Ep #139: Somatic Solutions with Becky Aste

Mikki: Welcome to Co-Parenting with Confidence, a podcast for those courageous moms out there who want to move past the conflict and frustration of divorce and show up as the mom they truly want to be. My name is 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: Hi, welcome back to the podcast. I have a great interview today that I can't wait to share with you. But before I dive into that, I just wanted to say thank you for being here. You know, this podcast, I really want to constantly be bringing you things that inspire you, things that ignite your imagination or curiosity that help you show up in a different way, show up in a more powerful, more positive way in your own life for you, for your kiddos. For your co-parent, for your families. And so I always want to just be doing this for you. So if there is ever something that you would like to hear about or a topic that you want, you can actually leave me a voicemail. I'll put the link in the show notes so that you can send me what topic is of interest to you. Or you can just go over to Instagram and send me a DM.

Mikki: I love getting messages from you so that I can tailor these conversations to what feels resonant. So please, take a moment and do that for me. And also, when you take that moment, if you wouldn't mind to rate and review the show, I would be so, so grateful. It helps more than you can imagine. So if you would go and rate and review the show, I would be so appreciative and make sure you subscribe too. So let's dive into the conversation today because I have an amazing guest today that I'm really excited to share with you. Becky Aste is a trauma-informed marriage coach. And the host of Your Breakthrough Blueprint. It's a podcast rated in the top 5% globally. She is the CEO and creator of I Do Breakthrough, a company dedicated to equipping highly ambitious wives to repair thriving connection in their marriage by moving trauma out of their body.

Mikki: After spending a decade researching and going through every mainstream modality of healing to save her own marriage, she found herself two kids later, separated from her husband and on the verge of divorce. At the final hour, she stumbled upon the unconventional game changer of somatic work that took her marriage from dying to thriving in less than a year and has made it now her mission to get this into as many hands of women as possible. The conversation that we have today, I know that you will find interesting whether you are trying to repair a marriage, whether you are already divorced, whether you are remarried, because we're talking all about communication. And really understanding how when you shift your energy, when you start to heal some of the things going on within your body, that you then start to invite in what you want. And so without further ado, I want to dive into this conversation. I want you to take a listen. If you enjoy this, please take a screenshot and share it on Instagram so that we can share it with other people and get this into the hands of as many moms and co-parents as possible. Thank you so much, and let's take a listen. Friends, I am so excited 'cause we have someone so special on the podcast today. Becky, welcome. Thank you for coming.

Becky: Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

Mikki: I'm excited to have you and to dive into this conversation. So I told everyone a little bit about you before, but I would love for you to just sort of, in a nutshell, tell us how you got here and sort of who you are and what you're loving right now.

Becky: Yeah, just yesterday, someone was like, why did you become a marriage coach? Has it always been this passion of yours? And I was like, no. And I'm not a marriage coach because we've been this clean, sparkly couple. We've actually gone through a lot. And so the short of the story is I married young. I was 21. My husband was 23. Pretty early on, we recognized this toxic dance of what I called at the time, chase and run, where I felt like I was chasing, he was running. And then as I got deeper into healing and self-development, once I started to notice just conflicts and triggers and things not going well between us, I had different language to describe what I was experiencing. So I picked up words like anxious attachment. That was me. And avoidant attachment style. That was him. Words like codependency. I raised my hand to that. And addiction.

Becky: I was like, oh, that's my husband. And so I learned a lot of head knowledge over the years and invested tons of money and time and energy into therapy and books and podcasts and intensives, marriage retreats, like you name it I felt like I was on this constant decade-long mission to crack the code. It only led to us finding ourselves two kids later, 10 years later, separated on the verge of divorce. We had a pretty major rupture in our relationship, broken vows, broken trust, betrayal. And my husband moved into his mom's house and we both were like, we need to figure this out because this isn't working. My own nervous system was collapsing. I felt like I was literally losing my mind. And I was on that fence of should I stay or should I go? So. I felt hopeless 'cause I was like, I've literally tried everything.

Becky: Is there anything left? And that's when I stumbled upon somatic work, which we can dive into what that is. But that's now what I teach women because it ended up becoming this game changer for us. And it resurrected our very dying marriage. And we went from dying to just surviving at first to healing to thriving. And I was just like, I need to figure out how to get this into the hands of other women. So I did what I needed to do to do what I do now, which is just teach highly ambitious wives how to save their marriage and hopefully avoid the decade of potholes that I misstepped in for all that time.

