February 3, 2025 • 41 mins
In this empowering episode, Gia welcomes experts Sarah Raslan and Karen Abou Jaoude to delve into the profound topic of intergenerational trauma and its impact on parenting.
With backgrounds in neuroscience, early childhood development, and humanitarian work, Sarah and Karen share their insights on how unresolved childhood experiences can shape our parenting styles and influence our children's emotional resilience.
Join us as we explore the complexities of healing, the importance of self-reflection, and the necessity of skill-building in parenting. Discover how to break the cycles of trauma and create a nurturing environment for the next generation. Sarah and Karen emphasize the significance of investing in your mental and emotional well-being, especially during pivotal life transitions like motherhood.
This episode is a must listen for any parent. It's packed with actionable advice and heartfelt discussions that will inspire you to embrace your journey of healing and empowerment. Tune in to learn how to rewrite the rules of success for yourself and your family.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to Your Future Starts Now, the go-to podcast for
extraordinary women who are ready to step into their next chapter with
authentic confidence. I'm your host, Gia Lacqua empowerment coach,
motivational speaker, children's book author, and girl mom. Whether
you're a corporate powerhouse or an entrepreneur, this show is
designed for you. Your Future Starts Now is more than
(00:20):
just a podcast. It's a movement, a movement towards rewriting
the rules of success for high-achieving women. Are you ready
to get unstuck and step into your next chapter? If
so, you're exactly where you need to be. Your future starts
now. Welcome to Your Future Starts Now. I'm
your host, Gia Lacqua. I want to thank you for joining us today. I
(00:43):
am so excited to introduce you to Sarah Raslan and
Karen Abou Jaoude Sarah holds dual
masters in neuroscience and post-conflict development and has over
15 years of experience in the humanitarian sector, focusing on
trauma's impact on families affected by war and conflict. She's
currently developing a trauma-informed parenting program to help parents
(01:04):
raise emotionally resilient children. Karen,
with a master's in early childhood and family development, specializes in
how play impacts a child's emotional and social skills.
Combining her background in analytics and family dynamics, she empowers
parents to use play strategically while fostering confidence and
meaningful connections in their children. Today, we
(01:26):
are talking about intergenerational trauma. And
I want to welcome you to the show, both of you. Thank you so much for being
here. We talk about a lot of important topics on the show, but this one
is definitely top of the list. So I'm excited for our conversation today.
Of course. So before we jump in, tell us
(01:47):
a little bit about your backgrounds and kind of what led you to the work
Yeah, sure. I'll jump in. So my background
is as a researcher. I worked for over 15 years
and continue to work actually as a researcher in the development slash humanitarian
sector. So I've worked predominantly with
(02:08):
vulnerable communities in fragile conflicts,
post-conflict contexts, really trying to
understand their needs and working closely
with aid agencies and foreign offices in
providing needed programs to those vulnerable communities. And
that was my first, I would say, exposure to
(02:30):
understanding that households have very complex
needs And that family is
going through the hardships, whether it's war
or any other type of, you know, kind of difficult strains
on the family. that results in trauma requires
very strong support
(02:53):
systems and coping mechanisms to not just
be able to cope with what they went through, but
to give them important skills that they
need in order to continue or move on from
their experiences. Becoming
a mom and working closely with Karen, we kind
(03:15):
of went through the pregnancy and early motherhood years
together. I went
and got another degree in psychology and neuroscience very
much because I was so interested in my work experience, but
also kind of wanted to take that into a different field that was
very much around caregiving support
(03:38):
and child development. And that's
kind of like where I've kind of pivoted, taking
in everything that I've learned, and then pouring it into
what we founded together as The Wise Parent, which is really
this business about providing caregivers and parents the
support that they need to overcome the
(04:01):
challenges or the cycles they kind of get stuck in from
their own childhood, from their own experiences. These caregivers that
want to do better for their kids, that want to change or shift the
narrative for their children and the future generations. Such
Thank you for that. And Karen, what about you? So
my background actually is completely unrelated
(04:25):
to my higher degree. My higher degree is
in early childhood and family development. But before that, my
background was in strategy and analytics. So
it's about dissecting behavior, understanding things, finding
patterns and links. And that was
a skill that I was nurturing in
(04:48):
my career and in tandem was pursuing this
passion in early childhood and family development. And
when I realized that my career path wasn't fulfilling
me, I decided to take a leap and pursue a higher degree
in early childhood and family development. Um, not
just because I was in love with the subject, but also because when
(05:11):
I started my own personal healing
journey, I kept going back to my childhood and
anyone who has been in therapy or works on themselves. always
ends up going back to patterns in their childhood. So
I became quickly obsessed with the idea of how can we
start safeguarding our kids or better
(05:34):
preparing ourselves to kind of prevent, you
know, the therapy we're doing right now. How can we do better?
And after pursuing my degree, I met my
other half of the brain. So that's Sarah. So she's the left
side or the right side, whichever depends on the day. And
we met at a really beautiful intersection
(05:59):
where we connected on these two powerful ideas. We
connected on this concept of It's so important to
raise resilient and emotionally healthy kids. And
also there's this power that parents have over
how they shape these new lives of little kids. And
(06:20):
so we started bonding and exchanging information and geeking
out and nerding out. And the more that
we discussed, the more we developed a strong basis
and understanding of the subject. So we became that go-to, those
go-to moms that our friends or people within our community would
ask for help, hence the birth of the wise parent. And
(06:45):
it was, it was just been, it's been a beautiful journey since then.
So yeah, our goal is to support, our ultimate
goal actually, Gia, is to support children. And
the best way to support children, to advocate
for them, to ensure that they have the
best quality lives is to actually change and
(07:07):
adapt their environment so that their environment nurtures that positivity.
And the first environment that a child has is through their parent
or their caregiver. So our work is through that
first layer, which is empowering the parent and
the caregiver with what they need to make sure that they that
(07:29):
Yeah, absolutely. I love that. So
impactful. And so, you know, I'll start with the elephant in
the room because our audience is, you know, mostly high
achieving women who a lot of them are mothers. I've
had this experience personally, and I know many other women have as
well. Can you talk to us a little bit about that
(07:52):
healing journey and the process that really
doesn't start until many of us become parents?
