Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Well, welcome. Welcome to the Speak Your Power Now podcast, a show that empowers women through the transformational art of communication. I'm your host, Cheryl Clarke, and I invite you to join us on a journey of self discovery, empowerment, and personal growth. You know, I always say I'm just a girl from the Bronx. I learned a couple of tools along the way, and I'm here to better with you. So this weekly podcast is going to be a source of practical tips, inspiring stories, and transformational insight that's going to help you break through to any self doubt. So our mission is simple here. We're going to help you speak your Power Now because your voice matters. So subscribe now, and let's dive into the world of Speak Your Power Now, where your empowerment begins with your well, welcome. Welcome, everyone. I'm your host, Cheryl Clark, and you've in for a treat for another episode of Speak Your Power Now, and I'm excited to be with you. You know, like I always say, I'm a girl from the Bronx that learned a little bit of tools, and I'm here to share them with you. So as we go embarking upon this journey, I want you to go in with me with an open mind, because Speak Your Power Now is all about communication. It's all about how to find your voice. It's all about finding your authentic voice. It's all about sharing how you are, learning what's inside of you so you can share them with others to be self expressed. So before we get started, we always take a moment, and we start with the Speak Your Power Now declaration. If you don't know what the Speak Your Power Now declaration, well, you're going to learn it. Today, I want you to take a long sleep, deep breath into the nostrils and exhale it out.
[00:01:50] Sit in a comfortable position, and you're going to follow my words. Repeat silent to yourself after me to speak your power now. Declaration.
[00:02:03] Today I reclaim my power of purpose. Today I declare that I have unshakable faith and confidence in my uniqueness.
[00:02:15] Today I declare that I will not live in fear, but with power, love, and a sound mind. Today, I declare that I always communicate with words to empower myself and others.
[00:02:32] Today, I declare that I've always honor myself by living in the present and living powerfully in each moment. Amen. All right, so I hope you got that. I hope that that goes into your soul, because I always say that there's a moment that you got to be able to rest in it. So that declaration, I hope, will begin to move that into your soul. You could just have that to memory and begin to move in that. Well, I always say this is an opportunity for me to come, and I love these episodes. And today we're going to be speaking about mastering your emotional intelligence. Now, if you don't know what I do. I'm a psychotherapist, and I'm also going for my doctorate in emotional intelligence and how we move in that. So I thought I would come to you with a little series and delve into what is emotional intelligence, what is the awareness of that. But I want to explore probably like a three part series that we're probably going to talk about, probably going to delve into the first one today we're going to be delving into the importance of emotional intelligence as a parent. And I found myself growing up as a teenager, and as we all know as a teenager, we feel like a mess inside. We don't know what we're doing. We don't know. It seems like now we got it all together, we still don't even have it all together, right? So I just want to talk about how we could begin to look as a parent to children, to teenagers that may be struggling, that may be lost. They may not have the confidence. They may not think that they're good enough. They may not think that they're unique. And all of these things that come with life ain't and all of the things that come with what we already had. So going from me teaching emotional intelligence and I wish I had this growing up, and I wish that I think it would have been such an amazing tool for my mom. Such an amazing tool for me as a mom. I think I have it more so now than I did growing, being a young parent. And I'm going to delve into a little bit about my life and why I thought that emotional intelligence as a parent would really be crucial for us as we are navigating these waters. Some of us are navigating, especially during teenage years. Oh, my goodness, middle school teenage years.
[00:05:23] You uncover and unpack some of the mental challenges and building relationships and just having an overall well being.
[00:05:32] Those things can be turbulence.
[00:05:35] And then you're like, what's wrong with you? What's happening? And they can't even express what's going on because they're trying to navigate the waters. And as a parent, you're trying to go from day to day. So you're tempted to navigate your own self image, your own issues, your own things that's going on your lifeing. You got to pay the bills. You got to do this. So I just want to give the support to the parents today, and then we'll also do some things in regards to romantic relationship. But today I think that I want to talk a little bit about how as a parent and how as human beings, that we can actually connect with our teenagers, our children, and get a more understanding and how do we manage our emotional state when we're dealing with them. So firstly, let me just explain a little bit of why I believe that emotional intelligence is the crux of parenting.
[00:06:37] In myself, I will say this. Emotional intelligence, you got to understand managing your own emotions, both yours and your child's, and being able to harmoniously live in that state and nurturing the family dynamic. So that could be a challenge. So emotional parenting, emotional intelligence parenting would you look like you have to begin to look at yourself in the mirror? Because a lot of times we may not look ourselves in the mirror and see what's actually happening.
[00:07:16] And mastering your own emotions is the key to raising whole children. Now, I'm not saying that they're not going to go out and do things that you don't agree with. That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is raising children and raising comes from you being able to have a supportive understanding of them being self expressed, a supportive avenue of harnessing your own emotional intelligence so then they could begin to nurture their own voice. Sometimes our voice gets convoluted in our environment with siblings, with our environment, with school. And when they go out there, they're not really understanding how to begin to do that. I was raised in a single parent household just to give a context of my own parent upbringing. Because when you look at a traditional way of parenting, the techniques of emotional intelligence can really be a game changer when you begin to connect on a deeper level with your children.
