Sept. 2, 2025
Healing Together: Parent and Child After Abuse with Jacintha Field I Ep. 84
When you finally escape an abusive relationship, there's that moment of relief—then reality hits. How do you heal yourself while also helping your children process their trauma? This question sits at the heart of today's deeply moving conversation with Jacintha, a family counselor, art therapist, and domestic violence survivor who transformed her personal healing journey into a mission to help families worldwide. Jacintha opens up about the challenging aftermath of separation relationship th...
When you finally escape an abusive relationship, there's that moment of relief—then reality hits. How do you heal yourself while also helping your children process their trauma? This question sits at the heart of today's deeply moving conversation with Jacintha, a family counselor, art therapist, and domestic violence survivor who transformed her personal healing journey into a mission to help families worldwide.
Jacintha opens up about the challenging aftermath of separation relationship that coincided with her son starting school during COVID. Her son's emotional outbursts—throwing bins and running away—became the catalyst for her work in emotional regulation. What started as drawing emotion circles with her son evolved into comprehensive approaches to help children express and process complex feelings.
The conversation offers practical wisdom for parents navigating post-abuse life with children. Jacintha emphasizes the importance of authentic emotional expression: "We need to be really honest with our children about how we're feeling." Rather than hiding your tears, acknowledging them teaches children that emotions are natural and acceptable. This transparency creates space for genuine connection during challenging transitions.
We explore the concept of emotional regulation versus dysregulation, with Jacintha explaining that children's tantrums often represent the culmination of many stressors throughout their day. When a child is fully dysregulated, they literally cannot hear your guidance—allowing the emotion to pass completely before attempting discussion proves more effective than immediate intervention.
For parents feeling overwhelmed, Jacintha offers a powerful reminder: "You need to put your face mask on first." Finding activities that bring you joy is essential for rebuilding your sense of self after abuse. Whether through simple rituals like "tea nights" for reading together, five-minute private check-ins with each child, or creating emotional release spaces in your home, the small connections you build will help both you and your children heal.
Ready to transform your family's healing journey? Listen now to discover practical strategies for processing emotions, understanding children's behavior cues, and rebuilding trust and connection after domestic violence.
Jacintha’s Links:
https://www.1in3podcast.com/guests/jacintha-field/
https://www.happysoulskids.com/
https://www.instagram.com/jacinthafield
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacinthafield/
https://www.tiktok.com/jacinthafield
1 in 3 is intended for mature audiences. Episodes contain explicit content and may be triggering to some.
If you are in the United States and need help right now, call the national domestic violence hotline at 800-799-7233 or text the word “start” to 88788.
Contact 1 in 3:
- Send your emails to 1in3podcast@gmail.com
- Follow on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok @1in3podcast
- Check out the website https://www.1in3podcast.com/
Thank you for listening!
Cover art by Laura Swift Dahlke
Music by Tim Crowe
00:00 - Introduction and Meeting Jay
07:38 - Jay's Journey Through Domestic Violence
12:18 - Supporting Children Through Separation
18:23 - Understanding Emotional Regulation
27:53 - Connection Strategies for Different Children
36:23 - Recognizing Behavior Cues and Needs
42:23 - Finding Self-Worth and Final Advice
WEBVTT
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Hi Warriors, welcome to One in Three.
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I'm your host.
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Ingrid, once you leave a domestic violence relationship, it is normal to be flooded with emotions, and when you add kids into the mix, things can feel overwhelming.
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As you work on your own healing, learning to process and manage your emotions, you're also faced with understanding your children's behavior, helping them process their feelings too.
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Joining me today to guide us through this is Jay, family and child counselor, art therapist and founder of Happy Souls Kids.
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Hi, jay, thank you so much for joining me.
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Thanks so much for having me, Ingrid.
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It's nice to see you.
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I'm in Australia and you're over the other side.
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Yes, yes, and I'm warm, and maybe not quite so hot anymore, and you're cold, starting to warm up right, we're on the borderline of doing the happy dance.
