Brittni (00:02.168)
Hello, hello and welcome into the Resting in Motherhood podcast. How are you today? I am so excited about this episode, which I feel like I say every week because I really am so excited to sit down and chat with you. But today is my baby’s fifth birthday. So it’s not actually her birthday while I’m recording today because I’m recording about two weeks before.

but the day that this episode launches, which is today for you, it will be Laila’s birthday. So I have to start off the episode by saying happy birthday to my incredibly strong, incredibly adventurous, caring, creative, spirited.

fire child. That’s how I could describe her. I just, I, when I was on my business retreat back in May, I was talking to one of my girlfriends, actually Tori, who was on the podcast a few weeks ago. I was talking to her about how it’s so crazy to think about like, if I never would have moved to Chile and met Lila’s dad and then got married and had her, I wouldn’t be doing

what I’m doing today, I would not be sitting here talking to you. And that we were kind of talking about how, yes, I wish that like, if I could go back, like, would I have gotten married? And you know what I would, because I have my beautiful, amazing daughter who teaches me something every single day. But it’s just so crazy to think about that she truly gave me my purpose. She truly set me on the path that I knew that I needed to be on.

And it’s so interesting because…

Brittni (01:57.598)
I remember, like I graduated college, I studied, you’re gonna get a little bit of information about me right now that you might have never known. So I studied business and Spanish, or international business and Spanish in college. I worked for a big bank, actually my last year of college, and then once I graduated, I worked full time at the bank. And I worked at the bank.

Was it four or five years? I’m trying to do the mental math here. I graduated in 2014. No, that’s, no, it wasn’t four years. It was three years. So I graduated in 2014, almost exactly three years actually. I started like as a teller, then I became a banker. And then actually my last year and a half in the bank, I worked in the mortgage department. So all finance, probably because my dad was in the banking industry my whole life. And then my mom, before she had me,

was also in the banking industry and so I kind of had it in my brain that like, this is what I have to do. This is what everybody in my family does. You know, that thought of like being afraid to like do what you love, but I always had it in the back of my mind. Like, this is not, this is not what I want to be doing. This is not where I want to be at. There’s gotta be something more. Like it was deep in there. Like I know I’m supposed to be doing something else. So then I went to Chile.

was teaching English, that’s where I met Lila’s dad. I kind of had this epiphany, like, I don’t want to be doing banking, I want to go explore the world, so that’s why I went and taught English. And then we came back to the US and it was kind of like, okay, well, I need to get a job, I have finance experience, so then I got into another finance type job, and then I got pregnant. But I remember even during that, and I had gotten married in between there too, I remember,

thinking like when I would go to work like this is not how I pictured my life. Like I know that there’s something bigger and something deeper meant for me but I just could never, I didn’t know what it was right. For the longest time I thought it was that I wanted to be a Spanish teacher and I think it’s funny because now doing what I do I’m not necessarily a teacher but kind of right. Like I’m here teaching parents, I’m here guiding parents and so that’s a very

Brittni (04:14.466)
big part of who I am is I love, I’m like a natural caretaker. I want to take care of you. I want to make you feel good. I want to guide you. Anyways, so then I got pregnant and I remember going to a birthing class and there was this amazing doula there and she was just like talking about her work and obviously talking about birth and babies and I was like, my gosh, like, I think I want to be a doula after I have Lila. And

Little did I know, you can’t just be a doula. I mean, you obviously have to study, but my point was I couldn’t be a doula in that season of motherhood. It’s actually still something that I think about doing, but I couldn’t be a doula. You cannot be a doula when you have a newborn or even, especially when you’re breastfeeding and co -sleeping. People have babies in the middle of the night, right? You can’t just be like, okay, I gotta leave my breast fed.

co -sleeping baby at 2 a .m. to go attend a birth, right? Anyways, long story short, then I found my sleep certification. I entered the world of holistic sleep, and now here we are. And none of this would have happened without Lila. So happy birthday to my beautiful girl. I love you so much. Thank you for bringing me here exactly where I’m meant to be.

Thank you, I love being your mama. And so today, in honor of her birthday, I actually went back and forth deciding what I wanted this episode to be about today. My first thought was I was going to share her birth story or our birth story. But then I was like, or should I share like the top five lessons that I’ve learned in motherhood in the last five years of her life?

