You’re Done People Pleasing — Now What? Wiith Diane Sorensen

Scottie Durrett  0:06  
Scott, welcome to the momplex Podcast. I am your host. Scottie durett, my passion and purpose is to help other moms just like me rediscover their joy and step into their confidence as their kids grow up. Join me as I share my own experiences, my own mistakes and aha moments as I navigate this incredible journey of motherhood while trying not to lose my identity. If you are a modern day mama who is ready to live for herself, not just for her kids, and knows that is the best possible gift you could give, then you are in the right place. This is momplex.

Scottie Durrett  0:41  
All right today, as I said, we are talking about boundaries, people pleasing, which I need help with, and all that quiet pressure and loud pressure to be the good mom, the perfect mom, the mom, the woman that gets everything done. And you know, just that pressure that we're constantly feeling in our neighborhood at our fingertips. We're going to talk about that. I'm here with Diane Sorenson. She's helping women ditch that approval based living like I want to drop all the shoulds because my nervous system is tired, and I want us to start showing up for ourselves, not just performing all the time, so we that can be ourselves, not just the version that we think we're supposed to be. So I'm so happy that you're here, that we're talking about this, especially right now with what's going on, I think, not only with what's going on in the world, but what we're also seeing with what's happening with AI and what's happening just with where the modern times are going and how fast things are moving, I feel more exhausted than ever. I feel more tired than ever, even though I have more knowledge than ever. I want to get into how you help your personal journey, but I also just want to dive right in, because I know I have a lot of exhausted moms listening, and those moms, they're doing everything, quote, right, and they still feel like they're screwing it up all the time. So give it to us. Who are you? You are magnificent. But like, why are we talking about this? Why are you so passionate about talking about this? And can we talk about why we are doing everything right? And why do we feel like we are screwing it up. Why do we always feel like we're behind no matter how hard we're working? Welcome, welcome. I'm so happy you're here. Thank you so

Diane Sorensen  2:29  
so much. I am just I'm so honored to be here. I love having these conversations, so thank you for inviting me on to have this conversation, and I so appreciate your listeners. Anybody who, when you are listening to this, I see you. You are not alone. We are here together. Yeah, you were talking about the exhaustion, the performance, the doing everything right, and why are we still feeling like we're not doing it right. And I really think Scotty this, it's because we are using a primitive system in our modern day world. And so I believe we are being called forward to a more complex way of being, which involves emotional development,

Scottie Durrett  3:26  
to dive into that. What do you mean by a primitive system that we are caring for that's, I guess, done.

Diane Sorensen  3:33  
I get the people pleasing stuff, because I always say I'm the people pleasing perfectionist turned truth teller. I was very immersed in those patterns. I was the good girl who became the good mom. And so, you know, I had a mom, I can see now looking back, that she was very anxious about how people saw her, and then, therefore how people saw her children, it was very important to her that we present ourselves in a pleasing way. You know, that we behaved well, that we appeared pleasing. That is the pattern that I inherited. And then unknowingly, unwittingly, when I became a mother, handed those same patterns to my children, and I took on that belief system of, what are other people thinking? What are other people going to think? And it truly is what drove me. Every choice, every action I took, was really based on what are other people going to think. And when we do that, we're really a no, unknowingly living a performance. You know, I was performing. I had an image. Manage to keep up, and so accidentally, I involved my children in this performance of mine. It wasn't until it all came crashing down that I realized the pressure I was putting on myself and the pressure I was putting on my children, it came crashing down when it came into my awareness. It was brought to me that my oldest child, she was 17 at the time, was self harming, and then at that same time, my marriage was also falling apart, and I went through a divorce, and so these two things happening simultaneously, and I couldn't look away. And so that is what brought to the surface these invisible patterns that I began to unravel, and the question that really cracked the door open just a little bit was how did I get here?

Scottie Durrett  6:08  
You were doing all the things right? Weren't you following? You were following the rules, right? You were following

Diane Sorensen  6:15  
the rules. The girl doesn't have children that harm themselves. The good girl does not go through a divorce. The good Catholic girl does not go through a divorce.

