Spiritual Parenting with Randy Rolfe

On this episode we’re joined by Randy Rolfe. She is an internationally known author, speaker, counselor, and media personality. Randy is known for her sound advice on parenting and living a healthy lifestyle. She finds delight in bringing out the best in people for their relationships, health, and spiritual being.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Email | RSS

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

• A little bit about Randy’s marriage and lifestyle.
• What motivated Randy to become a lawyer.
• How Randy and her husband decided to raise their children.
• What it means to follow the basic human pattern of parenting.
• The meaning behind the title of Randy’s book.
• What spiritual parenting is and why it’s important.
• How belief, faith, and trust can help you raise a child.
• How parents can develop the confidence to trust their instincts.
• What is invading the family space now and how parents can deal with that.
• What parents should be modeling for their children.
• How unconditional love towards children supports healing.
• Why Randy is passionate about sharing her message about parenting.
• What Randy would go back and learn more about if she could.
• Why Randy says parents today face a greater challenge than previous generations.
• What people need to remember to be effective as parents today.
• The best way to connect with Randy.

Connect with Randy
Website: www.randyrolfe.com

TRANSCRIPT

Quick Links:

• Join the Live. Love. Engage. Community
• Intuitive Business Coaching
• The Live. Love. Engage. Book
• Support the Podcast with BuyMeACoffee.com

Enjoying what you’re hearing on Live. Love. Engage.? Make sure you subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, and click here to leave a 5 STAR Review. You can also watch the conversation on YouTube.

TRANSCRIPT

Live Love Engage – Randy Rolfe.mp3
[00:00:00] You’re listening to the Live. Love. Engage. podcast. On this episode, we’ll hear from an expert who helps new parents trust their instincts when it comes to raising their children. Stay tuned.

[00:00:13] 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. Namaste.

[00:00:49] And welcome back to another edition of Live Love Engage and another awesome day for me because I have a guest on the show who’s joining us from Pennsylvania and her name is Randy Rolfe. And I want to welcome you first off to live, love, engage.

[00:01:11] Thank you, Gloria. I love the name of your show. It’s live. Love and engage is really important. Absolutely. Yeah. But especially engage.

[00:01:22] Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, we have to. We have. I think if we stay engaged, then it helps us to live in love better anyway.

[00:01:30] Exactly.

[00:01:32] Well, let me share with our listeners and those of you watching on YouTube. Why I have this wonderful woman on our show today. She is no slouch when it comes to all sorts of things. I mean, talk about multi-hyphenate type of person. She’s, I think, almost done it all. It seems like she’s an internationally known author, speaker, counselor and media personality, known especially for her sound advice on parenting and healthy lifestyle. And she delights in bringing out the best in people for their relationships, their health and their spiritual being. And as I said, she has a diverse set of accomplishments first and foremost being wife, mother, grandmother, daughter and then family therapist, nutrition educator, lawyer, theologian, world traveler and mentor to home based entrepreneurs. And I assume at some point you must like, you know, have a little downtime once in a while with all of these things, I hope.

[00:02:33] Yes, I have a wonderful lifestyle. I married my college sweetheart and we’ve been together over for fifty fifty years. Fifty two years. Wow. And so we have a wonderful lifestyle, and I just want everyone else to be as happy as we are, basically.

[00:02:54] Well, that you are to be congratulated because you don’t hear too often about people being married 50 years, let alone even more than 50 years. And you certainly don’t look old enough to be married that long, so you must have a real child bride.

[00:03:11] I was twenty one. My parents made me wait until I was twenty one. Ok, well, that’s so you can do the math.

[00:03:19] Well, I, you know you have done so many things and I thought, I know that you’re you’re very passionate about parenting. So I thought we’d start off talking today about what caused you to actually transform your life from being a lawyer to actually being this parenting advocate.

