The Mindful Parenting Class

Something that’s truly for YOU!

Inner Critic to Inner Mentor:
Exploring our Shadows and our Wisdom in Parenting

Fridays from 1:00 to 2:30 pm
(bring your lunch or coffee!)
Four Sessions, held Virtually
Jan 10, 17, 24 & 31
$200
*Limit 6 participants

We use guided meditation, visualization, journaling prompts, and discussion to process and share our discoveries.

Weekly Topics

Week One: Meet your inner critic. Who is she? When does she speak most loudly? What is she saying and why? How can we learn from her and help her calm down?
Week Two: Self-Compassion. You cannot give what you do not have. Learn this revolutionary skill of being there for yourself.
Week Three: Meet your inner mentor. What does your future, wiser self have to say about what matters most to you?
Week Four: Bring it together. Reflect on your own findings. Set internal and external boundaries around caring for yourself. Celebrate!

A Tale of Modern Parenting

You know how you’re taking care of your kids and then they do something really weird, or rude, or annoying, and then you feel like your chest is on fire, and you snap at them? But in a scary way, that sort of feels like an out-of-body experience? And then you start to have all these questions about if they’re “normal” and if you’re “normal,” and what does normal even mean anyhow? And you don’t want to scare them or threaten them (even though that always worked on you when you were a kid), but you’re just out of ideas. And tired. So tired.

A Solution that’s Actually the Problem

So then you get this bit of sage advice: “Put on your oxygen mask first!” or “Do more of what you love, what fills your cup!” And you realize that you don’t actually know where they keep the oxygen masks or how to put them on. And furthermore, you’re not really sure what brings you joy anymore because you’ve changed, now that you’re a parent.

The demands are high, the mental load is heavy, and there isn’t a whole lot of space for this cup-filling they speak of.

And you’re just tired. So tired.

Break.
It.
Down.

The Mindful Parenting class offers a supportive, loving, step-by-step path in getting back to YOU.

Get calm and grounded, rediscover your needs, speak to yourself kindly, take care of your feelings. After establishing a stronger basis in your own self-understanding, you can begin to look at your kids with fresh eyes. What are their needs? What signals are they sending out with their behavior? Finally, we look towards outward communication: boundaries, listening skills, handling conflict, and making requests.

Weekly topics include:

  • Mindfulness and Meditation: What are they? How do they help us as parents?

  • Understanding Our Triggers

  • Self-Compassion

  • Meet (and tame) your Inner Critic

  • Discover your Inner Mentor

  • Establishing Boundaries

  • Listening As a Helping Skill

  • How to Talk So Kids Will Listen

  • Mindful Communication during Conflict

  • Taking Care of Difficult Feelings

  • Determining and Living by your Values

  • Mindful Problem Solving

  • “Life changing! You’ve given me a new perspective and taught me strategies that have helped me learn and grow so much in a short amount of time. I only wish I had found you sooner!”

    -Karen

  • “My biggest takeaway from the class is realizing what an important piece of the puzzle acceptance and self-compassion are. I think we beat ourselves up so much as parents and hold ourselves to impossibly high standards that we're almost guaranteed to fall short on. So having compassion for ourselves actually alleviates a lot of the angst and makes things easier for all parties.”

    -Becky

  • "The MP Class gave me the opportunity to reflect on my parenting and why I react to things the way I do. Sarah gave me a supportive framework to think deeply about the kind of parent I want to be."

    -Lauren B.

  • "This course helped give me the tools to reduce my reactivity, which will be ongoing work, but it is the farthest I’ve ever gone towards that goal (including years of therapy!). That’s a huge gift. "

    -Nicole

  • “I'm really glad I took the course. It allowed me to feel less isolated and make connections to other moms with their own set of challenges. It's helped me take more time to approach my situations at home calmly and be more vulnerable to open up about my own feelings. There was so much empathy, support, and space for everyone to reflect and share. I never felt any judgment.”

    -Alana

  • “The way that this course is structured, with a focus first on personal mindfulness and self-care, then layering in communication techniques, is really effective, and Sarah was fantastic at helping us to understand not only WHAT to do, but also WHY it would be effective. I have lots of stress management issues unrelated to parenting that this course helped to address through the mindfulness tactics, and then I was able to carry that through into my parenting. It was also very fulfilling to share stories each week amongst women that I’ve always perceived as strong, capable, confident moms but who are all struggling in private with similar issues.”

    -Abby

Find Your (Parenting) People

This is like friendship speed-dating! You can’t help but bond with your classmates. Even if your lives and situations differ, even if you never hang out in “real life,” you will gain a small circle of trusted fellow-parents who believe in you and support you unconditionally. Groups run from 2 - 6 participants.