Scottie Durrett  6:24  
Gosh, I have goosebumps because I know this feeling. It's so confusing, right? It's so you the rug is pulled out from under you, and you feel so it's like one point you feel so disheartened. It's so unfair, right? You've worked so hard to do everything right, and that perception is such a tricky place to live in. And I've done this too, because on the outside, you're pleasing. You're doing everything right. The bow on your kid's hair is in the right place. Everybody's ironed. The holiday card looks great. The baseboards are cleaned. But in the bedroom, are you guys talking? Are you communicating? It's okay, though, because the flowers in the pots look great. You know, your kid got an A in math, you know. But are is your kid having fun on the playground? Right? Like, do you know your kid? Do you know that your kid, what kind of eggs they like, right? Are they having fun in school, right? So it's, it's hard because you, you quote, are doing all the right things, especially if that's what you know, I'm having. It's, it's a weird place to be. Also, when you are doing what your mom taught you to do, you're given that playbook, you think I'm doing it, I'm doing the right things. So it's, you know, it's, it's like, you're not, I'm not failing the class. But wait, I got a bad grade.

Diane Sorensen  7:46  
So how did that happen? Yeah, and so it was like, how did I get here? What? And again, that, that seed of being curious open the door just a bit for a little light to start shining through, and for things to come to me that I'm like, you know, like a book landed on my desk at work. I'm a former teacher, a booklet. No man, I'm like, where did this book come from? And started reading? It was like, Oh, my God, you know, or you know, me looking into different trainings as a teacher, and then these trainings would come to me, and I'm like, oh my goodness, this is connected to my personal life and and my relationship with my children. So just I got curious as to why I ended up here, and things started to unfold. And, you know, eventually I learned relationship based practices, I'm going to call them, and I practiced them in my classroom. I brought them into my classroom, and I started using these how do we build relationships in the classroom? How do we make this classroom our classroom? And then, as I was doing that, it's like, Okay, now, how do I how do I do this also at home? It's like, okay, how is this our home? And we're going to, how can we work together, and how can we build these relationships? That's kind of how it started. I can say over time, you know, I went to therapists. My daughter went to therapist. I hired a coach, and that's when things really took off. Then I ended up being the behavior specialist in the system and teaching other teachers and staff these same type of practices, and then having parents start to ask me, Hey, can you work with me and my family? And so eventually that's the path I took, and I left the school system and I started coaching families, and then it kind of. It's evolved to I really basically work with women and this piece of motherhood, reframing motherhood not as a role to play or a standard to meet, but as a life long relationship that I believe calls us into truth, presence and self leadership.

Unknown Speaker  10:32  
I love that you think of it's a relationship,

Diane Sorensen  10:34  
yeah, because when I was raising children, you know, historically, we don't think of it as a relationship. We kind of think of relationship while relationship is like, you know, on Facebook, I'm in a relationship, well, we're all in relationships all of the time, but we tend to think of relationship as with a romantic partner. You know, it's like, that's the only relationship that we're allowed to have emotion in but we're always having relationships. It's how we relate to things outside of us, even ourself, how we relate to our own emotions and all the different parts of ourself, how we relate to our thoughts, how we relate to others, our children, how we relate to money, you know. So all of life is really relationships. So I look at motherhood now as a relationship between an adult and young humans. Because when I was raising kids in in, again, historically, it's seen at, okay, I'm in the mother role. You're in the child role. This is my job as a mom. And you know, it's kind of, I'm I'm the all Knower. I will tell you what to do, and then you do it, and that ends up creating a lot of friction, and, you know, fractures the relationship.

Scottie Durrett  12:06  
And honestly, do we really know? Do we actually all have the answers? I think that puts so much pressure on the mom. I don't have all the answers. I've never been this age before, and I've never had kids this age before, so I actually don't have all the answers. I like the way you're thinking about this as a relationship, because a relationship is always changing and always evolving, right? If we looked at ourselves and our kids, it we are in a relationship, think about your relationship in high school and college, you know, you we were kind, you know, we were ebbing and flowing, you know, if we gave ourselves, if we were thinking about it that way, I think it would allow us to have good days and bad days, ups and downs, you know, because the same thing and what you said, our kids are going to relate to us. You know, I have bad days that'll my kids are allowed to relate to my bad day, right? They're allowed to do that, right? I love the way you're thinking about this, because it allows us to be human,

Diane Sorensen  13:07  
right, and it also, you know, opens us up to being curious about, how is my child experiencing me? I love that. Yeah. And, you know, we all want to be a good mom. Of course, you want to be a good mom. Of course, we want to do a good job, but what does that even mean? What are we basing good on? It's so subjective, right? And historically, we based it on our child's behavior.

