Episode 044 Relationship Academy, Neha Sonney

No need to whine, it's Whiny Palooza! Have some wine and join us on the Whiny Palooza podcast with Rebecca Green.

Welcome to the Whiny Palooza podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca Green. I'm a wife, mother of 3, and licensed clinical social worker. I also have 3 fur babies at home too. My passion has always been to help children and their families. I always dreamed of being a wife and a mother. Parents are always learning through their struggles, failures, and successes and joys. I am no stranger to this wild ride of parenting, and I know behind every great parent lies a team of supportive friends and family. I want to be part of your support system. I want you to know that you are not alone. We are in this parenting world together. Join me every week for insightful discussions with experts on parenting and marriage, as well as other parents who have found the secret to successes in parenthood. You'll learn tips and tricks to make life with your family better than ever. I hope you will follow along with me while we dive into what it takes to achieve a happy family.

This is Rebecca Green for the Whiny Palooza podcast, and I am so excited. Today I get to talk to Neha Sani tonight, and she is a speaker, trainer, and coach. Being a mom is a very fulfilling role in a woman's life. As women, we are geared for relationships and to nurture them. She understands how differently women parent, as well as how important it is for both parents to be on the same page. Differences in opinions in parenting affect marriages. 50% of marriages are not a conscious decision, and often parenting is a topic couples don't talk about, which only creates more problems in both the marriage and relationship with the children. It's essential that women get as much emotional support from others around them so that they can bring their best to their marriage. Neha has been meditating since 2012 and swears by the results it brings to you personally and to your relationships. Neha is the mother of a cool teenager. She and her better half, Todd, have all sorts of conversations, including those that may be uncomfortable. Thank you so much for being here with me.

Thank you for this wonderful introduction, Rebecca. It's my pleasure.

Thank you. Well, and this is extra exciting for me because you are my furthest away guest so far. She is all the way in Hong Kong, 12 hours ahead of me. So I'm so glad that we could coordinate this.

Yes, I'm excited too. I'm often talking to people in different time zones, and kind of this time zone that works out best because it's your evening but not too late, my morning, but it's okay.

Well, and it's so funny, um, just so that everyone knows, it's 9:15 PM in Buffalo, New York, and all the way in Hong Kong, it is 9:15 AM. So I'm about to end my day and you're about to start your day. Yeah, it's fascinating. It's very fun. I want to start at the beginning and I want to ask you what inspired you to become a Coach?

I was teaching as a— I was a teacher, English teacher at schools, learning centers. And actually I had fallen into a relationship at the time. It was a very short relationship, um, and through him I was exploring my passions because he himself was getting his foot into coaching, and he introduced the program. And then soon after I signed up, our relationship ended.

So that's how I ended up with the company.

Yes, exactly. It's like, you know, the purpose of his life, of him in my life, was for me to do this course.

Well, that's awesome. I'm glad that something good came of it.

Yes, yes.

Um, and I'm sure lots of good came of it. I should say that. So let's talk about self-love because it's one of your favorite concepts, and I think it's so important that we learn to love ourselves more. So can you give us some advice? How can we have more self-love?

Self-love. What is self-love? Before that, before I talk about self-love, if you talk about love, what does loving mean? It's a verb, right? So when you love someone, you're there for them. You do things like you speak their love language, you are kind to them, you're passionate, you're compassionate, you will listen to them, you will do things with them, you will do like, you will be so nice to that person. How about turning that around and giving that to yourself first? And we're not trained, we're not trained to teach and to teach how to love ourselves. No. And that's why we suffer in relationships, because our relationship with ourselves is going to suffer. Now many times self-love can come across as selfish. Now let's look at, you know, the, the emergency, the first thing that you need to do if you're on an airplane and there is an emergency, the oxygen mask falls down, you first are asked to mask yours, put on the mask for yourself, and then help your children and other people around you. Yes. Yeah, why is that? That is the essence of self-love, because if you don't, you're going crazy in your own world and you're trying to help others How's that possible? It can't. You can't do that. That's why you need to learn to love yourself. And this is how self-love shows up in your life. It really, really saves you.

Well, and it's interesting that we're so good at giving love to other people. Yeah. And we're not so good— I mean, from my experience of myself and others, we're not so good at giving it to ourselves.

That's right.

So can you give us an example of how we can even teach this to our children? Because not only do I need to work on loving myself, I also need to teach my children to do the same thing.

