Staying Present with Our Children with Jacintha Field

When Not Yet Becomes Right Now (00:00)
Welcome to When Not Yet Becomes Right Now, the podcast where we dive deep into the moments of transformation, the times when not yet shifts into right now and everything changes. I'm your host, Jen Ginty and this podcast is all about those pivotal moments in our life journeys. You know the ones, when the hesitation fades, when we take that first step, even if it feels like a leap. It's in these moments that growth and healing begins. Each episode will explore stories of resilience,

moments of clarity, and the sparks that ignite real change. From personal experiences to expert insights, we'll uncover how people navigate the complex journey we call life and come out stronger on the other side. Whether you're searching for that spark in your own life or just curious about how change unfolds for others, you're in the right place. We'll discuss the ups and downs, the breakthroughs and setbacks, and how to embrace the right now, even when it feels out of reach. Because sometimes,

The hardest part of the journey is realizing that the moment you've been waiting for has already arrived. So take a deep breath, settle in, and let's get started.

Jen (01:09)
Hello and welcome to When Not Yet Becomes Right Now. Today's guest is Jacintha Field, family and child counselor, art therapist and founder of Happy Souls Kids, a global platform helping children aged five to 12 regulate big feelings through storytelling, gamified tools and the voices of role models they admire. After overcoming domestic violence, solo parenting and burnout, Jacintha.

transformed her own healing journey into a mission to reach 100,000 children by 2027. Featured in outlets like Mamma Mia, KidSpot, and Thrive Global, she brings honesty, creativity, and deep insight into emotional literacy, mindful parenting, and building purpose-led work from life's messier moments. Welcome, Jacintha.

J - Happy Souls Kids (02:01)
Thanks so much for having me Jen. Now my name is Jacintha. It's like Samantha and Jacinta put together and people get very confused by it. So you are very welcome to call me Jay because otherwise it's like a little bit of a tongue twister. So yeah, you're welcome to call me Jay.

Jen (02:15)
Well, thank you. I am so excited for our conversation today. I think we're going to have a conversation that a lot of people maybe will understand and feel less alone with. So tell us your origin story.

J - Happy Souls Kids (02:26)
Yeah, yeah

⁓ how far do we want to go back? Okay, so I was always a happy little girl. I'm growing up I was always I just always picture myself in this yellow dress like just happy, happy little girl running around and I thought very differently to my family. And so I ⁓ was always the black sheep who had different even from a young age. And so I was shut down a lot for the way that I was thinking. And I think all of that

Jen (02:36)
as far as you feel comfortable.

J - Happy Souls Kids (03:02)
being shut down so many times, it really starts to have an effect on you. And so I just really, ⁓ my mom's very connected, but my dad is very concrete, harden up, you'll be right, get over it. And so I think that I just started suppressing my emotions. And that's when I started turning to sugar to suppress my emotions. And so I would steal $2 from my mom's wallet every day and go to the milk bar and just self-soothe with sugar. And that was kind of a pattern that I started really early in primary school.

And I just learned not to have a voice. I learned to just conform and do what everyone else was doing and, you know, not speak up. Sometimes when I got the courage I would, but I was very quickly shut down. And I think that it's very hard when you have a different opinion, when you have a different voice to other people.

rather than people accepting that voice and rather than listening to why they might think that way and being inquisitive and curious about why a person thinks like that, as we see in the world right now, we're shut down. And so I went through life, I put on a lot of weight during high school because I was obviously addicted to sugar. And then when I was 17, I got a boyfriend and we partied. So the sugar then turned to kind of partying and having fun together and

⁓ I didn't realize it kind of at the time because it didn't have a name, but that was domestic violence. You know, we were together for 15 years on and off and there were moments that I look back now and I think why I was so broken. I was a little girl that was so broken that just wanted to be loved and I would allow somebody to treat me like that. I was so busy saying, but here's this and here's this and here's this. And it's not until now when I've done so much work on myself that I'm like, why on

earth would I allow somebody to treat me like that? Why would I continually go back? I was just so broken. And then, then I, we, I ended that relationship. I can't even tell you that the day that that happened, cause it was so many times of on off, on off, on off that I just found my voice and I said, no, I'm done here. And then I was in a new relationship and, and I became pregnant.

So when I, were together for probably maybe 18 months and then I became pregnant. And when I became pregnant, it was just the joy of my life. Like it was just, even when I conceived and I was growing this beautiful child in me, I was like, wow, this is amazing. And I just have that deep level of connection. And I remember frozen was on, let it go. And we just sing, let it go all the time. And it was just so beautiful. And so when I became a mom, I was like, this is the best. Like I loved it.

my ex partner saying this is the hardest thing we've ever done. And I think you're either kind of maternal or you find it really challenging. And I think women can connect to their children a lot quicker and a lot deeper than, you know, often males can because they're not growing a baby inside and having that deep connection for nine months. And then when my child was 18 months old, we would still go out and drink and party and you'd have a lot of fun. And I don't regret my past, like I've met some amazing people. I've built some beautiful connections. I've got some really fun memories.

but when my son was 18 months old, you know, I was like, that's it. We're going to get back. And so I went to a restaurant and I was having lychee martinis and espresso martinis. And I was like, that's it. back. My body completely rejected it. Like 100 % was like, this is not, we're not doing this anymore. And I was so sick. I had to, I was in an Uber on the way home and I had to pull over the Uber cause I was really sick and I had a hangover five days.

And that was one of the first times that I just said, that's it, I'm done. I said, I'm done. I don't want this life for my child. This is not who I want to be. And so I quit. And I said, that's it, I'm done. And everyone around me was like, whatever. You know how everyone always says, that's it, I'm quitting drinking. But I knew I was serious. Like when I make a decision, like you can't stop me, like that's it. And so I found that process really challenging because...

I was a new mum, which can be very lonely. And I'd quit drinking and made a decision for myself. And I've realised years later that that was very triggering for other people. And it was quite a lonely time in my life. Like, you know, I had this beautiful boy that I just wanted to look after his name's Axel. He's just divine. And we had such a deep connection. And there was a time there where I worked too much. Like I had my own peer and social media agency and he would go to other people other than me. And I was like, no, this is not who I want to be either.

