterns and our coping mechanisms for a long time. So while our brains are the ones that are fully developed, and it's our job to be that model for our children and to bring about this new way of being, the awesome part is because our children's brains are developing, they're gonna pick this up so much quicker than we will have you found that

Casey O'Roarty 21:48
I'm still in the practice of being a good model. Megan, oh, so

Megan Barella 21:52
am I? I was thinking about that actually. When you said it, I'm like, Oh, thanks for that reminder. I actually wrote it down. Yeah.

Casey O'Roarty 21:57
Well, and you know, I think, you know, yeah, definitely. I mean, I see when, you know, for example, one of the concepts that we teach in our classes, right is the power of repair. And once we have become emotionally triggered, and we do show up poorly, coming back. You know, when two people are self regulated, you revisit with them, own your own part in the problem, apologize and then talk about what you'll do differently next time. And when I first learned that, I thought to myself, Oh, my God, this is going to be so not powerful, because I'm going to be doing it all day long, and the kids are going to be like, Oh, here's mom coming to apologize again, you know? And what I found as being the most powerful piece to that is the very last, last step, which, for me, sounds like, this is what I'm gonna do the next time I'm feeling that way, right? This is how I'm gonna catch myself before I treat you poorly. Here's what you might notice me doing instead, right? And so speaking that out to the universe, like putting that out there, looking my child in the eye and saying, This is how I'm going to work towards being different, really encouraged me and empowered me and kind of roped me into, okay, well, Casey, you've said this is what you're going to do, so you better darn well do it. Yeah, right. And so then I think that. So then what has happened over time is one the kids are much quicker to make it right, not only to make it right, but to want to make it right. Like both of my kids will approach me and we, we hug it out. You know, that's one of our things, too. And when you know, when you've, like, quote, made it right, or moved on, or whatever, but there's still tension in the body. There's still tension in the environment. My kid, I mean, it's obvious. I can pretend that it's not, but it is. And the kids will come over, you know, whichever one is the one at that moment, and say, Well, can we hug it out? And that's kind of their language around, like, Can we move on? Can we let go of this? Can you quit standing there all tense? Can you get over it, Mom, you know, and and I, and that hug is when, like, the final release happens. So, yeah, so I know it's so good, I know. And it doesn't mean, you know, that whole courage to be imperfect. It doesn't mean that we're going to flip a switch and not ever get into our muck and into our shit and into our, you know, not showing up as our best. The goal would be to show up as best as we can with the tools that we have and continuously to be in the process, right, and in the practice

Megan Barella 24:46
well. And I love hearing you talk, because I relate to it so much. And one of the things that parents love most of all is when I share my mistakes and my imperfections, and I'm very open about that, and I feel like you are as well. And. You know, kind of jokingly, I say to myself, you know, it's not that. I mean, I think I am my patience level is improving, and I'm learning how to manage my stress levels all the time, right? This is a process of learning. But the main thing I will say from working with positive discipline in the positive parenting movement is that my son has a voice. He can say, I don't You're mean. I don't like the way you're talking to you. Or we use the tool of our redo a lot, which is doing the situation over the way that we want it to be done. And he'll call out, redo. I want to redo like this isn't fair. This isn't right. And I just love that. We're never going to be perfect parents, but if we can model democracy, as we say, in positive discipline, and give our children a voice, that's also for me as a single mom, it's very important to have accountability too, where it's my son is able to check me a little bit, you know well,

Casey O'Roarty 25:58
and I'm guessing, too, as a trauma survivor, having a voice becomes ever more important for your children, right as you think back on perhaps not feeling as though you had a voice, yes,

Megan Barella 26:10
yes, that's huge. And honestly, it feels great. And I think about that all. I think about that all the time, although I haven't thought about it from that perspective, yes, that's huge. It feels great, and that's a reason to celebrate. And so that's another talking about moving into talking about embracing our imperfections. The work of Carol Dweck and the growth mindset has been so huge, and also that parenting is a process. And there was something else that I was going to say connected to that. But yes, do you have anything? Do you want to segue again into talking about our imperfections and embracing our imperfections? We