Scottie Durrett  13:35  
Absolutely, you're right, absolutely. And the perception, right? And the perception in the neighborhood at

Diane Sorensen  13:42  
school, yeah, if my child's behaving, then Right? Or their achievement, you know, if they're getting the good grades, then, then I'm doing a good job. If they're succeeding, whatever we make that mean I'm doing a good job. If they're performing athletically, I'm doing a good job. If, you know, and then as they get older, it's, you know, the amount of education you know that they're going to go to. I have so many parents I work with that, you know, if their child isn't going to college, they feel like they're doing something they've done. They've done it wrong, you know? And it's like these are just different paths. Because here's what's happening, is that the goal posts keep moving to be a good mom, the goal posts keep moving, and that means there's more pressure on moms and there's more pressure on children to achieve at higher and higher and higher levels.

Scottie Durrett  14:37  
So how do you work with a mom to get comfortable with her goal post being at a different place on the field than her best friend, or that mom, or maybe her own goal post. How does she get comfortable with that? Because that's hard, if maybe it's not where she thought it quote should be.

Diane Sorensen  14:56  
Well, part of it is, I. Tolerate. Part of it is tolerating the discomfort.

Unknown Speaker  15:03  
Yeah, okay. I walk

Diane Sorensen  15:04  
alongside women to help them become aware of and acknowledge some of these patterns to look at, you know, what's going on with their kids from a different perspective or angle, and really honoring what is true. So I always say I am a boundary expert. And I always say boundaries are our truth. They're the expression of our truth. And boundary work, which I call it boundary work, is that exploration of what is true for me, because we're not necessarily who we think we are.

Scottie Durrett  15:51  
Talk about that a little bit more. So it's like you're like a boundary is going to be true in her nervous system and her body, versus what her ego is trying to tell her. Is that

Diane Sorensen  16:00  
what you mean? Yes, exactly. A lot of times we just say, Well, you know, this is just who I am. I can't change because this is just who I am, or, you know, like I'm, I used to be a yeller, and so, you know, I work with a lot of moms who are yellers, and, you know, a lot of things say, well, that's just who I am. I can't change that. And that's not true. So we do the work of really going inward and really discovering what is actually true for you deep in your soul, it is your inner

Scottie Durrett  16:38  
wisdom interesting, like, aside from what your mom did and how you grew up and what's like, you're getting all that conditioning, all those, all that programming out

Diane Sorensen  16:51  
of the way, wow, that's your wounded self. So, you know, Abby was like, oh, and I did this too. It's like my authentic self. Well, does it like, Am I like two selves? Do I have two selves? And kind of we do? We are authentic self, which is deep inside, and we have a wounded self or a false self that we've created patterns around to emotionally survive. So for me, it was being that pleaser, that doing everything right, that perfectionism, making sure everyone's happy, don't rut the boat. And you know, I walked through the world at eggshells, not knowing I was playing out these patterns, you know, again, until something really big had to get my attention. I couldn't look away. But oftentimes, you know, they these, these signs do come earlier. You know, they're they're the anxiety, they're the, you know, maybe the depression, they're the, you know, I just don't feel really happy, even though I've checked all the societal boxes. So what is wrong with me that, you know, I can't ever be happy. You know, these are the signs, but a lot of times they kind of poke us and then we shut we just shove them away and ignore it.

Scottie Durrett  18:15  
We can tolerate them, right? We can kind of tolerate them and get distracted away from them.

