Podcast Summary: Respectful Parenting: Janet Lansbury Unruffled

Episode: Becoming Untriggered (with Lavinia Brown and Andrew Lynn)
Host: Janet Lansbury
Guests: Lavinia Brown and Andrew Lynn
Air Date: February 3, 2026

Overview

This episode explores the crucial topic of overcoming emotional triggers in parenting and life. Host Janet Lansbury interviews coaching duo—and couple—Lavinia Brown and Andrew Lynn, who specialize in supporting parents (Lavinia with moms, Andrew with men and fathers) to break unhealthy cycles, process trauma, and "reparent" their inner child. Through personal stories and client experiences, they discuss how childhood wounds resurface, especially in parenting, and offer actionable insights for moving from overwhelm and emotional reactivity to healing and connection.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Path to This Work: Personal Experience and Need for Change

• Guests’ Backgrounds:
  • Both Lavinia and Andrew came to coaching through their own struggles with trauma and painful inherited patterns.
  • Their approach centers on "healing the patterns keeping you stuck," often rooted in childhood or past unresolved pain.
    • Andrew: Mostly helps men (many of whom are dads 30-50 years old) struggling with anxiety, addiction, disconnection, and challenges maintaining relationships or careers.
    • Lavinia: Exclusively coaches mothers, focusing on the profound internal shift (often triggering old wounds) that comes with parenting.
    • ([02:01-06:04])

2. Why Coaching, Not Therapy?

• Therapy vs. Coaching:
  • Many clients turn to them after conventional therapy or medication has not produced results; therapy often "helps make connections but doesn't stop the patterns."
    • "What therapy doesn't do on the whole is stop you doing this. And that's why they come to me." – Lavinia ([06:04])
  • Coaching offers:
    • Goal attainment vs. open-ended therapy.
    • Focus on bodily-stored trauma, not just intellectual understanding.
    • An action-oriented, solution-focused process.
• Quote:
  • “The message is not you're ill, you're broken... The message is, okay, you had some experiences that are still with you, and there are some things you can do... to drastically change your state of being.” — Andrew ([04:41])

3. How Childhood Trauma Shows Up in Parenting

• Triggers & Emotional “Tantrums”:
  • Parents are often shocked and ashamed when they replicate the very behaviors from childhood they vowed to avoid.
  • “You are often having a tantrum. Mama rage can be like a tantrum.” — Lavinia ([11:25])
  • Trauma means responses aren’t willful; the adult is overtaken by unprocessed child parts.
  • Experiencing the out-of-control feeling as an adult is profoundly scary and shame-inducing.
• Quote:
  • “When your brain knows what you want to do, but you can't do it... that happens to us as adults, it is scary.” — Janet ([10:37])

4. Respectful Parenting as "Icing on the Cake"

• Role of Healing in Parenting:
  • Some parents find respectful parenting advice either unreachable or shaming without first healing deeper wounds.
• Quote:
  • “The analogy I use is a cake. Amazing parenting coaches like yourself, you're the icing on the cake...we need to sort our cake out. Our cake is not cooked.” — Lavinia ([13:01])
  • For those with trauma, healing the core must precede parenting strategies.

5. The Healing & Reparenting Process

• Andrew’s Approach:
  • Focus on nervous system regulation, releasing repressed emotion stored in the body, and integrating fragmented inner child parts.
    • “Regulating the nervous system, releasing all the repressed emotion... reconnecting with the body so you can be embodied and safe and connected to your truth.” ([16:33])
  • Healing is described as subtraction (releasing stuck energy), then integration (reparenting wounded inner child parts).
  • "None of my practice is through the brain... your body will tell you exactly what it's ready to release." — Andrew ([21:50])
• Lavinia’s Approach:
  • Structured, goal-oriented process, often tied to practical life areas (relationships, cycles, priorities).
  • "My major tool is the inner child... teaching them how to reparent their inner child." ([23:08])
  • Uses triggers and current emotional reactions as clues to past wounds.
  • Emphasizes not pushing but creating safety for the inner child to emerge at her own pace.
  • “Often your inner child's terrified. She doesn't want to do this work. So we have to work at her pace.” ([23:08])

6. Working with Memories and the Body

• You don’t need clear memories; the body stores the emotional residue.
  • If you don’t recall, “it’s because your inner child doesn’t feel safe enough to go there.” — Lavinia ([23:08])
• "If you can feel it in your chest, in your stomach... then you can pretty much release it straight away." — Andrew ([31:14])

