241: Processing Emotion: An Interview with Jen

You’re listening to the Vibrant Happy Women podcast, episode number 241. We’re talking about processing your emotions and creating an emotionally safe space for yourself. Stay tuned.

Hi, I'm Jen Riday. This podcast is for women who want to feel more vibrant, happy, aligned, and alive. You'll gain the emotional, physical, and spiritual tools you need to get your sparkle back and ensure that depression, anxiety, and struggle don't rule your life. Welcome to the Vibrant Happy Women Podcast.

Hey there my friends. Welcome back to the Vibrant Happy Women Podcast. I’m Dr. Jen Riday. And I’m super excited to be talking about emotional resilience, and coping with emotions, and creating a safe space for yourself. On this episode I was actually interviewed by someone else, Dr. Laura Froyen, a friend, a colleague and someone who also has a PhD in human development and family studies, who lives here in Madison, Wisconsin with me.

We met because she originally listened to the Vibrant Happy Women Podcast years ago. And she’s like, “Wait, she’s from Madison, I’m from Madison.” And then we had lunch and the rest is history. Laura has been on my show twice before. Check out episode 210 and episode 93. Laura is a positive parenting and respectful relationship coach and she is fantastic at helping you learn how to be a more conscious, and loving, and amazing parent. Laura herself is an amazing parent.

So I always love to talk to her about all things parenting. But beyond that she’s also really good at relationships. She is an expert on marriage. And the reason she does both is she believes that you can’t really be a good parent unless you’ve also created a safe space with your love relationship with your spouse or partner. I think it’s an amazing approach.

So, Laura is the host of The Balanced Parent Podcast. I highly recommend that you go subscribe to that podcast and follow her advice, she is amazing. On her Facebook page Laura also offers these amazing Wednesday advice sessions where you can ask questions about any parenting challenge you’re facing. And she has deep, beautiful, wise, research based answers that you will love. So, if you want to be a more conscious, and connected, and soulful parent you will love following Dr. Laura Froyen.

So, today I am actually playing my interview on Laura’s podcast, The Balanced Parent Podcast. And it was such a great discussion about my recent trials with my son in a car accident, and my other son falling out of a tree. And how really all of Covid, all of 2020 has made us emotionally strong. And we talk about why that is and how to process emotions to get even stronger every time you face something new. So it was such a fun discussion, I decided to ask her if I could play it on my podcast as well.

So this is our episode on The Balanced Parent Podcast and we’ll be playing it for you today, so let’s go ahead and dive in.

Laura: Hello everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast. I am Dr. Laura Froyen. And I’m here with my guest, and my friend, and colleague, Jen Riday. She is a mom of six and has a PhD in human development and family studies, just like me. And I’m so excited to have her here. Jen, why don’t you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do.

Jen: Yeah. Hi. This is fun. I don’t know if everyone knows but Laura and I are both from Madison, Wisconsin so we’ve got in common as well. So I’m Jen Riday, like you said. And I help burned out and overwhelmed moms get off the hamster wheel and find balance so they can love life again. And I do this with tools that work. I like to be really practical and say, “Here’s what you do. Let’s focus on results, not just the blah, blah, blah you often get in the self-help world.” So tools like Feel It to Heal It, or the B.E. H.E.R. Morning Ritual.

And I use these in my life. This is how I function with six kids, four of whom are virtual schooling, one of whom is doing half day school right now, and a husband who maybe doesn’t have the best social and emotional regulation skills. So yeah, when I say tools that work, I’m sitting here across from Laura doing a podcast, so I’m still functioning. They work.

Laura: They do. It’s funny, when I was starting my business I took your time management course. Do you still offer that course, is that still? I think.

Jen: Yeah. It’s still around and it’s a part of my Vibrant Happy Women Club, yeah.

Laura: Awesome. Well, I took it and it was so helpful in helping me figure out how am I going to do this thing where I have small kids at home, and run a business, and take care of myself, and be a good wife? It was, you helped me get really clear on my core values and my priorities, and how to make room and space for myself. So I loved that course. You definitely have tools that actually work, that you can put into practice and implement.

