The Aware Parenting Podcast

I absolutely love that Clare Louise Brumley, PhD, has returned to the podcast. She was on episode 135 about an evolutionary perspective on sleep. She is an Aware Parenting instructor as well as registered nutritionist and Integrative Medicine Practitioner and she did her PhD on this topic.

We talk about:

Why we are meant to feel a lot of feelings in relation to food;

How an evolutionary perspective helps parents;

How we can support children to use their sensory system to know what food is optimal for them;

How the changes, particularly in the last 200 years, muddy the waters in sensing food;

What we can do with Aware Parenting to clear the system to support our children's innate wisdom;

The process of supporting children to listen in to what foods aren't a fit;

Which foods take longer for children and adults to be able to sense is a no;

Why Aware Parenting's centrality of connection and attunement is so vital here;

How we are supporting children to be researchers;

My favourite phrase of Clare Louise's – "information without judgment brings choice";

How this is an invitation for even more connection;

Why children will tend to go for sweet foods and not bitter foods;

What can be going on if children only want to eat a small variety of foods or to keep food types separate;

Why children don't need a lot of leafy greens in the early years, especially if they've had a long breastfeeding journey;

In a wild food model there is heaps of free choice but lots of natural limits;

The protective mechanisms innate in the seasonal eating model;

How we can generally feel if our body doesn't want a natural food more quickly than a food combined manufactured food;

We would love to hear any questions you have and Clare-Louise will come back for a Q and A follow-up of this! Please come to The Aware Parenting Podcast on Instagram or FB to share your questions!

You can find out about Clare Louise and her work on my website: https://marionrose.net/aware-parenting-instructors-in-australia-and-new-zealand/

In this episode, I talk about the self-connected approach to eating, which is officially called the self-demand approach to food or self-regulated eating in Aware Parenting. I talk about children's innate body wisdom in relation to food, and the interplay of that with them needing to learn about the place, family and culture they are born into. I share about what gets in the way of their connection with the sensations in their bodies, and specifically what we can do to help them stay connected with that intrinsic wisdom, or to reconnect back with it. I explain what can make that so hard for us, and what can help us with that.

If you're wanting support with this,

it's included in my Aware Parenting with Marion Course, https://marionrose.samcart.com/products/aware-parenting-with-marion-course/,

and in my next book (I'm Here and I'm Listening)

and in 1:1 mentoring.

I also highly recommend reading Aletha Solter's book 'Cooperative and Connected' which has a chapter on eating and ailments.

Hello and a big warm welcome to the next series, this time about food, feelings and trust.

In this episode, I offer an overview, sharing some information about trusting children's wisdom in relation to food and helping them stay connected with that, understanding how eating can become a way of suppressing feelings, and supporting children who already have control patterns in relation to food.

I also reveal the title of my next book, which will be coming out fairly soon, as well as information about my children's books and the audiobook version of The Emotional Life of Babies.

If you want support with Aware Parenting, including in relation to food and feelings, the live round of my Aware Parenting with Marion Course starts on the 4th of November (and it's available all year round). You can find information about it and my 1:1 mentoring on my website www.marionrose.net or on Instagram @_marion_rose_ or @awareparenting.

At the end of this series on the effects of birth, I wanted to share an episode about how wonderful birth can be, and the effects of that on a family.

In The Aware Baby, Aletha Solter talks about doing what we can to prepare for birth, and I wanted to offer some examples of that through this conversation with Carly Facius who is a Registered Midwife, International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, and holds a Master of Primary Maternity Care and is an Aware Parenting instructor.

We both send you so much love and compassion to women who have had a traumatic birth and invite you to listen in to yourself and whether you might need to pause at any time. Please reach out for support if you do choose to listen and feelings come up for you.

Carly shares her own background and the effects of that on seeing the beauty of birth – her mother is a midwife and was when she was a child, and actually was the only midwife in a very small country town.

We talk about how we would all be seeing birth a lot if we lived in a healthy culture and what a difference that would make in this culture if we did.

Carly shares about her experience of living in Bali and how birth there is an ordinary everyday event, and the cultural differences in terms of birth and how many people there often are with the birthing woman. She also shares about her own experience of giving birth, going in with the background and the positive imprints she had.

She also talks about the power of being willing to receive support, and what an opportunty birthing can be for us in that. She shares about what it's like coming into parenting a newborn having had a powerful, transformative birthing experience.

I share about my experience of birth and what a beautiful start it was to be practicing Aware Parenting.

Carly shares about the expansion of capacity to tune in to your baby that can then happen and all the after effects of empowering births. We also talked about how important it is for parents who do have a stressful or traumatic birth to be so deeply compassionate with themselves when the whole process goes a bit awry.

