Little Hands, Big Plans - Motherhood and Business

Courage and Authenticity in Motherhood and Life with Cynthia Overgard

• Emilia Coto • Season 1 • Episode 21

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How do we raise children who are brave enough to speak the truth, to act with integrity and to trust themselves and their values, even when it is uncomfortable? 

How do we raise courageous children?  

In this thought-provoking conversation, Cynthia Overgard, host and executive producer of the Down to Birth podcast, unpacks the difference between courage and fearlessness, what her parents did right in fostering self-trust, and how she’s carried those values into motherhood.

Cynthia also shares her candid take on today’s culture of “scripted parenting,” and and we explore her fascinating career journey: from corporate vice president and university finance professor to birth education and podcasting. Her show, Down to Birth, now ranks in the top 0.5% of podcasts worldwide.

If you have ever wondered...

  • how much we could achieve and how much excellence we could pursue, if we allowed ourselves to fully follow our interests?
  • What if we followed the things that scare us and also seem exciting? 
  • What if we allowed our careers to be fun and exciting? 
  • What if our careers could evolve with joy and freedom?

This episode is for anyone craving more courage and authenticity, in motherhood and life. 

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • Why courage matters more than fearlessness
  • The simplest (and most overlooked) way to raise ethical kids
  • How to model self-trust and emotional honesty
  • Cynthia’s perspective on cultural trends in parenting
  • The role of courage and honesty in motherhood and friendship

If this episode resonated with you, please share it with another mom who needs encouragement. Subscribe so you never miss an episode, and connect with me on LinkedIn.

For other episodes and resources, visit our website at https://littlehandsbigplans.co/pages/podcast

Emilia Coto:

How do we raise children who are brave enough to speak the truth, to act with integrity, and to trust themselves and their values, even when it is uncomfortable? How do we raise courageous children? In this thought-provoking conversation, Cynthia Overgard, host and executive producer of the Down to Birth podcast, unpacks the difference between courage and fearlessness, what her parents did right in fostering self-trust, and how she's carried those values into motherhood. Cynthia also shares her candid take on today's culture of scripted parenting, and we explore her fascinating career journey from corporate vice president and university finance professor to birth education and podcasting. Her show, Down to Birth, now ranks in the top half a percentage of podcasts worldwide. This episode is for anyone craving more courage and authenticity in motherhood and life. Welcome to Little Hands Bake Plans, the podcast for moms who want to reimagine work after kids and build a life where family comes first, without giving up your dreams. I'm Amelia and I know firsthand how much motherhood shifts our careers, our priorities, and our pace. But instead of seeing it as a setback, what if we saw it as an invitation? An opportunity to design a life with a little more freedom, a little more presence, and a little more fulfillment. Each week, we'll have honest conversations with moms who've shaped their work and business around what truly matters. Whether you're considering a career pivot, dreaming of a slower pace, or just wondering what's possible, you're in the right place. So grab a little something warm, settle in, and let's explore the possibilities together. Cynthia, I'm so excited to talk to you today. And I really want to learn about how you came to be so fearless and authentic and courageous. I think one of the things that I and many of your other listeners of the Down to Birth podcast enjoy is how authentic you are and how you're able to eloquently say what your position is on many different topics, particularly as it relates to birth, to women, to other cultural issues. And would love to learn about the things that you think your parents did right in raising you to be this way, and perhaps anything that you've carried yourself as a parent in how you raise your children to hopefully have similar courage.

Cynthia Overgard:

Well, first, thank you for having me. It's fun to be on this other side of a podcast. And I don't think I would define myself as fearless. I'm not sure who would define him or herself as fearless. I would define myself as courageous. I think that's something we can know about ourselves. And we know we're courageous because there are times that things are really uncomfortable to do. And we can feel afraid. But if we really believe it's the right or ethical thing, we act anyway. And I've had experiences since middle school where I could feel myself drawing upon courage, and it never came easily. I never felt fearless. But I would be disingenuous to tell you if I didn't know I'm courageous. I do know that I'm courageous. Not always, but it's it is a trait I have. And what did my parents, what did they do right as parents? I think it's pretty simple, honestly. I think we overcomplicate parenting. I was just telling a a woman in a women's circle a few days ago that I really believe it's hard to mess up parenting. I know everyone believes the opposite. Everyone believes the opposite. They think they're gonna mess up their kids all the time. If they have an argument with their spouse, they think they're gonna mess up their kids. If they let their baby cry for five or 10 minutes before they go get them, they think they're gonna mess up their child's brain. If they don't give their child something that their child wants, they think they're gonna show them they're not really loved. I disagree with all of this very much. And I like to put out the theory that it's hard to mess up your child. Now, neglect and abuse, that's tragic. There are easy ways to really harm a person if you in if they suffer neglect or abuse. But shy of that, I think the permissive parents can raise well-adjusted children. I think the strict parents can raise well-adjusted children. I don't think there's a formula. And I'm concerned in society when I see each generation now having all their opinions on, like, you know, my grandmother's generation would have said, don't hold the child too much, you'll spoil them. I don't know what a spoiled adult looks like. So I don't really know where they got that idea from, but what a harmful one. So then, of course, the boomerang effect was attachment parenting, which is beautiful. And all of that is great. What concerns me is when parents are given scripted things to say. My my parents would have done none of that. Like they they just raised us. They're great people. I count my blessings every day for my mom and my dad. And I have so much love and respect for them. So they are my role models. And I just think that if you want to raise a child who's moral or ethical, then be moral and ethical. If you want your children to have healthy, loving friendships, then let them witness that you have healthy, loving friendships. If you want a child who's honest, then be honest. It's not complicated. You should never have to tell a child stealing is wrong. I mean, I can't imagine. You just you embody it. So I think when parents keep thinking what's the right thing to say, what's the and then there's this whole, there's this whole offshoot of what to say when they're um behaving a certain way. And like this whole trend of, well, you're having really big feelings, aren't you? Why is that now the right thing to say? Like, why is that the right thing? You know, there's something to be said sometimes for a little tough love. You know, I mean, if I threw a tantrum, I'm I'm just making this up, but like if I had thrown a tantrum in a store with my mom because I wanted a candy bar, I have no doubt she would have been like, you know, stop this right now. Like she wouldn't have been like, you're having really big feelings, and you you really wanted that candy bar, didn't you? Like, I don't know why this is the trend, but it feels too self-indulgent to me. Yeah.

Emilia Coto:

There's so many questions that I have from that. I that view is really it takes a lot of pressure off to know that if you are a certain way, you'd be able to pass that on to your kids, hopefully, because they see it by example. But I'm also thinking about what about the things that we want to improve about ourselves that we want our child to embody that for some reason we don't feel that way, then what do you do in those situations? Or what would you do if you had a trait that you wanted to pass on and you wanted to but you didn't necessarily feel equipped to model it?

