Motivational Quotes and Inspirational Life Stories
Motivational Quotes and Inspirational Life Stories
Episode 99 - "Different Than Your Parents" with Author, Julie Marrast
Join the conversation as we sit down with Julie Marrast, a woman with a revolutionary perspective on parenting. Every parent feels the weight of shaping a life, and Julie's transformative experiences have birthed her book, "Different Than Your Parents." It is a beacon for those navigating the uncharted waters of raising emotionally intelligent children. Our discussion cuts to the core of parenting, challenging listeners to see their children as mirrors reflecting their deepest selves—a realization that turns every outburst and milestone into a chance for personal growth and a stronger parent-child bond.
To learn more about Julie, visit her website HERE.
Hello, beautiful listeners and viewers, it is so great to be back with you. We took a little bit of a break, but here we are and we are back with a wonderful guest, julie Morast. And I met Julie a couple of years ago and have been so impressed by her enthusiasm and commitment to life, commitment to herself, commitment to growth. She is very brave and I'm sure we'll talk more about that. Julie has been certified in multiple modalities she's an author, she's a parent coach, she's a yoga teacher and, most of all, what we're going to talk about today, she is a parent, and a parent who is making a difference. Her book is called Different Than your Parents how to feel your emotions, build healthy relationships and help your kids do the same, which I think is a huge key. Julie's website is hero life happycom. Welcome to the show, julie.
Speaker 2:Hey, thank you. Thanks for having me. It's really nice to connect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is my pleasure to have you here and you know you use the word connect and I know connect is a big part of your vocabulary and lifestyle and that you truly believe in authentic connection with others. Can you tell us what inspired you to really pursue connection?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'll go back to the beginning of how I became a parent. So I had a really long journey to becoming a parent. It took me five years to become a mom toward to my son. I had a lot of infertility issues and a loss of my daughter the year before, so I had this strong desire to become a parent. And then when I finally became a parent, it was really hard and it wasn't what I expected. It wasn't what I prepared for and as I was going along, I was trying to do things different than my parents in terms of being more compassionate, more present and more available emotionally available towards my son.
Speaker 2:But I wasn't able to maintain that and one night, when I was trying to put him to bed, I was overwhelmed with big, big emotions and was kind of what the heck is going on. So I switched out with my husband and that's when I started to look within myself and like, well, why am I like this? Why am I not different than my parents? And this was like a pivotal moment in my life because I started to reflect on how.
Speaker 2:You know how much I wanted to become a parent, but yet I wasn't able to deeply connect with my son, and then memories from my childhood were starting to come up, this longing to have this connection with my parents that I didn't have. So then I started to learn how to feel my emotions again and try different self-discovery modalities to seeing what was out there that could help me. And then over time I started to question as well, like well, what? Well, what is parenting? And then I kind of merged them two together that I could use parenting and self discovery to deep the connection with myself and then in turn with my son. And then it went on this whole journey that we're kind of walking on together, okay so this book different than your parents is coming out May 7, on Amazon.
Speaker 1:This book Different Than your Parents is coming out May 7th on Amazon. And from what I just heard you say and tell me if I'm wrong so with parenting and making a difference in our child's life and giving our child the skills to pass that on to the next generation, do you believe that our parenting is led emotionally or more structured? Or help me understand.
Speaker 2:I think parenting is an emotional experience. Maybe some people would even call it a spiritual practice. Our children are mirrors of what's going on inside of us and we are kind of mirroring it back to them. So it's this like ebb of flow, of this energy working together. And I think parenting is hard when we don't know that, when we don't know that that's kind of what's going on, because there's triggers there. But the triggers could be growth, growth opportunities, growth points.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's the truth and I can say, as a mother of a 35 and 38 year old, that it hasn't stopped yet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like that. You mentioned that, that. So there was one point in my, in my journey over the past four years, I, um, I was working really hard. I'm like I gotta get this done, I gotta get this healing done so that I can connect with my son, and then I realized that it's a lifetime. Um, this is a lifetime and it's this process of we're both learning how to like, express ourselves and live authentically and deepen our connection with each other, and it's like a lifetime of authentic relating.