I want to be the present mom, that's who I want to be. And so that relationship ended in 2019, 2020, we separated and then my son started school and it was COVID all at the same time. And it was a very brutal separation, it still is to be honest. hasn't been met with a lot of kindness.

And so I started studying to be able to support my own child. He was throwing bins around the house. He was running up the street. was, his emotions were so well beyond anything I could support at the time. Like he was broken. And the thing is I was broken as well. Like it was a really, really hard time in my life where I'd felt like that I was smashed into by a semi trailer going a hundred miles an hour. Like it was.

I was at the bottom of the barrel. I was like, I can't understand this. I've been doing all of this work. I've been meditating and I've been doing all this breath work and I was on this path and I just could not understand how something so brutally could happen during those aspects. aren't you supposed to go on a healing journey and everything's supposed to be wonderful and you make decisions for yourself and you know, it's all linear and it's great. No, it is not at all. It is tough. And so, ⁓

I just really studied in and I worked out that even though I'd done my own work, breath work and meditation, et cetera, that wasn't landing with my child. He was, we would do cosmic kids and we do yoga on them. We do breath work practices, but it wasn't enough for him. And so I studied and I was researching as much as I could to support him. And so I started drawing circles for him. I said, if you can you just draw the face of how you're feeling in the circle.

And so that's what he would do. And then we'd break it down and say, why are you feeling sad? Why are you feeling disappointed? Why are you feeling frustrated? And that was kind of how I started relating to my own child. And I started really connecting in with him. And then during COVID, I saw that kids couldn't gain access to psychologists, which as an empath, just absolutely broke my heart. And unfortunately, Janet still exists today where kids can't gain access to psychologists. There's six to 12 month waits and it's, it's

You know, it's heartbreaking. There's families and children all over the world that are suffering that just can't get that support. So then I made a commitment and to be of service and I started studying to become a family and child counselor and art therapist. I've studied play therapy and a my kids yoga teacher. And through all of that, that's what I've worked out kind of what I needed to work on. And to be honest, the process for me Jen was so healing. Like when I was studying to be counselor and we were doing art therapy, it was so incredibly healing to me.

And then I had this light bulb moment. 20 years ago when I was partying, I went to a meditation teacher and the meditation teacher just got me to draw and draw and draw. And so I couldn't express how I was feeling at the time. And so then for me to be able to go into art therapy with children, like it's just this beautiful motion of like, okay, I get it. The dots have been connected. I understand. I understand why this happened. I even understand why my separation happened and why it had to be so brutal and

think when you go through those elements, you just get these like, okay, I get it. I get it. Like at the time I call it the mud where it's just so hard. You know, you are stuck in there. Things are being thrown at you left, right and center. You're not knowing where to be. But I think when you realize that things are happening and that they're there to help you, it makes the journey a little bit easier.

And then we moved to Torquay, which is a surfing capital of Australia. And that's where Kelly Slater is all the time surfing. And I had a private practice there. And so I learnt the pain points that children and parents were facing. And I loved it. Like I would just work with kids and I'd play with kids all day. And it was through the therapeutic process. And then we'd build different languages with children and families. And then I...

I was in practice with one of the kids one day and I said, hey, do you wanna do some meditation? He just rolls his eyes at me like, whatever lady. I said, you know, LeBron James meditates and instantaneously he was in. And so that's when I knew happy source kids would be something beyond the practice, but I had to make a really hard decision. And this was hard for me. I loved the kids. loved them. It was such a hard decision for me to be able to move away from my practice to work on a startup.

which we're building now. And so that's kind of our journey. We moved back to Melbourne and yeah, it's a really long winded 11 minute journey there, Jen, but that's kind of, ⁓ you know, how I got to where I am. But I think it's, and I've had many more traumas in my life. I think that you, in order to hold space for people, you have to go through a lot of traumas yourself.

Jen (12:28)
Yeah, you know, it's that there is this kind of understanding when you have gone through many different aspects of maybe trauma or, you know, depression, that kind of thing that you become more sensitive to it for others.

J - Happy Souls Kids (12:33)
Mmm.

Mmm.

Yeah, you can feel, you can feel what people feel even before they're feeling them. You know, it's like you can understand like, ⁓ that's big for you. And often we just get told to eat concrete hard enough, you'll be right. And so that's the, that's how people live is they just, they just ignore their feelings. get on with it. Like, don't worry about it. Just, you know, we're not going to talk about it. And that's for me, it came out in really toxic ways.

And so yeah, it's tough. Like the journey with feelings and emotions is really tough, especially if you're not connected to yourself.

Jen (13:19)
Absolutely. And there are so

many points that you brought up that I want to discuss, but I thought it would be important to go back to the childhood aspect of it, that you felt silenced and you felt like you weren't able to use your voice and that you were a happy girl and somehow or other that kind of just put a of like a wet blanket over it, right?

J - Happy Souls Kids (13:24)
Mm-hmm.

mmm mmm

Mm.

Yeah.

Jen (13:46)
and then how that affects relationships in the future.

J - Happy Souls Kids (13:50)
I mean, in every relationship that I was in, was silenced after that. No, was just those patterns and habits and beliefs that constantly came up for me. And that was that almost felt safe. It's a weird thing where you you attract things that you feel inside. ⁓ And so, yeah, every relationship that I've been in, I've never really been able to find my voice and find me as a human being.

⁓ But I've spent the last five years of my life breaking all of those habits and beliefs. And I have very clear boundaries now, especially with friendships ⁓ and relationships, et cetera. That, you know, it started in my childhood. And that's why I'm working with kids because I've spent my adult life dealing with my childhood. Like I just picture that little girl and I do a lot of inner child work where it's like, hey,

Jen (14:35)
All

J - Happy Souls Kids (14:45)
You're still there in your little yellow dress with your little smile running around. ⁓ But there was also a time in my life where I would only look at the happy emotions. You I always had to be happy. I could never be sad. And now with all of the work I've done, I will openly say, yeah, I've had a bad day or I'm frustrated or I'm disappointed or I'm angry.

