From Perfection to Connection: One Mother's Story of Transformation

Perfectionism in parenting is more than just high standards—it’s a deeply ingrained cycle passed down through generations. In this episode of The Tarryn Reeves Show, transformational life coach and behavioral expert Diane Sorenson reveals how perfectionism shaped her own parenting and how a life-changing moment with her teenage daughter forced her to break the cycle.

We dive into:
✅ How perfectionism and generational trauma influence parenting styles
✅ Why many parents unknowingly recreate the same toxic patterns they grew up with
✅ The fine line between teaching necessary life skills and imposing limiting beliefs
✅ How to shift from controlling your child’s behavior to leading with connection
✅ Practical mindfulness, journaling, and self-awareness techniques to become a more conscious parent

Whether you’re a parent struggling with perfectionism, control, or emotional triggers, this episode will give you the tools to break free and parent with confidence and connection. 

Connect with Diane:

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Transcript

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Welcome to the Tarryn Reeves Show, where your journey to empowerment takes centre stage. I'm your host, Tarryn Reeves, bestselling author and publishing expert. Together we'll dive into the hearts and minds of visionaries, disruptors, and trailblazing leaders to explore the most compelling and thought provoking ideas in life, business, and marketing. Let's inspire, impact, and ignite. This is The Tarryn Reeves Show. In today's episode, I'm joined by Diane Sorenson, who is a certified transformational life coach specializing in relationships and parenting. Thanks As the founder and CEO of Beautiful Behavior Coaching Programs and host of the Beautiful Behavior Podcast, Diane is on a mission to empower women worldwide. She has over 30 years of experience in early childhood education as both a teacher and later as a behavior specialist. So she brings deep expertise backed by degrees in early education and behavioral science. In 2003, Diane's perspective shifted profoundly when her 17 year old daughter faced a mental health crisis. This experience awakened her to the generational and cultural patterns that influence our lives, sparking her own journey of self discovery and healing. Today, Diane inspires women to embrace their truth, break free from limiting patterns and create fulfilling lives. Diane, welcome to the Ternary show. Thank you very much for having me. So happy to be here. My absolute pleasure. I'm excited to talk to you about all things parenting relationships and especially about the topic of perfectionism because us mamas are so brutal with that aspect of perfectionism. But before we dive into all of that, starting with your journey, Diane, because it has been a journey. Can you share the moment that really made you realize how deeply. Perfectionism had impacted your life, especially in the aspect of motherhood. I grew up in a typical middle class family, but what had the biggest impact on me was this high value on how other people saw us in us, as in my family, us children, my mother, and the other thing was. The high value on not upsetting anyone. And so what these resulted in for me, the impact these had on me, and it wasn't that anybody said, Oh, we have a high value on how people see us, or we have a high value on don't upset anybody. It wasn't about what was said. It was more that this was a lived experience. And so the impact it had on me. Was that I really didn't matter. It didn't matter who I was. It mattered how I was. So I was going to stop you right there. Like how powerful is that statement right there? It didn't matter who I was, mattered how I was. And I feel like society. And I think it's more of a Western culture maybe because I haven't experienced this. I grew up in Africa and the traditional cultures there, I didn't really see it there, but I also haven't lived it, but especially Western cultures. And now I live in Australia and I've traveled in the States, traveled in the UK and it is, it's this underlying thing is don't stand out from the crowd, fit in, don't upset anybody. Don't be too loud. Don't be too you. Yes. Ooh, that's terrible. Don't be too you. What a load of bullshit. It is. It is. And, yeah, it's, it's all about behave. You need to behave. Which means be good. Which means Act in a way that is pleasing to others at the sacrifice of yourself. And if I'm upset, well, that doesn't really matter. I just need to suppress that because my upset would be upsetting to somebody else. So, this underlying sense that always behave and never upset anybody. That is really what led to perfectionism. The black and white, that you're either good or you're bad. You're either right or you're wrong. And right meant how society, how culture told us to be. Was it specifically your mom? Because we're still talking your early childhood here. Was it specifically your mom that was driving that perfectionist attitude or was it your dad as well? It was mostly my mom. Yeah. If this is more of a Female felt thing, like a feminine felt thing. And whether that comes down to the generational wounding from when we used to be really, really powerful players in the game way back when, like when women were the wisdom keepers and the intuitive ones and be held as that. And then the church happened and patriarchy happened. Oh my basher at all? Like I love our men. I actually feel really sorry for Amin because there's so much wounding there as well. To the fact where they don't feel okay to express any sort of emotion except anger or pride or I don't know, very archaic. He is upset about something. It's like something is deeply upsetting. And so it's interesting to me that it was your mum. Driving that because I have a similar experience