Our subconscious beliefs often govern our actions, emotions, and choices, many times hindering us from leading a fulfilling life. Neural Linguistic Programming (NLP) has proven to be a transformative tool in tackling these subconscious limiting beliefs, as renowned author and NLP practitioner, Marcia Van Weinsberg, shares in this enlightening podcast episode.

The journey of personal transformation begins with the recognition of our ingrained beliefs. Most of our limiting beliefs are formed before the age of eight and unconsciously guide our lives, creating patterns and habits that are more obstructive than helpful. Through NLP, Marcia was able to identify and let go of these detrimental habits, thereby rewriting her narrative.

A significant part of this podcast delves into Marcia’s challenging parenting journey. Faced with one of the most difficult decisions any parent can make – taking her children to court – Marcia recounts how NLP was instrumental in helping her navigate this challenging period. The power of NLP in enabling her to shed feelings of guilt and shame, and to let go, was a game-changer.

The episode emphasizes the importance of allowing children to make their own decisions, demonstrating resilience without appropriating their successes. This deep dive into transformative parenting offers invaluable insights into the liberating act of letting go. It provides a fresh perspective on parenting that can help parents foster independence and resilience in their children, enabling them to learn from their mistakes and own their successes.

The episode wraps up with a discussion on parental self-care, highlighting the necessity of identifying and processing sources of pain. This essential part of self-care can significantly impact our interactions with others, shaping our lives and our children’s lives.

Marcia introduces her free course that offers practical NLP tools like EFT tapping, which can help individuals take control of their narratives rather than being controlled by them. This empowering tool can significantly aid in personal growth, allowing individuals to rewrite their story and lead a more conscious life.

Finally, Marcia eloquently emphasizes how our choices and interactions with others can shape our lives. The importance of living in the present, processing pain, and consciously making choices that promote well-being underscores the transformative power of NLP.

The episode offers a wealth of insights and tools to help individuals rewrite their story, lead a more conscious life, and foster healthier relationships. Whether you’re grappling with subconscious beliefs, navigating parenting challenges, or seeking tools for personal growth, this episode provides valuable takeaways that can enrich your life journey.

Episode Transcript

Julie Hilsen

Host

00:09

Hello, dear friends, and welcome to another awesome episode of Life of Love. We’re just delighted to have this special guest with us today. She is a warrior for love, for self-expression, for creativity, and I’m just really happy to share this space with her. Her name’s Marcia Van Weinsberg and she’s coming to us from Ontario, canada, right, yes, yay, she has multiple novels. She has a couple podcasts. She’s going to share some personal stories from her past and her family to help us, help our children, be more strong or maybe just be more aware of things that are out there. I don’t know how to say it. The best way, but I know the best way is going to come through for us and through us, to share this really important information about addiction, and we have just a wonderful show planned for you. So stick around to the end. We have some offerings and just really excited, marcia, that you’re here. I really appreciate your time and I’m honored. I’m not a newbie podcaster, but you’re a veteran and I’m just happy to be in this space with you.

Marsha Vanwynsberghe

Guest

01:22

Aw, thank you so much for having me, Julie. I’m grateful to be here.

Julie Hilsen

Host

01:25

So I’m really happy to have you too, and I wanted to talk about NLP, the Neural Linguistic Programming. I wanted to ask you if it was something that was presented to you as an aha that changed your life, or was it something that sort of trickled in? What drew you to that Neural Linguistic Programming, which people call NLP?

Marsha Vanwynsberghe

Guest

01:49

I’m so glad you asked this question because actually the first times I heard of NLP, don’t ask me why, I always understood it and thought it had to do with sales and business. That’s what I thought it was, and I’m so wrong, but that’s what I thought it was. And in 2020, when we were all going through a lot of changes, my job was gone.

02:14

I turned 50. I was starting a new business and I was waiting for medical testing and, in the process, found out very fast that I was going to have to have full back surgery Titanium, everything put in. It was very scary time, even being in the hospital on my own. I almost had two bouts where I didn’t make it in the hospital and when I came out, I actually came across something on my screen and it talked about NLP and how the power of our thoughts and our beliefs and learning more about ourselves and how our subconscious mind actually holds a lot of our own limiting beliefs. And I had this moment where I felt very drawn to taking the practitioner training.

