Episode 15

[Kyle]: Hello and welcome to episode 15 of The Art of Raising Humans podcast. I’m Kyle.

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[Sara]: And I'm Sara, and we're here to talk about parenting and the art of raising these little humans in our lives.

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[Kyle]: And in this episode, what we're going to be covering today, is one of the biggest barriers that parents face in becoming the parent they would like to be. We want to discuss how shame distorts our ability and really almost holds us back from being able to love ourselves and love our kids the way we really want to and we also want to hit upon how that impacts how our kids see themselves and how they may parent someday in the future and we want to wrap it all up, with ways in which to help move away from shame, to try to not have shame be this barrier that it so often is in our families. So, we're looking forward to having the discussion today.

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[Kyle]: So, Sara, you know, shame is such a big topic that you and I run into a lot in ourselves and our kids, with other parents we're trying to trying to help. So, maybe if you could in your words, how do you see shame being such a detrimental thing in in parenting?

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[Sara]: Well, for starters I want to say, I just sort of do a synopsis of what shame is. So, we all know what guilt is, guilt is that “I’ve done something wrong and I feel bad about the thing I’ve done wrong”. Shame is where we take that in within ourselves and “I am wrong”. So, “not only did I do something wrong, but I am wrong, I am a broken person” and when we are parenting or just living life from a place that “I am a broken person”, then it just puts us in this place of constantly-- It sort of becomes true, right? We almost start walking in this “I’m going to mess everything up. I can't do anything”

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[Kyle]: “I’m a failure”.

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[Sara]: “I’m going to hurt you”.

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[Kyle]: “I’m incompetent”. Yeah, all those kinds of things.

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[Sara]: Yeah. So, we start those those negatives self-talk that-- Those negative messages just take much a big hold in our lives and start coming out in everything that we do in life.

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[Kyle]: Yeah, I think Brene Brown is a great resource for this. So, I know you and I learned a lot about that distinction, I used to put those two together, shame and guilt, I would have used those words interchangeably, but I like the distinction she makes and that you reiterated , where guilt is something that I feel bad about doing, you know? Or I regret doing and what Brene Brown says is “guilt can be an agent of change in your life”. Like, you know, if I were to hurt you and say something mean to you or something mean to the kids, it's appropriate to feel some guilt about that and it could motivate me towards doing it better next time. Whereas shame is like “I’m just going to beat myself up. I’m just a horrible person”.

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[Kyle]: I think I see this a lot when we're talking to kids or parents and they just don't seem to be able to move past what they've done, they're just kind of stuck, you know? A lot of times when a parent or a kid is feeling guilty for what they did, they're quick to say “I’m sorry”. They're quick to go “I’m sorry, I didn't mean to do it, will you forgive me?”, you know? Or they're quick to seek some kind of form of healing, you know, where shame, typically they won't say they're sorry, they won't want to re-engage the person, they won't want to talk about the subject and that for me, is typically a sign of shame. Yeah, I think shame leads us to hide.

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[Sara]: Even if we're-- I mean, it could be a physical hide, you could have your child run away and hide in their room or closet or something, but shame also just pulls us inside. So, even if we as adults are still out there going to work and parenting, there's a lot of insight that's hidden away, because we're so ashamed, because we are such a horrible person that our ourselves are hidden away.

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[Kyle]: Well, that leads me to that next thought is, so how does shame keep us from being the best parent we want to be? How do you see that happening?

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[Sara]: Well, it just-- If you believe that you're broken, how can you be anything but broken?

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[Sara]: We tend to act on what we believe and so, if I’m damaged and I’m going to hurt you and I’m going to hurt my kids or I’m always going to mess this up because I am a damaged person, then that's how I’m going to approach my relationship with my children. It's going to hinder my ability to grow and to change and to engage them in new ways because, how could I? It's impossible, I’m broken, I’m damaged material.

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[Kyle]: I think Brene Brown kind of points this out, but I think in counseling and dealing with clients you see, the main statement, although there's many things we feel shamed about, but at the core is “I am not good enough”, you know? And so, it seems like what I hear you saying and what I totally agree with is, “if I’m not good enough, then how can I ever be the parent I want to be?”. Because inherently I can't, you know? Inherently I’m going to continue to be lacking, I’m never going to be enough for my kids or for my spouse and I think, if you remember back in episode two, we talked about the brain. I think it's important to point out that, when you're thinking about the brain and thinking about just the upstairs downstairs approach the brain that Dr. Siegel uses with the prefrontal cortex, the limbic system and then the brain stem and those three parts being distinctive, shame is happening in that middle section, in the limbic system.

