Conscious Parenting: Navigating the Messy Reality

Have you ever felt like you were supposed to have all the answers as a parent, only to realize your children have plans of their own? That’s exactly where Carrie Lingenfelter found herself, despite her background as a teacher and speech therapist. In this raw, honest conversation, Carrie opens up about her journey from perfectionist parenting to embracing the beautiful, unpredictable mess of raising gifted, spirited, and highly sensitive children. She recounts a pivotal moment—bouncing on a ball in the closet, trying to get her son on a sleep schedule—when it hit her: "He’s going to tell me when he wants to sleep. I don’t need to be in control of this."Together, we explore what true connection looks like, especially in the messy moments of dysregulation and emotional storms. Carrie offers grounded tools for preserving your energy while being present, including her family’s “special playtime” ritual that brings intentional connection, even on chaotic days. Perhaps most powerfully, we talk about witnessing your child’s pain without rushing to fix it. For highly sensitive parents raising highly sensitive kids, this is no small feat.
Yet as Carrie gently reminds us: "Learning these pieces now is so beneficial for when they’re 40 years old."Whether you’re raising neurodiverse children or simply seeking a more conscious path through parenthood, this conversation offers a blend of soulful perspective and tangible strategy. Carrie’s words remind us: "You are right where you’re supposed to be right now."Tune in and take a breath—you’re not alone. And you’re doing better than you think.

🎧 Listen now and share this episode with someone who needs to hear it.

🌱 Connect with Carrie: https://hearttoheartlife.com/

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Introduction to Conscious Parenting
• 4:15 Mindful Moment & Grounding Exercise
• 7:14 From Teaching to Parenting: New Perspectives
• 10:32 Heart-to-Heart Connection: Being Present
• 18:17 Witnessing Your Child's Pain
• 24:40 Breaking Free from Control & Perfectionism
• 31:28 Mind-Body Connection for You and Kids
• 35:51 Reflective Questions & Future Wisdom

Transcript

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 0:00

Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast. I'm your host, nat Nat, and today I have a listener. I mean, that's one of those mornings today, so that's why I like to pre-record. Okay, let's start again. Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast. I'm your host, nat Nat, and today we have a guest named Carrie, and she and I are going to get into the muck of parenting and what that looks like being conscious and being honest and real and the humanness of it, not just the airy fluffy theory and spiritual, and really nicely, it's really just meeting us where we are and having an open dialogue. So hopefully you parents out there and even the ones that aren't you may hear some insights and some aha moments. And I'm going to be as vulnerable as I can without, you know, divulging too much of my children's personal information. Yet I'm going to make this episode worth. You know you tuning into and listening. So, carrie, would you be willing to introduce yourself to the listeners and I and let us know a little bit about yourself?

Carrie Lingenfelter: 1:14

Yeah, definitely. Thanks so much for having me, natnet. I'm Carrie Lingenfelter and I host a conscious and spiritual parenting podcast called Heart to Heart Parents. I was a teacher before and a speech therapist before becoming a mom to gifted, highly sensitive and spirited kids, which really changed my life. So thanks so much for having me.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 1:37

Before we get into this conversation, my energy is scattered all over the place because I tried doing this intro a few times beforehand. Will you join me in a mindful moment so we can ground ourselves and meet each other in this moment? Definitely.

Carrie Lingenfelter: 1:54

Thank you.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 1:56

For the listeners. As you always hear, safety first. So if you're listening, please don't close your eyes. If you're driving, everything else you can do Okay. So, carrie, I'll ask you to get comfortable in your seating and, if it's safe to do so, gently close your eyes and you're going to begin breathing in and out through your nose, bringing your awareness to watching your breath go in and out. You're not going to try and control your breath, you're just going to allow it to be in its natural state, allowing it to guide you into your body.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 2:34

There may be some sensations or feelings coming up, and that's okay. Let them come up. You're safe to feel. You're safe to let go, surrender the need to control, release the need to resist and just be, be with your breath, drop deeper into your body. Now you may notice some thoughts or to-do lists, or maybe even something popped up in your mind. It's okay. Gently, bring your awareness back to your breath, creating space between the awareness and the thoughts and dropping deeper into your body and the thoughts and dropping deeper into your body, being in the space of presence, being in the space of being. Again, more thoughts may have popped up. Gently, bring your awareness back to your breath Beginning again, creating even more space between the awareness and the thoughts and dropping completely into the body, being in the space of presence, of being Now coming into your senses, into the body, into this moment, at your own time and at your own pace. You're going to gently open your eyes while staying with your breath. How is your heart doing? How is?

