Better Relationships

Matt Cundill  0:01  
You may also like a show about the things you may also like things like better relationships, London Reber will help you develop a better relationship with your partner, your children and yourself. And she can also help you become better at dating. London is a pivot relationship coach who has put in the hours and done the work. She's the reigning supermom of the world, and Miss California 2012. Her story is about relationships. And the first one she fixed was the one with herself. When she acknowledged her addictive traits, which started at an early age.

London Reber  0:45  
I would say started when I was a kid, that my first direct choice was sugar. I pretty much did everything for sugar that I later did for alcohol, like I would take my Halloween candy and I would divide it up between like the most delicious ones, and the not so amazing ones, in my opinion. And I would share though, like less delicious ones with my friend. And I would word the better stuff for myself. And so then like later in college, I'm making jungle juice with pop off. And then I have like Belvedere in my bedroom, there was a bunch of similarities. And obviously, alcohol is like, primarily made of sugar. And so it makes a lot of sense to me that I was constantly craving sugar even lost my first two front teeth, because I was sneaking Red Vines after Halloween behind my bedroom door. And they were like stale. And I was trying to go quick, so I wouldn't get caught before school. And I like yay did and my two front bottom teeth in right out. And I also got sober on November 3 in 2011. So a few days after Halloween, and I was 27 years old, I would say that most people in my life actually didn't really think of me as an alcoholic. So for my journey on the outside, I was holding it together enough. And I knew that I had a problem because I had like a sixth spirit, like I had a lot of dark thoughts about ending my own life. And I just knew that like when I started, I couldn't stop necessarily like I could enjoy my drinking and not control it. Or I could control it and not really enjoy it. But I couldn't do both. I couldn't control and enjoy it at the same time. And to me that was that now is like a marker of alcoholism. Like that's a huge indication to me that I am an alcoholic, a recovering alcoholic now. And so I 27 I was realizing I just wasn't really like moving to the next level, I had accomplished a lot in my life up until then to the point where I started to actually become more afraid of success necessarily than failure because it was like, every time I succeeded at something, I set this new higher bar for myself, that I had to like keep hurtling over to the next higher thing. And it was becoming really exhausting. And actually, I was running on like trying to be good enough and trying to like prove I was worth loving. And that too was I think causing my spirit to get sicker and sicker. So I was like, You know what my life is just like at this stalled out point. And my favorite people in my life are telling me that they don't really enjoy me drinking. And so I did have like a horrible last night drinking. But pretty much everyone else, they were like you don't have a problem. And what I realized was a lot of the people that, you know, say that to me, were actually drinking the same way that I was. So it was kind of a rude awakening, like mirror to look in. And I think most people like don't really want to look in that mirror if they want to keep drinking the way that they are. And again, alcoholism is a self diagnose disease like it only I could concede to my innermost self that I am alcoholic, nobody can diagnose it for me or telling me that I am and then that be sufficient for me to get sober. And so I'm by all means not diagnosing them. I just recognize that a lot of the people that were drinking the same way that I was really uncomfortable with me saying that I had a problem.

Matt Cundill  4:20  
So tell me about the age of 27 because that's the year that it's a make it or break it year for many. And we know the rockstars that haven't made it, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, just to name a few. I believe Amy Winehouse might also be on that list. But I think that there's something that happens at that age where your intuition matures or develops and springs eternal. And you choose the path that happened to you.

London Reber  4:49  
I love that outlook on it. I would say yes. And the funny thing is, I didn't know my husband at the time. He happened to also get sober at 27 and he's three years are older than me. So he has three more years of sobriety. We met years and years later. And so that's so funny that you bring up all those people, because I have heard that that the age 27 Is this pivotal point in our lives. And, you know, I just realized, yeah, that I was out of college. And I was like blogging on my existence in a career, I was working for a fashion designer, and I was traveling and getting to do that. And drinking is so wrapped up in so many careers that are like glamorous. And I had also gotten like a side job working at a bar bartending and I got a job at a bar that I could drink on the clock. And so that helps me hit a bottom, for sure. I just was like, I'm not happy. And I'm not feeling like this is my path. And so what is blocking? And I started to really do a deeper dive, like what is blocking me and I was like, you know, what, if I want to figure this out, I need to have a clear mind, I need to be able to look at the world for the reality that it is and not this blurred fantasy that alcohol offered me and the numbness or the escaping. And so it was like, Well, what would my life be like if I was really truly authentic? And I was like, my real self. And I do think that there must be something that happens at that age between like our wild child young years, and okay, now we believe that we need to start adulting

Matt Cundill  6:27  
Yeah, and I hadn't sort of start by asking you about the pathway to sobriety, because it led you to sort of this higher intuition that you have, and what you become because I've been watching and trying to understand what you've been telling people. And it's, it's sort of at this other level. So I'm glad that we that I've taken you here to this point, and I want to ask you a little bit about being a pivoting relationship coach, and about this coaching style. So what is if?

London Reber  6:52  
Sure, yeah, I actually ran it I got sober. So what took me to pivot was right when I got sober that first year of sobriety, I got nominated as an as Venice Beach and then ended up winning the Miss California United States pageant after having never been a pageant in my life. My mom had entered me when in one when I was like 18 months old. And so I do have some pictures as a baby, but that was it. And I won. And then I went to Nationals, and I didn't even face top 20 It was like so obvious that I was extremely green. And it was actually the patent system. That is from the movie Miss Congeniality with Sandra Bullock. She's beauty she springs, she's missed the United States. So I ended up getting voted by all the other states to be the Miss Congeniality, just like Sandra Bullock and I stood out like a sore thumb like she did, too. I was always an athlete, and I can dress up nice. And also I am in no way mannered to a tee. So it was such an honor to get that because through sobriety and working a 12 step program, I was doing the next right indicated action, and I was trying to align my will in my life to a power greater than myself that I believe led me at all times, and just caring for me and guiding me. And so to do that, to align my will in my life, to me means my thinking and my actions, my will is my thinking, and my life is my actions. And if I'm trying to align that with something loving, I need to be thinking something loving or doing something loving. And that's how I know that I personally am in my God's will, for my life, my higher power. And so I was actively doing that through the whole patch, right, like holding doors open for people behind me looking in people's eyes, taking the time to ask people about themselves and really being present because of my sobriety. And that I truly believe is what gave me the opportunity to connect with people to a point where they voted to have me as Miss Congeniality. And so my half is amazing first year of sobriety, where I was traveling and doing all these events. And so then when the year was that, it was like, Okay, now what, and I really realized that a lot of my affairs had gotten into order through this process, and yet my relationships there was like, still this tug, and this like rub in my most important relationships. And I still was doing these like survival patterns over and over with men and picking this like, repetitive type and trying to like mother them into needing me so much that they wouldn't leave me and right, like, proving that with worth loving, and like, don't be me, which has a lot to do, you know, from my own family system, and my parents divorce and things like that. And so I was at about two and a half years sober, and I realized, like, my relationships are still not working. I need some outside help, like I need more, I need some tools for my toolbox. So I was introduced to this retreat, and at the time, it was 12 days now it's only five that was an all women's relational alignment retreat. and I went for 12 days totally unplugged and did this incredibly deep dive into my attachment style and looked at my life from like this whole perspective lens that really took into account finances and emotional sobriety and maturity and my intellectual connections, and my spiritual connections and what I'm doing physically. And I took into consideration all these things that I had never really balanced out before. And I came out of it. And I had just actually met who's now my husband a week before I left, but I had signed up for the retreat, like months prior. And so I was like, Hey, I'm gonna go, it's like women's retreat, I'll see you when I get back. And he was like, well look like you seem amazing, I really only want to date you. So I'm gonna wait and see when you come back if you're open to still dating and, and I'm not going to date anyone else while you're gone. And I came back and I had this plethora of tools dating with a purpose, like a plan for dating, how I was going to do different things to get different results. And I applied it immediately, in real time with him. And I literally got the exact opposite like a pivot a 180 of every other relationship I had ever had. I ended up producing this pivotal other type of amazing, connected, secure relationship with him. And we've now been together 10 years married for eight. And so I was going through life as actually a sober companion and a sober coach at the time, and Laurie Jean glass, who founded the glass house, and the pivot process was launching her book, and she invited me to the launch party in LA and I found out that they had created a coaching for when you leave the retreat, now it's used whether you go to the retreat or not, you can just do weekly coaching at the time it was initially launched, so that leave with like a support net, and advocate to apply the tools which I had just done on my own right, like white knuckling. Like I was determined to apply everything that I had learned, and it was so successful for my own life. So I was living this process in real time for about five years, and realize that I could do it as a profession. And so I pivoted from silver coaching into getting certified as a pivot relationship coach, and that's what I've been doing for the last five years.

