Ep #127: Navigating Trauma with Lindsay Poelman

Mikki: Welcome to Co-Parenting with Confidence, a podcast for those courageous moms out there who wanna move past the conflict and frustration of divorce and show up as the mom they truly wanna be. My name's Mikki Gardner. I'm a certified life and conscious parenting coach with my own personal dose of co-parenting experience. Throughout my co-parenting journey, I have learned to become confident in who I am as a woman and a mother, and I'm here to help you do the same. If you're ready to learn what it takes to become a great co-parent and an amazing example to your children, well get ready, and let's dive into today's episode.

Mikki: Welcome back to the podcast, friend. I'm excited for today's conversation. I think one thing that I've been deeply noticing in life is just the need for community, and the need for friendship, and the need for strong-willed, beautiful examples of women. And I've been really diving into that in my own life, surrounding myself with community, deepening friendships, deepening the relationships I have with these beautiful, strong women. And I just felt called to bring them here on the podcast, and just be sort of in their presence, hear all the things that they have to share with us. And I really wanted to bring that to you in the month of March here, because in my own life, I'm really deepening into this. And so I thought, what more beautiful way than to bring it here to the podcast and let you share some of this with me.

Mikki: So today, we have Lindsay Poelman, who is just an extraordinary human, and I cannot wait for you to hear her story. But before we dive into that, I do want to mention that when this is coming out, you still have one week to go over and save your spot for the workshop that's coming up. On March 20th, I'm hosting a free workshop, and it is all around how to help your kids thrive even in two homes. If there is one thing I hear over and over in my conversations with moms and with clients, it's really wanting to know that our kids are gonna be okay, right? Even after the divorce, even after the separation, maybe you're still married, but you're trying to figure out how am I gonna make it okay for my kids? Well, I wanted to dive into this in a workshop with you.

Mikki: We're gonna create that blueprint that you need for the healthy and harmonious home, so that you and your kids can thrive, right? So that you can create that home, that you can handle anything that comes your way. I know deep in my bones that children need one safe, sturdy, loving parent and home, and you are the one who is providing this for them. So in the workshop, we are gonna really talk about all the ways to clean up and intentionally create that space within your own spirit and your home. We're gonna work on cleaning up emotions, cleaning up energetic space, and really creating the harmony for everybody's well-being. I cannot wait to see you there. So just go to Mikkigardner.com/workshop and you can save your spot today.

Mikki: And now, we get to listen to Lindsay Poelman and I have a conversation. Lindsay is really extraordinary. She navigated her own betrayal trauma journey almost nine years ago, and she found herself deeply entrenched in a dual journey of personal healing while supporting her husband through his recovery. It's really a beautiful story and shows how that profound experience ignited a passion pursuit for her to find the resources and tools for her own support, and eventually leading her to leave behind her career in accounting and embark on this transformative path as a life coach that she is excelling at. She is one of my favorite. She is just a beautiful human, and I really cannot wait for you to hear all of the wisdom that she shares with us. So, without further ado, let's dive into this conversation.

Mikki: Welcome back to the podcast. I am beyond excited to have Lindsay Poelman here. And for those of you who don't know her, oh my goodness, are you in for a treat today. So Lindsay, thank you for coming. I'm really grateful you're here.

Lindsay: Of course. Thank you for having me. Any excuse I get to hang out with you, I'll take it. [laughter]

Mikki: Well, thank you. So before the show came on, I read your bio, I did all of the fancy professional things, but I'd love to hear just a little bit about you, how you came to this place and what you wanna share.

Lindsay: Yeah, I mean, my name is Lindsay Poelman. I see myself as a life coach, but almost more of like a healer. Like, more in that kinda healing realm, I feel like that's kind of more where I feel like the work that I do, like where that is. And before I came into this, where I am right now, I kind of grew up in like a very upper middle class culture where if you check the boxes of life, then things will be okay as an adult. And you'll have problems, but not like problems. And so I... Mikki, like I checked all the boxes as far as grades, sports, athletics, varsity stuff, lettering, and got into a very competitive university. My dad was pretty adamant about having a skill. And so even for me as a woman, I made sure I had a very technical undergraduate degree.

