Manifesting Your Ideal Relationship; begins with self compassion. with Special Guest Whitney Kobrin

And so I work with women that are single and in relationships, and it's the same kind of process. We look at what is your intention for your relationship? How do you want to feel? How do you want to talk? And then we teach communication skills, how to bring something up without triggering someone's defensiveness, how to have a level-headed conversation, how to get out of reaction mode and really respond more consciously. Welcome to the No Problem Parenting Podcast.

turn behavior problems into no problem with Jackie Fineman. Are you ready to become the confident leader your kids crave you to be? Do you want to learn how to make parenting easier and more fulfilling? Whether you are at your wits end or you want to have more fun as a parent, you're definitely in the right place. Now here's your host, Jackie Fineman.

Hey, welcome back, No Problem Parents. Today's episode is all about nurturing our relationships and how it really starts with you having compassion for yourself. So whether you're currently single and tired of being lonely, or you're in a relationship but not getting the love that you crave, or maybe you're giving up all hope and fearing that you're never going to find what you're looking for. Well, my special guest today was a stressed out mom, found herself yelling and snapping at her toddler.

Kids are stressful. And what she learned is that she needed to fill her own cup and shift into a space of peace to be able to respond rather than react to her kiddo. And so we're going to talk about shifting your energy. What does it mean to do self-care? Why is that so important?

And then how do we have compassion? The root of self-love is compassion. And so how do we take care of ourselves and have compassion for ourselves first so that we can have compassion in our relationship and with our kiddos? Meet Whitney Cobran.

With an educational background in psychology and 15 years of professional recruiting, recruiting, matchmaking, and coaching experience, Whitney now fulfills her life's purpose as a love coach for women. Her signature coaching programs help clients to identify their blind spots that get in the way of having an amazing love relationship. Her 14-week program is called Love Yourself, Love Your Life, and Have Lasting Love, and it incorporates holistic healing that aligns the whole self, including mental, emotional, spiritual, energetic, and physical dimensions.

Whitney has also been a stressed out single mom who needed a major energy shift to become the parent her son needed her to be. Welcome to the show, Whitney. Hi, Jackie. Thank you so much.

It's an honor to be here. You have an incredible story. You've just really lived, I think, almost like three lives, right, when it comes to relationships. And so let's just start out by having you begin to tell us a little bit about your story.

Yeah, thank you so much. It has been quite a journey. I studied psychology and I remember at 23 years old, as I was about to enter a doctoral program to become a counseling therapist, one of my thoughts was, what life experience do I have to be teaching other people how to live? And man, be careful what you wish for, huh?

Right. It was right after that, actually, when I was 24, that I had my son. And that was a twist in the road that I hadn't been expecting. And I think, you know, talking to you about parenting and having looked at your amazing course online, which I appreciate being a part of. I was reminded of how stressed out I was back then when my son was a baby and a toddler and just trying to work things out with a very difficult and even toxic relationship at the time and trying to work full time and make ends meet and financial pressures and it was really hard. I remember going to the dentist and he told me I was grinding my teeth at night and I said, no, actually I'm grinding them all day long because I was so stressed out. Oh, I'm so glad to not be in that space right now. So you've had your son and we're in a relationship and that relationship didn't last super long. It was kind of a, you guys,

you guys kind of jumped into it pretty quickly, right? Yeah. Yeah, we did. We did. And no, it didn't last all that long. I think we finally broke up for good when my son was turning two.