Casey O'Roarty 26:51
can talk about that all day long. Girl, okay,

Megan Barella 26:53
all right. Well, I think I'll just hop right into it. I think the main thing for me as a trauma survivor, and also all the parents that I serve, but especially if they have a background in trauma, is that there's a little bit of separation that needs to go on so our we do make mistakes, and we're always going to do that, and it's really helpful to embrace our imperfections, but also that our imperfections and our mistakes and our coping mechanisms. They're not us, right? They are something that we have taken on in order to survive. So it's really important to recognize that that, Hello, we're surviving. We're alive today, and we developed a set of techniques in order to cope and live right, and a lot of that manifests now into our parenting mistakes. So

Casey O'Roarty 27:47
So wait, let me pause you. So what is, what I just want to make sure I'm following. So what was helpful for us, for a child in survival mode, and then that child becomes a parent, those same tools that were, that were survival tools for us as children aren't necessarily the most helpful and effective tools in parenting.

Megan Barella 28:16
Exactly. Okay,

Casey O'Roarty 28:17
got it? Yep, right. So then there's you were saying there. So there's this disconnection piece, right?

Megan Barella 28:25
And if anyone's familiar with narrative therapy, there's a process called externalizing, and that's kind of when you begin to separate, not in a bipolar type of way, but really being separating the person from the problem, as we'd say, with a with a parenting approach. So we're beginning to look at this set of coping strategies, and then we're looking at ourselves, and we're able to get just a little bit of distance. I i am not defined by my mistakes, right? And so within that when we use that power of being a gentle observer, just bringing our awareness and our compassion, the next step is to really open up to these new possibilities, and we can begin to let go in various different ways of some of the old strategies that we had, and then we can develop new strategies that are more based on thriving and meeting our needs. Now, can you talk

Casey O'Roarty 29:27
a little bit about fear and how fear shows up? I mean, fear shows up, I think, for all of us, but I would imagine, as a trauma survivor that there might be and correct me if I'm wrong, that perhaps there might be like kind of an overactive, hyper awareness around what could, quote, could happen because of of the experiences in childhood. How do you help parents with that? Well, I or how does that show up? You know.

Megan Barella 29:59
Yeah, I think it shows up in different ways. In the one of the main ways that comes to mind is that a lot of us that lived in really stressful environments as children and grew up in stressful homes, that creates a pattern, and I call that in my in my own life, a somewhat of a predisposition for a stress addiction. Okay, so we are gonna, we don't like stress, but holy cow, and I and we just find that stress is like with us all the time, and it may come up. And you know, parents who are trauma survivors have said, Oh gosh, like constant health issues or relationship issues, financial stress and Hello, this is in culture. Most of us are dealing with these stressful issues today, but what we find is, if we have that predisposition to stress in our childhood, it seems like we have some kind of pattern to continue stress and remember that stress and fear. That's the same thing. So if we're having really stressful lives, our bodies reading that is fear, and ultimately, fear means it's that perception that we could die. So even though we might not think of our financial stress or our body issues may or may not be, oh my gosh, that is threatening our life. Consciously, we know that, but our brain and our bodies don't know that, and so that that's the part where it's really important to have compassion for ourselves, that, Oh my gosh, this stress, like in childhood, I was wired to to not really think that I could survive, that I could barely survive. And again, this isn't I consider myself really a very happy person, high functioning, but I know that that's a part of myself, so rather than trying to overcome that or fight that, you know, how can we integrate that? How can we be that gentle observer to see where that stress or fear addiction, it exists in our lives, to have compassion for it, and then we can begin to let it go? Yeah, I

Casey O'Roarty 32:01
heard, I learned at one point when I was going through my life coach program, that something that was pointed out to me that I have found really powerful to share with parents, is that our body doesn't differentiate between helpful and hurtful. Our body just knows what it knows, and we often will move towards familiar, right? And so it makes so everything you're saying kind of makes me think of that statement like we move towards what's familiar, and if stress and chaos is is just what feels familiar on a subconscious level, it makes perfect sense why that would be showing up, continuing to show up in our life until we taught ourselves or became more comfortable or more familiar with a more common steady vibe, right vibe? I don't know what right energy?

