About Me
A bit about my story and my work…
I’m Manon
When my daughter was 13 months old, she was waking up all night long, every 1 or 2 hours! I was desperate and so very exhausted.
I came across Aware Parenting one night on the internet and it changed my life and the way I’m parenting. There was a big “YES!” feeling in my whole body as I was reading about it.
It was aligned with my values of respect for the child, mutual trust, joy, nurturing, self-reflection and self-growth.
Oh, and my daughter started sleeping through the night as soon as I implemented the Aware Parenting knowledge!
I immediately started sharing Aware Parenting with the parents I came across and I’ve never stopped, reaching thousands of parents across the Planet.
What is ‘Aware Parenting’?
“Aware Parenting is a child-rearing approach developed by Aletha Solter, Ph.D. It is based on the latest research in the fields of attachment, child development, psychotherapy, cross-cultural studies, and the neurobiology of trauma.
Parents who follow this approach raise children who are cooperative, compassionate, competent, nonviolent, and drug-free.
Aware Parenting is a form of attachment parenting. We recommend breastfeeding, co-sleeping, baby wearing and prompt responsiveness to crying. We are opposed to punishment, time-outs, threats or other behaviour management strategies.
Aware Parenting adds another element by recognizing the stress-release function of crying in addition to its communication function” – Extract from Dr. Aletha Solter’s website.
Since studying Aware Parenting and being Certified by Aletha Solter herself, I’ve been helping hundreds of parents struggling with their children’s unpleasant behaviour, supporting them to relate to their children without any punishment (including time-out).
Connection, fun, respect, emotional intimacy and mutual trust are to my eyes, what all valued relationships should be based on. I’m passionate about supporting parents to find this in their relationship with their children and with themselves.
Working with parents helped me realise, later on, that offering advice was not enough. Our unresolved traumas (from our childhood and other traumatic events such as medical interventions, abuse or a traumatic birth) tend to get in the way of us parenting the was we truly want to parent our kids.
No matter how much we cognitively know how we want to parent our kids (and reading books, taking courses, etc.), we still get triggered, have difficulties managing our anger or we feel ‘stuck’ and are unable to set the healthy limits and boundaries our children need to thrive.
If you relate to that, lovely Mama, I’m sending you lots of compassion and love. I’ve been there. I know how hard that is. We want to be loving and supportive of our children but we end up saying or doing painful things to them.
This is why I chose to become a Somatic Experiencing practitioner.
WHAT IS SOMATIC EXPERIENCING?
Somatic Experiencing is a mind-body healing modality for the resolution of trauma.
We’ve all gone through some kind of trauma in our life, whether it’s abuse, neglect, loss, or medical interventions, attachment ruptures with our parents, bad falls or accidents, toxic relationships, etc.
Research shows now that trauma is not “in our head”, it’s in our body, in our nervous system.
Dr Peter Levine, creator of Somatic Experiencing (SE) has realised that animals in the wild do not get traumatised, even though their life is threatened on a daily basis.
Their body seems to immediately “discharge” the stress of the traumatic event.
Our nervous system is very similar to other mammals’ system and we too have the capacity to discharge the stress we’ve gone through after a stressful event.
Unlike animals though, we’re doted with a (brilliant) neocortex, which gives us the capacity to think and reason. So far, so good.
The problem comes when we use this neocortex to stop the normal stress-discharge our body would naturally go through after a stressful event: we stop ourselves from crying, from trembling, from feeling the grief… in short, from trusting our body’s own healing process.
Our body keeps the stress in and we develop symptoms such as anger outbursts, migraines, chronic pains, “unexplainable” behaviours, depression (including post-natal depression), digestive issues, exhaustion, anxiety, PTSD, ADHD, etc.
With Somatic Experiencing, we gently allow the body to discharge the stress it’s been holding on since the traumatic event (which might have happened decades ago!), so it can get back to regulation.
Somatic Experiencing can also be used to heal from developmental trauma: neglect, abuse or attachment ruptures that happened when we were babies and young children. By healing from our own childhood, we’re less likely to unconsciously pass our traumas to our children.
A UNIQUE APPROACH
Combining Aware Parenting and trauma healing, the support I offer is very unique: deep, long-lasting, conscious, gentle and empowering. My mission is to help you feel confident and at ease in your everyday life, within yourself and with your children, so both you and them can thrive.
I offer 1-1 sessions via Skype and in person, online programs and workshops all around Australia. You can also email me anytime at support@MamaManon.com.
Wishing you to heal, thrive and enjoy life with your children, I’m sending you lots of Love,
xx
Manon
