A Mind, Body, Soul Rest for 2025

Navigate the demands of the new year with greater ease, intention, and authenticity. In this week’s grounding episode, Gervase invites you to reflect, reset, and reconnect with the cycles of nature around (and within) you. She explores the effect of the Winter Solstice, our changing assignments for this season, and discusses how aligning with nature’s rhythm can help us navigate the demands of modern life with ease. Gervase shares her insights on living as a “modern woman on an ancient Earth,” and how tapping into the wisdom of your body and soul can unlock a new sense of clarity and coherence. Listen in as she guides you through a grounding exercise, sharing tools to help you slow down, refuel, and return to your life feeling aligned, resourced, and ready to create magic.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• The power of seasonal awareness and its impact on your body and mind.

• Why slowing down and resourcing as you go is essential for sustainable energy.

• How to reset your nervous system in the midst of life’s chaos with a simple grounding exercise.

• The role of natural intelligence in guiding your decisions and aligning your inner and outer worlds.

• Why your worthiness is never tied to productivity or societal expectations.

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New! Special Rate: drop into your own unique body wisdom with a Somatic Soul Session:

• For the first time ever, current, past and new clients can enjoy a 60-minute session with Gervase to set intentions for the New Year, get clear and focused when you feel stuck and overwhelmed, or address any persistent problems that keep recurring.

• Get unstuck and tap into your body wisdom. On sale through January. Buy it now, use it any time this year: https://gervasekolmos.podia.com/f1c7c21a-5772-4222-bf65-7bac78672c33/buy 

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A Mind, Body, Soul Rest for 2025

Episode Full Transcript

Do you feel what I feel? This podcast is airing on December 30th, I believe. The winter solstice—the longest night of the year—is when the earth in the Northern Hemisphere is the darkest for the longest. It’s December 21st. The earth is getting quiet. It’s getting cold. The animals are resting. The leaves are shedding. Things are dying.

And it would be super off-brand as the Modern Phoenix podcast to not give you a moment to pause and consider this as a human being who lives and operates amidst all of these natural elements. As a human, you are nature. You are part of nature. You are an animal body with a human brain.

I’m wondering if, like me, you have started to notice, as it has gotten colder—if it is getting colder where you live—this animal instinct to slow down, to maybe eat more, to change the way that you eat, to eat warmer foods perhaps. I’ve shared that’s what’s going on for me. To rest, to gather, to be indoors, to be cozy, to be with loved ones. And if you have felt that way, I just want to validate for you: that is because that is the earth’s assignment right now. And if you have not felt that way, that’s okay too. This podcast is for you.

Most of us in the modern world have very few messages telling us to slow down and rest this time of year, very few messages encouraging us to look out the window and notice what is happening to the earth. Instead, we have a lot of messages to buy a bunch of stuff, go out, be social, celebrate, gather. Everything seems to ramp up.

For me, my modern life—especially as a mother—this time of year, I have two birthdays this month in my family. I feel this dissonance. In the past I’ve felt a little like: what am I supposed to do? When I first started understanding this idea that we are cyclical beings, just like the phoenix is a symbol and representation of a cyclical life cycle, I found it really difficult to get out of my mind’s idea that I was just a human doing and into this concept that I was a human being, part of everything, part of nature, with a body that is attuning to things I may not even understand.

I didn’t really understand how to reconcile those two things—how to weave these two things together. I’m a modern woman on an ancient earth. How do we weave these things together?

Today on the podcast, I want to share some practical tips and also give you a reset for the new year. While I often feel like my new-year energy comes in the spring—as flowers start blooming, it gets warmer and brighter outside, and I feel more energy to go outside, do things, have a new beginning—I also think there’s something really beautiful about taking a moment post-holiday to pause and assess: how am I really? What’s working? What’s not working? Have I taken a moment to resource, to ground myself mind, body, and soul? Am I checking in with my mind, body, and soul—especially the body and soul—because a lot of us, in order to keep up with the increased pace of gathering and doing that accompanies modern life in December, just operate exclusively in the mind during this month.

That’s understandable. And also, you’re here to live a more integrated life, to live a more embodied life, to find ways to safely and comfortably and realistically drop out of the mind into the body and soul as often as possible.

That actually reminds me: if you haven’t seen already, I’m doing Somatic Soul Sessions for $2.99 through January. If you want a felt experience of what this could look like, I decided to run a little promo. If you book one of those through the end of January, you can redeem it anytime, and I will guide you out of your mind into your body and soul. We’ll do a little exercise.

But today I want to give you a taste of that for free. I want you to have a resource and a tool to use if you, like so many women, are feeling like: oh my gosh, that was cray-cray. December was bananas. I blinked and it was over. I was holding so many responsibilities in my nervous system. There were so many to-dos. And, you know, if you’re Santa or whatever you celebrate, I just find for myself—especially as a modern mother—I hold a lot of that invisible mental load in my nervous system and don’t even realize I’m holding it.

Even as somebody who has the tools, who is constantly holding herself accountable—and also not even accountable, it’s not like work, but just giving herself permission to pause and resource as I go, which if you are not doing that, reminder: you can—even if you’re not slowing down entirely, you can pause as you go and resource and then get back up. Pause, resource, get back up.

It’s also very helpful to have a tangible tool to use if you’re having trouble with that. If you’re like, okay, it’s cray-cray, I hear what you’re saying, I’m kind of curious about what it could look like to be a cyclical phoenix in my modern life, and also give me some tips—this is for you.

I thought it might be nice to lead you through a short grounding visualization, a focalizing exercise. Just a little something for you to listen to. If you’re driving, do not close your eyes. But if you have some space—as soon as you decide that pausing and resourcing yourself is a priority, it becomes a priority and you find space to do it.

I find my own inner voice, when it has been the most difficult for me to pause and make time for myself and stop spinning my wheels and give my nervous system a reset, the loudest voice is my own. The story I tell myself is that there’s no time and it won’t make that much of a difference.

What I find time and time again—and I have really been experimenting with this so far through December—is there is always time to do the things you believe are a priority. When something is important to me, I make it happen. It’s just about getting our mindset in place. It’s about having the education about the body and the brain and the nervous system that reminds us past the mind stories. It makes it easier to connect to the truth, which is: this is the only way to navigate the most chaotic of times.

Resourcing as you go—tapping into pleasure, peace, and a calmer, more safe feeling in your body and in your nervous system—is the most efficient, effective way to get more done, ironically. If you find that story of: I have to do more, faster, better, or if I haven’t done it all, if I’m not meeting my deadlines, if I’m having to say no more than yes, I want to challenge the idea that it’s because you’re not doing enough fast enough well enough. I offer you an alternative perspective: what if it’s just because you’re not refilling the tank often enough?

What if it’s because you got the wrong message from our culture, that internalized capitalism that tells us do more, faster, more productivity equals more money—and also that sneaky belief tied to it, which is that creates your inherent value, your worth, shows if you’re a good contributing member of society, tells us if you have it all, if you look like you have it all together and you’re doing the most, that is the key to success.

If you hear that and think, that doesn’t feel like me, that doesn’t resonate—I love that. Yes, celebrate that. And also, I invite you to dig a little deeper and check. As somebody who’s been doing this work for 20 years on herself and professionally for 11, I notice even when I think a sneaky seed of the culture hasn’t been planted in my system, I find little roots from time to time, and that’s okay. Some weeds.

For example, I had so much resistance to rescheduling my women’s circle that was supposed to be today—literally right now. I paused and felt this urge to keep momentum, keep going forward, keep achieving my goals, creating more opportunities to connect in business, balancing and doing the birthday party for my son, the holidays, gathering family, keeping the house together, being on in my business all the time.

That is a lie. It’s just not true. And what I am always reminding myself of, which is what I want to remind you of, is that your value is not up for debate. It has nothing to do with your output. The gifts you carry in your soul, what you offer up to your loved ones, has less to do with what you do for them and more to do with who you inherently are—who you are being, who you feel safe enough and comfortable enough to be.

If that is the formula, if that is the metric, it makes it more efficient to lean out of doing more faster better into resourcing, resetting, grounding, connecting, checking in with mind, body, and soul, making sure those things are working together in collaboration, that you feel like you. Your intuition is turned on. You can feel in your felt sense what it is like to be you and how you are connected to the earth and the people that you love and those dreams and things you are building and putting out into the world.

The only thing that has kept me at this podcast game in the entrepreneur world is not making money and being the best. It is just a deep devotion and love in my heart and soul for sharing and doing this work and guiding and coaching. If I turn off my connection to those parts of me and live in my mind doing more, better, faster, I am losing the soul connection—which is where my gifts operate, which allows me to channel wisdom from lived experience versus tons of data and information you can get anywhere.

But guess what? You can only get Gervase and her unique wisdom and her lived experience and her grounded offerings to you—this resetting podcast here. And I can only offer that to you if I have done the work first, if I go first.

In your life, you have your own gifts to share. You don’t have to be in the field of transformation like me. I would argue all of us are in the field of transformation. We came here to create the life our soul wants to live. If you feel that hamster-wheel energy of just doing, it’s a sign—a flag, not necessarily red or scary—that you’ve lost touch with the body and soul. It’s an opportunity to pause and resource and water the plant that is your body and your spirit and ask yourself: how am I really, what do I really need, and am I bold enough to give myself permission to have that, to do that, to pour into myself, to do the thing I really feel to do before I get back on that hamster wheel and continue doing?

Because you will always get back on the horse, back in the saddle, and have at it. That’s what humans do. It’s one of the most exciting things of being alive: creating, achieving, accomplishing, building. We love to do those things. Those things are not bad or wrong. Living from the mind, also not bad or wrong. We just don’t want to do them fragmented from the neck up, disconnected from that motor in our soul that’s like: this way. This is who you are. This is what it feels like to be you. This is where your value and worthiness lie. This is your unique blueprint on planet earth, this one time in history that you will be here as you.

What’s your legacy? What does it feel like for other people to be around you? Not how many presents did you get them, did you dress them in matching outfits, how much money did you make, how skinny are you, what do you look like, how clean is your house—and on and on. How many friends do you have? What is your party like? These things are not inherently bad or wrong. But when those are the only things, it’s just not enough. It feels a little flat.

This is your loving reminder from a very human modern woman to another: when you feel those symptoms of our internalized capitalism, those symptoms of living from the neck up, those symptoms of being disconnected from our beingness and focused on doing more, better, faster—if you feel like you absolutely cannot slow down, that it would cost you way too much to pause, cancel, reschedule, create space—then it is probably you that needs this resetting moment the most, and so many more after it.

It’s not just that you need it. You deserve it. You deserve to feel connected to who you truly are and offer that medicine and wisdom and energy to your loved ones. It is the thing that is going to fill you up and give you so much sustainable energy to go build and love and do and create magic in the world.

When you do more, better, faster from this energetic place where you’re filled from the soul and body up to the mind—like from the roots to the crown—you can create true magic in the world and in your life as you, as the you you’re here to be. With this full cup, with a clear sense of who you are and what your value is, with clear boundaries, clear communication, with a generous open heart instead of a resentful or self-righteous heart or a blaming or shaming or guilty heart or feeling like you have to, or “this is the only way I can show someone”—that is a very normal symptom.

This is another way. If that feels like you, and it feels like a little grounding would support you in your journey of being a modern woman on a Phoenix path—which is confusing, confronting, and changing all the time, every day you will feel and look and be different—then this is for you.

Okay. So let's do a little grounding. Let's do a little reset for 2025 with the intention to care for ourselves and take a deep breath from whatever the pace was of whatever holiday you are coming out of or whatever season December was like for you. And to kind of explore this intention of finding creative, collaborative ways to align our inner worlds with nature's outer world, even for a few minutes to see what it feels like.

So if you're ready and you're not driving and you have some space or if you're walking or something and you want to do this, pause and come back for a short visualization. So just allow your eyes to softly close or you can lower your gaze gently. And just noticing how you are breathing. There is no right or wrong. Just noticing what your breath is doing. And kind of noticing what it feels like. Even just to lower your gaze or shut your eyes. When you turn off one sense or dim it, notice how it heightens all the other senses of hearing, whatever your hands are touching, tasting, smelling. It's almost as if we're turning up the volume on our inner worlds and turning down the volume on the outside world.