So we, we really fought for it and tried, but it was not going to happen. So then I was a single mom for a while, had some relationships for about four years, just dating off and on. And it was really hard. And I was one of those people that would just try so hard. And I remember thinking, how come the guys that I like don't like me? And how come the guys that like me, I don't like? And there was just this mismatch crossing of energy. And I think a lot of other people that are single and dating can relate to that. And I feel like I finally eventually cracked the code in learning how to treat the guys that I liked like I treated the guys that I didn't like. Like just not over, not trying too hard to make it work or to please them and just being more concerned with myself and just being okay. And I think that relates to our topic as well because we can only take care of others as well as we take care of ourselves. We can only love others as much as we love ourselves. And people pick up on that, even if it's not obvious,

or it's not discussed, people pick up on it, and our kids pick up on it. Is this when you kind of started to learn about shifting your energy and how important that was? Yes. So when my son was turning four, I or he was about to turn five and start school, I realized something needs to change.

this is not okay. This is not a way to live, to be in survival mode, just barely making it, scraping by, trying to have a relationship, but failing over and over again. And that was it. That was my, something's got to change. And I found a coach online and started reading all the books and just absorbing everything. And really, I even started an Audible subscription and I started listening to a self-help book every single month and that really helped turn things around for me. I found some mentors in my workplace and I just really started shifting my own energy and it helped so much and that's when I met and married my husband and of course I thought that was going to be a happily ever after but as I've told you he passed away in 2007 which was devastating and sudden and unexpected. And then after that, my life changed again,

completely. And I left my corporate HR talent acquisition job. I had been in that field for 13 years. I had enjoyed it. I basically interviewed people for a living and put processes together.

And I just didn't have the passion to go back and be there till 6 p.m. every day while my son was at daycare and I was hardly spending any time with him. So I left and I became a matchmaker, which was this blend of my interest in psychology and in recruiting. And that was really fun.

And I have some couples that are married today and I matched myself during that time and I'm engaged. But I had some couples or some women that I could set up on date after date and it wasn't working out. And that's what I got really curious about. And so then I did my coaching certification and I started coaching my matchmaking clients. And it was interesting. I found that most of my clients were women. I think I had one male client throughout the couple of years that I was there.

But most of my clients, they fell on two sides of a spectrum. On one side, they didn't have great boundaries, not able to speak up for themselves, speak their truth, people pleasing, you know, trying to make things work, trying to fit that square peg in a round hole. And I would say that was the category that I would have fallen into in the past. But on the other side were the women that had really overcome that so that they had very strong boundaries and they were very independent. And they had another problem where they would really build walls around themselves and push good guys away and only date guys that were either really jerks or kind of in their feminine and soft and people that they could sort of manipulate and have the upper hand with.

So it was interesting to see not only that I shared some of the characteristics of some of these clients I had, but also that there was a completely opposite end of the spectrum as well. And those are really the two types of women that I find come into my program, my coaching program. Because when you're really healthy in the middle, where you're able to speak your truth and be confident and have strong boundaries, but not push people away or build walls.

I mean, that's the that's the sweet spot where you were able to have those healthy relationships for the most part. I just find it so interesting that even though you weren't at the time in a relationship, that you decided to become a matchmaker, which eventually did lead you to matching yourself, you know, with this great guy that you are now engaged to. What were your thoughts at that time about going into that career?

I had actually done, I was in Toastmasters years ago, which is a great organization. If you've never done it and thinking about it, it's great. Super fun. I did a comedic speech contest about how dating was just like recruiting.

And, you know, you have to check their references. You have to meet their friends. You have to talk to their parents. You have to do the background check, like all of these funny things.

The profile is just like a resume. And so it sort of got me thinking about matchmaking years ago. But I was not ever in a position where I was willing to leave my corporate career. you know, the work that I had had done and start over from scratch. So as with a lot of people, it really took a tragedy and a big, huge life change to open up the opportunity for me to follow my dream. Well, and you know, my sympathy, we've talked before about the loss of your husband and that even that it's like, okay, you'd already had one relationship that had failed.

and then you get married to this man and you're like suddenly he passes away after a surgery right and so just totally unexpected how do you even get yourself to want to go back into finding you know another companion another person like to even date yeah and it was hard and really the saddest part thinking about it was my son lost two dads you know he didn't really have a relationship with his um his biological father and then lost his father and so that was really sad and hard but I also I really felt drawn to be in a relationship again you know I felt like it was in the cards for me but I also waited at least a year before even thinking about being in a relationship. So I, I, you know, I, I dated, I had company, I, a little bit, but I was not looking for a relationship. I,