[00:08:21] I grew up in a family that was, first of all, single parent household. A lot of us have grown up in a single parent household. A lot of us have both. But the pivotal avenue of being brought up in the challenges was some of those emotional scars that come along with my journey. I never knew my biological father. I was raised with emotionally abusive stepfather and my mother had to provide for both myself and my brother. We lived in poverty, and I didn't know that we were in poverty until maybe in high school. And I didn't understand how growing up with my parents being separated. And I never had the chance to have a relationship with my biological father. Now I have five uncles and my grandfather was there. But there was a void that left me with unanswered questions and my mother could not answer them for me. And to identify that with longing for parental guidance from a father and support from my biological father, there was something there that was missing so early on. It taught me the importance. I learned. I look back now that the importance of a parent that is absent, it does affect your emotional connection. Right? And watching my mother struggle as a single parent, raising both my brother and myself with financial hardships and things like that, my stepfather was also verbally abusive to her. So there was things that she left after many years. But the experience of that, the emotional scars, it carried on until my adult years. And some of us may be struggling still with some emotional trauma or things like that. So emotional struggles really needs the impact of being have coping skills, have support systems and things of that nature. So my ability to navigate my own emotions had me up and down, up and down, up and down. It affected my school performance. I struggled a lot in school. Didn't know that I had Dyslexia, stuff like that. Didn't get that until I was way into my adulthood. Had anxiety. Didn't know that there's constant things that you are balancing with. Right? I had to learn how to handle that. I became very regressive, very aggressive and a bully. And I just had to control everything. And whatever I couldn't control, I was just like, it goes to the next level. You got to recognize who you are. So I got married very young at 19. And thank God I'm with my husband now today. It was a joy and a journey being in motherhood. By the time I was 27, I had already given birth to six children.
[00:11:35] Yes, six children. And I never slowed down to take maternity leave. I was just moving and moving and moving and focusing on the family. I never left room for me to be tough, self care and emotional reflection.
[00:11:53] And as I look at my own journey and my own challenges, I had to face some of the things from my own journey. And that's what I want to give you parents. Your journey of emotional intelligence is built on your story.
[00:12:12] And self awareness is the thing that you have to have the transformative power into emotional intelligence. As I share my experience with you, I turned what I knew or what I didn't know. What I learned in psychology. I've learned to navigate my emotions and connect with my children on a more deeper level. All my children now are young adults. But this is what I want to say. The lesson that I learned in parenting is that you go from a dictator, do this, do that, do this, do that. And then you go into a space of learning how for them to ask questions, for them to be inquisitive, for them to find problem solving, conflict resolution. Those are the things that they begin to get from home and be able to go in the earth, in the world to then now practice these things. But sometimes when you are in your own journey of your emotional baggage from your own story, you got to begin to see that a lot of times the understanding of a child being self expressed, maybe you didn't have that in your home. I know I was raising a homeworld child. My mother actually allowed me to speak. I really did. It's just when I got around my stepfather, he squelched it. And to explore that, I really have to give my mother credit for allowing me latitude. She didn't let me go as far. I used to get popped in mouth for always speaking. But my mother allowed me to speak. My mother allowed me. She knew there was something different about me and I can say that she embraced me having to communicate and I love to talk, I love to have a conversation and I can respect my husband too, because he embraces me being who I am and that emotional intelligence space. If a parent, you can break the cycle of your own childhood experiences and begin to create and nurture that family environment of their child.
[00:14:29] So exploring who you are as a parent now, maybe to a teenager, maybe to a young child, maybe to a middle schooler, whatever your journey is now, I want you to begin to look at some things. I want you firstly to begin to look at your pain points. So my pain points was my absentee biological father, difficult childhood with learning, educational challenges, emotional struggles with anxiety. I married very young and so those are some of the things that happened. Now, the transformation part that I was aware of that now I can share to my children is that my resiliency that grew out of that.
[00:15:14] So despite of the challenges and in lieu of the challenges and my upbringing, it showed how incredible my resiliency was and navigating some of the difficulties that really made Cheryl who she is and really made this platform who it is. Because I look at my life and I always think about Oprah and I think about Maya Angelou and their stories that they give that's resiliency. That's the space where I glean from that, I move from that. Even my own mother, that she was able to break free. The reason why she wasn't with my biological father is because he was physically abusive to her and he hit her several times. She said on the 7th month pregnancy, she said, I am not bringing my child into an abusive relationship and I have to give my mother such accolades for having the strength to leave that situation.
[00:16:14] Even though she told me later on this was good parenting, she told me later on, she said, Cheryl, no one gets married to get a divorce. Of course I wanted you to know your father, but he wasn't a great man to, you know, he didn't stay around.