And while I think our births, I think a lot of people do like hearing birth stories, I think that sharing these top five lessons is going to be more beneficial for you. Like it’s more centered around, here are these things that I learned and I hope that I can help you learn them. Or if you’re in the process of learning them, kind of solidify them. Or maybe if you’re, you’ve already learned them, we can just share in our experience of learning them throughout motherhood. But.

Brittni (06:37.004)
I was thinking, because I get a lot of DMs asking me about our birth story. I’ve had people ask me in my question box. if a birth story podcast episode sounds like something that you’d be interested in listening to, shoot me a DM or shoot me an email at britney, B -R -I -T -T -N -I at restinginmotherhood .com. And then if I get some responses showing interest, then that will be something that I share on the podcast.

So as I always start, I will share how I’m currently finding rest in motherhood. And I had to think about this one because I feel like I’ve just been pretty consistent lately with the things that I’ve already been sharing with you, how I’m finding rest in motherhood. But one thing that actually my wonderful business coach introduced me to this week is the Superhuman app. don’t know, and this is not sponsored or anything. I don’t know if you’ve heard of the Superhuman

It’s kind of all about like mindset, helping you calm anxiety, helping you boost your confidence. There is stuff on there about manifestation. If you’re not into manifesting, that’s okay. There are other parts of it. It’s really about kind of going deep into your subconscious and rewiring kind of those negative voices that we have inside of our heads.

So I have done like three meditations every single day since I downloaded it. And the good thing is, like they’re quick. like, yeah, there are some that are like 30 minutes long, but the ones that I’ve been doing are like seven to 15 minutes. So when I did yesterday, I think was like 16. So they’re not like super long and they have ones like there’s a walking, there’s walking option, there’s a driving option,

ones that you can listen to while you’re cooking. Like they literally design them by whatever activity you’re doing. So if you want to sit and meditate, they have ones for that. If you want to do one while you’re walking, which I love doing, they have one for that. For my mamas who are in the process of really long bedtimes, first off, reach out to me. Let’s work on that. Let’s make bedtime more enjoyable. But for the mamas who are going through that, one thing that I can find really helpful, I…

Brittni (08:53.344)
Actually, I shouldn’t say I find really helpful because I was never able to do it because I have a very astute child who would have noticed something in my ear, even if it was on the side she’s not on. But I have lots of clients who do it. Pop an earbud in and then just listen to like a meditation while you’re laying with your little one while they go to bed or while you’re rocking your little one, right? If you feel that rage during bedtime, that’s a great way to kind of combat that rage and find some calm.

So that is how I’m currently finding rest in motherhood. And now let’s jump in to today’s episode. So I was kind of thinking through these, I sat down and I just kind of started jotting, like, what are some big lessons? I mean, I could go on and on and on. And the beauty of this podcast, obviously, is that a lot of the lessons that I’ve learned in motherhood,

are sprinkled throughout the episodes, right? Because they just naturally happen. But I really tried to think like, what are the top five lessons that I could share with you that were really impactful for me, really powerful? And so I have a list of five. I just, like I said, I jotted them down

Brittni (10:27.682)
I jotted them down just to kind of get them out of my head and onto paper. So the order that I’m going to read them in and talk to you about, they’re not necessarily like number one doesn’t mean it’s the biggest lesson. Number two doesn’t mean it’s the second biggest lesson. Number five doesn’t mean it’s like the last, like the least important lesson. I think they’re all equally important. So just keep that in mind as we’re going through.

And I think at different times there was one that was more important than the other, but all of these are kind of

the, what am I trying to say, the base, I think, of all of the lessons that I’ve learned. And it’s interesting, because as I was just saying that, I was thinking about like, what I have put these answers last year. Maybe a few of them, but not all of them. And so that just goes to show that like, as moms were constantly evolving and growing, I feel like I’ve done so much growth and development in the last year. And I know, obviously, Lila has.

So just a reminder on that, like you are literally growing and changing as a mom every single day, even when you feel like you’re in a place where you’re really stuck and stagnant. Think about where you were six months ago. Think about what your struggles were. Think about how maybe you thought that whatever you were going through, you were never going to get out of. And now have you made it out of it? Have you made it through? Okay, so.