Cynthia Overgard:

Well, I think the first thing is that you are not going to succeed at hiding from your children exactly who you are. And I think when we have our first little newborn baby, we have this fantasy that we are just gonna be these wonderful, perfect mothers. And that's a heck of a lot of pressure to put on ourselves. There is no way you have a trait or a habit or a quirk or a quality that your children don't know about intimately. They are staring at you and studying you their entire childhoods. I mean, I know my parents cold. I know my parents so well. Every little glance, every little, I can almost read the thoughts as they're saying something. If I and I I know my children know me this well. So first we have to relieve ourselves of the pressure that we have to be a certain way. You have to trust that children are the most loving among us. Children are incredibly loving and forgiving. It breaks my heart to think of how loving and forgiving children are. There are children who grow up in abusive homes or with alcoholic or drug-abusing parents who half neglect them, and those children are still prepared to love their parents. And I don't think we have to worry about that. I think we have to obviously the home shouldn't not at all be abusive or neglectful. For example, I've changed myself through my parenting years. My children right now are 20 and 16. And there was a day when I was chopping vegetables, as I feel like I've done for half of their childhood, standing at my spot in the kitchen preparing a meal and chopping vegetables. And they were always telling stories. You know how children are, they're always telling stories. And one of my children was telling me a story, and I was, I was like, uh-huh, yeah, yeah. And I was watching my food and half listening, or I was listening, and I just realized like, how much of the time were they looking at me and I'm not looking back at them? I just noticed this. I'm like, they're looking, they're watching me, and my eyes are on something else. So I just put the knife down and I turned and looked at them and smiled and listened. And I just let them meet my eye contact while I listened. And I was like, oh, this is new. Just for me to not multitask for a second. Now we have to multitask all the time as parents. But I just became self-aware. There was a time I noticed I interrupted them all the time because they tell stories and maybe it's going a little slowly, or you're helping them get the words out, or you get the point already, and you're kind of like, oh, yeah. So and I noticed, like, why am I interrupting them? So I made a really significant change in myself, which was not easy to stop interrupting them all the time. I don't feel bad about that. Now it's something I'm happy to talk to them about and say, Yeah, I noticed I used to interrupt you guys a lot, and I've really worked at that. And please call me out on that if I'm interrupting you when you're talking to me, because I don't want to do that.

Emilia Coto:

I like that view also of seeing your because every child is gonna need something different, and just the wanting to allow ourselves to be taught by them. There's the one end of the parenting spectrum, which is the all about feelings side, but then there's the other side too, where I think it goes too far the other way, where it's almost the children are always told, told what to do and put in their place and doing, being a certain way. And I do think that there's a lot of value in letting them also teach us what they need because they are each gonna have different needs. And that story that you told reminded me of I think it's even harder now to with the phones, in a way, uh that's something that I struggle with. And lately, my little three-year-old has been telling me, he goes, Mama, look at me. You know, like he reminds me, even though I'm paying attention, you're not, he can feel that I'm not focused on him and what he's trying to tell me. And it's definitely been such a wake-up call to, okay, you're telling me a story, I want eye contact because one day when you're a teenager or however old right now, I think I don't want my child to have a cell phone until after 18. But you know, I'm gonna want to also have conversations, and I'm not gonna like it when you're on your phone or on your computer or doing something else. So when you were first a mom, was there similar cultural trends as it is now? Or do you remember what was trendy back then as a parenting style?

Cynthia Overgard:

That's interesting. It's a little hard to remember, but the one I remember that we absolutely did not follow was timeouts were really, really big. It was still the end of the time. I don't know, is that still big? Are people still doing timeouts? I don't hear about it as much.

Emilia Coto:

I think a little bit, but I don't think it's as big as it was before.

Cynthia Overgard:

Timeouts were like everything in the 90s and early 2000s. And my daughter was, my son was born in 05, my daughter in 09. And when my son was born, it was still just like that's what parenting did. And they thought it was so gentle because the previous generation or before that one, they used to hit kids. So they're like, well, we're not hitting them, or we're having them sit on a step or go sit there, and you have a timeout, and it's going to equal as many minutes as your age. We never did this once. I I followed Alfie Cohn, a researcher who just I think changed us so much as parents, and he was really against punishments and rewards. And I raised my children, we raised our children without punishments and without rewards. That's something I am very, very happy about. It's not always easy. There are times that you really want to motivate them, and punishing someone is a great motivator, and rewarding them is a great motivator. But when you think about the kind of child you want to raise, the kind of adult you want to end up with and raise, this is not the way to do it. I mean, ultimately, my my model for what for my approach to raising children personally was to raise them with respect. If you take a random example of a child leaving the house on a rainy day, walking out to the bus and forgetting their umbrella, or like it's gonna rain later that afternoon and it's getting cloudy and they forget their umbrella. How many, how big of a deal do parents make of a moment like that? What did I tell you? Remember what we said about the weather? What do you need? Come on, what do you what did you miss? Uh-huh. Right. Uh-huh. Take your umbrella. Now, that's that is just exhausting. It's patronizing, it's unnecessary. That tone of voice is just awful. It's just like nobody, nobody is going to benefit from an interaction like that as a child. They could feel a little bit embarrassed, a little bit, like you don't need to make a thing of it. Now imagine if your best friend leaves your house, they showed up in the rain, they brought an umbrella, and they walk out without the umbrella. You just go, oh, your umbrella. Oh, remember your umbrella. You don't have a whole thing to say about it. So I just asked myself, am I am I basically speaking to them as someone I respect? And when you look at the timeouts, the whole thing around that is it's never about whether anything is effective. There are a lot of things that are highly effective, right? I mean, hitting children was probably very effective. But what the heck purpose did that serve? Great. So now your child is afraid you're gonna physically hurt them. So to me, timeouts obviously are a lot more harmless than that. But the message is like you are basically getting a break from me, which is very punishing to a child. You're getting a break from interaction, from eye contact, from being seen and heard. And it might be short, but are they really sitting there learning a lesson in empathy? They're that it so we didn't do that at all.

Emilia Coto:

Not at all.

Cynthia Overgard:

Yeah.

Emilia Coto:

So how would you handle a toddler hitting or um not being kind to either themselves or a younger sibling? And I guess having impulse control at the time because it's developmentally appropriate for their age. What how does that work in the no punishments or rewards?

