Sound Healing Presents | Tomorrow!
New park for the whole family
New off leash dog park in Shoreline. (There is a kid park there too!!)
Best Therapy Advice for Men and the rest of us...
Best therapy advice for men source: The best comments from Threads post by @kendriquecoats 4/27/26
Free 1st class | All ages fitness in Edmonds & Bothel
"You'll find coaching that meets you where you are and a community that genuinely cares."
Book Equal Partners by Kate Mangino
Full Transcript
Hello everyone and welcome to the Amity Kramer Show.
I am coming to you from my recording studio on Queen Anne (the "studio" is really a blanket fort). And I'm excited to talk to you a little bit about some things that might be helpful for new parents or people who are already parenting.
I wanted to tell you about a few things today. So I'm going to tell you about some advice that I found searching the comments on social media site. I'm going to tell you about some upcoming classes that I have going on, a date night idea, family fun idea, and another idea to help potentially equalize the mental load.
So I got a few things here that I'm going to tell you about. And if you have any questions for me, feel free to send them my way and I will blend them into my next show. Okay, let's get started.
Date night idea coming up on May 30th, there's two different events, but there is this, it's supposed to be really cool. It's a sound healing experience. You can buy tickets.
You either lay down or sit down and it, yeah, it's on Capitol Hill and it looked kind of interesting. Lots of music and sound, bath, bowls. And, yeah, could be a nice way to relax with yourself or somebody that you like, maybe a date night or maybe a friend.
So that is sound healing. And what I'm going to do is put a link to all of the things that I talk about in the notes. So feel free to look at that.
And then the other thing that is coming up is there is there is a brand new park and it's fun for the whole family, even those of you with dogs. So there's a new off leash dog park that I learned about and I want to tell you, it is up in shoreline, 167th. So you could take exit 175th and then go west or you could take exit 145th and go, I guess go west and then north on meridian.
So it's right off the freeway, New off-leash, Dog Park, and Kid Park. You can check that out. There is also, oh, yeah, I found this thing.
I've been reading a lot of comments lately. One of my kids, you know, they're a teenager and she's 18 now, so she's a grownup. And sometimes I don't get things online and she's like, Mom, you got to read the comments, like the good stuff is in the comments.
And so I've done this. I've started reading more comments lately. Because, you know, I always think about it as like, oh my gosh, I'm not going to read the comments.
People are always snarky or mean, or that's where the argument happens. I just like never look at comments. But she's been telling me that that's where all the comedy is.
And so I've been reading the comments and sometimes I do just laugh out loud, laughing. But these comments I was reading were not funny, but they were helpful. And I thought it might be helpful for you.
So this person posted and also, I'll send a, I'll put a link in the show notes. But this person posted a question that was, what's the, for men? He was like, hey, hey, men, what's the best advice you've ever received in a therapy session?
And I thought this was a great question. And so I started reading the show reading the comments. And there was a couple of really good nuggets, and I was like, this is public information online.
I want to share it to you all because I know that a lot of people that read my newsletter are not also online. So here are some things that might be useful for you to hear today. I also, you know, I wanted to say that I'm, you know, I'm not a therapist, but I do a lot of coaching with families.
And I, these things resonated with me personally, but they also resonated with, you know, I feel like I say something similar to my clients when they're maybe going through a tough spot. So, here they go. Advice that people have received in therapy sessions that was specific for these men, but can be useful for all of us.
Advice number one, you're not going to be able to share your feelings honestly if you don't understand them honestly. Woo. This one really packs a punch, right?
How many times have you, you know, maybe been arguing about something, but not really understood how you felt? And so it's always that good recommendation to sit down and figure it out, figure out what you're thinking, what you're feeling before you engage in that conversation. If you just go right to talking about the issue, sometimes it's a missed opportunity for that self-reflection that needs to happen often in private, but sometimes you might want to talk to a therapist or a good friend to kind of help figure out what you're feeling before you take it to the person who really needs to hear it.
So next, I thought this one was good. It says, I am allowed to receive support healing and care without needing to earn it first. You are allowed to receive support healing and care without needing to earn it first.
We all as human beings deserve support, healing and care. We shouldn't have to be good to receive these things. We should all just treat one another with human decency.
And that means, you know, if you're having a hard time, you get support. And I say this and, you know, it's important to erect boundaries and not give of yourself so much that you don't have any, don't have anything left energy-wise for your own self. But when relationships are conditional, often people get that feeling that they need to, you know, keep working, they can never rest.
They need to keep going, keep doing these things for other people or for the household or whatever. Some people will do this for their employment. I need to keep working and that's how I'm good, but nope, we all deserve this.
We do not need to earn it. We all deserve support, healing and care no matter what. So this next bit of advice that someone received was from a therapist and the therapist said something to the effect of, I have couples who choose not to argue.
They face adversity, but take it as a challenge rather than something to fight over. You can choose to be happy and you can choose to be happy with your partner. Wow.
Imagine that. Something happens and maybe it makes you a little upset, but you're like, you know what? This is the person that I'm with.
This is the person I chose. This is the person who chose me. And I'm going to, I'm going to keep going.
I'm going to keep doing the good thing. And, you know, being able to choose happy. Now, again, I'm not saying no advice is going to work 100% of the time.
I do not do not expect people to choose happy if they're an abusive that's not like reciprocal. I don't expect you to choose happy if you're in a situation where, you know, there's abuse or gaslighting, that sort of thing. But sometimes for those little things, just like making that decision, each person making the decision to be like, yep, things are not perfect, but we're going to choose to be happy.
And that goodness that can be created from laughing or acknowledging what people are doing right is so, it's just so helpful, right? It's easy to get bogged down by things that happen that are negative and totally miss seeing all the amazing things that happen in our lives or that other people are doing for us. And so, you know, having that choice to not argue, but instead look towards, you know, happiness, joyfulness.