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[Kyle]: So, I think that another great way to look at is “how could I be at my best, which would be at my prefrontal cortex, unless I can move through the shame?”, right? And it's the same thing we see with the kids, is how can the kid-- Having your child be at their best, unless they're in the pre-frontal cortex? If they're stuck in this “I’m not good enough, I’m never gonna be the kid you want me to be”. How many of us have felt that as kids? Right? Like we're not living up-- I can remember my own childhood, whether intended or not, there was many times where I just was never gonna be good enough. It seemed like my room was not clean enough. the way I talked wasn’t good and it just was like, you tried so hard to be accepted just as you were, but it seemed like that was never going to happen in moments, you know?

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[Sara]: Yeah, yeah. I think kids, a teacher, a coach, a parent, could be anyone, send kind of those subtle messages to children because we think it motivates them for change, but it's just heaping that shame on them. We're hoping “well, you're going to feel so ashamed” and we even tell them sometimes “you should be ashamed of yourself!”

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[Sara]: And then we hope that motivates them to change, but like you said, if we're back in that part of our brain, then-- The front part is where we get creativity, where we grow, where we problem solve, where the kid is able to say “oh, I kind of messed that up, what can I do different next time?”. We don't have them in that part of the brain. So, how can they think about what they're going to do next time, make a plan, apologize and repair the damage they've done, if they're not in the part of the brain that does that?

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[Kyle]: Well, as you're saying that, it also shame distorts how I even see a person's help-- A person trying to help me. So, many times a parent may be-- Legitimately you and I may be trying to help our kids, but if they're in-- That shame is part of their brain, they're going to see it differently, they're going to see it as “oh, I need to change to be good” or instead of seeing like a helpful advice, it's going to be seen as criticism, you know? “What I did was bad”, you know? It becomes a very simplistic way, “I’m a bad kid, I’m a bad person”. I know there's many times, even in our own marriage, where you have been trying to help me or I’ve been trying to help you and it was just shaded with shame. We're like “oh, there she goes again saying--”, “Yeah, I stink at that” or “I never do that well” and anytime those thoughts are coming in my head, Sara, if I’m thinking “I never do that well, I always screw up” or “I can never--” That's all shame speaking to me, it speaks in these all or nothing types ways of thinking and I know I’m trying to shame the kids when I’m speaking that way too.

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[Kyle]: “Every time I ask you to do that, you don't do it!” or “you never have your room clean” or “you--”. That's all me saying “I will make you feel so bad you will want to go be good”.

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[Sara]: Yeah, and we can-- And just to point out, you can definitely do it with just a look as well [Laughter]

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[Sara]: And I think we all know that, we all remember those looks that somebody gave us, a mom, you know, a teacher, something gave you of “oh, you worthless human” [Laughter]

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[Sara]: And I know we can pass that on and do it to our kids as well. I know sometimes I’ve done that, that my children have done something and just that poof, you have that automatic reaction, you go right there, you know? Your brain goes there and you give them a look or you just say a few words and I see them just sort of-- It just crushes them or even if they get angry, you can see just that-- The brokenness that just happened.

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[Kyle]: Well, even the anger is them to shield themselves from the shame, that you're trying to keep on them. I think it's important to say too, Sara, that in our experience, what we've seen and just in the research and reading what Brene Brown does and other people in this field is, shame is a human problem, there's nobody who doesn't have it. To me, whenever you and I were studying this and as we started to really delve into having our own kids, I saw it as the biggest enemy to my kids actually blossoming and becoming the humans I wanted to be. I found it to be a key thing that you and I needed to really understand better within ourselves and understand better in them and we needed to expose it. We needed to expose the shame stories that were driving us, you know? I’m thinking of a moment where I really-- I thought these-- These many shame stories I could share, many shame stories, but one in particular I think really encapsulates it is, you know, we homeschool our kids and you're fantastic at it, Sara and you feel competent when you do it, in a sense that you were homeschooled, so you have the sense of how that goes.

