Episode #39 Caring for Yourself and Others with Compassionate Curiosity with Rebecca Weiner

This transcript is computer generated and may contain errors and not be an exact representation of the audio

 

Hi this is Welcome to Self® and I’m Dr Hayley D Quinn, fellow human, mother, wife, clinical psychologist, supervisor, trainer and coach.

 

Welcome to Self® is a place where you can come and learn about the practices that assist us as humans, realise that you’re not alone in the ways you struggle, and have your curiosity piqued on various topics as I chat to wonderful guests or bring you solo episodes. This is a place to remember that you are human first and have different roles in your life that need your attention and for that you need to take care of yourself in the best way you can. My aim is that this is a place of nourishment, growth and nurture. A place where you can welcome Your Self. 

 

Hayley Quinn 00:03

Hi and welcome to another episode and another great guest. Before we get started I want to thank everyone who has rated and reviewed the podcast, I recently found out that reviews that originate outside of Australia can’t be seen from Australia, which really sucks because I love reading your feedback. Please know that although I may not be able to see your review other people will and ratings and reviews along with sharing the podcast with others are the best ways for more people to find the podcast and of course the more people who can find it, the more people can be helped, so please consider leaving a rating and review and I will be forever grateful.

So back to why you’re tuning in, I met my following guest during a group coaching we both were enrolled in. It has been my pleasure to get know her both professionally and personally and I am grateful to now call her my friend.

Rebecca A. Weiner is a dynamic educator, life-long learner, and creator of Learn Play Grow Educational Consulting. She supports transformational growth for young children with diverse abilities and their families, teachers, and schools through play-based learning, parent and teacher coaching, strengths-based consulting in schools, and neurodiversity-affirming support for inclusion in early childhood programs.

Rebecca earned a master’s degree in education and completed a residency in Rice University’s School Literacy and Culture program as well as a fellowship in Leadership Education for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND). She is a certified DIR Floortime practitioner, Positive Discipline parent educator, and early communication professional trained and licensed by the Hanen Centre.

Rebecca is on a mission to reimagine education so that learners, teachers, families, and school leaders of ALL abilities have access, representation, support, and true belonging.

Rebecca absolutely embodies compassion for others and for herself and is one of the worlds beautiful humans, I am sure you will gain a lot from this episode and it is my absolute pleasure to welcome Rebecca to the podcast.

Hi, Rebecca, it’s so lovely to have you with me on the podcast. Thank you so much for joining me.

Rebecca Weiner 03:51

Thank you for the honour of being here.

Hayley Quinn 03:53

Oh, it’s my absolute pleasure. So shall we start with you, perhaps telling us a little bit about yourself and what led you to the work that you now do?

Rebecca Weiner 04:01

I would love to. My name is Rebecca Weiner. I live in Houston, Texas, and I am a passionate proponent for the power of play and the importance of inclusion. I have for decades been an educator or an advocate in Community Schools early childhood across the lifespan. And I consider my guiding principle to be compassionate curiosity. So being really interested in why people do what they do and how we can understand the environment and the relationships that shaped that. And that’s what led me to create my own business, learn play grow. I had been a teacher for more than a decade and always had a child that needed more one on one always had parents that wanted wraparound services always had a desire to keep learning so that I can innovate and the four walls of a classroom didn’t contain that ambition or support it so I created learn like ropes that I could learn to really meet children, families, where they are home, at school in the community and bring that compassionate curiosity, to their education, to their therapy, to their parenting and their learning journeys.

Hayley Quinn 05:15

Oh, that’s fantastic, well, lovely business, while much needed business that you have as well. So you run your own service business, as you said, helping children, families, teachers, and schools. And I know from the star because we’ve known each other a while now I know from the start that you’ve been keen to ensure your business is sustainable, to assess not only in avoiding burnout, but also so you can be living a life that suits you, well. Could you share with us what you think are important factors, in terms of running a sustainable business and taking care of yourself as a business owner.