Carrie Lingenfelter: 4:22

your heart doing. That was wonderful. We are on a different schedule today so my mind is a little racing and I can hear my family above me right now. So it was nice to connect and calm everything out.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 4:41

Yeah, while I was doing that, I could finally hear the birds outside as soft as their chippers were. It just allowed me to expand the awareness and not be so stuck in my head with all the to-do's and everything else, because before we started recording this podcast, I was editing my website and if anybody knows?

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 5:00

anything about editing websites. You can understand the frustration when this isn't your skill or craft. So I was like, okay, let's do this mindful moment. I need it the most. So you mentioned that you were an elementary teacher and now you have two spirited, loving children. Tell us what you have learned about yourself when you were the teacher to the parent now and how have you bridged some things together?

Carrie Lingenfelter: 5:32

Yeah, it's a totally different experience. So I taught first grade and then I also was an early intervention speech therapist. So I used to go into homes and work with birth to three-year-olds who were not talking and it was really interesting. When I had my kids I thought I basically told my husband just sit back, relax. I'm a child expert, I know what we're doing, it's going to be great. And coming from it from a parenting side is such a different perspective. I feel like when I was a interventionist and educator there's so much more control you can have on the situation. It's your classroom, it's your setting, it's your environment and you can. I mean there's loss of control too in a classroom, sometimes during the day, but being a parent is so different. It's really about finding the flow, finding your own kid for who they are and sometimes releasing that control right. We're like the facilitators, the guiders, here to help them, but we cannot control their lives. They have their own missions, their own purposes, and my kids are very spirited in that, for sure.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 6:51

So what does a heart-to-heart really feel like in your body, especially when your children are spiraling or dysregulated? What does that connection like? Does that connection feel far away, or do you know how to come back to it?

Carrie Lingenfelter: 7:06

That's a beautiful question, I think, when you know it's an ongoing piece, working on that connection each moment. Because if you're not connected in yourself, if you're not grounded in yourself, if you're not recharged in yourself, you're not going to have the energy to connect with somebody else. Recharged in yourself, you're not going to have the energy to connect with somebody else. So, really keeping mindful of what our own energy levels feel like, what our own connections with ourselves feel like, if we're noticing we're getting short with our kids, short with ourselves, like looking in, tuning in, what do I need to heal, grow, learn with the challenges that are coming up? Why am I being so short? Why am I feeling like I need to heal, grow, learn with the challenges that are coming up? Why am I being so short? Why am I feeling like I need to control this? There's so much inner pieces as a parent so that way we can be present with our kids. And then being present with our kids and conscious with our kids looks like no phones right, really sitting down, putting down the dishes, stopping making the meals for 10 minutes and being actively present, actively conscious and connected with them, which can be so hard in our society. People want their emails replied right away. People, you know it's hard. We have so many activities with our kids that maybe we don't have time to cook or clean the house, so all of this time shortening.

Carrie Lingenfelter: 8:24

As a modern parent can be hard to actively be present with your kid. But if you're not actively present, if you're hearing the ding on your phone thinking I have to get to those emails, if you're sitting there and you're thinking about something else, is that really being actively present? So that's a huge piece. Is really taking that time, even if it's 10 minutes? We do special playtime at the end of the day every day so our kids brush their teeth. This is our motivator to get them to brush their teeth and into their pajamas is. Each parent gets to spend five minutes with each kiddo. We have two and we switch off where we're following what they want to do, we're talking to them and we're being actively present, so we can make sure we can get that each day.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 9:09

So you often speak about raising conscious children, but what's one moment when you recognize your inner child needs to be raised by a conscious parent?

Carrie Lingenfelter: 9:22

How do you?

