[E201] Why Cultivate Connection is Woven Through The Wooley's World

[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the Empowered to Connect podcast where we come together to discuss a healing centered approach to engagement and well being for ourselves, our families and our communities. We are so excited to be here today with Brandon and Nicole Wooley, two of our facilitators of our Cultivate Connection course. I'm Becca McKay here with Jesse Faris. And we're just so excited to jump in in today and just get to know you guys. We know you, but have our listeners get to know you and hear about your journey of becoming Cultivate Connection facilitators and then where you've taken that from there. And so the first, you know, first, can you just maybe introduce yourselves to the people? Where are you? Who are you? Who do we have with us today? Wooleys? [00:00:51] Speaker B: Nicole. And we Live and Brandon. [00:00:54] Speaker C: And we Live and Brandon. [00:00:56] Speaker A: Don't forget Brandon. [00:00:57] Speaker D: Oh, you guys will get to know Brandon just right. [00:01:00] Speaker A: That's right. [00:01:01] Speaker C: But yeah, we're in Jefferson City, Missouri. [00:01:04] Speaker B: Yeah, we have four kids. Three joined our family through birth and one joined our family through adoption. And they are our kinship family. [00:01:13] Speaker C: We did have seven at one point. That's a whole other story in itself. [00:01:17] Speaker D: Oh, you're trying to get us to invite you back for another episode? Is that what's already happening? [00:01:23] Speaker A: Right out the gate? Right out the gate. Okay, so Cultivate Connection is our. Is Empowered to Connect's kind of flagship parenting course. And you can take it through a local facilitator in your area, or you can come through facilitator training, kind of a train the trainer model, and we take folks through. And so the first question we have for you guys is, why did you guys sign up for facilitator training? You filled out a really long application. You told us a lot of information about yourselves. You waited, you made a big financial investment. Why did you decide facilitator training instead of just taking the class yourselves? [00:02:01] Speaker B: I like my thought process when I make any decisions. Like, I need all the details and I need all the information. And I don't know if there's a better way to have all the details and all the information unless you become a facilitator. And knowing what I knew about the process and the material, I knew I needed more information. I needed to be able to take it back to other families and support other families, because it's just, it's amazing. [00:02:31] Speaker C: Training for me, I think for me, you know, I feel like we both. She comes from a background of wanting to learn more, teach more. I come from a background of, you know, parents that are coaches and teachers and you know, we even co facilitated, you know, Bible study class. And not because we're the perfect Christians or the authority on anything. It was because we saw a need for like the age group and adults. And I learned more when you, you know, the teacher becomes the student. And I feel like it forces us as facilitators to dive in the material to grow more because we all want to be better. But when you're facilitator, you know, when you get into that part of the curriculum, I think it, it forces you to practice it, be more conscious of it. Not to be perfect, but just to be more habitual in that information. [00:03:33] Speaker D: And Brandon, I so identify with that. You know, Nick and I joke that the reason we became facilitators was so that we could take the course over and over. It was like, okay, what's the cheapest way to do this? Well, by facilitating it. Okay, so that way we were not like, you know, signing up every single time it's offered. Now we just get to offer it and we're taking the course along with everybody else when we offer it. It's a great way to be a student. [00:03:58] Speaker A: It really is. So for those listening who are curious about our process, every year we accept applications from people just like the Woolies, just like the Ferris, who are interested in taking facilitator training so they can take this curriculum back to their local communities. And so after the application process, we accept our cohort. We get, we field every, we follow up with folks, we ask a lot, a lot, a lot of questions. So be ready for that if you apply. And then we start training. What we call phase one is just taking the class Tuesday nights online. We do two modules at a time. So it's nine weeks of just taking the class. And we ask our facilitators to put their parent hat on first because this is a peer to peer class. So we really want them processing their own family dynamics, their own history, all the good stuff that is the course. And then we also, also have a connection group at the end where they split into small groups of other facilitators and they get to kind of digest the information. Like, okay, if I was teaching this section, here's a spot where I would get confused. Or oof, you guys help me pull on this one. I'm really still processing this idea. And so there's two purposes to that connection group time. One is to digest the information a little more as a facilitator. Two is, it's called a connection group because, hello, we want to empower our facilitators to connect with each other. And so that is something that's really valuable to us. I'm curious for you guys going through phase one, kind of like, what stands out to you from that part of our training process? What do you look back on and remember? What did it feel like to go through cultivate connection together? [00:05:41] Speaker B: I will first say it was nice to have a scheduled date night every week. Also, with that, we were doing something together that was really meaningful to both of us, and we were learning together so we could process everything together or and just talk about things that we hadn't talked about before because it brought new information into it. Presented information, not new, but maybe presented it in a different way for us to kind of process it and understand where we came from and how we're wanting to change our family. [00:06:16] Speaker C: And, you know, just to piggyback that. I think the main thing I remember is just it kind of, you know, you are wanting to both learn to be a facilitator, but also a better parent. But in doing that, it forces you to look at your own childhood, because what best. What better example from a child's perspective is your own perspective and experience as a child, whether you experience trauma or not, you know, like, what is that? And unfortunately, as you get older, you tend to parent the way