Exploring Unschooling

EU404: Foundations: Stories

For this week’s episode, we’re sharing the next Foundations episode of the Living Joyfully Podcast with Pam and Anna, Stories. Humans are storytellers. We choose the stories we tell about our lives. In every situation, we can come up with a number of ways to tell the story of it, and they’re all a version of the truth. But we get to choose which version resonates the most with us, which one feels better to us, and then that informs our actions moving forward. Getting curious about the stories we tell can be an amazing form of self-care! We hope today’s episode sparks some fun insights for you! THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE We invite you to join us in the Living Joyfully Network, a warm and welcoming online community of like-hearted parents. It’s a non-judgmental space where you can steep in these unconventional ideas around parenting, relationships, and learning, and explore what they might look like day-to-day in your uniquely wonderful family. We offer a free month trial so you can see if it’s a good fit for you. Click here to join us. Sign up to our mailing list on Substack to receive our email newsletters as well as new articles about learning, parenting, and so much more! Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube. Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about exploring unschooling and navigating relationships. So much of what we talk about on this podcast and in the Living Joyfully Network isn’t actually about unschooling. It’s about life. On The Living Joyfully Podcast, Anna Brown and Pam Laricchia talk about life, relationships, and parenting. You can check out the archive here, or find it in your your favorite podcast player. EPISODE QUESTIONS What stories are you holding on to about yourself, your partner, and your family? Where are the stories coming from? From your parents during your childhood? The outside voices of society? Somewhere else? Do you see the story in your self-talk? How else might you tell that story? How does it feel to realize that you get to craft your own stories? TRANSCRIPT PAM: Hello and welcome to the Living Joyfully Podcast. We are very happy you’re here exploring relationships with us, who we are in them, out of them, and what that means for how we move through the world. And in today’s episode, we are going to talk about stories, both the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we assign to other people, meaning what we think they’re thinking. And yes, it can get very messy. Now, this episode is a bit longer than usual, but we think it’s worth it. Stories are intricately woven into our relationships with the people that we love, and that’s because humans are storytelling animals. It’s how we make sense of our world. In the book The Storytelling Animal, How Stories Make Us Human by Jonathan Gottschall, he wrote, “Story is for a human as water is for a fish – all encompassing and not quite palpable.” I love that so much, because story truly is everywhere. And the language we choose makes a profound difference, because the stories we tell ourselves become our self-talk. That is why we want to be intentional about the language that we’re using. And what’s really fascinating is that for pretty much any situation, we can come up with a number of ways to tell the story of it and they can all make sense and all could truthfully tell the story of that situation. And the thing to realize is, we get to choose which one resonates most and feels better to us, which then informs our actions moving forward, which calls back to our conversation in episode seven about how every moment is a choice. Stories and choice are woven together so well, aren’t they? ANNA: Oh my gosh. So much. For me, truly understanding the role of story has been so pivotal. That awareness allowed me to step back and observe, so, where’s this story coming from? Does it feel real to me and who I am in this moment? Is it serving me? And if I’ve held onto it for a long time, why? Why have I held onto that story? And who would I be without it? That’s one I love to think about. Who would I be? What would it feel like? Because there’s an energetic feeling to that. What do I feel without this story that I’m telling about myself or these people in my life? And those questions really can only come about once you take off the veil and realize that everything is a story. Then I get to dive in and have these questions. And through the questioning, I can hone in on what is really working for me. And then I can start to change my story to be more reflective of me as the person I am now, the person I want to be moving forward. And I could see the role of story more clearly and use it as a tool instead of being held hostage by it, which is kind of how it felt before. And for me, like you said, language is such a big piece of that. I try to be so intentional about my language that I use, whether I’m defining some kind of big event or a very simple task in front of me, because in that language is choice. I’m developing the story that informs my day and tells others who I am. And so, that piece is so critical to me, just seeing it for what it is. And then, how do I want to create my narrative? What language do I want to use to describe it? I like thinking about it. PAM: Yeah. And once you see the scope of it, it’s incredible, because it’s not only the stories that we’re telling ourselves, but it’s understanding that the stories we’re telling others about ourselves and about our lives is the picture that they’re going to draw from. That’s where they’re going to meet us. So, first, let’s look at our self-talk, at our inner voice. Sometimes we don’t think we have control over our self-talk. It just appears in our head, the words over and over and over when we’re spiraling over something, right? But we truly can change that over time as we make intentional changes to the language that we use and the stories we tell ourselves. It is worth taking the time to listen to our self-talk a bit more objectively, to just ask ourselves, is this a helpful story for me? ANNA: Right, because we have the self-talk, and we don’t think we can change it. I think that’s something I believed when I was younger. It’s hard to change or we’re given this story that it’s hard, but I think we may assign it more importance than perhaps serves us. So, I love the idea of really diving into that, because self-talk is just an aspect of our story. It’s no different. It’s no more powerful. And it’s not this boogeyman that it’s kind of made out to be. And sometimes our self-talk is the stories that have been handed to us, perhaps by our parents or past relationships. And what’s so important there is to realize that the stories they told, even if the story is about us, is their story. It’s not ours and we don’t have to take it in and own it. It’s about them, where they were at the time, the stories that perhaps they were handed. And so, that’s the thing, right? We can just keep continuing to hand down these same stories or we can take control of our own narrative. We can look at who we really are and what’s actually in front of us, and then write a story that lifts us up, because that helps us be the person that we want to be and it will inform our next steps in a given situation. And I think that’s what’s so important about it. That’s how insidious stories are. When we carry these stories from someone else, they change our energy and then they inform our next steps, and it keeps us on this same narrow path. But at any moment, we can take back the reins. We can examine the stories that we’re clinging to and we can make choices because yes, Pam, it’s always about choices with me. We’re going to keep bringing that up. PAM: Yes. Definitely. I love the point about realizing that the stories other people are telling about us, especially the stories we grew up with, are just somebody else’s perspective. It’s their story. So, maybe we’ve absorbed the story that we’re too sensitive, or we’re scared to try new things, or we’re very shy. That isn’t our story. It’s their story about us. And we get to choose our own story. Speaking of, it’s also helpful to realize that goes both ways. So, for example, take a moment to consider the stories we’re telling our partner about our day. Maybe we’re more likely to take it as an opportunity to vent. “I am so tired,” or, “So many things went wrong today.” Is that what I want to convey? What will their view of my day look like from my story? Maybe that I’m so tired because I was busy having fun playing with the kids, or deep in the flow of working on a favorite project or knocking a bunch of those tasks off my to-do list. Maybe more things unusual went wrong today precisely because I was working a to-do list that was filled with those iffy jobs, and I got them done in the end. But how will they see my day through my venting words? Probably not as the ultimately satisfying day that I saw. So, understanding that the stories I tell, big and small, live on in the world reminds me to be more intentional. Now that doesn’t mean not venting, but maybe prefacing it with a quick qualifier. Like, “My day was great. I just want to vent about a couple of things.” It means considering who I’m speaking with and choosing my language to better convey the meaning of my story. Is what I’m saying true? Is it how I want to be seen by others? What do I need or want from the conversation? Because stories are the lifeblood of communication. ANNA: Yes. And I think it’s interesting, too, thinking about that. What do I want to get from this story? Because if we do come at our partner with all the things that have happened in the day and then they come back trying to solve things and really we’re like, “Wait a minute, it’s just a story we’re telling about how we had these tough things,” you know? So, keep all that in mind. It’s the lifeblood of communication. I don’t think that’s an overstatement. I think that’s really so true. And so, keeping in mind that others will see our story through their lens, what they know, and that’s okay. Understanding that helps us put their comments or reactions into perspective as well. Back to everyone is different. We see and experience the world differently. PAM: Yes. And that is absolutely a wonderful thing. We have control over our stories and what pieces we choose to share and how we choose to share. Understanding that other people come to conversations with their lens, too, so, not expecting them to fully understand what it looks like through our eyes and not even expecting them to even be curious to understand. We can’t control where they are on their journey. Now, I also want to talk about the stories that we assign to other people, because so often we tend to assume the worst story. For myself and many others that I’ve spoken with, when we’re feeling disconnected from someone or they react negatively to something we’ve said or done, the story we immediately tell ourselves is that we did something wrong, but often that really isn’t true. It’s so helpful to remember that, when we’re thinking about what someone else is thinking, that is a story that we’re making up. No matter how well we know them, we still don’t know for sure. So don’t assume that the first story that we jump to is the same story that they see. ANNA: Yes. So often, we find ourselves putting words into people’s heads, and we will actually play out the scenarios till the end without the other person involved at all. “They’re upset with me. I did something wrong. They don’t like what I’m doing,” whatever the words were saying. Even, “They’re trying to hurt me. Their actions are intentional towards me.” So often, we get that very wrong. We really don’t know what’s happening in another person’s head. I have a friend that will honestly just create entire movies and the challenge with that is, it doesn’t leave room for anything else. Once you’ve created a story for someone, you start acting from that place with that energy. So, if you’ve ever had one of those dreams where it’s so real, your partner has done something terrible and really upset you, and you wake up and you’re still super mad and they’re going like, “What is happening? I just woke up. I don’t know what you’re talking about!” But it’s the same when we create a story. We can buy into that energy and bring that energy to the person and they have no idea where it’s coming from. But instead, if we can first assume positive intent, second, we can ask questions and leave space and remain open, then the person’s free to share what they’re actually feeling. And so often, it does not come close to the stories that we’re making up. So, I have a friend and a while back, she shared a story and she didn’t share it as a story. She shared it as a fact. She said that her husband didn’t find her attractive. And she said, “He actively avoids even touching me when we walk each other past each other in the hall.” And I was like, “Oh, wow. Have you talked to him about that?” And she was like, “Well, no.” And then when she did, she found the complete opposite was true. He was trying to be respectful of her space. So, he felt by moving aside in the hall, he was showing respect for her space and honoring her. And so, then they had this conversation around what would feel good to each other and how they want to move forward. And it’s very different now. But she had been telling that story for years and he had no idea. That’s just how insidious these stories are. And I think it’s just really worth examining the stories that we put on others, even when we feel it’s justified, even if we think we know them so well, even if we’ve held onto these stories for years. Conversations are so important. Being open and curious. Leave space for people to tell us who they are. Pre-writing a detailed story does not. You can feel that closed energy when you come in with this pre-populated story and it’s so disconnecting. Even some light inquiry can shed light on what’s really going on and give space for each person to share their perspective. And then we can understand where the communication broke down in the first place and why maybe we’re seeing it differently, but that won’t happen if we stay in our head creating stories. That will only happen with that choice of connection and that choice to have some conversations. PAM: Yeah, sometimes I can get stuck in a really negative story about someone else, and I just don’t feel confident enough to ask about it yet or bring it up. But when that happens, I found it helpful to just remind myself that it’s a story and then start to play with that. How else might this story go? What about this? Does that fit? Maybe this? So, once I think of a few other things, even if they seem outlandish to me right now, I realize that there isn’t just one possible story. It wasn’t just the one thing that I was clinging to and