Finding Purpose in Suffering -with Erin

This conversation is part of a special series in which I talk with other moms determined to find healthy ways of navigating gender ideology in their homes. Moms whose stories and strategies may inspire you. Such a pleasure to have Erin (pseudonym) back on. You can listen to our first conversation here: Looking for Miracles -with Erin. In this latest conversation, she talks about the wisdom of leaning into the hard things, and how she works to build trust with and delight in her TID daughter who was also recently diagnosed on the Autism Spectrum. I find myself fascinated with the “peace and calm” that radiates from someone like Erin who has a strong faith that keeps them centered. She seems to naturally take a Stoic approach to life and parenting, and we explore why that is, noticing that she and I both seem to have a high tolerance for experimenting with counterintuitive strategies and that this may have worked to our advantage. Feeling emboldened by this discovery that she’s also “a weird one,” I run an idea by her and am grateful that she was such a good sport while I voiced these thoughts that I’ve been playing with about self-fulfilling prophecies. It ended up quite a lengthy conversation that I needed to trim down. I did clip a bit about what might be the larger spiritual purpose of this particular suffering we’re enduring (that is actually very relevant to the theme and title of this conversation,) and I’ve included that as a bonus track: To apply for SMP Center membership consideration: bit.ly/SMPCenter This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stoicmom.substack.com