My lively upbringing and family dynamic enabled me to see that as a child, you need to be seen and heard.
When I was 16 years old, I lost my brother to suicide. This devastating event impacted our whole family. It also sowed the seeds for my future work. I’m committed to helping children and parents communicate more effectively so no other family has to endure the pain we went through.
At the time, I channeled my emotional distress into my studies, excelling at my degree in political science and history. My studies took me overseas to Guangzhou in China, and it was here I developed my love for Asian culture. After returning to the US in the early 1980s, I serendipitously came across the book ‘A Course in Miracles’ by Helen Schucman. It set me on a path towards self-enlightenment. I began to study meditation, Buddhism, and Advaita Vendanta, the study of duality, and the teachings of Alan Watts. This spiritual path also led me to meeting my husband, John.
After our son Sam was born and I became a parent, I wanted to find a way to give him a strong sense of self and to be a beautiful human being. My parenting journey also made me realize I had to break many habits I had picked up during my own upbringing. I was yearning for a framework that would guide his behavior in a loving way. I also wanted to give him a voice.
Every parenting journey begins with our own upbringing. For me, that meant growing up in a blended family with siblings from both my parents’ previous marriages. With my entrepreneur father and independently minded mother, me and my siblings moved around a lot growing up, from New Orleans to Colorado and beyond. My lively upbringing and family dynamic enabled me to see that as a child, you need to be seen and heard.
I was yearning for a framework that would guide his behavior in a loving way. I also wanted to give him a voice.
Our family’s move to Hong Kong in 1989 was the inception of Conscious Parenting Revolution. Years of research and learning during my time in Asia, coupled with my studies of Western methods of raising children, led me to devising a new roadmap. A Guidance Approach To Parenting is the core of Conscious Parenting Revolution, a program that has helped thousands of parents around the world.
In 2017, me and John moved back to the US to Colorado to be closer to our children, Sam and Pia. This has allowed me to open up the Conscious Parenting Revolution to even more families and also to focus on my other passions of mental health and wellness.