This conversation with best-selling New York Times author and Ted talk speaker Julie Lythcott-Haims was over two years in the making and yet came just at the right time.

Author of How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success and Real American: A Memoir, Julie’s interested in the human experience and writes non-fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry with the aim of helping humans thrive.

She has a JD from Harvard Law School, an MFA in writing from California College of the Arts and holds her BA in American Studies from Stanford University, where she later returned to serve as Dean of Freshman and Undergraduate Advising, among other roles.  She currently lives in Silicon Valley with her partner of more than thirty years, her two teenagers, and her mother.

Born to an African-American father and a British mother, Julie moved often in her childhood from Nigeria to New York to Wisconsin to Washington D.C., where her father was part of the Carter Administration, and then back to Wisconsin again. Along the way, she struggled to find her identity as a bi-racial woman who faced stereotypes and micro-aggressions about her blackness that sent her on a journey from self-loathing to self-love, something she reflects on with powerful honesty in her memoir.

Themes of self-exploration, self-sufficiency and service weave thread through this incredibly enriching conversation with Julie. We discuss her healing journey with her mother and how that impacts how she parents her children today. Julie shares the lessons that she learned about how to successfully raise adults from her years as the Dean at Stanford and extensive research that informs her best-selling book and popular Ted talk on the subject.

She reveals the way that she has daringly made career pivots that others thought were crazy, what’s next on the horizon for her, and how she may even create her own radio show one day. And, we talk candidly about her journey to embracing self-care, about her commitment to her partner of over thirty years, and to the impact on her body and sexuality of moving toward menopause.

I was struck by Julie’s continued evolution in her own awareness, and her commitment to personal growth and to pursuing her own purposeful path, parallels evident in the wisdom she holds for us about how to raise our children to be healthy adults. Finally, I’m inspired by her bold challenge to us, to look at how stereotypes and biases about black people show up in ourselves, and to do the conscious work of taking them apart.

This conversation is a powerful one that has already begun to shift my awareness. I look forward to hearing what Julie’s life lessons, wisdom, and revelations shift for you when you listen. 

Much appreciation, 

P.S. Know someone who you think would appreciate this episode? Push forward and share this conversation!

In This Episode We Talk About:

• Julie’s journey of healing with her mother, now 80 years old, and how a third chapter of their relationship led to reciprocal learning across three generations, between Julie’s mother, Julie, and Julie’s daughter.

• What happens when our egos impact our parenting and the power of realizing that we are not our kids; they’re not a mini-me, a pet, a trophy or a bonsai tree. They are their own person.

• What Julie’s experience as a Stanford Dean taught her about how to raise adults, including the two most essential things she learned kids need: to do chores and to be loved.

• How a commitment to life-long learning inspired Julie to make daring career pivots, from attorney to school administrator to writer.

• The three more books  that Julie knows she has inside of her.

• Julie’s own evolution in her understanding of what self-care means and the ways that she invests in herself today.

• The practices Julie has committed to with her husband to keep their thirty plus year connection strong.

• The impact of peri-menopause and menopause in how we feel in our bodies and on our libido in particular, and my commitment to focus a future episode on this subject.

• The importance of becoming aware of the stereotypes we hold about black people and Julie’s challenge to us to consciously undo them.

Resources and Topics Mentioned:

• Thriving Child Summit – Dr. Elisa Song’s Summit where I first learned about Julie.
• How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success
• Real American: A Memoir
• Julie’s Ted Talk On How To Raise an Adult – the one Chris and I watched and then discussed with Ryan 
• Ep 05: Live your E.P.I.C. Life to Help Your Children Thrive – my conversation with Dr. Song from the Thriving Child Summit
• Ep 46: “Owning our Truth” with Renegade Mothering’s Janelle Hanchett
• Women Podcasters in Solidarity where you can find the episodes I recorded on the subjects of anti-racism and police brutality 

This Episode is Dedicated by:

Tamara Sobomehin, chasing the human dream, working to unleash the brilliance and potential of people by cultivating a culture of positive creation supported by the foundation of effective human and technical systems. Dedicated in honor of Tamara’s mother Paula Denise Lacy.  

Street Code Academy – The organization Tamara runs with her husband Tunde. 
Recharge Ravenswood – The website to learn more about Tamara’s campaign for Ravenswood City School Board. 
Team Esface – The exceptional basketball program, founded by the Sobomehin brothers, that Ryan participated in and where we first met Tamara and her family. 