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 9:22

meet yourself with that.

Carrie Lingenfelter: 9:24

What was that? I'm sorry. How do I, how do you meet yourself with?

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 9:25

that? What was that? I'm sorry. How do I, how do you meet yourself with that?

Carrie Lingenfelter: 9:28

Yes, so definitely, I think looking for patterns in my own behavior is something that has come up for myself and that I love to talk to other parents about is am I overreacting when they have a meltdown and it makes us late for school? Is there something in me that comes out in that moment, like maybe I don't have enough patience, maybe I feel angry or upset? And then when not in that moment, but later on journaling, going for walks, being in nature, doing all of these self-care pieces to help us tune in and figure out, what is it that's causing me to react in that way, in that angry way, or why am I feeling like that is such a challenge? Is there something? I love this? So I keep saying this because 2025 has been my year of light me up is my term and it's looking at these challenges of raising.

Carrie Lingenfelter: 10:25

So my kids are both neurodiverse. I'm raising, but I use gifted, spirited and highly sensitive. So it's a little extra challenging in our house If things are not going a certain way. If our schedule has changed, like this morning, things can really bubble up for our kids. So we're looking at those challenges as opportunities to heal, grow, learn, and that comes with our self-care piece, tuning in to see what is it that I'm trying to do right now. What am I feeling frustrated about? I'm trying to control. Why am I trying to control? Well, there were times when I was a child, for example, I tried to control things. As a little young person, I thought I had to be in control and had to be the parent early on. So those are times where we can figure out what am I lacking? What was a piece of me and my inner child that I'm trying to work on now or that's making me bubble up these emotions in me that are coming up? I'm not sure if that answers your question.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 11:22

Yeah, it does. I want to ask, on the messy part, so the part where you're having to show your humanity, you're having to show your grief or even your fears how do you model that to your children, and not the performative, conscious parent that has it all together and I don't want to harm my child that you actually allow. You know the messiness of navigating through all of this. How do you show them your humanity?

Carrie Lingenfelter: 11:51

Yeah, you know, sometimes it comes up without you even wanting to reach that right, Crying in front of your kids. Or if you have a moment where you do react shorter than you would want to, you've lost your patience in that moment, having that humility to apologize to your kids, not thinking that you are above your kids, but connecting with them in the soul to soul level and showing them yes, I am a human and we talk about energy a lot in our family. We talk about being empaths, we talk about being highly sensitive, so we talk about having a certain amount of energy in the day and then things that can tax our energy All things in life are energy, so other people are energy and things that come up, situations in our day can pull or take energy from us. So I'll describe to them. Mom's energy is feeling really low right now.

Carrie Lingenfelter: 12:54

I had a tough day. I was trying to battle a web page I was designing you get it and so mom's energy was not where I would like it to be. So I'm going to take five minutes. I'm going to be right back. You play with your um Barbies for five minutes. When I come back, I'm going to be fully present with you and I'm going to be in that space that I would like to see myself in.

Carrie Lingenfelter: 13:16

So that's one where we talk about, we use um, apologizing, and talking about our energy and talking about recharging our souls so that way we can be there for them and be the best version of them. But also I am very open about my growing and developing into the best version of the mom I can be. So going through this process with heart-to-heart parents. If I have something where I stumble in my profession, I'm active with my kids and I describe it to them and I ask them what should I do? What do I do right now? Do I retreat and go hide in the closet, guys? Or do I try it again? Do I try to learn how I can do better at this and so showing my failures to them? I'm upfront with them, even though they're turning seven just turned seven yesterday and turning 10. So I love to show them experiencing life in real life, in real time.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 14:11

I love that. I love that to get their input too, so that they can see what it is to model choices and sometimes they have great choices for us to use, because they don't have all the experience of making me and expectations and all that. So they, you know, can be bewildered and go into that unknown and uncertainty and just try again. Yeah, I want to ask, you know, I think, what I teach um my clients and those that are parents the most challenging thing is to witness pain in your children and there's nothing you can do about it because life experiences will bring pain. There's nothing you could try to do. All you want and some parents try to do all they can to, you know create these guardrails and these soft cushions against life, yet that robs them from, you know, the experience and the learning. How do you meet yourself when you have to witness that pain in your children?