Matt Cundill  12:15  
So why do some people struggle with relationships more than others?

London Reber  12:21  
That's a great question that thank you for that I have never had anyone asked me in that way. So it's obviously completely individualized, I think it has to do so much with the stories that we tell ourselves in real time about what's happened. And so being able to make sense of our own life story and our psychological development over time, and our parts of self, and being able to understand why we do what we do in relationships actually empowers somebody to be able to then show up differently, do differently to get a different result, in real time when we understand like, Oh, this is the child part of me that like the essence of that part of me is still alive. And when you know somebody is walking out in the middle of a fight, that part of me gets in terror that I'm going to be completely abandoned and alone. And so this is just like an example, you know, so then I do whatever it takes to just get that person to come back, maybe say things that I really need or apologize for things I'm not really sorry for right. And so once you understand that it's your child part of self or your teen, or your adult self. And your healthy adult self, which is the muscle that I help people build, actually can come in and do a healthy do instead of the habitual do of those younger parts of stuff, then we can actually literally have a completely different trajectory in our relationships than all the habitual dues that have caused these repetitive patterns up until

Matt Cundill  13:54  
so you've got great advice. It's actually sort of residing somewhere inside your socials. So if you're not already following London, please do so you can connect on all those points inside the show notes of this episode. But here are a few tips that I managed to extract. And I hope you can sort of expound on them just a little bit. Here's tip number one, and this is a good one. Why is it that you should lead with a relationship instead of sex instead of having sex first and then trying to do the relationship?

London Reber  14:24  
Yeah, that was one of the things that I did differently in this relationship than I had ever done before was developing a foundation of connection with my husband, where we had an emotional connection. We had an intellectual connection, meaning like we did some hobbies together, talked about broader ideas and understood each other and our perspectives online. We talked about some finance app like I had enough dates with him to like, look and see how does he spend his money? How does he relate to money, and even an opportunity to ask questions on multiple dates to See if he had a higher power, whatever your spirituality is to explore, does this person match my spiritual practices, and it doesn't have to be the exact same way like we both don't connect to our higher privacy. However, we both rely on a higher power. And that was really important to me. So by looking at the other four categories of the whole perspective, before just becoming physical, I actually was able to feel secure and connected with him, before offering my body to be shared with him. And so then once it did become physical, it was for me more special, like it was more amazing because I had that emotional security and that intellectual bond. And so when we lead with sex, and we lead with the passionate, less of just becoming physical right away, often we have this innate desire to try to make it work as a result of having already done that. And so we'll like keep the red flags green in the other categories, often, and we'll just like plow forward and trying to make it work. Because we've already had sex and then we realize maybe three months, six months a year down the line, like knee, knee, do not have anything in common that's going to be sustainable for the big picture.

Matt Cundill  16:22  
Yeah, and so there's probably a number of Gen Z and millennials who are like, hated that answer, because you didn't give an over under for how many dates that should be before you get a green light to do that sort of thing. But I think you answered it just fine. Well,

London Reber  16:36  
if you weren't like a number two, a great thing I like to say is ask three questions on every day that are like three, dispose, like go and write down three things that you want to know about this person before going on the date and work those into the conversation because then you leave the date and you're like, wow, I really feel like connected, like I know this person more versus like, Oh, they're so hot, and oh, they're so funny, and just learning the whole time. And then you leave and you don't really know much about them. So by questions that are based in those other categories that will allow you to really look at them through the lens of reality, not who you want them to be, or who like they could potentially become but who are they like today sitting in front of you? Who is the actual person in front of you? And do you really like that person. And I actually apply that with my husband on our date. And I kept giving him like the green checkmark after he'd say like, Yes, I like who he is today. I like where he's at in his life right now. And that too, was the difference because I had always dated guys potential, who they could be if they lived up to their potential. And then it was always like, frustrating because it was not necessarily even who they want it to be. And I was causing my own suffering, because I was having unrealistic expectations of the other person's behavior. And then they were feeling pressure to always live up to my standards, and feeling like they were never good enough. And it was just not that it was just that we weren't really like a match from a hole perspective. And we were trying to force it based on each other's fantasies of who we wanted the other person to be. Here's

Matt Cundill  18:14  
another great one, another piece of gold found inside your socials. And that's do the things you did in the beginning to maintain the relationship in the long run. And I think you use that as an example of your husband, who will take the car inside and park and go and meet you at the gate at the airport. And in Hollywood. I mean, it's a very easy scene to cut, you just cut to the guy who's leaning on the horn and saying hurry up and get in the car. Right? That will show immediately that the relationship has deteriorated. But you'd have this great idea. Do the things you did at the beginning to maintain the relationship in the long run.

London Reber  18:49  
Yeah, so other things that might be like less obvious is like, if you like for me, I had like a meeting that I went to every Wednesday night, I need to keep going to that meeting every Wednesday night and not all of a sudden, you know, start plugging in date night that day instead. And if you go to the gym at, you know, every day or three times a week, you need to keep going to the gym. If you regularly meet up with coworkers once a week after work, like the things that we are doing when we need our partner are all contributing factors to making us the person that attracted our partner to us. And so if we stopped doing those things, then it's almost like a bait and flip is that was bait and switch. Yeah, when you are one way and then you get in the relationship and you stop doing all those healthy habits that were creating the person that you were, and you want to maintain the level that you attracted them act. So I like to say make a list of all your ideals in a partner, everything that you wish your partner would be and then take a deep breath and start hooray. The action towards becoming everything on that list yourself. Because what you will do is you will attract a partner from that place instead of a needy, sick and suffering place of trying to have the other person make you whole or make you happy, or show you that you're lovable. While you're becoming your own ideal. This you're giving yourself so much self respect, and so much attention and appreciation and self worth that when you need that person, you are your healthiest person in that time. So you're attracting a healthy adult.

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Matt Cundill  20:55  
is it that when we start to date, or we start to get into a relationship, especially when you get, you know, few months into our relationship, that one of the first things that we sacrifice is authenticity? Why do we give that up?

London Reber  21:07  
Yeah, so I have learned through actually becoming a certified parenting coach with the Jedi Institute for parenting, which is something else that I offer clients. Through that process, I learned so much about attachment science, and how when we're growing up as children, we literally obviously need our primary caregivers for survival. So we are hardwired to lean more towards the connection than authenticity. If it's going to come between the two, we will prioritize a connection with our primary caregivers, over our own individual truths are what our guts telling us because we need to do that growing up to survive, right, like we live under their roof, they're providing our food, and all the things. Now when we become adults, if we're still living from the essence of our younger parts of self, or when emotions get high, or stakes get high, a lot of times we'll revert back down to that child part of self or that teen and the habitual do is of how we survive in those times our survival patterns. And that will cause us to abandon our authenticity, to maintain the relationship to maintain that connection. And then each time we do that actually, self abandoning, we may have the relationship for a little bit longer. But we are even more unhappy in the relationship because we have lost ourselves a little bit more and a little bit more in order to maintain that connection. So really, the role as a healthy adult is to recognize when you have the urge to do that. And to repair that part of self to show that part of ourselves that we're never going to leave ourselves, we're not going to self abandoned again. And if the connection is not maintainable, while we're being our authentic selves, then it's actually not a healthy adult MATCH. And it would be best to say, No, I don't see us as a match in the big picture. And I appreciate all the time and spend together and I absolutely adore you. In fact, I love it. I just don't see us working in the long run. And so instead of clipping your wings and trying to make this work for just the sake of you know, not being alone, etc, etc. wish them well and end the relationship on a high note of love and respect and honor instead of having the relationship ride until the wheels fall off self abandoning Silverman who stopped waiting to maintain the connection, and then ending with a big Slam of the door, and resentments, right, and then having all this wreckage to clean up after the relationship before you can move forward and even really date in the next relationship. It's actually a major skill to learn how to break up in a healthy way how to choose to withdraw out of a relationship and to have a plan in place which pivot offers the support to do that. Like if you're realizing like I think this relationship might not be the best match for me that I don't know how to lead in a healthy way we absolutely can support you with that.

Matt Cundill  24:11  
I didn't even write those questions down. That's another chapter of the podcast we should probably get into. I mean, what's the difference between a healthy way to break up versus an unhealthy way to break up?

