The Stress Nanny with Lindsay Miller
Mindfulness and stress management for families raising kids with big goals, big feelings, and everything in between.
Hosted by mindfulness coach Lindsay Miller, The Stress Nanny is full of practical strategies for calming anxious kids, supporting high-achievers, and teaching emotional regulation in everyday moments. Each episode offers easy-to-use mindfulness practices, stress management tips, and confidence-building tools that empower kids (and parents!) to navigate challenges with ease. Whether you’re raising a child who struggles with big feelings, a high-performing student-athlete, or simply want a calmer home, The Stress Nanny will give you the resources and encouragement you need.
The Stress Nanny with Lindsay Miller
What Happens When Families Stop Living in Fear and Start Choosing Love?
Your words are planting something. The only question is whether those seeds grow thorns of fear or roots of resilience. We sit down with author and corporate well-being coach Barry Nicolaou to unpack how subconscious “soil” works, why language like “hard” quietly programs outcomes, and how small intentional shifts can help kids and parents move toward calm, confidence, and connection.
Barry shares the soil metaphor for the subconscious—neutral, fertile, and ready to grow whatever we repeatedly think and say. We explore generational fear and scarcity, how worst-case thinking hijacks parenting, and a simple worldview check inspired by Einstein: do you believe the world is friendly or hostile? From that foundation, we get practical. Learn how to replace “I’m proud of you” with “You must be proud of yourself,” install nightly gratitude so anxiety has less room to run, and set clear boundaries without catastrophizing. We also talk about modeling mistakes and repair, building psychological safety at home, and choosing language that invites kids to move toward values instead of away from threats.
If you’re ready to reset intention and grow a family culture rooted in love, patience, and agency, this conversation offers tools you can use tonight. We close with where to find Barry’s latest book, Move the Mountain, and how his corporate programs blend mindset science with purpose-driven practices. Subscribe, share this with a parent who needs some peace, and leave a review so more families can find these tools. What seed will you plant today?
For more on Barry's work, visit his website or read his book.
Lindsay Miller is a distinguished kids mindfulness coach, mindfulness educator and host of The Stress Nanny Podcast. She is known for her suitcase tricks and playful laugh. When she's not cheering on her daughter or rollerblading on local trails with her husband, you can find her using her 20+ years of child development study and mindfulness certification to dream up new ways to get kids excited about deep breathing. Having been featured on numerous podcasts, platforms and publications, Lindsay’s words of wisdom are high impact and leave a lasting impression wherever she goes.
To sign up for Lindsay's "Calm & Collected" Newsletter click here.
To review the podcast click here.
Welcome to The Stress Nanny, the podcast where we take the overwhelm out of parenting and help kids and parents build calm, confidence, and connection. I'm your host, Lindsay Miller, kids mindfulness coach and cheerleader for busy families everywhere. Each week we'll explore simple tools, uplifting stories, and practical strategies to help your child learn emotional regulation, resilience, and self-confidence, while giving you a little more peace of mind too. I'm so glad you're here. My guest is Barry Nicola. He's a fierce advocate of well-being, and he wants people to be able to chase down life's sought-after moments. His ability to unlock and define corporate inspiration, purpose, gratitude, and drive led him to his number one best-selling book, The 11 Master Secrets to Business Success and Personal Fulfillment, in 2015. And then he recently published Move the Mountain, an intention reset. Very national talks, keynote addresses, webinar presentations, and workshops work to deconstruct the untapped power of subconscious thought and the science of creative visualization. He focuses on the deconstruction of mindset blocks, which surround cognitive fear, old-wired subconscious paradigms, inherited thinking, and their connection to real-world managerial expectations and experiences. Barry instills his corporate well-being and executive coaching programs primarily through four inspirational programs. And his merging of spiritual-based fulfillment practices into the corporate space not only makes Barry's programs highly sought after, but seen as a secret weapon for employee engagement in a post-pandemic era. And today on the podcast, we're going to translate those teachings and Barry's wisdom into both work and family life in a way that helps us apply the principles that he teaches and the message that he shares with our families in terms of our kids, in terms of our interactions with other people as adults. Barry, I'm so excited for this chat. Thank you so much for joining me.
SPEAKER_00:Lindsay, thank you for having me in this beautiful space with you. I'm sure we're going to unpack some amazing, amazing wisdom today.