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So we're getting our summer back and I think that gives everyone a little spring in their step.
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But we're not quite there yet.
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And here we kind of go from summer straight to winter.
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We'll have a little taste right now we're having a little taste of fall but then it'll go back to summer in just a minute and then it will be cold all of a sudden.
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It's just really strange here.
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So before we dive into talking about everything, could you give a little background about yourself, just so the listeners can get to know you?
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Yeah, so my background is actually in events and PR.
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I worked with some really big projects, but I was always that kind of person that people would come to with their feelings and emotions, because I've always been good at holding space for people.
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And in 2019, 2020, we separated.
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My son started school and it was COVID all at the same time and he was not okay.
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He was throwing bins around the house, he was running up the street.
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His emotions were so well beyond anything I could support at the time.
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So, even though I'd been on my own journey, I'd been, you know, I saw a meditation teacher 20 years ago and I'd done breath work and I'd done my own healing stuff.
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When it comes to children, it was just a complete and utterly different language.
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So I had to really research what I could to support my own child, and so that's what I did.
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I researched and we started drawing big circles and I'd ask him to put the face in how he was feeling.
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Because if I said to him, how are you feeling?
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He'd be like good, because when you're five years old, you don't know what emotion is Like.
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Everything's just big.
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And we'd always read emotion books et cetera, but I'd never related the actual book feeling to how he was feeling, and so that was what we started doing.
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We started really connecting and talking about how we're feeling.
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And that was a really hard time in our life, like it was COVID.
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We were stuck in a house We'd separated, so the entire dynamic of the household had changed and my poor little guy was just, you know, he was just not okay.
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Then we had to sell our house and move, and then we moved down to Torquay, which is the surfing capital of Australia, and it was just our element to heal, like we both needed to heal.
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Both of us had these big feelings and emotions and all of this stuff coming up.
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And that's what we did.
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We moved down to the beach and it was hard, ingrid, for years and years with my child you know there's been so many layers to my separation which have been so tough.
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He's really copped it and my poor little guys had to go through so much.
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And then, during COVID, I saw that kids couldn't gain access to psychologists.
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There was a six to 12 month wait and everything I was doing which is, ingrid, how it is today, like there's still a six to 12 month wait for kids and everything that I was doing with my own child, I knew that I could be of service.
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So, yeah, I studied, I had a private practice in Torquay for four years and I really worked with parents and children.
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I mean, I'd been on a healing journey for 20 years so I'd implement all of those things that I'd learned with parents, with children, and when I'm like I'm like all in.
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So you know, when I want to learn, I will learn as much as I possibly can.
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And so during COVID, while everyone else was doing whatever they were doing, I was studying and building a life for me and my son and, yeah, there was some big moments with him.
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But then, yeah, it was just beautiful because I had a home practice.
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So all of the modalities that I use in practice I had available to my own child at home and he was able to use sand trays and slime and all of these things.
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And then I was in practice with the kids one day and I said, hey, do you want to do some meditation?
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And they just rolled their eyes at me and I was, like you know, lebron James meditates and instantaneously that was something that really excited a child, because meditation isn't for everyone, breathwork isn't for everyone, especially when you're kids.
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So it's learning what can help children and the lessons that we know as ourselves.
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Ingrid, like, imagine you knew as an adult what you know.
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Know as a child.
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Like our entire life would be different, and that's what we do at Happy Souls Kids.
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So it's now a global platform, which is why we're talking, to be able to help children and families around the world connect to themselves and to connect to each other.
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So that's a really long-winded story of my life, which is probably only 1%, but that's kind of that's the journey and the experience of how I've got here.
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So with your clients, do you have like a whole array of backgrounds of people who come to see you?
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Yeah, I work with a lot of separated couples just because that was my.
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You know my situation and I and I understand the feelings and emotions and how hard transitions are for kids.