Carrie Lingenfelter: 15:17

Yeah, that's a huge one, especially raising neurodiverse kids, which I think is so common today. There's so many of us parents going through this right now and I always like to talk about these. Kids are born with so many gifts, but also these heightened sensitivities to life and being a human can feel really painful. Sometimes. For them, even something as simple as putting on socks can feel really uncomfortable, and so for me also, as a highly sensitive person, raising these highly sensitive kiddos it could feel really painful at the beginning, especially when I was nursing my kiddos and my hormones were very up and down. I just wanted to fix it, fix it, fix it because it felt so painful. So, learning how to calm myself in those moments, the things I'm teaching them to ground, calm, stay in their human body, not want to escape, were things I'm also using as a parent right Telling them to breathe. I'm telling them to breathe, but I'm also breathing as well because, being a highly sensitive person, you want to fix it so quickly. So, allowing our kids to experience the pieces of being a human. Now they're getting all of these concepts and ideas of how to ground, how to connect with themselves, how to understand their energy levels, how to understand emotions they're going through, how to name it, to tame it. I think with I'm trying to remember the name the whole brain child, naming it to tame it with Dr Dan Siegel. Those are amazing tools that they're developing now as they're seven and 10 years old. Can you imagine where these kids are going to be when they are parents one day, and highly sensitive parents like I am? So learning these pieces right now for them as they're going through those challenges is so beneficial for when they're 40 years old, when they're in grad school and they have a deadline they have to meet and they're feeling sick. Learning how to put these pieces in place now is so beneficial for them later on.

Carrie Lingenfelter: 17:19

I agree with you, we definitely had this era where the pendulum swung into like the helicopter parent, the positive parenting, the pieces where we wanted to protect them from all of the evils of being a human and not allow them to feel these emotions.

Carrie Lingenfelter: 17:36

And definitely it can be hard with these neurodiverse kids who feel things so deeply and so intensely at times. Just teaching them all of these tools that we can have in our pockets right now. I mean I'm talking about getting, for example, a box of crystals to take in my car with me, because when my kids for pickup, when my kids come out of the school, I never know what emotion is coming out from that day. I never know. Are they going to be like, whoa, it was a great day, mom. Or mom, get me out of here, put me in the car and take me home. Right now, as I'm trying to have a conversation with another parent, you never know what is coming out of the door. So energetically preparing myself and being prepared to help them energetically where they're at as soon as they come out. That's just a little tip that I'm working on right now.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 18:24

Yeah, it's a difficult one, because when you're in flow and everything's connected and they're dysregulated and you still want to have your time to connect, like you said, talking to another adult, another parent, sharing something, and then they just come barging in, it's about me and let's go, and it's like your little inner child starts to tuffle like I'm important too. So it's finding that balance of you know, always having to adjust and see the situation, but also recognize when you're getting into patterns. Just because they have big emotions, it doesn't mean that they're always supposed to dominate the situation, because then that becomes learned behavior too, that oh, I have this, everything goes my way, everybody drops everything. So it's learning to, you know, build on that, because I think some of that positive parenting just focused, hyper focused on the child and then that, you know, does a disservice of then learning that well, when I have these big emotions, everybody's walking on eggshells and everybody caters around me rather than you know. And then you have the other extreme, where people isolate and don't talk to me. So it's finding that middle where we can still be connected as humans.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 19:37

Because, as you said, humaning I always say it all the time humaning is very challenging, neurodiverse or atypical or whatever you want to say. It's just a challenge. You had mentioned earlier that when you know the children came, that you were like telling your husband I got this, I'm the expert, I know everything, I can do this. So you know, I was hearing a little bit of perfectionism and also some fear of like control, like I will take care of this. I know all this, which are some trauma responses that can occur when we're aware of it. I want to ask did you experience burnout from being in this steady mode of doing it all, or feeling that you could take it all on and you had the all knowing of being the parent?

