Episode 56- “Cultivating Emotional Intelligence within Families” with Sabina Nalepa

In this episode of the Sweet Slumber podcast, host Meredith Brough and emotional intelligence coach Sabina Nalepa explore the important role of emotional intelligence in parenting. Meredith shares her own growth through therapy and the positive changes in her parenting approach.

Sabina emphasizes the importance of self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, and relationship-building. They discuss the challenges of traditional parenting and the benefits of emotional intelligence in creating nurturing family environments. Sabina offers tips you can implement right away, shares insights on her upcoming emotional intelligence program, and invites listeners to connect with her for guidance.

Topics

• Importance of emotional intelligence in parenting & family dynamics
• Personal journey of discovering emotional intelligence
• Four key domains of emotional intelligence
• Cultivating emotional intelligence 
• Role of empathy, adaptability, & attunement in parenting
• Impact of emotional intelligence on relationships
• Challenges of traditional parenting approaches
• Significance of emotional intelligence in creating a supportive family environment
• Practices for managing emotions & developing self-compassion

Connect with Sabina on LinkedIn or by email: Sabina@incolo.uk

If you'd like to learn about the Baby-Centered Sleep Consultant Program or Mastermind set up a call with Meredith HERE.

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Keywords
emotional intelligence, parenting, family dynamics, self-awareness, self-regulation, understanding others, building relationships, emotional patterns, emotional triggers, traditional parenting, nurturing environment, self-reflection, growth, positive environment, emotional processing, mindfulness, meditation, self-compassion, emotional regulation,  emotional healing, emotional well-being, emotional growth, emotional support, family healing, compassion for others, sleep consulting work, workplace emotional intelligence, do the work

The Baby-Centered Sleep Consultant Certification Program Launches on November 11th, 2024!

Check out the links below & add your name to our waiting list so you can join our next session.

Learn More About the Baby-Centered Sleep Consultant Certification Program HERE.

Learn about our Baby-Centered Sleep approach, methods and principles, hear from a few of our graduates, and get to know Meredith HERE.

Transcript

Meredith (00:00:00) - Welcome to the Sweet Slumber podcast. I'm your host, Meredith Brough. Whether you're a seasoned sleep consultant, a sleep coach, a birth world professional, or a mother aspiring to enter this fulfilling field of sleep expertise, you're in the right place. I'm here to teach you my baby centered solutions so you can help exhausted, struggling parents reclaim their sleep and help children thrive along the way. I'll teach you how to find harmony in your life and avoid burnout. Build a thriving business and become a financially independent woman. My goal is to help you fall in love with sleep coaching and never look back. Let's embark on this journey together. Her dreams are sweet and the work is rewarding. Stay tuned for a show that will transform your business and the lives of those who touch. Hello! I'm happy to be here with my friend and associate, Sabina Nalepa. Hi, Sabina.

Sabina (00:00:56) - Hi. Hi. Thank you so much for having me today.

Meredith (00:01:01) - I'm looking forward to this and how you can explain emotional intelligence to us.

Meredith (00:01:06) - It's going to be really eye opening and interesting, and I'm just so grateful for the time you've made to be here.

Sabina (00:01:13) - Oh that's wonderful. Thank you so much. I'm very grateful to. Yeah, to be able to be here as well and share all of it that I know about emotional intelligence and and how powerful it is.

Meredith (00:01:25) - Sabina. When we get to it, tell us a little bit about, how you came upon this and your beginnings of learning about emotional intelligence, because it's a phrase that I didn't hear for a really long time, but I'm really, really interested in it. So just to explain a little bit more about what our topic is today, because I kind of went backwards here today we're discussing how we can cultivate emotional intelligence within our families. And Sabina is someone that I met through customer management software. Somehow it's just so funny that we were we both started using the software at the same time when we were part of a, I guess, tour. And who would have ever guessed that at the end of that call we would connect and become friends? And it's just been really uplifting and positive to know her.

Meredith (00:02:13) - But we've been waiting for this conversation, one of one of more or one of many conversations to come. My hope we've been waiting for this for a while. We've talked for months, right? Yes.

