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Co-Parent Strategies that Work with Fiona Kong

Live. Love. Engage. has been focusing on parenting lately, and today’s episode offers another perspective on the challenges specifically facing parents who are going through a divorce.


Fiona Kong is a former analyst turned small business owner, and a single mom to a five year old boy. When she noticed a gap in resources for children to navigate separation or divorce, Fiona wrote her book “Home Sweet Homes.” It’s a unique reference guide and teaching tool to support both co-parents and children.

During our interview, Fiona shares tips on how to co-parent in a way that helps kids manage living in two homes, and she explains how her book helps children and parents manage this situation.

On this episode of the Live. Love. Engage. podcast:

  • What prompted Fiona to write her book.
  • How reading about her son’s time at his other home helped Fiona co-parent.
  • What she learned while creating her book.
  • Tips for navigating a difficult co-parenting relationship.
  • The highlights of creating this co-parenting tool.
  • How what you hear often becomes the language you use.
  • Fiona’s mindset on the misprint in her final print.
  • The ideas Fiona has to execute on the next version.
  • Important strategies to practice for better co-parenting.
  • What happens when we don’t deal with our own childhood issues.
  • The type of separation Fiona experienced and why they decided to do better.
  • Who Fiona recommends listening to if you need support in vulnerability.
  • The type of household Fiona was raised in.
  • Fiona’s advice for people who want to co-parent better.
  • How “Home Sweet Homes” can help preserve memories.
  • Why this book is not a solution for everyone.
  • How this book could become even more accessible to all families.
  • Fiona’s mental ups and downs through her co-parenting journey.

Connect with Fiona

Home Sweet Homes website: https://www.homesweethomesjournal.com/ 

Related Parenting Episodes:

Spiritual Parenting with Randy Rolfe

Raising Children that Listen with Debra Kocis

TRANSCRIPT

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Live. Love. Engage. Podcast: Inspiration | Spiritual Awakening | Happiness | Success | Life

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] You’re listening to the live Love Engage podcast on today’s show, we’re going to be talking about how co-parents can help their children manage the challenges of living in two homes. Stay tuned.

[00:00:15] I am Gloria Grace Rand, founder of the Love Method and author of the number one Amazon Best Seller, Live Love Engage How to Stop Doubting Yourself and start being yourself. In this podcast, we share practical advice from a spiritual perspective on how to live fully. Love deeply and engage authentically so you can create a life and business with more impact, influence and income. Welcome to live love engage

[00:00:50] Namaste and welcome to another edition of Live Love Engage. And today, as always, when we come out on Fridays, I’ve got a guest with us who is, has a great story to tell. I’ll just say that for now. So first off, I want to welcome Fiona Kong to live love engage.

[00:01:15] Hi, Gloria, thank you so much for having me.

[00:01:17] Well, I am delighted to have you on because we’ve off and on we’ve been talking about parenting on this show. And, you know, and it’s part of being a parent is certainly one of the ways that you can… I guess that you need to learn how to engage authentically with your children. So where my live love engage part comes in, but let me tell our listeners out there and viewers just why I decided to have you on. So Fiona is a single mom to a five year old boy, and is he still five? Hasn’t had a birthday in between since we last connected? All right. And she’s a former analyst, worked for Verizon Media and Yahoo. And now she’s a, as she says, she’s a turned dreamer, doer, small business owner. And after finding a lack of tools to support children living in two homes, she decided to write a book called Home Sweet Homes, which is a unique reference guide, teaching tool and memory book that helps co-parents and children through the challenges stemming from divorce and separation. And I know that I was going to look up the statistics re: how many families are getting divorced every year. And I don’t know if you happen to know that, Fiona, but it’s a lot. I know that. So tell us a little bit more about, you know, really what? What really prompted you to undertake writing a book, Because writing a book is not for the faint of heart. It does take some determination and sticktoitiveness to be able to get it done. So what prompted that for you?

