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Dr. Doris Day is joining me in this episode as we discuss the psychology of skin care. Dr. Day believes that every decade of our life can be our best and is on a mission to help women understand and live that way. We go in depth about how emotions, hormones, and our sex life all affect our skin, and we talk about some preventative facial exercises that you can do before reaching the point of injections. Doris Day MD is a board-certified dermatologist who specializes in aesthetic dermatology in private practice in New York City and is a clinical associate professor of dermatology at NYU Langone Health. She has won awards for her work in laser research and teaching. Dr. Day is the author of three books, most recently Beyond Beautiful. She is also a freelance journalist as well as the host of her award-winning dermatology show on Doctor Radio on SiriusXM 110. Dr. Day regularly lectures at national and international medical and aesthetic conferences. She teaches other physicians the art and techniques of soft tissue fillers, laser treatments and rejuvenation. She is a member of national and international organizations including the American Society of Dermatologic Surgery, where she has served on the Board of Directors She has also served on the medical advisory boards and training panels for Allergan, Galderma and Merz, among others. You can find Dr. Day via her website https://dorisdaymd.com/ , on social media @drdorisday and find her book, Beyond Beautiful on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Beautiful-Aesthetic-Breakthroughs-Naturally/dp/145554258X

This episode is, in a way, a part two of episode 12. Last time we looked at what it means to be childfree and how such a decision can be carried throughout life without any guilt. In this episode, I am joined by Jody Day, as we discuss being childless. We talk about the differences, the common misconceptions, understanding childless people better, communicating with them and knowing that in the end it’s not about ‘us’ and ‘them’, but about all of us together. Jody Day is the founder of Gateway Women , the global friendship and support network for childless women, with the social reach of 2 million, founded in 2011. She is an author, a speaker, a global though leader on female involuntary childlessness, an integrative psychotherapist, a TedX speaker, a social entrepreneur and much more. You can find Jody @gatewaywomen and you can visit her website https://gateway-women.com/ Make sure to also check out her amazing TedTalk on YouTube.

In this episode, I am joined by Georgie Collinson as we discuss high functioning anxiety. We talk all about how it affects us, how it sometimes defines our identity and may be influenced by genetics and education. Georgie also shares with us things we can do to tackle anxiety in a practical way, from monitoring hormones, sleep, nutrition to our gut biome. You’ll learn all about the Anxiety Reset Method as well as the Resilience Shield and how to fix the holes we have in it. Georgie Collinson is an Anxiety Mindset Coach, Naturopath and Nutritionist with a Bachelor of Health Science. Her training includes counseling, clinical research and teaching meditation. She’s with the Australian Natural Therapists Association, a professional body that only accepts fully trained, high quality health practitioners. You can find her at https://georgiecollinson.com/ and on social media https://www.instagram.com/georgiethenaturopath/

We all know that trauma and difficulties that we face during childhood and teenage years can affect us throughout our life. The good news is that we have solutions for reconciliation and healing. In this episode, I am joined by Lavinia Brown, as we discuss Inner Child work as a tool to deal with past trauma and parent our inner child in a way that helps us move forward. Lavinia Brown is a Psychodynamic Coach for Mums and an Inner Child-Healing Expert. She supports mothers to understand how their past is affecting their present and to heal their unconscious, childhood wounds so that they no longer feel guilty, anxious or angry and can become the mamas, partners and women that they choose to be. You can find her at laviniabrown.com and on social media @laviniabrowncoaching Lavinia has been kind enough to offer a 10% discount off her 1 to 1 coaching program, if you are a listener of It’s Not a Crisis.

In this episode, I am joined by Sil and Eliza Reynolds as we discuss the two sides of parenting - both mothering and ‘daughtering’. The mother and child relationship is so beautiful and so complicated and we have to be aware of the things we need to work on, to improve this relationship. Sil and Eliza are a mother-daughter coaching duo, authors and workshop facilitators. Together, they teach the Attachment Parenting method, alpha-parenting, connecting with your daughter and much more. Their goals is to help the mothering experience to be meaningful, creative, interesting and joyful. You can find Sil and Eliza at motheringanddaughtering.com , check out their course themotheringcourse.com and find Eliza’s course at badassgirls.me

EPISODE 25 Today, we discuss an interesting form of therapy, that has proven effective in dealing with past trauma, among many other things. Natalie Ryan Hebert is joining me, as we dig into what Rapid Transformational Therapy is, how it can help with many of the issues we face as women in our 40’s, including inner child work and mom guilt. Natalie shares the story of her struggles and how her life was changed when she discovered RTT, by stumbling upon Marisa Peer online one day. ​ Rapid Transformational Therapy (RTT) is a super therapy developed and fine-tuned over thirty years by world-renowned therapist Marisa Peer. It combines the most effective principles of Hypnotherapy, NLP, Psychotherapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to bring unparalleled results in one to three sessions. ​ Natalie was one of the first in Denmark to become certified as an RTT Practitioner, trained by Marisa, and she continues ongoing coaching and development with her and her team. She also works closely with a group of Psychologists, coaches and Psychotherapists who all agree this is the most effective method they have ever used or encountered. EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Doryn Wallach: Welcome to It's Not A Crisis. I am your host, Doryn Wallach. I'm an entrepreneur, a mother of two, a wife and a 40 something, trying to figure out, "What is happening in this decade? Why is no one talking about it?" I created this podcast to help women in their late 30s and 40s to figure out what is going on in our mind, body, soul and life. We may laugh. We may cry. We may get frustrated. But most importantly, my goal is to make this next chapter of life positive. I'm also full of my own questions, and I'm here to go on this journey with you. So, let's do it together. Hi, everyone. I cannot believe it's almost February. How did that happen? Don't you feel like March happened and then everything else is fuzzy until then? That's how I feel. Anyway, today's episode, I have a really interesting guest. She does something I've never heard of before. I had to have her on, because not only am I having her talk about what she does, but she has worked with PMDD patients because she had it herself and cured it through this type of therapy. But many other things for women has she cured through this therapy. So, when I contacted Natalie, we had our first conversation. I said, "Okay, here's the deal. I want to interview you before. And then I want to go through this therapy with you. I want to talk about the experience after." So, this is our initial interview. She talks about what she does. And then I'm going to go through the program and hopefully come back a new person after all of this, but you're going to love Natalie. Her voice is so relaxing. You'll understand why she does what she does and maybe get sleepy, but don't fall asleep because then you'll miss the podcast. Natalie Ryan Hebert is a Rapid Transformational Therapy practitioner and coach. What is that? Well, you're going to have to listen to hear a little bit more. She was born in Australia. She now lives in Copenhagen, Denmark with her husband and four kids. Working with clients all over the world via Zoom, Natalie helps people to rewire their minds and in turn change their lives using RTT, a hybrid therapy combining the best of hypnotherapy, parts therapy, inner child work and NLP to bring transformative results. Natalie has worked with all sorts of issues from weight release to money blocks to confidence, fear of flying, quitting smoking, but the area closest to her heart is helping women with premenstrual mood issues, primarily PMDD or premenstrual dysphoric disorder. Hi, Natalie. Welcome to the show. Natalie Ryan Hebert: Hi, Doryn. Doryn Wallach: I am so excited to have you today, Rapid Transformational Therapy. So, you had contacted me through Instagram as I've mentioned before in the intro, but I'm really excited to start doing this process with you. I've never heard of it before. So, I'm glad to have you here giving information about it. I just want to start with, how did you even get started in this? Natalie Ryan Hebert: Well, so I had a psychology degree, which I'd never actually used. I always knew I wanted to go back to therapy. I did a whole singer-songwriter thing. I worked in marketing, did all this other stuff. But I was burning to get back into therapy, I knew that I probably had a real knack for. I'm the one that everyone would talk to in the lunch breaks about all this stuff. Doryn Wallach: That's me. I'm that person. Natalie Ryan Hebert: Yeah, I go, "I shouldn't be in marketing. What am I doing?" So, I always knew I wanted to get into it. So, I came across Marisa Peer, who developed Rapid Transformational Therapy. She's an amazing, very inspiring woman. She's the one that Hollywood calls if they're having problems with their actors. They need to get them sorted out right away so they can get back on set. So, she's the best at what she does really in the world, I think. The results that she gets with this therapy are almost miraculous. You almost can't believe it to start with. She developed this Rapid Transformational Therapy, RTT over 30 years. It combines the most effective principles of hypnotherapy, NLP psychotherapy, the timeline therapy, inner child work. All the best of that is rolled into one. It can clear stuff that you might have been dealing with for years like depression, anxiety, phobias, smoking, addictions- Doryn Wallach: Oh, wow. Natalie Ryan Hebert: ... within one to three sessions. Doryn Wallach: Wow. Natalie Ryan Hebert: Yeah. So, I actually saw a video of hers. And then I went, "Bloody hell. This is unbelievable." And then I just went down this Marisa Peer rabbit hole. You just keep watching more. Doryn Wallach: You just get obsessed with something. Natalie Ryan Hebert: Yeah. I just kept watching her and watching her going, "Okay." And then I discovered that, "Oh, she's actually teaching this therapy. Okay, that's it. This is what I've been waiting for. This is what I'm born for." So, I trained with Marisa and learned her therapy. It's changed my life. Personally, it's changed my life. All the crap that I quit being carrying, that I had been working on for years, doing all the personal growth and the self-help books and the meditation, the yoga and all that stuff just cleared everything in a very short space of time. If anything does come up, if I find I'm triggered by anything now, I go, "Oh, what was that?" I would have just have RTT to sort it out, whether it's money blocks, receiving issues. I mean, it's not just for depression, anxiety, PMDD, things like that. I mean, any blocks. Even as you keep moving up and growing, you think, "Oh, why do I feel a bit scared to do a Facebook Live?", for example, something as basic as that. Well, you've got visibility fears, honey. So, you can have RTT on that. Why am I afraid? So, it's an incredible therapy. Doryn Wallach: Explain exactly what it is, because there's so much out there today that I find it extraordinarily overwhelming, but I am very open minded. Not that this podcast is going to be about PMDD, but I had read that it had really cured your PMDD. So, as I've mentioned before, I have tried everything. I will continue to try anything and everything if it works. So, tell us what RTT exactly is and how it differs from other types. I mean, you just went over it a little bit, but what is the process of RTT? Natalie Ryan Hebert: So, hypnosis is the vehicle, because really, we need to get to the subconscious. You can do all the conscious work you like, but you will not get to, not likely, the real root cause of what's underneath. The best way I can probably explain it is with an example from a client. So, my client, let's call her Maria. She came to me because she said, "I have been trying to lose weight for years. I'm about 40 pounds overweight. I get the first 10 pounds off and then self-sabotage kicks in every time. All my good eating habits go to the dogs. I don't feel like exercising and then all the weight piles back on again." I thought, "Okay, well let's find out what's driving this self-sabotage, because there's a subconscious belief." That's why it's willpower versus subconscious. Doryn Wallach: By the way, when that happens to me, I'm like, "Oh, I'm so skinny. I can eat now." Natalie Ryan Hebert: Yeah, I mean, that's probably part of it that's just in nature that says, "Okay, go and have that cheesecake." But for her, this was an ongoing battle. She thought, "I want to lose this weight." Willpower wanted to lose the weight. Consciously, she wanted to be 20 kilos lighter. Her subconscious said, "That isn't happening, sister." So, she went, "Okay, why? What is this?" She said to me, "Look, I think I know what it is." I said, "Oh, yes. What do you think it is?" She said, "Well, I think it's because my mum was really jealous of my figure when I was younger." I said, "Yeah, it's not that." She goes, "What do you mean it's not that?" I said, "Well, you're aware of that, Maria. So, if it were that, you would have fixed it by now, wouldn't you?" She goes, "I'm not a teenager anymore. I don't care what my mom thinks now." She goes, "Oh, gosh." She goes, "Well, what can it be?" I said, "Well, we'll find out, won't we?" So, the process is I put her into hypnosis, which is very easy. It's just a light. It's a light hypnosis. You're in control. You could open your eyes at any time if you really wanted to. I take it back to three to four scenes from her life that have everything to do with the route, the cause and the reason for why you are sabotaging your weight loss efforts. Every scene she went back to and the subconscious will just pop the scene onto the screen of your mind. I said, "Okay, where are you?" I'm at home. How old are you? I'm five. What's happening here? My dad's taking pictures of me in my swimsuit. Okay, how are you feeling? Uncomfortable. So, the same goes on. Nothing bad's happening in particular, but it's just like, "He seems to think I'm too attractive. I don't like the way my dad is looking at me and taking pictures of me." So that's the first thing. Next thing, she wins a trophy in swimming. A granddad says to her, "Oh, Maria, would you give me a picture of you in your swimmers holding the trophy, so I can put up a memento piece?" Again, she gets the same feeling of, "Ew, I don't like this attention I'm getting for my body. I don't want him to be looking at me in my swimmers." Third scene, she's at a family birthday party. There's some "uncle" in inverted commas there, some friend of the family, some old guy. Oh, come on, Maria. Come and sit up on Uncle Harry's knee. She's like, "I don't want to." Her dad's going, "Go on, go on. Go sit on Harry's knee. Go on." So, she's six years old. She goes over and she doesn't want to. She doesn't like it. He's touching her thigh, going, "Oh, you're a lovely little girl, aren't you?" Nothing all that bad happens, but again, it's this feeling of, "Ugh, I don't like the attention I'm getting for my body." So of course, our clever little subconscious says, "Well, I know, if we make sure that if you're not too slim and you're not too attractive, you won't get that unwanted attention, will you?" That's what was underneath. Doryn Wallach: She wasn't aware of that at all until you- Natalie Ryan Hebert: She wasn't in the slightest way aware of it. So, then we have to undo it. That's the next part of the process where she has her adult self goes back to little Maria and says, "Listen, honey. When you're older, this won't feel this way. You know that you're not in danger. You're safe. I've got you and I'm always going to look after you. I'm always going to protect you. I won't let anyone come near you who you don't feel safe with. So, you're completely safe. You can run around in your swimmers. You can be slim and beautiful and gorgeous. I want that for you." So, she has a pep talk with her younger self. It's like going back in a time machine and fixing everything back in time psychologically in your mind. So, that you don't have that belief. You undo it. And then she also is able to remove the part that is running that sabotage and say, "Listen, I don't need you. Thanks for your help, but I want to look hot in my bikini. I'm 47. My dad, he's welcome to pervert me all day long. I don't care," right? There's a difference. So, then it's like shift, and her mind changes. When she comes out of that hypnosis, she's got a new set of beliefs. And then her behavior changes, because the beliefs run the behavior. Doryn Wallach: So, I can't even meditate. I barely can focus. My head is all over the place. So, anytime I've heard about hypnosis and I'm sure somebody else is thinking this, I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, whatever. There's no way anyone could ever make me get to that place, because I'm typically somewhat anxious and my mind is processing." Is that a common fear of your patients? Natalie Ryan Hebert: Yeah, definitely. I work with a lot of women who have PMDD. Anxiety is a huge part of that. So, I'm used to having clients come to me and they're like, "Oh, what if it doesn't work?" I say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, listen to me now." But I can't visualize. I go, "Okay. Do you know the way back down to the front door?" They say, "Yeah." I go, "How do you know that? Because you're seeing it, aren't you?" Oh, yeah. Yeah, actually. I think the thing that people are afraid of with hypnosis is they think they're going to lose control. They have this idea of this stage hypnotist making them and turning them into a chicken. Doryn Wallach: All right. Well, I think that's my other thing. I'm a control freak. Natalie Ryan Hebert: I think that's the thing, I'm not going to be able to let go. So, look, all hypnosis is self-hypnosis for the first thing. Second thing is you cannot do anything, unless you want to do it. Even people who get up on stage and act like chickens, they're chosen because they are up for it. The stage hypnotist knows that. It's like if I said to you, "Look, from tomorrow, you're going to dye your hair green," but you're not going to because you don't want that. Your mind works for you. You're the gatekeeper. So, you're going to be able to say, "Actually, I don't want that." The hypnosis won't work. The suggestions will not work unless you want what I'm telling you that you want. So, if I say you are confident, you are amazing, you feel so great, you're not going to go, "Well, I don't want that." You're going to go, "Yes, please. Bring it on." And then you are the one commanding your subconscious mind saying, "Are you listening? Listen to that. That's what I want. That's what I insist upon for myself now." So, all the power is with you. I think it's important to let my clients know that you are the one in control here. I'm just a humble facilitator, helping your subconscious and conscious mind have a little chat. So, that you can upgrade your operating system. But I'm not programming you. You are and you're the only one who can. So, that tends to help people to say, "Okay, yeah, I want that. I want to let go and I want to have this experience." I think you can resist me if you want to and it's not going to work; or you can just go with it and then it will work. Just let go and it will work. Doryn Wallach: Do you find that this is working better now for women over 40? Because I think we are at that age where we're letting go of a lot of stuff and we're becoming more open minded as we get older. Natalie Ryan Hebert: I think the reason that so many of my clients are 30s, 40s is because it's taken that long to work out that they have PMDD for one thing. Women go undiagnosed for years with it. Yeah, there is that readiness to heal. That's another thing. There are four stages of readiness to healing. It begins with victimhood and ends with, "I am willing to do whatever it takes." That's where I want my clients to be. I don't want to drag them out of victimhood. I don't want to force or try and drag a horse to water and make it drink. That's not what I want to do. You're the power. I'm there to help you use that power. Thirties and 40s is when a woman starts to go, "I'm ready. I got to sort this out. I do not want the next half of my life to be carrying all this baggage." Doryn Wallach: Yes, the whole point of my podcast. Exactly. Natalie Ryan Hebert: Yeah. Doryn Wallach: Can you talk us through what happens in a typical RTT session? I know, you went over it a little bit, but a little bit more in detail. Natalie Ryan Hebert: So, it starts with the induction. So, basically, we create rapid eye movement. That actually induces an alpha brainwave state. It's a bit of a brain hack, I suppose. Because when the eyes are up, your brain thinks, "Oh, oh, Doryn's about to start dreaming." No, you're just not, but the brain thinks, "Well, the eyes are doing REM." So, now, the brain is going to move to an alpha brainwave state. It's a slower, more suggestible brainwave state. It's actually the brainwave state that children are in up until about the age of seven. That's why they are so suggestible little sponges. They learn languages really easily. So, that's where we need to get you back to. So, you can edit the program that you laid down in your first seven years of life. So, I put you into hypnosis, walk you down some stairs. And then we test for suggestibility. I have a few little tests to see that your subconscious is responding the way we need it to. Doryn Wallach: Then what do you do? What are those tests? Natalie Ryan Hebert: I tell you, you've got a really heavy bucket in your hand full of wet sand and then your arm feels like it's made of lead. It'll start getting pulled down. You're like, "Whoa." So, your eyelids are sealed shut. They're locked tight. They're closed together. You can try to open them, but you're going to find their seals are shut. They are too, I can't even open them. So, because the subconscious is believing. Or I'll tell you, you've just taken a bite of a lemon. Now, your mouth is filling with saliva, because there's a lemon and your mouth does fill with saliva. So, it's just testing that the subconscious is listening to the suggestions and responding. And then we regress back to three scenes, where we go through and I find, "Okay, what's the belief being formed here?" And then it becomes pretty clear. Then I get you to say, "Right, here's your life today. You got this problem here. Here are the scenes that your subconscious brought to you to tell you here's why. Now put that together. What do you understand?" Client understands that. Of course, the subconscious is right there to help them. I do lots of other things. If someone's done something wrong to you or a parent or anyone in your life who's hurt you, there's dialoguing with the hurt that we do. So, you can really release a lot of stuff that you may never get to say. Sometimes I've had clients whose parents have passed on, and they've never got to have this conversation. They can have that in hypnosis. It's very healing. What else do we do? Upgrading the child's mind; going back as the adult self; talking to that little child; saying, "I'm becoming a loving parent to you now. I know just how to meet your needs. Listen, I know you thought you weren't good enough when this happened, but you are good enough. You've always been good enough." So, having that talk with your younger self, bringing your younger self back to where you are now, saying, "Look how different everything is. Look at all the food in the fridge. We buy that for ourselves now. You have the control now. Look at all the clothes in the cupboard. They're all yours that you've bought." Showing the child that you do have power now. You're not the dependent child who you used to be. You end up growing up to be strong and independent. And