50 | Conscious and Confident Co-Parenting with Mikki Gardner
50 | Conscious and Confident Co-Parenting with Mikki Gardner
In this milestone 50th episode, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Mikki Gardner, a conscious parenting coach, bestselling author, and host of the Co-Parenting with Confidence podcast. Mikki's journey from navigating a challenging divorce to becoming a beacon of guidance for moms seeking a new approach to co-parenting is truly inspiring.
Mikki unveils her powerful three-step framework – Awareness, Agency, and Aligned Action – offering practical tools to transition from chaotic reactions to calm, grounded, and conscious choices. Through relatable examples, Mikki emphasizes the significance of pausing, gaining agency over our decisions, and taking actions aligned with our vision for peaceful co-parenting. Her new book is a guide filled with wisdom, resonating with anyone seeking emotional freedom and a more harmonious co-parenting experience.
Join the conversation as we discuss:
Creating intentional, joyful, and ease-filled lives after divorce.
Addressing anger in co-parenting through authenticity and self-care.
Breaking free from the cycle of people-pleasing and creating positive changes within oneself.
Building confidence and resilience in the co-parenting journey.
Mikki’s three-step framework for peaceful parenting
GUEST INFO:
Mikki Gardner, Conscious Parenting Coach, the host of Co-Parenting With Confidence Podcast, and Bestselling Author
Website | Instagram | Facebook | Mikki’s Podcast Co-Parenting With Confidence | People Pleasers Guide to Co-Parenting Well
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Intro: Welcome to A Pleasant Solution, Embracing An Organized Life. I'm your host, certified life coach, professional organizer, and home life expert, Amelia Pleasant Kennedy, and I help folks permanently eliminate clutter in their homes and lives. On this podcast will go beyond the basics of home organization to talk about why a clutter-free mindset is essential to an aligned and sustainable lifestyle. If you're someone with a to-do list, if you're managing a household, and if you're caring for others, this podcast is for you. Let's dive in.
Amelia: Welcome to Episode 50, Conscious and Confident Co-Parenting with Mikki Gardner. Mikki Gardner is a conscious parenting coach, the host of Co-Parenting with Confidence podcast, bestselling author, and a mom to her son. After learning how to navigate life post-divorce and using it as a catalyst for her own transformation, Mikki now helps moms move past the divorce drama to become calm, confident co-parents. She's on a mission to help women navigate the emotional and practical difficulties of divorce and co-parenting while creating an intentional, joyful, and ease filled life after divorce.
If you or someone you know is on the co-parenting journey, I encourage you to pick up a copy of Mikki's bestselling book, The People Pleasers Guide to Co-Parenting Well. Mikki and I met years ago when our sons were in elementary school, and she's one of the voices that introduced me to coaching, specifically the Life Coach School. We connected early on talking about parenting, small business ownership and how we want more folks to have access to the tools that support their emotional and mental wellbeing. She and I meet for breakfast whenever I'm in town, and I see her as the kind voice you always want in your corner as a mom. So, welcome to the podcast, Mikki.
Mikki: Thank you. That was just such a lovely introduction and I appreciate it. It sort of encompassed all the things, but I'm so excited to be here to talk to you and thank you for sharing this time with me.
Amelia: Yeah, it's my way of giving you a hug across the the airwaves.
Mikki: Yes.
Amelia: Well, tell folks a little bit about yourself just here briefly at the beginning and then we'll dive into celebrating your newest book release.
Mikki: Oh gosh, thank you. Like you said, I'm a certified life and I'm also a certified conscious parenting coach. I'm the host of The Co-Parenting with Confidence podcast and I am now an author. I have to put that in there. And most importantly, I am a mom to my darling giant 13-year-old son and my dog who, if he barks, I am very, very sorry, but he doesn't always get the memo about quiet times as he's under the desk. But I guess in a really short story, I ended up getting a divorce about 10 years ago. Not something that I ever intended. I don't think anyone goes into marriage with the exciting news that you're getting a divorce, but that's the path that I found myself navigating and it was really, really, really difficult. I didn't know anyone who was divorced.