[00:16:32] And I always said, why didn't he stay around? And I had to come to terms with that. So as a parent, my mother was able to have a conversation with me. And then secondly, what I learned is that, Cheryl, you're strong. But I still needed healing, I still needed to begin to walk through the coping mechanisms when things do show up for me. Yes, I had my I had, you know, wonderful uncles, but there was a void and I had no idea actually it was a void until it showed up in my marriage and it showed up with my children. So I had to learn how to heal the little girl inside of me. I had to learn to heal that person in order for me to go forth in my future. The other thing was, as a parent, you have to be committed to whatever your role is. If your father, your mother, whatever that is, dedicate that these human beings were a gift from God. I believe that all six of my children are a gift from God. I had to begin to look at the deep reflection of why I was chosen to be their mom and create a space for them to be able to explore who they're going to be in life, in, given compassion, given the love, given the space of owning my own, and let them own their own relationship with who they are in the world. Because you were five. We were five before. You were ten before, you were 15 before. Imagine Navigating through that and now through this post COVID I don't know what it looks like for them. Like, my son did not have his prom that was taken from him. And I sat down with him and I had a conversation with him when he graduated. He graduated online, actually. He graduated outside, but we were in our car. It's different things that happen right now.
[00:18:33] Look at the experience that your children are now going through or walking through that you never had to walk through. And we never know what it looks like to be in a pandemic. I mean, this is a first for us to be able to walk through a pandemic, and our children are resilient enough to be able to do that. And now we got to learn how to be with them in virtual learning. We got to be with them when something is taken away or send, things change. How do you be with them? How do you show empathy? That is emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is that your emotions are very much so intact that you're able to be aware. What is emotional intelligence? Where you're able to say, okay, I'm moving with this. It's my journey that I'm moving on with my child. Emotional intelligence is something that I'm going to be connected with myself so I can learn how to begin to build a relationship with myself and others.
[00:19:31] Being able to do this means that I'm delving into a space that emotional intelligence is not only just me, but it's my community. Who am I connecting with? Who am I not connecting with? You've got to give people a space where they can begin to move in this. So remember, your emotional intelligence, we call it eioeq, is the ability to manage both your emotions and understand the emotions of others around you.
[00:20:07] As a parent, you're going to be called in many different roles. As a parent, you're going to be pulled in many different roles. As a parent, you are called onto things that we may not definitely understand.
[00:20:26] But I want you to know that emotional intelligence is the crux is the key that when you feel if you've ever felt criticized, check it, because the kids get criticized all the time.
[00:20:43] You shift them, explore with them. I want you to begin to look at how you can begin to teach them.
[00:20:51] Teach them, yes. You have to be disciplined, but I want you to teach them.
[00:20:58] Disciplining your child and what you expect from them. Let them know what you expect from them.
[00:21:05] Emotionally intelligent parents focus on setting limits and boundaries, yes, and consequences for breaking those boundaries. But I want you to begin to teach them how and what they did. Sometimes my mother was just like, Just go over there. She never kind of sometimes she didn't have any words for me. She didn't have the time to do it. So I want you to look at them. Yes. I want you to look at that. I want you to begin to look at the development of your children.
[00:21:34] When you're looking at them, they're going to have the obstacles. But emotional intelligent parents sets goals and begin to look at how they can achieve it. And then I want you to finally, I want you to begin to look at what is still the values in your children.
[00:21:53] What do you value? What does your family value is critical because emotional intelligence comes from identifying your own values and how you communicate that to your children. Now, it may change, they may change over time, but I notice that what I put inside of my children now as young adults, they are still moving through that. They are still practicing that. Even in their adulthood, they are still practicing that. So I hope that you enjoy this today, because emotional intelligence, like I said before, is a crucial key to moving in a powerful way. And as you move in this powerful way, I want you to keep in the frontal lobe your awareness. I want you to keep in your frontal lobe that listen, there is no cookie cutter way of parenting, but I want to give you this tool of emotional intelligence. Put it in your repertoire. Put it in your put it in your toolbox and use it, because as you use it, you will begin to grow as a parent. Your children will begin to grow in a safe space, and you can begin to move in that space with you and others.
[00:23:09] Well, I hope that you enjoyed this last episode, and it's always my pleasure to be with you. Thank you so much for listening. And remember that sometimes your life is defined by one single moment. Let that moment be today peace and God bless. Well, thank you for tuning in to another empowering episode of Speak Your Power Now podcast. We hope you found inspiration and valuable insight on your journey of self expression. Remember, the power of communication is in your hands. And by honing on to this skill, you're going to unlock a world of possibilities. Your journey doesn't end here. Stay connected with us on social media where we are going to continue the conversation and share your own stories of empowerment. So if you enjoyed this episode today, don't forget to hit us up subscribe, leave your review and share it with your friends. Also, feel free to share your thoughts with any questions or ideas you may have for future episodes. Together, we're going to build a community of confident communicators. As we wrap up, always remember that your voice has power to inspire, to uplift, and to encourage and change. Keep speaking your truth and empowering yourself and embrace the power within. Until till next time. Remember, your life is defined by one single moment. Let that moment be to me.
