Jolynne Rydz

Does anyone else find that as December approaches and proceeds there is this ever increasing flurry of activity, where you can literally see the rising burnout in people's eyes.

"Lets get this done before the holidays"
"We must catch up before Christmas 🎄!"
"I haven't even started shopping for gifts yet,"

As a society we've created this artificial deadline to "get stuff done" and give material gifts that somehow no longer seem meaningful, like somehow if we put in this mad last ditch effort, we'll avoid feelings of guilt as the new year rolls around:

"I thought I would have got that promotion by now"
"I thought we'd be pregnant by now"
"I really should have XYZ"

What if instead we appreciate ourselves, and all that we've done, created and shared with the world.

What if we were kind to ourselves and those around us, and make peace with a messy house, a bit of extra charcoal on the roast beef, or the imperfect Christmas tree adorned with love and joy.

With this inner peace and kindness let's:

💞 connect and be present with those that means the 🌎 to us
🫂graciously hug those that are unable to do so
🌮🥘🧆and eat with relish as food is meant to nourish our bodies and our souls ☺️

Hope you all have a wonderful end to 2023, and I look forward to the ripples of impact we will create together in 2024.

When so much in the world is outside of your control, this is one thing that makes a massive difference to a child's sense of self worth, love and confidence.

As adults, it can be easy to forget just how we came to know what we know, have the confidence to do what we do, and know what warrants our fear and what doesn't (well actually, we still struggle with this sometimes right?).
And for some weird reason - we expect our kids to instantly understand all this, and realistically they don't, because they simply haven't had enough life experience yet.
So one thing we can do, is ensure they know that they can always trust us to have their back, no matter what challenges they face.

"I'm a crap parent, I can't believe I forgot...."
"My boss is going to flip, that I can't work because the little one is sick AGAIN"
"I can't even get the dishes done...."

Too often we strive to be perfect at the multiple roles we have in life, and sure if you just did that one role, perhaps you could get pretty close to perfect...but let's be real, we aren't "Just a mum/dad", "Just a pleb", "Just the homemaker", we are a whole and rich person with many roles to play.

Be kind to yourself and do things WELL ENOUGH, anything more is not fair on your wellbeing and happiness.

Some days I don't know up from down, whether it's the endless cycle of runny noses and coughs, the forms that need to be filled out, clothes that need to be changed over because they've been outgrown, that project you keep meaning to do, or the growing mountain of laundry, topped off with a toddler meltdown. All I tell myself is that these days will pass, and soon I'll only wish for that one last cuddle, that one last night time feed, that innocent look of unconditional love they give you.

Do you sometimes feel like being a parent is a never ending roller coaster of ups and downs?

As an entrepreneur, I can't stand the word "Mumpreneur". Same goes for "working mum". Why is there no "Dadpreneur" or "working dad"? When the assumptions behind these titles, and the titles themselves disappear, that's when we will achieve gender equity in business, work and home life.
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There's a lot of talk about how to close the pay gap, share equal parenting and housework, achieve gender equity, along with a whole lot of policies and campaigns targeted at addressing the issue as adults. It starts in childhood, with the stories we read to our kids, the way we speak to and about other genders, and the toys and colours we surround them with. I challenge you as a parent, to take a look around your house, what gender messaging is your child surrounded with? Are they from birth already shuffled down a path (without any ill intent) of what is expected of them based on gender?

Happy Mother's Day to all, may you realise how special your role is as a mother in fostering a resilient and empowered next generation

Remember your true value as a parent.

So often I hear parents talk about feeling guilty for getting upset, angry or frustrated in front of their kids, and it makes me sad. How are kids meant to learn to process these emotions effectively when we hide them away in an attempt to be perfect? So feel your emotions and most importantly, show your kids how you overcome them, then they'll know it's ok to be human too.

When you become a parent, something weird in society happens, suddenly anyone and everyone from the butcher to your great uncle wants to give you advice. It can be overwhelming, judgemental and at times undermining. More often than not, the giving of the advice is about the person giving it needing to feel important, useful, generous. So let's focus on only taking in the advice that resonates with the way our families operate and let all other pieces go.