Lindsay: And then I met my partner, and we got married and he was probably about as risk averse as I was. And so after we got married, he decided to... He wanted to become a dentist, which is a very, what we see is pretty risk averse, at least that's kind of what you're taught. And then I went on to do accounting. And so it was really fun to meet and get married and continue our checking the boxes of what you do as a young married couple. And it's so fun to support each other in our dreams and different things like that. And so I got my master's degree, he got his dental degree, and in the middle of that, we had a kid right before he graduated from dental school and then right after, and then we had our third kid, and then we moved back to Utah and we bought our house in the nice neighborhood.

Lindsay: Like all the things that, it was just like, "This is what you do, you go, and you come back and you buy the house in the nice neighborhood and check off all the boxes." And I think, for him, he started realizing while I was pregnant with my third and after we just bought our house and he was about to buy into a practice, he realized that getting all these accolades wasn't taking down his anxiety. And it wasn't making him any less depressed, even though at the time, he didn't really know how anxious he was and I didn't either because of the lack of awareness and teaching around it when we were younger. And so anyway, he basically, within about four months of having our third baby, he went from a very high functioning six figure earning dentist who was about to buy into a practice to... Like, he just had a bunch of childhood trauma come to a head.

Lindsay: And within a week, he told me... He thought that what he was feeling might have had to do with him, like using porn here and there. And so he had told me about this porn use, which was like at the time for me, pretty devastating. And he was like, "Okay, like that'll be a weight lifted off and then I'll feel better." And then within a week, he was non-functioning. So a bunch of anxiety and childhood trauma came to a head and he just went completely non-functioning, almost as if he was a newborn, like flooded, couldn't control his emotions, couldn't fall asleep very well, couldn't stay asleep. And so it really... At that time, Mikki, I was kind of in a space where I was cool doing the whole stay at mom for life, have really fun hobbies, I was like a spin instructor and I was fine doing all of that.

Lindsay: And it just really one needed everything like overnight. And I remember two weeks after he stopped working and about three weeks after just looking at him being like, I don't even know if he'll ever go back to work. And so that's when I was like, I think I need to start working again. And so Christmas was rolling around and I knew that with my accounting degree, it would be best to just start looking in January. And luckily we had some savings to kinda tide us over. But I would say that was kind of where my kind of awakening started a little bit, right? Where we kind of had felt like we were in this like check the box linear world, but then realized how nuanced things were. So it kind of pulled me into the awareness of the nuance of where we were living. And then he didn't start working again for about four years after all of that happened.

Lindsay: And so I would say about two years into that, working as an accountant, I had two part-time gigs and they were great, but I was exhausted. I hadn't been able to be around my kids the way that I wanted to. I had this kind of reckoning moment where I remember being like, okay, if I'm gonna keep working for the rest of my life potentially, it has to be something that feels like that I'm passionate about, that's sustainable, that's a hobby, that's something I love and that feels like an outlet. And luckily I had these artist friends who kind of modeled that to me at the time. So I just remember thinking like, there has to be something out there for me. And that's when I found coaching. And I'd already been going to therapy, and therapy was able to get me to a certain point as far as my mindset and my healing and processing.

Lindsay: But I felt like there was more. And once I kind of got in that space where I just realized like there has to be more, that's when I found coaching. And by the way, I'm a huge... If you know the work that I do, I don't see myself as one who like graduates from therapy and never needs it again. I just, at that point in my life, I felt like I needed just more forward focused support. And then I found coaching, but I still am a huge advocate for therapy, of course. So anyway, I started working with women in Betrayal trauma who had been betrayed by their partners. And then I had a lot of coaches hiring me just for various things that wasn't necessarily betrayal trauma with respect to their partner's porn use. And then I started just seeing all of these holes and gaps in the coaching industry where people were being essentially harmed by hiring coaches who weren't trauma informed.