No one in my family had been divorced. For me I had checked all the boxes to ensure that I didn't have that route, and yet there I was and with no amount of work or persuading or manipulation or control or people pleasing could I find a place where the marriage was salvageable. And so I decided to call it while we still had some sense of warm fuzzies for one another and decided and sort of made a commitment. I had this little voice in my head or in my heart that kept telling me, this doesn't have to be awful. And I didn't know how that could be true because everything I saw in the movies or my grandmother whispering, “Oh, they're divorced. It's a broken home…,” like that kind of messaging. I just knew that it didn't have to be that way if I didn't want it to be.
And so I went on a very messy rollercoaster of a journey of figuring out how to co-parent with someone I used to love and was now not someone that I loved very much after all of the trauma and things. But long story short, we now co-parent in a really beautiful way. Me, my ex-husband, his now wife, they have a small baby. We do things as a group and it really was and I'm not giving myself sole credit, they very much are part of this journey, but it really began with me having a belief that there could be something different than I saw and what I believed. And I now have the honor and privilege of walking beside women as they go on that journey of figuring out what their family could look like and making it a positive, loving environment no matter what anyone else is doing.
Amelia: Yes, yes, yes, yes. And we are going to follow that path here in just a moment because I know you have lots of nuggets to share and details and tips and just wisdom from your personal story to share with everyone. I want to take a step back for a moment because I ask all of my guests this question at the beginning around organization and what it did or didn't look like for you in your childhood home, in your childhood as a whole. What did organization look like for you growing up?
Mikki: This is such an interesting question. As you posed it and I had been thinking about it, it really was dependent for me on the stage or the season that I was in. I counted the other day, this last move, I just moved in July, was my 21st move in my life and much of my childhood was moving. So we lived in and out of moving bands of boxes. I always believed I had a very stable, happy, like two loving parents, always a safe home. In the scheme of things I had a very "easy childhood." What I didn't and what I've now realized, sort of going through the healing journey, I lived in chaos of never knowing where we were going to be, when we were going to be leaving, how long we might be staying. I'm now seeing patterns and understanding sort of how things fit together, the puzzle pieces.
I got very good at jumping in, setting up my room, setting up whoever I needed to be at school and then packing it up and off we go. And it was the same for possessions and relationships. It was like, okay, we're leaving this place goodbye, off we go to the next place. I see now the impact that that's had on my life. So as far as organization, I think there were times when we did settle in somewhere more than maybe a year. I feel like I was just thinking about what my room looked like. It probably felt very cluttered. It probably felt very unorganized. I rode horses growing up so I always think about how we had these little, they're like little boxes and you travel to the horse shows and you bring them back. Mine were always chocked full with so much stuff.
I was like a pack mule, like my mom was. This poor woman dragged two small girls all over the country, while my dad would work and she'd download the van and it was just constantly packing and unpacking. So I think there's a part of me that's a little, I want now in this space in my life a lot of simplicity. I want a lot less. I just want things very clean, very organized, like just the basics of what I need. I go in my son's closet and it gives me huge anxiety because it's just all the things that he's like hoarding and I'm like, oh gosh, am I destroying him? But I understand it's a different season and so I don't know if that answered the question. I think it really depended for me on what season of childhood I was in.
Amelia: It very much does answer the question, which is why I leave it kind of open-ended for folks to say like what it did or didn't look like. Because we all have kind of just the lens through which we look at organization and home life. And I think it's important. I'm sure your story resonated with some listeners, and I'll just point out, you've got me beat. I thought I had moved frequently but that number is higher than mine. And I also like to remind listeners that there are elements of growing up, their childhood, their family structure that influence how they keep their home or see organization today. So thank you for sharing that because yeah, moving, unpacking, packing, yeah that makes a big difference in how we see our spaces.