Jen: Thank you, I appreciate that.

Laura: Yeah. So we were just talking about your son who had an accident, he fell out of a tree. What happened?

Jen: Well, this is an interesting two part story. Let me just say first of all, my son falling out of the tree is the second part. He was trying to help one of our kittens, as part of Covid we have four garage kittens because I’m allergic. So they live in our garage and they get to play outside. And it was in the tree, so he climbed up, my 15 year old climbed up to help the kitten get down, it probably didn’t even need his help. But he slipped on some wet moss that grows on trees and totally broke his shoulder, had to have surgery. He has pins sticking out of his arm, it’s really nasty.

Laura: When you posted those pictures, yeah, you posted it on social media and I saw those pictures. And my husband had the almost exact same injury in high school. And so I reached out to you and just love, and you came back, you said, “Covid has made,” like I was like, “How have you been handling this? How is it going? This must be so hard.” And you came back with, “Covid has made us strong.” And I was like I need to know more. I need to know more about that. You need to teach us this way you’ve been looking at it. So tell us more.

Jen: Yeah. Well, let me tell you the first part of that story. So my other son, the oldest who’s 19, just 10 days earlier had flipped his car in a horrible accident where I got this call. And someone said, “Is this Jen? Don’t be alarmed, but your son has been in an accident. It’s very bad.” I mean you’re like, whoa.

Laura: What, don’t be alarmed?

Jen: I thought that only happens on the movies. That call that that really just happened. So long story short, his car was a ball of metal. He had zero injuries aside from a little bit of abrasion from the airbag powder, which it burns the skin a little bit. And he walked away fine. But still I think those two incidents really match up with all of 2020 for most of us. A year where we’ve learned deep emotional resilience, either we’ve learned it or we’re on substances, it’s one or the other. Do you know what I mean?

So taking it back to the beginning of Covid I had just deep panic. I spent time keeping a spreadsheet of where I thought the numbers would go because in grad school I took an advanced statistics class. And I’m like, “Oh man, this looks horrible. If we follow China’s numbers, we’re doomed.” And I got in such a panic that the day came I could barely function anymore. So I got into the bath, I did what I’ve done throughout Covid which is what I call Feel It to Heal It. And it’s very much what it sounds like, instead of numbing with Netflix, or sugar, chocolate, alcohol, whatever else you might use, I just sat in the bath literally that day, I had to sit there for four straight hours because I had so much emotion and energy moving through my body. And I just sat there and I felt it.

So a lot of us when big feelings come up, it’s super uncomfortable and we want to just freak out. We panic and we’re like, “Oh, I can’t handle this. Oh my gosh, this is horrible, what am I going to do?” And then we almost make our panic, and anxiety, and the uncomfortable emotions increase with our thoughts.

Laura: Yeah. We get flooded.

Jen: Exactly. So I sat in the bath, I just said, “Okay, it’s time to move this through.” And I felt everything, I felt anxiety. I let myself think all the thoughts. Well, what if my parents die? What if one of my kids die? I just went all the way to the worst case scenario and felt it. And I realized in the end it’s just a range of emotions at the bottom starting with shame, at the top maybe we get all the way up to enlightenment or joy. And in between it’s just a series of emotions, some feel way less comfortable than others.

But what I discovered is as you let yourself feel it with this method, you begin to shift. You slowly rise up the ladder, maybe you pass through anger, maybe you pass through frustration and you keep moving up. And you get back to essentially what we all want which is peace, calm, contentment, happiness, joy, excitement, all the good things if we’re willing to be uncomfortable for a minute and let it move through.

Laura: I think that’s so important and so powerful. And it’s important for us as humans, but for our kids too as parents. As I was listening to you talk I was remembering an experience I had last week with my daughter who is five and was going back to school. And has been missing her time with her family, she got used to us all being together.