Cynthia Overgard:

Well, what stands out to me, well, look, there are times a child will walk by a table and grab scissors, and you don't sit there and you don't, first of all, you don't give them a timeout for it. You don't give them a lecture for it, you grab the scissors out of their hands. It's unacceptable for them to pick up scissors, it's unacceptable for them to hit a child. But what jumps out to me in what you said was you just said it that it's not kind. And to me, this is where things start to get complicated. Now imagine a two-year-old playing outside in nature, crouching down in that little squat way that they love to sit. There's they're crouched down looking at ants, and they might take their finger and press down and squash an ant. Now that's some that's not something I would do. But as a two-year-old, if I ever did such a thing, it would have been normal. It would have had no been no reflection on the kind of empathetic, sensitive person I am. And it would have been very confusing to my little brain if an ad if a parent came over and said that wasn't kind. So now you're talking about the motive of the child. If you have a two-year-old who hits their sibling, it's unacceptable. They can't do it. You can't sit there and have a whole story and try to make them feel the empathy for their child. We don't hit. That's it. But to make a thing about it, to try to force empathy and teach it and have them think about it, it's not how it works. You know, they did, they learned so much from Helen Keller. As everybody knows, she was born deaf and blind. And she became a human being who could speak fluently, right? And this is just mind-blowing that we could ever have been able, as a human race, to study someone who once was without any language. So that means without the thoughts that we have, we think in words most of the time. And she didn't have that and eventually became an articulate adult. So we learned a lot from her. And one of the most fascinating things that society has been able to learn from Helen Keller is that when she reflected on being, say, six years old, if she had an afternoon where she was just acting out and knocking over furniture in the home, knocking over lamps, right? She couldn't see anything, she couldn't hear anything. She had times of just knocking things over. She was able to say later, reflecting back on that, I didn't even know what I was feeling. I can't tell you if I was lonely. I can't tell you if I was angry. I can't tell you if I was scared. I didn't have any vocabulary whatsoever to apply to what was going on with me physiologically and in my heart. I didn't have language. It's almost the same for a two-year-old. So we have to be so careful of saying things like, oh, he's jealous of the baby, or, oh, that wasn't kind. I'm really getting allergic to this word kind lately. I think this word has been so problematic in the past 10 years. I can't believe how this word has changed now for me. But I think that's the thing. If you see a toddler hitting a baby, just see the facts. My toddler is hitting my baby. Well, this can't happen. So let's stop this. Pick up the toddler, pick up the baby. Say you cannot hit the baby. But let's let's be careful of the narrative because now you're going to teach them what to make of it.

Emilia Coto:

Yeah, I completely agree. I definitely think that's something that I'm working on because part of I think the struggle sometimes of having a three-year-old that's very articulate. And the chiropractor that we worked with told me you have to be sometimes it's tough for them because they appear older than they are and they're still so young. When you were thinking about your career and going to school, choosing what to study, what path you were going to take, was motherhood something that you took into consideration?

Cynthia Overgard:

Yes. It's funny looking back because it's just funny when I look back. You know, I never knew the course that I would follow. I never had long-term visions. I still don't for what I'll be doing with my life because I don't agree with that. I I've I've loved how I've lived my life and I followed what I call impulses. Like I had a pull towards something, I pursued it. There are people who don't pursue things they have a pull toward. I do pursue them. And by the same token, I won't declare where I'll be in five years or what I'll want to be doing because who knows? I'm just always checking in with myself. Like if I'm have a podcast going on season seven starting in January, who knew? We're still having a great time. We're still loving this. Yep. We're good, we're starting, you're kicking off season seven. Year by year, I'm just gonna keep doing what's fun and exciting. So after college, where I studied sociology and I sort of had a minor in Spanish. I was a Spanish tutor and I loved, I love languages. So I got really into Spanish. And that became a big part of my um undergrad education and lifestyle and um studied sociology, which was one of the best educational decisions I made. I started grad school to get my MBA at a young age of 23. And um I only chose finance because it was the one subject that scared the heck out of me. I had never taken a finance class. When I saw the options when I got into grad school and I saw all the possible majors, my first thought was anything but finance. And then that thought haunted me. I was like, what the heck was that message going through my brain? Anything but finance. So suddenly I started to think, well, what if? What if I pursued the very thing that is scaring me so much? And I did. And turned out I was cut out for finance and I loved finance, and it was a wonderful time of my life. I was working full-time and going to grad school. I ended up going full-time, which was nine credits for grad school. So I was very busy working full-time and taking three courses a semester. And then I came to Connecticut. GE Capital, now called GE Money, hired me. So that was very exciting. It was like the company to work for at the time. So I came to Connecticut and then UConn hired me as a finance professor four years later, which I did for 10 years through meeting my husband, getting married, having our children. And I was just a born teacher. I know that now. I loved tutoring Spanish. I was really good at tutoring and I loved it. And then I loved teaching finance. I mean, absolutely loved it. I think being a professor is a dream job. And now teaching childbirth for 18 years, I just I love teaching. Did I have that vision? No. When I got my MBA, it's funny. My thought was I know one day I'm gonna be married and have children, and I know I want to raise my children myself. I know I'm going to be home with my children. That was like my little secret I kept to myself because I looked so ambitious in the workforce. I was really into my job. I traveled a lot. I was, it was a very exciting career. And I just nursed the knowledge that one day when I have children, I'm gonna be raising them. That was the most important thing to me. So I thought it's kind of funny, but I got the MBA, so I thought, as a strategic move to make it easier to get into the workforce, the corporate workforce, once my children started school. I laugh at that now. Like there was no way I was gonna go back into corporate when my children started school. There was no way I was gonna do that. It was not the lifestyle I wanted.

Emilia Coto:

Yeah.

Cynthia Overgard:

So it did give me the opportunity to fulfill a lot of things I needed to fulfill. I needed to have a rigorous education. I needed to travel the world. I needed to do the exciting things I always thought about. I had to fulfill that. And I'm very grateful I did because by the time I had children, when I resigned, I was at MasterCard at that point as a VP in risk management. I didn't tell people I left to raise my children. I told everyone I resigned from corporate America. I knew I was done with that chapter. I had fulfilled it. And I didn't quite know what was next other than mothering. I what happened was I just became compelled again. I became obsessed with birth. I started publishing in the field. That ultimately became unsatisfying because I didn't have connection to other people. So I got educated to teach. That became really huge. I ended up with my own prenatal center in Connecticut. I was the only one to own to have this whole center with this revolving door of couples who came through to get educated. That was wonderful, fulfilling, incredible work. And I closed it in March of 2020. And lucky for me, I kicked off this pot, the podcast down to birth three months earlier. So it was incredible timing because you know, like, who knew the podcast was going to become the primary crux of my work? And that I would ever have to close my prenatal center. So it's just all unfolded really well. And I think it's just by following what we're really passionate about.