then at the end of all of the upgrading and the releasing and the dialoguing, then I create a recording. That's called the transformation. All that's in it is just a whole lot of awesome positive suggestions, because the mind rewires through repetition. Neural pathways for neuroplasticity is that the neurons that fire together wire together. So, we fire a thought when I give you a suggestion. I'm telling you, "You feel amazing. You feel alive. You feel confident." I give scenarios of what that would look like. You're visualizing that. Your mind's moving towards it. It starts to wire that in as your reality, and then you listen to the recording for 30 days. That's RTT, yeah, the best explanation I can give of it without you actually having this. Doryn Wallach: No, that was a great explanation. What happens if somebody doesn't come up with something? What do you do then? Natalie Ryan Hebert: I've got all sorts of tricks. Doryn Wallach: Okay. Okay, that's good. Natalie Ryan Hebert: Yeah. Yeah, I can take them back to the bedroom that they were in when they were a child. I can have a talk to that child. Gosh, that just so rarely ever happens that something doesn't come. Maybe 1 in 100 clients or something where nothing comes. And then I say, "Okay, you know what? You're going to have a primary recording to listen to. You're have a little practice with that for a week. We're going to come back, and we're going to try again." It's going to go great the next time. And then it usually goes great the second time. Doryn Wallach: I want to ask you about sleep, because I can't explain my sleep situation. I can fall asleep. I do wake up a couple of times. I can go back to sleep. I have vivid, vivid dreams that I have my whole life. I've never woken up feeling rested. I've tried everything under the moon for that. Is this something that RTT can help with? Natalie Ryan Hebert: Yeah, sure. Because anything that you're basically just like, "I don't want this," but the behavior is there. Consciously, I just want to sleep through the night, but something inside of me thinks it's important or necessary for me to be hyper vigilant all night long. Why is that there? Well, you don't know why, but your subconscious does, because it's running it. So, that's what I would say. We're going to go back now to the root, the cause and the reason for why you wake up during the night. And then your mind will go, "Oh, sure. I'll tell you why I'm doing that." It'll take you back to why that's an issue. It'll be different for everybody, but there's something there that it thinks it's protecting you. It's always about protection, keeping you safe. Doryn Wallach: You just triggered something, which is really funny. It's not that funny. My parents got divorced when I was nine, but my dad snored a lot. My room was right near my parents. All night long, I could hear my mom going, "Larry, stop snoring. Stop snoring." That would keep me up, because I would hear her doing that all night. Now, I'm starting to understand what you're talking about, because that randomly popped in my head. I haven't thought about that in years. Natalie Ryan Hebert: Exactly, because your subconscious is always on. You don't necessarily have to be in hypnosis to have the subconscious pop up with a clue. Doryn Wallach: Right, right. Natalie Ryan Hebert: In the program I have for PMDD, I teach a process that you can do for yourself to give yourself a little Rapid Transformational Therapy. What's triggered this? What's the feeling? Where do I know this feeling from? You'll just be talking about that. Your mind did it. It probably has something to do with that, where you sense your mom's agitation and then you became hyper vigilant going, "Oh, I hope dad doesn't snore, because then mom's going to get upset." So, you as a baby started to switch on, trying to make sure that their relationship would be okay. Because if their relationship isn't okay, then I'm not okay. So, there was a hypervigilance that came in the night that could be around your dad snoring. It could easily be about that. It could also be something else that your subconscious will show you in the session. And then you go, "Oh, that's why." And then you realize, "Well, I'm not that nine year old girl. I don't live with my parents anymore." Doryn Wallach: Now, I just live with my husband who snores. Natalie Ryan Hebert: Yeah, well, our history repeats, doesn't it? Doryn Wallach: Right, exactly. Natalie Ryan Hebert: Yeah. I guess yeah, there is also a little bit of that that we carry down things and we repeat things too. Doryn Wallach: Oh, for sure. So, I know that for you, this cured your PMDD. I've done quite a few episodes on PMDD now. Explain exactly how it helped you. What were you like before doing the therapy and what were you like after? Natalie Ryan Hebert: I would just make mountains out of molehills and feel I was completely right about it. Get very, very upset, get very, very angry. Just drama, drama, drama, drama. And then my period would come and then I go, "Oh, well, that wasn't over. Why was I even upset?" I couldn't get in the same mindset. I was like, "I cannot understand why I made such a big deal out of that." It was just such magnification of the smallest things. Do you want to hear what I now understand about PMDD? This is what PMDD is, according to me in my humble yet very experienced opinion. PMDD is a hormonal shift. There's three things that create PMDD. These are the three things, hormonal shift, unresolved trauma, and higher than usual sensitivity. If you have all three, then good chances, you're going to experience premenstrual dysphoria. Doryn Wallach: Check, check, check. Natalie Ryan Hebert: Check, check, check. You've got them all. So many of my clients are nurses, artists, yoga instructors, ridiculously, so many. They're all creative, empathetic beings, therapists, nurses, primary school teachers, artists, like yourself. You do jewelry design that requires creativity. So, creative empathic women who have a cycle because the hormonal shift dropped it. The estrogen just goes, "Bye-bye. That's the accommodating hormone. Once the estrogen goes and the progesterone peaks, now you've got truth serum. Anything that's been stuck below the surface before is now right at the surface. I use a lot of metaphors. It's like a box of pain opens up that's just usually hidden to you, but the box of pain opens up. It's like a magnifying glass goes on top of that. That's all you can see and feel. You can go and take antidepressants if you want. That will dampen the sensitivity. So, that's one way. You can just get rid of your monthly cycle, have a hysterectomy, and get rid of it that way. Or option three, which is what I do, you can heal the trauma that's being triggered every single month. Because if you look at what's triggered and if you sit with it, what's actually happening is your childhood wounds are being pushed upon. That's definitely true for me when I look at what I'm angry about and what meaning I'm assigning to, for example, my husband's actions. Oh, he's late. He hasn't even texted to tell me he's going to be late. Well, that can only mean he doesn't even care about me. No, it could mean 100 other things, but I'm focusing on the one that's going to hurt me the most. That's pointing to my wound. That's what I work with women on. What story are you telling yourself about what this means? Because that is a direct link to where you are wounded. You're not upset about your husband being late. You're upset because you think he doesn't care about you. You think he doesn't care about you, because your dad didn't care about you and your parents divorced. He left and he didn't call for six months. That's why you're so upset right now. That's what we need to heal. Not that your husband didn't text you, whatever. It's nothing. It's the wound and there's a grain of salt hit the wound. Now, you're getting angry at the person who threw the grain of salt. No, the wound is the problem. That's what we're here with RTT. Doryn Wallach: I'm actually really happy that you bring this up, because I think that there are women who don't want to get to the root, cause of some of their anxiety, depression. I had actually interviewed my doctor who's a reproductive psychiatrist. I had asked him, is trauma commonly found in women with PMDD? He said, "Absolutely, we've definitely found a link to that." Until maybe two years ago, I never did my real inner child work and therapy. I was very, "Whatever." Natalie Ryan Hebert: It's all right. It's a long time ago. Doryn Wallach: Right, I'm the type of person that's like, "It's in the past. I'm just going to ignore it," which is the worst thing you could do. I mean, it's intense when you start going into it, because you get to a point where you're like, "I don't want to think about this anymore. Do this." However, it does heal you in ways and help you move forward from things. So, I love that that's part of this. I think it's a really important thing. Everybody should do it. Also, by the way, it makes me very nervous as a mom that I'm screwing my kids up and then they're going to be doing inner child work, which they will be. Natalie Ryan Hebert: That's right. You have to say, "Darling, you're going to have to become the loving parent to yourself eventually, one day." Yes. The other thing, Doryn, is the things that you think, "Oh, gosh, I'm sure I've messed them up from that," that's probably the thing that's not messing them up. The thing that is going to mess them up is some interpretation they make, which is completely out of your control. So, look, we do our best. That's all we can do. We can say to our children, "Honey, guess what? I'm not perfect." The best thing you can say to your child is, "I'm not perfect." Doryn Wallach: I say it all the time. Natalie Ryan Hebert: Yeah, I do, too. Doryn Wallach: I tell them it's not a word. There's no such thing as perfection. It's funny this morning, I said to my son... He was watching Pokémon. The mom said, "You know what? Being a mom is the hardest job in the world or something." He goes, "Mommy, she said being a mom is hardest job in the world." I said, "Yeah, it is. It's pretty hard." I said, "Most nights I go to bed feeling like I failed you guys or I did something that may affect you." He looked at me very confused. He's like, "You're a great mom." Natalie Ryan Hebert: That's right now. Doryn Wallach: Right, but my kids have never... I hate to say this. They don't often tell me I'm a great mom. It's not that they're like, "You're the best mom." I don't hear that often. So, to hear that today was like "Oh, okay, that's good." Natalie Ryan Hebert: Yeah, yeah, something about mum guilt, I think, is so important. Don't we all have it? Here's something I've learned about mum guilt. I had a friend. She's a singer. She had to work a lot of nights, I mean, a few nights a week. She felt such guilt about this. So, I remember seeing her one day talk to her daughter. She was so full of guilt. She's saying, "I'm so sorry, darling. But yeah, I've got to go out tonight and I've got to sing tonight." The thing is her daughter was probably not going to think anything of it, but the child looks to the mother. When the mother's saying, "I feel so bad about this," the child says, "Oh, is this really bad? Is it? You're doing something awful to me, aren't you?" Now, the child's going to think something's wrong, because the mother is modeling, there's something wrong. I spoke to her and said, "You're such a great mom." There are plenty of moms... I have to start work earlier in the morning. I have to have my child in after school club, because I don't finish work until later, but you, you get to have breakfast with her. You get to pick her up right when school finishes. You have all afternoon together. Because you work in the evenings, you have so much more time with her. She goes, "Well, I didn't think of it like that." I said, "That's how you present it to her and say, 'We're so lucky. We're so lucky. Because mommy sings at nighttime, we get all this other time that other children don't get with their mommies.' Now, she's going to feel good about you going out and singing and how different that is." We can maybe convince ourselves if I just feel guilty enough, I'm controlling or undoing the hurt, but actually you're creating it. Doryn Wallach: No, I do. I mean, I'm sitting here with my mouth open. It's amazing and how have I never thought of it before. You think about all this. I mean, I'm like, "Oh, God. I've said things like that so many times." Natalie Ryan Hebert: Yeah, the mum guilt, it's you're telling them something. They would otherwise have gone, "Oh, I'm fine." I remember being a kid. My mom was working a lot. We owned a kindergarten actually. We had our house upstairs and the kindergarten downstairs. My mom was so stressed. She was working her butt off down there in this kindergarten. It was killing her. She's like, "Oh, God." The mom guilt was eating her up. I don't remember feeling neglected at all. I loved it. We were down there playing with all the other kids in the kindergarten. I got to use all the crafts things and the pencils and the glue and the paper. Meanwhile, my mom was eating herself up inside mum guilt thinking we were being neglected. That were some of the best times in my life, I remember when we lived in that kindergarten. She goes, "Oh, my gosh. I felt so guilty." I said, "Oh, you didn't need to do that. I didn't feel the least bit of neglect at all." But had she said to me, "I'm so sorry, darling. Oh, I know, I'm not there for you." I'd be like, "Oh, aren't you? Oh, gosh. Yeah, this is bad, isn't it?" But I was completely oblivious otherwise. So, yeah, mom guilt. Doryn Wallach: This is so, so, so great that you're talking about this, because last night in our Instagram Live, a couple of women were responding to mom guilt and how awful it is. I said, "Oh, that's a podcast idea. We need to talk more about guilt." So, I think that's a beautiful way to look at it. Just with that little piece of advice, you could change a lot of women's mothering. I wish I hadn't just heard that from you when I have a 13 year old. It's too late. Natalie Ryan Hebert: I know. I've got four kids. If I knew back on child number one what I knew by child number four, things would be a lot better. I wish I could go back with what I know, but that's life. We just learn as we go along. Doryn Wallach: Right. I think that's a good thing to hear out loud, because I think if anyone is listening with younger kids, I think it's part of being human, right? Exactly what we just said, we're not perfect. We're learning. I think the only thing that we can teach our kids one day is that "Listen, life is a lesson. We learn things as we went along." So, I'm glad you said that. I'm glad you have four kids to make the rest of us feel better. I'm only screwing up two. Natalie Ryan Hebert: Yeah. Doryn Wallach: I think we got a little off track about the session, because I knew that we went through the hypnosis process. What comes after that? Natalie Ryan Hebert: Oh, well, then I do the transformation at the end, which I was talking about, which is all just the positive stuff. I've made that as a recording. And then you listen to the recording for 30 days to solidify. So, yeah, that's everything. And then we will follow up. Doryn Wallach: Every day for 30 days? Natalie Ryan Hebert: Every day for 30 days, because the mind learns by repetition. So, the more you hear the same thing over and over, your mind says, "Oh, okay, I may as well wire this in, save you saying it all the time." It's a bit like riding a bike. To start with, you have to concentrate on where I put my feet on the pedals, but then it becomes automatic. That's what we want to do with the thoughts that I'm good enough, right? You want that to be your automatic wired in setting. Doryn Wallach: Do you remember there was an old Saturday Night Live... I don't know if you watched Saturday Night Live. Natalie Ryan Hebert: I'm going to say it depends, because I didn't watch all of it. Yeah. Doryn Wallach: There was this character. I forget, it was something handy or something. He used to go, "You're good enough. You're smart enough." Gosh, darn it, people like you or something like that. He used to say it in the mirror over and over again. Natalie Ryan Hebert: Affirmations, yeah. Doryn Wallach: Using affirmation, God, I don't remember what the character's name, but it's actually funny. There's truth in that, into hearing something over and over again. Just the way you hear something negative over and over again, you're going to start to believe it as well. Natalie Ryan Hebert: Oh, yeah. Most people's thoughts are negative all day long, playing that old record over and over and over again in the background. We're maintaining the wiring with the negative thinking. So, that's why it's important to have this recording to come and undo that, because the mind can't hold two conflicting beliefs. That's another rule of the mind that we work with, with RTT, that if you've got a belief that says, "I'm not good enough," and then a recording comes in everyday and says, "You are worthy. You are lovable. You are enough," over and over and over again, the mind starts going, "Cannot compute, which one is it? Because I'm hearing them both." It will keep the one that it hears the most. So, that's why it's important. There's a really good video, Joe Dispenza's TED talk that shows this actually, the neural pathways and exactly what happens. Once you see that, you just go, "Oh, my gosh. Mind blown, I can actually change my brain." You'll understand why RTT works the way it does that you really are rewiring your brain. And then once you've rewired it, it works better for you. Doryn Wallach: What's been your most successful outcome with a client? Is there one that sticks out in your mind? Natalie Ryan Hebert: There's so many, I'm just going to pick one. This is a PMDD client. She'd attempted suicide several times. She was on medication, quite strong medication. She'd been seeing her psychiatrist for two years. She was on the waiting list for a hysterectomy. She came to me saying, "This is my last hope before I have my uterus and ovaries removed." So, she was really ready to do what it took, which isn't that much. RTT is a good experience. It's not like I'm dragging you over hot coals. This is a good experience. But she did have to go back and revisit and heal some heavy stuff from her past. There was sexual abuse. There's quite a lot of that I find in my clients. The more I've done this work, I've thought, "Damn it. It's rife, isn't it?" This whole #MeToo Movement, I see why it's there, because it's a problem. So, we did a lot of healing work. I mean, the moment for me, where I just got goosebumps and tears, was she sent me a message from Disneyland. She sent a picture of her with her husband and her daughter. She said, "This time last year, my family went to Disneyland without me, because I was in hospital after attempting suicide. Here I am now. We're having the best time. I'm due in my period any day and I just feel great. I just feel like my best self." Her whole life changed. She's gone on to study a master's in psychology. She's going to be a therapist herself by next year. She's up out of bed every day 6:00 AM with her daughter. She couldn't get out of bed for weeks at a time sometimes. That's completely finished. She's just healed all of the stuff that was creating all these issues. She doesn't have PMDD. She doesn't consider herself to have PMDD anymore. Her psychiatrist went, "I do not understand what just happened here." She's not on any medication at all. She's just healed. She's a healed woman. Doryn Wallach: When do you make that transition? Natalie Ryan Hebert: Well, I think you could feel it in yourself. Of course, I don't say, "Right, go off your medication." That's not my job and I would never. That's a choice between her and her psychiatrist. But he said, "Oh, my. I can see that you physically look like a different person. Okay, well, let's taper it off. Let's see. If you're feeling confident, let's taper it off." So, that's what she did. She just tapered off under his instructions. Now, she doesn't have any medication. Her marriage too was hanging on by a thread. Now, we're Facebook friends. I mean, of course everyone's Facebook looks amazing. Doryn Wallach: I'm not on there for that reason. I got over it many years ago. Natalie Ryan Hebert: I can see how things have really, really shifted for their relationship to. They're out on date nights. You can just say things are really good for them. So, that's an amazing story, but yeah, there's just lots and lots of them. It's an amazing job. Doryn Wallach: Well, I am grateful to you for doing what you're doing and helping women, especially the women that do have PMDD. I know that's just one thing that you treat, but thank you for dedicating your time to doing this, because it's something I actually never heard about. I'm very excited to get started when we do. I mean, at this point right now, I'm on birth control. I'm on antidepressants. I take something for sleep, but I don't want to be on any of those. This is the first time in my life, where I've allowed to get on all of these things. So, I am a good candidate for you. Natalie Ryan Hebert: Yeah, I'm excited to start our work together. Yeah, it's going to be fascinating. You're going to find it fascinating because I do. It's new. Even though it's the same therapy every day, it's a different story all the time, because everyone's life story is different. What's the puzzle that we need to put together? It's so fascinating and fun and emotional and beautiful. Doryn Wallach: For sure. Natalie Ryan Hebert: But no, I mean, I have to do this work, because I know the pain of it. I thought it was the worst suffering. It is hell week, it is. I couldn't just keep it to myself. I had to share my story. I have to share other women's stories and keep spreading this message that it's not a life sentence until menopause. You don't need to have a hysterectomy. You don't need to stay on strong antidepressants. There is another way too. I want to give women that hope. You got to be ready for it. Like I said, there are stages of readiness. I certainly went through a stage where I just wanted to say, "No, I've got PMDD. That's why. The diagnosis explains everything. That's my get out of overreactions free card." But in the end, my husband said, "You're going to have to master this." I felt like, "You try mastering it. It's so hard," but he was right. That was a turning point for me when I realized, "Well, no one's coming to save me. It's going to have to be me." And then when the student was ready, the teacher appeared in the form of Marisa Peer in a YouTube ad before. I didn't press skip. All because I didn't press skip ad, like I usually would have done, the rest of my life has completely changed. So, you never know how you're going to stumble across what you need. Doryn Wallach: That's wonderful. Thank you so much for coming on and explaining this. Obviously, after we've done our work together, you are going to come back. Natalie Ryan Hebert: Yeah. And then we can interview you and say, "Okay, Doryn." Doryn Wallach: How about you interview me? Yeah, we're going to have to reverse the interview. You're right. Natalie Ryan Hebert: No, you can tell us all about it and hear it from the client side. So, that'll be really interesting to hear. Doryn Wallach: Okay, where can everyone find you? Natalie Ryan Hebert: So, I'm on Instagram on @natalieryanhebert. So, Hebert is H-E-B-E-R-T. It's not Herbert, which everybody spells it that way, even my bank. It's H-E-B-E-R-T, Natalie Ryan Hebert. I've got a website, natalieryanhebert.com. I'm on Facebook. I have The Red Tent program. If you search The Red Tent for PMDD, you'll find me. I'm on the internet. Yeah. Doryn Wallach: I'm pretty sure you're there. And then I will have everything on my website. I just launched a new website, which is nice and organized. We'll also have it in the show notes. So, thank you very much again. I'm looking forward to our follow-up podcast. Natalie Ryan Hebert: Wonderful. Thanks so much, Doryn. Doryn Wallach: Okay. Have a good day. Natalie Ryan Hebert: You, too. Doryn Wallach: Until next time. Thank you for joining me once again for another episode. We'll have a lot more exciting things coming up. Keep your comments and messages coming to me about what you want to hear more about, because that helps me to find the best guests and make the best episodes. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to give yourself permission and know that you are not alone. Don't forget to subscribe, so you don't miss any episodes. Reviews are always appreciated. You can reach me by email at itsnotacrisis@gmail, Instagram, @ItsNotACrisisPodcast. Please join our Facebook group as well. Until next time. Just remember, it's not a crisis.