Mikki: Yeah. Oh, well, thank you for sharing that with us. And I want to just say to the person out there that might be here and listening that's divorced that said, you know, yeah, I would love to be in that position, but it's just not for me I want to speak to that person really quick and say please keep listening because while you are talking about what saved your marriage, this is also really good communication and relationship skills so we are constantly in relationship whether it's romantic or otherwise and so I know that what you're bringing to this conversation is useful for everyone. So I just wanted to sort of speak to that 'cause it felt important, given my audience, to say that in advance. So don't shut us off. Keep going.

Becky: Mikki, so I just want to say, because it's really important, and this is important for the culture of our community with the group I run, to celebrate both outcomes. Some people hear marriage coach and they think, wait, do I have to save my marriage if I work with you? And the answer is absolutely not. I have no agenda other than my only agenda is help you get so in touch with your intuition that you make a choice that is authentic, aligned and empowered. And so we do celebrate both outcomes when people get to a place where they can save their marriage as well as those who get to a place where it's like, wow, I'm finally a version of myself that no longer puts up with what I've put up with and is ready to attract what I actually deserve.

Mikki: Absolutely. Absolutely. So you mentioned sort of the somatics and somatic coaching and what you do. So can you just speak a little bit to that so that people have a frame of reference from where you're coming from?

Becky: Yeah, somatic is really simple. It just means pertaining to the body, especially in contrast to the mind. I always think of the store in the mall, Soma, the store that's built for all body types. Soma just means body. So with a lot of, even in my story, all the things I tried for 10 years to salvage this relationship were really just from the neck up. It was like intellectually learning or listening or talking, traditional talk therapy. All of those which help. They're not obsolete. They're not bad in any way, but I'll explain why they're really not the biggest part of the picture that we need to be tapping into. Somatic work teaches you how the body keeps the score of what you've survived, of the trauma that you've lived.

Becky: And in order to really truly heal, whatever healing means to you, you've got to go into the body to move trauma out. And something that helped me really unlock this of like, okay, duh, no wonder I was spinning my wheels and felt like a salmon swimming upstream for so long, is we all have what's called a vagus nerve, which runs from the base of our skull to the bottom of our spine, is like the super highway of information where chemical messengers are constantly going from like our brain to our body, to our brain. Within our nervous system. Now, 20% of those messengers, those neurotransmitters, go from our brain to our body. But 80% of those messages go from our body to our brain. So with that, so many people get frustrated with like, I've done all this therapy. I've read all these books. I know so much. I could teach my own thing on this, but why do I still not feel different? I know a lot, but why am I not doing it? You think I know better, therefore I should do better. And it's not lining up. So then we get into this same spiral of like, I just suck at healing when it's not that, we just have to learn how to leverage the body and work with that 80%.

Mikki: Absolutely. So well said. It makes so much sense. I love that you're doing that. So talk to us about sort of your journey, right? Like, so you said you started to go on this journey. You were doing the decade long. And then you and your husband were able to both heal together. So how does that happen?

Becky: Yeah, I started solo. My husband was not on board. I didn't even tell him at first, to be honest, 'cause it was when we were separated. So it was the biggest investment I'd ever made in myself at that time. I mean, I'm the thrift store shopper. I'd always look for discounts growing up. And this was a 5K investment into this program. And it really was just a matter of how desperate I was, but also how much my intuition, my gut was screaming like, Becky, get into this woman's world, whatever the cost. And so I decided to make that leap of faith and that investment without telling my husband. And when I eventually did, he was very like, wow, I hope that works out for you. No, don't take that out of our account. Pay for it with your own money. I had a network marketing business at the time. And I was like, I will. I'm doing this for me.

Becky: So I started all of it. It's interesting 'cause my husband has seen me go through so many different phases, and I'm the type that, like, loves to try so many things. He's seen me do all these new things over the years. And if you ask him now why this was different and when things started to turn around, he would answer that attributing it to a shift in my energy and just in the vibe I sent out to him when we were around each other. So we still saw each other for dinner. He'd come over and have dinner with the kids. And he noticed, like, well, Becky seems more grounded. I've never seen her like this. Becky is more anchored. And then we started to talk about our marriage again. When that time came, he noticed, like, sharing very unpleasant things with me, just being honest, really, for the first time with where he was at, mistakes he had made. I wasn't as rattled as I normally was before, and he had this sensation of, whoa, she's really got herself. Like, I don't need to say a certain thing or deliver it in a certain way. She's really got her own back, and I've never felt this from her before. So it allowed him and his words to feel safe enough to move towards me more and just continue being honest and me learning how to be authentic for the first time in my life too. That was the shift to open the doorway to communication.

