Are you contemplating divorce? What if I told you that you can use Conscious Parenting methods to grow your self-awareness and transform your marriage?

In today’s episode, Conscious Parenting & Marriage Coach, Beth Rowles, walks us through her proven system to build healthy relationships.  

“The relationship itself is what you’re not happy with. It’s not him, it’s the relationship itself that’s not working. And you both co-created that. Right now, you’re both playing a role in it. And if you step out of this role that you’re playing, he has no choice but to step out of the role that he’s been playing. So, you can literally shift that relationship dynamic out of something that’s dysfunctional, into something that’s healthy, by just refusing to play your current role in it.” – Beth Rowles

Three things you’ll learn in this episode:

1. How to move your relationships in a healthier direction when you feel stuck
2. How to change your marriage without “fixing” your husband
3. How to share your feelings with ownership to foster healthy communication with your spouse.

To connect with Beth, head to:

• Her website: Authentic Wife and Mom
• Her podcast: The Authentic Wife Show Podcast
• IG & FB: @familybeing

Tell us a bit about yourself, your background, and your journey to becoming a Conscious Marriage Coach.

My journey started when I had my first daughter, I heard about conscious parenting on Oprah and I wanted to do that with my kids. I started learning everything I could about conscious parenting and child development. Early on I still had babies, and so they weren’t triggering me. They were just awesome, I just loved being a mom, and everything was good.

But it felt like my husband changed after my kids were born. He wasn’t parenting the way I thought he should be, I was learning all this conscious parenting stuff, so I was even more anxious about how I parented.

I became a conscious parenting coach, but I ended up using all that work in my marriage, which saved it. We were at the point where we were thinking about divorce. I realized I could apply all of that knowledge to him, and I kept doing the work and figuring it out.

Now, I’ve made a framework that I teach my clients which helps them have a healthy relationship with another adult person without having to change them. There’s another option.

Sometimes we think our marriage would be “fixed” if our husbands just changed, but the truth is that we can’t control others or force them to change, right?  So how can we feel loved without simply waiting for our partners to change?

The relationship itself is what you’re not happy with. It’s not him. And you both co-created that and you’re both playing a role in it.

And if you step out of the role that you are playing, he has no choice but to step out of the role that he’s been playing. So, you can literally shift that relationship dynamic out of something that’s dysfunctional into something that’s healthy by refusing to play your current role in it.

Many of us don’t know how to relate to another person in a healthy way because our parents never did so with us. We don’t know how to respond to our partners not doing what we want them to do, other than yelling, punishment, or all these control things.

Even for me becoming a conscious parent, I could see that I needed to do that work with my children and also with my husband. He’s not different; we all need the same thing, respect, empathy, equality, and communication. All of these things apply to both our husband and our kids.

Tell us about your courses and the framework you use from conscious parenting to help women navigate their marriage.

The program is called Happily Ever After. The idea is that you can be happy in your life no matter what’s going on around you, no matter who’s around you, and really help other women to live a life from a place of love and not a place of fear.

I teach how to do the inner work for three months, and then we take it outside for three months and it’s a hybrid program. They get a course, and then they also work with me one-on-one every week. We do an hour-long coaching session, and each month they master one of six skills. The first month we learn how to explore triggers and we have to do a little bit of excavating and go through childhood stuff just so that when something comes up, we can see what’s there and actually go into it.

My principal program is a six-month commitment and I get that’s a lot for some people, but if you’re thinking about divorce, you’re absolutely ready for it because nobody wants to break up their family.

For those who are in a season of struggle in their marriage – what would you say is the first step toward peace? How can we move a relationship in the right direction when we feel “stuck”?

If we can’t hold onto our own energy around somebody else, then we always move into a dysfunctional pattern. And when we do that, then we can’t do things that we need to, like holding boundaries or actively listening or giving empathy.

When we become self-regulated, know what our emotions are telling us, manage our energy and shift into love and stay there no matter what the other person is doing, and meet them with empathy, that’s how we navigate relationships. The steadier you are, he has no choice but to come around, so you co-regulate.

We don’t come in and save them, we have to stop mothering, stop saving, and our partners have to experience the consequences of their own choices.

How can we express anger in a healthy way and encourage a healthy anger release in our kids?

Anger also comes up because everything within our boundaries needs to be protected. When we don’t get enough sleep, when we don’t get any time for ourselves, when we don’t have time for self-care practices, when we don’t have time for things that light us up, that’s violating our own boundaries, right? So, we get angry about that.

It’s really a cry for help, but we shove it down and we repress it, and then we get resentful because we’ve abandoned ourselves, we have not listened to what’s really important to us.

For healthy anger expression, the simplest thing you can do is just go feel it and allow it to flow. Imagine that energy flowing through your body. Feel it coming out of you and literally strengthening your boundary. And if you’re really upset go smash a pillow, scream, dance, just get it out. There are healthy ways to move energy out of your body. Just don’t violate other people’s boundaries when you’re angry.

We know communication plays a vital role in all relationships. How can we foster positive communication within a marriage that doesn’t include blaming, judging, or criticizing?

We have to intentionally share our feelings with ownership. We have to actually speak like a leader and encourage people to come up with solutions and to want to do things instead of being “bossy”. It’s more like sharing our worries, our observations, and our vision. They can see how they can serve you instead of you telling them how to serve.