Optimal Parenting Daily

What’s the first thought you have when you look in the mirror?

I’m not going to tell you what it should be, but I can share the intention I hold for you and myself and every other woman - that it is some form of expression of “I AM BEAUTIFUL.”

Because you are. Your physical body is an amazing machine that works so hard for you day in and day out. And it’s always working towards getting back to a state of healing. It’s truly remarkable and nothing short of a miracle.

And we wanna get bent out of shape when there’s something “off” with it - something is out of place or too big or too small.

Today’s Monday Momtra is a short and sweet reminder to love on your body and all its splendor.

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Could you picture your life with an orgasm every day?

There was a time when I would’ve answered “no” to that question. And even if it were possible, and was essentially presented to me on a silver platter, I would’ve turned it down.

But not anymore! Nope - now I’m clear - that an orgasmic state of being is the key to greater health, wealth and joy. And this is my wish for every mama out there - to walk in and basque in the glow of abundant and orgasmic bliss.

Does this mean sexual intercourse every single day? Maybe, if that’s what you want. But it certainly doesn’t have to look like that. There are ways to tune in and turn on that have nothing to do with penetration.

So in this episode, we go on an epic journey. We cover a lot of bases here, so buckle up! From the inspiration to this episode and how a sexually satisfied woman is more likely to access her greatest dreams and desires, to Fifty Shades of Grey and the culture around pornography, some of my own experience with porn, sex toys, oral pleasure, the back door, boobs and sharing your sexual history with your partner.

There’s no one way to mother, to create balance in your life OR to tap into your sexuality. Make it your own and feel empowered while “doing it” (ayooo!)! Hope this helps spark some ideas for ya. Enjoy!

Links from the episode for you:

Nicole Daedone Tedx Talk - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9QVq0EM6g4

One Taste - https://onetaste.us/

School of Greatness Podcast with Tererai Trent - https://lewishowes.com/podcast/i-tererai-trent-awaken-full-potential-achieve-impossible/

Erika Lust Tedx Talk - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9LaQtfpP_8&t=7s&index=21&list=PLKIfDodTws9VhQzmq6TQbGjzul6cKQKSA†

Erika Lust website - https://erikalust.com/

Kim Anami - http://kimanami.com/

 

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Ever take the time to look back on previous versions of yourself in different situations?

When you might have been going through a stressful circumstance like a breakup, family conflict or health issue. And then have you been able to look at the situation, remember it and all the emotions and everything that came up, but not necessarily feel them anymore? Like you’re able to objectively view the event as a third party. It was once a part of you, but you no longer identify with it, or have to be emotionally attached to it.

I had this experience recently when I listened to a song that once carried me through the hard times of a breakup. It was as if the spirits from Christmas Carol took me to visit my past, or I looked into the pensieve of Harry Potter world. I saw me...but it wasn’t me anymore. I didn’t wear the experience on as my own anymore. I could look at “old me” and have understanding and compassion for her, be grateful for her even, but not have to feel her disempowering thoughts and emotions.

Recognizing this kind of shift, progress, growth, healing...is extremely powerful and necessary in the journey of discovering, defining and loving yourself.

So this week I challenge you to take a look at some past situations and see what comes up and where we send continued healing and honor ourselves in our process.

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Are your relationships honest and authentic?

This is a great question to chew on, and explore how you can become more effective in relationship building - starting first and foremost with yourself, and then extending that into how and with whom you connect.

This episode is an “intermission” if you will in the midst of our sex series on the podcast. I share some of my truth in the intro on how I determined that recording the episode for this week wasn’t the best move for me. So instead I decided to take the opportunity to learn some things about myself, be honest and keep moving forward. That sometimes self-love and self-care means saying “when.”

So I’m sharing an episode from my amazing husband’s podcast that I know will resonate given the topic of conversation lately. Matthew hosts his own show called Having It ALL - it’s been featured in iTunes new and noteworthy podcasts and has been hanging out amongst some of the highest ranked health and wellness/self-help ever since he started it. This man is a beast (in an awesome way). He’s real with it. Gets right to the core. Powerful, inspiring, and sexy as hell (I’m not biased!).