Yes, absolutely. This, this is like, this is so close to home for me. I love this question, Rebecca. Thank you.

I'm so glad. I'm so glad.

So Um, how do you teach it to your children and how do you learn it yourself? So I, I will share a little bit about my story. So I grew up in a, in a household where I did not feel safe and the parent happened to be abusive. So how does that show up? I do not have a good example of how to be as a loving parent, as a compa— like, so empathy, compassion, being able to listen, patience— none of that was in me when I became a new mom. So how do I— and then I realized I was very young, and about 11 or 12 years old, a lot more than that, Rebecca. And I, I— what I, what I witnessed was my own parent was being very kind to other children that came to our house for whatever reason, like, you know, as guests, or they— she was tutoring them, but she was very kind to them. But to myself and my sister, she was very very biased and critical, blah blah blah. So I'm— I, I thought there's something wrong about this. I didn't know who to talk to. I didn't have anyone to go to, but I was, I was suffering. I was at the— it was at the receiving end of the abuse— physical, emotional, verbal, uh, mental. And so how that impacts the psyche is that when you grow up, you don't know yourself. You're so traumatized, you're so disconnected from yourself, and then you become— then you go into relationship. My marriage, first marriage, happened to be an arranged marriage. So I just went ahead and married so that I could escape the drama that was in my, like, you know, living with my mother. And then I find myself in Hong Kong because this is where I got married and I came. So I, when I became a new mom, I was already like, you know, not in the safest relationships. I never felt at home there, so I wanted to leave even, but that did not happen. So I was in a very bad situation, and then I felt pregnant. Because of a lot of pressure. I felt pregnant. And then there was like the— when I became a new mom, I didn't know how to be better, how to be a mom. So I was taking out my frustration. We— so, so children— this is important— children don't listen to their parents, they follow them. Yeah, they will follow their footsteps.

So true.

Yeah, and this is why as parents we have to become the best examples for them. But before we can become examples for them, we have to be the person who they can model. Yes, you have to be that good model. And I wasn't, and I found myself screaming at him. And he was a toddler at the time. So one summer, it was a hot day like this one, and I I had completely, like, you know, lost it. I lost it on him completely. And when I saw the terror in his eyes, it reminded me of the terror I experienced growing up. And I said, no, this is not going to happen to him. I'm not going to recreate my future. So I had to really hold myself back from criticizing. It was all that training from like, you know, okay, so I don't have the best relationship with myself, and then I have to create that with my son. Yeah, it's a very, very conscious decision. And I had no— I had a lot of anger, uh, and like bottled up inside of me. I would explode. So how do I control that so that he doesn't get affected? That's why I got into like, you know, learning a lot about myself and like, you know, putting my own spirit back together so that I could ultimately speak to his. And then meditation also happened. So you have to speak to your child's spirit and make them believe in themselves.

Why?

Because parents are God. Children believe their parents because, because they're dependent on them. So dependent on them for everything.

So true. So, so true. Oh, I love your journey, and I love that you were inspired to become a better mother. And I'm so touched by your story, and I'm so glad that you found a better path. And you're bringing me right to my next topic because I love the topic of meditation, and I want to touch on that because it's so important to you. Can you tell us what benefits that you get from meditation?

One of the first physical benefits I would say is your slowing down of your breath is going to allow you to experience calm, okay? And that's because your thoughts are running at a very high speed, and because the reason why you— they just— you're just when you're not aware, which means you're not practicing some sort of mindfulness, your thoughts run so fast you don't even know how quickly you have formulated an opinion that is going to— probably you just formulated an opinion about something or someone, and then that you take that as a truth, and they may be so wrong. That may not be the truth about it. Why? Because you don't know the truth about yourself. It takes time to learn about that. It takes time to listen. So one of the first things you would notice is the slowing down of your breath and then the calming, because your, your, your amygdala is going— it's the flight and fight response. That gives— when that gets a break you are in a position to, instead of reacting, you go respond— you go to responding. So you have a moment of thought and then you respond. And that is way better when it comes to your own relationships. And because we make decisions so quickly—

yes, we do—

and, and our emotions take over, and because we're in that emotional state, um We think that, okay, this is the be-all end-all, and I'm going to make a decision of a lifetime based on this. No, you have to take a step back, think this through. It's not as crazy as we think it is. And then this, this, the meditation gives that space to think and then respond. That's one of the first things that starts to happen. So you really will slow down a tiny bit and bit by bit.