Number one, again, this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the most important, but confidence is the biggest gift we can give our children. Confidence in ourselves and confidence in them. And the confidence in them part will actually come with number two, so I’ll kind of leave that there. But confidence in ourselves. And I think that this could come off as like, well, that’s kind of selfish. Like the biggest gift you can give your child is being confident in yourself. And I would say, let’s go a little

Brittni (12:25.186)
deeper than surface level because yes, that makes it seem like it’s all about us. But when we are confident in our role as mothers, we show up better because this is like, there’s a few reasons here because first off, we aren’t letting all of these conflicting voices and narratives come into our head, which is then making us like freeze in a moment of like, my gosh, they just hit me. What do I do? Or

If I don’t do this, I’m going to be a bad mom. So when we have the confidence, we don’t have that noise inside of our head because we’re confidently doing what we know is best for us. So the noise cancellation allows us to tune in better to our child, be more regulated, right? Because when we’re confident, we’re not constantly stressing about like, am I doing it right? Am I doing it wrong? Which a dysregulated parent

is going to have a lot harder of a time being patient and understanding and helping our children co -regulate. Another thing about confidence is when we’re confident, first, if I showed you, and they’ve done studies of this,

they’ve done studies of this where they like show a confident person and like a person who’s not feeling confident and like shown them to people and people always say that the person with confidence is like more attractive. Like you can see confidence on a person, right? And so when we’re confident, we have more joy. We’re more present. We don’t have the insecurities.

We kind of walk through life feeling better about things and that gives us more energy. That helps us connect better to our children. So that’s why to me, confidence is the biggest gift we can give our children. And I did not have confidence in myself as a mom, probably until Lila was like two.

Brittni (14:36.588)
Now, yes, I did start bed sharing when she was about four months old. I breastfed on demand, I contact -napped, I did all of those things, and I thought I was confident, but I was still afraid when people would bring up sleep. I was still afraid when people would bring up..

Brittni (00:02.348)
I was afraid when people would just bring up like different things about parenting or breastfeeding, right? Like those conversations felt scary. So while I was doing them, I wasn’t fully confident. And you might be wondering like, well, how do I even get confidence, right? Like, how do I get this confidence? And I’m so excited because in a few weeks I will actually be doing a free master class

finding confidence in motherhood, which I’m so excited about. So keep an eye out. But some just kind of like quick tips. think fake it till you make it is big. Like, cause I was kind of faking it until I made it, right? Like I’m like, well, these feel right. So I’m just going to do them. So faking it till you make it is a big part of it. But then I also want you to know that you need to tune out the noise. You need to tune out like all of the things that are causing you stress, right?

You need to get really clear about what your values as a mom are and what your hopes are for motherhood, what your hopes are for your child. Because if you’re not clear on that, how are you going to be confident in the decisions that you’re making? Because you want the decisions that you’re making in motherhood to align with your values and goals and hopes for your child, right? If you’re just like, don’t really know who I am in motherhood. I don’t know what I want for my child.

How are we going to be able to confidently make decisions? Because we don’t know. why am I making this decision? Right? So you need to get really clear there. And then the other thing that I think really does help you find confidence in motherhood is having a village. And actually, we’ll be talking more in depth in a little bit about having a village. That’s one of the top five. So I’m not going to talk too much there because we’re going to get to it. So.

Confidence is a huge one. I wish that I could go back and find that confidence early on because Lila would have had a more regulated, calm mom. I can’t, but I’m here to help you find that confidence. I’m here to help you really feel secure in your role as a mom and doing what works best for you. Number two, we truly need to trust

Brittni (02:21.27)
in our child’s unique timeline. And this is for everything, right? I talk so much about how unique sleep is to each child, but what I don’t talk about a lot, I do sometimes, but this is for everything. This is for developmental milestones. This is for eating solids. This is for weaning. This is for using the potty. This is for…

I’m just trying to think like writing and reading, right? Since I’m kind of getting to that age now with Lila. And here’s a perfect example. So last year, like actually right around this time, Lila started school and I forget where else I saw someone doing this, but like I was kind of starting to get worried because when she would color about four, she would just do like literally scribbles.