This episode is about trust, honesty and authenticity in relationships. He addresses a listener email and gets into the nitty gritty of what happens when you close yourself off from letting people in, and then how you can hold space for others to grow trust.

I love the topic because it feeds the sex conversation in an indirect way. Building trust is HUGE in the bedroom. So snack on this delicious morsel while I cook up next week’s part 3 of our sex series and enjoy listening to the guy that I get to work with, sleep with and raise babies with!

https://www.havingitallpodcast.com/

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Ever have feelings that come up, but they don’t entirely feel like yours?

As perceptive, sensitive, powerful and intuitive creatures (go us!) we can have a tendency to carry on other people’s stuff. Their bull**** to be frank.

I recently have an emotional release around disempowering thoughts and emotions that felt very strange to me. Foreign and yet familiar. Like a temporary possession. I felt like I didn’t have control over it.

It got me thinking about how and why we’re able to pick up on things around us. Essentially, they are mental and emotional viruses - looking for hosts to inhabit and grow within. In order for a virus to thrive and multiply, the space its targeted has to have all the components to support it. And then something within that space activates the virus. I think our energetic garbage is the same way. Those things that we take on from other people connect with a space within us that match up with the root of the thought or feeling.

So what do we do about it? Well first, it’s helpful to acknowledge that this happens, and while we may not be able to avoid this from happening completely, there are things we can do to boost our emotional and mental immune systems and protect ourselves. It’s about healthy doses of vitamin C - consistency in our self-love and self-care habits to bolster our emotional well-being, and periodic purging - releasing people, places and things that are agents for these viruses.

This is especially helpful for any of you empaths out there. Allow our gifts of intuition and compassion to create opportunities for connection with ourselves and others rather than unhealthy emotional attachment.

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Would you say you love your vagina? Why or why not?

I think it’s so important for women to have a healthy relationship to their vagina, and for us to teach our young daughters, nieces, cousins, etc. to love it too.

When I googled “self care for your vagina” - all that comes up is the sterile, medical-type information and conversation. “Keep it clean...keep it dry...don’t douche...use lube!” Kthankscoolbyeeee. Where’s the conversation about how friken awesome vaginas are...how resilient, powerful and magnificent??

So in this episode and in part 2 of the sex series on the show, it’s all about the yoni. I share an intimate letter I wrote to mine (actually inspired by a man writing a letter to his penis - so yay for sex positive conversations with our genitalia!). I go through years of how I related to it, and how I was preparing myself for birth 2 years ago - I knew I needed to do some emotional healing around my lady parts before they brought a baby into the world.

And then I get realllllyyyy intimate and share a recent experience I had with my husband Matthew in the bedroom and how it was a speechless moment of rescripting unhealthy and shameful conversations around my vagina.

Plus some tips on how to show your yoni some love!Resources:

https://www.jaysongaddis.com/a-letter-to-my-cck/

https://www.diahpodcast.com/single-post/Sex-While-Pregnant-The-Ins-The-Outs-The-Reach-Arounds-Rebroadcast

https://www.diahpodcast.com/single-post/The-Postpartum-Sex-Episode-Having-Our-Best-Sex-After-Baby

https://www.diahpodcast.com/single-post/Sex-After-Having-Kids---How-We-Keep-Our-Sex-Life-Burning-As-New-Parents

 

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Why is it important to take care of yourself so that you can take care of others?

We hear this a lot -- how can you love someone if you don’t love yourself. You need to make sure you’re filled up before tending to others….but WHY??

I was chatting about this point with my beloved husband Matthew, who brought up the solid point that we often hear this phrase, repeat it to others but don’t fully get it or buy into it. Or sometimes view it in a limited context and don’t really connect with it. It’s just something nice to say.

SO AGAIN - WHY?