03:01

I didn’t even understand why, but there was a part of me that wanted to learn, because I felt like here I was, 50 years old, learning how to walk again literally and, coming from building a business and doing all of these push mentality things, that I had skipped over a lot of steps of healing. I had skipped over so many different parts of healing and my body was holding on to a lot of trauma and I didn’t know how to let that go. And consciously, our conscious brain is one to five percent of its ability and the rest is our subconscious. When we are holding on to trauma, it’s like buried in our subconscious mind. So, no matter how hard you push to reach a goal, to achieve something, if on some level you don’t feel it, believe it or see it happening, you can’t outwork your limiting beliefs.

03:57

And that for me, was a light bulb moment that I went. You know what? Maybe actually it’s not about working harder, pushing more and doing more and burning out constantly. Maybe there’s a smarter way to do it, and so I. Actually I would say NLP was one of the very first things I invested in myself, for that was not because of a business, it was for me. And then, through the process of learning so much more about it, I was like, okay, now I understand why I needed to learn it.

Julie Hilsen

Host

04:24

Wow, that’s really cool. I have never done it, but I’ve heard. It keeps coming across my screen too, so I wondered what had drawn you to it. So you believe from what you’re saying. You believe your recovery was enhanced because you were able to let go of things in your subconscious so that you could use that energy to heal instead of battling or pushing things down. You know how we get so good at pushing things down. You’re like a trash compactor.

Marsha Vanwynsberghe

Guest

04:57

Oh my God, I love that analogy. I was a great trash compactor, like I’d spent my lifetime going yeah, push that down, keep going, push that down, keep going. And eventually it hits a point where the body just says I can’t hold this anymore, it’s just too much. And that’s exactly what it was. So there’s a lot of different tools and techniques in NLP that involve really going back and looking at the root of where those limiting beliefs are, and most of our limiting beliefs were formed before the age of eight. So it’s not that people say, well, I didn’t even have any trauma happen. I’m like you don’t have to. It’s big tease, little tease. But it’s also our interpretation of what we’re hearing and our interpretation of our experiences. And so I had a lot of deep rooted limiting beliefs that would create a lot of charge around them.

05:48

And when I say charge, that means that I was a very reactive person. I’m not that I that that was me to a T. I was reactive. If you needed someone to go to battle for you, if you needed someone to fight against something, that was me. Those traits, they helped me to survive most of my life.

06:07

But I do believe there comes a point where our strengths become our weakness, and that’s actually what happened for me is that it was recognizing that this way is literally going to take me out.

06:17

I’m going to take myself out by doing and going through life the way that I was. So as I started to understand and learn more about what those triggers were, how to see them differently, how to help to heal and support my subconscious mind, I became less reactive to life. And if we think about how much energy do we spend reacting to life around us every single day? That’s energy that we are not, we don’t have left to use to create the life that we want to live. And that was an eye opener for me is that I learned how to respond to life instead of react to life, and the amount of energy, the amount of cortisol that my body produces as a result. It is so much better, like I actually sleep now, I can rest. Now I’m in a different. I’m a very different person, and I do attribute a lot of that work to NLP. I love it.

Julie Hilsen

Host

07:10

What did I hear someone say? Instead of being in your play, show up being in the audience of the play.

Marsha Vanwynsberghe

Guest

07:18

Isn’t that the truth? No, that’s so true. That’s so true, it’s honestly. It’s a very powerful series of tools and techniques that you can use, and I’ve had clients say, like do I have to do this work every day? And I’m like well, do you think every day? Because you think with the thoughts that you’ve had for like for me, 53 years, I, we have these limiting beliefs that replay over and over every single day, and I think the the big message that I want to say there is is that we are always it’s us against us, and so how about we create a scenario where we’re not battling ourselves as much and we are supporting ourselves? That’s the difference, the other pieces. I’ve spent years helping people to learn how to change a story, and it was the light bulb moment for me that you can’t just think your way to changing a story. You actually have to recognize what has your body gone through, what has it held on to, what are the challenges and the stressors, because that’s important when it comes to changing a story too.

Julie Hilsen

Host

08:25

As you said, let go of those, those inner wounds, those beliefs that were thrown at us when we were, you know, before we even understood we were thinking anything and these, these scenarios. So I think that segues in really well to what we, what was on our hearts when we first started talking that idea that you have compassion and you’re feeling where you’re feeling and how you can, you can show up as a better parent for a child. And what? What we said we wanted to explore was you know, addiction in children and when you notice, or when you’re well. My question was were there?