Lindsay: And I just kind of started seeing like, okay, this trauma stuff isn't just... When there's betrayal trauma, like it holds people back in so many ways and impacts people in all of their relationships. It can, I'm not gonna say it always does every time. And so for me, I have a vision now of just every human being nervous system informed, trauma informed so that we can... It sounds very big to say it, but it's like, so we can heal a world, really. And it starts with each of us healing ourselves. And I don't mean like that in like a we graduate, but just being willing to go on this journey of healing with yourself and those around you. So that's kind of how I got to [0:10:44.9] ____ that.

Mikki: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. No, it was so vulnerable and honest, and I really appreciate you being so present with us to tell sort of the story, because I can feel the holes in there, right? It was very much about what was going on for your husband, but what must have been going on for you, right?

Lindsay: Oh, yeah.

Mikki: With a newborn baby, two little ones, right? And suddenly, everything is a 180. And that's where I really feel like, for my audience, yes, they might not be married, but we all know that moment when every everything gets turned upside down. And you call it a reckoning, but it really is that moment where it's like everything you knew it just doesn't exist in an instant. And how disorienting that can be. And we have to go through those moments in our experience also taking care of these little children that we've brought into the world. And there's just so much there to unpack and we could have a million conversations within this, so I wanna be careful.

Lindsay: Yeah, I know.

Mikki: But what I thought would be really amazing for us to talk about is, because you are such a beautiful example, leading coaches through this being an example and embodied example of this. But I'd love really to talk about how do we take care of ourselves when we are in that moment, when there's trauma that we're experiencing other people watching and witnessing and supporting other people, and there's our own betrayal trauma, there's our own trauma from our world coming upside down, right? And...

Lindsay: Yes. Oh my gosh.

Mikki: And you and I, before we started talking, it's like, sadly, our kids, often when we are not awake, when we are not aware and when we're not healing, our kids are the one that bear the burden from this experience of divorce and all the things. And so we can't stop that entirely, but how do we minimize that? So I'd love to talk about sort of what is being trauma informed, nervous system informed, and why do we need to do this in support of ourselves and our children?

Lindsay: Yeah, no, I love that. And I think the thing too, to just be so like compassionate with yourself as you learn this stuff too, for those listening where it's like, as parents our role might not actually be to eliminate our kids from ever experiencing trauma. Because even if we did it perfectly, which we can't, we're not robots, and our kids aren't meant to have robotic parents, but like even if we did, they would still experience trauma by being a human.

Mikki: Correct. Yeah.

Lindsay: Like, there's so many different moving parts and things like that. So please first of all, just be compassionate. 'Cause that space... For people who are listening to this podcast, I'm assuming like a very large chunk, probably more than 90, 95% of people listening, I presume that you are not only trying to, like Mikki said, break those generational chains, that you're trying to do that while modeling something different to your kid. That's... It's a lot. And so I think the biggest... First of all, just please have compassion and love for yourself where you are because it can feel like a lot. So that's kind of my first thing. But I think it's so important to understand trauma and understand our bodies is not just to have like this ivory tower understanding of everything, but really so many of us have been socialized to ignore the needs of our body, ignore the needs of our nervous system, ignore the cause of our intuition so much so that we don't even really know that it's there.

Lindsay: Like for me, the way I was taught about the nervous system as a child or when I was in middle school was like, it was this part of our body that helps us know when to run, when to rest, when to digest. So it was very anatomically taught and presented. But as far as like emotions and pain and triggers and it being there as our first responder to help us know if something's off or if boundaries have been crossed or things like that, like none of that was ever, ever taught to me. And so what I'll just say with respect to our nervous system is, the way I like to think about it is, it's kind of like our body's command center. It's made up of our brain, our spinal cord, and our nerves, and it sends messages between our brain and other parts of the body to tell us we can think about it from like the way that it was presented to me in middle school where these signals tell us to breathe, to move, to speak, and to see, and to keep track of what's going on inside and outside of our body and decides how to respond based on situations that we experience.

Lindsay: And the layer that I like to present to clients and to people that I work with is that, it can control our movements, our thoughts, automatic responses to the world around us. And when we start becoming aware of behaviors that we don't necessarily love, sometimes we might kind of get down on ourself and kind of like start kind of hating on our body thinking that that's the way to get it to do what we wanted to do. And there's a reason for that, which could be a whole other episode, but what I like to teach my clients is that it's like an advocate for us and it can play a lot of roles and it can be that first responder that helps us get a child out of the street if we see a child in the street. And so yes, it's more survival focused, but it's there as a first responder, a rehab center, a defender, and it's there to tell us when something has been off.