SPEAKER_02:I think you're right. One of the things that really caught my attention when Barry and I were chatting about this and determining if it would be a good fit for us to do an episode together, was this phrase. He said, to understand how our very thoughts can sabotage or assist us in creating the life we want is the most pressing conversation of our time. And I feel that so strongly for kids. Like my passion is that if we can help kids to prevent themselves from creating so many of these blocks, right? And then if we can help them sift through the ones that they already have, that they will be able to build incredible lives and have the kind of free-flowing mental health that so many of us are searching for and trying to cultivate. But we have years and years of this programming and conditioning that we're kind of working with. And so I'm so excited for just your passion around this subject because I feel like I agree completely that I mean it is the most pressing conversation that we can have.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. And I think, you know, I'm coming from a place now where I'm speaking as a father. I've got two girls. Grace is turning six in May, and Harmony is three in July. And I want them to be fiercely independent and self-reliant. And I guess it's why the two books are out there. It's why I teach this instilling in the people that are ready to listen, that are open to listen, that as a parent, as an employee, as a partner in life, there's a sense of responsibility to the people around you that you live a life based on your truest and highest principles of who you are. And that ends up being a catalyst for your children and for your partner to kind of live a life where you are not just pushing the boundaries, so to speak, but get into a situation where you become the best version of who you are. And that's very cliched in today's kind of coaching terminology, coaching world. But it really is very important. You know, children will often follow the example of their parents. If I want my children to act and behave in a certain way where they are strong internally to face a lot of life's challenges, then I've got to lead by example. So the second book that I've just released is actually for them. You know, there's a whole chapter dedicated to them. And when I'm not around, it's like if you want to know what dad thought in his 40s, this is what he was thinking. So it ends up being something that I've taken on quite seriously and quite intimately as well. Because I want them to grow up to not be, I guess, codependent as such on other people. I want them to assist and be of value to others, but at the same time fortify their inner framework, their inner structure. So then when they do face challenges, that they've got some sort of toolkit that they can refer to inside themselves to be able to face those challenges and then have it easier to face future challenges as well.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, they're so fortunate, right? That at such a young age, you have your eyes on that kind of development. And I often say that when we do teach it at that age, I mean, it does change the trajectory of their entire life. Like you're saying, you have your eye on these girls who will be women who know themselves, who have that, like you said, inner sense of resilience that is the foundation on which they built their life. Spot on. And they're gonna go out and do amazing things with it while also being able to connect, ask for help, and you know, depend on other people in healthy ways, but not topple over if something comes their way that kind of is is tricky or frustrating or hard, they'll have that inner strength, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. Right. To give you an example, Lindsay, I'm of Greek descent and I'm currently in Sydney, Australia. So you can tell by my accent if you're listening that I'm not from the States. But but you get to a point where I look at my grandparents and I think, okay, they've got some great values and morals and ideologies about how to live a successful or happy life. But they also came from a place of scarcity and war in many cases. So that fear has become embedded in them biologically, right? And that translates to, say, my parents as being risk-averse, not being opportunistic in looking at opportunities in life and how to move forward in certain fear really takes the driver's seat of the car. And what I'm trying to teach my girls is ego and fear should kind of be somewhat in the car, but they should never be in the front. The ego should always be and fear should always be in the back. Because, you know, a little bit of fear, understanding that there are dangerous situations in life. It's kind of inherently built into our biology. But if you look at say fear and verse with say danger, you know, danger is a very real thing. But fear, like 90% of fears don't eventuate. So the energy that we're focusing on, what if this bad thing happens could be spent in how can we make things better? So I've been very sensitive, I guess, to where I spend my energy. And then with my girls, fortifying them, yes. But then looking at the other side of life, which is what do you want to do? Who do you want to be? Is there any way I can help you get there? Do you want my help to begin with? You might not. But it ends up being as a parent and as someone who pushes forward in life as much as possible, that I want the best for them. And the only way that I can do that is, I guess, go for it myself and then lead by that example. So you've got to keep at it, you got to keep consistent. The other thing I will say, and this is very important to note, I've eradicated the word hard from my vocabulary. It's become a word that is become ingrained in our society. Something is hard. You know, you work hard, you play hard. And in this new book, I've uncovered that life literally gives you back what you are saying and what you are feeling. So we keep using these words that we don't want to experience. And we spoke about subconscious thought before, which is what I'm delving into, like the science of thought and how thoughts do become things. And the analogy that I keep coming up with is really, really cool for any parent or any employee or any partner to realize is that I'd like you to consider the soil outside of your home. And you look at the soil and you ask the soil, what are you like? And the soil will say, Well, I nurture expansion. And you say, Well, what do you mean? Are you going to grow a weed if I let you grow a weed? And the soil will say, Of course. I nurture expansion. I've got sunlight, I've got nutrients, and I've got water. Anything you plant in me, I will grow. So I will grow a rose bush as much as I will grow poison ivy. And that is what I do. Now the soil has no notion of right and wrong, it just nurtures expansion. So our subconscious mind operates in exactly the same way. It has no concepts of fairness, it has no concepts of prejudice, it has no concept of joy. It nurtures expansion. So when we're entertaining a thought that something is hard or something is difficult or something will cause stress or whatever it is, the soil says, you must know what you're doing. I will show you the physical expression of what that thought means in the world. And we experience hard times and we experience situations that we don't want to be in, and we complain about our situations to people who are probably going through similar scenarios to us. So we gain some sort of clarity or we're searching for some sort of understanding that is this a normal thing that I'm going through, right? And what we're actually saying is we've kind of planted the same seeds. We don't know when this happened. We don't know that we were conscious when we were doing it. But here's the plant and it's grown. And what I say to those people, and this is in all areas of life, it's not just with children, but if you do not like what you've grown, you have the ability to pull that plant out and plant something else deliberately in its place. Right? So if you for let's just use the most difficult example, if there are traits in your children that you do not necessarily like, then the compass has to come back to you and say, is there a moment in your past where you might have intentionally or unintentionally planted a seed of fear in that child? And then this is manifested into some sort of life experience. Now, I'm not saying it's like that for everyone, but I do know that as parents, we want to protect our children. And sometimes the way we do that is through fear. Like, don't do that or something bad will happen, or don't talk to that person because he's hanging around the wrong people. And all of a sudden you instill this sense of fear out of protection. But what we don't know is we're also stopping the joy and we're also stopping the happiness, and we're also stopping the life experiences that might need to happen to put them back on a trajectory of happiness. And this is something that we just got to be really careful as people when we do have influence over others, that we don't necessarily go on the fee bandwagon unchecked. Because I think that ends up being an inherited and habitual thinking practice. And after a while, Lindsay, we don't remember thinking any other way. Like if fear ends up being a biological way of how we express ourselves, and then you become risk averse, you don't look at opportunities, you don't look at resilience. You've got this wall up of protection consistently because the world is out to hurt you when really the world is out to be enjoyed and to be experienced and to learn from and make better choices as we go on.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Sorry, that was a bit of a rave from me. So I did take a breath and all that.