Jen (14:50)
Yes.

J - Happy Souls Kids (15:09)
⁓ because that's what makes us whole. And it's taken me a long time to accept every part of myself. And that's the yin and the yang. That's the, the dark and the lighter elements of me and realize that I'm so worthy of love and I don't need to be somebody else or pretend to feel another way. I just need to be me. And that first love comes from ourself, Jen, you know, you've got to see yourself so deeply first.

before you allow others to see you.

Jen (15:39)
Yes, yes. I feel similarly about the child aspect of being ⁓ silenced to being in fear. I know we discussed this earlier, but yeah, with my childhood and my abuser, I did not know what a relationship was supposed to be, what I was supposed to accept.

J - Happy Souls Kids (15:48)
Hmm.

Mmm.

Hmm.

Jen (16:06)
Right?

That there, if I can be treated like this by someone who's supposed to love me, I guess that's supposed to be the way I'm treated, right? And even now, after all the different relationships that I've been in, I've found that the best relationship for me is myself.

J - Happy Souls Kids (16:14)
Mmm.

And it's really hard pill to swallow because we constantly look outside of ourselves. And often I was became a people pleaser. would have, I would know so many thousands of people, know, thousands and I'd always be, you know, I just wanted to be loved by all these people. And it's not until I separated that I was like, well, who's there? They're not, you haven't even called and checked in.

That's not my friend. That's not somebody that really deeply cares. And that's when I learned to love myself. And I know, you've briefly talked about your story and that's challenging. Like it's very hard to go from isolation and feeling lonely to loving every part of you. It's a long life project. It's not easy.

Jen (17:16)
No, it's not. And a lot of people ask, where are you at in your journey? I'm like in the middle. And I'll be 10 years from now in the middle. Because it's a lifelong thing to learn to love yourself, to have those boundaries that protect yourself even when you are that people pleaser and you're like, maybe I should say yes when we know deep inside it's a no.

J - Happy Souls Kids (17:18)
Mmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

It is.

mmm

I'm really good at boundaries now, but the people around me are finding it very hard to accept. Like I, I will just know. Like I had somebody say to me the other day, not ask me a question. ⁓ you know, like I was going through some really big stuff, like personally, ⁓ and it was like, you need to do this for me. ⁓ you're not going to do it. Okay. No worries. We'll take care then. And I'm like, okay, I'm, I'm, I'm good. You know, like I'm, I'm just, I don't want to invite that, that.

toxicity into my life anymore. I'm not going to chase that. Whereas I used to, don't worry. no, no, no, we can be friends. For me, it's like, you need to have a level of acceptance that if I'm distant, either something's happened or I need time to myself, I need to work on myself. I've got some big stuff going on. And I think that that's from humans. Like it's, it's tough.

Jen (18:34)
It truly is.

J - Happy Souls Kids (18:34)
You have abandonment wounds.

have all of this stuff that comes up, but I just don't allow people, unless they speak to me respectfully, to be able to project their stuff onto me anymore. I'm a counselor. Yes, I absolutely am, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to hold all your garbage.

Jen (18:49)
My therapist likes to say I'm the sponge that keeps sucking up the water and not squeezing it out. And I have been learning throughout the years to squeeze that out and give myself the time and energy that I need to focus on me as a person. So I really feel very, very deeply about boundaries at this point. And I'm glad that you have those and you feel

J - Happy Souls Kids (18:55)
Yeah

Mm.

Mmm.

Yeah.

Mmm.

Jen (19:18)
secure in them because I think that's so important.

J - Happy Souls Kids (19:20)
yeah, it was fixated

on my head for years. It was like boundaries, boundaries, boundaries, like, you know, and that's okay to have boundaries. It's also okay to break away from things and heal if you need to. If you've got stuff going on, you don't need to tell everyone what's going on in your life. Like I've always done that always have been like, and shame. I've grown up with Brene Brown and I think that if I'm vulnerable with people, they will connect to me. Whereas if they kind of just back away and go, what's this lady talking about?

but I've actually just learnt to, you know, just deal with my stuff within myself as well, rather than having to tell everyone what's going on.

Jen (19:59)
Yeah,

yeah. I want to ask you more about your son and his big feelings because my oldest son, he was a handful. He was a lot. And I didn't have the parents beforehand to teach me how to deal with a child with big feelings. So you were talking about how your son, he was having a really hard time and you took the time to

J - Happy Souls Kids (20:05)
Mmm.

Mm.

Mmm.

Jen (20:28)
really sit with him and figure out what it was that he needed through your own discovery.

J - Happy Souls Kids (20:30)
Mm.

Yeah, well, first of all, Jen, I want you to really forgive yourself because we don't know what we don't know. And these conversations are very normalized now. But when we when our children were younger, they were not. So, you know, it's it's beautiful now that we can show up for our kids in a different way. Yeah, my child is an emotional being. He's very sensitive and he's very emotional and he feels really deeply like before COVID we had the bushfires in Australia. There was bushfires and

you know, and then it was COVID and we separated and he's like, mommy, it's too much. can't do it. I can't do it. And I was like, can I, know, we're here together. And I think my child is here to teach me unconditional love because no matter how he is, I'm going to love him. You know, he's just divine. He's, he's such a beautiful being, but he finds things really hard and

It wasn't just the separation. wasn't just COVID. It was starting school. It was new friendships. It was trying to be seen, heard, valued. And I have a different way of showing up as a parent. I was reading Dr. Shafali's Contra Son Coupling books, you know, before I even became a parent. I just love that deep connection. I remember once I had a friend, you know, my son wouldn't sleep, you know, he was just so he just wouldn't sleep in his in his bed. And I was always like, Nope, that's what we do. We put kids and I remember letting him

cried out for two and a half hours and I was like, absolutely not. This is not who I want to be. And it was very hard for me to stand up to my friendships during that time. And that's a perfect example. Like he's not going to stop. He cried for two and a half hours because he needed me. And that broke my heart as a mom. know? Yeah, you know, that's yeah, that's not who he is. Yeah.