That's such a, it's a loaded question, Gia. I
think, I think for me, it feels loaded
because it's so different for every single person. I
(08:12):
mean, we each come with our own history, baggage, emotion,
trauma, our own culture, values, all
those things are so different. I
think if I think about myself, if
I think about what I find most common with the clients
that both Sarah and I have, it's
(08:35):
this there's a new awakening in
this generation of mental health and the importance of,
um, I want to call it mental or
emotional upkeep, like the cleaning of your
emotions and kind of cleaning the dust off
the shelves. That's how I am envisioning it. There's a
(08:56):
huge shift from the previous generation to
ours and it's becoming more and more, not
just, a growing awareness, but the importance of putting that
as a priority. I mean, even corporates and companies are
incorporating it into their system, into their, into
the way that they function, because it is a huge, it
(09:18):
has a huge impact on human productivity. And
so I think together with that shift, there
is a growing awareness that as you become a
mother, you're responsible for
the well-being of this child, but that means that
you've got to do that upkeep, you've got to dust the shelves,
(09:39):
you've got to clean up a little bit so that you
can teach your children what it is that you're supposed to
teach. The metaphor that Sarah and I like to use is that
you can't teach your child a language you don't understand. If
we want our kids to be emotionally resilient and not
carry this baggage, we need to number one, not
(10:01):
push that onto them, but number two, be able to understand how to
teach them those skills. So that's, I
mean, there's so many things I could say, but
Um, It's such a, you
know, we hear it often as moms or as
(10:23):
parents, you know, your kids become like
your little teachers or your little healers. And they're really good
at like pointing to those like unhealed wounds
or those wounds that you may have not even known were there, let alone,
you know, thought that you healed from. And then they somehow burst
open again. And they continue to burst open as our
(10:45):
children continue to grow and enter new stages. And
I think that the reason for that is because children,
you know, they kind of embody a
part of ourselves and perhaps mirror
back a part of ourselves in our own childhood or from our own
past. And whatever it is that
(11:08):
we struggle with, with our kids today. So whether
it's, you know, like for me, it's nagging and
for Karen, it's, you know, running late or,
you know, for me, I have a lot. I have like, you know, being tidy
and clean and all of these things and dressed in
a certain way. And the reason why I have so many is
(11:30):
because those were the things that I was not allowed to have or
to do in my own childhood. And so these are the things that
I struggle with the most when my kids start to kind of personify or
act out in those ways. And so very much when
it comes to this self-healing, it's about seeing
the things that we struggle with the most with our kids. You know, is
(11:52):
it nagging? Is it tantrums? Is it hitting? What
activates us in the biggest, loudest way? And
then that's where we know, that's our clue. That's our
clue to go and investigate like, okay, this thing is really, really
triggering for me. I wonder, I wonder what it means.
What's the story that's behind that from my own childhood and
(12:13):
my own experiences? And coming back to what
Karen was saying, this is the self-work, this is
the kind of therapy or healing that we
I love that. There's so much there in what you both
said. So thank you for that. I think, you know, it wasn't meant to be a loaded
(12:34):
question, but I realized it's a deep one. It's a
big one. It's a big one. So I love the way you both sort of
approach it. A couple of things. I love what
you said, Sarah, about the mirror. They are sort of like a
mirror to ourselves, right? And help us see things that maybe we
don't always see. And then the triggers, right?
Like what is activating us? A
(12:58):
friend of mine, Tony Dufresne, who I've had him on my podcast, I've
been on his podcast. I think he said it beautifully one day, and this
mental image just really resonated with me. He said, you know, your
childhood traumas, a lot of us have just put it in a box and
put it on that shelf. So Karen, when you were talking about dusting off
the shelf, that's what I envisioned in my head is, yeah,
(13:19):
we put it in a box and we put it on the shelf, but that doesn't mean we've dealt with it.
Right? And so I think once we become parents, we become mothers,
it sort of forces us to open that
box or those boxes and see what's inside. And
(13:41):
It's messy because a lot of the times we've intellectualized it,
uh, you know, we, we've sort of put it to the side, but
haven't really dealt with it. And so I think there's so much truth in
You know, actually, Gia, you're, you're making me think the
reason I think it's messy is because it
was packed away when we were so young and immature
(14:06):
And that's a part of the work that we do with parents is
now you can rationalize it. Yeah. But my parents were, that was, you
know, That was what they knew. That was what they could do. And I
get it. They were harsh. They had to be. They might have been parents
who grew up in conflict areas. But that
still means that as a child, you
(14:28):
didn't fully process something. And when you pack something
away that's not properly digested or
processed, that comes out as nervous
system activation. That comes out as triggers. That comes out
as like when you open the can of worms. So
that's why it feels difficult. I think most of
(14:50):
the time it's because when you put something away, you
really don't want to process it and deal with it, especially when it's
from your childhood. You also don't have time. You're busy. You're
a busy parent. Life gets busy. And then you're
reminded of it when your child is doing all those things that Sarah
said. And then it's like, do I open that can of worms?
(15:12):
What do I do with it? Should I leave it for a couple more years until they're teenagers?
It's scary, right? It's scary. And we have to get
curious with it. And for a lot of people, that's very uncomfortable. And
so for a lot of people, they might walk away or they might say,
I'll deal with it later. avoid the feeling altogether. And
(15:35):
so, you know, I think when I hear you talk, one of the things
that is coming up for me is, you know, it's important that we get curious
with those feelings, with the activation, with the trigger, with the nervous system dysregulation,
um, and get really curious with it to first figure out like, what, what is
it? And we don't have to do it alone. Right. And I think that's the beauty in the work that you
do. you know, and having therapists and coaches and others who can help
(15:58):
us work through that. You know, it's kind of like, it's
for me, it's the vision of like me opening my messy coat closet.
And then, you know, the boots come flying out the coat, the vacuum cleaner, and
you have to start to make sense of it. So I
think that's really very well stated. In
the work that you do with parents, what do you see as some
(16:19):
of the most common struggles or challenges that
That's a great question. So the work that we do predominantly focuses,
um, on parents who have kids under the age of
seven years old. So we're talking that early, early years. Um,
parents, Sarah, jump in and, and bring and
(16:41):
add to my list, but the biggest struggles that we see are definitely number
one is parental triggers. So losing your
cool, not knowing why, having a short fuse, that
nervous system activation that we talked about. Another one is
not knowing how to handle, manage, or
change your toddler's behavior, outbursts, emotions.
(17:04):
And then the biggest one, which
is actually I think like a new age thing,
is this confusion on gentle parenting. So
parents actually, trying to be gentle, but
end up being overly permissive, and then swing the pendulum
to the other side and end up resorting to those old habits of being harsh.
(17:26):
So there's that uncertainty of like, oh, this gentleness doesn't work.
And then, you know, you have to resort to harshness. So that's sorry,
am I missing anything? I think those are the biggest. Those
are the biggest ones that we've seen, especially in
the last year, the gentle one, especially in the last year.
Yeah, I think that In all of
(17:47):
those categories, I
would say that the thing that we kind of
hone back in on every single time with
our clients is this idea, which
I touched on at the beginning, is this idea of skill building.