Sabina (00:02:26) - And we're finally here.

Meredith (00:02:29) - I'm here. All right. So I'm going to tell you a little bit more about Sabina. She is a mom of two kids. I have to say she's from the UK. So we're going to use the cute little phrase or cute little nickname. Sabina is a mom of two kids and certified emotional intelligence coach. In the last two years, she has been helping leaders in organizations to navigate complexities of very fast paced environment. But she's also passionate about cultivating emotional intelligence within families. There's a lot of uncertainty that parents need to deal with, especially in the first years of parenthood. And Sabina strongly believes that emotional intelligence is a crucial meta skill that we need to acquire to be resilient and thrive through uncertainty. Beyond her corporate role, Sabina guides parents in unleashing the super power of emotional intelligence, empowering them to equip their children with essential resources and life tools they need to develop healthy mentally and physically lifestyles.

Meredith (00:03:32) - Thank you so much and we're going to go into everything more, so don't worry everybody. I think it's probably a simple topic but very complex as well. Right?

Sabina (00:03:41) - Oh yeah. Absolutely. Yes. Yeah.

Meredith (00:03:44) - So Sabina, tell us a little bit about yourself and your life and yeah, what you're doing. What brought you to this amazing certificate? What do you call it. It's a certification or a expertise. Yeah, yeah. The expertise.

Sabina (00:04:00) - Expertise. Yeah, absolutely. yeah. So I suppose in my early 20s, I became a mum. and I was also, a student at university. And one day a colleague of mine gave me this book, Emotional Intelligence by, Daniel Goleman. And I opened this book and I was like, oh, my gosh, that was so, so much text. And I felt a little bit overwhelmed by it. I was like, I cannot I cannot really go through it all, you know, while, having my son and studying and working part time, I was like, no, I put it on the side.

Sabina (00:04:40) - I put it on a shelf. And then the life went on. I finished my university, I moved to UK and I became a manager in one of the organisations here in the UK. And as I was leading people, I realise that emotions are really contagious. That may be the way I was exhibiting myself. It wasn't the right way because I wasn't really building the right connections with people in my workplace. So I started to study more and I went, you know, really in-depth into emotional intelligence research and how humans, human work, really. and I discovered this, that because the emotions are contagious, and I had patterns of my thinking that were generating this energy in me that, you know, frustration, maybe that something was done the way that I wanted or, yes, things like, a conflict in a workplace that I wasn't able to deal with. That's, Yeah. I realized that this was all my emotions in my body, and I was, just projecting it on people around me and creating that atmosphere of, you know, not a great place to be, really.

Sabina (00:06:04) - So I started really to work on myself and learn more about it. And, I went to university again and I did, another degree, in managing business performance. I studied leadership, and I did my research, my dissertation in emotional intelligence. And from that I, enrolled into a coaching certification program, with, Daniel Goleman and Michelle Nevarez, specializing in emotional intelligence. Yes. And I've been coaching since then.

Meredith (00:06:39) - Wow, that's so wonderful. What stands out to me is that you were really drawn to this subject, even in the beginning, when you put it aside and then it just kind of resurfaced. You just started seeing these patterns or noticing the importance, I guess. I love how naturally it evolved for you, because I can relate to that a lot. You know, in my work, I just feel like things can fall into our laps. But it's also like our mission, our destiny. So I feel like this is your destiny.

Sabina (00:07:07) - Yeah, it felt like like absolutely like that.

Sabina (00:07:11) - It was like, wow, how is that? I was giving that book 20 years ago or, you know, 25 years ago, and I didn't really pay attention to it that much. You know, I was in a different space in, in life. But then it came back to me, you know, some way. So it's it's it's beautiful really.

Meredith (00:07:28) - Yeah. It is. And I know you have other interests. In fact, you're going to study to be a sleep consultant, right?