Lindsay: And I've worked with so many women in Betrayal Trauma who have been lied to by their partners. And when we can start understanding and being able to make distinction between nervous system triggers and our intuition and maybe speaking to us through our nervous system, it's huge and it's incredibly powerful. And so you're learning how to kind of like develop a relationship with our nervous system instead of thinking like, "Oh, it's this thing that I have to master or figure out." I see it more as like this part of our body that we've been socialized to kinda ignore and now we're returning to and befriending that part as well, if that makes sense.

Mikki: Yeah, absolutely. And I think what I heard you say and sort of wanted to highlight, I always talk about it being there as like a messenger, right? The emotions that we're feeling, the energy that we're having in our body is simply just a messenger that something is misaligned, right? Or when we feel really great, it's in alignment. And so under being able to connect into what your body is trying to tell you, and I think using that example that you gave... When we have been lied to, and I think that is the one thing especially with infidelity, betrayal, any of these things, when someone is lying to our face, yet in our bodies, we have that whether it's your gut or that intuition saying, "This is a lie," right? But we have been conditioned to not listen, right? To want to believe that it's not going on. And every time that we do that, we're sort of covering up and cutting off that inner knowing, which is the ultimate betrayal. And so I love that you're bringing attention to this. I'd love to hear a little bit more about how we can start to understand, right? Like, how we can start to connect to that because it can feel scary.

Lindsay: Yeah. You make a really good point, Mikki, because depending on when you start considering the idea of connecting to your nervous system, first of all, it's connecting to it and befriending it doesn't absolve us of ever having triggers ever again. But it's more about developing supporting yourself and moving over to that more regulated side of the spectrum so that your nervous system has flexibility to move robustly in many roles. So we don't get stuck in that hyper vigilance space. And maybe it would make sense that if I saw a child in the middle of the road, that I would go into like a flight mode and run and try to like push the kid out, right?

Mikki: Yup.

Lindsay: Like, so it's not about taming it so much that it doesn't ever respond with respect to real life stressors, right? There are times where we want to freeze in the name of survival or even fawn. But the cool thing is like as we develop out our relationship with it and kind of move towards that regulated side of the spectrum, we can kind of be more attuned and connected to it so that if we go into a stress response, the time that it takes to go back into that window of tolerance space or wherever your nervous system baseline is, it can make more sense so that we don't get thrown into like a flight and then it takes like two weeks to recover, right?

Lindsay: And so that's something that I've like watched with myself and with my partner. Over the years, when he was in the thick of it with all of his stuff, if we both walked around a corner and stared each other, it would take him like two, three hours to calm down. For him, that wasn't normal. For me, it would freak me out, and maybe one or two minutes and I would move on and he would still be like, "Oh, I'm still so worked up." And he knew that that was off too. He'd be like, "This isn't normal, this isn't like me." And so it is more about just kind of developing out your relationship with it so that you can be in that robust space. But did I answer your question? Was there a question in there that I might have missed?

Mikki: No, that's... I think that helped because I was sort of wondering too what does it look like to be in a stress response versus more of a regulated state? And so I think what you're saying is that regulated state is being able to be more nuanced and having the more robust, as you said, ability to sort of navigate what's going on around you.

Lindsay: Yeah.

Mikki: On this show I talk a lot about stepping out of reactivity and learning how to be more responsible, which is the ability to respond. And so that's that sort of being able to regulate what's going on in your body, what you're noticing, is that accurate?

Lindsay: Yeah. Yeah. And I would say, and like having time to notice that and watch that so that, like you said, there's more space between that stimulus and response so that you can be more of a watcher of yourself and not feel like you're in it. And so it can make such a big difference when you're able to be more in that space.

Mikki: So for the listener who's like, "Okay, I wanna get a little bit more connected, I wanna start to listen to my intuition a little bit more. I wanna step into this, understanding." What would be a couple of ways that you think would be easy ways to start approaching understanding your nervous system and how you're interacting with it?

