April 17, 2025 • 48 mins
"Suck it up, be a Man!" That's the message boys have received for generations, meant to crush their more sensitive natures. And it worked, at the cost of the spirits of these boys who became men. But when author and journalist Amy Molloy's toddler son started exhibiting troubling sensitivities, she didn't impose stern discipline, instead finding solutions from what are considered 'new age' sources. And despite the 'out-there' origins, the solutions Amy discovered have a surprisingly solid basis in common sense, which she details in her new book Wise Child.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
SAGA nine sixty AM or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. Hello loosteners
around the world on radio, streaming and podcast services. This
is It's not therapy. I'm Leanna Kerzner, and I am
(00:29):
not a therapist, but I am your source for navigating
the madness of mental health using my top ten sayings
for going good crazy. This week, I am stepping out
of my comfort zone. I don't normally do New Age
content on the show because well, yeah, lack of scientific backing,
(00:50):
lots of grift. But according to Pew Research, yeah, sixty
two percent of Americans hold at least one New Age
belief and before as Canadians think that we're superior. The
data is sketchy, but around fifty nine percent of Canadians
report experiencing some sort of psychic activity, and that number
(01:12):
is from all the way back in nineteen ninety, up
from three percent in the nineteen eighties, when a majority
of people, we are talking three in five people believe
in something that connects to mental and emotional well being.
As far as I'm concerned, it's worth exploring. Despite my
(01:36):
profound feeling of uncomfy. The New Age space is stigmatized
because of its crossover with well legit cult activity. But
having a bunch of crystals isn't going to hurt anything
except your wallet if you're also seeing your doctor for
checkups and taking any necessary medication. And there's a deeper
(01:57):
reality regarding New Age practices as well, and some people
are not going to like listening to this because it
has to do with the colonial era of history. During
that time, various colonial powers damaged and misappropriated the traditional
practices of black, Indigenous Asian and South Asian peoples. Before
(02:19):
chakras were New Age, they were South Asian traditional practice.
Before energy healing light healing was new Age, it was
West African ritual by way of the Caribbean. And some
of these communities are where mental health stigma is the
highest and rates of seeking treatment are the lowest. So
(02:41):
simply dismissing anything that sounds new age hot take it
risks an accidentally racist approach to mental health care. The
medicalized mental health care system leaves a lot of people
behind or a lot of people on the margins. But
the New Age is just to cult thinking leaves people
(03:02):
in those communities vulnerable to a lot of abuse. Spiritual
abuse can happen in major religions as well, but there
seems to be this thought out there that if someone
is in a new Age group, they somehow brought that
abuse on themselves. The problem is sometimes there are children involved.
I worked directly with people who suffered spiritual abuse as children,
(03:27):
and it's about an even split between officially recognized religions
and New Age practices. And again with three and five
people turning to some sort of New Age belief, I
feel it's important. I think it's important. I believe it's
important to separate better practices from outright dangerous practices. So
(03:51):
when I got a copy of the book this week's
guest wrote from a publicist, I trust, I gave it
a shot, and I admit I was very trepidacious. The
concept of past life parenting right as a red flag
to me. But Amy Malloy's book Wise Child is based
not only on her own personal experiences, but actual research
(04:13):
done at the University of Virginia by a psychiatry researcher
data in the field by the name of Jim Tucker,
and I'm giving that name so you can google him.
University of Virginia. Believe it's Jim B. Tucker. What I
found compelling about the research going on there is sixty
percent of the children and the UVA data are male,
(04:36):
and most of them are between the ages of two
and six, right when that gendered conditioning starts really kicking
into parenting. And so whatever you think about kids in
past lives, there's plenty of data that suggests we're not
listening to kids, but we're especially not listening to sensitive,
(04:56):
scared boys. And if anything can hell, I don't care
what labels on it, I'm gonna be right on that.
So after the break, we're gonna talk to Amy molloy,
journalist and author of the book Wise Child, A Practical
Guide to raising kids with sensitive hearts and smart souls
in a world they were reborn to save, and we're
gonna talk about what she calls past life parenting, which
(05:19):
I see as one approach to parenting sensitive kids without
trying to train out that sensitivity as a flaw and
therefore crushing their spirits. So we're gonna do that when
we come back. Do you have a story you think
would be good for the show. Are you interested in
sponsoring the show? Leanna at notherapyshow dot com. Not Therapyshow
dot com is the website at no Therapy Show on
(05:41):
social media's We'll be back on It's not therapy, Parenting
Sensitive Kids.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
No Radio, No Problem stream is live on SAGA ninety
sixty am dot C.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. We're back
on It's therapy. I'm still in a cursoner. I'm still
not a therapist. We're still talking about sensitive kids being
(06:19):
one and parenting one, and uh, I'm here with journalist
Amy molloy. I tease Jamie off the top of the
program and I'll repeat, well, leave me, sir what I
said at the top. When I originally looked at this,
I'm like, I'm not sure past life what And then
I read wise Child and I was like This is
(06:41):
solid stuff regarding kids. It's stuff that I wish people
had known when I was a kid back in the day.
Amy is a journalist by trade, so we have something
in common right there. So Amy, welcome to It's not therapy.
Why did you decide to write this book?
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Oh, great question.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
Well, first of all, I'm so glad that you kind
of push through the first thought of like, oh, not
for me, because I'm very aware that most people will
think that a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
And even when I was coming your get this as
a journalist.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
And a writer and content producer, I really put a
lot of thought into the name of the book and
how to write the blurb and how to describe it,
because I didn't want people to go, oh, past life
parenting not for me and miss the content of the
book and how much there is in there for everyone.
And I'd never thought I would write a book about
past life parenting at all. You know, I've written about
(07:38):
mental health for years, mental wellness and so many different topics.
And it was only after having my second child, my
little boy, who is a very tick book typical, highly
sensitive soul. He's a big feeler, he's a big thinker.
I mean he's six now, but from the moment he
was born, he was I really don't want to used
(08:00):
the word difficult, but for a very human word, let's
use the word difficult. Like I couldn't soothe him, I
couldn't sell him. He wouldn't sleep, and I just couldn't
shake the feeling that I kept saying to my husband,
he doesn't seem to want to be here.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Whatever that meant.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
I just kept saying, he doesn't seem to be feel
safe here with us, in our family on this planet.
And I found my way into a past life therapy session.
I've been going to spiritual healing for years and years.
My dad had was paralyzed from hodgkinslnfimer when I was
a teenager. He was an absolute atheist at the time,
(08:36):
but during his stem cell transplant to his chemo, he
would have tried anything, and he found his way into
reiky spiritual healing and began to explore Buddhism, Hinduism, spirituality.
So for my teens, they taught me to meditate, which
I was so grateful for, and they opened me up
to kind of spiritual.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Healing and that world.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
But I would never have thought to look into the
past lives of my kids just wasn't on my radar.
And then I went first session with my healer when
my little boy was about eighteen sixteen months old, maybe
a bit younger, and I was desperate, exhausted, depleted, and
I just said, I don't know how to raise this kid.
(09:17):
And in that session we were given so to speak,
or shown a past life that he had hundreds and
hundreds of years ago. He'd been an incredible healer and
it had been a very long time since he'd been
incarnated reincarnated again, and he was finding being here in
twenty eighteen when he was born so jarring, so too much,
(09:40):
too much noise, too many people, too much technology, that
he was feeling unsafe.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
He was unsettled.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
And it was such like, I get how that sounds right,
Like I know that sounds bonkers, and I would have
thought that too, but everything clicked for me in that moment.
Maybe it was placebo effect, but I don't think so,
because what I've gone on to explore since then. We
did a healing on him where we imagine placing him
(10:09):
on my chest and surrounding us in light, and from
that night he slept through the night.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
He could handle crowds.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
The rashes and the cough that he had that we
couldn't shake went and he is still my highly sensitive child.
But we get each other now because I'm not comparing
him to his sister. And I've had another kid since then,
and my girls are very cruisy, they're very just naturally happy.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
He's a different They're all different.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
But I see him now as something bigger than like
just a six year old. I see him for like
all he's been, all he's seen, all he's lived through,
all this wisdom he's bringing forward, and now he heals me.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
He is the healer.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
I see it, like he gives me advice now at
age six.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
That makes my jaw drop. And so this really kickstarted.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
You know, I'm a journalist by trade, so of course
I was like, what is this?
Speaker 3 (11:04):
What am I doing?
Speaker 4 (11:05):
Is anyone else out there doing this? So I began
to explore what I called past life parenting, and I
discovered that kids across the world are appearing to remember
past lives and parents are taking it into account when
parenting them. But more than that, like if you really
don't want to hang your hat on any of that,
(11:28):
this generation of kids are different they're highly eloquent, they
are deeply empathetic and sensitive. They are struggling to fit
into the systems that we want to shove them into.
So how can we parent them in a way that
doesn't try to change them, that nurtures and supports that sensitivity,
(11:48):
while still preparing them for the world and having the
boundaries we need to put into place. Because I don't
know about you, like I was that sensitive kid. I
was that psychic kid who could tap into people's emotions
and feel their physical sensations and big you know, while
boomer parents didn't, weren't able, they didn't have the tools
or the language to nurture that. So we were shut
(12:12):
down and told you too much, you're too emotional, you're
too dramatic. So my question is how can we do
that differently with our kids? And yeah, that's really what
the whole book is about.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
What's interesting to me about exploring this stuff is this
was mental health practice before we had psychology right for
thousands of years, this was it. And it's interesting how
you see so many parallels and Norse myth in Yoruba practice,
in Celtic myth. You know, stuffs missing from a lot
(12:45):
of it even going back to you know, the economic
in Sumerian myth aer vedic practice, there's similarities with types
of children, and I'm like, it's funny because the wise
child is one of the types of children mentioned in
the Passover Satyr Judaism, And there's a part of the
Sata where you have to deal with different kids differently.
