Jodie Patterson on Staying Curious When Your Kids (and Your Identity) Are ChangingJodie Patterson on Staying Curious When Your Kids (and Your Identity) Are Changing
Cracking Open with Molly Carroll
Molly Carroll and Jodie Patterson talk about shifting parent-child relationships, identity beyond motherhood, and midlife healing through rest, routine and plant medicine. The conversation highlights humility in parenting, clearer boundaries in love, and practical ways to live from a calmer, more conscious place.
1:00:08•23 Jul 2026
Staying Curious When Your Kids Change: Jodie Patterson on Parenting, Identity and Healing
Episode Overview
- Pause before reacting and respond from your "highest self" when a child sets boundaries or asks for space.
- Accept that earning your children’s respect and companionship can be part of modern parenting, rather than relying on authority alone.
- Intentionally redirecting energy away from dating or external ambition can create space to truly see and heal family patterns.
- Consistent body-based routines – stretching, vibration plate, strength training, walking and whole foods – can transform how you meet each day.
- Clinically guided ketamine therapy and careful microdosing of plant medicines may help reduce anxiety and inflammation and offer a different perspective on life’s challenges.
“I appreciate being humbled by my children... what I found is that I have earned, I try to earn my children's respect, love, and companionship.”
Get ready to be moved by real-life accounts of identity shifts, parenting curveballs, and midlife healing. This conversation between host Molly Carroll and returning guest Jodie Patterson centres on what happens when your kids change, your role as a parent changes, and you’re not quite sure who you are anymore. You’ll hear Jodie talk frankly about being asked by her adult child to "back down" and give more space, and how she resisted the urge to react from hurt.
Instead, she paused, cried on her vibration plate, reread the message, and answered from what she calls her "highest self" – respecting her child’s boundaries while still affirming her love: "This is your life. You have to live it for you." The episode digs into radical parenting, humility, and the uncomfortable truth that many parents now feel they must earn their children’s respect, love, and companionship.
Jodie’s expansive family story – five children of different identities, cultures and beliefs – feeds into her work as an activist and board chair at major LGBT+ and health equity organisations, but here she focuses less on titles and more on daily choices.
There’s also a candid look at two years of choosing not to date, redirecting energy into family, health and rest, and what Jodie learned about her patterns in relationships, her need for both giving and receiving, and clearer boundaries. She breaks down her morning routine of stretching, strength training, long dog walks and whole foods, and talks openly about clinical ketamine therapy and microdosed plant medicines as tools for reducing anxiety and inflammation and stepping outside her usual thought loops.
Underneath it all is one big theme: softening without breaking, staying curious about your children and yourself, and letting love and humility rewrite how you show up as a parent, partner and human. If your roles are shifting and your heart feels tender, this conversation might be the gentle nudge you’ve been waiting for. How might staying curious change the way you relate to the people you love most?
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