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With help from guest authors, experts, and community and business leaders, the Familius Helping Families Be Happy podcast explores topics and issues that connect families to the nine habits of a happy family: love, play, learn, work, talk, heal, read, eat, and laugh together.
Episodes
Wednesday Jun 07, 2023
Wednesday Jun 07, 2023
On today's episode of the "Helping Families Be Happy" podcast, host Dr. Carla Marie Manly, a practicing clinical psychologist, wellness advocate, and author based in Sonoma County, California talks to Emily Edlynn. Today she will be talking about her fabulous new book Autonomy, supportive parenting, reducing parental burnout, and raising competent and confident children.
Episode Highlights
- 01:11: Emily grew up in Southern California and was always a big reader and also always loved working with children.
- 02:57: Emily has noticed in a lot of parenting books recently; this idea of autonomy is becoming more and more part of the dialogue.
- 03:32: Autonomy-supportive parenting is using practices to help our child develop a strong sense of self and a sense of mastery and competence.
- 04:22: The other way that Emily approached the book differently than a lot of parenting material is that they really wanted to center the parenting experience as much as the child's experience.
- 05:37: When parents describe greater autonomy levels, they are doing more autonomy support practices.
- 07:12: Parenting doesn't mean you drop the child in the sandbox and say see you 5 hours from now.
- 08:38: As parents, we are really the first experience of relatedness.
- 10:03: Emily explains how her book helps families.
- 10:40: Emily explains how her book is trying to empower parents.
- 11:24: When people are feeling more confident when parents are feeling understood and empowered and confident, they are passing that on to their children and their children can absorb that same positive emotion and then the relationships are stronger.
- 11:50: Emily's book considers parents, caregivers, grandparents, and whoever is pitching in on the caregiving duties from all backgrounds and walks of life and different needs and actually meets them where they are.
- 13:27: It will be helpful for parents to realize that you are not just throwing them into something without giving them a chance to do some examination of the situation.
- 15:14: To all the other parents living in this modern era of parenting, it's important for all of us to do some self-evaluation.
- 18:04: Emily gives several scenarios as to how one should avoid controlling their kid. Controlling ends up being more punitive, and that means the child's not learning.
- 19:46: Kids' ideas for consequences that have been very appropriate. And once they came up with the consequence, it was so much easier to enforce because it was their idea.
- 21:33: A very trust-based relationship that has elements of friendship. It can turn into a more mature friendship over time.
3 Key Points
- Emily explains the self-determination theory. Autonomy is one of the three components of this theory.
- Emily talks about the importance of creating a sense of belonging, safety, and community within the family.
- Very loving, well-intentioned parents are becoming more controlling with their children and that is undermining the autonomy child.
Tweetable Quotes
- "We need to make time and space and prioritize our own sense of autonomy so that we can better practice that for our children." - Emily Edlynn
- "A child learning that they have skills, and they can trust themselves in their emotional life. Their social life, their academic life, all across their areas of functioning. It's building that strong sense of self, which is very different." - Emily Edlynn
- "The book does cover toddlers, school age, children, teenagers. So, I would say you can just flip to the part that you need for now in your parenting season, but I try and use a lot of very different examples and scripts for a template." - Emily Edlynn
- "Everyone loves a good quiz, so I modified scientifically validated questionnaires that are used throughout the literature and have everyone do a self-assessment of how controlling am I versus how autonomy-supportive am I." - Emily Edlynn
Resources Mentioned
Wednesday May 31, 2023
Wednesday May 31, 2023
On today's episode of the "Helping Families Be Happy" podcast, host Adina Oberman, talks to Shaun Thompson. He is a former world surfing champion and has been described as one of the greatest and most influential surfers of all time. Shaun is also a world-renowned leadership, mentor, entrepreneur, environmentalist and best-selling author. He's the co-author of the current best seller - The Surfer and the Sage: A Guide to Survive and Ride Life's Waves. Today they are going to talk about their Jewish identities and give listeners a greater appreciation and understanding for Jewish history and life.
Episode Highlights:
- 02:11: Shaun explains why May is Jewish Heritage Month and what his role is and how does he identify faith.
- 02:28 Shaun shares how Judaism plays a big part in his life.
- 04:47: Shaun explains what Shema Yisrael is. It is about oneness and about identifying and shouting out your faith.