EPISODE 24 In this episode, I am joined by Laura Murphy, who is a Director of Education and Awareness at IAPMD - International Association for Premenstrual Disorders. Laura has been kind enough to share her story of struggling with PMDD for 17 years until she was diagnosed. She has been through dark times, like many of you may be experiencing even now, but her story is one of positivity, support and a newfound passion to help other women. We touch more on PMDD, PME (Premenstrual Exacerbation) and PMS and how they affect lives in different ways. ​ IAPMD is a great resource for women going through PMDD - a resource that has helped me a lot through my journey. I knew I wanted to share this with as many women as I can, so I invited Laura on the show. IAPMD was founded in 2013 as the National Association for Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder by Amanda LaFleur and Sandi MacDonald. Their mission is to inspire hope and end suffering for those affected by premenstrual disorders through peer support, education, research and advocacy. They have programs that you can be a part of, as well as many support groups and other amazing resources. ​ Check them out at iapmd.org EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Doryn Wallach: Welcome to It's Not A Crisis. I am your host Doryn Wallach. I'm an entrepreneur, a mother of two, a wife and a 40 something, trying to figure out what is happening in this decade. Why is no one talking about it? I created this podcast to help women in their late thirties and forties to figure out what is going on in our mind, body, soul, and life. We may laugh. We may cry. We may get frustrated, but most importantly, my goal is to make this next chapter of life positive. I'm also full of my own questions. And I'm here to go on this journey with you. So let's do it together. Hey everyone. Thank you for joining me today. I am always grateful that people are out there listening to me gab away. So thank you for being here. Today's guest is Laura Murphy, who is the director of education and awareness for IAPMD, which I was so grateful to find that is the international Association for Premenstrual Disorders. She lived for 17 years undiagnosed with PMDD, and is now passionate about raising awareness and standards of care for those with PMD, D, PMDs, I guess there are a couple. Anyway, I had such a huge response when I came out and talked about my PMDD, and then I had my episode with Dr. Cohen and I got even more emails from all of you. And I was kind of blown away by it. To be honest, I felt really alone and I felt alone honestly, until I discovered IAPMD. And as soon as I have time, I am going to help them raise awareness. That is on my list of things to do, but it's a wonderful, wonderful organization. And Laura has had the experience and now works to advocate for PMDD, for women. So I think you'll find this interview really interesting. I do have to tell you, in the middle of the interview, her husband fell off a roof and he was fine. Totally fine. But there were a few distractions and Laura held it together and we finished the podcast. So if you feel that there's some choppy parts, that may be why, but my wonderful editor usually can put this together. And so you won't even know, but thankfully Laura's husband is okay. Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode today. We're talking again about hormones, but I promise you that with each of these episodes, there's a reason that we're doing that. We're touching on different of hormones, and I'm very excited today to welcome Laura Murphy to the show. Welcome Laura. Laura Murphy: Hi, thank you for having me. Doryn Wallach: I'm so happy that you decided to come on. And I want to let you know that I discovered the IAPMD organization from Facebook groups, a very desperate time. I was looking for support and group support and I started to follow the group and then I followed you guys on Instagram and I was so relieved to learn that there was something being done about PMDD, because I think a lot of people aren't even aware that it's a thing. So, at first I want to just go dive in a little bit and tell me about your own journey with PMDD and what got you involved in this. Laura Murphy: Yeah, sure, no problem. So my PMDD, I now know, started when I was around 17 years old. I'm now 41. I took the contraceptive pill for 21 days. And on the 21st day, when you switched to the sugar pills, I just had this almighty drop and was having panic attacks for the first time I was hyperventilating. I went into very deep depression for about six months. And from then on and for the next few years, it was longer periods of depression, panic attacks. I was diagnosed with panic disorder. I knew I got really bad PMS and I knew that something was up, but I thought it was more a personality flaw than anything else, really, in my twenties, it became a bit more pronounced. I remember my ex partner saying to me it's like different with living with a different person for one week a month and still the penny didn't really drop. I honestly just thought I had bad PMS and I was just a really bad person. I couldn't control this rage. It was kind of happening. And I still didn't quite pin it to the cycle. It's really strange how looking back that it didn't occur to me. Doryn Wallach: By the way, you're not alone. Do you know how many women will be like, I'm acting crazy this week and I don't know what's wrong with me. And then I'm like, and I'll say, are you getting your period? And they'll say, Oh yeah. I mean, these are women in their forties who have been getting their periods since they were 12 or 13. Laura Murphy: And I think if your period. You know, my periods was all fairly normal, whatever that is. But they came when I took pain painkillers, the actual sort of period was nothing out of the ordinary. I didn't have severe pain or anything it wasn't fun, but it was okay. So they just kind of came and went and I didn't kind of patch it together. It was in my thirties when I had the Miriena coil fitted, it was kind of forced on me really. And for the first couple of years it was kind of, okay. And then I just had an almighty crash and was suicidal actually for about 18 months. I was very poorly. I began to experience anxiety, which I've never had. I've had panic attacks before, but I've never had anxiety. And yeah, I was on nerve numbing medication. I was waking up every morning shaking and I was going to the doctor and she was saying, no it can't go into your bloodstream. It's very localized. There's no way this can happen. So again, I just thought it was me. I thought I was depressed because I was in my thirties and I'd never really got anywhere. Career-wise and I just happened to live back with my parents because I wasn't very well all the time. And it was only through, I'm going to see a counselor, actually, she's the one that picked up on it. My doctor, I saw her and she said it's just PMS, something everyone has, you just has to learn to live with it. And it was my counselor and therapist through seeing her that she said I'm seeing you every month and this isn't just PMS. And you know, I went home and I go on Dr. Google and I found out about PMDD and that we call it the light bulb moment. And I began reading about PMDD. And like you say, I joined some Facebook support groups. And through there, it's kind of where this sort of learning journey started reading. Doryn Wallach: I've already covered this on other podcasts, but can you give a quick definition of what PMDD really is compared to PMS? Laura Murphy: Yes, sure. So PMDD stands for Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder. It's a hormone based mood disorder, which affects around one in 20 women. And those who are assigned female at birth it's essentially a severe form of PMS, but the two can't really be compared PMDD is life disrupting by definition. It interrupts and interferes with your work home education and relationships. It's different for everybody. People do have different timeframes and the way it affects them. So it only affects people in the luteal phase. So that means from between ovulation until around the time of your period. So some people suffer for the whole two weeks a month. Some people, it might be longer if they have more regular periods or a longer cycle, but there is always a symptom-free patch after your period until you next ovulate, it's a spectrum disorder. So some people have mild symptoms, some people have moderate and some have severe. Doryn Wallach: I want to go back to your story too, before we get into talking a little bit about IPMD, which is the organization that you're involved with. Before I get to that, I just wanted to say that I was so glad to hear what your description just now, because I was never able to explain it to friends or family, because I typically start feeling really bad around ovulation, like four days around ovulation and then get maybe a few days off and then PMS starts. And at different stages of my life, it's been worse than that. It's been really a whole month of feeling miserable and having two days where I felt normal. That was before I got a grasp on regulating my cycle awhile ago, after children, it does disrupt your life. I had moments where I like, literally couldn't go out anywhere, do anything social, or be around people. And that's not me. And sometimes I would push through and then I had to learn what no plans. And I think that I don't think people really got it. And I still think it's something that people are not aware of, or women themselves are not aware of within their own bodies. Laura Murphy: And it's so hard to explain, I think probably with so many conditions, unless you live with it and you live through it. It's incredibly difficult to explain to other people I think really bad PMS, doesn't do it justice. There's the whole PMS on steroids that one comes up a lot. Doryn Wallach: I'd say crack. Laura Murphy: Oh, crack. Yes, someone did say that. That's inappropriate. Doryn Wallach: Yeah, that's on crack. Laura Murphy: I tend to say for people you have no clue about, and it's not very detailed, accurate, but I say, Oh, it's a bit like bipolar, but with hormones. And then people are a bit like, Oh, okay, it's serious. Doryn Wallach: And a lot of women with PMDD get diagnosed with bipolar. I know that I was diagnosed a few times with bipolar and I kept saying to doctors, I don't really fit that description. And I think it was just kind of a blanket. Well, I don't know what's going on with you otherwise. Laura Murphy: I think the menstrual cycle just isn't taken into account and we see that a lot, people are either misdiagnosed with PMDD or sorry, misdiagnosed with PMDD when they actually have bipolar. There's people that are misdiagnosed with bipolar when they actually have PMDD. And some people have bipolar disorder and have PME, premenstrual exacerbation, PME is the exacerbation of an existing disorder. And that occurs within the premenstrual phase. So that can be any other, any condition. It can be borderline personality disorder, fibromyalgia, MS, ME, bipolar disorder, absolutely anything skin conditions that can flare in that phase before your period. So we do see people, it could be really hard to unpick whether you have PMDD or PME and bipolar, or you could have both. There's nothing to say you couldn't have both so it's really important to see a qualified psychiatrist in that instance to get a proper differential diagnosis. Doryn Wallach: Okay. So let's go back to, you looked up PMDD. What happened then after you discovered that's what you had? Laura Murphy: I did lots of reading and I think I also buried my head in the sand a bit. I was still having good tweaks and just trying to ignore it and probably a bit self-destructive still, going out and enjoying myself in the good weeks and probably self-medicating a bit too much in the bad weeks going out and partying. But I think I just liked to read, I was one of those people, I was like, I want to understand it. And I joined a UK specific PMDD group. And like you say, connected with other people, realized that I wasn't a bad person, that this was a real thing that these stories and experiences, it just so aligned with other people looking back the relationship, breakups, the not being able to hold down a job. So being in the work toilets, and I think I saw the doctor again and was sent away with a PMS leaflets, which is really helpful have your evening Primrose Ireland, try and have a nice bath kind of thing, time to yourself, which really just did not cut it. It just kept getting worse. I was in my mid thirties by that point. And I tracked my cycle I downloaded the tracker information and I tracked my cycle. And then I hit a real low point. At that point in my thirties, I was sort of losing well over a week, every month. And it was getting worse all the time to the point where it just felt like someone had died every month. It was literally like going through a bereavement. It was exhausting. Everything just would tip on its head. And it would just, I don't even know how I think the only way I can describe is if you've ever got that phone call with bad news and your heart drops and your world is just pulled out from under your feet, it would just feel like that. And you knew it wasn't real and it was hormones and it would pass. Doryn Wallach: I always explained it as just kind of waiting for like you kind of at the top of the rollercoaster and then going down. And my other description is, it's like crawling out a quick sand every day, it's like you're trying but you keep getting pushed down. Laura Murphy: Yeah. The fatigue was a lot. I used to get hypersomnia so sleeping too much. Like I couldn't stay awake for a day. I'd have two or three naps. I literally just couldn't keep my eyes open. It was the kind of, sort of tiredness you can't push you with caffeine. And if you did try that, then the anxiety would ramp up [crosstalk 00:14:36]. You know, your body's kind of like fighting against itself, just utter exhaustion. And I hit a real low point and didn't know how to describe it safely, but almost took my life. I'm very much on the spur of a moment. And it was at that moment, my partner sort of said, "We really got to get you to the doctor." And I went to see my GP and she's all finally lessened. I found the name of a specialist in the UK, Dr. Benet who's very well known internationally, and I got a referral to him. So he way it works in the UK and three months later sort of sat in front of him. And it was very much, I actually just listened to your previous podcast. When you said you sat in front of the doctor and it was the first time anyone had ever said yeah, this sounds all very on the ticket you just let me talk for about five minutes. And he said this is very textbook PMDD, like tick, tick, tick, tick started in adolescent, worsened as you got older, reacted badly to the progesterone, to the Mirena. I personally didn't do very well on all the contraceptive pills. I did okay on SSRIs for quite a while. I think that held it back a lot in my twenties. I saw him as a he's based in London and through that, then I started on like cycle Suppression using HRT. So I tried that for about a year or so. Doryn Wallach: Can you explain what that is? Laura Murphy: Yeah. So essentially it's the next step up from taking the pill. You want to suppress your ovulation. So with PMDD, should've mentioned, this is a hormone sensitivity to the natural fluctuations that occur in your luteal phase. So what they're trying to do is flatten out that ovulation so it's just a straight line. You know, you want your hormones to not be up and downing. So if the pill doesn't work, then the next stage in the UK, it's still not quite there rolled out in America yet, but under some providers in the UK, you go to using HRT, so estrogen patches, or gel, and then a form of progesterone add-back usually for about 10 days a month. So, I tried that at different levels and unfortunately it didn't work for me. It didn't suppress my ovulation. So then I went on to GnRH-a treatment so that's chemical menopause, where you are given injections. In my case, monthly to come put you in a temporary and reversible state of menopause. Unfortunately, that didn't work for me either. I ovulated through nine months worth. I had a very bad reaction to the chemical menopause and was pretty poorly and had to give up work. It was a very, very hard year, very difficult. I was having about three good days a month and sort of 24, 25 bad days of PMDD like symptoms. So in the October of that year, I had the surgery, which is the last line of treatment for PMDD. Doryn Wallach: And surgery. You mean hysterectomy? Laura Murphy: So the hysterectomy is the important part for the surgery is bilateral oophorectomy so that's ovary removal. So it puts you into surgical menopause, if you don't do well on progesterone, like I didn't, then you have the hysterectomy in addition, but say someone did well on progesterone HLT, then they would, I say only it's not minor by any means, but they would only have ovary removal. So you can't be on, it's called unopposed estrogen. So you couldn't just have estrogen if you have a uterus, because it can be really dangerous. It can lead to hyperplasia like the buildup of the uterine cells, which can then lead to cancer. So if like me, you don't do well on the progesterone. And it brings back PMDD like symptoms. Obviously it would be pointless having the surgery. Doryn Wallach: Right. Laura Murphy: And it could take your ovaries and then put back the symptom manually I had, it's called a total abdominal hysterectomy with bilateral salpingo oophorectomy. So that's your ovaries removed your tubes, your uterus and my cervix as well. So again, I didn't need progesterone treatment. So pretty major, pretty invasive. Doryn Wallach: Yeah. By the way, I've called my doctor and said, "Take it all out, take it out. I can't do this every month." So I understand if you get to that level I'm not at that level yet. When you had the surgery, did you find relief? Was this the answer? Laura Murphy: The actual surgery is only about 50% of the treatment as it were for PMDD, the others of 50% is on the other side. So it's time patients and it's about getting a steady dose of hormones at the right level to protect you and protect your bones and your lungs and your heart health. So for me, it's definitely been a bumpy journey. So I'm three years post-op now I have no regrets. It was the only thing left for me. And my tank was empty. Like I had nothing left to give. And by the time I had the surgery at 37, I was losing half a month every month and was getting so low that I couldn't get out of bed and I couldn't work. I couldn't function. And it's certainly not something to be taken lightly. I want to stress that. It really is when for me, it was like, there's, there's nothing else left. And I have no energy left to keep fighting this. So if it works then awesome, I can't keep going on the way I'm going. That was kind of the decision made for me. I mean, it's a big decision. It puts you in surgical menopause, which has to be managed long-term as well, and much the same as PMDD. It can be really hard getting the right help for that. Doryn Wallach: But you feel better than you did? Laura Murphy: Goodness, yes. Doryn Wallach: Good. Laura Murphy: Yes. It's still... Doryn Wallach: So happy to hear that. Laura Murphy: It's still has moments. I still cycle a little bit. They don't quite understand why that happens. I still cycle to my exact dates and which isn't uncommon. Doryn Wallach: And when you say you cycle, meaning that you feel symptoms even though you have... Laura Murphy: Yeah, there's no ovaries sending the signals. It's more like PMS now. Like I get hungry and I have cravings and there might be a couple of days a month where I get really tired and I just have to really sleep, anxiety and sort of irritability, but nothing like PMDD, like nothing. Doryn Wallach: I'm so happy to hear that. Laura Murphy: Yeah. It's a better place to be for sure. Doryn Wallach: I just told Laura that I never ever want to say that something's working until it's been months because I feel like I'll jinx it. So, and I've done this before, but I just started taking the pill continuously and it's the first month I haven't had a period and I like, actually, it should be day five today. And I woke up with energy. And so I'm like, maybe this is going to be the answer, but I need to get through that three months first to see if I'm really, if it's helping, but it must be such a relief for you, even though you still have some of it. But just to know that it was something that you could tackle and good for you for advocating for yourself and for going through that, because that is not easy stuff to go through either with the PMD or post. Laura Murphy: But it's really strange. I think it's probably one of the