Mikki: Yeah, I was just at the hairdresser yesterday and we were joking about the number of bad haircuts I've had. I've had three, like pretty tragic, really horrific, just awful things happen to my hair. And they were all at my request during an emotional time. It's like, okay, this happened in my marriage. Let me have someone just scalp me. Like, this happened in my previous relationship. I cut my hair and I'm always going for the same haircut. This was the other interesting thing that we found out. So now I think I'm onto myself as it relates to my hair, and I will not cut my hair anymore. I trim it, but I will not cut it. But it's interesting, I move to do the same thing, to be able to pack up, to clean it out, to have a fresh start. And we're in our third house in like two years and I looked at my son's like, can we stop moving? And I was like, oh, knife to the heart because I realized that's not one of my tendencies, like, we're always doing the work, we're always figuring it out. And so now that I'm aware, I'm like, okay, no cutting the hair and no moving. Two things I'm committed to.
Amelia: Well, the only thing that I will add there is I love my husband dearly and he cannot tolerate disruptions in the way that the house or apartment functions. So for him, it's like the internet goes out and he's like, “We just got to move.” Like the lawn people don't show up one week like we're done. We just have to be done, we have to shift lives. So I hear you like small disruptions, larger life transitions, it's all a mix.
Mikki: But that's why this work is so amazing because without the work that we do and that we understand and what you and I are committed to bringing more of to the world, we would just keep reacting. I would just keep cutting all my hair off and then regrowing it. I would keep moving. Those things are so just sort of unconscious and built into the tapestry of our belief system. Until we're aware of them, we can't change them. And so it's really been an interesting time right now in my life where I'm becoming more and more aware and I think just based on all the work and continuing to do the work. So it's kind of fun to see and I'm like, ah, ha ha, “I see you Mikki.”
Amelia: Yeah. That's the beauty of coaching. And we really can turn now to celebrate your book because there's reacting, there's allowing, there's all of these sorts of ways of looking at our internal experience and how we're showing up in the world. And I'd love for you to share a little bit about why you became a certified conscious parenting coach. And then we're going to just dive right into celebrating The People Pleasers Guide to Co-Parenting Well.
Mikki: Thank you. It's a big mouthful of a title I realize. Yeah conscious parenting really came out of my own struggles with parenting, not understanding and especially, we all want our kids just to be happy. And if there is one time in life that can feel, there are many, but divorce is one of those things that threatens every inch of life. And most importantly, we're terrified of what it's going to do to our children. A lot of times I hear people say, “Well, I'll just stay in the marriage for the children,” or “I can't do it because of the children” and I really didn't want the divorce to impact my son. Inevitably it does. But it impacts our children, not the actual divorce, but our energy and our ability to manage it is what impacts our children. So, I always say, if you want your kids to be okay, your job is to be okay.
So, we can't just put it on this external event that's happened. We have to really decide “Who am I going to be?” and “How am I going to show up for this?” And that does not mean perfection, but it's an understanding because I mentioned sort of the ups and down in the rollercoaster that I went on. I really went kind of, I felt so alone, so ashamed about what had happened. I went on a two to three year just campaign of “I am fine. I'm going to prove to everyone how fine I am. You are going to see how fine I am.” Like all the things, while I was not fine. I was riddled with anxiety back in depression, if I'm being honest, drinking more than I should have been. I also was working a job, I was an event planner. I was traveling all over the world for these events and I was so disconnected.
And that is what I believe impacted my son more than anything. And so the work that I do now is really born from not wanting to do that to him. And sort of stepping back, the night that I decided that the marriage was done happened when I was sitting on the side of the road sobbing on the side of the highway, driving back from a party where my then husband and I had gotten into yet another fight about something totally not benign, but we went from zero to 60 just like we do. And I was sobbing on the side of the road in the middle of the night and I heard a voice ask, “Is this what you want your son to see of you?” I think I yelled, “no, no.” And that was the commitment to decide, this is really where I have to do the work. And so when I started to see after I went on my little campaign of two to three years of no, I'm fine, but he wasn't okay. He was starting to show signs of anxiety, of sadness, low self-esteem, all of these things. And I was so upset about it. I was so angry. Like, how could this be happening?
Amelia: Just to pause for a moment, when you say that you were angry, was that directed outwards? Was that directed inwards? Was it all the things?