- 05:31: While talking about the oneness of a relationship Shaun says even though we might worship differently, we will have the humanity to believe and to understand that there is an entity that is all powerful.
- 09:05: There are many ways to find hope again, but your faith in your religion is a helpful path.
- 09:45: Every single somewhere in the world, you have the arch, which is the repository for the sacred scroll for the Torah.
- 11:03: Shaun shares about his life's ordeal and how he has given up surfing.
- 13:54: Adina talks about the Jewish concept of tikkun olam, which means to repair the world.
- 15:33: Break out a sheet of paper and put a timer on for 15 minutes and mark 12 lines every line, beginning with our will. This is a way to find your purpose.
- 16:53: When you put our will in front of something, it's not like "I will" is about the future. It's about creating change.
- 17:50: People have this realization that we are not on this single-minded pursuit for success and wealth, we want to help other people too.
- 20:32: Finding a way back to faith in God and faith in themselves is something that you are doing through the work that you do.
- 21:13: As per Adina, in your work and in your life. Mensch is definitely a great compliment.
- 22:56: Shaun shares how they reconnect as a family and this notion of connecting means it's unbelievably important.
- 23:55: Every line begins with our well-open-source code. Anyone can use it. It's 15 minutes, then you stand up, and you read your code to the assembled group, whether it's your family, friends, or colleagues.
3 Key Highlights
- Known also as the Five Books of Moses, the Torah is one of the three main divisions of the Hebrew Bible and also the most sacred, for according to tradition, it was written down by Moses at divine dictation.
- Shaun shares how he had given up surfing and what motivated him to restart it again.
- As per Shaun, there is a lot of common sense in many religions, and we are much more connected than we think.
Tweetable Quotes
- "No matter what religion you are, prayers are dialogue that you have with your God, and it's really, you know, when things go sideways, things get bad, know that that pray can help you." - Shaun Thompson
- "Your identity and your faith really impact your outlook on life and how you live your life in the world." - Shaun Thompson
- "People are really beautiful words of commitment. They find the best vision of themselves, and they express that and commit to that." - Shaun Thompson
- "We are looking forward. So that's 1/2 of the meaning and purpose of life is we are even better at the other half that." - Shaun Thompson
- "Mensch is someone who's good. When someone calls you a Mensch, that's about the greatest compliment that you can receive." - Adina
Resources Mentioned
- Helping Families Be Happy Podcast Apple
- Podcast Editing
- Familius.com
Wednesday May 24, 2023
Wednesday May 24, 2023
On today's episode of the "Helping Families Be Happy" podcast, Christopher Robbins, co-founder of Familius Publishing, husband, father of nine, author, fisherman, backpacker, and aspirational musician based in the Central Valley of California is going to talk to Karen Kleiman. She is a well-known international maternal mental health expert with over 35 years of experience. As an advocate and author of several groundbreaking books on postpartum depression and anxiety, her work has been featured on the internet and within the mental health community.
Episode Highlights:
- 00:49: For decades in 1980, Karen founded the Postpartum Stress Center. A treatment and training facility for prenatal and postpartum depression and anxiety in 2022, she founded the The Karen Kleiman Training Center, LLC, which is dedicated to the advancement of clinical expertise and therapeutic strategies for the treatment of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders.
- 02:23: Christopher shares his story and how he learned from his wife that after the birth of one of his children, she went in a deep depression.
- 04:59: Karen met two women who told stories of not feeling good after they had had their baby some 50 years prior and not telling anybody and sitting alone in the darkness with their shame, pain, sadness, and grief.
- 06:17: Karen highlights how people are now talking about postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, and postpartum psychosis.
- 07:06: Karen shares how can we help our closest family members.
- 08:04: There are normal hormonal changes and sleep deprivation and all few other things that contribute to a mom's moodiness.
- 09:26: Karen talks about the speech bubble of new moms where she communicates, that she hasn't slept for two days. She hasn't had a shower.
- 11:10: Karen talks about the hashtag that they had started. It's hard to be vulnerable when you are a new mom. It's hard to say out loud when you are taking care of an infant.
- 13:00: What's guiding a new mom's responses are not just the relationship or the cultural expectations. What's guiding this is your own expectations and that often gets in the way no matter what you say she wants to be a good mom.