Emilia Coto:

So you didn't leave corporate America because I guess that's an assumption that I always have. You know, when someone leaves, I just think, oh, it's because the hours were so crazy and they wanted to, their priorities shifted to want to be more present for their children. But it sounds like the timing for you was before you became a mother. You had already made that decision that you were going to pursue something else.

Cynthia Overgard:

I it's not that I was going to pursue anything else. I knew I was going to be home with my children. I knew if I was going to give birth, there was no way in heck I was going to let anyone else raise them but me. It's just like, otherwise, why will I have them? That those were my values. Now, if they're, you know, we live in a culture now where some women listening might read into that. It does she judge me, I have different choices. No, that's ridiculous. And this is what I mean. Why would anyone listening worry about whether I have opinions on what they're doing? They can just as easily have opinions on what I did. I run a postpartum group and the women do everything. Some of them go back to work, some of them hate going back to work and they cry and they dread it. A few of them like to go back to work and they're thrilled to have their career. Others are thrilled to resign, even though money is tight and they're happy to be home. We're all entitled to doing what we're pulled to do. That's the that's the answer. So when I talk about my life, I should be liberated to talk about my life and allow others to be liberated to talk about theirs. And that's that there's so much fear, and there's so much of women apologizing. I'm not judging anyone else. I'm not saying what's right for others. Why, why can't we just be free to listen to anyone talk about their decisions? And that's why these thoughts go through my mind because so much of my lifestyle is interviewing other women. And I call I stop them from the apologizing.

Emilia Coto:

Yeah.

Cynthia Overgard:

I just had a woman on my podcast, actually, a very well-known woman, Emily Vonti. She's got this huge platform on Instagram. And she said, All my births have been beautiful. And then she went into this little thing like, I mean, I know that's hard for people to hear, and I just I don't mean anything but I'm just saying for me. And I said, Emily, you're allowed to say birth has gone beautifully for you. You don't need to feel bad about that. You don't have to take care of other people's feelings. We all have a deep heart for women who have anything that hurts them through birth. I mean, my life's work is around longing for women to feel at peace with their births. So I definitely have that same heart. But I also don't want women fearing sharing their stories because we need to hear each other's stories, whatever they are, and we need to be free to share our opinions. That's the other thing about what's going on in society right now. It's not okay to share opinions anymore.

Emilia Coto:

Where do you think that comes from or where what shifted culturally? Because when you were speaking about that, the first thing that came to my mind is breastfeeding. If you share too much about breastfeeding, a lot of the times it's seen, you see the comments on somebody saying, Well, don't shame people that have to do formula or choose to do formula or for their mental health do formula. And it sounds like it wasn't like that before.

Cynthia Overgard:

This is what I mean. That's a perfect example. When we started our podcast, Trisha is an IBCLC. She's extraordinarily informed in breastfeeding. She has so much to share. For anyone to say you're shaming women who don't breastfeed, it's like, I just want to say, what are you even talking about? You can listen to a different podcast. You we like, how can a woman who's really into breastfeeding and needs the support and education find anyone out there if everyone is apologetic and pontificating and trying to trying to stay careful and worrying about everyone's feelings and this and the what value is that? Everyone is going to be drawn to the podcast of anything that they want to listen to. And you avoid that which you don't. And it's also not true. There isn't judgment to say anything positive about breastfeeding. Is to say nothing about formula feeding. We don't need to say that's also fine if that's your choice. Who am I to say that's also fine? I'm not here to give you permission. Who that would be so arrogant, in my opinion, for me to feel the need to say it's also fine if you want to get an induction and it's also okay if you want to return to work. Who asked my opinion on whether it's okay?

Emilia Coto:

Yeah.

Cynthia Overgard:

Of course it's okay. You're because you're free. So why do you need me on my podcast? And no one is saying this, but why should I have to say that? I would feel that would feel very arrogant to me for me to have to tell women what's okay. Can we just be liberated to just speak? That that's all we need to do. And it's people's choice to listen. But that's why I don't do trigger warnings. I don't believe in trigger warnings because it's a coddling of society that concerns me. Like people can handle their own emotions. I want very much to trust that adults can handle their emotions. And if they can't, they can turn off the podcast. Our 14th episode was a stillbirth round table. That was not that took some thought. Are we really doing this? Are we really in our 14th episode? We have 350 something now, I think. Really gonna put out an episode of three women sharing their stillbirth stories? Yes, we are. Because it's valuable. And the second half of the conversation was what did people do that served you? And what did they do that didn't serve you when you needed all the support that you needed after losing a baby? But we didn't do a trigger warning. Because people can read read the subject, they can turn it off. They're adults. I turn off things I don't want to listen to. If I start to hear start hearing about something of an animal being hurt or a child being hurt, I just flip it off. And I don't hold the producer responsible for my feelings. Those are that's not their problem.

Emilia Coto:

What drew you to podcasting originally?

Cynthia Overgard:

This is a character trait of mine, and it's gonna sound like a really cool character trait. And I'm not trying to do that. Okay. I'm just I'm just sharing that this is something very long, a very long time well-established quality in me. And I don't know why it's there. When an idea gets planted in my mind that makes me feel a little bit nervous and a little bit excited, I never ignore it. Ever. So when I was graduating college at the end of my senior year, my dad called me and encouraged me to take the GMAT and go to grad school. And I was like, Dad, I just want to work. I just want to make money. I've been working so hard. I've got 19 credits. I'm fine, I'm finishing. I know, I know, but you're on a roll. That's it. That one conversation, he planted the seed. And I applied to grad school a year later when I was working full-time. And then that little thought, like anything but finance, that's it. There she goes. She identified a fear that just tiny, tiny 2% excited her. Now she's compelled to pursue it. That was that's how I look back and see what happened there. So the same thing happened with a podcast. I always used to describe myself as not technical at all. I refuse to say that about myself now. I think I do a really good job editing and producing my podcast, but it scared the heck out of me. And it was clients who told me to have one. They used to tell me sometimes to do TED Talks. And once or twice people started saying, Do you have a podcast or you should have a podcast? And I was like, What? I'm not even sure what a podcast is. But it stuck. It really stuck. And uh Trisha and I were together one day, brought her in to co-run my postpartum soap work group for a while. And we were became very, very close friends. And I was like, would you be open to talking about starting a podcast? And she was she was down with it. So that was it. It was the seed was planted. I was a little nervous, I was a little excited. I definitely hated the idea of anything technical. I thought, I definitely can't do that. So I don't know who's gonna do that for me. I was wrong. I could do it. It was hard. I stayed up too late, far too many months to learn what I had to learn. But I'm I'm proud of that. I pursued something that really provoked fear and it's become so fulfilling. Why did I do it? Because hilariously, back in 2019, when we started, I thought I had a lot to teach. And now I can say all these years later, I had so much to learn. I can't believe how much we've learned.