Rebecca Weiner 05:49

I will share the wisdom that I say and strive to live, sometimes I’m better at preaching and teaching than I am at practising. But that is an ongoing evolution. First and foremost, as an entrepreneur, we have the right and the responsibility to build a business around our life, rather than a life around our business. We have risked and sacrificed so much to serve our mission, it makes sense to do that in a way that is sustainable as possible. I would also urge people to create an infrastructure, I spent the first few years of my business reinventing the wheel every time I got a cold call. And it was when I started creating a welcome email and interest form, contracts, agreements, invoice templates that could all be personalised to the unique collaboration that really freed up the mental space for me to be able to have that infrastructure and build on something you taught me was to put myself on the calendar that it’s easy to always be available, because you don’t know where the next job is coming from. But you can’t possibly be ready and charged an energetic for that job if you haven’t had time off. So this is my first academic year, actually taking school breaks as breaks. I used to try to cram as many little learners as I could into school breaks because they had flexibility in their schedules. And to have a spring holiday or to have a fall holiday has been so precious to me, I would love to build more of that in. And then something I tell myself every day is let enough be enough. There is an endless number of things that we could do to the 18th degree. But at some point, you have to let enough be enough.

Hayley Quinn 07:47

Yeah, so wise. And I’m so glad that you’re taking those holidays. And it’s so easy, isn’t it for us to think about what does the other person need? Yes, how would this best suit the other person? And I think for things to be sustainable for us not to burn out, we do need to stop and think well hang on a minute, how’s this going to impact me? And what do I need as well?

Rebecca Weiner 08:06

Yes, and we can take responsibility for the choices that we offer the other person in terms of our availability, or the depth or breadth of collaboration. But much as I tell my parents and teachers structure that choice with options that you are okay with and let the children choose among those. As business owners, we get to structure the choices about what we put out to the world. And other people are responsible for choosing from among those choices, what works for them, but either way, it works for us.

Hayley Quinn 08:38

Yeah, fantastic, very wise. If you were starting your business from scratch tomorrow, and I know you talked about having the structures in place, but I’m wondering if there’s anything else, what would you do differently? And what would you keep the same?

Rebecca Weiner 08:50

That’s such a good question. I’m an accidental entrepreneur. I didn’t mean to own a business. I’m a trained educator, and I wanted to do the parts of education I was passionate and proficient at and let the rest take care of itself. And little did I realise that you can’t just offer a service and charge money for it. You have to create a business and legal entity to protect yourself and then have an infrastructure to build from there. So I wish I had known that there’s no one right way. You think it’s easy as a new entrepreneur to listen to the talking heads and everyone’s got the magic bullet. And you just want to be like them, and there is no one right way. I also think it’s important to set our compass mindfully. I was new to coaching at the beginning of the pandemic and I for example, did not realise that a free five day challenge was a product or service launch. And I did not realise that somebody’s signing up for a group programme and only asking questions after you made the deposit wasn’t a wise investment. So understanding that there are diverse perspectives on how to run a business, there’s no one right way. And it’s good to have context for the ideas and the leaders that you’re following, so that you can set your compass accordingly. And I feel like means an ends get confused so much, this was such a huge part of my journey, where the means become the end, if I can just do the top five strategies for email marketing, or the top 10 ways to boost social media engagement, then I’ll be doing the thing. But it isn’t until we step back, and we ask ourselves, what is the why for that? The why for that is so that people will know us, like us, and trust us, and for my business that is best accomplished by actually doing my work in the community. And referrals come from there. So had I stayed in the fixed mindset of this is the way you do it. And the experts are saying this, I constantly found myself feeling like I didn’t have a legitimate business, or it would never be sustainable. And it was really, over years of being in coaching programmes and meeting fellow entrepreneurs that I was able to own that there’s no one right way. And I feel like the inspiration really came there. For me to innovate and grow.

Hayley Quinn 11:18

Yeah, because I think like you say, you’re an accidental entrepreneur, I think many people would say the same. I don’t know that we necessarily set out wanting to start businesses, there’s no one right way. But there is a right way for each of us as and that might change as well, my senses as things do grow and evolve, and over myself in my business. So my business has changed a lot over the years, and no doubt will continue to change and grow. But what I’m also hearing is this part about sort of self trust, yes. And I think, you know, many of us who go into business or choose to be entrepreneurs have skills and qualities that we need to actually trust in as well. The reason we end up in these places is because of the skills, skills and qualities, and being able to trust in those. And then also seeking support. But like you say that there’s a lot in particularly in the world of social media, there is an awful lot out there that perhaps is, you know, shiny objects, and not what it needs to be when you actually get there. So I think, again, trusting yourself, but also being cautious that you’re not just trusting everything that you see out on social media as well.

