Women, Self-Worth & Raising Authentic Daughters // with Charlsey Childers

[00:00:00] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: Hello, all I'm Carmelita Tiu and welcome to today's episode of Know Them, Be Them, Raise Them a show to help busy mindful moms stay informed and inspired as they navigate their daughter's tween and teen years with most episodes running 20 minutes or less. My guest this week is Charles C. Childers, a self-worth and confidence coach.

[00:00:25] She teaches ambitious women how to quiet negative thoughts, show up authentically, and cultivate inner peace and confidence so they can break free from self doubt and be content with who they are. She's also a wife, mom, speaker, and community leader. Her website is charlescchilders.com. And on Instagram, she's @charlesc_childers.

[00:00:47] These links are in the show notes too so don't worry if you didn't catch that. So I, like most women, experienced a drop in confidence in my teen years. While I've learned mindset shifts and tactics, to help me understand and overcome this. There are situations now when I still feel self doubt and insecurity sneak in. I asked Charles C to shed some light on women and self-worth, confidence and the work she does to help me live more authentically and so I can help my daughters understand this topic better too. Here's that chat.

[00:01:21] So, Charles C tell me a little bit about how you got into the work that you do, what brought you here and ultimately resulted in us meeting each other. I think this has fantastic.

[00:01:34] Charlsey Childers: Yeah, absolutely. First of all, I want to say again, thank you so so much for having me. I just–when you and I met and I discovered your mission and what you're doing, as a girl mom myself, I can so appreciate it because… Yeah. Girls are hard sometimes but then looking back on my mom, I was raised by a single mom. I'm sure she could have used something like this in her life.

[00:02:01] Oh, you’re doing awesome. Thank you so much Cat. So a little bit about me. We're going to dive in deep. I’m not a surface level person. So I'm gonna take you back. I'm gonna take you back about five or so years ago when I was a new mom of two. And from the outside, I guess you could say that I had it all together. With these two beautiful babies who are now five and seven.

[00:02:33] My amazing husband and my blossoming corporate career, but on the inside was not the case. I was unhappy. I felt this heaviness and sort of resistance to light. And just by, people's opinions and advice, I knew that it was more than just being a new mom. I knew there was something more to it.

[00:02:58] So I decided to dig in a little bit deeper to really get to know myself and understand myself, try to understand. Where was the happy unhappiness coming from? Where was the, where was the heaviness coming from? And was there anything I could do about it or was that it?

[00:03:22] So through this journey of self discovery and self exploration, I discovered that first of all, I was living my life based around everybody else's expectations of me. So, of course I was unhappy because my mom raised me to get my master's and go to grad school. And I was just like, okay, I'll do that.

[00:03:49] I'll do that. And that's kind of how I was looking at my life. So that was a really big discovery about myself. I also discovered that I was still carrying a lot of pain from my dad, not wanting to have a relationship with me because I was a girl. So there were a lot of unresolved things there that I didn't necessarily realize.

[00:04:11] And then I also discovered that I was beating myself up quite a bit. And in a nutshell, I had low self worth and I didn't realize it, because I was ambitious. I was a mom and a wife and I had a master's degree and I was doing all of these things but I still had low self worth. And that’s a lot of people when they have low self worth, they don't necessarily realize it.

[00:04:39] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: It's amazing how it does sound like you checked all the boxes, you had all these accomplishments  and that doesn't correlate to that self-esteem self-worth. We sometimes buy into feeling like if we just buy the right thing or we accomplish the right goal, then suddenly we're going to feel good.

[00:05:00] Charlsey Childers: Thank you so much for mentioning that. And  I'm a crier. So I'm getting tears in my eyes because a lot of clients I work with they have a similar experience as far as they, have it all quote on quote from the outside. But then on the inside, they're carrying this level of shame. Because they do have it all. They have these first world things, but that can't, that doesn't fulfill us, that doesn't satisfy us and through my own journey, you know, discovering that okay.

[00:05:36] On the outside, I checked the boxes, but on the inside… There were still some things that I had to work on and that's okay. I'm okay to admit that that's a street. You know, it's not, it's not a weakness in that. So through my journey, I was able to heal or at least work on, cause that's always a work in progress as far as healing my pain and really taking my life into my own hands and discovering what I wanted to be, what I wanted to do.