With everything that is going on in the world today, there is a great deal of pain, sadness, anxiety, anger and more. It's times like this that we need to appreciate all we have, food, water, shelter, safety to live our lives free from violence, fear and oppression.

Valentine's Day, always so focussed on couples. This year I wanted to put a spin on it, and remind everyone, that to receive real love from others, you first have to have love in your heart for you.

It's time to stop parenting and start leading.

Stop Parenting and Start Leading This is "Stop Parenting and Start Leading" by Jolynne Rydz on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

Affirmation for the week.

Do you feel like a parenting team?

Jolynne Rydz updated their website address.

A great way to spend the day out together and get some fruit in😆

Parenting in today's modern society is tough.

Whether you have a newborn or a “threenager”, the exhaustion, overwhelm and sense of loss of your old life, feeling so torn between this intoxicating love for your child yet so frustrated by everything that you want to scream...can be long lasting.

I’ve been on this journey, that continues to unfold.

I don’t know how many times people said to me “once you hold them in your arms, you’ll be instantly in love”… honestly this isn’t the case for many, and for me I was just feeling triumphant that I got him out!

The deep love people talk about, that comes later.

Why?

Because there is so much that parents need to adjust to, so much resilience needed to face the challenges of raising a little human, that more often than not they are unprepared for.

For me, I felt like I was no longer contributing to society now that life revolved around the ground hog day of Eat, Sleep, P**p, Repeat.

Not understanding why my relationships had changed, somedays I even felt invisible as all that mattered was "the baby".

When opening up about what's hard the unhelpful response I so frequently got was "AT LEAST your child is healthy", adding to the mountain of guilt that now as well as struggling as a parent I was also ungrateful.

Being consumed by anger and frustration when they won't sleep, then feeling crazy when moments later you gaze at their peacefully sleeping face and want to cry with love.

Not knowing who I was now, that career, friendships and life was so very different.

By nature we are a clan society and yet these days we live in nuclear families, isolated from everyday support of family and friends, even though we are digitally connected now more then ever.

Judgement comes left, right and centre, whether you do or you don't, parents of today carry a burden and anxiety about being criticised for their everyday choices, actions and inactions.

From strained relationships, to a loss of identity and complete overwhelm at wanting to raise these little humans in the best way possible, we trawl the internet for hours looking for solutions and becoming more and more confused by all of the conflicting information.

Well meaning advice can be frustratingly "captain obvious" to downright hurtful and offensive, finding the nuggets of gold to use is like finding a needle in a burning haystack of emotion, tears and tantrums.

This rollercoaster went on until I realised that somewhere along the way, we had forgotten how to trust our children, and forgotten how to trust ourselves.

Suddenly it made sense why everyone had different opinions, because no one knows your family better than you.

It takes skill in reading behaviour, group dynamics, mindset and cause and effect to unravel these complex challenges, especially when there is so much focus on baby's physical wellbeing that the emotional and mental wellbeing of the mother, let alone father, comes as almost an afterthought in many care provider settings.

So I went on a self-journey, to discover what it was that was making this tougher than it needs to be, for me and so many other parents around the world.

I did a lot of soul work, reflection, researching myself and parenting.

It took over a year.

And what I realised was that as parents, society has conditioned us to “control your kids” and despite all the new age parenting styles out there, still parents were struggling with being confident in their choices, being resilient to the challenges and being empowered to do it their own way.

I realised this…

The missing ingredient was leadership. Something I have been honing and teaching others throughout my whole career, and I didn’t see it until it smacked me in the face.

So now I am on a mission, to equip parents like you to become more confident, resilient and empowered.

Using leadership, mindset and behavioural dynamics, so you can feel more energised, more connected with your child and partner, to feel at peace with who you are, where parenting is simply one role you play and doesn’t define you.

When children feel empowered to be themselves, trusted and inspired by their parents, they will become the leaders of tomorrow.

Ultimately, when parents thrive, their families will too.

It's now easier to send Jolynne Rydz a message.