Carrie Lingenfelter: 20:27

100% burnout yeah, even I. So it was even just the first couple of weeks that my first child was born. I remember, and that's where I had, like my coming, my epiphany for the conscious parent, the spiritual parenting that I needed in my life. I was in a closet on a bouncy ball with my son trying to get him on a sleep schedule, trying to get him on an eating schedule. He had his pacifier and his eight other sleep gadgets that I thought that society wanted me to have as a parent right To get him on this perfect schedule, this perfect idea of parenting. So I was bouncing and I looked down at my son and he had these bright blue eyes. He was not going to go to sleep. It was not his time and I had this realization like whoa wait, he's going to tell me when he wants to sleep. He's going to tell me when he wants to eat. I do not need to be in control of this. Break free of the box, listen to your heart and what you're needing. And that was really cool. I also had spiritual people around me that helped me to hear my heart and connect in and hear my son's heart and what he needed, and, it's true, my two kids, I swear, were put on this earth to help me understand. You are not in control, and the more you try to control us, the more we're going to resist it. So that was definitely a learning curve for me, and there's been so much healing, growing, learning in that.

Carrie Lingenfelter: 21:55

What is the cause of this? As we mentioned that inner child, it goes back to what were you lacking as a child? What do we need to heal? What happened that you didn't mean to happen or you weren't in control of as a child that you're trying to control now? There's definitely so many pieces of that. And then also tuning in with the husband too. There's somebody else here that also has his own inner guidance that can help you, and our kids are so much like him in certain ways that it's learning to tune in with your partner too. What do they know that I didn't realize that they knew? And that grounding piece. My husband is very grounded and he brings in such a piece to our home that helps us to balance and feel in harmony. So also, yeah, checking in with yourself. Why did I feel I had to do it all when he has so many gifts to bring to the table as well, there's a reason. There's two of us here. We're really lucky. We have the two of us to connect and heal, grow together in this.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 22:55

Yeah, you know, our inner work is really challenging and what I believe to be true is the highest spiritual practice you can have is being a parent, because the reflection children are showing back to you you don't always want to see. And then, if you're willing, then you can recognize certain parts of your trait that just prickle you and you're like, oh my gosh, I couldn't have been like that. Yeah, you're like, oh yeah, there is some similarity or there's something. What is a reflection, right now that you're working through, that your children are shining back to you.

Carrie Lingenfelter: 23:37

Oof, I'm trying to think because you know, right now I think I'm in the learning stage. Actually Not so much. I did go through a lot of healing. I just did Reiki level two. I just opened that and did an attunement and with that comes a lot of healing.

Carrie Lingenfelter: 23:56

In your journey Sometimes things bubble up. So I was working on previously last month not feeling seen as a child and so there was a lot of emotion that came up and it's wonderful when you can pull out old pictures and really see pieces of your life and work through that, and so it was interesting because I know I did not feel seen for who I truly was. I was a high maintenance child. I think Brene Brown was termed that. Were you a high maintenance, were you allowed to be high maintenance, and I did not allow myself. I don't think my parents really were open to me being a high maintenance child.

Carrie Lingenfelter: 24:35

So, working through that because my kids are very high maintenance in themselves and that's something that so many people have said I love the way you see them for who they are.

Carrie Lingenfelter: 24:44

You see their strengths and you see their challenges and you meet them where they need to be and so healing that in myself because I wasn't allowed to do that was a huge piece.

Carrie Lingenfelter: 24:52

But right now I've transitioned into learning about my kids and learning about how sensitive they truly are and how, right now, we're going through these waves of energy that we just feel in as a conscious, as a connected human, and my kids were born with that conscious piece.

Carrie Lingenfelter: 25:13

They're very connected, they feel the energy in the world that we're all feeling. And so just understanding these phases and then giving my kids room, extra room to breathe and be not rushing them from place to place, and understanding when we need to say no to activities, when we need to just be outside planting a garden instead of running from soccer game to dance practice, to all of these things, understanding that maybe my kiddo is going through a very sensitive moment and crying a lot and just cannot handle extra demands on their system. And being okay with that, just being present and being a strong parent that can say oh, I'm sorry they can't come to the birthday party this weekend. Oh, I'm sorry they can't do that, saying no to certain things for them. So that's a piece that we're working on right now is just being present for them, understanding their energy levels, our energy levels.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 26:12

Nice, beautiful. If you could whisper to a parent right now and they have the thought that they're failing, what would you say to them? Not mentally, what would you want to say to them in their body?

