This podcast explores holistic stress and trauma recovery. I am your host, Luis Mojica. My work, Holistic Life Navigation, was modeled after my own journey in healing myself from chronic illness and PTSD. I share this podcast with many brilliant minds who, like me, healed themselves through unique, unusual, and unorthodox ways.
For more information, please visit: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com
Written, produced and recorded by Luis Mojica. Edited by Fredo Viola. Intro song: "Wood Smoke" by Fredo Viola.
[Ep. 348] It's Been 11 Years & This Is What Parenting Has Taught Me
•Holistic Life Navigation
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Parenthood is brutal and brilliant, like drinking Ayahuasca for over a decade. Our upcoming six-month Embodied Parenting program starts October 6th, but it won't provide you with answers, nor a guide book. Instead, we'll dive deep into accessing and learning our bodies instincts and intuition to discover our own unique truth.
Welcome to the Holistic Life Navigation Podcast. I am your host, Luis Mojica. I'm a somatic therapist and nutritionist who combines nutritional therapy with somatic therapy to help thousands of people around the world, including myself, recover from stress and trauma. This podcast serves as a way for me to teach you what I learn for free. How can food aid in the recovery of stress and trauma? What does it really mean to be embodied? And how can simple somatic practices help us better navigate this strange and sensational human experience? Let's find out. Deep in your bones, just like deep in mine, is a terrible earthquake that takes place when you have a child. Your DNA erupts with new sequences, codes, expressions, and memories. In there are the seeds of your ancestors, and they whisper very clear instructions about how to do almost anything in life, including parenting. I recently wrote a newsletter titled, It's Been Eleven Years and This Is What Parenting Has Taught Me, and I wanted to share with you today. In 2015, my wife and I welcomed our first and only child, Lyra, into the world. The portal of her birth was marked by a rare cosmic event that included the new moon, a total solar eclipse, and it was the spring equinox. It was also a supermoon, which meant the moon orbited very closely to the Earth. None of this meant anything to me. I'm not an astrologer, but my wife is, and she explained that it meant our child would be powerful. And I'll say this it's like drinking ayahuasca for 11 years straight. I used to kid around and say, Who needs psychedelics? Have a child. And I stand by it still. I have never been more confronted in my life than I've been from parenting. Her birth awakened a sequence in my own DNA that felt like an earthquake, shaking loose the patrilineal tectonic plates residing deep in my bones. I went from acute, androgynous Bohemian guy who hated working at all, to a six-day workweek hustler, boss bitch dad running several businesses. I became infused with flight response, just as my father and his father had. My body held the code for overworking, providing, and making money. Something I never valued or even cared for until then. Something I didn't even know how to do. Thankfully, I was just diving into the field of somatics and trauma recovery, which allowed me to witness these changes instead of being numb or unaware of them. I remember writing the following lyrics to an unreleased song. They say, Are you my father? I ask of the pine trees. I need a compass for masculinity. I need some more time to mature in the dark. But then her medicine of blood and glitter rushed into my heart. I was twenty seven, entering my Saturn return and about to become completely destroyed. Within a year of my daughter's birth, I broke my finger right before going on a national tour as a pianist with Rasputina, descended into $30,000 of debt, was living in poverty and off of credit cards, and all of my repressed, perfectly hidden sexual trauma would suddenly flood back into my body with painful sensations and horrifying imagery after a routine dental exam. Like the non-consensual earthquake ripping through the earth's crust, this period of my life was turbulent and destabilizing, yet somehow too brutal and beautiful not to gawk at. I was a father, and I was tasked with protecting innocence and creating a safe space for this little girl like I've never been tasked before. And I'm very happy to say I did it. And I fucked up a lot on the way. If I'm being completely honest, it took me a decade to settle into fatherhood because the first eight years were just learning how to settle into myself. They were a profound period of some of the most self-centered, self-absorbed years of my life while simultaneously sacrificing my body, health, and time to provide for a family for the first time ever. I remember being asked to teach a parenting group, and I came across a video of a beautiful African woman saying, If you're thinking of taking a course on parenting from someone who just had a baby, think again. It seemed harsh at the time, but I get it now. New parents know shit about parenting, especially if you didn't grow up in a village where as a teenager you were tending to children on the daily. We first thought gentle parenting was the answer, but we accidentally started to raise a tyrant. We thought food restrictions and rigidity were the answer, but we accidentally were creating an eating disorder. We thought only books, wooden toys, and living in the forest would prevent any trauma. And then our daughter broke her leg at two years old while playing at the playground. And the cutting off her cast was so traumatic she developed Tourette syndrome and ticks. Guess what I learned about the answer? There isn't one. After 11 years and coming up on a new embodied parenting group this fall, I can tell you that I wish to do something revolutionary in the world of parenting advice and education. Give you absolutely no answers. Because here's the T. Your body has them all. It's not the government, society, your mother, or the best book on parenting. It's your instinct. Deep in your bones, just like deep in mine, is a terrible earthquake that takes place when you have a child. Your DNA erupts with new sequences, codes, expressions, and memories. In there are the seeds of your ancestors, and they whisper very clear instructions about how to do almost anything in life, including parenting. It took me over a decade to learn that this child is not a small version of me, nor can I perfectly raise her to create the desired outcome I'm looking for. Nope, she's a wild card, and so are your kids. So are we. They're sovereign, influenced by thousands of ancestors whose names you'll never know, made from thousands of bodies whose traits, bad habits, good habits, and strange ways you'll never know. And they all collide in the body of your child while they navigate processed foods, screens, social media, porn, drugs, gender, and life. I have no answers, but I have experience and I'm willing to talk about the things most people aren't. October 6th marks the return of my six-month embodied parenting program. It's been two years, and I'm excited to bring it to you again. You can click on the link in the episode details to get more information, or visit holisticlifenavigation.com and click on groups, and you'll see more info on the topics, the outline, the dates, and the cost. I welcome all parents, caretakers, teachers, relatives, and individuals who want to learn more about the art of parenting from your body as we navigate this ancient task from a modern experience. Over the next few weeks from when this episode releases, I'm going to be putting out a weekly email that's going to go deeper into practices, resources, and education around parenting. So if you're interested in that, please sign up for my newsletter, which you can also get through the episode details. I'll tell you what, one of my favorite practices was learning how to embody the difference between me and her. The ability to separate myself from my child is what allows me to create safety for her, to not get triggered by her behavior or experiences. And actually witness her from a powerful fucking container, my body, that no tantrum, terrible behavior, or triggering event can permeate. This is Boundaries 101. This is embodied parenting. We begin on October 6th, and I hope to see you there. That's the end of today's episode. Take a moment to notice where you feel the episode. Take a breath into that place. Maybe even put your hand over it and let whatever wants to come up come up. And remember, our bodies speak through sensations. What's yours saying right now? For more information on any upcoming events, please visit holisticlifenavigation.com. And feel free to check out my YouTube page where you can watch any of these episodes, leave a comment, and even request a future topic for me to dive into. I'll see you next time.
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