Sabina (00:07:35) - Yes. Yes, absolutely. Yes. I just love, love working with parents and, Yeah. And bringing emotional intelligence into their lives. And I think it's so important. you know, sleep is crucial in, in, in development, in, child's development, but also for parents to, you know, self-care and ensure that, we have enough energy to care for our little babies.

Meredith (00:08:05) - Yeah. It's a, it's at the heart of everything. And so I can see how that would connect with what you're doing.

Meredith (00:08:11) - That's really neat. So can you tell us I guess more expand on what emotional intelligence is and help us understand all that it encompasses, and maybe even talk about your approach.

Sabina (00:08:24) - Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. So, emotional intelligence is for, key domains. we talk about self-awareness, and that's emotional self-awareness, self-regulation, emotional self-regulation, regulation and also, understanding others. So social awareness, understanding, other people's emotions and, you know, what's happening for them and also building relationships. So these are the four key domains. But then there are also competencies within those domains such as inspirational leadership or empathy. That's so crucial for, you know, in parenting, tuning in to our children, understanding what's happening, what's happening, what's happening for them, being able to. Meet their needs. Really? For that, we need empathy. And we talk about it a lot.

Meredith (00:09:26) - Yeah. I'm smiling because I just posted about that this week about attunement and the importance of, you know, reading your child's emotions or feelings or desires.

Meredith (00:09:38) - I think I even use the term read their mind because when it comes to me, I feel like that's what we have to do. We have to read their minds. Yeah. Yes. Very important.

Sabina (00:09:47) - Very much. Absolutely. And that that comes with our own emotional self-awareness, but then also self-awareness of others. So how we think in to to others around us and with children, you know, understanding their different, temperaments, their physiological makeup. it's all about paying that attention to our kids. So there is a lot there's things like, you know, adaptability also crucial, when we think about parenting, being able to adjust to continuous changing situation. it's it's it's not, you know, you often talk about establishing routines, but the children go through so many developmental stages that it's it's so difficult. And to have that routine without actually being flexible at the same time. So it's almost like that underlying dimension to having a routine.

Meredith (00:10:48) - Yeah, so interesting because I teach that in my course. So many of the children that I work with that are more sensitive or very, very active, very strong willed.

Meredith (00:10:59) - They just seem to be affected more by their development and it affects them so many ways. And I think flexibility is really important. But I just recently had a client point out to me that she's always been a flexible person, and how learning to have the structured side is really been a blessing to her as a mom, but that you need both. So it's exactly what you just said. I love that, yeah.

Sabina (00:11:23) - Yeah, absolutely. And I remember in terms of talking about, emotional intelligence and just bringing a picture to mind. When I was a child, a teenager, I used to spend a lot of, summer holidays, many summer holidays with my grandma. And, you know, at that time, there was no, many, you know, shopped clock shops, clothing. so my grandma, had a box with, you know, threads and yarn, and she would just patch the clothes, but there was also a bowl of mixer. Then my grandma asked me to untangle it all.

Sabina (00:12:04) - And when I think about emotional intelligence and. You know, all the patterns of behaviors of our reaction that we, display. It's like that ball of mixed yarn. And when we connect with our emotion, when we pay attention to our emotions, we develop that self-awareness. It's like slowly untangling and disconnecting this individual yarn strands from from that ball. It's understanding the mechanistic structure within that yarn because we cannot just pull it out. First, we need to really pay attention and understand that. Interconnectedness of, of that, you know, mixture of, of yarn. So once we do it, then we can, you know, separate those individual strands. And it's like with our patterns and unconscious patterns, once we have a full picture of that, then we can recreate and we can decide how do you want to respond and how do you want to show up, really in our relationship with, children and families.

Meredith (00:13:24) - Wow. That's my mind blowing up. That was the most beautiful analogy. So perfect. Especially because in my family I am the untangling the.