And one morning she just lost it and didn’t want to go to school. “I don’t want to go to school.” I mean she was experiencing what you were experiencing, a complete flood of emotions, things that she’d probably been keeping in, trying to stuff, you know, trying to keep behind a wall. And because there is good stuff there too, she is back with her friends, she loves her teacher. She has so much fun. And it’s easy to want to say, “I don’t need to feel those bad things. I’ve got these good things.” And try to turn her attention away. And sometimes we have to do that.

But they got to be too much for her, for her poor little five year old body, it just all had to come out. And in that moment I had a choice. I could go push her through it, tell her to shove it down, tell her to stuff it. I had a podcast interview coming up. We needed to get to school on time. I needed her to go to school and I could have pushed it. But I also knew intuitively, just like you knew, that she needed to feel it. She needed to feel all those things. She needed to move through all those things. They needed to be felt and experienced so that they could leave and go on.

And so I just sat and I held her. And she cried heart wrenching sobs for five, ten minutes, I made no move to slow them down or stop them. I even went there and elicited more of them. I used all my good therapist skills with empathy and validation. I held them up to the light. I heightened them so that she could fully experience the depths of her feelings. And do you know what, after she felt them all, she went to school, she had a great day.

And the whole rest of the week she had tantrums about leaving school, she didn’t want to leave. She’s the first person buckled in the car in the morning, you know what I mean? The like experiencing all of those emotions, all that reluctance, all that sadness about missing her family, missing her time with her sisters, allowed her to move on from them. Allowed her to peacefully enjoy, and joyfully enjoy her time at school with her friends, because she knew.

Jen: That’s really cool.

Laura: Yeah. And I mean that’s what we were doing, this Heal It to Feel It. So what is the Heal It to Feel It method? Because I knew how to do that for my kid because I’m a therapist, but not everybody knows how to do that. And not all of us had the chance to learn that, or see it, or experience it with our parents growing up, or our partners now. And I don’t think everybody knows that we can offer that for ourselves, that we don’t even need a therapist, that we can offer that to ourselves.

Hey balanced parents, if you are loving this conversation that I’m having right now with Jen and you want more of it I would love to invite you to join us on Jen’s annual Happy Vibrant Women retreat. I’m so excited to be joining her. I’m going to be doing a segment at the retreat on parenting. But I am also going to be participating in it because goodness knows I need it this year more than any other.

So if you’re tired of feeling crazy busy and you know you need more balance, if you want to feel more free and fall in love with your life again. If you want to improve your relationships with your partner, your children and yourself, I would love to have you join me in Florida at an all-inclusive resort where every need of yours will be met and taken care of, to learn how to live a more vibrant and happy life with Jen. So you can check out all of the information and get signed up in the link in the show notes. But I hope you’ll join us.

Alright, let’s go back to the show.

So tell me, Jen, what is the Heal It to Feel It method, how do we do this? How do we put that into practice for ourselves or for our kids?

Jen: Yeah. So Feel It to Heal It starts with identifying what’s going on in your body in terms of sensations. Some of you might have done it through yoga where you do body scan meditations. Notice your shoulders, what do you feel there? What’s going on in your stomach? But with Feel It to Heal It you do the same thing, you notice you’re feeling uncomfortable, you’re about to lose it with your kids, you feel stressed. That’s when your body’s trying to say, “Hey, pay attention, you’re just about to lose it.”

So you go to a quiet place and I like to recommend you have a safe space where you train yourself to do your emotional processing there. So I have two, it’s the bath or my bed. My bed has this beautiful feather comforter, I pull it up and it cues my body to feel safe, to do the emotional processing, both of those locations.

Laura: I love that idea, yeah.

Jen: Yeah. A friend of mine, she called it a she space, having a she space, so it’s one idea.

Laura: I love that, because our bodies do respond to cues. I actually use smell for that, I have one essential oil that I use that I put over my heart. And that’s when I feel the ability to feel those things. I offer myself kind loving touch. But it does, it cues my body to soothe, okay, we’re safe, yeah.