Jen (22:18)
Same happened with me with my son too. Yeah, the pressure. The pressure to do the right parenting way when there's

the only way to parent is the way your child needs you to.

J - Happy Souls Kids (22:31)
I wrote an article on this Jen, ⁓ years ago, it says every Tom, Dick and Harry will give you advice about parenting. And my advice is not to not listen to any of them and actually just listen to what your intuition is telling you. And you know, sometimes that means standing out from the crowd. Sometimes that means standing out from your family and your friends and people that will tell you how things need to be. ⁓ And yeah, I mean, my son is incredible. You know, he...

He, I had to learn a language with him that he really understood and that's through play. He loves playing everything as a game for him. You know, it's just, he still loves me chasing him and, ⁓ he, he loves play. And so that's why I started playing, studying play therapy and even art therapy because he's a doer, you know, he's not so much a talker. Like he is a talker with me now because I've created that safe space for him. But

You know, I had to do a lot of work with him to help him understand that he wasn't the problem in the circumstance. You know, I've been his full-time carer for five years ⁓ and I have not had a lot of help and that has been very triggering for him again. I remember when we moved to Torquay and we sold our house and moved and that was a really emotional process for both of us leaving that house. You know, that was our safety net and we didn't know where we were going and we moved to Torquay.

which is an hour and half away from Melbourne. And we stayed in a tiny house for two months and I was broken, like broken. just like hid in the tiny house. And I was like, I just, couldn't go near people because I was just so broken at the time. And he was as well. And then we found a house and I said, if this is where I'm supposed to be, please give me a sign. There was 85 people on the wait list for houses and we got one within 48 hours. And that was such a beautiful sign for me. And

I remember, so we settled, it took a long time for us to settle. was half in Melbourne, half in Torquay for six months going through a legal process because it was trying to get stopped from me going. And it was exhausting. I would do 20 hours of driving a week. Like I would drive there two or three times in a day. drive to Torquay or drive from Torquay to Melbourne, drop Axe off, go back to Torquay, have a meeting, come back to Melbourne. And I would do that a lot. I exhausted. And when we finally settled,

And my son started school. remember him, I was outside the classroom. We didn't really know anyone in Torquay. It was such a new place for us. And part of me was like, this is what our souls need. This is what we need to do. And part of me is like, mom guilt. You know, I felt awful for taking him away from what he knew, but I also knew that we needed to be a way to heal. And it was middle COVID. We had a 5k radius as well. You know, it was awful. And I remember him being outside the front. ⁓

his new school, his new classroom. And he was just like this. You could feel the anxiety for him. His teeth were just like, he was just so scared. You know, he was going into a new environment. He was already feeling so reactive and scared. And this little boy came over to him. And let's call him John. Let's call him. Let's call him Charlie. And so he came over and he just put his hand over him and he said, Hey,

Hi, hi Axel, I'm Charlie. And I said, oh, Charlie, how do you know? How do you know that Axel was coming? He said, oh, our teacher let us know. I said, oh, do you think you could show him around? And he goes, yeah. And they're still really good friends today, you know, that beautiful moment of helping him feel safe. And getting back to your question, Jen, is we just need to help kids feel really safe within themselves.

And often they don't feel safe. We might just diminish them. They might come up and say, this is not making me feel good. And you'll come up, don't worry about it. It's fine. You know, and we're not giving us an opportunity to listen to our kids and listen to their feelings and listen to the deep stuff that they've got going on in their body. It's really important. And I think that's the place that we need to start is listening to our kids, not trying to fix them. We don't want to fix their problems for them. We just want to listen.

Jen (26:43)
Yeah. Yeah.

J - Happy Souls Kids (26:46)
to what's going on and if they say even at a young age, this childcare doesn't feel safe to me, listen to that. If they're saying that their teacher, they're not connecting to their teacher, find out why. Like be the biggest advocate for your children and making sure that you listen to what they're saying. The other piece to the puzzle is the connection piece. Like my child got to a point, I mean, I'm building a startup, I work a lot, I really do. When I'm not with him, I'm working and

⁓ he will say to me, mommy, I need your whole attention. You know, I want your whole attention. I don't want your attention to be on your phone or on your computer. I want it to be right here with me. And I think that connection piece is missing a lot in parents and children, ⁓ where we are the parent and they are the child. And that's the way that it is. And it's just not like that anymore. You know, we're on a level playing ground. In fact, your child can teach you more about yourself than anybody else in the world. If you allow them to be.

⁓ And so I think that that's really important as well is allowing children to have a voice, to be seen, to be heard, to be valued, because I wasn't in my childhood. And so that's why I do all of this work with children now to help them understand that they are so worthy and they are so loved. And a lot of the times in practice, kids would say, I don't feel like my parent loves me. And that's a very common thing that, you know, I didn't feel loved by.

Jen (27:56)
Bye.

J - Happy Souls Kids (28:15)
by my dad, especially growing up because he couldn't express that. And when you get older, you realize that it's, you know, it's got to do with their own self and they're doing the best that they can. And we have a level for forgiveness for them. But when you're a child, you can't understand all of that. You know, you just, you don't get it. So telling our kids constantly that we love them or we're proud of them, not just cause they get a goal in basketball, but because they...

know that because you really do love and appreciate and you're proud of them just for being them is really important.

Jen (28:49)
Absolutely. And you know, it's interesting you say that you didn't feel love, the love from your family when you were young, as did I. I never felt that love. I was never told that I was loved. So when I had my boys, I made it every day, every single day, I tell those boys how much I love them. And when I go to bed and I say good night, my son, he's 21 now, he still says to me, good night, mom, love you.

J - Happy Souls Kids (28:58)
Hmm

Hmm.

No!

Jen (29:17)
It's like, don't have to say

it anymore. He just immediately, he knows the love is there. And he says it to me because he knows that that's important to me as well. He knows that I have a background of abuse and that I never felt loved in the way that I wanted them to feel loved. I wanna talk a little bit more about, you had mentioned intuition, our intuition.

J - Happy Souls Kids (29:22)
Mm.

Yeah

Mm-hmm.

⁓ Yeah.

Mmm.