Carly explains that a lot of the common challenges in the early weeks and months often aren't as evident when people have an empowering birth experience. Birth can be a deeply transformative experience, both for women who give birth, but also to be alongside the birthing woman, or be an adoptive parent, there are so many ways for transformation to occur.

Carly also talks about how she supports parents so they are more likely to have a powerful and transformative life experience, particularly in terms of undoing conditioning around knowing and asking for what they need and understanding how powerful they are.

We also link this to Aware Parenting and helping children stay connected with their inner knowing and Carly talks about how we can model that to them while we're pregnant with them. I share about the birth video I watched hundreds of times before giving birth and Carly talks about inviting parents to focus on what they want and are willing for before birth.

We finish talking about birth being an opportunity to see how powerful we are, to deeply reconnect with and trust our bodies.

You can find out more about Carly and her work at www.seedpodfamilies.com or at https://www.instagram.com/seed_pod_/

In this episode, Shelley Clarke returns to the podcast. Shelley is an Aware Parenting instructor, Hand in Hand Instructor, Marion Method Mentor and CranioSacral Therapist. Shelley was on the podcast in episode 146, talking about helping babies to heal from their birth.

We talk about trusting that older children can heal from their birth experience and seeing through a different lens so we can recognise that this is what they are doing or trying to do. Shelley offers lots of examples of tangible ways you can see that your child is aiming to heal from their birth and what you can do as a parent to support and facilitate that process. We share about healing through crying and raging, and healing through attachment play.

We discuss what a difference it makes both to children and their lives and to us as parents when we understand this information and are able to put it into practice. Shelly explains how important it is to have our own emotional support to be able to be with children in these ways, and we offer examples of how mothers healing from their birthing experiences often coincide with children healing from their birth.

Shelley has a 3 hour workshop coming up for people who would like to understand this more deeply and have personalised support in helping their child heal from their birth. It's on Sunday 31st October from 2pm-5pm AEST. The link is here: https://shelleyclarke.newzenler.com/courses/birthtrauma

YouYou can find Shelley and her work at: https://www.shelleyclarke.com/ and https://www.instagram.com/_shelleyclarke_/ and https://www.facebook.com/shelleyclarkemindbodyparenting

Her podcast is The Mind-Body Parenting Podcast.

In this episode, I talk with Kirsty Fernandes, an Aware Parenting instructor who focuses on postpartum care (or 4th trimester care) and who is mother to a 4 year old and a 6 year old.

In the rest of the series on The Effects of Birth, we've looked at the effects on the baby. In this episode, we're talking more about the effects on the mother.

If you experienced trauma while giving birth, please connect in with yourself as you listen to this episode and pause if you need to, and reach out for listening support if you have feelings bubbling up.

Kirsty shares her experience of coming to Aware Parenting, and then why she chose to focus on supporting families after birth, including her passion for offering a space where people can have their stories heard. She talks about the three main reasons parents come to her for support. Kirsty deeply values honouring the whole process of fertility, pregnancy and birth and supporting parents in that whole experience.

Kirsty shares a beautiful example of how she realised that something that happened in her son's birth was showing up in their interactions together in more recent times, and what a difference knowing this can make.

Kirsty shares about birth trauma, and includes trauma that has been experienced during the whole fertility and pregnancy journey and what can support families to be less likely to experience trauma, and also talks about what she sees the effects can be when there has been trauma.

She then explains the differences she sees in families when parents are able to reach out for support and heal from the traumatic experiences, and in particular, what can happen for the babies or children. She emphasises the importance of loving support and emotional safety for the healing to happen.

You can find out more about Kirsty and her offerings at: https://www.honouringmama.com/

and on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/KirstyFernandesHonouringMama/

and on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/kirstyfernandeshonouringmama

This is a very special episode, with a lot of laughter, where I talk with Belynda Smith, who is an Aware Parenting instructor and Hand in Hand Instructor and also copy editor. Belynda shares about her journey to Hand in Hand Parenting and then Aware Parenting, and how she came to be the copy editor of The Emotional Life of Babies, my book which is about to come out.

Belynda shares about Listening Partnerships, and I explain why I often tell other parents about how many Listening Partnerships she has.

We then go on to talk about the process of editing the book together, including the enjoyment and ease of it all. We talk about the length of it and the cover, as well as the nuanced approach of Aware Parenting with a baby that it describes. I share about the process of feeling called to write it and how and why that happened. We talk about all the parents' stories in the book and I talk about how delighted I was that most of them used their real names.