being upset about. That lightens things up for me. And usually, when I’m feeling lighter, now I can get curious. Which one is it? I want to know now. And then usually I can get to the space, the energy, where it doesn’t feel so heavy and I can actually bring up the conversation with them. I can actually go, “Hey, what about this? What did that feel like to you?” On the flip side, moving through that process over and over helped me realize that I really don’t know what’s going on in another person’s life that has led them to make whatever choice it is that they made. That’s their story, their truth. That’s been a very helpful discovery on my journey around stories, just that realization that these are stories. My story, their story, it’s their truth in the moment. And that is just enough. I can be curious then. It reminds me that there are multiple ways that things can go. ANNA: Right. And there are just always more layers, I think, to peel back on our stories, which kind of leads nicely to this last bit we wanted to talk about. We get to choose the stories we tell. And we touched on this back a bit back in the choices episode, but I want to bring it up again. We choose the stories we tell about the big things like our childhood and the little things like the grocery store. And in every situation, there are things that are easier and harder, that work or don’t work. But we can choose to focus on those aspects that make sense and feel better to us. For any situation, we can come up with a number of ways to tell the story of it, and they all make sense in the context of the activity, the situation, the people involved, and they can all truthfully tell the story. But now, we get to choose which one resonates the most with us, which one feels better to us, which then informs our actions moving forward. That’s the power of story. PAM: Right. Especially in more challenging situations, it’s so valuable to take a moment to not just jump in with the first story that comes to mind, which is usually fear-based. And it’s usually the worst one, the worst interpretation of things. And if we just stick with that one, we can get tunnel vision and start spiraling downward in our fears. We can get really stuck there if we only see this one worst interpretation of the situation in front. So, instead, take that moment to come up with a few more stories that align with the situation. If we don’t take the time to consider other stories, we’re not really making a meaningful choice moving forward, are we? You can’t choose between one thing. And choosing more positive stories, ones that feel better to us, isn’t about avoiding the truth, because the different stories all incorporate the facts. But for me, choosing the more positive story is really a form of self-care. Instead of telling myself over and over the versions that make me feel bad, that weigh me down, that pull me into that tunnel vision, I can tell myself the versions of the story that both make sense and feel better. Because from there, I’m in a more open and curious and receptive mindset, a place where I can now see more opportunities. I can be more creative in choosing my next step and my next moment is truly better. And I find myself then starting to spiral upwards, moving through it, rather than spiraling down and crashing and just feeling crushed. ANNA: And getting stuck! So, my oldest daughter and I talked about this so many times over the years, because she is a master storyteller. And, I mean, it’s a gift. It is a gift that she has and it is amazing. But sometimes, it gets the better of her, because sometimes she can spin this really intricate story about someone else or about a situation, and it ends up making her feel terrible. But in the end, it’s just a story. We’re making it up in our heads. And I think once I realized that, I decided, if I’m going to make up a story, I’m going to make up a story that feels good, one that helps me feel connected, that helps me move forward as the person I want to be, which is exactly what you’re talking about. So, I want to examine if my story spirals me into a place of being stuck, or if my story is lifting me. I may not understand all the pieces, but I can feel okay about the situation if I look at it this way, and that helps me move forward as the person I want to be. And like we’ve talked about before, there are situations sometimes where I can get some clarifying information so that I can get a more accurate picture, because maybe there’s someone else involved and I can stop putting words in their mouth and actually figure it out. But other times, like you said, it really isn’t even possible. When it’s not possible, I just always want to choose the story that feels better, because it’s just as likely to be true as the one that doesn’t. And so, I’m just wasting the time in this moment feeling bad about something when I really don’t even know the full story. And so, that’s why I love that you tied it into self-care, because that’s exactly what it is. It really is just this intentional choice to look at what’s in front of me and find a story that feels good. And again, it’s not about pushing the other things aside. It’s not about pretending that things didn’t happen or changing the story. It’s just intentionally using language that makes me feel good about what’s happening around me. So, for me, if it’s a particularly challenging or difficult situation, it’s not about pretending that the difficult situation didn’t happen, but I look for, how have I moved through it? Look at the amazing support I’ve received from the people around me. Look at how loved I am because they’ve helped me through this situation. Look at what I’ve learned about myself from it. Whatever the situation, I can always find a way to frame it to use what can be a challenging situation to make myself feel better and to move forward from there. And so, that’s also an empowerment piece, knowing that I can turn these situations that can completely derail me into situations that just boost me forward and allow me to be around the people that I love and to connect with the people that lift me up. PAM: Yes. And another layer that I think would be helpful for people to peel back, and I am still peeling this layer back, but, why is our tendency to take on that weight? Why does it feel like the more positive spin or the silver lining is it cheat? It really is not. And we can do that work to peel back those layers and to realize that these are all stories, they are all versions of the truth. They could absolutely all be true. ANNA: And I think this part is related to the stories handed to us by society. Things like, life is suffering. Only hard work pays off. Relationships are hard. And so, when you find this cheat, you’re like, “Wait a minute. Maybe it doesn’t have to be this hard. Maybe I can be enjoying it,” but then you might try to stop yourself. Like, “What? But we’ve been told that forever!” But no, set that aside, because we don’t have to make situations more difficult. There’s going to be plenty of things in life to work through, but when you can find joy, when you can switch that focus, see the light, find the gifts in the situation, life is just so much more enjoyable. But we do have to shed some of those stories from society, some of those stories from even other people in our lives, in order to create what feels good for us. PAM: Yeah, I love that. I mean, “Life is hard.” Don’t we hear that all the time? But then, if we tell a different story, the reaction can often be like, “Well, you’re a Pollyanna. You’re not seeing the truth.” Another story. Right? It is just so useful to work through all of that. Now, you and I have both heard, “You guys are always so positive,” and people think it’s weird at first, which is okay, because it’s part of the process of peeling back those layers and understanding that our stories are ours to tell and there’s more than one way to tell the story. We don’t always have to take the negative, life-is-hard bent on it. ANNA: Right. And the reason I’m telling the story is for me. It’s not to put on a show or make anything look different for somebody else from the outside. It’s because it helps me be the person I want to be. It helps me in my relationships. I remember one time somebody said to me, “I get it now. I get that you’re not just a Pollyanna about life. It’s that it helps you have these relationships. It helps you move through these situations.” And I’m like, “Yes, that’s absolutely it.” I’m not thinking about anybody else’s reaction to me choosing joy or finding light in a moment, because that’s my internal work. Now, I’m understanding that it can come across that way as people are listening to it, but I’m like, “Oh, no, no, no. This is just a tool.” It’s a tool that helps me connect with people. It helps me move through my days in a way that feels better to me. And it’s just a choice. And I think if somebody wants to play around with it, they can see how it feels for them, too. PAM: Exactly. Exactly. And I find it helps me be more creative. It helps me come up with more possibilities. And that’s the thing. You can try it out for a while and you see how it goes. And I do suspect you’ll start to see things that wouldn’t have happened in the other mindset. ANNA: Yeah, it’s really true. And I do think it’s so interesting and we definitely get feedback about that. I mean, I definitely get that. “You’re always looking on the bright side!” And I’m like, I feel all the things, but it’s just, again, those stories we create, it impacts how we move forward. It impacts how we see all the things around us. So, let’s talk about some questions you might want to ponder for this week as you explore the idea of stories. First, what story are you holding onto about yourself, your partner, and your family? And that’s a lot. So, that one may take a few minutes, because we have stories that have been handed us from childhood and on. So, there’s a lot of stories there. Where are the stories coming from, from your parents during childhood, from outside voices of society, somewhere else? Identifying where, I think, is so key to realizing and taking your power back there, to realize, I don’t need to own their story. That story’s not about me at all. And so, do you see the story in your self-talk and how else might you tell that story? Self-talk again, it’s kind of this bugaboo that we’re unsure about. How do we change it? But I think the first step, don’t you think, is just identifying it, just recognizing it as a story. PAM: Yes. Recognizing it as a story and, like in the previous question, where did that story come from? Is it really my story or is it something that I’ve absorbed over the years? It’s someone else’s view that I’ve adopted because they can really feel like that’s our story, That’s our self-talk, because we should be more productive, we should be efficient. “I should be able to do this quickly,” or, “I shouldn’t be so sensitive.” There are just so many stories that we’ve absorbed over time that are really somebody else’s view. And to check in and start asking ourselves and see, well, does that make sense to me? Do I feel sensitive all the time? What’s wrong with being sensitive? There are just so many questions and layers do with that. ANNA: And you know I love, who would I be without that story? So, feel that. Who would I be without telling that story about I’m so sensitive or I can’t get anything done whatever the thing is that people have handed to us. So, yeah, so interesting. And finally, how does it feel to realize that you get to craft your own story? And so, I think it, I think that may take a minute, because it’s just realizing, Okay, do I get to write it? Because I think, again, some people think it’s a cheat. But it’s like, no, you really do. You really get to pick the things that you like and craft that as your own personal story, even when there’s tragedy, even when there are bad things that have happened. There are things to look at that we can just say, yeah, but this is who I want to be and this is how I went through those tough times, and this is what was surrounding me during that. And so, that we can hold onto that part of the story as well. PAM: Yeah, and I think that’s one of the big things that I want to share with people is that these are true moments. This isn’t stuff that we’re making up. We’re not saying, ignore all this hard stuff that’s going on around you. It’s, as you said, a tool that can be helpful in moving through those seasons, moving through those emergency moments, all those pieces. For me, it is so incredibly helpful for me to move out of that fight or flight tunnel, which can be super helpful in the moment. But we get stuck there so easily. This is a tool that really helps me move through that. I just find it’s become such a useful tool, because I know I’m more creative on the other side. I move through things with more grace and just more compassion and kindness for other people that are involved when I can help myself with this tool move beyond that tunnel vision and the that whole fight flight emergency response when things go wrong. That’s helped me. ANNA: It will be fun to see what people bring up about stories. So, thank you so much for listening and we hope to see you next time. So, take care. Bye-bye. PAM: Bye, everyone.

The Unschooling Summit, 2026

We are so excited to be participating in The Unschooling Summit again this year! We participated last year and it was such a wonderful event that we want to make sure people know it’s happening again this year. To that end, we asked Summit hosts Esther Jones and Melissa Crockett-Joyoue if they’d be up to join us to talk about it! The Details Join other parents from around the world for three days of inspiration and community at The Unschooling Summit. This free virtual event will feature 90+ unschooling experts and advocates. You’ll have access to interviews with some of the top experts and advocates in the field of unschooling and self-directed learning You can take part in live roundtables with seasoned unschooling parents discussing some of the most important topics that come up for unschooling families (teens, neurodivergent children, self-care, community etc) You can attend live, interactive workshops  You can connect with other parents in community networking sessions You can join a closed Facebook group and connect with other parents from around the world who are exploring a different path with their children Whether you’re curious about how unschooling could work for your family, looking for support on your journey or keen to delve into how unschooling can be a tool for social change and personal growth, there will be plenty there for you! The Unschooling Summit takes place online from March 20th-22nd, 2026. You can get your free ticket here! Note that that’s an affiliate link and you help support Living Joyfully when you use it. Thank you!