(13:11):
And somehow, with all our science and all our knowledge,
we've lost the things that people back in the day
when you couldn't afford to leave anyone behind because our
societies were much smaller recognized. You have to make space
for the weird kid, the difficult kid, the sensitive kid.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
And one of the things that.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Struck me in your book is there's a whole part
about not curing sensitivity. And I'd love to drill down
on that because I do think that there's this pattern
in our world where you're beating They try to beat
the sensitivity out of you when you're a kid, and
(13:56):
then you rebel against it in your teen years, and
then in your twenties you try to fit in because okay,
this isn't working, and your twenties are miserable, and you
get taken advantage of a lot and you develop all
this additional trauma at layers layers layers, and then the
thirties are about undoing your twenties, and by your forties
finally you're just like acceptance because there is no other option.
(14:22):
Yeah right, yes, And I thought, what if some of
these older ways have an answer for better, so we
can start, you know, maybe when we're eighteen. Well we're
not fully formed until we're twenty eight, but maybe we
can start sooner if we embrace some of this stuff.
So how what do you mean, don't try to cure
(14:45):
your kid's sensitivity?
Speaker 4 (14:49):
Yeah, well, the problem is that, you know, I'm a
mom of three. I've got three kids held today full
six and eight. One of them's home sick now and
sensitivity hypersensitivity. How do we want to call it empathy?
The deep feelingness of our kids is inconvenient in the
world that we have set up for us. You know,
(15:10):
both me and my husband work. If I've got a
kid who's saying, Mommy, I need a day at home,
I'm like, I'm feeling a lot today. I've got to
go to work, I've got media interviews. My husband's got
to go off and he works in the national park,
he's got somewhere to be. It's inconvenient to be sensitive,
it's and that's the truth. Because of the world we
(15:30):
have and the lack of the village that we have,
and so it's really hard for parents to embrace the
sensitivity of their kids because we have things to do,
in places to be, and people to see, and so
it takes the flexibility out of our family's life. And
so I think that's where the acceptance comes into play.
(15:53):
My oldest daughter, she is easy to handle because she
wakes up happy, She is unfazed. If something happens, she
goes off into her room for five minutes, she has
a little time out, she self regulates, and she comes
back into our family fixed, cured done. My little boy,
he whips everyone up into his feeling whirl wind. We
(16:15):
all need to lean in. We all need to be there,
be present, be listening with healing. He might take two
hours or three hours to come down from it. That's
annoying for me when I've got a podcast interview to
do or a book to finish writing. And so the
real thing we need to do is slow down. And
I know that's not what we want to hear because
(16:36):
I'm a mum. I've got too much to do to
slow down. But we know what a difference it makes
with our highly sensitive kids. If we sit with them
and we listen to them, we believe them with their struggles.
We don't say no, no, no, don't be silly. They
actually you know, maybe you did feel a funny vibe
with that teacher. Maybe you do feel off when you
(16:56):
go to swimming lessons. Maybe you really are terrified of
getting in that world. Let's talk about it. But like
our first.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Instant is get in the water, and I do it
like I do it when I'm stressed and overwhelmed all
the time.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
But like we've all been shut down for our own feelings,
and like you said, we've spent like I had an
eating disorder through my twenties, through my teenage years too,
because back then when my dad had yeah, we all have,
I mean most women have to some degree.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
And now the boys.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
Are catching up in those statistics. And because back then
when my dad had was diagnosed with cancer, there was
just a different No one sat down with me as
a teenager and said, how.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Are you doing? Yep, how are you feeling?
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Like I could feel my dad's physical symptoms in my
own body, and I, as a psychic little kid, had
also seen ten years earlier that he was going to
be diagnosed with cancer, but I never had because we
didn't have these conversations. No one could sit down with
me and talk to me about it, and so I
starved out of myself and I repressed it by hyper
(18:02):
controlling my body. And that's still like you know, you know,
it's a hard habit to shake. It's really hard. And
how many of us are walking around feeling unsafe in
our bodies because we're unsafe in our intuition because we've
been learned to not trust our sensitivities and our empathy.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
We've been learned to shut it down.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
And that's actually that's actually disarming a kid's boundaries young, yes, right,
while they're still forming. You may not know why your
kid is afraid of getting in the water, but forcing
that kid in, like we know now, that's just going
to cause trauma. But it's so ingrained in our culture
(18:46):
that we choose to be normal instead of present.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
Right and shielding our kids by not you know when
they they know when we're stressed. Like my little boy,
he knows when I'm stressed. He knows when me and
my trying to hide an argument we're having, his little
radar is going off.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Something's wrong, something's wrong. So if I turn around to
him and go no, no, mummy's great, no, no, no, everything.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
He knows.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
But also even worse, he starts to doubt. He's inner compass.
So then in the future, when he's somewhere he feels unsafe,
he thinks, oh, no, but I've been wrong before, whereas
actually he was right every time before. So it's about
having that, you know, within boundaries and age appropriate limits,
saying you know what, mummy's having a really tough day today,
(19:32):
don't worry, it's not your fault, and I'm going to
be fine. Like I know, I get to go swim
in the ocean, like one of the things that mummy
does when I feel stressed to make myself feel better.
Why don't we put music on rather than going like
shut it down, or when someone dies in the family,
rather mean like we can't talk about it. We can't
talk about sickness and illness and death because we're as adults,
are terrified of it. It's about having the open conversations.
(19:55):
And in the book there's incredible conversations with kids about
death in permanent and loss, but we shut it down
for fearing like that's so scary to hold that in
the space of our family. But in doing so, what
we're telling them is that they instinctively know something's wrong,
and we're telling them everything's fine, and we've all felt that.
(20:18):
And again like there was you know when your kid
walks into a space, walks into the school hall, their playground,
and they're saying, Mommy, I don't feel good here, or Mummy,
I've got a tummy ache, which how it normally shows
up in our young kids, got a chummy ache, Mammy,
I've got a headache. Instead of again shutting it down
getting to school, you've got to go.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Mommy's got to get to.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
Class, which is basically what I was doing half an
hour ago. It's like, look at the big picture, what
are you tapping into, what are you seeing? And how
can I have a conversation around it rather than the
more convenient way, which is to shut it down.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
And those are lifelong things, right. We see so many
people walking around six ignoring well in women, things like
ovari insists and men a lot of other things that
it immune.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
Is the ultimate one for women right now from oppression
of trauma.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Yeah, yeah, there's a there's a and I have an
autoimmune disease and I have a PTSD diagnosis. So your speech,
you're speaking to the choir on this one. And it's tough,
right because there's a there's a guilt in all of
this that ends up in the New age space. And
I want to go to a break and come back
and talk to you about that because I think that's
(21:33):
a big reason that people reject books like Wise Child,
and your book doesn't have the guilt that other methodologies
of this kind had, and that's what I really liked
about it. So okay to hang on, We'll come back
after the break.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Yep, right.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Amy molloy, journalist and author of Wise Child. The practically
had to raising kids with sensitive heart and smart souls
in a world they were reborn to say, we'll be
back after the on It's not Therapy. Questions, comments, concerns
about this show or any other show. Leanna at Nottherapyshow
dot com, not Therapy show dot com as a website
at not Therapy Show. On social media back after this
(22:11):
talking about raising or being sensitive kids.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Stream us live at SAGA nine sixty am dot C.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. We're back in.
It's not therapy. I'm Stillleanna Kurzner. I'm still not a therapist.
We're still talking raising and being sensitive kids. I am
(22:48):
here with author Amy molloy. She's a journalist and author
of Wise Child and it is a book about past
life parenting. And before the Break, I talked about the
fact that there tends.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
To be this guilt.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
There is a lot of abuse in the New age
space when it comes to this stuff. I work with
people personally who have a lot of trauma from being
dragged into something that was not safe. And these kids
felt unsafe, but because it was a spiritual guru, oh no, no,
you were supposed to listen to them and just don't
(23:22):
trust your instincts. And if you listen to the past
segment with Amy, you know this is the exact opposite
of what she's saying. And I want to talk to you, Amy,
with your own kids and delving into this and taking
such a risk and a lot of this stuff. There's
a whole part of the book on belief on what
belief can do, and how did you balance the You
(23:46):
give a lot of yourself over to bigger stuff in
this process. And in the traditional mental health it's accepting
the process or submitting to the process. Right in the
more spiritual side, it's different terminology, but it's all essentially
the same thing. How did you balance that with protecting
(24:09):
and advocating for your kid? Well, realized you were kind
of I hope this isn't too hard to work, kind
of smothering your kid. Yes, right, Like that had to
be really, that had to be a gut punch, right Like,
that's a big thing to accept as a mom, since
there's a lot of guilt in motherhood too.
Speaker 4 (24:28):
So, I mean, most of motherhood is really about trying
to navigate guilt and shame and you know, taking responsibility
for the parts you're playing and the stuff we will
all hand down. I mean, you know, none of our
kids are coming out unscathed in terms of what they
inherit from us.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
I always try to take a lot.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
Of responsibility, but I don't want to walk around feeling
like I should be guilty and shameful and you know,
constantly repenting for something that I have done as a
parent or previously to them. So it's really about finding
that balance. And that's what I loved about Why Child.
