You Matter Your Healing Matters. Learning Skills Matters.
When You Give it to You, You Give It to Your Child.
Are you constantly worrying? Waiting for the next shoe to drop? Going to support groups but it's just not enough to cover all your needs? Or you know you need more support, but what? Unsure how to really help your child? Realize you need some new and better skills to connect and communicate with your child? It can be a horrible roller coaster ride, made more horrible when you really don't have the information and tools that are available to love your child through the struggles with substance use. Instead, empower yourself, empower your love.
There's fear, worry, guilt, anger, isolation, shame, stigma, humiliation, chaos, lack of sleep, health issues, so much that can compromise your ability to live your life, maintain your health, and show up as love for your child, helping them, and inspiring change. Fear is going to block that. Lack of education is going to block that. Lack of skills is going to block that. Lack of support is going to block that. Lack of confidence that you can go on will block that.
You need peace and skills so that you can save yourself, and the relationship with your child. This empowers your love. This is an empowered mom!
No one does the hard stuff without supports, at least not very well, because it's all too easy to feel stressed out by:
Worry -Where is my child? How are they? You're waiting for "the call" in fear. What do I do? How do I help? When will this stop?
Guilt - I did something wrong. I did too much, didn't do enough. I shouldn't haven't said that. I should have done it better.
Anger - The system is stacked against us,. I do so much and they don't appreciate it. My friends and family don't understand.
Grief - I'm losing my sanity. My child spirals deeper into addiction. Everything has changed and I can't make it better.
Although it makes perfect sense to think and feel these things, it doesn't make sense to remain stuck. There are many supports and things you CAN DO to empower your love!
If you have ongoing stress, you need ongoing healing and support, a treasure box of ways to get inner peace, get your energy back, and learn skills to love your child through their addiction.
“The love of a strong mom has the power to heal wounds and nurture souls.”
– Maya Angelou
It's 100% possible, but let's be real here ...
Things get hard. There's another truth, though, that you can make it harder if you get stuck believing your scary thoughts and the imagined scary future that comes with it. Thoughts like:
- "I can't take anymore."
- "Nothing is working."
- "They're too far gone."
- "I'm going to get the call".
- "They'll never heal."
Of course there are risks, real concerns, we know that tragedies occur, but that doesn't mean what you're thinking and believing is true at the moment or at all. These thoughts, left to fester, will scream at you and can cause physical harm, causing continued confusion and exhaustion. This makes you increasingly ineffective to be as helpful as you want to be, and unfortunately as much as you love your child, fear can be the thing that gets communicated more than your love. It's no wonder there's so much pain, right?
Got fear? Well, it's not your fault.
The brain is hardwired for fear. You might even fear facing the fear as if it will bring on bad luck, or the fear will consume you, or make you unable to function in your daily life. Not true, but fear can be so intense, it has you sometimes believing those things are true and that those scary thoughts about the future are going to happen.
Good news is that your heart is hardwired for love too. And love has power over fear, you have power over fear. You can surely interrupt these normal patterns of the brain, and instead strengthen your capacity for peace and love.
Maybe you've tried educational groups, 12 step meetings, other support groups (and good that you do!), but your inner peace and ability to break through the big emotions is wobbly or elusive. It's easy to feel like peace just might not be attainable, especially when experiencing some chaos or complication.
No fault there either! This stuff is hard and not all programs can address all needs.
Let's remove all fault and replace it with the realization that you just need the kind of support to care for your fear, the kind of support that helps create a safe space and time to feel so that you can continue healing and learn essential concepts and skills to love a child through their addiction. This is what makes the hard easier, or at least not as hard.
What's involved with this kind of healing?
- What you're thinking.
- How you're treating yourself.
- Your self-care habits for your body, mind, and spirit.
- Your support system.
- Learning and practicing applicable skills.
The struggles and fears are real, however, we need our love to be stronger than our fear!
Welcome, I'm Joanne
Hello to you, my fellow courageous mom. I'm Joanne Richards, mom of a child who struggles with substance use and mental health issues. I'm also a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Certified Facilitator of The Work of Byron Katie, Certified Grief Educator, with a Certification in The Invitation to Change and Trauma Sensitive Heart Math. I've earned a broad personal and professional perspective of loving a child through addiction, the hard way. I'm done with that kind of hard.
I believe that unless and until we do our own healing, we will remain in a cycle of suffering. I have caused more difficulty, estrangement, and increased struggle because I just didn't know or wasn't doing enough for my inner peace. Much of it was preventable. Of course, I didn't do it deliberately, I did it because of fear, lack of knowledge and skills.
Fear is the number one contributing factor that causes so many preventable problems. That's why I really want to support moms through the hard stuff with expert coaching, meaningful discussion, and doable activities within a safe, supportive, and understanding community of other moms loving children through their addiction wanting to help them in ways that actually help. Love wins here!