09:08

There are things you’d want to tell yourself as a young mother, looking back, that you know that you. You know, you, that you might have been too busy. You were working in that paradigm because you didn’t have NLP. Then you were producing and running your businesses and your children were showing signs of addiction, but then you might have guilt because you might not have seen them right away or you might have been out of town. How would you look at it differently now with your experience? What advice can? That’s my biggest thing is living a life of joy and magic If we can show up in our families in a different way and being more conscious of our unconscious programming is huge. I’m going to let you take the stage and what’s coming to your heart about that. I honor that you’re. This is a difficult. We’re opening up a little wound. I respect that this might be difficult and I want everyone to appreciate that this is personal. This isn’t just someone talking about signs and symptoms. This is like a personal thing.

Marsha Vanwynsberghe

Guest

10:17

No, thank you so much for saying that. It’s almost like a disclaimer, because this is a challenging topic and there are times where even my husband and I will have a conversation. It’s like, wait, that was our life, like that’s what we lived in, like it’s so almost surreal. But about probably 11 years ago we started to experience what I call teen substance abuse. So some people will say it was a stage. It was marijuana. That’s where it started. And for us, we never got to experience it like a stage. It just came in and it never left. It only amplified and led to a number of different things.

10:54

Now I know a lot more now than I did 11 years ago, but I can tell you when it first came into our life, I actually spent a lot of time fighting it. Like I fought it and did I overreact? I don’t know if that’s really the word, but I can say that I’ve even asked my kids was there ever any time that you were unclear about how we felt, about what was happening? And they’re like oh no, you were crystal clear. And I’m like good, well, that’s important, right? I mean, I was consistent and I was clear.

11:25

For us it was never a stage where, as we were talking when we were younger. There might be drinking, there might be experimenting, but I worked, I went to school, I came home, I did. That’s not what we were experiencing. We were experiencing they, you know missing for days, not going to school, not coming home, not knowing where they were, and so we had a lot of things that we had to juggle without a lot of notice. It wasn’t like there was a lot of prep time for this, and we all know that parenting doesn’t have a manual anyways, let alone. There was no parent, there was no manual for what we were living in, none. And so I spent a lot of time fighting Fighting is the only word I can think of is fighting, controlling, trying so hard to fix, manage and control everything that was happening. And I couldn’t, no matter what was happening, I couldn’t make it stop, and during that time, I found myself living with immense amount of guilt and judgment that I must have done something wrong. Right, I must have done something wrong. This was both my kids. What was going wrong? Like what did we do wrong as parents? And we spent so much time looking for blame and looking for reasons why, and I think that that’s a victim mentality and I say this with a lot of love because I live there for a very long time Nothing changes when you’re in victim mindset. Nothing changes Like nothing moves forward. Everything is stuck still. It’s okay if you recognize yourself living in that space, but just honor, bring awareness to it and find a way to move forward.

13:01

So for me, I remember a counselor saying you know, where are you experiencing joy in your life? I’m going to take it back to a word that you said earlier, julie when are you experiencing joy? And I remember looking at her and thinking have you lost your mind? Did you not hear what I said? We were living in Like, there is no joy.

13:19

You know, most people would be able to go home at night or on the weekends or holidays from work and their home was their safe haven. My home was not my safe haven. My home was the place where I lived. My home was the last place I wanted to be, and I actually would find refuge in my car and parking lots because I didn’t want to go home, and so there was no joy at all. I had to go look for joy. I had to find it and I had to start to change my thinking and one of the quotes that turned things for me was hearing Brunet Brown say that you can’t selectively block out emotions. You block when you block them all. And so I was trying to protect myself from the opinions, judgments and criticisms from other people while at the same time being in a space of not knowing how to process whatever thing that was happening. So I’m blocking everything, and so eventually I hit a point where I was like I was completely alone and I still had the problem. So it was a moment of going your way is not working, like this way is not working, and almost coming to a point where we did almost lose both of our boys in a span of a couple of days apart.

