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Hello, you are listening to Call to Homeschool episode #291 Holistic Homeschooling.
Hey friends, welcome back.
It's me, Meg, your homeschool coach.
How is your December going?
I don't know.
I, I haven't talked about this this year, but we don't do presents and it makes December absolutely amazing.
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I love it.
We do a Christmas trip instead.
I don't know where we're going yet.
So sometimes that's kind of fun.
We'll we'll get it figured out.
So anyways, that's kind of something fun that we do.
Well, when I first started coaching, I didn't know what to put in my Instagram bio, right?
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So I've played around with some different names.
I did Christian homeschool coach.
I've done a parent and family homeschool coach and I still do both of those things, but it still didn't feel like it encompassed everything that I do and the people that I want to help.
And I it wasn't feeling right.
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And one day the word holistic home coach, homeschool coach came to my mind and I thought, yes, that is what I am, your holistic homeschool coach.
And I want to dive into what that means and how it will actually help you and your family and in your homeschool.
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So from Webster's Dictionary, it says the word holistic about the word holistic is relating to or connected with holes or with complete systems rather than with the analysis of treatment or of dissection into parts.
You've heard holistic medicine is attempts to treat both the mind and the body.
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So holistic is the complete look at something versus dissecting it, taking it a bit apart and bit in pieces, but actually doing this whole entire thing.
And I, I really, really love that.
So recently I have got my sister to start running with me again and it has been glorious.
1:57
It has been so much sticking fun.
But then what happens, my body starts to hurt and I'm not willing to give up because I finally got somebody to run with me again and I'm so happy.
So I started going to a physical therapist.
His name is Cort and he is amazing.
If you are in the Utah County area hit me up and I'll give you his number because he is so stinking good.
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So anyways I went in, had some pretty big pain back in my glutes and hips and I heard good things about him so I decided to go and check him out and instead of just sending me to a doctor is to go get a cortisone shot.
Like oh looks like your glutes are hurting you really bad so like that's just numb the pain.
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Or tell me to quit running which we all know I'm not going to do.
He has been helping me figure out why in the world I have pain and what to do to make the pain go away.
Turned out after seven kids that your pelvis doesn't always go back together the right way.
And that's been causing me some problems.
2:50
So he has been adjusting my pelvis in a very, that probably sounds more painful, but it's actually not painful.
I'm just helping my pelvis get back into its right position.
But then he's also helping me to build muscles to hold my pelvis in the right place so that I don't have any more pain there.
3:08
But he also found that my quads are significantly stronger than my hamstring, so I compensate a lot with my quads.
So he has me doing different different exercises to help loosen my quad.
So different stretches I need to do.
He does muscle scraping with those to loosen that and then working on strengthening my hamstring.
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So a lot of exercises to do that.
And I've been seeing him for just over a month and already most of the pain is gone.
He didn't just look at the pain in one area and think, OK, let's just treat that and give you a shot, put a Band-Aid on it.
He figured out why there was pain there.
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My bones were a little bit off.
So he got my bones and we'll keep working in the same right place.
And then he has me doing exercises so that I can make the bones stay in the same place.
And he's even teaching me how to walk upstairs correctly with so there isn't more pain and, and analyzing my running so that I'm running with proper techniques so that they don't get new pain and that I can keep running as long as I would like.
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It is amazing that he has taken this complete approach to my health and my body instead of just looking at bits and pieces.
Or he was even telling me with my knee, he was messing with my kneecap one day and was like, there's actually a surgery where they'll go in and just loosen this and he goes, but it actually causes more problems later on.
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So we can do it just through exercising and by different stretching and do it naturally, right, so that you don't then create new problems.
And it's amazing.
This is what I like to do with people's homeschool.
I don't want to dissect your homeschool.
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I don't want little bits and pieces because they're so much more involved with it.
People come to me because they are in pain and pain with things like my kids aren't listening to me, they're not doing their school.
My house is a mess.
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How in the world do I run a house in homeschool?
How do I have a life?
How do I have joy, right?
They're coming to me in pain and if I were to just put a Band-Aid on it and dissect it and was like, OK, let's just solve this quick fix cortisone shot.
You don't have to worry about it.
Maybe you get some relief in that moment, but it doesn't fix the problem long term so that you can't keep homeschooling long term because we haven't actually solved the whole problem because we're not looking at the complete picture.
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But so I like diving in and giving you things to do that help the problem to not come back, just like my awesome PT is doing for me.
I had one client while I was doing a restore the family course with she just wrapped up and she was saying, you know what, this was the best homeschool course I've done because it left me feeling the most prepared to being a homeschool Mama.
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And she said because homeschooling is just a piece of the whole family dynamic puzzle.
And if you just solve one piece, you have a lot of other pieces that could be giving you issues which are going to just cause different pain later on.
So when I'm coaching, I like to create a pyramid for people, a visual pyramid.