Like she wasn’t like making flowers or suns or anything or people. It was just scribbles, right? So I started like kind of worrying, like should she be drawing people? Should she be drawing like, like not perfect shapes, obviously, but like trying to draw a tree or a flower or the sun or clouds? And she just wasn’t. And part of me, which is so funny because I know this for everything else, but part of me was

my gosh, I feel like she should be doing this. And then she went to school and other kids were like drawing, writing their names already, right? And she was not there. And I started like really like freaking out internally. I wasn’t saying anything. And this just goes to show you that we can have covenants in motherhood and still have areas where we’re working on it, right? It doesn’t mean you’re wholly confident all the time about every aspect, but that’s an aside.

She wasn’t doing it and I was like starting to worry. And then one day we sat down, we were coloring together and she’s like, look mom, I drew you. And she drew, she had drawn a stick figure. Like I had never prompted her because that was one thing that I didn’t wanna do is like start trying to force my agenda on her. So like I was really just trying to trust in the process while internally like asking myself like, I don’t know, is something wrong? And that also just goes to show you

Brittni (04:43.314)
we can be confident and still like that drive to like be the best mom that we can be is going to kind of put those little those doubt those seeds of doubt in our head. But I had nothing to worry about. She now draws like everything under the sun. I mean, obviously she’s five, so she’s not drawing like, I don’t know. I don’t know, a perfect artistic creation, right? But she’s drawing

I’m trying to look if I have any drawings right around in front of me right now. No, but she’s drawing people. She’s drawing the sun. She’s drawing trees. She’s drawing mountains. She’s drawing flowers. And it just came in her own time. I didn’t need to worry about it. Same thing with swimming. She just one day started swimming. She’s like, I want to take my life jacket off. And the girl started swimming. If you’ve listened to the potty episode, she decided that she was ready to use the potty and she used the potty, right? And it’s going, the timeline is going to be different for every child.

And we really need to know and understand that. Specifically, like if we’re talking about sleep, do not compare your child. Like if your friend’s like, oh yeah, my six month old, we just placed him down, drowsy, but awake in the crib and they sleep 12 hours at night. Great for them. But we do not know the circumstances, like deep in -depth circumstances in that house. We do not know that child’s temperament. Maybe you do.

but we cannot compare our children. And that goes in line with the like needing to trust in our child’s unique timeline. Trust in your child, don’t compare them to another child because your child is a unique being. They have a unique temperament, they have a unique personality, they have unique sensory needs, they have unique abilities, they’re going to have unique interests. And actually something that I’m learning more about.

which I will be bringing on the podcast is about human design. And so it’s really fascinating because in human design, you can kind of think of it like Myers -Briggs mixed with like Enneagram mixed. Like there’s a bunch of they’ve combined a lot of like personality things into this one thing called human design. And it’s fascinating. And it just goes to show like who we are is unique to us.

Brittni (07:00.406)
And so we’re going to have different strengths. We’re going to be wired differently. And this is same for our children. We cannot expect them to do something just because a child of the same age is doing it. Like one of Lila’s really good little friends, she started riding a bike at four. Like her mom, I think I’ve told this story on the podcast before, her mom didn’t like try to teach her. She just was like, they had gotten her a bike and she like picked it up and went on the bike by herself. Right?

Every child is going to do it in their own time. Now, I get comments about this on Instagram when I’ve talked about this, which is like, okay, but we also need to be aware that sometimes there are developmental delays and some, yes. I think they’re what we really need to tune into. And this is where having a trusted medical provider is really beneficial. We wanna be mindful of what are the general…

developmental milestones happening at this age and where is my child? Like if we have a 12 month old who isn’t crawling yet, it doesn’t necessarily mean something’s wrong, but I would be taking my child to an occupational therapist and a physical therapist just to make sure that I’m giving my child the best environment to thrive. So there’s a balance between yes, trusting and also kind of like using that

gut tuning into those instincts, which we’re better able to tune into our instincts when we’re confident in ourselves. But tuning into those moment instincts to say like, hmm, am I feeling like something really is wrong or am I letting society kind of make me feel like I need to speed this process up in my child, right? Like we usually have this gut instinct. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve worked with moms who

suspected something’s going on with baby and they’ve gone to like the doctor and then somebody else and they’re like, no, no, everything’s fine. And then we work together and I get them put in front of the right provider and everything that they thought was right. They just needed to get to the right person because that instinct in them was right. So trust in those instincts when it comes to like looking at these milestones. If I think back to when I was feeling insecure about like Lila’s writing or drawing,