14:27

And as awful as that time was, that was a very big turning point moment for me, because I recognized that I wasn’t in control. I didn’t have control, I wasn’t able to fix, manage or change this, and both things happened in my own house, and that was a moment of recognizing that I can’t keep them safe. This isn’t, this is out of my control. That’s an awful thing. No parent wants to hear this, and I say this it’s very scary. No parent wants to hear this, but it wasn’t for me to control, and in that moment I decided that my job was going to be to give their future self a chance. That’s what my job was. My job was to stop hating on the person that I was seeing in front of me, stop trying to change, fix and control the person in front of me and give their future version a chance. So that meant that I did actually have to grieve who they were and who they had become, and almost losing that part of them, because the kids that were in front of me were not my kids. They were not my kids anymore.

15:37

That was different levels of addiction at that point, and so I had to grieve that in order to move on, and I decided that I would give their future self a chance, and that meant that if something went wrong, I was calling police, if something went wrong, I was filing charges, I was taking them to court. I was doing things that I would never, ever wish and I’m not saying my way is the only way. I please don’t ever take that for anybody who’s listening but I had to come to the mindset that I would give their future self a chance, and I remember being in court once and my one son saying I cannot believe you did this to me and I’m like I will do this to you every single time over. My job is to give your future self a chance. I don’t care if you hate me right now. I will come, I will visit you here, I will love on you, but my job is not to push and pull you through life. My job is to walk beside you, to support you and to give your future self a chance. And those words anchored in me.

16:38

How did NLP come into that? I had to really go back and learn how to let go of some of the guilt that I had held on, to Let go of the shame, the judgment, the feeling like I had failed, and rewrite that story, really rewrite that story. And I believe that in a lot of ways that I mean we gave our kids a better chance because of the positions that we started to take and the real changes that they made were because of them. So I think this is I say this with a lot of love there’s a lot of parents that want to win, want to take their child’s wins as a badge of honor, like I’m a good parent and I did a good job and, yes, that works to a certain age.

17:20

But there comes a point where we don’t share a brain. We don’t share a brain with them. They make their own decisions and so letting them fail and have confidence in their own decisions and have consequences of their decisions allows them to make different decisions. So as they started to make changes in their life and they were at a point I remember when my one time went back to school and he graduated he’s got an incredible job, he does great things now and he said you know, you did help me a lot and like we did, and you actually were the one that made the changes Like, let them own their wins too. We can’t just take their wins as a badge of honor as a parent and then their faults are their fault. That’s not how it works. I think we have to let them learn to stand on their feet, even when they’re a younger age, because, honestly, no human makes changes if there’s no consequences to their choices. Do we don’t change behavior.

Julie Hilsen

Host

18:21

Right, oh my gosh. Yeah, it reminds me of a book that changed my parenting the Blessings of a Skin. Me, oh, I don’t know that one.

Marsha Vanwynsberghe

Guest

18:29

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard.

Julie Hilsen

Host

18:31

It’s a parenting book. It’s not new, it is. I don’t. It’s not my bookshelf around the corner, but the Blessings of a Skin Me. And it’s like you know, when your child falls, you don’t blame the rock that they slipped on, you just say, oh, you missed your step. You don’t freak out and call an ambulance right away. You’re like you.

18:50

Okay, you know that was a tough one, but it’s a totally different thing from freaking out and being like get a bandaid and let’s get some ice pack. You know you get there, but you know this is a chance to show resiliency. This is a chance to show that I believe in you. This is a chance to break down a paradigm of I will love you if no, that’s not how love works. It’s unconditional Okay.

19:14

And if you’re putting the condition on your child, you’re putting that on yourself. You’re saying, oh, I’m only good enough if I do this, that and this. You know, and it’s just crap. It is crap, I’m sorry, we can’t continue to exist with these limitations. And the kids pick up on it. The kids are perceptive, so they internalize, they feel the control, they feel the manipulation. They might not be able to say it, but it’s the same thing that generation after generation has gone through and you know. So, just having you know so many things you said, or just like you know, I believe in you. I’m going to give your future, yourself, a chance, because if you don’t believe in someone, you don’t give them the space to fail. And you know I’m here for you.

Marsha Vanwynsberghe

Guest

19:56

That was good, that was really good. If you don’t believe in them, you don’t give them a space to fail. That is so powerful and it’s I think that’s a very big act of surrender, and surrender is very it’s a great concept. It’s not easy to do and I was a person who was that fighter and controller and again, those were strengths for a long time, but eventually they came a point that it’s like these are not strengths, these are weaknesses. Right now, they’re actually like they’re killing me.

