How To Not Mess Up Your Kids By Building A Legacy

You're listening to the empowering working moms podcast episode number 62. Hello, hello, I hope you're doing well today. I am so excited about today's show.

But before we dive in, I want to remind you for those of you who are listening and you're ready to have a breakthrough year in your life, I have a special invitation for you. If you're a professional mom who's exhausted and tired all the time, you've tried the self help books, late night Google searches, yoga, meditation, the peloton, therapy, and none of it has worked in the long run, in the long term and you are ready to enjoy your life, find peace, happiness and fun. I have a special invite for you.

I'm going to work with a select group of clients in my program overcome burnout for good for women to heal from the inside out using the most streamlined way to find peace, fun and joy. Every client I work with gets a personalized roadmap from me to get them to where they want to go to build their best life, their dream life because it is totally possible for them like it has been for me and my clients. So many clients of mine, before they came to me wasted a ton of time and energy on therapy, audiobooks without results.

And I have distilled my process down to streamlined easy implementable tools like my three N method and processes after years of research and trial and error. As a physician also having my master's in neuroscience I've done all that work and I've distilled it down to work that you could do in a few months of work to get the tangible results that you're really looking for. Better relationships, more presence at home, no longer obsessing about work or your never ending to do list and getting hours back each week, to name a few. I want to invite you if you are ready to get out of exhaustion get out of burnout.

Don't waste any more time and energy and you want customized support and the specific easy to do type tools and strategy then book a call with me. You'll be prompted to fill out a short application because my program is by application and then set up a call, we can talk about what's getting in your way what is possible for you and put a game plan together for you to love your life again. PriancaNaikMDcoaching.as.me. Spaces are limited because of the high level of support that I offer. And if this is something that you're truly looking to do book that call with me so we can get started on this powerful work. Prianca NaikMDcoaching.as.me.

Now let's dive into today's show. Something that I realize that comes up all the time clients are coming to me with one of their main concerns is not screwing up their kids. Before I get into how we do that. The caveat here is that we are human, we are imperfect, and our kids probably will have stuff that they need to work out from their childhoods, regardless of what we do. But of course, we can most certainly strive to create a healthy atmosphere for them, and healthy modeling. And really a childhood that they fondly look back on.

And the work of course, starts with us. That is the epiphany that I had when my older child was born, I knew I needed to do something different, no more anxiety all the time, no more wigging out about stuff that did not matter. And I didn't want that ambiance for him. And that is what brought me to this powerful work, to really manage my stress and anxiety so much better, to crush exhaustion and burnout so that I could be my best self for him and now my daughter. Because that is really for me the priority in my life.

Like you, I'm a working mom, right? I'm a professional mom. And I knew I wanted to have kids from a very young age. And that was one major dream come true for me, becoming a mother. And it changed everything for me. But I also of course, have my career and my dreams for myself, which can exist in conjunction. And of course, this work began by managing my stress and anxiety and really ending exhaustion for myself. But my journey ended up going so much farther than that. And now I'm truly building my best life, my dream life in which I am I really having a blast. And because of this, because I am grateful for my life, because I'm in my best life.

My kids, I will say they really are some of the happiest kids I've seen around. They are always smiling, they are just having the best childhood and on their own of course, they're magical, but there's also this atmosphere that I am creating with them, for them filled with joy. And that is in part due to the work I've done on myself where I am able to really cultivate peace of mind, balance, and find happiness within me and then it bleeds onto them and it's really so beautiful and powerful. And this is what I teach my clients to do as well. They do the same.

So now I ask you, what kind of legacy do you want to leave for your kids? And this is really, we're going to do an exercise here of what kind of legacy you intend on leaving for your children. Because when we can put some time and energy and thought into this and create a plan and have a larger picture in mind, we can then really be intentional with what we're doing with ourselves, the kind of atmosphere we're creating for our children, how we're interacting with them, and then of course, the ripple effect on them, and what they're gonna look back on, on their childhood.

And this is the major first step in not screwing up our kids, well, as best as we can. We're going to do an exercise here. And I'm going to ask you a series of questions. And I suggest you take the time to really think about these questions and write the answers down. So I would say pause this episode, if you're driving and come back to it later. And then you can really do this exercise.

And I believe you should be able to find this exercise in the show notes on my website, stresscleansemd.com, under podcasts and the episodes in case you want to listen, and then you want to kind of look back later and do the exercise. So here we go, here are the questions.

