On today's episode of the Intuitive Parents Podcast Dr. Frances Malone chats with Tanya Milano-Snell. She is a mindfulness and yoga instructor and coach. She helps the kids with their journey at a young age. They have online yoga club with lots of tools, strategies, videos, for kids but also it has the adult component as well. They also have yoga classes for adults, mindfulness classes for adults, and guest teachers in there. It's kind of a whole family support system, yoga club.

What she does is really get down into the deep emotions that they kind of learned to repress, to kind of keep the peace in the family. They bring awareness to those and bring them back to the consciousness. Her mission is to let them feel the difference between accepting stress in life and coming up with healthy strategies and live intentionally with those stresses so when they can do that, their children will learn so much from their parents and develop what will work for them.

To learn more about Tanya Milano make sure to check out her website

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The Intuitive Parents Podcast is a place for parents to go who are seeking holistic support on their journey of consciously raising naturally healthy kids. Hosted by Dr. Frances Malone ARNP, PhD founder of The Intuitive Parents Collective, Malone Pediatrics, DogFish Moon Sanctuary, and Chartreuse Skincare.

Dr. Frances Malone has dedicated her career towards serving her community through her research, study, and care. She believes that each family unit is unique and deserves personalized care.

Through this podcast it is Dr. Malones mission to educate and support parents. From solo episodes to magnificent conversations with expert guests- The Intuitive Parents Podcast will be the next favorite on your playlist!

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Unknown Speaker 0:07

Hi, this is Dr. Francis Malone, founder of the intuitive parents collective. I've been working with children and their families to provide holistic relationship based medical care throughout my career. This podcast is for parents interested in consciously raising naturally Healthy Kids. Here we will dive into topics that spanned childhood, and parenting as well as hosting exciting guests. So whenever you find yourself at the end of her parody rope, tune into the intuitive parents podcast to get new ideas about making parenting fun.

Unknown Speaker 0:44

Thank you for joining us today for the intuitive parents podcast. I'm Francis Malone. I created the intuitive parents collective and this podcast to reach parents everywhere and share creative ideas, hacks, and provide support to your parenting journey. Today's guest is Tanya Milano, Snell. She's here to talk to us a little bit about her business, and how it's relevant to parents and coping with children. Can you can tell us a little bit about yourself?

Unknown Speaker 1:17

Sure, um, I am a parent coach. I also have yoga courses and mindfulness programs. And I was a teacher for a while in the classroom, especially focusing on preschool years, early years.

Unknown Speaker 1:41

Great. So your introduction to me, on our interview request, told me about a little bit about how you got started with your business and the services that you're offering. Now, can you tell us about that, so that my audience can also know how you got to be doing what you're doing today?

Unknown Speaker 2:05

Yes, so I feel like it's a very long story. I grew up in kind of a stressed household working class, my dad was a stonemason, my mom bounced around trying to do different things to make extra money. And I was the oldest. So I took on the role of caretaker for the younger ones. And I always knew from a young age that I was here to help other people. However, throughout my journey, to been seeking helping other people, I kind of lost touch with who I am deep down at a soul level. And I knew from a young age watching my parents do the same thing. That that was something I was going to avoid at all costs, like, I'm going to be me, I'm going to conquer the world, I have things to say I have ways to help other people. And I just found myself really, really burnt out as a young parent, losing myself in the journey to to help everybody else. So I was I had a one year old and a five year old when both of my parents became ill with cancer. I took on that role that was familiar to me, that caretaking role, I'm going to take care of everybody else. I've got two sick parents, I've got siblings that are going to need their older their oldest sibling sibling show up for them. I have two young children that still need me. Needless to say, a year after my dad passed, they both passed within six months, six months of each other. A year after that. I was in complete burnout. I had totally given everything I had to everybody else. That's when I knew I had to change something in my life. Teaching was no longer joyful. Um, I was not the mom I was wanting to be. My yoga and my mindfulness practice had completely like crapped the bed. It was just total burnout. So I knew that my journey had to take a sharp turn, and I had no idea where it was going to go. That's when I focused on self care. completely focused on self care left the job told my my husband that We had to work on one income, we had to figure it out. I couldn't go on this way. And I developed started developing my own journey of self care. And when I realized that there were other moms out there that needed this, that's when I decided this is what I'm doing. This is my this is what I need to be doing in the world is making self care a priority for moms without any mama guilt. And started doing my yoga and mindfulness business. Real realized that I could help the kids with their, their journey at a young age have online yoga club with lots of tools, strategies, videos, for kids, but also it has the adult component as well. So I have yoga classes for adults, mindfulness classes, for adults, guest teachers in there. It's kind of a whole family support system, yoga club. That's where I was, you know, just using my own journey, to build a business to build kind of this path forward. And today, I'm, I'm a parent, coach, certified pure joy parenting coach. And what we do is really get down into the deep emotions that we've kind of learned to repress, to kind of keep the peace in our family. We bring awareness to those, bring them back to the consciousness. And if it wasn't for my parents death, I think I would have still been holding on to a lot of pain. And it opened my eyes, forced me to visit the things that I probably wouldn't have visited, if they hadn't gone through what they had gone through.