Diane Sorensen  18:21  
We distract ourselves. Absolutely, we do so many things to distract ourselves. Yeah, these are these little signs that maybe something needs to change. And here's the thing too I really want listeners to know, is that these patterns aren't bad. They're not wrong. They served you up until now, so they got you to where you are. But once you're there and you're like, Okay, this doesn't really seem as fulfilling to me as I thought it was going to be. Or I'm you're noticing I'm just so anxious all the time. So now these patterns are holding you back, so now it's time. They're not going to get you where you're going. So now it's time to go inward, understand them, and move through them. And you know, that takes, that takes what we call the work, you know, and that's what I call boundary work. I think boundaries are highly, highly misunderstood. And why is because we put the word boundaries in this primitive system that we're in, and so we see it as a more of a performative thing. And so through that lens, they become something we put on someone else.

Scottie Durrett  19:48  
Oh, interesting. It kind of falls into what you were talking about, and you said this earlier, the relationship with yourself, right? If we look at this as a relationship with ourself, we're also evolving so we're a. Allowed to change. Maybe it wasn't a boundary that we were ready for five years ago for you know, but we're ready now, because we've evolved in this relationship with ourself. Has matured, right?

Diane Sorensen  20:14  
Yeah, there was a time Scottie that I was like, I keep hearing these, this word boundaries, and I thought I knew what they were, but I don't know that I know what they are.

Scottie Durrett  20:25  
So it's not necessarily a Don't, don't call me after five. Maybe that's but you're talking about

Diane Sorensen  20:31  
that is a boundary, one type of boundary, but there's lots of boundaries. But here's the thing, Scotty, when we do that, say, Okay, here's my boundary. I'm not going. So you just said, don't call me after five. The boundary is I'm not going to take your call after five. So boundaries are about what I'm going to do or not do. And so here's the thing, when we tell people, okay, don't call me after five, that is my boundary, and then somebody calls you after five, and then we're like, so my boundaries aren't honored. They don't care about my boundaries, and it's almost like we would rather not set the boundary than have somebody cross it like that, because then it's like, Oh, I'm not enough, or there's some feeling of being less them. They don't care about me because they're doing it anyway. They're not hearing me.

Scottie Durrett  21:26  
Or this is hard. I have to keep setting it. They didn't get it the first time.

Diane Sorensen  21:32  
Why do they keep doing this? I've told them once. Well, here's the thing. This is how we teach people how to treat us that behavior of them continuing to call you isn't about you, it's about that. So when we say, I'm not going to take phone calls after five, then don't. So if your boundaries are being crossed, it is you who's crossing them.

Speaker 1  21:58  
Oh, interesting, because if you will let if you keep taking the call

Diane Sorensen  22:03  
Interesting, yeah, because you're not honoring you. And here it is, Scotty, we are the foundation of our life. We are the foundation of all of our relationships. So ask yourself, How do I treat myself? How do I talk to myself? Here's the deal. When I became aware of how I was talking to myself internally, in my head, it was super critical, and it really wasn't even my voice, it was my mother's voice, and maybe teachers voices, maybe the bully's voice at school. I think our own voice, our authentic voice, is that whisper. It's the Whisper. It's the Whisper inside that says, I don't think this is the way. And then you you just, you know, then your head goes, oh my gosh, don't go that way. Go this way, because this is familiar. This is comfortable. Here we go, over here, yeah, yeah, this journey. When I started it in that place of where my child was suffering, my marriage was done. That was a really, really dark place, and it was the catalyst for my becoming it's how I got from there to here, and that has been, I will use Glennon Doyle's words. It's been brutal, it absolutely beautiful journey, and it is also brutal at times, but I would not not have taken this journey, and now I'm a grandmother. My children are grown, and we get to do this together, and they're on their own journeys, and they have to discover, you know, their own path. But I can see patterns changing through my grandchildren, which is just really, really beautiful. It's like healing general operational patterns. And resign. I