- 16:18: Karen talks about the disconnect when super wonderful, attentive husbands are not able to quite get there with their wives.
- 17:28: For a new mom. don't try to fix anything, just be there and by doing that it helps.
- 19:23: All new moms cry, but what we want to pay attention to, for example, is how much are you crying? How many times during the day are you crying?
- 20:11: If postpartum depression symptoms are interfering with your ability to get through the day, then you need more support, says Karen.
- 22:49: It's ok to not feel good and be a great mom and good moms do have scary thoughts, and we aren't worried about the scary thoughts.
3 Key Highlights
- Karen explains how it is that women are suffering, not discussing about it and pretending to be, ok?
- Karen explains how the word postpartum depression means different things to different people, but it's a real thing.
- Karen explains how the hardest thing about the feelings associated with postpartum depression is that they don't feel like symptoms.
Tweetable Quotes
- "I felt very sad to know that my wife had been struggling with depression after one of our children because I never knew." – Christopher
- "I hope we are creating safe places for women who learn to go to places where they will be heard and safe." - Karen
- "We don't want moms to have to diagnose themselves, but we do want to call attention to the fact that there are people who could help her figure out if what she's feeling is ok or not." - Karen
- "What postpartum women will tell you is it's just not that simple to say I need help." - Karen
- "I heard someone say to me once they say whenever you meet someone, imagine that it when meet people imagine that at least 50% of them have something really difficult going on their life is that and that estimate is probably really low." - Karen
Resources Mentioned
- Helping Families Be Happy Podcast Apple
- Karen: Website
- Podcast Editing
Wednesday May 17, 2023
Wednesday May 17, 2023
On today's episode of the "Helping Families Be Happy" podcast, host Dr. Carla Marie Manly, a practicing clinical psychologist, wellness advocate, and author based in Sonoma County, California talks to Justin Black who will talk about his book Redefining Normal: How to Foster Kids Beat the Odds and Discovered Healing Happiness, and Love. Among other things. Justin is an author, serial entrepreneur, and husband.
Episode Highlights
- 01.40: As authors of Redefining Normal we talked about how generational trauma has impacted so much of our lives for our grandparents and for our parents and had a large impact on our life, says Justin.
- 03:27: It takes intentionality to combat something that is not beneficial for us mentally, spiritually, or physically when are sad and habits that were passed down to us by parents or who are around us that influence over us.
- 06:31: If you walk into a room and there is like a terrible smell, when you first hit you like, these smells terrible. But if you sit in that room for days or for weeks and you sit for months, you don't even smell anything anymore, says Justin.
- 06:45: As per Justin people have exercised a lot of unhealthy practices and habits from the generation of domestic violence and drug abuse and really relied on unhealthy habits and substances to really heal us or kind of put a band-aid on the things that they dealt with that were hard in our life.
- 08.38: Justin had so many amazing mentors and people who were successful around him. In a group home Justin was able to see other successful black men around him and it really changed his perspective.
- 10:19 Justin talks about his book Redefining Normal: How to Foster Kids Beat the Odds and Discovered Healing Happiness, and Love.
- 11:05: If a person only sees and experiences so much in their life then a lot of times, they are subjected to living that out, says Justin.
- 12:48: We continue to tell our family stories and our lives as testimonies on how we can be intentional about breaking generational trauma and barriers, says Justin.
- 14:23: One of the things that Justin wanted to build on with his young family is trying to make sure our environment is always fun and engaging, no matter the circumstances or situation. We're always engaging.
- 14:50: Create an environment where we can be open, honest, and loving to each other and have fun. Work on being there for each other as much as we can because you want to be intentional about just nurturing the relationships, creating the atmosphere of playfulness and engagement, says Justin.
- 19:49: As per Justin when it comes to mental and emotional stress, he and his partner try to do less pushing and less approaches of empathy, because these things are so serious.
- 21:30: Justin wants to just encourage leaders to love and how love and leadership are interconnected, and can't be separated. You can't love without leadership, and you can't be a leader without love.
3 Key Points
- Justin's foster experiences weren't necessarily always positive and in fact highly destructive in some ways but his support group, including his church, really gave him guideposts to help him change his life.
- In his book, Justin says that if you are going for foster care or in circumstances in life that you seemingly are out of control, even if it's just the 1% that you can't control, it can make an impact on how can you do the best with that and how that makes a drastic difference in your life and your future outcomes.