Take some time to think about the legacy that your parents left you. Maybe they're still alive, but what impression did they leave on you? What feeling do you have about your childhood? What are two to three words that come to your mind about your childhood? What do you like about the legacy that your parents left for you? Now take some time to really think about this, I would brainstorm five to 10 things that you really like about the legacy that your parents left you. Now ask yourself, what do you not like about the legacy or your childhood? Five to 10 things I would brainstorm what you don't like.

Now, when it comes to you and how you want to proceed? Think about the list of what you did like, what you do like and what do you want to continue in terms of what you like? And how can you continue the parts of the legacy that you appreciate? That will take some time cultivating a plan of creating that. So take some time to do that. When you're done with that, then ask yourself, what do you want to do differently in terms of relating to the list of things that you did not like about growing up? Now I want you to think about the present tense, What feeling do you want to be a predominant feeling in your home when your kids are growing up and when they're reflecting on their childhoods?

Now remember, we can do our best to create and cultivate these ambiances, atmospheres, and feelings. And our children have the right to be their own people and have their own conclusion, right, but we're going to do our best on our end. Now once you figure out what this predominant feeling is and the feeling that you want your kids to have when they think about their childhood or the atmosphere in your home, craft a plan of specific steps of how you can cultivate that feeling on a daily basis.

So I'm going to give you an example here to help you out on this in case you're feeling a little bit lost. So for me when I think of how I want my kids to feel or the ambiance I want my children to feel loved, and I want my children to feel heard. So how I make them feel loved. And of course I enjoy this too. This is really savoring hugs, really greeting them in the morning and saying good morning giving them a hug and my au pair does help get my kids ready for school. She does the brushing teeth, which I find to be one of the most, I don't know why young children fight brushing their teeth so much, but she deals with that but I have the privilege I get to enjoy hugging them, kissing them, greeting them, and really basking in their presence in the morning.

And I also make sure to savor my evening time with them. The bedtime routine and also before the bedtime routine of course I am a talker as you can imagine. So asking my older one about his day and highs lows and gratitude practice and things like that. And feeling loved is also, I think for my son it's playing with him so I try to do special time with him as much as I can, which there is a previous podcast episode on special time if you want to learn how to do that.

Because also it's a love language thing, right, where I need to do things where I feel like they feel loved so we can always ask our kids what would you like to do more of with me and that can really give us a lot of information of how they feel connected to us. So creating that connection based off what they think as well as for ourselves.

And I do my best with them to make my time with them count, so to be present. So also I will tell them how much I love them, how grateful I am for them. We do dance parties, we blow bubbles outside. And I enjoy this. And I hope they remember this when they're older, they may not, but just that mom was there and that she was loving us. And in terms of the part where I want my kids to feel heard, I do my best to make time to listen to their stories, listen to their accounts, listen to their songs, listen to whatever they're saying, I won't drop everything I'm doing, you know, I have my own personal boundaries, but I do make time to listen to them with whatever they have to say, because I want them to know that they are being heard by me, and it's a safe space for them to express themselves.

So you can do this any which way that you want. Brainstorm how you can create that atmosphere that you want for them. A few more questions for this exercise? What do you want your children to fondly remember when they are adults about growing up with you as their parent? So really take time to make a list and think about what you want them to remember. When you have that list, how can you infuse that more on a daily or weekly basis? And what do you want to leave behind for them, tangible and intangible. Tangible could be money, art, books. Intangible could be more of the things that you want them to feel that you did for them or that you created for them. For example, a sense of stability, a sense of strength, a sense of safety or confidence.

What else would you want to create, that you want to leave behind for them? And how will you go about creating what we're talking about, this legacy? So I would take time to list out the questions that we talk about here on this episode, journal on them, take time to craft out a plan and then once you have your plan, figure out how you're going to implement it on a day to day or week to week basis. And that is how we create our legacy.

That is how we create a life with intention. And I talk about intention and one of the first episodes of this podcast and that is how we do our best to not screw up our kids. And if you're ready to put this work into action and do the work to heal from the inside out to get results like truly ending burnout, enjoying your life, having fun, not being exhausted, finding peace of mind, and being your best self for your children, for your spouse, then don't waste any more time and book a call with me to get started. PriancaNaikMDcoaching.as.me. Link is in the show notes. Thank you so much for tuning in. And I will talk to you next week.