EU403: On the Journey with Erin Rosemond

To finish off our month-long celebration of 10 years of Exploring Unschooling, we’re sharing another On the Journey episode! We had a rich conversation with Living Joyfully Network member and long-time unschooling mom Erin Rosemond. Erin is a mom of four grown children living in Canada. She writes about home education on her blog Ever Learning, co-hosts The Virtual Kitchen Table podcast, and offers mentorship and facilitation for families and individuals. We talked about developing self-awareness on the unschooling journey and how it leads to a beautiful place of authenticity. Erin shared about how her ability to advocate for her children strengthened over the years. We also dove into the path from attachment parenting to unschooling and how focusing on the relationships we have with our children has been the thread that connects it all. It was a really lovely discussion and we hope you find it helpful! THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE We invite you to join us in The Living Joyfully Network, a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid discussions about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. Come and be part of the conversation! Sign up to our mailing list on Substack to receive our email newsletters as well as new articles about learning, parenting, and so much more! Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube. Episode 285, Unschooling Stories with Erin Rosemond Find Erin’s work at her website, https://www.everlearning.ca/ Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about navigating relationships and exploring unschooling. So much of what we talk about on this podcast and in the Living Joyfully Network isn’t actually about unschooling. It’s about life. On The Living Joyfully Podcast, Anna Brown and Pam Laricchia talk about life, relationships, and parenting. You can check out the archive here, or find it in your your favorite podcast player. EPISODE TRANSCRIPT PAM: Hello everyone, I am Pam Laricchia from Living Joyfully and I’m joined by my co-host Anna Brown and Erika Ellis, as well as our guest today, Erin Rosemond. So this month, we have been reflecting back on 10 years of the podcast, exploring what we’ve learned, what’s changed, and what still matters. And we are thrilled to have Erin join us to continue the conversation. We’re going to dive into these three questions with her and I am very excited to hear her thoughts. And if you don’t yet know Erin, she is a long time unschooling parent known online as EverLearning. She co-hosts the podcast, Virtual Kitchen Table, where they share experiences and ideas about family life and unschooling. And she’s been a long time member of the Living Joyfully Network, which we so, so appreciate. If you would like to hear more about her unschooling journey, I spoke with her back in episode 285 of this podcast, and she shared some wonderful insights. So I do encourage you to go back and listen to that episode. But to get us started today, Erin, we’re just going to dive right in. What’s one of the most impactful things you’ve learned on your unschooling journey? ERIN: So, I looked at this question, and it’s such a challenging question, but in a good way. Because there are so many impactful parts, it’s crazy how impactful it is. And I feel like when you talk to other people who are following this path and doing things this way, that’s one of the things that they say is that they couldn’t possibly have imagined how much impact it would have in so many different areas. So yeah, so I was like, oh, where to begin? I had a few different words come to mind. The first word that came to mind was authenticity. And maybe I’ll end up touching on that. And then it got me thinking about the idea of emotional maturity. And that kind of wove me around to where I think I’ve landed at the moment, which is just – self-awareness. And so if I’m understanding the question properly, because I guess I’m thinking about certainly the impact on me, but I also think that’s very impactful on our children, and just generally the people in our lives. And I think that probably isn’t something that I had thought about at the beginning. I think most people probably don’t. Even before school age, coming from more of an attachment parenting, conscious parenting paradigm, that was just about my baby, right? That was about what felt best. You’re operating with what seems to be the kindest, most practical way to parent, and you’re not really thinking a lot about self-awareness. But of course, that’s developing along the way. We do all that early reading, and then it just, I know different people come to this path from different directions, but I think I pipelined in through attachment parenting more than anything. So really, it was just gradual. Continuing to read, continuing to talk to people, hear other people’s experiences, trial and error for myself. And then it gets to a point where you realize, if you’re going to parent in this really respectful way, it’s actually quite hard. It feels like it shouldn’t be hard, but it really kind of rubs up against a lot of what we’ve been taught, what we’ve learned, sometimes what society values and promotes. I just think you end up doing so much self-reflection, because you bump up against these things, and you think, okay, well, what would the conventional response be. It might be taking a privilege away, or it might be controlling this or controlling that. And it’s really hard to be in a respectful relationship with somebody when you’re controlling them. And it’s kind of arbitrary. I mean, of course, as parents, we sometimes have to safeguard things. I’m not suggesting otherwise. But I think it’s that word arbitrary, where we’re just deciding that there’s a different standard because they’re children. And so I think that the amount of self-awareness that we have to develop is actually mind blowing. Because it’s not just about how they learn or our interactions, there’s a ripple effect. They bring in friends, or kids are adults now. So they bring in partners or spouses, and you just have this circle of people that if you want to remain in good relationship with your kids, which I do, you need to think about how do I want to respond in this moment? And what do I want this memory to be like for them, you know? I feel like I have so much more I can say about this, but maybe I’ll just leave it there for a minute. Yeah, it’s just that ability now, I think, to stop and pause before responding, and just imagine all the different ways there are to do something and to think about something. And if I’m having a certain feeling about that, what’s that about? Just getting curious about that. Yeah, like I said, I’ve got a lot, but I’ll stop for now. PAM: Yeah. Okay, I’ll pick up first. Oh, my goodness. I love that that is what you picked. And like you said, there are just so many aspects. One, that bubbled up, is the hard work piece. We’ve talked before on the podcast and network. Do I put in the effort, the work, the engagement beforehand, having the self-awareness to figure something out, right? Or do I choose that it’s going to happen after, if things break down? When we want to put the relationship first, and then we need to repair, because we didn’t put in a lot of the time upfront to look at everybody’s perspective. How do I feel in this moment? What does that mean about me? That’s the whole self-awareness piece. And then being open to other people’s self-awareness, and not even defining it, other people’s choices, other people’s agency, how other people are seeing this moment, right? So we’ve talked about that piece. So, that’s part of the question. But I love even more depth, that’s a choice. And often, we forget about considering, because maybe the relationship breakdown happens a day or two later, right? The next time we try to engage more deeply, and they brush us off, because they’re still upset about what we did two days ago. And that’s when you realize, so it’s hard, it can be hard to connect those two pieces. But even regardless of that, where you got to the authenticity, where you started, showing up in the moment as the person you want to be, as Anna talks about quite a bit, it’s self-awareness. It’s just interwoven with that so intricately, because how can we know who we want to be when we show up in the moment, unless we understand ourselves. I feel like I learned that from watching my kids when they came home, because they could show up more authentically, because they hadn’t absorbed quite as many of the conventional messages yet. Those messages that say, when this happens, you do this. And when in this situation, you do this. And when somebody else does this to you, you do this, you know, we have absorbed so many of those cultural messages in how we’re supposed to respond. And we’re often with great intentions raised by parents who are telling us, in this situation, you do this, or I want you to do this, remember that. It’s something new for us, I think. And that’s why I find what you’re saying about this self-awareness piece being such a huge and impactful part of the journey and realizing it’s understanding ourselves. And then I think through understanding ourselves, we recognize how different we are, how different other people are, and then realizing, oh, geez, everybody has got a unique perspective. And then like you said, then you have more and more people joining the family community. And then it’s just more and more perspectives. But that we, at least for me so far, find I get to enjoy the moments more when I’ve done that work or understand people, because I can be more present in them versus part of my mind thinking, but in this situation, we should each be doing XYZ. And I’m trying to prod people, even gently, to do the right thing, etc. So I loved your answer. ERIN: Well, and something, Pam, just when you were bringing the word authenticity back into it, I think too, there are always things that I’m realizing that I’m working on, always. And right now, it’s with the self-awareness, I feel like in an intentional way, my reaction time is very slow at this point. I take my time. I sit with things, whether it’s decisions or things are happening. And so, yeah, my reactions are now very slow, they’re careful. And so, I think for me, the figuring out right now, then is also that authenticity piece. So how do I show up as myself, and also give my kids and anybody else in my life, that space of non-judgment. So I’m not sure if that’s making sense, but it’s just a little bit of a piece that I’m sitting with right now. I think I’ve gotten pretty, I wouldn’t say I’m comfortable with it, but I’m committed to it. Pretty comfortable being committed to leaving a lot of space, having that slow reaction time, leaving lots of room for the different things that my family members do, right? But the piece I’m still sitting with is how authentic am I being here? Or I’m still trying to figure out, where is the space for me? And nobody is stopping me from being in there, but I’m still just figuring that out, right? Nobody’s pushing me back, it’s just me figuring it out for me. ERIKA: I think that makes a lot of sense, and it’s so interesting. It’s bringing up a lot of different thoughts for me, but really, everyone who’s on this type of journey, it makes sense that eventually we get to a place like what you’re describing, where it’s like, who am I really? How does that fit in, because our intention from the beginning and how a lot of us came to the journey was we wanted to give our children the space to be themselves. And I think in many cases, that means we are taking a step back from asserting ourselves, in order to give them the space to really be true to themselves. And then it’s that pendulum swing that we talk about. But I’m still here, and what is the life that I want to lead look like in connection? And with all these new people coming into your life as well, it just gets more and more complicated. But I just love that deep work. And I think it’s kind of unavoidable. Because we’re not okay with just pushing through our agenda. And I don’t care if you’re upset, that has never felt okay to me as a parent. And so I’m going to have to confront whatever the things are that come up for me, in order to be the parent and the person that I want to be in that relationship. And so learning about myself just has to happen along that journey. And I think it is so impactful. ANNA: I think what stood out for me, there were a couple things, but that piece of, it is unavoidable. I think if you’re really showing up with the intention to recognize how we’re showing up in those moments. And I think that’s so interesting, because that piece of thinking it’s hard. What I found was that the interactions with the kids weren’t hard, because they’re so authentic. It was that piece that when it’s bumping up, wait, wait, why is it bumping up? What’s happening? That means slowing myself down, then figuring out what is coming up in me. And that was hard, because I had to look at where did that come from? Why is it impacting me in this moment? Why am I wanting to control or change this? Because I think in some ways, maybe it is an easier path. I don’t know, kind of like you said, Pam, the back end’s hard, but it can feel easier to just push whatever the agenda is. But the big difference is exactly what you’re talking about, the self awareness, because you can’t really do that. If you’re self aware, you can’t really push your agenda onto somebody else. If you’re thinking, wait a minute, what’s happening here? I think that is a deep, rich part of the journey, and it’s amazing and ongoing. ERIN: Wait, this is not something that you learn one time, and then you’re done? And just if I could say one more thing on this question, just the amount that I’ve learned about myself from noticing or listening to my kids’ reactions to me or the way that they come with the question, is huge.And just to give an example, I think I might have shared it in the Network, actually, a few years ago, but it was just around Christmas presents. And one of my guys came to me with what felt like a very rehearsed sort of speech when you’re trying to launch a marketing thing forward. But anyway, he had this rehearsed set of reasons for his request. He knew he was getting a camera, he was starting to do some wildlife photography. And he had this really well rehearsed set of reasons that it would be great for him to have that camera before Christmas and open it before Christmas. And he was really pleasant about it. But it was almost like, let me get this all out. I’m just going to explain to you where I’m coming from here. And I sat with it later. And I was like, wow, he put a lot of effort into something that was just about a Christmas present. Because it didn’t really matter that much to me. But then when I peel back a little bit, because I said, that’s fine. But then I did kind of reflect about how I was feeling about it. And I thought, no, you know what, I think I have been more tradition-oriented around Christmas morning. And I think a lot of that too, was an aspect of his particular personality that maybe we had a bit of a rub where when he was a kid who wanted to know, what’s happening for my birthday? two months ahead. And so, there was always a bit of a need to slow down, you need to learn self control, like this kind of stuff, right. And so it just, yeah, it kind of made me peel back a little bit and think about, what are the signs that he’s seen of that through the years? Or what are the things I’ve said or done? And it’s just a small, benign example. But I’ve had those things happen with probably more important things too, where I just go, okay, the fact that they’re asking it this way. Or the fact that this already went through my husband, who didn’t know about it. And something’s already been installed. That gives me a clue. We can kind of use these things to kind of get a clue about how we come across to other people. That reflection helps us learn so much about ourselves, like right to that self awareness. Our kids are lovely mirrors that way. I mean, it may not be fun in the moment or whatever. But it really is so valuable and interesting, to just take a moment to look at what might that say about me and how I’m being in the world around them, etc. And it’s because it’s often something that I had never even thought of as a thing. It’s just a habit or just just a way. But to be able to reflect and find those pieces and go, oh, that’s interesting. And just be more self aware, learn more about it. It doesn’t mean changing or anything. But more self awareness that we can bring to a moment. So very cool. ERIKA: I love that story, they shine these little spotlights on our different things. We don’t even realize they are even a belief or whatever. And I love that. So my question to you, Erin, is what has changed over the course of your journey? ERIN: Again, another big, big question. So I mean, obviously, lots