A lot of parents don't realize that The
(18:10):
things that they struggle with, whether it's their triggers, whether
it's their kids, you know, outbursts or tantrums, or
not having the ability to regulate these maybe big kind
of hard feelings like anger or frustration or
jealousy or fear or sadness. It's
actually the lack of skills that are required. to
(18:33):
regulate those feelings, whether it's my own feelings of
inadequacy, of guilt, of anger, of
depletion, whether it's my kids' own feelings, they
all kind of need to be fortified with skills. And
that's kind of at the heart of what we do with these clients. So whatever
it is that their challenges are, we always kind of circle
(18:53):
back to this idea of let's teach you how
to teach yourself and your kids these really important things. While
we coach the parents, we're very much about kind of empowering
parents to feel like they are coaches and
advocates for themselves and coaching their children to
(19:16):
Yeah. I love what you said about skill building. It makes so much sense. And
I think for many women, especially high achieving women who
are used to doing it all, doing it all on their own, being independent, being
self-sufficient, it feels like it should come naturally,
right? Parenting. You know, I liken
it to breastfeeding, right? Breastfeeding, it's like, oh, it
(19:37):
should be so natural and easy. And for me, that certainly was not the
Definitely not for me either. Karen was one
of those women that was just like, oh yeah, you know, plop, plop onto the
Yeah, all is good. No, for some it's not. And
so then it sort of, you know,
makes you question a lot of things. So I think for, you know, parenting
(20:01):
requires a different skill set, it requires, you
know, learning. And I think some people don't recognize
that right away. But the sooner you can recognize it, right,
I think the better so you can make sure you're getting the right support. So
I think that's a really good point. The other thing I want to go back to is the concept of
gentle parenting. I think there's a lot of talk about gentle parenting, there's a lot of
(20:24):
misconceptions about genital parenting and maybe even different
definitions. So can you talk to us a little bit about what genital
parenting means in your world, what that looks like? And
it's interesting, it doesn't surprise me actually, that so many parents are struggling
with it because like you said, we grew up, we did not grow up without most of us,
right? And so it is learning a different
(20:48):
It's a completely different language. I think gentle parenting
has taken so many different definitions. The intention of
its origins are incredible. It's about
respectful communication and, you
know, at the same time, setting firm
boundaries with your kids. And I think there
(21:11):
was just a massive movement into it without actually
really understanding the concept. So I actually maybe think maybe
it needs some rebranding at this point. The
issues with the new way or the way
people have adopted gentle parenting in
simple terms is there's too much focus on
(21:32):
the word gentle and not enough focus on the word
parenting. So gentleness does
not mean you allow your kids full authority
over how the house is run. That doesn't mean that you
are a dictator in your house, but that means that you
are the authority. You are the mature adult. You have to
(21:53):
embody that in a respectful way.
That means that your kids aren't going to like certain decisions that you make.
They're not going to be okay when you have to pick them up and
remove them from a situation or end a play date early. That's
what gentle parenting is. It's doing that in
(22:13):
a way that is understanding and that
actually understands their developmental capacity. So
it's about managing your expectations and having appropriate developmental
expectations for your kids. So that's the
swing. Sara and I, we've
(22:33):
seen so many different people rebranded into respectful
parenting, sturdy parenting, positive parenting. Essentially,
you need a lot of love and
compassion and curiosity, and you need to hold firm boundaries.
And I think with, you know, combination of
those things, you are a respectful, gentle,
(23:00):
Absolutely. I would also add that perhaps the reason why
there's so much lack of knowledge
around gentle parenting is because most parents are
taking parenting advice from social media. And
it's, you know, like, it's a 30 second clip, and
it's not realistic. And I, and, you know, perhaps
(23:23):
we are also in that in that world, you know, we use social media,
we try to convey certain certain messages, we try to
educate, you know, quote, unquote, through our
platform by showing, you know, what gentle parenting
may look like, what to do in certain cases, in certain situations, certain
parenting strategies. But at the end of the day, there are limitations to
(23:46):
that. And parents really need to understand that
you can't kind of cherry-pick parenting strategies because
life is complex, family dynamics are complex, children are
unique, and parents are unique. And so, parenting
support requires that a little bit more nuance. I
(24:06):
would also add to what Karen was saying is that it's kind
of collided, this idea of gentle parenting has collided, and it is
very much a product of all of the research in
the last 10-20 years around positive psychology, which
is very much rooted around communication, validation
of emotions. With
(24:29):
that, as Karen said, the over-emphasis on the validation aspect.
So we hear a lot of parents talk about how, you know, I validated my
kids. I told them, you know, I understand that you're angry and we see all these like
kind of joke memes online about, you
know, how a parent is like validating their kid while they're getting punched in
the face, you know. So the
(24:50):
next step to that is, as Karen said, is setting firm boundaries.
Because gentle parenting was meant to be the answer
to the more authoritarian or
punitive style of parenting, which was very much around punishment and
using threats and bribes and shouting at their kids, which
(25:11):
is very much not what gentle parenting is about. But then what
does a parent do? What, right? Because we need to be realistic. And
a lot of parents are like, this isn't realistic. This is, you know, what do I
do when my kid is, is, is running away from me down the street?
Or what do I do when my kid, you know, I'm telling, I told him a hundred times,
tidy up your room, get ready for bed, you know, clear your plate
(25:32):
after dinner. And the kid's not listening. Like, what do I do then when
I can't resort to punishments or threats. What
do I do beyond validating a kid? And this is, again, where
they need to learn how to set really good boundaries. And we
need to come back to this idea of skill building. So being able to have
this emotion, which is, I don't want to clear my plate. I don't want to tidy
(25:54):
up my room. How do I hold that emotion of, I don't want
to do that, but then still do that regardless? And
I love that. I love hearing your
take on that. And I think it was very
well described. I think, you know, for a lot of us who did grow up with
(26:16):
the more authoritarian parents, it was, you know, we're used to
don't talk back. do as you're told, right? So
what I hear you say in the gentle parenting is really introducing
more compassion and listening. I think the listening piece is
really important and the validation of the feelings, but then to your
point, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. It's also
(26:37):
about setting those boundaries, healthy boundaries in
an appropriate way, right? And that mutual respect is really important.
And the skill building, Gia, I think the skill building is so important. I
mean, if you think about it in any context outside of parenting,
Think about it. If you think about your job, where you started
and where you are now, think of the skill set that
(26:59):
you had to attain. If I threw you in the deep end and
put you in your position, you know, 10, 15,
(28:01):
Yeah, I love that. So talk to us about intergenerational
trauma. What is intergenerational trauma? How
does it show up and how does it affect parenting?
That's a loaded question, Gia. Not the first one.
That was a huge one. Go ahead, Sarah. Intergenerational
(28:24):
trauma is such a big topic. And. I
mean, I would start off by saying that To be
honest, in research, we don't fully understand how
trauma passes on. Is it just genetic
or is it that nature and nurture kind of argument? Is
(28:49):
it because parents, when they went through something in
their own childhood, and they would have learned, because
humans are, we're kind of, we're wired to
survive at all costs. And so in our
childhood, if we go through traumatic experiences, we
kind of learn through
(29:11):
those experiences that, you know, this is what I need to do in order
to survive. This is how I need to be or not be. This is what I
need to suppress. This is what I need to be fearful of or to
avoid. Then that kind of becomes our
new wiring. So in a way, there is
a biological aspect to our experiences, but
(29:32):
there's also kind of a
physiological response or a psychological response, which
becomes a behavioral outcome to those experiences. And
so if we imagine, I
mean, if we imagine this child then growing up and becoming a
(29:53):
parent, they would have been wired in a way where, you
know, certain things are scary or dangerous or
not allowed or off limits. And so then
how that gets passed on is if this parent doesn't go
through that self work, if this parent doesn't bring awareness to
themselves that these things are coming alive, right? We're going
(30:13):
back to this idea of things getting triggered in our nervous system, getting
activated. when our kids then starts to behave
in certain ways or is in certain environments that
remind ourselves, remind our kind of subconscious mind
or our nervous system like, oh, Ooh, you know, like warning
signs start coming up like this is this is not safe or I
(30:36):
was, you know, I went through something similar when I was a kid and I
almost died or I was hit or beat
or, you know, whatever it is as a child, then then we
we come alive and then we shut that down again in our kids.
