Terry Rubenstein, the founder of iheart, and mother of six boys explains why she created this course and what it entails. She provides some background on iheart and its mission and vision in the world.

The introductory session explains that this course goes beyond parenting techniques that tend to work for some, but not for others. Rather, it offers a comprehensive ‘instruction manual’  which explains how we work as humans, and as parents. This manual not only explains why we think, feel and behave the way we do, but also reveals where we can find more wellbeing and resilience for ourselves and our families. It also sheds light on why we don’t always experience the resilience and peace of mind that we all seem to covet. The course aims to dramatically change the way we view resilience and wellbeing, thus helping us create a resilient family.

The course begins by looking at some common parenting struggles as well as some assumptions and myths about what resilience looks and feels like.

In this first session, we define what we mean by ‘wellbeing’, and suggest that it is actually built into our psychological system. This means that it’s our natural state, and can never be damaged, lost, broken or stolen, but can certainly be covered up. iheart has witnessed the powerful impact that this knowledge has had on school children across the globe. This understanding is a gamechanger for parents as well,  as they begin to have laser eyes for the wellbeing that is always inside their child.

In this session, we continue to examine the model of innate wellbeing – if it is innate, how come we don’t always feel/experience it? We explore that when we don’t understand the true source of our wellbeing, we attach it to things, people and situations. We innocently make our capacity to experience peace of mind, contentment, connection, confidence etc., conditional on circumstances being met.

Attached or conditional wellbeing inescapably puts a lot of insecure and pressured thinking on our minds, and this thinking ends up covering up our wellbeing.  We call this being ‘off track’, and we also learn that this happens to all of us. 

Session 3 explores the reason why we think, feel and behave the way we do. Our psychological system is an intelligent system – it works in a logical and predictable way. Our mind is always trying to help us navigate life. It will offer us very different ‘navigational advice’, i.e. thinking, depending on whether we know our wellbeing is innate (‘on track thinking’), or whether we believe our wellbeing is attached (‘off track thinking’).  

Therefore, the way your family members think, feel and behave in different situations is always going to reflect whether they are feeling innately secure or attaching their wellbeing to someone or something.

This session helps us learn to ‘read the signposts’ that can alert us to the fact that we are off track, and that our mind is thinking in a misguided way. Understanding that we are off track is the first step towards redirecting ourselves and reconnecting to our innate wellbeing. What will help us get back on track is insightful thinking about our unconditional wellbeing, as well as what attachments got us off track in the first place. Insight has the power to slow down, dissolve, deflate or even collapse our misguided thinking and feeling either gradually or instantly.

Now that we’ve looked at our psychological system, we explore how this understanding will help you feel more secure and less worried and guilty. Worry and anxious thinking are inescapable consequences of attached wellbeing. Our mind has to worry about the things we have attached our peace of mind to. This is true for anything from work, health, and money to how our children are doing.

We will look at a very useful question: “Do you think that someone or something can give/take away your wellbeing and put feelings in you?”. This question can activate our ‘built-in compass’,  let us know that we are off track, and help us redirect. 

This session looks at the fundamental principles that govern our relationships, both within the home, but also in relation to other school parents, teachers, or relatives. Every human being navigates the world based on how they experience it via their psychological system. Thus, we live in separate realities and will therefore disagree on a whole host of things! 

This session will explore why separate realities is sometimes a problem, and sometimes not—it’s a problem when we attach our wellbeing to others thinking, feeling and behaving in a way we’d like them to! This attachment puts us off track, and creates fractious relationships and conflict. Understanding this helps us address such difficulties at root cause, and access more of our innate and unconditional capacity for love and connection.

Now that we’ve looked at relationships, we delve into bullying.  Angry, reactive and bad behaviour is never OK. It is, however, a very logical consequence of people being off track. When our wellbeing seems threatened by someone, our minds will come up with different strategies, some aggressive, some passive aggressive and some withdrawing. None of these are informed by our innate capacity for wise thinking and resilience, and none of them will help resolve bullying. 

This session helps us understand and dismantle the False Logic that informs both bully and victim, and thereby access more of our innate wellbeing in the face of such tricky situations. 

This session looks at something all of us do innocently, almost all of the time – labelling ourselves and others. Labels, both positive and negative, are limiting. We hide behind and put ourselves down with the negative ones, and try to live up to the positive ones. Most often, labels are created on the basis of off track thinking—I am insecure, I am controlling, I am a stressed person, etc. This means we confuse our off track thinking for who we are! And we do that to others, too, including our children. This is not helpful. 

The more we reconnect with our innate wellbeing and confidence, the more we fall out of our stories, labels, and limited versions of ourselves. This extends to other people in our lives, too – when we know who we really are behind all the labels, we begin to see who others really are, too.

“My children are addicted to their devices! And to be honest I’m not much better.” Sound familiar?  This session helps you discern between healthy, normal engagement with behaviors we enjoy, and unhealthy, addictive engagement with those same behaviours. 

We explore that unhealthy engagement (i.e. addiction) is a direct consequence of us being off track, and that the more we can weaken our attachments and connect with our innate wellbeing, the easier it will be for us to engage with different behaviours in a wise and balanced way. 

In this session, Terry and Debbie answer common parenting questions using the iheart Resilience Framework as their reference point, e.g. “Aren’t there certain situations that are always going to make us feel bad?”, “My child seems to have a lot of issues – could they be the exception?”, and “How do I teach this to my children? It always seems like I’m lecturing etc.

At the end of the course you will have access to a printed version of the iheart instruction manual which is a fantastic summary of what you will have learnt!