Emilia Coto:

That's my favorite thing. Every time I record a podcast, I learn so much. And it leaves me for weeks thinking about the conversation and the things that were said. And I think it's so interesting. I think we've talked a lot about the benefits for personally and for others too, about having the courage to speak our mind, to take positions, even if they're not popular, to speak the truth. But sometimes that also comes at a cost. Like a friend might decide that you're not a good person if you have a certain belief, or that you're not kind again with that word, if you don't agree with something else. Can you talk about if you've experienced that and what your views are on that? Because I've experienced that recently, and especially the first time that it happened, that I just said what I believed in in something that at the time I didn't even realize was controversial, but it it had very heavy personal consequences. Um and it left me for a while not wanting to share my opinion because it didn't it didn't change my opinion, the other person's opinion, and I just felt that the loss in relationship was not worth that. But then when it happened again, I was left thinking, well, if they value our relationship so little that us having, I can't even say, you know, what my opinion is, then is that something, is that a relationship that is a positive relationship? And what would I, you know, what would I hope for my children? And a lot of times now that's a lens that I didn't have before, that I always have in the back of my mind, because I think sometimes we have higher hopes for our children than we do for ourselves. At least for me, sometimes I find that when I think about it that way, you know, would I want my my daughter or my son to act this way or to not feel that they can speak what they believe to save a friendship? I don't think I would want that for them.

Cynthia Overgard:

Well, there's so much there. Well, first of all, your friend's intended purpose worked. She punished you, she withdrew her friendship from you, kind of like a timeout, but not a temporary experience. And it worked. Got you a little scared to speak again. And this is what gets me feeling like I want to take a megaphone and get more vocal than ever. When I see bullying, coercion, manipulation, nothing fires me up like that. Nothing. I might fly under the radar, I might not get vocal on some hot issues. And then when something like that happens, I just feel like I don't know what. I just come alive. I think that is frightening. It's it's rhetoric when people say things like that's not kind, really. Like the party talking about kindness now in that situation. This is kind, how she's treating you. I don't have a friend in my life who would ever presume that we should share all the same opinions. Now, my friends and I do share the same morals. I do feel everyone close in my life, every single. And I have three of my best friends in the world are men, and three of my best friends in the world are women. So I have six extremely close best friends, and then a bunch of other lovely, wonderful friends that I, you know, I have lunch with, and all those people, I my my my primary and secondary group of friends, we have the same morals. I deeply know them all to be very good, thoughtful people. And there's no nonsense and rhetoric and anything that I wouldn't respect. There's interesting conversation, there's thought-provoking conversation. We're all explorers of things going on in society around us. I think it's easy to reflect on a life where you've never been called unkind before, and now suddenly you're being called unkind. Like you know your heart, you know whether you are a kind person. You know whether you care about humanity or don't care about humanity. I know I care deeply about humanity. I always have. I know I always know myself, I know my heart, I know the brain I've had every year of my life. I've always cared deeply about people, animals, whether I knew them or not. I've always prayed for the world, for anyone suffering. I always cared. So how can it be that you can take someone who knows herself well? And all it takes is someone to say you're unkind. What do you actually believe you know my heart? So, and the the things people are being called unkind for are ridiculous. And it's rhetoric and it's bullying. And people tried doing that to us when we launched our podcast. And that's what started to make me explore the topics that were becoming controversial in society. Because I like to speak when I'm I like to be really informed and I like to dive into controversies, and I like to know both sides of a controversy. Uh, whatever the controversy is, I really like to explore both sides. And man, when it's clear, like when it is clear what side the decency is, the ethics, without the rhetoric and the noise and the bullying, it becomes very easy to speak. So early on in the podcast, there was a, I think it was a British doula who contacted us and said, I love you guys, but I have to say, you're you sound a little, and she used a word I had never heard, turfish, T-E-R-F, uh, because you always say the word woman and mother. And I was like, what? And I looked it up, I looked up what it meant, and I was like, oh no, you don't. Oh no, you don't. You don't get to, you don't get to tell me what's going on in my mind and my heart. And you don't get to convince me that mother is a bad word under any circumstance. There is no way I'm eradicating the word mother and woman and female from this industry of childbirth and breastfeeding. There's no way that's happening. And if you want someone else to do it, go find the other podcast where they're doing that. But I'm not gonna be disingenuous or else I'm just gonna close the whole podcast. There's no purpose now. So everyone can find their own little niche. We don't all have to pretend we're here to be the voice of all people, please everyone. What do people want to hear? That's not my concern. I want to have interesting conversations with people. And for people who want to listen and find it interesting, beautiful. That's what the purpose of a podcast is. You can't try to be something you're not. And we need courage.

Emilia Coto:

Did you ever have, for example, when businesses are just targeted and essentially made to shut down, for example, if they have just a flood of negative reviews? Have you ever had to go through a campaign like that? And the other example that I'm thinking of is doctors right now with different data that's coming out on vaccines. And and I just recently watched an episode about the Henry Ford doctor that was doing the study, that he he said, I cannot publish this because I don't want to retire yet.

Cynthia Overgard:

So Because you're saying there would have been a backlash and he would have been forced into retirement if he shared the knowledge that he had. Yes. This is what I mean. This is why, this is what I mean a courageous person will do. A courageous person will say, What is my value if I'm not, if I'm not sincere, if I'm not really here to do the right thing? And if he actually had good information, good knowledge he felt the world would benefit from having, then it it's not, I it's easy for me to say, it's not fair to say you don't know anyone's circumstances, but I wouldn't want to act on that fear of what backlash there might be, because it's more compelling to me to want to share something that's beneficial. I mean, if you're so compelled, that's all. I'm not if that was his life's work and he had important information, then how could he not feel compelled to share it? I don't know the story you're referring to, but I don't really respect anyone who's afraid to just be sincere. I don't, I can't respect that. It's ridiculous. I just what why what are people so afraid of? And who are these people who want to give bad reviews and silencing and it's a ridiculous course of action that society has taken. It should be safe to talk about things. So I hope this trend comes to an end because it's unethical, and no one should come to your side of an opinion because they were bullied and coerced and manipulated into it with rhetoric and threats. You should have an intelligent conversation with someone. You should we should be able to have conversations with people rather than, and it's just so much of this is so much easier than it's made out to be. It's not complicated. Obviously, you know, so many things are just so basic and we're pretending they're huge controversies. I don't get it.

Emilia Coto:

One of the comments that you had made to me when I was sharing about my loss of friendship was that you said that we keep making better and better friends throughout our lives. What do you mean by that?