I love that so much, and I want to reiterate that because you said something so important. We get— I'm speaking for myself, I shouldn't speak for anyone else— I get so reactive. And to be responsive instead of reactive is like a huge parenting win in our marriage, with our kids. It's, it's like the difference between a good and bad relationship, I feel like.

Yes, yes, absolutely, absolutely. You are bringing so much awareness, right? When— and this is how I'm glad you brought this up, Rebecca, because my relationship with myself improved when I started to meditate.

I—

for the first time I realized, oh, I am an individual. I am not a daughter, I'm not a daughter-in-law only. I am a person first before I'm all of these different roles in other people's lives. Yeah, wow, that was huge.

That's a— that's big right there. Exactly.

And then, and then, so let's, let's look at relationships. Doesn't matter, romantic, you know, personal, professional, any relationship. And this is you, and these are all of those other relationships. And then that's This is you. Let's remove you from the picture. What about the rest of the relationships? They just cannot exist without you, your presence. And your presence to yourself is so important. Like, you're— this is where your relationship with yourself becomes the most important. And people go into relationships, especially like, you know, when they're, uh, single or going to find love, whatever it is, or inside of marriages You know, it's about, you know, I have to give, I have to sacrifice. And you know, and especially women, we do that to ourselves a lot.

Yes, we do.

This is huge, huge. So how you conduct yourself in a relationship, and if you want to manifest a relationship, you have to become so conscious first to yourself so that you are more conscious about manifesting and bringing the things that you want to bring from a place of knowing that nobody else can tell you. That deeper knowing comes from here. It doesn't come from Google. Google doesn't know nothing about you.

That's awesome. That's why you meditate.

That's how you get to yourself.

And a lot of people listening probably don't meditate. So can we give them some advice? How do they start? Can you tell them how to start?

Definitely. So there's no one right way to meditate. It can start off by just bringing your awareness. So, okay, meditation is, um, it can be quite, um, daunting, and people think maybe because it is attached with Buddhism, so that's there's got— that's got some religious element to that. I will say, okay, let, let that be, and then just bring your— you want to do— why— think about why you want to meditate. That's one thing that's going to be your anchor, your practice. Okay, I had a big reason why I wanted to meditate. I wanted to better my relationship with my son. That was very important to me. And then improve mine with myself. So having that anchor is important. And then how do you become think about ways in which you can become more aware, more present to yourself. And one of the best ways to do this— why meditation is the best, Rebecca— is because you are breathing. You've been breathing since you're born, but how often are we aware about it?

We're not.

We're not. And then so this shows up in like when you are— when you're nervous, you're not breathing right. Your chest is constricted, your voice goes shows up in public speaking, you're scared, you're afraid. So everything is completely off. And the moment you start to breathe, right, you just, you know, everything else kind of just falls into place and like so much more settled and better, right? The whole— there's a whole freedom of expressing or feeling better, really. So that's why how I do it is close my eyes and I focus on my breath. And it's like you focus on your breath, how you feel your breath going inside through your nostrils, and then feel it coming out and just staying with that practice. And then it helps to, um, like focus between this space— happens to be also like, you know, where the pineal gland is, right behind there. But, um, even though— if you're— even if you're not focusing on that, it's okay. You can feel your breath coming in, and that's That's the most important thing. You just have one point of focus. So for some people, it's on the inside. It's like turning your eyes, like closing your eyes and turning them inside and then opening them. So it's like looking inward and just focusing on the inside and then the body sensations. So this is like mindfulness. You, you just become aware of your different senses, the sounds, the sensations your body is feeling, the temperature of the air, the coolness of the breath, any sounds that you're aware of. So bringing in as many senses as possible, whether you're meditating or not, as many senses that you involve, the more present you become.

Okay, well, go ahead. I'm sorry.

Yeah, no, no, ask me so I can include that in my— what I'm saying next.

Yeah, well, no, I just have a couple more questions just for my own guidance. Do you have a certain time of day that you recommend, and do you have a certain amount of time that you recommend?