Scottie Durrett  24:25  
was going to ask you two questions. One, it's a hard question, and if it's you know, you can tell me if this is too much, but I would like to know if you don't mind sharing the signs that you noticed about your daughter, because I have a lot of parents who are listening with teenagers right now, and I get a lot of questions. Kids are walking in the door, they're going down the hall, and they're slamming the door, right? They're they're hiding in their rooms. And so I think there's this this feeling about parents, do I do I barge in? How do I know when they need me? I don't want to be the helicopter, the hovering mom. I want to give them autonomy. I. Want to let them they know I'm here, I think, but I also don't. I don't want to smother them, but I also don't want to miss out. I think there's this kind of eggshell they don't know where and what signs to look for, you know, in terms of, you know, are they drinking too much? Are they socializing like we don't know, because it's teenage life is so different from when I was growing up as a teenager. And then the second part of that question, with the beautiful journey that you went through, I'd love to notice more about how this has helped your relationship with your daughter, knowing like what you know that she's seen you go through, and what you've gone through, and how this has helped you guys in where you are right now, if you don't mind sharing that, because I think that's would be so helpful.

Diane Sorensen  25:43  
Yeah, so first I want to say there is no right way. There truly isn't. And I know we do, we've we reach for that. What's the right thing, what's the right thing? There was so much rightness in my brain, in my nervous system. There is no right way. There is just a way in, in, in, you know, we are all different humans, and your children are different humans. And like, oh, at the beginning of this, you said something about, you know, I've never done this before. I've never raised a child. I've never been the mother of a child of this age, well, and then, okay, so you do that with one child, but then another child comes along, and you haven't done motherhood with that human at that age either. So it's always new. So just having said that, I missed all the signs. Scotty, to be honest, I missed them. And I didn't know this was happening until it was happening. And somebody, a middle man, almost came to me and said, This is what's happening.

Scottie Durrett  26:55  
We thank goodness. We need guardian angels. Sometimes, you know, I mean, thank goodness.

Diane Sorensen  27:00  
And why did I miss the signs? Because I didn't know the signs later years, you know, we talk openly about this now her and I, and I said to her, why didn't tell me? And I remember first time I asked her that, and she said, Mom, I did. So she tried to tell me, but I couldn't be with my own you know, she tried to tell me that she felt depressed, that she seemed to have all these signs, and I just couldn't hear it. And I think part of that was because I couldn't be with my own depression. I had no idea that I even had depression until way later into this journey. Because to me, depression was, I can't get out of bed. Well, I was high functioning depression like I didn't stop. I just kept going all the time. And you know, you hear about toxic positivity. That was me. That was me. I was positive, positive, positive. And then there were times where people like, Oh, you're so positive. But somewhere in me, it was like, but I'm doing it to survive. I had no idea what that meant. But there was some part of me, way deep down, that knew I was so positive, because that's the way I needed to be to really get away from the the life that I didn't want to the feelings that I didn't Want to have that, this whole that, everything that comes with trying to be the best, trying to be good, trying to be perfect, trying to gain everyone's approval, that's really what I was doing. And now I say, you know, I was addicted to approval, yeah, like disapproval, to me, was like death, death. So I would do anything to gain approval. And I mean, it did get me through for a while, but, yeah, it's a

Scottie Durrett  29:10  
dopamine hit, right? It's like, it's fuel. Yeah, that was a long

Diane Sorensen  29:15  
that was a long answer to your question, what were the signs? I missed them. So here are the sides. When your child comes to you and says, I just Something's off. I don't feel right, or they just are not wanting to go to school. They're not wanting to participate. Or it could be the other way, and be really super high functioning, and they're busy, busy, busy all the time to get away from that. So you know, it's really being present with your children and knowing your child that's super helpful, right? So that when you. If something is off, then you are aware of this seems kind of off, and then to be curious, one of the things that parents often ask me or say to me is I just really want them to come to me when they're having a problem or when there's an issue. But the thing is, as they're growing up, if we're so fixated on behavior and fixing their behavior, that trust doesn't develop, because they constantly have to be thinking, you know, am I doing this right? Is this the right way? Is this good? Am I going to get in trouble? Is she going to be mad? Is she going to yell and and so the work really starts with knowing myself.

