What in your life do you dread? How do you experience dread? What’s the point of dread? How do we make our dread go away? We dive into all these questions in today’s podcast. Jamie, Avery, and Lucy share their own experiences with dread, and we explore the different ways dread can show up (e.g., Avery’s dread is more anxiety based, and Lucy and Jamie’s dread is more like “I don’t wanna do this!”). We explored the overlap among dread, anxiety, and depression. We talk about how dread comes up for clients in our clinical practices. Lastly we talked about how to manage and reduce our experiences of dread.

Jamie, Lucy, and Avery have found self-compassion to be incredibly helpful in their own lives and in the lives of their clients. In this episode, we talk specifically about how we use self-compassion as parents. We’ve found self-compassion to be especially useful in parenting situations where we are feeling judgment for ourselves or our kids, during transitions, when we are in conflict or feeling irritable, when we need a break, when we’re making a difficult parenting decision or setting a limit, when we’re feeling regretful about the past or worried about the future, and really whenever we’re suffering. In these situations, we’ve noticed that simply naming and observing our thoughts and feelings and getting curious about them (rather than judging them) to be an important first step. Validating and tending to our own feelings can help us feel more calm and clear. Another helpful component of self-compassion is recognizing the common humanity of our experience. When we recognize that we are not the only ones having a particular issue, we feel less isolated. Taking self-compassion breaks, practicing loving-kindness meditation, and visualizing the presence of a supportive person in our lives can help us remember this important tool.

Avery, Jamie, and Lucy are so excited to interview mother-daughter relationship expert, Hilary Truong, MA, LPC! Hilary is a leading voice on keeping mothers and daughters in relationship through the teenage years and beyond. Join us as we discuss what people get wrong about the mother-daughter relationship, what moms and daughters most need from each other, the unique pressures we face as moms, and helpful strategies to repair the mother-daughter relationship.

Where to find Hilary:

www.hilarymae.com

www.instagram.com/hilarymaeco

https://hilarymaeco.samcart.com/products/mother-daughter-conversation-game

In this episode, we discuss resentment-how it feels, what kinds of situations may cause it, and what we can do about it. Resentment is defined as a negative feeling in response to a perception of unfairness or being mistreated. We discuss various negative feelings that come up when we’re experiencing resentment and talk through some examples of situations that have made us feel resentful in our own lives. Resentment can make us feel angry, irritable, and on edge and can affect our relationships. We review strategies to help manage our feelings and directly address situations that cause us to feel resentful.

In this episode, we revisit the topic of adult connection and the importance of adult friendships. We review the mental health benefits of social connection (hint: it’s more important than diet and exercise for longevity!). We talk about the advantage of the friend role as compared to other roles. We also discuss what it takes to be a “good friend” and what to do if a friendship becomes unhealthy. Lastly, we provide some advice for deepening friendships.

In today’s episode we talk about the parts and pieces of ourselves that we’ve lost along the way. Some of these might be aspects of ourselves we’re glad to be rid of (like people pleasing or caring about what other people think), whereas there might be other facets of ourselves (like seeking adventure or having/feeling fun) that we’d like to reclaim. We explore how this comes up in our lives and the lives of our clients, driving factors, and ways to notice and reintegrate missing pieces that we like and want back.

Perseverance and grit are great to teach our kids but when is it appropriate for them to quit or change directions? In today’s episode, we talk about all of the complicated reasons that we may pressure our kids to stay with things longer than what’s good for their well-being (including our “own stuff” as parents!). We talk about why quitting can be courageous and how you can assist your kids in taking ownership over that. We give pointers and strategies on how to approach the “quitting” conversation and highlight the importance of curiosity and intentionality.

Resource:

https://www.amazon.com/Quitting-Strategy-Perseverance_and-Science-Giving/dp/1538722348

Today’s episode is all about fostering financial literacy in our teens and young adults. We start with some of the main financial related concerns we hear from kids during and after college, and we work backwards, highlighting specific tools and skills we can teach our kids before they leave home. We explore methods of payment, tipping, budgeting, and allowance/income. We also talk about natural opportunities to grow these skills, as well as opportunities for financially oriented natural consequences (e.g., how to respond when your teen loses her laptop stylus for the 3rd time in 3 months!). Lastly, we highlight how financial literacy can be complicated: it’s hard to talk openly and directly about finances, and money tends to stir up all kinds of emotions (which makes it even more uncomfortable).