So the day, uh, time of the day, two times of the day that work best are before you go to bed and once you wake up. So yeah, and why is that? It's because your brain is like your, your mind. There is the beta brain. When we're completely awake, we're in beta. The alpha is a slower, more creative brainwave. And when we are about to sleep, that's what we are entering. And we're— when we wake up, we don't suddenly go into beta. It takes time. We're in alpha, and then we go into beta. When people miss out on sleep, the deeper, the, the delta, then the theta, that's where— that's the one we're going deep into sleep. And when you miss out that, that's why you cranky. That's just— I did get over there, right? Makes sense now. So yes, yes. And then, so yeah, these are the two times that are best to meditate. Um, and then it takes— from my own experience, it took me about 20 minutes to fall into that meditative space. So what is that? It feels like, you know, like there is a sort of an expansion that you can't really physically explain. You have to feel that. So, but then if I say this, listeners, please do not attach to that and expect that to happen, because it's not going to happen every single time you meditate. You're going to fall asleep, you're probably going to get frustrated, you're gonna— your thoughts are gonna— you're gonna follow the train of your thoughts And that's absolutely normal. And the way you train yourself to become more mindful is like, you know how you go to the gym and build muscle? You're not going 6 hours a day and then for the rest of the week, or 7 hours and then you forget about it. You do it every day, for example, whatever workout. So it's like a mind— like you're a mental workout. And then so you're building your mindfulness every single time you remind yourself to come back. What was I doing here? Oh, I was meditating. Come back to yourself, come back to your breath right inside you. And this coming back, getting distracted, coming back— this is, this is how you build that mindfulness muscle.

Yeah, it takes time and it takes practice. And I have to tell you, I've only been doing 5 or 10 minutes, so I need to step it up.

Yeah, and it's okay, Rebecca. It's absolutely okay to do it for 5 minutes. I'm not doing 20 minutes every day and reaching nirvana, for all those listeners out there. So it's more about— it's, it's more about, you know, continuously keeping that practice going. It's very easy to fall out of the practice of meditation, and then you end up going like, why am I reacting? Because you have not been keeping at the meditation. It's like doing it daily. You brush your teeth every day, you bathe every day, and this is another— this is like, you know, when you, you have dental floss for your teeth, this is mental flossing for your mind.

Oh, that's great. Yeah, perfect. I'm gonna remember that. That's a great way to put it. Thank you. I want to move into our relationship with our spouse because you talk a lot about that And one of the things that you mentioned was how, you know, the differences in our parenting can negatively impact our marriage. Can you help us and tell us how to get more on the same page with our spouse in regards to parenting?

One of the first things, and this may not have got to do with parenting alone, it has first got to do with how people understand love. 5 Love Languages is a great tool. We understand how they understand love, and it's important you do that first for yourself so that you can understand how other people understand that. And then you will realize you're not speaking their language.

Oh my gosh, so true.

Then, then you have to learn to communicate in that language so that they understand. For some people, it's gifts. For some people, it's active service. For some people, it's one-on-one time. All of those, there's 5 different, but each one is— so getting to know and understand that. So how you bring that into your own awareness and then apply that in your relationship. And then talking things and talking about things, you know, taking the time to talk about things and also having that space. You know, people say we don't talk about these things, but if the child is not exposed to that, it's going to be hard for them. How they— because they're not going to live with you for the rest of our— your lives. They're going to move out. They're going to have their own life going for themselves. So your job as a parent is to equip them to be— to be— to give them those tools and start already to, to use that, okay, and become as aware as possible. So I do tell my son to meditate. And, and as far as pair— if every parent can meditate, it will be so much easier that the child can also get into that. Now, how to bring, like, you know, the parents into this— the, the— a lot of times what children do is see where the parent is, and then that's what causes the rift. Because, oh, I like what Daddy's saying, and Mommy is a bad one. So it's so important that both parents are on the same page and they talk amongst themselves.

Yes. Or bringing the child into the picture.

Okay, we're gonna talk about this, and if things go wrong, what's— what are we gonna do? What strategies? So discussing all of those things, being able to to talk about this is so crucial because you are— then you, then you have the awareness. And even if you're going to say something crazy, you're gonna— no, stop. No, I'm not. I don't have to do this. I'm— this is going to ruin— so you have that awareness that you don't want to have that happen.

Well, in, in my house, and other people can relate to this, I'm known by my children as the yes person and my husband is known as the no person. So you know who they want to go ask things Yes, yes, absolutely. So we definitely have to talk more before I give answers to my children. Yeah, yeah, that is, that is something for me to work on. You talk about uncomfortable conversations, and yeah, you said that, you know, you and your husband can even have the really uncomfortable conversations. Any advice to couples on how to do this?