I have some thoughts, and I’m gonna share them (obviously!) haha

First off, you can’t teach and demonstrate what you don’t know and don’t actively practice yourself.

It’s about capacity. It’s a simple logic and equation of input and output. And you can’t keep giving out without refueling. The most efficient way would be to recharge at a faster rate than you expel that energy. But that takes time and practice. And we’re all learning and growing here.

It’s like a battery. You can’t power something that requires a D battery with a AAA.

So not taking care of yourself is trying to power something that requires more energy than you can supply.

It’s a matter of capacity. Increase your capacity -- increase your output.

So how do you increase your capacity? I give some examples for ya to chew on!

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Can you remember some of the first thoughts and beliefs you had around sex? What created and influenced them? What helped feed them or eventually release them? And how are they impacting you now as a sexual being and sensual goddess? (Oh, because you are those things in case you didn’t realize - I hold that space for myself and every woman - to express that divine feminine within us all!)

So here we go - the sex series. I’m sure it won’t be the only one as they’re SO MUCH to cover. But we’ll start here. And in this first part I share a lot of my old beliefs around sex that hover around the status of virginity (and a girl’s need to keep that status), Disney princess fantasies, where I received most of sexual education, penis phobias and how I feel about the emergence of sexuality in young women. We as a society have no idea what to do when a young woman comes into her sexuality and seeks to express it. So we do our best to stifle it and stamp it (them) out.

I also share my feelings on monogamy. I’ll just leave it at that and you can listen in to see what I’m talking about.

And finally, the examples I want to show for my daughter Maya - and the space I want to create for her to love her body, express herself, talk to me and ask me questions and have a healthier relationship to sex than I did while growing up.

Oh and get excited for part 2 in the series where I’m gonna be talking about the importance of loving your yoni and honoring her in all her glory!

Have questions or comments you want me to include at the end of the series? Email me at balanceandmotherhoodpodcast[at]gmail.com.

And here are the awesome women-owned small businesses I mentioned at the top of the episode:

https://www.instagram.com/bee_and_mae/

https://www.instagram.com/taurusandtwine/

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How do we deal with our emotions? First - we allow ourselves to feel them. Let them come up, no matter how ugly, and let them out. Do not stifle them. They are there to teach us something.

In this week’s Momtra - I let some of my emotions out and how I’ve been processing the recent events of the shooting in Parkland, Florida. Understanding all of that, I’m affirmed in the need to choose love and heal ourselves to heal our world.

Be the love. Feel what you’re feeling. Be unapologetic in both of those pursuits.

I also share a story of a random act of kindness that had a profound impact on me and brought me to tears. Also, the best jar of spaghetti sauce I’ve ever purchased (huh? Yes, you read that right - I promise, they’re related).

Reminder: you are a precious gift. You are worthy of love and joy. Your feelings are valid. You are not alone.

Show Notes:

https://www.gofundme.com/stonemandouglasvictimsfund

https://www.facebook.com/klgandhoda/videos/10156140937826350/

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Why do we let jealousy and guilt overtake us and jerk us around sometimes? They are such useless emotions, in my opinion, and yet the damage they can leave both internally and externally is quite astounding.

In this episode (which is not a great one to listen to with little ears around, FYI - salty language used here!), I invite you to join me in telling your jealousy and guilt to go f*** off. In the most polite and dignified way of course! But really though, that sh** has got to go.

In my experience, jealousy pops up when there is fear and/or lack around 2 things - resources and love. I go into some more specifics on what that looks like, and where I can experience jealousy.

And guilt - it’s an intense judgement on ourselves that we’ve done something wrong or that we should have done something differently. A big area of guilt for mamas - TIME. How it’s spent and if we ever take any of it for ourselves.

Once we’ve identified the tiny gremlins that are jealousy and guilt, how do we get rid of them? I give some tips on how we can address them and some new beliefs and thought patterns to practice, to flip the disempowering jealous emotions and do something with them that will add to our sense of wellbeing rather than eat away at it.

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