Welcome to week one of the Summer of Mentorship! This summer we are answering your questions with guests from past episodes. We are starting off with an episode from April of 2020 (ep 280) with Rachel Macy Stafford, the founder of Hands Free Mama.\xa0
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\nRachel\u2019s Hands Free Mama mentality is all about finding balance in a media-saturated, perfection-obsessed world. And it\u2019s about seizing the little moments that life offers us to engage in real and meaningful interaction.
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\nShe shares a realization that she was not connected with her own people. How she was believing a lie that she needed to hide certain parts of herself, the messy parts, the imperfect parts, in order to be loved and accepted.Her \u201cah-ha\u201d moment came when she vulnerably shared this belief with her daughter and found acceptance.\xa0
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\n\u201cOpening that door to being human actually brings us closer together. Then we can connect from that place of 'I'm struggling' and that doesn't mean there's something wrong with me. That doesn't mean I need to hide it. It means I need to reach out and talk to someone about this so we can work together to see how we might go forward.\u201d
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\nFrom that place she has chosen to extend that same acceptance and found real connection. Which then helps keep the lines of communication open as they grow up.\xa0
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\n\u201cThis is all about redefining what our role is as a parent. It is not the authoritarian model anymore. It is the guide, the truth teller and the encourager. Not the enforcer, not the half listener, not the critic. That those roles are only going to get us further and further from each other when the idea is right now we need to come closer.\u201d
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\nConnect with Rachel:\xa0
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