SPEAKER_02:I loved it. I love that analogy of the soil. I think it's really, really powerful. One of the first interviews I did on the podcast was with Stephanie, and she has a book called You Are a Gardener. And it's a children's book for kids in terms of thoughts, and how we each have this garden and we plant what we will in it. And sometimes other people try to plant stuff in our garden, and sometimes we have to do a little tidying up or intentional replanting. But the words that you shared were so rich. One of the things that I appreciate about it was the neutrality that you mentioned and how the soil it's not discerning. What's the and what's the you know, the rows or what I want to have grow there versus what I don't. And I think there's so much in that that we could, I mean, we could set up without unpacking that, right? Because the way that we interpret our surroundings, yeah, like has so much to do with the way that we interact with them, right? And like you said, if we have that lens of fear going constantly, and that's our interpretation, then the things that come our way are gonna be scary, right? Like you said, if we're gonna have that fear-based perspective, either as a parent or if we inherited it from our parents, or if life handed us experiences that set us on that path, that we find ourselves in like that constant state of high alert and concern and worry and anxiety just mounts and mounts. And I love how you, you know, you're saying we can reorient that. Like if fear is your reality and if just anxiety is coming your way constantly, it's a function of like digging into that and then reorienting so that you can plant. Maybe the experience doesn't change immediately, but the orientation to the experience does, right? Because if we shift in our subconscious, we can see different things, like we can see abundance in the face of struggle, we can see opportunity in the face of you know, failure. Like there's so much there that we're maybe not seeing simply because of the lens through which we're viewing the world.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. And I think that is the hardest. Well, he here, I use the word hard again, right? Because it's embedded in me as well. I think that's the most challenging part of resetting intention because we get to a point where we feel comfortable in our fears and we justify that comfortability with, say, words like protection. And I'm a parent, I get it. It's not like I'm speaking without children. I want to protect them more than anything. Give you an idea. Grace, we recently went to a party. Friends invited us to their children's party, and they had it in this park. And either side of this park, imagine a like a square park, and either side of the park were quite busy roads. The cars were actually moving quite quickly. And there was about 12 to 15 little kids under six years old running around in this park. And occasionally, and they were following balloons, and the balloons would drift close to the road. So my fear kicked in, and I started to get very how could they have the party at this place? This doesn't make any sense. There's kids, there are cars moving that would kill an adult. The kids don't have a sense of where the boundaries are, more or less. And then I started questioning the planning of this city. Why would they put the park in the middle of these fast, busy roads? And then you start kind of linking fee-based thoughts and protection-based thoughts, which turn to anger because you start to think, why wasn't this planned better? Or why didn't these friends of mine that I trust and respect, why didn't they have it at their home? Or why didn't they have it in a safer space? Now, Grace was running around. If I look at it dispassionately as not being a father, she wasn't in any real danger. She knows where the road is. I've stepped it to her three or four times. I said, Sweetheart, don't go too close to this part of the park because you're quite close to the road. She says, Yes, dad, okay, I'm listening and no problem. And she never did. And the other kids kind of followed her lead and didn't either. But the anger and the fear in me didn't dissipate. It was still there because of what could have happened, right? So sitting there speaking to my partner, Lana, and I said, Lana, you know, I don't think this was thought through properly as we're driving home. I don't think this was thought through properly. You know, imagine how bad things could have gone. And I had to catch myself because this is the problem and the challenge with humanity in many respects. We keep entertaining worst-case scenarios. We keep wondering why we're experiencing worst-case scenarios quite often. But we could be setting ourselves up for it. And this is the sabotaging part of the conversation here, right? So are we, could we be sabotaging the future that we want to live in all areas of life, not just with children, by setting up a thoughtful set of parameters of how bad things can be. And then, like the soil, the plant that we start to grow isn't as beautiful as what we intended to grow in the first place, because we've got this fear that's expanding in our souls, in our consciousness, in our bodies. And then you go, okay, if that's true, and I'm looking at this with a little bit more perspective now, a little bit dispassionately. Yes, I believe that maybe that fear wasn't warranted within me. Because even in the park scenario, I made sure that I was within 10 or 12 meters away from Grace at all times because I knew how long it would take me. And I thought, Barry, calm down. If she runs, you can run faster than her, you can get there in time. So I kind of tried to calm my nervous system down by knowing that. And then the day went beautifully well. The cake was beautiful, the kids had cake all over their face. It was a great birthday party, best parties. And and I robbed myself of that memory because it's overshadowed by my fear. And I'll probably never forgive myself because you know, Gracie's five. She's gonna be a kid for a little while, she's gonna be an adult for a long time, right? And this is the time in her life where you want to not be in a state of fear, you want to tell her how beautiful the world is and how gorgeous the environment is and how beautiful her mind is, and how she's got no limitations at five, only the limitations her parents and