Ep.08: High Vibration Parenting with Carol Tuttle

Robyn: Welcome to episode 8. First of all, I just want to thank you. Within 48 hours of launching the Your High Vibration Life Podcast we hit number 3 in health and number 4 in self-help and we couldn’t have done that without your help. If you haven’t subscribed, rated, and reviewed that’s how we get our message to more people. Today is episode 8 and I have a very special guest. I’ve known Carol Tuttle for a number of years now. She is a very famous author of a number of books and the head of the brand, Dressing Your Truth. I have been to New York City with her for the U.S. Open. I’ve been in leagues, in tournaments with her and against her. She has a tendency to beat me, she’s a very good tennis player.

I’ll tell you, when I’m on an airplane with her or in a restaurant, it’s amazing the random places I am with her. People come up to her and sometimes they’re just shaking, they immediately burst into tears, they share with her how her work has impacted their lives. Carol was a very early energy worker. Back in the … about 1990, I believe, before anybody even knew what energy healing was, it sounded very woo-woo. In this very conservative community she was out there talking about her history of sexual abuse as a child. She was talking about severe depression that she was going through as she was going through raising her very small four children. Her work has made a big impact on my life and I really enjoy being around Carol, her family. I know her husband and her children.

One of the things that impresses me most about Carol is that you can’t fake it when your adult children turn out to be lovely, grounded, thoughtful, conscious people. I think you’re going to love what she has to say. She has some amazing and rather unconventional advice now that she has raised four biological children and one adopted child to adulthood. She is a mother-in-law, she’s a grandmother, and she has a lot to say about understanding who her children are energetically and meeting them where they are. This is an obvious, clear fit with the talk of a high vibration life. We are talking today about being a high vibration parent and raising high vibration children. Carol, thank you so much for being with us today.

Carol:  Oh, thanks for having me.

Robyn:  Oh, I’m so excited about this. This is actually our very first podcast interview and I have been so excited to have you on because most of us who are living a high vibration life we are super-committed to protecting our vibration because we’ve been to really dark places, really low vibration places. I know that you’re no different because I’ve been privileged to hear your story before. I think my audience is going to be really inspired to hear what you’ve come through. I was wondering if you would share that with us. One of the things I admire most about you, there are so many things, but one of them is your own past, your own childhood of trauma and then what you went through as a young mom. Anything you’re willing to share with us about your background I think is really inspirational just to start with.

Carol:  Yeah, and I appreciate that. I have shared it … Some people may have heard this. It took a turn of events I wasn’t planning on in my late 20s and as I was going along having children and pretty much a stay at home mom although I’ve always been entrepreneurial to some degree, but basically dedicated as a full-time mother. By the time I had my fourth child in 6.5 years I completely fell apart emotionally and mentally without any reference to why this was happening to me. It was to the degree that I didn’t want to live. It wasn’t just bad days and even depression, it was chronic and it was serious that therapists … I got myself into therapy really fast. I spent 2.5 years going to see a psychologist on a weekly basis to just figure out my life. It was really a crutch, too, in a way because I couldn’t make it through a week, I didn’t have the stability.

My therapist at about a year and a half into this just said you’re getting worse and I now understood that the trauma from my childhood had had a very deep impact on my just own wellness factor. At the time depression was still very … coming out on the frontlines of acknowledgment, this is the late ‘80s and so you really hid those things. We were still really shifting from mental illness being taboo and that you had to keep a really serious façade going of wellness and functionality. I was such a high performer, but then falling apart to such a degree that my therapist told me you’ve got to either get full-time help in your home with your children or we’re going to admit you to a psych ward for treatment. It’s that bad.

Robyn:  Was that a low point for you, was that a turning point?