And let's just start by observing the mind. Maybe you can just, in your mind's eye, imagine you are encircling your mind, getting a bird's eye view, checking it out, noticing your thoughts. Maybe your mind is going really fast. There's a lot of, this is very uncomfortable. You're distracted. You're not sure if this is worth your time. Or maybe it's clear skies. Blue oceans. Maybe taking in your mind like a topography. Like a weather map. Or a place you love. Just noticing the weather of your mind. No right or wrong. No right or wrong. Just allowing it to be whatever it wants to be. Knowing this is part of the human experience. These busy, wonderful, brilliant brains are always solving problems for us.

And maybe just imagining the mind. And maybe just imagining the mind gently floating up out of your head so that it's just floating above your head. And then inviting it to gently drift across the room. Floating away from the body like a balloon. Taking your time. Just watching that beautiful brain gently float away. And when it's nice and tucked away in a corner somewhere, coming back to the body, curiously, just noticing what it feels like to be you right now.

Maybe feeling your feet and whatever they're touching. Socks or slippers. Hardwood floor. Or rug. Then connecting with your seat, whatever you're sitting on. Maybe even tuning in and feeling what it feels like to have your sits bones sitting in your muscles and tissues, in your skin. Allowing your imagination and your body to work together to complete this picture. All the bones in your body perfectly positioned among tissues, organs, blood, veins, resting perfectly inside your skin.

Taking a moment to just really marvel at all the millions of tiny little adjustments that have to happen for you to have this body operating in harmony with the world that you orient in. Then maybe bringing awareness to your lungs. Noticing the air gently going in and out of the center of your chest. Notice how you're being breathed. Effortlessly. Nature is breathing you.

And then offering a bit of gentle touch by placing your hand on your heart. I just want to invite you to notice what your hand is doing for you. What is it like for you to have your hand holding your heart space? Do you notice any felt sensations in the body? Any colors? Any images? Totally fine if not. And you may begin to notice that some images begin to come into your mind's eye. And we just want to signal the soul here and let her know that you're listening. You know that nothing is an accident when the soul shows you something. Everything is a metaphor or a symbol or a message from the deepest part of yourself.

So what does she want you to know? Is it a feeling? Is it a memory? Is it maybe noticing that there's a part of your body that just feels so weary or tired? Maybe there's tension or pain. None of it could ever be bad or wrong. It's all just data. It's all just messaging from your system. From the roots up to the stems. And just noticing what you're being shown or what you're feeling in your felt sense.

And then we're just going to move our awareness to the top of our heads, to our crown chakras. And imagine opening up the crown of our head, our energetic crown to the cosmos, the heavens, the divine, the sky, the moon, the stars. Maybe any angels or guides or well ancestors. Whatever speaks to you. Whatever language feels most true for you and your spiritual beliefs. Just exploring, opening up the crown of your head to this natural intelligence.

There is a natural intelligence that moves through your body. Guiding your breath. Guiding every single part into place. Connecting you to the natural world. And focalizing. And focalizing. We call this source energy. And whether you call it God or spirit or energy, just explore opening up the crown of your head to this natural intelligence. Maybe visualizing it as a beautiful golden light that is pouring into the top of your head and filling your entire body with this replenishing, cleansing energy, with whatever it is that you have lost over the past couple months or weeks.

Just imagine this natural intelligence just pooling and pouring in through the crown of your head. Dripping and flowing through all the parts of your body that are weary, or depleted, or empty, or confused, or lonely, or overwhelmed, or stressed. And just soothing them. Filling them with safety and calming, loving energy. Nourishing you down from your head, down your throat, into each shoulder and arm. Flowing into your fingertips. And back up. Flowing and circulating this beautiful golden energy.

This resourcing. This resourcing. Replenishing energy into your heart space, your lungs. Allowing it to pool in your belly. Especially dropping into your womb space. Filling your female organs with so much light and care. And care. And tenderness. This beautiful natural intelligence just nourishing you, just nourishing you down, down, down into your legs, your feet, your toes. And circulating back up into your body so that you are filled to the brim with a feeling that feels like your authentic self.

Your soul's highest frequency. Maybe you look at this version of you. You feel what it feels like to be her. And you glow. You radiate. With optimism. With optimism. And hope. And peace. And knowing. In this place you have a deep, deep knowing of who you are, really, on the inside, and how important it is for you to bring her to the outside when you come back to your life.

So before we bring this to a landing, just spend the last couple moments feeling what it feels like to be you. To be connected from the inside out. To your soul. To your body. Working together with your beautiful brain. And all your allies on the outside. Everything in your system just humming and purring and circulating with this beautiful golden energy. This resourcing, replenishing, golden intelligence. Available to you at any time.

And when we come back, we're going to bring this energy, this perspective, this vibration to everything that we do. So you can gently begin to come back to the space. Maybe wiggling fingers and toes. Slowly blinking your eyes open. And letting them land on something that feels really calming to look at. Really grounding. And just noticing what it feels like to be you now.

Notice if there's any difference. And if there's no difference at all, that's okay too. Really congratulate yourself. And pat yourself on the back for trying something new. And even if it's not new, give yourself a big high five for deciding this was a worthwhile way to spend some time today.

Whether it took you a long time to get to it or you did it right away, there is a soul part of you who knew that something was missing from your modern life. That not all parts of your system were online. And that if they were, you would be that much more powerful. That much more magnetic. Every choice that you made would be that much more clear and aligned. Every yes you gave would feel that much more generous, and it would be received that way on the other side. Who you were being on the outside would match how you were feeling on the inside.

And that coherence is, oh, that is the high that I think we're all after. And I really want to thank you for giving me a chance to offer that to you today. I know sometimes it can feel like everything goes so fast and there's no time, and nobody else is going to slow down. And if you slow down, you're going to be lost in the fray. And the more we can notice that, that is part of our brainwashing that separates us from our true essence, from the natural intelligence that operates within and around us, that lets us know, you're going to be okay. Just a couple breaths. Just a couple moments.

There's more here to consult. There's wisdom here. There's a felt sense of peace and calm and resource and nourishment available to me. Oh, I don't feel that. Okay. That just reminds me it's time to go inward. And part of being human is forgetting all the time. And part of being a phoenix is reinventing yourself and exploring what it feels like to be you now in this season.

I know for me, this December is very different from my last December. And also I know there are ancestral patterns in my nervous system that resurface every winter. And so we're always tending to all these parts of us and noticing what are these old ancestral patterns or trauma patterns or maladaptive patterns of being in a modern society that I'm ready to just let go of just a little bit more this season.

And so if you're going to let go of it, let's replace it with something really nourishing, really wise, really lasting, that is more you. That stems from this deep, deep knowing of what it feels like to be you on the inside. Of who you truly are. Of the gifts and medicine you have to offer your life, your vision, your loved ones, every choice you make. And let's see how much better it can feel each season. Every time we circle around the Gregorian calendar. Every time we circle around nature's cycles.

I'm always just noticing the shifts in me every winter and going, oh, interesting. So cool. I feel like I'm more me. And also haven't arrived yet. I'm still experimenting and experiencing what it is to be a phoenix in a human body. What a cool earth assignment. Yes please. More please.

Okay. That's it for today. Don't forget to grab your 299 Somatic and Soul Session at the link in the show notes. It's on sale through January because I just like literally love a good sale. And I am like really excited to offer these 60 minute one-on-ones with me. It's a new way of working with me that I'm trying out. And we will do a little bit of what I just gave you, but the intention is to just clarify your vision for the future, connect to your soul, notice what the body is holding, offer some resource, some clarity, some energy, a deeper connection to who you truly are.

So if you want to work with me in that way, would love to connect with you in one of those sessions. And also, like, thank you so much for being here, for being in this community. I would love it if you know another phoenix who could use a post-holiday reset and you would share this with her. We need to make this new paradigm normal, mainstream. We need to make this way of womaning, the phoenix way. We need to make it more acceptable so women everywhere remember who they truly are, their missions, and that they get to feel good.

The pleasure available to us when we live this way, the phoenix way, even when it is crazy, even when we forget, even if we're the only ones. If more of us wake up and remember what it feels like to connect to the soul and the body and become integrated in mind, body and soul, just imagine how much more beautiful we can make the world, our families, our circles that we orient in.

I love you so much. Thank you for being here. And I will see you in two weeks. We'll see you in the next week.

How my body helped me make up with my husband

What if the key to breaking through relationship conflicts isn’t in the talking but in the listening… to your body? In this episode, Gervase reveals how shifting from mind-based strategies to somatic and soul approaches (read: dropping out of the mind and into the body) transformed a weeks-long rupture in her marriage into a moment of deep connection and repair. Listen in as she shares her struggles with “circling the drain” with repetitive arguments, how the mind can get in the way of reconciliation, and the power of the body in moving through relationship stalemates. Keep listening for questions you can ask yourself to explore the practice of dropping into your body wisdom, and for a powerful reminder that healing doesn’t always come from trying harder but from thinking differently.

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Drop into your own unique body wisdom with a Somatic Soul Session:

• 60-minute, 1:1 coaching session to get you unstuck and ready to work with your body wisdom. On sale through January.

  Check it out here: https://gervasekolmos.podia.com/f1c7c21a-5772-4222-bf65-7bac78672c33/buy

Follow Gervase

• Connect with Gervase on Instagram: www.instagram.com/gervasekolmos

• Visit her website: www.gervasekolmos.com

How my body helped me make up with my husband

Episode Full Transcript

I try to convey to all of you, as often as humanly possible, that I am a human just like you. I’m humbly working through so many things over here on my own, alongside you—maybe a few steps ahead, maybe having learned a few more things and sharing them with you. As a facilitator, it’s different. I have a set of gifts where I can sit with someone and really see them, see their blind spots, and intuit what’s needed. But it’s impossible to do that for yourself.

I need everyone to always know this. However you’re shopping around, finding the right facilitator for you, know that you want to see yourself in your teachers and you also want to see what’s possible.

So I want to share a story about how my body helped me repair a big rupture with my husband, in the hopes that you can see yourself in my marriage. I often talk about how happy and grateful and proud I am to have such a wonderful marriage—and also, we work through things, same as everybody else. My hope is that you can also see what’s possible for you and your partnership, whatever that looks like.

Without getting into details, there was a recurring theme between my husband and me that was causing frustration and resentment on my part. We had gotten to a stalemate. Two loving people willing to do the work and have hard conversations kept circling the drain. Maybe you’ve been there: you find yourself having the same argument over and over, not making progress.

For me, being who I am, doing the work I do in the world, being as self-aware as I am—this is infuriating. Finding myself in the same place in the drain I was weeks ago in the quest for repair and connection with my partner is maddening. That was maddening.

One stormy night we reached the point of, “We’ll just deal with this tomorrow.” We had said everything that could be said. For whatever reason, we could not hear each other. The words weren’t penetrating our egos, our need to be right, our need to feel seen and heard, our need to self-defend or self-protect. All normal, natural parts of being human—especially in conflict and especially in romantic partnerships. All your childhood wounds come up.

Sometimes all the talking in the world isn’t going to do anything. We went to bed. I laid awake, fuming and also feeling deeply sad and discouraged. After a fitful sleep, I woke up at 3 a.m. There were other big things happening at the time as well. I went downstairs, started journaling, watched a little TV, lit a candle. I just tried to enjoy the quiet time in the middle of the night because my mind would not stop.

Through journaling I had a moment of awareness: my body missed my husband. If I was really honest and humble and let my ego pause, I didn’t need to be right or heard; I just wanted to lay with my husband. Then pride showed up. We all have pride. For me, this is a part I care about working with in partnership because I’ve seen what happens when you let pride get in the way of love.

I kept having this visual of my body showing me the way: just go lay on your husband, just go be with him. I got curious about it the way I invite my clients to get curious. Ask the body a question: would you like to go be held by your partner? The body responded with a longing yes. Ask the soul: would you like to go be held? The soul gave me an image. Then ask the mind: the mind said, “Yeah, but they won’t get it. That’s giving in. You can’t be wrong. You didn’t resolve this.”

That, to me, is an opening to see things differently. What might happen to this pattern we’d been stuck in if I allowed my body to lead me back to bed into his arms? So up I went back to bed into my husband’s arms at 4 or 5 a.m.