So the cycle kind of repeats itself where we shut our
kids down. The problem with that cycle is
(30:59):
that if we don't bring awareness to what we're doing, then
we are repeating it because then our children will grow up and
learn that these things are not allowed. Just to kind
of contextualize it a little bit more, let's say that me as
a kid, I
grew up in an environment where my family didn't have enough
(31:23):
financial means and we were really struggling. And
I had two working parents and I barely saw them. And
when I did, they were exhausted and they were tired and they would come
home and they'd had, you know, they were very depleted and didn't have much capacity to
you know, kind of play and be present for me. I
might have learned in my childhood that I have to kind of minimize
(31:45):
myself. I kind of need to like hide away my
wants and needs or my playfulness in
order to kind of survive and make it in this family, understanding, you
know, the dynamics that are going on. And this is also saying that children are
very, very intuitive and they can pick up on these things. But even
if it wasn't just intuition, even if it was, you know, if I
(32:08):
cried as a kid because I really wanted a toy, and my, you
know, my mom shouted at me and said, you know, we don't have enough money for this, or,
you know, stop crying, you know, just be grateful for what
you have, whatever it is, I might have learned that
my wants and needs are not okay. They're
not safe, because it gets me in trouble by my parent, or it
(32:29):
pushes my parent away. And
so I grew up kind of minimizing myself and
suppressing expression of these wants and needs. Now
I grew up as a parent, and if I get triggered by
my kids' tantrums, which are ultimately an expression
of a want or a need, and if
(32:52):
that triggers me, then that's my indication that, okay, there's a
cycle here. starting to repeat itself. And
I think that this example is actually very relevant for working moms who,
you know, coming back to the point that you're making, Gia, where, you know, we should
be really good at certain things because
(33:13):
of, you know, where we are in our careers and how we got there and
we've become so independent and so empowered as women. But
yet, if we, you know, if we kind of are struggling
with certain things today, This could be an indication, I don't want
to use the word trauma, big T trauma, little T trauma, hardship,
whatever it is from our childhood, it does
(33:36):
continue on until today if we
haven't processed it or if we didn't have that person to
help us process those things in our early childhood. Yeah.
And it goes back to what we said earlier about it being contained in a box
and it's messy because we didn't have the tools and the coping skills maybe to
process it at that time. And I want to just go back to something else
(33:56):
you said, Sarah, that I think is so important. I
just want to call it out. Because to your
point, whether it's a trauma, capital T, lowercase t, or some other
hardship that you went through in your childhood, It's
not just about the experience itself. It's
not just about what happened to you. It's about the
(34:18):
meaning that you assign to that experience.
Absolutely. Right. And the stories we tell ourselves and
for high achieving women, I see that show up
every day in not just parenting, but at
work and in their relationships. Right. And
how that spills over into our lives.
(34:41):
Yeah, 100%. And I mean,
I love I love that, that, you know, it's
not about what happens to you, but how you kind of perceive and process what's
happening around you. And this is why as parents, we,
we always kind of talk, you
know, talk to our clients about how important it is to explain things
(35:04):
that are going on for their kids. How are you feeling? What did that mean
for you? How can I help you? I'm here for you. I could understand that was really
tricky. It's to bring up the emotional experience.
And the reason for that is because our brains, they
actually record things through emotions. And
so when we don't have someone to explain to
(35:27):
us as kids what is going on and to kind of marry
the emotional experience, which is, you know, like one
part of the brain with kind of like more factual things about
this happened and then this happened and bringing that together, then it
kind of gets recorded in this jumbled up way
that isn't processed. um, in a, in a kind
(35:48):
of, um, adaptive or healthy
way. And so then that continues on into adulthood. Yep.
Okay. We might have to have a second episode into this
topic. This is so, uh, such great information. If
there's one message you hope that that mothers can take away or
(36:09):
parents can take away from your work in this conversation, what would that be?
So whether, you know, for women who are working, working women,
whether they're a working mom or not a working mom, it
is so important to be able to provide
yourself this kind of self-reflection, this
(36:31):
opportunity to bring awareness to what
certain situations bring up for you. And
if there is a struggle in whatever that is, then know
that this is a clue that there is something there that
you need to work on that you need to revisit. And if self care,
(36:52):
I mean, in this world of like, You know, we're trying to balance so much
and we're trying to juggle it all. And within
that juggling is providing self-care. So
even if self-care is hard for you, then know
that it is very likely that in your early years,
your own wants and needs were not, were
(37:15):
considered dangerous for whatever reason. Whether
it was dangerous to you kind of maintaining a close relationship
or attachment with your parents, or whether it was your
certain circumstances that you grew up in. But this
is kind of where I want to come back to is understand that
whatever it is that you're struggling with today is something that you
(37:42):
I love
that. And I would love to piggyback off of you, Sarah, and
say that the biggest advice I
would give to anyone is
it is always worth it to invest in yourself. Investing
(38:02):
in your mental and emotional well-being. And
we always, for some reason, most
of us tend to put that on the back burner until like,
you know, shit really hits the fan and you really need
it. And then you're like, oh yeah, I should probably get the help that I
need. But I think that we need to
(38:25):
be more proactive. And
for anyone, it's
about taking a more preventative approach so
that you don't burn out always, so that you don't go through these cycles
of high achieving, then burnout, or high success, or
high feelings, positive feelings, and then
(38:46):
just really deep lows. We need to get better
at maintenance and upkeep, like dusting off the
shelf. And I think that the word preventative
is probably the best one. So the best advice is,
invest in yourself invest in your mental and
emotional well-being because we always need
(39:09):
it especially if you're transitioning into big life stages like
parenthood or like a shift in your career or like getting married
any of those milestones i would
say invest before you feel like
you're at rock bottom. It's harder to
climb from down there than the middle of the mountain. So
(39:34):
I wish everyone a steady pace when
they do that, when they're taking a more preventative approach.
Yeah, and I couldn't agree more. The invest in yourself is so important. And
as high achieving women, we often forget, right? Or
we put ourselves on the back burner. We give ourselves the excuse we
don't have the time. So I think that's such
(39:55):
incredible advice. Karen, Sarah, I want to
thank you so much for being here, for sharing your insights and expertise today. This
is such an impactful conversation. Where can our listeners learn more about
Thank you so much, Gia. They can learn about us either by visiting
our website and contacting us directly. You can visit us
at thewiseparent.org. You can also reach out to us on
(40:18):
social media. We are at thewiseparent on Instagram, or
our TikTok handle is at thewiseparent with an underscore. You
can also email us at info at thewiseparent.org. So
Awesome. And of course you can visit my website at gialacqua.com. Reach out
on Instagram at gialacqua. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and leave a
(40:40):
review. This is Gia signing off with gratitude for your time and energy. Our
mic drops, but the movement continues. Until next time, your next
chapter is waiting. Take care. That concludes another
empowering episode of Your Future Starts Now. Before we
wrap up, I wanna thank this incredible community of high-achieving women.