It's about saying it's not all down to parents. Our
(25:09):
kids are being born with innate wisdom and knowing. So
this belief we have that I have to show up
with all the answers with how to parent these kids,
especially in twenty twenty five, which is a terrifying time
to be a parent.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Instantly for me alleviated.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
That pressure and was such a relief to go, my
kids are their own person.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
They already coming into this world.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
They're not a black piece of playdo for me to
mold into this perfect human.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
They already have their own stuff.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
They're bringing in their own karmic destiny of whatever word
you want to put on it, and.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
They are built for it.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
Like my little girl who's fall now or she was
born into lockdown, and I felt so much guilt for.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Like what am my? What kind of world am I
bringing her into?
Speaker 4 (25:58):
There was race riots, lockdown, and it was complete carnage
and has been ever since let's face it.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yea.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
And she turned around to me when she was three
and she said, Mummy, do you know I chose to
be born during lockdown?
Speaker 3 (26:14):
And we hadn't talked about it.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
We had a really like we really tried to shelter
our kids during COVID. They were really young, they didn't
really need to know the full extent of what was
going on. We don't listen to news in the house.
We try and limit their exposure. She hears about it,
but she said, you know, I chose to be born
during lockdown and said, so you don't need to feel
bad about it.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
She was three.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (26:36):
And later on she said to me, and during a
different conversation she brings it up quite frequently, which is
kind of strange but amazing, she said, you know, I've
been thinking about COVID and I know it was really hard,
but I think it was meant to happen. I think
it was what the world needed. And those are the
moments where you have to sit back and go.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
She's three, yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
And I'm walking around being like, can she cope? Does
she have a future? What's she going to do? Is
climate change? How is she going to be?
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Like?
Speaker 4 (27:09):
She was built for this, and those are the moments
where you can exhale as a parent, this breath that
you don't even know you're holding, and go, it's not
all down to me.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
I don't have to.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
Figure out how to fit them into this system and
schooling and everything else and make it work for them.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
They are going to be okay.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
And I think I was really lucky, you know, speaking
of the downsides of spirituality and New Ageism, religion, all
of the things. I was raised in a really multi
faith household, which I only appreciate now as I get older.
I wasn't told what to believe. I wasn't told what
was right to Catholic school. But then when my dad
began to explore spirituality, he just took a little bit
(27:50):
of everything. Was very he is very open minded. He
doesn't press his views onto everyone. So I was giving
a real taste of every spiritual spirituality and it's smallgas
board of them. And I was never told you have
to believe that, and then that means that you can't
do that, and you're going to be judged for that.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
And people would disagree with me.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
But there's so much overlap and so much goodness in
so many belief systems, and I really feel out what
makes me able to be a better human in this world,
a better mother, a better person. I choose to have
trust and my own version of faith because it allows
me to be a better mother, to be a better writer,
(28:31):
to write this book with courage kind of don't care
so much what's right or wrong. I care what enables
me to show up in the morning with hope and
faith and optimism and then pour that into my family.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
That's more important to me than.
Speaker 4 (28:46):
Being like, this is what we should believe, this is
it right, and to put aside anything that brings with
it judgment or fear. And that's how I navigate New ageism,
especially because yeah, there's a load bullet out there and
as people being her and we have to guard ourselves
from that. So I really feel into it rather than
(29:07):
The book has a lot of research and analysis too,
but I.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Really was fascinating everything.
Speaker 4 (29:12):
Yeah, I mean, I'm very that's a journalist in me, right.
It's very, very research heavy. I didn't want to just
write a book that was like I woke up and
channeled this book, and I think all our kids have
been born before, Like I really needed.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
To put the legwork into it, and it took.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
A lot of time, but I think that is going
to be what surprises people about the book the most.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
And Where the Book lands spoilers, but I do think
it's important because I think a lot of people are
going to go they have this identity. I know I
had this being science minded, right, because science, being scientific,
being able to find the right answer was the one
thing I was rewarded for as a child. Making trees
out of clay that look like brains was not I
(29:57):
literally made this thing that was a story of multiple
when I was in the seventh grade, and my art
teacher thought it was amazing and my mother was terrified.
And that was a weird mixed message, right. And so
the where the Book lands is listen to your children,
believe your children, but you still have to set boundaries
with your children. And that's just good parenting advice in general.
(30:24):
But if you're a parent that doesn't understand boundaries because
of your own unresolved stuff, that's hard to do. And
a big part of the book was your journey, not
just what you did for the kid, what you have
to accept with yourself simultaneous with being a parent. In
very very challenging circumstances to kids who are extremely different
(30:46):
from each other.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
Yes, the most important part of the book is section three,
which is reparenting yourself Like that is the gold.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
That is the part that changed my life.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
My everything was when I got to that path and
I went there are kids. But actually, what's going on
in me? There's having ripple effect on everyone. My fears,
my ego, my shame, my guilt. How is that all
overshadowing everything my kids are trying to show me that
they are when my especially around those hot button topics,
(31:16):
when my kids talk to me about money, gender, sexuality,
seth how is my own stuff silencing them and my
own fears of them fitting in and conforming? You know,
when my little boy is struggling at school? How am
I reacting most of the time is from my own
fears for my little my own and me thinking, oh
(31:37):
my god, what's my own mum going to think when
I have to tell her that her grandson.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Isn't fitting in?
Speaker 4 (31:43):
Because there's so much shame that we're carrying forward from
our ancestors, and especially as women, running that shame thread
through all of the females in your family.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
So clearing your own baggage.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
It's so important to turn up as the parents that
are kids need us to be, because.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Otherwise we can't.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
When we're sitting in a parent teacher interview and the
teacher saying, oh, you know, he's difficult or he's disruptive
or he can't stop moving, We're instantly going what does
that mean for me?
Speaker 3 (32:14):
And what is it saying about me?
Speaker 4 (32:16):
And now I'm going to have to go into the
world and tell them that this is my child. So
it's so much about clearing, and like, there's some really
interesting experiences I had in the book around clearing, not
only in my past lives, but like my ancestral clearings
with my grandmother and my great grandmother mother who had
(32:36):
like a war child and was sent away to give birth,
and the shame and guilt that she carried forward and
then it was really interesting. So much in my work
as a writer has been about talking about sexuality, and
I wrote when I was twenty three, my first husband
died of cancer and I wrote a book about how
I use sex to deal with his death, and it
(32:56):
caused a huge It was such an amazing power book.
It came out fifteen years ago, but it caused a
huge backlash, and then it caused a real rift with
me and my own mother because she had her own
shame around sexuality raised in the Catholic upbringing Irish Catholic.
And then when I went into this ancestral clearing, I
realized it went deeper and her mother and her mother
(33:19):
before that. And part of my role in this life
is cutting through that sexual shame. And that's why I
keep coming back to writing about sex again and again
and again, even when I don't plan to, because I'm
showing up not only for me but for them, because
I don't want my daughters in particular to have to
(33:40):
carry this forward with them. So, yeah, the reparenting yourself
part is so important for us to be able to
even meet our kids as they are, to meet our
kids' souls, or just to meet them as they are,
we need to be able to put our own stuff
aside or it's just not possible.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
And we do get into all these arguments of definition
and like you said, right and wrong as opposed to
what's gonna allow me to show up here with an
open mind? Yes, And it's you know, the vulnerability you
show in the book just This is tied to the
women in sex thing. Right, I'm a mom and I
(34:21):
didn't know what I was doing, and I made mistakes
and I wasn't there for my kid. Like those are
shame filled statements, but I think that everybody sort of
has to hit. The best thing you can do for
your kids is model how to make mistakes.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
Absolutely, I'm a pair.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah. There's a whole thing about repairing
relationships in the book that's also great. There's really great
stuff in the book. One thing I want to touch
on before we go, and we've already run long, but
I think this is important for people to hear is
the concept of sending back energy that doesn't belong to you.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Yes, I love this.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
To do this all the time with my kids. I
do it with myself.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
And it's such a practical thing to teach our kids
that they can understand. Like I said, my youngest is four.
She gets it. So it's particularly good when they come
home from school because as empaths, we've felt it. Like
we've all had a conversation with a friend who's going
through a breakup or something and we walk away and
we feel heavy, we feel anxious, our mood is completely switched.
(35:30):
And we do it physically too, like I know, like
especially with people that we're really energetically tied to, which
is often like our own parents, or our partner.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
Or our kids.
Speaker 4 (35:41):
Like I had a conversation with my mum only a
few weeks ago, and she was saying about how she
was really worried and anxious about the stomach issues she had.
The next day, I woke up with exactly the same
stomach issues. It took me two weeks of clearing it,
and it was only when I really understood I took
that on from her that I could finally clear it.
(36:02):
I've done it with my dad in the past. I
had a period where I had really bad hip issues
and exactly where his tumor grew around his spine. And
it's really like we are entangled with each other, which
is beautiful and really difficult at times. And our kids,
because they're so open, they really feel it. So if
they're in the playground and another kid's got a belly
(36:24):
ache or another kid's anxious, they will bring it home
with them and they will adopt it as their own
and continue to carry it until we number one give
them the awareness and then permission to release it. So
it's literally saying to your kid when they say, oh,
I've got a belly ache or and feel sare sad
or scared, like, do you think this is your belly ache?
(36:45):
Did anyone else in your class have a belly ache today?