Carol:  Oh, yeah, and that’s a real … Because you’re still fooling yourself with your coping strategies and what you’ve learned through your life because you don’t have a … Until you get healthier and you get into that higher vibration that’s all you  know. You counter this deep-seated stuff in you you’ve never healed with these strategies of trying to function that when you have 4 children 6 and under you can’t control your world like you used to. You don’t have that external control anymore, so you’re left to have everything internally start falling apart and revealing itself. Yeah, to basically say you’re not fit to be a mother. It’s a big kick in the butt to say I got to get healthy.

The therapy was supportive, but it didn’t help in a real progressive healing state and I got into 12-step work about the same time. It was interesting because that was again very taboo in the religious culture I was a part of that I was still very immersed in. I was very counterculture in the path I was led on. In the early ‘90s in my quest for wellness, in my quest for full and complete healing to say I deserve to be happy, I deserve to be healthy, I deserve to be a functioning parent, I didn’t have enough sense of my own self-love that I cared about myself, but what gave me that motivation was my children. My children deserved a healthy mom because I knew I was wounding the next generation. I knew I was doing damage.

Unbeknownst to me I was led to a path that I wasn’t looking for because I knew nothing about it, but I knew when I found it it was correct and it was weird and it was still very … not mainstream at all. It still seemed very woo-woo and I was led into the world of energy healing and Reiki was the first thing I was led to study in 1991. Desperation becomes a great motivator when you’ve exhausted a lot of your conventional methods. Our desperation and our pain leads us to places we would not have gone. For that I’m thankful because I was an early one on the scene of energy healing as far as bringing it into a practical application to help my own recovery and my own healing which then took me to a real spiritual process. Started in the recovery place, got into more healing which then really has graduated into more the evolution of me, of waking up in the spiritual path that I’ve been on for many years.

Robyn:  I not only want to get feedback from you on how to raise high vibration children, but it’s really important to me that we help parents through this episode be happy as parents, too. High vibration parents not just so that our children turn out well, but also so that we’re thriving in that role. Tell us a little bit about how you came … You have this thriving brand, Dressing Your Truth. You’ve energy profiled millions of people especially women. How did you decide to go in the direction of The Child Whisperer, your book, your platform, The Child Whisperer. Tell us about this because I think you have the most fascinating take on children being born into the world now. You have a different way of describing it than just about anybody I’ve ever heard about what’s special about our children now.

Carol:  Thanks for asking all that. I will start with why I’m so committed to supporting parents and it’s my work under The Child Whispering brand. Having been in the world of personal development as an energy therapist, doing life coaching with people now for close to 25 years, having done a lot of one-on-one sessions doing energy work, helping people heal the wounding of their childhood, helping people clean up the misunderstanding and misperception of who they are that keeps them very compromised in their ability to be joyful and be happy and to be successful in their pursuits in life, I recognize through my energy profiling model where I teach that there’s 4 types of dominant energetic expression that we each lead with one.

When that’s misunderstood in your childhood by your parent you’re parented to be counter to yourself, to not trust what’s natural for you, to be contradictive of yourself, to actually second-guess and even perceive what your greatest attributes and talents and tendencies and gifts are to be flaws within you that you’re constantly at odds with, that you have this complete misperception of yourself. I realized if I can help parents see the truth of who their children are from the formative years of their life which is birth to age 6, then from 6 on to help them build a foundation that they can really express what’s natural for them I could possibly over a series of generations eliminate the self-help world and really help us focus on self-development.

Instead of everybody healing we can just start to function in a place of congruency with self and start to amplify that self rather than be stuck at odds with it. As I’ve had literally tens of thousands of parents use this model now they report back to me on a consistent basis that their parenting approach was contradictive to who their … It’s helped them see who their child really is and now align with that and now help support that child being raised true to what’s natural for them.