Carrie Lingenfelter: 26:28

sure I think I would tell them you are right where you are supposed to be right now, what you're doing for yourself too, and give yourself compassion, because it's a learning journey. Piece for ourselves is so helpful because, even though we may be in a really great place right now, a really great phase, something's going to come up. Life is always transient, we're always learning and growing and when we can have those pieces for ourselves that we can turn in toward and find for ourselves, then we're better able to see what the challenges are meant to teach us and we're better able to adapt and and continue to grow Because, like you said, our kids are our biggest teachers.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 27:44

Yeah, they are. If we're willing. There's a lot of growth that we can, you know, go through within ourselves. As I teach a workshop called emotional sobriety. It's really allowing those authentic emotions to come up that we never probably had space to actually feel. Those energies come up and to come back into the body.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 28:06

You know, many of us don't realize we're going from the neck up and our mind is going, going, going. Yet the body takes some time to catch up. That's why it's to slow down and listen to the cues of the body. Yet most of us are just like no, no, no, cognitive this, this, this, this, this run, run, run, go, go, go. And the body's like I can't keep up. So that's why all these things start to occur within ourselves. Yet once we can start slowing it down and taking a breath and allowing ourselves to feel like, you know, a lot of people are get a little annoyed because their mind goes so fast. Yet it's, you know, honoring that intelligence of the nervous system, simply trying to find safety for you. It's trying to find protection. So if you're not tuning into your body, how is it really going to find that safety and protection? You just keep intellectually telling it, yet you're not meeting it in the body. Is this something that you experience for yourself?

Carrie Lingenfelter: 29:09

Sure, I think it's really important to acknowledge that if people are saying that their brain is going really fast, they've already taken the first step in acknowledging how their brain is moving. Because it took me a really long time to understand that my brain is very active. I didn't even realize that because I would be washing dishes and then hearing well, you, social pieces for myself were really hard because I'm an introvert, highly sensitive person, so I'd be reliving social situations. Why did you say that? Why did you do that? And it becomes such a pattern that you don't understand that you're even doing it. So I think when you say a person acknowledges that their brain is moving fast, wow, you've already cued in to acknowledge when your brain and then finding those cues of oh, I'm spiraling. Now's a good time to really just be mindful and change to a mindful pattern of, if I'm washing dishes, seeing the soap washing it, feeling the smoothness of soap in my hands being present, right, changing that pattern. And so that was something I was doing for a really long time that I didn't even know. I always thought, oh, I'm this very calm person, I'm very calm with kids and connected with them, but I didn't think about what was going on in my own brain. And as a parent, you introduce those hormones as well. As a mom, it's even more so that it's going on right. They put this tiny person in your arms and send you home and you're like okay, great, what do I do? And that anxiety just kicks in. That brain goes and goes and goes. Add the hormones, it goes even faster. So it's definitely that mind-body connection, mind-body-spirit connection, is so important to start acknowledging those intense moments where the brain is going and then finding that body connection too.

Carrie Lingenfelter: 31:02

I love to teach the kids that when we're outside, for example drawing with chalk, I'll just use an example. I'll be the example like oh, I'm going to pick up this green. When I hold this green in my hand, oh, it makes me think of grass, it makes me think of the trees, and I'm oh, what am I going to draw? I'm going to draw some trees because I'm thinking of trees and the green. Oh, I love it when my feet are in the grass. I can feel the grass in my toes, it's kind of cold and I'll just walk through like little guided meditations, little guided mind, body, spirit connection moments. And teaching them those pieces now is so beneficial because I think my brain is overactive. My kids were born. Their brains are twice as fast. I can't even keep up with them most of the time. And my daughter just turned seven and she's the fastest one I know yet. So I, you know, just teaching them those moments. Now imagine where they'll be when they're 40 again.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 31:58

Yeah, exactly, exactly. I want to ask you a reflective question. If you could go back to your 18 year old self with this awareness, what are three words you would tell your 18 year old self to carry you to the journey of right now?

