Summer Series: Episode 193, Revisiting my conversation about teens with Sharon Ballentine

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Transcription

Casey O'Roarty 0:04
Welcome to the 2019 summer series on the joyful courage podcast, friends, this is our first week of revisiting some of your favorite past shows, some of my favorite interview guests. I am thrilled to be connecting back to this powerful content and thrilled to give you another chance to capture some nuggets that you may have missed the first time around. For those of you that are new to the show, hi, welcome. I'm Casey. I'm your host. I am a positive discipline trainer. I'm a parent coach, and I've got two teenagers of my own that I get to practice, practice, practice with each and every day. I am thrilled, thrilled, thrilled that you're here. The show that we're going to revisit today is episode 57 with Sharon Valentin. I love to replay this show because it was recorded as I was just entering into parenting teenagers, and I had no idea what was waiting down the line. Every time I re listen, I'm inspired to get better at getting out of the way of my teens, and to continue to do my best to drop the fear and move with curiosity, which I talk about a lot on the show. Sharon Valentin is an author and a parent coach. She always felt that one of her missions in life was to be the best parent she could possibly be. She sees parenting as an ongoing process, and certainly that it can be full of challenges and choices. Sharon's greatest joy is being with her three adult kids, and through the happy times and the tough times she experienced as her kids were growing up, she became inspired to write her first book, The Art of blissful parenting, which you will hear us talking about on the show. It's a labor of love, and guides parents on the practical and spiritual aspects of raising happy, self reliant kids. By teaching parents to tap into their internal guidance, you will connect if you've been listening a lot from previous shows recently, solo shows that I've done about the law of attraction. We talked a little bit about that, and I just know you're going to take away so much from this conversation, even if you've heard it before. I know that there are so many bits and pieces here that will be huge. Ahas. So Big. Huge. Love. Enjoy the show. You. Music.

So I'm really, really excited about my guest today, Sharon Valentin. She is just a phenomenal human being, and you will hear over the course of our conversation that we are kindred spirits. We are speaking the same language, and she and I are going to spend some time today talking about our teenagers, and specifically that lovely period of time where they are venturing out of the cave. Yes, thank God, right. Thank God for adolescents. Because if it wasn't for adolescents, we never would have left the cave. I love that movie. What is it? The Croods. So what it's called the cave. It's a cartoon, and it's the cave family, and I think that it does such a great job of, I mean, going kind of extreme, but it really exemplifies what it's like to have a teenager and teachers, you know, they're trying to figure out who they are, and to do that, they've got to try on a bunch of different hats. And as painful as it can be for us, it's important that we just celebrate them and their exploration, and so that's what you're going to hear about with Sharon and I's day. So anyway, big love to all of you. Thank you so much for tuning in and enjoy the conversation.

Sharon. Welcome to the joyful courage parenting podcast.

Sharon Ballantine 4:25
Thank you, Casey. I'm really excited to be here. Me too. Glad

Casey O'Roarty 4:28
that you're here. Will you please tell the listeners a little bit about your journey to doing what you do?

Sharon Ballantine 4:36
Well, it all started when I had my three children, and I wasn't sure how I was going to parent them, and I had been my whole life had been really in tune with my own internal guidance, and I thought that I was going to find all of my answers with all of the experts in books, and that turned out to be not available to me because. For some reason, I was not able to read any of those books. You know, when I would go to reach for them to help me with whatever issue was going on with my children, I couldn't do it. And I realized that the only way that I was going to be the effective parent that I wanted to be was to really tap in to my inner self. And I thought then I would have all of the perfect answers in parenting, but I was to find out on my journey that teaching my children about their own internal guidance and then allowing them to use it was going to be an entirely different thing

Casey O'Roarty 5:37
well, and talk a little bit about inner guidance. So, prior to having kids, how did you How was your the system that you feel you had going into motherhood? What? What had you developed already?

Sharon Ballantine 5:53
Well, we have. Each of us has our own internal guidance. You know, that another word for our heart, space, our gut. I started to notice, you know, before I was a parent, long before I was parenting, that I could really manifest what I wanted when I was joyful and feeling really good, it just started. I didn't know about the internal guidance system, per se. I just started to notice that it all worked in harmony, and I wanted to really tap into that with my parenting and teach my children how to use theirs, because after I become sort of a master at at you know, what didn't work in parenting, which was trying to control my kids, I realized that the two, the true essence of parenting, really has to come from your heart. It really has to come from How do you feel as you're having every interaction with your child?

