Happy Parents, Happy Babies LLC

08/17/2025

Believe them. Be present with them. Nurture them, not only when they are babies. Let them feel their feelings. Model for them that everyone is important and worthy of kindness, respect, and care. Help your struggling spouse in ways that benefit your family's mental health. Reach out if you need help.

05/11/2025

Mother’s Day holds many meanings and for some, it brings up feelings that might not fit inside a greeting card. Maybe you’re grieving, navigating estrangement, or simply feeling unseen by the perfectionistic versions of motherhood our culture tends to spotlight. Whatever you’re carrying is valid and doesn’t have to fit in anyone’s box.

05/11/2025

05/11/2025

Here in the US (and many other countries around the world), Mother's Day is upon us. We're thinking of all the people for whom this weekend is particularly difficult. The second Sunday in May (and all of the advertising & social media activity around it) seriously sucks for so many people, in more ways than I can list.

So many wounds in the world. So many ways to be wounded. My loves, whether or not the reason(s) you are hurting are listed in this post, please take good care of yourselves.

I wish these made-up holidays didn't come with so much extra grief. There is plenty to go around without these greeting card dates. For now, please know that however this Mother's Day affects you, we're all here in this together, holding onto each other, holding each other up.

Whatever your loss — mother-related or no — I hope this weekend gifts you with something that lets you feel held, if only for a moment.

How about you? Is this Mother's Day thing hard for you, or is it a non-issue? If it's not a sore point for you, how does the mother-related pain of others affect you? Let us know in the comments.

NOTE: This community is a NO GRIEF-SHAMING ZONE. It's okay if you do not identify with or understand why something was included on this graphic. But that does NOT give you license to question it or complain about it in the comments. Please keep your opinions about other peoples' losses and grief to yourself.

04/02/2025

04/02/2025

I’ve had a few people in my world recently confidently say that they don’t know themselves. That they have such a difficult time connecting with their real thoughts & feelings, especially in the moment.

I see sadness & confusion when I hear this narrative.
It’s painful to realize in mid life that perhaps you haven’t been living for you at all.
It can feel like the ground isn’t solid under your feet, and self-trust begins to wane.

But I want offer a different perspective.

What if instead of not knowing yourself, you shifted that narrative to, “I notice I feel disconnected from myself, and I’m working to rebuild that connection.”

You are in there. You always have been. You always will be.
The feelings, the values, the glimmers that direct down your path.
It’s all there.

You’ve just been focused elsewhere. And now you’re turning inward and starting to rediscover what’s been there all along.
And you get to be whoever you want to be!

And it’s okay to feel grief about having been disconnected for so long, but be willing to challenge the narrative that perpetuates the pain and keeps you disconnected from yourself.

If you’re looking for support in finding your way back to yourself, the Self Awareness Workshop begins next week. In this 6 week small group workshop, we’ll explore many elements of how you see and relate to you - looking at patterns and how to meet & navigate yourself in different ways that will shape how your on-going relationship with the most important person in your life - you! We're almost sold out, and this is the only time I'll be teaching this workshop in 2025.
Excited to meet you there!
https://theeqschool.co/self-awareness-sign-up

01/29/2025

01/20/2025

Thank you Melanin & Mental Health ✨️

The Sunday scaries may be hitting really differently tonight, so we want to remind you about the power of community. Let's take things offline and experience the healing power of human connection.

melaninandmentalhealth.com

01/20/2025

I’ve experienced being on both sides of this.

I have minimized the pain of others when I couldn’t tolerate my own under the guise of “positivity.”

I have wanted to rush loved ones out of their pain because it was intolerable for me to stay there.

I have used spiritual language to band-aid raw emotional pain.

I have gotten lost in the craziness of goal-setting and forgotten to deal with my own messy parts.

I have also been minimized by those who could not admit they were uncomfortable by my pain.

I have been around transformational spaces that often overrode people’s emotions and traumas .. in an attempt to rush them into healing.

After all, when we partake in a 3-day workshop, we have to (hit) some illusive target to prove it was successful.

I took on some of this deeply damaging mentality for longer than I’d like to admit .. until I realized it’s harming potential.

We have to look at what causes us to run from people’s pain.

And we can have endless and (valid) reasons for this.

But what if instead of saying .. “I can’t be around a person because they are too negative” .. we could look a little deeper.

What if instead of labeling their experience as negative, we could also see our own limited capacity to holding pain.

What if they both exist.

“I have a really hard time being around you when you are sad or afraid.”

“I have never seen anyone go to the depths of their pain and successfully come out of it.”

“My mother was depressed, and seeing you sad even for a moment, feels unbearable.”

“When I see you unhappy, it touches a part of me that I don’t know how to face.”

Does this mean we can’t create boundaries or express the need for lightness/joy when a loved ones want to vent non-stop?

Of course we can! And we must!

We can’t (stay) in these heavy spaces in the same way we can’t (live) in positivity.

But we need to make space for both.

And that will require us to question why we run away from people who are in touch with their pain.

It will require us to learn a new set of boundaries to help us own our limits so that we don’t shut down another’s humanness.
// Silvy Khoucasian

01/20/2025

J. Mike Fields

01/20/2025

This 💓

01/17/2025