And I would also want to add in their understanding. Next one. You didn't deserve what happened to you as a child.
Next one. You are clinging to a childlike rigidity in the face of reality. This one is important because it is you know, sometimes we get these ideas in our mind about what we need to do or who we need to be, how things should be.
And sometimes those are outdated expectations, but if we don't slow down, it'd be like, oh, wait, what is now? What's happening now? What is right for me in this moment?
Really that facing reality. So that's something to evaluate for yourself. Like, hmm, are you, you clinging to something that really is, is, you know, is not possible, still trying to fit this dream-like scenario into your life that's not going to work Last one.
The thing that you are frustrated and angry about is not the source of that frustration and anger boom yikes this one's a big one. The book the book title I always tell people is the past is present. It's important to be able to sit back and be like, oh, wait, is this something to really be mad about?
Does that make emotion make sense? Or even like thinking about, you know, am I am I really mad about this or am I upset about something else? And so digging down to that deeper layer, looking for the emotions and providing yourself with empathy is one of the best things.
Stain angry is way too easy. Right. It's way too easy.
But it also zaps your energy, zaps the energy out of households, and anger has a purpose, but so often in our society, anger is a mask for something else that's really, really deeper down. And so hope these are helpful for you all, you know, when it comes to emotions and relationships, that is, you know, a lot of you have taken those classes that we offer thresholds, bringing baby home is the one really for relationships and emotional education or parenting from within is the other workshop. And so there is a bringing baby home workshop in August that is to have some seats in it and the parenting from within slash emotion education class, that one starts in September. and that one has a new setup.
That one is just going to be a $10 class to sign up. And then it's pay what you want. So share that with friends.
Sign up if you'd like to come. We also have some birth classes coming up birthing from within. That is happening June 6th or June 27th.
So two classes this month for birthing from within for all the people who are expecting babies. Next, I want to tell you about this fitness class that one of my clients told me about. It is called All Seasons Fitness, and it's happening up North in Edmonds, the first class is free, and the reason I wanted to tell you about this is because all ages are welcome.
This is for babies. It's for toddlers. It's for old people.
Anybody in between can come and everybody gets together. Ingenerational exercise. They give a, it's kind of a mix of like cardio and strength training.
It's indoor and outdoor. So they've got two different venues that they use. You can check it out all Seasons Fitness up north.
I think they have classes in Bothel and in Edmunds, but happens on Saturdays and a few other times during the week just was like so exciting. I wish there was something like that when I was parenting parenting young people get outside, get some exercise in, and be with other people. The last thing I want to tell you about today is something that can help balance the mental load.
So I recently read this book called Equal Partners by Kate Menino. And this book talked all about the mental load and the emotional labor. It was one of my, I think I've read like 10 books on this topic recently.
And this was one of my favorite ones. So it's called Equal Partners. And I want to share just a nugget.
There was many wisdom nuggets in this book, but this was one nugget that I thought was really great and that you might like to have. She said that in her family, she does what's called noticing time. And noticing time is when they set a timer and everyone plays or engages, and they just go around the rooms, finding things that need to be done and doing them right then and there.
And so this is an opportunity for everybody in the family with equal levels of engagement to, you know, stand in the kitchen and be like, oh, look, there's smudges all over the refrigerator door handles or, oh, wow, look. it's really gunky under under the toe, under the cabinets, right? Or someone might see some cobwebs looking up, but just those things that it's easy to, easy to ignore. And I don't even know if it's really ignoring, you know, our brains get used to, our brains and eyeballs, get accustomed to seeing things.
And so we really, it is hard to notice those things. A long time ago, I used to know this person who cleaned houses for a living, and they started out in the hotel business. And it was really neat because he would take that energy.
You know, no one wants anything goopy in their hotel room, and he would take that energy into house clean. He was like, yep, you always just got to look at it for that final touch. And so, noticing time is really giving your house that kind of final touch, noticing what needs to be done and taking care of it.
So hope you can do that. It reminded me thinking about that. It reminded me of all of the work I used to do. when my kids were on co-op.
Our teacher was teacher Tom. Tom, Tom Hobson, he's a very famous preschool teacher in Seattle and had a really cool school for a number of years. And during cleanup time, Teacher Tom would help everybody clean up.
And it was really important that we didn't shame the children for not helping. And so what would happen? Instead of telling people what they should do or complain that they weren't helping, Teacher Tom would, you would do this thing where he would sing a song.
And so he maybe he played it on there, he would maybe play it on the speaker. I can't remember. But we would, everybody would clean up and then he would just narrate what he was doing.
I'm putting away the blocks, and then he would narrate what someone else was doing. Johnny is helping me put away the blocks. And then he would keep going and then it was like, oh, you know, BB is helping me put away the blocks or so and so is picking up the sand toys.
And just narrated in a jolly voice what people were doing. Oh, so-and-so is sitting on the ground. And then that's what happened.
The reasoning behind this, and he was like, everybody wants to belong. Kids want to be part of the group. And so that they don't.
It's not helpful to nudge them or shame them into being part of the group. And so they got to feel their way through it. And so eventually, you know, all the kids would help pick up.
And I used to think it was magic, but it's not magic. It just is treating kids in a non-judgmental way, right? And again, this is kind of going back to like, you know, human decency and compassion and just like, yeah, like shame is usually not helpful.
And so in noticing time, your kids are probably going to participate more if you ignore what they're not doing and comment in a neutral or slightly positive way in the way that they are helping. And they' they'll get the hint eventually. Okay, that is all I have for you this week.
I'm going to try to make one of these every week. I really appreciate you listening. If you have any questions, send in my way.