Rebecca Weiner 12:36

Oh, wants to that. To that point, I was speaking with somebody recently. And I said, I think it is a bloody miracle that I have made it this far. I didn’t know what I didn’t know when I started. And I’m grateful because had, I probably wouldn’t have done it. And she stopped me. And she said, Rebecca, is it a miracle? Or is it a testament that within you were all of those skills and all of that passion, and you have succeeded because of that, and because of your willingness to practice compassionate curiosity for yourself and for your community, your willingness to flex and pivot. That’s a miracle in and of itself, but you are where you are as a testament, not as a happenstance.

Hayley Quinn 13:23

That’s lovely and I just want to point you made there, the compassionate curiosity for the people you serve, but also for yourself. And, you know, how has your work influenced your own life? Can you tell us some of the pivotal points in your business? How you navigated these? And what impact those changes have had on your own life?

Rebecca Weiner 13:47

I think that being an entrepreneur, is actually an existential journey, that every question you have about yourself will be 1000 fold asked of you. And I am so passionate about what I do that as my philosophy of education, and support has evolved, so too has the way I’ve been trying to serve. So I started craving certainty. My first year of teaching, I believe that if I could just get the lesson plans and the art project prototypes. Each year thereafter, I could plug and chug. And I’ve learned that there’s a difference between having a decade of experience versus 10 first years, and for me, I’ve learned that every day is the first day. Every day is a new day, which means I get to bring the lessons that I learned but I also get to learn new lessons. When I evolved from this craving of certainty to this openness to an emergent curriculum to child that claim. I really wrestled with how much I like to prepare. I love me a good bullet list or a spreadsheet, and I could organise my order gestation and feel like I’m doing the thing. But that was the busy work, and learning to be fully present to what I’m doing, and balance doing that in my business and for my business, to now where I sometimes feel like I’m flying by the seat of my pants. On a good day I told myself, I’m really open to what comes. In fact, I have over my desk, a poster that says, I give myself permission to accept what comes, there’s only so much that we can force, there’s an endless number of things that we could be doing. And we could hustle, and we could network. But I’ve learned that that would only deplete me. I know what I’m brilliant at. And the more I practice that and compassionate curiosity around that, the more that brilliance can grow. So I don’t have to be brilliant at newsletters, and social media. I can bask in other people’s brilliance and engage with them and respond to them. And let that be enough.

Hayley Quinn 16:05

Yeah so this has been like a journey of business. But really what I’m hearing is this has been a huge personal growth journey for you as well.

Rebecca Weiner 16:11

Yes, yes. And one thing I don’t think I contemplated was the loss of civilian identity. When you become a personal brand, it’s impossible to know when you’re out and about are people talking to you for you, are they talking to you for the service that you provide. And I had to learn how to show up as me when I was there, in a personal context, I’m at a play cheering on my nieces and nephews or I’m at a soccer game cheering on a little learner. And when I’m showing up as a professional at a conference or a committee meeting, and carrying my card has been really helpful. If somebody crosses the boundary that I’ve sent for the capacity in which I’m showing up, I can hand them my card and invite them to send me an email or reach out during the work week. And that way, I can really claim both identities as a person and as a professional.

Hayley Quinn 17:06

That’s fantastic having those clear boundaries. So then you get to enjoy your life outside of your work, because that’s the thing, isn’t it as well, when we do work for ourselves. Those boundaries between work life and personal life can get blurred if we’re not intentional about it. If we’re not really mindful about it. Yeah. Absolutely. A lot of mindful awareness about who you are and what you’re doing and what context you’re in.

Rebecca Weiner 17:34

I try. Sometimes it’s paralysing, and I have to take a step back and give myself permission to just be maybe you don’t know in which capacity you’re serving right now. Just be open to the experience, and it will guide you to how you need to show up.

Hayley Quinn 17:49

Yeah, I think you make a good point, you know, we you try. We all try, we’re never going to get this right all of the time. We’re not perfect humans, nor should we strive to bake because it’s not achievable. So I think it’s really interesting the way you talk about that. So what is it that you enjoy most about your work and working for yourself? And what is it that you find most challenging, because whilst it is, and I love working for myself, but there’s challenges that come with it.