that you were parented, you know, good and the bad. [00:06:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:56] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:06:56] Speaker C: And I think for me specifically, like, you know, very high structure, very low nurture. And, you know, it just forces you to kind of look at that and, you know, try to break the chain or take a different path. And so I just remember having to bother. Look very. I don't want to say very deeply, but look at yourself. [00:07:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:17] Speaker C: And in that way. And then be able to use those experiences to, you know, be better on your own. [00:07:24] Speaker B: Well, and it also brings, like, a common language to both of us. Because I'm a licensed social worker, he is not. So it brought, like, a common language, simplified it. But also with that common language, when he's being high structure, low nurture, I know I need to go to more nurture side or I need to rein him back in for him to go more to nurture Scripture. So it's like it gives us a way to balance each other that we didn't have before. [00:07:49] Speaker D: I love that, that common language. What are some of those things that after, you know, as you were going through phase one, that were most impactful, or maybe some of that common language that you got to add to your parenting together. [00:08:05] Speaker B: I wish I Had my book. [00:08:07] Speaker D: No, you're fine. Just come pull from your memory. [00:08:10] Speaker B: I think some of it is. It's just like for one like the cycle of attachment. That and understanding that every time that we're able to say yes, like it's closing that cycle of attachment. And just for him to understand that it's not about just saying yes. It's about closing that cycle for attachment and like what the power is of yes. And what does compromise look like? We're not going to respect a responsibility, which is what we were. He was more raised with respect and responsibility. I was raised more with dismissive but uninvolved. But what we're doing is it gave a different way to present it that we're not giving a consequence, but we're coming to a compromise for negotiation and to remain connected versus rejection. And I think that was something that we both struggled with growing up. And I believe our parents are. Did the best they could with the information and knowledge they had at the time. [00:09:08] Speaker D: Of course. Yeah. [00:09:10] Speaker C: Way to get a lot of grace there. I mean, nothing specific, just more so like I feel like the material. It's not a path to perfection. That's a path to parenting perfection. I always like alliteration. If I could make it work. [00:09:27] Speaker D: Way to go, right? [00:09:28] Speaker C: I mean, it's better branding. So, you know, there's no. It's not a path to perfect parenting, but it's just this. It just gives you so many more tools in your toolbox. Where I was used to parenting with a hammer. That's it. I had a hammer that was my tool. So you can't fix everything or manage little things with a hammer all the time. And so nothing specific. More so than, you know, just learning. Like, wow, there's. I didn't ever thought of it this way. Like there's so many different things that could give you, you know, also like a play in the playbook. It gives you so many different options to pull from, you know, not that I remembered all of them because she's a great reminder. She's the stenographer in the relationship, I promise. And you know, I got to take her word for it a lot of times, like when I did or didn't say anything, but anyway. But there's so many tools in there that it gives you to pick from to try to play with. And it's not always going to work, but you can adapt it depending on the child or the moment. And just it's so much valuable stuff to apply. [00:10:38] Speaker B: Well, and to speak specifically, I was just thinking Sometimes it takes me a minute to remember and pull the example in. But, like, when we have a kiddo that is needing sensory input and. Or they're trying to, like, regulate themselves, I'm able to say he's like, what is going on here? It's like, oh, it's sensory. This is totally sensory. So we can either let them do this or we need to put something else in place. And he's like, oh, sensory. I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah. And so he can come up with the alternative that's not going to be. Make us, like, cringe. But I think just having that, like, even just sensory. Because he had no idea about sensory until we took this course. [00:11:19] Speaker D: Yeah, I didn't either, honestly. I love. For those of you who haven't taken the course, there are lots of opportunities to kind of turn and talk to the people at your table or the person you're sitting next to. We lead this on zoom, as Becca mentioned, on Tuesday nights. And so that meant that Brandon and Nicole got to stop and turn and talk to each other about these things. So I also. I loved that you framed it as a date night. You really are learning more about each other. Maybe you haven't talked about the way that your family, you know, the family attitudes around food or the way that you like to play or, you know, what your own sensory preferences and needs are. All of those things are things we're learning about each other and our families. [00:12:07] Speaker C: And I could add this to, like, another thought. Another thought is. Is if you're someone that. Especially if you have a. It seems like your current situation is high stress in the home. [00:12:20] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:12:21] Speaker C: Are you struggling to manage, you know, a child with, you know, that, you know, needs a lot more attention and energy, then sometimes you can look at yourself so negatively, like, oh, I am not, you know, I'm certainly not someone that should be facilitating. Or I'm this horrible parent because it's so easy to take so many different singular moments, focus on that, and then completely devalue yourself as a person, a parent, and a spouse when really there's so many other more moments. Especially as a perfectionist like myself, let's say there's so many other moments that you give yourself no credit for. [00:13:02] Speaker D: Yes. [00:13:03] Speaker C: And it can create a lot of insecurity as a parent. But, like, going through the course, I think, too, at least for me, I was able to go, or at least Nicole brought it to my attention. She's like, oh, wow, you do that extremely well. Like, that comes so natural to You. So there are a lot of areas where I'm like, man, I am horrible. I'm the worst parent ever, because I do the opposite of that. I tear that down. But then there's a lot of them that she brought to my