society place on her, right? And as a parent, I fell into the trap because I wanted to protect her, and then the instinct of being a parent crept in. But how many of us do that in life and say, well, don't go for that opportunity because you'll probably fail? I failed at it, so you'll probably fail at it. Or, you know, I never made it to this level in life. I'm gonna push my ideology onto my children and hope that they make it to that level in life. When really, have you asked the child or have you asked the person, what do you want? What's that thing inside you that you really want to express? What is that? I want to understand that better. And if you allow me, I want to try and help you on that path, whatever that is. And it's important that we do that with adults as well. And this is my work that I do now. It's uncovering what the desire is. You know, Lindsay, most people tell you what you what they don't want. Most people say, I don't want cancer. No one says, I want to be healthy. Everyone says, I don't want to be broke. No one says, I wonder what economic freedom would feel like. I want, I wonder how that could happen. I'm really enthralled in that. Wow, that means I would have more time, and that means I could help that person, and that means I could help that charity. Like we're always viewing life through a what if the bad scenario happens? And then we become perplexed when bad scenarios come into our life and it confirms our biases. It confirms that you see, Barry, I've told you I get cut off in traffic. Look, that truck just cut me off. Well, hang on, you've been saying you get cut off in traffic for the last three years. Are you entirely surprised by the fact that you just got cut off? It's like life, the soil, right? You come back to it. You're growing a plant that you've intentionally nurtured. And then you're perplexed by the the way the plant looks. And I wonder if we could go a step back and just say to ourselves, let's see if we can plant some intentional seeds here. What sort of plants do you want to go to the nursery or you know the garden center and look at the plants that you want to grow and go, I want that one, that one, that one, and that one. I'm gonna see if I can bring those plants home and plant them in my garden. All of a sudden, you've planted with intention. And what are those plants? Joy, love, understanding, patience, tolerance, non-judgment as much as possible. They're the plants you want to see grow, and they're the humans that are gonna take the world, Lindsay, in a beautiful direction, not necessarily be living, walking, fear-based examples of what parents or grandparents went through in times of scarcity and fear.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that was so beautifully put. I think often about this generation of parents and how it really is a huge developmental leap. When I was growing up, there was very limited information available. So there were like a handful of things to be afraid of. And your parents would get the newspaper, and there might be crime or different things going on. And I grew up in a city that had a significant gang population. But I went to school, those kids were my friends, and so it was normal. It wasn't scary to me as much as it was that you needed to know what to do in different situations. One of the things that I think parents grapple with so often now is just the awareness of all the things in the world, literally, that there are to be afraid of, right? And we as kids didn't have that awareness. We didn't grow up with that, we didn't have to grapple with it. And like you said, generationally, there's been different levels of awareness that have kind of filtered their way to us. But as parents now, the invitation really is to up-level our ability to, like you're saying, direct our thoughts, intentionally reframe and intentionally phrase experience in a way that doesn't perpetuate the fear as much as it perpetuates the love and the joy. And I think if if someone is listening right now and they're feeling like they have a hard time with that and their go-to is fear, I think the invitation is just to look at it as an opportunity for growth right now, right? We are in such a unique space in terms of the information that's available to us as parents. And there hasn't been another generation of parents that's had this kind of information at their disposal. And so being able to filter all of that and look for the things you want instead of letting fear continually draw you back into the things you're afraid of. Just the powerful skill that I think all of us need just based on the time that we live in.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. And, you know, I'll keep going back to this second book that I've just written, but it's important to talk about this. The premise of the second book was to get an understanding of how thoughts do germinate and become physical, tangible experiences. I've headed back to Einstein and his philosophical views on, you know, when Einstein was talking about the theory of relativity and his thoughts on how things worked and how the universe worked, he had this quote that I became absolutely obsessed with because it opened up the doors of curiosity in a way that I never thought possible. And this is a question that every human being really answers consciously or subconsciously, and it forms the premise of this book. I need you to ask the question of yourselves if you're listening. You've got to ask yourself if you believe, like in your heart of hearts, that the world is a hostile place? Or do you believe in your heart of hearts if the world is a friendly place? Now, the point of the question is not to give a long-winded answer on the side of good experiences and the side of bad experiences. The idea of the question is to reduce your answer to a single word. Do you believe that the world is hostile or do you believe that the world is friendly? Now, the reason he asked the question is because the answer you give will start to form a narrative on the experiences, situations, and circumstances that you will find yourself in, increasingly so as you get older, because it forms the base of the concrete underneath your house. It is the framework that you're building on that concrete base, right? If you believe and you expose yourself to the negative narratives of the world, you will argue on the