I was really focused on just the grieving process and the ups and downs of grieving, which grieving is unique to everybody. And I just remember giving myself permission to feel whatever came up. And sometimes I would share stories with my late husband's best friend, and we would laugh and crack up and remember those funny times. And just, and then other times, it would be just a cry fest. And so I knew that I didn't want to try to get into a relationship for at least a year. And oddly enough, it was exactly a year later that I came across Tim. And from the first moment of knowing him, it just seemed like right between us. We have kids the same exact age. We both had a lot of similar interests and values. And sure enough, it's worked out. Here we are three years later. I love that. How does somebody know that it is an energy shift that they need? Describe that for people that maybe aren't as in tune to their energetic self.

Yes, definitely. So one is that you're always in your head, always in your head, always making lists, always thinking about the next thing or thinking about the last thing. If you go to bed at night and you can't shut your head off and you're just constantly thinking about other things and ideas, that's one sign that you might need an energy shift. Another is when you feel stress in your body. So if you feel your heart rate, constantly high shortness of breath, if you feel those signs of stress, it can, and people talk about this all the time, they just use different language maybe, but going to a yoga class, starting a meditation practice. I like to teach women feminine flow. So it's an embodiment practice where we just put on music and allow the body to move without planning in your head. So the practice is really similar to meditation,

where you're just dropping out of your head and not hanging on to your thoughts, but instead dropping your attention down into your body. Because we forget that we are instinctual animal creatures. We have this innate wisdom in our bodies. We have more neurons in our gut than we do in our brain, we've recently found out. And we do have a strong gut feeling about things. We have a strong heart feeling about things. And what happens is our head usually gets in the way because it's the voice of reason or the voice of fear that says, you could never do that.

You're not good enough. You're not going to make it. That's for other people. You need to play it safe, hold back, protect. I can't do it. It's not the right timing. I have kids, right? Yeah. And granted, sometimes fear is good. Again, with us being natural animalistic creatures, we need to know that if you take a step off that cliff, that you will die. We need to have fear of certain things, fear of high places, fear of immediate danger. But we live in this society nowadays where we are safe. We're mostly very safe. And a lot of our fears are, I like this acronym, false evidence appearing real. Right. And we just make these fears up in our head and then we hang on to them. And then they're confirmed by the people around us and the stories of our family.

and we just buy into our own lies and often stay stuck. And so when we have an energy shift, it is like getting into our peace and our clarity and being able to listen to and hear and follow our own innate wisdom, especially we as feminine creatures. If you are a mom listening to this, we have an even stronger intuition and internal wisdom. Yeah, absolutely. So we talk, I mean, self-care has been around for many years and a lot of times I think we kind of think that's selfish or I need to put all my time and energy into my kids or my relationship or other people. Right. And then that's going to feed me.

Self-care isn't selfish. It is important. We do need to make our own wellbeing priority so that And we're not only modeling that for our kids, but we're actually more available. We need this balance.

We need this balance. We always, we live like bigger, better, faster, more. We just live like we're always supposed to be doing something more. And you know what?

You can't. You're going to just explode if you're always trying to do more. Sometimes we have to pull it back and we do need that time to rest and relax. And I know I've been in that place too, where I want to do for others, but we can't give from an empty cup. I picture like this bucket inside of myself, this fountain, this cup. And when we're always giving to other people and we're depleting our own source, we end up burned out or resentful or overtired or cranky or whatever the thing that you go into is.

but if we can fill our own cup do what we need whether that is being in nature or relaxing or self-care whatever it is that you need to have your own balance we want to fill our own cup up because then when it's overflowing like a fountain like an infinity pool and I love these visualizations I do some guided meditations with these visualizations that are really awesome But when we can overflow with love and abundance and energy from within, we're able to then give to others from a really generous place.