Do you think was anyone else around you feeling a
bit sad today in the playground? And then you know,
chatting to them about it, and then saying, if you
think this might not be yours, you.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
Know it's okay to let it go.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
You can imagine like letting it go into the air
and watching it drift off into the sky and watch
it go away with the clouds, because it's okay to
not carry it forward. And God, we need that as adults.
We need that because we were never taught it. And
so like when your husband's having a tough time at work,
we carry it as our own. When our kids are
struggling at school, we carry it as our own. And
(37:21):
again it blocks up from showing up with what they
really need.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
It's so easy, driven too right, because it's not ours
and if we take it on ours, then we're not
letting them do it.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
Yes, I actually.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Learned this I used to be a music journalist and
dealing with musicians who were on drugs. Really, I was like,
oh God, like I thought, I was just focused and
they're getting all glassy eyed and it's gonna be a
garbage interview. But I fell off after those and it
took a long time to be able to realize what
(37:58):
that was. It's what makes you a good journalist when
you're so tied in to where other people are at
that you're mirroring it and you can make the interview flow.
But at the same time, you can really do damage
to yourself if you don't go that that's not mine.
I don't also lose and I need to give it back, right.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
And I work as a ghost writer too.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
A lot of my work is ghostwriting and quite traumatic stories, jeez.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
And so the.
Speaker 4 (38:28):
Whole point, as you know, you have to get into
their heads, into their hearts. You are writing as them,
You are them, You are the channel to get their
story onto this document, right, and I will find myself
then having their physical sensations, then.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
Having carrying it with me.
Speaker 4 (38:44):
So I've had to get really good at the end
of the day, like cutting cords literally, imagining cutting the webs,
that are pulling me to that person because it makes
me a great writer, a great journalist, a great ghost writer.
But I can't then navigate turning up again to be
a mum to my kids if I'm carrying the trauma
of whoever I'm writing for. And sometimes it takes me
(39:04):
a few weeks even to realize it, Like I'll be
saying to my house and what is wrong with me?
Why am I so anxious or angry?
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (39:14):
And then I'm like he often points it out to
me now, and he's a scientist, so it's hilarious because
this is not his world at all. Peo will say, well,
what are you writing about? What have they been telling you?
What have they been feeling?
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Like?
Speaker 4 (39:26):
Have they been having a panic attack in your phone
calls with them?
Speaker 3 (39:29):
And you're wondering why?
Speaker 4 (39:30):
Then you're carrying that forward once you press you know,
in the call with them, and our kids feel that
because they're so open and we feel that. So even
if that's all you take from the book, that is
such a wonderfully practical thing you can do to be
like one am I entangled in?
Speaker 3 (39:47):
Whose mind? Whose physical symptoms?
Speaker 4 (39:49):
Whose journey am I entangled in? And how can I
give myself permission to go No?
Speaker 3 (39:54):
No, no.
Speaker 4 (39:55):
I can love you, I can be professionally powerful with you.
But at the end of the day, when I get
in bed, I'm cutting ties.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
With you and my mum.
Speaker 4 (40:06):
Yeah, totally, and without people we care about. That feels
really tough. I frequently do it with my mum, I
do it my kids, I do it my partner, and
that guilt comes up, like but no, no, no, you
meant you should be entangled with them, Like no, If
I'm going to show up as me in the world
and be the best version of me, I have to
cut the ties so I can then show up without
(40:28):
all that stuff weighing me down.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
And you have to trust the wisdom of the other
person that it's theirs right, and it's it's true. One
thing I find is cooking dinner at the end of
the day, chopping vegetables or peeling and being able to
throw away the peelings. It's like, okay, goodbye day, Like
it's just it's right there. And whatever people believe about
(40:52):
the literalness of the ritual is not the point. It's
what it's doing for you inside.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
Right exactly.
Speaker 4 (41:02):
So, Like there's so many things I do on a
daily basis, Like if I'm feeling angry, I will take
the fire I imagine in my chest and I will
walk on the grass and plant it into the grass.
Oh that's great, and it I feel the difference. I
don't care what it is, what's happening, placebo effect, you
know whatever, I feel the heat leave my chest and
(41:23):
plant into the soil.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
And I am teaching my kids that too, because.
Speaker 4 (41:28):
It's not enough to just go I'll just let it go,
just unentangled, Like we need to teach our kids tangible,
physical things that they can say. Actually, when I said,
that's not my belly ache, my belly ache went yeah.
And build up this evidence that they have because then
they feel less out of control. They're not just walking
around the world taking on energy, just feeling like they
(41:49):
have no autonomy over themselves. They can go no, there's
things I can do, and I don't have to run
away and live in a hut in the middle of nowhere.
I can go to the busiest place is and I
can be an activist or whatever I want to do.
But I've got these tools in place that when I
go home at the end of the day, I come
back to me, and that's the most important thing.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
I'm so struck by. I had a guest on another
Australian lady who has a son with pathological demand avoidance,
and one of the things they found was that, you know,
role playing in games and making it kind of more
magical and less real really helped with this child who
was really struggling with control. And I think a lot
of this language of fire and wind and they're tangibles, right,
(42:37):
They're taking abstracts and they're making them tangible, and people
don't have to use your language, they don't have to
use mine if they find their own. I think that
that really is the definition of wisdom, is taking these abstractions,
making them real so you can turn them around, look
at them, study them and use them exactly.
Speaker 4 (42:57):
And nature spending time in nature like my husbands and
name vironmntal scientist, So he's very much in your camp
of like, I will not believe it unless I see
the evidence, like show me a peer reviewed paper and
then we can have a conversation and.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Then show me another.
Speaker 4 (43:13):
But he knows the like he spent his whole time
in national parks. He knows the healing power of nature,
and so it kind of doesn't matter the language what
you're saying. It's like, what is helping you? What is
helping your kids? My kids are different creatures when they're
outside on the beach, in the ocean, in a forest,
they are completely different than when I stick them in
a shopping mall or in a movie theater. You know,
(43:35):
your kids aren't broken, there's nothing wrong with them. It's
just we haven't figured out the systems and the processes
and the places and the spaces that suit their specific.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
Soul for want of a better word.
Speaker 4 (43:49):
So rather than being like, I'm going to force you
to fit in that, how can we For the most part,
we all have to be in places that don't suit
us sometimes, But how can we make sure the majority
of their time or the end of their day, in
the beginning of their day is custom made to bring
them peace and trust and groundedness, and then they can
(44:10):
navigate all the chaos in between, because again they will
come home to themselves around it, which is really, again,
as adults, what we need to great.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Place to stop. Amy Molloy, journalist, author of Wise Child,
The Practical Guide to Raising Kids with Sensitive Hearts and
Smart Souls, in a world they were reborn to save Amy?
How can people find out more about you? Do you
have a website or something like that?
Speaker 4 (44:33):
I do, amymloy dot com dot AU, Instagram at Amy
underscore malloy or the book is now available globally, so
search Amazon Wise, Child, Amy molloy.
Speaker 3 (44:44):
It's pretty much everywhere now.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
And that's Amy molloy, Amy m O l l O
Y molloy. All right, Thanks Amy so much for coming on.
It's not therapy, all right when we come back. Final
thoughts on what to look for in exploring newage content
you think be helpful, Questions, comments, concerns. Leanna at not
therapyshow dot com. Not therapyshow dot com. As the website,
there's a contact form if you want to reach out
(45:07):
that way at not Therapy on Socials Back in a
bit on is not therapy.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
No Radio, no Problem. Stream is live on SAGA ninety
six am dot C.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. We're back
in this therapy. I'm still Leana Kurzner, I'm still not
a therapist. We're still talking about raising sensitive kids using
(45:44):
a new age approach. This episode, you may have noticed
in the interview with the Amy that a lot of
her concepts, even though it was from like a past
life parenting from line up with modern child psychology. And
that's because human understanding didn't start with modern psychothera ancient
cultures were aware of trauma and the importance of nurturing children.
(46:05):
But that doesn't mean every traditional approach is great. So
what to look for in these things? If you're like, hey,
this sounds interesting, but when you're approaching anything new age
or anything frankly involving psychology and your kids, beware of
anything that promises to fix your kids, fix your marriage,
(46:28):
fix you. Instead of encouraging you to understand yourself and
trust yourself and your kids to create an environment where
everyone counts. Never do anything that encourages you to unthinkingly
force yourself or your kids into situations where they're profoundly uncomfortable.
You want to build boundaries instead of tearing them down.
(46:52):
And finally, any group or method that encourages you from
seeking out conventional therapy may not have your best interests
at heart. Same goes for properly to prescribed prescription medications,
psychiatric medications. And if you're suggesting that you take drugs
as part of some spiritual journey, if you wouldn't do
(47:15):
that on your own, this is something else to treat
with extreme suspicion. But if New Age rituals help you
create a language for your inner world and give you,
as you know, a series of rituals that help calm
and center you, that's great. That's why we talk on
this show about going good crazy. But please trust your
gut on this. If something seems too good to be true,
(47:38):
it probably is. No mental health model is perfect, not
cognitive behavioral therapy, not dialectical behavior therapy. And I'm somebody
who benefited greatly from both. But I also borrow from myth,
from comic books, from sci fi movies. Right. Whatever vocabulary,
including a New Age vocabulary, works for you, go for it.
(48:02):
Just don't give yourself up or your kids in the process.
There's a reason I say listen twice before you talk
once and perfect is a live stop. Try to be perfect.
As top ten phrases, the answers are there within your family.