only conditions in, like you were saying about all the peer support groups on Facebook. I don't know many conditions but when you get approved for the surgery, everyone's like, congratulations, that's amazing. You know, it's at the time I remember being really annoyed when people are like congratulating me and I was like, this is like... Doryn Wallach: This is hard. This isn't something that's taken lightly. Laura Murphy: No, but it's like, it's an end in sight I think. That's what people want to cheer. And I totally appreciate that, but it's not a good place to be having to choose between the fertility and your life, your mental health, your wellbeing. And thankfully for me, already at 37, I've made the decision. I didn't want to have children. It was a lot easier. But for other people who are making the choice between being well and losing fertility, I mean, that's huge and we need better options and more research so that people don't have to keep going through this. You know, it was my journey and bought a space in time where that was the only option left, but we're hoping in the future that people don't have to go through that because it is invasive and is dangerous and surgical metaphors is not a fun run either. So yeah. Hoping improvements are to come. Doryn Wallach: Oh, good. Okay. I do want to get into that and in a minute, so it's interesting. I know that you didn't have kids. And I have two kids and I've mentioned this on a solo podcast, but when I got pregnant with my daughter, after three months of pregnancy, I had never felt that good in my entire life I had, my anxiety was low. Things rolled off my shoulders, I was sleeping better than I ever had. I was constantly struggling with constipation and that was no longer a problem. I was calm. I had no irritability and I was naive because I was like, "Oh, pregnancy is great." This is great. I feel terrific. I didn't... Laura Murphy: Yeah, this pregnancy has fixed me. Doryn Wallach: It was more like, I wasn't thinking, why has this pregnancy fixed me? I just felt like, "Oh, maybe I was so euphoric about having a child." And very shortly after I gave birth, somebody had come in to talk to me about postpartum depression. And I looked at them and said, "Oh, I don't need that information, I'm fine." But four days later, when my milk came in, my world shattered and I struggled for two years with that. So when I got pregnant again with my son, I went through the same experience, again, feeling wonderful. And at that point, I said to my doctors, I'm not breastfeeding when I'm done. I'm taking the pill in the hospital and I'm going to take it continuously. And I'm not going to like, I now know that I benefit from these hormones. So I need to mimic those in my body. And that actually did help me a lot. I was much better off after my son and my husband at one point, joked that he's like, "Well, maybe you should be a surrogate." And I was like, "That's not funny." Like, [crosstalk 00:25:23] I understand his logic too. But at that time in my life, I did not think it was funny, but... Laura Murphy: We hear that a lot. We do hear that a lot that people and I mean, not everyone with PMDD has the same experience I have to say, but a lot of people do have the experience. You know, the pregnancy is a really happy, calm time because there's no fluctuations. Yeah. Your hormones are all high, there's no monthly ups and downs and surges everything is just riding high. And then once cycle starts back again, like you say, once you have your ovulation or hormone drop, then that's when the issue occurs. Doryn Wallach: So tell me a little bit about the organization that you work for. You're the director of education and awareness for IAPMD. What is IAPMD? What does that stand for and what got you involved in this? Laura Murphy: Okay. So we are the International Association for Premenstrual Disorders. So that covers both PMDD and PME, which we talked about earlier, premenstrual exacerbation. We focus on the exacerbation of psychiatric disorders. So borderline personality disorder and schizophrenia, anxiety, bipolar, anything that's under the sort of the psychiatric umbrella. It started back in 2013 when two people met each other, Amanda Leffler and Sandy McDonalds met each other, both talking to each other in [CloSYS 00:26:56]. One in Colorado and one in Canada up in Halifax, met on a peer support group, got talking. We're just both very passionate about creating something that needed to exist for them as patients at the time, because there wasn't really anything representing them. So they formed the national association of premenstrual dysphoric disorder, so NAPMDD, and that then evolved over the last few years. And in 2018, we went international. So we're now the international association for pretty much total disorders. I became involved about three and a half years ago. I had started a patient awareness campaign called Vicious Cycle. And through that, I then started chatting and getting involved with NAPMDD at the time I joined their board of directors, and then I started volunteering. So I used to run the social media, and then I started running the social media. Then I helped with some other projects going on predictable donating and then director of education and awareness. So yeah, we offer peer support, which is invaluable to people with PMDD and speaking to other people that understand it. I don't think anyone can understand it unless you've been through it. So we have trained peer support providers that can talk people through that journey, give them the tools they need, resources, information, and a friendly, essentially our website is a really good hub of information to help get yourself diagnosed, to learn more about PMDD. Which is building out sections for younger people with PMDD, because you know, that journey is a bit different to being older relationships and dating and education, et cetera. So we're very much trying to work with providers and the scientific community to push for more research or push for better patient outcomes. So we're working on some advocacy at the moment and we have some really exciting news, which I cannot tell you yet because we haven't released it. But we've got some massive work coming on about patient outcomes. Doryn Wallach: Do you feel that there's been a movement in treatment for this? That you feel, whether it's research or from what you have discovered through clients or the women that come to you guys. Are we going in a direction where there's something maybe less drastic than surgery? Laura Murphy: They are working on I think the first part of call, they are trying to locate the biomarkers. So PMDD could be diagnosed by a blood test, which would be amazing. That's not going to happen in the really near future, but people are working on it. There's also some work going on about brain scans to be able to see what is actually happening in the brain when that switch occurs. So when that feeling less, I'm sure you the feeling well, but when you come on your period or within a few days of coming on your period and that mood just kind of lifts it just that you kind of feel yourself going back to normal, like the Color returning, they're trying to sort of figure out what's actually happening in the brain when that happens. And Sweden just did a massive piece of work on a drug called sepranolone, which targets exact area in the brain, the exact mechanism that causes PMDD so that just went through second stage of clinical trials. And in April they announced that they weren't continuing with the developments due to a high placebo rate in the second phase. However, I think it is a really, really good step in the right direction. I think better times are definitely coming and you have to remember PMDD has probably existed forever. Doryn Wallach: Oh yeah. I mean, obviously, and you know it's so funny. I say this all the time, I'm like men had erectile dysfunction and all of a sudden there were pills and treatments that I would imagine multi-billion dollar industry, women are just kind of looked at like, you're crazy. I feel so empowered to learn that there are women that are... What you guys are doing and, and fighting for this for other women, because it's just and I talked about on my podcast with Dr. Cohen, I said, I really feel that medical providers are in the dark on this they just don't understand. Do you do anything to help educate medical providers? Laura Murphy: We do. So we're just working on patient outreach programs at the moment, very exciting. And that will tie into the big announcement that we have coming. But yeah, we're definitely working on, I think as our clinical advisory board lead has said we are doing a really great job of making like thousands of patient experts, but that's no good if they're going to providers and getting turned away if they're not getting the right care. So, I mean, that happens so much. And I think PMDD it's existed for years only became an official diagnosis in 2013. So it's still relatively new. The process needs accelerating, which is what we're working towards because you know, it will happen, but we want it to happen quicker. Doryn Wallach: Right. I was so happy when it became a diagnosis. Laura Murphy: It was controversial at the time. But I think it does. And it's now since I think it was this year as well, maybe I think it may be last year added to the ICD-11. So it's now an international diagnosis. Doryn Wallach: Yes. Why was it controversial? Laura Murphy: Because it's a psychiatric book of diagnosis and there's lots of people and there's papers on it, people felt that it was more... Doryn Wallach: Physical. Laura Murphy: Pathologizing. Pathologizing is such a bad experience. So you're putting women with PMS in a psychiatric book they're doing, it's just PMDD, isn't real. It's just women being hormonal some women can't cope with PMS it's, there are some interesting papers out there about it. Doryn Wallach: If you look at your message boards, you see that there are hundreds or thousands of women who are not just complaining about PMS and the support on there is so wonderful. I mean, I've seen women on there get to a point where they're like, I feel suicidal and that's obviously when they're reaching out to a message board, that can be scary, but that group has been so supportive. And this isn't a bunch of women coming on here to just bitch and moan for no reason I am on the board. Sometimes I get a little, like when I'm having a good week, I'm like, I don't want to see everybody's comments because I just I'm feeling good. Laura Murphy: Of course. Who wants to be reminded in their good time? You know, that's perfectly understandable and the supports are there. So IAPMD runs seven Facebook support groups, and we also have one that's non social media. So for people who don't do Facebook, don't want to do social media called Inspire, which you can find on our website under the support tab. It's more like an old school forum. So you can go in, you can interact anonymously. You can ask questions and find out information and connect with people without being on Facebook and it being all social media that, but I think, yeah, it's perfectly understandable that you don't want to remind you and your good weeks and I think there's also this kind of really, I don't know, people compare it to childbirth like in the good weeks you kind of think, would a condom been that bad. Can't get that bad. It can't. And then you hit the bad weeks again. And you're like, Oh my God. Yes, yes. It can. You know, and things get really, really dark again. Doryn Wallach: You know what I couldn't find it, which I think there should be is online face-to-face support groups or in person when we can go back to that. But like where you're actually in a group talking. Laura Murphy: We're working on it, keep your eyes pale. So we're just changing the way that we run our peer support. We're changing over the programs, sorry, we're changing over the tech platforms at the moment. So we are looking at different ways of rolling out peer support so that people can use it in different ways to suit them because there are people that are just going to want to dip in and out in an anonymous basis. There are people that would prefer to sit in a Zoom call and chat with other people perhaps Doryn Wallach: I looked many times. It would've been great to go to a place where I was understood by other women. And it was something that we could talk about privately and in a safe environment, but it doesn't exist in New York that just very telling of hopefully it will, at some point. Laura Murphy: I think it will totally at some point, and it's something I've seen many people try and start. However, with the nature of PMDD, trying to run something regularly people are either going to try and run it in the good weeks and they don't want to be reminded of it. So it falls apart pretty quickly, or they try and rearrange it and people don't want to go in there with good weeks or perhaps it's not the best place for them when they're really in that bad weeks. Doryn Wallach: Right. It's so true. It's almost like you need AA meetings when you can just pop in when you're having a hard time. Laura Murphy: Yeah. But we do have our peer support services, so they can do video calls. So you... Doryn Wallach: Tell me more about that. So who are the people speaking to the women in the peer support? Laura Murphy: The program is run or it's the brain child. And it's the love of her life. It's a Sandy McDonald, who's our chief executive. So she's a professional peer support expert. And so she started up this program. I think she started some of the bigger peer support groups on Facebook back in the day, back in 2013 and in 2017, we started up the peer support service, which anyone anywhere can contact there's trained providers. So I think we have about 70 active trained providers at the moment. So they are people that live with PMDD themselves, or have previously lived with PMDD who can just connect with you, hold your hand through it, pass you resources. You can ask them questions. You know, we've got a whole database of information to pass on. Lots of questions, clarify things and just be that kind of safe space. It's not crisis support. It is you know, meeting each other on an equal level to discuss any concerns or very common questions and very common problems. You know, I can't find anyone to help treat this. So we have searchable provide a map on our website, which we're always trying to grow. So if anyone has seen someone who is amazing at treating PMDD, please do submit them. We have loads of resources. We have symptom trackers, which is currently the only way to get a diagnosis of PMDD by tracking your cycle for at least two months. Doryn Wallach: I'm sorry, just to go back to that when you're tracking your cycle and then who do you see? Is it a gynecologist or a psychiatrist? Laura Murphy: It entirely depends. I wish there was a straight answer but there's not you might see a general practitioner who has an amazing knowledge of PMDD and you might see a psychiatrist who has never even heard of it. So that's why we're trying to build this provider directory. So for me, I think I was very clear cut and easy PMDD, very on off symptoms, sorry, nothing within the sort of molecular phase. I think it was a pretty straightforward diagnosis. So if perhaps, like we were saying earlier, the confusion around PMDD and bipolar, perhaps if you have concerns, if you're have PMDD or PME or another condition, then you would perhaps need to see an experienced psychiatrist who has an interest in women's health, who can help make a diagnosis. So me personally, my provider is a gynecologist. It's really weird because it sits in the middle. It sits in the middle of site psychiatry and gynae. A lot of the treatment is cycle suppression, quashing down that ovulation. So we would recommend just getting on the provider directory and finding someone new you've been recommended by another patient. Doryn Wallach: Wonderful. Well, I appreciate you coming on and sharing your story. I know that that is not an easy thing to do. I did that for the first time recently, and it was scary, but the more women that do share their stories, the more we're going to learn about this and be able to help. So thank you for coming on the show and thank you for bringing more awareness to this. Please tell the listeners how they can find your organization and the website or Facebook or anything else you want to plug. Laura Murphy: Yeah, of course. We're on iapmd.org. We're across all the usual social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, et cetera. So I think PMDD awareness is just so important because so many people, so many patients are unaware of its existence and daily, absolutely daily hear stories about people who thought they were broken, who thought they were weak, who thought it was a personality disorder. In some cases this is backed up, unfortunately by healthcare professionals who should have been fighting fights in their corner. But you know, there's so many people that are missing out on a good quality of life because they don't know it exists and what you know exists and what it's a real thing and it's a biological cause you know, it's not a choice. It is something that happens in the brain. And I think once you know its existence, you can actually start self-advocating, you can start finding out the best way to look after yourself. You can research treatments, you can learn and advocate for yourself. And I think it's just so important. It's important to note this condition isn't PMS, it's recent research that we did show that it had a 30% suicide risk. You know, we have lost many people of the community to this disorder. I think it's just so important that people aren't left out there on their own in the dark. There's a really, really supportive online PMDD community that does bring people in is really caring. And no one, I think understands it like someone else who's gone through it. So I think it's just important to find all those people out there who are living alone with it and just bring them into the fold so we can look after them and nurture them and give the information and resources they need to make this journey. However, they want it to be, people need the information to make informed choices. Doryn Wallach: Absolutely. No, I am grateful to you guys, which is why I reached out to have you on the show because I just was so happy to see that something is being done because there are those days where you kind of just want to give up. You're like, I can't do this anymore. And- Laura Murphy: And I think it's so difficult when you're looking around thinking, I remember certainly I did when I found out about the diagnosis and I was looking around thinking, "Where's all the people fixing this, Where's all the people doing something? What is actually happening?" And you're very much... Thankfully social media makes it so much easier to, and the internet makes it easier to find out who's doing something, but I was a bit like where's the kind of collective body fighting for us, because I don't see it and I really need that to exist. And so I'm really delighted to now actually be part of that and see behind the scenes daily. The organization runs on passion, it's pretty much everyone involved other than the clinical advisory board all have lived experience with PMDD or PME and the work that's done every day is kind of your own passion and wanted to make things better for people because we know how bad it can get and you want to make it better for other people. So I'm really pleased the organization exists and I'm very lucky I get to be part of it. Doryn Wallach: Wow. Well thank you again. And by the way, I would definitely be interested in being one of the peer support people. Laura Murphy: Amazing. Doryn Wallach: Especially if I can figure out a way out of this, which shows I'm getting closer to, I want to be able to help other women if I'm in a good place. Because I think it's just something I'd like to do. So, at one point in my career, I started my master's in social work. So I do have a little experience in counseling and talking to people. Laura Murphy: Oh, amazing. Okay. Yeah. We'll nap you Doryn Wallach: Okay. All right. Wonderful. Laura Murphy, thank you again for coming on the show today. And everybody else, thank you very much for listening again. And if you have any questions, please feel free to email me or message me on Instagram or Facebook. And until next time. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to give yourself permission and know that you are not alone. Don't forget to subscribe. So you don't miss any episodes, reviews are always appreciated and you can reach me by email at, itsnotacrisis@gmail. Instagram, itsnotacrisispodcast. And please join our Facebook group as well. Until next time. Just remember it's not a crisis.