20:25

I can’t live like this, and so, learning to, I came to the mantra of like own my choices, own my life, which is actually the name of my podcast, but that’s not my choice. That’s what I kept saying like that’s not my choice. And it’s like, okay, I can’t own that choice because that one’s not my choice. And I would say to them but you’re standing in a space today as a result of the choices that you’ve made, but do that as a parent, without shaming them, because shame does not create change. I would love to say I didn’t do this wrong and that’s an absolute lie. I did do it wrong. I completely added shame because, out of desperation and frustration, trying to make because I wanted. I was worried we were gonna lose them and that’s where we were at. But shaming somebody does not create change. Like that is not an empowering way to create change. So learning to let go, surrender and not try and fix and manage and control them, and letting them create their own life empowered them to be able to make change. And the changes that they made, I 100% they did that themselves. They I gave them space but they did it themselves and so I don’t want to own that. That’s not mine to own. They deserve to own the changes that they’ve made. Those are some of the pieces of it, and you referenced a book and I just want to share this book just in case anybody is in this space and this story is connecting to you.

21:50

I read a book called stay close and it’s Libby Kataldi. I read it like probably a decade ago and she was on the journey of sharing, dealing with addiction in her son and through that concept was learning how to stay close to them emotionally but have a distance and respect boundaries. She had to learn how to and I had to do that. There was a time where I didn’t see my kids for months because I couldn’t I literally couldn’t, it wasn’t safe, but I would send the messages and I would say still love you, right, like I’m here for you. I mean, I get angry messages back because that’s the space that they were in, but it was like I love you and I’m here for you, so you can find a way to stay close to somebody but not take on where they’re at. That allowed me to continue to heal, and the more I healed, the better I was for them anyways.

Julie Hilsen

Host

22:40

I know, and there is research that shows that our DNA is actually in our children until the age of, I want to say, twenty one or nineteen. It’s like it’s well beyond the teen. So like when they’re feeling pain, we actually feel it. So the helicopter mom thing, like I have compassion for that, like I’ve done it, like you don’t want them to hurt, because it actually does hurt you I mean, it’s the mama bear, it’s you know. So you, you have to recognize that I have to recognize that it’s theirs.

Marsha Vanwynsberghe

Guest

23:11

It is and that’s how they’re going to learn, because they’re not ours to keep. I say this but they’re not ours to keep, there for us to race with. They can be functioning adults in society and part of us like that’s part of the past. So even when you mentioned helicopter parents During our time, one of the things my counselor said to us is not even helicopter parents were creating this generation of Of lawnmower parents, and lawnmower parents means they’re going ahead and like cutting the grass and paving the way of every single obstacle, so our kids never have to experience. And I was like, oh, that’s a that’s deep, like that’s a very deep. And he said, if our kids are never experiencing any kind of obstacle, then when they’re twenty or twenty five and they’re trying to find their way on their own, they don’t know what to do with the first thing. That goes wrong, because We’ve never allowed them to experience a challenge and it’s a disservice.

Julie Hilsen

Host

24:03

No, no shame. But you know it’s sort of a neglect. You know like If you can catch yourself it you’ll do better. And then you know it’s the whole thing that our beliefs, our thoughts, even if we don’t say it, they pick up on it. Everyone picks up on any relationship you’re in. If you’re thinking negative things about your lover, they pick up on that like any single relationship. Even if you go up to the bank teller and you’re thinking negative thoughts, they pick up on it like Everything we do has a charge to it. So of course, yeah for judging if we’re, if we’re putting expectations on our kids that you know are are just ours. We have to, we have to, we have to know who they are. They’re a separate soul. Everything has energy, everything. It’d be nice if we had a manual on that, but we don’t. It’s learning and it’s a.

Marsha Vanwynsberghe

Guest

24:55

It’s a bad no, and I mean again for any parents who are listening, like I, we’ve had very open conversations with our kids, are both adults now, they’re twenty four, twenty five and I we’ve both openly said we made mistakes. We made mistakes as parents, I guarantee you. But I can also look back and say I did the best, like we did the best that we could with the situation that we had. There was no manual for anything we’re walking through and it was an absolute nightmare.