attention and we learned through the course and wow, you're really exceptional at that. And so she's able to turn to me in some. Some cases for those things. Anyway, I thought that was worth noting, too, from. [00:13:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:40] Speaker C: What you get out of the material. [00:13:42] Speaker B: It gives an opportunity too, because Brandon is amazing at place Playful engagement. And so, like, yesterday morning, we're having a kiddo falling apart because they didn't sleep very Well. I mean, 5,000 reasons, right? And I'm, like, starting to get to my wits end because the clock is counting and I've got to get all these things done. And he came in and, I mean, they're spawned out on the floor. He came in, he's like, do you want to get dressed with me holding your hand standing up, or do you want to get dressed upside down? And it was like, oh, God, he's such a genius, you know? Yeah, yeah, we just dressed her upside down is what we did. And she was good, laughing, having fun. But then I was able to be like, thank you for using Playful Engagement because I was, like, depleted. I didn't have another tool in my toolkit. But then I was also able to, like, give him words of affirmation and say, great job doing playful engagement. And you did great. [00:14:34] Speaker C: But if you're not physically strong, which I'm losing it. I'm getting older, you could drop your child on their head. [00:14:41] Speaker D: Right. Don't try this at home without stress. I do want to say two things I'm hearing that are really valuable. If you're listening to this and you're a dad or you're parenting with a dad or a partner, that's, you know, you're like, man, I would take this, but I don't know if my spouse or my partner would. I'm hearing two things that are really valuable. First of all, I really appreciate the sports ball reference of the playbook. [00:15:10] Speaker A: Right. [00:15:10] Speaker D: The playbook. Because it's so true. It is. It's not like Nicole was trying the wrong things. Nicole was trying some things. They weren't working. It's not always going to work. Not every tool works in every single moment. But to have another partner come in and just pull another play from the book, and you're working from the same playbook that's so valuable to be. And Nicole knew. Right. What he was doing. Right. Playful engagement. Genius. That's great. Let's go with it. And you can implement improv together. That's so valuable. I think the other one is it can create a lot of stress in a marriage for one partner to have all the information and then just be, like, banging the other over the head with it, you know, Like, I love Brandon, you talking about your experience of coming through and realizing, okay, I've got some work to do. There's some stuff I need to work on, and guess what? I'm killing it at these things. And for your wife to validate that and to know, like, one person in this parenting duo is not better than the other. You both bring strengths and you can both use them and, you know, leverage them in your parenting so that your kids get the best of you. That's not in a bad way. They get the best parts of you. So I just love that. And if you're listening and you're like, man, I want that for my parenting. I want that for my marriage or my partnership or my, you know, my family, my home. That's. I think you guys are really highlighting that. [00:16:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Something that stands out to me. Brendan and Nicole were in my connection group when we did facilitator training together. And something that really stands out to me about that specific connection group of people is there was so much, like, bouncing ideas off of each other and so much humility. And I think that a lot of people maybe feel held back about facilitator training because they don't feel like they've arrived yet. And I hope you hear from the Woolies and always from us at Etc, like, nobody's there yet. We're just all on this journey together, and it's just reminding ourselves of the different plays in the playbook, and it's just trying different things. Like, something that will work with one kid today, might not work with that kid tomorrow, or might not work with your other kids. And so just processing all of that. So I just love to, like, I love how y'all are highlighting the humility and just the openness that it takes. [00:17:22] Speaker D: Well, and here's the deal. There are lots of trainings out there, right? Like, there are so many parent trainings that are being offered. We were just at a conference last week, and, like, everybody's got a training, right? So why would you want to take. Cultivate connection? I think the fact that it is a peer to peer course is so valuable because it is what you're saying. Brandon's not Coming in as an expert. He's not licensed in this and that either. [00:17:50] Speaker A: She's coming in with her parent hat. [00:17:52] Speaker D: I mean, even though Nicole is a social worker, she's coming in as a parent. And you can take. You can listen to a lot of things from experts, but what I want as a parent is to sit down with other parents and for those parents to be like, I know, man. And to validate my experience and to like, understand where I am, because they're there too. And you guys have done that so beautifully. And I think it is the beauty of this course. [00:18:19] Speaker B: I think that's another thing. It's like when we were going through it, I did not feel like either one of you were like an expert. Like, you came with lived experience that I could relate to, which then created so much trust. I was like, oh, they do know what's going on in my home. They understand what's going on in my home. And I think that's why it. Being peer to peer is so valuable to families. [00:18:44] Speaker C: Yeah. I think it's more how, you know, sensing that more than. You know what I mean? Like, never sense that, oh, you're trying to push that you're an authority in. Because again, it's a facilitator, you know, not a teacher. It's facilitating. Because I think too, when you're. As a parent. Here's one thing I think people should hear is, especially as an adoptive foster parent, like, sometimes your world is crazy and it is unique and other people do not get it. [00:19:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:12] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:19:13] Speaker C: Even if you go to church, a lot of times people in your church do not get it. And if they, if you were to try to say how you feel. Some people look at you like you're crazy. [00:19:21] Speaker D: Yes. [00:19:22] Speaker C: And then it makes you feel like, oh, I'm crazy because I'm failing at this is how you feel. But really it's because they don't