EPISODE 23 Welcome back to another episode! This one is as interesting and educational as it is fun. Have you ever wondered why your mentality is so different from other generations? We’ll try to find out how we can manage to understand and communicate within the relationships that we have in our lives, with our children, our parents, coworkers, employers and so on. Generational expert Meagan Johnson is joining us in this episode to share her analysis and insights regarding each generation’s sign posts - basically what defines their thinking. You’ll learn more about the behavior of Baby Boomers, Gen X’s, Millennials and even our beloved children, Gen Z’s. ​ Meagan is a “Generational Humorist” and challenges her audiences to think differently and act decisively when dealing with multiple generations. She is also a talented public speaker and each one of her presentations is packed full of amazing information and the funniest jokes. EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Doryn Wallach: Welcome to It's Not A Crisis. I am your host, Doryn Wallach. I'm an entrepreneur, a mother of two, a wife and a 40 something, trying to figure out what is happening in this decade. Why is no one talking about it? I created this podcast to help women in their late thirties and forties to figure out what is going on in our mind, body, soul and life. We may laugh, we may cry, we may get frustrated, but most importantly, my goal is to make this next chapter of life positive. I'm also full of my own questions and I'm here to go on this journey with you. So let's do it together. Hey everyone, I think I forgot to wish you a happy new year in my last episode. So happy new year. I don't know, what is this year going to hold? It's got to be better than last year. It has to be, right? I mean, it can only go up from here, we hope. Anyway, I have a really interesting podcast today. I have always been fascinated with generations and it kind of started with a couple of books that I read, one of which I have on one of my other podcasts with Lindsay Gibson. But I recently found that in having a child who is ... two children of one generation and having parents of another generation and now being gen X and doing this podcast, I feel like it's really fascinating to me to start to understand everybody and not be so close minded. I think it's important that we all understand different generations because a lot of times it helps you in work. It helps you in relationships. It helps you in all aspects of your life and it's really important. So today, I am bringing you a guest who is a generational expert. I bet you didn't even know that existed. Meagan is known as a generational humorist and challenges our audience to think differently and act decisively when dealing with multiple generations. Educating through entertainment since 1998, Meagan has worked with a variety of organizations and associations to build multi-generational effective relationships. Meagan's strategy for success is not thinking about how people are different, but thinking about how people are the same. She helps her audience find common ground and build on generational strengths. Meagan and her baby boomer father Larry Johnson are the authors of Generations, Inc: From Boomers to Linksters—Managing the Friction Between Generations at Work. And Meagan is so funny. She does kind of these standup acts when she speaks in public. I'm very excited. You will definitely laugh and you're going to learn a lot. Meagan Johnson, welcome to the show. Meagan Johnson: Thank you Doryn. I am so glad to be here. This is exciting. Doryn Wallach: Yeah. There's so much I want to unwrap with you. First, I think the biggest question for the audience is what exactly is a generational expert and humorist and what made you get into this? Before you say that, you're a gen X too, right? Meagan Johnson: Yes. I am gen X and the big question I get from many of my audiences, which generation is the best? And I say, "Well, you know, we're all equal, but if we had to be honest, gen Xers are just, we're just a little bit better. We're the best generation." Doryn Wallach: Agreed. Meagan Johnson: So yeah, I got interested in the generational topic and the generational divide back in the early nineties after I graduated from Arizona State University. I got my first corporate job and I was really excited and it was with a big well-known company. You might see their oatmeal when you walk down the grocery store aisle. But it was thrilled. I mean, because we were in the middle of a recession in the early nineties, and many of my friends couldn't find a job and I found a job and I wanted to do well. I wanted to be successful. I wanted my parents to be proud that they had sent me to college and that I had a job and I was going to move out of their house and it was hard. It was harder than I expected. And the skills that seemed to serve me when in the part-time jobs, I had worked through college, that skillset didn't seem to serve me as well. My bosses who were two baby boomers, an older baby boomer and a little bit of a younger baby boomer, but they were still a different generation than myself, they seemed to have a completely different attitude about why I chose to work for the company, what I hoped to get out of the job and what motivated me and we just seem to have this disconnect. Now on the flip side as an older person, older than I was then, I can look back and see it was not entirely their fault. I didn't understand a lot of office politics. I didn't really understand how important appearances played in the corporate world. So it was a disconnect on both sides. And that's how I became interested in talking about the different generations, because at the same time, the media was complaining about generation X and how difficult generation X was to work with. And I thought, well, I'm generation X. I don't think we're that bad. And so that's when I began researching and writing and talking about the multiple generations and how every generation comes to either work or the marketplace, or even the dinner table with a different set of expectations from the people around them. Doryn Wallach: I love that and I'm so happy that you're doing this because I think each generation almost thinks very black and white about their own generation. And I am fascinated about this, and I found you because as a mother, I'm trying to understand my kids' generation. As a entrepreneur and having people work for me, having had a lot of millennials working for me, I had a lot of issues in the past that I couldn't quite understand the disconnect. And as well as understanding now, as my parents are getting older and trying to do my own personal therapy and work to try to understand where they were coming from. And I think it's so important for everybody to really understand these generations, because I think that we have to adapt and we have to understand as stubborn as us generation Xers are, we do think we're the best and we feel like ... but everyone else hates us. Meagan Johnson: I always say to audiences, I said, "If this were the Brady bunch generation X, we are Jan. We are the middle child. We are squeezed in between the two mammoth generations, baby boomers and the millennials. The millennials are like Cindy and the baby boomers are everyone's favorite sister, Marcia, Marcia, Marcia. Doryn Wallach: That's so funny. I've actually heard something similar to that before. It's funny, one of the most popular memes that I had posted, it got 800 likes, I posted generation ... And I feel terrible because I don't even know what the source was. It could be you. Generation X women who as children lacked cell phones and helicopter parents came up relying on our own wits to keep ourselves safe. We took control. The comments on this were pretty amazing and I think a lot of my audience said both positive and negative things about being like, I had heard you talk about being a latchkey kid and a lot of women saying that we literally can survive anything, we're so resilient, yet still recovering from therapy. I'm trying to look through some of the comments. This is why I'm so equipped at being single. I'm managing COVID successfully. I learned to fend for myself, provide my own entertainment, handle my own emotions. Anyway, so I had a few people actually reach out to me after this and say, "Can you post more memes like that?" And I'm like, "Well, it's not that easy to find." Maybe you can help me with that and you can create some funny ones since you're funny. But the conversation was amazing. So I think that I have heard myself and I'm sure we all have, I've heard myself go, "These millennials are .... My kids and they don't get anything and they're so spoiled and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." But I think before any of understanding any of that, I think it's important for us to understand the boomers who raised us. So I'd love for you to start first with that generation and just a little bit more about it. Meagan Johnson: My framework is that each generation is defined by generational signposts and generational signposts are events that are specific to one generation and what generational signposts do. Because when you start talking about generations, a lot of times people say, "Well, you're stereotyping." And obviously I never intend to stereotype people, but what generational signposts do, they explain how events, technology and the economy shape various groups of people. Clusters of people born during a certain timeframe have experienced similar situations and can be differentiated from other generations. Here are the baby boomers. Here come the baby boomers and their parents, the baby boomer's parents are the traditional generation. Those are people born before 1945. I always say that for me, that's my grandma. And they grew up with the attitude of children should be seen and not heard. Then this generation, the traditional generation, they come home from world war II. They begin to have children and Dr. Spock releases this completely generation changing book about raising your children, completely changing the attitude that especially people in America had about raising their kids, that kids should be heard, that we should talk to our kids, we should include them in decisions. Doryn Wallach: I have to interrupt you because I got a text from my mother today and because I'm telling her what I was doing. And she said, oh, if I could find it. She said, "In 1960, when boomers suddenly revolted over anything, the older generation professed war, hate, punishment, racism, ways to dress, overly conservative, blah, blah, blah. The sexual social revolution started and sexual freedom. The older generation blamed it all on Dr. Spock and his books about freedom raring and children. They proclaimed it Spock's fault." Meagan Johnson: Yes, they did. When you saw the baby boomers protest the Vietnam war and try to avoid going to war, you had a lot of people blaming Dr. Spock's for that. Doryn Wallach: What was his primary focus? Meagan Johnson: His primary focus was baby and childhood, raising your children with more of an empathetic approach, a little bit different than that approach of that my grandmother, the environment my grandmother was raised in which I think it's interesting because that really has progressed throughout. As you look at the way children have been raised, it's sort of, it's progressed more and more that we see our children as people and that they have opinions and that we want to involve them in decisions and they're part of the family unit. Even though the shape or look of a family unit has changed over the years, that idea of that we involve our children in our daily lives is still there. So yeah, that was Dr. Spock just kind of really turned the idea that children be seen and not heard, kind of turned that on its ear. Is that a phrase, turning something on its ear? I don't know. Doryn Wallach: I don't know. My mother also wanted me to know that Dr. Spock smoked a bit of dope. Meagan Johnson: That's so funny. I thought she was going to tell me like Dr. Spock like smoked a pack a day. That's so funny. I don't know about Dr. Spock's smoking or drug habits. I don't know, but that was funny. Doryn Wallach: Well, apparently she does. Apparently she does. Meagan Johnson: That's something I'm going to have to probably add to my program. Thank you. Doryn Wallach: Well, yeah, let me ask you something because I think that's so interesting. So they were fighting against this notion and yet our parents, at least for me, our parents were pretty hands-off compared to our crazy generation who I think goes over the top and gave us more freedom. I mean, obviously [inaudible 00:12:56] times and safety and everything else, but I wouldn't say I was a latchkey kid, but well, I came home alone a lot of days after school and I pretty much watched TV from, I don't know, 3:30 until 6:00 when my mom got home and I had a snack for every hour and I would go through the TV guide and pick which show I was going to watch. I mean, that's what I did after school. And I was happy by the way. I was happy. I didn't have to talk about my day. I didn't have to [crosstalk 00:13:29]. Meagan Johnson: I was a latchkey kid and I loved it. I tell audiences, "Here's the unvarnished truth about being latchkey kid. It was awesome. It was awesome." I mean, who thought this up? I want to meet them. I want to shake their hand. I want to thank them for giving me the best childhood ever. Yeah, it was great. You came home, this was even before beepers. There was no electronic tether. So 3:00, school was over. They opened the doors and you sauntered on home when you felt like it. You let yourself in the front door, there might be a list of things you had to get done that your mom or dad had left on the counter, but yeah, you planned your snacks. I knew what show came on when, and from 3:30 to about 6:00, you watched TV. It was terrific. Doryn Wallach: I for many years went to this family camp in Vermont called the Tyler Place, best vacation ever, because basically what happens is your kids go to camp during the day and you kind of get to go to camp as an adult, but they're in group from 8:00 till 1:00. You pick them up at 1:00, you don't have any meals with them. You have to go for a week straight. They eat with their friends in their group. And after you drop them off at nighttime, you go to the happy hour, you have dinner with adults and then you pick them up and put them to bed or get a babysitter, whatever. And then they have adult activities. And it's a wonderful trip because you get a few hours in the afternoon with your family. But as parents of little kids, you really get a vacation and it's not all about the kids. And when I had asked the Tyler family who still runs it, I said, "How did this concept come up?" And they said, "Well, we owned this property and we used to rent out the cabins and our grandparents, it was martini time at like 4:00 and they needed the kids to be occupied. So they didn't want the kids anywhere around them. This was not about them. This was about their vacation and their time and it was just so interesting. And just going back to just starting, I only want to touch a little bit on the generation before the boomers, which I don't even know what that was called. Meagan Johnson: The traditional generation, talking about the parents of the baby boomers. I call them the traditional generation. Sometimes you hear silent generation, world war II generation. Tom Brokaw's coined the name, the greatest generation, which I absolutely love that name. That's the generation of I say my grandparents, but yeah, the people that they're born before 1945. Doryn Wallach: And what were their beliefs? Because according to my mother, another text she just sent me is that she had surgery as a little girl, a kidney surgery and horrible, thick needles all the time. She was nine years old and she can remember the nurses and doctors telling her to stop crying and stop being a baby and to not ... that it isn't okay. And that is very typical of her parents, of that wonderful generation. So I'd like to know a little bit about that. Meagan Johnson: Well, that generation, I mean, they experienced the great depression. Even if they were a small child during the great depression, their generational signposts are cumulating during that time, world war II. And you're right, there was a certain kind of exterior toughness. We came out of world war II when the United States experienced a level of prosperity. And the idea that traditional generation had was that you worked hard and you provided for your family. And I always say, if you think of Maslov's hierarchy of needs, the traditional generation satisfied that bottom of the pyramid for every generation that followed, food, shelter, clothing. And with the help of the GI bill, the traditional generation could buy a home. This was the first generation of large numbers to be able to afford a home. But the idea was that I'm going to work very hard and make sacrifices so my family will be safe. My family will be secure or fed and watered. Prior to the baby boom generation, education was unusual. My grandfather from the traditional generation, he did go to college, but the generational difference being is he went to college following world war II with help of the GI bill. College was nothing. He said, "We never talked about college growing up. It was out of the question." But for baby boomers, education became an expectation and baby boomers were expected to go to school, complete high school. Something like 50% of our public education buildings today were built in the fifties just to accommodate all these baby boomers. We had this ... I mean, we talk about large classroom sizes now, but I mean, baby boomers had 30, 40, 50 kids to a class. I actually had an audience member tell me earlier in the year that he had 70, that's seven zero, 70 kids in his first grade class with one teacher. Doryn Wallach: Wow. My mother had 1200 in her graduating senior class. Meagan Johnson: Oh my gosh. So you say that your mother said that her mother told or the nurses said that you need to toughen up. Yeah. It was kind of a much different attitude. My mother talks about crying and that her grandmother at the time stuffed a dish cloth to make her stop crying. Doryn Wallach: But what exactly is that about? Was it just that they had hardships and they had a tough go through them and they felt that their kids should be tough too, or? Meagan Johnson: I think it's a different version when we hear employers say, "When I started my job, I would have never asked for when I was going to get a corner office or when I was that age, I would have never asked how much vacation time do I get?" So it's just a different reflection of what often we say about the younger generation, because we expect the younger generation to behave the same way we behaved when we were at that age. And that's just impossible because generational signposts change and generations change. So you had the traditional generation who, yeah, there was a certain level of certain events like I described, the great depression, world war II, kind of that bottom of the pyramid wasn't being satisfied. And so they worked to satisfy that bottom of the pyramid of Maslov's hierarchy of needs and it's sort of like, well, gosh, I had to work so hard to get to this point, but a new generation doesn't appreciate that. Often, sometimes baby boomer women will say to me, "These young women who are entering the workforce now, they have no idea of what it was like working professionally in the late sixties and the early seventies. It was completely different." As the younger generation enters be it the workplace or the dinner table, they're coming to the place with a completely different set of generational signposts and expectations. Doryn Wallach: I think my mom, her boomer generation, my mom is 73. I've often heard her say, she was a stay-at-home mom and she said, "Women worked, but if they did, they were nurses, they were teachers. They had jobs where they could still kind of be there for the kids." There were obviously women that worked, but she said, "It wasn't really like expected of us. It wasn't something that we felt we needed to do." Whereas our generation was told that we can do everything and we all have anxiety and depression because we feel like we're failing all the time. I mean, she's empathized with that. She's like, "I feel badly for you guys because we didn't actually, we didn't have that same pressure." And that could just be her social demographic and where she grew up. I'm sure that varies across different economic backgrounds. Yeah. Meagan Johnson: Yeah. It does vary. And also, I mean, there were careers that were considered careers for women and you mentioned it, nurse or teacher that was the big one. I point out to audiences, in the fifties, if you looked at a classified ad and I bring it up on the screen, I said, "They would actually have jobs for women and jobs for men. There was different categories and you could list the same job in both column with two different salaries. That was perfectly legal." You're right. It was a completely different attitude about women working for the baby boom generation. But then you come into the late sixties and the early seventies and baby boomers really started to question society norms and really push against the boundaries. And so we began to see the desegregation of schools. The job market began to open up for women. And so you had a more generational shift right there. Doryn Wallach: Feminism as well. Yes. Meagan Johnson: Yeah. The whole idea of equality. You can't list the same job with two different salaries. Doryn Wallach: Okay. So we've covered a little bit of those two generations and now our parents are raising us- Meagan Johnson: Generation X. Yeah. Doryn Wallach: Gen X. I've been told I fall in the middle. I'm a Xennial I guess, I don't know. I'm 77, but I have always considered myself X. Meagan Johnson: After 1980, the millennial generation begins. But when you start talking about generations, there are of course going to be some generalizations and not every generational signpost that we talk about applies to every single person in the generation because you're born at a different time during those years. As you get closer to the demarcation line, you're what I call a cusper. You're on the cusp of two generations. Doryn Wallach: Right. So what were the expectations of our generation from our parents? Meagan Johnson: You touched upon it. The expectation is that we were latchkey kids or even if you weren't a latchkey child, it was okay that according to society, it was okay that you came home and you let yourself in or you made your own snacks. You planned your own time. Even if your mom or your dad was a stay-at-home parent, they might come and go a little bit more than you would see a stay-at-home parent today do. That idea that you were on your own, that that was okay. I know that when I was a kid, I took the city bus. I live in Phoenix, Arizona. So it's not like I live in a tiny town. I live in Phoenix, Arizona, and I took the city bus everywhere because both of my parents worked. And so the expectation from my parents was like, if you want to go anywhere after school, you want to go to the mall or you want to go to your friend's house, you're going to have to figure out a way to get there because mom and dad are at work till 6:00. And it was okay that I was 10 years old and I was taking a city bus somewhere. That was not a weird thing. But I know I mentioned that to a friend of mine. She's a millennial parent. Her little boy is three. I mentioned that, her jaw just dropped. She was like, "What?" Because she didn't have that experience growing up. Her parents who were also baby boomers, because baby boomers had two waves of kids. They had a wave of gen X kids, then they jumped on the bandwagon again and had a wave of millennial kids. She didn't have that experience. And the whole idea of letting her child go off and do things on his own at nine or 10 years old, that was just foreign to her. So for gen Xers, there was this expectation that we manage our own time and that if there was a problem, we kind of got to figure, we got to figure it out. I always say that when we gen Xers we came home, mom and dad had left a list of tasks. We had to figure out how to get it done. And if something went wrong, we had to fix that problem so we could get the task done and move on. Doryn Wallach: Right. And the reason that they allowed us to sort of have that freedom, is that based on anything specifically or just like we're working, times are safer. Meagan Johnson: Many families had both parents working outside the home, so it became so acceptable. We called it latchkey kids. It was an acceptable way to behave. It wasn't frowned upon. So as I said, even if your mom was a stay-at-home mom or your dad was a stay-at-home dad, the fact you were on your own for a certain amount of time, that was okay. It wasn't anything that anybody got real freaked out about. And I know we talk a lot about safety and obviously safety of our children is paramount, but it's interesting if you take out the whole school shootings, if you take that out of the equation, violent acts against children, that hasn't been increased. I mean, we just are more aware of it as a society because we have more access to information. So I mean, one violent act against a child is too much, but that percentage hasn't changed over the decades through the generations. But our perception has changed because we have so much more information. We