Mikki: I'm going to say all the things, but I think, I'm sure this resonates with a lot of women. We are not taught how to feel angry. And we're not allowed to be angry. There's nothing worse than, oh, don't be an angry woman. Oh, you don't want one of those. No, anger is just a normal emotion that happens. But when we don't understand that actually what we're afraid of is the negative symptom or negative manifestation of anger, that's what we're afraid of. Not anger. So I had so much suppressed anger, hence the depression, hence the anxiety. But people feel that, like I was just brewing with it. And I really believe that that's what my son who is very sensitive, an empath, he was picking up on that. And so my anger was really covered up by my amazing people's pleasing skills. I am now a recovering people pleaser. I like to say.
Amelia: I saw you catch yourself there.
Mikki: I did, I did. But I also believe that people pleasers are awesome humans. I think they're awesome. They're loving. They're accommodating. We get stuff done. Everybody likes us. There's a great side of people pleasing. There's also a shadow side of when we are so busy prioritizing other people's needs, beliefs, wants, desires at the expense of ourselves, that's when people pleasing becomes dangerous. And ultimately the root of it is because we do not have the ability to sit with the discomfort or the unease that we feel within our own body. So we can try to control everyone on the outside. And when I started to understand more and more about that, I was like, ugh, I want to do the good people pleasing, which is just part of being in a healthy relationship, wanting to please others. I didn't want the shadow side running my life anymore. And that's what I was finding. It was really happening. And most importantly, I see it with so, so many of my clients, male and female.
Amelia: Which is why I'm guessing the phrase ‘people pleasing’ made it into the title of your new book, which is The People Pleasers Guide to Co-Parenting Well. So why did people pleasing get elevated into the title?
Mikki: Because one thing I see with so many of my clients is they come in and they're like, I just don't get it, Mikki. I do everything to be calm, to be grounded. I just want to keep the peace. When we are trying to keep the peace, I guarantee you, you are not peaceful, you are not feeling peace, you are not creating peace and when we really want something like a calm, collaborative, cooperative, co-parenting relationship that comes from a grounded, calm, centered space. So if we're busy keeping the peace, meaning we're doing everything for everyone trying to control and manipulate the situation, and I make it sound like it's very calculated. It's not, it's very unconscious. We really think that, oh, well if I'm really, really nice to that person, then they'll be nice to me.
Amelia: But that doesn't happen.
Mikki: Right. If I just say yes, then they'll reciprocate. Those kinds of things lead us to saying yes, which is all of your work, like the saying yes to everything, but really no boundaries like for yourself. And so that's where I see so many of my clients struggling. So the co-parenting that I work on isn't like, how do we get your ex to start cooperating with you? It's really how do you start showing up from a calm, grounded space because that ripple effect, I promise you, will have more of an impact than trying to convince or people please the other person.
Amelia: That's so powerful. And I would really love for you to kind of walk us through some of the steps that listeners can take in for themselves, or, share this episode with a loved one. Of course walk us through some of the steps to stop being the peacekeeper and start parenting peacefully. You're welcome to share an example of how you've seen this unfold, if you feel like it's applicable.
Mikki: Yeah. So I think one of the things that we're seeing more and more, and it feels like more rapidly, we're seeing it everywhere, which is that most of us are living in an almost near constant state of reactivity. Meaning we are just triggered, activated, we're reacting to what's happening around us. And we feel like we have zero control. If we look at the news, it's all like, this is just giant reactions on display everywhere. So the opposite or the antidote to reactivity is really learning how to take responsibility. But I define responsibility as your ability to respond to everything happening around you.
When we are in a responsive state, we are making calm, grounded, conscious choices. When we are reactive, we're just like a pinball in a pinball machine getting spit out into all the bright lights and the shiny paddles and all this yelling noise at us. And then we got dumped into this little hole, black hole and then popped back out again. That is an exhausting, scary place to live so one of the things that I talk about is learning how to get out of reactivity. We do that by learning how to regulate our emotions, regulate our nervous system so that we can understand, hey, by the way you are triggered.