Unknown Speaker 7:05

The long story Oh, so much there to share. But that's where I am at today. Coaching parents through the deep emotion, emotional vulnerability that we've kind of packed away and hidden for a very long time, since since childhood usually.

Unknown Speaker 7:26

Right? Well, Tanya, thank you so much for sharing that part about what ignited your sort of fire and knowledge, knowing that how you were going to help parents in their journeys. I think that that what you've shared is actually really probably resonates with just so many of our listeners, and it certainly resonates with myself. Because many times, we come from a culture where the understanding that of the role as a parent is to give up all of ourselves in order to meet the needs of our children. And there's not this affirmation that keeping a parent whole and sane and joyful, is really, really good for our children. And if we allow ourselves to get to a place of burnout as a parent, then we actually undermine the health, especially the emotional and social health of our children, because they feel that at many, many different levels. And it has repercussions throughout the household. Right? Your parents are ill with cancer, and that is actually has lots of tasks related to it. But you're focusing on that does make you in some ways unavailable for the kiddos, because you're stressed in ways that you have never been before.

Unknown Speaker 9:08

Yeah, yeah, we never you're given the opportunity to learn how to deal with stress as children, many of our families, we just watched our parents deal with stress in unhealthy ways. And so my mission is to really feel the difference between accepting your stress in your life and coming up with healthy strategies and, and living intentionally with those stresses. And so when we can do that our children are learning so much from us and develop and you know, we're showing our coping strategies so that they can develop what works for them.

So when you a little bit more about your story, when you first realized that things were unraveling, you were just really unable to manage any longer the way that you had been using what I would call your childhood escape coping skills, right? We all develop these coping mechanisms that allow us to live in whatever the household emotional and social tenor is that we grow up in. But when those coping skills become something that's a burden, soon, we're taking the joy out of our lives or, or we are just using them to get through our day. What kind of things did you do first, to help yourself realize that you needed to change something? Was it that you leaned a little bit, you realize that your yoga wasn't there? So you did a little breath work? Or did you do start restart your mindfulness practice? Or did you restart exercise? Like, what were some of the first things you remember integrating before you got to where you are now where you're able to help other people.

So when you're in a, when you find yourself in a state of chronic stress, it really affects the brain in ways that you're not, you're not realizing so my coping mechanism, like you said, was to control. So growing up, I felt helpless or out of control. So I was in such a state of control for years of making things, you know, dinner, getting bedtimes thing, you know, making sure things are going the way they're supposed to go with young children that when I first realized, and as a teacher, you just spend endless hours, like planning, planning, planning, trying to get everything right. When I realized I was in burnout, I needed to let go of the reins for a while. And it was very scary. But I had a two year old at the time. And so we just we went on nature walks, we let the flow the day I tried to enter the flow of the day with him. And the flow of nature, because that has always been where I go to when I need some solace is the natural rhythms of the day the natural rhythms of the seasons. The other thing I started doing was journaling. My husband had given me a journal for Christmas, it had journal prompts. And I just started writing about the things that I hadn't really visited for a long time, and especially around my parents, the grief of my parents and losing them. And then visiting childhood memories of things that were coming up for me. And the last thing that stands out to me is yes, getting back to my body awareness by yoga and mindfulness practice. And the first thing that we feel when we're triggered, which we don't realize is subconscious is a body sensation. So a lot of us are living in shallow breathing, tense shoulders, stiff Jaws, stiff necks, we are not aware of our triggers that are showing up in our body first. So I started following people online that had regular offerings of mindfulness and yoga, and found the people that I resonated with. And that held me accountable, like having you know, someone posting every Monday, you know, that's the one I'm going to do, you know, so having an accountability practice. And I had a friend that did a once a month restorative yoga class, so trying to commit to once a month. And that's when I really got into my full moon and new moon practices because I knew I could commit to twice a month, right, like journaling twice a month, taking a bath twice a month. And that's what's in my yoga club is a new moon and a full moon practice for every month. And yeah, that's kind of where I started my journey of self care, baby steps.