Mikki: Yeah, so I want to put like a pin in that because I think it's so, so important that so often when we're doing this work, we're really wanting people to notice it, right? To see the difference in us and to acknowledge it, right? And then to then come with us. So what you just described is really the shift that has to happen where energetically you change, right? And it was like you said, you sort of were able to release the outcome, so to speak, but it was more you are doing the work for you, which changes your energy. So then you're able to attract what you want. So I think it's just an important point because I think we do get caught up in our heads in thinking, well, if I do A and then B, it's going to get me C. And that's not how it works, right? It's not a linear journey, but it's really that healing and embodying a different version of you so that you can start to welcome in what you do want. So do you agree with that?

Becky: I do. And if you had said that to me at the beginning of especially stumbling upon somatic work, to be honest, I probably would have been like, this is too woo for me. Like, give me the practicals, the to-dos. I was really skeptical. So for those listening, whatever you think about energy, whatever comes up in your body and in your mind when you even hear that word, really all it is, is our body does keep the score of the trauma we've survived. And we do send off a vibrational frequency, the same way a radio sends out frequencies. We as humans send that out. And that's why we say things in our own mainstream language like, oh, I really vibe with her. Like there is a vibrational resonance or I don't know what it is about that person, I do not like them. Can't put words to it, but it's just this feeling. And so it was like before I really cleared my body of all the trauma that I didn't even know I was still holding on to and get my nervous system back into a place where it was regulated for the first time in like a decade, I went from holding up this energetic sign that said I cannot be trusted to one that said, like, I can be. I trust myself. You're safe to come with me. So totally agree with everything you said. I just wanted to add the caveat for the people like me who are like, what is this stuff?

Mikki: Yeah. No, I hear you. So let's talk about communication, right? Because I think we all know that is the foundation of being in relationship with other people. And so tell us a little bit more about your communication style and sort of how you approach this.

Becky: Well, one thing is kind of like you just said, Mikki, where it's like if we do one and step two, like it leads to three, we can think of healing as linear and want it to have a certain outcome. That was definitely me for so long. And so with communication, I learned I statements are good, right? Don't blame the other person. It puts their defenses up. Speak with the like I feel and I experience this. So I was like, okay, perfected that. I also learned just silly little things like men communicate better side to side, where it's like if you're doing an activity together or you're driving in the car, compared to women who are way more like me and you right now, we connect face to face. And so I would try to save and like perfect the timing of when I would bring up a hard situation in the car and all these different things that I was like, okay, I'm going to crack the code. When communication has so little to do with the words coming out of your mouth. Communication is 93% nonverbal. So 7% are, yeah, the words we're using. But 93% is our body language. It's our voice inflection. It's our eye contact. It is that energy, that vibe we're sending off. It's our facial expression. It's our posture. And so really diving into the somatic piece of communication was learning how to communicate authentically from my entire body, not just the words coming out of my mouth.

Mikki: So what just struck me, I'm literally writing a note because it just hit me, if 93% of communication is nonverbal, no wonder texting is so difficult. And I talk about this ad nauseum on this podcast and with clients is a lot of co-parents only communicate either via text or court-appointed app or email, of which, when you just said that, 93% of the message is lost or hidden. And so such an important reason to have these conversations so that we can start to understand. So tell me what do you mean by learning somatically how to communicate with your body can you dive into that a little bit you.

Becky: Yes. And just one to piggyback off what you just said, that's the catch of it. 'Cause especially women who are like in abusive relationships or co-parenting with somebody who has narcissistic tendencies, often that is the safest choice is just...

Mikki: 100%.

Becky: Yeah. Or email. So just to validate those situations where it's like, okay, maybe not optimal. I'm sure a lot is getting lost in translation because you're only working with the 7%, but if it's for your safety.

Mikki: 100%. Thank you for saying that. Yeah, that's so important because it is sometimes the necessary way to do it and acknowledging and understanding that so that we can start to still move forward in the direction you want to go. That's ultimately what we're all talking about here is how do we continue to move forward even when things are challenging or difficult. So let's talk about sort of that seven in the 93%. Like, how is that communication different?