Just create enough space to hear them. Not therapyshow dot
com is my website. Leanna at nottherapyshow dot com is
(48:25):
my email. Not therapy Showed is social media. You're crazy.
Is only a problem if it's hurting you. Talk soon.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
Stream us live at SAGA nine sixty am dot CA.
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
SAGA nine sixty AM or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. Hello loosteners
around the world on radio, streaming and podcast services. This
is It's not therapy. I'm Leanna Kerzner, and I am
(00:29):
not a therapist, but I am your source for navigating
the madness of mental health using my top ten sayings
for going good crazy. This week, I am stepping out
of my comfort zone. I don't normally do New Age
content on the show because well, yeah, lack of scientific backing,
(00:50):
lots of grift. But according to Pew Research, yeah, sixty
two percent of Americans hold at least one New Age
belief and before as Canadians think that we're superior. The
data is sketchy, but around fifty nine percent of Canadians
report experiencing some sort of psychic activity, and that number
(01:12):
is from all the way back in nineteen ninety, up
from three percent in the nineteen eighties, when a majority
of people, we are talking three in five people believe
in something that connects to mental and emotional well being.
As far as I'm concerned, it's worth exploring. Despite my
(01:36):
profound feeling of uncomfy. The New Age space is stigmatized
because of its crossover with well legit cult activity. But
having a bunch of crystals isn't going to hurt anything
except your wallet if you're also seeing your doctor for
checkups and taking any necessary medication. And there's a deeper
(01:57):
reality regarding New Age practices as well, and some people
are not going to like listening to this because it
has to do with the colonial era of history. During
that time, various colonial powers damaged and misappropriated the traditional
practices of black, Indigenous Asian and South Asian peoples. Before
(02:19):
chakras were New Age, they were South Asian traditional practice.
Before energy healing light healing was new Age, it was
West African ritual by way of the Caribbean. And some
of these communities are where mental health stigma is the
highest and rates of seeking treatment are the lowest. So
(02:41):
simply dismissing anything that sounds new age hot take it
risks an accidentally racist approach to mental health care. The
medicalized mental health care system leaves a lot of people
behind or a lot of people on the margins. But
the New Age is just to cult thinking leaves people
(03:02):
in those communities vulnerable to a lot of abuse. Spiritual
abuse can happen in major religions as well, but there
seems to be this thought out there that if someone
is in a new Age group, they somehow brought that
abuse on themselves. The problem is sometimes there are children involved.
I worked directly with people who suffered spiritual abuse as children,
(03:27):
and it's about an even split between officially recognized religions
and New Age practices. And again with three and five
people turning to some sort of New Age belief, I
feel it's important. I think it's important. I believe it's
important to separate better practices from outright dangerous practices. So
(03:51):
when I got a copy of the book this week's
guest wrote from a publicist, I trust, I gave it
a shot, and I admit I was very trepidacious. The
concept of past life parenting right as a red flag
to me. But Amy Malloy's book Wise Child is based
not only on her own personal experiences, but actual research
(04:13):
done at the University of Virginia by a psychiatry researcher
data in the field by the name of Jim Tucker,
and I'm giving that name so you can google him.
University of Virginia. Believe it's Jim B. Tucker. What I
found compelling about the research going on there is sixty
percent of the children and the UVA data are male,
(04:36):
and most of them are between the ages of two
and six, right when that gendered conditioning starts really kicking
into parenting. And so whatever you think about kids in
past lives, there's plenty of data that suggests we're not
listening to kids, but we're especially not listening to sensitive,
(04:56):
scared boys. And if anything can hell, I don't care
what labels on it, I'm gonna be right on that.
So after the break, we're gonna talk to Amy molloy,
journalist and author of the book Wise Child, A Practical
Guide to raising kids with sensitive hearts and smart souls
in a world they were reborn to save, and we're
gonna talk about what she calls past life parenting, which
(05:19):
I see as one approach to parenting sensitive kids without
trying to train out that sensitivity as a flaw and
therefore crushing their spirits. So we're gonna do that when
we come back. Do you have a story you think
would be good for the show. Are you interested in
sponsoring the show? Leanna at notherapyshow dot com. Not Therapyshow
dot com is the website at no Therapy Show on
(05:41):
social media's We'll be back on It's not therapy, Parenting
Sensitive Kids.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
No Radio, No Problem stream is live on SAGA ninety
sixty am dot C.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. We're back
on It's therapy. I'm still in a cursoner. I'm still
not a therapist. We're still talking about sensitive kids being
(06:19):
one and parenting one, and uh, I'm here with journalist
Amy molloy. I tease Jamie off the top of the
program and I'll repeat, well, leave me, sir what I
said at the top. When I originally looked at this,
I'm like, I'm not sure past life what And then
I read wise Child and I was like This is
(06:41):
solid stuff regarding kids. It's stuff that I wish people
had known when I was a kid back in the day.
Amy is a journalist by trade, so we have something
in common right there. So Amy, welcome to It's not therapy.
Why did you decide to write this book?
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Oh, great question.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
Well, first of all, I'm so glad that you kind
of push through the first thought of like, oh, not
for me, because I'm very aware that most people will
think that a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
And even when I was coming your get this as
a journalist.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
And a writer and content producer, I really put a
lot of thought into the name of the book and
how to write the blurb and how to describe it,
because I didn't want people to go, oh, past life
parenting not for me and miss the content of the
book and how much there is in there for everyone.
And I'd never thought I would write a book about
past life parenting at all. You know, I've written about
(07:38):
mental health for years, mental wellness and so many different topics.
And it was only after having my second child, my
little boy, who is a very tick book typical, highly
sensitive soul. He's a big feeler, he's a big thinker.
I mean he's six now, but from the moment he
was born, he was I really don't want to used
(08:00):
the word difficult, but for a very human word, let's
use the word difficult. Like I couldn't soothe him, I
couldn't sell him. He wouldn't sleep, and I just couldn't
shake the feeling that I kept saying to my husband,
he doesn't seem to want to be here.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Whatever that meant.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
I just kept saying, he doesn't seem to be feel
safe here with us, in our family on this planet.
And I found my way into a past life therapy session.
I've been going to spiritual healing for years and years.
My dad had was paralyzed from hodgkinslnfimer when I was
a teenager. He was an absolute atheist at the time,
(08:36):
but during his stem cell transplant to his chemo, he
would have tried anything, and he found his way into
reiky spiritual healing and began to explore Buddhism, Hinduism, spirituality.
So for my teens, they taught me to meditate, which
I was so grateful for, and they opened me up
to kind of spiritual.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Healing and that world.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
But I would never have thought to look into the
past lives of my kids just wasn't on my radar.
And then I went first session with my healer when
my little boy was about eighteen sixteen months old, maybe
a bit younger, and I was desperate, exhausted, depleted, and
I just said, I don't know how to raise this kid.
(09:17):
And in that session we were given so to speak,
or shown a past life that he had hundreds and
hundreds of years ago. He'd been an incredible healer and
it had been a very long time since he'd been
incarnated reincarnated again, and he was finding being here in
twenty eighteen when he was born so jarring, so too much,
(09:40):
too much noise, too many people, too much technology, that
he was feeling unsafe.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
He was unsettled.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
And it was such like, I get how that sounds right,
Like I know that sounds bonkers, and I would have
thought that too, but everything clicked for me in that moment.
Maybe it was placebo effect, but I don't think so,
because what I've gone on to explore since then. We
did a healing on him where we imagine placing him
(10:09):
on my chest and surrounding us in light, and from
that night he slept through the night.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
He could handle crowds.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
The rashes and the cough that he had that we
couldn't shake went and he is still my highly sensitive child.
But we get each other now because I'm not comparing
him to his sister. And I've had another kid since then,
and my girls are very cruisy, they're very just naturally happy.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
He's a different They're all different.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
But I see him now as something bigger than like
just a six year old. I see him for like
all he's been, all he's seen, all he's lived through,
all this wisdom he's bringing forward, and now he heals me.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
He is the healer.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
I see it, like he gives me advice now at
age six.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
That makes my jaw drop. And so this really kickstarted.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
You know, I'm a journalist by trade, so of course
I was like, what is this?
Speaker 3 (11:04):
What am I doing?
Speaker 4 (11:05):
Is anyone else out there doing this? So I began
to explore what I called past life parenting, and I
discovered that kids across the world are appearing to remember
past lives and parents are taking it into account when
parenting them. But more than that, like if you really
don't want to hang your hat on any of that,
(11:28):
this generation of kids are different they're highly eloquent, they
are deeply empathetic and sensitive. They are struggling to fit
into the systems that we want to shove them into.
So how can we parent them in a way that
doesn't try to change them, that nurtures and supports that sensitivity,
(11:48):
while still preparing them for the world and having the
boundaries we need to put into place. Because I don't
know about you, like I was that sensitive kid. I
was that psychic kid who could tap into people's emotions
and feel their physical sensations and big you know, while
boomer parents didn't, weren't able, they didn't have the tools
or the language to nurture that. So we were shut
(12:12):
down and told you too much, you're too emotional, you're
too dramatic. So my question is how can we do
that differently with our kids? And yeah, that's really what
the whole book is about.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
What's interesting to me about exploring this stuff is this
was mental health practice before we had psychology right for
thousands of years, this was it. And it's interesting how
you see so many parallels and Norse myth in Yoruba practice,
in Celtic myth. You know, stuffs missing from a lot
(12:45):
of it even going back to you know, the economic
in Sumerian myth aer vedic practice, there's similarities with types
of children, and I'm like, it's funny because the wise
child is one of the types of children mentioned in
the Passover Satyr Judaism, And there's a part of the
Sata where you have to deal with different kids differently.