Casey O'Roarty 6:48
Yeah, well, and it's reminding me of a little book that I picked up not too long ago. Well, it's been a few years called The Secret. Are you talking about manifesting what you want in life simply by just being in a really good headspace and being really clear on your goals and just tapped into your own centered way of being,

Sharon Ballantine 7:08
that is, in part, what I am indeed talking about. So the secret is sort of the icebreaker, tip of the iceberg for the law of attraction. Law of Attraction, yes, universal law that governs our universe. And when we're joyful, when we have that clear connection to our higher self, our source, our well being, which is our joy, then we have access to all the answers that we're looking for, which help us create and manifest everything we want. And I think that is so important to and I call it alignment. Yeah, it is so important to be in alignment when we are parenting, because we want all of the answers for, you know, to have that great communication with our kids, to, you know, have that harmony in our family. And if we aren't in alignment, we don't have that access to our well being, manifesting what we want. You know, each conversation, each thought that we have, is our own personal manifestation, and so we have to stay in that positive, good feeling place to be able to have that access. And I know our kids and life and and our own head gets us out of that often. So it's about doing the practice of getting back to feeling good. Because we're not going to feel good every day of our lives, right? But we get to choose what we do to find our joy again.

Casey O'Roarty 8:33
I love that, and I love that that, you know, I love being really explicit to parents, that it's like you said, you know, life, our head, conflict, things show up that kind of get us off course. But part of the power, too, what I find, and what I talk about, is also recognizing when you are off course, rather than just, you know, being there kind of in that. What do I say? Well, so with clients, I'll say, you know, you can you're in. There's a moment when you're in the conflict, and then there's that moment where you can look out at the conflict, right? So that's kind of what I'm hearing you saying, is recognizing when you're in, when you are off track, and then developing practices to coming back to that place of peace and joy and connectedness within yourself, and you're ever more available than to have all sorts of effective, helpful, loving ways of being with your children so that they can then move forward through whatever it is that they're handling as well. Absolutely.

Sharon Ballantine 9:34
And you know, it all starts, our internal guidance system is our feelings. You know, our feelings are our indicator to whether we are moving closer to what we want or away from what we want. So when we're interacting in life or with our children, how are we feeling with what is happening? You know, the feelings are the indicator, and if we're feeling bad and start to get upset, then we want to become. I'm the observer, like you were talking about before, is stepping outside, but the only way that you can become the observer is sometimes to step away, and that means leaving the room. I I tell parents, leave the room until you can get yourself back in alignment so you can have that conversation you want with your child. Because we know that sometimes when that momentum of feeling bad is is really heated up, you can't stop dead in your tracks and go, Oh, I'm gonna feel good. Now, you know, that's not the way it works. No,

Casey O'Roarty 10:32
I try, I try, like, typically, I see myself standing at the sink full of tension and irritation and resentment, and it's like, wow, I'm really in tension and resentment right now, maybe I should shake it off. And then this other little voice that says, No, screw that. They need to know that I'm really upset right now. It's this whole lovely little conversation until I get to the point of like, okay, really, relax. Movement. Movement is also another thing that helps me and my kids, my son, specifically, get back to that place of alignment is he'll do jumping jacks, or we'll take a walk, or I'll take a walk, or I'll do a little yoga. Or, you know, movement also is something that helps me in my own personal practice of coming back to the parent that I want to be for my kids absolutely.

Sharon Ballantine 11:17
And I love the movement as well. And sometimes we just need to just completely change the subject. We need to, you know, go out and take a walk or take a bath or read a book and not give any energy to whatever it is that that didn't feel good that conversation. And then once that momentum slows down, then try again and start that conversation over. That can really be productive. Yeah, dance parties help too. I love to dance.

Casey O'Roarty 11:50
So today, Sharon, I want to talk specifically about teenagers. And I know, right, I have one. Now we're six months in, so I'm fully indoctrinated, although I have a feeling that much of what what we're going to cover is going to be useful for all kids, but I do want to focus specifically on our teens and and the process of differentiation. And I was preparing for this call, and I pulled out because I'm a positive discipline trainer, and we have a whole book around positive discipline for teenagers, and I searched for the world word differentiation, and what I found instead was a word that is individuation, which I think is the same. It's the same concept, right? The need, the internal need, for adolescents to find who they are, to figure out who they are. And it's this like, really what I'm now, what I kind of was on the outside looking in on I am now fully engaged in that process of my teen, who's only 13, but she's definitely looking just trying things on and playing around with things. And it's such a weird when I think about it, it's such a weird time of life, because you're not you've moved past Elementary. My daughter's going to be in eighth grade, so that's, you know, the oldest in our local middle school, but still not totally in that high school mode, but not anywhere near an adult. I

Yeah, and so there's so much like, like, I'm moving my body around right now, like, Ah, it's just, there's so many places of rub right where it's like, er, I know I need to let you figure this out. And can I just tell you what I think,

Sharon Ballantine 13:41
right? Yeah, good luck with that. Yeah, right.