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[Kyle]: I never did that and always thought it was kind of weird or different. So, in my mind, even when you would go to work on occasion that you would put me “in charge of schooling”. the kids would always make sure they knew I was an assistant to the teacher and not actually the teacher. but I would try to be teaching, but I didn't-- I was already kind of in a place of stress, in a place of shame, in a place of incompetence and it really came to light one day, when Abby was doing some work on a computer type assignment and she said “hey dad, what is a predicate?” and my brain moves pretty quick and I pretty quickly I heard the thought of “oh my gosh, you are an idiot Kyle, how do you not know the answer to that question?”, but what came out of my mouth was very interesting, is I said “are you serious, Abby? You don't know what a predicate is?” and it was almost like I was watching it happen in slow motion, it was like “what am I doing?”. Like, because I felt stupid and incompetent.

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[Kyle]: I felt like I needed to make her feel that way too, almost like “don't ask me, don't ask me those questions Abby, because I don't like what it triggers in me” and so, then the next thing that came out of my mouth was, you know, because I-- Abby retorted back to me “I don't know what it is, that's why I asked you”, which is a pretty reasonable response, but then I said, I kind of doubled down, I said “think about it, Abby, break it down. Predicate, pre-dictate” and I’m trying to like, stall for time, but also saying it in a really condescending arrogant way, as if “I could do this, why can't you? You should know better” and then she's like, kind of confused because that is a dumb way to come to the answer [Laughter] she was getting.

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[Kyle]: So, I come sit next to her and I’m trying to like, still stall for time like “brain, where's that file? Remember English in sixth grade or fifth grade, whatever I learned this is? What is a predicate? What is it?”. So, I’m going through my brain and I sit down next to her and I’m like, “think about pre-, don't you know Latin prefixes? Like pre- is before, before dictate, before you say something. Like, come on, I mean, this is ridiculous”. Even as I’m saying this and laughing, I still cannot define you what a predicate is, but I’m still doing this [Laughter]

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[Kyle]: So, I’m glad you do the schooling for the kids, but so, Abby’s next to me and she tries to answer the question as through my weird messed up shame-filled logic and she gets it wrong and said “dad, I didn't get it right” and I said “you know what, Abby? That was a really bad dad moment, I would totally felt stupid when you asked that question and then, I tried to make you feel stupid too and I’m really sorry”, but it was a great example to me of how we do that in so many ways. Areas where I feel dumb, incompetent, a failure, out of control, I just “lack, lack, lack I’m not enough, I’m not enough, I’m not enough”. So, then we send that shame on to our kids, by inferring “you are not enough too”, which is what shame does, everybody in that moment is not enough. So, that-- And I wanted to point out what I tried to do, because I don't think the goal is to be “I never do-- I never do shame, think shame or say shame--”

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[Sara]: Well, that's just not going to happen [Laughter]

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[Kyle]: I want to be honest, that's not going to happen and it's a human condition. And so, what I instead try to do is expose it and just let Abby know the thought process I had, because I want Abby to be okay asking any question and not going “is this question too stupid to ask?” and I know as a kid I felt that way a lot, especially in in public school. You know, you're at times to raise your hand and answer a question or ask one because other kids might laugh at you, so you learn pretty quick not to ask questions or not to try to give answers, because you might look stupid.

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[Sara]: Yeah, you don't want to put yourself out there, take that risk.

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[Kyle]: Yeah. How does shame impact you? I mean, how does it-- How do you interact with it with the kids? Say anything that comes to your mind.

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[Sara]: Oh, I think it's the same thing, I think sometimes I will respond to the kids in a way, like I said, I’ll give them a look or I’ll say a few words that I know are-- If I step back from the moment. Sometimes-- This doesn't always happen in the moment, you know? [Laughter] Later when I think “oh, that was a damage to our relationship right there, the way I handled that, I want to handle it different” and a lot of times when I boil it down, it is me feeling a stressful moment, which usually is, if I think about that it's “I’m not enough, I can't get this done, why can't I get all this done?”

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[Kyle]: “I’ve got a big checklist, I’m not fast enough, I can't possibly accomplish it all”.

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[Sara]: Yeah, and so, then it comes to something happens with somebody and I just pass that shame on to them and I almost need them to hurt-- Not to-- I need perfection from them because I’m requiring perfection from myself and it's like “oh, please be perfect, because then it'll help me feel more perfect”.

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[Sara]: And so, I’ll see them hide in some way, I’ll see them shut down, withdraw and I know that I’ve passed that, I’ve sent this message of shame to them.