Meredith (00:13:35) - So I'm the one untangling the necklaces and the chains and the string. And they are so funny because I can relate to. But I love how you said a mixed ball of yarn with several colors. Wow. So cool. So many things came to mind. One is that it's kind of crazy how little. The whole world knows about this topic, right? Honestly, like, my parents knew nothing about this. You know, and I'm learning about this over the past several years. Maybe not using the word emotional intelligence because I told you that phrase is kind of new to me. But, just, you know, focusing on what you're talking about and how we're all connected. And then also what I can do to better myself to to be whole, to be able to show up as a person who can create a sense of peace or harmony in my home. And it takes a lot, you know, if you have a especially me of a background with trauma and dysfunctional family and some healing that needed to be done and a lot of learning, I, I just think a lot of people can relate to me and how clueless I've been almost my whole life about this.

Meredith (00:14:55) - So I love what you're doing, and I know you see that a lot. You've got to see that a lot in the workplace and.

Sabina (00:15:01) - Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And you know, our culture, our words now is just, made for, you know, doing. We constantly run and do things and we want to achieve things. And we don't take much time to just be and reflect and connect with our ourselves. Truly. But without this connection with with ourselves, then we can't really connect with others on that deeper level. And we can't build the connection with our children to fully support them in their development. Yeah, right.

Meredith (00:15:39) - Because if you're not, if you're not in a place where you're self-aware, you're. Managing your emotions. I don't want to say control because it's more about like we have emotions, they're real and they're, you know, it's causing effects going up and down all the time. But if we don't manage our emotions and we're not aware of ourselves, then how can we come to our children as healthy human beings or the person that has so much to give and the time and attention to be reading them, right.

Sabina (00:16:07) - Yeah. Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. And. What comes to my mind now is when. For example, we try to manage our child behavior in a way and we say, you know, the child misbehaves and said, like, you know, go and, you know, sit in a corner or, you know, go to the calm corner. But then in a way, then we create actually that disconnection because we telling them that there's something wrong with what they're feeling, what's what's happening for them. And that disconnection then creates lack of safety. And it may show up later on in life. in developing creating relationship with other people in our child's life. Yeah. So it's having awareness as well of how we show up for our kids then influences their future.

Meredith (00:17:06) - But I know can sounds scary and people won't like that. But from my perspective as a mom of four adults and one child, sorry, one teenager, oh gosh, I wish I knew this stuff a long time ago. I really did do because a lot of times we parent.

Meredith (00:17:25) - We, follow trends. We do what's popular, we do whatever everybody else is doing. We don't really. Think about these things like time out, like the quiet corner. I used to send my kids to their rooms and I actually have seen the damage. Now, my son and I are processing through how our parenting and our discipline affected him. And it's it's like probably not common for a child to be so affected. But in his case, he was very affected by it. And it has absolutely shown up in his life as an adult. And I would do anything to go back and do it all over again. But I'm so happy and I can. I'm so grateful to be able to learn and to share. And that's why we're here today, is I want other parents to not have that kind of regret, or their kids should not have that kind of trauma that they have to work through. Right?

Sabina (00:18:15) - Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, that's absolutely not for, you know, any parents to feel guilty that, you know, that's definitely not not that it's just about learning.

Sabina (00:18:26) - You know, our parents didn't have that toolkit. and we learn from them how to parent. Yeah. That's our, unconscious patterns. And it was the same for me when I had my son first 25 years ago. that was exactly the same. I was not aware emotionally, and it took me a while to develop that. And it's about doing the work. Absolutely. And now I can show up for my daughter with different space. Yeah. And I can see a difference in. How I actually enjoy parenting.

Meredith (00:19:00) - Yeah, that's big for me. It's that I get to help my kids raise their kids, you know? And my son is actually very aware of all this. So I'm really glad that, yeah, I can share you with even my own children. Isn't that cool?

Sabina (00:19:17) - So I think that's why coaching approach is so crucial, because as we talked about that ball of mixed yarn, it requires patience and it requires time. And that's exactly what developing our emotional intelligence needs. Just time, patience and doing the work consistently.

Meredith (00:19:38) - Yes yes yes, yes. You're talking about doing the work. So when we're not working on it, when we're not training this muscle, how does it show up?