Casey O'Roarty 13:44
Tell me more about differentiation and make the distinction for my listeners.

Sharon Ballantine 13:49
Well, you know, I like to call it their years of discovery. You know, the teenage years are their personal years of discovery. You know, they're programmed for this. We don't have to take blame for it. It is in their DNA, and as they're trying on all the different hats of who they are creating themselves to be. You know, moving forward, it gets uncomfortable. It gets uncomfortable for them. It gets uncomfortable for us, but you know that our attitude and our perspective will determine whatever experience we have. So I, my children are in their 20s. They all, of course, had to go through their teen years. And I think we, we had it all. I mean, whatever you can think of, we pretty much experienced it, and we did live through it, and they managed to survive my parenting. But you know, I had to learn the hard way. Casey, I had to learn because fear, which parents go into fear mode during the tear teen years? Why? Because we have no idea what our kids are going to do, try be so I had not decided I wasn't going into fear. And had not done the work per se, so I went full on into fear mode as I watched my children make choices that I didn't think were their best choices. So I tried to step in and control the outcome the situation, because I was in fear. And when we're in fear, we want to go into control mode, because it's our way of coping, and I discovered my best path in parenting when I had to come full circle. And first of all, I had become a master of what didn't work, because control never works. I mean, if you try and control your child and your teenager, especially, you will find this to be true, but I guess I needed to do it the hard way. It all worked out, but I had to hit that parental brick wall of my relationship with my child is going down the drain because I'm in control mode and they're pushing back. They don't want to be controlled. They want to be left to discover who they are. And you know, once you are actually able to do that, and it can be a process, it is a beautiful it's a beautiful thing to watch, but you have to we, we want to keep our heads on straight, and we want to hopefully choose ahead of time that we're that we want to embrace the new identity that our children are are choosing, right? Because it won't be their final identity. If it looks really bad today, guess what? It's going to change tomorrow. And that's the great news well, and it's so funny that we're talking

Casey O'Roarty 16:35
about teenagers, and I keep thinking that everything you're saying is so helpful for parents of toddlers, another time when control is not really what's going to be helpful and effective, right? And how those each day is different and we move through all of our experiences, I think that's so powerful to remember who they are today is not necessarily who they'll be in a week or two weeks. And so, like I mentioned, I have a 13 year old, and, you know, even I'm just going to give an example, you know, even with makeup, so I'm really hands off and and it turns out that girls today are better at putting on makeup than I have ever been in my entire life because of something really special called YouTube. I mean, my daughter has so many makeup accessories and brushes and all sorts of things, none of which I spend money on, all of which she uses her allowance to buy. And that was like one of the first rubs that we came up against my husband, especially saying, you know, you don't need to wear so much makeup. You don't need, you know why? And I finally had this epiphany of, you know, she's 13, and my guess is that this is all really fresh and new and exploratory. I get a little worried when I because she has voice like, well, I feel really insecure without makeup, which kind of hurts my heart. But she I, you know, I remember being in high school and really not, you know, it was like messy hair and not really so worried about it once I got into high school and and remembering and having a conversation with my husband about that too, like, what she's what she's exploring right now, she's going to be either done with exploring or exploring it in a different way three or four years from now, and so might as well love her, support her, not tease her, not make her feel bad about it, but just be in relationship with her through it.

Sharon Ballantine 18:38
Absolutely you know what we want to really avoid at all costs of making our children, you know, feel bad about who they are, even if we look at them and can't imagine what they're thinking. You know, we don't which I'm

Casey O'Roarty 18:52
sure my parents still look at me today and have those moments of

Sharon Ballantine 18:56
I had it all the time with with my teens, but you really want to just do your best to stay out of fear. And guess what that means taking care of yourself, because parenting is about you, not your child. And if you're doing the work to stay in alignment and listen to your internal guidance system and keep yourself centered and happy, you will have a much easier time of dealing with what appears to be craziness all around you, because when you're centered, you have your coping skills, right?