25:22

So I think, as a parent, it’s also important, like I think most parents feel like they’re never doing enough. They’re not doing enough, it’s not right. I’m balancing work, I’m doing this, I’m never giving enough and we are in this perpetual cycle of never feeling like it’s enough. And if we’re feeling that our kids are feeling that you’re right, this is exactly right. They are feeling what our emotions are and most of our emotions and beliefs they’re based in that subconscious mind that ninety five to ninety nine percent they’re not real, they’re like, they’re like we’re. We’re just repeating patterns over and over and over and most of the time they’re not serving us, so they’re not helping us to move forward and I think it’s very important to recognize that when those beliefs show up. Many times I thought you completely blew it as a parent and I would stop and say but did you do the best that you could with the situation that you had? And I can say I honestly did. I try. I turned over every rock I could. So for now that has to be enough.

Julie Hilsen

Host

26:21

Your heart is in the right place, you know, and, and, and that’s what matters it’s that love, it’s that showing up for that, that divine soul that you, you got the Honor bringing into the world, you get to witness and I, it’s something we came back to before in the pre-interview interview that you had to learn to love and have gratitude for the smallest little things. And so, you know, maybe part of that paradigm shift for people, if they they realize they’re having the same conversations over and over, like you catch yourself, you’re like I said the same thing yesterday. I said the same thing yesterday when they left the house and and you don’t like the way you’re showing up in that situation, that’s a clue to you. When you’re, when you feel like you’re on autopilot, you’re in a groundhog moment, that’s, that’s a signal you’re recognizing that for reason, and that this is a chance to implement gratitude and think of one thing that you’re grateful for and, instead of inserting a command or a criticism or a demand, say, hey, you know, you’re, I don’t know.

27:27

You can say anything like your hair is looking really good today, or that shirt is spot on, or you know, you are so funny, or you know, I’m just, I’m just really happy to see you today. Can I have a hug? You know, like starting the day with a hug is so much better than what’s on your to-do list, right? Like? Figure out how you want to center your life, how you want to show up, because it’s your choice. Every moment’s a chance to live the life of your dreams. So how do you want to show up? And you set the stage.

Marsha Vanwynsberghe

Guest

27:56

Everything you said, everything you said I would I 100% agree, and I think that that’s really what I had to come down to was that the more I cared for my life, cared for myself and put myself first and started to heal and started to put those pieces together, the more I could show up differently in my life. I was less reactive. You know, as a counselor said to me and I still use this to this day you have a choice with every single argument or discussion that comes to you. You can throw sand or you can throw gas on it, and it’s an active, conscious choice. The more I healed, the more I like calm my nervous system, the more I learned how to respond instead of react through a sand instead of gas.

28:38

I showed up differently. When I showed up differently, it changed how things unfolded, which eventually changed our circumstances. So, indirectly, things changed because we decided to create change first, not because we tried to force it to happen. I think all change comes from us first. I think every single thing that we want in our life comes from us. The choices we make, the decisions we make, how we show up, how we treat others. We’re creating our life. It doesn’t mean you’re not going to have challenges. It doesn’t mean you’re not going to have hard times, but you get to choose how you respond to every single thing that happens.

Julie Hilsen

Host

29:15

Yeah. So if you’re a control freak, control yourself, like, figure out what your body needs, figure out how to be there for yourself, and then you’re right, it’s a ripple effect. It’s a calming salve. What is the word Salve? It’s a calming balm.

Marsha Vanwynsberghe

Guest

29:34

Yes, it’s a balm.

Julie Hilsen

Host

29:36

It’s a balm yeah it’s work.

Marsha Vanwynsberghe

Guest

29:39

It’s work and it takes practice. It does. But I was able to find gratitude in places that I never, ever thought that I could, and when we would have a dinner and I’m like everybody’s here and everybody’s alive and it’s good. That’s enough for today. Like it’s stop playing in the future, right. Like when we are playing in the future, we are like anxieties driving the wheel. When we’re playing in the past, that’s depression, that’s driving the wheel. I know that’s a statement, but it’s just.

30:09

I didn’t know how to live in the present moment, because the present moment I didn’t know where to live. The past I was replaying it. The future I was anxious about the present moment was ugly. I didn’t know where to go. I had to learn how to find a way to be in the present moment and it’s really powerful when you can start to do that. And that means that I would find gratitude for the simplest things and some people I would listen to them lose it over something and I’d be like, yep, that’s just not my. I mean, that’s not where I’m at right now.