Sabina (00:19:47) - So if if we don't, do the work, it's very similar. It's like with our bodies, if we don't train our bodies, if we don't move our bodies, you know, our muscles disappear. And it's the same with our emotional intelligence muscles. You know, that mental fitness, and it doesn't need to take much time. It's just incorporating short activities throughout the day. However, if we. Don't take decision to look into ourselves and start to do the work. Then it may show up impulsive reactions leading to conflicts. And. You know, not great relationships really, with our children.

Meredith (00:20:36) - Yeah. You don't even have to tell me because I've been there. Well, I mean, I she's right. Guys, when you haven't worked on your emotional intelligence, it's. There's a lot of conflict and there's a lot of, struggle.

Meredith (00:20:51) - It's a lot of struggle. Yeah, it's. And it's exhausting. Exhausting. Yeah. Like, yeah, I definitely picture a power struggle or a wrestling match, but also, for example, that we set the example that we set is, is really harmful instead of being powerful. And again, like she said, there's no no intention of like blame or we don't want you to feel guilty, but we're just trying to help you understand that if you'll do the work, how it will help. So and I could say from experience, the difference when I started focusing on emotional intelligence and saw a therapist and worked through the trauma and did the healing, the difference in my parenting was incredible. Like I honestly didn't realize that I wasn't showing up as this adult, as this parent. I was showing up as a child. I was showing us someone fighting to be heard and seen and validated, and somebody who was triggered all the time, and I couldn't I couldn't be grounded and calm and peaceful. And oh, Carl, talking about it makes me like, oh, I don't ever want to go back because, like, it's exhausting.

Meredith (00:22:05) - But also it's just so sad, so sad that my kids had so many, bad experiences, but also like, they were lost and I was lost and I couldn't help them, you know? So. Oh, this is just so important.

Sabina (00:22:20) - Yeah. And one thing that, I would like to offer you then in this moment, if you think about actually, you know, doing this work and your wisdom. Now, what do you think? Would you rather be a person who never actually had the opportunity to do the work?

Meredith (00:22:37) - I didn't expect to be emotional in this conversation, but hey, we're talking about emotional intelligence. It's kind of funny. Oh yeah, I agree. I think it's worth it. It's worth it because now I can be an advocate. I can help parents see that. Hortense and I had a therapist tell me when my kids were, I think my oldest was 14 or 15. And we are meeting and talking about the conflict and and how to resolve it. And he said, I want you to know that you've come a really long way in your life time at the age you're at right now, and that your son has the next 30 years to catch up.

Meredith (00:23:15) - Yes. And he's going to have the next 30 years to heal and to work through this stuff. And so it's okay. And this is also something that we don't realize is a normal dynamic of family life. We we think that we have to make life perfect. But I've learned that it's more about helping our kids, know how to manage the messes.

Sabina (00:23:36) - Absolutely. Navigate the, the, the daily life challenges. And, and we are modeling this for them. so if we can even you know after a year if we can, if we can do that, that's, that's beautiful. And it's like things happen in our daily life. Of course we you know, sometimes we lose. That's that's human. even if we do the work, we still may experience, you know, high, intense emotions. But it is about repairing, repairing that relationship and being able to own it and apologise and and repair. And that's what our children need. yeah.

Meredith (00:24:19) - Honestly, I had no idea it was that simple until the recent months when my son and I have been talking about everything, just talking about it and apologizing and telling him what I wish I had done or what was really in my heart.

Meredith (00:24:33) - Oh my gosh, we both have healed so much. It's kind of funny because he's my podcast editor, so I just keep on giggling to myself that he's going to be listening to this whole thing, and maybe he'll be weeping, but just to be the center of the conversation. Oh, it's so worth, it's so worth it. Because I know, like in some families are so hard to be open and raw or humble and apologetic and it's so hard to even talk about, yeah, your wrongdoings or your failings. And so that's probably another facet of your work, is helping people be okay with all this, right? Yeah.

