Women use own experience to help others
Parenting doesn’t come with a manual and it can present many challenges. Situations arise at every stage that parents don’t know how to handle.
Why is my toddler fussing? Why won’t my four-year-old son play with other children? Why won’t my 13-year-old daughter talk to me? The list goes on.
Trisha Savoia says knowing herself, becoming “absolutely aware,” and tapping into her intuition have helped her to better know her children.
Miriam Webster defines intuition as “quick and ready insight.” For Savoia, intuition is just that – listening to your gut instinct and not letting your fears or worries become obstacles.
Soulful parenting, Savoia says, is about being absolutely aware of your intuition and letting go of your fears. The concept is also about being aware of your child’s sensitivities.
Photo by Shannon Galley
Sitting in a busy coffee shop in northwest Calgary, Savoia, 39, sips a cup of tea and shares her journey to becoming what she calls, “a more intuitive soulful parent.”
Savoia is the founder of Absolute Awareness and the creator of The Soulful Parent and The Integrity Code, both workshops where she offers to help others find meaning in their own lives. She has also created a free ebook to share with parents online.
She offers programs for parents, specifically moms to help them “know who they are and open up their intuition to create their own fulfillment, meaning, and happiness.”
Savoia says when parents find their own intuition and know who they are, they can be more understanding of their children.
The costs of the workshops range from about $35 for group participants to $100 for individual sessions.
Personal journey
Before listening to her intuition, Savoia says she was a people-pleaser and a perfectionist. She says she realized she needed to know who she truly was.
“It started with the depression I felt, waking up everyday, crying,” Savoia says. “I realized I was running my life on ‘shoulds’ and ‘have-tos,’and I was numb to what I was really feeling.”
|
What does it mean to be a Soulful Parent? • Parent from our hearts instead of our heads Information courtsey of the Soulful Parent ebook |
She says from there she began to do a lot of soul searching.
Savoia is a mother of two children, her daughter is eight and her son is 10.
Her journey to soulful parenting started when she saw her fears impacting her children.
She tells a story of her young son playing by himself. She was afraid that because he was playing on his own that there was something wrong — that the other children didn’t want to play with him. Savoia says this was a turning point for her. She realized she was projecting her own fears of rejection and insecurities onto her son.
Awareness
Soulful parenting, Savoia says, is about being absolutely aware of your intuition and letting go of your fears. The concept is also about being aware of your child’s sensitivities.
Savoia says her two children are both sensitive in different ways. Savoia advises clients to know their sensitivities and use that knowledge in everyday situations.
Trisha Savoia, CHt, B.Ed, Life & Parent Coach advocates for people to remove themselves from the negative and encourages people to work in the positive.
Photo courtesy of absoluteawareness.ca
“Understanding our sensitivities means knowing and honouring ourselves better. For example, if you are sensitive to noise, you know to give yourself a time out when at a larger party,” she says.” If you are sensitive to getting your feelings hurt easily, you know this about yourself and can learn how to reframe things when this arises.”
When parents are learning about why their children may be struggling, it can reveal a lot about their own pasts and the insecurities that they are hanging onto.
According to a 2004 study, Meanings and Experience of Parental Intuition and Competence out of Florida State University, the power of intuition is something that is often overlooked in Western society.
The study states, “Understanding how intuition plays a role in parenting could potentially benefit the theories and practices of child rearing.”
The qualitative study found that parents thought intuition could be helpful to parenting but many couldn’t initially define what intuition meant to them. The study aimed to create more dialogue on intuition and allow people to see the value of intuition as “more commonplace” in society and parenting.
Helping others
Savoia advocates for people to remove themselves from the negative and encourages people to work in the positive. This is something that Calgary mother Corine Blain has applied to her life, through working with Savoia. Blain says she has seen a change in her family dynamic as a result of positive thinking.
“What she does is simple, but powerful,” Blain says.
Blain has been using Savoia’s methods for nearly a year. She started taking the Integrity Code workshop and says it blossomed from there.
Blain says she was a ‘venter’ and someone who would always tell her story to whoever would listen. She says this would “fuel her fire and frustrations.”
Blain says she was trying to control things and was giving off a lot of negative energy to her family, which she now sees prevented her from communicating effectively.
Others defining intuition
Rosanna Sardella is a registered hypnotherapist, certified transformational life coach and intuitive healer. She created the Emerge Centre for Inner Healing in Calgary.
Sardella coaches people to tap into their intuition, and says, “Everybody has intuition. We are all born with this channel.” She believes that “everything we are seeking lies in our intuition.”
She refers to intuition as “inner wisdom.”
Sardella says people should think about intuition like an antenna.
“In order to receive the station, where you want to go, you need that antennae to receive that information. Intuition is the internal antenna to give and receive information.”
Sardella says she was always sensitive as a child and always sought to find her purpose. She now helps others through her five-step programs to become empowered, listen to their own intuitions and find their purpose.
Like Sardella, Savoia hopes that her programs help fellow parents to find “inner peace and calm.”
“I have a passion for making an impact on today’s children so that they never have to grow to ‘recover’ themselves,” she says.
“We have a lot of past conditioning that has led us away from knowing who we are and trusting our intuition, and because of this as adults we come to a place of needing to ‘recover’ who we are.”