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[Kyle]: Yeah. What I was thinking about, I wanted to share just kind of, what are some specific things that I have gotten ashamed about in a sense and so, for me, yeah, there's incompetency. Man, I stink at fixing things around the house [Laughter] So, there's things like that, not a very good fix-it guy. I’m getting better though, I fixed the stove that one time and the lamp, that was a really good progress, but no, it's my anger, it's how mad I can get, I get angry way too quickly and so, early on in our parenting, I was like “I won't get angry, I won't-- I will not yell! Kyle, do not get mad!” and so, every time I would get angry or raise my voice, I just “ugh” and beat myself up. “You did it again! You said you weren't going to! You promised yourself! For a week you weren't going to and you did it again!” and it actually kind of brought to light, you know, first, I would be like “well, I’ll just apologize, every time I do it, I’ll just go apologize, that will make it better”, but even then, one time Abby said to me when I apologize, probably like the fifth time that week, she just said “dad, I appreciate that you always apologize, but could you just stop doing it?” [Laughter]

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[Kyle]: So, then I thought “okay, something I’m doing isn't working” like, I think, one, I’m setting unrealistic goals, like you said, perfection goals. The perfection is not the goal here, I’m not trying to be a perfect parent, a parent who never gets upset. Anger is a feeling, it's a legit feeling that I have, sometimes raising my voice it isn't the end of the world and so, I began to go “wait, wait, wait, I think I’m doing this all wrong, I need to go back and I think how I’m talking to myself and treating myself after I mess up, is actually just as important if not more than important, to predicting whether or not I do it again”, right? So, I needed to get quicker at forgiving myself, not just asking for forgiveness. That's what I was doing, I need to get quicker to forgive myself for the mess up and then go back and repair it with my child, but then figure out, because now I’m in the prefrontal cortex. Once I forgive myself, you see it and then I can shift from the limbic system up to the prefrontal cortex and then I can do what you said, I can access my brilliance and access self-control, accents other ways like, I can really see the patterns like, what led up to that. “Oh, maybe I was stressed out about this or that or maybe I was upset about this thing between me and Sara and I took it out on the kids and oh my goodness, I can see what led up to that, so next time I can be better at intervening before I get there”.

[Sara]: Well, I think-- And what you're moving into is, what do we do about shame? What do we do about, you know? “Okay, great, I’ve got loads of shame, my kids have loads of shame, and how do I stop that?” and so, what I hear you're-- What you're talking about, what you're highlighting is, first, you got to notice it. You gotta say “wow, I mean, this is going on”.

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[Sara]: “I’m gonna go ahead and bring that to light”, you know, looking inside of yourself, but you didn't just look inside of yourself to beat yourself up, you gave yourself compassion.

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[Sara]: You know, just like if you saw-- In a moment where you see your child struggling with someone, with something or someone, you move and go “oh, that's a tough situation, let's think about what to do about that” and that's what you did, you moved into a place of “okay, I’m not just a horrible person, this is normal to be angry, these are stressful situations, these are hard times or frustrating experiences and so, I’m going to give myself that compassion” and then I can move into just taking that “it's not me that's broke”, it's “okay, here's this thing and I want to do something different”. Now, I can think about what do I want to do different. “How can I repair it? How can I do something different next time this trigger comes up?”

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[Sara]: And you know that it's a trigger for you and that's a big deal when shame-- Shame, usually we have patterns to shame, certain things will trigger us into shame and the more we can bring those things to light, the more we can do. Just what you walked us through of “okay, here it is, this is what happened, how do I feel? What am I going to do about it?” and instead of just sinking into the shame pit that is so easy to fall into.

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[Kyle]: Because think about it, we talked about the statement being “I am not good enough”, right? So, if I’m in shame, let's say I did raise my voice, yell at my kids or in your case, you got impatient with the kids or whatever your issue was, we’re getting shame to the kids is, if I go back and the starting point is “I’m not good enough”, then how are you going to change? Right? I’ve got to get back to the starting point “I am good enough, I can do this” and then if I start from there, then now I can make change. Another way I like to word this, Sara, is I like to think about what shame does is it disintegrates me. So, if I drew a circle and I’m a whole full integrated person, that's when I’m at peace with myself, that's when I accept all that I am, the good, the bad, the ugly, the even if I don't like how my hair looks or whatever or how I’m dressing or whatever it is that might be going on in that time, right? You know, this goes from a physical thing, to an inside thing, to an emotional thing, to how I’ve acted, whatever the thing might be.