I heard this great story from a book where they talk about if you have, imagine that you have a kitchen where you can cook anything and you can make anything that you want. And it's always delicious and amazing. And so you have so much that you're always inviting people over and feeding other people. And one day there's a knock on your door and there's a guy there that says, I have pizza and I can give you this pizza kitchen and you can make pizza anytime that you want.

And you're like, oh, well, that's cool. But I can actually make anything I want in my kitchen, including pizza. So I'm good. Thank you very much.

Bye bye. and imagine that this pizza person says, I can give you this, but you have to then let me be in control of your life. Well, of course we're not going to do that. We're going to send them on their way. But imagine that you don't have this magic kitchen and you actually don't have enough food. And then you get the knock on the door and someone says, I can give you all the pizza you want. You just have to let me be in control of your life. Well, you need to eat and you need food.

And if you don't have any for yourself, you're very likely to say yes and to bring that in and to make the sacrifice of giving over your power and your control to have that. And that's very much what love is like this. And not only romantic love, which yes, we know what this like when we don't have that love for ourselves and within ourselves, we will make great sacrifices to get it from other people. But we can look at this also as our energy, our life force, and what we're able to do and give. So even with our kids, if you're constantly depleted, you don't have energy, you don't feel loved, you don't feel seen or cared for, how are you going to be the best for your kids?

you're going to just take what you can get and give whatever you can, which won't be very much. So yeah, it is not selfish to take care of yourself first and your own self-care. What are some things that we can do? I know you have some tips around how you, things you can do for self-care. You've talked about, you know, being in nature, maybe some meditation, things like that, but I'm just really interested or curious about the root of self-care. You say it's compassion and it's not just compassion for others. It's compassion for self, right? Yes. Yes. So the root of self-love is self-compassion.

Self-care is important. We need to take care of ourselves, but I know people that take care of themselves. They get their manicures every week. They do baths. They look nice. They act the part, they're taking care of themselves. But as soon as they mess up on something, they say, you're so stupid, you screwed up again, how could you do this? And there's this really negative self-talk. And that's not love. So compassion, there's actually a three-step process for practicing self-compassion that I teach. And this is from the Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook by Kristen Neff. It's also a book. The steps are one, awareness or mindfulness, two, kindness, and three, common humanity. So the awareness is first just to be aware of what you're feeling. What do I feel? Oh, I feel sadness. Where in my body do I feel it? I feel it in my chest. I feel like an emptiness in my chest. Some people get different physical feelings,

and it's really important to pay attention to those. Our feelings and our emotions are messages. They're trying to tell us something. So we want to be open and aware and listening first.

And then step two is kindness. How would you talk to a six-year-old kid? That's how we need to talk to ourselves. And if you're listening to this podcast, maybe you're a little embarrassed by how you've spoken to a six-year-old and that's okay. We we feel for you because I think we've both been there too. I know in your program, you have that.

What did you say to your son that one time? Whoa. When I called him a dumb ass, I shouldn't say that on my podcast, but I'm going to, yeah. When I called him a dumb ass on the pontoon, that was not my best parenting moment. I was, you know, a counselor turned parenting coach and, but I freaked out from fear yeah and it just triggered me and it came out yeah and so when we think about that as the relationship with ourselves all of a sudden we just get triggered and we start saying oh you're so stupid i hate you why could you do this and we yell at ourselves and that's not compassion that's not love so we want to learn to speak to ourselves with kindness to say you screwed up that's okay it's all going to be okay in the end let's just pick up right where we are what can i do next um give yourself some self-soothing that's another thing that we don't teach enough but it's such a great tool for parents because we need to know how to soothe our children but we also need to know how to soothe ourselves so the kind words everything's going to be okay. You got this. It's all right. And then soothing touch. I find just stroking your arm, touching your face, touching your hair, like just like we touch and cradle and hug a child when they're upset. We can do that to ourselves and it feels really good. Those moments when you mess up as a parent or at work and you lose your cooler, wherever it is, right? And like, for instance,

with me when I freaked out out of fear that my son was going to, you know, not turn the pontoon in time as another boat was coming by. And I said that to him, then obviously caught myself right away once everything was like safe. And I apologized to him and I made it up to him. I made it right.