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Like it's like going from Pluto to Mars and I work with like neurodiverse as well as neurotypical kids and I don't have a practice now cause I'm working on the app full time.
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But when I was in Torquay, like it was just I just loved it, like the difference that I would see in a child from when they started coming to me then to when they left.
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Like it's just beautiful to be able to be a little piece of their journey.
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So, yeah, that's kind of how I got to be where I am.
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So, okay, I have a few questions.
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So obviously I have a domestic violence podcast and for someone who is just getting out of an abusive relationship, they're trying to deal with their own emotions and their own healing.
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And then, if they have children involved too, the kids depending on what ages they are.
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You know the vast age range that they process through their emotions differently than adults.
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So how do you go about healing yourself, healing them, paying attention to them, being able to understand what they're feeling?
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So first of all, I want to say that I was in a domestically violent relationship for 15 years, from when I was 17.
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I met somebody when I was in high school and I never realized how bad that was until I did a lot of the healing on my own.
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Years later I knew it was bad, but I didn't have that labeled as domestic violence, which it was emotionally, physically, mentally and so I know how bad it can get.
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I know those elements.
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There were some really tough situations that I've been in, and I've been in many.
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I don't like the word toxic I think everyone's on their own journey, but I like the word that are not aligned.
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We are not aligned.
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We are on different planets, we're in different stages of life and I spent so much of my time focused on him and saying he should treat me better.
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I never actually stood back and said why am I accepting this?
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15 years of my life I accepted somebody treating me with complete and utter disrespect, that was crossing my boundaries.
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I never even used to know what a word boundary was, and he was physically and I would continue to go back and I would go back.
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And so when I started asking myself the question of how low was my level of self-worth and self-love that I allowed somebody to treat me like that.
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So he is he.
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He has his own journey and it is not okay what he did and it is not okay what anybody does.
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But we really need to look into ourselves and say you deserve more, you deserve love and respect and you deserve so much more than what you're getting in those moments.
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And so it's.
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It's really.
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It's tough because when you're in a domestically violent relationship or a relationship that it's not aligned, you feel worthless.
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You feel like you are so worthless and I used to have a ring on my finger when we separated which said I am enough, I am enough.
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And I used to repeat that to myself because I was in a hole of hurt.
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Not only had I been in a domestically violent relationship for 15 years, my separation was brutal, like brutal.
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One day I was there, the next day I wasn't.
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And it was so tough Because when you are broken and you have to hold not only yourself but your children, that's really difficult.
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It's so difficult and I just want to acknowledge everybody that's listening that it is so hard and the first step is really being really authentic and honest with your children about how you're feeling.
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Now we don't need to go in the story, because we need to remember that that is still their parent.
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Whether that's the mom, the dad, the carer, it's still their parent and we never want that child to hate that parent.
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But we can be really honest and authentic with the child about how we're feeling.
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I'm having a sad day today.
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Today has just become a lot for me.
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I just need to let my tears flow.
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I need to just go for a walk in nature, because that's what I feel that my soul needs.
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I'm so angry at the moment.
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I'm going to hit a pillow and I'm going to scream and I'm going to let all of my anger out on my body and I'm going to go to the beach and I'm just going to go out into the ocean and I'm going to let it all out.
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So we need to be authentic with our kids because in those moments and I'm so guilty of this when I'm in pain, I will hide Like I will just escape the world.
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I don't want people to know that I'm not good and I'm gone.
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And if you do that with our kids, especially when they're going through separation, they're losing you too.
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So, when we separate is such a beautiful way that you can connect with your kids and you can reconnect with them and you can be really honest with them in a really healthy way, and when you don't have your children, we really need you to be working on yourself, so finding joy.
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What are moments in your life that made you so happy?
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What were the moments in your life that made you light up?
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Was?
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What were the moments in your life that made you light up?
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Was it?
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For me, it was like roller skating, so I started roller skating and skateboarding and surfing again, and that made my soul happy.