Becky: So one practical example, like I used to have conversations with my husband out of, let's call it unhealed trauma or like still a very fresh, incomplete abandonment wound. My dad died very suddenly when I was 18. He had a heart attack.

Mikki: I'm sorry.

Becky: I was a daddy's girl. And then I met my husband very soon after. So that chase and run, our anxious attachment style, the codependency, like really all those are different words for me figuring out how to survive such a loss and not wanting to have it again. My nervous system is just like, we've lost the most important man in your life once we are gonna do everything we can to make sure that doesn't happen again with this second love of your life, your husband. And so in my communication, I just didn't know how much that came through. Like when we go back to his receiving end and what he's getting. I know my heart and my intention were always pure, but so much it was clouded by kind of the vibration I was giving off.

Becky: It was coming from this anxious place, this fear of loss. And so it left him feeling very suffocated, very hands against the wall. And so what shifted for me to be able to open up this window of possibility for him to actually hear me and hear my heart and hear my intention was to do really simple, but shifting somatic practices. Which were almost so simple they were annoying at first, when I started this program like I had said, I had done all the hard things, all the intensives I was waiting for, especially now with this 5k investment, her to tell me something mind blowing and wild.

Becky: And And she's telling me to do things like, Becky, when you're triggered, before speaking to Sebastian, do the five senses, which is just a grounding tool where you name five things you can see, four things you can hear, three things you can touch, two things you can taste, one thing you can smell. And I was like, okay, what is that gonna do? Until I started practicing it, and I was like, whoa, it brought me ruminating, spiraling out of my head, back into my body. I'd noticed it would slow down my breath a little bit. It wasn't like this earth-shattering, mind-blowing experience, but it was a shift, a subtle one, but it was enough to be able to take a beat and take a breath. And so things like that, or before communicating with Sebastian, if you're in massive judgment mode of yourself or of him, or you're just in this kind of tailspin of fear energy, put your hand over your heart and speak super self-compassionately to yourself.

Becky: When she first told me that, I was like, all due respect, I feel angry just hearing you say that right now. This is annoying. This feels like kindergarten. What is this gonna do? Because I was the go-getter and I was like, I'm gonna go for kindergarten class. I got to get stuff done and save my marriage. Can you give me something a little harder? But that's the thing with somatic work. There's so many people who learn it, will experience it. It's annoying at first how simple it is. But truly, I think what we need as humans, especially in this society, is not the next grand slam, grandiose, like earth shattering thing.

Becky: Like we really just need to come back home to ourselves, to our bodies, to our intuition. And so these little practices are just ways to come back into our body, out of our head spiraling to go from a nervous system that is in survival mode and trying to protect and keep us from hurt to a nervous system that's like, I'm safe no matter what. And I can breathe and I'm okay. And the person on the receiving end is gonna feel something totally different when you're communicating from that place.

Mikki: Yeah. And I couldn't agree more with what you said. And you say it so beautifully. And it also is exactly that. It's like we're simple creatures. And to come back to yourself, come back home, and creating that safety for yourself, how someone else receives that is their journey, is their responsibility, is sort of within their control, but you creating your sense of peace, of calm, of groundedness, of safety, that's the work so that you have the capability to then have the energy that you're putting out there and the words and the behaviors all aligned. And so I think it's so powerful and important what you're saying.

Becky: Yeah. I love that you brought that up. I tell women, when you do the healing on this deep level, you're either gonna call him up or you're gonna call him out. And either way, though, you win because if he wants to like join with you and is like, what is she drinking in her cup of tea? I want a taste of that. Amazing. But if not, then at least you're not abandoning yourself anymore. And you are standing in your power again. You are speaking your truth. You're not cowering, hiding, swallowing it down, what you really wanna say. So it's a best case scenario one, he comes with best case scenario two, you're no longer tied down to something that's toxic.

Mikki: Yeah, I agree 100%. And I think it also applies maybe not even just to the marriage, but to the co-parenting relationship, right? This is the work that helps you call them up, right? If they want to be that co-parenting partner with you, whether that means married or not, right? And if they're not going to do that work, that's their responsibility. But it really is that focus that I think is so important that we stay eyes on the prize, so to speak, which is your peace, your calm, your power. And when we are all doing that work, right? The world shifts.

Becky: Yeah, so good.