Your energy, resilience, and commitment to growth are the driving force
(41:01):
behind what we do. If you enjoyed today's episode, please rate
it, leave a review, and don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Your
feedback fuels our mission to empower high-achieving women just like
you. And of course, share Your Future Starts Now with the extraordinary women
in your life who are also on a journey of healing and empowerment. Connect
with us on social media, share your thoughts, let us know what topics you'd like to
(41:22):
explore in future episodes. Stay connected on Instagram at
Gia Lacqua. I encourage you to carry the energy of this conversation
into your day and keep on supporting the incredible women around you.
Welcome to Your Future Starts Now, the go-to podcast for
extraordinary women who are ready to step into their next chapter with
authentic confidence. I'm your host, Gia Lacqua empowerment coach,
motivational speaker, children's book author, and girl mom. Whether
you're a corporate powerhouse or an entrepreneur, this show is
designed for you. Your Future Starts Now is more than
(00:20):
just a podcast. It's a movement, a movement towards rewriting
the rules of success for high-achieving women. Are you ready
to get unstuck and step into your next chapter? If
so, you're exactly where you need to be. Your future starts
now. Welcome to Your Future Starts Now. I'm
your host, Gia Lacqua. I want to thank you for joining us today. I
(00:43):
am so excited to introduce you to Sarah Raslan and
Karen Abou Jaoude Sarah holds dual
masters in neuroscience and post-conflict development and has over
15 years of experience in the humanitarian sector, focusing on
trauma's impact on families affected by war and conflict. She's
currently developing a trauma-informed parenting program to help parents
(01:04):
raise emotionally resilient children. Karen,
with a master's in early childhood and family development, specializes in
how play impacts a child's emotional and social skills.
Combining her background in analytics and family dynamics, she empowers
parents to use play strategically while fostering confidence and
meaningful connections in their children. Today, we
(01:26):
are talking about intergenerational trauma. And
I want to welcome you to the show, both of you. Thank you so much for being
here. We talk about a lot of important topics on the show, but this one
is definitely top of the list. So I'm excited for our conversation today.
Of course. So before we jump in, tell us
(01:47):
a little bit about your backgrounds and kind of what led you to the work
Yeah, sure. I'll jump in. So my background
is as a researcher. I worked for over 15 years
and continue to work actually as a researcher in the development slash humanitarian
sector. So I've worked predominantly with
(02:08):
vulnerable communities in fragile conflicts,
post-conflict contexts, really trying to
understand their needs and working closely
with aid agencies and foreign offices in
providing needed programs to those vulnerable communities. And
that was my first, I would say, exposure to
(02:30):
understanding that households have very complex
needs And that family is
going through the hardships, whether it's war
or any other type of, you know, kind of difficult strains
on the family. that results in trauma requires
very strong support
(02:53):
systems and coping mechanisms to not just
be able to cope with what they went through, but
to give them important skills that they
need in order to continue or move on from
their experiences. Becoming
a mom and working closely with Karen, we kind
(03:15):
of went through the pregnancy and early motherhood years
together. I went
and got another degree in psychology and neuroscience very
much because I was so interested in my work experience, but
also kind of wanted to take that into a different field that was
very much around caregiving support
(03:38):
and child development. And that's
kind of like where I've kind of pivoted, taking
in everything that I've learned, and then pouring it into
what we founded together as The Wise Parent, which is really
this business about providing caregivers and parents the
support that they need to overcome the
(04:01):
challenges or the cycles they kind of get stuck in from
their own childhood, from their own experiences. These caregivers that
want to do better for their kids, that want to change or shift the
narrative for their children and the future generations. Such
Thank you for that. And Karen, what about you? So
my background actually is completely unrelated
(04:25):
to my higher degree. My higher degree is
in early childhood and family development. But before that, my
background was in strategy and analytics. So
it's about dissecting behavior, understanding things, finding
patterns and links. And that was
a skill that I was nurturing in
(04:48):
my career and in tandem was pursuing this
passion in early childhood and family development. And
when I realized that my career path wasn't fulfilling
me, I decided to take a leap and pursue a higher degree
in early childhood and family development. Um, not
just because I was in love with the subject, but also because when
(05:11):
I started my own personal healing
journey, I kept going back to my childhood and
anyone who has been in therapy or works on themselves. always
ends up going back to patterns in their childhood. So
I became quickly obsessed with the idea of how can we
start safeguarding our kids or better
(05:34):
preparing ourselves to kind of prevent, you
know, the therapy we're doing right now. How can we do better?
And after pursuing my degree, I met my
other half of the brain. So that's Sarah. So she's the left
side or the right side, whichever depends on the day. And
we met at a really beautiful intersection
(05:59):
where we connected on these two powerful ideas. We
connected on this concept of It's so important to
raise resilient and emotionally healthy kids. And
also there's this power that parents have over
how they shape these new lives of little kids. And
(06:20):
so we started bonding and exchanging information and geeking
out and nerding out. And the more that
we discussed, the more we developed a strong basis
and understanding of the subject. So we became that go-to, those
go-to moms that our friends or people within our community would
ask for help, hence the birth of the wise parent. And
(06:45):
it was, it was just been, it's been a beautiful journey since then.
So yeah, our goal is to support, our ultimate
goal actually, Gia, is to support children. And
the best way to support children, to advocate
for them, to ensure that they have the
best quality lives is to actually change and
(07:07):
adapt their environment so that their environment nurtures that positivity.
And the first environment that a child has is through their parent
or their caregiver. So our work is through that
first layer, which is empowering the parent and
the caregiver with what they need to make sure that they that
(07:29):
Yeah, absolutely. I love that. So
impactful. And so, you know, I'll start with the elephant in
the room because our audience is, you know, mostly high
achieving women who a lot of them are mothers. I've
had this experience personally, and I know many other women have as
well. Can you talk to us a little bit about that
(07:52):
healing journey and the process that really
doesn't start until many of us become parents?
That's such a, it's a loaded question, Gia. I
think, I think for me, it feels loaded
because it's so different for every single person. I
(08:12):
mean, we each come with our own history, baggage, emotion,
trauma, our own culture, values, all
those things are so different. I
think if I think about myself, if
I think about what I find most common with the clients
that both Sarah and I have, it's
(08:35):
this there's a new awakening in
this generation of mental health and the importance of,
um, I want to call it mental or
emotional upkeep, like the cleaning of your
emotions and kind of cleaning the dust off
the shelves. That's how I am envisioning it. There's a
(08:56):
huge shift from the previous generation to
ours and it's becoming more and more, not
just, a growing awareness, but the importance of putting that
as a priority. I mean, even corporates and companies are
incorporating it into their system, into their, into
the way that they function, because it is a huge, it
(09:18):
has a huge impact on human productivity. And
so I think together with that shift, there
is a growing awareness that as you become a
mother, you're responsible for
the well-being of this child, but that means that
you've got to do that upkeep, you've got to dust the shelves,
(09:39):
you've got to clean up a little bit so that you
can teach your children what it is that you're supposed to
teach. The metaphor that Sarah and I like to use is that
you can't teach your child a language you don't understand. If
we want our kids to be emotionally resilient and not
carry this baggage, we need to number one, not
(10:01):
push that onto them, but number two, be able to understand how to
teach them those skills. So that's, I
mean, there's so many things I could say, but
Um, It's such a, you
know, we hear it often as moms or as
(10:23):
parents, you know, your kids become like
your little teachers or your little healers. And they're really good
at like pointing to those like unhealed wounds
or those wounds that you may have not even known were there, let alone,
you know, thought that you healed from. And then they somehow burst
open again. And they continue to burst open as our
(10:45):
children continue to grow and enter new stages. And
I think that the reason for that is because children,
you know, they kind of embody a
part of ourselves and perhaps mirror
back a part of ourselves in our own childhood or from our own
past. And whatever it is that
(11:08):
we struggle with, with our kids today. So whether
it's, you know, like for me, it's nagging and
for Karen, it's, you know, running late or,
you know, for me, I have a lot. I have like, you know, being tidy
and clean and all of these things and dressed in
a certain way. And the reason why I have so many is
(11:30):
because those were the things that I was not allowed to have or
to do in my own childhood. And so these are the things that
I struggle with the most when my kids start to kind of personify or
act out in those ways. And so very much when
it comes to this self-healing, it's about seeing
the things that we struggle with the most with our kids. You know, is
(11:52):
it nagging? Is it tantrums? Is it hitting? What
activates us in the biggest, loudest way? And
then that's where we know, that's our clue. That's our
clue to go and investigate like, okay, this thing is really, really
triggering for me. I wonder, I wonder what it means.