[00:06:11] So that led me to, it opened up this passion for helping women to love and believe in themselves. I wanted, you know, my meth became my methods. I wanted to empower and equip the same, you know, women in the same way to love and believe in themselves so that they can feel free to be who they are and do the things that they want to do.

[00:06:35] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: I love that. I love that as someone that has, has struggled, you know, and definitely has checked boxes thinking that that's going to make me happy. I'm so excited to learn more and hear more. So, women in self-worth. Why do you think it happens and how do we kind of understand where it comes from?

[00:06:57] I know for you, it may have been one experience or set of experiences. Yeah. How do we recognize the causes? 

[00:07:04] Charlsey Childers: Yeah, absolutely such a great and loaded question, you know, and it's definitely prevalent. With social media and so many things, the pandemic and everything going on, everything our external world impacts our internal world and we don't necessarily realize that.

[00:07:24] And so there are a few things before I get to your two beautiful questions there. Two things I’d like to preface with, and the first thing is self-worth,according to Webster Dictionary, self-worth refers to one's own value of themselves. So that deep inner knowing that I am valued, I am loved, I am necessary. I am enough and I am worthy.

[00:07:53] And along with that, so self-worth, and self-esteem are so close together that they're often used interchangeably. So I wanted to just go ahead and say that. And then the second thing I wanted to preface with. We were born whole and accepting ourselves for who we are. You know, when we're six months old crawling around on the floor, looking ourselves in the mirror, we're not beating ourselves up. We’re crawling. 

[00:08:25] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: Right. We're not judging. We're not saying how do I look in this? Or I should've done this better. 

[00:08:29] Charlsey Childers: Yeah. Why can't I pick up this ball? You know, those thoughts don't go through our heads. So all of the thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and behaviors centered around self-worth, they're all learned. Now going back to your question of, why do so many, why do so many of us struggle with it? Why is it so common amongst women? There are three reasons that I've put together.

[00:08:57] The first reason is because as beautiful, and amazing, and abundant our world, world also gives us reasons for why we aren't pretty enough, smart enough. Like I said, social media TV, you know, we don't have to go very far. And so if we're already having these thoughts of, I'm not pretty enough as she is.

[00:09:24] Then, you know, it's very easy. It's very simple for us to find evidence to support that.

[00:09:31] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: Right. All these reinforcing messages are like you said, constantly being fed to us. 

[00:09:38] Charlsey Childers: Yes, absolutely. And so in preparing for this podcast, I was curious, what are the statistics around self-worth? I want to read those statistics of–from The Heart of Leadership.

[00:09:53] So seven in ten girls believe they are not good enough or do not measure up in some way. Including their looks, performance in school. And their relationships, 74% of girls say they are under pressure to please everyone. 98% of girls feel there is an immense pressure from external sources to look a certain way.

[00:10:22] And 92% of teen girls would like to change something about the way they look, with their body weight ranking the highest. 

[00:10:32] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: Urgh. Gosh, that's so tragic, right? Like to feel as if our daughters, if not now, could potentially be swimming in these anxieties and stressors. And just–urgh. 

[00:10:49] Charlsey Childers: Absolutely. So we have this external, stuff that's going on.

[00:10:53] And then internally our minds have a negativity bias. Meaning that they are more sensitive to negative events. So for example, we, for every five negative events we encounter.

[00:11:15] It correlates to one positive event. So let's see, am I saying this correctly? 

[00:11:20] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: So I think if I'm hearing you correctly, because of our negative negativity bias, when we have one say we hear someone's judgy comment about how we looked, then it takes five positive comments to counteract that and to get us back to like baseline where it's just underscoring how important it is that we infuse our lives and our daughters and ourselves with positive messaging. 

[00:11:47] Charlsey Childers: Absolutely. Thank you for, yeah. So, if you can think of, you know, with our teenagers or coming into teenage years, like your daughters, let's take our brain, this negative bias, let's take their hormones and put them together.

[00:12:06] I mean, we might as well like put them in a blender with the top off. You know what I mean? It’s going to explode everywhere!

[00:12:15] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: Right. Oh my goodness. What a perfect mental picture.

[00:12:22] Charlsey Childers: And then the last thing I wanted to say, this is more for the mamas who are, you know, for who are listening. So our brains, 80% of the thoughts that we have every day are negative. And 95% of those thoughts are repeats from the day before. So if you thought yesterday, that I'm fat, then there's a 95% chance that you're going to have the exact same thought today and the next day, and the next day, and the next day.