Um, one thing I will say is a lot of times, Rebecca, what happens is the ego gets in the way, and the ego always will look to say— want to have power and control over the situation, and that's not what it is about. Relationships are so much about empowerment. So if you yourself have the ability to put your ego, park your ego and put it aside, and then think that, and not take things personally, and using the language correctly, For example, if I am upset, I will say, I feel blah blah blah, I feel upset that you are not doing this, I feel, I feel irritated, I feel this is talking about I. This way you remove the blame, you're not blaming, you always do this, you're always putting things there, blah blah blah. So it's the the other person, the moment you say you do blah blah blah, the other person feels blamed. And there it is, it's the threat already going off, the amygdala going, no, this is not safe for me, boom boom boom, and then firing. So this is where when you talk about, like, you just bring, like, this is how I feel. So learning how to communicate that, that about your feelings, you need to be in touch with how you are feeling. That's how deep this goes. And then be able to express that.

I mean, you said, you said so many things. You packed so much punch into that answer. And I, you know, and I just want to say that even just mentioning the ego, I mean, my husband will say to me, do you want to be right or do you want to be in love? And I'm like, oh man, he's got to throw that at me. Yes, you know, it's a good line though.

Yeah, so many times we want to be right that we end up losing the relationship or damaging the relationship.

So true, so, so true. There's one more thing that you talk about. I mean, there's so many things that you talk about, but I'm gonna— I'm gonna ask you one more thing. The whole— the support. Women needing support, you talk about that, and women in particular, how can they bring more support into their lives?

But the first way to do this is being connected with themselves and their feelings. Many a times, and a lot of women, they're shut down emotionally. Quite shut down or afraid to speak or share because they haven't found the right space. And if they, let's say, even like, you know, sometimes even family is not— we don't feel safe with our family sharing things. And then the next thing we know is going and talking to absolute strangers and letting out everything. It's like verbal vomit because we have the space and when we feel the need to. Having that connection connection first with ourselves is really important, very important. And then finding— because you are aware about what you need, then you connect with people who can help you with that. And what you, you can also provide the same for others. And that, I think, would be the best kind of friendship. You know how you can be a friend for that person and that person can be friend to you and how you guys can support each other. So definitely you can only be a friend. You can't expect things from and want people to do things the way you want them to. That again is something that people are not aware of, and then they, they're thrown off because it's not meeting their expectation. But anything outside of us is something we cannot control. The only control we have is over ourselves and how we respond. Yeah, that's why being aware is so important.

I love it. I mean, you have so much wisdom to share. There's just so many— so much goodness in everything you say. Do you have anything else that you would like to share that I didn't think to ask you?

I— well, just my podcast, uh, share. If people are interested, by all means they can check out The Relationship Academy, uh, on Spotify. That's my podcast. It's not doing anything about this at the moment, but I do have things that people don't normally talk about when it comes to relationships. And the topic of sex, which is otherwise thought about as taboo, is a is, and it affects the relationships, right? So it's supposed to be the reason why, um, contraceptives that people normally use are available in the grocery stores. It's you that your conversations are of these kind of things are supposed to be like things on grocery lists. You have to be able to talk about anything and everything so that you feel comfortable sharing about this even in and understanding things from the other person's point of view.

So true, so, so true. Can you tell everyone where else to find you?

You can find me on my website, www.nehasani.com, and I'm on the same— um, Neha Soni is on LinkedIn, Facebook, um, Facebook page. Yeah, um, yeah. Well, expert, uh, on Instagram. Not that active on Instagram, but that's the Self-Love Expert.

My, my kids make fun of me because I'm still into Facebook and I'm trying to get more into Instagram, and they're trying to get me on TikTok, and I'm like, oh my God, there's too many places. Yeah.

Yeah, it's too much. It's too much.

Well, this has been so lovely getting to know you and hearing all of your wonderful wisdom. Thank you so much for taking time to be here with me.

Uh, it's my absolute pleasure, Rebecca. You're a fabulous host and you've got amazing questions. I love your podcast.

Oh, thank you so much. That means a lot to me.

Yeah, you're doing a great job.

Oh, thank you. Making me smile. This is Rebecca Green reminding everyone to spend every day laughing, learning, and loving.

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