What's the story that's behind that from my own childhood and
(12:13):
my own experiences? And coming back to what
Karen was saying, this is the self-work, this is
the kind of therapy or healing that we
I love that. There's so much there in what you both
said. So thank you for that. I think, you know, it wasn't meant to be a loaded
(12:34):
question, but I realized it's a deep one. It's a
big one. It's a big one. So I love the way you both sort of
approach it. A couple of things. I love what
you said, Sarah, about the mirror. They are sort of like a
mirror to ourselves, right? And help us see things that maybe we
don't always see. And then the triggers, right?
Like what is activating us? A
(12:58):
friend of mine, Tony Dufresne, who I've had him on my podcast, I've
been on his podcast. I think he said it beautifully one day, and this
mental image just really resonated with me. He said, you know, your
childhood traumas, a lot of us have just put it in a box and
put it on that shelf. So Karen, when you were talking about dusting off
the shelf, that's what I envisioned in my head is, yeah,
(13:19):
we put it in a box and we put it on the shelf, but that doesn't mean we've dealt with it.
Right? And so I think once we become parents, we become mothers,
it sort of forces us to open that
box or those boxes and see what's inside. And
(13:41):
It's messy because a lot of the times we've intellectualized it,
uh, you know, we, we've sort of put it to the side, but
haven't really dealt with it. And so I think there's so much truth in
You know, actually, Gia, you're, you're making me think the
reason I think it's messy is because it
was packed away when we were so young and immature
(14:06):
And that's a part of the work that we do with parents is
now you can rationalize it. Yeah. But my parents were, that was, you
know, That was what they knew. That was what they could do. And I
get it. They were harsh. They had to be. They might have been parents
who grew up in conflict areas. But that
still means that as a child, you
(14:28):
didn't fully process something. And when you pack something
away that's not properly digested or
processed, that comes out as nervous
system activation. That comes out as triggers. That comes out
as like when you open the can of worms. So
that's why it feels difficult. I think most of
(14:50):
the time it's because when you put something away, you
really don't want to process it and deal with it, especially when it's
from your childhood. You also don't have time. You're busy. You're
a busy parent. Life gets busy. And then you're
reminded of it when your child is doing all those things that Sarah
said. And then it's like, do I open that can of worms?
(15:12):
What do I do with it? Should I leave it for a couple more years until they're teenagers?
It's scary, right? It's scary. And we have to get
curious with it. And for a lot of people, that's very uncomfortable. And
so for a lot of people, they might walk away or they might say,
I'll deal with it later. avoid the feeling altogether. And
(15:35):
so, you know, I think when I hear you talk, one of the things
that is coming up for me is, you know, it's important that we get curious
with those feelings, with the activation, with the trigger, with the nervous system dysregulation,
um, and get really curious with it to first figure out like, what, what is
it? And we don't have to do it alone. Right. And I think that's the beauty in the work that you
do. you know, and having therapists and coaches and others who can help
(15:58):
us work through that. You know, it's kind of like, it's
for me, it's the vision of like me opening my messy coat closet.
And then, you know, the boots come flying out the coat, the vacuum cleaner, and
you have to start to make sense of it. So I
think that's really very well stated. In
the work that you do with parents, what do you see as some
(16:19):
of the most common struggles or challenges that
That's a great question. So the work that we do predominantly focuses,
um, on parents who have kids under the age of
seven years old. So we're talking that early, early years. Um,
parents, Sarah, jump in and, and bring and
(16:41):
add to my list, but the biggest struggles that we see are definitely number
one is parental triggers. So losing your
cool, not knowing why, having a short fuse, that
nervous system activation that we talked about. Another one is
not knowing how to handle, manage, or
change your toddler's behavior, outbursts, emotions.
(17:04):
And then the biggest one, which
is actually I think like a new age thing,
is this confusion on gentle parenting. So
parents actually, trying to be gentle, but
end up being overly permissive, and then swing the pendulum
to the other side and end up resorting to those old habits of being harsh.
(17:26):
So there's that uncertainty of like, oh, this gentleness doesn't work.
And then, you know, you have to resort to harshness. So that's sorry,
am I missing anything? I think those are the biggest. Those
are the biggest ones that we've seen, especially in
the last year, the gentle one, especially in the last year.
Yeah, I think that In all of
(17:47):
those categories, I
would say that the thing that we kind of
hone back in on every single time with
our clients is this idea, which
I touched on at the beginning, is this idea of skill building.
A lot of parents don't realize that The
(18:10):
things that they struggle with, whether it's their triggers, whether
it's their kids, you know, outbursts or tantrums, or
not having the ability to regulate these maybe big kind
of hard feelings like anger or frustration or
jealousy or fear or sadness. It's
actually the lack of skills that are required. to
(18:33):
regulate those feelings, whether it's my own feelings of
inadequacy, of guilt, of anger, of
depletion, whether it's my kids' own feelings, they
all kind of need to be fortified with skills. And
that's kind of at the heart of what we do with these clients. So whatever
it is that their challenges are, we always kind of circle
(18:53):
back to this idea of let's teach you how
to teach yourself and your kids these really important things. While
we coach the parents, we're very much about kind of empowering
parents to feel like they are coaches and
advocates for themselves and coaching their children to
(19:16):
Yeah. I love what you said about skill building. It makes so much sense. And
I think for many women, especially high achieving women who
are used to doing it all, doing it all on their own, being independent, being
self-sufficient, it feels like it should come naturally,
right? Parenting. You know, I liken
it to breastfeeding, right? Breastfeeding, it's like, oh, it
(19:37):
should be so natural and easy. And for me, that certainly was not the
Definitely not for me either. Karen was one
of those women that was just like, oh yeah, you know, plop, plop onto the
Yeah, all is good. No, for some it's not. And
so then it sort of, you know,
makes you question a lot of things. So I think for, you know, parenting
(20:01):
requires a different skill set, it requires, you
know, learning. And I think some people don't recognize
that right away. But the sooner you can recognize it, right,
I think the better so you can make sure you're getting the right support. So
I think that's a really good point. The other thing I want to go back to is the concept of
gentle parenting. I think there's a lot of talk about gentle parenting, there's a lot of
(20:24):
misconceptions about genital parenting and maybe even different
definitions. So can you talk to us a little bit about what genital
parenting means in your world, what that looks like? And
it's interesting, it doesn't surprise me actually, that so many parents are struggling
with it because like you said, we grew up, we did not grow up without most of us,
right? And so it is learning a different
(20:48):
It's a completely different language. I think gentle parenting
has taken so many different definitions. The intention of
its origins are incredible. It's about
respectful communication and, you
know, at the same time, setting firm
boundaries with your kids. And I think there
(21:11):
was just a massive movement into it without actually
really understanding the concept. So I actually maybe think maybe
it needs some rebranding at this point. The
issues with the new way or the way
people have adopted gentle parenting in
simple terms is there's too much focus on
(21:32):
the word gentle and not enough focus on the word
parenting. So gentleness does
not mean you allow your kids full authority
over how the house is run. That doesn't mean that you
are a dictator in your house, but that means that you
are the authority. You are the mature adult. You have to
(21:53):
embody that in a respectful way.