[00:03:40] Well, thank you for the question. It’s one of my favorite stories. I started out as a lawyer because I had traveled all over the world with my family and I wanted to make peace. I thought, Well, law, if you knew the law, the international law, a law between countries, you could help people be a diplomat and and really help make peace. And so I worked for a big law firm in Philadelphia, and I realized that it wasn’t just about being a diplomat, it was about. Controlling corporations and getting them to do the right thing for the people. And meanwhile, I had gotten married and I realized there wasn’t time. Being a lawyer to be the mom and the wife I wanted to be, especially in those days with a big law firm and one of the first women ever hired there. And so so we decided to buy an old farmhouse in upstate New York to start our family, and we rebuilt it ourselves and had the children born up there. And people started asking me why our children were so easy and so good, and I’m like, Well, we thought a lot about this before we had our kids, and we’re just following what we think is a natural program. And so I started giving lectures on it and decided to write a book about it, and I got on a lot of TV shows with my first book. You can postpone anything but love. So that led to counseling and lecturing and TV appearances and all of that. And I never looked back. I just loved helping people find the inner parent, really. We know so much. And for advice shopping all the time, your mom can say one thing your grandma, your aunt, your neighbor or the doctor, the priest. It gets very confusing and you have to look inside. And I really believe in following the the basic human pattern that parenting has worked for a couple of million years. So let’s let’s get to it.

[00:06:03] That’s true. Yeah, our ancestors way back did not have books on, you know, they didn’t have my mother, my child, which I did have. I think that was the name of it, wasn’t it, that book that you get at baby showers that’s supposed to help you help you raise your child? Yeah. So it’s obviously we we’ve survived this long, so people managed to to parent without having all of that. But I want to go back to because I was intrigued by the name of your book that you can’t. You can postpone every everything or anything but love. Explain that a little bit, because that’s intriguing.

[00:06:42] Yes, you can postpone anything but love. I was practicing law in Philadelphia. Well, we ran out of money in our house in upstate New York, so we came back to Philadelphia. We both got legal jobs again. And I was finishing up a job I was doing on a federal grant in air pollution control law and I was driving home. I thought, you know, my kids are three and one and I can postpone my career. I want to spend the time with my kids. So I was thinking about a parenting book, and all of a sudden you can postpone anything but love. You have to love your children today and yesterday and tomorrow. You can’t postpone love. Love is a thing you do in the moment. So I thought, that’s the name of my book. And so I just wrote out all the natural things you can count on that kids want to please you. They do respond. They notice everything. Some of these principles and and I called it, you can postpone anything but love. And many, many times people have told me, Well, that doesn’t that apply to everything? And I’m like, Yes, yes, you got to love your husband today. You got to love nature today. You got to love your spiritual source today. So thank you for asking. I it’s still my favorite title

[00:08:07] Of all time. Yeah, I really. I love it as well. And and I would say also, you also have to love yourself too, right?

[00:08:16] Absolutely. Every day, yes. More often than that, yes.

[00:08:21] Now I know that you are an advocate for what you call actually spiritual parenting, which I think were even kind of hinting about here already in our discussion. So what what actually does that mean for parents? You know, nowadays, especially it’s it’s been a crazy year and a half without the pandemic and disruptions to every once nor normal schedules and things like that. So. Tell me a little bit about, you know, what do you mean by spiritual parenting? And then and then how does that how how do how does that affect people or how can parents? Sure. Yes, that there we go. That’s what I’m trying to say.

[00:09:03] Yeah, the the basic idea is, like I said, going back to the natural pattern of parent child and believing that that. Works, so it’s it’s about having faith in humanity and knowing that there’s a greater force than just you molding your child, your child comes as a fully formed person. They’re just less they’re smaller and less experienced, but they already have a personality. They have drives, they have a willingness to to be parented because otherwise, in a million years ago, you would have died if you got your parents angry at you. You know, if you got abandoned to be the end, it wouldn’t be a nation that would pick you up and take care of you. So, so it’s it’s I mean, if you’re religious, it’s great. I found in my counseling practice that people who knew that the child already had a soul or whatever you want to call it, and they weren’t starting with a wax. They did better at adjusting to being a really successful parent. People who just thought that we were just, you know, each of us is going to mold our child. And it’s all up to us. They didn’t trust the child I found. So it’s it’s belief, faith and trust all in the package. So you can when you when I discovered when I had my own child, he knew what he wanted. You know, he let me know if he was wet or cold or hungry or tired. He let me know I’m like, OK, he knows how to tell me what he needs. I don’t have to invent it. So it’s the spiritual side for me is very general of just believing that this is going to work and having the confidence to know that even if you’re a first time parent, it’s going to work. If you trust yourself and trust your child and stay in constant communication, that makes sense.

