Yvonne Smyth

27/05/2024

This is one of a series of ‘notworking’ events that I’ve started to host. Gatherings that bring people together to talk about and reflect on important things beyond the world of work, elevator pitches and perceived hierarchy.

A place for guided conversations and reflections that feed our curiosity, our need for connection and our thirsty souls.

It’s a place of sharing and of listening. Not of preaching, correcting or directing.

It’s an inclusive space and one of no wrongness.

Come as you are. Share your thoughts, feelings and experiences on the theme, no matter how imperfect, contradictory or unusual they may seem.

It doesn’t matter whether you have your ducks in a proverbial row or if they’re all scattered and unruly!

You’re welcome to share a piece of writing, a poem, a song, a story, a metaphor or indeed anything else that contributes to the theme.

Listen deeply. Be curious. Be open. Be kind.

You are welcome here.

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there”.
~ Rumi ~

On a practical note; the group size is capped at 12 including me. Given the time allocated to the gathering and to give everyone an opportunity to share, you’re invited to keep your answers to each question or aspect of the theme concise. No TED talks required 😉

I’m looking forward to seeing you on the night and to the rich conversation that I’m certain will unfold.

Yvonne x

Here’s the link : https://calendly.com/yvonnesmythcoach/a-life-well-lived

17/04/2024

In 2023 a study by Action for Children revealed that a staggering 82% of parents in the UK experienced indicators of parental burnout.

Here are the findings of another study, by Unicef UK, also published in 2023.

Parents variously said they had felt overwhelmed (49%), anxious (43%), unsupported (36%) and lonely (26%) all or a lot of the time in the past 12 months.

Parents are stressed.

I don’t actually need any statistics to tell me that.

I work with stressed parents every day.

Many of whom walk into their workplaces carrying that stress with them.

Stress that impacts negatively on their capacity to deal resourcefully with the demands of their jobs.

That hampers their creativity and problem solving capabilities.

That makes them more prone to irritability and impatience, inflexibility and intolerance.

That means they’re frustrated in not always having the capacity to contribute at the level that they know they’re capable of.

That makes them feel bad about themselves.

Both at home and at work.

Like they’re not getting anything ‘right’.

Which creates a vicious circle.

I know what it’s like.

I have first hand experience.

I used to be one of those stressed out parents in a corporate role.

I’ve been thinking for a long time that I’d like to deliver a programme in corporate environments for parents.

For businesses that care about this aspect of their employees wellbeing.

Well, today I mapped it out.

Four weeks.

Four sessions.

Online or in person depending on logistics.

Parents gaining fresh thinking and new tools to dial down the stress levels that come with raising small humans well.

I’m going to be piloting this over the coming couple of months.

If you know anyone I should speak to who has responsibility for employee wellbeing programmes or similar, tag them or send me a message.

Or if you’re reading this and have that responsibility yourself, let’s have a chat.

Parents deserve support.

Tailored support.

That gets right to the heart of their own experience.

And many employee wellbeing programmes, although well intended, don’t provide this.

Will you help me change that?

Thank you 🙏

With love and solidarity,

Yvonne x

06/04/2024

I traded mine.

You might have traded yours too.

A poor trade you might say.

But that’s only with your adult vision you see that.

As a child it was necessary to survive.

We don’t you see….
Survive that is,
Without love,
Which tastes like approval.

“Children will trade their authenticity for approval”.

^ A line from Gabor Mate.

The a-ha moment,
Etched indelibly,
Never to be forgotten.

Receiving unconditional loving acceptance is an essential need for children.

Essential as oxygen.
A child will not thrive without it.

It’s an essential need for adults too but we have more scope as to where it comes from.

A wider net.
A net of many possibilities.
Plenty of fish in that sea.

Our children have us.
That’s pretty much it.

They will contort themselves, jump through hoops, shape-shift, deny aspects of themselves, amplify others and basically do whatever it takes to gain our approval-shaped-love.

I reckon at least two thirds, if not more, of my generation traded our authenticity for approval.

Toned ourselves down,
Shushed ourselves,
Did what we needed,
To fade to white noise.

It was a survival strategy.
An intelligent adaptation.
Us humans are smart like that.

We bang on a lot nowadays about authenticity.

“Just be you” we cry.
“Show up as your true self”
“Speak your truth”.

Great advice.

But…

What if you learned early that you were too much of this, and too little of that, and so you pretzelled yourself into a persona that would allow you to feed from the bosom of approval?

What if you’ve spent your whole life as the ventriloquist’s dummy?

What if that trade I mentioned earlier was so complete that you don’t know who you really are underneath the pretzelling and the dumbing down?

It took me until my 5th decade to peel back some of the layers that were hiding my multifaceted, messy, magical me.

And I’m still peeling.

Recap:

1. Don’t make your children work for your approval.

Don’t put conditions on your love for them.