Rebecca Weiner 18:22

There really are. And I think in my case, the thing I love the most is also what challenges me the most. I love that I bring together a team. So taking the child’s perspective, the teachers perspective, the family’s perspective, the therapist perspective, the school leaders perspective, and then bringing this team together to build common understanding and to build on their respective strength to help shine a light on the child’s strengths. That is so energising and so exciting. And the capacity that that builds for every member of the team, is tremendous, and life changing. And when there are those that are not open to different philosophies, or practices, or those who do not come from a place of compassionate curiosity, it can feel devastating. And I have to take time and space and remind myself, this is a professional collaboration. This is not an indictment of my abilities. I can only serve so much. Now I need to take care of myself. And that’s challenging, because I’m very passionate about what I do. And if I were selling shoes, shoes are fabulous, but you can get any shoe I’m trying to promote a new understanding of the rights of children. And that’s life changing. So to not be able to hit it out of the ballpark is really frustrating for me. And I’ve recently kind of adjusted my metaphor instead of trying to hit it out of the baseball park or as long as a football or soccer field. I now see my self I’m on a sand volleyball court. It’s a much smaller area. And I can volley back and forth and take perspective and build on people’s strength. And I don’t have to worry about impressing by impressing in terms of Rebecca is doing such a good job, what rather impressing in terms of you made such a brilliant point, teacher, wow, parents can really see how you’re champions for your child, and impressing upon them their strengths and their capacity.

Hayley Quinn 20:34

Yeah, gosh, I can hear how committed and passionate you are about the work that you do. And I love how reflective you are about your process. And not that it’s just reflection. But then when you’ve reflected you kind of take action, whether it’s changing a metaphor, so it’s not as overwhelming or feeling as on achievable. Or if it’s changing something in the way you’re working with somebody. Or if it’s reflecting and then realising that you actually need to take some space, step back, look after yourself a bit more. I think that’s absolutely beautiful. Can I ask what role do you think self compassion plays in navigating the multiple roles, including business owner that you have in your life?

Rebecca Weiner 21:18

What a brilliant question. And truth be told, I didn’t know much about self compassion. Before the pandemic, I had read Dr. Kristen Neffs work. But it was really in meeting you and learning from you that I realised how to bring that to life. So mindfulness has always been a part of my practice. And I, as a supporter of inclusion believes strongly in common humanity, but it was the kindness to self that I really struggled with. And I’ve had to remind myself to use my Miss Rebecca voice with myself, I would never judge or berate my little learner, I would never make a flippant or sarcastic comment to a teacher or to a parent. But I’m also willing to do it to myself. And interestingly, somebody else I was working with, remarked Rebecca, you love your cat so much. He is my fur baby. And in adopting an animal you’re accepting of forever toddler, he will never become more independent, he will always need me. And I love him. More than all the carpets, I’ve scrubbed to clean up maths, and more than all the vet bills and prescription diets and more than all of the sleepless nights. And she said to me, Rebecca, what if you were to give yourself the love that you give to your fur baby, and a light bulb went off this voice in my head that I have for what he must be thinking, every time I come home. My first words are Hi, Bunny, and the voice in my head for what he’s thinking is you are a moron. How do you not know the difference between a cat and a bunny? I can’t believe they let you adopt me. And then I thought, well, Rebecca, say this, Rebecca might say, bunnies are so much fun. And so are you just to reframe that voice in my head. And for some reason, the metaphor of my fur baby was so powerful that I need to give to myself, what I give to my clients, to my family, and to this little baby that I love more than life itself. And being able to reframe that has been game changing for me in terms of holding space for myself, in terms of taking that step of reflection, and not just coming up with the idea, but sitting with it long enough to know how it feels in my body. And how it’s weighing on my heart. And then to take prudent action or not. Perhaps that, yes. And go from there.

Hayley Quinn 23:51

Yeah, that’s so lovely. So it sounds like self compassion for you is a is a daily, kind of throughout the day process, because I think sometimes people can think, oh, I need to be self compassionate is this thing I have to do at this particular time, take some time for it, put it in the diary, which, hey, if that’s how you start, then absolutely pop it in the diary and do some practice. So I’m all for that. But it really is a way of being isn’t it? It’s embodying that compassion for yourself in all aspects of your life and your work. I’m thrilled that I have been able to pay a small part of that in your life.