(13:11):
And somehow, with all our science and all our knowledge,
we've lost the things that people back in the day
when you couldn't afford to leave anyone behind because our
societies were much smaller recognized. You have to make space
for the weird kid, the difficult kid, the sensitive kid.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
And one of the things that.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Struck me in your book is there's a whole part
about not curing sensitivity. And I'd love to drill down
on that because I do think that there's this pattern
in our world where you're beating They try to beat
the sensitivity out of you when you're a kid, and
(13:56):
then you rebel against it in your teen years, and
then in your twenties you try to fit in because okay,
this isn't working, and your twenties are miserable, and you
get taken advantage of a lot and you develop all
this additional trauma at layers layers layers, and then the
thirties are about undoing your twenties, and by your forties
finally you're just like acceptance because there is no other option.
(14:22):
Yeah right, yes, And I thought, what if some of
these older ways have an answer for better, so we
can start, you know, maybe when we're eighteen. Well we're
not fully formed until we're twenty eight, but maybe we
can start sooner if we embrace some of this stuff.
So how what do you mean, don't try to cure
(14:45):
your kid's sensitivity?
Speaker 4 (14:49):
Yeah, well, the problem is that, you know, I'm a
mom of three. I've got three kids held today full
six and eight. One of them's home sick now and
sensitivity hypersensitivity. How do we want to call it empathy?
The deep feelingness of our kids is inconvenient in the
world that we have set up for us. You know,
(15:10):
both me and my husband work. If I've got a
kid who's saying, Mommy, I need a day at home,
I'm like, I'm feeling a lot today. I've got to
go to work, I've got media interviews. My husband's got
to go off and he works in the national park,
he's got somewhere to be. It's inconvenient to be sensitive,
it's and that's the truth. Because of the world we
(15:30):
have and the lack of the village that we have,
and so it's really hard for parents to embrace the
sensitivity of their kids because we have things to do,
in places to be, and people to see, and so
it takes the flexibility out of our family's life. And
so I think that's where the acceptance comes into play.
(15:53):
My oldest daughter, she is easy to handle because she
wakes up happy, She is unfazed. If something happens, she
goes off into her room for five minutes, she has
a little time out, she self regulates, and she comes
back into our family fixed, cured done. My little boy,
he whips everyone up into his feeling whirl wind. We
(16:15):
all need to lean in. We all need to be there,
be present, be listening with healing. He might take two
hours or three hours to come down from it. That's
annoying for me when I've got a podcast interview to
do or a book to finish writing. And so the
real thing we need to do is slow down. And
I know that's not what we want to hear because
(16:36):
I'm a mum. I've got too much to do to
slow down. But we know what a difference it makes
with our highly sensitive kids. If we sit with them
and we listen to them, we believe them with their struggles.
We don't say no, no, no, don't be silly. They
actually you know, maybe you did feel a funny vibe
with that teacher. Maybe you do feel off when you
(16:56):
go to swimming lessons. Maybe you really are terrified of
getting in that world. Let's talk about it. But like
our first.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Instant is get in the water, and I do it
like I do it when I'm stressed and overwhelmed all
the time.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
But like we've all been shut down for our own feelings,
and like you said, we've spent like I had an
eating disorder through my twenties, through my teenage years too,
because back then when my dad had yeah, we all have,
I mean most women have to some degree.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
And now the boys.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
Are catching up in those statistics. And because back then
when my dad had was diagnosed with cancer, there was
just a different No one sat down with me as
a teenager and said, how.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Are you doing? Yep, how are you feeling?
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Like I could feel my dad's physical symptoms in my
own body, and I, as a psychic little kid, had
also seen ten years earlier that he was going to
be diagnosed with cancer, but I never had because we
didn't have these conversations. No one could sit down with
me and talk to me about it, and so I
starved out of myself and I repressed it by hyper
(18:02):
controlling my body. And that's still like you know, you know,
it's a hard habit to shake. It's really hard. And
how many of us are walking around feeling unsafe in
our bodies because we're unsafe in our intuition because we've
been learned to not trust our sensitivities and our empathy.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
We've been learned to shut it down.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
And that's actually that's actually disarming a kid's boundaries young, yes, right,
while they're still forming. You may not know why your
kid is afraid of getting in the water, but forcing
that kid in, like we know now, that's just going
to cause trauma. But it's so ingrained in our culture
(18:46):
that we choose to be normal instead of present.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
Right and shielding our kids by not you know when
they they know when we're stressed. Like my little boy,
he knows when I'm stressed. He knows when me and
my trying to hide an argument we're having, his little
radar is going off.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Something's wrong, something's wrong. So if I turn around to
him and go no, no, mummy's great, no, no, no, everything.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
He knows.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
But also even worse, he starts to doubt. He's inner compass.
So then in the future, when he's somewhere he feels unsafe,
he thinks, oh, no, but I've been wrong before, whereas
actually he was right every time before. So it's about
having that, you know, within boundaries and age appropriate limits,
saying you know what, mummy's having a really tough day today,
(19:32):
don't worry, it's not your fault, and I'm going to
be fine. Like I know, I get to go swim
in the ocean, like one of the things that mummy
does when I feel stressed to make myself feel better.
Why don't we put music on rather than going like
shut it down, or when someone dies in the family,
rather mean like we can't talk about it. We can't
talk about sickness and illness and death because we're as adults,
are terrified of it. It's about having the open conversations.
(19:55):
And in the book there's incredible conversations with kids about
death in permanent and loss, but we shut it down
for fearing like that's so scary to hold that in
the space of our family. But in doing so, what
we're telling them is that they instinctively know something's wrong,
and we're telling them everything's fine, and we've all felt that.
(20:18):
And again like there was you know when your kid
walks into a space, walks into the school hall, their playground,
and they're saying, Mommy, I don't feel good here, or Mummy,
I've got a tummy ache, which how it normally shows
up in our young kids, got a chummy ache, Mammy,
I've got a headache. Instead of again shutting it down
getting to school, you've got to go.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Mommy's got to get to.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
Class, which is basically what I was doing half an
hour ago. It's like, look at the big picture, what
are you tapping into, what are you seeing? And how
can I have a conversation around it rather than the
more convenient way, which is to shut it down.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
And those are lifelong things, right. We see so many
people walking around six ignoring well in women, things like
ovari insists and men a lot of other things that
it immune.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
Is the ultimate one for women right now from oppression
of trauma.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Yeah, yeah, there's a there's a and I have an
autoimmune disease and I have a PTSD diagnosis. So your speech,
you're speaking to the choir on this one. And it's tough,
right because there's a there's a guilt in all of
this that ends up in the New age space. And
I want to go to a break and come back
and talk to you about that because I think that's
(21:33):
a big reason that people reject books like Wise Child,
and your book doesn't have the guilt that other methodologies
of this kind had, and that's what I really liked
about it. So okay to hang on, We'll come back
after the break.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Yep, right.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Amy molloy, journalist and author of Wise Child. The practically
had to raising kids with sensitive heart and smart souls
in a world they were reborn to say, we'll be
back after the on It's not Therapy. Questions, comments, concerns
about this show or any other show. Leanna at Nottherapyshow
dot com, not Therapy show dot com as a website
at not Therapy Show. On social media back after this
(22:11):
talking about raising or being sensitive kids.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Stream us live at SAGA nine sixty am dot C.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. We're back in.
It's not therapy. I'm Stillleanna Kurzner. I'm still not a therapist.
We're still talking raising and being sensitive kids. I am
(22:48):
here with author Amy molloy. She's a journalist and author
of Wise Child and it is a book about past
life parenting. And before the Break, I talked about the
fact that there tends.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
To be this guilt.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
There is a lot of abuse in the New age
space when it comes to this stuff. I work with
people personally who have a lot of trauma from being
dragged into something that was not safe. And these kids
felt unsafe, but because it was a spiritual guru, oh no, no,
you were supposed to listen to them and just don't
(23:22):
trust your instincts. And if you listen to the past
segment with Amy, you know this is the exact opposite
of what she's saying. And I want to talk to you, Amy,
with your own kids and delving into this and taking
such a risk and a lot of this stuff. There's
a whole part of the book on belief on what
belief can do, and how did you balance the You
(23:46):
give a lot of yourself over to bigger stuff in
this process. And in the traditional mental health it's accepting
the process or submitting to the process. Right in the
more spiritual side, it's different terminology, but it's all essentially
the same thing. How did you balance that with protecting
(24:09):
and advocating for your kid? Well, realized you were kind
of I hope this isn't too hard to work, kind
of smothering your kid. Yes, right, Like that had to
be really, that had to be a gut punch, right Like,
that's a big thing to accept as a mom, since
there's a lot of guilt in motherhood too.
Speaker 4 (24:28):
So, I mean, most of motherhood is really about trying
to navigate guilt and shame and you know, taking responsibility
for the parts you're playing and the stuff we will
all hand down. I mean, you know, none of our
kids are coming out unscathed in terms of what they
inherit from us.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
I always try to take a lot.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
Of responsibility, but I don't want to walk around feeling
like I should be guilty and shameful and you know,
constantly repenting for something that I have done as a
parent or previously to them. So it's really about finding
that balance. And that's what I loved about Why Child.