Sabina (00:25:08) - 100%. Yes. Understanding emotions, labeling them and welcoming them to our lives. Really? Because, yeah, we in my, family as well, no one really talked about emotions. I have, family member of mental health, illness, mental illness. And, I witness a lot of suffering. Emotional suffering. And no one really talked about it. And it's.

Sabina (00:25:40) - It's very hard and to actually learn to process the emotions if we. If we don't have an example, if we don't know how to how to do that. So labeling emotions that even even simple activity as naming them and welcoming them. Helps us create that distance and helps us to respond rather than just. Be in it on, you know, in automated mode.

Meredith (00:26:11) - Yeah. I wanted to talk about the how, you know, the how how we do it. And so that's one piece of it. Right. And that's really where we start. Before we go deeper into that, can we talk about how. A lack of emotional intelligence or lack of working on it can show up in our in sleep consulting work.

Sabina (00:26:30) - Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's, working with emotional intelligence, everyone is different and everyone has a different, you know, makeup, different backgrounds. So it's it's very individual work. However, obviously you have those, Patterns that. We can see and the ways we can respond or actually withdraw when we are facing with a certain situations because of our emotions.

Sabina (00:27:03) - So our emotions really drive our decision and then our actions. So if we think about it in a way that, let's say a sleep consultant has a session with, you know, mom and the mom, experiences emotional flooding, then the sleep consultant may feel uncomfortable and wanting to, you know, maybe finish the session or withdraw from the session. withdraw from the relationship. However, there is something in it that is showing up for the sleep sleep consultant, so attending to their own feelings will help them to be grounded and truly serve. The mother in this moment.

Meredith (00:27:50) - I think this is a huge advantage if you do the work on your emotional intelligence as a sleep consultant. I'm sure in any job. Absolutely. But this can get so personal. You know we're in. I'm sure you've experienced this in your work with parents, too. Or you just. You're really connecting heart to heart, or you're really. Important to the other person. I rely on you so much. and maybe you build a relationship and then something goes wrong professionally.

Meredith (00:28:22) - And there could be some conflict there. There could be some angst or some anger, or especially for tired moms, they can be quite emotional and and like, absolutely at you, you know, directed at you without even realizing it. So yeah. Go ahead.

Sabina (00:28:37) - Yeah, absolutely. And, and and that's it with, obviously lack of sleep, our nervous system, you know, it becomes much easier dysregulated, but also feeling intensive emotions, takes a lot of our energy and we become even more exhausted. So it's like this loop, self-reinforcing loop, which we need to, you know, at some point. Intervene and stop. Yeah.

Meredith (00:29:05) - This is huge. I think a couple of things come to mind. We won't go into this deeply here, but just to touch on a couple of things. I'm highly sensitive person, and a lot of people like me will just blame their emotions on this. You know, I'm highly sensitive or I have ADHD or whatever it is, but the more intelligent you are in this area, the more I guess you strengthen the muscle, you are self-aware and you are managing your emotions well.

Meredith (00:29:35) - I believe that you can handle those situations so much better. And that's what we're talking about here with our work is, you know, I've learned to be very diplomatic. I've learned to expect that people are going to lash out at me, and they're going to have, like, awful sleep and blame it on me. And then when they're money back, stuff like that happens. And I've learned how to handle that and how to do it really calmly and beautifully, and in the end, have people come back apologizing or thanking me or like our friendship even being stronger, you know, the relationship being stronger. But that couldn't happen without having done the work myself, right?

Speaker 3 (00:30:13) - Yes. Yeah.

Sabina (00:30:14) - Absolutely. That's doing a work and reflecting what's happening for me when, you when I don't know when, when, when other parents were, you know, when you had conflict with them or, you know, those tricky situations, and being able to remain grounded and calm, it's, it's crucial to creating those relationships and in the future and ensuring that we really, truly help them.

Meredith (00:30:45) - Yeah, I'm thinking about the corporate workplace. My poor husband's job. And what that's like when people can't work as a team, when people don't think of each other, people are. I guess the rational or they explode or, you know, everyone else is to blame. And I mean, this is just, like you said, crucial. It's crucial.