- Love is about service and not just only receiving. Love is about action and not only feeling and being super intentional around the ideas of love and how we can be super intentional about giving and receiving love.
Tweetable Quotes
- "We are super intentional on how we can build a healthy foundation so we can produce healthy food for our children and those around us." - Justin
- "We always have choices in life as we can go down a path of least resistance and being our worst selves or something had happened to us that helps us go down a path where we become our best selves." – Carla
- "Internal locus of control means that wherever I end up in life, the things that I do, I won't blame, or I won't say that my life circumstances will result in other people's actions or won't be other people's fault. It will be on me for my success and my stability." - Justin
- "I don't think we understand how much of our identity come from two people coming together and deciding to have a child." - Justin
Resources Mentioned
- Helping Families be Happy Podcast Apple
- Familius.com
- https://www.re-definingnormal.com/
- Podcast Editing
Wednesday May 10, 2023
Wednesday May 10, 2023
On today's episode of the "Helping Families Be Happy" podcast, host, Ashley Marie Mireles, Director of Sales and Marketing for Families Publishing, author, and DEI leader. Today Ashley is going to talk to Heidi Poelman, author of Women in Science Who Changed the World and other Courageous People books.
Episode Highlights:
- 01:02: Today Ashley and Heidi are going to discuss the creation of women in science teaching the world.
- 01:46: Science is so interesting and so fun, and we have kind of an issue in our country where a lot of the times we give girls the message that science and mathematics and technology are more masculine subjects, more subjects for boys, says Heidi.
- 03:01: Heidi talks about a few amazing women that she came across while doing research for her book.
- 03:50: Heidi mentions Janaki Amal, who is an Indian scientist who did a lot to create a plant that could grow sugar in India because, before that time, they couldn't.
- 04:00: Wang Zhenyi learned more about lunar eclipses and what a cool girl at the time, people thought that lunar eclipses were the cause of angry gods, but she thought otherwise. She learned that the moon, the earth, and the sun all interacted to create something.
- 05:06: As per Heidi it is really upsetting to see some of the very strong and knowledgeable women getting noticed.
- 07:01: Heidi talks about her inspiration and from where she gets it.
- 07:33: Heidi talks about the first female president of the New York Cancer Society, and she was also the 1st woman and only African American on the board.
- 08:30: One of the big takeaways that we are getting from here is that children and just people, in general, need good examples to look up as long as you have someone inspiring you or you have something inspiring you, you can keep moving forward.
- 09:12: As part of the series, the first book that Heidi wrote was just a book about a few people that she loved and looked up to who did courageous things, and who wanted to make a difference in the world.
- 11:04: Heidi shares how she loves quotes and she also shares a quote that she wrote before the podcast.
- 12:25: Heidi explains why she mentioned Marie Curie in her book.
- 13:43: Heidi's goal is to teach young girls about perseverance and curiosity and just wonder and discovery and problem-solving, and just remind them that the things that they do make a difference and that even one person can be part of making the world a better place.
3 Key Points:
- Heidi shares why in her book she has featured women that aren't normally featured in kids' books, women from around the world, and women who maybe people haven't heard of before.
- Heidi shares how she wanted to inspire young girls from a very early age.
- Heidi talks about her series of books and the idea behind writing those.
Tweetable Quotes:
- "It's not necessarily the names and the facts, but this idea that curiosity and questions and problem-solving are all these really great values that we want to show to these young girls. How many times we talk to our little girls about, hey, let's go outside and just study bugs, or have you ever asked hey, do you know that there was a woman behind sending the first man to orbit the earth in space?" – Heidi
- "Jane Wright was fairly young she saw that cancer was a problem, and so she set her mind on doing something. So she just started researching. She decided that she wanted to be a doctor." - Heidi
- "I worked on a book about animals, famous animals who have made a difference and just had fun stories." – Heid
- "It's an important and fun time to work with young kids and to tell them stories of real heroes and not just knowing their names and what they did, but knowing what we can learn from them." - Heidi
Resources Mentioned
- Helping Families Be Happy Podcast Apple
- Familius.com
- Heidi Poelman
- Ashley Marie Mireles: LinkedIn
- Podcast Editing
Wednesday May 03, 2023
Wednesday May 03, 2023
In today's episode of the "Helping Families Be Happy" podcast, host Dr. Carla Marie Manly is going to talk to Terry Whalin. He will be talking with us about many things, including his new book proposals that sell.