Cynthia Overgard:

Well, I really believe we keep making better and better friends throughout our lives because we can't help but to develop wisdom as we get older. I mean, some people don't. It's possible. You can have some older people who don't have wisdom, but most of us get much wiser every decade. Life experience is an awesome thing. And our hardest stories become our favorite stories. They really are. Like my favorite life stories were some of my very hardest times. So life is a really fascinating journey, and we do get wisdom. And with wisdom, we can identify people better and better, and which friends are treasures. When you meet a gem of a person, like when I meet a gem of a person, I feel like I can spot them very easily. And I want them in my life. I want to have a friendship with someone who I can tell is a really special person. I make new friends all the time. I'm having lunch tomorrow with a new friend. I'm always on the lookout for wonderful, special people, interesting people. It's just part of my lifestyle. And why do I say that happens throughout life? Well, it's your choice. But you know, in middle school, we're not making great choices because everyone is so afraid of being alone and they need some kind of community that they're going to grab the near, you know, the lowest common denominator. They're just going to grab a friend. If they're lucky, it's a really wonderful, long-lasting friend. But a lot of people just kind of grab a friend because they need somebody. And you do. But we should start raising the bar really high. And we should be willing to retire old friendships. If it doesn't feel right, I mean, if you show up to meet someone and when you're leaving them later, you should feel happier after having spent time with them. And if you don't, if you feel weighed down or anything negative, just forget it. As my mother once said to me, in life, there's hardly enough time to spend with all the people that we love. Why waste any time at all on people we don't?

Emilia Coto:

Oh, I love that. When speaking with you, something that's very evident is self-trust. And the way you speak about childbirth, you speak a lot about the importance of trust and trusting yourself, your body, your motherly intuition. Where do you think that came from?

Cynthia Overgard:

I had parents who trusted themselves completely. They had complete confidence in themselves as parents. My father completely trusted himself as a father, and my mother completely trusted herself as a mother. I think that was part of it. The other part of it is they raised me trusting me. They never told me not to lie. But I have a reputation with everyone who's ever known me since I could walk, that it was impossible for me to ever tell a lie. I'm a very, very honest person. And it's a very high value of mine in all of my relationships. I really search very deeply to be honest, even when it's hard to be honest. For example, like let's say, and this has happened throughout the years, let's say a woman who took my class emailed me her birth story, and I read it and thought, oh, you know, love reading these, and just didn't get back to her because I was busy or I read it on my phone and I thought I need to get back to her. Sometimes three, four, or five weeks would go by. And I would, I can't even tell you how bad I would feel if she would re-forward it. Hi, Cynthia, just want to make sure this didn't end up in your spam. Do you know how many people would say, oh yeah, so glad you resented it was in my spam? So many people would say that. I don't do that. So I work to tell the truth when it's uncomfortable to tell the truth. And in every case, I'll say, I'm so sorry. I did see it. I was so happy to read it, and I completely forgot to get back to you. And I'm so sorry. You had to look for a response from me all this time. It's not comfortable, but when you do that, people learn, first of all, they did they appreciate hearing it honestly. People appreciate honesty. You always know who you can trust. You know who the most honest people in your life are. You just know who they are and you know who they aren't. You always know the really honest people. I do in my life. I know the people who are virtually incapable of telling a lie. And I know the one, I know the ones who tell little white lies or they'll make excuses for things. You always know the people. So I think part of it is my parents never told me what to do. They just trusted me completely, and they made me trustworthy as a result. So as a mother, we can do the same. It's uncomfortable. But for example, this is a random example. I just am thinking creatively right now. But let's say, and I had moments like this with my kids. I just can't think of a specific example, so I'm making one up. But let's say, you know, I was in Trader Joe's with my daughter as a little three-year-old. And let's say that she wanted a granola bar from the shelf. It's mommy, can I have this? No, no, let's let's we're not having that. Uh no, but I wanted to, let's just say the child is really pushing back. I think the wisest thing to do in those moments is to say, no, no, please put it back on the shelf. And to look away, to look away and to take a step as though you're going to the next aisle. Now, maybe not with a three-year-old that's a bit young. Let's say a six-year-old, but you feel safe. Obviously, we're not talking about going out of sight. I'm saying if you're in the house, you look away. You ask them to do something and you look away. How many parents take it out of the child's hand? Or how many parents say put it back and they watch over the child? And might even say, you know, one, two, two and a half. It's their way of showing the child, I don't really believe you. I'm watching over you because I don't really trust you to do what I just asked you to do. And it's tough as a parent. Like that, you know, you need to make sure they brush their teeth. And you want to stand there when they're five years old and be like, I want to see you brush. I did you floss? Well, I would practice asking them to do something and walking away because anything else would be to demonstrate that I don't trust them.

Emilia Coto:

I'm curious to hear your opinion on how that plays into a few areas with postpartum in anxiety and depression. I know you have a lot of opinions on that that you've shared before, but do you think that is a part of lacking of self-trust or where? And I'm asking because the last my last birth, I had just randomly very intense postpartum anxiety in a way I've never experienced before, and I have no idea where it came from. And it was the strangest thing because it felt like it came out of nowhere fast, and it left in the same way out of nowhere fast. And you know, you played a big role in that, but I still wonder. Um, and I'll I'll just say I started having these really intense panic feelings that something was gonna happen to me. And it would, I constantly felt like I was gonna have a heart attack any second. It would come fast. I it was hard to pinpoint what was gonna trigger it, but it was it felt so real that I felt that I had to call 911 that second. And I didn't because I there I still knew that it was likely not gonna happen. I had a really um, you know, so I said supportive family. So I never identified with the lack of support aspect of why this was happening. And I would love to just know or hear your opinion on what why that happens sometimes and not other times, or well, it's funny.

Cynthia Overgard:

You started by saying I have strong opinions, and I thought, I do. Okay, but and then as you talked, I was like, Oh, I'm chomping at the bit. I have so many strong opinions. You're right, I you're right, I do. The first opinion I have is, and this is a very strong, forceful opinion, let me tell you, it has nothing to do with whether you trust yourself. Nothing postpartum, I was trained in perinatal mood and anxiety disorders through Postpartum Support International. And I learned a lot. But I have my own theories and opinions on things too. And one of my strong theories and opinions as well is it's not a disorder. I hate that we're calling it a disorder. We love to call everything a disorder. Everything's a disorder now. How do we call that a disorder? How is it a disorder for a woman to be incredibly stressed and overwhelmed and anxious after having a baby? What part of her life didn't change completely after having a baby? There's not one single thing about her life that isn't completely up-ended. And now she has someone she cares about and loves even more than she loves herself. And she always will until the day she dies and she knows it. So anxiety, especially worrying about something happening to you, that's a very real fear. That's a very real fear to have. And it's a normal one to have because you were appropriately bonded to your child. Now, the shame of it is that you suffered. You suffered with that fear, as women do, but you knew if something were to happen to you, no one could replace you. You are the most valuable thing in your child's life, and you know it. So, of course, it's natural to be absolutely terrified something can happen to you. For some women, it manifests in a fear of something happening to their husbands. But for a lot of women, it's something happening to themselves. I had that same fear. It's a normal response. So the reality is we're just the conditions around postpartum these days are so bad. And we also, we also want everyone to know this is not a matter of hormones. And I wish people would stop thinking it is. I hate when women are called hormonal. I hate when women call themselves hormonal. I hate when women cry in pregnancy and say they're only crying because they're pregnant. I never even told my children they were in the terrible twos. I don't ascribe to any of that. Feelings are real. If you're pregnant and crying, you are feeling something. Don't blame it on the emotions. If a woman is angry or moody or, you know, some women suffer with, I guess, PMS. I have a very close friend who talks about it all the time. Why are her feelings not legitimate? Why are postpartum struggles called disorders? It's not normal for women to come home with a baby and have absolutely no support, or at best, a partner or a husband who also knows nothing about having a baby in a society that gives no support to women, in a society where there's no more community and people just popping in, bringing food, hanging out, visiting, holding the baby, teaching you how to breastfeed. This is how it has gone through human history. And now to make matters so much worse, your generation of mothers has an iPhone in their hand. So who's not going to succumb to the temptation of entertainment or the dopamine spike? I didn't have iPhones, thank God. And sat for hours and hours and hours and hours looking at my baby. It was isolating and I was very eager to make mom friends. And I read lots of books and magazines in those days. And I'm so happy now. That was my experience because I would have been a sucker for that entertainment. I didn't have any of that. And I feel for women because that would have hurt me so much more. I would have felt so much lonelier. I don't know, it's a very tough time. So women just need a lot more support. And if we would only stop calling it a disorder, we might actually start taking her seriously. We might say, So what's going on in your relationship, in your home, in your lifestyle? Who wouldn't go halfway out of their mind if they woke up in a completely different body with someone 100% dependent on them, with needs constantly, with absolute sleep deprivation, with the inability to even leave the house and get groceries with any ease. And you could go on and on listing things. The one wondering about career money.

Emilia Coto:

But the first postpartum group of yours that I joined, you were sharing, and different women were sharing about their fears. And it made me feel less crazy because I kept thinking there's no way other people have this intense of a fear. But no one would know that about me either without me sharing it.

Cynthia Overgard:

Exactly.

Emilia Coto:

With I think a lot of the healthcare, in my opinion, has been corrupted in terms you see it in birth when certain decisions are made based on hospital policy that's made for profit. And in other areas like cancer, I feel the same way. And I I'm talking from my mom's experience with it. It seems that there's not a lot of trust on the patient and their ability to know what's right for them. They're sometimes spoken to in a way where they're not the doctor, and if they disagree with the with the traditional way of treatment, it's because you don't understand how beneficial this is, but not as much as given into the negatives of it or why someone might not want to pursue that. I would love to know what your opinion is specifically related to the cancer treatment. I think you've done such a good job at diving into the different aspects of birth. And I value your opinion on that topic as well.

Cynthia Overgard:

Big topic.

Emilia Coto:

Yeah, yeah. The perspective on healing and cancer and the treatment of cancer for someone that might not want to pursue the traditional cancer care treatment of chemotherapy radiation route.

Cynthia Overgard:

Well, there's so much to learn out there. And there's a guy with a great platform and podcast, um, Chris Wark. It's called Chris Beatcamp. Cancer. He cured himself. I believe it was stage three colon cancer, completely with diet, I believe. And he features people all the time, even with stage four who healed themselves. And there are places around the country where people go and change their lifestyle. And I mean, my main feelings are it's not, it doesn't matter what my personal thoughts are on this. And I have a lot of knowledge on the topic. I always have. I've always been very interested in that topic, and I know a lot about it. But the most important thing is for people to truly have informed consent. And every culture handles things like birth and cancer differently. It's just cultural. And our culture takes um, you know, a highly medical approach, and they kind of laugh at anything else. They kind of laugh at people who want to go more natural ways. But the idea of going the a natural way is to let your body's immune system start working and functioning properly. And it is remarkable what the immune system can do when given the tools. But most of our bodies are not in their optimal state. Most people aren't getting enough sleep. Most people have too much stress, their lifestyle is toxic, their food is toxic, they're eating too much acidic food, which doesn't even have oxygen in it, and we need oxygen in our bodies. I mean, that's how cancer is born. The book Ph Miracle gets into that. It's really fascinating, actually. I just feel as the patient, you need to know your right to informed consent. You have the right to decline any procedure or treatment. Now, what that person should do instead is their responsibility to figure out. But they do have the right to be supported with informed consent, with full knowledge. And it's it's always a slippery slope if our culture is saying there is no cure, we're just going to give you a bunch of stuff to, I don't know, their argument is like to drag it on as long as possible. Well, what kind of lifestyle is that now? And they don't consider the fact that there is healing. Now, so when you look at the research and there's tons of it of people healing completely from cancer, the medical community calls it spontaneous remission because they don't acknowledge that this person did a remarkable job with their immune system, whether they were doing saunas or wheatgrass or hyperbaric oxygen chambers. I mean, some people do really extraordinary things to heal their bodies. They go to great lengths. But why time and time again does the medical community just chalk it off to spontaneous remission? You might as well call it miracle. Well, this person healed by miracle. Let's move on. Just call it a miracle then. Because there rather than getting curious, I mean, if I were those doctors, I would want to know everything a patient of mine did to heal from cancer. Like, how did you do this? This is remarkable. We're going around saying there's no cure. So, how did you cure this? Because people do it all the time by the thousands. I just was in a women's group this morning, and a woman's cousin had stage four cancer in the summer. And she was asking everyone, please say a prayer for him. It's all over his whole body now and his brain. She just shared today, he's back home. He's cured. He was in hospice.

Emilia Coto:

Wow.

Cynthia Overgard:

It's a remarkable story. And you know, the doctors are just gonna say, Well, spontaneous remission, I guess. Okay, really? I suddenly you guys believe in miracles. Maybe there's a reason, maybe there's something this person did.

Emilia Coto:

Yeah, I would love to do some rapid fire to wrap up our episode. Okay. How do you want to be remembered someday, Cynthia?