Robyn:  It’s now a really quantifiable fact that the core of the universe, the core of this planet is increasing in its frequencies in the last especially two decades. I like to talk about this principle of quantum physics that a substance of a higher frequency can cause a substance of a lower frequency to increase. I wonder what that has to do with children coming into the world because so many people are negative when they speak of younger generations like they’re just stupider than us and they’re irresponsible and those millennials, you know, and we roll our eyes about them, but you have a different take on this generation and every upcoming generation. It makes me wonder whether the actual core of the universe upleveling and vibration is upleveling us as human beings because talk a little bit about how you see children being born right now.

Carol:  Each generation as we’ve grouped them in this collective reference of baby boomers, gen Xers, there’s some middle group there, too, that’s got the lost one and then they got millennials as … I think there’s a combination that the planet’s shifting in its frequency and those being born in each generation come in with a higher vibration. There’s always the front wave. I figure as a baby boomer I came in more open energetically. That there’s early adapters that come as the first wave and in the world of metaphysics they actually refer to a large group that came in in the ‘80s, ‘90s as the indigo child.

There’s a color race system that’s actually affecting our vibrational frequency that’s held in our personal energy system. Those being born now have what they call a multicolor race system meaning they have more of their personal … They come in at a higher vibration, their chakra energy system is running a different program, so those born in the 1950s have a different operating system than those born in 2010. What happens is they come in more open, what we then have placed in our culture is the moral, all your social mores that we dictate that say this is morality. When you were born in a certain decade or generation that’s your programming and so as new generations come in more open that don’t have those social more references to being a moral human being they’re judged as immoral. They don’t care about the substance of what’s created our cultures when they’re more open. They just have less judgment. I say that more as just an observation rather than say that anything’s right or wrong here, it’s just this is how humanity continues to evolve.

Robyn:  Yeah, and it’s really a different spin on that constant dialogue that you hear from parents where we wring our hands and we anguish over oh, my gosh, our kids don’t have any respect for authority, our kids don’t obey us like we did. I’m almost 50 and I didn’t think to question my parents.

Carol:  That’s the energetic collapse of hierarchy though and as you get in this world of energy and vibration it’s a fascinating study because you learn what’s happening is what they’ve dictated in a more metaphysical reference is what they’ve call the Piscean era which is one of hierarchy. It’s like we have this energetic system in play within humanity that says hierarchy reigns. That’s been collapsing the last 20, 30, 40 years and shifting us into what’s called an Aquarian energy which is partnership, leveling the playing field saying we’re meant to now learn collaboration, we’re meant to learn respect amongst diversity, we’re meant to learn a partnership within relationship and you can see that.

My husband and I were born with more what we call the traditional marriage energy, mom stays home, raise the kids. The man’s out there earning the money, more assertive, the very yang energy. The female was the yin energy, the male was the yang. Energy profiling has taught us that I’m yang, he’s yin. I’m much more suited to actually be the income generator and that’s how it’s set up now, but we had to completely flip our marriage.

Now if you look at our children they’re creating relationships from partnership. They don’t have traditional setups in their energy system of their relationships. It’s not even a conversation, well, should we be more … It’s just all they know is, of course, we’re going to be partners. We’re going to partner in our parenting. That’s seen in the simplest things, for example, of traditionally in years past my father wasn’t at my birth because men didn’t come into that space. See just the change in that is representative of this partnering effect that’s going on and the energetic collapse of what we’ve known. Then we put a moral spin on everything and say that’s wrong, that’s not good, da, da, da where it’s just change. It’s just a change in how we experience this world.

Robyn: We can sit back and judge it and throw rocks at it all we want, but it is so, it is so. That’s a really exciting take in my opinion that allows me to feel so privileged and challenged and honored that I get to raise a millennial, or I get to raise this child who starts out at a higher vibration and I get to protect that because my child literally has a different operating system.  As an Aquarian who was born under that sign I love that, I love that we can honor our children in the energy that they were born into because they’re more collaborative and less hierarchical. Why is one good or bad or right or wrong.