Amelia: It's huge.
Mikki: It's huge. But to realize like, oh, I'm triggered. And here's a simple benign, but I hear it nearly all the time from clients. There's always the, well, I had no choice but to engage in that battle with him because yet again, like we co-parents, we get into the same patterns, the same battles over and over. And so I'm just going to use the text, the nasty gram one. So you might like me, let's say it was me, I might send a note, “Did you pack so-and-so's soccer cleats in the bag?” It's transition day. “Did you put the soccer cleats in his bag so that he has it when he comes home?” The other co-parent might send me a, “How dare you ask me. You never think that I know how to do this. You're always criticizing me. This is how you always are.” And you're like, “Oh my gosh, I was just trying to make sure little Johnny his soccer cleats,” so then let me over-explain.
Amelia: You're asking a yes no.
Mikki: Let me totally over explain here and defend myself. Defense is the first act of war we have to remember. So you go into a, “No, no, no, no, that's not what I meant. Blah, blah, blah.” And then you get “How dare you.” And then you're like, what? And then you attack. And now we're in the vicious spiral of the nasty grams. As soon as you realize, even if it is five minutes in 20 text in, whatever, you realize, oh my gosh, “How did I get here?” Have you ever had that moment where you're like texting something and you're like, how did I even get here? That is, you are activated, which means that your sympathetic nervous system is fully online. You are in flight or fight, you're going for it. No shame, but let's pause. Hit the pause button, take a breath and step into, I have a three step framework. It's the first one, awareness, I'm triggered. I can either continue reacting, continue in the pinball machine, or I can start to use some skills to regulate my nervous system so that I can get my thinking brain back online so that I can actually navigate myself through this fast.
Amelia: Yes. So good. I mean, I love everything just up until this point. Because so many of us are in the state and we just don't know how to get out of it. And your first step of awareness and pausing is something that I teach my clients. And is just a beautiful thing that any human can implement. And I love how you said it doesn't matter how far down the rabbit hole you are at any point.
Mikki: No. My son and I were just driving home the other day and he was like, really annoying me with his incessant arguing, like this kid, he will argue the sky is blue. You get the kid you got for a reason. I'm like, what have I done? This child, he activates me like nobody else. And we're in the car and I'm arguing with this 13-year-old about, I don't even remember what it was. It was pointless. But there I am in the argument and I stop, I'm driving and we're at a stoplight. I close my eyes and I'm doing the really aggressive breathing. And he goes, “Mom, you're doing that weird breathing thing again.” I'm like, “Yes, I know, I know.” And he knows it's a tool. I said, I'm trying not to yell at you. So I'm choosing this instead. And it's actually, I believe, the best example we can actually give to our kids because it's not about being perfect and not getting activated. You are going to be activated. You are going to get triggered. Listen, when the people cut you off in traffic, it's annoying, like these things happen, but it's what you do next.
Amelia: And that brings us to the second step, which is, agency.
Mikki: Agency. So once we've grounded ourselves, we've done the weird breathing thing, as my son says. Now I have a choice because that's what we always like to say. I had no choice. I had no choice but to go there. No, there's always a choice. You might not be aware of the choices, but there is a choice. And so we want to get ourselves to awareness so that we can then choose. The universe made it really easy for us. There are only ever three choices. So that's the good news. We can either accept meaning we accept reality exactly as it is without any anger or bitterness or resentment. If you can do that, awesome, we don't really need to have a conversation. If you can't do that, then maybe there's change, which does not mean change the other person or change the situation, meaning like make it go away.
But is there something that you can do to shift the dynamic, the conversation and this is those conscious choices to make. If you can't accept and you can't change because in the text example, you can't accept being berated and you don't want to. You can't change the other person sending these texts. So that gives you the third option, which is leaving. Now leaving doesn't always mean just like leaving the building. It means literally figuratively or energetically, can we leave? And sometimes it is just to take your energy back and say, I'm not doing this. I'm not going to be part of this and saying, I will discuss this when we can be reasonable adults, out.