[00:03:10] I didn’t set out to create anything, it wasn’t like, Hey, I’m going to go write something now. When my partner and I split up, it was just, you know, a really hard time that where I was like, I need to really do all that I can do support my son. And you know, when you look for tools and resources online, I feel like everything was geared towards adults. So there was there’s apps, there’s books, there’s, you know, workshops, things like that, but not a whole lot created for the actual, you know, the actual kids. And I was really surprised and I was like, you know, I just felt like unsettled and unsatisfied with my son going back and forth between homes and just the lack of communication and information going on. So I was just kind of like, what would it even look like? What would I even need to do to create something to help him? And as I said, I wasn’t even like it wasn’t like a clear like, Oh, I’m going to create this. I was just happened to be at the store and I found this little planner. It was like a dollar and I bought it and I asked my co-parent. I was like, Hey, would you be willing to write in like a little summary of like what happens at your house and what happens? We would just exchange it back and forth.

[00:04:28] So that’s actually how it started. And you know, the first time I got it back, it was like being able to read about what my son was doing because he was like four at the time and he still wasn’t communicating, you know, he couldn’t tell me what was happening. So to read about it from my co-parent’s perspective, you know, just to have like a frame of reference and be a part of his life. It was helpful in many different ways. So that’s really what kind of started it. And then I was like, Oh, well, what if I added in, you know, things that would be more helpful to him, you know, like how he feels every day and affirmations and like a contacts at the end because, you know, most times parents don’t have like the same contact information like. Emergency, you know, contact information, so it just evolved into like this was started off as small evolve, I was like, OK, I need this and I need this. So. And now we have it’s like a two hundred seventy six page book.

[00:05:31] So, so it really sounds like it’s really for everyone in the family then to use. I mean, it’s a tool. It’s something for the kids, certainly, but it’s also something for the parents, especially when you when you say when you’ve got younger children who aren’t, you know, able to communicate as well and certainly even probably need help even expressing their feelings that this is something that the parent can help them with.

[00:05:57] Yes, I mean, definitely the priority is like, this is this book is for your child. It’s not, you know, it does help mom, whoever, whoever the parents are. Dad, dad, mom, whatever the combination is. But, you know, because it stays with the child as they go back and forth because my son uses it, he’s like, Where am I going? Where am I going to be on tomorrow? And so it’s with him, you know, instead of it being a calendar on my refrigerator, which may not be at dad’s house, this stays with him. And it’s one of the few things that he has that this kind of stuff from mom and dad, and it’s really special. Yeah, that’s

[00:06:37] That’s really cool. Did you in the process of creating this, were there things that you learned that you were like, Oh, we didn’t really need this or, oh, I wished I had put this in at the beginning, this would have been so helpful.

[00:06:53] Oh God, I feel like I oh my gosh. When I think about creating it, it was, you know, like I went to stores and I looked at journals and I looked at planners. So I feel like I kind of made it the way I wanted it. But I feel like now that it’s just started going out to homes, I’ll be getting feedback from others and I’ll be able to change it and tailor it. But for now, I feel like it’s great. I feel like I would have liked more blank pages because my son uses it a lot to draw and I create like a little scrapbook at the end of each month. So definitely more like pages for the kids. It’s like it would have been great.

[00:07:35] Is there an ideal age for this to go from for kids, do you think?

[00:07:43] We started at four, so I think that’s kind of like the earliest you’d be able to start with having a kid participate. I think it could still be used for little kids, obviously. Just be just put in with, you know, the parents just writing it. I think it still is helpful in that sense, but it really grows with a child because right now, my son, you know, he’s five, he can only write his name and a few words. But you know, he’s really learning. I see it. You know, he can. He dates the count. It’s an undated planner, so that lasts for a year. Mm hmm. So he is writing in all the dates for the calendar, and it’s really it’s helped him, you know, learn all, you know, like time and schedule. So I would say four is the earliest five is is perfect start. And then, you know, as as I said, as he grows older, he’s going to be writing a lot more in it and we’re going to be doing less. But I still want it to be for our family. I still want both of, you know, his dad and I to participate because I think it’s important that we all have something shared for him.

[00:08:52] Yeah, absolutely. Now, you know, it sounds like your, you know, your co-partner as it were, in this was, you know, willing and able to come on board. So what happens, though, in a situation where maybe because a lot of times when people split up, there’s a lot of rancor, even though they still want to be able to do what’s best for the kids? You know, you hear stories about, you know, one parent is badmouthing the other parent and, you know, and the poor child is caught in the middle. How would you, do you have any advice in that case for how to be able to enroll the other parent in this?