Carol:  That’s why you’ve seen an interesting twist in how relationships have formed, too. Women have just been more on the frontlines of the consciousness movement and the process of awakening. Maybe it’s just the biological setup of our brains, that we’re closer to our emotional process and we have more capacity to be going within. You look at the different … our reproductive system, we’re a very internal where a male’s very outward-focused in their …

Robyn:   Literally.

Carol:  Yeah, literally. It’s interesting to me that women have been choosing more … I think it’s to break down the traditional you can only date older than … Women had to date … Men could date younger, women had to date same age or older where what I think’s happening with that shift and that trend is that women want to be with males that are more open, so they have to date down a generation because they’re more open. They’ve moved themselves along the path of awareness. In my community I hear this continually that they have to be … I’m a type three in my system, so I’m much more tell them how it is. There are women that have to manage this shift they’re going through a little more privately because they’re asking me how do I get my husband to be open to this. That word shows up a lot, how do I get him to open up. Pain’s a good motivator.

Robyn: Right, and just …

Carol:  Don’t try and open him up.

Robyn:  Just change yourself and don’t make a lot of noise about it.

Carol:  Exactly.

Robyn:  That’s one of my most often asked questions, too. It’s a woman and she tends to be over the age of 50,  I want to change our diet, I want to start green smoothies, I want to eat more plant-based, how do I get my husband to change?

Carol:  Yeah.

Robyn:  I love it. A question that’s been on my mind lately, there was a Facebook comment that I saw, just a conversation that was going on and it really struck me. I thought Carol’s going to have something to say about this I bet. A parent was asking … It’s just like it goes right at the heart of the orthodoxy that has ruled in parenting which is this obsession with performance. This parent said why do our kids have to succeed so damn much. My question for you is have we been using these measuring sticks, measuring our kids by their performance? What do you think about that and how else might you consider parenting? Is worrying about getting your kid into Yale by 11th grade and getting them into private pitching lessons by 7th grade and all the intensity and the running kids around, what are the shifts that are happening in parenting and what do you think that has to do with high vibration parenting? We worry so much about how our kids are going to “turn out”. What do you have to say about that?

Carol:  If someone were calling in, I do a podcast, it’s a call in show and if a parent were to call in and ask me about that, where should their priority be, that’s a focus on the external. That’s setting up a human being to have to go through recovery or self-help because their value is now placed on a function of their doings which was a big part of my collapse was to say … Because I had so little sense of internal value, my external results and performance in life became the compensation for that. When you can’t perform at those levels you’re left with this question of am I valuable.

What I teach parents is as you teach a child and raise them true to who they are and again my energy profiling system is a huge asset in knowing what are my children’s natural tendencies, what do they have a potential for more readily, effortlessly, naturally, so I want to align with that so what they do pursue in life becomes … It’s a natural cause and effect. That when a child and a human being feels good about themselves, has ownership of self, has been taught behavioral capacities to follow through and succeed and get the fulfillment from that they’re naturally going to succeed. That will happen at a higher level with more contribution to the world.

To me again it’s been backwards and so as many things are flipping we’re flipping this, too. Fortunately, I got tuned into this early on enough. I think my own crash helped me see I can’t raise children … performance-based validation, I need to value them first and support that as an outcome of their value. I have been successful in raising kids that have really deep-rooted self-confidence that’s genuine, that’s authentic, that don’t question their worth, that have an awareness to be at a high level contributing in the world.

Robyn:  I love that, to avoid performance-based evaluation and if we are worrying about that which it’s very easy to do when our kids are young and we feel we have “control” which you and I are secretly going ha-ha-ha because we’ve raised adults like there’s any control.

Carol:  As soon as they get mobile … Once they get mobile …

Robyn:  Until your kids are…until they’re mobile.

Carol:  We’ll see how long they stick around. I’ve said to many a parent hey, you caught this just in time when they’re 10 or 11 because when that kid is 15 they’re writing you off. They may still be sleeping in your house, but they’re not telling you … You’re not the confidante anymore.