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I'm just going to do it with my hands.
If you're watching on YouTube.
So the bottom piece of this pyramid is you, and this is a big part that a lot of times we skip over.
And this is the piece where I'm teaching you to process your own own emotions, take responsibility for how you show up and your emotions and your actions.
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Learning skills to self regulate, myself included.
Maybe this was you, but I did not become an adult with skills of self regulation.
I did not know how in the world to do it.
So if that's where you are or you just need some better skills, I'm great.
Then let's teach you those skills.
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This is also where I'm teaching you to take care of fundamentals as we just did in Noyel.
November was a big piece of that was the fundamentals.
So sleeping, moving your body, drinking enough water and basic things like that so that you are out of this fight or flight state so that you are in this logical part of your brain where you can think clearly, see clearly, and start being able to make progress moving forward.
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So that is the bottom piece of our pyramid and then we move up to the next layer and that is parenting, learning how to parent without yelling, without force, and without being passive.
And I like to say, OK, like if we're going to remove yelling, what are we going to replace it with, right?
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So learning how to connect with the whole child, the mind, the body, the spirit, how are their fundamentals?
Are their fundamental needs being taken care of, the environment of their home, how to parent in just simple tools and simple ways that make parenting so much easier?
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One of my clients was like, this is so simple and it feels like it should be much more complex and much harder.
But the skills are so easy of just learning the little things of what to do, of how to parent without the yelling and it's so amazing.
So that's the next layer is that parenting?
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Then we have the third layer and this is the family layer, and this is being intentional with the family culture you want to create.
And I've done episodes about this before too, right?
If you either intentionally create the family culture you want or you unintentionally create the family culture you do not want.
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So being really intentional with the family culture you do want to create, learning how to work together as a family, solving problems, solving sibling issues, fighting all of those types of things of learning how to process those, figure those out, lower them, limit them to so that you can become a high functioning family.
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Then the final layer is homeschool.
And when I'm drawing this like a pyramid, I make the homeschool layer the smallest right, right on top.
And it's so interesting is because so often I see people with this pyramid reversed.
If my home school's going well, then my family will be going well.
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And if my family's working well, then it's easier to parent.
And if my children are behaving like I want them to, then I can feel good and it does not work.
So if you come in and just solve little bits and pieces and random parts of this, it doesn't help the whole issue, the whole holistic view of the homeschooling family dynamic culture.
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So it gets to be really fun when you have all these layers working because then homeschool is fun.
Homeschool is exciting because it is just a natural extension of your family.
And go look at somebody that has a really great homeschool and you'll notice that they're in charge of themself.
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You'll notice they can connect with their kids.
You'll notice that they have a strong family culture, right?
So they have those three pieces and then they can just solve for the little homeschool issues.
But those little homeschool issues are usually not what the big pain points are that you might think they are.
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It's usually one of those other three pieces that need to be fixed so that we can then help the homeschool to actually have long term success.
So if I come into your house and tell you this new curriculum, buy it, and it's going to solve all your homeschool problems, it is just like offering a Band-Aid or a cortisone shot might give you temporary relief and your kid might stop fighting your math for a few weeks, but then the problem will eventually come back.
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And that is why I like this holistic approach.
I want to help the whole family and I want to help you have long term success in your home school.
And it can't happen if you don't do the whole piece.
Just fixing the home school piece is like having a hole in your foundation and putting on some new throw pillows.
10:30
Like, well, now the couch is pretty, so it's fine.
We don't need to fix it.
You've got to fix the whole thing so that you don't keep having the same pain points and the same problems.
This is what I teach my membership.
I teach all four of these layers.
You can get a lot of this from the podcast, right?
10:48
But if you are like, yeah, I'm in pain and I would like some more help.
We go through all of these layers, all about you, parenting, family, homeschool.
I have a full video series that you can just go in and watch a lot of this.
There's the weekly group coaching call and the private calls that are all included in the membership.
11:06
And that doesn't even that doesn't even mention which is included are the lesson plans, right?
And their private podcast and the no yelling course.
So like so many amazing things within the membership, just to help the whole entire family to become high functioning.
So if you were tired of the pain and you want an actual solution, I want to invite you to come over and check out Mama's members at www.coachmegthomas.com.
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Friends, you can try it free for seven days and make sure it's a good fit for you.
I will say, if you are willing to put forth effort, you will completely change your family for the better.
I know Christmas is right around the corner.
So friends, this might be the perfect Christmas present for you.
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You can do monthly or you can do an annual pass and have get some tools to actually help fix the problems in your family instead of just putting band aids on the problems.
I would love to have you come and join.
Come and check out the free trial, see if it's a good fit for you.
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Message me if you have any questions and let's help fix the whole family, the whole culture, everything, and so that you can have a long term high functioning homeschool.
Love you friends and I'll talk to you next week.
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