Jen (29:44)
how

we feel. when I was younger, I wasn't able to use intuition because of my abuser. Kids that are being abused, they can't trust their intuition because it doesn't matter. And so I had to learn later in life, especially as a mother, to be more in touch with my intuition. Did you always feel that you had that intuition?

J - Happy Souls Kids (29:52)
Mm.

Mm-mm. Mm.

Mm. Mm.

My separation has been the biggest blessing in my life for me to really trust myself and trust, because I was always 10 steps ahead of everything that was happening. And it's because I was trusting myself and trusting my intuition of what that meant. And I would see healers and psychics and all of these people to be able to help me. And what they did is they helped me realize that what I was feeling was right. And I went to psychologists and psychotherapists and

I had to do a lot of that inner work to help me understand that what I was feeling was right. ⁓ I'm a very intuitive human being. I can see things happen 10 times before they actually happen and I can predict and see what's going on with people. And I keep very quiet a lot of the time. That also triggers people when I accidentally say things. ⁓ And I think that you've got to really, especially when you've gone through domestic violence and abuse like we have.

you do start to not trust yourself. You do start to not believe yourself. And I think that it's important to do the work to come back to you. Now, it was really important to me not to go into a new relationship after that, because I just needed to start trusting myself more. And your intuition is the best thing that you've got. It's your superpower. It's something that you have within you to feel. How does this person feel for me? Do they do they feel aligned? Is this what's going on? Betrayal is a

thing that happens in my life, constant, like by many friends, by many relationships, by many situations. And so I have to learn to pick it up quicker. Before I would just ignore things and I can ignore them and I ignore them and then it would blow up in my face. Now I've learned to, that does not feel right for me. I'm going to create distance with that. And it doesn't always mean you have to have a conversation with that person. It just means that you can

you can pull back your energy. And that's what I've realized. I thought that I'd have to have a big conversation with them about these things. And sometimes you need to do that. It's really important if the person is struggling for you to actually be open about how you're feeling, but it's also really important to just trust what you're feeling inside to know that something doesn't feel safe. And I had to do a lot of inner work to work that out. But yeah, my, mean,

so many things happened in my separation and I was like, no way. And they happened. was like, what is this really going to happen? It happened. And there were many moments where I was like, whoa, whoa, I just knew. I just, I just knew like he moved on with somebody else. Um, and I just knew, I can't tell you how I knew these things. I just knew. And regardless of what he was saying to me, I knew that not to be true. And

That's a really powerful woman or human being that trusts their intuition. You know, that's, you don't listen to the gaslighting or you don't listen to the manipulation anymore, or you see through all of these things and you start calling them out. And it's hard to find your voice to do that. You get segregated and you'll get shut down even more. And you just have to really

Believe in yourself and believe that you are so worthy and you are so connected to you that when you find that part of yourself, you're never going to let it go ever again. You know, you're never going to let an abuser come in. You're never going to let manipulation or gaslighting or coercive control, which I didn't even know what these words meant before I separated. Um, you're not going to let them, somebody overpower you.

And that's when we become strong is when we can see other people's behavior, but not let it affect us.

Jen (34:08)
Yeah, yeah. And for me, it really is still a work in progress. And I think it will be for a while, but it's truly important to sit back and listen to yourself and not let naysayers constantly tell you, no, no, that's not the right way. And when I chose to divorce, I had many people who said very negative things about my decision.

J - Happy Souls Kids (34:13)
Mm.

Mm.

Mm.

Jen (34:36)
My mother told me I would never make it without him. A friend of mine said, you know, I would never do that to my children. So I was getting... Oh, thank you.

J - Happy Souls Kids (34:36)
Mmm.

.

I wish I could have been there for you during that time, Jen. I really

do wish that I could have been that voice for you to say that you are going to be okay and you are so strong and you don't deserve to be treated by anything other than respect by any human being that surrounds you.

Jen (35:03)
Thank you, I appreciate that

so much. It means a lot to me to hear that. But yeah, I did, I had to learn that what I was choosing for myself and my children was the right thing.

J - Happy Souls Kids (35:15)
Mmm.

Do you know what that means when people say those things to you? It's taken me a really long time to understand this. It's because there's a part of them that's scared. So there's a part of them that would never do that. There's a part of them that would never step out of that comfort zone because they don't have the strength. Same thing when I quit drinking. I would trigger lots of people. I trigger a lot of people all the time with the way I live, but you know, I triggered something inside of them that they couldn't do.

And that's when you get those reactions, Jen, from your mother or from a friend. It's actually got nothing to do with you and it's got to do with how they feel about themselves. And when we can learn that, that's where we learn strength. You know, when we can learn that the way that people react is more about them and not about you. That's when we find that beautiful element inside of us and go, ⁓ this is big. You know, this is really big is

Jen (36:00)
You're right.

Yes.

J - Happy Souls Kids (36:15)
your behavior and your reactions can't affect me anymore and that's just in a piece you know like that's when you're like oh you know um because

Jen (36:24)
That's right. Absolutely.

J - Happy Souls Kids (36:30)
I mean, your mum said that you would never make it on your own and how are your kids?

Jen (36:34)
They're great. They're fantastic. They're 21 and 18, and they are independent young men. They are very empathetic, and they love with all their hearts.

J - Happy Souls Kids (36:49)
And guess who taught them that gin?

Jen (36:51)
I did.

J - Happy Souls Kids (36:53)
Yeah, you taught them that. And you taught them as well is to walk away from an abuser.

Jen (36:54)
Yeah.

Yeah, you're right.

J - Happy Souls Kids (37:01)
and you taught them

strength and you taught them to stand up to bullies and you taught them like what would you perceive if you stayed in that relationship? Do you think that they would be the same children?

Jen (37:13)
I don't think so. I don't. I don't think they would. Because there was an aspect of fear there. And when they started to live without that fear, they really blossomed.

J - Happy Souls Kids (37:15)
Mm.

Mm.

And how beautiful that you taught them that Jen, you know, because of a decision that you made for yourself without listening to anybody outside of you. And this is the hard part is when you start to learn compassion for those people and you say, well, they're not there. They've got a lot of work to do. And that's hard too. You know, we can't blame people for not knowing what they don't know, but at the same time we can protect ourselves.