of things have changed. I guess I’ll go back to myself again, because I think this is really the theme, right? So much of it is about how we interact in these relationships. I think, well, probably one really obvious, well, it might not be obvious to somebody newer, but I think for lots of people, you quickly realize that your reasons, your ideas about learning and like, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. And so I think what’s changed is that I think about things in a much broader way than just, learning to read or learning to I don’t know, what are all the things people worry about standing in line? All the things people get concerned about. And so it just becomes so much broader than that. But then I think, to kind of bring it back to this theme of self awareness, I think what’s really changed is my willingness to put my kids first. I don’t know, there’s something about advocacy, I think that’s coming up. I think I struggled for a long time to put my kids first in the face of, let’s say they were part of a club or lessons or something like that. And it’s not that I didn’t put them first, but I’ve become much, it’s become much easier for me. So I’m just thinking about everything from things that didn’t make sense in college residence to lessons my kids have done where something just kind of hits or rubs the wrong way. And I think where I used to probably indirectly try to steer them toward it not being so big of a conflict, I’m much more comfortable now, just going and talking to somebody, or helping them. I mean, they’re older now. So I’m not doing as much of that, but just even helping them with the language to go talk to somebody. I remember when I joined the network, maybe when I took the course, the Childhood Redefined, my kids were already getting older. My oldest guy was probably 20 at that time. But I think what I was noticing in myself is that there was this, we talked a lot about quitting and letting kids change their mind and do new things. And I didn’t have a problem with that in the way that a lot of people do. I saw the value in them trying different things. That wasn’t the issue for me. The issue was around not hurting the coaches feelings, or not causing conflict with another family that we were friends with, because they didn’t want to be doing the activity with them. For some people, that would be very simple. But for for me, it’s taken me a lot of work to do that kind of thing. So I think for me, it’s just how much more quickly I can be in my kid’s corner, in a really more concrete way than I used to be able to. I think I’ll just say one more thing about that, too. I think, as my kids got older, I realized that a lot of the people, if you think about naysayers, for example, with homeschooling and unschooling, those people don’t always stay in your life. Your neighbors move. We’ve had relatives actually pass away, a lot of the people that you’re hearing all these messages from, whether it’s quitting, or making sure to stick with a musical instrument, or all these different things. At the end of the day, it’s my child that I need to continue that relationship with. ANNA: I love that piece. And I feel like what’s interesting about that is, I feel like our kids really lead the way, because all of us here have come through school, and often, more school and more school. And I think we’re culturally conditioned to think about those things, and to worry about those things, make sure we’re fitting in and make sure things are fine. And I feel like my kids would have these really authentic reactions, recognizing that this environment doesn’t feel good, or I don’t like the way this is happening. And I remember reflecting when they were younger, that I had those thoughts as a kid, but I didn’t ever say them. Or there was nobody listening to me. And so it was interesting to just really see that. And of course, like you’re saying, that’s the relationship that’s so important to me. But I remember having to consciously have that thought of – this is the person I care about. I mean, now, 20 years later, I can’t even remember who those instructors are, or whatever but they’re not in my life. But my children are still in my life. But I remember having to consciously have that thought to reorient myself, because that cultural conditioning was so strong. I just really identify with that one as well. ERIKA: Yeah, the expectations, the external feeling of being judged or feeling that I wouldn’t have been allowed to just leave this activity. And so I don’t have any experience with how to have that more difficult conversation. How do you bring up things that are a little bit surprising to people in the mainstream, but I think when you have kids who are so used to being true to themselves, and listening to what works for them, there’s not really another option, we just are going to have to grow into being confident enough to do that. And I feel like I’m still definitely in the middle of that journey. Because my kids haven’t really wanted to do that many activities and are kind of branching out more and more as they become teenagers. And so I’m being put into those positions now of, okay, this conversation feels hard to me. But it is possible to have respectful interactions with the people at these lessons or whatever the things are, and still say, and we’re not going to continue. And that’s okay, we can make that choice. PAM: Yeah, I found looking to my kids to be so useful. Because at first, I didn’t even realize how much work I did to fit in growing up. It was just a given. This is school, this is your like, extracurricular activity, this is how we behave and what we do at these things. And I just wanted to do it right, right? So, it wasn’t until my kids would be like, oh no, I want to quit. And same with you, Erin, it was pretty easy to quit the thing. But I was holding back, because at first, I could feel myself wanting to explain the broader picture and why. One of my childhood memories is trying to do that with my brother. I guess I was babysitting, and my parents had gone out and they said, he can go out and play once he’s finished cleaning his room. But he didn’t want to clean his room. And I’m sitting there in his room on his bed, like, just do it, it’ll take five minutes. But oh my gosh, now I look back and go, wow. Wow, what a different mindset, that I could not just stand up to that or push back at that age, because like Anna said, whether it was I wasn’t comfortable, or not being heard or listened to. I would just be told I was wrong, or the right way to do it, etc. So, for me, that was one of the big changes that was like the water I was swimming in that I didn’t even realize was water, you know what I mean? It was just part of my ethos. I remember it was quitting swimming when the kids first came home, it’s like, Oh, okay, we’ll go and blah, blah, blah. And after two lessons, they’re like, No, thank you. But I had all this justification going on in my head at first. Oh, but they’ve got lots of people to manage. That’s why you need to do it this way, you know. But because I had started looking to my kids, and really, well, of course, this isn’t a good fit for them. Of course, I am now seeing them all day and how they move through the world. And recognizing that fit, or lack thereof, was now just so much more obvious. But it’s been layer upon layer upon layer, from the quitting right through all these more intricate pieces that are part of our days, and still learning. Well, I think it’s part of where maybe that word authenticity comes back into it just, it does feel so relieving. So if there’s so much relief, and it does feel so much more authentic to just, just do what the kids are actually feeling rather than try to either control them or over explain to whoever else is involved in the situation. And I do think they have more practice with that. It’s always fascinating to me how I’ve thought about this before how our intention goes so far, because they often are able to do things that we are still struggle with. They often don’t have hang ups that we still have. But somehow, just our intention and then being in a different environment really makes quite a significant difference. ANNA: It really does. Just being able to ask for what they need. I think that does come from the environments we created where we’re listening to everybody and where we’re trying to figure out the solutions that work. They go in, I don’t know, and some people, I think, feel like it’s naivete when they go into the world. But what I’ve seen is that they change things, right? They have different conversations that we weren’t able to have, they change the environments that they go into. It’s empowering. And it’s really interesting. I love that. So my question, which I think is also very big, is what still matters? What things have been kind of a through line for you, or things that you really feel like, yeah, that’s still important. That still matters to me. ERIN: This one was actually the one that came to mind the easiest. And I think the through line is that relationship. Because that was from the first days of having a baby, that was what just stood out to me was just having this relationship and this connection. And I think understanding pretty early on, and I didn’t understand it until I had a baby, but realizing within the first couple of weeks that there was going to be a certain amount of that I would have to do differently than I had understood in order to have a relationship with this baby that I wanted to have. I was telling somebody a story the other day that very, very shortly before I had my first baby, I had been working with young kids. So, I’d often be in their homes, maybe three and four year olds. And quite a few of those families were large families, and they often had a baby or a toddler. And I would be in these houses. And over and over again, I’m seeing that the baby is sleeping in the parents room, or there’s a crib or there’s a cradle in the room. And I remember saying to a friend of mine, I don’t know what’s going on with these families. They all have these babies in their rooms. And I just thought it was like the strangest thing. And then I had a baby. I understand this now. And so it feels like maybe sleeping doesn’t have that much to do with this. But I think it’s where I started is just listening to that need, wanting, realizing that if I wanted to have that relationship, I needed to have that closeness, right. And so I think that of course, that follows through childhood. And then I think, again, there’s been a lot of learning for me. These last few years of what that can look like, past 18, or past 20, or whatever. That when I say I want to have a relationship, I don’t mean that I want to be in more of a relationship than they want to be. It’s not about pushing myself into it, or not being able to let go or whatever. But whatever that looks like with each of them, I want that to be respectful. And so I think that really has been the through line for me, even in those areas that I find more difficult, which would be conflict, or people pleasing, or I’m not exactly sure what the word is, but that’s definitely been trickier for me. But that’s the piece that helps me override it. Even just the decision not to put them in school, it would have been so much easier for me, I would have had so many fewer people to argue, not argue with, but defend myself from if I had just put them in school. I could say that about any of that stuff, right, about attachment parenting, it’s not just the school piece. It is really that overriding, just determination to be in a respectful relationship that lets me jump over that last hump of hopefully doing what’s going to be in service to that relationship rather than please somebody else or not look weird, or any of those things. Because I’m past that. So I can rest in the weirdness now. PAM: I will say I love just that focus on the relationship. And I remember one of the shifts for me, an aha moment that took a weight off. Because certainly my kids were in school for a while before I discovered homeschooling and unschooling. And I thought this is what we have to do. And it was so empowering when they came home. But okay, they’re not going to school, how do I replace that? What am I doing instead? Right? So, the shift to recognizing childhood does not just equal school, in whatever form, whether it’s homeschooling, or school school, to recognize that our relationships are lifelong. And that childhood is just a part of it. A lovely, lovely part of it. But our relationships last forever. And school is just kind of this blip, right, that may or may not be part of our lives. And the weight when I could just focus on the relationship, and that this is just a continuous thing. For those of us with kids as adults, there wasn’t a day where things shifted. Right? There wasn’t everybody waiting for this moment when we listened to some of our podcast episodes about the independence agenda and turning 18. Our relationships continued. And like you’ve been saying this whole time, Erin, the self awareness, we continue to grow, we continue to change and develop and learn more about each other. And then when you’re mixing people in, that’s the relationship through line. It always has our focus. It’s not like I figured out relationships, and now I just do it. It’s forever learning, right? ERIKA: I love, I mean, obviously, we talk a lot about that focus on relationships and how that’s a through line. And I think it’s interesting to think about how that really does lead to all the other aha moments that we have. If I am trying to be in a good relationship with my child, I’m going to listen to them. If I’m listening to them, I’m going to learn about the things that are important to them. And then I’m not going to brush those off, I’m going to take it seriously and get involved in it with them. And so everything builds from there, as long as we keep coming back to how’s our relationship feeling? What is the thing that’s going to strengthen that relationship? And that leads us to people are different, it leads us to what is this bringing up for me? Why are my triggers different from their triggers? And all the learning comes from that. And for me, it was the same where it was like having the baby and being like, oh, you know, and just all the aha moments, all those like, this baby is not like me, I thought they would be like me, and they’re not. It’s just such an amazing journey. From that point. ANNA: My path began with attachment parenting, too. And then we had this added layer of medical crisis at the beginning. The piece of that that I’m grateful for was it really honed us in on all that matters is this baby and this relationship. And all of that other stuff is just noise. So, it did make it feel so much easier to make the decisions and to put school into perspective, to put these other things into perspective. Because that was the priority. It is hard to explain until you see it. I was around a lot of kids before having kids and did a lot of work with kids. But it is different. And the things you were talking about too, Erika, you really get a sense of, this is my child. And they’re very different. It’s not just these other kids that are different. Everyone is so unique, and all of these different brains. That, to me, was part of the fun of it. That discovery and understanding, but that through line of the relationship has served me so much as well, because it’s just that North Star. It’s remembering to ask, how is what I’m doing going to impact the relationship? I think about that a lot. And it really helps me in making decisions along the way. ERIN: Just something else that just came to mind for me about relationships, is the distinction between relationship and connection. Because I think I read a lot or hear a lot of people talking about connection, connecting with your kids. And I definitely think it’s important to connect with our kids. But I think the relationship is different, because it’s overarching. It takes time to build a relationship with somebody. It takes situations and it takes experiences together. And I think within that broader relationship, there are periods of time where we are more or less connected with a child, maybe a particular child or children. And I think sometimes that’s just a developmental stage, too. Something that they’re going through, or maybe, maybe it’s us, right? Maybe it’s something or our schedules just aren’t aligning in the same way. So, I can look back through the years and see, almost eras of time that I was particularly connected with one or another. Maybe I had a really common interest. So we were doing a lot of this together. And I was maybe, not intentionally disconnected, but just the way things were going a little bit less connected with somebody else. Or maybe through some of those like adolescent or teen years. I think the idea of kids needing to individuate to a degree, they need to figure out who they are, and who their