Robyn:  Yeah, that’s so funny because in our previous episode it was my 13 high vibration secrets that I’ve learned in raising 3 adults and 1 teenager primarily by myself and you hit on a couple of the tips. One of them is don’t even think for a minute that you know what’s going on in your child’s mind or in their actions, in their relationships with other people and a couple of different secrets that … Parents of adults know and parents of young kids don’t … They think that they know exactly what’s going on and the sooner you get over that the better. I love the idea of avoiding performance-based evaluation because we certainly don’t want to be giving our children grade reports. They’re going to get plenty of that from the rest of the world for the rest of their life.

Just a little side here before we go into some of the really cool content I know that Carol will share with us on parenting. You’ve heard her mention her energy profiling system. I love Carol’s free energy profiling course. You can get it at CarolTuddle.com/Robyn, R-o-b-y-n, CarolTuddle.com/Robyn. You can take it for free and obviously taking a look at the energy profile of your child is key here, too, which underpins Carol’s Child Whisperer platform because it’s not just knowing that you are … Carol mentioned that her type is a 3 and she spent all of 5 minutes with me before she knew that I was also a type 3 energy profile. It’s been so helpful to me in my life.

It’s not just about … A lot of people think that Carol’s energy profiling is about what to wear and certainly there is that. I know what colors, what fabrics, what cuts, what jewelry, what colors of metals work best with my particular energies and obviously I’m going to like that. I have this whole entire platform about energies, about the energetics, of the vibrational frequency that you live at, but it has been a total game changer for me. I loathe shopping and not only has Carol’s team done a makeover on me twice, the first one didn’t stick, the reason it didn’t stick is just because I hate shopping, so I’m like that’s cool, I like everything about that, but I don’t shop.

The second time Carol said listen, we’re going to do this makeover. She doesn’t call it makeovers because she’s so honoring of who you are and just helping bring your own energetic expression out of you. She said, you know what, Robyn, just hire my stylist. It has been so amazing as a person who doesn’t like to shop and doesn’t want to rub two brain cells together about what I wear. I’m really just a big huge nerd that would wear black yoga pants and a tank top 24/7, 7 days a week if left to my own devices. When I wear what Carol’s stylist purchases me who also happens to be a type 3, so I did a video with her and she said, “How do you feel?” I said, “I feel like me.” When I dress my truth, when I dress according to type 3 energy as the way I move through the world as Carol put it I feel more like me which sounds like a strange thing to say, but you’ll only know that if you get your own profiling done, CarolTuttle.com/Robyn.

Let’s jump into a little bit more … I would love to hear since you’re a mother of 5, you’re a grandmother, you’re a mother-in-law, you know so much, you know more than I do, so I want to know your best tips for raising younger children, for raising teenagers, for parenting adults. Will you start with what are some of your mottos as a parent, what are some things that you tell yourself, so that you stay in high vibrations and you help them there, too.

Carol:  One of the smartest things I did when my kids were younger and this was before I knew anything about energy types or develop that system which gave me huge, huge insight and an advantage, you want a huge advantage with your kids. The Child Whisperer really helped … That’s where I teach the energy profiling in my book that gives people the insight to which type does your child lead with. One of the things I realized that was one of the greatest interferences in my childhood was I was afraid a lot. I felt I was in fear and fear’s a very low vibration. It’s very hard on our immune system, our psyche, it’s very hard on our whole neurology.

I paid a price just biologically for living in such a state of fear in so many years of my childhood. I knew I did not want to set my children up for being at that disadvantage, so when they were in grade school I had a chat with each one of them. I didn’t do it as a group. I met with each one of them and I said if there’s any time you ever feel afraid or I’m using a tone of voice that makes you feel scared or inadequate or any of my actions make you feel anxious or nervous I want you to stop me and tell me and I’ll listen to you.