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You know, being out in the ocean, being next to it, being able to watch the sunrise and sunsets like that's all I need.
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I don't need much more than that, and so it's finding whatever that means to you.
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It could be knitting, it could be reading a book, it could be going out in nature, it could be I don't know what.
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What would be yours, ingrid?
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Like what?
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What would?
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What's your joy that you used to do as a kid, or something you do with your kids that just makes you so happy?
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I love baking.
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I that is always my stress relief.
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When I am overwhelmed.
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I just get in and just start baking all sorts of things.
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So yeah, that's my thing.
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I love reading.
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I might have to move to Australia because the idea of going out into the ocean sounds really lovely.
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But I want to say I love what you said about being honest with your emotions, with your children, because it also teaches them that the emotions are okay and it's okay to feel the emotions.
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Because I think so many people try to push down emotions and say like, oh, you shouldn't feel that way, you shouldn't act that way, and I think that kids can sometimes get that impression of, oh, I'm not supposed to feel sad right now or I'm not supposed to be mad about that.
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So I love, I love giving that example of just letting them know I'm really sad right now, I need to go cry or I'm really mad.
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Emotions, like even anxiety, depression.
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They all have a place in our body and so it's allowing that to be felt and heard and seen and valued.
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And you know, sometimes it's really hard and what we call mirroring behavior is we teach our kids how to process our emotions.
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When my son was eight he's now 11, he would use and he still does.
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He said to me Mommy, you're grumpy, you need to go for a run.
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He knows and I've been moving through some big stuff lately a lot to do with betrayal, and even just a couple of weeks ago I just went to the park and I just couldn't stop crying.
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I was like and he didn't shy away from that, he was like that's okay, mommy, you let your tears flow, you let all your stuff out of your body, it's okay.
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Mommy, what do you need in this moment?
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Do you need a hug?
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And it's just so beautiful that you can mirror that stuff to your children, because it's hard and as long as you are.
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I interviewed Dr Shefali once and I asked her this question and I said what if you're in a relationship and you see things so differently, like you're very conscious and aware and you love emotions and feelings, but what if the other party doesn't.
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And she said as long as we've got one conscious parent teaching children about emotions and feelings, that's okay.
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We can't change the other party, we can't change their trajectory, we can't change their purpose and how they live in their life, but we can just teach kids about how that feeling's okay.
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And so my son we've recently moved back to Melbourne from Torquay and my dad and him have become like best friends and it's so cute.
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And he teaches my dad who's like the biggest eat concrete harden up, sister hard man.
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And my son will say it's okay to cry, granddad, what's wrong with crying, you know?
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And I think that through all of this we also get to teach our next generation that the old ways of feelings and being eat concrete, harden up.
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You'll be right, get over it, stop crying.
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It doesn't work anymore with our kids.
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They need us to show up in a better way, and that first means that we need to show up for a better way for ourselves too.
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Right, and keeping all of that emotion inside isn't healthy either of that emotion inside isn't healthy either.
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Eventually it's going to find its way out and by letting it out, when it comes and like it's almost like a it's not such a big volcano of an explosion of like if you're upset you go punch a pillow and scream it's not losing your mind on your kids.
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Yeah, exactly, I mean, I will give you an analogy.
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I've had so many traumas in my life and I thought that I dealt with them, but I hadn't.
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And I went out and drank and partied for 10, 15, 20 years of my life and that was the way that I was dealing with my feelings and emotions.
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I'd mask it with alcohol and that was not good.
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And so, when my son was 18 months, I decided that I wanted to be a different human and I wanted to be the best mom that I could be to him.
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So it's been almost 10 years and I haven't drank and by doing that I'm teaching my son, you know, otherwise I would teach him.
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Oh, I'm sad.
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Let's grab a drink.
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Let's do this, let's grab a drink.
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And it's hard because our behavior, they are watching and it's we need to teach them other, healthy ways.