Speaker 1:So Okay, it is really beautiful, and, and I think when we remember to look for that lesson in the experience, we can, we can sort our way through it a little bit easier. So one is for those parents who are like me, and I had this strategy and I'm sure it was the same strategy my mother had and probably her mother had which is I'm going to do things different than my parents. So, instead of just modifying you know, I pardon the expression threw the baby out with the bathwater and just did everything the opposite. And that was not the answer, because I ended up raising children who didn't have the skills that I had because of my parents, you know, decision making, dealing with stress and so on, and so I needed to find a middle ground. But by the time I realized that my children were young adults. So how do we become aware, more self-aware as parents? Like, how do we become more self-aware when our children are still young and living at home, instead of just being completely reactional?
Speaker 2:Of that. Well, that's a good question I'm going to come back to in just one second, but I just want to touch base on the opposite thing that you had said. So when I went into parenting, I intentionally did the opposite. So I had a permissive parent and I had an authoritarian parent and so I didn't really know what was going on with rules and what expectations and stuff like that. But the main message I did get was emotions equals bad, like do not have any sort of emotion.
Speaker 2:So when I started to parent my son I was he didn't cry at all for like three years. There was always soothing, rationalizing and distracting, and that's what I based my parenting on, just from what I knew. But when I started to do my healing journey and I started to feel my emotions, I started to have awareness of how, when I had that in my childhood, the impacts of that. So I feel like there's this big piece when we examine our childhood, we get to have the awareness in the present of the impacts of what we're having on our children, and that gives us the opportunity to heal the past but also bring awareness to change in the present. So learning about parenting styles and approaches and the history of them and where they came from and what the kind of entail gave me a foundation for change and this is a big part of what I teach in the beginning part of my book or my framework.
Speaker 1:Okay, that makes a lot of sense to me. It really does, and I think that it is age appropriate for if your children are still in diapers or if your children have children, because you know I can say, as a grandmother, I'm still learning parenting and, again, it's a never-ending journey. So you, because I know you, I know that you have always dug a little deeper when it comes to emotions. You're very courageous and digging in and exploring and saying hmm, what is this? Julie and I first met through the Heal your Life training certification that Julie took and one of your favorite affirmations is I am open and receptive to all of the goodness life has to offer. I love life. And what does that mean to you, that affirmation?
Speaker 2:Yeah to like. There's no good or bad experience. Everything is a learning experience. If I could take and I do, I do this now. So for most of my life, for 35 years, I thought life was kind of like against me and was like bringing me all these things and I didn't know why and I was pushing back. There was a lot of resistance, but now I feel open and receptive to all that it brings, that there's all these opportunities, there's all these opportunities for growth. There's all these opportunities to feel my emotions, to question what are my beliefs about myself, are they true? Where do they come from? And then coming back to that deep connection with myself, with my truth, so that I can connect with other people authentically, so that affirmation is everything, everything everything.
Speaker 1:It really is a good way of explaining it and I think that doing it the way that you are saying, using this affirmation, open and receptive to all the goodness life has has to offer, what it does is it creates space for our children um, you know, speaking of parenting, right? So whether our child is, uh, five and and learning a lesson, or 25 and learning a lesson, uh, when we say I'm open and receptive, it creates space for them to grow, for us to grow. And so often, as parents tell me if I'm wrong here, we seem to think we have ownership over our children, and I remember a lady telling me many, many years ago that they're not just an extension of me, that they have their own minds, their own likes, their own desires, and my kids were in high school when she told me this, and I was trying to control everything. How do you help parents learn to let go of of the control? Control?
Speaker 2:well, in my own experience, the control was coming from, because I was trying to control my inner world. Um, so anytime there was my son doing something that like playing messy or being loud or not listening, doing something that I didn't want him to do, it was always bringing up something inside of me. So I think the key thing is being proactive and having a lifestyle that allows you to constantly questioning your beliefs about yourself and releasing those emotions from your body, gives you the awareness to step back when our children do something and being like I'm just going to like, observe and see what's happening, obviously stepping in if there's a safety thing right, if there's a safety thing going on. But most often, well, from when I grew up, we weren't able to do that, and that's obviously what we're doing, differently than our parents. But it allows the children the space to explore, because ultimately, this is about them being themselves, having that freedom of expression but having that safe container that's provided by their parents.