Cynthia Overgard:

My thoughts are my children, right? I mean, the people I love. My children are what comes to mind. And the lessons I've taught them are important to me. But how I want them to remember me, I hope the people who are in my life know that they're loved by me. I hope anyone who's put any trust in me, including my clients, including my podcast listeners who I'll never meet. The vast majority of them I'll never meet. I hope anyone who puts their trust in me is better off for it. So, to whatever scale I've been able, I just hope that I have touched the world positively. That's what matters to me. Even the dogs I've fostered and rescued in my life. There have been 11 in the past 10 years. I just want to, we all change the world. We all come and make an impact. I really want so much for mine to be positive. How I'm remembered specifically, I don't know. I hope my kids remember that I raised them with a sense of humor. I'm really proud of that. I think a sense of humor is a really valuable quality in a mother and in any relationship.

Emilia Coto:

Any final piece of advice that you have for someone that doesn't feel as courageous but wants to become more courageous, how do you start?

Cynthia Overgard:

I guess if you're speaking out about something, speak out for the sake of not manipulating and changing others. Speak out for the sake of justice, like truly justice, not the rhetorical sense, not where everyone's picking aside and using rhetoric. What are you afraid of? Do you know how true you'll feel when you already know your heart is for a better world and you want to share truths about what's happening? I guess what I would say is, why are you speaking out? What's the purpose? We don't need everyone speaking out for the sake of speaking out. We certainly don't want to speak out to manipulate others, to isolate others, to shame, guilt others with rhetoric. If you really see injustice or lies happening, if lies are being published and you are being manipulated and swayed to believe something that isn't actually correct, those are things I like to call out. And I've started doing that when I see things that are published in articles that are outright lies. And I can say, oh, look at this. This is actually the truth, but this is how this was spun or shared. Look at that. Look at how we've all been manipulated all this time. Why is there an agenda? Why is there always an agenda? Why does every conversation, every societal debate become political? That I'll never understand. What are your thoughts on political affiliations? Everything becomes political. Like the Democrats choose one side, they're the environment, certain human rights issues, COVID. Why did why was there an instant divide?

Emilia Coto:

Yeah.

Cynthia Overgard:

So people started to feel politically homeless because they were just, well, am I allowed to question this vaccine without people thinking they know my politics or feeling I need to leave a political party in order to question this thing? I mean, it's just why is everything political? Think for yourself. That is one thing I have taught my children to do. And I'm not just using that in a cliche way. I taught my children from a young age, don't idolize anyone. Don't idolize a famous person because they're beautiful or cute or charming or talented. Don't idolize me. Don't idolize anyone. You can respect people, follow people, listen to people, but idolize no one. And another piece of advice I give that I feel really good about, a lot of people won't agree with this, but it is absolutely right for me. I teach my children to be politically independent, be an independent voter because the minute you choose a side, that side is going to tell you what you need to believe. There's going to be a momentum. This is what we stand for. Well, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I didn't sign up for any of a group of people telling me what my values are and what to believe. I did not sign up for that. So I'm an independent voter. And every single time I'm reassessing, reassessing, reassessing. And I voted on both sides of political parties in my adult life. And I'm very proud of that because there were times I thought the other side was off their deep end. And I thought, well, I don't affiliate with a party. I live my life according to my self-respect and my values. And I think everyone should do the same. And I think it's really weird. And I don't respect it how a whole party, they all agree on 15 different issues just like that. That's because the party told them what to stand for. Well, now you're not thinking for yourself. So what's that? What's going on there? That's that's insulting.

Emilia Coto:

I completely agree. I I feel the same way. And especially being an immigration lawyer, there's very throughout, I mean, ever since I entered law and chose immigration, it's very assumed that all my views are going to align with a certain political party because of the work that I do. And I really consider myself independent politically.

Cynthia Overgard:

Yeah, I think that's I think that's the way to be. Just trust your trust yourself to form your own opinions. No one needs to tell you what to believe or how to vote. Keep you try using your own intelligence and common sense. And when you don't know what you think about something, just explore it more. That's why I love podcasts because I like independent or Substack. I like independent thinkers. I don't want to be part of someone's agenda. I don't want to be manipulated. Yeah. I think we all have to be really careful of that. And nor do I want to manipulate anyone, including my own children. I don't want to tell them what to believe. I just, you just have to learn to recognize rhetoric, learn to recognize manipulation and pressure, and just stay clear on what guides you by your own self-respect. I think that I honestly think that's the key to everything. When you really have self-respect, everything in life gets easy. And I think that's all parents need to really concern themselves with. Trust yourself as a parent and raise children with the goal of them having self-respect and self-trust. And it involves letting go and it involves letting them, freeing them and liberating them to growing up and possibly having a different opinion from you one day. Well, look at that. Well, the parents are afraid of that. But what you're doing for them by giving them self-respect, now they're going to choose better relationships in their lives, the right career in their lives. They're going to feel better about every part of their lives because they're guided by their self-respect, which means doing the right thing and being true. What more can you wish for your children than that feeling that they can live with?

Emilia Coto:

For today's episode, Takeaways, I have many. True courage isn't about being fearless. Courage happens when you act according to your values, even when you're scared or uncomfortable. Cynthia challenges the pressure to get it all right as a parent, reminding us that it's hard to mess up our kids when love, ethics, and example lead the way. Cynthia shared how she used respect for herself and her children as a guide. The most powerful parenting tool isn't what you say, but how you act and who you are. Kids learn courage, honesty, respect, and integrity by watching you live it. If you want to encourage a certain characteristic in your child, the best way to foster it is by embodying it. By trusting yourself as a parent and a person, you give your children permission to do the same, fostering confidence, resilience, and self-respect. You can encourage self-trust in your children by modeling how you trust them. Cynthia invites us to question the trendy parenting advice and rhetoric that often disconnects us from our own intuition and values. We continually learn as parents, and we become better as we observe things about ourselves and our children. We can make significant changes in our lives this way. When it comes to your career, allow yourself to wonder and pursue the thing that is scary and a little bit exciting. Cynthia has followed this throughout her career and it has served her well. Cynthia knew that when she had children, raising them would be the most important thing to her. She did not want to delegate this role, and she was able to fulfill many of her career's aspirations both before and after children. We should be liberated to talk about our lives and our choices without apologizing. Talking about what matters to us does not equate judging others who make different choices. A courageous person will say, What is my value if I'm not sincere, if I'm not here to do the right thing? Good friends should leave you happier after having spent time with them. And if they don't and you feel weighed down, we should be willing to retire old friendships. We keep making better and better friends all throughout our lives because we get wiser. That's it for today's episode. Thank you for spending this time with me. I know how valuable your time is, and I hope you're walking away feeling encouraged to dream a little bigger about what's possible for your work and family life. If this episode spoke to you, it would mean so much if you shared it with another mom who needs this kind of encouragement. Make sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you want to keep the conversation going, connect with me on LinkedIn to search Emilia Koto. That's E M I L I A C O T O. Until next time, remember, motherhood isn't the end of your dreams. It's just the beginning.