hear about these things that happen to children, which it's horrific, but we hear about it. It's all over the news. We have access to that more information than we did when back in the seventies, when I was a little kid. Doryn Wallach: We used to just have the milk box, the milk carton. I did a post about that recently just saying, I remember eating my cereal and just staring at the back of the milk carton just thinking about who was this kid, how did they go missing? It was kind of a scary thing to sit there as a kid and stare at it. Meagan Johnson: Yes. Yes. It's so interesting you brought that up because some time over the summer, I was watching a show about that first child that was put on the milk box and that whole case behind the kid on the very first milk box picture. Yeah. Doryn Wallach: Where did it come from for generation Xers that especially women that we had these expectations put on us to kind of be and do everything? Because from what I've experienced as a gen Xer, I feel that, and I think the worst enemy is women at each other. I just feel that we can do no right, no matter if we're working, if we're staying at home, if we're doing a little bit of both, if we're over-parenting, under parenting, if we're giving our kids freedom. And I think that it's caused a lot of anxiety and this constant feeling of failure. So where did we even get that from? How did that begin? Meagan Johnson: That's a very interesting question because I agree, I always say we are always our own worst critic. I mean, we're more critical of ourselves than anybody. When gen Xers started to enter the professional world, the baby boomers before us really had done a lot of heavy lifting for women. As I mentioned, fighting for equality in the workforce. I hate to use a phrase we hear often, but the glass ceiling, trying to break that glass ceiling, that really began in earnest with the baby boom generation before us. So many of us had mothers or female figures in our lives that said, "Hey, we did a lot of this heavy lifting. And so it's important that you get out there and make something of yourself." And yeah, it's such an interesting question. And then we have children and then a girlfriend of mine who she went back to work after her child was born and she said, "Do you think he's going to be mad at me because I went back to work?" And I said, "No." I said, "You have to remember that by going back to work, you are providing him with things that he wouldn't have if you didn't go to work." I mean, there's a give and take on either side and what I think is really interesting is that I know I've interviewed some gen X women that feel guilty because they don't want to be a stay-at-home mom. Doryn Wallach: Yeah, they just want to work. I was just about to say that. I actually have a podcast coming out this weekend about how to get back into the workforce after staying home with kids. But there are moms, me included, I did stay at home with my kids and I'm so happy I had that time with them, but I'm a lot happier working and using my brain every day. But financially, do I have to work? No, but I choose to. So there's that guilt. I'm sure there are other women in that position too, or- Meagan Johnson: Yeah. I agree with you that I don't really have an answer to that, but I'm intrigued to hear the next podcast that you mentioned. Yeah. I don't know why for many women it's either or like I have to be a stay-at-home parent and feel guilty about not working or vice versa. I think sometimes we can be ... I always say guilt is a wasted feeling. It's like- Doryn Wallach: I love that saying but I wish I could learn how to implement that saying. I will say as you get older, it gets better. As I go into my forties, I feel a little bit more independence from guilt and I care a little bit less about things that I used to feel guilty about. So I'm looking forward to aging and for that matter and feeling less guilty about things. Meagan Johnson: Oh, no, I was going to say right along with worrying. Someone said to me once, it was one of those statements that I still use. They said worrying is using your imagination to think about the worst case scenario. So it's like when you worry, and I kind of feel the same way about guilt, it's like we're using our thought processes, our imaginations to visualize the worst thing that could happen. Doryn Wallach: Exactly. Well, let's talk about millennials. So I no longer have anybody working for me full-time, but I did a few years ago. And at the time she was in her early twenties and I all of a sudden found myself saying, and she was wonderful. She really was. But there were disagreements and differences in our ages, but that's when I started hearing myself say, "Oh my God, these millennials ..." Now it's like all of a sudden, you're this old person. However, there were a lot of things she taught me that I found really interesting also. And I think that, I think it's important for us to instead of blame the generation as being lazy, and by the way people said that about us too or that they just want instant success, I think we have to understand why they are the way they are. I went to a summit and they had a bunch of millennial entrepreneurs get up and speak and say, "We want to talk to you about our generation because we're sick of hearing that we're lazy and we're this and that or quite the opposite, we actually, we're developing things. We're trying things. We're not sitting around doing nothing. We're not expecting things to just fall in our lap." And it was actually a very valid point, but still I still hear my friends, I hear my colleagues and it's like those damn millennials. They just ... [crosstalk 00:32:15]. Yeah. Why are they given that label from us? Meagan Johnson: Well, I think you hit the nail on the head when you said they said the same thing about us. So yeah, and I make that point to audiences is that the same thing that baby boomers said about gen Xers back in the early nineties, now gen Xers and baby boomers are saying the same things about millennials. And really what we're describing is a youthful generation. And when I say youthful, I mean, they just have a ... they're younger, so they have a different set of experiences than you do. And I call those experiences, generational signposts, which we talked about. But yeah, so they just have a different set of experiences, but you brought up this whole thing about being lazy because I hear that a lot. They're lazy. Many millennials came into adulthood in the middle of the great recession and worked their asses off and I think that's so interesting. I'm like, "So we're calling this generation lazy when they were graduating college or graduating getting their masters or PhDs, and they entered a job market in 2008, 2009, when everything was just crashing. And so they jumped right in both feet in figuring out a way to make it work. So they are not a lazy generation, but they do work differently." And I think that's where you see some of the older people say, "Well, they're lazy because they want, and this was pre-COVID, they want to work from home." Everybody knows what that means. That means you're not really working. Or they want to work at a Starbucks or fill in the blank, whatever your favorite espresso place is. Doryn Wallach: Become an influencer. Meagan Johnson: Yes. And they just want to be online all day. Well, no, they don't want to be online all day. They're online all day because that's where the information is. We don't go to the encyclopedia anymore. We don't go to the library and look up things. We're online because that's where the information is so that we can gather that information and do our jobs. And millennials we're just ... millennials have been doing that since they were in college, since they were in school. It's a different way of working and so that's where you see the older generation calling them lazy when they're not lazy at all. Doryn Wallach: That's interesting and that's a good thing to note because I do think I hear it a lot and I've learned over the years to try not be so black and white about my opinions. And this is exactly why I want you here, because I think it's important for us to understand why everybody is the way that they are. So most of our generation now, our children are gen Z. Meagan Johnson: Yeah. So gen Z are born between 1997 and 2012. Are your kids gen Z? Doryn Wallach: Yes. They are 2007 and 2010. Meagan Johnson: Okay. All right. So don't make me do math. How old are they? Doryn Wallach: 10 and 13. Meagan Johnson: 10 and 13. Oh my gosh. And are they both ... you have a boy and a girl, right? Doryn Wallach: I have a 10 year-old boy and a 13 year old girl. Meagan Johnson: 13 is the beginning when I became the nastiest person on the earth to my mother. Doryn Wallach: I know. Everybody keeps ... I mean, we talked about this yesterday on the podcast. I know, I know. She's not that bad. She really isn't. But there are days where I go in my head and I go remember 13, remember 13, remember 13? You have to try to remember what it was like to be that age and say, "Okay, I'm going to bite my tongue." But so far she's been okay. Tell me what you know. I know they're not that old yet, but what do you see of generation Z? Meagan Johnson: So it's interesting gen Z comes on board. And I think a lot of times people, if someone's young, they call them a millennial like, "Oh, that millennial." And it's like, well, how old is the person? 21. Well, they're not a millennial. So you've got gen Z. So here comes gen Z. Right now there's about 74 million of them. They're 25% of the US population. What I think is interesting is they watch about 68 videos a day. Doryn Wallach: Oh my God. Four more. Meagan Johnson: So when we say that gen Z is truly a true digital generation, and the difference between them and millennials is that you can have a millennial who could remember that when they grew up, their house had a landline, maybe when they grew up, they actually had to have dial up. Remember dial up to get on the internet? Doryn Wallach: Yup. Meagan Johnson: They might even remember dial up. In school, they might've held textbooks. But now you have gen Z. So you can have a gen Z person truly live in a home that never had a landline, live in a home where their parents do all their banking online. So never write a check. And also when they go to school, they're doing the work on tablets. And especially now with COVID, now they're online. They're doing their education completely online right now with COVID. So they really are the first group of children who are growing up totally digital. And the interesting, interesting thing is that the internet has become the expert. So whereas in the past, even with millennials, there was the idea that hey, maybe the parent or the teacher was the expert. But now with this gen Z, since that the internet and all that information has been there since moment one, the internet is the expert. Doryn Wallach: Oh, I know nothing [crosstalk 00:37:47]. It's all online and the internet knows, and I know nothing. Meagan Johnson: Yes. And really what parents are becoming, not just a parent figure, but also kind of, they have to be that guide. You I'm sure struggle with or I would struggle with it but I'm sure you deal with this is that you have to become the guide to kind of help them understand the internet. Like when you say everything just because it's on the internet doesn't mean it's true or just because you saw a video about it, doesn't make it's true. So you kind of have to be that guide to help them filter out the information or understand the information, but really the internet has become the expert. And so it's interesting because employers are struggling with it because they've got these younger people joining their organizations. And just because you're my employer, just because you're my manager doesn't mean you're the expert. I might know more about this than you do. Doryn Wallach: Oh, that's rough. That's rough I find it overwhelming parenting a generation Z kid because of the internet, because of how much they're exposed to, because my word while I know they're listening, I do know that they hear me. This is a very silly example, but my daughter watches this guy on YouTube who talks about skincare products and she's obsessed with skincare products. And she will literally go through my cabinet and be like you ... His name's Hiram, "Hiram doesn't like that. He says that's really bad. You shouldn't be using it." I'm like, "Well, I've been using it since 1990 and everything's been fine. My face has not fallen off." But it's like things like that and I'll try to educate her and say, "Honey, just because one guy is popular online, I'm sure he is very knowledgeable, but his word isn't the only word. That's not the only ..." So parenting this generation is difficult because they are exposed to so much. And then we pull in this pandemic, we've all loosened up on technology and allowing them to be online as much as they want because of just having to deal. Do you have any, I know you're not a psychic, but given your line of work, I'm wondering if you've ever had this conversation in any groups or ... I was a sociology minor, actually major and I think about this constantly, how this pandemic is going to shape our children. We talk about the depression, well, this is our depression. What is going to come of our children from this time? I mean, do you have any thoughts? I'm not taking your word as what it is, but- Meagan Johnson: Well, yeah, it is just devastating. And I have to say, I've thought to myself, I am so glad I am an adult when this is happening. I'm so glad that I'm not 12, 13, 14, 15 years old. Because on one hand, even though children, we talked about children being very resilient, but that's just, this is a pretty, what I call big piece of bummer pie. This is- Doryn Wallach: Traumatic. Traumatic. Meagan Johnson: Yeah. So I think what's going to be interesting is that you're going to have a generation that really identify with causes or organizations that help us through this process. So they'll identify with either influencers, companies, leaders that say, "Okay, here's how we can help get through COVID or here's how you can help your neighbor or here's a way that you can connect with others." What's interesting is in the corporate setting, the generation that's missing going to the office the most is generation Z, is that the youngest generation on the spectrum, they're the ones missing that human connection the most. Because I think we think, oh gosh, they're so digital. They don't care. They must love it. They don't ... but no, we're all human beings. And even the most reclusive of us still desire human connection, some kind of human connection. And so I think this younger generation, I think they'll be very pragmatic, they'll be very practical, but they also will definitely identify with organizations, leaders, people who are outspoken about this is the way we get through a tough situation. The two generational signposts that generation Z identify, say are the top generational signposts of their generation is the Coronavirus and black lives matter are the two that they say that these are the most significant generational signposts of our generation. Doryn Wallach: Absolutely. I always tell my daughter, I said, "I can not wait ..." This is kind of in the beginning of the pandemic when I was losing my marbles. And I said to her, "I cannot wait until one day, you're a mom and your kids are like, 'I'm bored of staying at home. What do I do?' And you're like, 'Do you know what I did when I was your age? Do you know how many days I had to stay in the house and entertain myself? And I didn't get to see my friends and don't complain.'" I mean, it's so interesting. I can't wait. I hope I'm around to see her and my son talking to their kids about it. I do think even I see a change in my kids from the beginning of the pandemic. I mean, we're going to be going on a year in March and hopefully it gets better after a year, but this is a big year of their lives. And I've noticed that as moms, we have learned and as gen Xers by the way, we have learned to not be so controlling, we have learned to let go a little bit. We have learned that we can't tackle every situation on our own. And I think that that's been good for our kids, because I think I've seen our kids gain a lot of independence. And part of it is like really just like, I can't do it anymore. I can't do this anymore. My kids joke is when I say I'm done, they're like, "This is mommy. I'm done. I'm done. I'm done." You get done and you just don't want to do anything. You're like, "I don't care what you do. If you want to put your feet outside the window, dangling upside down on your iPad, that's cool." Meagan Johnson: It's funny you said that because my husband and I had the same, similar conversation. Over the summer, we were out walking and one of the little kids in the neighborhood, he's just a little typhoon of energy, but he's younger than 10. He comes sailing by me on one of those little like scooter boards, it's got the handles. He just comes sailing by me. He's in his pajamas. He doesn't have shoes on and his parents are nowhere to be found. And I said, "That's just something you would not have seen a year ago." Doryn Wallach: No. It's so true. It's so true. It really isn't. So that's actually interesting because I think that, I don't think we're going to go back to our ways. I think that we've all learned a lot from this. And honestly, I think we kind of needed this shift us as parents, because we're crazy and the helicoptering and the control and I think we needed this wake up call. Sometimes I say it was a blessing in disguise. It'll just be so interesting to see how that goes forward and how our kids parent because of this. And I don't know. I find it all fascinating. Meagan Johnson: It is. And you've talked about it is coming in March, it'll be a year. A year to you or to me is one thing, but when you're 10 or 13, a year is a huge part of your life. Yeah. I think the magnitude of this will be much bigger in the mind of someone who is 13, 14 years old, just because a year, that's a long time when you're 13 years old versus when you're in your forties or like me, when you're 50, a year is like it's nothing. Doryn Wallach: Right, right. And also there will be after effects for a very long time. It's not like the vaccine is going to come out and the whole world's going to be back to normal. There's going to be a lot of, there'll be a lot of positive that comes out of this. There's going to be a lot of negative and it's just all so interesting. Is there anything that you feel that you wanted to cover that I didn't bring up? Meagan Johnson: Well, you brought up everything. Doryn Wallach: I know. I'm telling you, I just find that so interesting. Meagan Johnson: I think we all have to remember and you touched upon it when we feel so guilty if we don't do X or Y or Z. I just think I have to remember that at any moment, no matter what generation you belong to, we all do what we feel is best for our children. And we all do what at the time, at the moment that we chose that course of action, we made the best decision we felt with the information that we had at our fingertips. And that we have to kind of ease up on ourselves, as you were saying, not feel so guilty because we're not doing every single thing all the time, that we're doing the best we can with the information we have at hand and we're making the best decisions that we feel that are the best decisions in that moment and that's the best we can do. Doryn Wallach: And then I would also say to everyone listening, spend some time reading about your parents' generation, spend some time reading about your own generation and spend some time reading about your kids' generation, because I think ... or millennials also who you're working with. I think it's really important to understand it from a psychological point of view and to be more open-minded and I'm guilty of that myself. And I feel that it's important. It's important to educate yourself. Meagan Johnson: I heard a speaker talking about unconscious bias. It's sort of just being aware of how uncomfortable you might feel and same thing when it comes to generations. It's like, okay. So I just kind of have to feel what I'm feeling for a moment. And why is it I'm upset by someone's behavior or why is it that I'm uptight about the situation? Just sort of feel, kind of allow ourselves to feel what we're feeling at that moment and then think about our response. Doryn Wallach: I'm going to leave with this one last thing. When I had my employee that worked for me, a millennial, we worked in an office building where on the floor of our building was this huge group of guys who worked for this advertising firm and they were all millennials. And anytime I would go, and I was like the old, I mean, maybe I look a little younger than my age, but I was like the old woman on the floor. And anytime I'd go to the elevator, they would just walk in in front of me and they would never hold the door and then they'd walk out when they were leaving. And I was once leaving with her and I said, "I don't understand what happened to this, your generation's parents. Did they just not teach manners? What happened in between, because we know whether it's a man or a woman, we know to hold the door open. We don't just do it." And she said, "Honestly, we find it kind of sexist. We don't need someone to open the door for us. We don't actually like it. We want to do it on our own and we just don't feel that ... It kind of demoralizes us as women." And that's when I kind of said, "Well, honestly, I just see it as manners. I don't care. I hold the door for both sides." Meagan Johnson: I [crosstalk 00:49:12] the door open. I like having open doors. Doryn Wallach: Right. So that was just, that was interesting. But you know what, it opened my eyes to say, "Okay, I get it. Yeah. You're being raised differently than I was. But then how do you know which women feels that way, which one doesn't?" These poor guys trying to figure out who wants the door open and who doesn't. Meagan Johnson: Maybe I should just like hold it up with my toe and I kind of see. I can just drop it closed. It doesn't matter. Doryn Wallach: Thank you so much for coming today. This was such a great podcast and I hope the listeners learned a little bit of something. Where can you be found? Meagan Johnson: I can be found all around. So my website, it's meaganjohnson.com. And then of course I'm all over social media. So you put my name in Google and you'll see my spiky haired little face come up all over the place. Doryn Wallach: And your talk, some of your talks are on YouTube, right? Meagan Johnson: Yes. Yes. Some are on YouTube. And I have, again, I have a YouTube channel. I'm on YouTube. I always say when you have trouble sleeping, you can just pull out one of those little videos and give it a watch. Doryn Wallach: Well, you're very funny and you have very good ... You have the delivery of a standup comedian. Yeah. Meagan Johnson: Oh, thank you. Doryn Wallach: Yeah. I know. Meagan Johnson: I appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah. I would have loved to have been a comedian, but I really didn't want to work nights. I'm a day person. Doryn Wallach: Oh, you're doing a great thing and I'm so happy that you came on the show. Meagan Johnson: Hey, thank you so much. This has been a ton of fun. Doryn Wallach: Okay, great. And thank you all of you for listening. Until next time. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to give yourself permission and know that you are not alone. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss any episodes. Reviews are always appreciated and you can reach me by email at itsnotacrisis@gmail. Instagram, it's not a crisis podcast and please join our Facebook group as well. Until next time, just remember, it's not a crisis.

EPISODE 9 This new solo episode tackles an important aspect of being a woman, wife, and a mother and having a career at the same time. Many of us struggle with finding the right balance between family and career - we want to have both and be efficient in both these areas. And I believe we can! There’s no reason to give up either on having a career or having a family. All it takes is to find a natural balance that works best for your own situation. Doryn will be sharing 5 practical tips from her own personal experience as both an experienced business owner, a mother of two and tips that you can use to find a balance in your life. Some of these tips will be extremely helpful for you, especially now during this pandemic. Websites Mentioned: care.com

EPISODE 7 We are all starting new chapters of life and reevaluating our current situations. Our children are getting older and many women in their 40's are considering new business ideas and working from home. Starting a new business, especially in the midst of current events, can be tricky. Doryn Wallach, is back with a first solo episode, where she shares her own experience as a businesswoman with a number of successful ventures to her portfolio. In this episode, you will learn 5 tips and tricks that you can apply to your own situation. Also, you get a little peek into Doryn’s personal life and experience. Please follow the show @ItsNotACrisisPodcast on both Instagram and Facebook for behind-the-scenes content, memes, and updates. Products / Websites Mentioned: https://www.writtenoutloud.org/ https://www.tiktok.com/ https://www.instagram.com/ https://www.picmonkey.com/ https://www.wix.com/ And remember: It's not a crisis!

