Plan Simple with Mia Moran

What if we met our children with this kind of wonder of who are you and how can I help you become that person? – Sil Reynolds

On this episode of the Plan Simple Podcast, I’m really excited to talk with mothering and mothering expert, Sil Reynolds. Sil is the co-author with her daughter, Eliza Reynolds, of Mothering and Daughtering: Keeping Your Bond Strong Through the Teen Years. 

The teen/tween years can be a confusing mothering time, especially because we get the message that this is a time of freedom for us as mothers. It’s way different than the early years, but many of us find it’s a time we really need, and want, to be there for our kids — yet society can make us feel like this is helicopter parenting. Sil is full of wisdom and experience about this time in our mothering experience, and I am so grateful to call her a mentor and teacher myself. 

Sil and her daughter created a way of mother-daughtering during adolescence that's invigorating instead of draining. Teen girls get such a bad rap, but Sil calls them oracles because they’re so in touch with another way of seeing.

Here’s some of what we talk about on this episode: 

• Helping our kids become the person they are, not the one we want them to be and how life-giving it is to meet your kid on the level of the soul
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• Understanding that you are an expert in mothering your child
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• Really being involved in your tween/teen’s life and letting them rely on you
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• Slowing down and practicing hearing and following your intuition
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• How there will be ruptures, misunderstandings, mistakes, arguments and the important thing is not to avoid them but to repair them
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• The difference between mothering and parenting
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• The importance of having a circle of other mothers supporting you
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BIO

Sil Reynolds is a mother and a mothering expert. She is the co-author, with her daughter Eliza, of Mothering and Daughtering: Keeping Your Bond Strong Through the Teen Years. For fifteen years, the mother-daughter duo taught workshops for thousands of mothers and their preteen and teen daughters.

Sil brings 40 years as a Family Nurse Practitioner and psychotherapist to her current work as a one-on-one mother-daughter coach. She was a senior student of the renowned Jungian author and analyst Marion Woodman. As a specialist in eating disorders and body image, she’s taught Geneen Roth’s Breaking Free from Emotional Eating workshops. She’s taught at Multiversity, and the Esalen, Omega, and Kripalu Institutes. But the crown jewel in her resume is, of course, her now 30 year-old daughter Eliza. Fun fact: Sil brought the first yoga class ever to Brown University as an undergrad, as Eliza calls it, this = awesome hippie lady status. Find out more and learn how to turn conflict into open-hearted connection at motheringanddaughtering.com.

LINKS

• Sil’s Site: Motheringanddaughtering.com
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• The Book 
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• Eliza’s Program for Teens: https://badassgirls.me/
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MENTIONED LINK

• Parenting Simplified with Kim John Payne
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• Gorden Neufeld books
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Doable Changes from this episode:

• REFRAME REJECTION. It is normal for adolescents to push back their parents, to test and try to figure out who they are. A lot of times parents take this as rejection. Over the next few days, notice when you feel like your tween/teen is rejecting you. What if you step back from that and reframe it as them pushing back, but not pushing you away or rejecting you. What if you challenge your assumption they won’t want to do something like family dinner, because you know they need connection?
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• CONNECT TO OTHER MOTHERS. We weren’t meant to do this alone. It takes a village to raise a child—and support a mother. What can you do to connect with other mothers? We usually start with mothers of kids the same as our kids, but actually women at different stages can support us. Make a list of people already in your life. Make a list of people you could connect with. Reach out to one.
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• REPAIR. It’s a relief to know that there will be ruptures, misunderstandings, mistakes, arguments, that the goal isn’t to avoid them. But it is important to repair them. Sometimes you need a little space before you repair, but give some cooling off time and then do it right away. This teaches your kids that it’s okay to make a mistake and how to handle them, and the act of repair can strengthen your relationship.
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On this episode of the Plan Simple Podcast, I’m really excited to talk with Kim John Payne about simple parenting. His work was some of the most important parenting work I did early on and I feel the benefits every day.

As parents, we want to provide for and protect our children, and yet we see them being subject to a pace of life and stresses that very few of us adults ever had to cope with. We want to change something, do something, but also keep our life on the rails. If you have kids and want to add more ease and rhythm to your day, this is a great place to start. 

Simplicity Parenting is not about adopting a specific parenting philosophy or a long list of all the things you have to do. Instead, it is an invitation to do less. It can feel hard to go against the grain, against all the voices that seem so loud, but really you can make some big changes with little steps. 