[00:12:53] So when we think about it from an adult perspective, our low self-worth and how we talk to ourselves, a lot of it has to do with it being a 20 year old habit. That we’ve just–thought, every thought the same thoughts day in and day out, maybe it's 25 years, 30 years, whenever these thoughts started, those three things. Yeah, I think those are the main things.

[00:13:26] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: You know, when you said it's this 20 year habit, it brought me back to all of the messages that I remember hearing in, somewhere in my teens, maybe when I was a preteen, but things like you shouldn't wear short sleeve shirts because your arm is really wide there. And I still. I still have trouble.

[00:13:46] I have to kind of talk myself through putting out a short sleeve shirts sometimes because there's this little voice that's like how my arms going to look? And then I have to say, you're going to be fine. Your arms look fine. They're powerful. They do what you need them to do. So focusing less on looks and more function, but there is that voice that still shows up.

[00:14:05] 20 plus years later. And it's just remarkable and my personal evidence about what you said–

[00:14:13] Charlsey Childers: What great awareness. Like, I really acknowledge you for being able to pinpoint something as seemingly small as picking at her arms. But if you think about it, you know, you've been able to trace that all the way back to your teenage years.

[00:14:30] That's really profound to be able to connect those dots, that something back then can still have that much effect on. 

[00:14:40] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: I hate to admit it. Because you wish it didn't, right? Like one comment from one person who had a kind of important role in my life. And I'm sure it didn't think it was anything negative or super pejorative or, but isn't it amazing how one instance that's all it takes to kind of inform a person's self image.

[00:15:04] So I guess this is a great segue into what are your favorite tips? It's clear that women need to do things to kind of counteract the negativity and rebuild their self-worth. So what are your favorite tips for moms, for girls, for women to feel a stronger sense of that and more confidence? 

[00:15:25] Charlsey Childers: When it comes to moms, what can we do because moms–especially moms of daughters, we are the role models. They are looking at us. They are watching us. Whether they act like they want to be around us or not they are still watching is. So the first thing to moms is that we have to be at a place to where we can do the head and the heart work to just acknowledge and recognize our own pain and our own insecurity.

[00:16:01] So, this doesn't mean that we have to arrive at a certain place before our daughters get to the age of 15. No, it's not about that. It's about doing the work. Doing the head and the heart work. And especially when we have daughters and we're doing things like, maybe mindfulness practices or self love rituals, meditation, boundaries, working with the coach, just different things like that.You know, our daughters are watching us do that.

[00:16:35] So that is a really profound. An impactful thing for them to watch us, meditate and journal and doing our own inner work. And so we don't have to good, I'm so glad that resonates. Like we, I feel like–at least from my experience and just my mom, friends, and the clients I work with. I feel like we put a lot of pressure on ourselves sometimes of like, I have to be this expert meditator or this professional workout–a fit mom and then I'm qualified. You know what I mean?

[00:17:16] But in doing so we undermined the small, consistent, intentional actions. And that’s what really matters to our daughters because they are waking up and maybe they walk in the kitchen and we're reading a book about loving ourselves more. They just, they watch in and out of the room, they walk in and out of the room and they see us doing our own head and heart work.

[00:17:42] And that creates this normalcy of doing that and their work in their world. 

[00:17:51] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: Yeah! I love–yes. I just have to interject how much I love this idea. And it's really the thinking behind this podcast is I didn't want it to just be about like, here's information about how to raise your daughter and like the things that you should make sure she has to equip her life. But really like how do we as moms, as women show up better? Because whether we want to be or not, we are their first and best role models.

[00:18:18] And in order to. Yeah. Just if we want to be the best moms that we can, there's an internal piece to that and a self-love self-care aspect. And I also love that you mentioned it's kind of the small showing up it can be just five minutes of meditating and they see it, they soak it up, and it normalizes it for them.

[00:18:45] I just had to say it's really, really vibing with that. Like, yes, in my inside, like gospel choir is jumping up and down.

[00:18:59] Charlsey Childers: I love it. This conversation is so juicy, I love it.  And going back to you arm sample, you know, thinking, if you think about your daughter watching you put on a shirt. And let's say, you're putting on a shirt and you have this thought of my arms are sagging too much. And maybe you even say, oh, I hate my arms. You know, when she hears that.