Casey O'Roarty 19:29
And I think it's interesting too, how quickly we I think fear comes into for Well, there's two reasons that are popping in. First of all, my own experience as a teenage risk taker, like, oh gosh, don't be me. Good news. She has no desire to be anything like me, so hopefully that'll help her. But then the other thing, like we said, like you had mentioned already, that unknown, you know, when they're not with us in our space, they're out in the. World. And when I talk to parents about using positive discipline, I'm always quick to say, you know, these tools, these skills, the relationship that you're in with your child is is no guarantee that they're not going to make a bad choice, but it ups the likelihood that they're going to be in cooperation, that they're going to be in contribution. You can

Sharon Ballantine 20:21
always hope. You know, I think it starts with teaching your child, you know, the positivity and having high standards for them, and setting the example is so important. You know, we our children have to watch us live what we want them to embody, and that's where it all starts. And of course, even with that, there are no guarantees they're going to do their own thing. But if everybody can remember and say to themselves, you know, maybe on a daily basis, this too shall pass. And it is a truth. You know, everything that we went through with my children. We all survived, and they survived, and it was all they are the most delightful, productive human beings in their 20s, and they're fantastic. But we went through some very not fun times, and I was constantly having to do my own per, excuse me, my own personal work so I could help guide them and inspire them and not be the person that they were pushing against. Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 21:27
and I, I'm quick to say often, it's kind of my tagline that our kids are our teachers, and it's been proven time and time again in my own personal experience. Right when I'm finding, you know when I have those moments of, oh, I can't believe you just rolled your eyes, or, Oh, my gosh. What are people gonna think if you dress like that, or whatever it's, any of those kinds of moments are great opportunities to take my perspective and shift it towards myself and say, Where is this coming from? What can I learn in this moment? Right? And maybe it's a maybe it's an exercise, again, on finding my alignment. Maybe it's just an opportunity to show up and hold space for my child even as they fall apart. It's a great practice for me to not get pulled into what's happening for them, which I think is a life skill that only is developed within the experience, right?

Sharon Ballantine 22:25
Yes, it is a life skill that is practiced, and you practice it really your whole life, because your children are still people when they're in their 20s and beyond, they're still human beings and stuff happens. So it's a life skill that you practice, you know, you practice that internal guidance system, paying attention to it, to all of your alignment. It never ends, but it's fun. It's great. It's the joy in life is taking care of ourselves and making sure that we are our best so we can be those you know, rocks for our children. You know, if our children feel like we are their foundation. Always, even when times are tough, that we are that rock. I promise you, it makes a huge difference in what your relationship looks like in the future with that child

Casey O'Roarty 23:15
love that What about when our kids exploration and the differentiation process leads them down into some self harming roads or really risky behavior when they're engaging in, you know, really the scary stuff that's out there, you know, sex and drugs and alcohol and stealing and, you know, I could list them all off, but I don't want to freak out my listeners, we all know What I'm talking about how, what are your tips about, distinguishing between the different you know, them, pulling away just in this really natural exploration process, and, hey, it's time to step in and get some help.

Sharon Ballantine 23:58
Yeah, that is a broad range of what you just put, you know, before me. And sorry about that. No pressure, no pressure. It's okay. Again, step one, tapping into our internal guidance. Okay. We're faced with a situation with our children, and it looks bad, you know, maybe I'll take them one of the most extreme, you know, they're stealing. Okay? You know there are going to be natural consequences to what our children do. And I know that I I used to just let it unfold in a lot of those situations, like my children weren't stealing. But let's say, if your child is caught stealing by the authorities, you know you have to allow those natural consequences to unfold. And then in some of those cases, I believe that it was not a good thing to add sort of insult to injury. Sure, I'm going to give you an example. My my middle daughter. I.