Brittni (09:25.942)
I wasn’t actually worried about her. I mean, she’s a thriving child. I was kind of starting to feel like other kids are doing it. Shouldn’t she be doing it? She’s so smart, right? That’s a difference. Number three, we have to do the inner work in ourselves and work through our triggers as parents. Parenthood really is a giant mirror.

It’s this beautiful opportunity in life for us to really look at ourselves and it can feel really, really uncomfortable. Let me say that again. Parenthood is a giant mirror that is held in front of us for us to look at ourselves and really analyze who am I, what’s going on beneath the surface. And it can feel really uncomfortable because

We think, right? Like I thought I had my life together before I had Lila. I thought that I was like, I had done inner work and then I have Lila and like all of this shit, excuse my language. I hope we don’t have little friends listening. All of this S -H -I -T comes up and it’s a beautiful invitation to work through it instead of just burying it. Because when we can work through it, two things are happening.

we’re becoming a more evolved person and we’re showing our children, we’re showing up for our children in a more evolved and regulated way. We’re able to better parent our children when we are more regulated, when we have worked through our stuff. So maybe this means talking to a therapist. Maybe this means if that feels scary for you, maybe this means, by the way, will say therapy

best thing in my life. So I think that we all should have someone that we can talk to, like a third party who’s really there to just help us. But anyways, if that is not up your alley, if you don’t want to do that, maybe it means simply starting to get really curious when when feelings or thought patterns come up. So like, and this still happens to me, and I’m still working through it. But like when Lila gets whiny, I get this panicky feeling inside of me.

Brittni (11:47.584)
and then I actually start getting annoyed. And that’s not her fault. She’s a little girl trying to express her emotions. That’s an invitation for me to say, whoa, every time she whines, I get this anxious, panicky feeling. And then I can go deeper. If I could talk to that anxious, panicky feeling, what would it tell me? Why is it uncomfortable? And

I mean, I’m still working through it, but I think for me, it’s, I love my mom. Mom, I know you listen to the podcast episode, or the podcast, so I love you. But my mom does not like crying. And I think a lot, this is normal of their generation and for us too, but I remember.

Like when Lila was a baby, as soon as she would cry, my mom was like, what does she need? What does she need? Like trying to stop it right away, right? So what did that do to me growing up as a child too? It internalized this message. Crying is not safe. I need to stop the crying at all costs. Whining, again, is kind of like, it can be annoying to our sensory system, just in general to our ears. So again, that’s a lot of internal work.

And again, mom, I love you. But doing that work, because the more we can do the work, the more our children are going to benefit from it. And also the more children are going to see that like we’re not perfect, right? Like, and I’ve talked about this, I talked about this in the episode with Michelle from Babies and Brains, like we all yell, we all get angry, we all yell. That’s okay.

The beauty in that moment is that you can show your child that you were human and that you’re sorry and that you’re going to work on it. Because what is that message sent? Okay, so let’s say we yell at our child, probably in like old school parenting, we were yelled at or a child was yelled at and the parent might’ve felt guilty about it, but they didn’t want to show that to the child. So they just moved on. So then the child internalizes this message of like, I deserved

Brittni (14:06.106)
I was bad, I deserved that. Whereas if we apologize and we repair, hey, you know what? I yelled at you and I was feeling really frustrated. You don’t deserve to be yelled at. I’m sorry, I’m really gonna work on that. And then after the apology, then we could talk about, but hey, in that moment, you did X, Y, or Z. Is that something

is respectful, is that something that we do in our home? So you still have the teaching moment, but you’re showing them that like, hey, it’s okay to make mistakes. You are not, you do not deserve to be yelled at or treated that way. And it’s okay to ask for forgiveness and we should ask for forgiveness. And then after that, and hey, by the way, the way that you are acting is not a way that we act in our home. We do not hit each other or whatever the case may be, right? So.