Rebecca Weiner 24:35

I’m so grateful to you. And just today I carried your wisdom with me to practice a little self compassion. Before I went into the meeting, I stepped into the bathroom. I closed the door and I said to myself, You do not need to have all the answers. You are here to be open to practice compassionate curiosity, and to build community. And then I walked in feeling so much More confident, I have been anxious about this for weeks. And to just take that moment to ground myself in self compassion was so powerful, or in preparing for this interview, knowing that I was feeling excited and anxious. And at a certain point, I needed to take a break from the tedium of what I was working on, and just sit with a book and recharge, and I never would have given myself the time, the space the permission to do that before meeting.

Hayley Quinn 25:31

Yeah. Oh, that’s beautiful. It’s very humbling as well. I think these examples are really helpful. Do you have others that you would be happy to share about the sort of things you might do to take compassionate action for yourself?

Rebecca Weiner 25:46

I’ve started doing goal setting. And sometimes goal setting can be overly ambitious, or something that you tie yourself too. And I really set that goal monthly, I set that goal weekly, I set that goal each day. And I’ve learned that when something doesn’t get accomplished today, I can add it to tomorrow. And yes, that means that something from tomorrow will need to move. But it doesn’t mean that I have more capacity today. And that simple. Being able to cross things off the list or accept that things will not get crossed off the list gives me so much more peace. At the end of the day. I’ve learned as I transition I meet children and families where they are at home at school in the community. So as I’m driving to a school or driving to a client, I’m very mindful of what music I might listen to, or what podcast I might listen to. So on my way to the board meeting, I listened to your most recent episode of your podcast because I knew that calming voice would be centering on my way to a school, I might listen to that early childhood nerd. And what is her most recent philosophical discovery. And just being very mindful of what energy I surround myself, what voices what messages, I want to hear, and to give myself the space to practice that. I also find that taking a few minutes after each interaction, to debrief with myself, sometimes it’s the intellectual aid, what went well, what didn’t go well. Sometimes it’s just deep breath. I practice what I called the Rose meditation for my teaching. So each day I asked myself, what were the beautiful things, the petals? What were the challenging things, the thorns, what were the things that we could build on the stem? And what could be the sun, the rain and the clouds to nurture that. And so I can take that beauty, that challenge and that potential into whatever comes next. Instead of judging myself, well, you didn’t do it the way you planned and it didn’t go the way you hoped. And do you remember what that person said? I’m all too aware of all of those things going on around me. But to centre my attention on something that can help me grow instead of helped me. wallow in shame has been life changing?

Hayley Quinn 28:10

Oh my gosh, that’s so beautiful. Would you mind just repeating those steps of the rose meditation for us?

Rebecca Weiner 28:16

I’ve actually brought this into classrooms, I will literally bring a rose plant and sit together with the teaching team and ask them their insight on what are the petals? What is beautiful, what is working smoothly? What are the thorns? What are the hard things? Or the growing edges or the challenges? What is the stem? What is something that’s holding you up a foundation that you can continue to build on? And what might be the support and nurturance of the sun, the clouds and the rain? What do you need to shower on you? What do you need to protect you? What do you need to fuel you? And that way we keep growing?

Hayley Quinn 28:57

Oh my gosh, that’s so beautiful. I love that I’m going to I’m going to use that one for myself. That’s fantastic. So what I’m hearing in all of this is there’s lots of different ways that you practice this compassion for yourself from whether that’s slowing down your breath, taking time out being really mindful about what you’re listening to. Thanks for the plug for my other episodes. Sort of music that you might listen to. I know for me I’m always conscious well not always, let’s drop the always I like to be conscious about what I might watch on television in terms of how my nervous system is feeling and what might be helpful certainly within the psychology field with this seems to be a lot of us that have like watching you know the crime shows and things so that’s about it anyway. And often I’ll decide no, I don’t want to watch anything that’s got violence in it because my nervous system is already feeling activated. And that’s just not helpful. So I might find something that’s more soothing or a comedy or something like that. It sounds like you’re doing the same with the music and things like that, which I think is really important. It’s so broad, isn’t it to really think about all the different aspects like what what are we? What are we putting into our body? And our mind? That’s actually nurturing and nourishing us? So, so important? Yes. How important Have you found having a support system around you whilst running your business? And what do you find most helpful about this?