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[Kyle]: If I can fully integrate that and accept myself just as I am, that's gonna bring forth this fruit of like, peace and joy and love and connection, right? When I start to let shame get in there, it disintegrates me, but then the next step that you and I are talking about is, it starts to disintegrate the other. It disintegrates the kid, it disintegrates my spouse, it's very hard to not let shame come in and start to seep into all those things and now we're not talking to each other as whole people and we actually start to create a culture of shame within our family, that where all the siblings are interacting with each other from a disintegrated place, where they are not whole and we only start to-- I guess one thing I add to that is, I notice I start to love just aspects of me and hate other parts, right?

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[Kyle]: Or I start to notice things in my kids, I’m like “oh, I love that about him” or “I love that about her”, but good Lord, that other part can't stand that, right? That's shame talking and I guarantee if I’m feeling that, the kid is also getting that message and suddenly, it will become part of their identity and who they are. That this part is lovable and this other part is unlovable, you know? I guess as I’m saying that, I’m thinking of Dr. Markham’s words of using lovable-- What interacting with your kid and connecting with your kid does, it makes them love able, love able. Shame makes that almost impossible to be able to be lovable, because you're not actually loving all of you, you know? The kids then lack the ability between siblings and with other kids, to be able to love them, because they're not coming as a whole person.

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[Sara]: Yeah, yeah. So, they're hiding parts of them that– I can only present part of me to the world, because only part of me is acceptable and lovable, not the whole of me and when we know that, we walk through life thinking “you love me, but if you really knew… You don't know the hidden parts of me, so you can't ever really love me”.

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[Sara]: And then, I approach everyone I come in contact with of “what part of you is lovable?”

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[Sara]: And in sibling relationships. “Well, this is okay, but you really need-- I know your list. You chew with your mouth open, you don't clean your room, your homework-- You know, you're getting a C in science”. Everything becomes where we're piecing things apart and piecing people's value apart, because we piece our value apart.

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[Kyle]: You know, you just triggered something in me when you said “chew with your mouth closed”, because oh my gosh [Laughter] That is a time when the shame beast might come out [Laughter] Because when we're eating dinner and the kids are just [Loud chewing noises] I’m sure you can hear that sound and it's like, something in me says “it's disgusting!”. Like “close your mouth!” I send all of that like, “I hope I just caused you to feel really bad about that, so you will learn your lesson, yeah?” and I was even thinking, as I was kind of thinking about this thing as we were doing this podcast today, Sara, I was thinking about by the time kids become teenagers, they hopefully as parents, whether or not we've actually wanted to send this message, we've sent the message “in order to be lovable, play the game”.

[Kyle]: “Learn to put on the mask I want you to put on”. So, then by the teenage years, we have this like, conflict within us where we've kind of set it up for our relationship with our teenager, is such that the kid knows “I’m only going to show you what you want to see, I’m not going to show you this other stuff”.

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[Sara]: “I know what you want to see”.

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[Kyle]: Yeah, and yet the parent be like “show me more, I want to see more”. They feel this tension the kid's going to leave the house and “I really don't feel like I totally know you” and the kids like “I don't think you actually do want to totally know me, you only wanted to see the good and that's all I’ve been trying to show you”, right?

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[Sara]: And that's where we get-- Parents will get confused about “why aren't you telling me the truth?”

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[Sara]: “I want you to come to me when there's a problem” and the kid's like “what!? No, you don't! You don't like that stuff! You're just going to tell me how bad I am and I already know it!”

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[Kyle]: “I’m already beating myself up”.

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[Sara]: “I don't need you to tell me that, so I’m just going to pack that away, I’m not going to reveal myself to you”.

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[Kyle]: That's an important point you say is, yeah, when we're helping kids, that voice is already there, that voice-- The kid is already doing that, we don't need to come in and piggyback to just dump more shame on them, you know? It really changed my life when Becky Bailey talked about that, how kids really don't have an inner voice up until about the age seven or eight and that inner voice that talks to them, sounds very similar to ours. That's really the gift or the curse we're giving them, is that inner voice. For the rest of their life, we will be in there either encouraging them, supporting them, showing them compassion or just getting on to them, trying to make them feel bad, make them feel worse, right? And so, really, obviously we're going to do both, we're going to give them both aspects. The goals are like “yay! We did it!”. No shame ever passed on from us, but I want to keep as much of that toxicity away as possible and so, let's talk about how we do that.