We have to do the inner work and work through our own triggers so that we can better show up for our children. And this is a work in progress, such a work in progress. And the amazing thing about this is it comes in waves. So I feel like I did a lot of internal work that first year of Lila’s life, just kind of getting regulated in general as a person.

And then like then you go a step lower or deeper not lower a step deeper and then a step deeper and I feel like this year has been like a big Awakening and eye -opening moment for me of like yes there like I really thought like okay. I’ve made it here I’m good. gonna you’re gonna keep going deeper all of the time So just remember that that you’re a human you’re a work in progress. You don’t need to be this enlightened Buddha right now, right? You just need to work with where you’re

have compassion and empathy for yourself too, because a lot of us didn’t receive that when we were children. Number four, and this is circling back to what I talked about at the beginning of the episode, having a village is so, so important. And I will tell you, I have a unique situation because we lived with my parents when Lila was born, so I literally had a live -in village.

Brittni (16:22.57)
And then when she was six months old is when COVID happened. So we were literally all at home together for what? I don’t even remember how long the lockdown was here in Colorado. At least four months, I think. So then we were all together for those four to six months. I can’t remember how long. I want to say it was the end of summer. So yeah, about six months maybe. I had that village.

And so in my mind, I’m like, have my parents, I have my sister, I have my village. And that I kind of took it at face value, I have my village. Well, two things. Some of us don’t have our village. And for me, kind of, I’m like an extroverted introvert. So once I know you and I love you and I’m comfortable with you, I am like outgoing, silly, wild. But until I really open up to you,

I’m gonna be very reserved and also like going out into social settings feels really uncomfortable to me sometimes. And so in motherhood, I really turned inward and then obviously COVID didn’t help that. And so I didn’t like try to make mom friends. I think a lot of that was also because I was worried. I didn’t want sleep to get brought up. I didn’t want to talk about bed sharing because I lacked that confidence. So there’s where lack of confidence also robbed me. It robbed me from

having more of a village. And so I remember last year in like May, I was talking to my therapist and I was like, I really feel lonely. I really feel like I need some community. And then Lila started school and I met, now she’s one of my best mom friends. And we met and we started like talking and we found out that like our parenting values are very aligned. They co -sleep.

She breastfeeds their two -year -old. God, no, is he gonna be three? He’ll be three, yeah. He’s almost three. Anyway, she’s still breastfeeding, and I don’t like the still, but there’s not a better word there. She’s breastfeeding her three -year -old, I will say, right? So like very aligned. And by the way, if you’re not breastfeeding, I will still be friends with you. But my point being that like, I found a mom friend who was like literally the same as me in parenting values, and it clicked.

Brittni (18:44.31)
and we have play dates all the time together, we do things together, we talk, right? And then I also started getting like other mom friends in the online community, like Tiffany of CoSleepy. I count her as one of my really, really good mom friends. Have we ever met face to face? No, but we text all the time, we voice memo each other. My friend Katie of the Not So Tired Toddler, we have met, I went to go visit her in Florida and she’s coming out with her boys and her husband, actually in a few weeks from when this episode goes live.

And I saw that’s what I started doing is I started creating that village. But on top of friends, I also brought like a chiropractor into our village. I consider my therapist part of my village, right? Because that’s where I’m going with this is sometimes we have the village. Sometimes we have to get a little bit outside of our comfort zone and we have to create the village. All of my clients, every single one of my clients, I am a part of their village.

They took the step to get the help that they needed and brought me into their village. And that’s where I’m going with this is yes, we’re all like, well, where’s the village? I don’t have family here. I don’t have a lot of close friends. First, I see you and I’m sending you love, but let’s make that village. And maybe it means it is getting a little bit outside of your comfort zone, talking to a mom at the park. Maybe it’s going to a mommy and me class if that’s something that you’re interested in. I know something really cool that happens in my area.

is they’re called like mom walks. And I think they happen like one Sunday a month or something like that. And everybody comes with their strollers or baby carriers and they walk together, right? Little things like that. Maybe it just means like taking yourself out to a coffee shop and being open to new experiences and people coming into your life. Maybe it is getting a therapist. Maybe it is working with me because you’re struggling with sleep, right? Whatever the case may be, if you feel like you don’t have a village,