identity is. So I do think sometimes in unschooling conversations, we can get a little bit overloaded with this, keeping connected, keeping connected. And sometimes kids, they float around, and maybe we do, too. And so that’s been kind of fun to see that the relationship is still there. And I go through periods of time where I feel like there’s a real commonality or connection with a kid or two, and then maybe not so much, but it just comes around, I think, when you have that foundation. ANNA: I liked how you said that. It reminds me when you spoke a little bit earlier about us with adult children, how it looks different, right? It’s not like we’re forcing this relationship on them but it’s there. And there are times where they’re off doing their thing. And we aren’t as connected with the day to day or the little nuances or intricacies. And then there’s times where it’s coming back. But I think, because we’ve had this through line of the relationship, there’s a foundation there that’s just very much built on trust that we can come back and that it isn’t a problem to come back and we can circle back and we can change those pieces. So, I really love that, because that just really resonated with my experience, too, that the connecting moments are a part of it, but the relationship is much broader. ERIN:. I think there are periods of time where we have as our kids get older, but maybe even when they’re younger, where the relationship is more about sharing what we’re each doing in separate places. And then there are periods of time where we might really be into a common activity or a common zone with somebody. And those feel different to me, right? One feels like coming together and each person is sharing how this is going for me. And this is what I’ve been up to, versus, other times, we’re in a real common context with somebody. PAM: I want to comment just because it’s bringing up so many metaphors, because we’re reflecting back, right? And ideas that have really resonated with me over the years, like one that I feel like ties in there, Erin, is thinking of ourselves as a family of individuals. That phrase really resonated with me and reminded me that we have seasons. I loved your word, eras. Eras, seasons, where maybe they’re super busy with this thing and so using connection itself as just one measure can get you off course, because it’s like, oh, we’re not literally spending X amount of time each week doing something together. And how you define it, depends on how you define connection. And I love Anna, that you brought up trust instead, but relationship via another metaphor that really worked for me, works for me with relationship is thinking of it as a dance, the dance of a relationship, because I feel like sometimes someone’s leading, sometimes the other one is, sometimes you’re really connected, and you’re just moving together, because you’re doing things together, other times you are apart. And none of them are wrong. If somebody’s asking for more, and, and more could be, it could be more time, it could be more, shared activities, or it could be, especially with kids, it could be more money for an activity that they’re super into right now, that handing over some money, so they can do the thing can be a super connecting activity. But again, it depends on how you define connection, right? So I do love just focusing, that it can help to focus more on the relationship and looking at it through that lens, rather than trying to track the time, or using that to define your connection with them, that especially over the years, seasons, eras, all those bits. All right, our last question, Erin, and just to say, you have been part of the Living Joyfully Network for years, actually, from the beginning, and we absolutely love having you there, and I do think like, Anna, myself, you, we all have adult children now, and I do think some people wonder why we continue to stay connected with unschooling and parenting communities, even though our kids are now all adults, and we’re not technically homeschooling, unschooling, etc. So I was just curious to hear your thoughts about that, what is it that draws you to continue talking about this stuff? ERIN: Okay, I think it’s probably a couple of different things, and first is a lot of the things we’ve talked about. I find listening to other people’s experiences and thinking about different scenarios continues to help me self-reflect. I’ll hear an experience or a story, and I’ll think, oh, what would that have brought up if that had been my child, or it’s not even just children, if that had been my spouse, how would I feel about that? I just think that there is incredible power in people working together. I think what it helps me get really clear about,there’s not like a set of rules, there’s not like a formula that we’re all trying to reach. It’s just putting it out there, getting perspectives. Sometimes people will circle back to something months later, so there’s just something that really makes sense for life, and I think that many people find this when they get to the point that their children are technically not school-age anymore. We continue being in relationships, we continue learning, even that learning angle, continuing to be curious about things, and to continue going after things, and doing things that we enjoy. It just feels very inspiring to me, and so I think continuing to learn is a big part of it. And then I also think that you develop relationships with people, and you want to see how people are doing, and how a particular child is doing. There was just a member that posted about a hockey piece, and I’m like, oh, I remember when he was just starting to get into that, and there’s just something really fun about that, to be able to see where people are going, and what their kids are up to. The other piece for me that I think was originally, when I started writing my blog, for example, which was before the network opened, I just really see the value in home education. Not even, it doesn’t even necessarily have to be unschooling, but just in home education, and creating more opportunities, and more awareness, and just more conversation about it. So, the more people that I experience, and get to know, the more I see how I think it could be different. And I think to circle back to the self-awareness piece, I think this offers our children an opportunity to be quite self-aware. How different could the world be, if people were, it’s almost like living with more of an abundance mindset, rather than a scarcity mindset. And that’s a little bit unusual, I think. I just see a lot of stuff, people grappling for stuff all the time. And I wonder, how does this happen? And so, not that I think homeschooling is going to change the world, but, maybe a little bit. I feel like there could be some pieces there that, so I think I just, anything that I can do to be part of the conversation, or listen to other people, or share anything with other people, or just support things in ways that make sense, I just, I don’t know, it just feels like a good thing to be part of. PAM: I agree very much. For me, it’s the inspiration piece. It’s the reminder to self-reflect, that’s important. And, for us, Anna and I talk a lot about relationships. And that just feels so powerful. And we were talking earlier about how these relationships are lifelong, right? You’re talking about how homeschooling can change the world. I feel like relationships with children, authentic, actually respectful with agency, all those aspects of it, just make a world of difference in our relationship, in their lives, in our lives. And just having conversations with people about that, and the light bulb moments, yes, for them. But also, every time I try to share a story, or try to explain a thought, or an idea, I learn it a little bit deeper, right? There’s another layer of that infinite onion that maybe comes off. And again, more self-awareness. Like we were saying, we’re growing and changing all the time. I find it so valuable to keep thinking about these ideas, and participating, and chatting with people who are curious about them. And with people who have been doing it for such a long time, and finding where we have common experiences, and finding those pieces that are unique to me. Back to the self-awareness piece, right? It’s fascinating and fun. ERIKA: I feel like maybe going through school, we get a message of you’re just with this age group, and then that’s over, and then there’s this adult life. So, I think over this journey, we come to realize, we’re all just on this same journey, it’s all the same, it’s all life. And so there is no sense that I get in the network that someone with younger kids is the beginner, and the people with older kids are the experts. Because it just doesn’t work like that. The areas where I’m growing, I’m able to get feedback, inspiration, and information from other people. And then things that I have already moved through, I’m able to share those experiences with other people. When we focus on relationships, and when we realize that life is just all learning all the way, we don’t stop learning. It just doesn’t make sense to leave, because it still is giving so much, wherever we are along our journey, or wherever we are with our kids, there’s just still so much to learn and to think about. I had another thought, but it is gone. ANNA: If it comes back, then bring it up. But I’ll say, I feel like you hit on the two big ones for me too, Erin. That lifelong learning piece. I still learn so much every day from the network. Again, watching somebody move through a situation and wondering how that would land for me. It’s feeling myself get activated when I read something and then go, okay, where’s that coming from, bringing some self awareness in there. I like those opportunities. I think being around a community of people who are intentional about and like to talk about the nuances is just so fun for me. And I think for me, the other piece is kind of an advocacy piece. For me, it’s like you were saying, Pam, it’s about relationships. But I really have strong feelings about just how amazing kids are. And I love celebrating the hockey game and seeing them grow up because I get so invested in all the kids on the network. But it’s also just knowing, it can be so much easier if we’re just communicating. We have new people that come in that have come from hard situations of burnout and other things. And then watching them just open to life feeling so beautiful, almost like, how can it be this great?! Yes, it can be that great. So there’s that kind of advocacy piece there of just wanting people to have that amazing feeling for this special time. Because like you said earlier, Pam, I mean, childhood really is just a blip on the whole thing. And it does go so quickly. So, those are kind of the big pieces for me, but always, always learning for sure. ERIN: Yeah, I feel like I need a little bit of a caveat just around the idea of homeschooling changing the world, because I know that not all homeschooling has been great for some people, and sometimes school does work really well. And it is a choice that people want to make. But I think just like you’re saying there, Anna, it’s just so exciting to be able to be part of seeing kids be who they are able to learn in the way that’s best for them and explore the different interests that they have. And yeah, so it’s whatever form that takes for people, but just having that kind of broadness and that choice. ANNA: I agree! So many people still don’t know what’s an option, though. So I think it is an important piece, putting it out there. Just saying it can be possible. We like to talk about options and all that’s there. And I’m amazed that there really still are people that don’t have any understanding of home education and certainly not unschooling. And so, yeah, I think that’s super valid. It’s not about that there’s one path, but gosh, here it is. And take a look, because even just understanding it allows you to bring a different energy, even if you stay in school, just understanding that there are options, understanding that there’s not the one right path just brings a different energy to all of those exchanges. So yeah, I really do agree with that. ERIKA: I remembered my last bit. I feel like life outside, if you look at the world as a whole, there’s a lot of stress. And I feel like I can get really overwhelmed with bad things or, it feels like there’s so much bad. And so to me, being connected to people in the network reminds me of these good things. It brings me back and grounds me back into what’s really important, like giving these kids space to be themselves. It’s having these relationships and connections. And I think having it be global also, just gives me this kind of peaceful feeling. There are ripples coming out from all of these families and all of these intentional people, really putting in this work and trying to make the world a better place. And I know, for me personally, in my local community, I have seen my own ripples change things for people. And then I see it in all the other network members. That’s just a really cool thing about being in connection with people like that. PAM: Yeah, I think it is. It is so fun and enlightening and inspiring. And I mean, can go on for another 20 minutes. But that piece that I find so interesting, because I think often, homeschooling is really a great place to meet people. Because kids going to school can be where the first big problems start to show up, right? If the classroom at school just doesn’t mesh with your child, it’s not a good fit for them. And that’s a big time when we can start questioning things and trying to figure this out and trying to fit in all those pieces that come up and that can be kind of our first exposure to other paths. That is what happened for me and that is how I finally, eventually, discovered that homeschooling was a thing and that it was legal in Canada. And that was the start of my journey. And then, as we’ve been talking about this whole episode, learning and discovering the value of relationships, we see the journey happening with people in the network all the time. But when you are cultivating those stronger relationships and really respecting your child’s agency, and their choices and understanding them and their perspective, and I think then you can loop back there, definitely we have members who have a child or two that choose to go to school for a while or for a longer period of time. Because, as we were talking about earlier, school just becomes part of the landscape. That is a possible choice for someone. It doesn’t affect our relationships, right? We can support them in that choice and in that exploration if they want to do that.Homeschooling is a beautiful door. I feel to bring people in, a reason to notice that something is up. And maybe I want to explore some different possibilities other than this one path that I know. Right? And it’s just so fascinating for me to see over and over again, people coming and learning that bigger picture, that focus on relationships, really embracing, working together and living together as this family of individuals that we are. And then all these other choices come home and they don’t feel so confronting or judgmental or any of those pieces. It’s like, oh, yeah, okay, we can see how that fits in and that fits in. And it’s just so very beautiful. All right, well, thank you so much, Erin, for joining us and sharing your reflections. I know it has been a deep, big month as we look back on all this, so we super appreciate you tackling these big questions with us. ERIN: I just need to say thank you for inviting me. It was really nice. It was an honor to chat with you all again. So thank you. PAM: Oh, it was so fun. So fun. Thank you. And we want to say thank you to everybody listening, whether you’re listening in your podcast feed or watching on YouTube. We appreciate you joining us too. And we also invite you to join us in the Living Joyfully Network. We offer a free month trial so you can just check it out and see if it’s a good fit for you. It is a great place to take the concepts that we talked about today and in the other 400-odd episodes and to dive deeper, exploring. To me, this is the difference. With the podcast and these conversations, they really help more with my intellectual understanding. But I remember I was deep into forums and email lists at the time when I first discovered this. But it’s so helpful to have conversations to better figure out what it looks like day-to-day in your unique family. And to just see how many different unique families all over the world are making it work for themselves. There’s no one right way. There’s no one way that it’s supposed to look. So those are the kind of conversations we love having. To learn more and join us, just follow the link in the show notes or go to our website livingjoyfully.ca and you’ll see Network up in the top menu. Wishing everyone a lovely day. Thanks again, Erin.