That means that your kids aren't going to like certain decisions that you make.
They're not going to be okay when you have to pick them up and
remove them from a situation or end a play date early. That's
what gentle parenting is. It's doing that in
(22:13):
a way that is understanding and that
actually understands their developmental capacity. So
it's about managing your expectations and having appropriate developmental
expectations for your kids. So that's the
swing. Sara and I, we've
(22:33):
seen so many different people rebranded into respectful
parenting, sturdy parenting, positive parenting. Essentially,
you need a lot of love and
compassion and curiosity, and you need to hold firm boundaries.
And I think with, you know, combination of
those things, you are a respectful, gentle,
(23:00):
Absolutely. I would also add that perhaps the reason why
there's so much lack of knowledge
around gentle parenting is because most parents are
taking parenting advice from social media. And
it's, you know, like, it's a 30 second clip, and
it's not realistic. And I, and, you know, perhaps
(23:23):
we are also in that in that world, you know, we use social media,
we try to convey certain certain messages, we try to
educate, you know, quote, unquote, through our
platform by showing, you know, what gentle parenting
may look like, what to do in certain cases, in certain situations, certain
parenting strategies. But at the end of the day, there are limitations to
(23:46):
that. And parents really need to understand that
you can't kind of cherry-pick parenting strategies because
life is complex, family dynamics are complex, children are
unique, and parents are unique. And so, parenting
support requires that a little bit more nuance. I
(24:06):
would also add to what Karen was saying is that it's kind
of collided, this idea of gentle parenting has collided, and it is
very much a product of all of the research in
the last 10-20 years around positive psychology, which
is very much rooted around communication, validation
of emotions. With
(24:29):
that, as Karen said, the over-emphasis on the validation aspect.
So we hear a lot of parents talk about how, you know, I validated my
kids. I told them, you know, I understand that you're angry and we see all these like
kind of joke memes online about, you
know, how a parent is like validating their kid while they're getting punched in
the face, you know. So the
(24:50):
next step to that is, as Karen said, is setting firm boundaries.
Because gentle parenting was meant to be the answer
to the more authoritarian or
punitive style of parenting, which was very much around punishment and
using threats and bribes and shouting at their kids, which
(25:11):
is very much not what gentle parenting is about. But then what
does a parent do? What, right? Because we need to be realistic. And
a lot of parents are like, this isn't realistic. This is, you know, what do I
do when my kid is, is, is running away from me down the street?
Or what do I do when my kid, you know, I'm telling, I told him a hundred times,
tidy up your room, get ready for bed, you know, clear your plate
(25:32):
after dinner. And the kid's not listening. Like, what do I do then when
I can't resort to punishments or threats. What
do I do beyond validating a kid? And this is, again, where
they need to learn how to set really good boundaries. And we
need to come back to this idea of skill building. So being able to have
this emotion, which is, I don't want to clear my plate. I don't want to tidy
(25:54):
up my room. How do I hold that emotion of, I don't want
to do that, but then still do that regardless? And
I love that. I love hearing your
take on that. And I think it was very
well described. I think, you know, for a lot of us who did grow up with
(26:16):
the more authoritarian parents, it was, you know, we're used to
don't talk back. do as you're told, right? So
what I hear you say in the gentle parenting is really introducing
more compassion and listening. I think the listening piece is
really important and the validation of the feelings, but then to your
point, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. It's also
(26:37):
about setting those boundaries, healthy boundaries in
an appropriate way, right? And that mutual respect is really important.
And the skill building, Gia, I think the skill building is so important. I
mean, if you think about it in any context outside of parenting,
Think about it. If you think about your job, where you started
and where you are now, think of the skill set that
(26:59):
you had to attain. If I threw you in the deep end and
put you in your position, you know, 10, 15,
(28:01):
Yeah, I love that. So talk to us about intergenerational
trauma. What is intergenerational trauma? How
does it show up and how does it affect parenting?
That's a loaded question, Gia. Not the first one.
That was a huge one. Go ahead, Sarah. Intergenerational
(28:24):
trauma is such a big topic. And. I
mean, I would start off by saying that To be
honest, in research, we don't fully understand how
trauma passes on. Is it just genetic
or is it that nature and nurture kind of argument? Is
(28:49):
it because parents, when they went through something in
their own childhood, and they would have learned, because
humans are, we're kind of, we're wired to
survive at all costs. And so in our
childhood, if we go through traumatic experiences, we
kind of learn through
(29:11):
those experiences that, you know, this is what I need to do in order
to survive. This is how I need to be or not be. This is what I
need to suppress. This is what I need to be fearful of or to
avoid. Then that kind of becomes our
new wiring. So in a way, there is
a biological aspect to our experiences, but
(29:32):
there's also kind of a
physiological response or a psychological response, which
becomes a behavioral outcome to those experiences. And
so if we imagine, I
mean, if we imagine this child then growing up and becoming a
(29:53):
parent, they would have been wired in a way where, you
know, certain things are scary or dangerous or
not allowed or off limits. And so then
how that gets passed on is if this parent doesn't go
through that self work, if this parent doesn't bring awareness to
themselves that these things are coming alive, right? We're going
(30:13):
back to this idea of things getting triggered in our nervous system, getting
activated. when our kids then starts to behave
in certain ways or is in certain environments that
remind ourselves, remind our kind of subconscious mind
or our nervous system like, oh, Ooh, you know, like warning
signs start coming up like this is this is not safe or I
(30:36):
was, you know, I went through something similar when I was a kid and I
almost died or I was hit or beat
or, you know, whatever it is as a child, then then we
we come alive and then we shut that down again in our kids.