know these. The different behaviors that derive from trauma and those other things. And I think what this does it. You gotta understand that, like, people that are in your position are going through the same thing. Like an extremely high percentage of people. [00:19:47] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:19:48] Speaker C: No matter if they have tons of money or not a lot of money or the education background to support that or it's. It's kinship. It's. You're going through some level of crazy, if you will, in how you operate every day. And I just think like, this is a great. You bring people together to have a similar experience. That's one that you're going to find like, okay, we're all dealing with the same thing. This is not uncommon. I'm not on an island. [00:20:16] Speaker D: Yes. [00:20:17] Speaker C: And I am doing my best. And here we go. [00:20:21] Speaker D: And let's reset, people. [00:20:22] Speaker C: Embrace it. [00:20:23] Speaker D: We're not trying to be perfect parents like you say. We're. We're committing to be present parents. Right. And so we get to kind of press the reset button on that and talk about what it means as we. [00:20:34] Speaker A: Turn the next corner, the next part. So phase one is nine weeks taking the parenting course, building a little bit of community with that connection group. And then in phase two is really like, okay, but how am I going to lead this class in my community? And so we have three pretty intense days. And we've done it in person, we've done it on Zoom, but we really like to dig into. How can we be thoughtful about the way that we speak to and about one another? How can we. What do we do if we're leading this course or facilitating this course and someone is just dominating and they're like, they won't stop talking and they're dominating the space? Or what do we do if someone's so quiet or they stop coming? What are the logistics involved? What are the different pieces of putting this together? How do you get going? What's the spark in your community? So there's so many layers to phase two. It's also a time whenever you get to do a sample of a section of the material. So if that's something that you're nervous about, you get to do that with your connection group. The people that you've built trust with and that know you and love you and you just get to encourage one another. I love that you highlighted that earlier, Brandon. Like, this is not about, I'm terrible, horrible, awful. Alexander's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. I'm a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad parent. I'm going to be a terrible. That's not what humility is. Humility is we all have room to grow and we all have strengths. And so phase two is really trying to build on those strengths and take away some of the jitters about getting going. I wonder if you think about your phase two experience. If I'm not mistaken, we were 100% on Zoom for Yalls Co cohort. So it was three long days on Zoom. But I wonder if there's anything from phase two that stands out to you, whether it was helpful, challenging, just anything that kind of pops to mind when you think about your experience. [00:22:25] Speaker B: I think for phase two, it. I just became more comfortable with the material. [00:22:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:22:31] Speaker B: And Brandon is way more social than me, I think. And so I was able to kind of like, he was able to help me and remind me things and, like, keep me on time. Because we're kind of both wordy. We'll be honest. [00:22:46] Speaker A: You're in good company. [00:22:47] Speaker D: I know. We all know Becca and I are wordy, so you're fine. [00:22:51] Speaker B: It's hard, but I think it was just getting more comfortable with material and also how to implement it into our community and how do we do that and what does that look like? I don't think you. I felt, and I will say now, even now, I feel really, really supported by empower to connect when I, you know, questions or I ask things or I have new ideas of how we can support families and get this information into people's hands and what that looks like. So I think it's. For me, it was just not just the teaching part, but also how to take it into my community because that was where I was struggling when I signed up. [00:23:30] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:23:30] Speaker B: It's like, how do I get this into my community? And Becca, there are all these beautiful emails. I don't know if you've wrote them, but, like, there's all these emails so you don't have to recreate the will. The will is already created with the language that we want communicated to families and to our community. [00:23:46] Speaker D: Yeah. I'm glad you've enjoyed those resources. [00:23:49] Speaker A: That's good. Anything stand out to you? [00:23:51] Speaker C: Brandon gave her an opportunity to try to convince Manny to quit my career and help her, you know, do this full time and reach other dads and. [00:24:03] Speaker D: Okay, but let's talk about that, y'all. Tell me, Brandon, about your career. Tell me about Nicole, kind of what you're doing and. And what you were trying to convince Brandon to join you doing full time. [00:24:15] Speaker C: I mean, I. I've been doing mortgages for 18 years. Licensed financial advisor. Even though I have a parent or a partner that does 100 of that, own a credit repair company, I feel like I have another company that does 100% of that also. But, you know, it's something I can do in my sleep and I'm really good at it. And just. It's hard to make that transition full time. Even though I believe in the purpose and the passion and as a parent and a co parent, you know, in a, you know, terms usually means that people are divorced. But as a co parent in my. [00:24:49] Speaker D: Home with my wife, we're all co parenting. Yeah. [00:24:52] Speaker C: With a partner, it's, you know, I. I Have the passion for it, and I see it and it's so. I, I'm slowly working to contribute in a way that I'm more supporting her doing it where I can come in. And I, I do see a big need for men to have an avenue of, you know, somebody that's like minded and, and can. And talk to them and. [00:25:18] Speaker D: Okay, tell me. [00:25:19] Speaker C: Yeah, Okay. [00:25:20] Speaker D: I have so many things I want to say. First of all, I need our listeners to know that every time you guys joined on Z, your name was the Mortgage Master, the Master of Master of Mortgages, llc. I was saying I was getting. We wanted our. We wanted to rename ourselves on this Zoom, the Master of Mortgages. You know, just, just a callback and I forgot to do it. [00:25:43] Speaker B: That would have been hilarious. [00:25:44] Speaker D: Yeah, I know, we loved that