We talk about: 

• Decluttering spaces and how it leads to a sense of spaciousness + setting up a toy library
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• Having rituals for different parts of the day (e.g., bedtime, mealtimes …) and how they can grow with you kids
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• Using rhythms to keep things “normal” when something unexpected (like a loss in the family) happens or to get back on track when you get off (say over the holidays)
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• Simplifying schedules and giving kids time for decompression and creativity 
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• Filtering adult conversation and information
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• Setting boundaries around screens to allow for more time for creativity and connection with people, nature, and family.
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BIO

Kim John Payne is a best-selling author of Simplicity Parenting©, consultant, Director of the Simplicity Project, and Founding Director of The Center for Social Sustainability. 

Kim John Payne, M.ED, has been a school counselor, adult educator, consultant, researcher, educator and a private family counselor for twenty-seven years. He consults with schools worldwide and has written several books that have been translated into 27 languages. He has appeared frequently on television including ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox; on radio with the BBC, Sirius/XM, CBC & NPR and in print including being featured in Time Magazine, Chicago Tribune, Parenting, Mothering, Times Union and the LA Times.

Kim strives to deepen understanding and give practical tools for life that arise out of the burning social issues of our time. He lives on a farm in Ashfield, Massachusetts with his wife and two children.

LINKS

• Collect, Connect, Then Direct with Kim John Payne
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• Words of Wisdom from Kim John Payne
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Doable Changes from this episode:

• DECLUTTER ONE THING. Decluttering can feel daunting if you try to tackle your whole house at once, so start with one thing. It could be your child’s room, or if that feels like a lot, start with the closet or the toybox or the book shelf. If you have goals around healthy eating, declutter your pantry. You can even declutter your calendar. Pick one thing at a time to declutter and do that.
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• SET UP A TOY LIBRARY. Preschools and daycares do this all the time, and you can too. Pick 20 toys to keep out. Put the rest in bins. Rotate the toys periodically. This reduces overwhelm and creates calm by decreasing the clutter. It makes clean up and storage easier, and it’s amazing how much interest kids have in toys they haven’t seen in a while.
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• CREATE A RITUAL. If you don’t have rituals for various parts of the day—wake up, getting ready for/leaving for school, coming home, meal time, bedtime—pick one and create your ritual. If you have rituals, take a look and see if they can be simplified or strengthened. If you feel chaotic in the morning or at meal or bed time, it may be a sign you need a simple ritual. Create your ritual and commit to following it, getting it ingrained.
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The body is so good at healing when we create the environment for it to be able to do so. –Melissa Deally

On this episode of the Plan Simple Podcast, I’m really excited to talk with Melissa Deally, an Integrative Health Practitioner focused on brain and gut health. Gut health can be hard to wrap our minds around. It’s inside. We can’t see it. It doesn’t sound particularly appealing. And yet it has such big effects. Melissa and talk about the benefits of getting interested in (even excited by) gut health. 

The idea that gut health is the root of all health goes way back to Hippocrates, and then we lost that idea for a long time. But gut health and our microbiome is starting to get attention again. Knowing that 90 to 95% of all disease is triggered by the environment we create inside our body, we can learn to create an environment that is inhospitable to disease.

Instead of going to the doctor for a pill when you get sick, why not be proactive in your health. Melissa and I explore steps you can take to do that, and show how quickly you can start to feel better when you make change. 

We talk about: 

• Recognizing that some of the physical ailment or discomfort we feel is not normal
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• How brain fog and gut health are connected
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• Breaking emotional attachments to foods that no longer serve us
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• Using functional medicine labs to see what’s happening inside the body so you can find a path to healing
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• Finding what your body wants you to eat and reframing that from being to deprived to being a choice
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• Helping our kids and recognizing those common complaints and even learning issues can be related to gut health and food
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BIO

Melissa is an Integrative Health Practitioner, Registered Health Coach, Speaker and host of her “Don’t Wait For Your Wake Up Call!” podcast.  Melissa neither diagnoses nor cures, but helps bring your body back into balance by helping you discover your “toxic load” and then removing the toxins. Melissa gets to the root cause of your health issue, using functional medicine lab tests that help you “see inside” your body to know exactly what is going on, and then she provides a personalized wellness protocol using natural herbs and supplements.  Melissa’s business is 100% virtual and she specializes in holding your hand and guiding the way to healing so that you don’t have to figure it all out on your own.