And until I let them go and remembered that I had taught them about their internal guidance system because I had I just there was a time I wouldn't let them use it because of my fear, and I went full circle, like I mentioned before, and said, You know what? And there's a time I gave my 14 year old son back his life. We call it. It's in my book on a silver platter. And I had that download, that remembering from the universe, that, Oh, right, I've taught you. I have to trust you, that you know what your path is, and you're going to make mistakes, and they're yours to make, and that's your learning curve. And I'm here to support you and guide you. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere, but you're in charge of your life, not me anymore, because it didn't work out well,

Casey O'Roarty 30:47
right? And it's funny, right? When we when they're learning skills like in a in a sport, right? So they get coached in a sport, and they get coached on these skills. Here's how to kick a ball really well. Here's the steps to take. You know, to defend whatever you're defending, and then they have to go to practice every week before the big game. And it's, you know. And we forget, I think, as parents, as adults, well meaning loving adults, we forget that it's not enough just to talk to them about about skills, about how to navigate the world, but we actually have to allow them to practice. And I think adolescence is the Great, the big game, right? It

Sharon Ballantine 31:30
is the game changer, and we allow them to practice by getting out of our own way, which is letting go of our fear, because our fear is just kind of natural. We care about our kids. We want them safe and well balanced, but at the end of the day, we don't have control of that. There's so much that goes on when we're not watching. So we want to give our children that, that strong foundation to know what we live is you know what we preach and be there for them and guide them and inspire them without telling them how they should feel and what they should do. And I know it's not easy, and it that word practice comes back in it. You get up every morning and you set that intention that you're going to feel good today, you're going to have a great time with your child that day, and you're just going to be easy about it. You know, if we're easier and chill out more because we were the ones that make it all up, we really do. Our kids are having a good time. They're they're they're following their bliss. They are following their internal guidance system to their best path, and we're stepping in going, Nope,

Casey O'Roarty 32:39
that is so true. Oh, my God, you

Sharon Ballantine 32:41
don't get to have, yeah, that is

Casey O'Roarty 32:43
so true. And when you say though that fear, I mean, it wouldn't, it's not about eliminating fear. It's about recognizing when, because I think that there's healthy fear and then there's unhealthy fear, right?

Sharon Ballantine 32:57
Well, I I've yes and no, I don't think using that word, the you know, the fear word, you know, concern and caring are what feel better to me. You know, back to the internal guidance system. How good does it feel to say fear? Ooh, that's just my personal thing of being tapped in. How does it feel when we think, when we speak, when we interact, and that word to me doesn't feel good. So we can use our concern constructively by by taking care of ourselves and doing because remember, parenting is about us, not our child. So it goes back to us, taking care of ourselves, staying out of fear, by getting back to our joy and being selfish about that joy.

Casey O'Roarty 33:46
What are some ways because you had said that you had spent time helping your kids develop their internal guidance system? So what are some tips that you have for parents that are listening right now around supporting their kids

Sharon Ballantine 34:01
well? And it starts. You can start this very early, you know, with a child that is, you know, cognitive you know, how does it feel when you're playing with that friend? Let's say your son or daughter is complaining about a friend's situation. You know, how does it feel? Why do you think you want to be friends with that person? You know, another example might be your child is your son is playing a video game that you think is too violent, but they love their video game. So you ask that child, well, what is what is it about that game that makes you feel bad? What is it about that game that makes you feel good? Why do you want to play that game, and what do you think you're learning from it? You know, none of those questions are anything that would ever occur to them to ask themselves, right? But when you teach your child to really tap into how they're feeling about everything in their lives, oh gosh, by the time they're a teen and then going out into the world, they have such a. Strong sense of knowing who they are. There will never be anyone that they will allow to tell them what's right for them. I love that. This

Casey O'Roarty 35:08
makes me feel good, because I do have one child who is very tuned into his gut, cool, yeah, and to the point where it's like, oh my gosh, when he says, Mommy, I my stomach. My tummy is telling me, I need to talk to you. I have to, like, take a deep breath and be prepared.

Sharon Ballantine 35:26
Oh, that's beautiful, though I love that. It is great example. And, you know, children, we can encourage them, like I said, by asking those questions and and, of course, they'll do everything at their own pace, and they might not really be good at it within themselves till later, or they might get it right away. And we also don't want to be attached to their timeline, right? You know, one of the mistakes that we make as parents is we have this timeline that has worked for so many years in all our different life subjects, and we want to gift our children with this timeline. And, well, it doesn't work.

Casey O'Roarty 36:03
Yeah, no, it sure doesn't. And my daughter is really good at that. I'm not you. Thank you for the reminder I say my more graceful moments. So Sharon, tell us a little bit about your book,

Sharon Ballantine 36:19
my book The Art of blissful parents. I

Casey O'Roarty 36:23
love the title.