Mikki: So I love these practical tips. And so is there anything else about communication that you can sort of offer to help us understand why this is important, this work?

Becky: One other really big, big shift for me, but it was such a subtle, right? It started with a subtle thing, but was like pivotal, was learning that in communication, I had so much more clarity when I was tuning into my own body compared to the words coming out of his mouth or his facial expressions, kind of old pattern was, especially with ruptured trust in our relationship, I was constantly scanning of like, is he really telling the truth? What's his body language saying? Is he avoiding eye contact right now? Trying to figure out based on his words and his whole thing, right? If something was the truth. And for me, it was learning the first time in those hard conversations where we were talking honestly and just talking through the hard stuff to not be so hyper fixated on him, but come back into my body and tune into what my body's doing because my body never lies.

Becky: And I remember having my first aha moment with this, where he was getting open about some things that really were not pleasant to hear. Old me, it would have sent me spiraling abandonment wound on fire, right? Like wanting him to make me feel safe. And instead, as he was sharing, I checked in and I was like, huh. My breath is actually slow and it's going down in my belly. My muscles are relaxed. My mind isn't spinning. It's kind of like placid leg vibe. My gut isn't tense. I just noticed my body was giving off these signs that what he's saying is truth and I can trust him because my body never lies. Not trust him because of him, but because of me. And I had built at that point a deeper belief that, yeah, my body does have my back and it can pick up on those frequencies and signals even faster than my brain.

Mikki: That is just the most beautiful example, right? It's because you became trustworthy. And so then you're able to discern, right? What is truth and what isn't. Those of us that have gone through betrayal, it's like the hypervigilance and the trying to figure it out and to get the evidence and gather all the information. It is just completely dysregulating. And so what you just offered is such a beautiful example of exactly why we need to do this work so that we are able to be trustworthy of ourselves, which then we can see the world and discern differently. Just thank you for sharing that. That was beautiful.

Becky: That word discern, that's exactly it. I love that you used that word.

Mikki: Yeah. So can you tell people a little bit sort of how would they go about, 'cause maybe they're not ready to make the $5,000 investment, but maybe what's one or two ways where they can start to learn to do this? Because I think so many of us are like, we think that we're the 10% of our head, just sort of walking around. We think that's us and we're missing all of the body that lives underneath our head. And so what are some ways that they can start to incorporate this into their lives?

Becky: Yeah, totally. And the amazing thing about somatic work, right, is you don't always need like this guru to teach you how to do it. It's all built in and it's natural. It's so cool. It's like somatic work is built in tools. And so some people do decide to invest in a coach first 'cause they're like, they're so brand new. And I really want somebody to dumb this down for me hold my hand Until fly on my own. But I mean, just even Googling grounding tools, get yourself a free little image that you save to your phone and start practicing those grounding tools every day. When you're triggered. Just last night, I was triggered. I was missing my dad. I had this wave of grief, even though he died when I was 18, I'm 34 now, but it hits me still.

Becky: And I was doing things like containment holds, which is one hand under your armpit, the other holding your forearm. I know this is audio. So people can't see me right now. But that's a somatic way to like, remember that we have boundaries, right? To our body when everything feels chaotic and we're losing our mind. This is a way to come back to center, a grounding tool. Another is hand on your forehead and the other hand on your heart or the back of your head. So I was like doing all of these practices just even last night. And you can find all of these on Google. I know there is Instagram. I have some of my favorite somatic Instagrams that I follow. And Instagram is cool because it is geared towards entertainment. That's what people are looking for when they usually go on social media, but it's a way that you can learn. I learned so much just off Instagram. And then I also have a free training I can give you, Mikki. It's called Three Secrets to Thriving Intimacy. And it's for anyone, whether you're in a relationship or intimacy with yourself, if that's how you want to apply it, or just for a future partner it's everything that I wish that I had known 10 years ago and to try to get into the hands of other people now.

Mikki: Oh, thank you so much. I'll put that in the show notes so that everybody can access that. And I love that you brought that up, right? You said it's somatic, right? It's based in the body. So if you have a body, I think you're ready to go. You got everything you need, but it really is again, discerning from what feels like truth what feels like it's calming, what feels like it's grounded for you and sort of trusting yourself to actually practice it, right? Building that muscle. It's like anything else. If we want a six pack, can't get it from Amazon. So we have to start actually doing the work. And so it's just that daily practice and introducing it. I know there's one I talk about all the time, but I wonder what you think about it, which is just the reminder to pause and just take three deep breaths, right? I think it's like your coach told you, and I love the one she gave you, the, if you'll say it again, the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, because we need those reminders to be able to break, give ourselves the space between us and what's happening, right? So that we have that ability to ground.