as well. And then that does bring up the question of generational trauma and wounding. Can you speak to that? Because your mom was modeling it for you, which means then I'm assuming. I did. Even though we say. We have this sense that, Ooh, I'm going to do it different. If we don't have the awareness on what the pattern actually is, we aren't able to, even though we want to do it different somehow, we often end up, there I was being my mother. And so, I'm sorry, what was the question? Generational trauma and how your mom was modeling this. Which means that when you went into motherhood yourself, you were subconsciously modeling that would have been subconsciously absorbing that. And then would go on to model that unless you chose to break the cycle. Right? So here's what happens is all of this was embedded in my mother's insecurities. She was very insecure about being judged negatively being enough. Right? Am I enough? Do I belong? And so when we question that as an individual, even when we become parents, it 10 X's itself. And then it's now I have to make sure my children are a certain way so that they're loved and accepted and that I am seen as a good mother. Right? So culturally Western culture, anyway, is. A good parent is defined by good behavior. A well behaved child equals a good parent. Yeah. Which again, like you said, is bullshit. Because we are attaching our goodness to the behavior of a three year old, of a five year old, of a 16 year old. Yeah. Who are developing humans. Yeah. So I had a lot of insecurities, also, I had a lot of insecurities around using my voice and oh my gosh, am I going to say the right thing, am I going to say the wrong thing, are people going to be upset? I wore this costume on the outside, I looked like I had it all together, but on the inside, I was crumbling. And so when I had children, I too was like, oh, am I good enough? This was all happening below the level of consciousness. It's just a pattern that continues, and it's really performative. Trying to be good enough means your children have to be good enough. You want them to be good enough, and in the process of that, I say my mother had two sides. She had one side that was this big dark shadow, where she would yell and scream and whatever to get us to behave, whatever that meant at the time. Be silent, be still, be quiet. And What I found was that when I performed and made it look like I had it all together, people loved it and I gained approval. So it worked for me and the gold stars were pouring in. But then I had children and the children were just being themselves. They weren't performing and I couldn't quite understand why they weren't performing in my little performance here. They weren't playing the role. So annoyingly unwittingly, I became their big dark shadow. Yelling, grabbing, squeezing, taking their stuff away, threatening them, whatever it took to get them to be who I needed them to be seen as a good mother. Cause now I'm protecting all my insecurities annoyingly. And all of this. This came to light for me when at 17, somebody came to me, a teacher of my daughter's, and even though I had a background in education, I had all this education, this is something at a deeper level. And so this teacher came to me and said, your daughter is cutting herself. So she was self harming and that was devastating. Yeah. It was devastating to think, how did we get here? And as we began to unravel things, these generational patterns started to show themselves. And what I then understood was, Oh, her pain is being shown on the outside. I suppressed my pain. And so what my analogy is that my cuts were on the inside. I was cutting myself down in my head. I was calling myself names, criticizing myself, and even starving myself to gain approval of everybody else. And when it became too much, I numbed it with alcohol. Yeah. And now her behavior. was saying, help, this is too much. She couldn't suppress it anymore. She couldn't contain it. And so her cuts really became the symbol of our generational trauma. It was her pain. It was my pain. It was my mother's pain. It was her mother's pain. And all the mothers before that were showing itself. in her. Yeah. And so she became my catalyst for growth and transformation. And that's what I bring to the world now. I have two kind of lines of questions I want to go down, and I'm a little bit torn as to which one I want to do, but let's, you know what, we're going to do both. As a mum myself, and you're a parenting expert, right, you're a behavioural expert, do you feel that there is a fine line? For us to walk as parents between teaching our child who is developing, doesn't matter what age, the right skills or not right, the necessary skills that they need to be healthy, functioning adults in the society in which we live, compared to inflicting our own one's beliefs and good enoughness onto them. Because I feel like that's like a knife edge to walk. Yeah, it's a dance, right? It's a dance. And so here's the shift for me really is from a model of do as I say, which is the traditional Western model, new, a model of be the change. So, is it lead by example, essentially what you're saying? Yes. You're leading by example and understanding, becoming aware of our own triggers because those are where our insecurities lie. So when we're triggered, often we say, Oh, my children are just triggering me all the time. They know every button to push. It's not that they know every button to push. It's that we are seeing in them the things that we were told not to do or not to be and it scares us. Oh, that is such a good reframe. That's such a good thing to bring from the subconscious into the conscious because it's true. Yeah. So that trigger is bringing up. undesired emotion. And that is our past really showing up in our present. And if we don't acknowledge it, take ownership of it, understand it, and