I'm so grateful to everyone who has shared their stories, who has been a beta reader, to my Marion's Books Support Team, and to those who have shared a testimonial, and more.

Belynda asks me about how I've sustained my excitement about this long, and I loved responding to that question, about how in our culture we often have not only our sadness and rage suppressed, but also our excitement and exuberance. I share about how much I've enjoyed all the steps and the collaborative process of finding the title and the subtitle and so on, including with the help of the father of my children. We also talked about the invitations throughout the book, including for self-compassion, and the research triangle that I talk about in it too.

The book will be out any day now!

You can find out more about Belynda and her work at: https://belyndasmith.com.au/

On her website, you can also sign up for her free ebook on book sharing for connected families.

Her podcast is called Tales from The Toolbox. https://www.facebook.com/talesfromthetoolboxpodcast

If you want to be notified when The Emotional Life of Babies is out, I'll be sharing about it on my main email list. If you're not on it, you can sign up here: http://eepurl.com/8ifhn

I'll also be sharing information about how you can support me and this book, both by email and social media. My website is www.marionrose.net

In today's episode I talk with Adrienne Harper-Pike, who is an Aware Parenting instructor who also works in the deaf/blind community as a social worker, works with queer people and their families, and works with families with multiples, including twins, triplets and higher order births.

Please note that we discuss things that might help you connect with painful past experiences, including the journey to conceiving through IVF, pregnancy complications, birth and postnatal trauma and complications as well as early separation between parents and babies.

Adrienne shares her story of coming to Aware Parenting, which began when her daughter asked her to heal some of her birth trauma through play. She also talks about her journey with IVF and the stressful and traumatic experiences during pregnancy and during and after the birth or her premature twins and how that affected her – including with postnatal anxiety and depression, and guilt, shame and worry – as well as the babies and her partner.

Adrienne talks about the huge healing they have all done since then, and the hope this gives to other families about what is possible. She talks about how the system isn't set up to support parents to heal so that they can support their babies or children to heal.

Adrienne goes on to share specific examples of how her children have indicated that they were healing from their experiences in utero, during birth and after birth, and what she and her partner did to support them.

She talks about the information that her partner and she have given their twins about what happened to them and how that has built over time. She finishes by sharing about the wondrousness of the healing that is possible and what she would love to share with other families who might be in similar positions.

You can find out more about Adrienne and her work at: www.alongsideparenting.com and on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/alongsideparenting and on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/alongsideparenting/

In this episode about communicating with babies, I talk with Carly Facius who is a Registered Midwife, International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, and holds a Master of Primary Maternity Care and is an Aware Parenting instructor.

Carly starts off sharing about how Aware Parenting supporting mothers to have an emotional intimacy with themselves and their needs, and then goes on to talk about the similarities between being with a birthing woman as a midwife and being with a baby or child who is expressing big feelings. She then shares about how aware and sentient babies are, right from in utero, and the experiences she's had which deeply confirmed that, particularly while working as a midwife in Bali. Babies communicating in utero, during the birth, and after birth. She talks about the ways in which parents can talk to their baby in utero and during birth and if they haven't done that, knowing that it is never too late to communicate in these ways. We also discuss the power for both parent and baby in the parent narrating about what is going on throughout the day. We also talk about guilt and how important it is to put down what I call the guilt sticks both during pregnancy and after birth, trusting that babies can heal from any stress they have experienced. Carly also shares some really interesting stories about families and babies and parents communicating before and during the birthing process.

You can find out more about Carly and her work at www.seedpodfamilies.com or at https://www.instagram.com/seed_pod_/

As a preface I'd like to say two things about this episode: Firstly, this is about The Marion Method rather than Aware Parenting, although it is inspired and informed by Aware Parenting and I do talk about Aware Parenting in the episode. Secondly, if you have physical pain or symptoms, please consult with your health practitioner.

Given those, let's continue! In this episode, I share two examples of where I healed from physical pain through connecting with feelings related to my birth experiences. The first was just before the Gabor Maté episode. I talk about how emotional and physical pain can share a related emotional tone. I talk about the importance of the balance of attention for us as adults just as it is for babies and children.

I talk about how we have an inbuilt movement towards healing from trauma, whether we are babies, children or adults. Aware Parenting offers ways to support babies and children in those innate processes. As adults, we can still heal, and there are many modalities with which we can do that. This can be reassuring for us to know that whatever our children get to heal from, they will still be invited to move towards healing as adults.

If you want to sign up to my list to be notified when The Emotional Life of Babies comes out, you can do that here: http://eepurl.com/8ifhn

You'll also receive a free intro. to The Marion Method if you do that!