Becoming a good mother starts with healing yourself and becoming the type of person you needed when you were a child. My guest, Heather Chauvin, joins me to discuss the reality of emotionally vulnerable parenting. From the understanding that you are your child’s guide through life to creating your emotional state, being a good mother is a conscious choice we all make daily.

 

How to Become the Creator of Your Emotional State

1. Write your ‘Wouldn’t it be nice?’ list and keep adding to it.
2. What’s the feeling you’re after?
3. What will allow you to feel what you want to feel?

 

About Heather Chauvin

Heather Chauvin is a leadership coach who helps ‘successful’ women courageously and authentically live, work, and parent on their own terms.

Heather started her career as a social worker helping adults understand children’s behavior. But it wasn’t until 2013 when a stage 4 cancer diagnosis pushed her to take a deeper stand for change, uncovering how cultural expectations sabotage our dreams. She has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, Real Simple Magazine, Mind Body Green, Google, and more.

When Heather isn’t working, you will find her living out what she teaches, which may include kayaking Alaska, snowboarding, hiking, or anything else that challenges what she believes is possible for herself (and inviting her children along the journey). Life is full of opportunities. It’s time to feel alive.

 

Reparenting Yourself

Our children are incredible beings. They change who we are, and they show us who we need to be. We can learn so much from our children, and they learn from us – the strategies and tools to grow into healthy, functional adults. 

But what happens when mothers don’t have the role models they need as children? Heather says that this is where healing comes in. It’s important for mothers to heal themselves and, even more than that, to become the type of person they needed when they were younger.

 

Emotionally Vulnerable Parenting

You are the creator of your own emotional state. Heather recommends a journal prompt that starts with, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if…’ to help you understand how to create your own emotional state. Heather says that if you reverse engineer how you want to feel, you get back into alignment with yourself – and then everything starts falling back into place.

When we can be more emotionally vulnerable with ourselves, we can show up better for our children. Emotional vulnerability is not just sharing your worries and feeling uneasy. Emotional vulnerability is having the courage to feel good.

Take some time to work on the journal prompt, “Wouldn’t it be nice if…” Put a timer on this and just write from your heart. Get into your life. How do you want to feel? What steps do you need to take to get there? Let me know in the comments on the episode page how this exercise went for you.

 

In This Episode 

• How children show us what we need to work on [7:30]
• How children learn tools and strategies to grow [8:00]
• Why it’s important for mothers to heal themselves [12:00]
• Why we need to become the adults we needed as a child [16:30]
• How to become the creator of your emotional state [21:45]
• What feeling emotionally uncomfortable leads to [31:00]

 

Quotes

“When I became a mother, I remember looking at my son for the first time and thinking, ‘I do not want to become a statistic, and I do not want my child to feel the way that I felt as a child. It really sparked something inside of me, and I started to become the overachiever.” [2:55]

“You are your child’s literal guide throughout this life. Their spiritual guide, whatever it is. It’s about becoming the adult that you needed as a child.” [8:19]

“In order to help him, I have to go back to that version of me and say, ‘Who was the adult that you needed?’” [16:10]

“Cancer was not the thing that cracked me open, and the clouds parted. Cancer just gave me permission to live. That’s it.” [28.52]

“It doesn’t matter what you’re experiencing in your parenting, what you’re experiencing at work, what you’re experiencing in any relationship in your life, I truly believe if you reverse engineer how you want to feel, you get back in alignment, and these things start to make sense.” [30:39]

 

Resources Mentioned

Listen to Emotionally Vulnerable

Take the Energetic Time Management Habit Challenge

Read Dying to be a Good Mother

Find Heather Chauvin Online

Follow Heather Chauvin on Facebook | Instagram | YouTube

 

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Related Episodes 

Episode 185: Emotionally Regulated Parenting

Episode 170: This One's for My Girls

Episode 183: Gratitude to My Younger Self