work with it, it will be a barrier to the future we actually want. Yeah. And so that's the shift. It's really noticing where we get triggered. Taking ownership of that, becoming curious and willing to dig underneath that, to find our own insecurities because that's our wound. And so we can parent from a place of healing rather than a place of woundedness. So my mom was a wounded mom. She was parenting from a place of woundedness. I did the same thing. I parented from a place of woundedness and now I'm healing and I'm passing the healing on. So that's the trajectory that I hope that we can go. That's the possibility. So your daughter was 17 at the time, which is quite a turbulent age, if you like, from my own experience for you to suddenly then, well, I suppose it wasn't sudden because it would have taken work on your behalf as well, but then to switch from this wounded kind of parenting style to this leadership. style. I wonder how it was received by her. What is your perspective? Because she would have been so used to you being this one way and suddenly you're trying to be this other way. Was there a lot of conversation, open conversation between you and her? That's a great, great question. So this is a process and it happens in layers. And it happens over time. And so, this is transformation. This isn't, okay, we're going to stop doing that. And now we're going to start doing all of this. Transformation doesn't happen that way. It happens in small shifts over time. And so, these small shifts, though, can start happening quickly. And they're so powerful. They might be small, but they're so powerful. Just to be able to get through a challenge. Without exploding or without being able to navigate it in a way where you're regulating is so, so powerful. And yes, to more directly answer your question, there was some resentment in, Oh. Okay, so now we're going to start changing things. But here's the thing. It's how I started showing up differently over time, and that has a great impact. So showing up more compassionately, showing up in a more connected way. That has had a tremendous positive impact. So it wasn't that, okay, I'm going to do this so you, to change you. And maybe at first there was some of that, but when I was able to let go of trying to change my children, trying to get them, we always say, how do I get them to do this? And how do I get them to do that? When I could let go of that and say, here's. Here's how I'm going to show up. Here's how I'm going to be or what I'm going to do. That really gave them space, her space, to decide how she wanted to show up in her life. And she actually started her own healing journey. So we're really doing this together now and yeah, it's beautiful. It's been tremendous. For the parents listening who are stuck in that conditioning of the wounded parenting style, what tips and techniques can you offer us to realize? Because the first step must be awareness, like, oh, I'm acting this way. And then the next step must be The choice to choose differently or to act differently and then to actually do it. But that's a really hard thing to do in the moment, especially when you've got younger kids. I mean, your daughter was 17 and that's not to say it wasn't challenging, but if you've got, I don't know, five year olds and 12 year olds who are having an absolute meltdown and I don't know, throwing their food across the restaurant, you know what it's like. How does the parent in that situation harness their own feelings and their wounds and put them into a more positive spin, if you like? Yeah. And so it all starts with taking ownership of this is triggering me. My child is having a fit throwing food across the restaurant and that is triggering me. So I'm going to take a few deep breaths and then I'm going to be there as best I can be their steady sturdy leader. So here's what we're going to do. I'm going to pick you up and I'm going to take you out right now because throwing food across the restaurant is not going to happen right now. And I'm not saying there is not one right way. So that's an example, right? Mike, that's an example. That's an example. And then be exploring what is going on with the child rather than just stop, stop it. Don't behave that way. Behave this way. Beginning to explore what is happening here with this child. What just went on? Because that behavior right there says. I need some help here. I do not know how to handle this frustration or disappointment or whatever it is that I am feeling right now. Because here's the thing, we see behavior on the outside, but it starts on the inside. It's driven through our emotions. So if we can start to explore our own emotions and learn, how do I manage frustration? How do I manage disappointment? How do I manage my disappointment when my child Throws food across the restaurant. Yeah. So when we can start to explore and connect to and work with our own emotions in our body, then we can start to help. We are better equipped to help our children. So we can't teach any skill we don't have ourself. And really these are the skills of emotional intelligence. which is an intelligence, which is in our body. So it's really embodying our body, knowing where do I feel this anger? Where do I feel this disappointment in my body? Where in my body do I feel it? Because we tend to think or believe that you are making me feel this way. Yeah. When in reality, that's the power to make you feel anything. Right? And if you do believe they're making you feel angry, you have given your power to them. And now you're a victim to them. And now they, this five year old, is in charge of you. Now we've given them the job to manage my emotions. Can you imagine that? We do this unconsciously, but when we really take it apart, it's like, wow, this is crazy. Yeah. Yep. Queue chaos. Absolutely. Yeah. So it sounds to me like this is a lot of personal