2. Be sensitive to the fact that some people literally have no idea how to ‘just be themselves’

•
My Course & Community Membership for parents is alive and kicking - the link with all the details is here http://subscribepage.io/TtUnMy

Happy Weekend lovely people.

With love & solidarity.

Yvonne x

20/03/2024

This workshop went down very well with those of you who attended the last time.

In fact I had quite a flood of messages afterwards saying how helpful, relatable and inspiring it was. And fun! Yes, I always like to inject a bit of that.
Conscious Parenting doesn’t have to be all serious and hard!

Whether you’re already pretty knowledgeable about Conscious Parenting, or a complete newbie or somewhere in between, l’d love to welcome you to this free workshop.

This is going to be like a mini Conscious Parenting Toolkit.

We’ll be diving into the fundamentals of Conscious Parenting by answering the following questions :

1. What is Conscious Parenting?

2. Why does it create the most positive outcomes for our children and for us?

3. What are three things you can do straight away to become a more conscious parent.

If you’re feeling stuck on a loop of locking horns with your kids or you’re simply keen to make sure that you’re doing the best you can to raise your children to have positive emotional and mental well-being and skills to navigate this often tricky human experience, I do hope you’ll come and join me on Monday next.

Here’s the link to register: http://subscribepage.io/kkSkzX

If you’ve any other questions do let me know.

As always, with love and solidarity.

Yvonne x

22/02/2024

Whether you’re already pretty knowledgeable about Conscious Parenting, or a complete newbie or somewhere in between, I’d love to welcome you to this free workshop on Tuesday 27th February at 8pm GMT on Zoom.

This is going to be like a mini Conscious Parenting Toolkit.

We’ll be diving into the fundamentals of Conscious Parenting by answering the following questions :

1. What is Conscious Parenting?

2. Why does it create the most positive outcomes for our children and for us?

3. What are three things you can do straight away to become a more conscious

As you may already know if you’ve been following me for a while, I wasn’t a very conscious parent when my boys were younger.

Although I adored them, I often found myself hugely frustrated, overwhelmed, impatient and pretty much at a loss as to how to get them to do all the usual things a bit more easily.

And I remember using the naughty step and time out and taking away the ipad or tv time when things went off piste, as they often did. And although those things achieved temporary ‘compliance’, they never felt right and in fact I always felt like s**t afterwards.

Thankfully I stumbled across Conscious Parenting when the boys were around 5 and 6 I think. And that led me down a different path altogether. A path that has literally changed our lives.

One where I’ve created the deepest most loving soul bond with my boys. One which is infused with mutual respect, kindness, open heartedness and honesty. And one which I know is setting them up well to thrive at life.

I’ve expanded on this a bit more in this link where you can find all the details including the registration link. http://subscribepage.io/kkSkzX

If you’re feeling stuck on a loop of locking horns with your kids or you’re simply keen to make sure that you’re doing the best you can to raise your children to have positive emotional and mental well-being and skills to navigate this often tricky human experience, I do hope you’ll come and join me on Tuesday next.

If you’ve any other questions do let me know.

As always, with love and solidarity.

Yvonne x

21/12/2023

This is the solstice,
the still point of the sun,
its cusp and midnight,
the year’s threshold and unlocking,
where the past lets go of,
and becomes the future;
the place of caught breath,
the door of a vanished house left ajar.

- Margaret Atwood

This has become one of my favourite days of the year.

Darkness gives a little.
Loosens it’s hold.
Prepares to bow to the light.

Its not so much the anticipation of the light that I savour.
But the threshold itself.
The liminal space.
The betwixt and between.

It feels magical and mystical to me.
It reminds me of the feelings I had on Christmas Eve as a child.
The anticipation of being visited by magic.

This year it’s hitting a little differently.

It’s a time for light to take precedence over darkness.
And boy is that something we need pretty acutely this year.

My heart hurts for the atrocities that continue to be smeared across an indiscriminate landscape of innocent people.

Tonight I light candles for them.
And pray that the light of our collective hearts will overtake the darkness.

I invite you to join me.

Much love.
Yvonne x

07/10/2023

Kids brains are under construction.

It takes until mid twenties for them to be fully developed.

(I know…. That can be bad or good news depending on how the wind blows 😆)

The parts that are responsible for reasoning, logic, planning and considering the consequences and impact of their actions take the longest to mature.

When we understand their brains a bit better, we’re better equipped.

To have reasonable expectations.

And to relate to them in ways that support their maturation.

To meet them where they’re at and have greater empathy and skills to navigate (or just survive 😬) their big, messy, emotional explosions!

I’m no neuroscientist.

But I learned enough about my kids brains to make a difference.

To me and to them.

Both when they were younger and now that they’re in adolescence when pretty much a whole reorganisation of the brain takes place.

I get now why they can be moody and emotional and angry at times.

>> Join me next week on Tuesday at 1pm for a whistle-stop tour of your child’s brain.

(And dare I say you might learn something about your own too!
I know I did.)