This Week’s Challenge:

For this week’s challenge, I encourage you to read Julie’s powerful memoir, The Real American, to explore the impact of stereotypes about black people on her life experience. Then, follow Julie’s invitation to notice when stereotypes about black people kick in for us. She says, “If you’re not loving black people, ask yourself why? Be interested in that. Black people are humans worthy of love, compassion and care like anybody else is. If you notice a stereotype kicks in when you see a black person, see if you can immediately say to yourself – what would I do if this was a white person? Or a person of any race other than black? When a stereotype pops up, name it and tell yourself I’m discarding it. Try interacting with that person as if they were your own brother, sister, grandmother, father, friend or family.”  It’s our job to acknowledge the impact of stereotypes and biases and undo it.

Learn More About Julie:

Julies Website
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram

Announcements:

Mother’s Quest Circle

If you’re on a quest to live an E.P.I.C. life, but you’ve been feeling challenged, isolated, or unsure of the path ahead, the Mother’s Quest Circle may be the source of connection you’re looking for.

The Mother’s Quest Circle provides inspiration, coaching and community for an intimate group of no more than 10 women who are ready to say “yes” to:

• Reflect together, in a community of like-minded mothers, on what matters most
• To consciously live their version (not someone else’s) of an E.P.I.C. life
• To take bold action toward one of the E.P.I.C. life guideposts before the end of the sessions
• To hold space for sharing, coaching, and championing one another so we are “in community” on our journey

If you’re looking to end the year strong, now is a great time to make an investment in yourself and what matters most to you. Apply here. 

Say It. Sweat It. Get It. Challenge

Sign up today to come along with me on Erin’s week-long challenge where she will give you super short, easy to follow workouts, that combine movement and mantras, to inspire you, physically, mentally and spiritually. During the challenge, I’ll release an episode on the podcast with Erin to give you insight into her journey and why movement plays such a powerful role in her life.

Starts Mon. Nov. 5th! Sign up Today!

Support the Podcast

If you’d like to make a contribution to Mother’s Quest to support Season Three of the Podcast and/or help provide coaching scholarships for mothers, follow this link to make a contribution.

If you would like to “dedicate” an upcoming episode to a special mother in your life, email me at julie@mothersquest.com

Mother’s Quest is a podcast for moms who are ready to live a truly E.P.I.C. life.

Join in for intimate conversations with a diverse group of inspiring mothers as they share how they are living an E.P.I.C. life, Engaging mindfully with their children (E), Passionately and Purposefully making a difference beyond their family (P), Investing in themselves (I), and Connecting to a strong support network (C).

Join our community of mothers to light the way and sustain you on your quest at https://www.facebook.com/groups/mothersquest/

Hello and welcome to this episode with mindfulness educator, corporate trainer, podcast host and author of “Mindful Parenting in a Messy World,” Michelle Gale. 

This conversation, rooted in how to bring more equanimity to our lives–finding our center of calm in the storm–came to me just when I needed it most, during a start to my fall season marked by big school transitions for my children, travel away from home, and supporting my family after my father’s bypass heart surgery. 

In the midst of all of that, it was such a gift to have this time with Michelle, whose journey brought her from working in technology startups like Twitter to a deep dive in mindfulness training. Michelle draws on that training today as an advisor to organizations like Wisdom 2.0, in trainings with corporations like Disney and Google, for summits and workshops for parents that she organizes, and as a parent with her own two boys at home. 

An awareness of our impact in the day to day, through being a mindful parent, is something that Michelle embodies in her own parenting, in the appreciation she describes for her own mother, a single parent who adopted Michelle at the age of four months old, and in the ways that she makes mindfulness relatable and accessible to those she teaches. 

I learned so much from Michelle in the time we spent together, about answering our own calls for life-long learning, about slowing down, raising our awareness and making the implicit explicit, of the importance of bringing compassion, especially during times of transition, and how to draw on our experience as mothers as a source of learning and transformation.  

When we began, I asked Michelle to lead us through a Three Breath Practice which I heard her share about on Deborah Reber’s TILT Parenting Podcast. The practice became the bookends for this episode, the opening that allowed us each to make intentions for our time together, and the challenge that Michelle invites us to integrate into our lives. 

As you listen to this episode, I invite you to slow down by taking your own three breaths with us, tap into Michelle’s intention for finding “equanimity,” your center in the midst of chaos, and open yourself to Michelle’s wisdom. If you do, I’m certain you’ll find more of your calm in the storm and connect more fully to your own mindful parenting in a messy world. 

In This Episode We Talk About:

• The Three Breath Practice and how I’ve begun using it to help me make better decisions about how to use my time.

• The concept of “equanimity” and the importance of creating awareness and space for our discomfort so that we can come back to our center.