Scottie Durrett  30:55  
Well. That goes back to the performance, right? That's that. And I think what you said is, well, a couple of you've said so many great things i i wrote down, you know, there's no right way to do this. There's just the way. And I think that right there is so profound, because I think it just, if we can remove the word quote, right? It's just the way. It's just, it's just life. You're just getting through this journey with yourself and your family. And I think the other thing is just, we don't live in a bubble, right? If we are not taking care of ourselves, it does leak. It spills, you know, and if we're not feeding ourselves, if we're not processing what's going on in our bodies, it does interfere with what we're able to do. Think about how distracted we are, you know, if we're not, if we're anxious about something, how distracted we are, you know, and that we are missing things that are being said at the dinner table. We are missing those words. And sometimes I get five words from my teenager, what if two of those words are all I needed to know about how he's feeling that day, right? And if I'm so distracted about if I'm getting likes on social media, or if you know that person didn't text me back, or you know, it's not to say that those things aren't important, but it's like, how can we process how we're feeling so that then we can know how to be able to process what they're feeling right? My mom couldn't. My mom couldn't process a feeling in the world. So now, as a 49 year old, I feel like I'm going back to preschool. I'm in feelings. 101, you know,

Diane Sorensen  32:35  
yes, and that goes back to what I said at the top, that, you know, your mom was more in this primitive system where we just had our physical being and we just, you know, looked at our physical being, we're now we're being called to a more complex way of our humanness, and that includes our emotions. Because really two things I want to say, Scottie, is one, allow yourself to mess up, because you're gonna mess up. I mean, we're humans, and we mess up, so we're gonna mess up, and you're gonna struggle, and your kids are gonna struggle, and that is okay. Our goal isn't for our kids to not struggle. It's for them to know how to move through struggle.

Scottie Durrett  33:29  
We work so hard to teach them how to succeed, we have to teach them how to fail. Yes, right?

Diane Sorensen  33:34  
Yes, yes, or they won't succeed, because we need both of those things. So if we protect them from struggle, they grow up. Are they just all of a sudden, now going to know how to move through a struggle? Or they're just never going to have a struggle, because you've done it perfectly. That's an illusion. Humans struggle. And here's the thing, struggle is inevitable, and it's essential for our growth.

Scottie Durrett  34:03  
And something else you talked about with the, you know, the authentic self and the performance self, I think of it as, like the social self and the essence self, right? Like I'm working so hard to really think about that, I equate it to, if, you know, if I can't, if I learn how to swim, I can then hop in the pool and help teach my kids how to swim. Same thing. If I know how to access and appreciate my true self, what are my core values? How can I hear that inner voice? Then I can create a safe space for my kid to do the same. But if I don't know how to do that, that means my kid will never know that either, and that's a huge motivator for me when and I'm, I'm, it's, it is hard work, boundary setting and knowing what it is so hard. But my motivator all the time is, I don't want my kids to be 49 having to go to feeling school, 101, Yeah, I want them to be more free at this age in their life, you know? I want them to have, I want them to have this language now, so that by the time they're my age, they're focusing on something else, you know? I so it's if you and I are, if this is our calling, that we're supposed to be doing this work. Great, but it's hard. Thank goodness there's people you know you, and we're going to talk about how you work with people and what that looks like, and how they can reach you. It is hard. I don't think we need to do it alone, and thank goodness for that, but I think it's it's not just for us. Yes, it will make us feel better. Yes, we'll feel more free. Yes, it'll help us have better boundaries, and that's going to be incredible, but it's hard. And I don't think it's just for us, and I think that's a huge motivator for me all the time.

Diane Sorensen  35:48  
Yeah, it is for generations to come, and we can see in our world today, we are needing this work.

Speaker 1  35:59  
We do need this work. It's really hard,

Diane Sorensen  36:03  
and so what you can do? A lot of people are like, Oh my gosh, you know, the world is blowing up, and, you know, the US is like crazy. What can I do? You can do your own inner work, and that will be so powerful and so impactful, because that ripples out.

Scottie Durrett  36:24  
It does. And people think of that as not significant, but it is. It's what's actually missing, right?

Diane Sorensen  36:30  
It's like, well, that's not enough, except it is. It is the thing that will create the change.

Scottie Durrett  36:38  
So how do you work if there's a mom listening and she's curious about this, she's feeling some of those whispers. She's feeling a little anxious. She's feeling exhausted from performing. She's feeling like she's distracted and maybe feeling disconnected. Maybe she's missing some time with her kids, and maybe feeling, you know, I you know, it could be a couple of things. Maybe she's just feeling like she's meant for more, and she's just feeling stuck and this is numb, and she's feeling like this is really connecting with her. Where should she start? How should she reach you? What should she do? What's step one?