[00:09:30] Yeah, that’s tough because I don’t have that situation where we’re not, you know, we don’t have any issues. But I do recognize that it is. It can be very triggering or hard when parents have, you know, if what if you say something that the other parents really sensitive to? So I think first and foremost, I actually did write a blog post on my website about guidelines. And there’s some for like general and some for the parents. They kind of go through like just, you know, the mindset of, you know, what’s having a healthy mindset when you go into this, like knowing that it’s for your child, but recognizing if this is too stressful, if it’s too triggering, there are other ways to go about it. Like, I was like, if you, knowing what goes on at your parents, at the other parent’s house is like, you know, if they have a boyfriend girlfriend, you know, that can be very like, Oh, you know, like, I don’t want to hear about that. So one of the workarounds I have is like, you can just have your child answer like journal prompts like instead of writing about what happened in the day, you know, there are certain questions like, you know, why is the sky blue or like, answer like just answer questions, you know, and it can still be a creative use of using the journal, but without divulging what’s going on, you know, in each other’s household?

[00:10:51] Yeah, absolutely. So you said that you’re starting to get this out to other people. Have you, have you were you able to maybe even before launching it officially were you able to get sort of like a focus group, maybe, maybe some of your friends or something to be able to to give you any feedback on it?

[00:11:08] Well, yes, because that’s actually what I used to do for work. I was in research. And so the answer should be yes, I should have done more research, but I didn’t do it as much as I would have wanted to. I didn’t have the community. I think when I was just starting out like, you know, you’re looking for it, but you know, it’s hard, you know, I didn’t really have a lot of feedback. I did ask a few people and I did get some feedback. So it was sort of limited, but I felt like it was something that really helped my family. And that’s why I was like, OK, I feel like I feel comfortable enough creating it with some some feedback.

[00:11:55] Yeah, absolutely. Sounds like this is, you know, this is, you know, your first foray into doing something like this, you know, creating a product and and stuff, and I know that there’s, you know, people out there who are listening who possibly might be in a similar situation where they have an idea for something and they want to be able to launch it, get it out in the marketplace. Is there, what have you learned so far? Because I know you’re still early on in your journey about, about this, you know, process of creating something and then you had to obviously get it published and what sort of lessons have you learned? Maybe, maybe we’ll start off with maybe some of the good things and then maybe some of the mistakes, maybe that you’ve made that you want to, you can help people avoid

[00:12:46] The good things. First of all, you know, a lot of what I created was based off a need that I had from my childhood. Like I wasn’t raised in a household where I was encouraged and really supported and, you know, talked up and, you know, all these things. So when I was writing the affirmations in this book, like each month starts with the affirmation, I was like, Wow, you know, this really helped me too. You know, being a single mom, being an entrepreneur, the last one in the book is, I believe in myself. And I was like, you know, if I didn’t believe in myself to begin with, there is no way I would have, I would have made it to the end because it was a long, hard, hard journey. Like, you know, when you’re in the weeds and you’re working day and night and on weekends like to get your whatever it is, you need to get done. Believe in yourself. It’s not going to happen. So I think, you know. What having that belief in yourself and finding the right tools, because as I said, I didn’t come from a household where I was encouraged, I was like, it was actually kind of the opposite where I was emotionally abusive. And so I started this new routine where it’s like every morning. In addition to meditation, I listen to like a lot of motivational talks, like while I’m brushing my teeth while I’m doing the dishes because if I hear it. All the time it starts becoming your language. And yeah, it’s just it’s, was such a needed thing in my life, at the right time, and so I would really highly suggest like I just go on YouTube, I find a video like a motivational talk, and that’s what I listen to, to get my day started every single day.

[00:14:35] It’s very good advice. Yeah, because it really does make a difference because you have to retrain your brain. A lot of times when if you have, you have like growing up in a situation where you have less than supportive family members, shall we say, and then you, you go out into the world and you’ve got these limiting beliefs. So thank goodness that we live in a day and age where we are right now, where we have these things that are fingertips on our phones, we can pull them up and I do similar things in the morning. I either something motivational or sometimes I just like to start my morning with a laugh and I’ll find something funny just to be able to get myself in a good mood for the day as well. What, were there any things that you’ve, you know, learned, you know, maybe some working mistakes that you made at the beginning that you’re like, Oh, you know, if I’d known now, you know, when I started this, I would have I wish I could have not done that that might help someone else?