I empowered them with a say. I never had a say as a kid. I had to be silent and I was scared to silence. I knew that was a huge wounding factor and I wanted my children to be empowered to be able to basically stick up for themselves. I agreed at that time and my children have even to this day, although the situations are … I don’t think I behaved in a way for them to encounter that conversation, but there were times they needed to employ that. They would stop me and say, “Mom, change your tone of voice. Mom, please change your tone of voice.” I heard it and I would. I basically gave them the ability to keep me accountable as their parent and that was something that gave them a right to use their voice and believe that they were worth it. They were young, they were all 12 and under at the time.

Robyn:  Wow, I am so inspired by that. I remember when I decided to stop spanking. I am not proud to say that I was a spanking mom, but it’s all I knew. I was raised with beatings, black and blue, black eyes, welts and so I just thought spanking was how you raise children, otherwise, they’d be just some out of control. I’m so inspired, Carol, that you were not only so vulnerable and so willing to give up “control” which we just laughed about a minute ago because there was no such thing. To be so vulnerable to your children and to want them to have a say because they need to have a say, that’s part of their empowerment, but also, just your vulnerability in sharing that with us.

Carol:  Far too long, for too, too many generations we’ve used shame, guilt, and fear as a parenting strategy. I was committed to removing that because even the times that I was acting out it wasn’t because that was my intention to move my children to action or force cooperation. It was because I lost it. I had a lot of stuff I had to heal. I knew I’d be compromised still, so I knew I needed to give them that advantage.

I’ve been really good about hiring the help I’ve needed through the years. Ever since the therapist basically said you need to get help I decided that was a good asset to have on a continual basis, so I’ve had a housecleaner for most of my children’s growing years. At the time I had what we now refer to as nannies, I just called them mother’s helpers. I brought in resources to support me, so that I didn’t … I let go very early of this idea that my domestic performance was part of my value as a mother. That my value as a mother was … I started to trust that that was based on my performance of my relationships and my ability to perform as a mother that had nothing to do with my domestic tasks.

Robyn:  I love that because that Enjoli commercial, I don’t know if they sold a lot of perfume with that, but basically it taught us … What was that, in the ‘80s. Carol, you remember that. I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan and never let him forget he’s a man and we have to be everything to everybody.

Carol:  Then you remember … I don’t know if this was for your time, but I was just on the cusp of this fading out was that book about women, what was it? How to be everything and do it … basically, show up dressed and have all your makeup on with…

Robyn:  It was like the antifeminist book.

Carol:   A five-course meal for your husband. It was a classic how to be the epitome of … get yourself into depression real fast.

Robyn:  Right because there’s no such thing just like there’s no controlling our children or controlling the outcome. There’s also no being the perfect … You can’t do everything and so …

Carol:  Nor should that be your standard. That’s ridiculous. I very early on started to blow up a lot of what had been the culturized idea of what a woman was meant to be. Maybe I’m a radical that way, but that has nothing to do with my value as a woman or my ability to perform as a mother. Cleaning my toilets should not be included in that evaluation of who I am. It’s like it doesn’t matter, I just want a clean toilet. I don’t care if I do it or if I pay … I’d rather help the economy and pay someone quite honestly. We have come a long way in honoring women, wow.

Robyn: Right, and it used to be we’ve come a long way, baby, that whole saying that came from I want to say the early ‘70s. I think it means an entirely different thing now that we …

Carol:  Yeah, my sense of that though is the generations die off because of this partnering effect that my children, your children, my grandchildren being [inaudible 00:32:59]. Those things will change by the fact that they won’t have that concept of why should there be a variable here, why should there be any discriminating. That’s why we see change over these 50-year chunks because the people that then effect those decisions have a different perception about what what’s correct.

Robyn:  That’s true.  Tell me since we’re on parenting, how does a high vibration parent react when your kid makes a choice you don’t like?