Diane Sorensen  37:15  
All right, well, I would invite her to come over to the podcast, chaos to connection. Listen there. See, you know, if you like what you hear, they can then all my links are with in the show notes to get on my newsletter if they want. You know a little more, I have free resources that are linked in in the episodes and on my website. And then I also offer what I call breakthrough sessions, which is just 60 to 90 minute session, where a mom can, you know, voice her concerns, her struggle, and we can talk through that. You know, it might be, I want I just I don't understand my team's behavior. I want to understand it better, or whatever it might be. You know, that's a starting point, too. And I do also work one on one in a longer coaching container. Also, I work with a lot of women in that, and then with that, we also come together as a community, and we do community calls so that moms aren't feeling alone, and they know they're not alone then, and you know, they can hear the stories of others, and we can always see ourselves in other people's stories, and know, Oh, thank goodness I'm not alone that this is just part of the human experience.

Scottie Durrett  38:45  
One thing, before I let you go, I'd love to just hear if you can share one thing, when you stopped trying to be the perfect mom, how did it help you feel more connected to your kids?

Diane Sorensen  38:56  
I'm glad that you asked that, because really, it always comes back to connection. It always comes back to connection. Why aren't my children listening? It always comes back to connection. And what does that mean? Because I know that there was a point for me too, where I'm like, do I really know what connection means? And so really at the very simplest form of connection, it really starts with that connection to my own inner self, how I'm feeling, connecting to those feelings, connecting to my own nervous system, connecting to the my own parts of myself, because we are many parts. We aren't this one entity. And so that's what I would say. It always, you know, it starts with you being connected to you emotionally. Because connection is an emotional development skill. Yeah, and that's why I think a lot of us, we think we're connected, because we're in the same room, we're doing the same stuff, like growing up, we did a lot to get I mean, we were always at the dinner table every night, six o'clock sharp, you better be there. You know, we did a lot in the same spaces, but we were very disconnected, and I didn't know that, of course, I just thought that's how all families were, and a lot of families are, but we, we can be in the same place, like I remember when my kids were growing up, and, you know, they get these things home from school and, oh, you should have family night. So I'm like, oh, okay, we'll have family night, because that's what you're supposed to do. And so we'd have these families family and it's like, like, game nights, and it's like, okay, this is not fun. Why are we even doing this? Because there was so much disconnected. We weren't connected emotionally. We were trying to really, what happens is we are regulated by other people's behavior. And so if they're acting a certain way, then we're dysregulated, then we blame them, and they need to change, and then they're mad at us. And so connection starts with connection to our own emotions, and starting that relationship there so that you can connect to your child or your partner or whoever on an emotional level. And then

Scottie Durrett  41:28  
you don't need all those forced gatherings, right? It just naturally is happening in whatever moments, right?

Diane Sorensen  41:38  
Yeah, I'll say that. So this is why it's hard. So you connecting to your own triggers. You connecting to your own upset. So ownership, taking ownership of my own upset, taking ownership of my own triggers. So our children will trigger us like no other. And why is that? Because we take it personal. We are taking their behavior to mean something about us. And if it's, you know, what we would call misbehavior, then it's, I'm not doing it right. You know, it triggers us, but that is our trigger that is happening inside of us. And so for us to go in and say and we can own that, instead of blaming this person in front of us for whatever it is they're doing, because their behavior is actually revealing to us what's happening within them. It is fascinating. It's fascinating.

Scottie Durrett  42:49  
So it's and if I'm going to so the first thing for her to notice before she starts working with you is just to notice that trigger, to notice that in herself and get curious about it. Why is this coming up? What is this trying to tell me?

Diane Sorensen  43:04  
Yeah, and I would say, if you connect with this work, if this resonates with you, then connect with me.