I’m grateful he allows me to share our story. It speaks so much to his confidence and trust in the work I do. I climbed into bed and he welcomed me with open arms. We lay like that for 20 minutes, then changed positions and lay like that for an hour. I fell deeply asleep—better than I’d slept in many days. I felt my heartbeat syncing with his, my soul relaxing, my body co-regulating. I felt safe.

I woke up the next morning and the problem that had felt absolutely impossible just a few hours ago truly felt dissolved. I couldn’t access the anger and righteousness I’d felt the night before. All I felt was deep intimacy, love, and connection with this person I share my life with. Not rose-colored glasses, not forgetting everything that happened. I still cared about what mattered to me. But I had patient, loving, wise, embodied trust: we’ll get there. We’re going in the right direction. I can let him make the next move. It is safe for me to be loved by this person.

For those listening, remember: the part of us that’s activated and triggered when our childhood trauma comes up in partnership does not remember anything about safety. You cannot believe anything it says. It’s a protector rising up to defend because that’s what it had to do when you were younger. But the steady, wise part of you—the part that knows it will be messy and imperfect—lives in your body and soul.

We need a somatic and soul strategy to get through circling-the-drain moments. We have to try something new to get a result we haven’t gotten before. The mind can take us so far, then we dead end. We stalemate. We put up walls. We close down. We suffer. Personally, I hate going through my day disconnected or in a fight with my partner. When I let my protector part be in charge, nobody wins.

So at five in the morning, I softened my mind and received the wisdom of my body and soul. I treated it like an experiment and noticed how my system felt before, during, and after. It was so powerful. Obviously I already believe the answer to everything is to stop—stop what you’re doing and drop into the body, stop ruminating, drop into the body and soul. But having this specific example was wild for me.

A few years ago my husband and I did a bunch of work and it was so helpful. Our disagreements went from not a ton to about half. Since this experience, I’ve noticed we’ve cut them in half again. There are so many battles the mind wants to pick that the body knows are just a little child throwing a tantrum, a fragmented part picking a fight. In relational dynamics, there’s always more than one thing in the room: inner children, finances, moon cycles, personalities, stressors. Thousands of beautiful acts of love and kindness alongside the harm. But in rupture we simplify it down, dilute it, because we’re uncomfortable with the wound.

The first approach is to consult somatic and soul strategy. Check yourself before you wreck yourself living from one part of the mind. Ask: have I actually checked in with my body? When I allow myself to be held by this person who loves me so much, I feel settling, safety, repair happening—not by talking it to death. As a passionate talker, that’s revolutionary.

This is just one thread of a ball of threads when it comes to the body solving our problems for us. If you unravel all the threads and hold them out into one big thread, the one consistent thing is: the body is the shortcut. We want a tool, we want a strategy, but we’re not willing to travel from the mind and ego into the body and soul. So we circle the drain forever. We get the same results over and over.

If that’s where you’re at, it’s understandable. We glorify talking and mind strategies and are greatly undereducated about the body and how it all works together. There is so much research about how mind, body, soul, mental health, and physical health all work together. One of my favorite speakers on this is Dr. Gabor Maté. But if you want the shortcut: stop ruminating, stop aligning exclusively with the story you’re telling yourself in the mind, and drop into the body.

An exercise I like for myself and my clients is to ask a question and notice what it feels like in your body. Start simple. “Do I want to go to that birthday party?” What does your body do? Is it heavy or is it light? Your body has its own language and you can start speaking it slowly, one little choice at a time. Then you build up to the big things.

As always, it’s nuanced. You could be in an actually devastatingly toxic relationship where your body pattern is to go back to someone causing harm. In that case you may need the opposite. Your tangle of threads is different from mine. Where do you start? With your own tangle. Knowing yourself. Untangling mind, narrative, story, body wisdom, soul voice.

I teach you to untangle so you can consult the body for wisdom and get transformation with less energy. Being in physical proximity to other people, allowing bodies to co-regulate, allowing bodies to inform what we do in relationships is such a shortcut to repair. Gathering with people when you’re grieving or celebrating is the quickest way to change your state—not because you’re thinking about it but because your body is reacting to community.

That’s one of the threads. I’ve navigated this in relationships beyond my marriage—family of origin, friendships—watching and listening to my body every step. Do I want to stand closer or farther apart? Put a room between us? Go for a walk? Sit next to them? Fascinating science experiments that ended with connection and repair I could never have anticipated.

And of course, sometimes the other person isn’t ready. That’s okay. They get their own safety line and somatic response. But if you’re pushing against your own without even knowing it—overriding it with the story you’re telling yourself—you’re missing out on the best-kept secret of being human, the best-kept secret to powerful, resilient relationships.

This ninja skill of knowing what to do, say, and choose next is how I do it—with somatic and soul strategy, deep attunement to my soul voice, my inner knowing, and a deep intentional way of relating not just to everyone in my life but to myself. It makes the way forward easier. I’m rarely in self-doubt, self-questioning, overthink, or overwhelm because I stop and drop.

This is not unique to me. All of us can do this. Women have lost touch with the feminine art of being complex, ever-evolving humans. We’ve tried to woman by being men, and it’s backfiring, leading to stress and noise. If that’s you, you’re one of bajillions. It’s so normal based on the modern culture, climate, and education we’ve had. Now we’re ready to step into a new paradigm and do things differently to get results we haven’t seen before.

We didn’t see these results in the generation before us because they didn’t have these strategies, this lived wisdom, even the science and research to back up that integrating the mind, body, and soul will take you places the mind alone never could.

I want to share a new offering for January. Somatic Soul Sessions are 60-minute one-on-one coaching sessions with me where I’ll help you drop into your unique body wisdom, get unstuck, and access your soul vision for 2025. These are $299 when purchased now through January and will increase to $349 after that.

December can go by fast and then January hits and you’re left depleted without ideas or resources for replenishing all you gave away. You can think of this 60-minute call as having me in your back pocket for when life happens—which we know it will. As I’ve been swiping my credit card for gifts this season, it inspired me to invite you to swipe for you. Plus, I love a good sale.

Purchase this offer now through January and redeem it anytime something tough comes up, or you feel stuck, trapped in your trauma, or can’t see the forest through the trees. Or use it to clarify your wants and needs versus your shoulds in the new year. Remember, this one-on-one with me will be offered at the discounted $299 price only when you purchase now through January.

I appreciate you so much for spending time here with me today. I love you so much, and I’ll see you back here in two weeks.

Breaking the Cycle of Fear-Based Parenting with Wendy Snyder

From threats and punishments to connection - this one goes out to the parents of strong-willed children. In today’s episode, Gervase welcomes Wendy Snyder, certified parenting educator and family life coach, to discuss the power of positive, connection-based parenting. Together, they explore the challenges, myths, and opportunities of this parenting style, particularly with strong-willed children. They discuss the impact of healing generational trauma cycles, the role of self-awareness in parenting, and the importance of letting go of shame and perfectionism.

Packed with personal stories and valuable insights, this episode is a must-listen for any parent seeking to nurture meaningful relationships with their kids.

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Connect with Wendy: 

• Fresh Start Wendy | Instagram

• Power Struggles FREE Online Workshop - Fresh Start Family

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• Check it out here: https://www.gervasekolmos.com/the-soul-shift-intensive

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• Visit her website: www.gervasekolmos.com

Breaking the Cycle of Fear-Based Parenting with Wendy Snyder

Episode Full Transcript

Gervase: Welcome back, everybody. I have somebody special for you today. Wendy Snyder. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for being here. You ready?

Wendy: I'm ready. I'm excited to be here.

Gervase: This is going to be a parenting focused podcast. So if you're not interested or you do not have children, this might not be for you, but probably all of you are going to be like, yes. Okay.

Wendy Snyder is a mom of two, certified parenting educator, and family life coach who inspires parents to learn and grow through connection-based positive parenting strategies. As the host of the Fresh Start Family Show and founder of freshstartfamilyonline.com, she helps parents ditch the threats, yelling, and harsh punishments so they can live life as a joyful and confident parent with kids that listen and cooperate great. Families who take part in her learning and coaching programs experience radical shifts in their hearts, minds, and souls that help them to create rock-solid relationships with their kids, while at the same time teaching important life lessons and helping to raise the next generation of leaders, changemakers, and important human souls.

No pressure.

Just raising the next generation of leaders and changemakers.

It's a pretty rad responsibility, right?

Wendy: But it's a good one. Yeah.

Gervase: Yeah. So how old are your kids now?

Wendy: My kids are old now. They're 13 and 16, almost 14 and 17. It is so much fun having teenagers. I know people usually dread it, but when you do this kind of parenting, it's lovely. It's crazy and intense, but it's so fun. So yeah, I got a driver in the house now. It's wild.

Gervase: I love hearing that. And I kind of want to dive in with my curiosity, which kind of guides this show with two things. One, you were like with this kind of parenting for teenagers, and I'm kind of like, what does that mean? What does that look like? And also, what's fun about it?

Wendy: So this kind of parenting, what is it? What does it look like? Okay. So when people hear the word positive parenting, and over the years, I've started to play around with the term powerful parenting. When people ask me what I do, I'll say, I'm a powerful parenting coach. And then, of course, they're like, what is that, right?

I think, unfortunately, positive, gentle, even conscious, a lot of times people are just really, they just really misunderstand what that means. And they think it means permissive. They think it means you never say no to your kid. They think it means you go get training on how to ask your kids really, really nicely to put on their shoes and clean up their room. And it really couldn't be farther from the truth.

So the work that I teach is firm and kind connection-based parenting. And really, the power that you have as an influential soul in your children's lives, it comes from relationship, and it actually mostly comes from what you model.

And so there just comes a lot of healing and personal development and growth work within this style of parenting because hypocrisy is something that we're just trying to eliminate in our homes, like truly eliminate. Of course, we're not perfect. We make a lot of mistakes and we learn how to handle those mistakes with grace and dignity and self-compassion. Because even when we're handling mistakes, we're teaching our children how to do the same.

But we are looking to eliminate hypocrisy in our homes. So if we are trying to teach our children something, we do want to look to ourselves first and just say, how am I doing with this life skill? Whether it's self-regulation, self-control, emotional literacy, getting what you want without overpowering someone as simple as like, hey, you're trying to teach your kids how to keep their hands to themselves. You're looking at your own patterns first of like what happens when they won't get in the car or sit down at the table, especially when they're toddlers. That's when I found this work and I thought I was going to lose my mind.

My little girl is my beautiful, strong-willed soul. And it has served her so well in life to the point now where she is actively pursuing a D1 beach volleyball scholarship. And I can't even imagine the world that she plays in and the tenacity and the perseverance, but she's got it. And she, you know, you can see how that personality just helps her and will help her secure a spot wherever she ends up going to college.

But it's really, it's just all about connection. It's all about relationship and it is very firm and kind. So a lot of people, like I said, they think, you know, you get into a positive parenting class and you're going to be trained on like just how to ask your kids nicely to do what you want them to do. And really a lot of times we're teaching parents how to stick to strong boundaries. We're helping parents say no more, especially with a lot of like big ticket things that are happening in the world today, like technology and cell phones and safety and all the things.

But we're actually a lot of times spending more time helping parents be more firm in their boundaries and roles. And we teach them how to follow through with consistency and connection versus the threats. So many of us just get handed a hand-me-down parenting toolkit, right? It's like the classic for fear, force, bribery, and rewards.

Wendy: Yeah. And it's all external controls, right? So it's like we inherit this belief system that in order to make a child behave or do what you want, you either need to make them feel worse or you need to dangle a carrot in front of their face.

Gervase: When you say it like that, Wendy, it just sounds real bad.

Wendy: I know, right? Well, the thing is people who just, you know, unfortunately, I think the people who real, who use the classic model and just kind of think that it, whatever, even though it creates stress and disconnection in the home, they're like, whatever. The second decade is where you really pay the price, right? Like when you have children in the second decade of their life that have not developed the intrinsic control muscles, who have not developed the emotional literacy, who have not developed the peaceful conflict resolution skills, but instead just been in a team environment where overpowering is how you get your way, then the teenage years often go really in a different direction for a lot of parents.

And that's why we have a common belief system or like a common myth in our world, so to speak, that the teenage years are going to suck. They'll quite literally suck the life out of you. And many parents are miserable in the teenage years because the connection and the relationship was never quite formed the way it should because there was fear and force present. There was punishment. There's all these things that really slowly but surely over time tick away at their relationship and you just end up losing power in that second decade of life.