about your, about your Zoom name. But I love that you're bringing your real life, the thing that you're good at, and you're like, it all goes together, right? And you wouldn't think mortg and empowered to connect fit together. But tell me a little bit more about the value of the dad voice, Brandon. I think that's important. [00:26:08] Speaker C: So the dad part, I just, you know, I think I'll double back here a little bit, like, on our faith. Like, one of the things, like between Nicole and I, you know, before we got married was I said, you have to be a Christian. She's like, why? And I was really horrible in answering the question and because she was not raised in church. And so she pursued that without me knowing. So it told me she was doing it on her own. Not for me, not for a marriage. It was for her to explore that. And then she only. The only reason I knew was because it's, hey, she's getting baptized January 15th on a Wednesday night. I remember it, and it was a big deal because now I, you know, I mean, I'll just admit, like, I feel like I struggle in my spirituality between managing home, managing the crazy, crazy mortgage business right now and, you know, being commissioned only for 18 years. And, and so I feel like she kind of leads that. And I don't believe in that. I do believe that the man has to, you know, somewhat lead the charge there in being a spiritual leader in the home. And admittedly, I struggle with that. And so I feel like a lot of us struggle as men in today's society. I feel like we struggle to be more firm in decisions that we make and not that we shouldn't be sharing those decisions. I, you know, I do believe that's something we do. But she's pulled me along in that way. And I feel like men struggle to collaborate or, you know, co parent in that way. It's kind of like, well, because I'm not a. I'm not a big nurture guy. Again, that's something I have to be really, really focused on. So her emotional intelligence is extremely high. Right. Mine's not. And, you know, no matter how smart you may be in a lot of areas, like I'm not. My emotional intelligence is just not that high. And I feel like a lot of men can relate to that. And it's hard for one parent, you know, to pull all the weight. And even though I'm not. I can't even say I'm 50. 50. Like, she. She is so amazing. Nicole is, you know, like, I'm kind of riding her coattails, but I'm committed. And I feel like a lot of men want to commit and they may not know how to best commit. And again, we're hard on ourselves. Right. And you know, we work, we want to provide for the family, but we're not sure how to co facilitate. I try to come with the right word. [00:28:48] Speaker D: Yeah, I love. You said collaborate, and that is the. [00:28:51] Speaker C: Parenting part at home. [00:28:53] Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah. [00:28:54] Speaker B: And not just that. I think too, you want to protect me and the kids. And I think. I think most men feel this desire. Not most. I would say the men that I know want to protect their family. And I think it's hard when you feel helpless. You don't have the tools, you feel isolated. And so I think just having the tools to use so you are able to protect your family. [00:29:28] Speaker C: But also, like, I think a lot of it too, is I didn't realize that that's what I was doing. [00:29:32] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:29:32] Speaker C: You know, if I was short fuse and I was not applying the tools, you know, reacting, you know, versus just simply responding, reacting to a situation, like getting mad because a child's doing this. It's not because I'm mad at the child, because I felt like they're being unsafe. I felt like they were being disrespectful to Nicole. But a lot of that is, you know, not understanding where it comes from. Yeah, I was wanting to create safety. I was wanting to create protect my wife. And it's just learning, okay, that's where it's coming from. Not that I'm a horrible parent, but if I realize what is spurring that reaction, I could be more conscious of that the next time. And I think as men again, we. We struggle to, again, if we don't have a high emotional intelligence, it's hard to know, okay, why are we doing certain things or avoiding certain things? And when you can understand, that doesn't mean you can't be masculine. It just means that, hey, you have a better understanding of how to be better at those things in those situations where you can still create safety, still support and protect your spouse, but also be able to, well, cultivate connection in that moment with something simple. [00:30:53] Speaker A: I love how you're highlighting something that's so important. Parents want to be good parents. [00:31:00] Speaker D: Yes. [00:31:01] Speaker A: Parents want their kids to thrive and be healthy. Don't hear what I'm not saying. I'm saying parents. All parents, think of a parent. Think of a parent that you think is doing a great job. Think of a parent that you think is doing a terrible job. Parents want the very best for their kids and their families. What you're saying is that you were trying two different ways to get there, and this allowed you to come at it from a different perspective and be on the same parenting page. And that's just super, super, super valuable, super important. It's not that, hey, you're a bad person and you hate your kids, and you're a good person and you love your kids. That's not what's happening in homes. What's happening is we do the best we can. Like, we do the best we can with what we have. You said it earlier. Lots of times we revert back to just how, like, we were parented. Like, whether that was a positive or negative experience, we just kind of go back to it. As we turn our last corner here, you guys went through phase one, you went through phase two. You processed, you learned. You shared so much with a cohort that you were part of. You were so encouraging and humble and kind to the folks that you went through this with. And then you went back to Jefferson City and you were home and you had this material. And this is a really important turning point for a lot of facilitators. Lots of facilitators go back, and they're not sure where to start. And I think that's a common experience. It's hard to know what your community is ready for, what you're ready for. Nicole, you got going pretty quick. After you finished your training. Can you tell us, where did you first take cultivate connection? And how did you. How did you find that partnership? How did you make it work? [00:32:42] Speaker B: Work Headship? It is my siblings, kiddos that we have brought into our home. And just looking at all the dynamics And I just felt really, really led that we need to go