EU402: 10 Years: What Still Matters (Part 3)

The Exploring Unschooling Podcast has now been around for over 10 years and 400 episodes! This month, we’re celebrating these huge milestones by looking back and reflecting on three big questions. In Part 3 of our celebration, Pam, Anna, and Erika explore the question of what still matters over the course of the past 10 years. We talked about focusing on relationships, how there is no one path and no one right way, and how children are whole and capable people right now, not just adults in training. We thank you so much for being a part of our Exploring Unschooling community and hope you find our conversation helpful on your unschooling journey and in your relationships! THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE We invite you to join us in The Living Joyfully Network, a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid discussions about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. Come and be part of the conversation! Sign up to our mailing list on Substack to receive our email newsletters as well as new articles about learning, parenting, and so much more! Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube. Follow @pamlaricchia on Instagram and Facebook. Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about navigating relationships and exploring unschooling. So much of what we talk about on this podcast and in the Living Joyfully Network isn’t actually about unschooling. It’s about life. On The Living Joyfully Podcast, Anna Brown and Pam Laricchia talk about life, relationships, and parenting. You can check out the archive here, or find it in your your favorite podcast player. EPISODE TRANSCRIPT ANNA: Hello everyone, I’m Anna Brown from Living Joyfully and I’m joined today by my co-host Erika Ellis and Pam Laricchia. Hello! I have really been enjoying this series reflecting back on 10 years of the podcast. So much has changed and yet the growth and learning continues. The podcast has been important to so many people and it’s always fun to hear how it’s touched them and many times changed the trajectory of their family. Similarly, the podcast has brought many amazing people to join us at the Living Joyfully Network. It’s such a great place to take the concepts covered in the podcast and dive deeper, to be a part of the conversation. We love that. All three of us are active participants and we’re responding to questions, hosting calls, sharing our journey, learning and growing alongside all of the amazing families there and we would absolutely love for you to join us. You can find out more information in the show notes or visit livingjoyfully.ca to learn more about joining. And we also have a free trial month, so you can check it out that way as well. This week, the question that we’re going to be reflecting on is what still matters? And so Erika, would you like to get us started? ERIKA: I would. When thinking about what still matters, I felt like we have to start with relationships. It’s something that I’ve heard you both say from the very beginning. Focus on our relationships with our children because when we start there, everything else falls into place. If we make independence our focus or academic skills our focus, we lose sight of the unique child in front of us and our relationships can be harmed. When I first came to unschooling, I was pretty preoccupied with the idea of passing skills along to my kids. It just seemed like that would be my most important role, especially since we weren’t putting them into school. Like how will they get by as functioning adults without these skills? And so I had this desire to make sure they weren’t “falling behind” or that they would be keeping up with the kids who had gone to school. I think it’s a common fear when we’re choosing an alternative path. But through time and observation, I really have come to believe that we can’t force people to learn anything. And I could see that putting that agenda onto my kids and pushing them to pay attention to this certain thing or pushing them to independently do something that they’re not ready to do. It just caused them to push back against me and that affected our relationship. And so the work that I do now as a parent has so much more to do with our relationship than anything else, which I think would have surprised younger me. That cultural idea that we have to mold our children into who they should be. But it’s just not about that at all for me anymore. It’s more about the things we talk about here, like building trust with them by being trustworthy, leaving space for them to learn in their own way, being accountable and making repairs with them if we have any kind of a rift and really being curious about who they are in the moment as unique individuals. And learning facts and skills can come when it’s time. I’ve seen that happen over and over. I may worry, if someone’s not reading yet or they’re not interested in learning how to tell time. That was a real one for me. Or to tie their shoes. But our children will come across all the things that are the most important to learn because they’re actually important in their lives. And every brain is different. Every person has their own path and those skills come. Sometimes it even feels kind of magical, but it doesn’t happen by force, at least not with my kids. Learning happens when the context is right and their desire is there. And so by focusing instead on our relationships, we create a space for them to process with us when things come up. We let them know that we’re there for them no matter what. There’s not this expectation that their lives look a certain way. We support them as who they are in each moment. And I see that focus on that relationship pay off when my teens now come to me to process their fears or their goals or their relationship struggles or anything else. They know that I don’t have this image in mind of them that they’re not living up to. They know that we are all just humans learning, growing on our own paths, but we’re in relationship together. And I think that the skills they learn doing that are actually so much more valuable than the academic skills. Those relationship skills and the communication skills will serve them for the rest of their lives. So I try to think to myself, as I remember Anna saying so many times, is what I’m about to do going to help my relationship with my child or harm it? And making the relationship-strengthening choices over and over pays off. It’s like a good north star for me to aim towards. And of course, not perfectly, since that’s not possible, as I’ve talked about before. PAM: Oh, I love that so much! And you know what, I love how over these three episodes as we’ve been reflecting back through various questions, how much relationships bubble up as part of the things that we’ve learned. Things that have shifted for us and that’s what really still matters. Because that fundamentally, like you said Erika, the learning happens. The skills and the facts happen. An early realization for me was, well, if they don’t come across it in their life to want to learn it then it wouldn’t have been helpful to have tried to force them to learn it because they wouldn’t have come across a need to know it anyway. So, it was like that little gameplay shift for me. It is okay. And then number two, just looking back on my own journey, what do I remember of what I learned and aced on the test. And now it’s only when I need it, I will learn that little piece. I’ll brush up again, learning it in the moment. It’s fundamentally stronger as in it makes more of a connection because that’s where I’m learning what I need. That web of learning that you mentioned in an earlier episode, Erika. That is how the relationship just became fundamental, because that was so much more supportive of our lives and that interdependence of living together. And if I focus there, everything else kind of like takes care of itself. And in that way, people make choices and we help them. And when I focus on the relationship, it puts my energy in the places that matter the most long-term, even now with all my kids as adults. ANNA: Yeah. I think what I love about this choice that you made, Erika, about what still matters is the relationship because, I don’t know how to say it because that’s what actually matters years later. Not just when we have kids at home, but when our kids are adults and what kind of relationships we want then. We have a lot in our culture happening now about people going no contact and not being in touch with their families. And as someone who works with families and adults and their parents, it’s like, oh, that doesn’t happen there, when they are all adults. That doesn’t happen in isolation, over one or two events. That happens over years of not being heard or listened to. And I know these parents, because I’m working with them too. These adult parents that are now in their sixties to eighties, they were doing what they thought was best. They were trying to make sure their kids would be independent adults. They were trying to help them. But it caused harm. They didn’t have these nuanced discussions that we’re able to have in a community of people who are picking apart these ideas. And I think, oh, that’s such a big difference in this lifestyle. Pam and I both have adult children, Erika’s kids are teenagers, but ours are well into their adulthood and we still enjoy each other. We still want to hang out and we still get the calls and we still do the processing and we are still a part of each other’s lives in different ways. It looks different for all the different kids that we have because they all have different personalities, but it’s there, that foundation, that attending to the relationship for all those years. We’re still doing it, and it still has so much meaning in our lives. There’s just something about that. That’s really poetic and beautiful when you think about this life and these choices. PAM: Yes, I love that. And I think it leads nicely into what I wanted to talk about here. And that’s the paradigm shifting idea that children are whole and capable people right now, not like adults in training. Then this was one of my earliest paradigm shifts on the journey. And I do think it still matters, so, so much. And this idea brings together so many pieces that we’ve been talking about this month. When people first hear this, I feel like they often discount it, right? No, children aren’t whole, children aren’t capable. I can just hear and some people have said, there’s just so much about life that kids don’t know. Or they can’t feed and clothe themselves. They couldn’t live on their own, that whole independence agenda. So, that’s the picture, right? They need to train to be an adult, right? I can’t help but think about how that whole agenda just comes in there. And we seem to constantly be looking at children, I think, and just comparing them to adults. Seeing all those missing bits, that must mean they aren’t whole, that must mean they aren’t capable. But this was a piece that really locked into place for me. They are not adults, right? They are whole and capable of being the two-year-old that they are, the eight-year-old, the 15-year-old. And in my experience, our worlds absolutely are forever changed when we can take off those adult tinted glasses and join them as who they are in this moment, right? So when we can do that, we start to see these whole children as our guides. We start to see them making choices that make so much sense when we look at that through their eyes. They always made sense, but now with our clearer vision, we’re seeing it. It’s like, oh, I never understood why they did that. I thought I had to fix that. I kept trying to tell them to do it this other way. But when we can take off that lens and just start looking at them, we see those choices. We see glimpses of how capable they are of understanding themselves, of saying no for reasons that make sense to them. And even seeing us and sensing our energy, I think that’s something that is kind of a surprise for us as we start noticing how much our kids can be impacted by our energy. And they can sense that and incorporate that. They are capable of seeing, understanding, and incorporating that. And spoiler alert, in my experience, we soon find that we don’t even need that age distinction. I think that can be part of the journey, helping to see, oh yeah, they’re two-years-old. But then it’s not like what can your two-year-old do? Or what should your two-year-old be able to do? What should your eight-year-old know? You realize that, oh yeah, that again has really no value. It’s really, who is this person? What do they want to be doing? What are their interests? That becomes the lens. It just really helps us recognize that they are whole and capable human beings right now, full stop, at any and every age. And then, you always want to remember that doesn’t mean that they’re always happy and easygoing. It means that they’re living a rich and meaningful human life. There are always ups and downs and frustrations and hard things. And so often people, well, if they get to choose what they do, they’ll never choose to do hard things. How will they learn? All those pieces that you start to recognize when you’re watching your own kids that, oh, that’s not true. We really will choose to do the things we want to do, even if they’re challenging, even if they’re frustrating. And I think this also is when we really start to fundamentally understand in our bones that people are different, as we’ve talked about in the last episode. Because that’s the next lens, I think, that we can remove after our adult-tinted ones come off. The one that has us viewing their choices and behavior through the lens of what we would do in similar circumstances. Okay, so yes, we keep going and going because it’s all connected. It’s all woven together. But I think you can see why I think this idea about children and being in relationship with them still really matters all these years. ANNA: Yes, I thought they were very nicely connected. Very nicely connected and definitely still matters. And I love that age piece that you pulled out, how that falls away, because it’s kind of ridiculous. And yet you could do it in the same way with “adults”, well, you’re 30, so you should do this. You’re 45, you should know how to do this. But it’s like, who’s that person? And so I love when we can just let all of those external pieces fade away and just look at the person in front of us. What excites them? What lights them up? What do they want to do? What do they find hard? What do they want help with? What do they need? I think when you, like you’re saying, take off those glasses, because I don’t know that we see them in all of their beauty and complexity when we have on those lenses that are trying to put them in a box. It’s like okay, have they done this? Have they checked this? Are they doing this? Are they going to do that? Are they going to know how to do this? Again, all those things are designed to separate us. But gosh, when you just, my vision is just like being on the floor to just be with those kids and just watch the way their brains work. And I get so lit up on the network when people are talking about their kids. Anyone on the network will know, I get so excited about all the kids. And I just love them all so much because we have this wide range of just amazing kids that say the most incredible things. And that’s because somebody’s listening, right? It’s like these parents are listening and then bringing it to us with these incredible ideas and stories that they share. And Erika has teens right now who are just deep and feeling things and thinking about hard ideas and all of these pieces. And it’s like, gosh, we can miss that. If we just have that adult lens on and we’re trying to put them into boxes. And so, absolutely one of the gifts of this life is really that understanding that they are just full, capable human beings in front of us from the start. I love that, Pam. ERIKA: Oh, I love it so much. It was making me think of a couple of things. One was my experience being a child. I do have memories of being a young child and my mind was rich and deep and I had all sorts of understandings about the world and about how people should treat each other. And I had my convictions and it was not like me at five was a blank slate ready to just learn from the adults around me. I knew a lot even then and, and I just can picture what my mind has felt like every step of the way and every step of the way it’s me. It was me then and it’s me now. And so I don’t think there’s any sort of magic in becoming an adult. I think that if we can realize that our children are whole from the very beginning and that they know who they are from the very beginning, it’s just, it’s so much richer. And then I also think that if we’re viewing everything in that adult lens of when you’re allowed to do things or when you will be able to do things or when you mature enough. Or telling them these things you’re thinking about now are just nonsense and not important. It leads to this cultural feeling for the kids of, I just can’t wait to be an adult so that I could finally do what I want to do. I remember that feeling in school of like, we’re just waiting. School was just waiting to be done and to finally get to live our lives and finally be an adult who gets to make choices. And so I just love that we can question that with our families and just be like, you know what, you’re a human right now, you are a person. And our culture is set up to not allow them access to every single thing at that age. But having a parent who takes them seriously and listens to their thoughts and ideas just from the beginning, I think it just creates such a different experience for them growing up. ANNA: Right. I mean, there’s so much that we can facilitate. I do think and will stand by that I think that kids are the most marginalized group in the world. They’re the largest group that is marginalized in that way. And I think it’s so powerful to know they do have this inside of them and they do know and with agency can make these amazing decisions. And so because of the way our culture is set up, that does put us in that role of facilitating to help them do that. I love how you shared with me before, Erika, these insights you’ve had from being very young. I don’t have a ton of memories from childhood. And so I’m fascinated by them when we’ve talked about them, because you had such a clear vision of how you were feeling and thinking. And I’m like, yes, intuitively, I know this and could see it in my own kids, but it was really cool to talk to you about those pieces. I do have one memory from middle school. I remember things were really hard and it was just, middle school was very tough. And I remember just thinking, I’m going to become an adult and I’m going to spend the rest of my life advocating