[00:15:33] And that’s my gosh, that’s so hard because like everything, every step is so hard, right? Like learning all these different things. Everything is hard. And yeah, I guess just one have a great planner for one. Like, I actually have a time block and like it plans out my day by hour, you know, and every half an hour, it’s like the passion planner. And it’s fantastic because I was like, If you’re just kind of starting your day, just going into it, it’s like, that is the worst thing you can do. And it’s like, I’m the type of person that, like, can work on something, you know, ‘til it’s like perfect, perfect, you know, and then four hours of rest. So yeah, I think just really being stopping, rethinking how you’re working sometimes instead of just getting into it, I think that’s always the best thing. For sure.

[00:16:37] And I think that is one trap. I think sometimes that entrepreneurs get into is that they want it to be perfect and they keep at it until it’s perfect. It’s never going to be perfect. You want it to be good so that you can sell it and then you can always revise it later.

[00:16:56] It was a mistake on my on my print, on the final print, and I’m like, you know, we just got to go with it. Pretty good to do.

[00:17:04] Absolutely. Oh, please. There are so many. I mean, I’ve seen famous people with like books and things where there’s typos in the book. So it’s painful.

[00:17:14] But it’s

[00:17:17] It’s OK. You can fix it the next time. It’s all, it’s all good. Speaking of the next time, so I know you’re in the middle of, of doing this. Do you have any plans for maybe a follow up to this or do you just want to continue to just kind of work this and revise it and improve it each time? What’s your thoughts?

[00:17:37] Oh, both. Definitely revise it and improve. But you know, this first version, it’s like, I feel like, you know, I will always love this, this first version. But I think there’s opportunities for, as I said, we were talking about like four littles, like zero to three. I would kick out some of the more interactive activities in here and different just artwork. I feel like because there are multiple kids and families. So I feel like there’s I have so many ideas like so many, you know, making stickers and things like that. But I just can’t execute, you know, I just want to get this one, you know, and make sure people are happy with it. Because really, at the end of the day, I want a child, I want them to feel connected to their parents. I want them to feel loved. I feel like I want them to love this book and feel like this has changed my life and is helping me in my two homes. Like, you know, everything else, I don’t care about the art work. I feel I want the kid to, you know, I really want to help them. The bottom line?

[00:18:45] Absolutely. And for those of you watching on YouTube, can you just hold the book up? So we get to see all of it because I think we’ve only seen a little part of it. There it is. So it says home sweet homes, and it’s a lovely as it says they’re a journal and planner for parent and child like that is kind of think like what else? What else do you think would be is important for, for like a let’s just say in general for co-parenting? You know, that’s your you’re in. What advice would you have for someone who is, you know, maybe they’ve realized they’re going to have to split and they’re going to be doing this. So what are some things, particularly have you found that is going to be helpful that’s helped you and your family?

[00:19:33] Yeah. Honestly, one of the first things I did was, you know, my my son aside, was like working on myself because I realized, you know, there was still stuff from my childhood that this is a kind of may be sounding strange, but in a roundabout way. But if you haven’t dealt with stuff from your childhood, it ends up being pushed onto your child. Right? So, it’s just having this emotional awareness. You know, we’re pushing this on our children, but I was like, What about yourself? And, you know, talking to someone, whether just I just feel like in this day and age, I love that we’re being encouraged to share our feelings and talk about it when we haven’t done so in the past. So, I sat and I thought about all this stuff that what made me, me you know, from my childhood. I was like, Oh, this is. Kind of how I, you know, I realized what I was doing, how I was acting towards my son. So that was one piece, but then you know, the piece of working with your or he’s still my partner forever. We, we talk every time my son switches homes, so we try to set up the best system where we are very open with each other. We, as I said, we had a face to face this morning, you know, and that’s the kind of relationship. I actually when we split up, we had a very…