side of hostility and you'll mention COVID and you'll back it up and mention what Russia's doing, and you'll talk about the Ukraine and all the refugees, and you'll start to, you know, you'll link that to babies that are not necessarily living anymore. The babies have died, and and the mind will go down a track of hostile, hostile. And then the person that's well, Barry, I don't think the world is actually a hostile place. There are people like Lindsay in the world that are actually unpacking a lot of this stuff. There are good mothers out there, there are good fathers out there that are trying to learn and be better, that are going to raise children that are going to want to learn and be better themselves. And that's happening at the same time. So what's true here, it comes down to what you believe to be the right thing to do for you. And where we get hijacked is when the fear turns around and screams at us so much that we go down the hostile answer road that Einstein was speaking about. I talk about affirmations and we talk about how to get into a better space as young adults and children and even grandparents. How do we get into a better space mentally to be able to project that love? And you've got to believe that the world is a friendly place because inherently it is. What we see is the fear-based reasonings in people's minds that are playing out at a tangible level. So where life's going, well, you believe the world's fearful? Let me give you examples of that. I'll show you fear, I'll show you wars, I'll show you pandemics, no problem. I'll show you horror movies, I'll show you movies that end in destruction of the I'll show you all that. No problem. I've got no problem because I think that you know what you're doing. And as parents and as adults, we don't. We often don't. We say we want to live joy, love-based lives, but inner framework is the opposite direction. So how on earth do we think we're gonna manifest a life for our children that we want for them when our inner framework's going the other way? There's a constant duality that is going on within us. Now, how do you handle that? You get to a level where you realize that bad things happen, yes, but I'm not gonna live there. I'm not gonna live out of that space where bad things are happening. I'm gonna live out of the place where love, joy, tolerance, non-judgment, reverence for all of life. That is the basis of what I'm gonna build my house on. And if that makes me delusional, then it makes me delusional. But I think we want the best for our children. So we have to make sure that inner framework supports that best for our children mindset. And is it difficult to do? Absolutely. Is it possible? Yes. Make a choice, make a decision, make a commitment to yourself that I'm gonna let this child or I'm gonna let this person in front of me express themselves in a way that they only know how. I'm gonna support that structure. It feels good to me. And then all of a sudden, people live life based on what they feel is the Innate purpose and calling of who they are as people because they've had supporting parents to be able to nurture that. And you know, it's probably not going to fit everyone. This isn't a one-size-fits-all hat that I'm talking about. But I tell you, it's the world that I want to see for my two girls. So the only way I can see that world is to try and be that change myself on my small, impactful level, to then say, well, you know, dad managed to do it. Dad had all these challenges. Dad's been through divorce, you know, dad's been through a loss of jobs over and over and over again. Dad's been through hard times. You know, it was a time where we didn't have any money. It's not like I'm preaching from on top of the mountain with a huge inheritance. I don't have that. So it ends up being, what do you want to see in the world? Am I an example of that? And if I'm not, how can I be? And that's the premise of the book. That's the premise of understanding that if you want to reset intention, you can. Are you courageous enough to make the physical and mental moves that enables your world to shift in that direction? And then this is what always happens when you do shift. People will say you got lucky, and people will say that you've been blessed beyond other people's blessings. And it's not the case. You've just tapped into a different part of God's mindset, and God's mindset is ultimate love, like ultimate, unconditional, beautiful love for humanity at the highest level that we can ever imagine. That's the source of which we came. And if we're a slice of that source, if we're just a spark from within the fire that flickers out of the fire, if we're from the fire itself, then aren't we love as well? Aren't we love-based people that are projecting our fears onto others and ourselves? Isn't that what's really going on? Rather than thinking that it's overly complicated and there must be dynamics that we don't understand here. You just got to come from a position of is this decision that I'm making love-based? Is it nurturing to my children or to the people that I'm with? Is it valid? Is it is it gonna add to the conversation in the world that I want to see take place? Is that is this conversation adding to that world? And if the answer is yes, have it. And if the answer is no, consider that if your words are gonna negatively impact someone, it's your call. But that's not the world that I want to live in.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I'm struck by the simplicity, and I think mindfulness reminds me of the simplicity every day, right? But I mean, what you're saying, it's it's relatively simple in idea. I mean, you presented it in such a beautiful and dynamic way. But like you just said at the end, does this promote love in the kind of world that I want to create, or does it not? At the end of the day, which direction do I want to move? And it reminds me of the a Meg-Duck part of our brain, its only actions are move away from, move toward.
SPEAKER_01:Like, yep.
SPEAKER_02:That's all it can do, right? Move away, move toward. And if we're constantly in that fear mode, then the reactionary response is gonna be move away. Yes, move away, but the real power comes in choice. One of the ways that I describe mindfulness is knowing what's going on inside of you, knowing what's going on outside of you, and then making a choice on purpose.