Jen (37:27)
Thank you.

Yes.

That's right.

J - Happy Souls Kids (37:52)
And maybe that person doesn't belong in your life for the next little while, you know, maybe one day they will, but it's, amazing when you make that decision for yourself and people are too fearful for do it for them. But then when soon as they separate, you're the first person that they call.

Jen (37:52)
Yes.

Yeah. And my mother

to this day says, thank God you left after all of that negativity. And I want to turn to her and be like, but you told me I couldn't do it. And I know my mother, she doesn't mean harm. She does live through, as fear based, her whole life has been fear. She's even said that to me. I said, you're going to give yourself a heart attack. And she's like, this is how I always was. So I.

J - Happy Souls Kids (38:11)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Mm.

Hmm.

Jen (38:34)
had to overcome that voice in my head of my mother. And it's made a world of difference.

J - Happy Souls Kids (38:40)
Mm.

And we call that generational trauma and breaking those generational traumas of things that have happened and showing our children a different way. And that's so important. You know, it's, so important to find our voice and make decisions that we know are right. And it's hard. It's like being on your own. It's not easy. It's not as if you go, wow, life's amazing. It's, it's tough, but they, your kids and your mom and the people around you actually teach you so much. And that's when you can learn grace is when you're like,

Jen (38:48)
That's right.

Yes.

J - Happy Souls Kids (39:14)
Thank you for saying that to me because I've worked out that I can say no to you and that in itself is growth.

Jen (39:22)
That, right there, that, yes. So tell me about your startup.

J - Happy Souls Kids (39:24)
Mmm.

Mm hmm. So yes, that's another that's another beauty. It's it's it's I didn't know too much about startup world like my backgrounds and events and PR and I worked ⁓ on some really big projects and I loved it. And then I went into counseling and I had my own PR and social media agency at one point and then I decided to build a startup I can entire new world that I have no no idea about.

And so I've had to learn over the last couple of years, we moved back to Melbourne a year ago and I've worked on it full time. I still have some clients here and there, but ⁓ I really do work on supporting children and parents to have that deep connection. So even though it's an app for children, it's a gamified app. So we leverage the influence of athletes or kids heroes. I'm not going to put it in a box of athletes, but

people that can be of influence to children and that doesn't need to necessarily be an athlete. But when a child sees somebody win a gold medal, they'll be like, my God, they're so talented. And you're like, well, yes, they are. But you have not seen the journey that they've had to go through to get there. And that's what we do at Happy Souls Kids. We tell those journeys to people. We say, hey, this is like, they've gone through levels of self-worth. They haven't wanted to show up. They haven't wanted to go and get out of bed.

They felt like that they're not good enough. They've been cut from the team. They've lost games. And these are what the solutions of what they do. You know, it might be prayer. It might be meditation. It might be journaling. It might be getting out in nature more. It might be just believing themselves. It might even just be tapping out sometimes and playing Nintendo, you know, a PlayStation. Like everybody has an element of self care that they need to do, especially when they're on that level. And so our journey is about telling those stories.

is about like really going deep and saying, Hey, this is who this is what they do to get to where they are. So it's not just about meditation. Some kids can't meditate. My kid can't he would not sit there. Sometimes he has a mantra. We've done all of those things. And, know, just roll his eyes like whatever mommy, you know, he's one of those whatever mommy kids and but give him breath work or give him a gamified app. And he will learn that way. So he's my unofficial co founder. You know, he is beautiful like he's

He says like, no, that's good. No, that's not good. And so through those elements of learning, ⁓ we are now in our beta testing phase, which means that the prototype is built and it's in the back end. So we're just working with psychologists, mental health workers and, and children to be able to help them help understand how they learn and what they need to learn, because we don't always get it right in the startup phase. It's just really understanding and connecting to

to our audience, which is where we're at right now. So that's kind of Happy Souls Kids. And if you want to be a beta tester, please send me an email at hello at Happy Souls Kids and you can be one of our beta testers. And it's not just an app in Australia. We want it to go global. And through all of the work that I've done in practice and my 20 years of healing, like I've been on this path for 20 years, it's...

helping children understand those things that sometimes it's okay to be happy and it's okay to be sad and it's okay to be disappointed. it's really helping kids understand and connect to their parents and helping their parents have different ways to connect to kids. So yeah, it's really exciting up. It's like the last six months I've gone through some really big stuff like self-worth things to be like, well, this is a lot. It's a lot.

Jen (43:05)
Mm-hmm.

J - Happy Souls Kids (43:07)
It's a lot to build this and know, fear and scared and all of these elements and ⁓ it's all part of the journey, but we've got some really great supporters. We've got some really great people on there and you just got to keep on going and go back to your purpose and go back to your why and be like, yep, this feels really good for me. my purpose is to support children, is to help kids, is to help their parents see the child in front of them.

When I became a mom, was like, I'm going to be an earth mom and we're going to live in the land and we're to go surfing and we're going to, you know, like eat organic food and everything's going to be wonderful. That is not my kid. He loves gaming. He loves technology. He's so incredibly intelligent. He has an engineering brain. He's just a smart little cookie. He can solve Rubik's cubes. He can get in front in front of the stage with a thousand kids and sing in a band. You know, he's so incredibly talented, but he doesn't

Like he says he hates the beach, know, like he doesn't, wants to move to Antarctica cause he hates the sun. That's the complete opposite of me. Like, my, don't understand. How could you not like the beach? It's so beautiful. And he'll get down there and he'll be there for four hours and everything will be wonderful. But for him, there's this block there. And so I, as a parent have had to learn who the child is in front of me and had to accept parts of he has a 3D printing business. We go to the market, we sell things, you know, he's

Jen (44:09)
Mm-hmm.

J - Happy Souls Kids (44:29)
he's so technology minded that much smarter than me. ⁓ I think it's really important for us to see our kids for who they are. And that's another piece of the puzzle as well is that helping parents understand that maybe it's not always our kids, maybe we've got some stuff to work on within ourselves too. And saying that in a really soft way to parents, I think is really important. So that's what they're doing. The app is called Happy Souls Kids and yeah, it's about helping people globally. ⁓

really find that connection within themselves and with their kids.