Lindsay: Oh, that's a great question. Yeah, I would say what you might wanna check in with is, kind of just start becoming aware of your default state in this moment and just check in with your overall energy throughout the day. Do you find yourself more in like a... Maybe you are generally kind of in this more free, open window of tolerance regulated space. And that's amazing. And I don't wanna say there's a right or wrong, so wherever you are, you're there. And there's a reason that you're there, so please have so much compassion for yourself. But you could just kind of like check in with maybe some of your tougher relationships or just kind of consider, if you're already in it with some of your tougher relationships, just check in like, where does it feel like my baseline is?

Lindsay: Am I in kind of like a more aggressive fight space a lot, like all the time? Am I in more of like a flight space? And we can talk about what those all look like if you want, where we're staying busy, more of a busy kind of like afraid space or are we more in like a freeze, or are we more in like a fawn. So I think just starting to become aware of where your nervous system generally defaults to when stressors arise. And it's gonna be different depending on the stressor. I would say for me, for big stressors, I really go to that freeze. Like, my body just wants to dissociate and like stop moving and go hide in a cave. And like load up on carbs. Like that's, it's Like... Like, just go hide and eat all the food. And I don't think there's a problem with that. We don't need to like have hierarchies or right or wrong. But that's like my defaults with high stress or high stressors or triggers, like if I'm not paying attention, that's kind of where I kind of just go. But there are other people where when stress triggers arise, they get into like major fight mode and like micromanage and hover, and things like that. And then there are people who withdraw and hide.

Mikki: I think that's such an important point to notice. And I was reflecting back on talking with a client yesterday. And she's really wanting help around the anxiety because I think so many co-parents experience the same thing. It's like the anxiety of what's around the next corner, what don't I know. It's just a sad state. I'm sorry to say, but so many of my clients only are able to communicate either via an app or emails and they're required to answer quickly, immediately, whatever that means, which keeps them in this very anxious state of what's coming next, what attack is coming next, what bad thing is coming next. And when we live... I know, right? Like, you guys can't see her, but Lindsay is grabbing our heart. It is a gut wrenching place to live.

Mikki: And then to be wanting to be that calm, grounded, loving parent for your child is a tall ask of any human who is in that response. And so I'd love to just... This comes up for me and I'm thinking about the listener listening. So could we just use this example and maybe talk about some ways when we do feel, 'cause I think anxiety is one of those things that everyone's talking about it and it's as if you shouldn't have it. Not sure where that notion came from, but we also don't wanna set up camp and live in it. And so maybe using just this sort of low level or medium level anxiety. As like how do we start to understand what's happening and move through.

Lindsay: Yeah. I think the biggest thing, first of all, like what you resist persists. So typically, you could check in with yourself and ask when the anxiety is there... Well, first of all, like the hypervigilance is really normal. So if there's been betrayal, it's really normal to become very hypervigilant and it can be an effort to establish control. Because we feel like so much is out of control, And so it's not a correct hack, but like our brain kind of gets into this mindset of, or idea of, if I stay hypervigilant enough then I'll be able to prevent any disasters in the future. And unfortunately, if that were true, then go for it. And it usually isn't. And I think that's what people finally realize or they just get so worn out from being over anxious, their body can kind of pull them into more of a depression or like a freeze state and it does that for them so they can actually sleep and rest and relax.

Lindsay: And so I would say the biggest thing is just have compassion for yourself wherever you're at so that we're not resisting it. And actually just noticing anxiety, like saying out loud, like I'm noticing anxiety in my body can reduce the intensity of the emotion. Like up to 40%. There's research to show for that. So I think just really normalizing, like, "I'm noticing anxiety in my body right now, this is where I feel it, this is what it feels like. It makes sense that I feel this because blank, blank, blank." And even just giving yourself. If it feels safe, if you feel like you can do this without, maybe amplifying yourself. What I teach my clients. I have like an emotional intensity scale of 1 to 10, one being very low and chill and Zen like Buddhist monk, and 10 being, intense, intense, like maybe reach out to your therapist.

Mikki: Yeah. Yeah.