Amelia: When you were talking using the analogy of war, with the push pull, that requires two sets or more of energy. And when one person just drops it for however long, when they leave the conversation, the arrangement just takes a step back immediately. There's just room for fresh air.
Mikki: Yeah. So those are always our three choices. And so from that point, sometimes still we're like, I don't know what to do. Well that takes you to the third step, which is taking aligned action. And this is one of the first things that I do with my clients, is really creating an intent and actionable plan for what it is you want or how you want to parent and co-parent. We have to understand who we want to be, what that vision is, so that it's almost like a lighthouse to guide us, like tapping into your inner GPS system. Because we want to consistently take action that is aligned in the direction that we want to go. If I want to be calm and collaborative with my co-parents, that requires me to do that each step of the way.
It doesn't mean that I get to like no holds bars, like battleground over here and then be like, oh hey, everything's good over here. No, I actually have to show up that way. And that doesn't mean passive rollover doormat. It means holding your boundaries. Learning how to protect your own wellbeing by speaking up, holding boundaries to protect your peace. It means cultivating your own calmness, getting out of that reactivity and into responsibility and reclaiming your own freedom by not allowing your energy to be stolen by reactivity and other people's issues but really choosing your own emotional freedom.
Amelia: And that's the word that I was going to use next. I mean, that's what it sounds like to me is using this three-step process and having that lighthouse, that destination and practicing day in, day out conversation in, transition day, all of the moments with the aim of embracing this idea of emotional freedom.
Mikki: Yeah. Listen, it's not sexy work. It's not like where the light bulb just goes off and everything's amazing and perfect, but it really is that consistency that stays aligned to what you want. That is if you can learn how to do that right and really plan for all the obstacles and detours and issues that are going to come, but have the strategies to keep you going. And that's why coaching or therapy or whatever is so important. We can't see the forest for the trees. So to be able to have that support network to keep you guided, it's like the dominoes start to fall and then they fall fast. And that's that ripple effect. It's like once you start consistently moving in a direction, it's like, organizing, once you hit that tipping point, you feel the freedom, you feel the liberation, and then you're like, oh yeah, I'm on it. I am on the journey. Now I'm committed to the journey, like you can't pull me off. I don't know what would knock me off because I see and feel it now, but it takes time to get there.
Amelia: And that is the analogy that just popped into my head when you were sharing because let me back up for a second and say, first I want to acknowledge that when you're in it, when you're starting the process, when you're at the beginning of the journey, it is really challenging to see the place where you can get to emotional freedom and creating your own peace or a house that is decluttered and less background buzz of the mental clutter. But yes, I mean I talk about it with clients all the time. We're using powerful decision-making. We're building emotional resilience. We're deepening self-trust to get to the place where making decisions about the clutter in our homes or in our schedules, in our minds, it just becomes automatic or just becomes much easier, much more fluid of a process. So I can see how the beginning is very sticky and bumpy and challenging internally for sure. But that you take your clients and for folks reading the book on this journey, teaching them tools and strategies to get to a place where things move for them much more smoothly. Co-Parenting is their own journey.
Mikki: Yeah. And I think that's why I wanted to write the book, not from my perspective, but from my client's stories. Because each one of them uses the tools and you see the transformation that it makes in their lives. And that's when I think it's so powerful because we all feel like, okay, it can work for other people, but my ex is too difficult or we are too, insert whatever adjective you want. But really, I firmly wholeheartedly believe and with everything in my being that every mom has the ability to reshape her world and offer her children a harmonious environment regardless of what's happening. You absolutely have that ability and it's a choice and it is a decision and it is a commitment and it is a belief that you hold. And I think that's where having a coach is so helpful because I will hold the belief for you when you can't see it until you pick it up for yourself. And when you can pick it up and own it for yourself, that's when freedom comes. Until then I hold it for you as we walk the journey together.
Amelia: That is just so beautifully stated and said, and I felt every word there, I don't know, just hearing you speak, I can hear your dedication, your passion, your commitment. And it's a great way to conclude our conversation because I want to kind of just leave those powerful words there. That it is possible.
