Leading With Love 💕

Hello cadres here from what happened. We're on at 9 00pm at night. It is bedtime. And here is my doggie, ready to go. So my name is Anila. I am a co founder of a mental health tech company called Habitware. Hi Shannon. Hi. Speak Wonder. Happy. Yes. Happy Wednesday to you. Okay. My dog's in bed with me. Hi Jules. Good to see you. Let me know where you are in your house. I assume that you're at your house at this time of night. I'm in bed, getting ready to sleep. And my sweet dog is here too. Oh, oh, I have a kiddo too.

And my sweet dog is here as well. Wanna say hi, Einstein? Yeah, I could just do this. This is it guys. Leading with love. This is Einstein. I mean, talk about leading with love. Having a dog just blows my mind how much I love this silly little cute little fluffy thing. All right. Sitting in the recliner reading. Ooh, what are you reading? Tell us in the comments. Walking my dog on a gorgeous night. Oh, where are you, Shannon? Because it was raining and cold 10 minutes ago here in Minneapolis. Speak Wonder snuggled in for the night.

Yup. Howling wind. Oh wow. That's like a nice soundtrack to bed. So I am a mental health tech co founder here in Minneapolis. I have condition called trichotillomania, which is the compulsion to pull out hair. It's a self soothing mechanism. And I have learned that in taking control that to take control of this behavior as well as sister conditions of skin picking and nail biting and other behaviors where the subconscious is trying to help you get back to baseline by doing these, engaging in these behaviors that you don't really want to be doing.

I've come to understand that love is the answer. And so that's why this session is called Leading with Love. Optimistic and wearing a hat. Got it. I like that attitude. That's really, really great. That is Shannon. That's great because earlier Shannon said walking my dog on a gorgeous night. And I questioned that validity of it being a gorgeous night. Being in pretty much the same city as Shannon and knowing that it's cold and raining. So I appreciate that because you know what, those raining, the rainy nights are actually really quite beautiful when you're watching them from the inside with windows, etc.

So today, this evening, our family went to a school open house. My son is in, in fifth grade and you know, we're just exploring our options for middle school. So we went to a middle school open house. And thank you. I love this cardigan too. It keeps me nice and Warm. Thanks, Luke. And so today we went to a middle school open house, and the teacher, the principal, gave a really nice, you know, talk about the school and the structure and the format. And one of the things they also did was they actually printed out, they gave like, some information, but they printed out two sort of short sections of this book called Finding the Magic in Middle School, the Art of Companioning.

And it is by, Let me read by Chris Balm. And it was printed in 2022. And so the principal read this paragraph, which I want to read to you, and then I will explain why I believe it resonates with leading with love. But it says here, adolescents are here to transform not only themselves, but also you. So they're talking to the parents. Someone who is transforming is like a person on fire. If you spend enough time with them, you'll start catching fire. 2 this might mean that you get triggered by certain things they do, full of fear or outrage.

It might mean that parts of your own adolescence come roaring back out of your memory, replete with unfinished business, old hopes, and repressed experiences that still sing, still sting. Maybe we can get those experiences to sing once we look at them again. Right. Continues on to say it might mean a feeling of grief as you witness your own child moving away from you, growing into an adult and your own empty nest in sight. It might mean that you yearn for their freedom or their opportunities they have ahead.

And perhaps in connection with your own midlife wanderings, feel like shaking things up in your own life. However it manifests for you, you can be sure that unless you actively repress your inner self, raising or teaching an adolescent is going to stir things up within you. This is their gift. And of course it goes on. But that sentiment of raising a child stirs things up in you. That's not just true for adolescents. My kiddo is 11 and seven. And it is true from day one they're out of the womb, that the process of parenting a child that's been gifted to you is also a process of reparenting your inner child.

And so that's where the leading with love comes into play, is that a lot of times our relationships with our children are almost blocked or like confounded with our own relationship with our own inner child. And so we have to really take time to reparent our inner child, to make sure that our inner child knows that it is safe. They are loved. They are safe. Here now is one of my mantras in order for us to have a good, healthy, loving relationship with our children and I've seen in my own life. And I see it also, you know, just in other books and things like this that I read.

Where our children are kind of a mirror into the mess that we have. Where they talk about repressed. Where was it repressed experiences or the unfinished business. Right. Is that, you know, everything in life is coming to you. And I mean, I believe this and I think in order to make sense of the world, we kind of need to believe that everything good or bad is happening to us for a reason. And I think it's also true for the people in our lives of who. Of who we cross paths with. Why them? Right? What are they meant to teach us?

And I think 1000% with parents and children. You know, we think in this world that, oh, we're the adults, so we're in charge, we know best. But oh, man, the lessons these kids have for me day in and day out. I am the student, they are the teacher. He's laughing and it's. It's just wild. It's just wild that it's only in having them that I've been able to see things inside me that I didn't know were there. Dark things, yucky things, but that I've been able to re. Love. Relearn. Learn to love myself, Learn to love them.

And so I think we're just living in a time where a lot of people just haven't done that work and they don't love themselves. And they. If you don't love yourself, it's so hard to give love to anyone else. And so that's why leading with love is so important, because it's the only way we can show up for one another and it be helpful. And so that's what I got for you today. Leading with love really starts with reparenting that inner kiddo. And oftentimes that can only be done once you have your own kiddo to see what you need.

Anything to add? No, no. We are students. Yes. Our kids are the teachers. Yes. Speak wonder. I appreciate that. That affirmation back. So, yeah, I'm really glad that we were able to spend these few minutes together before bedtime. This really sat with me. Adolescents are here to transform not only themselves, but also you. And I think that's true for everything in life that's coming your way. I guess the other thing I'll share is a friend of mine in LA is, you know, messaged me on Monday and said, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna get laid off on Wednesday.

And today is Wednesday and she just messaged me and, you know, we've been kind of going back and forth, kind of just reaffirming faith and trust in the process and everything's happening the way it should. And so she just messaged and said, okay, I haven't been fired. I've been given, you know, X amount of time to find my next job so that, so that, you know, it can be kind of a nice clean break for her. So, you know, it's still happening, but it's happening in a way where they're appreciate showing appreciation, giving her that little safety net to be able to do it, to be able to, you know, move jobs in, you know, they're doing it in a loving way.

Right. They recognize that she's new to the company and to have that short amount of time on your resume and then, you know, the questions that sometimes that comes up that it's not her, it's the company, you know, startup, startup world, right? So again, that's leading with love and the, that idea of, you know, she asked me to pray for her as she was entering her office with her boss. And I said, I'm gonna pray, but I'm not praying for a specific thing. I'm just praying that you get the right outcome, that you need to move forward in your life, whatever that is, whatever the universe thinks that that is.

And so that's what came out of it, is she's going to leave this company, but it's not going to be in a way that's going to be negative to her ability to find a new job, which I think is a pretty good outcome. And that means she's on to something bigger and better. We have to trust in that. And that's leading with love too. So thanks for being with me tonight. Have a good one. I'm wishing you love, strength and awareness. And Einstein will say goodnight. Einstein, say good night. Einstein moves around.

Einstein, Einstein. Okay, we know who wears the pants in this relationship. Have a good night, everybody.