Becky: Yeah, the five senses and somatic stuff is stuff that's so simple, you can teach it to your kids. So that's been so cool 'cause my kids and their tantrums, let's say, I'll just all of a sudden be like, Oh, Anna, can you name five things you see on the wall, and you see her going from like a maniac to tapping into that part of her brain again, and that nervous system that's breathing slower and back to regulation. So all of that. And then yeah, I love, the breath is great. I love box breathing. That's another easy one where it's like you breathe in your nose for three seconds, hold for three seconds, breathe out your mouth for three seconds, hold for three seconds, or pick however many seconds feels good to you. You can make up your own somatic tools. It's exactly what you just said, Mikki. Like if it feels good for you and it's soothing, do it. I remember coming up with my own thing. It wasn't taught to me, but I remembered my grandma before she passed would hold my face in her two hands. And so sometimes when I needed to calm down, I would just picture her face and cut my face in my own hands and just say her words like, I love you, Rebecca. So yeah, you can make up your own stuff. It's amazing.

Mikki: Oh, I love that. I love that story. I really quickly, I was having to have a procedure, like some kind of intestine. I can't remember, but it's like a scope. So they have to put you to sleep and all those things. And I get a little nervous on those kinds of things. And so I had learned the box breathing through meditation and other things I'd done. So I went in, I'm lying there, they've got me all hooked up, they all leave. And I'm getting a little anxious 'cause it's like, it's taking a little time. So I was like, oh, I'm gonna do the box breathing. And so I did it, for four seconds in, hold for four, four seconds out, hold for four. My heart rate dropped so quickly that they came running in, they thought I was like going down and she's like, are you okay? And I was like, yeah, I'm fine. And she goes, what are you doing? And I said, oh, I'm just doing meditative breath 'cause I was feeling anxious. So then the anesthesiologist came in because he heard what happened. And so they're like, can you tell us what you were doing? Like, she's breathing, she's breathing.

Becky: That's so funny.

Mikki: But it was, I mean, it really can impact you that quickly and that dramatically. And I think because I was hooked up to all the monitors, it really left a mark on me to understand how crucial and like just how important our breath is, right? And when we're in that, 'cause I'll find myself like sort of really short and tight breaths when I'm feeling a little panicked or in conflict, right? And that's my cue, that body cue to like deepen back down. Like you said, when your husband was telling you those really difficult things, just to notice, like to let your body lead the direction.

Becky: I love that example. 'cause, yeah, can you imagine how much easier it would be able to notice the shifts if we were all hooked up to stuff all the time? So what a deep imprint that left on you. I feel like I'm gonna use that as an example now.

Mikki: Yeah, yeah, it was really powerful. Well, Becky, I literally, I think maybe we'll have to do another call 'cause I feel like I have so many questions that I wanna ask. And I wanna be really respectful of time for people listening. But do tell them how they can find you and I'll put everything in the show notes.

Becky: Yeah. Instagram is my favorite place to hang out. It's Becky_Aste. You can DM me there. I will say hi back. And the link that I told you about the free webinar training, that's a good place to start. It's also lets you see my landing page and frequently asked questions. So I'll make sure you have it.

Mikki: Perfect. Well, thank you so much for your time today. And I have a final question that I ask everyone 'cause I would be remiss if I didn't. This is Co-parenting With Confidence. How do you define confidence and how does it show up in your life?

Becky: The first thing that came to mind was the word alignment. I think a lot of us can relate, at least in one area of our life, when we felt so wildly out of alignment, like the way we were actually showing up and living did not match our core values. For example, the times we've lost it on our kids when we want to be loving, right? So I think confidence comes from lining up our core values and our life, which doesn't mean perfection at all. I mean, getting it right all the time. I make mistakes every single day. I tell my kids that all the time, but overall cultivating this rhythm and this way of life where I'm constantly intending to go back to my North star of who I am instead of living what many of us have done for a long time, this duplicitous life.

Mikki: Yeah. Oh, thank you, Becky. And you are a beautiful example of doing just that. And so thank you for coming today, sharing with us for your expertise and for your energy. I appreciate it so much.

Becky: 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 a 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.