Sabina (00:31:09) - Absolutely. Yeah. And I always say that, you know, office politics and all of that is just lack of emotional intelligence.

Meredith (00:31:18) - That's great. Oh my gosh, this has been so interesting I love it. So thank you so much for all of this. So let's talk a little bit about you know, what we can do about. The problems with emotional intelligence in our lives and in parenting. And you started this conversation or this topic already in talking about naming our emotions, right? What else can we do?

Sabina (00:31:44) - Yeah, absolutely. And there are so many, you know, emotions that we can actually, you know, really pinpoint to understand what, what's happening for us.

Sabina (00:31:54) - So that's one of the things. So initial thing is building interception. So understanding our bodily sensations, what is the emotion showing up in our body. And for that we can do simple, you know, body scan. And it can be really one, two minutes activity, even while we're working, just taking a moment and putting our attention on our body and feeling, you know, the sensation in our feet, in our legs and our knees, and then slowly moving up, and then even, you know, having a break and then, you know, later on in the afternoon, doing the top part of the body. It's fine. I think it's the one. It's our. Willingness to do things right. Yeah. And having a little bit of that perfectionist mindset. because we may think, oh, we need to do this way or that way. And, you know, I won't be doing this right, but it's actually just doing it slowly, bit by bit, step by step.

Sabina (00:33:01) - And that's how we build a skill through repetition. So that's one of the things when we experience really strong emotional, floating, high intensity of emotions, we can just take a moment. And, you know, for mums, for example, if you don't have anyone around you, you know, it's really maybe just taking a moment, ensuring that your baby is safe in a court and taking a moment, going to another room, going to a bathroom, taking a few minutes and connecting with your body, feeling where the emotion is and telling yourself, I see you, I hear you, and I appreciate you because whatever is coming up for you is true and it's yours.

Meredith (00:33:45) - I love it. That's beautiful. Do you do any focusing on regulating the nervous system? Because I think it's so important that that's also tied in. But I really love that you brought up that self-talk, self-talk and really seeing yourself as huge. But then there's this physical part right where I still can't calm down or I still keep on exploding.

Speaker 3 (00:34:11) - Yeah.

Sabina (00:34:14) - Absolutely. And that comes to how our brain works. And obviously connection, mind and body connection, nervous system, but also how our emotions are created because. The traditional view of emotion was that we are just emotions expressions. But the more recent view, a neuroscience with neuroscience research says, is that our emotions are constructed based on our past experiences. And whatever happened for us in the past stays in our body in the form of those energy, these emotions. So it may be that our nervous system just needs so many repetitions to rewire the current pathways that have been created. And that's why. Sometimes we think that all we have understanding, we have this cognitive understanding that, you know, I shouldn't be doing something or I shouldn't be lashing out or, you know, this kind of thing, but it just takes time and practice of rewiring our nervous system, creating those new connections to be able to really regulate it. And things like mindfulness meditation. Yeah. These are the you know, practices.

Sabina (00:35:38) - There's been a lot of research on how useful they are and how, you know, effective they are in regulating our nervous system. Yeah.

Meredith (00:35:46) - That's what I was thinking about is how important that focus has been for me. Kind of like the last missing piece in lots of regular deep breathing and slowing down. And I even hum and seeing I.

Speaker 3 (00:36:03) - Mean, yeah.

Meredith (00:36:04) - Exercise and being outside and yeah, all these things that we can do even for a minute or two, we have to create those neural pathways that this is what I do throughout my day, and then you find yourself much better off and, you know, feeling calm more often.

Sabina (00:36:20) - Yeah, absolutely. and that's why, you know, building that self-awareness, we, we just get to know ourselves and learning what works for me, what doesn't work for me. So having that experimentation mindset as well and trying new things, without that pressure of, you know, you need to do it right.

Speaker 3 (00:36:40) - Yeah.

Sabina (00:36:41) - Because that then can create only additional, you know, stress.

Sabina (00:36:44) - And we don't want stress because if we. As chairs for prolonged period of time. That actually kills our, you know, brain cells, prevents us from responding in a way that we want, but also things like adaptability. We are becoming less flexible when we are stressed for a longer period of time.