SPEAKER_00:I love that. I love that. Making an intentional choice. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Like noticing what's going on inside of me. I'm acting from a place of fear right now. When my daughter was little, a lot of these tools were ones I was still cultivating. So I did plant a whole bunch of fear at different points in her development. But I think we all have had those moments. But the more I've practiced and the more I realized the way that my perceptions were coloring her reality, the more I realized pretty quick I've got to get serious about creating a reality that I want her to be excited about, right? That I want her to engage with fully and from a place of independence and confidence. And so that's the reality that we talk about, or the way we frame things in our house or conversations. It's with, like you said, the move toward approach. Find the thing to move toward in that situation, find the way through that has abundance in it or that has tolerance or joy. Whereas the gratitude in this moment not to shove down or ignore the struggle or the chaos or whatever it is that we move through, but just acknowledge and then move toward the thing that we actually want.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. I'll tell you one of the big things that I speak with Grace about. Grace is starting to read now to that the level where she's got homework at kindergarten, right? So we're looking at specific words and how words move into one another. And last night she did her homework and I was helping her with it. And one of the things that I've learned to do well is, you know, when parents say, I'm so proud of you, like you've accomplished something. I've tried to reframe that and say, You must be so proud of yourself. Make it about her. She should be proud of herself. Whereas if you go the other way, and it's kind of just an easy little play on words, but you're taking from making dad happy to you should be making yourself happy here. Right. So I catch myself even today. I'm so proud of you. Oh, I mean, you must be so proud of yourself, but I'm really proud of you as well. Because you've actually read this sentence and you're doing really well. It was a simple sentence, but I'm so proud of you. But you know what, Gracie? You should be so proud of you because you did it. You made it possible. And I make her voice the words. I'd like you to say, I'm so proud of myself. I did this. And she says, I'm proud. And she says it sheepingly, you know, I'm so proud of myself. But I'm like, darling, that's a start. At night, one of the big things we do is gratitude. You mentioned gratitude, it's such an important part of our home. We have a thank you, Jesus, moment for us in our home. And at night, when she goes to bed and I give her a kiss good night, I said, now it's thank you, Jesus, time. And she says, What do you mean? She says, Well, what's what what are you thankful for? Oh, she says, I'm thankful. She says silly things, you know, the wall colour and this picture and whatever. But it means a lot to her at five years old. And she rattles off about 10 things. What that does as a young girl is she's going to be in a state of before she goes to bed at night to be thankful and appreciate everything that's going on in her life when she's 25, 30, 35, 40, whatever. So I want gratitude to be a consistent theme because I'll tell you what happens if it's not. Fear takes the wheel, and we don't balance the equation. Just as a silly example, you go watch television and you see a court scene being played out, and you have the defense and you have the prosecution, right? And the judge is in the middle, and the judge is letting both sides usually have their say, and then in the middle is kind of the decision, for better or for worse, whatever that decision is. But what's happening in a lot of life is that only one side of the courtroom is speaking, and it's the fear. And you're kind of the fear, the fear, the fear, the fear. And as you're in the jury, you're sitting there and you're going, you know, the fear makes sense because that's all you're hearing. So after a while, you think, oh, yeah, well, that's true. And I'll think of examples in my life where that's actually happened. And yeah, I think the fear's right. I think the fear is absolutely spot on, but you haven't even heard from the other side. You haven't heard from the defense at all. You're just making your mind up based on one side of the argument. And when we look at the world, when we look at life, and when we look at scenarios, it's very important that you balance any fear you feel with the appreciation of the joy of what's already going on in your life. You've got to balance it. You can't be in that courtroom listening to one side and thinking that's the world. It's not. The whole premise of the courtroom is to find the truth. So you have to turn around and go, okay, so what's the truth for me? There are bad things happening in the world, but there are amazing things happening in the world. I want to be on the side of amazing and make a conscious decision to do that or to be on the side of truth. I want to know what that means for me. I want to listen to both sides. And then you'll end up picking a side that resonates. And I'm sure that 99% of people would say this: picking a side that resonates with love. Because it is a core programming of who we are. And, you know, we all hear about love yourself, love yourself. And it is not a place of speaking from ego, it's a place of understanding of how beautiful you are, how beautiful the planet is, and how finite the next 70, 80, 90 years of your life, whatever it is that you have here. And it is amazing to consider that with this blue pearl spinning in space, and we can't see any other planets around us that are like us, and we're going to find things to complain about and have fear about while we've got this little finite existence. Is there another way? The other way has to be gratitude. Like it has to be appreciation. And by the way, try feeling fear and gratitude simultaneously. You can't. The studies have shown that you can't be in a state of fear and gratitude simultaneously. The two emotions cancel each other out. So if you are in a state of appreciation and gratefulness for the stuff that you've already got going on that is good, fear doesn't even come into the thought process. It doesn't even enter it. I'm so appreciative of my family, of the food that we've got in the fridge, a little bit of money in the bank, great podcast shows, great books out there that can help me. There are so many good things happening. Family members that love us that will drop everything to make sure that we're okay. Those things exist, but we're not paying attention to them because we're focused on how bad things might get, possibly, maybe in the future at some point. And you ask yourself, what's the healthier worldview here? Where's the clarity gone? And God's saying all this time, you've got choice of thought, man. You can create utopia or you can create hell on earth. You've got the choice. I have given you my lineage, which is you can create from thought. You are of me. So you can create of thought. So what sort of thoughts are you thinking? And what sort of world do you create? It's up to you guys. You know, I can't hold your hand forever. We were blessed with this beautiful human being that was God in flesh, and in my opinion, and you know, he's the example. This is how you can live. And if we don't choose love, then we've got to be prepared for living in a state of fear, and then worse, perpetuating that fear onto future generations, be it unintentionally or intentionally. I just think that the world on to answer Einstein's question, it's a friendly place. You just got to make sure that you act that way first to be able to receive it from others. So, yeah, I think I've absolutely exhausted your episode here.