Jen: I love that.

Laura: But we can totally use lots of different cues to trigger safety in us, to trigger that part of our nervous system. I love that, okay. Good. So you find a safe place.

Jen: What essential oil is that? I’m curious, because maybe I’ll need it.

Laura: Yeah. So there’s one that I like from Plant Therapy which is the brand I like. You can get it on Amazon. I really like it because they are incredibly responsible in educating you about what’s safe to use with your kids. Some other essential oil brands give recommendations to use oils on kids that are not safe, or use oils in an unsafe way. And I feel really strong about evidence and research. And essential oils can absolutely be used to help with mood and feeling better, but they should be used safely.

And I really like Plant Therapy as a brand. And the one that I like for that process is called Self Esteem. And it doesn’t mean self-esteem, like for me it means self-kindness. And if you are a Young Living essential oil person, the essential oil blend called Joy is also a very similar blend. So I like those two.

Jen: Thanks. I will pick them up. So safe space, and then you just check-in, what am I feeling in my body? And when you first do this you won’t know the words maybe. A lot of us have three main emotion words: mad, sad, happy. There’s so many more but we can get really good at it. I know, Laura, I think you told me about the Feeling Wheel from the Gottman Institute. Do you talk about that on your show?

Laura: I haven’t talked about it yet but there’s lots of great feelings wheels out there, if you just do a Google image search, but yeah.

Jen: Yeah, print out a copy of a feeling wheel and look at it if you’re not sure. But you’ll feel sensations in your body like maybe anxiety; you feel a tightness and a gripping in your throat. When I’m sad I feel almost like a hand is pressing down on my heart area, heavy, heavy. And my body will contract around it as if trying to protect it. So a lot of interesting cues when you start to pay attention to your body and the sensations, and you’ll recognize I’m feeling sad. And then you’ll identify it more quickly.

And once you understand what you’re feeling you can give the feeling a label. And then you just feel it, you feel it to heal it. You say, “Okay, I’m feeling sad, it feels like thick black tar.” You can label all the senses with it. If it were a color what would it be? If it were a texture what would it be? If you were shining a light under it, what would you see there? Just keep with it and with it and you’ll start to notice that it begins to move.

Now, the interesting thing is emotions kind of have vibration, like a wavelength of light, high vibration, the light waves move quickly and low vibe one are slower. Well, emotion is the same way. So the slowest vibration emotion is shame. And when people are feeling shame, they will often describe it like a rock in their stomach or black tar, or sludge. And so when you’re doing this method for yourself and not necessarily as a therapist you will start to feel movement. That blackness is starting to move or it’s starting to shift to the color blue, or can imagine butterflies there.

And I had a friend who was having some boundary issues with her husband and it was so funny. She started with blackness and by the end she was describing birch leaves, yellow birch leaves blowing in the breeze. That’s what it felt like in her body. She had completely moved from shame and frustration all the way up to peace and excitement, symbolized by the birch leaves that she saw.

So it sounds a little crazy, but when you can picture your feelings in this way, you might hear a sound, you might imagine a texture, whatever it is, using your five senses. It will begin to dissolve and inevitably it will shift back to something more comfortable if you stick with it. So with kids this is really cool. Kids might not necessarily be able to label what they’re feeling, but they can describe what’s going on in their bodies.

So Laura, you did that with your daughter the other day. And I’m curious since it’s fresh on your mind, do you remember the words she was using to describe what was going on in there?

Laura: She would say things like, “My heart hurts. My tummy feels lonely for you. I just need a hug.” Yeah.

Jen: Oh, that’s so sweet. And she could say her tummy felt something and her heart felt something.

Laura: Yeah.

Jen: And so with kids then, they describe these feelings. “I feel like shaking. I feel it’s black, it’s blue,” whatever. Then you can give them a label, “That sounds like you’re feeling frustrated.” And then they have a word for it, and it’s just this beautiful increase in emotional intelligence.