Episode Highlights:
- 01:01: Terry loves books and loves publishing and that's something he started at a very young age.
- 02:58: Terry shares how the book "Jesus Be A revolutionary" changed his whole view in life.
- 04:10: Terry shares how he joined Wycliffe Bible Translators out of college, and he spent 17 years with them.
- 04:33: Terry explains how he had a genuine love and relationship with God that he didn't have, and so that's why he needed to get a Bible and begin to sing those songs and go that direction in his life as well.
- 05:08: In Terry's publishing life. He has written biographies on people like Billy Graham and Chuck Colson and John Perkins and Luis Palau, and people like that.
- 05:24: Terry has co-authored books with more than a dozen people over the years, so books have really driven a lot of his life.
- 06:14: Terry had written about 50 books for traditional publishers, but he had never worked inside a publishing company before.
- 06:23: About 15-16 years ago, Terry was hired as the acquisition's editor at David C Cook in Colorado Springs and it gave him a look inside publishing that he had never seen before.
- 07:31: Terry wrote book proposals that sold originally in 2004, just as a frustrated editor because he wasn't getting the kind of submissions from authors that he really needed then.
- 09:12: As far as who the audience is, what they are going to do to sell the book, all those kinds of things, you can't just write a book.
- 10:05: There are over 4500 new books that are published every day. A publishing plan will help you not to get lost in 4500 books per day. It will help you float to the top rather than sink to.
- 11:23: If you have a plan, execute your plan, then that's where you are going to find your readers out there and really help people with the stuff you are putting in your books.
- 12:12: Terry has published more than a dozen children's books, and he knows that that's a very important area to people as parents read those books.
- 14:04: Terry shares how he benefitted from reading books to his children.
- 15:48: Terry wants to encourage authors to envision where their book is in the bookstore.
3 Key Points:
- Terry explains how to get a book launched or why their favorite book was launched.
- Terry shares how publishing has changed a lot since 2004.
- Terry's mission is to store enjoyment by helping authors be successful, and he is one of the reasons every book needs a book proposal out there.
Tweetable Quotes:
- "One of the things that really drives me day in, and day out is the fact that books can change people's lives." – Terry
- "I can think of many times in my life when the right book came across my path and gave me sometimes, I wanted, sometimes I not so much wanted, i.e.; a wakeup call." - Terry
- "We go to the library or the bookstore and come back with a whole bunch of books and read them over and over to our kids." - Terry
Resources Mentioned
- Helping Families Be Happy Podcast Apple
- Familius.com
- Terry Whalin
- Podcast Editing
Wednesday Apr 19, 2023
Wednesday Apr 19, 2023
On today's episode of the "Helping Families Be Happy" podcast, host Dr. Carla Marie Manly, a practicing clinical psychologist, Wellness advocate, and author based in Sonoma County, California talks to Megan Alms. She will be talking with us about her upcoming book Creature From the Woods.
Episode Highlights
- 01:44: Megan talks about her freelance journey and what motivated her to write a picture book.
- 03:00: Megan shares how her sister inspired her to write the book Creature From the Woods.
- 03:30: Megan shares how she gravitated toward being a big sister and being part of her imaginary world.
- 06:50: Megan's big message through her book is a focus on unconditional love. It's a fun little book to read and go through all the rhymes and act out all the motions.
- 07:58: The deer fawn taking timid steps was really this adult figure in Megan's life watching her take chances and take and learn these new things, and the owl was curious and wanted to learn new things.
- 09:06: The book talks about emotional intelligence and relationship building. Just reading through it can help bring back childhood memories.
- 10:57: Carla recalls her reading experience with her parents. She has memories of laughing; her parents used to read, and they tripped over their words a little bit and they would just laugh and laugh.
- 11:48: Megan talks about tenderness and wanting to cling to childhood moments.
- 13:29: Sometimes quietness gives you a chance to sit and think and commit to memories.
- 14:21: When we read to a child, we are giving that gift of tenderness to the child and to ourselves, says Meghan.
- 17:10: Meghan shares how knowing the characters of the kid's show brings them together as a family.