[00:21:12] It wasn’t terrible, but it was very businesslike. We weren’t at the level we were now. But there was one day I was, I said to myself, you know, we were going to have to do this forever. I don’t want our relationship to be like this. I think we can do better. So, I called him. I apologized for just stuff that had been weighing on me, and he was like, I wish I had. I wanted to call you for so long too, and it was like this level of maturity, I guess. And like, you know, just in a relationship where it’s like, hey, this is not about us. This is we need to in order to help our son, we do need to come together. And it’s really, it’s not easy, I must say, but you have to be vulnerable. You have to put yourself out there and it can feel really terrible. And, you know, it’s not easy to talk about this stuff if you haven’t done it a lot before. So, yeah, you know, I listen to like Brene Brown a lot and she talks about vulnerability, and I think that’s if anyone is listening. That is, you know, listen to her talks because I think that’s really helped me.

[00:22:26] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that’s a good one. I love her TED talk about vulnerability. It’s, it is so powerful. You know, I’m curious and I know I think a lot of us do still, you know, whatever way we grow up, we do sometimes bring in that baggage. But I was just wondering, is there anything culturally for you that maybe also sort of, I don’t know, added to that baggage, unfortunately, that you that you kind of brought with you, do you think?

[00:22:57] Well, like, are you? Oh, sorry, I could you just clarify the question? Like, did you mean?

[00:23:03] Well, you know, I mean, just was there anything in particular because obviously you are you are Asian for those of you who are not who now are not watching. Ok. And so and of course, I don’t know what the politically correct term is. I don’t know what your what your background is, but you definitely, you know, that’s how you appear. So I’m just wondering, is there… we hear, you know, stereotypes about different, different cultures and things. So I was just curious to know if there was anything that you felt contributed or didn’t contribute, you know? Yes.

[00:23:38] Ok, thank you. No, no. I’m glad we can talk about this because, you know, I don’t ever want it to be like a thought that, you know, I’m very like, I was. So I’m Chinese. I was born in America, so I don’t know Chinese or anything. I’m very American, but my so my father, he was, you know, born in China. And yeah, I feel like there are a lot of stereotypes where, like the males are very, what’s the word? I’m gonna use the appropriate word. But he was he was very harsh. And, you know, I think it. It was generational, you know, where he was treated. You know, he grew up in a very poor family, abusive and passed down. So I am aware that it is common and it is not all families, it’s not all Asian families, but it was, you know what you hear about the stereotypes. My mom was quite, you know, she was quiet and she, you know, so it was the stereotypical household. And so,

[00:24:52] Yeah, it is interesting. And what I wanted to bring out about that is that I also feel that there’s also still a lot of commonalities in that it’s not necessarily a stereotype or that it’s not necessarily related to just the way the culture that you were brought up in that it can be white, black, European, everything. Because I would say in my family, so my my grandmother was born in Hungary. Now my father’s family goes back to England and stuff. But they lived in America for a long time, several generations, whereas my mom was a first generation American, so

[00:25:35] My dad was the quiet person. My mom was more of the disciplinarian, very vocal, abusive as well. And then my dad was an alcoholic. So not the best childhood to grow up in, either. And also, and now I have a dog barking. I’m going to mute for one quick second. Oh, well, you’re just going to have to hear the dog barking, I don’t know why she’s upset, but anyway, that’s sort of the things that I grew up with and I had to learn how to deal with and and in my parenting as well. I one thing I wanted to not be was abusive and the one time I got really upset with my son. One thing I did differently was I apologized afterwards, which was something my mother never did. And so I at least felt that, OK, I screwed up, but at least I owned up to it. So there’s hope, I think, you know, as long as we can continue to do better, improve upon what how we were raised.

[00:26:39] Now I’ve been there and apologized too. So I love that you said that because, you know, at least the recognition is so important in trying to change it behavior. So I think, yeah, no doubt. Yeah.

[00:26:54] And it’s it’s not easy in the best of times. And certainly and I know definitely being a single mom, I was a single mom for a few months when I took a job. And so I I have great respect for you and because it is not an easy, not an easy job, I don’t. It’s so much easier with another parent. And at the same time, if that other parent, if you’re not working together, then you’re your son most likely is going to be so much better off because you decided to split up because now he does have two parents who are showing him love because they can do so without having that added tension of, you know, being together. Yeah, absolutely. Well, what other advice maybe would you have again, that since you’re you’re still in the in the middle of this, still actually even fairly new at this process of raising a child? And separately, is there anything else that you found that, you know, something that has happened that you could say, Yeah, this is if you can do this, it might help you.