I’ll pop the link here -> https://calendly.com/yvonnesmythcoach/understandingourchildrensbrains

With love and solidarity.

Yvonne x

Welcome to the second in my Tuesday series of Lunch and Learns : Bite-size insights on Heart-Led Parenting.In this short session I'm going to help you understand your child's brain better so you can understand their behaviour better. Particularly behaviour of the big, messy, explosive kind!I can't

04/09/2023

If you got your kiddos back to school last week or today, here’s a medal 🏅 for you!!!

I’ve one down and one to go.
And they’re both very much not one bit interested 🙈

Anyway, we carry on don’t we?
Making it as painless as possible for them.

My More Mellow Mornings Masterclass is tomorrow evening.

If you find the school mornings a bit tight and stressful do come along as I’ll be sharing with you how you can create more calm, harmony and even joy, even if your kids are not dying about going to school.

Here’s the link with the details.

As always, with love and solidarity.

Yvonne x

These things are always better attended in person but if you can't make it live, you'll get the recording within 24 hours and it'll be available for you to catch up on at your leisure for a week afterwards. My emails will also be open for that week for you to ask any questions you didn't get a ch.....

24/08/2023

Most parents I speak to find school mornings stressful. Do you?

Like one big race against the clock that you rarely seem to win?

I used to feel like some mornings I spent my whole time nagging and getting annoyed and by the time we all piled into the car everyone was feeling pretty s**t. 💩 😬

Then I made some adjustments.

Discovered some gold around how to make it all way way easier.

And now I actually enjoy school mornings, which is kinda wild because there was a time when I could NOT have imagined saying that.🤣

I've shared my strategies and insights and secret sauce in one-to-one coaching before but hadn't thought about hosting a group session. (Which is kinda duh 🙄)

Until now.

Tah Dah! 🪄
I now bring you
More Mellow Mornings -
a Masterclass that does what it says on the tin.

It'll revolutionise your mornings.

Get you off the struggle bus.

You deserve that.

You'll find all the details and the booking link here subscribepage.io/EDMnyA

Message me if you’ve any questions.

As always, with love and solidarity 💜

Yvonne x

These things are always better attended in person but if you can't make it live, you'll get the recording within 24 hours and it'll be available for you to catch up on at your leisure for a week afterwards. My emails will also be open for that week for you to ask any questions you didn't get a ch.....

15/02/2023

We might not even realise we’re ‘punishing’ our kids for making mistakes.

It might be an impatient tone when they do.

Or an eye roll.

Or a sigh.

Or it might be more direct like when we yell “what did you do THAT for?”

Or say “that’s not how you do it. I’ve shown you before. It’s this way..”

And many other ways.

It’s so easy to fall into this trap. We actually want the best for our kids. For them to be capable and to do well. To get the ‘right’ answer or a good mark.

Or sometimes we’re just too depleted to cope well with the spilt milk or the smoke alarm blaring because they burnt the toast or the way they did the thing, whatever it was, the complete opposite of how we wanted or forgetting to do their homework or bring their pe kit home.

Sometimes though, it takes us really understanding the messages our kids internalise from punishments to be enough to make us determined to make a change.

We’ll be digging more into the sorts of messages our kids pick up from both punishments and rewards in my online workshop tomorrow evening.

There’s still plenty of time to join. The link is here 👉 https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/parenting-peacefully-without-punishments-tickets-541674612347
If this post piqued your interest and curiosity then you’ll really resonate with the workshop.

See you there, if you feel called.

Yvonne x

01/02/2023

Are you fed up of resorting to punishments or the threat of a punishment to get your child to do stuff? Or to stop doing stuff? (I used to be SO fed up of this cycle)

Do you secretly worry that punishments might somehow be damaging? (This thought used to haunt me)

Do you find that they don’t really “work” anyway in that the same behaviour just keeps happening again and again? (Yup.. that was my experience)

Would you like to learn more about why we might want to ditch punishments? And what a more resourceful approach might be?

We’ll be covering all of this and more in this workshop next week.

It’s online, on zoom and you can find out more and book by following the link here https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/parenting-without-punishments-tickets-530315306357

If you’ve any questions let me know.

Yvonne x

23/05/2020

If you’re a parent this ones for you.

So this is happening 😍. I’ve been asking lots of parents what they’re struggling with right now and emotional regulation seems to be a hot topic. Not surprising really given our kids have had their worlds turned upside down too.

If you’re struggling with or concerned about your kids ability to regulate their emotions this is for you.

If you’d like your kids to grow up with emotional resilience, this is for you.

If you’re not quite sure what the heck I’m talking about but you care about your kids mental health, this is for you!

Oh and it doesn’t matter what age your kids are. Zero to 18. This workshop is relevant.

Minimal investment in terms of time (one hour) and money - just £15, to gain powerful insights and tools to support your kids emotional & mental health and help them flourish in life 🥰
Places are limited and I expect this to fill up quickly so don’t dilly dally! 😁🧡 Send me a message to get your place booked.