Today we’d like to introduce you to Lina Lie.
Hi, Lina. I’m so excited to have you on the platform. Before we get into questions about your work life, how can you bring our readers up to speed on your story, and how did you get to where you are today?
Hi! I’m Lina Lie, founder and certified Master Parent Coach at The Heartful Mama, LLC. My journey as a parent coach was an organic one. It started when I first became a mother in 2018. As a first-time parent in my mid-30s, I was determined to be the best parent to my baby. Even before my baby was born, I read all the parenting books and blogs, confident and ready to take on this new chapter of my life head-on. Oh, how very naive and wrong I was then. Motherhood was nothing like what I expected. With no family support readily available to us (our families do not live close), I find myself getting depleted rather quickly under the immense pressures of our daily lives and the responsibility of caring for a young baby.
I was feeling isolated and resentful. Despite my best efforts, I find myself often struggling with my growing toddler, and I did not like this ‘mother’ I was becoming. I adore my child but often felt helpless, confused, and frustrated during the countless power struggles I would have with my strong-willed son. I needed help. The truth is, my mind knows what to do, but when I get triggered, everything I know in my mind flies right out the window, and my emotions take over. I was not enjoying motherhood as much as I thought I would. It affected my relationship not just with my baby but with my partner as well. So, when I learned about conscious parenting and its science, I took a leap of faith in 2020 and have never looked back since. Conscious parenting led me to do some deep inner work on myself, and it has been a tremendous personal journey for me. It has caused a significant shift in my parenting paradigm, and the effects of that shift are very much felt in my family – with my partner, my now two children, and how I showed up in my world today. I do not get triggered as quickly as before, and I’m a lot more capable of recognizing those micro-moments when my triggers are activated and managing my big feelings before they get out of hand. More importantly, I can support my children when they are experiencing a hard time, using my training and knowledge in attachment science, brain science, emotional intelligence, and the nervous system.
My desire to raise a healthier and more emotionally resilient next generation (and generations after that) led me to pivot from my previous career as a corporate executive and start my own parent coaching business, where my primary goal is to support parents. My firm belief is that when parents are supported, the young children under their care will naturally bloom and flourish. Since getting my first certification as a parent coach and with support from my partner, I have continued to pursue my professional development. I am now a certified Master Parent Coach with the Jai Institute for Parenting and a certified Parent Educator with the Positive Discipline Association. I also contribute to the book “The Peaceful Parenting (R)evolution: Changing the World by Changing How We Parent.” “When I am a better me, I am a better parent.” is the underlying philosophy in my practice. Understanding our generational patterns and having an awareness of how we were parented when we were kids can help us recognize where in our parenting today, areas that we do want to soften and change, and areas where we can show up not just for the lives under our care, but also for ourselves. It is truly the best way to parent.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Oh, I wish! Where do I start? Even though I had the qualifications and training, I experienced imposter syndrome big time. There were a lot of self-doubts. “Who am I to educate or coach another parent on how to raise their kid?” is a daily question I asked myself a lot in the beginning. Of course, I also had my own trauma and emotional wounding around my narratives growing up. I grew up in Singapore in a traditional Asian household. As a child, I was taught to keep quiet and play small, that my voice and opinions were unimportant. And because I felt that I was never good enough, I kept my head down and studied, feeling more comfortable in the confines of my sea of fear rather than taking a risk to grow my business and put myself out there. I had to do a lot of mindset work regarding business and marketing. The irony is that I have an MBA and have lived in several countries throughout my life, and yet I still feel sorely inadequate in running my parent-coaching business or speaking up. This, of course, impacted my ability to get clients! I struggled initially, trying to find clients and tying my sense of worth and value to the number of clients I got, which fed that loop of inadequacy and imposter syndrome. Again, I needed to work on a lot of mindset work, and it’s still very much a work in progress for me. And with every small business, building momentum for your brand also takes time. I am a one-person gig, so I often have to wear several hats throughout the day, whether it’s coaching clients, marketing, or in a business collaboration meeting. It probably took me a year or so before I felt I got a little footing on where my practice was going.
Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about The Heartful Mama LLC?
I offer individual and group parent coaching programs to anyone who considers themselves a caregiver and needs support for their parenting. I specialize in helping parents move away from the traditional way of parenting (yelling, punishing, and bribing) and towards a healthier way of parenting that deepens connection, strengthens cooperation, and improves communication with their children, focusing on children between 0-7 years old.
My programs are essentially twofold:
- Coaching for the Parent/ Caregiver through a trauma-informed lens. I have a structured program that offers weekly topics such as brain science, nervous system science, emotional intelligence, and family values. Before we dive into what is happening to the child, we always focus on the parent first.
- Strategies and Tools from a Positive Discipline perspective. As a Positive Discipline Parent Educator, I offer research-based strategies and tools to support my clients’ day-to-day parenting lives.
Online videos and a downloadable workbook are provided for clients to reflect on their learnings of the week and how they can integrate them into their daily parenting lives. Bottom line? Change cannot happen without awareness. My work as a coach is to support parents and caregivers in a safe container, holding space for their reflections and their parenting journey without judgment, and to gently guide them in getting clarity of where they are in their parenting and how they can be empowered to become the parent they desire to be. There is a lot of parenting information out there today. My role is to help parents integrate that information so that it’s embodied in their day-to-day parenting. It is not enough to read parenting books and know it in our minds. We must integrate that knowledge into our bodies because parenting demands it. Parenting from an aligned body-mind place is the focus of my work, and I am deeply honored to partner with my clients as they evolve and grow in their parenting journey. All of my sessions are held online, allowing me to coach clients from anywhere worldwide. I also offer a sliding scale for those who are in financial hardship. All parents, no matter their income level, deserve to get the parenting support they need and create harmony in their homes.
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
Parent coaching is increasingly becoming more common. Corporations and businesses now offer parent coaching services to their employees as part of their benefits. Coaching is growing exponentially, and there is a massive market for parent coaches. Gentle parenting is now a trending term on social media; parents today are moving away from the traditional parenting approach (yelling, punishing, and spanking) and desiring a different approach to parenting their children, which greatly encourages me. There is also a growing shift towards neurodiversity and inclusion in the parent coaching industry. Somatic, trauma and inner child healing work are a few other areas I see the industry going into, and I expect to see more parent coaches trained in more modalities in the next 5-10 years.
Pricing:
- Sessions start from $116 onwards.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.theheartfulmama.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theheartfulmamacoach
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theheartfulmama
Image Credits
Portrait Design by Esmeralda