Rebecca Weiner 30:37

Support is so important community matters. And as a solopreneur, it can often feel very isolating. I feel so passionately about what I do, and I work in this community, this community is my inheritance, I belong to it belongs to me. So sometimes it’s easy to take things very personally. But having somebody outside the community, perhaps in an adjacent field, that I can bounce ideas off of, what do you think of this, I have this experience? Can you help me process that? Having people in different fields who are in different places in their business, sharing about their journey and realising I’m not stuck where I am, I’m three steps ahead over here. And I’ve got seven steps to go over there. And just the relativity of it. And knowing that it isn’t all on me, I’m a solopreneur. But it isn’t all on me. I can trust myself to lean into my zone of genius, and delegate things that are not part of my zone of genius. And that’s just been revelatory. In my business. I held so much shame for so many years that I didn’t know how to do this, or I never could try that. And it took one small step at a time trying sometimes succeeding beyond my wildest imaginations and often struggling, just as I expected and realising is that where I want to put my lifeforce? No, that’s not a good use of my energy. And you only get that perspective, from being part of a community and having support however you define them.

Hayley Quinn 32:14

Yeah, I think that’s an important point as well, isn’t it step by step by step. This isn’t something that you need to master everything all at once, taking things gradually, and, and, you know, going in a direction, then realising you need to change into another direction, things like that, as well. As you and I met when we, you and I met when we were in a group group coaching programme. And I think for me, one of the best things that came out of that is the people I’ve met from it that, although we’re not in that group, have continued to be supportive. And I know that you and I catch up regularly. And like you say, as business owners, it can be really helpful content to be chatting, even though we do very different work.

Rebecca Weiner 32:52

It can be really helpful, just knowing that other people are doing this type of thing as well. And having those conversations and normalising and validating, and talking about the winds and talking about the challenges is so important. It’s certainly something that I invest in, in terms of being involved in in groups and community like you say, it can be a lonely road, if we try and do this by ourselves. Yeah, it can be and I love two things that you said, first about celebration, we learned so much more from growing based on our strengths than we do from compensating for our weaknesses. So to be able to celebrate each milestone, each step of progress, however miniscule it might be, that’s the fuel that builds the momentum that keeps things going. And to your point of one small step at a time, I often am brought into teams where there’s been a struggle for a long time. And it’s been in somebody’s consciousness, whether or not it was shared with other members of the team. Perhaps we should explore this therapy, perhaps we need to look for another school. And I recently did a consultation in which the parents were berating themselves. Well, we’ve known for all this time that we should probably try this and we didn’t, and to be able to help them slow down. And here you have loved and championed your child for so long that you’ve held space within your consciousness for this. And now we’re going to take one small step in this coming week, can you commit to reaching out to this therapy practice and that school consultant and that one step to then be able to check in a week later and celebrate those successes? Yes, I scheduled that first appointment or I sent that email and I haven’t heard back. My goal for next week is to follow up. We’re breaking what feels like a huge, treacherous journey into one small step at a time and building that foundation of positive lived experience to propel the success. The same is true in business. One small step at a time.

Hayley Quinn 35:03

Yeah, as you were saying that I was thinking, Yeah, this, we can apply this to ourselves can’t we. And what if we were to champion ourselves and support ourselves and look back, even when things don’t go as we might have hoped? And that rather than saying, Well, I knew that wasn’t going to work, I shouldn’t have done that I should have done it differently. What would it be like to actually offer ourselves that compassion? And say, I tried, I explored, I got curious, it wasn’t the outcome I expected, but what am I learnt from this? And what can I take from this, to move me in a direction that I want to go with that?

Rebecca Weiner 35:44

And to offer ourselves the grace of understanding that time is not wasted? Perhaps we needed all of that time to be ready to take this step. And it is only all have the time before this moment that will propel us forward. So we can wallow in shame, or why didn’t I think of that, or I was thinking of that, but I didn’t do that. Or we can own I had the capacity to generate these ideas. And I believed in myself enough to hold on to them. Now I’m ready to take action.