Gervase: Hmm. So interesting and compelling.

Gervase: You asked me why it was fun.

Wendy: Right? That's the second question you had. So it's fun because it does turn into a bit of an adventure when you open the grip a little bit and you realize that at any given moment, there could be a life lesson for you. Right? And like, once you start to see how mistakes and challenges and hiccups are not the end of the world, like again, a lot of us were conditioned to believe that mistakes are dangerous, that there is like something really bad that's going to happen on the other side of that, whether it's being judged, condemned, hit, harmed, you know, someone's going to be disappointed with you.

So like, but nowadays it's like with this style of parenting, we get to realize that mistakes are just opportunities to learn. And all the time when you have a, like a compassionate discipline model versus a punishment model, peaceful conflict resolution, like true power type of dynamic in your home as a parent, the challenges and the mistakes, they always bring you closer to your child because you have the ability to work through it and really truly become the teacher instead of the correctional officer.

And so it's just really fun. Like your kids end up talking to you. They don't hide stuff, which can feel crazy at times because you're like, oh my gosh, I can't believe you're telling me this. But it's just fun because you like get to, you know, you get to hear about what's actually happening in the teenage world right now. Right? Of course, I'm speaking to teenagers now because my kids are older, but this all started when my daughter was three, right? Like the relationship I formed stacked over the years. And then now you can just see how there's full transparency, there's full honesty, there's full emotional literacy. And so, you know, the conflict stuff is like, it's still a lot, but it's actually, I mean, I'm not going to say enjoyable, but it's like, it's actually really beautiful. It's really beautiful to be able to work out real things with your kids and work through things and just always feel like you are like the tightest unit with your family.

Gervase: Yeah. No, I can absolutely see how it would be fun because I personally have not been a person that was like, oh, the baby years are like the best and I want to like hold my baby all the time. I just was like, got to slog through this part because this sucks. And the older my kids get, the more I find it to be very rewarding because of exactly what you're saying, which is interesting. I never thought about it from the connection and relational standpoint, because of course it's fun. And of course it's rewarding. If the older your kids get, you have more and more years in this really gratifying relationship, right? And relationships are not perfect and they're not without conflict and, you know, rupture and repair. However, if they are thought of as relationships that get to have that like same, I don't know, that gratification that like a friendship has, or, you know, even like with my partner, it's like, you just really enjoy each other. I feel like that for me has felt like the secret sauce. Like when I'm like enjoying being with one of my kids as the person that they are, which is honestly tricky and confusing because the information overload, I think for, I don't know, like mothers, our generation, there's just so much information, right? And I'm not here to say that like your information is bad or wrong or that any information is bad or wrong, but what you're saying makes perfect sense. And I love this idea of like encouraging parents to see their kids as these long-term relationships that they get to enjoy forever. I said that to my husband this summer, I was like, I just keep thinking about the fact that when our kids leave the house, they're only going to come back and hang out with us if we are people they like hanging out with, right? Like I don't want them to come and hang out with us because they feel obligated, because they respect us, because it's the right thing to do, which are all things that I have both done or heard tons of people my age say about spending time with their parents. It's like, how do we raise these kids in a way that they actually want to hang out with us? And I guess that leads to my question for you is like, what do you think is the biggest obstacle to parenting this way?

Wendy: Well, the first thing that comes to my mind, it might be outside the box, but it is what it is. So the biggest obstacle to parenting that way where you're really learning to love your child for who they are, not who you wish they could be or were, is to like go to that place where you learn to love yourself like so deeply and so compassionately. Cause we know in this work that the harder you are in yourself, the harder you are in your children. So ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, right? So it's like, if you're really good at beating yourself up, which most of us who were raised in an autocratic setting, so autocratic just means it was like that kind of my way or the highway, like do what you're told or else, like, you know, children, they need to respect thy authority. And, and we grow up and we're like, you know, we just are really good at having the inner critic. And it is our knee jerk reaction when we're imperfect, when we make a mistake, when we don't get everything done in a day, when our children are misbehaving in the grocery store aisle. Like really often what's driving it is usually like a pretty deep, like scared. We're not enough scared. We're failing. And so it's just so much harder to have the compassion on them and the empathy when they're all out of sorts or they show up in a way when they're like three, four or five, that is like aggressive. And you're really worried that like, are they ever going to have any friends?

Like Stella, I was like, is she going to get kicked out of kindergarten? I don't know. Do we need to go to a private school? Like what is going to happen? Right. And this work like saved our lives, right? Like none of that happened. She, she ended up being great in school and it was fine. But during those, that season where you're just like really trying, because we, we all know parenting is like tough for everyone, right? It's like wild, it's intense journey.

And when you get a strong wheeled kid or you get a really intense feeler, right? Like we know that the degree of difficulty is much harder. We also know that the apple usually doesn't fall far from the tree. And so most of the parents I work with who have a strong willed child, either them or partner were strong willed, right? Or strong willed. I am. I like through raising Stella, it has shown me, oh my gosh, I have the most badass, beautiful, strong will. And it took me many, many years to learn to love that about myself. And I still have moments when I'm like, am I too much? Am I too aggressive? Am I too this? Or am I not enough? And so the journey to have compassion and fully love myself for exactly who I am, that has translated to the children more easily. And so that's where we really do a lot of our teaching work is. And then that opens up the ability to really seek to understand, assume integrity in your children, have compassion and empathy, be able to get in their shoes to understand what's probably going on for them when it comes to what need are they trying to get filled or what are they trying to communicate? So it's kind of like the same thing, but a lot of people don't connect to that.

Gervase: No, I'm so grateful that you brought that in. You know, you can only love and accept another as deeply as you loved and met yourself. And what I'm wondering is, what do you do when you know all the peaceful parenting or the connection-based strategies, right, for your kid? And you feel emotionally attuned to a kid. And also you're still really not doing so great at loving and accepting yourself. Because that is something that I see a lot. And I almost wonder if it's like a plague sweeping the nation. Because there's so much education about how to parent, quote unquote, better, like the right way to parent. And not as much of an emphasis on like, hey, it starts with you being in right relationship with yourself, like being self-aware of what's, how this is a mirror and accepting your mistakes and, you know, all of that, that inner stuff. And so then what, what do you do? Because I'm sure you see this all the time when you have these parents that are like learning all the information, learning all the strategies, doing all the right things to give their kid the best, most compassionate scripts, right? When they do this, I'll say this and da, da, da. But they actually can't do the other half of the job, which I find is so important, which is to deeply love and accept who they are, period. Even without the scripts, before, during, and after the scripts, when they mess up, you know, you're talking about mistakes. And I was like, whose mistakes are we talking about? The kids' mistakes or the parents' mistakes? Because I think there's a lot of parents that it's like, oh, the kid makes a mistake. They're like, mistakes are fine. You know, there's so much understanding and so much compassion for their kids' mistakes, right? But then when they make a mistake, when we make a mistake, we're like, how could I do that? That was so stupid. So what, what do you say to that?

Wendy: Well, I'm going to answer that in one second, but I will say this, just, I love to be like real transparent. And like, I mean, I look at the business that I've created over the last seven years, the, the, the, the educational worldwide program, the community, all the things that I'm like, it's so interesting to see what you create, right?

Cause you're like, as an entrepreneur, you know, you're like, yeah, you go, you just, you naturally create things that are like very you. And so for me, vulnerability and humility are like top traits for me that I know get parents massive results, like massive results. So I will say that when it comes to mistakes and, you know, being an imperfect parent and, and you're going to be so freaking imperfect, especially if you have a strong-willed kid, cause you will be pushed to your edge. Right. But like, I just try to be as transparent as possible as a teacher.

And so I've written some pretty intense articles. I I've written an article once called, I left bruises.

Gervase: You what? Oh, I left bruises. Ooh.

Wendy: Yeah. Yeah. Still to this day, when I say that without explaining, you know, there's this little pocket of like, Ooh, do we want to go to shame? And it's like, no, thanks. Like that. Yeah. There was a season where I just, I didn't know what to do. And I would grab extra hard on purpose, right? Like little arms. There was an article that I wrote called the night I threw a book at my kid. It was a soft cover. Thank God. But like, I just tried it. Like the first 10 years I was teaching, I always just try it.

Cause the kids were littler now. It's just like a totally different, but like, I just made so many mistakes. It took me seven years to stop yelling. And I would just always like, after a while I would, you know, I would have a big blow up or something. And then I'd be like, Oh, well now I get to go tell the community because it just was like a flushing of like, Hey, just so you know, there is no perfection here. And we are all on our path to live authentically.

And as I've seen you speak about show up on the outside as we are on the inside, like what we want intuitively is wise. It's wise. And it might take us a while to get there, but you just got to trust that like, if you want to be someone who compassionately addresses misbehavior with firm kindness and connection, you will get there. You just got to be willing to be humble. Like you got to be willing to be real about what's actually happening behind closed doors. And then we can get somewhere.

So back to your question about if you're like, you've got all the tools, but the self, what I call self-acceptance piece. So we really teach like, there's got to be two things, self-awareness and then self-acceptance. And I'm going to say it very frankly, if you don't have the self-acceptance piece, you will keep falling flat on the tools and you will go insane thinking that, or you'll just quit because you're like this BS parenting stuff doesn't work.

And really what I find, and at this point we've helped tens of thousands of parents, but what I find is that people usually aren't quite doing the tools that they think they are, right? They might read a book or do a podcast and they're like, oh, I know how to do this. And then it's just a whole different ball game when you actually go to execute a strategy.

And then the other side of that is when there's like so much that comes with it, when you don't have the self-acceptance piece yet, which again, takes us many of us many years with mentorship and coaching and, um, and helpers to help us shed the layers of shame and habits and protection behaviors. But when you don't have that, the harshness will come out on your child. And as long as that, like judgment tones, harshness, or it's the other side, right? Like we have a lot of, um, students who they withdraw, they go within, right?

Like I'd say the majority of my students are like replicate my path a little bit where the harshness will come out, like the big puff up, the overpowering comes into play at some point or another. But for some, it's definitely the withdrawal or becoming permissive, so to speak. But as long as there's that beat up and, and really all it is is shame as if there's shame present, which is like the lack of self-acceptance, we see parents stay stuck in the same behaviors. And so that means they, they end up repeating the same generational cycles.

They just continue to pass it down. So the self-acceptance piece is massive and it is equally as important as the strategies. So like in our programs, we have like a hundred lessons or something. And I think probably 70 are strategy based. Like what do you do when your kid has revenge misbehavior? Like kid threw a Lego brick at your head or just told you, I hate you and this family sucks, right? Or bit you, pulled your hair. It's like, here's like seven strategy steps.

And we know with revenge misbehavior that there's like also probably like 30% of our lessons and our coursework is the self-acceptance piece because there's just so much more under the rug, so to speak, when you have a child that has revenge misbehavior. So you can't just do the strategies. You got to be willing and able to go there, which I really tell my students, it becomes an adventure and it becomes beautiful because it gives you power.

Every time that you unlock something new about yourself that comes from within, that is like, oh, like as soon as I can heal from this or change this, like you gain power as an influential parent with your children. So it does become a bit of a fun adventure to heal. I know a lot of people avoid healing because they're like, oh my gosh, I don't want to cry.

Gervase: Not my people, Wendy.

Wendy: Good. Not these people. Good. So yeah, that's my two cents about that.

Gervase: I love it. It makes so much sense to me. And when you were talking about like the puff up response, you know, the whatever you want to call it, I'm going to call it the puff up response versus the withdrawn response. I'm just thinking, oh, here we go. Here's like the fight response, the fawn response, the freeze response. And so it makes me think about traumatized nervous systems, right? And so how many of us are parenting with traumatized nervous systems, which is not to say it's bad or wrong, which is not a judgment, but is also to say like all of the tools in the world is not going to be able to change a pattern if your system is activated, right? And if your system is activated, that is its own thing. That is likely has very little to do with your kid. And I say that, I mean, as somebody who has both deep feeling and strong-willed children, of course, it's both and like it has something to do with your kid, of course. And also so much of it, like you're saying is like under the rug. And so it makes so much sense to me that without that component, all the strategies in the world are going to feel like they don't work.