EPISODE 4 Amy Mccready is THE QUEEN. I cannot tell you how much she has helped me with my kids and I have read everything. I found Amy after hearing her on a podcast. My kids are 10 and almost 13 and after many years of reading and consulting, I got to a point of feeling that my kids know how much they're loved, if I read everything there is an opinion on everything and I just have to be the best Mom I can be and raise happy and confident kids...my way. I screw up daily, but I think my kids know how much I love them. I am human! Amy taught me about giving my kids independence which is necessary as they get older and necessary for me to be able to be a better Mom and not have every aspect of life fall on me. While I can still lose it, the simple advice and permission of calmly walking away has been huge. Permission to give them independence. Permission to give them choices. She's amazing...and if you don't agree with what she is saying, just try it, more than once. You will see, it works. Get access to her amazing course that you can refer back to at any time until the day you drop them off to college! EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Doryn Wallach: Hi, and welcome to Episode Three of It's Not a Crisis, a podcast for women in their 40s, seeking to navigate mid-life's challenges while making the most of it. I am your host, Doryn Wallach, and I'm very excited about today's guest and today's episode. I hope that all of you are doing well and hanging in there and not going out of your mind. I do think I've gotten, weirdly, used to this life that we're living right now. And, as things are opening up a little bit, it definitely feels so good. I feel a weight off my shoulder, and I'm sure all of you do, too. But, it's been very tough for the kids. So, now, figuring out what we can do with them for the summer, what feels safe to us, on top of dealing with what they're going through, and just typical tween and teen drama, in my case, which is why I'm bringing on today's guest, Amy McCready, who is amazing. And, I can't wait to tell you more about her. But first, I just want to mention to you that I do this podcast because I feel like it's my way of giving back to women in their 40s. I do this podcast also selfishly so that I can learn about what's coming up and really how to make the next chapter of my life more positive. So, with that being said, if you can please subscribe to the podcast anywhere you listen, please rate it, comment, please join our Facebook page, It's Not a Crisis podcast, and Instagram, It's Not a Crisis podcast, and interact and tell your friends. Because, if we can reach a certain amount of women, I can help more women. And, that is the goal of this podcast. And, I would appreciate it very much from all of you. So, not all of them, but most of my guests I've found because I have personally worked with them at one time or another. And, I'm super picky and I do a lot of research before I work with somebody. I heard Amy on another podcast and I immediately emailed her for help with my kids. I found myself constantly yelling and threatening and bribing and punishing or taking things away and they still weren't listening to me. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I still don't have these issues with my kids because I do. But, Amy has taught me instrumental tools in my life that have helped me in so many ways over, even, the past few years with my kids, even as they grow into different stages, the tools continue to work. I've worked with a lot of different parent educators, what she will teach you is incredibly valuable and practical. And, that's what's important. You can read a million books on a lot of stuff and it's overwhelming, but I think what Amy's going to teach you, is very practical. Amy McCready is the founder of positive parenting solutions and the creator of the 7-Step Parenting Success System. She is the author of two best-selling parenting books. If I Have to Tell you One More Time and The Me, Me, Me Epidemic. Amy is a Today Show contributor and has been featured on CBS This Morning, CNN, Fox and Friends, MSNBC, Rachael Ray, Steve Harvey, The Doctors and others. Her greatest joy is helping moms and dads become the parents they've always wanted to be. Amy, thank you so much for being here. I'm actually really honored that you chose to come on my podcast, and you know how much I adore you. So, this is really exciting for me. Amy McCready: Well, I'm thrilled to be here, Doryn, thanks for asking me. It's always fun to do a podcast with somebody that I've known for a while. So, I appreciate being asked. Doryn Wallach: Good. So, I want to start with a story, I actually texted Amy about the story. We never actually talked in person. And, it was advice that Amy had given me... Or, it was a while ago, but I read both of your books, I don't retain information as well as I'd like to. One of the things that I took from it, and there are many others, and we'll talk about it, but one of the things was natural consequences or a consequence relating to an action. So, my daughter started middle school this fall. She's 12, and turning 13, started sixth grade. She, in the mornings, would just hang out and not get ready, despite numerous times telling her to get ready. And, this year, she was taking a bus from the West Village in Manhattan up to the Bronx. So, you miss the bus, there's no bus. It's no easy way of getting there. We both work. We both have to be somewhere in the morning and we can't bring her to school. This was only the fourth day of middle school, she was kind of, getting ready to go out the door and I said, "Oh, Tatum, by the way, when you get home, can you please clean your room." She's, "I cleaned my room," and I said, "I need you to clean it better. But, just do it when you get home." In that moment... Even probably a couple minutes before, we're, "You're going to be late, hurry up, the bus is coming." We had an app that we could watch the bus coming. So, we knew it was coming. In that moment, she decided that was a good time to go clean her room. And, we were, "Tatum, do not go up those stairs, you're going to be late, and you're going to miss the bus." Now, my husband, I'm very lucky because he usually... Not all the time, but a lot of times, we're very much on the same page. So, he had known that I had spoken with you. I think I called you and I said, "Every day, I'm yelling at the kids every morning. Nobody's getting ready. No one's getting out the door. And, I'm sick of it." I think I can speak for many parents who go through this. I believe, the advice I got was, if she misses the bus, then, on your own time, you let her know that when you can do it, you will take her to school, but that might be 10 o'clock in the morning. And, if she misses the bus, that's going to be the consequence of the action. If I'm wrong with what you told me, we can go back to that. But, I believe that's something you said. Amy McCready: That's right, as long as you revealed it to her in advance, and she knew what the deal was, right? Doryn Wallach: Yes. Yep. So, lo and behold, she finally gets out the door, after us calmly saying, "You're going to miss the bus, Tatum, going upstairs right now is not a good idea. You should really come down, you're going to miss the bus." She goes outside, the bus driving away. She was hysterically crying on the sidewalk, pounding her fists, "Please take me to school, please take me to school." I said, "Sorry, I have a nine o'clock meeting. I'm not going to be able to take you to school. We gave you numerous warnings. We told you what had to be done." I've never seen her so hysterical. So, of course, in that moment, I'm, oh my god, I can't believe I just did this. I'm the worst parent ever. I didn't follow through 100% with the waiting until later because it was her first week of middle school and it was already hard for her. But, I ended up taking her an Uber which cost $140 round trip. And, all the way there I said, "I had a nine o'clock meeting that I'm missing, this is not okay." I said, "And, you are going to pay for this Uber out of your allowance until you pay it off." I dropped her off at school then I called a bunch of friends. I probably texted you, Amy, and I was, "Oh my god, I feel awful." My husband happens to be a little bit more of a helicopter parent than I am. The look on his face, when we were both looking each other like, what do we do? What do we do? What do we do? All right, let's just do this. It was so hard. But, she was never late again, not one day, the entire year. She never missed the bus again. Amy McCready: But, you allowed her to experience the consequence. So, she wasn't late for school, but she did have to pay that off with her allowance. So, she knew ahead of time what the deal was, and you followed through. So, that was a great parenting moment there. It was so hard though, wasn't it? Doryn Wallach: So hard. I think she's going to be traumatized by it though, or she's going to bring it up for the rest of my life. Amy McCready: No, she is not. What you taught her in that moment is personal responsibility. Like you said, she hasn't been late again, right? Doryn Wallach: Right. I remember we had a parent's back to school night a couple days later, and everyone's, "How's the first week going? I was, "Well, Tatum missed the bus, so that wasn't good. "They're, "Oh, my God, what did you do? Did you drive her?" We're talking about it, and everybody was blown away that I actually followed through with it. I always get, "Oh, I wish I could do that." You can do it. You just have to do it. I think our generation, in general, and I'm guilty of it myself, we tend to try to do so much for our kids and it backfires. Amy McCready: I think that is one of the hardest things about parenting, in general. But, particularly in parenting tweens and teens, is we forget our job description. And, that is preparing them to be adults, right? Our job at this stage where you are right now, particularly, is taking them from being completely dependent on us to being fully independent. That is a really big shift, right? There are a whole lot of skills that they have to acquire. And, that one little thing that you did is huge in helping them make that shift. So, it is hard, and it's gut wrenching for both parties, but those are the little things that we have to do for us to fulfill our job description, right. So, feel proud of yourself there. That's like a big fist pump moment for you. Doryn Wallach: So, the more that I've put into play what you've taught me, the more I truly see, I didn't grow up that way. So, my mom did so much for me, but she did teach me to competence and she did have me do a lot of things on my own. But, at the same time, I don't know, it was somewhere in the middle. Sometimes I felt like she had me do too much. So, then there's that part of me that's saying, oh, I feel like I'm making her do too much and I should really be doing these things for her. But, we're not going to get into that right now. I think some of the things that parents are facing in this tween, early teen stage right now, I'm obviously in the thick of it with a 10 year old, almost... He's turning 10 next couple of weeks, I think it's the threatening, bribing, yelling, which let me tell you, I have not been parent of the year and this quarantine. I've lost it more times than I can tell you and I have bribed and threatened more times than I can tell you, because you just done. It has not been easy to put any advice into play. I actually keep saying to my kids, you're going to forgive me for this time one day, right, when you're a parent. "You'll go, oh, yeah, okay, that must have been really hard, mom. One of the biggest things that I'm coping with right now with both kids, is negotiations. One of the other things you taught me was, allowing a kid, in the right circumstance, to plead their case, to be able to talk calmly about why they think whatever it is, is the right thing to do. However, my children's negotiation is like, please go set the table, please go take a shower, time to go to bed. Whatever transition is going on, is a, "Well, but what if [inaudible 00:11:04]." Everything, there's just a negotiation for everything. I don't know if that's them trying to just show their independence, or is it me trying to hold back on giving them their independence out of a sense of control. But, it's just once in a while, I'll be, "Guys, I'd just like you just say, okay, mom, and just go do it." Amy McCready: Yeah. Doryn Wallach: I think friends of mine struggle with the same thing. So, I'd like to touch on that. Then, the second thing that I think would be great to talk about, and we have other things, is, I've seen a lot of my listeners posting about, with the older kids, the eye rolls and the attitude and wanting to stay in their rooms, and only coming out when they want something. We chatted briefly, and you had a suggestion for another podcast. I love the idea. You tell me what you said to me. Amy McCready: It's funny, I was looking at some of the comments from your listeners. I know we've talked about this in negotiation, and all of that, and some of it is just the natural individualization that happens when kids are this age. They are supposed to do some of these things. They are supposed to separate from us, they are supposed to exert more independence, control, all of those types of things, that is supposed to happen. But then, there are also things that we, as parents, do that make it worse. So, I'm going to touch on some of those things. There are some simple things that we can do to make the situation better. As I was sort of preparing to chat with you, you know how I am, I'm such a trainer by heart, I came up with 5 points system, if you will, just to address some of these things. So, I thought we could just chat through that, if that makes sense to you. Doryn Wallach: Yep. Wonderful. Amy McCready: Some of these have to do with our kids and some of them have to do with us. So, the first one you hear me talk about all the time, Doryn, and it's just that emotional connection with our kids. So, as we're home and everything is so stressful, whether it's during quarantine time or not, as your listeners are listening to this podcast three years from now, hopefully, it's not going to be in the situation, but there will be other stressors that are going on. So, as life is stressful, whatever it is, we just have to do a gut check and make sure that we are taking those moments on a daily basis to have that emotional connection with our kids. What that means is, spending one-on-,one time with our kids every single day. So that means you and Tatum, just you and her, 10 minutes a day where you're doing something that she likes to do. So, just as an example for your listeners, what would you guys do? We call it, in our course, mind, body and soul time. So, what would you do with Tatum for mind, body and soul time? Doryn Wallach: Right. I've had to not call it that anymore because they were catching on when they were younger. Honestly, since we've been outside of Manhattan, we're in Long Island, she comes with me to just do errands sometimes and we'll go get an ice cream. I am honestly contemplating moving to the suburbs, because I love our car time together, where we really connect and talk and then we watch a TV show together. But, other than that, she's in a room. Amy McCready: Okay, so it could be watching a Netflix show that you both watch. It could be reading. If your kids like a particular chapter book, it sounds silly, but reading to your teenager is a really cool thing. It's a book that you guys both like. But, something that you are doing with your teenager. It's just one parent, one child. Because, even though they're teenagers, they still have that biological need for connection, and when you meet that need, everything else becomes a little bit easier. They're more cooperative, when you need them to do things, they're more open to doing them. Everything isn't such a battle. So, that is always where we start. I mentioned to Doryn, this branded term that we use called mind, body and soul time. I use that with parents, because it reminds parents that during that 10 minutes or so a day, you're fully present in mind, body and soul. If that feels too corny, to say those words to your child, you don't have to use those terms. But, that's just for you to keep that mindset, top of mind. But, really be conscious of that. What I find over and over in my work with parents, is that as the one-on-one time, and that emotional connection time starts to fall off the radar, the backtalk, the negotiation, the sassiness, the attitude, starts to increase. It is absolutely an inverse relationship. So, that's always the first place that I want you to start. Just again, ask yourself, how is my one-on-one connection time with each of my kids? So, Doryn, I want to just stop there with you. Any thoughts or challenges you've had there? Doryn Wallach: I think when we first started reading about mind, body, and soul time, we were, "Okay, guys, it's our 10 minutes together before bed, let's get in." It became almost too routine and too forced and we were like, [inaudible 00:16:27], God, we were busy, long day. When I started to not put so much pressure on myself for that time, and just kept in the back of my mind, okay, you might not be able to do this seven days a week, especially right now, but when you do have a few minutes... I really tried. I'll say to my son... We actually just started. He's really artistic and I have an artistic background. He had a little bit of a meltdown a few weeks ago, and he's a that's very happy and keeps everything in. He had his first meltdown in this quarantine, and we had a long talk. I said, "Hey, bud, have you been drawing at all?" He said, "No." I said, "You know, what, I haven't been painting or doing anything or creating or designing." I said, "I just don't have the bandwidth, I just haven't been able to." We decided that we were going to make a once a week time together, where we would both do our own individual art projects, but we would do a check in with each other, and sit with each other alone and do art. Now, unfortunately, that only happened once since we decided. I don't even know why. It's just, the days get away from us, and before we know it, we haven't done that. But, I see more of a difference in my... I think my son is in that negotiating stage way more than she is. I see a difference in my connection with my daughter, when I have that alone time with her. Everything changes towards me, she's a lot more loving and open and happy to be around me. So, you're right. It definitely makes a difference. Him, I think the same, too. When he was younger, I was starting a business when he was little, and he had a rough year at school and I was really busy. Looking back, I think we were on vacation, and we were spending time together and he was a lot more calm. I was, "Oh, God, this is my fault, because I've been busy and I haven't been spending enough one-on-one time with him." But, it's meaningful. It's important. Amy McCready: Yeah. What I also heard you say was, that he seems to be generally a happy, easygoing kid. What also tends to happen, is that when they're happy and easygoing, we think, oh, they don't really need it, everything's fine. Then, things go haywire and we're, whoa, where did this come from? Doryn Wallach: Yes. Amy McCready: So, if we're not doing that, it's, okay, yeah, they're happy and easygoing, until they're not. Then, we're like, whoa. So, my encouragement for all of your listeners, is to, whether you're having struggles with your kids or not, this need, I'm telling you, is biologically wired within your kids, they really desperately need it. So again, I recommend what Doryn said, don't make it this big, ooh, we're doing mind, body and soul time before bed. Do it where you can in your day, but make it a thing that you do. Make it intentional, and find the time to do it, whether it's with the art or reading to them or whatever it is. But then, the other thing that I also recommend is, bookend it. What I mean by that is, when you're done, say, man, I loved hanging out with you. I loved having one-on-one time with you. This is one of the best parts of my week. Punctuated with reminding them of how special this time is. And, I am telling you that you will see a difference in their cooperation, their attitude, their energy. Things just get lighter and easier within a couple days of implementing this practice. So, if you do nothing else from what we talked about in this hour, just do this one thing, because it truly makes such a difference. So, that's the first of the 5 steps in the [inaudible 00:20:11]. Doryn Wallach: And, it does, honestly. My only advice, I think, goes, what you just said is, just make it natural. Amy McCready: Absolutely. Doryn Wallach: I'd love to spend some time with you, what if we take 10 minutes and go get an ice cream or go sit and watch a show or whatever it is. I do always say how much I love it, not just because you told me but because I actually really do, and want to make sure they know how much I love spending alone time with him. So many things that you have taught me, I practice all the time, and I'm very grateful for it. So, guys, this is who you should be listening to, Amy. I tell everybody about you. I do. Amy McCready: I love the endorsement. Doryn Wallach: Yeah, it's true. I've read so many books, and I've listened to so many people, most of them are poopoo. Amy McCready: I appreciate that. Okay, so here's the second thing, and this has to do with us, too. Let me just also say, guys, that we all know this intellectually, that you cannot change another person, right? You cannot change your kid, you cannot change your partner. You can try, but it's futile, right, you're going to end up in a giant power struggle. What you can do is change your responses to that person. That is how you will be successful in changing their behavior or their attitude. So, that's why so many of these things I'm talking about is really changing our responses to their behavior. This next step that I'm going to talk about is in that vein. So, the next thing is, I want us to think about how we are showing up for the other people in our family. So, I want us to think about our energy. So, when we pop into the kitchen, or in the family room, or wherever we are with our kids, how are we showing up? What is our energy like? If I asked your kids to finish the statement, my mom is always blank. My dad is always blank. How would they finish that sentence? Doryn Wallach: Oh, God. Amy McCready: My mom is always stressed, busy, concerned about work, concerned about what's on her phone. Or, would they say, my mom is always light. My mom is always present. Doryn Wallach: My kids would say I was always stressed and frazzled. Amy McCready: Yes. Yeah, I get that, because that's probably what mine would, too. Right? But, how do we want them to finish that sentence? My mom is always on my team. Right? My mom gets me even when I'm having a really bad day, which is what tweens and teens have all the time. My mom is with me. She gets me. So again, I want us to think about how we show up for our people, even when we're having a bad day. So, think about our energy. Are we light? Are we easy to be with? Are we difficult and heavy and stressed all the time? So, think about what you need to do to lighten your energy. Maybe, it's playing classical music or yoga spa music or lighting candles. What can you do in your physical environment to lighten your energy? Maybe it's meditating for 15 minutes before you come downstairs in the morning. What can you do? I'm terrible about that, by the way. Doryn Wallach: Yes. Amy McCready: I'm not a good meditator, because I'm so type A, I'm just terrible. Doryn Wallach: Me too. I've tried it so many times. I start it and that doesn't get pass the third session. Amy McCready: I know, we need to do a podcast. You need to bring in a good expert on that topic. I'm not the one. Doryn Wallach: Seriously. Amy McCready: But anyway, really, if we want to improve that energy between us and our kids, we need to show up as that lighter, easier person. Does that make sense? Doryn Wallach: This is why mom's drink wine. Amy McCready: Exactly. Doryn Wallach: That lighter energy comes after a few glasses of wine or whatever your poison is. Amy McCready: Unfortunately, that doesn't help us in the morning, right at 8 o'clock. Doryn Wallach: No, it doesn't help us. But, I think there are some moms that are doing that in the morning, but that's another issue. Amy McCready: That's another podcast, right? Doryn Wallach: Yeah, I'm actually, I think, in the morning, probably the most calm, except, well, when we're trying to get out the door in the morning. But actually, when I started implementing what you taught me and giving up that control of let's go, let's go, let's go, or caring if my kids said I'm not wearing a coat today, I'll be like all right, don't wear a coat. I think that it made mornings a little easier, giving up that control of trying to make sure that everything was right. Okay, that's amazing advice, and I think that whatever that is, I wish I knew what that was. Maybe, if you're listening to this and you have advice for how you stay calm before wine time, let us know. I would love to have this discussion. Amy McCready: Okay, the next thing is, give up control. So, we talked a little bit about this the other day, Doryn. You don't have to do something about everything. Decide what are the most important things that you need to do something about. There are so many things that come up, so many comments, so many whatever, you don't have to do something about everything, decide what you can let go and focus on the most important things. Now again, as we go on in this discussion, we're going to talk about a lot of different tools, I would also think about where can you bring your kids into more of the decision-making process. Let them have more say so in your family. It can be little things like getting them involved in planning the menu for the week, deciding where you're going for dinner, Friday night, when we're finally going back out to dinner at restaurants. Giving up some of the control so they can feel like they have more control in the family. Doryn Wallach: What are some other examples of that? Amy McCready: I know you're familiar with this, family meetings. Doryn Wallach: Oh, we do that. By the way, we do that. Well, we haven't in this time. We were doing that once a week. I forgot that, that was something you told me about. Amy McCready: Yeah, so super empowering. So, there is a problem in the family, right? There's an issue where we're arguing over something, whether it's technology rules, or whatever, well, parents can come in and decide what the rules are. Or, you can allow the kids to have some input in how this is going to go. Or, as I said, deciding what the menu is going to be or what, again, when we're all vacationing, what the family vacation plans are. We have this much to spend on activities during vacation. And again, if we're talking about tweens and teens, what an empowering thing. This is how much money we have for activities, you guys do the research and decide what activities we're going to do, while we're on vacation. Anytime that you can bring them into the decision-making process, that's super empowering for kids. The bottom line is, for most tweens and teens, their biological need is to have more independence and control, but, we, parents tend to be holding it all. Doryn, you're familiar with us, one of the things that we have parents do in our program, is go through a parent personality assessment, so you understand the natural bend of your personality. For many of us, our natural personality style is to be very controlling. That may be very effective for us in a work environment, but it is just very difficult in a parenting situation. Because, the more we try to control our kids, their natural reaction is to fight back. So, if you have a lot of power struggles with your kids, it's very likely that your personality style is naturally very controlling. So, just something to think about there. Step 4 is, for in the moment, to do a safe face and a redo. So, when you get that sassy remark in the moment, you do a safe face, like, I'm sure you didn't mean for it to sound that way. I'm sure you didn't mean to hurt my feelings. I'm sure you didn't mean for the comment to sound that way. But then, you do the nonverbal redo