[00:19:25] But then from this inner work and this head and heart work that you're doing, you say. Wait, I didn't totally mean that, or I'm trying not to believe that thought anymore. So maybe a healthier way for me to say that is, no, I don't totally love the way that my skin dangles under my arms so beautifully and angelically like angel wings.

[00:19:55] I am working to improve how my arms look. I am working to accept all things about myself and just hearing for our daughters to hear that dialogue of how we are trying to transition from really a self-patriot to a self-love. That's a really great example that you, that you brought up Cat. So thank you. 

[00:20:25] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: Yeah. On that note about kind of self image and how tough we can be as women on our bodies. There was–one of my previous episodes, they were kind of these tips on what you can say to your daughters. Phrases you can use and incorporate to help boost their confidence and one that I hadn't thought of but relates to what we're talking about is it can be hard to feel like you need to love every single part of yourself.

[00:20:55] So. I like how you were saying, you can talk about your physicality as like, maybe it's not like my favorite part of my body, but the advice that was given was pick one thing that you do love and kind of start there and make sure that your daughters hear you talking about it. So maybe it's your.

[00:21:17] Feet. Like you've always had beautiful toe cleavage, but so showing some pride and like, I love my feet and they're also super useful, like how amazing that they take me from A to B. But I kinda thought that was kind of a neat addition to your thought and my story. You don't have to put on a front that you love every single part of yourself.

[00:21:45] It's totally vulnerable and natural. And I think humanizing to say, this may not be my favorite part of my body, but to kind of also tack on, or be sure to point out something that is. So that you can start there and kind of build that self-love and comfort in your body with that one body part. 

[00:22:05] Charlsey Childers: Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes! I absolutely love that reframe and it actually very much ties into what I was going to say next about– on the flip side, when our daughters are feeling those hard and heavy emotions about their body or something that somebody else said to them that make them feel inferior or inadequate, sitting with them and relating to them.

[00:22:35] And those hard emotions like you were talking about being vulnerable. Like just an example this weekend, or let me back up last week was bully awareness week or something like that at my kid's school. And so my daughter one night came home and was talking to me about, about all of this, about bullies.

[00:22:59] And she started to worry, am I ever going to be bullied? You know, things like that. And I took the opportunity to say, you know what honey? You might, there is a really good chance statistically, that you will be bullied at some point in your life. Let me tell you about a time when I was 14 and I was bullied, and this is what happened, and this is how it went.

[00:23:22] This is how it affected me. And this is where I am now. This is where I learned from it. So, just taking what you said, and we don't have to be perfect. We don't have to have these perfect arms or the perfect feet or, the perfect self-talk, it's the vulnerable, imperfect, just sitting with our girls.

[00:23:47] And being able to relate to what they're going through because the things that they hear, the things that people say to them, it's not nice. And a lot of times they don't want a solution. They just want somebody to be there for them and be their safe place. Say, I see you. I hear you. And I've been there too.

[00:24:08] You know what I mean? 

[00:24:09] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: Yeah. Yeah. And then to hear someone that they look up to, and that loves them to hear that person also say, like that they went through this and look how they turned out. Like you were saying, like you survived and you're thriving and kind of, I would hope gives them a sense of hope.

[00:24:25] That's like, it may be rough now, but look at my mom. She went through this and she's great. And she's awesome. 

[00:24:33] Charlsey Childers: Absolutely, absolutely. So good!

[00:24:42] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: So much to love about this conversation. Here are the key takeaways. We are born whole, completely accepting of ourselves. Our feelings around self-worth are all learned. Our brains have a negativity bias. It takes five positive messages to counteract one negative message. Up to 80% of our thoughts are negative and up to 95% are repeats from the day before to help our daughters.

[00:25:12] Number one, we have to do the head and the hard work on ourselves. Number two, take small, consistent, intentional actions and let them see you working through things. And number three, be vulnerable and relate to your daughter's hard emotions. To learn more about Charles C, you can visit her website, charlescchilders.com or follow her @charlesc_childers on Instagram.

[00:25:38] You should also follow @knowberaisethem where you'll find inspirational quotes from women, reminders, advice and updates about new episodes as they're released. Thanks for listening. I know you get to choose how you spend your time and I'm really honored and humbled to share a portion of your day with you. If you liked what you heard, remember to subscribe or follow, do tell a friend and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, if you can. I would be so appreciative. Reviews do impact a show's visibility. So even though it only takes a few moments, it really does make a difference. Thanks again for that. And here's to strong women. May we know them, may we be them and may we raise them.