Wendy: Well, and I can riff on why they don't work too. Like, especially with strong-willed kids, because strong-willed kids are like hypocrisy sniffer outers. They catch things.

Gervase: Yes.

Wendy: Like they're often the deep feelers. So they catch things. And so if you've got shame present, they catch it. They might present like, hell no, like they get bigger. They're like these confident beings, but really they catch shame too. They start to believe things about themselves that come out in our worst moments. Like the things we say stick, right?

Like I know I've said some pretty shameful things to Sella when she was little and we've been actively like repairing that. I'm so thankful to be in a world where I have tools to repair relationships and help her understand that the things I say aren't, you know, are more about me than her, always more about me. But any human will stay stuck in their misbehavior when they've got shame present versus the ability just to see the behavior, be in a learning state, which a child is when their parent is teaching versus punishing them.

And then tomorrow that child can make a different decision on how to behave differently in the classroom or with their sibling or the way they clean up the house or not. But there has to be an absence of shame or else they stay stuck in the behavior. So it's kind of interesting how in parenting, like we think logically that children learn from us teaching them, but you know, 99% of what children learn is caught, not taught, which is just another reason why we want to, we want to do the work to eliminate the shame.

Gervase: Yeah. Do you find that shame is often coupled with anger?

Wendy: Yeah. I mean, let me think about that. So it's like, I think for me, I go to a little bit more scared. So scared, I mean, I just finished teaching a pretty deep healing weekend workshop over two weekends. And I'd say the majority of people in my world who carry shame, which is like all of us, it's scared.

Many of us have anger. And I think behind anger is scared quite often. So it might present as anger, especially with children, you know, whether it's like, you know, holding kids down, yelling at them, threatening, like lots of threats, right? In my world that parents are like, I want to change this. And quite often when we get to the bottom of that, it's scared I'm failing, scared I'm not enough.

Sometimes it's scared this kid is going to grow up and have no friends or be an entitled maniac. But a lot of times it has to do with them, like scared I'm not enough, scared I'm failing, scared I'm going to get judged, especially if it's in a public place. But even like when you think of kids fighting, and someone coming in so angry, right? Like maybe you were a younger sibling and like your older brother was like a total jerk to you growing up. And like, there's a lot of triggers underneath that, that that will cause you to like real get real puffed up with a sibling fight.

But then once we slow it down and break it down a little bit, a lot of times it comes down to why have I failed at this? Why have I failed at teaching these kids how to not put their hands on each other? Like what is wrong with me? A good parent would not have kids that fight. And so a lot of times it comes down to like just scared, scared of not being enough or scared of being too much, like scared. But I think they're interconnected.

Gervase: For sure. And I love hearing what you're seeing. Obviously you see more than I do. I also wonder about this, like fear that you're not doing it right. And I say this with a lot of nuance because of course you hold the keys to the kingdom in this conversation where it's like, oh, you have all these strategies that are quote unquote, right. And I'm curious for you if you found that also sometimes right is a little messy. Like sometimes we sloppily stumble into what's best for all and there's not necessarily right or wrong, especially as a parent, because you as a parent are part of like a larger system. You're part of you and the child have your own little system happening. You and the siblings, you as a family, you and your larger family, the culture you're living in. There's so many dynamics at play here that factor in. And so I just wonder how many parents feel afraid to do it wrong. You know, like I'm not doing this moment right, or I didn't do that moment right. And how you bring in a tolerance for the journey of imperfection and sloppiness and how everybody's going to be different on any given day. Right. And so it's like even age appropriateness, it's like, well, she's different this month than she was last month. And so, you know, the way that we had that conversation is different and deserves to be different. And so sometimes you kind of, I know for me, I find myself like stumbling into these moments where I'm like, oh, this is interesting. And I feel really grateful that fear, it's always present for me as a parent, but it's definitely not driving the car. I'll say like, if I'm being really honest, I'm just thinking about it on the spot here. I for sure carry fear in my parenting about like wanting to do it right. But then I remind myself that right is just a construct that's, it's like trying to catch the air. It's like, it's like constantly shifting and evolving. So what if I don't have to be afraid of like getting this right, but I can just be present and meet the moment with as much compassion and love and self-awareness as possible and be willing to meet the child where they're at, which is going to be different every day and kind of finding that gentle, I don't know, like evolving nature of the work. What would you say to that?

Wendy: So a few things, I love all that. It's so beautiful. And I totally am with you on all that. Two things I think of is, so when we look at the emotion of scared or afraid, it's actually a beautiful emotion. And on the other side of it, I always call it like the rainbow is when you allow yourself to feel scared, you will, something you will find bravery and courage about, right?

And so in this work that I teach, the parents who allow themselves instead of suppressing or putting it under a rug of like, I'm scared, I'm failing, I'm scared, I'm going to get it wrong, I'm scared, like, they will find the courage to be quite different. But you cannot be brave and courageous in this world unless you feel scared first. Like, it's just impossible. You will never, you will never get there.

So scared is really in my world, not a bad thing. I think the journey for many of us is to learn how to feel scared and not hit the panic button, right? Like, but just more have it give us information. And, and then again, when you live a life of connected, firm and kind parenting, you will be the black sheep, you will be or the rainbow unicorn, however you want to say it, like, nine out of 10 of your friends will continue on with the fear and force and external control model.

And so it'll take courage, right? It'll take courage to be this the parent who says no to the iPhone till high school, because nine out of 10 of your children's friends will have an iPhone in their hands by the age of 10. Right? Like, so you're just gonna feel scared, you're gonna feel scared, that kid's gonna get judged, you're all the all the all the places, you're gonna feel it. And it's okay. It's like a beautiful emotion that I think empowers us to live a life that we actually want to live, but you got to feel it.

Second, right or wrong. Yeah. In our world, I quite often my coaches and I, we will have people re say that. So we actually have them practice. When they say right or wrong, or even better, will quite often say, we want to just to write because we do a lot of written coaching in our programs is, we really like to look at it as effective or ineffective in line with my moral compass or out of line.

So it's like, is this effectively changing the behavior in my strong willed kid? And the fear and force stuff, like yelling might get them to put on their shoes or stop hitting their brother today. And is it effective three weeks from now? Right? Like, if you've been asking the same question, or, or stumbling on the same misbehavior for quite some time, you're going to realize that what you're doing is ineffective.

And so you you want to, you don't have to, you don't need to, you can continue, it's legal to hit kids in this country, you can continue to use fear and force your whole life if you want, like literally, you don't got to do anything. But most of the students, we work with all of them, I will say, they want to find a different way, they want to learn how to influence and teach without hurting and harming and forcing their kids into submission, or like moving into that permissive model that so many do move into when they're like healing from an autocratic upbringing.

So like we kind of say the same thing with better, we take away the better and just say different, right? Like if someone will say, how do I do this better? It's like, well, there's no better here. Because we just want you to ask us, like, how do I do this different? Because what I did? And I'm not sure if it felt quite right. And in line with like, what I believe, and we are all growing every year, like, I've loved watching your journey as you've really stepped into things that are very important to you in the world. I share very similar things like me today versus me four years ago, like, I've now found the courage to become outspoken and advocate for things that wasn't on my radar years ago.

But better, you know, is just everyone loves the Maya Angelou quote, right? Like when we know better, we do better. But and at the same time, we just want to see it as different or more effective. And so I think that that helps parents kind of free up some energy and some brain space to just remember that there's no judgment of the past. It makes sense why we all do this stuff.

Like it makes sense from a nervous system perspective, right? Like we all know the imprints on our nervous system are usually set by the age of seven. So the feelings in our home or the temperature, so to speak, in our homes around mistakes, that's what we end up parenting with, like the same exact until we heal our nervous systems until we learn a new way until we figure out how to signal safety to the nervous system and realize that it's actually not a four alarm fire. There's not a bear chasing you when your kids are fighting and hitting each other. It sure feels like it, but there's not.

Gervase: And I mean, when I think about the difference between the verbiage, the language around like different or effective, I also am like passionate about being effective. Like when I have conversations, whether it's with clients or like my partner about parenting, I'm like, listen, I'm just like, this is ineffective. It's not working. So we don't need to like decide who's the bad guy and who's the good guy and blah, blah, blah. Let's just try something new. But the idea with different kind of reminds me of, there is going to be, I have found this to be true. I don't know. You might disagree, but there have been situations where more heavy handed parenting has come into play that I've been like, oh, I wasn't expecting that. Right. And I don't, I mean, I'm not talking about like physical hitting or anything like that, but I think I was talking to my teacher, Joanna Miller on the podcast. And I think she gave this example where it's like, for example, yelling at your kid, ideally on an average day, there's no reason to yell. Like that's not the quote unquote right way. But when your kid runs into the street, it's actually appropriate to yell for their safety.

Wendy: Right. Amen.

And so I think that's why it's so important that we unhook from this like right, wrong, good, bad, better language. And because it's like an ingrained mindset that we have as a culture, when really I have no idea who I'm going to be tomorrow, who they're going to be tomorrow, what situation I'm going to stumble upon. But I know every time I decide, like I've figured out the right anything, anything, it always changes.

And I'm very humbled to find that, you know, something I was judging or perceiving as wrong turns out to be something that's valuable in this season or in the nuance of the cosmos. So I love that. Yeah. The other thing that I just want to respond to is back to this idea of the nervous system, which is so interesting to me. It's so interesting. I do a lot of nervous system work. So I'm like, oh, yes, of course, this makes perfect sense. Right. Yeah. So many women and I work exclusively with women. So, so many mothers that I know are parenting from this traumatized nervous system, right?

So we are perpetually either afraid, like you were saying, we're scared. We have shame. We have anger. We have all these things, which are not bad or wrong. And it sounds like the path we can take that is a little bit more gentle and nourishing and sustainable isn't to say like, I'm never allowed to feel afraid or like, I will never be angry or feel ashamed or whatever. Because again, my lived experience is like I'm all over the place with that stuff.

And it's just, can you increase your body, your system's capacity to hold mistakes? Can you be like a compassionate witness to your own fear so that it isn't creating this emergency? Like we have an emergency. There's a tiger. I need to scream. I need to control. Because I, I do believe that a lot of the times when we're in like this deep controlling way externally as parents, it is because we're like in that fight or flight. We need to instead tend to our systems.

And then we're like, oh, okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. Right. And then suddenly you're like, I don't need to control, like wear whatever you want or don't put your socks on or whatever. And then of course you hold the boundary firm when it's like, well, actually, no, you can't have that iPhone, but holding their disappointment, holding their anger that they send back has been an interesting part of my experience as well to notice like, oh, they're very mad at me or, oh, they're very disappointed because I did make a mistake.

And I feel okay about this because I'm holding space for my humanity, which is pretty deep, important work that every parent could do that takes time and takes so many reps to really get your nervous system acclimated to there is no right or wrong. I'm an imperfect human. I'm just going to try to be an authentic version of myself and be okay with the fact that I will mess up. They will mess up. There will be rupture. You know, I can think of times in my life where I was just, I felt so physically unsafe when there was rupture in any relationship in my life. And of course, the nervous system holds that the body holds that. So then suddenly when your kid can't be controlled, you freak out when your kid doesn't want to, I don't know, whatever. I guess it's so funny. I'm like in a different season than you. I'm like, when the kid doesn't want to take a bath, you're like, we're not having those fights anymore. Right. But you, it becomes bigger. It becomes like this huge fire when really it's just like, you just need a little time out for a little resource for yourself.

Wendy: And that's where the education and the mentorship is just so important. Cause with like nervous system, healing stuff, a lot of times like community, whether it's just you and a coach or you in a group, we do our stuff in group work, but it does take a lot of reps. And when you, from the age of zero to seven, if you grew up in a home where mistakes were treated with punishment, shame, you know, even like the, the more mild homes that just had the disappointed, right?

Like that used to be like taught to parents. Like that's how, that's how you get your kid to become someone who wants to please you. Compliant. Compliant is you make sure that you know how disappointed you are when they make a mistake. And even that like leaves a mark on our souls and our nervous systems. And because it does create disconnection. And as children, you want to feel connected to your parents. You want to feel attached.

And like when you are left alone to like, and a lot of times the classic model was like, go to your room, timeout, you go think about what you've done. It just leaves a mark. So that compassion of like, oh, no wonder this feels like such a big deal to me. Like I'm just unlearning and I'm like unraveling the first seven years on the nervous system quite often is what many of us are doing.