[00:11:20] Oh yeah, absolutely. And but I also know sometimes I think it’s that’s also then becomes a challenge is if you’re not used to maybe trusting yourself and now you’ve been, you know, given this new life to take care of that is putting all of its faith in you to be able to take care of him or her. And now how do you how do you and maybe this is something that you’ve done like in your counseling. How do you help people then start to be able to develop that confidence in themselves, to be able to trust their instincts that they really can do this?

[00:11:59] That’s a great question. And I think a lot of it, a lot of the motivational training these days is about rediscovering your own power and success. We’re supposed to be happy, healthy people, and I try to take parents back to to looking at their own history at their own parents, their grandparents and going back and imagining Paleolithic times. You know what? What why didn’t the kids walk into the fire or walk off the cliff or get carried off by a tiger? It’s because this process works, and you can trust that. And today there’s so many other stresses on parents that time and quality time is really hard to come by. So it’s really important that parents take the time to nurture themselves, and sometimes the other parent is not on the same beam. So that’s another challenge. But you know, if someone’s criticizing your parenting, OK, you step back. Is there any truth to this? Maybe not. I’m doing what I believe in. I’ve thought it through in the past and it’s working for me. I will follow through so, so to some extent, you need to have some boundaries. Yeah, it’s really emotional intelligence and building your own self-confidence.

[00:13:33] Hmm. Yeah, that’s and that is so important to be able to for us to be able to do that. And and I know it’s it, it can be scary, but to be able to then really start to trust that even looking back at history, I like that. That’s a really good way of looking. I mean, even going back, like you say, you know, Paleolithic times, people were able to, you know, we’re still here because they were able to keep their children safe. And so there is that there is still an instinct within us to do that. But I know sometimes it can be. You hear conflicting, conflicting advice and then. You start getting confused with, you know, especially with social media, but even even I had, you know, I have had a wonderful older sister who did not have children who still sent me an article one time about parenting. But but she was nice about, you know, you are still doing a better job than our mom did. And and, you know, so she really appreciated me. But she’s like, I know sometimes, you know, I’ve seen how you know, your daughter interacts with you. And I think, you know, maybe this might help you and and I was a bit resistant at first, you know? But but I think I came across it not too long ago, looked at it again and was like, Yeah, you know, my daughter knew how to push my buttons when she was three, I used to say she was three going on 13, and it was four going at 14. But it’s because I wasn’t really trusting myself enough to even. And that’s why that happened, that why it allowed. I allowed her to kind of get under my skin a bit more than I would now. In hindsight, you know, I could do a better job now. But then again, she turned out pretty darn great. So I guess I did.

[00:15:21] Ok, well, I think yes, the proof is in the pudding in that sense, and it’s it’s hard to to judge with. There’s so much now invading the family space that parents need to be even stronger in that sense that well, yeah, maybe all your eight year old friends have cell phones, but I just don’t think it’s the best thing right now for you. So, you know, you really have to to do your own homework of forgiving those who didn’t do right by you and knowing the power that you have within so that you can make good decisions for your own family.

[00:16:11] Hmm. Yeah. Now. One of the things that I know that I have, like I said, I had loving mother, but you know, she did make did some things that drove me crazy at times and I’ve tried to, you know, kind of go not do those things and but, you know, you still slip up and make mistakes. So what how do you what do you tell parents who who may feel that it’s like, Oh, you know, I’ve ruined my child for life, they’re going to be in therapy, you know, for years now because of whatever I just did. So I’m sure you probably come across that in dealing with clients as well. What do you tell parents who might kind of feel sometimes like they just I really screwed up?

[00:16:56] Yeah, I absolutely love that question because we are modeling for our children at all times. They don’t miss anything. You know, we laugh that a two year old will come out with some silly phrase that that we use that we didn’t even realize we use. But the the the point is to model forgiving yourself and asking for forgiveness and making amends. And it’s never too late to go to a child at thirty three or fifty three, as well as 13 or or three and say, you know, I really got angry and I lost control last night and and that really isn’t what I meant to do, and I’ll try harder not to do it next time. I was just completely overwhelmed by what was going on at work or a phone call I got or something. Hmm. And you know, there are better ways to handle that, and what I wish I had done is blah blah blah. I should have taken five minutes and calm to myself down and then told you why I was feeling disappointed in what you did. So it’s never too late, and that’s one of the things I always say.