for children. I remember that thought so, so clearly. And honestly, it has driven me ever since. And that is why I’m still doing the work that I’m doing because children have so much to say and they’re just amazing. And anyway, so yeah, I just, I love that. But so, I’m going to go on to mine and what I’m going to talk about is something that I think can both be exciting and it can also infuriate people. And, and we’ve touched on it a little bit over the month, but it’s that there’s no one right way. There’s no perfect path. There’s no one size fits all. And I think when people are first looking at unschooling, they do want the playbook, right? They wonder, what should I do? How do I do this right? And I’m going to be the best unschooler. That’s what I want to do. And it makes sense. These were the type of questions school encouraged us to focus on. There was an answer, the answer, and we needed to get the answer. And often even show that our work to get the answer was the same, which is insane to me. They do not understand people are different. That’s how we succeed in that environment though. So, at first it can feel a little scary to hear that there isn’t an answer and that there isn’t one path, but the flip side of that is it can be so liberating and sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly it clicks and it just all makes sense. Last week when we talked about ‘people are different’, that’s really the root of why there isn’t one path. We’re all so different, how we learn, how we want to engage in the world, what we prioritize, what lights us up. It’s all so unique to who we are and it adds this amazing color to our personal journey. But within that, it can be really beautiful to share the journey with people who are intentional about their relationships, who value connection above product, who are curious and know deep down there are these other paths that we can take. That feels really energizing to me. And as Pam mentioned at the beginning of the month, we do not come here as experts with the answer. We don’t believe there is an answer. We are fellow explorers who enjoy teasing out the nuances and asking the tough questions of ourselves, of others, of the world. Growing beyond old patterns and expectations. And I think those are just a few of the things waiting for people when they step off that treadmill of the one right way that our culture can present and they start to dig a little bit deeper. I feel like that’s one cool side effect of choosing this path. We’ve talked about it before as the window. People may come to it as an alternative to school because maybe school isn’t working for their child in this moment. But this whole world of questioning and exploration has opened up all the things we thought of as a given or a ‘have to’ come into question. And the thing is, we may choose to hold on to some of them and we may let others go, but the difference is coming from a place of choice. Everything is a choice. And what’s interesting is that was one of the first essays that I wrote. Gosh, it’s probably been 20 years ago, but it was called, “Everything is a Choice” and it can also ruffle some feathers. But I find it to be the most empowering understanding because we always have a choice. There isn’t one way to do anything. And we can choose how we move through these different situations, whether it’s just the energy we bring to it or the actual choices that we’re making. And so I’m feeling like I could go off on a tangent here about so many like black and white ideas that don’t serve us. So, I’m going to stop. But the idea that there isn’t one right way is really the cornerstone of the work that the three of us do together and the environment that we’ve cultivated on the network. So, I feel like this is one that still matters and will always matter. PAM: Yeah, so much like there is not one right way. And it is so hard for people wrap their head around it. And it does it weave into ‘people are different’ so closely. I like to add on the end, there’s a right way for you. ANNA: Yes, there’s a right way for me, in this moment. PAM: That’s exactly where I was going, right now. Because that can change over time, too. It’s all about me. Right? And how am I in this moment? What am I wanting to put on my plate? What choices do I want to make? And in this context of everybody around me, of my own capacity, mood, how tired am I? All the things will go into the choice that I make. And yeah, I remember early conversations about that. What do you mean everything is a choice? Like, I don’t have a choice about this and this and that. It’s just fascinating to think about and absolutely that completely still matters. It’s just such a huge paradigm shift and bringing it into your days. No matter the age of anyone involved, it just brings the choice back to ourselves. ERIKA: Yeah. Beautiful. I do think it is so personality driven, too. I think some people have a much easier time with this concept than others. And I feel like when I notice myself thinking, well, that’s not right. It’s just fun then now to be like, what do I mean by that? What do I think is right? And so, yeah, it’s one of those exploding my brain kind of realizations that’s happened along the unschooling journey. But I feel like if we follow the whole thread of a choice and then the result and all of that, we may have a belief culturally that if we did choose correctly, then we are guaranteed a certain result. And so realizing through observation that is not in any way true, it then releases some of the pressure around all of those earlier choices. Just because I did what society said was correct on steps ABC doesn’t mean I’m going to get to that end result of D that that they’re promising. And I think, after I was in school, I also spent a brief time teaching in school. And I think when I was teaching high school was one of the times when I realized this promise that they’ve made to these children is not a real thing. I think it’s really doing a disservice to young people to say, if you do this, this, this, I mean, it’s the longest list of expectations. If you do all of this, then you will be successful. And that’s just not how life works. And so let’s just take the pressure off of those choices and realize that there isn’t a way to guarantee any kind of result. And why not try to aim for a result that fits us better, rather than just trying to be on this kind of straight and narrow path that they say will get us to our destination. And so if we observe the world and all the people in it, we can see there are so many different ways to live a good life. And there’s so many different paths that can get you to where you’re going. And so, it’s all about ‘people are different’. It’s all about there’s no one right way. I love thinking about these things. PAM: And bringing the mistakes that we’ve been talking about this month, your path can change your destination. That’s the other super cool thing. I’ve taken like three more steps, my own personal ABC, and now E is looking a little off. I don’t want to go in that direction. I want E minus or something, right? And that’s totally okay, that I’m learning a little bit more each time. And just moving through life that way, rather than on a set path. And then, even people who have taken the path and ended up where society said, Oh, you’ve made it. And then they’re like, is this even where I want to be? You know what I mean? There’s just so much to consider and it really is that one right path really just isn’t a useful measure or direction to take, because it really just doesn’t align with who we are even if we take it and it works perfectly, it may not feel good. ANNA: I really love that piece you said that it’s a disservice. Really it is a disservice to all of these amazing capable children that are trying to then grow and figure out what they want to do with their lives because there isn’t one path. There’s this other thought that I had about that. I think we’ve all been there. I was not a teacher, but I’ve been around the kids a lot in my life, and at some point we’ve all heard or thought, why do I have to learn this? What is the purpose of this? They’re asking those questions and are systematically shut down. And those are fair questions. Why do I need to be doing this? What is the purpose? I remember asking those questions because that’s just how my brain works. And would just be told, but you’re going to get this thing. If you keep doing this thing that makes no sense to you now, then you’re going to get this other thing. And that’s not how it happened. And even David did all the things on paper, it looked a lot like that, he did this, did the thing, got the degree, got the job in the degree, did all of it. It served a purpose. And then he realized, this is not where I want to be. I just wish we could have more conversations with kids, unschooled or not unschooled, just so they could just hear more about the millions of different ways there are to be in the world and to be a quote, success, to live a life that feels rich and enjoyable and sustainable. I think those are the conversations that we’re missing in our culture because we’re so attached to that one right path. I think that’s why letting go of this one right path piece is so huge. And you just see people really lighting up because they realized that pursuit of the one right path didn’t serve them either. ERIKA: Yeah. And maybe talking to successful adults about what are the things that make you happy and see if it’s the job or if it’s something totally different, which I would imagine it probably is. PAM: And that reminds me, the one right path, I think, became real challenging. It was a recent month in the network. And we’ve been talking about putting everything on the table, right? It can feel so scary up front, to offer even the possibility that there are other paths, right, that there are other possibilities, that there are other choices. Scary to even open up the conversation to creative ways one might make things work. It can feel so challenging. I was just struck by what you said, Anna, about opening up this conversation, whether or not kids are in school, right, to actually take the time to talk about the possibilities, to talk about how people are feeling about what choices or what’s even just going on in their life right now. And it goes back to the kids are capable. Kids are capable of so much. You don’t just have to tell them to just follow this path. Kids are capable of understanding, and often expressing what’s not working for them about the thing. And just opening up those conversations, even in the networks I’m listening to. I actually opened up a conversation and was uncomfortable about it. Because I really wanted it to work out this way. But then I learned so much. And we made it so much better for them as well. Just opening up the conversation can feel hard, because you feel like you might be opening yourself up to having to defend but no, really, your mind is being opened. So often, there are so many possibilities that are workable, but we don’t see when we’re just looking at that one path, right? ANNA: Right! Okay, one last thing. And then I know we’re going over, but it’s just what you just said really sparked something. I think it is scary for people to put everything on the table. Because what if we tell kids, there’s all these options, and they don’t make “the” choice. But some of them will still make that choice, but they will do it out of a choice. They’ll be like, this is what I want to do. And they will be successful on that path in whatever that looks like for them, because they want to be here. But then the kids that want to choose differently are going to find their unique path that fills them. And for me, I’ve always said this, our world is so much better served by people choosing the path that they want and living in alignment in that way. Because then we get the rich skills and all of the different brains coming at it in a way that just is so much richer than forcing people. So that if you don’t fit on that path, but yet there you are, you feel bad about yourself, right? You’re questioning, why am I not okay? Why is this not working? This is the path. Why does it feel so bad? This is what I’m supposed to be doing. Instead, that person may be an artist that’s supposed to be over here changing the world in this other way. And we lose that, we lose those colors, we lose that richness. So, now I’m excited about how I can make sure we’re all having this conversation? PAM: Yes, I think it’s so, so important. Me too. Me too. ANNA: I just want to thank you both so much. I feel like these reflections and just sharing these last few episodes, thinking about these last 10 years, and all of our journeys has just been so rich, and has felt important to me. So I hope that other people enjoyed it as well. And to everyone who’s listening or watching, I just really appreciate you joining us for these conversations. We really have such a good time. And we do invite you to join us at the Living Joyfully Network. As we mentioned in the last episodes, we have a free trial month, so you can check it out. I think that you’ll see that these are the conversations that we enjoy. It’s okay to be a lurker to just kind of check it out. We have a lot of resources you can dig into if you have questions about this lifestyle and the different pieces about it and what it can look like in your family. And we also love the conversation. It’s just a really fun place. I do hope you’ll check it out. And you can learn more about that by clicking on the link in the show notes or going to our website livingjoyfully.ca and click on Network in the menu. Thank you both so much and just wishing everyone a beautiful day. Bye. Bye.

EU401: 10 Years: What’s Changed (Part 2)

The Exploring Unschooling Podcast has now been around for over 10 years and 400 episodes! This month, we’re celebrating these huge milestones by looking back and reflecting on three big questions. In Part 2 of our celebration, Pam, Anna, and Erika explore the question of what’s changed in the past 10 years. We talked about how unschooling is more like a branch of the tree rather than the roots, how the realization of the many, many ways that people are different has influenced our work, and how unschooling is really our journey and our work to do as parents. We thank you so much for being a part of our Exploring Unschooling community and hope you find our conversation helpful on your unschooling journey and in your relationships! THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE We invite you to join us in The Living Joyfully Network, a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid discussions about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. Come and be part of the conversation! Sign up to our mailing list on Substack to receive our email newsletters as well as new articles about learning, parenting, and so much more! Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube. Follow @pamlaricchia on Instagram and Facebook. Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about navigating relationships and exploring unschooling. So much of what we talk about on this podcast and in the Living Joyfully Network isn’t actually about unschooling. It’s about life. On The Living Joyfully Podcast, Anna Brown and Pam Laricchia talk about life, relationships, and parenting. You can check out the archive here, or find it in your your favorite podcast player. EPISODE TRANSCRIPT ERIKA: Hello everyone, I’m Erika Ellis from Living Joyfully and I’m joined by my co-hosts Anna Brown and Pam Laricchia. Hello to you both! So, today we’re continuing our series of episodes reflecting on the 10-year anniversary of the Exploring Unschooling podcast. I know the podcast has been so influential to so many people, as it has been for me on my unschooling journey. And recently what has really deepened my understanding and learning and enriched my life in countless ways is the Living Joyfully Network. Our community of parents on Mighty Networks is a wonderful place to explore all of the questions and aha moments that come up on this journey. I love our live conversations and our monthly topics to consider and I’ve made so many amazing friends. Every day I feel both inspired and calmed by the network. The topics we dive into inspire me to look closer and grow as a person. When everyone shares their unique experiences, I just feel grounded in knowing that we’re doing this together. It really is an amazing space and we’d love for you to join us. You can find the link in the show notes or visit livingjoyfully.ca to learn more about joining and our new free trial month offer. So in this episode we’re going to be reflecting on the question, what has changed? And as Pam said last time, 10 years is a good chunk of time and we’ve all definitely grown and changed during that time so I’m excited for this discussion. Would you like to get us started, Pam? PAM: Absolutely, absolutely. When I started this podcast 10 years ago, my work was pretty much focused on unschooling, around exploring the choice to go to school or not go to school. Back when I realized that was even a choice and quickly found unschooling, it felt like a fundamental or a foundational choice in our life. I mean culturally school was and mostly still is so integrally woven into childhood that it seems that school is the most important aspect of childhood. Everything else is extracurricular activities, right? It’s right there in the language. So what’s changed for me over the last decade is that I now see unschooling as a branch of the tree of childhood and not the roots. For me, what lives in the roots and truly redefines childhood is cultivating connected and supportive relationships with our kids and giving them agency over their lives. Not as in leaving them to their own devices or insisting that they make all their decisions but living consensually as a family as you talked about in the last episode, Anna. How they feel and what they think matters. We all have value regardless of age, right? And they may or may not want school to be part of their lives. It’s just a question. It’s not the fundamental question of childhood or it doesn’t have to be. And that answer may well change over time. School is a choice alongside the many other choices in their lives. So that said, unschooling can be a great window into this way of being in relationship with our kids. And I think because it’s often the first place that real conflict can arise, like when a kid and the school classroom environment just don’t mix well. And that was definitely my path but it’s certainly not the only path to discovering the far-reaching and lifelong impact of just cultivating those connected relationships with our kids, right? There’s where the rich soil is. ANNA: I know. It’s so interesting because you know I love a tree analogy. But it’s funny because