• Michelle’s appreciation for  “Attachment Theory” through the lens of her own experience being adopted at the age of four months. Also the realization that she doesn’t have a newborn photo and how that drove her inquiry about who was mothering her before she was adopted.

• Michelle’s journey to mindfulness and how she roots her practice in the day to day experience of mothering, especially in the challenging moments, like when our children can’t fall asleep alone or when they struggle with homework.

• Michelle’s ritual before sitting down to do creative work that she has introduced to her children as well before they do homework.

• Michelle’s passion for changing the landscape of how corporations think about supporting parents and the E.P.I.C. snapshot moment that happened for Michelle during a training at Macy’s.

• How her experience in circle and community enabled Michelle to call more of that connection into her life and more about the tools she uses to “call in”.

• How Michelle is bringing her mindfulness practices to her health, especially as she navigates the transition to menopause and the hormonal swings and changes that come with it.

Resources and Topics Mentioned:

Tilt Parenting Podcast: Michelle Gale on the Power of Mindful Parenting in a Messy World

The Sweet Spot: How to Accomplish More by Doing Less by Christine Carter

Jonathan Field’s Good Life Project Community where Michelle and I first connected

Wisdom 2.0

This Episode is Dedicated by:

Katie Krimitsos, CEO & Founder at Biz Women Rock and the Women’s Meditation Network and the host of the Meditation for Women Podcast. Katie’s beautiful dedication shines a light, through the example of her mother Linda, of the ways we can make an impact in our day to day lives through being a mindful, loving parent. 

You can connect with Katie on Facebook,  Instagram or through her website.

This Week’s Challenge:

Michelle encourages us to find a place in our life where we can consciously use the 3 Breaths Practice that she modeled in the episode. The practice includes: 

1. Focusing on your breath coming in and out
2. Letting your body relax; and,
3. Asking yourself, what’s really important and what really matters? 

By noticing an area of our lives that needs more consciousness (like reaching for our phone for distraction for instance) and using this practice, we can invite more intentionality, awareness, connection, and equanimity into our lives.

Learn More About Michelle:

Michelle Gale is the podcast host and author of the book “Mindful Parenting in a Messy World”,  a mindfulness teacher, executive coach and a corporate trainer. She works in corporations, schools and communities teaching and speaking to fellow parents about mindful parenting.
 

Michelle’s Website

Facebook

Twitter

Michelle’s Mindful Parenting Resource List

Announcements:

Join the Journey to Right Livelihood

I’m so excited to be part of a special program, Journey to Right Livelihood as a learner. And as an affiliate, I’ll also offer Mother’s Quest bonuses to deepen the experience for members of my community who decide to come along too.

If you’re interested, you can learn more at this link and also come over to my private facebook group, where I had a conversation with the founder, and one of my teachers and mentors, Lindsay Pera. It’s not too late to join us!

Click www.mothersquest.com/community to request to join and listen to our conversation 

LIVING WITH PRESENCE and PARENTING WITH PURPOSE Online Conference

Expert advice to find more peace, ease, presence and spaciousness in your family through the Online Conference hosted by Michelle and a phenomenal group of mindfulness experts. Learn more and purchase the conversations if you choose by visiting the site here.

Mother’s Quest Circle

If you’re on a quest to live an E.P.I.C. life, but you’ve been feeling challenged, isolated, or unsure of the path ahead, the Mother’s Quest Circle may be the source of connection you’re looking for.

The Mother’s Quest Circle provides inspiration, coaching and community for an intimate group of no more than 10 women who are ready to say “yes” to:

• Reflect together, in a community of like-minded mothers, on what matters most
• To consciously live a more E.P.I.C. life
• To take bold action toward one of the E.P.I.C. life guideposts before the end of the session
• To hold space for sharing, coaching, and championing one another so we are “in community” on our journey

Support the Podcast

If you’d like to make a contribution to Mother’s Quest to support Season Three of the Podcast and/or help provide coaching scholarships for mothers, follow this link to make a contribution.

If you would like to “dedicate” an upcoming episode to a special mother in your life, email me at julie@mothersquest.com

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Mother’s Quest is a podcast for moms who are ready to live a truly E.P.I.C. life.

Join in for intimate conversations with a diverse group of inspiring mothers as they share how they are living an E.P.I.C. life, Engaging mindfully with their children (E), Passionately and Purposefully making a difference beyond their family (P), Investing in themselves (I), and Connecting to a strong support network (C).

Join our community of mothers to light the way and sustain you on your quest at https://www.facebook.com/groups/mothersquest/