Sharon Ballantine 36:25
Thank you. Well, we all know Casey that every moment like we've been talking about parenting is not blissful. But in my book, The message I want to share with parents and the takeaway that I want to give them, is that you can have your ideal relationship with your kids, and you can have more bliss. And the key to more ease in your relationship with your child is following your own internal guidance system, tapping into those feelings, and then once you get really good at knowing your own inner self, teaching your children how to know their inner selves. So my book is full of stories of all the things that I did with my kids that didn't work. You know, they're great stories of when I was in my control mode. I, you know, took my son to a food clinic because I thought he was putting on too much weight, and I had to hide the snacks because he was gorging, and it was just a nightmare. He didn't have to change. I did, and it all worked out when I did change, and I did give him back his freedom to figure out for himself how food made him feel and how food worked in his life without me trying to direct it. So lots of great stories, you know, in my book about different aspects of our life together, all three of my children wrote a section in my book. I said, you know, I'd love you to write, you know, a few paragraphs, whatever you want. I won't tell you what to write, an experience of our life together. And they did that. And it's just the highlight of my of my life, that they did that. Well,

Casey O'Roarty 37:58
I find it really powerful. And always, I'm really grateful when people who write about parenting are willing to talk about when they got it wrong, right. Sure, because I think, I don't think that it does a big service to people when things are presented as and I do all of this, and everybody gets along, and there's no meltdowns, even if that's not specifically said, there's kind of this overlying surface piece where it's like, ah, and then when the reader is like, Oh, my God, I'm doing this, and it still feels, you know, intense or whatever, I just so thank you for that. Thank you

Sharon Ballantine 38:35
Absolutely. You're You're so welcome. And I mean, aren't our best lessons learned from what went wrong? Oh yes. And that's why we want our children to participate for themselves and their choices of things that don't feel good, things that go wrong. How else are they going to be able to properly choose their next best thing if they don't have that contrast? It's so important, totally.

Casey O'Roarty 39:01
So my last question for you today is, what does joyful courage mean to you? You know, that's the name of my business. So I like to, I like to ask my guests what that phrase means to them.

Sharon Ballantine 39:13
Well, first of all, I just saying the words joyful courage. I mean how happy and positive is that it just, it just makes things brighter, just to say those words. So I think to me, Casey joyful courage means holding the intent, the intention, and deliberately creating joy in everything that we do, with and without our children. You know, the courage is embracing our life and our path, knowing that we can create whatever we want, having the courage to create our dreams. Oh,

Casey O'Roarty 39:49
I love that. Thank you for that. Where can listeners follow you and find your work? Are you on all the social media places I'm

Sharon Ballantine 39:59
on all. Social media. Sharon ballantine.com,

Casey O'Roarty 40:01
great.com. Make sure the link is in the show notes. Listeners, you know, I'm

Sharon Ballantine 40:06
good, like that, wonderful.

Casey O'Roarty 40:07
And are you on are you on Facebook? And

Sharon Ballantine 40:10
I'm on Facebook? Yes. On Twitter, yep,

Casey O'Roarty 40:12
awesome.

Sharon Ballantine 40:13
I'm everywhere. Great.

Casey O'Roarty 40:15
Well, thank you. And I'm going to also put a link so that people can check out your book and buy it, if they would like. So I'll make sure that's in the show notes, of course. Thank you so much for spending time with me today. You're

Sharon Ballantine 40:28
absolutely welcome. I had the time of my life, yay.

Casey O'Roarty 40:35
Thank you so much for listening, friends. If you are feeling like you are needing more joyful courage. Don't forget that there are many, many, many other shows to binge on. You can listen through the website, iTunes, Spotify, iHeartRadio. Wherever you listen to podcasts, simply search for joyful courage and you will find the whole bank of shows that already exist. You can also follow me on Instagram, where I am currently doing monthly giveaways and sharing bits of my own story. I'm also on Facebook, and I have two parenting spaces there, the live in love with joyful courage, Facebook group and the joyful courage parenting teens, Facebook group both exist as supportive places to be in community with other parents walking the path of relationship based parenting. If you would like to give back, check out joyful courage on Patreon. This is a place where you can give a small amount to the show monthly and be in contribution to the sustainability of the show. Go to www.patreon.com/joyful courage to find out more, including the perks and benefits of being a patron, check out the joyful courage website for links to my new book, woohoo and offers such as the joyful courage Academy for parenting teens and individual coaching, it's all good over there, people go check it out. So much love to you and to the joyful courage team. Chris Tay Alison, thank you for all of your ongoing support and listeners as you move through your day, remember to take a breath, feel your feet. Sit up in that balcony seat and remember that everyone is going to be okay. Have a beautiful day.

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