- 19:07: Reading together shows love in several different ways, all at the same time.
3 Key Points
- As per Megan, her book is something that kids can look back on once they have grown up and seen various messages and fully understand.
- Meghan explains how she focuses on unconditional love and helps readers to relive memories.
- For kids and for families, it is important to find those love languages, the things that make them feel loved, and know what things make them come alive because you don't have to have all the same hobbies. But there is something about genuinely caring about a passion or a way of loving each other.
Tweetable Quotes
- "I started getting all of these ideas for all of the different fun things that I enjoyed reading when I was that age and things that I wanted to share with my sister because at the time she was a toddler, and she loved pretending she loved to pretend to be different animals." - Megan Alms
- "Your parents created that piece of reading together from very early on in your life." - Carla Marie
Resources Mentioned
- Helping Families be Happy Podcast Apple
- Megan Alms: Instagram Website
- Familius: Instagram Facebook Shop
- Podcast Editing
Wednesday Apr 12, 2023
Wednesday Apr 12, 2023
In today's episode of the "Helping Families Be Happy" podcast, host Christopher Robbins, co-founder of Familius publishing, husband, father of nine, author, fisherman, backpacker, and aspirational musician based in the Central Valley of California, talks to Noah benShea, one of North America's most respected and beloved poet philosophers. He has the Pulitzer Prize-nominated and internationally best-selling author of 29 books translated into 18 languages, embraced around the world. Today they will discuss the duality of despair and hope from his most recent book - The Surfer and the Sage: A Guide to Surviving and Ride Life's Waves.
Episode Highlights
- 02:15: Life is a great party to which you have been invited. Now you have to decide what you want to wear to the party. The first thing to remember is that you get to choose not only from your clothing wardrobe but also from your emotional wardrobe.
- 02:58: Despair and hope are options that each has in each of their moments. Being filled with despair is not necessarily a flaw.
- 03:19: Those in the military remind us that hope is not a plan, and they are right. But from hope, a move to the positive can be planned.
- 03:40: Despair is not designer clothing more is it meant to be worn every day. However hope is a superhero cloak that on the tough days and even on the easy days, can shield you from despair.
- 06:30: Faith is saying things unseen, hope is hoping to see things unseen.
- 08:27: There are so many things, and we want to move towards hope.
- 10:28: As per Noah there is nothing more challenging for us in this lifetime to come to because Aristotle said that honesty is important to all wisdom.
- 11:45: We are all alone, but we are all alone together when we recognize our own aloneness, we recognize empathetically our aloneness, our brother and sister.
- 12:50: Remind other people that you hope the best for them and that the best for you will be arriving.
- 14:47: Noah suggests passing vulnerability to children this way your children will recognize that the strongest person in their life is not absent from vulnerability.
- 16:16: We are not seeking to solve all problems, but just help people explore ways to improve their lives, and help their families be happy, says Christopher.
3 Key Points
- Noah gives several real-life examples that give insights into hope and despair.
- One of the areas where we fall victim to despair is when our ego is in despair, says Noah.
- Noah talks about mental illness and the importance of seeking medical help in case feeling depressed.
Tweetable Quotes
- "I know there are people for many years I was asked to be a national philosopher, dealing with people in the field of addiction, and one of the things I would remind people that to some people dope is the is the only hope."- Noah benShea
- "I was thinking about hope versus faith the other day and somebody I think framed it for me and they framed it in a religious sense." - Christopher Robbins
- "For me, there has been no more profoundly despairing time in my life, and perhaps for those lists they were observing than when you wake up in." - Noah benShea
- "I don't think there's anything more challenging for us in this lifetime to come to because Aristotle said that honesty is important to all wisdom." - Christopher Robbins
Resources Mentioned
- Helping Families Be Happy Podcast Apple
- Familius: Instagram
- Podcast Editing
Wednesday Apr 05, 2023
Wednesday Apr 05, 2023
On today's episode of the "Helping Families Be Happy" podcast, host Dr. Carla Marie Manly is a practicing clinical psychologist, wellness advocate, and author based in Sonoma County. Today she is talking to Heather Aranda, of the Family Arcade.
Episode Highlights
- 01:11: Heather is blessed with a total of eight children.
- 03:33: Heather is The Family Arcade on Instagram and she has a whopping 131,000 followers.