and inner work that one has to do on a daily basis. What would you recommend somebody be doing on a daily basis? One of them is journaling. I highly recommend journaling or writing it out. Some people get triggered with the whole journal word. Write it out. Write morning pages, write evening pages, write out what's going on with you. And some people are like, I don't know what to write. Just write that. I don't know what to write. This is stupid. Blah blah blah. And then just see what comes out. Set a timer for five minutes. See what comes out. You might be surprised at it. This is a way of bringing the unconscious to the conscious. Another way is any kind of meditation practice, mindfulness practice, breath work, any of those type of practices are good practices also. So the work I do, I work with three modalities. So it's embodiment, mindset, and subconscious programming. So really everything you do is about bringing that subconscious to the conscious. So we can rework it. I think that for a lot of people, when you say, where are you feeling this in your body? I think a lot of people these days have been so conditioned to not feel anything at all. So when you say, where are you feeling this in your body? People are like, what the fuck? What do you mean? I know. I remember the first time somebody asked me that, what are you feeling? I said, angry. Where do you feel in your body? And I said, what? Yeah, that was like crazy talk. So yeah, I get that. And it, so we practice, Hmm. If I were to feel anger somewhere in my body, where would it be? And so we start to become aware when you feel that what's happening with you. Is your face getting hot? Is your hands sweaty? Is your heart beating like out of your chest? So it's just really just starting to become self aware, which really means body aware. Inner world aware, what's going on internally for me. And I get your questions, Tarryn, because I was there. Totally did not know what my internal world was at the time that all this was happening. I remember I went to see a therapist once. So I'm from Africa originally, and I have in the past been diagnosed with PTSD, chronic depression, and major anxiety. And that was a whole healing journey. I remember going to this, I think she might've been a. Psychotherapist, I can't remember what she was, but she said to me, she said, you actually don't feel your feelings. And I was like, well, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Of course I feel feelings. And I was so angry at her. I didn't go back. Upon reflection. And this is a couple of years later. I'm like, you know what? She's actually right. Because I think that a lot of us, especially when you've got trauma, whether that's big T trauma, little T trauma, any kind of anything in your system that you haven't dealt with. You become so numb to any feelings except your default feeling. So my default, I'm always a fighter. Other people will fawn, other people will run. But I'm like a, nah, I will stand and fight every day of the week. And it doesn't matter what it's about. That's my default. It's anger. It's fight. It's a defense. He was right. I hadn't, I hadn't cried for years because no, that was weak. And the underlying fear behind that was that if I start crying, I'm going to fall apart and I will never be able to put myself back together again. Right. And I tell the story of how I had two feelings, happy and mad. I didn't feel them. I acted them out. So when I was mad, everybody knew I was mad. If I was happy, everybody was happy. And that was it. And I, too, did not do sad. I was completely disconnected from sad. Yeah. I wonder why that is. Why do people feel disconnected from sad, do you think? I think it's very difficult to feel sad. It's painful. Right? It's one of the most painful emotions. It's easier to be angry. Anger is a protector. So anger protects us from, usually there's fear underneath that anger and underneath that fear is the sadness. It's the grief of having to have abandoned myself in order to survive this environment. Is it the ego that is driving these default fears as a protection to everything else that's underlying? Yeah. Our self preservation, our brilliant mind, creates all these coping mechanisms. And yeah, we form a false self, which you could call the ego. And the ego protects us. The ego kind of gets a bad rap where you're like, Oh, it does get there to protect us. It really thinks if somebody's upset, you will die. So don't upset anybody. Yeah. Well, what's the underlying feeling, right? Right. It can be that intense for some people. Right. And so again, the healing all comes in layers. Like you said, if I open those gates of sad, it's never going to stop, but it doesn't all come at once. It's, it's in layers so that we can handle that. So I always say the work is never done. We're always evolving. And the other thing is that this isn't work we can do by yourself. We have also been conditioned to believe that if you need help, there must be something wrong with you or you're doing it wrong. And that is not true. We are not meant to raise children by herself. We are not meant to do life. By ourself, we need mentors. We need each other who people who have gone before us and have made the transformation was really helpful. And that's what I did. First. I started getting information, reading books, reading new information. Then I started hiring a therapist. And then after a while I hired a coach and now I have several coaches always in my life. As I'm evolving, we're in this together. Absolutely. So instead of perfection, we should really be seeking connection, right? And connection is such a powerful concept and one I know that you're a fan of. Can you tell us what does it mean to live a life that's rooted in connection instead of perfection? Yeah, so perfection again is the disconnect from my deeper self where then I live in