[00:18:16] You have. You always have a second chance with children because they are forgiving and resilient if you ask for it. So, yeah, if you’re afraid that we go into therapy, you can first, you know, set it up so they can tell their therapist that mom tried to make good. You know, I definitely had challenges in my family. Both parents had serious drinking problems and I was the firstborn, so I was kind of the peacekeeper and kind of keep everything going and make sure dinner was on the table and never learned to cook. But I sure was telling them all the time, it’s a good time, isn’t it time? So but they were very loving parents and watching how they interacted and how they cared about us. I just felt like there’s a better way we can do this without addiction. So that’s one of the things I tried to help parents. And one of my books is about that parents that come from dysfunctional families, which sometimes looks like more than half because civilization is really hard on families.

[00:19:26] Mm hmm. Absolutely. Yeah. And that’s a similar situation for me. Yeah, my dad was an alcoholic and it was, but I knew I knew they loved me. And I, you know, it was just, you know, he had issues. My mom had issues. And of course, as I got older, I could understand more and more of it and seeing even some of the family dynamics with even like my grandmother. And it’s like, No, that’s why mom was that way, OK? Yeah. And you know, and I could forgive, forgive them. And I think that’s that’s the other important thing to remember. And one of the things I’ve done is that, you know, they did the best they could with what they knew at the time, and I did the best I could in raising my kids with what I knew. And as long as we can endeavor to improve each generation, then I think that’s all really we can do.

[00:20:18] Yes. And I come back to you can postpone anything but love if they know you love them unconditionally. A lot can be healed.

[00:20:28] Yeah, absolutely. Is there anything that you, you know, looking back at your career and raising your families or anything that you wish you had known then that you know, now that might have helped you at all?

[00:20:46] Yeah, I wish I knew more about marketing because I really want to get this word out that parenting is so important and our society doesn’t appreciate it enough. They really encourage parents to to outsource, outsource eating, outsource school, outsourced vacations and and camp. And entertainment. So there’s less and less of the family just sitting smiling together, asking What’s new? Taking a walk? Just being together and so having those opportunities to show your love. And so, you know, counseling is one family at a time. So I wish I had known more about how to get speaking gigs and and go online. Now is the trick of really reaching more people with the message. So, so marketing. Yeah, if you’re if you want to get a message out. Study marketing and they say, you know, a lot of people that are driven by helping others don’t realize how useful that can be.

[00:22:03] Yeah, that’s true. You know, it’s interesting that you mentioned about that. There’s so many outside things that parents are looking for to to do. And I suppose, you know, if we have to look for a silver lining in the pandemic, it was like this, especially last year in particular, you know, we were home with the kids, sometimes even with older children, you know, you know, we’re we’re we’re locked down again. You know, the empty nesters weren’t so empty anymore. In fact, that was our daughter had to. She was in Europe and had to come home because everything was closed down there. And so she, you know, moved back home for a while and and we did spend some time. It’s nice to be able to spend time doing, you know, things like playing board games or, you know, not just having to look for outside things to be able to do that, that there’s lots that you can do right at home. I hope my internet is behaving itself had just got a message saying it’s unstable. No, no, no. Behave, no. I see you fine.

[00:23:08] So it’s it’s so true. And because the society we’re looking at younger and younger school and before and after programs just so that the parents can do their employment. But if you know there are other countries that seem a far more civilized in the sense that they do support parents at least the first year or two or even three, they give them more time off for for family things. And they you save so much expense and pain just by doing that as a society. So I’m really an advocate for appreciating how important parenting is. You know, each parent is struggling to do their best. But as a society, we could do more to help them.

[00:24:04] Yeah, absolutely. What is there anything that you know an individual could do in that respect to be able to, you know, also advocate for be an advocate for parents?