Carol:  I’ve learned the first thing if you can dial it back to yourself first because any time you have a trigger as a parent, any time that you get an emotional charge are you concerned about their welfare or is it really bugging you, it’s just really stirring stuff up. Let’s take that scenario because I’ve had that. I have an adopted son who pushed my buttons bigger than any human being that’s ever existed which was a fascinating thing because I’m just how can this one person’s choices have such an effect on me.

Through this course of time I learned to bring it back to myself and take ownership of it that this is about me. I’ve got to look at what’s my charge about. Why do I have such a strong charge on this and do my own work. I can make it about them, I can blame, I can project out, but if everything is just a function of showing me where I still have judgment, I have old wounding, I triggered what’s beneath the anger, is it the fear of rejection, abandonment, what’s going on?

I’ve done an immense amount of inner child work over the years. I was a student of John Bradshaw’s work in the late ‘80s. He was literally a savior of mine that his concept of the shaming the early wounding occurred in your childhood and going back to that formative self through visualization and healing techniques to really heal that part of you that was still operating under that wound has been a big part of how I’ve healed my life. I’ve done an immense amount of what I call inner work on that level. Children get to play roles for us as teachers and showing us our own stuff if we’re willing to look at ourselves.

Now once you’ve cleaned that up and you can hold a place of peace and you want something well for your child you start to tune into the fact that I’m not in charge of their journey, I don’t know what lessons they’re here to learn. I think it’s appropriate to have certain boundaries and to have certain … If they’re not willing to show up and create a healthy relationship or some of their choices … If they’re living in your home and you can’t align with that you got to talk about that stuff. I think people they don’t talk about what’s really going on.

If your child’s not willing to then maybe you just have to set some boundaries in place and just say hey, we’re here for you, we want to really get honest especially adult children. Say we want to work this out and maybe you need some counseling or we need to work with someone to help us navigate this. They’re not willing to … If they’re disruptive to your family system then maybe you need to set boundaries. Again where does it take you emotionally once you get that cleaned up and you’re really … Do I just let them … They got to go through this stuff. It’s part of their own growth. I’m not in charge of their life. Then to what degree can you be there for them depends on their choices.

Robyn:  I love that and it reminds me of group therapy that I did with parents. When I was a psychotherapist I was dealing with people who were very religious, very Christian and I would say as a parent if you’ve got a death grip on your child in terms of his actions, his behavior and the outcomes can you step back for a minute and can you … I’m about to say something very Christian right now, do you trust the atonement? Do you believe that your Christ died for your child as well? If so get out of the way and trust God. Whether you want to frame that from the vantage point of energies and where this child is energetically that it’s just a process and a path and a developmental stage or whether you want to see it as a religious journey or a spiritual journey. Either way remove the death grip and let the child have the process because the process is perfect.

Carol:  Yeah, and that’s tough. I’ve been pretty good with that with my kids. None of them gave me much to deal with in their school years, so I had to adopt a child to have that experience. I adopted late, he was quite a big older. I didn’t have an opportunity to influence and we’ve had to let go and let him find his way and just trust. It’s tricky when they’re living at home. I think again you have to look at yourself and say I think we’re given the opportunity through our children to look where we have our greatest fears and where we do have those death grips. Say no, it has to look like this, it freaks me out, so why is it freaking you out?

Robyn:  One thing I hear you saying is that a parent … Tell me if I’m wrong, is that a parent can be a more high vibration parent and enjoy the ride a little more, enjoy the process a little more is if they quit white-knuckling it and let go of it a little bit.

Carol:  Oh, very much. Again you’re not in a high vibration if you’re in a control mode or if things have to look a certain way. A high vibration parent is a more conscious human being that understands that what you just described, they have their own journey. Again there’s still the function of day-to-day life that has to be addressed. It’s not about just kicking back and saying yeah … You’re still…

Robyn:  You’re still the teacher.

Carol:  Yeah, you still have a right to your own lifestyle without necessarily having to keep accommodating this child that’s old enough to be making decisions that may be disruptive to it.