upriver. [00:33:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:00] Speaker B: That I don't. We don't have mental illness. We don't have financial issues. We're. We're able to feed our kids. We have vehicles. So we have a lot of positives that other families are not dealing with. A lot of strengths or. I don't know what word I want to use there. [00:33:18] Speaker C: We're blessed with. We feel like a good amount of resources. [00:33:22] Speaker B: I come from a family that has a long history of unhealthy choices. And so with that, I decided to make things different for my family. I can only change what I can change and only know what I know when I know it. And so raising my brother's children and just thinking about other families, if my brothers or other first families had this information, how could that change them? How can it change all of their relationships? And what does that look like? So there's an organization, it's called the Healing House of New Beginnings, and it's for women that have struggled with substance use disorder and have gone through. And then they create this community inside the community. It's amazing. And I just had it put on my heart multiple times that that's where I needed to go. I needed to go there. And so I. I had only heard about them one other time. I knew nothing about it prior to that. And I just kind of knocked on the door, and I had a whole bunch of toys to donate that were really good toys that we just outgrew. And. And I asked them if I could talk to them about this course that I would love to share with them about cultivating connection and what that looks like. And that if you have kids or you don't have kids, I think this would be valuable information for the women in this program because it's really about relationships and connection. How do we say connection mode versus protection mode? And understanding how our past has influenced our future, our current time, and our future. And so that's how we ended up starting there. And the women come and go, but we had. From the beginning to the end, we had 16 women. 16 in the picture. I'm not good at details or numbers, but we had 16 women that showed up every single week and shared. And we met for 14 weeks together, and they asked questions, and they had a lot of moments of epiphanies, like, wow, this makes sense. I understand this. I'm more aware. And then they're practicing the skills with each other. We're modifying the activities for them to do with each other. Or with their kids when they get to see them. Because the moms in this program, some of them have children that live with them. Some of them have children in foster care or living with a family member. And some of them, unfortunately, the relationships are extremely strained. And so how do we support all of them? [00:35:58] Speaker D: I love that. [00:35:59] Speaker C: Hey, any applying it in their employment as managers or with their managers or. [00:36:05] Speaker B: Co workers and how it brought just. How it brought compassion not to just themselves, but how then they were able to have compassion for other situations that came up in their life. Like, oh, let's be curious. Like, they're like. Because being curious is one of the connecting practices. And so they were like, oh, I can be curious here. Or when their roommate was having a hard morning. How do I use playful engagement? And just how those skills, even now when I see them, there's hugs, always hugs and always. Thank you. Because it is life changing when you have it all in one little box. [00:36:41] Speaker D: I love that. Hey, would you just in general share how you adapted the band aid ritual? This is one of the things that families can take at home from our. From our course and around the idea of giving and receiving care. Tell me how you adapted that for all of these different scenarios of parents with their children. [00:37:05] Speaker B: So some of them kind of paired up or heard the stories or kind of thought about if they didn't have kids. They thought about, like, where their wounds were and where bandaids should go on their body wherever they put band aids. And what would they have liked to have heard? You know, so like one line that I have said to my kids is, I am so sorry that my choice has hurt you. I never meant to hurt you. So kind of just that reflection of what would have been good for them to have heard or what words would they have liked to have heard when they were little? But one of the moms, well, two of the moms that have their kids with them, they're older kids. And so what they did is they put band aids on piece of paper and the daughter wrote what hurt? And then the mom wrote an affirmation and empathy and compassion statement back to the kids, back to her daughter. She did. And so just understanding that the closeness and proximity was too much for them, but yet they were able to still practice and do the exercise by putting the bandmates there and verbalizing and having that moment of saying I'm sorry. [00:38:15] Speaker D: That's so powerful. I remember when we read, you know, Nicole's been giving us feedback as she was doing this, and we read it over at Empowered to connect. And I got teary. I mean, it was amazing to think about the way that you've creatively used this and the difference that it's making in people's lives. [00:38:35] Speaker B: Well, in another story, a mom, we were talking about, like, behaviors, because we do talk about behaviors in the class, like, what is a behavior? And she had told me a few weeks before that her daughter would write her notes sometimes, and her daughter had big emotions and went to her room and then would not come out for hours. This kind of the pattern they had. And I said, she's like, I cannot. Then told me all the things she tried. She exhausted it, Right. And I said, what if you just drew a heart on a piece of paper and slid it under the door and wrote mom and nothing else? And so she did it, and she came back and she told me the story. Like, her daughter came out and they were able to connect. Her daughter was angry, but her daughter felt seen and heard. And it just. And I think of other stories of, you know, women thinking, like, why are we doing this? This is, like, crazy. But then how a grandma was able to pull her grandson into connection and keep him safe at a park one time. Just lots of great stories of how they used it and how they're still using it and how they're still talking about it. And then Brandon. [00:39:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I was gonna say. I was gonna say Brandon wasn't there for the whole time, but you did play an important role, and I would love for folks to hear how you stepped into the space. [00:39:54] Speaker C: Well, I played daddy at home. [00:39:57] Speaker A: That's