For all you no problem parents out there, you know, what make the make it right technique is all about. But then afterwards, even though it was okay, and he had forgiven me and, you know, we're moving on for days. It bothered me. And I kept beating myself up for it. I was shitting on myself. Right. And I just, this negativity kept, you know, and finally one day my son said, mom, you've apologized. I get it. I know you were scared. You didn't mean that. Like he at 10 years old is telling me, get over it, you know, move on. I'm good. So I do like that. You say that not only to give ourselves some grace, but actually feel it. So awareness and then kindness and then common humanity and common humanity has two parts. One is to recognize that you're only human. We are human. We make mistakes, all of us, and that's okay. We don't have to be perfect.

We all know that perfection is not a great thing, that it can be the enemy of progression and success. So just recognize when you're having a hard time, when you have this negative self-talk that it's okay, you're human, you screwed up, it's all going to be okay. And the other part of common humanity is recognizing that you're not alone. You don't have to suffer alone. You can call a friend, you can reach out to someone, you can just rest in the peace knowing that there are lots of other people, lots of other mothers out there that are also struggling with the same things that you are. Absolutely. All right. So tell us how you work as a love coach and how people can find you. Like, what does the process look like? What are your courses look like?

Yeah. So I invite everybody to go to my website, WhitneyLoveCoach.com and download my free gift, which is three shifts to manifest your ideal relationship, which is for women who are looking to attract a masculine man. And there's also an opportunity on my website to schedule a free call with me. So I do a free discovery call with anybody. We spend an hour just talking about what's your current situation. What do you want to have in your love life, your life in general?

And then I help come up with a strategy that will help them get from point A to point B. So some people, if I give them that strategy, they say, okay, great. I got it. I'm going to work this strategy and I'm going to do this. And then other people say, well, that sounds great in theory, but how am I going to get this? I don't know how to do that. And so those are the people that I help. And I have a program that's three to four months long where we really dig into your relationship with yourself first. So the first part is love yourself. And this is also about knowing yourself. Many of us don't really know who we are. If I asked you, who are you? You're probably going to tell me your name that was given to you by someone else, your profession,

which could always change and doesn't really define you, where you live, where you're from, you know, all these external things that are really your identity. They're not really who you are. So I help people discover their essence, like who they really are at their core, that part of you that doesn't change no matter what situation you're in or who you're with. So really knowing yourself and being able to love yourself. And then the next step is to love your life. And that's where we really look at all of your beliefs and fears and how those things are running your life. And then we do a little reprogramming. We change those beliefs. We change those fears and help you to have the peace of mind to be able to go for what you want and not be afraid anymore and reprogram those old strategies that we learned from our parenting and our teenage years and just all those things that have dulled our shine. And then the final step is have lasting love. And so I work with women that are single and in relationships,

and it's the same kind of process. We look at what is your intention for your relationship? How do you want to feel? How do you want to talk? And then we teach communication skills.

how to bring something up without triggering someone's defensiveness, how to have a level headed conversation, how to get out of reaction mode and really respond more consciously. So I love also how this all plays together with conscious parenting. These are conscious living, conscious communication, conscious relationship skills that most of us just never learned. There's no class in school that teaches us how to be a great parent. There's no class in school that teaches us how to be great in relationships. So I love that. And I think it's very similar to the no problem parenting approach says seek first to understand why is my child behaving the way they are? Why am I responding or reacting the way I am? Step two, prepare for the worst. We can't always be prepared for what life throws our way or what our kids throw our way, but there are certain behaviors that happen time and time again that we can prepare for so that we respond versus react and then change the conversation. And in your courses, in your work, you're really doing that same thing with regards to a woman's relationship with a man, you know, seeking first to understand why am I, what do I need? Why am I affected the way I am by their, you know,

behavior or what they're saying? And then, you know, if they're always coming home from work crabby or they're, you know, or you're, you're single and you're always, you're attracted to people who are in a good fit, preparing for the worst when you're going out, hoping to meet someone, you know, and, and how can you be prepared for when you're in that awkward moment where the guy really isn't a good fit for you, but you're too nice to say, oh no, no thanks, you know, whatever. And then changing the conversation. So when you're, when your spouse or partner's coming home and they're crabby all the time, you're prepared for that. So you don't get reactive to how they're behaving. And then you're actually changing the conversation. And I just kind of realized that as we're talking, Whitney, that it's really similar to what you're doing.