If you're reading this, most likely we share an intention to actively love our children through their addiction, starting and continuing with our own healing. We have got to care for our fears (worry, guilt, anger etc) and return to love.
With over 20 years of professional training and personal experience, I've collected some of the most effective and powerful tools and methods, thankfully that have supercharged my own healing, and I trust can supercharge yours too. My approach is deeply grounded in a foundation of acceptance, compassion, empathy, faith, with practical, evidence-based strategies that promote healing and self-empowerment. I call it loving with skills. I'd love for you to join me.
Introducing The Empowered Mom
The Empowered Mom Coaching Program is a highly supportive, one-stop place for moms to care for mind, body, and spirit. We work together 1:1 and add in small group review and support.
You're held in a safe and gentle place to listen and hear your inner wisdom's guidance. Joining The Empowered Mom helps you find that wisdom so that you trust your decisions, you trust what feels right for you and your family, and you learn what you can do instead of feeling helpless.
There is no helpless here. There is no powerless here. The clarity and power of Love guides you, learning through The Invitation to Change, developing skills and practicing them guides you. The Empowered Mom coaching helps you find that power, and it is already in you! Empower that and you empower the connection with your child and your ability to support them.
The Empowered Mom provides a place to build your resilience, skills, and confidence
In The Empowered Mom, you have the time, attention, and care so that you can continue on your own healing path, and therefore be in a much better place to support your child. You no longer have to pretend, hide or numb your emotions, you can meet them with compassion, honesty, and tender loving care. There are undeniably very tough times when you have a child struggling with addiction. Isn't that why peace, feeling more capable, resilient, and having skills and tools that work are so much more important and needed now? It starts and continues with you!
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Get personalized guidance
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Transform your worry to peace.
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Let go of guilt and anger.
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Learn essential tools to go from surviving to thriving.
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Improve connection with your child and all relationships.
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Improve communication.
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Create a path forward that honors your child, life, and love.
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Get support when and where you need it.
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Learn The Invitation to Change that helps you create conditions that inspire change and new possibilities.
Here's what The Empowered Mom gives you
Experience a unique combination of compassionate support, learning, and practicing effective strategies and tools for your personal healing and "love skills" so that you can have your life and better heal the relationship with your child too. Restore your peace, create better balance, and strengthen your resilience to do the hard things with less pain and confusion, able to meet circumstances and influence change.
Mindset and Skills Coaching
Stay focused and intentional month after month, supported by Joanne's coaching so that you experience consistent support in your healing, learning, and trying on new skills that can help you and your child.
Supportive Crisis Calls
Connect with Joanne and/or trusted fellow empowered moms during those urgent times when you need some extra support. Tap into your wisdom, remember your strength and skills, and move through the crises with some sanity and skill.
Stress-Melting Activities
Learn and practice restorative, simple, and doable peace techniques, gaining access to a variety of resources designed to care for your grief and tough emotions so that you can renew your peace and balance.
Pain into Purpose
Learn how to turn your emotional turmoil into a source for deeper understanding, resilience, and inspired choice and action. Because Love is who you are, we will use its power above the pain and for greater purpose.
Additional Supports
You will have opportunity to explore a variety of extra supports such as a deeper dive into The Invitation to Change, explore Tapping, Heart Math. nutrition and body movement so that you can enhance your healing and skill building.
Support & Accountability
Be in the flow of self-care and encouragement as you naturally progress from confusion to the confidence that you can make a big difference. Stay on track so that you can show up without added stress when your child needs you the most.
Why Join The Empowered Mom Now?
Is there a better time for peace, for change, healing?
✔ Save Time, Sanity, Connection to Life, to Love, Yourself, and Your Child: There is no better time or place for inner peace so that you feel it and can live more peacefully, especially when the struggles are real.
✔ Exclusive and Individualized Care: Benefit from the comprehensive support and transformative tools that help to create the very best healing in you, and that transfers to your child.
✔ Purposeful Contribution: You co-create an experience for yourself and can connect with other moms to supercharge our collective love so that we're creating a ripple effect through our families and into a world sorely in need of healing.
Say YES NOW to saving time and the relationship with your child.
Have questions?
Here are some answers!
How do I know it will work for me?
What can I expect from The Empowered Mom?
What is my time investment and how long does the program last?
Is there any support available between sessions?
How is coaching different from therapy?
How will this help my child?
Can I cancel my enrollment if needed?
What is The Invitation to Change?
The Empowered Mom is a comprehensive coaching program for moms of children struggling with substance use to have 1:1 continuous support to cope with emotions and challenges, to learn and practice valuable skills of loving a child through their addiction, and create conditions that can inspire change.
This is not therapy. No online discussion should be used to replace professional help if that is needed.