SPEAKER_02:No, this has been so beautiful. I'm reminded of one of the analogies that I use with the kids when we're talking about this idea of choosing where you focus. It's tricky, you know. I work with the coolest families and with parents who are making inroads in this in really incredible ways. And I love seeing the ways that they're changing the dynamic for their kids and making such a big difference. And one of the things that we'll talk about is how it's a bit like a word search where you see this big jumble of letters and you know that there's some great stuff in there for you to find, right? But if you get too caught up in just the mess of it, then it's gonna be tricky for you to focus in on what you're looking for. But when you tell your brain, these are the words we're looking for, this is your job, find this. And then your brain goes to work, right? And it's like, oh, okay, this is what I need to look for, and it finds it, right? It might be backwards or forwards or diagonal, but your brain's like, okay, I know in this space that these things exist and I'm gonna find them. And so thinking of life like that word search, which is oversimplifying it to be sure. But the idea that when you believe love and joy and gratitude and abundance are there, and you set your mind to it with that kind of determination, it may be tricky at first. You know, the word search gets easier the more you cross off, right? Because you start getting the rhythm and you're more confident. But when you're just starting to make these shifts, it's tricky because you're used to looking for the fear words or you're finding words, you're like, oh no, that's not actually what I'm looking for anymore. These are the things I'm looking for, these are the experiences. And so I think for anyone listening who is feeling like an inclination and feeling drawn toward what you're saying and what you've shared so beautifully today, when they're feeling that pull, trusting that in the first part it might be a little tricky to adopt that kind of mindset with a routine grace. Initially making that shift can be challenging. But as you build momentum, you start to see, like you're saying, more and more and more things that fulfill your belief that the world is a beautiful place, that life is meant to be enjoyed, and that there's so much incredible happiness and joy available to us at every turn. Sometimes it just takes a little bit of time, right?
SPEAKER_00:It does, it does. I would say that in that analogy, you would be the sidebar. A lot of parents just see the word search and don't actually know what they're looking for. And then you start searching, and you might see the odd little few letters that look like a word, and you ask yourself, is this actually a word that I'm looking for? And you don't know because you haven't seen the sidebar. I think that's probably taken your analogy a little bit further. I think that there are people in the world that can tell you which words to look for. And then once you find those people, hang on to them because, like you said, as you find the first or second or third word, as you gain momentum and knowing that it could be backwards, forwards, diagonal, or reverse, that the brain goes, okay, there's only really four ways this can actually work. And you start to kind of look at that four-dimensional view on the page, and you find things because you've identified a framework, and then you also know which words to look for. So you've already set yourself up for success. Does success take a little bit of time for some of us? Yeah, absolutely. Actually, success takes a little bit of time for all of us. I think it does, and I think don't shy away from the failure. A lot of us don't want to fail in many respects, especially as parents. I'll tell you now, and I've come to terms with this. There is something my child will blame me for in 20 years' time that I didn't do. They're gonna say, Baz, you know, you did this, right, that, right, but you were really bad at that. And I've resounded to knowing that I'm gonna have that conversation whenever it is.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And then the recourse to that is, but did I do anything good? And that list will be longer for me, right? And as parents, as just as people, isn't that the point that you have a longer list in the good things, the love, the tolerance, the non-judgment? Isn't that the list you want to grow? And if the answer is yes, then don't necessarily beat yourself up for the two or three things that you're still learning and that you're still coming to grips with and that you're still trying to implement. Don't be too hard on yourself. Because here's the other catch. If you are really hard on yourself and your children see that, then what do you think they're gonna mimic? They're gonna mimic being hard on themselves, right? And when they make a simple mistake or when they feel like they haven't read this sentence properly, the whole world topples for them. When as an adult and as a parent, if you can go, oh, okay, messed up a bit there. I wonder how I can do that better next time, and have a little chat with your child and say, Listen, daddy and mummy are still also learning. And there actually wasn't an instruction manual when you were born. So I'm so sorry about that. It I just might have missed it. It didn't happen. So I'm trying to figure this out as I go along based on what I feel, what your grandparents taught me, and the environmental factors that we have, your school, your friends, our friends as parents, whatever else. And I'm trying to figure this puzzle out and put it together in the best way that I can. If you can be patient in that process with me, I promise you I will try my best for you. And I think that is what children need to hear more than anything in the world, that mummy and daddy are still figuring it out. And this notion of you should have it all together and all understood straight away, I think is just the biggest load of you know what. Because you don't. And there are different parenting ideologies all over the world, all in different cultures of how you treat children. And you've got to make sure that the world that you want to see, they are the principles that you teach. So you go from the other way. You know, do you want to see more love in the world? Barry, I want to see a lot more love in the world, then teach love. And hopefully, who your kids will marry if they marry, if they want to find someone, it's up to them. But who they marry, they'll look for those same traits that they were brought up with. And all of a sudden you've got two people that are getting married with children who will perpetuate those traits, right? So sit easy knowing that you did your best in that regard. Don't necessarily, as a parent, go, Oh, I could have done better. Yeah, you probably could have, but no one's gonna do this perfectly anyway. So just give it your best go and then learn from whatever things you think that you failed in.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, and I'm always such a big proponent of the transparency that you mentioned, and I the phrasing that you used, because I think when we give our kids a glimpse into growth through example, that it does give them permission, like you said, to make mistakes, to own their mistakes, to sit okay with mistakes, you know, to not run in the other direction to be like, yeah, that was a mistake. And I'm gonna make a bunch of them and I'm gonna move through them and I'm gonna learn what I can from them. And I think that conversation and that willingness to engage with our own growth and have a growth mindset around it is one of the biggest gifts we can give them, right? Because they'll carry that kind of patience with themselves for their whole lives. It's the performance of life, it's just the living of life. It's messy sometimes.