Robyn:  Right.

Carol:  As you know having been a therapist people when it comes to tough issues and sensitive issues our communication skills are pretty compromised, so people usually … getting professional help to navigate those conversations, so people are heard because people get triggered so much in those conversations. It’s hard for people to feel heard and to get to that resolution stage.

Robyn:  I agree. I have one more question for you because you have a lot of experience in this. You’re not just a mother-in-law. What have you learned about being a mother-in-law? Some of your children’s spouses work for you, for your company, so tell us your best bits of wisdom?

Carol:  Three of those do, three of the in law children do. In fact, my son-in-law recently became my CEO, so he’s my highest level partner as a business owner and then I have two daughters-in-law. My energy profiling has made all the difference because as I understand their nature, their tendencies, their way in life, the way they move through life, they’re preferences, that just immediately eliminates these misunderstandings and false expectations. You get to align with who they are, how they function in the world and support that.

Then I’m very careful once my children enter adulthood especially when they get married to not … They know I’m there for them, but I don’t meddle. I don’t need to be the center of their world. I don’t have to have them … If they can’t come for a holiday I don’t have a fit. I’m very easygoing, I’m very open about … I trust everyone’s making the decisions that are best for them. If I get upset or triggered I got to look at that. That’s my stuff, don’t make it about them. I feel I make it quite easy for them to relate to me and I respect their privacy and that they have their own personal experiences and they are now … my child that they’ve married is now … They’re the primary support in their life, not me anymore. I’m second level now. I show up when they enroll me, but if they don’t I stay out of their business.

Robyn:  I love that, very good words to live by if you’re in the boat I am. I am about to be a mother-in-law in the next few months and I’m excited about that.

Carol:  I like to travel and they get a benefit of that, so I try to do fun things with them.

Robyn:  You and your frequent flyer miles, I tell you.

Carol:  I try and create experiences not because again I’m trying to be the favorite or … Those are the things I value. I don’t need a bigger home and I like to create adventures and experiences with my family. That’s where I like spending my money. I am known in my family to create some pretty cool adventures and experiences that we go on.

Robyn: That is a function of being a high vibration person like you are. You’re getting close to 60. I just happen to know how old you are.

Carol:  I know, isn’t that crazy.

Robyn:  You’re still having fun and you’re still pushing the boundaries and you’re still disrupting and you’re still …

Carol:  I’m not a don’t say my age kind of person, but that’s just crazy to me that I turn 59 in a month, but I think that’s true for those of us in this age range is that we again are birthing ourselves out of ageism and what the culture’s been. We get to be just … I love people like rock stars, like your Chers, Steve Tyler, people that are … They are just themselves, you know what I’m saying. We are all given that chance now and that’s part of being a high vibration being is being you rather than defined by an age or a culture.

Robyn:  I love it, great words to end on. I am going to put in the show notes everyone, John Bradshaw’s work that Carol has referenced with such an inspiration to her in as she calls it cleaning up her energies. We’ll also link you to … It’s CarolTuttle.com/Robyn, R-o-b-y-n, to be able to take her free energy profiling course. I think it’s really important to learn what your energies are and learn a bit about your spouse, learn a little bit about your children, your grandchildren if you’re old enough and fortunate enough to have a few. Carol, you are a modern day wonder. I look to you as a role model and a mentor. You’re also a really badass tennis player. I’ve enjoyed playing tennis with you and against you for years.

Carol:  Thanks.

Robyn:  I just love to hear about what you’re doing next, so thank you from the bottom of my heart for being with me on this interview. I think that parents everywhere are going to be inspired.

Carol:  I’m honored to be your inaugural guest, thank you.

Robyn:  Me, too, talk to you later. There you have it. I think you’ve heard some words about parenting from a veteran that you may have never heard before. I hope it gives you some really great stuff to reflect on, so make sure you go to GreenSmoothieGirl.com/episode8. See you next time.