signal. So, if you can see me, I'm circling my finger in the air. So, ahead of time, you take time for training and you say, in the future, if a comment comes out that sounds a little bit rude or whatever, I'm sure you don't mean for things to sound that way, but I'm just going to do this circle with my finger in the air. And, that just means, let's try that again, right. Doryn Wallach: Does that work? Amy McCready: Will it work? Yeah, it totally works. Allow your child to save face. You know what, I know you didn't mean it to sound like that. You know what I mean? I know you wouldn't mean to hurt my feelings, it just came out of your mouth that way. Then, you give her the redo opportunity. But, here's the key thing, it has to be a two way street and she can do it to you. Doryn Wallach: Okay. Amy McCready: So, the next time you lose your stuff a little bit, she can do the exact same thing. She does the redo back to you, and you immediately say, you know what, that did not come out the way I meant it to, what I meant to say is, and then you restate it in your calm voice. That is super empowering for kids. Doryn Wallach: Then, when you're the controlling parent that you are, it doesn't matter, I'm your mother. It can't be a double standard. Amy McCready: Then, the last little thing for in the moment, is you refuse to participate. So, if they are tossing up that really sassy comment or they refuse to do the redo, you're not going to get into, excuse my language, a pissing match with them, right? You're not going to get into that. You're going to say, you know what, sweetie, I love you too much to fight with you about this, let's talk about this later, and you walk away. That, I love you too much to fight with you, I'll chat with you about this later, when we're both feeling a little bit more calm, and you walk away. But, it's like that tennis match analogy, right? If you and I were playing tennis, I serve the ball to you, you hit it back to me, then we have a game going. But, if I serve the ball to you, and you let it drop and walk away, now, I don't have anybody to play with. Doryn Wallach: You know what, I think that works really well with my daughter, especially because... My husband gets very offended if she does a run out of the room and slams the door or has an attitude or whatever it is. Sometimes it'll be like, don't talk to your mother that way. I think that's where you kind of get lost in between, how do I teach my kids to speak respectfully to people and make sure that they understand that, that tone's not acceptable. But, on other times where I've experimented and said, you know, I'm just going to let her throw this tantrum and go in the other room. And oftentimes, she ends up coming out later and apologizing on her own. Amy McCready: Does she ever speak that way to anybody outside of your household? Doryn Wallach: No. Amy McCready: No. And, she wouldn't, because you are her safe place, right? Doryn Wallach: Mm-hmm (affirmative)- Amy McCready: The thing with tweens and teens, is there is so much going on in their world. Right, it's not great that she spouts off like that, but, sometimes, it happens. I think we've talked about before, sometimes it just comes out, and you could go and make a big fuss about it in that moment and lay down the law and give her a big lecture and that whole thing, but by just letting it go in that moment, like you said, she comes out a few minutes later, she apologizes, and it's over with. That's a one-off. It was happening every single day, that might be a different thing, but you don't have to do something about everything. Doryn Wallach: So Amy, I know that one of the things that we had talked about together and that I try to implement, is something called asked and answered. Oftentimes with my daughter, and my son, they're negotiating a lot, and it's back and forth. One other thing you also taught me about, and this is separate, allowing your child to show what's their case for why they're choosing what they're choosing and convince me. I think that's what it was. And, see if you can be convinced or if you can't. My daughter, for example, the other day, she wanted to watch a new show, and I really didn't agree with that show. I've actually been very flexible on what she's been able to watch, especially in this quarantine. But, I know her and I've seen the show, and, for me, it made me super anxious and made me have bad dreams at night. I just don't think that she is ready for it, despite her age. I just don't think it's the right show for her. So, she asked me, I explained what I just said, and she came back at me again. I said, "Honey, I just don't think that this is the right show for you. I'm sorry." Then, she came back and explained her case, and I looked at her and I said, asked and answered. But then, she just kept coming after me. To a point where it's so irritating that you lose it. So, I would love to know what I was doing wrong in that situation? Because, whereas, I think, other parenting experts have said to me in the past, if you give in eventually or if you don't follow through with what you say, then they're going to always know that they can keep asking or negotiating. But, I don't do that. So, that's when I go to bed at night being, you're a failure as a mom, you don't know what you're doing. Amy McCready: No, you are absolutely not failing by any means. So okay, so the tool that you're talking about asked and answered, is a brilliant tool for combating what you describe, that negotiating. So, the child has asked for something, you've thoughtfully considered what they want to do, and you've given a thoughtful answer. So, in this situation, the TV show isn't right for her agent and development and you've given that answer. It's intended to avoid that back and forth, asked and answered. So, in this situation, you delivered the asked and answered, but then she wanted to do the badgering. But please, mom, come on, mom, everybody watches it, I want to watch it, why can't I watch it? Why can't I watch it? And, was probably following you around the house, right? Just wouldn't let up with that tool or wouldn't let up with the requests? Is that kind of, how that was going? Doryn Wallach: Yeah, 100%. Amy McCready: Okay. So, that doesn't mean that asked and answered was working. The key is, whether or not you do anything after you deliver the asked and answered. So, the key with asked and answered is you say, asked and answered, and then that's it, you stop talking. Because, if you keep talking, if you keep explaining, if you keep giving verbal feedback, then she gets a hit of attention and power with each additional word that comes out of your mouth. She's not getting to watch the show, that she wants, that's what she really wanted, but she's getting that hit of attention and power and she's pushing your button every single time. So, the key for that to be successful is you say, the asked and answered, and then that's it. Even if she's following you all around the house, you just go about your business, you go fold your laundry, you eat your lunch, you check your email, whatever you have to do, but you don't respond. If you continue to give the payoff for her continued negotiating and badgering, then, in her mind, she's, oh, okay, this behavior works. I'm getting the payoff, I'm pushing her buttons, so I'm going to continue to do it. The next time this comes up, I'm going to do the same thing again. Does that make sense? Doryn Wallach: Yes, it does. I think that's the part that I was missing. Amy McCready: Now, let me give you another tool that is also very effective for this age group. So, this is another example that you could teach your kids for something like, they want to watch a TV show, or they want to do something that might be outside the parents comfort zone. They want to go with their friends to the outlet mall in the next town, they want to go to a concert. Any one of those things that you're, oh, I'm not really totally comfortable with this. They want to start using a new social media platform that you're not totally thrilled with. So, as the parent, your natural tendency is to be, no, I'm not down with that, that's not going to happen. Certainly, that is well within your right. And, i you're just not comfortable with it, you say, no, I'm just not ready for that. The perfect example, was this TV show, you are not comfortable based on her age and development, and the answer is no, and sometimes that's the case. But, sometimes the answer doesn't have to be no, sometimes it can be yes. Or, sometimes the answer could be, convince me. That's what this tool is, it's called, convince me. Convince me is a great tool to balance responsibility and freedom for your kids. So, let's say the example is, they want to go with their friends to the next town outlet mall. You can say, all right, I can certainly understand why you would want to do that, but let me share with you my reservations for you going to the outlet mall. Of course, you would go through your reservations. Well, first, you getting in the car and driving with your friend, and you're going to be spending a lot of money, and whatever all of your reservations are. These are my reservations, but I understand this is important to you. So, why don't you think about my reservations and why don't you come back to me with your plan? Basically, why don't you come back and convince me with your plan for going to the outlet mall? Then, that's her job to come back and convince you that she has thought through her plan, she has a contingency if things go wrong, and then you decide, has she thought through everything you're concerned about? Do you think she's, basically, come up with a list of things that you think are safe, and whatever, that you think she can do this safely and all of that? Doryn Wallach: Yes, that makes perfect sense. Amy McCready: So, in that way, then your child gets some practice in coming up with a good plan, then you can work with them to make sure that they can implement their plan. If they can execute on the plan, they go to the outlet mall and everything goes well, then they've established some goodwill, if you will. And, the next time they want to do something that is somewhat outside your comfort zone, then you feel more comfortable about that. So again, it's another tool that you can use in your toolbox that gives them a little bit more responsibility that you don't always have to be the bad guy, you don't always have to be the one deciding how things are going to go, and you're working in concert with your tweener teen, to come up with ways to give them freedom and responsibility at the same time. Just very empowering for kids and for parents. Doryn Wallach: I can see that my son, the younger one, is really looking for independence right now even more so than she was at that age. I see how, when I give him that, it's super helpful. You know what, honestly, as a mom, it gives you one less thing to do. So, if they're looking for that independence, it's great. Amy McCready: Absolutely. I think too, as we think about our role as parents, I said in the very beginning, we often underestimate our job description, and that is to prepare them to be adults. Move them from being completely dependent to being fully independent. So, if your listeners might even want to just jot down this list, it's a list of skills. So, think about personal responsibility, decision-making, financial acumen, health and wellness, household tasks. Things like changing air filters and all the things that we do around the house, it takes to run a household. Social skills. All of those things that kids need to learn before they go to college or to the military or to their first job when they leave your house, those are a lot of things that kids have to learn, particularly for kids who want to be independent. Let's teach them all those things. Financial acumen, teenagers, let's get them set up with investment accounts. I'm sure your husband would be all over that, right? Let's teach them all those things. That's super empowering. You asked for an example of giving kids opportunities to make decisions, or give them control, let's set them all up with little investment accounts, that they can be investing money. How empowering for kids, and it's teaching them real life skills. There's so many things that we can do to prepare them to launch, where they're learning real life skills at the same time. Doryn Wallach: Coming off of that, one of the other things you taught me, when my kids... And, it's much more my older, she always wants things, always, even though she doesn't need them, and I'll say you have to use your own money. If it's something that's not a necessity, you must use your own money for that. She is running out of money. She's, "I can't afford that." I'll say, "Well, I guess you just don't get it." So, even that has been a wonderful lesson. But, also, this quarantine, my kids, not having as much cleaning help as I normally do or just being around all the time and the house being messier and things going on, they've both learned to do the laundry and to vacuum the floor. That's the one of the bigger blessings in all of this, is that they've learned so much independence around the house. They don't like it, and they think it's going to end when this all ends, but it's not. I think they just think we're just doing this right now to make mom happy, so she's not going crazy. Amy McCready: Oh, Doryn, one other thing I wanted to mention, we were talking a minute ago about cleaning and laundry and all of that, one of the biggest battles that parents face, is getting their kids to do family jobs around the house. You know, one of my big things, I don't like to call them chores, I call them family contributions, because it reminds kids that when they do help out at home, it is a contribution, it makes a difference. I think it's important to remind kids of that. But, that doesn't eliminate the eye rolls and the complaining and all of that that goes with it. So, there are a couple of things that parents can do to just minimize that a little bit. One of the things is, to instead of just nagging kids about helping out all the time, they can invite cooperation. So again, instead of saying, Come on, don't forget to unload the dishwasher. Or, remember you have to... they can invite cooperation by saying, I'm really busy with some things I have to do for work, anything that you can do to clean up or to help with the kitchen, would be so appreciated. Or, I've noticed the family room is just a wreck right now, anything that you can do to help out, would be so appreciated. So, anything that you can do to help out, would be so appreciated. You invite cooperation with a smile. It's so empowering. It's not requiring them to do anything, but 9 out of 10, they will actually help out and do something. Doryn Wallach: Yes, this works so well. Amy McCready: I know. Doesn't it? Doryn Wallach: So well. Recently, obviously, it's just overwhelming how much that we're all taking on, I think, especially moms, and my daughter helped me do a few things. It was actually work related. I said, "Will you help me count inventory?" I said, "I really need somebody else here with me." And, she did. She did not like doing it, but when she was done, I said, "I cannot tell you how much that alleviated my stress. You were so incredibly helpful. And, I just feel so much lighter now, because I had your help. So, I know you didn't like it, but thank you so much." Amy McCready: Yes, don't require it. Don't badger, don't nag them, just invite them. Anything that you could do to help, would be awesome. So, invite cooperation. Second thing is, when they complain about having to clean the bathroom or unload the dishwasher, just show empathy. I hear you. I know, it's no fun. It's my least favorite job, too. Just let them know that you get it. Show empathy without giving in. It creates that little emotional connection. It goes so much farther than giving them a big lecture and you'll get so much more mileage out of it. The next one is, when they have a job to do that hasn't been done, whether it's, again, taking out the trash or whatever, instead of reminding and badgering them about it, just say, what is your plan for taking out the trash or what is your plan for cleaning out the garage? Assume they've agreed to clean up the garage this weekend. What is your plan for taking care of the garage this weekend? That is so much more empowering than nagging or reminding them because it assumes that they have a plan in place. Because, even if they totally forgot about it, they can make up something in the spur of the moment and be, oh, yeah, yes, I'm going to do that. As soon as I finish my lunch, I'm going to go outside and start on the garage. You can be, oh, cool, I know you totally had that under control. So, empowering for them. What is your plan for? Doryn Wallach: Does that work for husbands? Amy McCready: I am not in the husband coaching business, but kind of, it does. Doryn Wallach: Okay, I'll try a different approach. Amy McCready: Super empowering. Then, the last one is, of course, our longtime favorite, the when then. When your family contributions are finished, then you can enjoy your technology. Of course, our technology curfew is 9 PM or whatever that is. A when then plan. When the yucky stuff is done, then you can enjoy the more fun parts. Doryn Wallach: I love when and then and it works really well. I've learned to keep calm when I use it. Another thing they caught on to, when we were listening to your book in the car from skiing every weekend, and we didn't think they were listening and they were, they're, "Don't pull that then and when stuff with us, it's so annoying." They don't know you. If they knew you, they'd love you, but they call you the crazy lady in the audible book. Yeah. Amy McCready: I am a little bit crazy, but that's okay. They don't have to like me. Doryn Wallach: Exactly. But, when and then works really well. Is there another word that we could use, or another way of phrasing that, that's not when and then? Amy McCready: No. Doryn Wallach: No, okay. Amy McCready: No. Because, here's why, it is a natural order in which privileges are allowed. When the yucky stuff is done, then you can enjoy the more fun parts of your day. It's a natural order of the way things happen. It's very distinct from an if then. It's not, if you get your homework done, then you can enjoy technology. That's very much a bribe. And, this is not a bribe. It's very much in keeping with real life, right? When you pay your electric bill, then you get to keep your lights on. It's just the way real life works. I would encourage you to continue the when then phrasing, because it's in keeping with teaching kids personal responsibility. They don't have to like it. They're never going to like everything that you do, but it works. Doryn Wallach: Yeah. Amy McCready: And, it's positive, it's empowering. I can't think of a different way to phrase it, that doesn't turn it into a bribe. Because, that's what we want to get away from. It's not a bribe or a reward, it's just the way that we structure things for personal responsibility. Doryn Wallach: Can I interrupt on the bribe and reward part? Can we just talk about that for one second? Amy McCready: You bet. Doryn Wallach: I stepped away from that for a while and we weren't doing it. So, the two things that we tend to threaten, are technology, and dessert for my son. I hate when I have to get to that point, because I don't like to threaten. But, if you've asked your child over and over again to do something, like, simply go to bed, what do you do that gets them to actually do it, I guess, is the question? I really hope you're going to make the right choice. I've tried doing that. Or, I know you're going to make the right choice, and then walk away from it. Amy McCready: So, I think it depends on what the behavior is. We've talked about this before. In the parenting success program that I teach, we do not advocate rewards at all. And, there's a tremendous amount of research that proves that the use of rewards actually undermines the behavior that you're trying to teach in the first place. We don't have time to get into that in this session. So, I don't advocate rewards at all. Or, the flip side of rewards, which is punishment. So, if we're dealing with bedtime, we deal with the bedtime issue. And again, that's a whole session we could talk about in that. Or, if it's technology, we would deal with that. I wouldn't tie dessert to it. I wouldn't tie technology to bedtime. Those are behaviors that we would handle separately. Because, what ends up happening is, I call that, desperation parenting. Because, it's like you're throwing a Hail Mary, because you don't know what else to do. Doryn Wallach: Exactly. Amy McCready: Right. So, that tells me that we need to dig in, Doryn, right? We need to sit down and say, okay, why are we having trouble with this bedtime thing, let's figure this out. We can always figure it out with other tools in the toolbox. And, if I can't help you, then we go to a sleep specialist who can. But, doing a Hail Mary and taking away dessert and other nonsense, that's not going to solve the root problem for you. Doryn Wallach: Not to get too much into my kids, but the sleep things have gotten much better. With my son now, we just let him read until he falls asleep. We'd say, you have to be in bed at 9, I don't care what time you go to sleep, just turn... he uses a Kindle... turn your book off, and go to sleep. That was life changing for us, rather than fighting with him every night. I think, great, if he goes to bed at 12:30 in the morning, but, whatever, he goes to sleep. Amy McCready: So, you may even back it in even earlier. So, in bed at 8 o'clock, maybe then he gets to sleep at 11. Gosh, that's so late, but anyway. Doryn Wallach: Yeah, I know. Amy McCready: So, we always go to the problem that we're having and find a specific solution for that, rather than doing these desperation parenting moves. Doryn Wallach: Okay. Then, as we talked about before, relating it back to more of the natural consequence of the situation, which I love. Amy McCready: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yep. Doryn Wallach: Okay. Amy McCready: But, here's the thing, for your listeners, I think we always just have to come back to that, misbehavior is always a two way street. So, we have to remember that we're not in this to fix our kids, we always have to look at our contribution to the behavior as well. So, how are we showing up? Are we doing that every day, that emotional connection with our kids? Are we looking at our energy? Are we trying to control everything? Are we also going to give our kids some control and decision-making opportunity? Are we going to give them the opportunity for the redo? Are we going to walk away from the power struggle? Or, are we going to get in the middle of it? So, there's lots of things that we can do, lots of tools that we can use, but, again, our long-term job, we're parenting for the long game, not the, in the moment short game, because our job is to prepare them to be happy, successful, fully-functioning adults, so they can go out into the world and do amazing things. So, we can look back and know that, yes, we did an awesome job, we created and launched successful human beings. Doryn Wallach: You just had a graduate, right? Is that your oldest? Amy McCready: That was my youngest. He just graduated, virtually, unfortunately. So yeah, I have one who's married and one who just graduated from college and is starting his real job in August. So, we will officially be empty-nesters. Doryn Wallach: I've always thought about, I want to sit down with her kids. Amy McCready: They're such nice people. Doryn Wallach: I bet. Amy McCready: In spite of me. Doryn Wallach: I know. Not in spite of you, because of you. Amy McCready: No, they're lovely people. I always say that, they're nice people that I think, if they weren't my kids, I'd love to be friends with them just because they're lovely people. But, I always think it. When I look back, when they were younger, and I was the crazy yelling mom, and I'm still a crazy mom, but I'm glad that when they were younger, I learned some parenting tools because I was a wreck. A train wreck. Doryn Wallach: Yeah. By the way, that is one of the reasons I started this podcast, because I think the overall message here is that we want to better ourselves at this stage of our lives so that we can live the later part of our lives in peace and harmony, right? We want to be able to take these tools now, so whether it's taking care of ourselves, whether it's taking care of our children, being a better mom, a wife, a partner, or in everything that we do, let's learn those now, so that we're not at a certain age going, oh, God, I wish I had known that. And granted, I know that every 10 years, we look back saying, I wish I knew this 10 years ago, but if we can do the work now, I think that's important. I think it comes back to parenting, too. I'm looking at it now, I don't have that many more years with my daughter at home, and I just want these years to be as good as possible, doing the best I can. Amy McCready: Absolutely. I think it's awesome to let your kids know that you are still working to be the best mom, best dad, you can be. Even if it's every other day, say to your kids, you know what, I messed this up, this interaction that we just had 15 minutes ago and the way I said something to you, I messed that up and I'm going to try to do better. Let them know that you're always doing better or you're trying to do better. It's such good modeling for them to see that. So, empowering for them. Doryn Wallach: So Amy, before you go, at the end of my show, I always ask everybody this one question. So, has nothing to do with parenting, but what would you tell your early 30-something self today, if you could give yourself a piece of advice? Amy McCready: Just to relax about everything more, just to enjoy it more, don't be so uptight about everything. Doryn Wallach: Yeah. Amy McCready: Right? Yep. Doryn Wallach: Yeah. Amy McCready: That's what I would tell every parent now, just enjoy it more. Doryn Wallach: It's obviously easier to say that, but even if you are losing it, if you're not enjoying it, if you are in that moment, it's a good thing even just to say to yourself, just as a reminder, even if you're not able to do it, just then. But, still, it's a great reminder. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. I know that we're going to get a million questions from this. Can you please let everybody know how they can find your books as well as your course online? Amy McCready: Yes, thank you so much. So, your listeners can find our 7-Step Parenting Success System by going to our website, which is positiveparentingsolutions.com. They can find my books, The Me, Me, Me Epidemic, and If I Have to Tell You One More Time, both on Amazon and I'm sure you'll have the links and everything. I thank you so much for having me, Doryn, this has been so much fun. We need three more hours. Doryn Wallach: I know. I just want to mention one other thing, if you sign up for the 7-Step Parenting Success System, it is something you are going to use for life. I'm not good at sales, unless I believe in something, and I truly believe there have been moments where I haven't looked at it in months, and then I refer back to something and it's a reminder, and it's always available to you. So, it's helpful. I will also link to it on my Facebook page, Instagram page, and eventually that website that I haven't gotten up yet, because I haven't had time. Amy McCready: All in good time. Doryn Wallach: Yes. Thank you again and I hope to talk to you soon. I'd love to have you back, if you're interested. Amy McCready: That would be so much fun. Doryn Wallach: Wonderful. Thank you. Amy McCready: Thank you. Talk to you soon. Bye. Doryn Wallach: Bye. Thank you again to Amy McCready for being on my show. Amy's information will be both on social media and Facebook at It's Not a Crisis podcast. Always, as usual, please email me if you need any follow-up information at itsnotacrisis@gmail.com. And, also feel free to send any direct messages or emails if you have questions for Amy. She's happy to answer those. Thank you very much for listening. I am your host, Doryn Wallach. I have a lot of great episodes lined up and ready to be recorded soon. So, I will let you know about those on social media. I hope you all hang in there, and I'll see you next time.