Right. Right. Thank you for illuminating how just a once Twice a month practice and and a recommitment to ourselves. In whatever small way we're able to weave it into our parenting overwhelm that we're experiencing right now is really the first step. And one of the things that I like to recommend to parents is just getting out in nature and grounding yourself, either with or without shoes, just being surrounded by nature, because in doing that, we are able to support our brains and our bodies on so many levels and get input from the natural world, as well as feel our stress, de escalate. And of course, many people don't live where their backyard is it relaxing, or comfortable place to get to. So even just taking a walk in a park, or walking around a parking lot with your child, or going to a playground, at least be out of your normal, stress filled world where there's routine and things that you feel required to do. Those things are the some of the first things that I recommend, and then I love your suggestion of the you know, committing to taking a bath or an hour or two to yourself when everyone else is occupied just a couple times a month, because that can be very restorative and help us lean back into all the perceived requirements of our family life.

Yes, so beautiful, the grounding exercises. And if you watch your kids, you know, as I remember, as a kid, that was where I was, I was escaping to nature. And I have a background in environmental education and forest schooling. So it was always very important to me to bring my students outside. And like you said, We don't always have the most beautiful, wonderful place. But as in some of the school grounds that I worked with, you know, we have a patch of grass to sit on. And they, you know, if we can just take those moments to connect to the ground and the the bigger, the bigger ness of the world. Our problems kind of melt away for just a few minutes.

Yes, I like to also recommend deep breathing, I don't know if you have an easy deep breathing practice that you like to recommend to parents. But for me, I just asked them to take a few long, slow breaths because even just doing three or four rounds of a deep, relaxing breath actually can change the chemicals in your brain from a place of fight or flight, or controlling or whatever the mechanism that we're caught in using to being more present in our bodies and more present in ourselves.

Yes, I have a couple that I kind of rotate through, depending on what's coming up for me. I really like box breathing. So I'm inhaling to account for holding the breath before exhaling for a count of four. And holding for a count of four. And then you just kind of keep going like this. As your breath gets deeper and deeper. And if for is too short, you can start to lengthen the inhales and exhales by two. So inhaling for account six, holding six, exhaling six, holding six and doing that, you know three to four times can really calm the nervous system like you said, our kids can quickly throw us into a state of fight flight or freeze depending on what our go to responses. And we and you always hear you know, put your oxygen mask on first then you can help the other or you know Calm yourself first before you deal with your kids stress. And in those moments. Oh my gosh, just stop and breathe can be very difficult. So if you can just bring your your awareness back to any sort of body part to get you out of that mode. Another that that breath might be a little Too difficult in those moments. Another one, I love to do that when I'm frustrated, is to inhale really deeply. And then exhale through the mouth, kind of like blowing raspberries. So I can do it here and you can hear what it sounds like.

I love it. I love it, because kids will grab onto that and be like, oh, mommy's decompressing?

Yes. And I found myself the other day stomping up the stairs because I was so mad and just bring my awareness to the stomp, right? Oh, my gosh, I'm stomping. Okay, can I do? Right? Um, and just bring myself back down from an escalation. And yeah, the kids latch on to that it's, you know, it's okay to be frustrated. We don't want to, you know, judge ourselves for our frustration, because it's gonna happen. But can we bring ourselves back to our body and to our state of equilibrium? in a, in a more calm and quick way, then we may may be used to doing or we may have learned from our parents or our caregivers.

Tanya, how do you help parents unpack some of the lived traumas that they've experienced and perhaps, aren't even really aware of, because when we're in this task, mood, life, many times people have just gotten to a way of functioning. They're not happy, they're they don't understand why things don't feel good. Do you have any techniques that you use to help parents unpack a little bit of like, oh, wow, that's what I'm, that's, that's, that's old stuff I'm feeling right now.

Yes, so in my, in my pure joy, parent coaching, we have a foundational practice called the safe seat. And what we do in coaching is to walk through the steps of revisiting some of the, like we said, we don't really know where they come from, we go back and revisit these stories or beliefs that are coming up for us that come from a very young place in us. And so a lot of times, we, this young place in US can be very shy, we have no idea it's there. Um, like you said, it's, it's been repressed or, you know, might some of my clients are like, well, I had a good, I had a good childhood, and, you know, I don't have anything that can really, you know, can be considered trauma. But we've, we've developed these patterns in ourselves to kind of show up in the world. And so when we can go back and visit that little one and us, the one that, you know, develop this pattern, told me, you know, she told herself something, a story or belief. And then we can start to really bring awareness to ourselves, in our adult, you know, where is this little one and me coming out in my adult. Because when we are stressed, that younger self is really going to show up. And so bringing our awareness and consciousness to this can start to transform our reactions in our day to day moments. And so without, it's very hard to explain the work that I do, but we really go into a place of safety so that our younger strategies can be updated into an adult world, right? So the safe seat practice is a place where we come when we're activated, to really just send some loving kindness to that younger person in us.

In your online coaching, would you be supporting a parent, actually, by getting to that space and then teaching them how to learn to do that on their own? That's part of your coaching practice. Is that correct?