Hayley Quinn 36:15

And I think coming back to that, you know, having that support system, I know when you and I have chatted in the past, being able to reframe for each other. Yes, things that have happened, you know, because sometimes we do struggle to give ourselves that space and grace, don’t we? So having somebody else to talk to who can then say, well, hang on. That sounds like you did x y z?

Rebecca Weiner 36:21

Yep. Really, really helpful. Hey, absolutely.

Hayley Quinn 36:43

Of course, always a pleasure catching up with people that you love. Yes, that too. So this is my favourite question that I asked everybody that comes on the podcast. And I’m always curious about what the answers will be. So if you could meet your 80 year old self, what do you think she would say to you?

Rebecca Weiner 37:01

You were always enough. That just came to my heart, as you asked the idea that we’re always enough. We’re always comparing ourselves to somebody else, or to the goals that we’re striving for. But it is our enoughness that allows us to hold capacity for the ambition and the desire to keep growing. And to accept our enoughness is so powerful.

Hayley Quinn 37:34

That’s so beautiful. And I invite our listeners to ask themselves, if you could meet your 80 year old self, what would they say to you? And then reflect on that.

Hayley Quinn 37:54

So if people want to find out more about you, Rebecca, or get in touch, where can they find you and engage with you and your work?

Rebecca Weiner 38:03

I would love to connect via my website, learnplaygrowconsulting.com or on Instagram at Learnplaygrow Consulting. And on Facebook, at Rebecca a Weiner M E D. Interesting story. It turns out there’s another Rebecca Weiner with a Master’s in Education that works in early childhood, we met at a conference, we took a picture together holding each other’s cards. And my commitment to her was that I would use my middle initial to distinguish myself. So sometimes people read Rebecca a Weiner M Ed, How pretentious and really, this is my integrity in action. I promised somebody else that I would distinguish myself so that she could shine and I could too. So that’s where the middle initial comes from.

Hayley Quinn 38:53

Can I just say, you can identify yourself however you want. There’s nothing pretentious about owning who you are.

Rebecca Weiner 39:01

That is true. I love that.

Hayley Quinn 39:08

So finally, before we go to the next question, actually, I will put links in the show notes so people can easily find you, your website and your socials. Finally, if you could distil it down into one piece of advice, and I know that can be challenging. What would you want our listeners to take away from our conversation today?

Rebecca Weiner 39:29

Compassionate curiosity, to stay open to the possibility that perhaps it isn’t as it seems, or it could be a different way. And when we practice compassionate curiosity, we’re not looking for who to blame or where to lay fault. We’re looking for where to grow, and what could come next. And for me, for my practice, for my being for myself, compassionate curiosity is everything that’s really useful.

Hayley Quinn 40:05

And of course, you’re not going to get any argument from me on that. Rebecca, thank you so much for joining me and sharing your wisdom and you know, being open about the challenges and things that you’ve been through in your own journey as well. I’m sure it’ll be really helpful for our listeners. And thank you so much. I really appreciate you and I really appreciate your time joining me today.

Rebecca Weiner 40:30

Thank you. It’s been an honour.

Hayley Quinn 40:36

Thank you for sharing this time with me today. I hope your time here was helpful and supportive. If there has been something in this episode that you found helpful, I invite you to share it with another person you think might benefit. I’d also love it if you’d leave a five star rating and review wherever you tune in. Ratings and reviews really help to increase awareness of podcasts, meaning I can spread helpful information more widely. All reviews are welcome and much appreciated as I know they take time out of your day. If you’d like to be notified when the next episode airs, please use the link in the show notes to join the mailing list. Music and editing by Nyssa Ray. Thanks Nyssa I wish you all well in your relationship with yourself and may you go well and go gently.

Episode Links

Learn Play Grow website: https://learnplaygrowconsulting.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/learnplaygrowconsulting/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RebeccaAWeinerMEd/

Links to Dr Hayley D Quinn Resources

Link to podcast mailing list: https://drhayleydquinn.com/podcast/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drhayleydquinn

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drhayleydquinn

Freebies: https://drhayleydquinn.com/resources

Meditations: https://drhayleydquinn.com/shop/

Journal: https://drhayleydquinn.com/product/welcome-to-self-compassionate-journal/