Carrie Lingenfelter: 32:17

I think patience, compassion and heart. So patience, which my grandmother who is 85 or such, when I was that age, would always say you don't have patience. I'm like, oh, grandma, I don't want to hear it. You know, you didn't have the patience for it, you didn't want to hear it. I wanted things to happen right now, right now.

Carrie Lingenfelter: 32:39

And so patience and that goes with the heart word, which is listening, tuning in mind-body connection, mind-body-spirit connection, hearing your heart, watching for signs from your heart, from the, the universe and what is meant to be, and then having the patience to watch for those signs instead of trying to control it and make things happen. And then compassion definitely compassion is one that I think I need to write on my wall, because that's when, definitely as an 18 year old, I was always very hard on myself and what I needed myself to be, what I needed my world to look like, how the world looks at me, just those internal dialogues that I had with myself. I think compassion is one I would have loved to have given myself. You're giving me some great inner child work to do tonight, thank you great inner child work to do tonight.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 33:37

Thank you. Now the next question is what would your? Past self thank you for, or actually no? What would your past self say to you right now? The?

Carrie Lingenfelter: 33:42

18-year-old self. No, just your past self. Oh, okay, what would they say to me right now? Okay, I think they would say I love the way you parent your kids. Ooh, it's making me want to cry. I love the way you parent them. I love the way you see them for who they are. You're still hard on yourself with wanting to be perfect. Even though you've learned all these tools and tips, you're still there and you're doing a wonderful job. Keep on this journey Like. I see you, mama. I see you.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 34:21

Now, what would your future self tell you about fear?

Carrie Lingenfelter: 34:27

About fear. I think the future self would say fear is always going to be a piece. Fear is something, and I love this. Fear is something that your body has for a reason To run from tigers back in the day, fear not tigers, but fear is something that is always going to be a piece of us and it's a tool. Your brain needs it in order to survive as a human, but it's also something not to live in right. Fear is something to acknowledge and then make a change when you need it in your life. So don't live in the fear. Live in the love, for sure.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 35:10

Now I know many listeners are where can I find Keri? So can you let the listeners know where they can find you and what you have to offer?

Carrie Lingenfelter: 35:17

Sure, so we have Heart to Heart Parents Podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube and then on our website, hearttoheartlifecom. It has all the links for everything. I love to be active on Instagram and give tips and tricks and affirmations for parents going through the journey.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 35:37

Now from your heart. What is one intention you want to leave with the listeners?

Carrie Lingenfelter: 35:43

I think, probably coming back to compassion, finding moments where we can place our hand on our heart, saying I see you in the struggles or challenges. I see you falling in love, falling into the love space and staying in the love space for yourself, for your kids, for your partner, having compassion for all.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 36:04

I want to thank you for being here and, you know, holding space for me while I fumbled and mumbled and came into this podcast with the energy of web designing. Yet I really appreciate your vulnerability and showing the human side of parenting and what the journey has looked like for you, so that it's relatable to other parents that are finding their way and still navigating through it. So I want to thank you for everything that you're providing in the podcast world and in the website world for tips to allow parents to feel good enough. In a world that makes parents feel like they're not there or they're not good or they're harming their children, it's great that you're reinforcing that they are good enough and just keep trying. So thank you, carrie.

Carrie Lingenfelter: 36:52

Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you for having us or having me today.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 36:57

Please remember to be kind to yourself. Oh no, no, I almost pushed the round. Hey, you made it all the way here. I appreciate you and your time. If you found value in this conversation, please share it out. If there was somebody that popped into your mind, take action and share it out with them. It possibly may not be them that will benefit. It's that they know somebody that will benefit from listening to this conversation. So please take action and share out the podcast. You can find us on social media on Facebook, instagram and TikTok under Lift One Self, and if you want to inquire about the work that I do and the services that I provide to people, come over on my website, come into a discovery, call liftoneselfcom. Until next time, please remember to be kind and gentle with yourself. You matter.