Yes, yeah, we have. I will I walk my clients through it. We usually pick one trigger to work on because we have so many that come up in our parenting but normally, we work through one for a few weeks, because We have to transform that story or belief that's coming out in us. And then there's also recorded practices and tangible, tangible practice to take out and practice on their own. Because it does, it is a practice, like I've said, you have to keep visiting this place in you as it arises. And after we're triggered is a great place to save, see all of the stuff that we felt. Because we don't, it doesn't come out unless we're stressed. You know, we don't we don't visit it unless we're kind of regressing into those emotions.

Right, one of the things that I found in my own personal journey is that when I initially started looking back at childhood, just childhood in general, and then childhood specific events and unpacking a little, as you said, trigger. And when and once I was able to manage that, then other things started burbling up for me, that I had really, really repressed and been unaware of, completely my own story about events that actually were not shared by my sibling, and, or probably not understood by my parents at the time at all. And they had become these embodied ways of being that were fully my responsibility, but my responsibility and decisions made at the age of two, or five, or 10. And so being able to walk back and recognize that I made this choice and created this story. And I've allowed it to run my life and and then do I decide is that a way I want to move forward or not like it might be helpful and useful still as a coping, or a way of moving forward. But it may also not be it might just be done with that idea or story. And that whole evolution for me was really very interesting. And then I was able to catch my responses and my triggers much, much more early and be able to see Oh, wow, there's that age child reactivity right there. I see it. Do I want to use that in the situation? Is it appropriate at the meeting table? No, it's not. So let's figure out work on that a little bit later tonight. Or then you become adept at moving it out of the, the center of your functioning. So it's, you're not working from reactivity, you're working from a little bit more of an objective spot?

Yes, beautifully described that the difference between the emotional brain and the logical brain, you know, like, being able to update some of these emotional survival strategies we had as children, and then come into a logical brain, the more adult capacity and what you said about not judging, you know, not judging the way that you have reacted in the past, you know, it may have served you at one point, and maybe you're making a choice not to use that anymore. For every everything we have, you know, drawbacks and benefits. So, you know, maybe it will benefit. So I love how you describe that, you know, there's no judgment there. When we practice this.

Know exactly, especially if it's a decision made by a four year old about their perception of safety, because their parents are fighting, for example, I like to just tell people, the story of your childhood trauma may have nothing to do with your own body's physical safety. It may not have to do with someone physically neglecting you. But you may have experienced adults just owning their own anger or frustration with each other, and doing it in a really responsible way. But there was a vulnerable four year old in the room who had their own perceptions of things. And that child took that argument as, you know, really life shattering, shattering or life threatening and internalized it and that is not something that the parents did wrong. It's just the mix of the event of the parents big loud dialogue, and the four year olds vulnerability to Seeing and witnessing that. That specific child's vulnerability that then becomes this old story stuff. Mm hmm.

Yeah, the biggest story I told myself for a long time, because a lot, I mean, a lot of gentle conscious parents, they tell themselves, they're not going to have any anger, right? They're not going to show up like that. And, you know, anger is, can be healthy. And so I told myself, because I did have angry parents that fought a lot, that that wasn't going to be my life. And I was not going to show my kids any of that. And that's not realistic. That's not a realistic goal. So yeah, that's the biggest thing I've learned is how to show up in unempowered. Anger, right? Like, there is going to be anger. And I don't want my kids to judge their own anger, because I judged mine for so many years.

We want you feeling the feelings through them, and not holding them. Anyone else accountable for them? either, right? Like blaming someone else? Because you're angry or that whole activity thing? Well, Tanya, Tanya, it's been so great to get to connect with you, I would love you to tell us what, how we can get in touch with you. So if my parents are interested in contacting you for your pure joy, coaching, then how would they do that? And how do people find you on social media?

Okay, so I have a website, it's www dot, Tanya mulatto.com. All of my offerings are on that website, you can find a free chat. If you just want to meet me for 15 minutes Talk, talk about your needs, and see if we fit. There's a free chat There is also group coaching and one on one coaching links on my website, my yoga club. And some self guided courses. I also have a Facebook group called reactive to relaxed self care without the mama guilt. And I put tons of free stuff in there, lots of breathing activities, and some challenge, you know, self care challenges. So there's a lot of free stuff in that group. And that's a wonderful way to get to know me.

I'm on Instagram as well. Tanya molano. And yeah, those are the great ways to find me.

Excellent. Well, thank you so much for your time and ways of supporting parents and I hope that some of us are reaching out to you and that you and I get to connect again. Thank you for having me. Yep. Thank you for being here. Take care.

Hi, this is Francis. Thank you for tuning into today's episode of the intuitive parents podcast. We are thrilled to have you here and hope that you enjoyed it. Please share our podcast with others who may benefit and leave us a review. To receive a free gift of the 14 Day Challenge. bringing peace to your household. Go to my gift from francis.com. That's my gift from francis.com. Take care. I look forward to working with you.