LINKS

• www.yourguidedhealthjourney.com
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• To book a complimentary 30 min call with Melissa: https://YGHJappointments.as.me/?appointmentType=16156436
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• Discover Your Toxic  Load Quiz: https://welcome.yourguidedhealthjourney.com/yourtoxicload
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Doable Changes from this episode:

• NOTICE HOW YOU FEEL. Start by noticing how your body feels. Do you have stomach aches? Headaches? Are you stuffed up or feeling like allergies all the time? Do you feel lethargic (always or in certain parts of the day)? Do parts of your body hurt? Do you feel heavy or weighed down? These are just a few of the questions you can ask. Do a body scan? What feels good? What feels off somehow? What have you told yourself was just “normal” for you? What have you told yourself was just aging? What if you started from the premise that not feeling good isn’t normal?
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• GET TESTING. Functional health testing can help you figure out what’s happening inside. That information can save you a lot of time testing and trying. It can give you information to start making plans on healing or making changes that will help your body feel good.
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• MAKE IT A CHOICE. Know your why. Know that the food choices you make are to make your body function well and feel good. Know why you are changing your eating and focus on your why. Instead of saying, “I can’t have X,” say “I’m choosing foods that make me feel good” or “I’m choosing foods that help me (fill in your why).”
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“Harvesting some time for silence, harvesting the time of stillness, harvesting the time to just be with the discomfort of not knowing is going to strengthen your muscles to be who you can be.” 

–Masami Covey

On this episode of the Plan Simple Meals Podcast, I’m really excited to talk with Masami Covey, a health intuitive about getting quiet and why it is so important. Masami brings together East and West, left and right brain, science and spirituality to help people find and create wellness.

Most of us have spent a lot of time and home this year. As we return to some of the things we missed, we may feel “busy” entering back into the equation. It’s really easy to get stuck seeking, looking for answers that are actually within you. 

When we take time for silence and stillness and being with the discomfort of not knowing, we strengthen our muscles. A lot of times we resist being in liminal spaces, spaces of uncertainty, but if we can use tools like meditation, breathing, and mindfulness to stay in that space, wonderful things can unfold. 

We talk about: 

• Listening to our intuitions
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• Coming back to your breath (you can do this 26,000 times a day)
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• Listening to our inner voice to figure out what food will really nourish us 
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• What happens when we don’t listen to our gut or our intuition
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• 3-stage test — muscle mind, heart-mind, gut mind to and coming to an agreement
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• Asking at different chakra levels “Is this good for me now?” — plus Masami’s favorite chakra
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• Setting boundaries from a better feeling place
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BIO

Masami Covey is an experienced Health Intuitive, somatic practitioner, Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner (FNTP), Yoga Therapist (C-IAYT), Positive Neuroplasticity Practitioner, and applied linguist. Masami believes that we are each our own primary healer.  She offers a dynamic framework for connecting our subtle “body language” with physiology, anatomy, emotion, nutrition, and lifestyle practices. She embraces the power of both scientific knowledge and focused intuition to reveal the interconnection of body, mind, and spirit. Masami was born and raised in Japan in a bi-cultural family, and she draws extensively from her blend of East-meets-West cultural, linguistic, and energy healing experiences. 

LINKS

• https://masamicovey.com
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MENTIONED LINK

• The Invisible Barrier to Women’s Happiness with Dr. Valerie
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Doable Changes from this episode:

• COME BACK TO YOUR BREATH. You can come back to your breath 26,000 times a day, not that you have to focus on all of them. But take the opportunity to focus on your breath. Give attention to your exhale, so you aren’t taking in more than you release. Focus on five breaths several times throughout the day.
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• IS THIS GOOD FOR ME NOW? Close your eyes. Bring something to your head and ask, “Is this good for me now?” focus on the now. Notice what you mind says. Notice if your breath changes. Bring the item lower, near your belly. Ask the same question. Notice if you lean in or away from the object. Let your heart be the referee. Notice the feeling. If you don’t feel the answers right away, keep practicing.
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• EMPTY OUT FOR INTUITION. If you are snacking all day, whether on food or information or anything else, you won’t be able to hear your intuition. You need to make space to empty out a little. Try making a no snacking zone. That might mean a break from eating or a time when you turn off your phone or put it away, when you walk without listening to a podcast … what would creating quiet and emptying out for intuition look like for you. Remember, these aren’t instant fixes. Try it and try it again and see what starts to happen. 
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It is day five of The Get Out of Survival Mode Challenge, and we are defining our 90-day goals — so that we can embark on the journey! Today, we will be defining our goals and looking at the steps we will take over the next 90 days to reach them.

If you are not in the challenge yet, come sign up at http://plansimple.com, so you can get access to all the material.

It is day four of The Get Out of Survival Mode Challenge, and we are starting to get clear on how to start to live into our 5 year vision — in a doable and achievable way of course! Today, we will be looking at what piece of your vision you are going to lean into for the next 90 days.