Speaker 1:So okay, good, good, now tell me, what are you? Do you have a program that is going on with your book that you're doing? Are you offering any coaching or sessions to people who are reading your book and wanting to know more?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so in the book there's a. The framework is called the Hero Life Happy Experience and it's a three-part experiment moving through mindset shifts, lifestyle kind of set up and understanding villages or relationships so that people parents can feel their emotions and build out the relationships and do it with their kids. And I'm working on a program right now, so that's going to be coming out shortly.
Speaker 1:Oh great. So it's an interactive book where they're learning as they read.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, yeah, they're learning as they read and then as they go they can self-inquire about things and then do little lifestyle setups as they go and then reach out to me at the end for further support.
Speaker 1:Oh, wonderful, wonderful. So when you were writing this book, can you tell us about some of the things that maybe you came up against from other parents in your life, pardon, what do you mean? So what I'm wondering is the writing a parenting book and you know, we've all, as parents and as non-parents, we all have, we are all the experts, we all have the advice and are you finding that people are open to this type of work as a parent, or did you find that you got pushed back from other parents that you were sharing what you were?
Speaker 2:writing. Yeah, it was a little bit of both. There's definitely some pushback, um, from, I would say, older generations. Uh, maybe, yeah, yeah, who did, who might not have been wanting to or able to feel that what's going on? Because what I'm talking about, even just reading the title, offers healing I'm finding with people and, yeah, but most, the majority people are very, very supportive and could actually relate to this one thing of have you ever made yourself a promise that you want to be different than your parents? And that's like a real hook or a real relatable thing that many of us have said to ourselves many times, subconsciously or not. Yeah, so throughout the process, I've been met with a lot of like, thank you for saying this. Actually, like, that's what people are saying.
Speaker 1:Oh, wonderful. And you are right. Reading that title is healing. I sincerely felt it in my body reading that title Difference in your parents, how to feel your emotions, build healthy relationships and help your kids do the same. I mean that's what we want. We want the best for them in everything that they do. The same, I mean that's what we want. We want the best for them in everything that they do. But you're teaching us how to not manage the best for them, how to not control the best and how to let them grow up as little humans and and just keep our own peace as well.
Speaker 2:And then I'll mention too. It's really interesting. So throughout this whole process, it's like my son is being different than me too, so we're actually being different together, and this, this healing that I've done on my own, has spread up to generations behind me. So my mom's doing her work now, so it's like all three generations are becoming different than our parents together. It's been really really beautiful.
Speaker 1:Very beautiful. That is. That is very beautiful. Before we started recording, we talked about motivational quotes and how we can be inspired by writers, even as writers ourselves, and something that you quoted to me, I think, something that you mentioned to me, I think you said maybe was a presentation or a speech you did from Denzel Washington. Tell me if I get this right Don't inspire to make a living instead, and aspire to make a difference. Did I get it right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I think, well, from an author's point of view, maybe some people are wanting to make money, but I think the lens of anything that I do, because I'm very intentional with what I'm doing, but inspired to make a difference or to make an impact or to love, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes, that passion, absolutely. Well, that's fantastic. Okay, so release date is May 7th. We're going to make sure this podcast gets out before that. If you are listening after the release date, you can find it on Amazon. Julie Marast and the Different Than your Parents bright, colorful cover. You're going to love the book. I have read the book myself. I was fortunate enough to be able to read the manuscript. I highly recommend it. You're never too old to work on your parenting. Your kids are never too old and we just want to create this really loving and open environment where we can all grow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and be ourselves.
Speaker 1:And be ourselves. Thank you, yes, julie. I loved connecting with you today. Thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. I look forward to connecting again.
Speaker 1:Thank you.