Yeah, it is just a different focus. And not being so projecting outward, but really knowing who you are. And I love that the essence of who you are. So what is that? Just real quick, before we wrap up, what would that sound like from, you know, when you say, tell me about yourself, and someone says, oh, well, I live here and, you know, I have this many kids and blah, blah, blah. And they do all those tangible kinds of things. What would it sound like when you actually said, tell me about yourself and they're speaking from the essence of who they are? Oh, what a great question. So your essence is typically five or six words or phrases that describe you. So mine is graceful, playful eloquent joyful calm and present that is so cool I'm gonna come up with mine I have a whole process I can help you do that we'll set something up it's fun it's that is really cool I love that words matter and what we say matters I know in the book club that I'm in through the leap community take the leap community with Colleen Biggs we're talking about words that we need to get rid of from our vocabulary. Things like trying, I'm trying to do something.

Really? Or I can't, or I'm busy. Oh, I should. Right. Yeah. I've talked about that one a lot.

Should. And I'm busy. And, you know, just these kinds of words that really aren't who we are, the essence of who we are. I love that. Yes. Yes. Very cool. Okay. So you have another course, program coming up right or another so I'm starting a new a next round I start them about every month I do a new round but I have a new one starting May 23rd so I think that's going to be right after this episode comes out so whether it's before or after you can still schedule a strategy session with me but yeah if you could get in by that date you could start with the rest of our our group in the next round. That is so cool. And it's, it's a three to four month process. So it's, it's, it's interactive. It's not just by the course, do it on your own and see you later. It's very much you're there for people to support them. Yes. Yes. There's some one-on-one coaching.

There's some group activities, there's embodiment, feminine flow practice that we do. It's all, it's all remote, which is great because I can help people in the, anywhere around the country or even around the world. It just really sounds like energizing and you just must love your job. Thank you. I do. I created it. There was no job opening for this. If there was, I would have applied a long time ago. But yeah, sometimes we just have to have a vision and create what we want. And this whole program, this course, it's all taken years to come to fruition. And yet here it is. And now I'm not only able to do what I love, but able to impact other women who are then doing what they love. And my next, you know, I love that I'm also able to bring people together and you and I met in the LEAP community. And I just love this community of bringing strong women together who can help each other non-competitive totally supportive and that's another great thing about my program is we get really raw and vulnerable and that can be really hard for people but it's so lovely to be able to do that in a safe environment where people will accept you and not judge you and it's our own practice in not judging when we practice not judging someone else, we practice not judging ourselves. So there's just so many benefits that come from being able to come together in this group and go through this program together. It's been really

awesome to see. No, it's so great. And I, you know, it's reminded me to a guest I had on a few weeks ago who said that her kids actually said to her one day, mom, would you just please go do something that makes you happy, whatever it is so that you can be happy. So our kids are sponges.

they do pick up on our low energy or the fact that we're not feeling good about ourselves. So moms out there, if you're feeling lonely, whether you're in a relationship or not, you're feeling lonely. Your self-esteem is kind of in the tank. You're wanting to know yourself more deeply. Maybe you're in a toxic relationship. I mean, whatever it is, or just feeling anxious about things, reach out, get in touch with Whitney. Awesome. All right. Thank you so much for being with me today. Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you for everything that you're doing as well. The world needs it. Thank you for tuning into the No Problem Parenting podcast. Join Jackie next time for more tips, tools, and resources that will help you become the confident leader your kids crave you to be. Who do you know that we could support on their parenting journey?

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