SPEAKER_00:It's very messy. Yeah, 100%. It's messy. And I guess the great thing about thinking like that is that if you're okay with making mistakes yourself, and then your children go, okay, just a mistake, or I'm gonna make sure that I try my best not to repeat this mistake. I'm gonna try and make different mistakes.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly. That's what we try to promote in our house. Like, just don't make the ones I already showed you were real.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, just learn from those. Yeah, exactly. Just make different mistakes. But you know, if you are making mistakes, you're actually trying something different, if you think about it. Because the people that don't make any mistakes are the ones that don't venture out to do anything, which is, by the way, the biggest mistake because you don't go out there and venture in the world and stake your claim and whatever you want to do with your life and find your purpose and find what you want. The idea of going for that and becoming, say, the highest, truest expression of your soul is the fact that you're gonna hit a few learning curves on that road, which will more or less polish who you would like to become. Now, the polishing process is quite difficult because it hurts sometimes, you know, and we make those mistakes or with wrong decisions and we go down the wrong road and we come back again. But isn't that part of the learning process to have a deeper appreciation of what love is? If you think about it from a divine point of view, if you look at humanity's mistakes over the last 3,000 years, 2,000 years, I mean, I'll tell you what, if we didn't have a loving father, he'd probably click his fingers and we would all disappear. Yet we're still here and we're still learning, and we're still in the situation where he's got infinite patience because he knows that this is how they learn, this is how they understand. I have to have patience with them. This is how they get closer to me, this is how I can show more love to them. And aren't those the same conversations we have with our children? This is how they learn, this is how we get closer to them, this is how we show more love. Aren't they the same conversations? And in a funny way, having children enables us to get a glimpse of infinite love and infinite love to his children, which is us and how we learn and grow. We just make the same mistakes as our kids, just different, just adult-sized ones. That's the only difference. So please don't be too hard on yourself. Know that you're learning. Try not to make the same mistake twice. If you can, avoid it. Please try because you've learned that lesson. It's time to move on to different lessons. And just have tolerance for other people's mistakes as well as much as possible. They're on their own learning journey and they're not at the same level as you. So don't necessarily run to judgment if a lesson that you learned two years ago, they're just learning today. Don't run to judgment because two years ago you were in their position. So thank God that you didn't have someone to judge you, right? So try not to be that for them as much as possible and just go, this is how that person learns. That's okay. I'm okay with that. I know it's hard being a human being and having that kind of godlike tolerance and godlike patience, but it's the way that humanity is going. And the way that I know that is because these conversations are being had. That's the evidence, that's the proof that we're having these conversations now. So it means that humanity is at a stage where we are evolving to higher planes of consciousness, love, resilience, understanding, non-judgment. We're rising to that. But for a lot of us, all we see is the fear. And it's not that way at all.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, then, like you're saying, in that evolution, that growth, that up leveling that we're doing as a society, it again becomes all the more crucial, right? That we choose the love and choose the joy. Because in time, there's the potential to make such an impact with those kind of choices. So I love that your work highlights that, and I'm grateful, so grateful for our conversation today and the ways I know that that has shown through. As we close, will you share where people can find you? Find your work.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. Yeah, just type my name into Google. So just put Barry Nicolau. The surname's a bit tricky. N-I-C-O-L-A-O-U. I'm sure you might have show notes, Lindsay, if you want to. Awesome. So the new book, if you type in Move the Mountain into Amazon, you'll find it. I think the Kindled copy is like$5 Australian, which is like$3 US or something.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So please download it. You can order a physical copy if you feel enticed to do that. A lot of the work that I'm doing now is with corporations. So the wellness and the well-being space of leaders in corporations. So that's exciting. But yeah, it's all about making sure that we can move the mountain in our own respective ways. And I've got a copy of the book here. You probably see it on screen. I don't know if you can see that without the reflection of the light. But yeah, it's all about the sun coming over the horizon. So it's yeah. Yeah, it's cool.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, thank you again for being here and thank you for sharing your wisdom with us today.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you, Lindsay. It's beautiful to be here with you.
SPEAKER_02:Thanks for listening to The Stress Nanny. If you found today's episode helpful, be sure to share it with a friend who could use a little extra calm in their week. And if you have a minute, I'd love for you to leave a review. It helps other parents find the show and join us on this journey. For more tools and support, head over to www.thestressnanny.com. Remember, you don't have to do stress alone. Together we can raise kids who know how to navigate life with confidence and ease. Until next time, take a deep breath and give yourself some grace.