And like, it might've formed in the first seven years, like the neural imprint, so to speak, but then we've been playing them out for decades. You know, like I went to traffic court a few months ago and cop didn't show up. So I got off hooray for that. But I had a case presented. I was like, ready to like, kindly tell why this had happened and drop my daughter off at high school one day in the wrong spot, $350 ticket.

But I realized as the judge was like, okay, cop didn't show up, you're off, have a great day. And I just pushed end on the zoom call and my whole body was shaking because my nervous system was prepared to be ridiculed. It was prepared to be condemned and judged. And like, you know, there's quite often a tone in that world of like, you should know better. What were you thinking? And I've had this happen many times with police officers.

There's so many wonderful police officers who are doing it different nowadays, but quite often you will find that response, right? Of like, what are you thinking? I would never do this. But I found it so interesting that my body was responding to the fear of getting in trouble, the fear of being wrong, the fear of making a mistake. And so it does stick. And so it just takes time. It takes mentorship. It takes reps.

As you said, I love that, that way of putting it to realize that it's actually safe to feel. It is safe to make a mistake. It is safe to get it wrong. And a lot of times those, all the times, the storms pass. One thing I did want to add is just, as we were talking earlier about right versus wrong, and then bringing up the like, sometimes you're going to want to yell at your kids, especially if they're there.

I know this can become a little bit of a slippery slope for parents because we get a lot of questions around like, well, yeah, but you know, let's just say for spanking, right? Like we have a lot of people are healing from religious trauma, being raised in like kind of twisted, toxic, fundamental evangelical upbringings. And they'll be like, yeah, but when your kid's going to touch the hot stove, like that's when like you got to teach them that you don't do that, right?

And so we lovingly encourage people to step back from the right or wrong. And I will tell you that there are core tenants to parenting that most of us that are like-minded, we are down with. And that is that like one of them is we just don't hurt and harm our kids.

Wendy: And it takes a lot of support for parents to understand that actually you can teach a child to not touch a hot stove without hurting and harming them. But for a lot of parents, that takes a lot of unlearning, right? Like the mindset is very fixed again, because they were raised like that. But there are core tenants that I think when you're going through your whole life of parenting, if you can just like be clear about what you believe in as a human being and like influencing people through relationship versus guilt.

But there's going to be times when you're like, oh, my daughter's nine now. And I used to talk to her like when she was like this at six, and now I'm talking to her when she, but still like using guilt to manipulate a child into action, or if you just do it, I'll give you money, right? Like whatever bribery is not the end of the world, right? Like I trust me, like we joke that save it for the big things.

But for the consistency, we have core tenants that we want children to be intrinsically motivated to do whatever in school or keep their hands to themselves or use kind words or whatever, right? So right versus wrong, we don't play that game. And for many, it helps to have core core tenants that you are consistently asking yourself, does this align with that core tenant?

And when it doesn't, that's when we get to move to, okay, it makes sense why that's my knee jerk reaction to punish or manipulate through guilt, or pressure, right? And I'm going to choose to do it a different way. Because A, it's ineffective. B, it doesn't feel right with my nervous system. And C, I see that it caused disconnection. And so now let's get back to what do we really want? We want to be able to X, Y, Z with our kids.

Gervase: Yeah. No, I think that's a great distinction. I was thinking about, I was giving this example yesterday of like the bowling bumpers, you know, it's like just some boundaries around it. Like, okay, what are the limits within the parenting? My values, my yeses and nos. It is, I do think that's like always under the surface for me. I don't really think about it much. Cause yeah, like, I think ultimately what we're circling around is this idea of not shaming or blaming when it happens, because the reality is like, sometimes the bumpers don't hold and the bowling ball goes off into the next bowling lane, unless you're actually good at bowling, unlike me. And so just leaving a little bit of space and grace for our humanity as parents, I think it's like the ultimate place I want to land because it's kind of like, yeah, catch me on like a great day and I'm bowling great. And then catch me at my worst when I've just, when I've endured something really intense and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I can't guarantee that I'm going to bowl the same. And I'm not saying that's justified, but I am saying like, can I be a compassionate witness to my humanity in that moment while also acknowledging like, these are my bumpers. And I kind of like went out of the bumper and okay, I don't need to shame or blame myself. I can work on that first and then focus on the repair with the kid. Because I think what I see so often is like so much emphasis on the kid, so much emphasis on like the strategies and everything without acknowledging like, if you're not dealing with your own, like you said, the shame and the blame and the wrongness and the humanity, which is like, you are not different every day. I mean, you are not the same every day. You're going to have seasons that are more intense and less intense. Then all that work might kind of just be at the surface. It's like outer performatory work versus creating that internal connection relationship that I think all of us really are aspiring to, you know, that would be sweet. It's like the day we were getting Boba and I think my daughter was 12, my son was nine. And there's some bickering about Boba, the car ride, who knows, like, it was like minor, let's just say. And that day I said, I looked at my daughter and I was so pissed. And I said to her, can you just stop being you?

Wendy: Let me tell you, real fast, it came over me that is not in my core tenant. Yeah, I do not believe in speaking to my child like that. And it's so, like, against my internal moral compass. And so that's an example of like, the bumpers went off, right?

And so for me growing up, shame on you was like the statement of the house. My beautiful 75-year-old Irish mama that was raised in Irish Catholic school and was professionally shamed.

Gervase: Yes, same.

Wendy: Like, that was just the way, right? So then I got to go on and tell my daughter, like, let me tell you, this is a generational cycle. And it stops here because that was not about you. That was about me. That was about feeling scared. Like all the things, like we got to have a conversation and I just got to do whatever I could to repair that relationship and like heal the mark, so to speak.

Because trust me, I know that left a mark and it's not what I wanted. And it's one of the most, I've done a lot of stuff in my parenting. But that one was one that I'm like, dang it, I just wish I wouldn't have said that. And so much compassion for myself. And I believe that the imperfect moments, they also teach your children a lot. And so for her to hear from me, you didn't deserve to have that said to you. And it's just not true. Here's the truth about you.

You are a beautiful, strong-willed child. And I never want that to change about you. Right? Like here's the facts. Boom, boom, boom. And sometimes when you're a parent, you feel scared that you can't control a strong-willed person. Thank God I can't control you. I don't, you know, and here we are all these years later where she's like, I could never do what she's doing right now with this D1 beach volleyball scholarship pursuit.

But yeah. So anyway, it's just the bumpers come off sometimes and you get to realign yourself and you're not going to always get it right. But the core tenants, you can feel when they're off. Because a lot of people, they will just keep going down that route. They'll say it. Let's just say in that situation, right? Like the goal was to use shame to influence her to stop whatever, like being unkind to her brother or something in that moment, or be more easygoing or not be so air quotes difficult.

Like many people will just keep going down that path. They'll justify it. Even though it feels off, like they'll just, they'll dig their heels in and they'll be like, well, I wouldn't have to say that to you if you weren't such a stick in the mud. Right. But like, for those of us who really are passionate about being in line with who we truly are and we can just feel when it's off. We didn't like it when it was done to us. It's not the way we believe humans should be influencing humans.

And so then we get the help that we need to heal and then we choose a different path tomorrow.

Gervase: Beautifully, beautifully said. Thank you for sharing that, that really vulnerable story. Cause I know that so many people listening are going to relate. And it's just a reminder that if you're willing to look your stuff in the mirror, you know, and just be like, okay, I did that thing and I still am a good person and I know what I know and how are we going to move forward? You know, how many relationships I think about parent child relationships, but I just feel this is kind of like a, an epidemic of relationships period right now. They don't have the bravery to hold all that, like that example that you just gave, which in the end, I know for me, whether it's like with my partner or with friends that I've had where you say things and you're just like, Oh gosh, I, we can't never, let's just never talk again. Forget it. Yeah. No, that's just, it's like too embarrassing or there's too much shame or I just, I wish I hadn't handled that or like, you don't get me or whatever. And then it's like, can I be willing to own my mistake with compassion and also integrity and come back to this relationship and keep trying and make it this like imperfect, beautiful co-creation that I believe it can be. And it's just, I think that's what authentic relating is. And we kind of got a different memo and we're just trying to like build a new garden now. And so that's, to me, that's what it sounds like when you share, you know, an honest parenting moment like that. So.

Wendy: It's true. And since parenting strong willed kids in this episode, I will say that that's why I love strong willed kids is because they are these like beacons of change. Like they're like born with red flags. They will just put right in front of you this invitation to heal and change because a lot of us get so triggered by them.

Especially if we're similar, right? Like we often are most triggered by the kids that are most similar to us. Like my little guy that's almost 14. He's just like daddy. Daddy and I have been happily, like we're just young love, passionately loved together 30 years, married for 22 or something. And so Taryn, when he does stuff, I'm just not triggered. I'm just like, it's so easy for me to love Terry and Taryn.

But when Stella, when Stella does, it's very similar to how I behave again, you know, we're hardest on ourselves, but she was the one, she was the one that I was losing my mind over. Like, why am I so triggered? Why am I so reactive? Why am I now a door slammer and a wrist grabber and a shamer? Like that wasn't, I've never, the air quotes been like that. Right. And so she called me in and like the times I tried to spank her because 10,000 books and neighbors told me that was the way and that was the Christian way.

And she like puffed up and came at me hard. And I look back at that and I'm like, dang, this girl is a force to be reckoned with. And they are the red flag razors of the world. They are the system disruptors. And so when we get to see them like that and accept the invitation, like a misbehave, Stella had a misbehavior of like experimenting with drinking when she was 15.

And Terry and I looked at ourselves and we were like, we've been drinking for 30 years. And like, we cannot go to a wedding. And like the thought of not going to a wedding or a vacation. And so we were like, let's quit drinking. A year and a half later, we've never been happier. We sleep like babies and we're modeling to our kid, the behavior that we were trying to teach her like, hey, it's possible. You can go to a party and not be, you know, but like she's, she's just consistently always.

And then her, she's taught us how to do that. And now that's how we see parenting in general. Like if there's a behavior that we're not modeling and we feel really sticky, we'll just kind of analyze it and see what we can do to play around with learning the life skill or whatever. But yeah, the strong-willed kids, really good at giving us the invitation and it's up to us whether we accept it or not.

But if you do, I promise you, it's a beautiful adventure that will change your entire family legacy.

Gervase: So beautiful. Like the treasure hunters. They're like, hey, right here, there's some shit buried that you might want to dig up. It's a little sloppy. There's a little bit of like lack of integrity here. And I'm going to stand right here until you dig in this spot. You know, that's true. I love that. I love that. So relatable girl. I feel you. I feel you. Thank you so much for sharing your lived experience and your expertise. I'm sure it will just, you know, inspire and support so many parents listening. How can people keep in touch with you? Check out what you offer in the world.

Wendy: Yeah, please come find me. I do quite a lot of quick little tips and teaching over on Instagram. I'm at Fresh Start Wendy. And then we have a podcast, the Fresh Start Family Show that my husband co-hosts with me. I'd love to get you on the show sometime because I do think you are brilliant with the work that you're doing in the world. So let's chat about that.

And then I'd say when it comes to strong-willed kids, just get yourself into the classroom. We have a free learning bundle, we call it. It comes with a free one-hour workshop and parents can find that at freshstartfamilyonline.com forward slash power struggles.

Gervase: Amazing. And we'll put all of that in the show notes. I just want to close by acknowledging you, Wendy. Thank you so much for entering my orbit and sharing your, it's like you're an elder to me. And I really appreciate how wise and grounded and balanced your approach sounds to me and it really resonates. And so, yeah, thank you for who you are in the world. And until next time, thanks everyone for listening and see you soon.

Wendy: Thank you.

I have to say the right thing or they’ll be mad

In this episode, Gervase shines a light on the pervasive belief: “I have to say or do the right thing, or they’ll be mad.” Gervase explores how this belief can not only trap you in cycles of self-doubt, stress, and rumination but also leads to self-abandonment. Join her as she shares insights into how the mind can mask trauma with obsession, frustration, and the relentless need to “get it right.” Keep listening to hear how you find the unique somatic soul strategy you need to bring yourself out of overwhelming obsession and into clarity, self-honoring, and groundedness.