- 04:59: Heather shares how she started the YouTube channel and then later shifted to Instagram.
- 07:06: Heather shares how she gets a sense of completion that one never gets in the most beautiful way when raising children.
- 08:16: Heather loves Instagram and YouTube. The world she has created it is very exciting. She loves what she can do without the written work.
- 09:51: Heather explains how post-COVID she prompted her children to take up virtual classes.
- 11:38: Heather talks about the bedtime routine that she follows with her kids.
- 13:26: Heather shares how she starts a story and then another kid adds to it, and the one on the bottom bunk might list for something that comes next.
- 14:43: Heather shares how long it takes her to put eight children to bed.
- 15:40: Sometimes kids need to let go and the best way to do that is with the story, regardless of what their day was like.
- 16:22: When it comes to new stories, Heather's children play a big part.
- 20:48: Heather shares how she wants the videos to be about her family, regardless of who has the camera, who is recording.
- 21:38: What makes really excellent families is when everybody is working to support each other and the couple, the team are really cohesive and supportive of each other.
3 Key Points
- Carla and Heather discuss the importance of reading books to kids.
- Heather talks about the bedtime stories that she dramatically reads to her children.
- Heather shares how her work helps families be happy.
Tweetable Quotes
- "It's better to fight sadness with good news." - Heather Aranda
- "I decided to go with Instagram because well, it's instant and we have a lot of kids we are busy. If you want fast, quick gratification, you know to fill in the gaps and it still made the kids happy and it made me happy, and I enjoy editing so much." - Heather Aranda
- "All my children have their own song, something I fabricated." - Heather Aranda
- "As part of the winding down process, it really feels like you just incorporate it into a natural ritual that here this is the time the lights are low and let's kind of just get into the space of letting go of the day and moving into the night so we can wait for tomorrow." - Heather Aranda
Resources Mentioned
Wednesday Mar 29, 2023
Wednesday Mar 29, 2023
In today's episode of the "Helping Families Be Happy" podcast, host Christopher Robbins, co-founder of Familius publishing, husband, father of nine, author, fisherman, backpacker, and aspirational musician based in the Central Valley of California, talks to Shaun Tomson.
Episode Highlights
- 01:49: Shaun talks about his book and the 18 chapter that it contains. They are based on the duality of what he experiences in life and how to move from the negative to the positive.
- 03:18: There is a synthesis between religion and kind of a secular perspective in terms of it's a foundation on which we build our lives and foundation on which we build our world.
- 04:51: As per Shaun it is faith that keeps us in the direction of where we want to go.
- 06:09: Life that bends inside us, gives us hope, meaning, reason and optimism.
- 08:55: Shaun shares the heartbreaking story of losing his son and how he coped with the grief.
- 10:40: Look for help from friends, rekindle those relationships, look from help for professional people and religious people and look for science and helping nature just work in nature.
- 11:32: Christopher had many conversations with psychologist authors and it's a common denominator that they say that those people with whom they are counseling and working with those who can accept the reality of where they are right now are able to move forward and those who cannot accept it, they continue to stay in place.
- 13:05: You put more pressure on yourself and eventually you get caught in this despair and anxiety and you just stop spinning downwards and it's not dissimilar when you can't accept reality and you get caught in this cycle of conjecture, you get open cycle.
- 16:16: Help others find the beauty in the world, find the signs that God exists and loves, and then things will continue.
3 Key Points
- Shaun explains how we come from different religions, but underneath we are the same in terms of how we relate to that one God or to that energy that we believe controls the world and is responsible for the world staying on its exes.
- There is a very powerful and inspirational story in the book about how Shaun lost and then regained his faith.
- Shaun explains how forgiveness is essential to cope with one's grief.
Tweetable Quotes
- "It's a book of perspective, not prescription." - Shaun
- "I can think about faith from a religious point of view, also can think of it from a secular point of view." – Christopher
- "I think back to my athletic days as a competitor, and it's not really aligned with grief. It is aligned with what can happen when you are an athlete." – Christopher
- "Whatever your sport may be, do that and then help others, whatever that might be mentoring, teaching and doing with our projects, getting involved with the NGO that might do something, and do you create inspirational project that is in memory of the of the person you lost." - Shaun
Resources Mentioned
- Helping Families be Happy Podcast Apple
- Podcast Editing