Scottie Durrett  43:12  
And I'm gonna put everything in the show notes, your website, the podcast, your Instagram, and the freebie that you're so generously sharing with us, so she can just go start digesting and consuming everything that you're offering, which is great I listen to the podcast first of all, because there's just so much more that you go into, and she can just start getting more. What you and I talked about is incredible, but it's, it's a snapshot of what you're really, really able to, you know, dive into. And some

Diane Sorensen  43:40  
people will take all that in and go, Wow, this is great, and that's all they need, and that's wonderful. And then there's going to be others that are like, Okay, I want it. I want more, because that's where I got to. There was a time where I could read the books and I was doing the things and but then it got to a point where I'm like, Okay, I think I've gone as far as I can this way, now I need somebody to walk beside me, and so, you know, then, that's when I hired my first coach, and

Scottie Durrett  44:08  
I'm all about that. I think it's, it's so great to learn as much as you can. But I always say I don't want to become a nutritionist, but I'd like to learn how to eat healthy, but I'm always gonna, I'd like somebody else to learn how to do that, right? I don't want to have to go to school for that, right? So it's, it's always great to, you know, it's great to toe the line, but it's really nice so that you can focus on what you need to focus on in yourself, and let somebody actually be the guide for you. It'll actually save you so much more time, energy and money to have somebody to help

Diane Sorensen  44:42  
you, yeah? And that's that's so beautiful, Scotty, that you that you said that, because we all have something to offer, 100% you know, the the women that I work with, they have things to offer other women, like, say, a nutritionist. I They are not coming to me for nutrition.

Unknown Speaker  44:59  
Yeah, don't come to me. Me for nutrition. Don't

Diane Sorensen  45:01  
come to me. I think there is also in our old system, there's this idea of responsibility, is I'm able to do everything myself, like if I need help, then I did it wrong, or there's I'm flawed in some way. And that is an old belief system. We need each other. We all have things to offer, and I always have somebody in my life mentoring me, and, you know, helping me with my growth.

Scottie Durrett  45:29  
100 I am always with a mentor. I always have some form of a coach. It's some and it changes right based on what I'm going through and where I am. But I love having I always think about it. It's like a mentor, somebody who's maybe five minutes ahead, five months ahead, five years ahead, who just says, Is this where you want to go? I can save you some time, energy, tears and money. Let me nudge you in this direction. I think it's great. It's like having your best older sister, your best female guide, an ancestor in your corner, just somebody who wants it genuinely for you. I think it's having coaches and mentors, because they become friends, you know, it? They become people who really want the best

Diane Sorensen  46:15  
for you. Yeah, we come. We become so deeply connected, because we're doing this deep work, right?

Scottie Durrett  46:22  
Yeah, I recommend the podcast, just so that you can walk around and hear Diane talk more and just get a little bit more in depth. But I definitely recommend if this resonates with you, go to her website. Go connect with her, because in my mind, if this does resonate, that's not by accident, that's your soul nudging you. That's that authentic voice nudging you in that direction. And I think that's really important, that especially in 2026 we need to listen to those nudges. They're not by accident. They have our best

Diane Sorensen  46:52  
interests, right? And there's a lot of people who do this similar work that we're doing, and I think you really have to listen to what you can who you connect to, because, you know, we're all energy, and you know your energy might connect with somebody else, and my energy might connect with other people, and you know, so so on and so forth. So you just have to really trust yourself and say, I just really love the energy of this person. This is who I want to to work closer with. Well, I love

Scottie Durrett  47:21  
what you do. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your energy. I am excited to have this conversation and share everything out with my community. And you're just wonderful. Thank you

Diane Sorensen  47:30  
so much. Skye, this was really a beautiful conversation, and I really appreciate you inviting me on.

Scottie Durrett  47:39  
Hey Mama, thank you so much for listening before you dive back into the beautiful chaos of your life, please take this with you. You're doing better than you think. You are not alone, and you do not have to do this on autopilot. If this episode helped you in any way, please share it with a mom who needs to hear it, because we grow faster when we do it together. And if you have a second, leaving a five star review helps momplex reach more mamas who need this kind of real talk and support. If you want more support and guidance or just someone in your corner, be sure to visit scottyderette.com to learn more. Get in touch with me or dive deeper into this work until next time mom, trust yourself. Trust your gut. You already know what to do, and you are exactly the mama your kids need. I love you. I'll see you next time you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai