Meet Mercedes Samudio of Shame-Proof Parenting in La Habra

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mercedes Samudio.

Mercedes, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Being raised by someone who was not my biological mother really shaped how I saw myself, how I saw families, and how I saw parenting.

And, it also put me on the path to figuring out how to support and heal families. As I healed my own relationship with the woman who raised me, and as I began to work with more and more families professionally, I realized that so many parents crumble under the pressure of being shamed, not knowing if they’re doing this parenting thing right, and struggling to connect with themselves and their children.

What I’ve come to realize is that although I have the credentials and I have the training to support families, the parents that I work with have the experience of raising a human while trying to be authentically human themselves.

The more I began to connect the dots between my healing journey, education, and the experiences I was hearing from the parents I worked with, I began to see a very vivid and beautiful picture.

It didn’t matter whether I had children. What mattered was that I had the empathy and heart to give space to parents because I was the grown-up child they were trying to raise; I am the child of each and every parent that I am on a mission to support.

This journey leads me to create a social media campaign to support parents and change the ways that we think about becoming parents.

The #endparentshaming campaign grew out of the understanding that parents are humans too! Then, the idea for the framework that I use to heal families and support parents, called Shame-Proof Parenting, stems from the notion that in order to change anything it must start with individuals who are ready to change. In the work that I’ve done, and even in my own healing, I noticed that people change and maintain that change in a space that does not have shame or judgement. Shame-Proof Parenting is not saying that there is no shame; it’s saying, when the shame hits you in your parenting you will have the skills and tools to reflect and respond as opposed to deflecting and reacting.

In others words, Shame-Proof Parenting is all about taking what others meant for harm and using it to build up you and your family’s strength!

Ultimately, I want to change the world. I know, I know, lofty goals and all that. But, seriously, I love parents and I love giving them the space to be fully human. We can’t expect parents to raise healthy humans if they don’t have the space to be healthy humans themselves, right?

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The road to supporting parents while not being a parent myself has definitely been a tough road. Managing my own healing journey, the imposter syndrome that comes from taking risks, and working with a population that has systematically been given impossible expectations to succeed coalesce into a hodgepodge of struggles. The main thing that helped me manage those pitfalls and keep going was the idea that we needed to have a new perspective on helping parents raise healthy children, and I knew that it could no longer only include parenting skills and strategies. Coming from a family where shame and guilt ran rampant, I knew first hand the effects of this baggage and how it can influence every aspect of an individual’s being. This truth, this passion, helped to cushion some of the tougher times when I felt like things were not going as planned, when people questioned my skill set or my goals, when I was told that I couldn’t make it as a therapist turned parent coach, and even when people felt like I didn’t deserve to have the success I had earned. I believe that even though going through tough times makes us stronger, I also believe that having support and a strong community create a safe space for you to reflect on those tough times. So, both my passion for parents and my creating a great community of people who lift me up, I’ve been able to feel more confident with this world changing work that I am committed to.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Shame-Proof Parenting – what should we know?
Shame-Proof Parenting is the umbrella that covers so many pieces of my business. In one corner, I do parent coaching with families, mostly online. That entails working 1-on-1 with a parent, or co-parents, to help them find solutions to their most challenging parenting issues. In another corner, I am a speaker who facilitates workshops and discussions – both virtually and in person – to help parents and professionals learn the tools they need to understand and execute the Shame-Proof Parenting framework. In a different corner, I am an author. My bestselling, award winning book, “Shame-Proof Parenting” has allowed me to reach so many more parents, families, and professionals to really extend the reach of my #endparentshaming campaign and truly change the world, one reader at a time. And, in the last corner, I am a professor. In this role, I teach the next generation of healers and clinicians who can help heal families, couples, and individuals, and help end the stigma around mental health. If I had to narrow all that down to what I am know for, I would say that most people know me as the “Oprah of Parenting” (my husband coined this term), or more humbly, the girl with the passion for parents!

Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
If you had asked me this question a few years ago, when I was still trying to find my space in the world, I would have said my education.

But now, I would say that the characteristic that is more important to my success is my passion for what I do. It’s pretty relentless in that I will seriously talk anyone’s ear off about how we have to create a new paradigm for parenting that includes an understanding of how individuals create a parenting identity and how that identity influences so much of who we are in the world.

Contact Info:

• Address: 18 40 W Whittier Blvd #95
  La Habra, CA 90631
• Website: http://shameproofparenting.com
• Phone: 310-351-3609
• Email: mercedes@shameproofparenting.com
• Instagram: http://instagram.com/ShameProofParenting
• Facebook: http://facebook.com/ShameProofParenting
• Twitter: http://twitter.com/ParentSkillz
• Other: http://thefamilycouchshow.com

Image Credit:
Ernesto Segismundo
Creative Commons

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