Mikki: It's a hundred percent possible.
Amelia: Thank you so much, Mikki. I'll just close with asking you about organization now as an adult. You mentioned moving, you mentioned your son's chaotic closet. What's one way that, and it can be a creative out-of-the-box way that you employ this idea of organization now as an adult?
Mikki: I think that we are currently in a season where I am trying to learn because I am as guilty as the next mom of wanting my kid just to be happy. Oh, he wants that thing. Oh, what could it hurt? Like, oh, let me go get you this one thing, let me get you that, all of those things. But really trying to make conscious choices of is this needed? Is it useful? And do we really want it? I think the greatest thing, and I will probably regret this by the time this airs and I will want to take it back, but my son is in a lot of debt to me right now.
He has made some really, really bad purchases and they're all around hockey sticks. And people are like, Mikki, how on earth can you let him get one more stick? And I'm consciously doing it because I want him to understand that all of his choices have action. There's a consequence to all of it. And so he has now gotten himself deeply in debt with the bank of Mom over hockey sticks that he did not need but that he wanted. So now there are a lot of things he wants and I'm like, ah, I know, but until you pay your debt back, you don't have any money to do that. And you just see him like, hmm.
Amelia: It's a life lesson. And what it brings me back to is when I'm talking with other families, parents, just helping your kids see that they make an impact and imprint in the home. So you're talking about the relationship, but also the hockey sticks taking up space and needing a place to be and managed and maintained and all of that and it's a visual way for him to see oh, like I take up space and make an impact.
Mikki: Absolutely. And I think learning for them, and it's me too, like learning everything we leave. And when things are cluttered, my kitchen was cluttered this morning. I don't like it so I'm constantly cleaning up. His closet triggers me because I don't like it. So I can either make a World War III about this and all the judgments about why he's so messy. Or I can bring up the bin, like I leave it and I bring it up and I just say put all the things in the bin and then bring it down. And he does it when I ask. So I can either get really upset that I have to ask a 13-year-old boy with an undeveloped brain, or I can just realize that maybe someday he'll do it on his own, but it's just not today. So until then it's my job to bring the bin. I think I'm trying to loosen up around it instead of trying to control everything. It's like just how can we both coexist in this space, but keeping it clean and healthy and organized.
Amelia: I love it. We are always doing the work. Always. My friends. Thank you so much for chatting with me today, Mikki.
Mikki: Oh my gosh, thank you Amelia. You know I just love you as a person and a human, but I love the work you're doing and the support you're offering families and it is so needed. And so thank you for all you're doing.
Amelia: I'm honored, touched. Tell the folks how they can get ahold of your Amazon international bestselling book.
Mikki: Thank you.
Amelia: You just released The People Pleasers Guide to co-Parenting Well. You've got the Co-Parenting with Confidence podcast. Tell the people how they can connect with you and all of your wisdom.
Mikki: Yeah, so my website is just my name Mikki, which is M-I-K-K-I-G-A-R-D-N-E-R.com. That's also my Instagram handle. On Instagram, I'm always on the podcast. The book you can get anywhere books are sold now, so Amazon is an easy way, Barnes and Noble. It'll be in Walmart soon I think. So online, there's a link on my website where you can find the book in all the places.
So for a bit of time here I did create a companion downloadable workbook. So if you would like to get that, it's like 90 pages, holy moly of like so many different exercises and tools just to deepen the framework that I teach in the book. You can actually apply it to your own life. So if you would like that, I would love to give you that gift. All you have to do is dm me or email me on my website with a picture of you with the book or your receipt and I will send you that free companion workbook.
Amelia: Awesome. It was so lovely to chat with you.
Mikki: Aw, it was so great to chat with you. Thank you.
Outro: Hey y'all, let's connect and chat on socials. You can find me on Instagram and Facebook @apleasantsolution. I'm also on LinkedIn at Amelia Pleasant Kennedy. Feel free to send me a quick note and let me know what you'd like to hear more about, or what home life organizational challenges are top of mind for you. Talk to y'all soon.