[00:24:20] Well, I think certainly speaking openly voting in favor of of programs that help families support really push for family leave time and and not just moms, but dads, because they love their kids just as much as the moms. But we’re still coming out of sort of that industrial revolution where we thought the men could could earn the living. But that changed. That changed in the mid 20th century. Now you need two incomes to have a middle class life, and there are so many single parent families that it’s just not fair. So you might push for know fairer for living wages now would help families tremendously. Yeah. And for for more social. Not, not necessarily handouts, but just encouraging companies to have better leave programs.

[00:25:26] Yeah, definitely. Is there anything that you’re curious about right now that maybe that’s got you as you’re at this stage of life, you know you’re you’re a grandmother, you’ve been you’ve been a parent advocate for a long time. What what kind of keeps you going and what are you curious about right now?

[00:25:51] Well, certainly talking to more parents about these issues. And I guess what I’m most curious about is how it’s going to unfold for this next generation. There are so many challenges in front of them, and if parents know how to to build those boundaries and get on the parent controls for the computers and the tablets, and with watching the grandchildren come up, they have a very different world from the one you and I or even my children had. And I often say to my children, You know, you’ve got a real challenge. It was it seemed hard in our day, but it’s you got it harder now, and I’m very proud of what my kids are doing with their families. But as a society, it’s I am really curious of how it will unfold, and so many young people are concerned about the international situation, climate change. And I want to my I hope. Approach to these situations

[00:27:14] Is a little bit there, can you say what you hope

[00:27:18] Again? I mean, I said that what I’m curious about is can they maintain a hope and a positive approach to these challenges and engage? Yeah. Like you say, to to to show their love and not not get paralyzed by by fear and and worry, but rather again believe in humanity and in family, and that we can solve our challenges today.

[00:27:53] Absolutely. Yeah, that’s so good. And you know, and I think also it’s good that parents should remember that, you know, they are in charge of the family and that they can set the rules and they have they can actually limit screen time. They can, you know, they don’t have to give in to the peer pressure out there to have kids do this stuff. I mean, I. Because as as now as my kids were coming up, they were starting to like in middle school, more kids were starting to have phones and things like that. And I I held out, it was like I waited until high school and and I wouldn’t even let my my son had to earn the money for his Xbox because I didn’t even want to give that to him either, because it’s like, No, I wanted him to read, you know, that you’ve got time enough for that stuff later. But but it is interesting that even putting limits on computers doesn’t always work because my son figured out how to disable the parental control on the computer system. And but it served him well because now he does cyber security. So, you know, he

[00:29:04] Was just having a skill, a gift there.

[00:29:08] Exactly. So. So you never know. You never know how these things work out.

[00:29:12] Yeah. But it is so important for parents to realize that they still are in charge. That’s why they had that child. And it’s it’s important that they realize that there, of course, there’s all kinds of advice and influence coming in. But but they are making the decisions and they need to talk them through with other parent, if there is one or with someone that they really trust to listen. But they have to make those decisions themselves and hopefully before the time comes. And so that’s why I always say you get a second chance because the child might ask a question that you just didn’t think it was coming for another two years. And if you mess up, just think about it for a week and come back and say, you know, I did a terrible job explaining that. So there’s always a second chance.

[00:30:12] Love that. If somebody out there listening or watching on YouTube wants to be able to learn more about you, maybe check out your books or what else that you have to offer in the way of advice for parents. What’s the best place that? How can people get a hold of you?

[00:30:31] Sure. Through my website, it’s just Randy Rolfe at Randy Rolfe is my email, and the website is Randy Rolfe dot com. And that’s Randy with a y because I’m I was born long before the i’s that was R -a-n-d-y and R-o-l-f-e on the end. And my husband, John Rolfe, named after one of the founders of the Virginia Colony. So that’s how you can remember it.

[00:30:59] Very cool. Very nice. Awesome. Well, I have enjoyed our conversation and I can see why you have been an expert for a while and you’ve got a lot of good advice. And hopefully those listening today will pick up on it and be able to start learning how to trust themselves and know that they’ve got this. They can do it.

[00:31:23] Absolutely, thank you so much, Gloria, it’s been a pleasure.

[00:31:27] Thank you and thank everyone out there for watching and for listening. I appreciate you. And until next time, as always, I encourage you to go out and live fully. Love deeply and engage authentically. Did you know that

[00:31:44] 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 gift. That’s live love. Engage dot g-i-f-t.