It's about saying it's not all down to parents. Our
(25:09):
kids are being born with innate wisdom and knowing. So
this belief we have that I have to show up
with all the answers with how to parent these kids,
especially in twenty twenty five, which is a terrifying time
to be a parent.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Instantly for me alleviated.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
That pressure and was such a relief to go, my
kids are their own person.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
They already coming into this world.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
They're not a black piece of playdo for me to
mold into this perfect human.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
They already have their own stuff.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
They're bringing in their own karmic destiny of whatever word
you want to put on it, and.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
They are built for it.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
Like my little girl who's fall now or she was
born into lockdown, and I felt so much guilt for.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Like what am my? What kind of world am I
bringing her into?
Speaker 4 (25:58):
There was race riots, lockdown, and it was complete carnage
and has been ever since let's face it.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yea.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
And she turned around to me when she was three
and she said, Mummy, do you know I chose to
be born during lockdown?
Speaker 3 (26:14):
And we hadn't talked about it.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
We had a really like we really tried to shelter
our kids during COVID. They were really young, they didn't
really need to know the full extent of what was
going on. We don't listen to news in the house.
We try and limit their exposure. She hears about it,
but she said, you know, I chose to be born
during lockdown and said, so you don't need to feel
bad about it.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
She was three.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (26:36):
And later on she said to me, and during a
different conversation she brings it up quite frequently, which is
kind of strange but amazing, she said, you know, I've
been thinking about COVID and I know it was really hard,
but I think it was meant to happen. I think
it was what the world needed. And those are the
moments where you have to sit back and go.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
She's three, yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
And I'm walking around being like, can she cope? Does
she have a future? What's she going to do? Is
climate change? How is she going to be?
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Like?
Speaker 4 (27:09):
She was built for this, and those are the moments
where you can exhale as a parent, this breath that
you don't even know you're holding, and go, it's not
all down to me.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
I don't have to.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
Figure out how to fit them into this system and
schooling and everything else and make it work for them.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
They are going to be okay.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
And I think I was really lucky, you know, speaking
of the downsides of spirituality and New Ageism, religion, all
of the things. I was raised in a really multi
faith household, which I only appreciate now as I get older.
I wasn't told what to believe. I wasn't told what
was right to Catholic school. But then when my dad
began to explore spirituality, he just took a little bit
(27:50):
of everything. Was very he is very open minded. He
doesn't press his views onto everyone. So I was giving
a real taste of every spiritual spirituality and it's smallgas
board of them. And I was never told you have
to believe that, and then that means that you can't
do that, and you're going to be judged for that.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
And people would disagree with me.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
But there's so much overlap and so much goodness in
so many belief systems, and I really feel out what
makes me able to be a better human in this world,
a better mother, a better person. I choose to have
trust and my own version of faith because it allows
me to be a better mother, to be a better writer,
(28:31):
to write this book with courage kind of don't care
so much what's right or wrong. I care what enables
me to show up in the morning with hope and
faith and optimism and then pour that into my family.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
That's more important to me than.
Speaker 4 (28:46):
Being like, this is what we should believe, this is
it right, and to put aside anything that brings with
it judgment or fear. And that's how I navigate New ageism,
especially because yeah, there's a load bullet out there and
as people being her and we have to guard ourselves
from that. So I really feel into it rather than
(29:07):
The book has a lot of research and analysis too,
but I.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Really was fascinating everything.
Speaker 4 (29:12):
Yeah, I mean, I'm very that's a journalist in me, right.
It's very, very research heavy. I didn't want to just
write a book that was like I woke up and
channeled this book, and I think all our kids have
been born before, Like I really needed.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
To put the legwork into it, and it took.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
A lot of time, but I think that is going
to be what surprises people about the book the most.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
And Where the Book lands spoilers, but I do think
it's important because I think a lot of people are
going to go they have this identity. I know I
had this being science minded, right, because science, being scientific,
being able to find the right answer was the one
thing I was rewarded for as a child. Making trees
out of clay that look like brains was not I
(29:57):
literally made this thing that was a story of multiple
when I was in the seventh grade, and my art
teacher thought it was amazing and my mother was terrified.
And that was a weird mixed message, right. And so
the where the Book lands is listen to your children,
believe your children, but you still have to set boundaries
with your children. And that's just good parenting advice in general.
(30:24):
But if you're a parent that doesn't understand boundaries because
of your own unresolved stuff, that's hard to do. And
a big part of the book was your journey, not
just what you did for the kid, what you have
to accept with yourself simultaneous with being a parent. In
very very challenging circumstances to kids who are extremely different
(30:46):
from each other.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
Yes, the most important part of the book is section three,
which is reparenting yourself Like that is the gold.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
That is the part that changed my life.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
My everything was when I got to that path and
I went there are kids. But actually, what's going on
in me? There's having ripple effect on everyone. My fears,
my ego, my shame, my guilt. How is that all
overshadowing everything my kids are trying to show me that
they are when my especially around those hot button topics,
(31:16):
when my kids talk to me about money, gender, sexuality,
seth how is my own stuff silencing them and my
own fears of them fitting in and conforming? You know,
when my little boy is struggling at school? How am
I reacting most of the time is from my own
fears for my little my own and me thinking, oh
(31:37):
my god, what's my own mum going to think when
I have to tell her that her grandson.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Isn't fitting in?
Speaker 4 (31:43):
Because there's so much shame that we're carrying forward from
our ancestors, and especially as women, running that shame thread
through all of the females in your family.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
So clearing your own baggage.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
It's so important to turn up as the parents that
are kids need us to be, because.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Otherwise we can't.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
When we're sitting in a parent teacher interview and the
teacher saying, oh, you know, he's difficult or he's disruptive
or he can't stop moving, We're instantly going what does
that mean for me?
Speaker 3 (32:14):
And what is it saying about me?
Speaker 4 (32:16):
And now I'm going to have to go into the
world and tell them that this is my child. So
it's so much about clearing, and like, there's some really
interesting experiences I had in the book around clearing, not
only in my past lives, but like my ancestral clearings
with my grandmother and my great grandmother mother who had
(32:36):
like a war child and was sent away to give birth,
and the shame and guilt that she carried forward and
then it was really interesting. So much in my work
as a writer has been about talking about sexuality, and
I wrote when I was twenty three, my first husband
died of cancer and I wrote a book about how
I use sex to deal with his death, and it
(32:56):
caused a huge It was such an amazing power book.
It came out fifteen years ago, but it caused a
huge backlash, and then it caused a real rift with
me and my own mother because she had her own
shame around sexuality raised in the Catholic upbringing Irish Catholic.
And then when I went into this ancestral clearing, I
realized it went deeper and her mother and her mother
(33:19):
before that. And part of my role in this life
is cutting through that sexual shame. And that's why I
keep coming back to writing about sex again and again
and again, even when I don't plan to, because I'm
showing up not only for me but for them, because
I don't want my daughters in particular to have to
(33:40):
carry this forward with them. So, yeah, the reparenting yourself
part is so important for us to be able to
even meet our kids as they are, to meet our
kids' souls, or just to meet them as they are,
we need to be able to put our own stuff
aside or it's just not possible.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
And we do get into all these arguments of definition
and like you said, right and wrong as opposed to
what's gonna allow me to show up here with an
open mind? Yes, And it's you know, the vulnerability you
show in the book just This is tied to the
women in sex thing. Right, I'm a mom and I
(34:21):
didn't know what I was doing, and I made mistakes
and I wasn't there for my kid. Like those are
shame filled statements, but I think that everybody sort of
has to hit. The best thing you can do for
your kids is model how to make mistakes.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
Absolutely, I'm a pair.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah. There's a whole thing about repairing
relationships in the book that's also great. There's really great
stuff in the book. One thing I want to touch
on before we go, and we've already run long, but
I think this is important for people to hear is
the concept of sending back energy that doesn't belong to you.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Yes, I love this.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
To do this all the time with my kids. I
do it with myself.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
And it's such a practical thing to teach our kids
that they can understand. Like I said, my youngest is four.
She gets it. So it's particularly good when they come
home from school because as empaths, we've felt it. Like
we've all had a conversation with a friend who's going
through a breakup or something and we walk away and
we feel heavy, we feel anxious, our mood is completely switched.
(35:30):
And we do it physically too, like I know, like
especially with people that we're really energetically tied to, which
is often like our own parents, or our partner.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
Or our kids.
Speaker 4 (35:41):
Like I had a conversation with my mum only a
few weeks ago, and she was saying about how she
was really worried and anxious about the stomach issues she had.
The next day, I woke up with exactly the same
stomach issues. It took me two weeks of clearing it,
and it was only when I really understood I took
that on from her that I could finally clear it.
(36:02):
I've done it with my dad in the past. I
had a period where I had really bad hip issues
and exactly where his tumor grew around his spine. And
it's really like we are entangled with each other, which
is beautiful and really difficult at times. And our kids,
because they're so open, they really feel it. So if
they're in the playground and another kid's got a belly
(36:24):
ache or another kid's anxious, they will bring it home
with them and they will adopt it as their own
and continue to carry it until we number one give
them the awareness and then permission to release it. So
it's literally saying to your kid when they say, oh,
I've got a belly ache or and feel sare sad
or scared, like, do you think this is your belly ache?
(36:45):
Did anyone else in your class have a belly ache today?
Do you think was anyone else around you feeling a
bit sad today in the playground? And then you know,
chatting to them about it, and then saying, if you
think this might not be yours, you.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
Know it's okay to let it go.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
You can imagine like letting it go into the air
and watching it drift off into the sky and watch
it go away with the clouds, because it's okay to
not carry it forward. And God, we need that as adults.