Megan Barella 32:54
Sure. Yeah. And so all of so connecting that to specific stress. So for a lot of parents, like bedtime or morning time can be a trigger, whether it's getting out the door the am or the pm or teen, and to just recognize when that that stress is kicking in, and how that may, we may have this just natural tendency, and then just, how do we work with that, right,

Casey O'Roarty 33:21
right? And so, and what are some suggestions that you give to parents around that

Megan Barella 33:29
to really be to lower expectations during those times. We are a real high maintenance society right now, and if we look at all of us, how much we do in a day, it's kind of uncredible. It's a little bit superhero, and it may be unnecessary. So just see if you know that there's certain times a day that are more stressful to you, see how you can take more off your plate during those times and lower your expectations for yourself and for your children. Another thing that can be really helpful, just like hand over heart. It sounds cheesy, but if we look at the way the conversations that we're having with ourselves, and the self criticism or judgment or guilt that may come up, and what those voices sound like, we can begin to develop just more positive self talk. So a lot of times, parents have had success with being like everything's okay right now, I can be light and I can still be calm. So to have a little affirmation, remember, you're just talking to yourself like you would your child or a friend. What kind of advice would you give a friend in that situation? So those are a couple tools that parents have found extremely helpful. I

Casey O'Roarty 34:30
love that. I love that. And so, you know, considering that you and I both kind of lead communities, right? We're part of communities of parents, like minded parents and and each person is coming with their own personal journey, their own personal story. What are some ways that we at in community, once we start well, once we start to realize or just how can we be together in community, in support? Support of each other. You know, there's, I think there's a lot of judgment that flies around, especially in the parenting arena. You know, what are some, what are some tips or offers that you have for parents to think about when you know, in community with other parents?

Megan Barella 35:18
Just the first thing is, just find your community, whether wherever you may find your your parent people, that's really important, and for some of us that might just be in an online capacity, but when you're looking for a parenting community, I think even more than like minded values and ways of parenting, if not more important, at least equally important, important is that non judgment, yeah, and that is really huge. We cannot grow if we're feeling like we're judged. And really no one knows what it's like to be inside your brain and inside your home, and we're all doing the best we can with the tools we have. So define that non judgmental community, because that's that's how you're going to thrive hands down. What parents say in my community when I teach my online classes, it's like this huge sigh of relief, like I'm not alone. Yeah, and so we really need to break that parenting shame so we can reach out and get the help that we need. One of the tools I talk about most of all is just the power of our positive intent and believing you are good people, and your children are good people. And so what we work to connect with that goodness when you're in your place of goodness, when you're connected to your highest self, you have all the resources you need. And so And within that, we can also work on the things that we want to change

Casey O'Roarty 36:41
in our lives, yeah. And then what about you know? What would you say? What would what's helpful to offer parents who are in the process of trauma healing? What do they need from the people around them? And I'm, I'm guessing I know the answer

Megan Barella 36:57
well, that that perception of safety, most important thing, right? And being accepted for who we are. It's also you want to. I think it's really important to remember it's your story in your life, and you can share with people what you want to and you just want to, you know, sometimes it's helpful to just share a little bit and to see how people respond, because that safety is so important. So to make sure that you're coming the people that you're sharing with and connecting with are really they value compassion and non judgment. First of all, you don't really need someone to tell you how to do it, you know, yeah, because yeah, as as we both know, so you need someone who's going to understand and relate, and it can be really helpful to find people who have similar experiences or can understand, yeah.

Casey O'Roarty 37:53
So I'm hearing compassion, non judgment, connection, just being really open and available right to the rights in your community and the people that you're connecting with love it, which is what we want to how we want to be as parents, how we want to be as humans, right?

Megan Barella 38:10
Exactly. And remember that your sharing and your telling of the story, and you actually restoring your story the way that you want it to be, and you distilling what you want from your life experiment experiences is like paramount in parenting from the inside out. Dan Siegel talks about how really, the number one indicator of our children's and emotional and physical or emotional and mental health is the parents ability to tell our life story. And so there is so much power from telling your story, but it can be re traumatizing. So you really want to make sure, if you're looking for professional support, that you're working with people who who offer trauma informed care. Um, there is you. You really that is, that is just so important, because you you just don't want to put yourself in a situation life's hard enough you don't want to put yourself in a situation that's re traumatizing, or someone who doesn't have the background to understand how to support you best got it.