Meredith (00:37:12) - It's so interesting how so many reasons that this is.

Speaker 3 (00:37:17) - Well, the reasons that.

Meredith (00:37:18) - We need to do the work right. Do you have any last tips or insights that you want to share before we wrap things up?

Sabina (00:37:24) - Be kind to yourselves.

Speaker 3 (00:37:26) - Yeah.

Meredith (00:37:28) - And, give yourself grace.

Speaker 3 (00:37:30) - Grace? Yeah.

Sabina (00:37:32) - Absolutely. Self-compassion is huge. In seeing ourselves and continuing. Connecting with ourselves. And then we can, you know, be our own safe base and and be there for our family, for our friends, for, you know, society, work, you know, whatever we we it's our passion or whatever is our purpose.

Meredith (00:37:57) - Yeah. If you. If you don't love or care for your self very much, I don't think you'll be very motivated to work on this.

Meredith (00:38:05) - But also. I don't think it'll work that well, because I think if you've got self loathing or you're just really hard on yourself. It's just really hard to climb out of the pit.

Speaker 3 (00:38:17) - Yeah.

Meredith (00:38:17) - Just imagine how crucial that aspect is. Loving yourself?

Speaker 3 (00:38:23) - Yeah. Yeah. Because.

Meredith (00:38:26) - You know, like, moms were so hard on ourselves, we think we have to be perfect. We feel like failures easily. Or we're just having mom guilt or mom regret all the time. So I think this is another piece that you could just spend months working on by itself. Maybe. Start there.

Speaker 3 (00:38:43) - Yeah.

Sabina (00:38:45) - Park it for another time.

Meredith (00:38:48) - Yeah, well thank you Sabina. I really enjoyed our amazing conversation today. Can you tell my listeners how they can find you? And if you have services that they can sign up for?

Speaker 3 (00:39:00) - Absolutely.

Sabina (00:39:00) - So I don't have a website yet because, it's in development, but you can find me on LinkedIn at Sabina Nalepa and also you can email me Sabina@incola.uk

Sabina (00:39:16) - And yes, I absolutely offer 1 to 1 individual services and it's just my truly my passion to help parents, families to cultivate emotional intelligence and. Can grow healthy families.

Meredith (00:39:36) - Aren't you launching a program soon? Can you tell us about that?

Sabina (00:39:39) - Yes, I am. Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (00:39:41) - Thank you for a reminder.

Sabina (00:39:42) - Yes. So I am launching program soon. it will be a eight weeks program where, we will have individual support, but also we will be offering an access to an app with daily exercises where you will be able to practice training the muscle of emotional intelligence and positive intelligence.

Meredith (00:40:09) - Well. Sounds wonderful. And what better way to help your children? Oh my God. Yes. Help yourself then. Help your children. Naturally. It's one of my favorite topics when I'm looking on Instagram. Like, whenever. Experts are out there teaching how we can build emotional intelligence and help our children. I eat it up. I think it's the most fantastic subject.

Speaker 3 (00:40:31) - So yeah, this is amazing.

Meredith (00:40:34) - I'm so grateful for you.

Meredith (00:40:35) - Don't forget to look up Sabina on LinkedIn @Sabina Nalepa, we'll put the links in our show notes and thank you for being here. Sabina, it's been such a pleasure to have you.

Sabina (00:40:52) - Thank you so much. It's been, Yeah. Wonderful. And, yeah, just lots of lots of love to, your audience. Thank you so much.

Meredith (00:41:02) - That's beautiful. You're so thoughtful. Thank you for saying that to them. All right, everybody, thanks for being here. And I hope that this was super enlightening and that you'll come back soon. So until next time. I'll see you soon.

Speaker 3 (00:41:19) - Bye!

Meredith (00:41:20) - Thanks for listening to the Sweet Slumber podcast. We hope you enjoyed today's show. Before you go, please leave a review and hit subscribe and have a great day!