Lindsay: But like if you can do this practice staying at or below a seven, if you can sit with your body in that way, sometimes just feeling it can allow it to pass through. Sometimes with the hypervigilant self, it wants to know why it wants to have words, it wants to have understanding and just know everything. And it thinks if I know everything then I can prevent this in the future. But sometimes with anxiety we just need to learn how to sit with it until it moves through. And then what I would say is try that out. See how it works for a few days or a few weeks. And if the intensity is going down, great. But if it's not, then you might want to find a little more support to process or look at it or see what else is there.

Mikki: I think that's such a beautiful point. Thank you for bringing that up. And I agree with you, with just naming it and allowing yourself a little bit of space without judgment, without blame, without thinking that it should be different or that you can't handle it, just being able to be with it is so important. And if that feels overwhelming, then it is probably time for extra support. Whether that is a therapist, a coach, a mentor of some kind that is trauma informed, that does understand what's going on, that we're not gonna try to just not think about it or toxic positivity our way around it. But really giving you some tools to be able to move through it because it can feel so alienating and lonely. And I think the thing that I wanted to add on here is what you are talking about, I think is the work for us to be doing.

Mikki: Because our children need to watch us be able to do this. Our children need to watch us be anxious, be sad, to be worried to be stressed, to be overwhelmed, to be joyful, to be all of the things and watch how we move through it. And as long as we're cutting ourselves off and acting like it's not there, we're suggesting that we can't handle it and therefore they shouldn't be able to handle it. And so I think as parents and especially as moms, it's our job. We don't have to let them in on every ounce of what's going on, but to be doing the work and so that they can see us move through all of the human experiences and move through it offers them the best possibility to be able to do the same.

Lindsay: Yeah. I love that so much because it really is about what we model and not what we model perfectly, 'cause I think so many of us are like, "Well, I'm screwed. Like, what now?" Like they've already seen this and this and this and it's like, yeah. And like look at what you started working with and look at where you're at. And so it's really, to me it's more about consistent modeling and communication and being clear. Like, I'm so willing to apologize to my children because the fact that I can remember the times one of my parents actually apologize to me is just a sign that like, it just did not happen enough in my opinion. And so for me, I apologize when I overreact, I explain what happened. I let them know like what I am modeling or not modeling and so that, that could be clear too.

Lindsay: And I think it's important, like you said, for kids to, in an age appropriate way, see us be ourselves and be humans. And they don't have to know everything, but like if we don't model showing emotions to our children, they are going to think that they shouldn't be feeling them either. Like that's what they internalize. My kids go to school all day, every day. And so with the work that I'm doing, I'm pretty consistently doing somatic work pretty much every single day. And so a lot of the times where I do cry or let like tears out, it happens to be when I'm at school because I'm just kind of checking in with what I need and things like that. And I had my youngest, the other day who I love it so much, she just feels, and she feels so deeply.

Lindsay: My husband thinks she's like a an HSP, which is a highly sensitive person. And I always, when she cries, I'm always, I don't wanna say always, but I do my best to really communicate like, thank you, and like you're just right right now. Because she's sending these signals up from her body and out and I want to send soothing ones back by really supporting her where she's at. But anyway, she told me like four months ago, she said, "Mom, you don't cry that much." I was like, "What? Like, oh, little do you know." But then it was a good reminder for me where I was like, oh, I do. But maybe it's almost like I schedule it in or work it in when they're at school. Like, I don't have like crying outbursts, but it just reminded me like, oh, hmm, that's something just for me to check in. Like, is there something to do differently? I don't need to like schedule cry time with my kids 'cause that wouldn't work either. But like just, it's interesting to kind of just see how they internalize things and how they receive things. And just kind of adjust where it makes sense. 'cause there's no right way for each parent to do it.

Mikki: There's not. Yeah. And I think it was interesting, I'm in a moment of time here with an ending of a relationship and it's very sad and it's the right thing and it's gut wrenching. And so I have had a pattern of not wanting my son to see mom upset. Right? Because I don't want him to... He is an HSP and he takes all the feelings on and it was interesting the other day 'cause he said, are you okay? And I said, I'm fine. And I noticed it in that moment. I was like, this is an opportunity to do it differently. Right. And age and stage appropriate. He's 13.