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[Kyle]: So, one thing that that I do, in particular I just said it’s like, I think shame is like fungus and mold, it like grows in the damp darkness of our hearts, right? So, I want to expose it to the light as much as possible, almost like a wound, like a physical wound you might have a band-aid on, it might for a while be good to cover that, but you want to expose it so that way healing can actually have, otherwise it's going to get gangrene and it's going to hurt you more than the cut ever did, right? So, that's kind of, if I could picture shame like that, it's like the gangrene, it's like an infection. So, I want to expose that wound and the way I do that, I don't be like gratuitous about it, but I just go to the kid and just say “hey, can I walk you through the process about how what I did there was about me? It was about my own shame, it was typically for me, the fear that I’m failing you, the fear maybe that my voice has no value in your life, the fear that I’m stupid and incompetent and I’m sorry I try to pass that on to you” and so, I think just exposing that, then it gives the kid to go “wait! Just a second, all that toxic stuff was about you and not about me? Oh, that's great! I don't need to make it about me!” and I’m hoping [Laughter] I’m hoping that now that I’ve exposed it more, they'll understand it's not personal. Even though it sounds very personal, it's only personal regards to me and it's my personal inner talk, it's something I need to take responsibility for.

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[Sara]: And I think a big one for me is always thinking about repair.

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[Sara]: I’ll notice, like you said, you notice-- You do it “you're not you're not gonna be perfect, we're gonna mess up”, because the thing is we still have that inside of us, so it's really hard, we have to keep working on ourselves. So, I think I have to work on my own shame messages, because the more I don't accept shame or live in a place of shame, the less likely I am to pass it to them and have a home that's filled with shame, but when I have those moments where I know I did something that just heaped shame on them, you go and you talk to them about it and I think-- And I just want that repair.

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[Sara]: I want to come back to a place of “you are a beautiful valuable wonderful lovable human and I am sorry I didn't convey that”.

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[Sara]: And we can still get back to problem solving whatever the situation was, but in light-- But that always takes a back seat to me, whatever that is, if I know that they're in a place of feeling loved and wonderful and amazing and all the things that we want to convey our children.

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[Kyle]: That “I’m grateful for you, I’m glad I get to do this with you”, yeah.

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[Sara]: Those problems are going to fade and they'll often solve themselves or the kids will be in a place to solve it. That most of the time, even the actions come from a place of shame, so that's what I got to get to and I’ve gotta own my role in that, in their lives and work to repair that.

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[Kyle]: Yeah. So, like I don't want my kids getting good grades out of shame, you know, doing the chores out of shame, you know, contributing and helping around the house out of shame. I want them to do it because they know they are valued and loved just as they are, that that's the difference in what we're trying to do here is, it does matter why we do things, it isn't just to do the action, I want to get to what is motivating the action, what is underneath that. So, you brought a great point. So, just something parents can do to start this process if they haven't already been doing this is, I think it's really helpful to first be aware of the shame voices in my own head. So, whenever I am shaming my kids, first of all, that exposes a lot to me. “What are the words I’m using when I do that? Oh, that's coming from me”. So, maybe those shame voices are “Okay. So, I’m really ashamed of X, Y and Z”. You know, for me like I said, I summed mine up of being incompetent, a failure, out of control, there's typical ones. Obviously inevitably, it all goes back to “I’m not enough”, but these other things kind of expose “I’m not enough” in what way, right?

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[Kyle]: And so, I would say, for me, I would want to go back and expose those, maybe write those down and then, maybe start forgiving myself for being that, right?

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[Kyle]: I need to start the process of forgiving myself, repairing that within me, for wherever that came from. If that came from my parents or a coach or a teacher, wherever those voices came from as a kid, I want to repair those, forgive those in myself, so then I can accept myself just as I am and then come towards my kids as a whole person.

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[Sara]: Yeah, yeah. I think-- Right, the work starts with us. We can try so hard to “I’m never going to shame my children!”, but if we've got it inside of us, it's just going to keep leaking out in all the places [Laughter] So, you want to start with you and loving yourself and realizing you are lovable and valuable and important.

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[Kyle]: So, I think the message we want to end with today is, for any parents listening to this podcast, you are enough, you're exactly the mom and the dad that your kid needs today. No matter what your failures have been in the past, know that you are loved just as you are and then go and love them just as they are. So, thank you for listening and I hope this was helpful. Please, go and leave a review, we'd love for any comments, we'd love a five-star review and love to hear how this podcast is helping you. If you would love to share how this has touched you in some way or helped heal you to become more the parent you'd like to be, we'd love to hear that from you. So, I just want to tell you have a great day and it's good spending this time talking with you. Goodbye.

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[Sara]: Goodbye.