my head or the ego or the false self and the false self I created to be able to go out into the world and do the things I did was this. Outward costume, I call it, of I've got it all together. And that was helpful to a point. It got me to be able to be out in the world, to go get an education, to have a job, all of that. And then, when we get to be adults, those very same coping skills start to keep us stuck. And sabotage our evolvement, our continued evolvement. So that's when this middle age thing, that's, that is our time to reconnect. Connect with ourselves. So connection, I think I hear so much. I think we're a culture of, we're longing for connection. Oftentimes like me, I thought connection meant spending time with other people. And that's not what it means. It means, first of all, I need to be connected. With me, my heart and my mind, I need to be connected to my inner world, and then I can better connect with others. Because here's the thing, perfection is a shield. Perfection is armor. And if I'm in perfection, then I'm actually unknowingly defending against connection. Because I've armored myself up. So connection is very vulnerable. Yeah, it is. Connection means you are connected, you are attuned to that person on an emotional level. And if we've disconnected from our feelings, and we're not really feeling our feelings, and we've numbed down our feelings, and we're numbing our connection, does that make sense? Yeah, 100%. And I feel like parenting, honestly, being a parent is one of the hardest, horriblest job in the world. And yet we keep going back for more, but it can also be one of the most rewarding jobs. If you allow it to be your catalyst for change, expansion, and growth, because I'll use my own story as an example. So I have an eight year old girl. And when I had her, it was like looking at a miniature version of me in a mirror and all of my wounds were being reflected back to me. Minute by minute, 24 hours a day. And it was brutal. Oh my gosh, it was brutal. And it still continues to be brutal now, but it offers you that opportunity and you can choose to look at the insights that it's giving you, or you can choose to resent them. And get stressed about them. And then that's obviously the triggering, right? That's triggering the wounding and you can choose to heal it, or you can choose to just swim around in your own misery, if you like, and I then found myself unexpectedly expecting my little boy is now one year old. And I always say to myself, I'm like, he came to me because I obviously still have lessons to learn because he wasn't planned, but he's also one of my greatest gifts. And he is now reflecting back to me because your kids act differently at certain ages, they all have these milestones. And this is, I'm viewing this as my opportunity to go, okay, well, this is the stuff that you didn't work on with your daughter. You've come so far, but now you need another go because. You still have these little things and he shows me different things than she did because these are still aspects that maybe I wasn't ready back then to address or were deeper down if you like. So now I've done all the work with my daughter or what my daughter has shown me on myself. I've now got the opportunity again. So then you've got these two little people reflecting things back to you. And it is. Hard parenting is, and I had three around reflecting back to me and then you add in like stepchildren and things like that as well. And it's like, Oh my goodness, like next level growth. Yeah. And I always say you get the exact children gifted to you. That you need to heal those broods. I couldn't agree more. They honestly are like little gifts of stardust that sometimes I'm not thinking gifts. Sometimes I'm thinking what the hell. I know. Where did you come from? Because it wasn't heaven. I know. And it can be brutal. And that's why I say we're not here to do it by ourselves. No, 100 percent we have to seek that connection with yourself, with your support network, with educators, with coaches, with books, with all of the amazing resources that, you know, as ridiculous as today's society is, there's also a lot of gifts in it with the advancements in technology and information that we now have at our hands. It's how we choose to interact with it that makes the difference. Right. Every challenge can be a catalyst for growth. Oh, I love that. Now, Julie, we have a tradition on this podcast called the book drop, and we want to know what book perhaps has been your catalyst for growth, either on a personal level or a professional level. Well, the book that has impacted me the most, both professionally and personally, is Brene Brown's book, The Gifts of Imperfection. Ah, yes. What a great book title, The Gifts of Imperfection. And that's pretty much been our whole conversation, right? What did you love so much about that book? I just love how it just spoke to me. I could relate to everything in there. The worrying about whatever everybody's going to think about me. It's all of it. I have the book and it is, you know, I've got post its in it. It's highlighted. It's marked. It's yeah. I've read all her books, but this is the one I keep going back to and back to and back to. Yeah. She's an amazing woman. Personally, I find some of her writing a little bit dry, but I love hearing her speak. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Diane, thank you so much for your time today and it has been an amazing connection to make. So thank you for your wisdom. Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure. That's a wrap on today's episode. If you love the insights and inspiration, don't let it end here. Hit subscribe to stay connected and turn your visions into reality alongside our community of change makers. I'm Tarryn Reeves. Thank you for joining me. And remember your story has power. See you in the next episode.