Jen (45:02)
Yes, yes, and I love that you called it your purpose. I call my Moody Monster my purpose because it came from my own personal frustrations and then being able to share that with the world. And again, like you said, getting parents and children to communicate and to learn from each other.

J - Happy Souls Kids (45:05)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Mmm.

Yeah.

Jen (45:26)
And for parents, you say it gently to them. And I try to do the same thing, is we can't help our children if we don't help ourselves as well, if we don't get our own toolbox together, right? And to take care of ourselves so we can help them as well.

J - Happy Souls Kids (45:26)
Mm.

Mm.

Jen, can you, because there's obviously some of my audience that will be listening, could you please let me know about Moody Movements and what that is about? Because I think that it's really important for my audience to know about your purpose too.

Jen (45:51)
Yes.

yeah, yeah, so my Moody Monster, I'll show you who they are. So this is Moody and Moody is a buddy for those big, big frustrations that kids get because you can rip them apart. Yes, yes, yes, and it's so satisfying. And when I realized that Moody could help me, I wanted to share them with the world and...

J - Happy Souls Kids (46:09)
love it so much. I love that! It's like anger! ⁓ sure!

I love

it!

Jen (46:26)
Yeah,

so I, you know, on my YouTube, I do moody story time and we read books about emotions and I do moody talks that are more centered for parents and adults that talk about each emotion. I use DBT as my own therapy and using those skills to teach ⁓ adults how to better cope with their emotions and to build that toolbox that I like to talk about.

J - Happy Souls Kids (46:31)
Bye!

Mmm.

Hmm.

Yeah, beautiful. Like that, when you just did that with a head and ripped it off, like that was so satisfying for me, even as an adult. And, you know, we work with slime in practice and, you know, ⁓ sand trays and shaving cream and all of this stuff. And I try and teach parents that it's for you as well. It's not just for the kids. So when you did that rip of the head, I was like, that's so satisfying even for a parent. So.

Jen (46:56)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Yes

J - Happy Souls Kids (47:18)
Congratulations

on creating something just so really cool for kids and that's come out of your pain. And, you know, we appreciate you for even having this podcast and, you know, creating such wonder in the world. Like, please give yourself a little hug and a high five because you're doing amazing things.

Jen (47:24)
Yeah.

And you are too. I can only imagine how this is helping children who, as you said, have gone through COVID, who probably in their young years when they should be socializing, having those skills to be able to socialize and needing a connection.

J - Happy Souls Kids (47:44)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm.

Jen (47:58)
that your app will bring to them, I think is amazing. I think children need as many connections to what they feel comfortable with. And I think kids feel comfortable with the technology now. For me, a long time ago that, no, I would not want any, I mean, I'm an 80s girl. but that technology is a connection for them now. And yes.

J - Happy Souls Kids (47:58)
Mmm.

They do. And that's a language. ⁓

It is it's their language. It's the way that they learn.

It's the way that they understand. And, know, even now there's a lot of separation anxiety and kids go well when during COVID we did two hours of work and we were at the beach the whole day. can you know, why do I have to do eight hours of school? And you're like, yeah, okay, fair enough. You know, then there is a lot more of separation anxiety and things and kids just needing their parents. And when you were spent two years with them locked up in a house, like a lot of them are really excited by that. You know, they

Jen (48:40)
Yeah.

J - Happy Souls Kids (48:52)
they were really excited just to have their parents all the time. Parents were, you know, petrified and really scared of the future. And kids were just like, ⁓ this is great. We just get to play games with mom and dad all day. And in practice, Jen, I'll say to the kids, like, if you could start your day from the start to the finish, what would it look like? And nine times out of 10, they will say, I want to be with my family. And that's the piece that

people don't realize like you could be working and just get your child to come and sit next to you and read a book. They just want to be close to you. And that's the most important thing to them. So I think that's really important for parents to understand that you don't need to have all the bells and whistles and they're really big house or the really big car or whatever it might be, whatever material the item that you're working on. Kids just need you.

They just need you and that's all that they need. You know, they don't need all of the, all the other things. They might say it, but what they need deep down is just that beautiful connection piece.

Jen (49:53)
Yeah. And I'm

sure that you've worked with parents who also have had backgrounds of abuse and have that problem with intuition and not being able to trust themselves. What do you say to those parents when they've come into you and they're worried about their children, but they're also worried about themselves?

J - Happy Souls Kids (50:00)
I have.

Mm.

The intuition piece, I mean, I've written a 21 day self love program. It's funny enough, I wrote it before I separated. So I really needed it when I separated, I did my own program. And it's about coming home to you first of all, when it comes to intuition, I say just trust your intuition, like start with clothes. What does your intuition tell you to wear? And just start there. Or, you know, if you're intuition with food, you know, what does your intuition feel like? What are you being told to eat?

start with the really basic things first, you know, go, go see a psychologist or a counselor and even a psychic. I've got a few of you, please get in contact with me. I've got some absolutely wonderful people and it's really about trusting you first, but doing it really small. So start with the food, start with the clothes, even start with driving. You know, sometimes you'll get told to go around another way because there's a accident up close. So really

Trust that, like trust whatever's coming to you. You know, know, have, you know, that intuitive feeling of like, you should go left here and you're like, I'm not going left. Waze tells me to go around this way and I'm not going left. It happened to me this morning, which is why I was late for this podcast. I did not listen to my intuition. I listened to Waze and I got stuck. And it's really important that we trust ourselves first. The other piece is you need to find something that lights up your cup. It doesn't matter whether that is sitting and having a cup of tea outside in the garden.