Laura: Yeah. The feelings is helpful to print out too. So folks who are in my Respectful Parenting 101 course or who are in my membership Balancing U, they have my feelings wheel that you can download from the membership sites and print it out and put it onto the refrigerator. Kids are drawn to it. Most of them are color coded, so that the colors jive with what the feelings are and that can be really helpful for kids who are not reading yet.

But it’s also really helpful for adults because you are so right Jen, most adults I know don’t know all of the names for their feelings. Women tend to know more. Men tend to know very few because they’re not taught, we’re not taught. And what you’re saying, I think to do this, to do what you’re suggesting would take a lot of tolerance for discomfort, a lot of ability to sit with, and a lot of trust, that these emotions feel big and overwhelming. And by feeling, and acknowledging them, and sitting with them it will lessen over time, it will shift over time.

And most people are so scared of the overwhelm, of letting the floodgates open that they won’t even open them just a crack. And you’re asking them to open them wide and they even the flood that comes rushing out. And that’s scary. How did you learn to start trusting that feelings don’t last forever, that they change, that the more you feel them the higher the possibility that they will move through and become something else?

Jen: We all have these moments where we’re overwhelmed by emotion, for example, when my son had the car accident where he flipped his car. And I got the call and only one of us could go to the hospital because it’s Covid. And I didn’t know what state he was in. I knew he was in a neck brace. And so I was home. I stuck my other four kids that were here at the time in front of the TV. And I said, “Have fun.” And then I could either have a breakdown or I could just move through it. And I didn’t want to have the breakdown, that’s way more uncomfortable.

So I sat for about – it took me three hours to process. It started with – you all know the feeling of adrenaline, it’s super uncomfortable, it’s shaky, shakiness in your chest. And I just focused one breath at a time. And by the end I was like I had gone through some thoughts while I was feeling. Okay, worst case scenario, blah, blah, blah, what would I do? How would we handle this? And I got my adrenaline back to normal. And I think what I realize is this is all chemical. I had to sit there and breathe with it to get that adrenaline to metabolize and the cortisol to metabolize.

And breathing and sleep are two great things. So sometimes if it’s way too much emotion, just go to sleep. Your body will take care of a lot of it while you sleep.

Laura: Crying is also another lovely way to get chemicals out of your body. It’s one of the ways that we get cortisol our major stress chemical out of our body is through tears. It’s incredibly healing. Our bodies are incredibly wise, if you are feeling like crying, it is okay to let them out, it’s actually quite good for you.

Jen: Exactly, agreed. I love to just give myself space to cry like you did for your daughter. But for all of us Covid has given us this chance to feel. And what I see for the most part 90% of the women and men I interact with are much stronger. Because we’ve faced emotion, after emotion, after emotion, so we’re strong. And so that kind of goes back to that comment in the beginning I told you. Well, my son fell out of a tree. No big deal. I’m stronger now. It really wasn’t as big of a deal as so many other things this year.

Laura: Yeah, I do think. And I think it’s really important to clarify that you’re not being dismissive of it being difficult, of the hard things that have happened, that it’s that you have more ability to cope with them because you’re not holding them all in. You’ve moved through them. You allow yourself to fully feel them so that you can be regulated in the face of difficult times.

Jen: And having tried Feel It to Heal It so many times I know the way through. All I have to do is breathe and feel it. What am I feeling? What’s the name of this feeling? It’s drawing your attention completely inward to your body again, and again, and again when you have these moments. So I was able to sit through my son’s surgery and no one else was there with me. And my husband was a little checked out. But I had my own back because all I had to do was sit and feel. I’m feeling nervous. Okay, that’s interesting.

This nervousness feels kind of like ants walking up and down inside of me. That’s what it feels like. And I’m just sticking with that and then I would notice the nervousness would shift. It’s like I had paid enough attention to it that my brain said, “Okay, she’s got this, she knows what this is. Let’s give her something better now.”