I’m going to challenge you this week to do one thing that could make that village happen for you. So maybe it’s reaching out to a mom. I’m so guilty of doing this all the time. Maybe it’s reaching out to a mom who you exchanged numbers with at the park because your little one’s played so well, but you’ve never texted her. Maybe it’s reaching out to her and scheduling a play date. Maybe it’s going to that mommy and me group that like you’ve wanted to go to, but you keep making excuses for. Maybe it’s if your little one’s in school or

Brittni (21:13.152)
or like daycare, if you kind of see a mom that maybe you like smile that or talk to a little bit, maybe it’s talking to her more, right? I’m going to challenge you to that this week. If you do not feel like you have a village, what’s one thing that you could do this week? Maybe it’s booking an appointment with a therapist. Maybe like I said, it’s booking a discovery call with me or booking a package with me. Maybe it’s in a few weeks, signing up for my master class and meeting me face to face via Zoom, where I’m going to help you find more confidence in

what’s one way that you could expand your village today or this week. I’ll say this week. And five, our children have so much to teach us. And this one was a hard one because I was like, my gosh, I’m already at five. Like what? I feel like I have so much more and I there are so many more. But I think this one is so beautiful because this is one that I’ve really learned this year.

when watching Lila, like how much she loves life, how fearless she is, how truly enlightened our children are.

Brittni (00:01.528)
how truly enlightened our children are because their wings haven’t been clipped, right? Because they haven’t, their life hasn’t been doled. They haven’t been told that they can’t dream. They haven’t been told, right? Like all of these things, our children are so pure and we can learn so much from them. We can learn to slow down. We can learn to have fun again. One thing I was just thinking about yesterday as I was driving in the car,

is how uptight I was like the first two and a half years of maybe even three years of Lila’s life. Like I was so uptight. I had lost that funness. And this goes back to the internal work because it was also doing a lot of internal work. But like I’ve found my silliness and my joy again. And a lot of that is due to Lila and internal work, right? But they can also teach us so much again because they’re a mirror. So

If we see them behaving a certain way or doing a certain thing, where did they pick that up from? That feels a little harsh, I know, but so many times Lila will do something or say something and I’m like, I have some work to do there. That came from me, right? So they really are there to teach us, to guide us just as much as

here to teach them and guide them. So I want you to look at your child today and ask yourself like what is one thing that they’ve taught me today or what is one thing that they’ve taught me in their life? What is one thing that they’re teaching me right now? The other day Lila wanted to go out and play in the puddles and it was warm. I love warm summer rain so it was warm because I had rained a lot and

She’s jumping, jumping, jumping, and then she’s like, can I lay in the puddle? And my immediate reaction was like, I didn’t say it, but my first gut reaction was like, no. And then I like, before I said no, I stopped myself. I’m like, why not? We don’t have plans this afternoon. So she goes in and changes clothes and takes a bath in a little bit. So I’m like, lay in that puddle, girl. So she’s in the puddle doing like snow angels. We’ll call them puddle angels.

Brittni (02:21.462)
She’s jumping in it, she’s rolling around in the puddle, and she’s having the time of her life. And in that moment, I was like, what a beautiful lesson for me of how simple and joyful life can be when we just live in the moment. She wasn’t worried about getting her clothes wet. She wasn’t worried about taking a bath. She was worried about being in that moment. And I know as parents and as adults in general, we can’t be that way every second of the day because we do have responsibilities. But where are those moments where we can do

What are the other things that our children are teaching us? I watch Lila do things that she’s so afraid of, and I’m like, I need to get that fearlessness back. Our children can teach us so much if we let them, if we tune into them and we allow ourselves to kind of go back to that childhood version of ourselves or just grow right now with what they’re teaching us. So I hope these lessons were helpful for you.

I hope maybe all they do, if you’re like, I already know all of this, then I hope you take some time after this episode to reflect on what your child has taught you, what motherhood has taught you up until this point that you’re in motherhood. I’m wishing you a beautiful day and a beautiful week, and I will see you next week.