So the cycle kind of repeats itself where we shut our
kids down. The problem with that cycle is
(30:59):
that if we don't bring awareness to what we're doing, then
we are repeating it because then our children will grow up and
learn that these things are not allowed. Just to kind
of contextualize it a little bit more, let's say that me as
a kid, I
grew up in an environment where my family didn't have enough
(31:23):
financial means and we were really struggling. And
I had two working parents and I barely saw them. And
when I did, they were exhausted and they were tired and they would come
home and they'd had, you know, they were very depleted and didn't have much capacity to
you know, kind of play and be present for me. I
might have learned in my childhood that I have to kind of minimize
(31:45):
myself. I kind of need to like hide away my
wants and needs or my playfulness in
order to kind of survive and make it in this family, understanding, you
know, the dynamics that are going on. And this is also saying that children are
very, very intuitive and they can pick up on these things. But even
if it wasn't just intuition, even if it was, you know, if I
(32:08):
cried as a kid because I really wanted a toy, and my, you
know, my mom shouted at me and said, you know, we don't have enough money for this, or,
you know, stop crying, you know, just be grateful for what
you have, whatever it is, I might have learned that
my wants and needs are not okay. They're
not safe, because it gets me in trouble by my parent, or it
(32:29):
pushes my parent away. And
so I grew up kind of minimizing myself and
suppressing expression of these wants and needs. Now
I grew up as a parent, and if I get triggered by
my kids' tantrums, which are ultimately an expression
of a want or a need, and if
(32:52):
that triggers me, then that's my indication that, okay, there's a
cycle here. starting to repeat itself. And
I think that this example is actually very relevant for working moms who,
you know, coming back to the point that you're making, Gia, where, you know, we should
be really good at certain things because
(33:13):
of, you know, where we are in our careers and how we got there and
we've become so independent and so empowered as women. But
yet, if we, you know, if we kind of are struggling
with certain things today, This could be an indication, I don't want
to use the word trauma, big T trauma, little T trauma, hardship,
whatever it is from our childhood, it does
(33:36):
continue on until today if we
haven't processed it or if we didn't have that person to
help us process those things in our early childhood. Yeah.
And it goes back to what we said earlier about it being contained in a box
and it's messy because we didn't have the tools and the coping skills maybe to
process it at that time. And I want to just go back to something else
(33:56):
you said, Sarah, that I think is so important. I
just want to call it out. Because to your
point, whether it's a trauma, capital T, lowercase t, or some other
hardship that you went through in your childhood, It's
not just about the experience itself. It's
not just about what happened to you. It's about the
(34:18):
meaning that you assign to that experience.
Absolutely. Right. And the stories we tell ourselves and
for high achieving women, I see that show up
every day in not just parenting, but at
work and in their relationships. Right. And
how that spills over into our lives.
(34:41):
Yeah, 100%. And I mean,
I love I love that, that, you know, it's
not about what happens to you, but how you kind of perceive and process what's
happening around you. And this is why as parents, we,
we always kind of talk, you
know, talk to our clients about how important it is to explain things
(35:04):
that are going on for their kids. How are you feeling? What did that mean
for you? How can I help you? I'm here for you. I could understand that was really
tricky. It's to bring up the emotional experience.
And the reason for that is because our brains, they
actually record things through emotions. And
so when we don't have someone to explain to
(35:27):
us as kids what is going on and to kind of marry
the emotional experience, which is, you know, like one
part of the brain with kind of like more factual things about
this happened and then this happened and bringing that together, then it
kind of gets recorded in this jumbled up way
that isn't processed. um, in a, in a kind
(35:48):
of, um, adaptive or healthy
way. And so then that continues on into adulthood. Yep.
Okay. We might have to have a second episode into this
topic. This is so, uh, such great information. If
there's one message you hope that that mothers can take away or
(36:09):
parents can take away from your work in this conversation, what would that be?
So whether, you know, for women who are working, working women,
whether they're a working mom or not a working mom, it
is so important to be able to provide
yourself this kind of self-reflection, this
(36:31):
opportunity to bring awareness to what
certain situations bring up for you. And
if there is a struggle in whatever that is, then know
that this is a clue that there is something there that
you need to work on that you need to revisit. And if self care,
(36:52):
I mean, in this world of like, You know, we're trying to balance so much
and we're trying to juggle it all. And within
that juggling is providing self-care. So
even if self-care is hard for you, then know
that it is very likely that in your early years,
your own wants and needs were not, were
(37:15):
considered dangerous for whatever reason. Whether
it was dangerous to you kind of maintaining a close relationship
or attachment with your parents, or whether it was your
certain circumstances that you grew up in. But this
is kind of where I want to come back to is understand that
whatever it is that you're struggling with today is something that you
(37:42):
I love
that. And I would love to piggyback off of you, Sarah, and
say that the biggest advice I
would give to anyone is
it is always worth it to invest in yourself. Investing
(38:02):
in your mental and emotional well-being. And
we always, for some reason, most
of us tend to put that on the back burner until like,
you know, shit really hits the fan and you really need
it. And then you're like, oh yeah, I should probably get the help that I
need. But I think that we need to
(38:25):
be more proactive. And
for anyone, it's
about taking a more preventative approach so
that you don't burn out always, so that you don't go through these cycles
of high achieving, then burnout, or high success, or
high feelings, positive feelings, and then
(38:46):
just really deep lows. We need to get better
at maintenance and upkeep, like dusting off the
shelf. And I think that the word preventative
is probably the best one. So the best advice is,
invest in yourself invest in your mental and
emotional well-being because we always need
(39:09):
it especially if you're transitioning into big life stages like
parenthood or like a shift in your career or like getting married
any of those milestones i would
say invest before you feel like
you're at rock bottom. It's harder to
climb from down there than the middle of the mountain. So
(39:34):
I wish everyone a steady pace when
they do that, when they're taking a more preventative approach.
Yeah, and I couldn't agree more. The invest in yourself is so important. And
as high achieving women, we often forget, right? Or
we put ourselves on the back burner. We give ourselves the excuse we
don't have the time. So I think that's such
(39:55):
incredible advice. Karen, Sarah, I want to
thank you so much for being here, for sharing your insights and expertise today. This
is such an impactful conversation. Where can our listeners learn more about
Thank you so much, Gia. They can learn about us either by visiting
our website and contacting us directly. You can visit us
at thewiseparent.org. You can also reach out to us on
(40:18):
social media. We are at thewiseparent on Instagram, or
our TikTok handle is at thewiseparent with an underscore. You
can also email us at info at thewiseparent.org. So
Awesome. And of course you can visit my website at gialacqua.com. Reach out
on Instagram at gialacqua. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and leave a
(40:40):
review. This is Gia signing off with gratitude for your time and energy. Our
mic drops, but the movement continues. Until next time, your next
chapter is waiting. Take care. That concludes another
empowering episode of Your Future Starts Now. Before we
wrap up, I wanna thank this incredible community of high-achieving women.
Your energy, resilience, and commitment to growth are the driving force
(41:01):
behind what we do. If you enjoyed today's episode, please rate
it, leave a review, and don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Your
feedback fuels our mission to empower high-achieving women just like
you. And of course, share Your Future Starts Now with the extraordinary women
in your life who are also on a journey of healing and empowerment. Connect
with us on social media, share your thoughts, let us know what topics you'd like to
(41:22):
explore in future episodes. Stay connected on Instagram at
Gia Lacqua. I encourage you to carry the energy of this conversation
into your day and keep on supporting the incredible women around you.
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