Laura: Yeah. I love this idea too, Jen, that what you’re talking about is that we can be our own safe place, that we can be our own person. The person who always has our back and the person who is going to support us, and hear us, and validate us, that we don’t need to look for that from the outside, that we can be that for ourselves. I think that’s an incredibly empowering thing. And not a lonely thing, not like I’m on my own so I have to do it for myself. But an empowering, I can do this for myself. I can be what I need for myself.

Jen: Exactly. And in my experience most of the time other people’s responses to try to help you emotionally fall far below the mark of what you really need. So instead of being frustrated with their inability to understand your feelings, just give it to yourself, 100% responsibility, 100% control even. Because in the end my son fell from the tree, my other son wrecked. Even at the worst case scenario, let’s say that’s death, that’s pretty end of the road scenario. The worst things that can happen to us, in the end the worst thing that really happens is a feeling about that circumstance.

The worst that can happen is a feeling. And if we learn we can handle any feeling we can handle any situation.

Laura: Yeah. I think you’re speaking to something that’s so important to understand, the resilience that we have within us. And so for me growing up in a home where I was always told I was too much, that I was too sensitive. Then I would, you know, that I knew I was almost always invalidated and dismissed in my big feelings. And I’m an incredibly sensitive person and it took me in becoming a therapist to realize what a super power that was, that this was a strength of mine.

And it has taken me work in my couple relationship because I went into marriage, into romance, into love, seeking. Finally seeking, the feeling of finally being heard, finally being understood, finally being held and accepted unconditionally, finally being validated. And the beauty of how we choose our partners, I chose a partner whose main job, main work is learning about emotions, learning how to do empathy when he grew up in a family where emotions were dangerous and you could never be felt.

He’s not very good at validating my feelings. And so in our relationship his work has been learning to not avoid feelings, learning to sit with discomfort, with my pain and feelings, and not move to fix it. And that’s been his work. And my work has been learning to rely on myself rather than looking for that from the outside. Yeah, it’s fascinating, the way that our kids and partners invite us to heal and grow and create that. They do, they invite us in very real ways.

And I think that that’s the other thing that I noticed when you were talking, too, that emotions arising, they are opportunities, they are little pings of hello, here’s something that you need to pay attention to. Slow down; sit with me for just a moment.

Jen: Our brain is smart, I mean it’s processing 60,000 thoughts a day. It’s only presenting really 10% of them to our consciousness. And if it’s giving us a feeling it wants us to pay attention to something. And more often than not there’s a thought that’s going to come with the feeling, if we slow down enough to feel it. A thought we need to process, we need to recognize, maybe let go, shift. And we have a great healing tool right at our disposal just sitting there and feeling it, like our own therapist.

And then teaching our kids and our spouses like you get to do, to do the same, it’s really fun and, well, maybe not fun, but really important and amazing work.

Laura: It is, absolutely. Well, I think it’s fun. I think it can be painful and hard, but those don’t have to be bad things either. When we can shift into seeing emotions and feelings as opportunities and none of them are bad. All of them serve a purpose in our lives. I think that that’s an incredibly important shift to make. And I think for me, cultivating a mindfulness practice where I am non-judgmentally, and very compassionately and very curiously observing my thoughts, and feelings, and sensations has made that a lot easier.

So for me a mindfulness practice is just like how a runner who’s training for a marathon would go for runs, maybe a shorter daily run, a long weekend run. That’s how I approach meditation. It’s just practice for fine-tuning. My ability to non-judgmentally, very curiously, and very compassionately notice my thoughts, feelings, sensations. So, that in the moment I have access to that skill and those hard moments when I’m triggered, or mad, or angry, that I have access to it. Is that how you think about mindfulness?