London Reber  24:21  
I mean, most people will do that where they choose the connection over their authenticity, and then they wake up one day and they're like, I don't even know who I am in this relationship or I don't even know how I got here. And so if you are working with a pivot Coach, what we will do is take you through the curriculum take you through a module that is about how to choose withdraw from a relationship because if you throw yourself into withdraw with no plan in place, or if someone else leaves you and you're thrown into it, it will often feel like a level 10 Pain similar to trying to get so similar to like a drug addict try not to use their drug of choice, a level 10 Because it will mimic something that happened to us when we were growing up. So our drama in our life currently mirrors our trauma from growing up. And so what's happening in real time is probably not a level 10 Like, you're not actually going to like be left with no way to survive the way that you might have felt when you were a child. And you were losing the connection with a primary caregiver. But it feels that right. And so usually, if you don't have a plan in play, when you try to do a break up, that's how we just end up defaulting back into the relationship because we would rather live at like a level six or seven pain every day, like a familiar, you know, just like Italy, making it comfortable survival level, then have to deal with a level eight, nine and 10 pain for a period of time to then create a life where you can live with just like a one through three, or even four or five on a regular basis. So most people will just go back to the relationship. So a healthy way to break up is to really get a support system around you like and sandwich all of your interactions with positive and supportive people which in pivot we call your good circle, people that have reciprocal trust in your life. So if you're going to have a conversation with that person, and let's say you guys live together and figure out how to literally separate all your belongings, right, talk to a good or texted good before that, and then follow back up after. So there's a level of accountability or your coach so that your perspective on it doesn't get so far into, I just need to fix this and get out of this pain and get the connection back that you forget all the reasons that you're walking away. And then really plug in like how am I going to choose to invest in my life in all five categories of the whole perspective, every single day doing at least one thing to show myself that I love myself, and I appreciate myself in each of the five categories. So really catapulting yourself into this safety net that can support the pain that you're going to inevitably feel when you leave a relationship, even if you leave it saying I love you and this isn't working, it's still going to hurt. And it's still going to feel like that I make the right decision at times, because you're just going to want to be comfortable at that six and seven, initially, because it takes a huge level of faith to believe that like you can live a life of just like one through three level of pain on a regular basis.

Matt Cundill  27:34  
How did you attain the title of supermom 2023.