Jen (51:23)
Yeah

J - Happy Souls Kids (51:41)
Or maybe that's roller skating or skateboarding. I started surfing when I was 40 years old. Find that element of joy in your life. Otherwise you become resentful to your kids, your family and everyone around you. If your life is about getting up, getting the kid to school, getting lunch, getting dinner ready, cleaning the house, doing the washing, making sure everything's perfect, you're going to burn out. And I have many times. Making sure that you find that joy. I go to the gym, I wake up at 4.30 in the morning, I'll be at the gym by five.

and I try and get home before, you know, 7.30, you know, I will like literally go out, get everything done that I need to and come back again before the day starts for my child. And it's finding that little moments in your day. If you've had a hard day at work and you just need 20 minutes to do a meditation in the car, go down to the beach, even see a friend go for a walk before you walk in that door, that's what you need to really be mindful of that.

rather than projecting all the stuff of your day onto your kids, into your family, your wife or husband, whoever's been home, your carer, making sure that you have that little piece of window to be able to really regulate yourself before going home is so incredibly important. ⁓ And you've just got to realize that self love is not selfish. Like it's like that analogy when you're in a plane and you put your mask on first.

You know, you need to really be putting your mask on first. Otherwise you are grumpy towards everyone. You're, you're resentful. You're kind of mean sometimes as we get as parents, you know, we're a little bit mean to our kids and they don't deserve it. And that's their whole thing of like teaching your children that it's not their fault that you're having a bad day. It's not their fault that you're in a bad mood. It's something that's going on within yourself. So having that conversation with your kids as well and saying,

I have so much going on right now. It's got nothing to do with you. I just want to acknowledge that. I want to acknowledge the fact that you are so special to me, but I just got some big stuff going on. I did that with my son only a weeks ago. I went to the park and I was grumpy. Like I had so much betrayal and stuff and all this stuff I've been working through lately. And I went to the park with my dog and my kid and it was dark and I just started crying. Like I could not stop crying. I was like,

and letting all my tears out. And so my son comes over and he goes, me, okay, mommy. And I said, just got big stuff going on me. He goes, that's okay, mommy. You let your tears go. You let them out. And that's mirroring behavior for the way that I've treated him when his big stuff's coming up. What do you need in this moment? Do you need a hug? Do you need cookie? Like our dog Cookie, she's a Dalmatian. Okay, get Cookie. You can come and pat her. And it's helping our kids understand that they're not always the problem. We are, you know?

we are a big problem in our lives. So recognizing the fact that ⁓ sometimes it's really important, always it's really important to have that deep communication with your kids like you would a partner so they can understand that they're not the problem in life. My son will say to me, if I'm grumpy, mommy, you need to go for a run. And he understood even at eight, he's 11 now, that my emotions are not to do with him.

just understands that mommy's having a bad, in a bad mood or she's got stuff going on or whatever. And so he won't take it on. I mean, obviously he's, you know, so young, he's going to it at times, but the more we can apologize to our kids and say, Hey, I am so sorry. I had a moment I was grumpy and actually had nothing to do with you. Thank you so much for appreciating and loving me. Or you can do an oona reverse where you say, can I have another go at that? I didn't, I didn't show up very well. Can I have another go?

And that's, that's the important piece ⁓ is trust, drawing our intuition, having self love, apologizing and taking accountability are the four main pillars. And having connection five is, is building that beautiful space within your kids, like that safe space for them to come to.

Jen (55:48)
Yeah, and I think that's gold. I think your advice is absolute gold. It sums up all of the needs for ourselves and for our children. And I honestly, I believe honesty is our best way to go with our children. If we're having a bad day and they can tell, just being honest about it, I'm just having a rough time right now, buddy.

J - Happy Souls Kids (55:52)
Mm.

Mm.

Yeah, I'm so sorry I didn't mean to take that out on you. You know, it's really important to have that communication with our kids. You don't need to always go into the story of why or especially during separation, we don't need to say, well, your dad did this, your mom did this. We just need to talk about the feeling and how we're feeling and how and mirroring that behavior to them that so we can work through it. That's really important too. Like I felt really sad today.

Jen (56:14)
Yeah.

Yes.

J - Happy Souls Kids (56:38)
What did you do? I went for a walk. You know, I went and cleared my head. I screamed into a pillow. I jumped up and down. I stamped my feet, whatever it might be. But that's the part that mirrors the behavior of what kids can do. Don't try and be Superman or Superwoman. Be like, oh, everything's wonderful. Like Jen, growing up, I thought my parents were absolutely invincible. Then I became a parent. I'm like, nobody has any idea what they're doing. You know, we, we're learning.

Jen (57:02)
No, no, not whatsoever.

Yep. Yeah, absolutely.

J - Happy Souls Kids (57:06)
we're all really learning and so were our parents. So that's when you can have compassion and empathy for them. It's like, Whoa, they didn't know what they were doing either.

Jen (57:13)
Right? Absolutely.

Jay, this was an incredible conversation. I am so glad that you came on and please tell us where we can find you.

J - Happy Souls Kids (57:25)
So yeah, all social media. yeah, our website is happy souls kids.com. It's happy and then souls with an S and kids with an S. We've got Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn. My name is Jacintha, J-A-C-I-N-T-H-A-F-I-E-L-D. It's a bit of a tongue twister. And so I'm also in LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, all of the things which take me way too much of my time and I should be off my phone. We're building teams. We're building teams that can support all of this.

Jen (57:48)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I feel the same.

J - Happy Souls Kids (57:55)
So ⁓ yeah, love to hear like, please reach out like this, this game is not easy. It's not easy being a parent and just please have love and understanding for yourself and compassion that you're going to muck up. So are your kids, but the more that you can create a safe space for both of you to come to and have those really connected conversations. That's, that's, that's the big work.

Jen (58:16)
Yes, yes, indeed. Thank you so much.

J - Happy Souls Kids (58:20)
Thanks Jen. ⁓

When Not Yet Becomes Right Now (58:24)
Thank you for joining us for this episode of the podcast. This show is produced by Phoenix Freed LLC and I'm your producer, Jen Ginty. We hope you found today's conversation insightful and inspiring. If you have a story of your own about when a not yet moment came right now,

We encourage you to reach out and share it. You can find more information about being a guest on our show at whennotyetbecomesrightnow.com. Remember, you are not alone on your journey, whether it's a journey of healing, growth, or transformation. Every story matters. Thank you for listening, and we'll catch you next time with another inspiring episode.