right. [00:39:58] Speaker D: That's our kids. [00:39:59] Speaker A: It's an important role. [00:40:02] Speaker C: But she knew she was going to have to travel and be out of town, and so it was all scheduled out. We figured out the time for him to do it all, but, you know, which class I would be teaching. And then there was another one where we did. So I taught one of the. One of the modules, or maybe it's two. Two modules you talked to. [00:40:24] Speaker B: One was planned from the very beginning, so I knew it was going to be gone. And then I got an opportunity to speak at a conference for professionals and parents. So we had to, like, figure out what we were going to do. And we didn't want to run the course all the way through summer. Yeah. So how do we fit, me being gone to take this opportunity and still provide. [00:40:43] Speaker D: I love that you got to know your subs. Yeah. [00:40:46] Speaker C: Then we did a finance class and, you know, talked about credit, budgeting and spending. You know, those. And mortgages. Yeah. [00:40:57] Speaker D: Yeah. So valuable. [00:41:00] Speaker C: Yeah, it's up my alley. You know, I can talk about that and sleep. So. [00:41:04] Speaker B: But you were able to tie that also into, like, the emotions of why are we being impulsive or why are we spending money? [00:41:12] Speaker C: Sure. Is that what we're talking about now? [00:41:14] Speaker D: Oh, third episode. Okay, so I see how you're stringing us along here. [00:41:20] Speaker A: No, you have to give us the summary. Come on, we gotta go there a little bit. [00:41:23] Speaker D: Summary, Come on. [00:41:23] Speaker C: I mean, I, you know, and I taught a, you know, master your money. Right, master your money 101 class before. And the premise around it is not directly budgeting, but more so around the. The emotion around money. And I think that people don't realize, like, how much trauma and insecurity, all these things psychologically that determine, like, how you manage your money and how you spend it. You know, you can make all the money in the world, but if you don't manage it or do things where you're disciplined or confident in what you're doing, then it could all be for nothing. And so the. One of the key things, especially with this group, right, where they're. Some of them were incarcerated for a long time, they don't have their kids. There is, and there is a ton of shame and trauma that these, that these women had experienced themselves as children and then as adults, and then look at their children experiencing some of the same things. And so like many of them in a place where they can bear and be very, very hard on themselves. And, you know, shame. And those things can create some very, very bad habits. Right? Like one not believing in yourself to work harder for a promotion, for an education, to make more money. But also it can lead to a place of feeling empty and going and buying something to fill a void that lasts for a day or whatever, and something that's really meaningless. And then next, you know, you don't have money. And then guess what? Then what happens when you have to go get new tires on your car? You don't have money because you're spending it trying to feel better before on something that really you didn't need. And so this cycle, you know, and then you feel more shame potentially, because you're like, oh, man, what kind of person am I? Because, oh, I don't have enough money to buy a new car seat for my kid or do do this or whatever it may be. And so a big part of it is saying, hey, especially for this group, they've done so much work. And spiritually, by the way, the same church, it's just Impressive to see how far they've come, you know, up to the class. Not even without the class. But yeah, you know, like, just say, hey, like, because a lot of them are in a place where they may not be making as much money, you know, or they have some of those habits. They owned a home and lost it. There's so many different things that they could certainly make a roster of things that say, I'm not worthy. I'm never going to be financially stable or flu, you know, flush or wealthy. And really, it's just not true. And so, you know, I. I just taught them the legit, you know, the logical part of it, of how credit works. I taught them, you know, a basic, logical thing around, you know, looking at how much you make paying yourself, reward yourself, instead of spending it, pay yourself, give yourself a reward for working hard that week or accomplishing a goal. When you reach so much in savings, then go get the thing that you want and make those goals, too. Because it's hard to make goals when you don't feel like you're worthy of those goals. [00:44:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:44:52] Speaker C: So write out those goals and then. And work towards that. But also be conscious what you spend money on, because again, it all ties back into how you feel. And so where you are mentally. Sorry. [00:45:06] Speaker B: Sorry. We. When I came back, they were telling me everything, and I had pointed out to them that I had a little bit of a Starbucks problem. When we had kids. When we had six kids, I had Starbucks. I put the kids in the car. I would get two, three, four Starbucks a day. Now what I was doing is it's craziness. I mean, craziness. Right. And. But dig a little deeper. What is Starbucks giving me? It was giving me connection. It was feeding me. It was a moment of joy. And so I was doing Starbucks three, four times a day because it was nurturing me. And what does that look like when you're doing different things? So connecting, like, why? How are we spending our money and what is that doing for us to identify what it was? And so I finally identified it was nurture. So I just had to figure out how to fill my nurture bucket up versus going to Starbucks three, four times a day. [00:46:04] Speaker D: And that's why they call him the master of mortgages. When can we take your course, guys? I would. I. I'm like, this is so valuable, so valuable. [00:46:15] Speaker A: I just think it's so human. Everything that we're talking about is just so human. There is what we bring with us. There's shame, there's behaviors that we don't like from our kids or from ourselves. And if we look a little deeper, like you're highlighting, there's a need behind that behavior. And so when we can meet that need in appropriate ways, it just frees us up to flourish and to grow and to thrive. [00:46:40] Speaker D: And I love that you've mentioned kids are no kids. This is about how we relate to ourselves, the deepest part of ourselves, how we relate to everyone else in our lives, whether we're. Whether it's in parenting or not. So, man, y'all have just threaded it all the way through your life, and I love