Casey O'Roarty 39:15
Oh, man. This stuff, this parenting stuff, it's crazy town sometimes. So I have to laugh, right? It is, find your lightness. Find your lightness. That's what I always tell parents, for sure. So my last question that I ask all my guests now in 2016 is, what does joyful courage mean to you, Megan,

Megan Barella 39:43
you have to be brave to be happy. Because in order to be happy and to live the happy life that we're all here to live, you have to feel safe. And for all of us, that's really huge. We think that. That, I think that there's, there's a preconceived notion that happiness is easy, but we really have to be courageous to find our joy, to know one that we're worthy, to believe in ourselves and to feel safe enough to trust that we we can be happy. It's actually it's much easier to self sabotage and not to end, I want to end on a happy note, right? It's much easier to be like whatever is going on in our brain, and we kind of like ruin that moment for ourselves to be in our joy is a very courageous

Casey O'Roarty 40:40
act. Yes, it is. Thank you. I love getting all the different perspectives of my guests around that phrase, joyful courage. So thank you for speaking Beautiful Names. Thank you. I love it. Thank you so much for coming on the show Megan. I really appreciate all of your insights and your wisdom. And before I let you go, I want you to make sure to let the listeners know where they can find you and your work. So I know you have a website, yes,

Megan Barella 41:10
which is Megan barrella.com and my blog is mama Megan, which is connected to my site. I'm on Facebook at parenting for the next generation. And I do have a parenting for the next generation Facebook group, and I'm also on Pinterest and Twitter and Instagram. Is mama Megan.

Casey O'Roarty 41:30
Nice. Okay, well, I will make sure listeners that all of those links are in the show notes, so that you can follow Megan and all of her good work. And, yeah, I'd love to have you back on sometime. Let's make that happen.

Megan Barella 41:43
Thank you so much, and thank you for everyone for listening, and just to remember to believe in yourself. Yes, yes.

Casey O'Roarty 41:51
Thank you so much.

There you go. Listeners. Megan Barela from parenting for the next generation. I'm so grateful that she came on the show, and I think it's a really important conversation to be having today. You know that conversation around how to shift from patterns and responses that we have learned over time to keep ourselves safe, which are no longer serving us in parenting. So make sure that you check Megan out and all the places that you can find her. I will make sure there are links to all of her social media again in the show notes and be in touch. Okay, please, please, please, if you have a moment right now. Will you head over to iTunes and give me a five star rating for the podcast and perhaps leave a few words around why you love to listen in and what you are taking away from being a regular listener to the joyful courage podcast. Will you do that for me? I'm always trying to bump up my visibility and make my way out into the world so that more people can find me, and one way to do that is by collecting reviews on iTunes. So that would be so exciting, and I will virtually high five you all day long if you are willing to do that. Also, if you have any questions about anything we talked about today in the podcast, feel free to email me at Casey, at joyful courage.com, you can also message me over Instagram or Facebook or send me a tweet via Twitter. Also, if you are not already signed up, I do have a newsletter that goes out semi regularly every two or three weeks, it catches you up on podcasts or blog posts that you may have missed, gives you a brief little glimpse into what's happening in my world, as well as some information about offers. I also want to let you all know that my schedule again is opening up and I'm able to take on some more coaching clients. So if you've been listening and checking out my stuff and feel as though working one on one with me might be just what you need to really jumpstart the practices that you've begun. If you feel like an accountability partner and a weekly check in person would be helpful to you, feel free to go to my website, click on coaching and apply for an explore call. It's a free half hour with me to get more information about what coaching is all about and how I can support you in your work of being the best parent that you can be. So it is sunny in this moment in the Pacific Northwest, a beautiful, beautiful blue sky. I hope it is sunny where you are. Big, huge love and so much gratitude for you being a member of this community. I'll see you next time

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