London Reber  27:39  
So that was really fun and amazing. Somebody sent it to me. And apparently it was the first year ever, and they just completed the second year. So I just pass the reins on to another mom after that year. And it was a voting process and a donation base. You know, people voted, they could donate money, and they could just vote every day. And it was about a two month experience, I was actively taking this course called Earth magic Academy. And it was about how to connect with our own intuition, and how to really be able to follow our intuition in those tough times, instead of in state or survival pattern. And so I was doing a lot of meditation, I was doing all kinds of adding to my toolbox of how to support myself, and it was freeing me of this fear of like being canceled, or rejection or not being good enough because that is my pain body when deep down is that I'm not good enough. And that because I'm not good enough. Eventually they will leave me or reject me and I will be a bit. And that was a lot of the work I did on my family system and my relationship with my dad at the pivot retreat 10 years ago. And while I was using these tools, I just got so free of that and somebody was like, Hey, I think you should do this because I'm a stepmom. My stepdaughter calls his mom, which later she said also could stand for Super ROM, which is super cute. And I met my stepdaughter. She's our oldest when she was 22 months, and my husband and I got married when she was three and a half. And she's lived with us since she was six. And so I have loves a child that's not biologically mine as my own for the last 10 years. And that comes with its own unique challenges and experiences. And then I also have a biological daughter and a son who are six and three. And so somebody was like no wetland and such an example as how to be a healthy adult mother and how to show up in a secure way with your children. I think do this do this. And I started to just share it a little bit. And the inquiry of support that I got was so humbling, like I'm still beside myself and thank you to me Anybody who's listening to this that voted for me and contributed to that title, I'm so incredibly grateful. And so as it's kept going, I just started sharing more. And the connection for me. Similarly, even with Miss California was, the fundraiser was for Children's Miracle Network Hospitals. And my younger sister was born with Down syndrome. And I continued a heart defect, she had a one chamber heart, and they did a heart surgery immediately to just divide it into two chambers to divide the blood. And she had reopened heart surgeries while you're young, between her second and third open heart surgery, she got leukemia and was in the hospital for two years with chemo in the early 90s, when I was between seven and nine. And so I spent so much of my life in a children's hospital and connect it to this message of families going through what we went through is what the money was going to support. And my sister actually passed away in 2022. And this contest in 2023, was spanning over the one year anniversary of when she passed. And so that to me, was just like, next right indicated action, you know, this seems like God's will for my life to raise awareness for this amazing foundation. And to honor my sister's legacy in this way. And turns out, it was what you don't know at the time when you're in the contest. Turns out it was over 140,000 Moms between Canada and the US. And I ended up being the final winner of the whole thing. So it was an incredible experience. I definitely credit my sister, my sister to that. And also so witness California when I was Miss Venice Beach, the very last onstage question that I pulled out of the hat was who or what inspires you most. And at the time, in 2012, my sister was in the audience. And obviously I said, my sister and I explained why and our connection, and I believe that also played a huge factor in me winning that and also in who I am today, is so influenced by her and how she just loved life and had no idea that in other people's eyes, she was considered handicapped, or, you know, different and strange. And all the things that people often will see people with Down syndrome, ads, and so we were only four and a half years apart. So I grew up so happy to educate people on Down syndrome. And she was just my sister and I had prayed every day for a sister when my mom was pregnant. So when she came, she was literally the answer to my prayers, that I always just felt like honored to be her sister. And she taught me that we all have specialty, like my needs are different than yours. And my needs are special to me, just like yours are to you. And she just like each of us had this incredibly important message that only we individually, ourselves can carry to the world. And hers with that faith and love and that's everything. She was like, I just want more lad, like, Come give me another hug and like happy tears. And she just if anybody was arguing, she said, No, no, no, we need more love. And now today, you know, my attitude and outlook upon life is like, it's such a short lifetime that we really do have your life is so precious. And she taught me and to realize whenever I'm not thinking something while they are doing something, which is realistic, no, I'm human, that like I have the power of choice today, especially because I'm sober, to pivot my perspective, and choose gratitude, right, like find a way that I can be grateful for the situation, instead of complaining about it and being like grieving the loss of what I didn't get or fearing what I might lose, and instead being grateful for what I do, Pat,

Matt Cundill  34:07  
what do you think prospective parents should consider before they have children?