in the early days, for me, I actually saw consensual living as the umbrella and unschooling was one choice under that umbrella. That’s the piece that you’re getting at. It’s like unschooling is one choice when we’re living consensually. We have children making autonomous decisions and having agency about how they want to spend their time, how they want to engage in the world, how we want to do that together as a family. And so I really love that distinction and I do think it evolved really for all of us. I think especially for you, Pam, because you came from school to unschooling. It’s a little bit different for Erika and I. We have always unschooled with our kids. So I think that’s why maybe for me, I had that different view of it earlier on. But I think it’s critical because, you’re right, I think it’s that first touch point that people come to, this flashpoint with school. It can be so intense and you kind of feel like you’re losing your child or their light is dimming and it feels scary. And so unschooling can be this beautiful door to walk through to realize that there are different ways. But yeah, I think once you’re there and realize, oh, it’s actually about the connection, it’s actually about the relationship we have. And then together, we can make the choices that best serve us, whatever that looks like. And, and of course, I love unschooling, we all do here. But but yeah, I really love putting it in that place. It’s the relationships that are so important. ERIKA: It reminds me of my perfection piece from the last one, because I remember when I first found unschooling, it’s like, well, if you are putting your kids in school, then you’re not unschooling. It was all connected. It’s like you have to make that decision in order to be doing it right, because I was looking for how to do it right. And so it really has been a journey, a mindset journey to get to the place of realizing it’s not about school. It’s not about any one particular choice that may or may not look mainstream. It’s about what the child wants. What is the relationship with the child feeling like? And so I think unschooling kind of answers one problem, which is, the child is hating school. And so unschooling is a way to respect their autonomy in that way. And then a whole bunch of other possibilities open up. But we’ve seen so many amazing families with these amazing connected relationships deciding to go to school. And that doesn’t change that core value and that root of what is amazing about their families, which is listening to each other, making sure that we’re not pushing past someone else’s consent. It’s very eye-opening to get to that place where it really is not about school. It’s not about that decision. It’s about something deeper than that. PAM: Something deeper, so much more. And yes, we have episodes on the podcast where I talked to parents whose kids have gone to school and so much doesn’t need to change. You don’t all of a sudden have to become a different kind of parent or have a different kind of relationship, just because school happens to be in the picture. But yes, it definitely takes that mindset shift, right? To recognize, it’s not like one life I’m unschooling or I’m not unschooling. It’s when you get to the roots of the relationship and start looking at your days and your lives from there. It’s just a fundamentally different way. And unschooling is one of the choices. I think when you take that journey to recognize the importance and value of the relationships, the school choice is just a choice. Whether or not school happens to be part of your lives for a season or for however long it works, the fundamental difference is that it’s still a choice. ANNA: That’s what I was gonna say. It’s choice and agency, right? That’s the fundamental difference. And that’s why it feels different. That’s why the families on the network that have kids that have gone back to school, it feels so different because it’s choice and agency that’s driving it versus have to and cultural expectation. And so it’s just really interesting to tease apart how different the same thing can feel when you’re coming at it from that deeply rooted place that you’re talking about. I love that. Okay. So for me, one of the big, big ones that has changed, I would say kind of refined and we’ve honed in on it, is this idea that people are different and how that permeates everything. In the early days, we talked a lot about celebrating the uniqueness of our children. We talked about coming up with solutions that worked for everyone, taking the time to listen, to understand all these different perspectives. So the groundwork was there for that understanding. But something really clicked when we started talking specifically about how people are different because we are so different. We process information so differently. We prioritize things differently. We see and experience the world differently. There are so many ways that we are different. It is endless. And it’s funny because Nora in the network just was sharing on one of our weekly calls, another one that popped up for her, another people are different thing. And she was talking about what motivates us to complete a task because she was noticing that she and her husband really take these very opposite approaches. He likes to make the task easy. She likes to make the task interesting. And so they’re coming at this in a very, very different way. And it’s just another way that they’re different. One is not better than the other. One is not right or wrong. And when we start with that fundamental understanding that our brains are unique and we all have our own way of moving through the world, we can let go of the defensiveness. We don’t have to defend our way of being. We don’t have to convince someone else to see it our way or that our way is right. We can get curious. And we talk about that so much. We can start enjoying the process of understanding ourselves and others without getting stuck on there being a right way or a better way, which we’ve also touched on this month. And I’m not going to tangent off into all the differences because they’re just literally too many. But it definitely comes up in the podcast. We’ve talked about it there. We talk about it a lot on the network. But what I’m getting at today is really this more general open curiosity about exploring the ways that we’re different and ultimately celebrating them and getting excited about these different ways, not taking them personally, not being defensive, just getting excited and thinking how cool it is. Because when we feel that defensiveness slip away, it really leaves space for this deeper, more meaningful connection and a deeper understanding, again, of both ourselves and those around us. I think it’s been so interesting because just understanding that people are different has helped me learn more about myself. Because there’s something that allows me to realize, that’s actually really important to me. That’s the way my brain works. That’s the way I need something to be presented or the way I need to move through something. I felt before it was more external, I’m just trying to push my way through or this is how it has to be done. I don’t know how to explain it, but the nuance of that really has helped me understand myself more, understand my relationships more, the people in my life more. This is a piece I’m going to be exploring and talking about the rest of my life because it’s just so fundamental. ERIKA: It’s such a huge paradigm shift. It has helped me so, so, so much. It’s almost hard to talk about the depth of what this is doing in my mind to be able to think this way. What I can remember is that before these big mindset shifts, it was more like, I want to find out the right way to do this thing or the right way to be like this. If something’s hard for me, that’s something that I should work on. If something’s hard for someone else, that’s the area they need to improve or that kind of thing. Rather than just saying, this thing is hard for me, that other thing is hard for you. Working to our strengths and realizing our differences. I love the part about how it makes communicating about ourselves with other people easier. It just has none of that fighting energy, none of this kind of argument energy of like, you’re doing it wrong, I’m doing it right, or I feel like I need to just keep apologizing for myself because I just can’t get my stuff together. I can’t handle this for whatever reason. And so just realizing all of these different layers at which we are just so different from each other and accepting it has been a complete game changer in all of my relationships. I can start to notice why that thing has always bothered me about how that person does it. It’s just because that doesn’t make sense to my mind. So I feel like anytime we come upon something that someone else is doing and we say to ourselves, it just doesn’t make sense. Why are they doing that? It doesn’t make any sense. Then that’s our clue of like, we’ve hit upon people are different again, because it makes sense to them. And yeah, it’s just so deep and rich and one of my favorite topics. PAM: Yeah, yeah, me too. And it’s another beautiful example of how unschooling is a window because, like you were talking about Anna, at first, we have always used that language when it comes to our kids, because that’s kind of where I first discovered how different people could be. And that it felt wrong to correct them because it was working for them. They just they did it their way. And it was working out fine. And I was like, oh, it was part of my whole journey around mistakes are bad, right? They did it this way. And that was different than the way I would have ever thought to do it. And look, it still worked. So, that was the fundamental first observation. I think that that set me down this path. There are just so many layers, because then it was like, oh, there’s a reason they did it that way. You see that consistency over time. I realized they just think about this differently than I do. That’s interesting. And I could see how my kids were different. And then you start questioning that age component, right? I can see how I like to do things in particular ways, and then it just starts layer by layer. You find all the different ways, discover more ways that people are different, you discover that it’s not just kids who are different, they’re people. They are whole people. I do even remember when that phrase first popped up. But it just encapsulated everything so beautifully. And, and it sounds so simple on the surface, people are different. We say that to anybody and people think, of course, but it’s just so fundamentally different and deeper. And once you start using that lens, when I see somebody doing something, and think, I would never do it that way. Go to how people are different, rather than they’re doing it wrong, I should tell them how to do it properly, or more effectively, or more efficiently, or whatever lens we used before. We have improved with the way we choose to do it, to instead use that people are different lens. Oh, and yes, what great framing for conversations, right? Because it’s not judging the way that they’re doing it. Once they can get on that same page, when we’re coming at this with language that isn’t fighting them, isn’t trying to fix them. Conversations about it are just so much more interesting, because then we’re actually learning about ourselves and learning about other people. And then we can bring that consideration with us forward, right? It’s so cool. ERIKA: And yeah, it’s making me remember that there’s so much coming at us in any given moment, so much sensory information, right? And everyone’s brain is picking the part that we’re paying attention to. And so you can’t even say, we were all there, how did they not have the same experience as I did? It’s because they didn’t. They literally didn’t see or hear or feel it the same. It could be a completely different experience from one person to another. So it makes sense why we’re all so different. So anyway, the one I came up with for this question, thinking about what has changed about my understanding over the years, is when I was first learning about unschooling, I was so focused on what it meant for the kids. What they were doing, or weren’t doing. What I was doing for them? What I was choosing not to do for them? So basically, how to approach my days with them. And with all that focus just going towards them. And over time, that has changed with the realization, and I’m sure it came from the podcast too, that the unschooling journey is my journey to take. Unschooling is really about me letting go of old messages and patterns, digging into the layers to figure out why I react like this. Or healing a lot of old wounds that can get triggered by parenting. And so, it’s really a journey of growth for myself, that then benefits my relationships with my children. And since I’m willing to look at myself and learn and grow, they gradually have a parent who is more aware, more resourced, and better equipped to support them. And it’s this beautiful upward spiral. And it’s not to say that it’s easy, or that the upward spiral is just going up and up all the time. But I think it’s actually a bit harder because I need to focus on myself and my baggage and all of that in order to move forward. In fact, I know we mention all the time that one of the red flags that we’re stressed or maybe have too much on our plates is when we start focusing outside of ourselves and trying to control other people, control our children. It’s so much easier to say, you’re doing this wrong, I need you to get better, than it is to look inside of ourselves. And I think a lot of mainstream parenting is really focused in that way on controlling the kids and looking for the problems that the kids have, rather than exploring why we’re so activated by certain things that the kids are doing and making changes in ourselves. But I think changing that kind of generational trauma and that generational story, the old patterns, that really has to start with me. And while the kids are focusing on the things they’re interested in and growing and gaining skills, I can focus on becoming more and more true to myself, and just de-schooling all of those internalized beliefs that I took on as I was growing up. And my kids are really great guides in this kind of work, because they’re just naturally so much more in tune with who they are. They have not internalized nearly as many limiting beliefs as I have. And so looking at them inspires me to continue, because I think this is big, challenging work to do, but it’s so valuable. And sometimes I can’t even believe how much I’ve changed and grown through my unschooling journey. And I’m really proud of all the work that I’ve put into it. And I’m happy that I can live more truthfully now with my family. I really think it’s changed our relationships. PAM: I love the idea of more truthfully. I love that phrase, because that is what it feels like. And I too had that realization. At the beginning of the journey because, my kids left school. So it was like, what are we going to do instead of school? And it was all very outwardly focused at first. But then as I discovered unschooling, and those kinds of questions started bubbling up, then the shift, then that is something if you listen to the podcast archive, you will hear people echo. Especially when I do like 10 questions episodes, where we really dive deeper into people’s journeys. It’s like, it really was all about me, it really is all so much my work to do alongside supporting them. But if I don’t do this work, I am putting so much on top of our relationship, and our days that is just doing pretty much nothing but getting in the way. It was just a huge thing. And, you know, as you said, Erika, it can be such a great clue when we notice we’re starting to look outside. I’m feeling overwhelmed, I just need to control other things, just to settle things down. But that is such a great clue to examine, why am I feeling so overwhelmed? Why am I feeling beyond capacity? That is just a useful clue. And not judging right, wrong, good, bad. Now, if you listen to this podcast for a little while, you know it’s not about that. But these are all great clues that help us ask better questions that just help us learn more and live more truthfully. Like that’s why that phrase struck me. So, that was really cool. ANNA: Yeah, I love that, too. And this was definitely a part of my journey. Because we come from this culture that’s so externally focused, do it this way, do the right path, do the thing, you know, all of these pieces. And so, really learning it’s all about me is huge. I don’t know if it’s in the Summit, or one of my early talks but it’s literally called “It’s all about me.” Because that was this big revelation, they’re fine. They know how to do these things. They know how to learn and grow and make mistakes and be in the world. It’s me that has all these things to unlearn and unpack to get to that place of alignment of truth of who I am and who I want to be. And that was just amazing to me. It’s terrifying. And it’s empowering, right? It’s kind of terrifying, wait a minute, now I need to look at all these pieces. But that I can change, right? I think when we’re so externally focused it’s harder. I can’t change David, I can’t change my girls. They are their own people. And so when we get that, it’s easier. I love that red flag piece too. When I’m out there trying to micromanage everybody around me, it really means probably something’s not feeling good for me, something’s happening for me. And so, again, it can be scary to look at that and do that work. But it is also the thing I can control, which is me, how I move through the world. And so then that kind felt exciting. So yeah, this was another huge one for me that just really keeps coming back around. Oh yeah, it’s me again. It’s not them. It’s me. ERIKA: I mean, it makes it easier, right? In a way. We have control over that part. ANNA: Yeah. ERIKA: If it’s soothing to think, maybe nothing’s wrong with those kids. Maybe they’re just living their lives. So, thanks so much to both of you for sharing your reflections. This was really fun. And to everyone listening in their podcast feed or watching on YouTube, we appreciate you joining us. In our next episode, we will be diving into the question of what still matters to us. And so we also invite you to join us in the Living Joyfully Network. We’re offering a free month trial so you can come and see what it’s for yourself. And if you enjoy the kinds of conversations we have on the podcast, there’s a good chance that the network might be a great fit for you as well. I hope to see you there. To learn more and join us, follow the link in the show notes or go to our website, which is livingjoyfully.ca and click on Network in the menu. Wishing everyone a wonderful day.