[00:28:08] In regards to the book are just co-parenting and

[00:28:10] Either either or and or aren’t.

[00:28:15] Yeah, oh my gosh. I would say, let’s start with the book. I just feel like this really. You know, I’ve actually started getting feedback from, you know, parents and children. And, you know, when I see the parents and they’re writing to me and they say, you know, but I’m not sure if I hate to sound stereotypical again, but Dad, I’m not sure if dad will participate, OK? And we talk about just, we just talk about how great it is to have both parents involved. And, you know, right now, society, we’re talking about just having more gender equality. And I just want to say for the dads out there, you know, like I want, this is such a great way for them to be involved in this book because men generally just are not as expressive or, you know, you know, like even writing down, you know, and talking about feelings. But I feel like that all needs to change, you know, and I think have been helping, especially little boys do this. When my little boy, you know, where he’s like, he sits at night every night, where he circles his feelings and he talks about what made him sad or what made him angry. I’m like, Oh. This is why I want to get especially for little boys like, oh, please use the book. Like, I would love to have all these little boys use it, because I think you can help change you just, you know, when they say kids come from broken homes, you know, from divorce, it’s like, well, you can’t change that, but this can make it better.

[00:30:09] Absolutely. And you know what? That’s a term we should get rid of. Now that I think about it, you know, because it implies that something’s wrong with it, you know, and it’s just you come from separate homes. That’s all you know. And I love that you’re so right to be able to have boys in particular, but even girls still to be able to acknowledge their feelings and and to have even the parents validate them is so important because I have a friend who is very, this is her passion, as well as is teaching kids to be able to talk about their feelings because it’s going to help them as they get older. It’s so important to be able to do that. So I’m so glad that you’re that you put that in there and helping kids that way. Is there anything I should have asked you that I haven’t yet? What do you think?

[00:31:05] That’s a good question. Anything you should have asked me. I mean, I just the last thing I want to say, I guess what you know, I have been a terrible parent. I must say I didn’t put together a one-year memory book, a two-year one. All of that. You know, you have an iPhone. My iPhone is kind of a mess, to be honest. And now I wish I could show you the one we filled out, because when we fill it out, it’s like a memory from every day of his life. And each month in the blank pages, I mentioned that I put together like, I print out a few pictures from the month and I just put them in there. I was like a little scrapbook page. And so I just am like, I love what… I like, even if I didn’t decide to make it a business, you know, it’s just something that is so, I feel like it’ll be so special to so many families. And you know, whether or not this is a solution, I just for everyone, it’s not for everyone. You know, like I think, I think that’s a challenge that’s been a challenge for me, and I think I found a way. I solved my problem.

[00:32:16] Absolutely. You know, and I’m starting to think about this. This I’ll plant the seed for maybe a few years down the road is that this actually could be something that families that are together could do, because it’s because I’ll just tell you, we are going through our old pictures, family pictures and sort of sorting them out. And because we’ve also now is both my, my parents, my husband’s parents have since passed on. And so we’ve inherited all of their copies of the pictures from the kids and trying to sort this out. It would be nice to have this more explanation, you know, behind some of the events that went in because we’ve got the pictures, but we don’t have the feelings. We don’t have maybe insights into those things. So yeah, I think this could be something. I did,

[00:33:09] I did think of that and I was going to say it. But yeah, yeah, I just want to need to change out a few things and it’s a whole new product. And yeah, yeah, yeah,

[00:33:20] Some of that.

[00:33:22] Yeah, the last thing I’ll say, I did want to, maybe something that you didn’t ask that I would want to talk about is just like the whole mental health journey throughout this because, you know, I definitely have been struggling, like it’s like been up and down, up and down. And you know, and you know, we always talk, you know, we talk to other people in like the most helpful and gentle ways, but with ourselves, we’re not always, you know, we don’t always do that. And, you know, I don’t really know. I don’t have all the answers. I don’t, I’m not together all the time. Definitely. So just yeah, I think just finding people that I luckily found so many supportive people that, you know, even with you like it helps to talk to just, you know, other people about this. And I think these days we can, you know, it’s OK to say that, yeah, I’m struggling because lately I have been it’s been really hard doing managing like single parenting and a business and everything.