30:36

I’m grateful for where we are today. It doesn’t mean people would say, well, what are you going to do when the shoe drops Because you know it’s going to drop again and I’m like, well, when that shoe drops I will stop and pick it up then. But I can’t plan for when the shoe is going to drop. I can’t like map it out because I’m never going to be ready for it anyways. We’ve all lost somebody. We’ve lost somebody in a like planned where they were sick and they were dying from something. We’ve. Some of us have lost people in a car accident. You can’t plan for either. You can’t plan for those things you can choose to live each day and each moment, and then that changes how you show up and then that changes the relationships and things you have around you.

Julie Hilsen

Host

31:15

That’s so beautiful and I just honor that because it comes from the most fragile, most vulnerable place, your place as a parent, your place as a loving person in this world, and it’s so powerful. Thank you for going there with us. Thank you, it was very awesome.

Marsha Vanwynsberghe

Guest

31:35

Oh, you’re welcome Thank you for having me and it’s something I could talk about for a long time because it’s really powerful and can impact a lot of us, and I can just say that, even walking through some of the most difficult things I’ve ever walked through, it’s changed me as a human and has allowed me to do the work I get to do now, and it’s allowed me to build even better relationships with them than what I had before.

Julie Hilsen

Host

32:00

So I wish things hadn’t happened and just think how yeah, I know you you were like, oh, that sucked. But just think about great parents they’re going to be. If that comes to be a time, you know, or you know that you’ve broken perhaps a cycle we talked about. You know, if there’s alcoholism in a family, that those children might be more vulnerable to drug addiction or addictions of all types. Right, you know, get to know the signs and symptoms of addiction. And you know, just have honest, heartfelt conversations instead of blaming or shaming.

32:31

It’s like, hey, I can tell that you’re really into that right now. But you know we need to. We need to go outside and do fun things together. You know, like you can, you can tell certain kids don’t want to leave their video games, like when they’re five. They’re like so involved and you love them. You say, oh, you really paid attention to that for a long time. Let’s go do something else. So you’re recognizing that’s something rewarding to them. But you know, just keep, keep spending time getting to know what your children are into and what they’re interested in. And, and you know, it’s just, we’re just here to be there for them. And they have free will and everyone, you know everyone has free will. There’s no guarantee for anything. You know. We don’t even know if we’re going to wake up in the morning.

Marsha Vanwynsberghe

Guest

33:16

So no, we don’t, and I love everything that you’ve said and I think that’s it. That’s such a big part of it is learning to like just be there but also like take care of yourself as a parent. Please take care of yourself as a parent, because you won’t be able to do any of the other jobs that you want to do if you don’t do that first.

Julie Hilsen

Host

33:40

Oh yeah, I had to learn that the hard way Most parents.

Marsha Vanwynsberghe

Guest

33:43

Do we have to learn it the very hard way, yep.

Julie Hilsen

Host

33:48

We’d rather us suffer for a million days rather than them have five minutes of angst. Right, I know?

Marsha Vanwynsberghe

Guest

33:55

And that angst continues so much. I know, I know.

Julie Hilsen

Host

34:00

That’s. That’s the thing. Oh, my goodness. Well, I will definitely put your website in the show notes. And, yeah, do you have a call to action or any any more resources that you’d like to share? I just really appreciate everything that you’ve given. This has been oh, thank you.

Marsha Vanwynsberghe

Guest

34:17

I think the big thing is is, if you feel this feels aligned to you, you would like to learn more? Please follow me anywhere on social media. I have a free course and it’s like the blocks to owning your story Like what are the blocks? And I actually give some NLP tools like EFT tapping to support you in moving through and releasing that story. It’s just free. So that’s, if that’s there and that is something that speaks to you, then please feel free to do it. Just know that your story is. You’re not a free person, you’re not alone. Your story is actually. It happens to you to do something with it and please don’t let it own you and control you because, honestly, you can take your biggest sources of pain and do something really good with them and it’ll change everything.

Julie Hilsen

Host

35:07

That’s awesome, thank you, thank you so much for having me, thank you.

Marsha Vanwynsberghe

Guest

35:16

Thank you so much for having me.