London Reber  34:12  
That's a fun question too. So I like to say, first of all, don't should on yourself. So whatever it is, like trying not to say I should do this, or I should do that or I shouldn't right like it's just like a reframe. a pivot in your vocabulary can be just replacing that with could. And so what parents could do even before having kids is to really explore that attachment science and understanding how important it is for our child to feel connected to their primary caregiver in a way where they feel safe seen and sue because that's the key ingredients to having a secure attachment. And even so that's how the healthy adult self gets to reparent. The younger parts of Sel is teaching our child seen an adult cell that in our healthy adult care, we are saying, we are seeing, and we can be sued without needing to get outside validation or it coming from another human, because that always leaves us at the mercy of how somebody else is showing up in our life, which basically puts us in a place of being a victim. And so I would like to invite parents to really understand that each child is different, each of my children, the way that they feel, say, the way that they feel seen. And the way that they feel soothed, is unique to that child. And especially like our middle daughter is neurodivergent. And the way that she needs me to show up for her is very different than the other two. No one else knows better than you when you're attuned to your child. So the key is, how do I become attuned to what my child is going through. And there's this amazing concept called Mind sight, where we try to use our vision to see what we think is going on underneath the behavior. What do we think that the child needs, and how is the child feeling that is driving that behavior. So instead of looking at just the behavior and trying to, like fix that behaviors, which is often what we do, it's like, you know, that's so much of what we do in medicine to you, right, we treat the symptom instead of the cause. And even with the alcoholism, the drinking is but a symptom, right, the cause was my spiritual sickness, the cause was my mental obsession, and not the drinking itself that I was trying to manage and control on the surface. So to as a new parent, or as any parent, to really try to attune to what is my child's needs, that are underneath the behavior. And everybody, there's a theory that everybody has five fundamental needs. And so the first need is for safety. And then the next need is for belonging or love, right? That once you feel safe, then you can actually feel safe enough to connect into that way, but that that's a need. And then comes power, and then freedom and then fine. And so which of those five needs? Is my child expressing that they need support from me on meeting? And how can I show up with my connection to my child being the highest priority over what I think other people are thinking of me, or what I think I should do to like, be a good enough mom be a good enough dad, right? Because at the end of the day, if you are connected with your child through these years, up until teenage years, that willingness is going to be the case for me when my kids are teenagers. But this is what the attachment science says is that they will turn towards you when things get difficult, because they trust that you are going to create the you've created a space that where they feel safe, where they will feel seen, even if you don't approve of what they're doing, and where you will help them learn how to soothe themselves. The difficult times, instead of turning away our resentment from not feeling safe, not feeling understood, you know, not feeling listened to. So that's what I'm practicing right now with my children is prioritizing our connection over all the shoulds, right? Like, we just moved, and we just went to the store last night and my kids were so loud. And all over the place. It was like wild animals just got let out of the cage. But they were just so excited like this is the first time we've gone to the market and our new hometown. And so I could easily go to a shame space of like, I'm a bad mom, because my kids are not behaving the way that they should, if I'm shooting on myself, and instead, I remembered I reminded myself that there's also a theory out there that kids who are the loudest also feel the same, that they feel safe to be authentic, and not fear that they're going to lose their connection with me by being their authentic self. And so of course, like, you know, there's a time and a place and you gotta read the room. And I do teach those kinds of things, too, and consideration of others and whatnot. And I was able to pause and breathe and not judge myself about thinking what I thought other people are thinking and letting that cause me to disconnect from my children and their excitement. And instead I was able to just be like, you know, what, if they're judging me in a poor way, they don't know the circumstance of what's happening in our life right now and why my kids are so excited, then they're just probably not my people, right? Like they're not my match. If they're spending their life in judgment of me, then it's okay because I'm not really interested in having big deeper connections with them anyways, right? So, as a parent, I think just knowing that no one knows better than you when you're attuning to your child, no matter what The Book says. And I didn't co sleep with our daughter and I did more co sleeping with my side and I do feel like he is more securely attached. And there's a lot of research that shows from the beginning of time I, you know that babies slept with their mothers in the teepees. And in that, you know, and so this idea that we need to put our children in other rooms like to really look at that and see if that works for your life or not? And if it does great, take what works for you and leave the rest.

Matt Cundill  40:17  
Lots of coaches out there, why should you be mine?

London Reber  40:21  
Yeah, I have lived this process in real time for the last decade. And I have created a life worth living at ease and flow, where I am attuned to myself, I have completely made sense of my family history, and why I do what I do, so that I can show up in the most authentic and healthy ways, right. And I take my clients through a curriculum that offers them the ability to do that as well. So I'm a living example of the proof of this process. And I also believe that everybody is so different that and because of my history with my sister, I have such little judgment about what you choose that when I'm working with somebody, and I make a suggestion, and they come back, and they said, I did the exact opposite. And here's the result. I'm going to meet them where they're at, and work with them now in the reality of their situation instead of shitting on them, right? Or saying like, well, if you had just done it my way, you know, none of that stuff. And so I am always the coach that's going to meet you where you're at and work from that place of reality, to get you to where you want to be.

Matt Cundill  41:38  
You have a podcast in the works. What can we expect from the podcast? Yeah,

London Reber  41:43  
I've been getting a lot of encouragement on my social media is like, I wish you had your own show, please start your own show. So now that I've moved, I'm working on setting up my office and it is coming soon. It's going to be about how you can light yourself up from the inside out, and how your outside life will reflect that. So you will be able to show up in the world where you know your level and you have your self esteem, your self worth, your self respect, actively inspired by this podcast, and then you will watch your reality of the outside reflect that back to you to then like level up your life to have a more healthy adult life. I'm gonna have guests on there that are guiding you in all the tools that they use, and tools that you can add to your toolbox to be a healthier

Matt Cundill  42:36  
London. Love it. Thanks so much for being on the show and giving us the background of the whole thing and letting us know how it all came together for you. Looking forward to the podcast by the way. Thank you man.

London Reber  42:46  
This has been such an honor so fun. You are an incredible host. I'm so excited that you invited me

Matt Cundill  43:04  
my thanks to London for joining me. It's not always easy to do this when you're in the process of moving. London now resides in Dallas and good news. She is taking new clients. All the connection details are on the episode page at You may also like.net. This episode was produced by Evan Sieminski and edited by Taylor McLean and it's built for your ears by everyone at the sound off media company