that. [00:46:58] Speaker B: Well, and then when I was gone the second time. Brandon is not as. He's great at facilitating and very comfortable facilitating, but he wasn't as comfortable with the material. You want to talk finances, he's got you all day long. But when you come to talk about parenting, this is harder for him. So we scheduled it out so he would do. Excuse me, he would do a course that he was more comfortable with. And so that was. He was more familiar with that he could give true, accurate stories and experiences of himself. And I was available via Zoom, but I really didn't do very much except for ask him a couple questions. Sometimes I'm like, hey, did you mention this? [00:47:39] Speaker D: Don't forget this, as we do co facilitating. I mean, Becca and I do that with each other and we co facilitate. [00:47:45] Speaker C: One thing I struggle with is being so open and honest and raw about my experiences. Right along with my sarcasm. [00:47:53] Speaker D: But we love your sarcasm. It. It's playful. [00:47:56] Speaker C: I think it's very. I just think it's key to where you're able to like, share. I mean, I don't know. I don't know any. Any other way to be than real, raw and relevant where. Yeah, I just, I don't know how to be. I can't feel like a fake and a phony. So, like, when you're giving those examples of just knowing, like, you're not a horrible person by sharing this, because I guarantee you most of the room is in it or done it. [00:48:22] Speaker D: And that's one of the things we talk about in phase two, right? We talk about you've got to give the real hope. So, you know, we're going to share some of our failures and we're going to share some of our successes because it's. We're not. We're producing both on any given day, from moment to moment. [00:48:39] Speaker A: Man, just love, love you guys, love your hearts for the community that you're in. As we kind of wrap up here Today, I wonder if there's just one last piece of advice or encouragement that you would give folks that are looking for some of that real hope, whether they're thinking about cultivate connection facilitator training or not. What kind of encouragement would you want to leave folks with today? [00:49:01] Speaker C: I would just say no matter where you are as a person, as a parent, as a spouse, and I know I'm kind of repeating this a little bit, but, you know, we're. They used to say there's two certain things in life that's death and taxes. I think there's three. And that's the fact that we're. There's nobody on this earth that's going to be perfect. So no matter where you are, who you are, where you want to be, there's always room for improvement as long as you're waking up with breath in your body. And you can make that choice every day. And just I encourage people to make the choice to not look at yourself as not worthy, not good enough, and realize that, like, we're all here to connect. We're all. I mean, that we're born. It's physiologically in our body is to be connected to other humans. And so by embracing this, either as a parent or as a facilitator, you're doing that. You're doing it both for yourself, because if you're stronger, everyone else around you will be stronger. So you're doing it not only for yourself, you're doing it for your spouse, if you have one, or partner, or you're doing it for your kids or anybody that you come in contact with. [00:50:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:50:15] Speaker C: Will benefit from your choice to try to do something better every day. [00:50:22] Speaker B: For me now, I'm gonna try not to tear up because I have worked on myself for years. I mean, years and years. And I think cultivate connection was able to put this information in a different way that helped change my family to be the family that I want to be. I want my kids to want to come home, and I want my kids to want to come see us. And I want to be a part of their life now and in the future. And that starts with the end in mind in the beginning. Stephen Covey, I can't remember exactly the quote, but beginning with the end in mind, that's what it is. And so I just am very thankful for cultivate connection and for the work that's put into this. But if we're thinking of the end in mind, this gives me hope that we can do it because we know how to repair we know what happens. We rupture and we can repair. And what does that look like for our families? And as for teaching it, I have to stay in this. I have to, I think I open my empower connect. I pull from it almost daily with anybody that I'm talking to. Keeping it in the forefront of my mind makes me more present, more aware and the type of parent that I want to be. [00:51:42] Speaker C: And I like to add to that too. I mean, when you look at our physical muscles, the way they grow is there is rupture, there's tear. Yeah, that's what you do when you do weight training is you literally are tearing your muscles so they can grow and grow stronger. And like you, you cannot be afraid of your own or others brokenness because brokenness is really what creates a mosaic, that brokenness together. If you can find things to pull it together, connect it. Right. I just love it. Connect it. Then you create a beautiful piece of art from your own or someone else's brokenness. And I think you just can't shy away from it. [00:52:22] Speaker D: You guys are creating art everywhere you go. I mean, just thank you for, thank you for committing to make your family stronger by working on yourselves. Thank you for committing to make art in the places where you're going and strengthen other parents as you go along. It's been beautiful to see. [00:52:42] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:52:44] Speaker A: Thank you guys so much. What an encouragement. If you're interested, go ahead and head to empowertoconnect.org We've got information about Cultivate connection. If you live in Jefferson City, reach out to the Woolies or find a facilitator near you or sign up to come through the facilitator training that we're going to have forthcoming. So head to the website and check it out. Thank you guys so, so, so much for sharing. [00:53:08] Speaker D: We love you guys. [00:53:09] Speaker C: Thank you guys. Appreciate it. [00:53:16] Speaker A: We hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, the best way to support us going forward is to subscribe. We'd love to hear from you, leave a review, drop us a comment or email us to let us know what you hope to hear in future episodes. Thank you to Kyle Wright, who edits and engineers all of our audio, and Tad Jewett, the creator of our music. On behalf of everyone at. Etc, thanks for listening and we'll see you next time on the Empower to Connect podcast. Until then, we're holding on to hope with.