Mikki: And so I just said, I said, "You know what, I'm gonna be honest with you. Here's what's happening. I'm extremely sad and I'm okay because I can do this, I can do this work, but I'm also gonna have moments of sadness that are gonna come out of nowhere. I'm gonna be a little distracted. There could be many things happening, but just know that I'm okay. And I can be there." And I said, "I want you to know this so that you don't think there's something wrong with you because you can feel something is wrong with me." And he was very receptive to that. And it's just, I guess I just wanted to share that in that we always get the opportunity to do it differently if we make that mistake. Making the mistake or the conflict or whatever the outbursts that happened, they're fine. Like, that's just part of being human. But they're just an opportunity to repair, like you said, to apologize, to show up differently. And doing this work, understanding our nervous system, understanding trauma, understanding the healing journey is what allows us to do it differently. And I think our kids deserve that.

Lindsay: Yeah. I love it so much. I went through... In one of my trauma trainings years ago, I went through, I remember someone, I can't remember what we were learning about, like high stress divorces or something like that. And I remember one of the expert therapist trainers saying, "If you don't share your reality with your child, they will create their own." And so that's where as parents, especially when we are honoring ourselves and our nervous system from a grounded space, we can be in tune with our intuition to share in an age appropriate way what's going on. And like I make this so clear to my kids, if I'm sharing how I'm feeling or how I'm doing, it's not your responsibility to help me feel better, 'cause we don't wanna get into like that ratification territory. And so even with my kids, like I think of my kids as my best friends and maybe I overdo this, but I'll be like, "You guys are my best friends and you're not responsible for my emotional wellbeing." Like, I just make it so clear because just based on whatever they're internalizing from society, whether it's through, even if it's not modeled by you, teachers, movies, media, who knows friends, friends' parents, they might think that they are supposed to be responsible for people's feelings. And so that's something I also make very clear throughout all of it too.

Mikki: Yeah. So important. Lindsay, I wish we could just keep talking, but we have to be respectful of time, unfortunately.

Lindsay: It's okay.

Mikki: Hopefully you'll come back and talk with us again.

Lindsay: Of course.

Mikki: But I have one final question for you that I ask everybody. This is Co-parenting with Confidence. So I'm curious, how do you define it and how does confidence show up for you?

Lindsay: Oh, wow. Good question. I'm like, gosh, how do I prepare for that? I would say.

Mikki: Sorry, I should have sent that one in advance.

Lindsay: No, No, no. I don't care. I think it's almost better with unplanned questions. So I would say for me, confidence would be knowing who I am and feeling safe enough in my body to express and be my true self. And let that be put into the worlds unapologetically and lovingly and know that that isn't a callous thing, but it's actually one of the best things we can do to support humanity and healing.

Mikki: Oh, probably my favorite answer ever. Thank you, Lindsay. So tell everyone how they can find you.

Lindsay: Oh yeah. You're so sweet. So I have a website, it's lindsaypoelmancoaching.com and it's P-O-E-L for anyone who's looking. For people who wanna become life coaches, I have a full trauma-informed life coach certification, and I have a certification for people who are already coaches who wanna become trauma-informed. And then I do have a few little, smaller courses for women healing from betrayal trauma and also women healing from any religious trauma and looking for a safe space to explore their spirituality. So, you can find me there. And I also just know that you are in the best of hands with Mikki and the work that she's doing. So if you feel the call to find more support, I would start with her for sure.

Mikki: Oh, well, thank you Lindsay so much. And healer is the word that I would use for you because every time we talk, I feel healed in some way. So thank you so much for all the work you're doing and for being here today and sharing your wisdom and love.

Lindsay: Oh my goodness. That was so sweet. Thank you. I received that. Thanks, Mikki.

Mikki: Oh, and one more thing, the legal stuff. This podcast is solely intended for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for any medical advice. Please consult your physician or the qualified medical professional for personalized medical advice. Thanks for listening to Co-Parenting with Confidence. If you want more information or resources from this podcast, visit coparentingwithconfidence.com. I'll see you next week.