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I have to say the right thing or they’ll be mad

Episode Full Transcript

Welcome back to another episode of the Modern Phoenix podcast. I did not get sick of saying that. I am your inner transformation coach, Gervase Kolmos, and I am here to help you know what you want, know who you are, and choose it out there in the modern world despite the many obstacles—and there will be many—from people to life challenges to the things that come from within ourselves, like our limiting beliefs and our trauma, etc. Today, we're going to talk about one of those things. I'm going to walk you through a presenting belief that came up recently. Somebody booked a Soul Shift Intensive, and as I was listening to her share the story of what was happening, why she felt really stuck and overwhelmed and confused and unable to move forward, what I started to pull out was this core belief she was carrying through the conversation: I have to do the right thing or they're going to be mad.

You don't even need to know the details to relate to this. How many of you have felt or thought: I have to say or do the right thing or they will be mad? We have so much pressure and conditioning that tells women—and only women—there is a right way to behave to get the things we want. There is a right way to belong, to succeed in the workplace, and especially in our families of origin if we are parents. None of this stuff comes for dads. It's really just so much messaging and conditioning toward women that there is a right way to do “womaning,” and there is a wrong way.

Once we identified this belief in this client—that it was the lens through which she was seeing her options and her challenge, “I have to say the right thing or they will be mad”—we tapped a layer deeper. Of course, if you're not new here, you know the next place we go is the body. What's happening in our systems? This feels like activation. I know that I am working with a limiting belief and, in her case, a childhood trauma, because it feels like tightness, stress, anxiety. It feels uncomfortable in my body. It doesn't feel like I'm me. It doesn't feel like I'm safe to be me. It doesn't feel like I know who I am or what I want. Raise your hand if you relate to that experience. All of us have this experience. It's so common for women because of all the conditioning that tells us the right and wrong ways to behave and succeed and be included. The result is the felt sensation—the somatic experience—of feeling bad in our bodies.

Now, let's talk about what this looks like. It feels bad, but it looks like total confusion. And often—tell me if you relate to this—I’ve seen a lot of obsession lately. I am not judging. Girl, I have been there. But it's really useful to notice the way the ego masks trauma, the way the mind masks what is clearly a spinning out of our own authentic self into a performing way of womaning that requires us to self-abandon. It creates obsession with contrived, manipulative solutions: if I do it just like this and say that, I’ll show them, I’ll prove it. It's obsessive. One thing I'll say: women, we know how to obsess. It helps us in so many ways. And also, when you find yourself in this obsessive pattern of thought, you already know: okay, I'm in a limiting belief. I feel the activation. It's showing up as obsession, resentment, anger—solutions that are totally not soulful. I’m thinking of strategies that are contrived by the mind. Okay, I need to stop and drop. I need to stop what I’m doing, drop into my body and soul wisdom, stop obsessing and ruminating, stop thinking my way through this, and drop into a somatic and soul strategy.

So I asked this client: is it true that they may be mad either way? Is it true that these people—or this person—may be disappointed or upset no matter what you choose next? Maybe they're already mad and disappointed. Maybe no matter what you choose, you unconsciously know it's an uphill battle and it will never be enough. Raise your hand if you have that person, that relationship in your life, and you’ve been unwilling to see the truth of the situation—which is not to make it bad or wrong. Relationships are complicated and complex. But when we can get really honest and go, “Oh, it will never be enough. I could never say the perfect right thing for this person to love and accept me and see me for who I truly am,” that can be heavy, hard news to the weary soul trying so hard to be loved, to do it right, to be accepted, to make someone proud, to get validation, to do a good job. And it can be liberating.

The reframe for her was coming back to the It's All Me framework and asking: if they're going to be mad either way, if we knew it would never be enough, and if we held the complex reality that that's not okay and also it's okay—it's not okay, it doesn't feel okay, and also we're okay, we’re holding ourselves through this one and not abandoning ourselves just because somebody else is upset—then what feels right to you? What feels most like your truth to bring to this relationship, this hard conversation, or this next choice?

Suddenly the world shifts and everything that was upside down goes right side up. For this client, there was sudden clarity. Instead of outside-in strategizing, she started leading with her soul, body, and heart. Okay, what feels good to me? Well, I'm not going to go to that thing. I'm not going to call and do that thing. I'm going to choose what feels right for me. And I'm going to give myself permission for that to change. What feels right for me today may change tomorrow. This choice doesn't have to be the final choice of all choices. We love to do that when we're operating from the mind, but the soul understands the complexity of human relating—the web of dynamics involved between families, loved ones, and professional relationships—and gives us space for it to be messy and ever-evolving. Which we love, because we are phoenixes.

So: what feels right for me in this breath? What feels right for me in the next one? If I’m reframing to focus on myself—it's all me—what do I need? What feels safe for me? Then suddenly we’re likely to have not big, sweeping solutions, but the next right thing. We’ll know what to choose for that one little problem. We drop from rumination into embodied next steps. That feels empowering, good, honest—and it gets to feel a little messy too. It's uncertain because, instead of clinging to the old lie we’ve sometimes held since childhood—that if I say or do the right thing, they will love and accept me and they won’t be mad—we’re holding the truth of our relationship, which is: sometimes I’m not sure. It might be messy. I don’t know what they’re going to do. There’s a lot of uncertainty. I feel a little afraid. And also, at least I know what is true for me, what to do for me, what feels good for me, and what my safety line is. I’m going to focus on that.

Then, for this client—and always for my clients—the way we anchor that in and validate that it’s the right somatic and soul strategy is we check the system. We check the body. What does it feel like? Suddenly it moves from obsessive stress, anxiety, and rumination into calm, groundedness, relief, spaciousness, clarity, self-honoring—a breath. And there you have it. That is your soul shift. That is the way you take the work, know who you are and what’s right for you, and make a choice that is not perfect and not guaranteed—because guess what? Nothing in life, nothing in relationships is. It’s you and a whole other being with all their stuff.

As much as we create this worldview and survival strategy of making the “right” choices and saying the “right” thing so they won’t be mad, that strategy expires at a certain point of maturity. When we move from maiden to mother in the archetypal cycles, the strategies that really served us in childhood or maidenhood just don't cut it anymore. They feel like self-abandonment and anxiety. When we can hold what’s right for us within the larger web of uncertainty that is our humanity, at the very least we feel clear and sovereign. We feel like we know what we know and what to choose next. It also takes some pressure off, because wouldn’t it be nice to have a little less pressure on ourselves as modern women to do or say the right thing—and to just be ourselves? The truth is, there is no right or wrong. There’s your system and what you’re experiencing, and there’s theirs.

When we shift from focusing on them—pleasing them, not disappointing them—to ourselves—pleasing ourselves, not disappointing ourselves—and notice what that feels like in our bodies, and feel that validation, we also feel coherence, satisfaction, wholeness. It’s like, “Oh, thank you for being there for me. Thank you for honoring what we need, what’s right for us, that we are a mind, body, and soul.” You can just do that over and over and over. And I hope you do.

I love you so much. If you want to take this work deeper, your first step is to book a Soul Shift Intensive—a 90-minute one-on-one session with me where we will workshop your somatic and soul strategy for whatever triggers are happening in your life. If you love this podcast, I would be so grateful if you’d rate and review us on iTunes, subscribe, and share this with a fellow Phoenix. It really helps us get this message out to modern women everywhere: to blaze their own trail, to know who they are and what they want, and to choose it—even when it feels messy. Reclaim your ownership over your life, the wisdom of your body and soul, and the distinct pleasure that comes from choosing yourself and creating a life from that place of sustained self-trust. I love you so much. I’ll see you back here in two weeks for our next episode. Mwah!

AVAILABLE NOW

It’s not okay for me to make mistakes

This week, Gervase takes on a limiting belief that surfaces in the lives of many modern women: it’s not okay to be wrong. Learn why this belief leads to fear, power struggles and a lack of authenticity in your life. You’ll discover why ruminating and gaslighting are trauma-based activation responses, and how leaning into body wisdom and the practice of resourcing can give you exactly what you need - the permission to be human, which will power a sense of ease, flow and creativity in your life.

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Get your free Season of Pleasure masterclass here:

• https://www.gervasekolmos.com/season-of-pleasure

Ready to work with Gervase? Start your rebirth with a Soul Shift:

• Check it out here: https://www.gervasekolmos.com/the-soul-shift-intensive

Follow Gervase

• Connect with Gervase on Instagram: www.instagram.com/gervasekolmos

• Visit her website: www.gervasekolmos.com

It’s not okay for me to make mistakes

Episode Full Transcript

Welcome back to the Modern Phoenix Podcast. I am your inner transformation coach, Gervase Kolmos, and we are going to talk about another limiting belief today with the intention, on this podcast and in my world, to help you know who you are, what you want, and choose it out there in the very messy, confusing modern world.

Leading from a client story, as I love to do, let's talk about the belief that it's not okay for me to be wrong. This can also look like it's not okay for me to make mistakes, but we’re going to lead with “it's not okay for me to be wrong.” Raise your hand if you have times in your life or relationships where you notice this comes up—where no matter what the scenario is, when you're talking to a certain type of person (or maybe it's the same person), something rises inside you. For me, I noticed this in my marriage several years ago. Something would come up within me in this specific relationship. We know that our romantic partnerships are our most potent relationships for healing, for mirroring our rejections and childhood wounds, and healing those things. Without knowing the whole story, it makes perfect sense to me that in my relationship it didn’t feel safe for me to be wrong.

For you, this may look like: in all professional relationships it’s not okay for me to be wrong. Or in parenting it’s not okay for me to be wrong. Or because I’m the oldest of seven it’s not okay for me to be wrong. Take it and try it on in whatever way makes sense.

For the client conversation I had recently, she was having a professional dilemma with a colleague who was expressing frustration, disappointment, or dissatisfaction with her professional delivery of services. So now we’ve set the stage: we’re talking about how it’s not okay for me to be wrong. You can see how this woman felt it was absolutely not acceptable in this professional relationship to make a mistake. There was money involved, her résumé, her reputation, and an intimate relationship—she knew this person on a different level too. It makes perfect logical sense, from the mind’s top layer, why she would move into this triggering situation with the belief “it’s not okay for me to make mistakes, it’s not okay for me to be wrong.”

Let’s go into how this presented for her, what it felt like in her body. As we started working through this (over a few days, on Voxer and in my Phoenix Revolution group for alumni and private coaching clients), we noticed it felt like pressure in her system—total siloing of her perspective and focus. She couldn’t even really tap into her body because she was so activated. She was in a fight response, which is not surprising. “It’s not okay for me to make mistakes. It’s not okay for me to be wrong. I’m angry. I’m here to fight. I’m here to fight for my title. I am good enough to do this job. I am a good service provider.”

She felt pressure to fix the situation, an activation response like a fight. She also had this overwhelming “I’m right, I’m right, I’m right.” I kept hearing that theme in our conversations. It looked a lot like obsession and rumination—that pattern we’ve talked about before on this podcast. When the ego is driving the ship, the mind is in survival mode, we’re in an activation response. We’re not getting clarity or magical sovereign Phoenix solutions. We’re just trying to prove, defend, and be perfect—not make mistakes.

What ultimately led to her shifting this activation response was stopping and dropping—as I like to say. Stop ruminating, stop obsessing, stop spiraling down into the mind’s vortex of jibber-jabber, and drop into your somatic and soul strategy. Into the body wisdom. Into the heart. “What is the heart feeling?” I finally challenged her: “What if it was okay for you to be wrong? What if it was okay for you to make a mistake? What if it was okay that you asked for a little bit more money than you felt you deserved on this project?”

Pulling in the radical idea that it is perfectly acceptable and reasonable for you to be a human in business. I know all the entrepreneurs listening just dropped dead. Take a breath. Yes—you, even if you run your own business and everything relies on you and your paycheck and your ability to be the breadwinner and provide—it is okay for you to bring your humanity into your business. Unfortunately, whether you work in a corporate office or you’re an entrepreneur, you are a human, not a robot. The only thing that doesn’t make mistakes is a calculator. Are you a calculator? I hope not. If calculators are listening to this episode, it’s the end of the world indeed.