7. Timeline for Healing

• Andrew: Typically 12-week, weekly sessions, moving from emotional release to action—sometimes clients shift careers or life directions as they “integrate” healed aspects of self.
  • “If you can connect, if you can feel, a lot of people... can release straight away.” ([31:14], [33:34])
• Lavinia: Every 2 weeks, allowing deep actions and integration; offers constant online support to “role model” inner parenting until clients can do it themselves.
  • “I offer 24/7 online access... In essence, I'm role modeling that inner parent role for them until they can do it for themselves.” ([35:27])

8. Inner Child Work: From Dismissing to Listening

• How to Reparent:
  • Combatting the urge to rush (“let’s just do this!”) versus tuning into the inner child’s fear, offering validation and specific reassurance.
  • “It's learning to understand what you're feeling... Because we're so used to dismissing our feelings.” — Lavinia ([40:13])
• Tips:
  • Listen before reassuring ("How are you?") to avoid dismissing the child part.
  • Practice self-compassion as a daily ritual (“You are not the inner parent, you are being parented... letting go of responsibility.”) — Lavinia ([41:59])
• Memorable Quote:
  • “If you’re saying to your inner child ‘you’re safe’ and they’re like ‘no, I don’t feel safe’, then you’re dismissing it but in a more subtle way. Right? So take that step back and go, ‘How is she feeling first?’” — Lavinia ([41:36])

9. Facing Resistance and Guilt

• Cultural, Societal, & Personal Resistance:
  • Admitting one’s own childhood pain is hard due to both social and personal barriers. Many minimize their suffering (“others had it worse”).
  • “My job is to help mothers see their childhood as a parent, not as a child. So to see the negative and the positive, to see how they suffered, to see how it was difficult because they don’t want to pass it on to their children.” — Lavinia ([44:51])
• Tool: Imagine your child in your shoes—often reveals justified anger or pain.

10. Empowering the Listener

• Action Step: Start by noticing triggers—track disproportionate reactions back to earlier life experiences.
  • “This work doesn’t have to cost anything... The most important thing you can start with is looking at your triggers.” — Lavinia ([48:21])
• Free Resources:
  • Lavinia offers a free downloadable workbook; Andrew has launched a weekly group healing group.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “You’re having a tantrum. You’ve been taken back to the child part of you that first experienced these feelings.” — Lavinia ([11:25])
• “You had some experiences that are still with you, and there are some things you can do in the short term to drastically change your not only your state of being, but your life.” — Andrew ([04:41])
• “Therapy helps you make connections... But what therapy doesn’t do is stop you doing this. And that’s what they come to me for.” — Lavinia ([06:04])
• “Healing is about integrating all parts of yourself.” — Andrew quoting Gabor Maté ([16:33])
• “Part of this work is very difficult... you have to be able to acknowledge the ways in which your parents weren’t there for you. And to do that, you’re going to come across a lot of resistance... societal, cultural, religious, and from the child within.” — Lavinia ([44:51])
• “It’s not actually you releasing the emotion, it’s that part of you that was traumatized releasing the emotion.” — Andrew ([19:10])
• “You are not the inner parent. You are learning and practicing how to receive love, how to let go of responsibility to somebody else.” — Lavinia ([41:59])

Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Topic/Quote | |-----------|-------------| | 02:01 | Guests’ backgrounds & why men/dads/moms seek help | | 06:04 | Difference between therapy and coaching | | 11:25 | Emotional reactivity as “tantrums” & personal stories| | 13:01 | Parenting advice as “icing”—trauma as the cake | | 16:33 | Andrew’s healing process: bodywork & integration | | 23:08 | Lavinia’s structure: goals, triggers, dynamic actions| | 31:14 | Timeline for healing & importance of embodiment | | 35:27 | 2-week sessions, online access, role modeling parent | | 40:13 | Inner child work: listening precedes reassurance | | 44:51 | Resistance to seeing childhood pain—and overcoming it| | 48:21 | Practical first step: notice and track triggers |

Resources & Where to Find the Guests

• Lavinia Brown: laviniabrown.com • @laviniabrowncoaching
• Andrew Lynn: andrewlynn.net • @andrewglynn
• Free Workbook: Available from Lavinia's website.
• Group Healing Experience: Details on Andrew’s website.

This episode offers an honest, hopeful, and actionable look at how parenting unearths old wounds—and how, with the right support, it’s possible to become “untriggered” and transform not just how we parent, but how we live.