and i want to help you break the cycles of generational trauma
I am mom to two beautiful children in two wonderfully different stages of childhood: an infant and a budding tween. They keep me on my toes, that’s for sure!
I started The Burnt Bean as a quest to help other parents like me: parents who love their children deeply, but continue to find themselves frustrated, irked, even triggered by those same children. Parents who know they can do better, but just can’t seem to figure it out.
I spent nearly two decades as a middle school educator where I got to see how parenting techniques played out in the lives of teens nearly every day. I observed the tiger parents, the helicopter parents, and the lawnmower parents. I saw how our expectations and demands on our kids play out in real time. Over the years, I realized that our role as a parent is not to tell our children who they are, but to sit back and allow them to show us who they are.
Perhaps more importantly, though, I had a front row seat to my own parenting. My daughter pushed back on my parenting from a very early age. When she was three, I realized that she was holding a mirror up to my unconscious patterns and habits. I spent the last 7 years learning how my childhood messages were showing up in my parenting, and how I was subconsciously passing on generations of messaging, trauma, and dysfunction.
Over time, I unlearned my knee-jerk reactions. I learned how to recognize my triggers, where stress sat in my body, and how to reparent my inner child with kindness, understanding, and compassion. As a result, I discovered a more peaceful parenting, and built a stronger relationship with my daughter.
The Backstory
I was never the girl who planned to be married with 3.5 children, two dogs, and a cat. It wasn’t my thing. Maybe it was the years spent raising my younger brothers after my parent’s divorce, but marriage and children was never something on my radar.
Flash forward to my early 30’s and I was a single mom of a spunky, sass-filled toddler. She was a mini-me and challenged me in ways I was unprepared for. And then I had a moment – more like a year’s worth of moments – that led me to question why life felt so hard and unfulfilling.
Who am I? Whose path was I on? How did I get here? And why was I so angry all the time?
These are the questions that plagued my mind during the year of moments. I didn’t know who I was or whose life I was living. It certainly didn’t feel like my own. I was only certain about one thing: I was not the parent I wanted to be. I was always yelling and hurrying my daughter along. Our days felt like a series of commands to be followed, as though she was a robot. In fact, I’m not even sure I recognized that she was a tiny human, complete with emotions and ideas of her own. She was just something to be managed and corralled.
“Have a sit,” she said to me one morning. “I no like when you yell like that.”
She was three.
My three-year-old daughter was calling me out. She knew that there was better – there was more to this mother-daughter relationship – and she demanded I step up. As I sat with her snuggled in my lap that morning, I knew it was a defining moment in our relationship and a defining moment for her childhood. It sent me off on a journey of self-discovery and healing.
Nearly a decade into that journey, I’ve learned what it means to reparent my inner child and how to practice self-love and compassion. I’ve faced the decades of unhealed trauma that plagued my subconscious. In turn, I transformed into a patient, kind, and loving mama, one who is often so overwhelmed with joy and happiness when witnessing my children experience life.
why that matters
Change is hard. It is much easier to fall back into our old thought patterns and behaviors than it is to develop into someone different – someone wiser, stronger, and happier. Transformation requires a commitment to standing in the fire, even when it becomes unbearable.
But growth is necessary. It is important for us to look at ourselves and to understand why we say and do the things we do – especially as parents. Our children are watching us. And if there is one universal truth, it is that every parent wants better for their children. Every parent wants to protect their children from the pain and frustration that they experienced – we want to pass on the lessons we learned, if only to make it slightly easier for our kids.
Unintentionally, though, we mindlessly pass on generations of trauma through seemingly innocuous parenting techniques. Simply put: we parent the way we were parented. We find ourselves sounding more and more like our own caregivers, and many times, this stands in the way of an authentic connection with our children.
My Experience
I’m a former middle-school educator and the owner of a flourishing tutoring firm. I have nearly two decades of experience working with adolescents. I see the outcomes of various parenting techniques, and have worked with parents to help them better understand their child’s development.
More importantly, I’ve been in your shoes. I know what it is like to cry myself to sleep at night, worried that I am ruining my children. I know what it is like to feel the fire breathing down your neck as you’re counting backwards from 10, hoping you can wrangle some semblance of self-control before you explode on your children.
I’m living proof, though, that better is possible. When we commit ourselves to the work and allow ourselves to be vulnerable, we have the ability to transform into the parents we want to be.
What You’ll Find Here
Here at The Burnt Bean, I provide you with the skills and know-how to discover the ways your childhood messaging shows up in your parenting. I will walk with you on your journey from an unhealed parent to a more authentic parent.
I provide resources offering guidance to support you on your journey of self-healing. Whether you are clear on the areas you want to address or simply have a feeling that things should be better or different, The Burnt Bean is the place to come to regain your footing and to discover the next step in your healing journey.
Our resources, courses, and coaching provide you with a range of support. Some offer tips to alleviate daily stressors and others will ask you to dig deep, to challenge your most steadfast beliefs, and to rise above any expectations you may have of yourself, your friends, your spouse, or your children.
As a parenting coach, my goal is to help you discover your childhood messages and how they are showing up in your parenting. I’ve been where you are. I’ve walked the path of healing from my own trauma and childhood messaging. I guide caregivers along their own unique healing journey so that they may parent from a place of peace and validation, instead of from negative behavior patterns and habits that exist as a result of their own childhood.
Embarking on this journey can feel lonely. I am here to tell you: you are not alone. I am here to walk this path with you.