Jen: Exactly the same. So I mentioned in the beginning I teach the B.E. H.E.R. Morning Ritual, it’s just an acronym that stands for breathe, which is when I meditate, exercise, which also moves emotion through you. Hydrate, need water to function and then embodying, thinking the thoughts and having the posture and voice, and confidence you want to have, and then reading something inspiring. So, B.E. H.E.R. and you can do each one in as little as a minute.

So just one minute of breathing and saying, “What’s going on in my body?” counts as meditation and it’s a practice of like you said, practicing every day to see, what am I sensing? What am I thinking? What am I feeling? And then if it’s not something you love you focus on it for a moment, move it through, shift your thoughts and start your day in the way you want to feel essentially, yeah.

Laura: I love that acronym so much B.E. H.E.R. it feels so aspirational and so purpose driven. That if we want to become a better version of ourselves or fully become ourselves, all the good, and all of the bad and all the imperfectness then we have this practice that supports us in being who we are, being ourselves. Yeah, I really like, I like that acronym. And I love how you’re saying that just one minute of mindful awareness.

I think meditation is something that is incredibly intimidating for so many people. And they think I have to have 20 minutes, I have to sit there and have no thoughts. I have to have an empty brain. And that is not it. I don’t do that. I do a five minute meditation at the most a day.

Jen: And I think that’s why a lot of people don’t have a morning routine, they think it has to look a certain way. So I encourage people to have a short version, a five minute version and a long version. Some days you need the long version, you drop everything, you’re like I’m going to meditate a long time. And I’m going to do yoga. I’m going to take a bath. But a lot of days you just need that quick version, and that’s morning routine too.

Laura: Yeah. Is there somewhere people can find out about the B.E. H.E.R. Morning Ritual that you have?

Jen: Yeah, just listen to my podcast Vibrant Happy Women. I talk about it on there sometimes.

Laura: Your podcast continues to be one of my favorites. I think that that’s how we met, isn’t it? Because I was putting together a list of podcasts for Balanced Parents and I put yours on it. And then I emailed you. And I was like, “You’re in Madison.”

Jen: That was crazy. Yeah, we’re in the same place, yeah.

Laura: Yeah, okay. Well, thank you so much for sharing the Feel It to Heal It method and the B.E. H.E.R. Morning Ritual. I think that these are great examples of the really practical tools that you give, that you’ve given me in the past, that you give to your community. I really appreciate you sharing those stories and insights with us.

Jen: Thank you.

I am so grateful that Laura had me on her podcast and I’m going to have her on again. Like I said, she’s been on mine twice already. I love talking with her. I find her parenting ideas and her marriage ideas so soulful, and gentle, and loving, and compassionate. And it’s a beautiful style of parenting that I think more and more of us are shifting into.

Well, you might have heard Laura say that she will be at the Vibrant Happy Women retreat happening in February of 2021. She is going to be leading a parenting workshop. So if you would like to meet Laura and myself in person and hear more of Laura’s wisdom in person, as well as my own, you need to join us at the Vibrant Happy Women retreat. You can sign up at jenriday.com/retreat.

I am so excited to have a week to myself. I have been a good little soldier wearing my mask here in Wisconsin where we’re currently having an outbreak. And at this point Florida is much safer, so I’m excited to go there and just have some time to myself away from the kids. I need it. At this point sometimes I feel like mental health is the bigger risk. And if that is you I would love to invite you to join us in Florida in February.

There are a few seats left. We’re going to have a small and intimate group of about 25 to 30 women. And that’s really fun because you get to talk. You get to talk with the speakers. You get to reflect. You get to make really close friendships. And Laura and I will both be there as well. So we’d love to have you. Again, there are a few tickets left. You can get yours at jenriday.com/retreat.

Well, my friends it has been such a joy. I wish you a wonderful vibrant happy women weekend and week. And I will see you again next time. Until then, make it a vibrant and happy week. Take care.

If you enjoy this podcast, you have to check out the Vibrant Happy Women Club. It’s my monthly group coaching program where we take all this material to the next level and to get you the results that will blow your mind. Join me in the Vibrant Happy Women Club at jenriday.com/join.