It never really occurs to us to give ourselves permission to mess up because we think it will be cavalier and lead to a slippery slope of catastrophic self-destruction. A lot of that comes from the conditioning of women throughout time, particularly religious conditioning that tells a woman: don’t you dare step out of line; don’t you dare ask for more than you “deserve” (a totally arbitrary concept and number). Who is deciding what you deserve if not you? Don’t you dare show up unless you’re perfect—unless you’re certain you can be the most manicured, professional, of-serviced version of you. Men don’t have this conditioning. This is a lot of pressure for women.

This pressure causes us to deny ourselves our humanity. Because guess what? It is okay for you to be wrong. It’s okay for you to make mistakes. I’d go as far as to say it’s not just okay, it’s inevitable. Whether you’re a service provider, CEO, exec, parent, family member, or friend, you are going to mess it up—because this is part of human dynamics, part of the experience of being in relationship and showing up for life even though you’re never fully ready. You’re never a polished product. There are no guarantees.

When I brought in awareness of her conditioning and trauma response—the rumination, the spiraling, the spinning out of “it’s not okay for me to be wrong”—and added “what if you were wrong, what if you made a mistake, how do we tend to that reality?” we weren’t saying “take full ownership, it’s all your fault.” Nothing between two humans is ever all one person’s fault—rarely. We leave room for discernment and nuance. Notice how often, especially in current culture, we make things either-or. The truth is they’re always both-and. We don’t need to take full responsibility for everything. And also, what happens to our system when we consider our humanity and say, “Okay, what if I did make a little mistake? What could I have done better here, if I’m being honest and wasn’t so afraid of what it would mean about me?”

So then we brought in her inner parent as a resource—tending to that part of her that’s so afraid, like the little nine-year-old self saying, “Hell no, I didn’t cheat on that test!” I’m just giving one silly example, but there are many good reasons we developed these worldviews. In addition to conditioning, there’s lived experience, sometimes childhood trauma, sometimes just the pressure we feel in society to be one way instead of a multidimensional, ever-evolving human learning as we go.

Bringing in that inner parent as a resource was a breakthrough for her. Also, holding just a little space—having that inner parent hold space for the part that’s true that maybe she messed up a little bit. Maybe it wasn’t the most perfect of all perfect performances—without needing to get into her details because they don’t matter; you can apply this your way.

If you have trouble seeing the roles you’ve played, that’s okay. It’s not about gaslighting yourself into taking full blame for everything. Everybody approaches this differently. One person may gaslight themselves, another may be unwilling to see their blind spots. It’s all messy and ever-changing and confusing. If it feels that way as you’re listening, that’s normal. Because guess what? I’m not going to give you some BS three-step template that works every time. It’s not. Sometimes your childhood trauma is triggered. Sometimes your conditioning is triggered. Sometimes you’re just on your period. Sometimes it’s because you’re breastfeeding and haven’t slept in a year. Sometimes it’s something in the relationship itself requiring serious discernment. Sometimes it doesn’t.

That is why coaching is custom responsiveness to your system. But for this episode, these are things that helped shift her mindset and her relationship to the situation—helped her stop and drop out of the ruminating mind into her body, into her soul wisdom, into the intention in her heart, and to just take some of the pressure off. As soon as she took her breath and held space for the inner parent, her humanity, and the both-and perspective—“yeah, I could have done a really great job on this project and maybe there were a couple things I could have done better”—suddenly it felt like all the pressure was released. Suddenly my system feels loosey-goosey. I don’t feel activated anymore because I have permission to be human. Pressure released. I know I’m in the right space because I can check in with my somatic experience and it’s loose and relaxed.

Okay. Now I know that I’m collaborating. I’m not just letting my mind, ego, and fight response run the show. I’m collaborating mind, body, and soul. It all plays a part. Her takeaway became, “Oh, the intention in my heart is I’m trying. I desire to give this client the best possible outcome that I can. And the reality is there are no guarantees it’s going to be perfectly to their standards. There are no guarantees I won’t make a mistake. There are no guarantees they’re going to love it. But I’m doing my best and I’m a human. I get to hold space for the both-and. I’m holding myself to exceptional expectations professionally and also holding space for my humanity and my intention to be good enough. I’m here. I’m showing up. This feels a little messy. We’re not quite seeing eye to eye. I’m still here. We’re going to see this through.”

Instead of focusing on proving “I’m right” and “I didn’t make a mistake” (which leaves the other person feeling that power struggle and pushing back, keeping you in that chaotic, stressful, dissatisfying dynamic lacking human connection), we’re going to try something new. We’re going to drop into the new paradigm—the Phoenix way of conflict resolution, professionalism, and relating—which does not give me permission to not deliver what you paid me for. It does not give me a full pass to do a horrible job or not show up. But it does hold space for the fact that I’m not a calculator. I’m a human.

Just because someone thinks I made a mistake or feels like I’m wrong doesn’t mean I don’t deserve to do the work I do in the world. It doesn’t mean I’m not really good at my job. It doesn’t mean “how dare I start before I was fully ready.” It just means we’re humans in this messy world doing our best. Here we go. The more honest we can get about what it actually looks like to professionally relate—the more I invite professionals out of this sterile, robotic way of problem-solving and collaborating—the more their souls get on board. Creativity flows through them, collaboration, connection—the things women are wired to do so well come online when we have permission, resources, safety, and education about the conditioning that stopped us from doing it before. That gives us the ability to show up as all that we are—multi-dimensional humans with great ideas, gifts, and contributions.

When we feel safe in our bodies and confident to show up for that—even though we may make mistakes, even though sometimes we’ll say something that’s not right—can you imagine how much we could accomplish? Like I mentioned at the beginning, I’ve been navigating this in my marriage for years. I’ve noticed what’s happened as I’ve made it safer and safer for me to be wrong in my marriage: the deeper and deeper intimacy, love, and connection my husband and I have. This is the new paradigm of partnership. This is where it’s at.

So take this and apply it to whatever area of your life feels most relevant. Know that you’re doing a great job and your intention to try, your being here to learn how to integrate your mind, body, and soul onto the same path—that’s everything. I’m so grateful to have you in this community. I’d be so grateful if you share this podcast with other women so we can grow and create a movement of women who know who they are, what they want, and feel safe and resourced to choose that out there in the modern world.

If you want to take this work deeper, your first step is to book a 90-minute Soul Shift Intensive with me. I will see you back here in two weeks. I love you so much.

Meet The Modern Phoenix

Welcome to the Modern Phoenix Podcast! Born from the ashes of the “It’s All Me” podcast, The Modern Phoenix is here to guide, inspire, and empower you to rise into the truest, most powerful version of yourself. In this episode, Gervase shares the heart behind the podcast rebrand, what it means to be a “modern woman,” and how the Phoenix archetype offers a powerful guide for personal evolution. Keep listening to hear how knowing and choosing yourself despite our social conditioning, trusting your inner wisdom, and making bold choices are key to becoming who you were meant to be.

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Get your free Season of Pleasure masterclass here:

• https://www.gervasekolmos.com/season-of-pleasure

Ready to work with Gervase? Start your rebirth with a Soul Shift:

• Check it out here: https://www.gervasekolmos.com/the-soul-shift-intensive

Follow Gervase

• Connect with Gervase on Instagram: www.instagram.com/gervasekolmos

• Visit her website: www.gervasekolmos.com

Who Is The Modern Phoenix?

Episode Full Transcript

Hi friends. Welcome to the Modern Phoenix Podcast.

This is a new and improved podcast, born from the ashes of the It’s All Me podcast. I am Gervase Kolmos—Inner Transformation Coach, Modern Woman, Phoenix, mama of three, human, paradox.

Today’s episode is going to share what this podcast is all about—how it will guide you to know and choose what you want in your life. I’ll also share why it’s called The Modern Phoenix, who the Modern Phoenix is, and how I believe this archetype can help you become the version of yourself your soul is asking you to be, the version your body is asking you to free.

So let’s get into it.

This podcast is a complete education in knowing and choosing. Knowing your wants and your needs, guided by the wisdom of your mind, body, and soul. And choosing them—despite expectations, conditioning, and constraints. Because those will always be there. As I like to say in my world: life is going to keep “life-ing.”

I was talking with a client today, and she said she’s tuning into the best version of herself. She feels that version positively impacts everyone she connects with. But she also realized that the “best version” of her is very different from who she was conditioned to believe she was supposed to be.

So let’s dive into what it means to be a modern woman.

For many of us who identify as women, the “best version” has always been defined by external standards: the most accomplished, successful, rich, beautiful, likable, popular, the one who pleases others. Many women now are untangling patterns of people-pleasing and self-abandonment—ways of “womaning” we were taught were required to be our best.

But what we’ve realized, thanks to the tools and access we have as modern women, is that this “best version” may have been more palatable for those around us, but it wasn’t serving our communities at the highest level. Because it cost us too much to deny our true, full, imperfect, evolving selves.

To be a modern woman is to face unique challenges born from the conditioning of generations before us and the culture our mothers, grandmothers, and ancestors were born into. They were taught: here’s how to be the best version of yourself. Here’s how to be a good woman.

But because we are modern, we have unprecedented opportunity to choose differently. We have the privilege, safety, and access to make choices our mothers couldn’t. Not only do we have more rights, but also more information, technology, and connection points to people all over the world. This creates both awakening and overwhelm.

Because at the same time, modern life bombards us with demands. Never before have women faced so many expectations. We’re told how to be the best mothers, the healthiest humans, the most “woke” activists, the kindest partners, the sexiest lovers. It’s paralyzing. Whether you’re working in the home, in the workplace, partnered, or single—social media and cultural conditioning make it confusing and overwhelming to know who you really are, what you want, and to feel safe enough to choose it.

Women often come into my world asking: Why do I do this? Why do I feel this way? Why do I think this way? The why is actually pretty simple: our conditioning. Internalized patriarchy, capitalism, religion, white supremacy—systems that shape our nervous systems, minds, patterns, and beliefs. It’s no wonder it feels hard to know and choose when the conditioning is so strong.

I am not here to make anything about you—or the world—better or wrong. I am here to help you see the unseen. To name the obstacles keeping you from self-trust and freedom. To help you tune into your intuition, your inner wisdom, and create your life from a place of embodied self-trust, wisdom, and pleasure.

I weave together modalities that work with the mind, body, and soul. I am certified in focalizing—a trauma-informed somatic practice for nervous system regulation. I also use hypnotherapy, which works with subconscious beliefs and reprogramming the mind, alongside my certification in coaching. Blended with my lived experience as a modern woman, these are the tools that help you harness your superpower: knowing who you are, what you want, and choosing it.

So let’s talk about what it means to be a Phoenix.

The Phoenix embodies everything about doing the work without being stuck in our past, our trauma, or our stories. It teaches us to transmute and alchemize all of our pain, suffering, and experience into something powerful. Not by bypassing the hard stuff, but by honoring both light and dark, joy and storm.

The Phoenix evolves endlessly, honoring cycles of death and rebirth. Just as seasons shift, old parts of us must fall away so that new growth can emerge. To stay stuck in outdated identities or a traumatized nervous system is far less healthy than allowing ourselves to be reborn again and again.

To embody the Phoenix is to bravely choose. To lean into the fire, trusting that we have the tools to rise. Sometimes we need support. Sometimes it’s our first initiation. But always, the Phoenix archetype reminds us that courage, rebirth, and rising are possible.

For me, the Phoenix also carries deeply feminine energy. Fire is messy, flowy, and powerful without form. It reminds us that our feminine nature—often suppressed by the pace and demands of modern life—is sacred. And it invites us to live as all of it: light and dark, feminine and masculine, mind, body, and soul.

This has been my own journey. I am not teaching from a pedestal. I have walked through my own Phoenix fires countless times. That’s why I am passionate about guiding women through theirs.

This podcast used to be called It’s All Me, because so much of my journey was about claiming sovereignty. Over time, I realized that what truly empowered me was seeing myself as a Phoenix—constantly evolving, dying, and being reborn.

So I rebranded this podcast as a home for my fellow Phoenixes—for cycle breakers, soulful seekers, high achievers, mothers, and dreamers who feel like something is missing or out of alignment. The Modern Phoenix isn’t about titles, income, or roles. It’s about your essence, your truth, and your courage to evolve.

Here, you’ll find deep and twisty conversations and solo episodes that burn away conditioning and invite you to step into your most authentic self. You’ll get tools, mindsets, and resources to help you untangle who you really are from who you were told to be. And you’ll be given full permission to evolve as many times as necessary.

Thank you for being here. Let’s rise.