If you are not in the challenge yet, come sign up at http://plansimple.com, so you can get access to all the material.

It is day three of The Get Out of Survival Mode Challenge, and today we are writing the path to our dreams!

Make sure you have done the brain clearing exercise from day 1 and the dreaming exercise from day 2. Before you do today’s work, as always, take a deep breath and connect to the wisdom that is you.

If you are not in the challenge yet, sign up at http://plansimple.com so you can get access to all the material.

It is day two of The Get Out of Survival Mode Challenge, and today we are dreaming big!

Make sure you have done the brain clearing exercise from day 1. Before you do today’s work, take a deep breath and re feel that feeling of “empty.”

If you are not in the challenge yet, sign up at http://plansimple.com so you can get access to all the material.

It is day one of the Get Out of Survival Mode Challenge, and we are starting with one of my favorite tools!

I use this tool every Sunday night. It is built into the FLOW Planner in multiple ways. AND for today, we are using it to get grounded and ready to be super creative visionaries for the next few days.

If you are not in the challenge yet, sign up at http://plansimple.com.

“We cannot prevent circumstances from happening but we can choose how we show up to them.” 

I’m so excited to be back with the Plan Simple Meals Podcast. This week we’re talking about something that can’t wait: getting out of survival mode — and becoming who you really want to be. 

As we head out of the pandemic and into a new way, it’s time to recheck in with what you really want. So much is possible—even in the current state of the world! We need to pause and get clear on your vision, in order to plan for it and bring it into reality. You may feel overwhelmed with all the things on your plate right now. You may be ready to just adapt to whatever comes. That’s why this work is essential right now. 

Recently I asked a group of FLOW 365ers to reflect on the past 90 days and answer this question: Who have you become? Answers ranged from somebody who exercises every morning to a balanced entrepreneur to a wise woman (hear the whole list when you listen to it—so much good stuff). 

When they asked me to answer the same question, I had to think for a while. I have become the mom I really wanted to be. Getting there was messy and uncertain and not what I expected, but I got there, by being intentional and committing to my path—even when the external stuff, the pandemic, my kid’s own struggles—didn’t go the way I expected. 

Hear more about:

• Why I learned to look at who we become
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• My 90-day plan to be an intentional mom
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• What happened when I realized something was wrong and how my adventure in becoming this version of me started 
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• Learning that my role was not to fix, but to hold space for my kid to feel—and how I learned to do so
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• The joy of watching somebody else become
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• How I created the support I needed to do my own work of becoming
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Ready to become the next version of you? Start here: The Get Out of Survival Mode Challenge. 

Join me to step out of the day to day and get really clear on what you want and who you want to become! Leave with a vision for your life and a system to bring that vision to reality — no matter what happens. 

You can do so much more than get by. Join the free challenge now: https://plansimple.com/thrive-today/

MENTIONED LINK

• Collect, Connect Then Direct with Kim John Payne
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Doable Changes from this episode:

• ASK WHO HAVE I BECOME. Journal on this question. You can consider the last 90 days or the past year of the pandemic. Do you like who you have become? Are you proud of her? (Don’t ask this to judge, but to help you forward.) How did you become this person? Who do you want to become next? 
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• CREATE A SUPPORT SYSTEM. I could not have become the mother I really wanted to be without support. So often we think we need to do it all alone. That we can’t isn’t a sign of weakness, but of knowing what we need. Start by getting really clear on what you need. Braindump a list of ways people could help you. They could be practical, like making dinner so you can work longer or watching your kids. They could also be things like providing an accountability check-in, listening without trying to fix, sending you encouragement, connecting you with resources … start with a list of what could help, then ask for it. If creating a whole system doesn’t feel doable, ask one person for a specific kind of help. Then build from there. 
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• CREATE BOUNDARIES. We can every everything, but not all at once. One of the reasons I love planning for a 90-day season is that it allows me to go all in and make progress on something, knowing that there will be time to lean into something else. But to go all-in on something, we have to say no to other things. Whether you are dealing with a crisis or committing to something you really want, you’ll need boundaries. Think about something you really want. What are you willing to give up to make it happen? What are your limits? Some examples: I only use Zoom for groups; otherwise I talk on the phone because my head is clearer. My workday starts at 9:30, so I can work on my book first thing and my voicemail and sig line tells people that. As you make your own list, try starting your boundaries For the next 90 days. Add “so that” and your reason to the end of it to keep you focused on your why and who you are becoming. 
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