[00:34:31] Yeah, absolutely. And and I’m glad you, I’m glad you mentioned that because that is important and there are there’s lots of resources out there. There are, my dog… there are Iots of resources like, for instance, even even on social media, there are groups for, you know, divorced parents that you can join. Sometimes you have to be careful because sometimes people get into really complaining too much. And I you might want to because I’ve looked at some of these in the past and want to make sure that a group that you’re in is going to be more uplifting and helpful. But certainly talking to someone, I think you mentioned that you either in the past or have seen someone but going to a marriage counselor or it could be a minister or something. And you know, depending on what your religion is. It could be a life coach is, is good. Someone that’s going to be a sounding board for you because sometimes you just need to have have someone that you can just say, Oh, this is what happened and I love my child, but he’s driving me crazy or, you know, or whatever or my, you know, my my ex is, you know, a little, you know, driving me crazy, too. So if you can help me find some perspective, it’s useful and and it’s normal to have, I think, those ups and downs too, because you’re also grieving the end of a relationship, and so that’s natural too to have that, so be gentle with yourself if you’re out there going through this stuff like like you said, I think it’s so important now. I really appreciate you being here, and I do think that this book that you have created is awesome. Oh, I know what I need to ask you, which we didn’t talk about. Where can people get this book? And how can people contact you? Maybe if they would like to talk to you? See what else you’ve got going on. You mentioned you have a blog as well, so yeah.

[00:36:37] Yeah, yeah. Thank you, Gloria. So everything is at my website and my Instagram is home sweet homes journal. So I use Instagram. I have a Facebook. I don’t really use that that much. But yeah, my my website is and Instagram are both the same home sweet homes journal,

[00:36:58] Ok and Home Sweet Homes journal dot com for the website?

[00:37:02] Yes. Yes.

[00:37:05] Because there are different. There are different extensions, so we just want to make sure. All right, cool. So I will have that in the show notes. For those of you listening and yeah, so good luck with it and I hope you have much success and continue to get some good feedback from it. And I’d love to, you know, stay in touch and see how things go and in your journey as a single parent. So I know you’re going to be good, so don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re doing a great job.

[00:37:36] I’m sure. Thank you Gloria so much. I really needed it. It’s always needed and love to hear you say it. Absolutely yes.

[00:37:46] I’m happy to do so, and I want to thank everyone out there for listening and watching. And I especially want to give a shout out today to Liz Kelly. She left a five star review and a lovely review about live love. Engage on podchaser dot com. And if you would, we’d love to hear comments. If you want to leave us a review, you can do so as well. Go to podchaser dot com forward slash live love engage and I would love to hear what you have to say. And then maybe I’ll give you a shout out as well. So until next time. As always, thank you again Fiona for being here, and I encourage everyone out there to go out and live fully. Love deeply and engage authentically.

[00:38:37] Did you know that a majority of entrepreneurs tend to discount the importance of their work and a good number feel their success is simply due to luck? I know from personal experience that self-doubt can keep you from having the kind of life and business you desire. That’s why I’ve created a free guide called Uniquely You How to Move From Self-doubt to Self-love in four simple steps to claim your free guide. Go to live love. Engage dot gift that’s live love. Engage dot G. I. F.T.

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About the Author
Known as The Insightful Copywriter, Gloria Grace Rand is also an inspirational speaker, author and host of the Live. Love. Engage. podcast. Prior to launching her SEO Copywriting business in 2009, Gloria spent nearly two decades in television, most notably as writer and producer for the award-winning PBS financial news program, “Nightly Business Report.”

Gloria turned to writing as a way to communicate, since growing up with an alcoholic father and abusive mother taught her that it was safer to be seen and not heard. But not speaking her truth caused Gloria problems such as overeating, control issues, and an inability to fully trust people. After investing in coaching & personal development programs, and studying spiritual books like “A Course in Miracles,” Gloria healed her emotional wounds. Today, she helps entrepreneurs develop clarity, confidence and connection to the truth of who you are, so you can create a business that has more impact, influence and income!

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