We need that because we were never taught it. And
so like when your husband's having a tough time at work,
we carry it as our own. When our kids are
struggling at school, we carry it as our own. And
(37:21):
again it blocks up from showing up with what they
really need.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
It's so easy, driven too right, because it's not ours
and if we take it on ours, then we're not
letting them do it.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
Yes, I actually.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Learned this I used to be a music journalist and
dealing with musicians who were on drugs. Really, I was like,
oh God, like I thought, I was just focused and
they're getting all glassy eyed and it's gonna be a
garbage interview. But I fell off after those and it
took a long time to be able to realize what
(37:58):
that was. It's what makes you a good journalist when
you're so tied in to where other people are at
that you're mirroring it and you can make the interview flow.
But at the same time, you can really do damage
to yourself if you don't go that that's not mine.
I don't also lose and I need to give it back, right.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
And I work as a ghost writer too.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
A lot of my work is ghostwriting and quite traumatic stories, jeez.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
And so the.
Speaker 4 (38:28):
Whole point, as you know, you have to get into
their heads, into their hearts. You are writing as them,
You are them, You are the channel to get their
story onto this document, right, and I will find myself
then having their physical sensations, then.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
Having carrying it with me.
Speaker 4 (38:44):
So I've had to get really good at the end
of the day, like cutting cords literally, imagining cutting the webs,
that are pulling me to that person because it makes
me a great writer, a great journalist, a great ghost writer.
But I can't then navigate turning up again to be
a mum to my kids if I'm carrying the trauma
of whoever I'm writing for. And sometimes it takes me
(39:04):
a few weeks even to realize it, Like I'll be
saying to my house and what is wrong with me?
Why am I so anxious or angry?
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (39:14):
And then I'm like he often points it out to
me now, and he's a scientist, so it's hilarious because
this is not his world at all. Peo will say, well,
what are you writing about? What have they been telling you?
What have they been feeling?
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Like?
Speaker 4 (39:26):
Have they been having a panic attack in your phone
calls with them?
Speaker 3 (39:29):
And you're wondering why?
Speaker 4 (39:30):
Then you're carrying that forward once you press you know,
in the call with them, and our kids feel that
because they're so open and we feel that. So even
if that's all you take from the book, that is
such a wonderfully practical thing you can do to be
like one am I entangled in?
Speaker 3 (39:47):
Whose mind? Whose physical symptoms?
Speaker 4 (39:49):
Whose journey am I entangled in? And how can I
give myself permission to go No?
Speaker 3 (39:54):
No, no.
Speaker 4 (39:55):
I can love you, I can be professionally powerful with you.
But at the end of the day, when I get
in bed, I'm cutting ties.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
With you and my mum.
Speaker 4 (40:06):
Yeah, totally, and without people we care about. That feels
really tough. I frequently do it with my mum, I
do it my kids, I do it my partner, and
that guilt comes up, like but no, no, no, you
meant you should be entangled with them, Like no, If
I'm going to show up as me in the world
and be the best version of me, I have to
cut the ties so I can then show up without
(40:28):
all that stuff weighing me down.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
And you have to trust the wisdom of the other
person that it's theirs right, and it's it's true. One
thing I find is cooking dinner at the end of
the day, chopping vegetables or peeling and being able to
throw away the peelings. It's like, okay, goodbye day, Like
it's just it's right there. And whatever people believe about
(40:52):
the literalness of the ritual is not the point. It's
what it's doing for you inside.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
Right exactly.
Speaker 4 (41:02):
So, Like there's so many things I do on a
daily basis, Like if I'm feeling angry, I will take
the fire I imagine in my chest and I will
walk on the grass and plant it into the grass.
Oh that's great, and it I feel the difference. I
don't care what it is, what's happening, placebo effect, you
know whatever, I feel the heat leave my chest and
(41:23):
plant into the soil.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
And I am teaching my kids that too, because.
Speaker 4 (41:28):
It's not enough to just go I'll just let it go,
just unentangled, Like we need to teach our kids tangible,
physical things that they can say. Actually, when I said,
that's not my belly ache, my belly ache went yeah.
And build up this evidence that they have because then
they feel less out of control. They're not just walking
around the world taking on energy, just feeling like they
(41:49):
have no autonomy over themselves. They can go no, there's
things I can do, and I don't have to run
away and live in a hut in the middle of nowhere.
I can go to the busiest place is and I
can be an activist or whatever I want to do.
But I've got these tools in place that when I
go home at the end of the day, I come
back to me, and that's the most important thing.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
I'm so struck by. I had a guest on another
Australian lady who has a son with pathological demand avoidance,
and one of the things they found was that, you know,
role playing in games and making it kind of more
magical and less real really helped with this child who
was really struggling with control. And I think a lot
of this language of fire and wind and they're tangibles, right,
(42:37):
They're taking abstracts and they're making them tangible, and people
don't have to use your language, they don't have to
use mine if they find their own. I think that
that really is the definition of wisdom, is taking these abstractions,
making them real so you can turn them around, look
at them, study them and use them exactly.
Speaker 4 (42:57):
And nature spending time in nature like my husbands and
name vironmntal scientist, So he's very much in your camp
of like, I will not believe it unless I see
the evidence, like show me a peer reviewed paper and
then we can have a conversation and.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Then show me another.
Speaker 4 (43:13):
But he knows the like he spent his whole time
in national parks. He knows the healing power of nature,
and so it kind of doesn't matter the language what
you're saying. It's like, what is helping you? What is
helping your kids? My kids are different creatures when they're
outside on the beach, in the ocean, in a forest,
they are completely different than when I stick them in
a shopping mall or in a movie theater. You know,
(43:35):
your kids aren't broken, there's nothing wrong with them. It's
just we haven't figured out the systems and the processes
and the places and the spaces that suit their specific.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
Soul for want of a better word.
Speaker 4 (43:49):
So rather than being like, I'm going to force you
to fit in that, how can we For the most part,
we all have to be in places that don't suit
us sometimes, But how can we make sure the majority
of their time or the end of their day, in
the beginning of their day is custom made to bring
them peace and trust and groundedness, and then they can
(44:10):
navigate all the chaos in between, because again they will
come home to themselves around it, which is really, again,
as adults, what we need to great.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Place to stop. Amy Molloy, journalist, author of Wise Child,
The Practical Guide to Raising Kids with Sensitive Hearts and
Smart Souls, in a world they were reborn to save Amy?
How can people find out more about you? Do you
have a website or something like that?
Speaker 4 (44:33):
I do, amymloy dot com dot AU, Instagram at Amy
underscore malloy or the book is now available globally, so
search Amazon Wise, Child, Amy molloy.
Speaker 3 (44:44):
It's pretty much everywhere now.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
And that's Amy molloy, Amy m O l l O
Y molloy. All right, Thanks Amy so much for coming on.
It's not therapy, all right when we come back. Final
thoughts on what to look for in exploring newage content
you think be helpful, Questions, comments, concerns. Leanna at not
therapyshow dot com. Not therapyshow dot com. As the website,
there's a contact form if you want to reach out
(45:07):
that way at not Therapy on Socials Back in a
bit on is not therapy.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
No Radio, no Problem. Stream is live on SAGA ninety
six am dot C.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. We're back
in this therapy. I'm still Leana Kurzner, I'm still not
a therapist. We're still talking about raising sensitive kids using
(45:44):
a new age approach. This episode, you may have noticed
in the interview with the Amy that a lot of
her concepts, even though it was from like a past
life parenting from line up with modern child psychology. And
that's because human understanding didn't start with modern psychothera ancient
cultures were aware of trauma and the importance of nurturing children.
(46:05):
But that doesn't mean every traditional approach is great. So
what to look for in these things? If you're like, hey,
this sounds interesting, but when you're approaching anything new age
or anything frankly involving psychology and your kids, beware of
anything that promises to fix your kids, fix your marriage,
(46:28):
fix you. Instead of encouraging you to understand yourself and
trust yourself and your kids to create an environment where
everyone counts. Never do anything that encourages you to unthinkingly
force yourself or your kids into situations where they're profoundly uncomfortable.
You want to build boundaries instead of tearing them down.
(46:52):
And finally, any group or method that encourages you from
seeking out conventional therapy may not have your best interests
at heart. Same goes for properly to prescribed prescription medications,
psychiatric medications. And if you're suggesting that you take drugs
as part of some spiritual journey, if you wouldn't do
(47:15):
that on your own, this is something else to treat
with extreme suspicion. But if New Age rituals help you
create a language for your inner world and give you,
as you know, a series of rituals that help calm
and center you, that's great. That's why we talk on
this show about going good crazy. But please trust your
gut on this. If something seems too good to be true,
(47:38):
it probably is. No mental health model is perfect, not
cognitive behavioral therapy, not dialectical behavior therapy. And I'm somebody
who benefited greatly from both. But I also borrow from myth,
from comic books, from sci fi movies. Right. Whatever vocabulary,
including a New Age vocabulary, works for you, go for it.
(48:02):
Just don't give yourself up or your kids in the process.
There's a reason I say listen twice before you talk
once and perfect is a live stop. Try to be perfect.
As top ten phrases, the answers are there within your family.
Just create enough space to hear them. Not therapyshow dot
com is my website. Leanna at nottherapyshow dot com is
(48:25):
my email. Not therapy Showed is social media. You're crazy.
Is only a problem if it's hurting you. Talk soon.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
Stream us live at SAGA nine sixty am dot CA.
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