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And it's okay to do that because I've been there and I know how hard it is and I've, I've, I've gone there and I have no judgment towards anybody, because it is tough.
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Nobody gives you a rule book when you become a parent to say this is how to parent your child.
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You have to work it out.
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And, as we were talking about Ingrid, when you've got three children, four children, two children, they're so different, they're so, so different.
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You think you have it made with one, and then the next one comes along and throws you completely for a loop.
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Yeah, you're like I nailed it Like did I?
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Did I really?
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My boys are so different to girls and and so you know we do what we can to survive and to get through and if that's what you need, it's completely okay.
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But it wasn't my journey and all I can talk from is my experiences, that that of what I have seen in life, and I mean I've been doing this work for 20 years, so it starts with us.
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It starts with us, right?
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So I guess, talking about emotion, what is emotional regulation?
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Yeah.
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So you know those big tantrums or emotional releases that kids have in the most completely and utterly inconvenient times.
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It's that.
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Let me give you an analogy of a child.
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So a child will wake up in the morning.
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They're feeling really tired, they're not feeling great, they don't want to connect from your energy.
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We shun them out the door to get to school.
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Come on, we've got to go, put your shoes on, get your lunchbox ready.
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You need to go to school, get out, get out.
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And we put them in school and they already start the day a little bit off.
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We don't know why, but it's just.
00:17:28.472 --> 00:17:34.701
There's something about their day that they're just like, oh, I don't feel good.
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Then they get to school and they can't find their friends and they feel really lonely.
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Then they'll go into school and then the teacher will be like have you done your homework?
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And you're like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, I left it at home.
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And they'll get really angry and they'll shame you, potentially in front of the entire class.
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They get to recess and they don't have lunch that they don't particularly want, or maybe they've forgotten their lunch.
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And then they get to lunchtime and their best friend says I don't want to be best friends with you anymore.
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I've had enough of you.
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And so they just sit there at lunchtime all alone, really sad.
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And then towards the end of the day they get in the car and they're like I am so excited to see my mum and dad, like I've had the biggest day.
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I just, I just really need them.
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And so they get in the car and they say, hey, do you think that we could go to ice cream?
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Because they know that the ice cream's got to help them self-regulate and make them feel good in their body.
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And we go no, you're not getting ice cream, you just you've been at school all day.
00:18:23.108 --> 00:18:24.891
And then that emotion happens.
00:18:24.891 --> 00:18:33.528
Then it is like whoa, and all of these big feelings and emotions, and you sit there going it's just an ice cream, get over it.
00:18:33.528 --> 00:18:35.421
But it was actually their whole day.
00:18:35.421 --> 00:18:38.548
And so that is us as humans.
00:18:38.548 --> 00:18:45.710
You know that can happen to an adult as well as a child, that it's not just one thing, it's a collective part of our day.
00:18:45.710 --> 00:18:47.554
That is like that's the volcano.
00:18:47.554 --> 00:18:57.902
And so sometimes if we can just say if our child's asking for an ice cream or they want chocolate, or they're asking for a connection element, which sometimes means, mommy, can you play with me?
00:18:57.902 --> 00:19:01.713
That means that they've sometimes had a really hard day.
00:19:01.713 --> 00:19:04.362
So that is emotional regulation.
00:19:04.362 --> 00:19:13.772
Where a child is actually able to regulate their emotions, they're able to actually feel in and realize I'm angry, this is what I need in that moment.
00:19:14.420 --> 00:19:18.672
Emotional dysregulation is when they're just like in that dysregulated state.
00:19:18.672 --> 00:19:27.529
And as a counselor I will say when a child is going through those big emotional releases, otherwise known as a tantrum, they can't hear you.
00:19:27.529 --> 00:19:33.742
So if you sit there and go just breathe, just breathe, just breathe, just just just, you know they can't hear you.
00:19:33.742 --> 00:19:43.538
Just let it pass, let the entire emotion pass, because they can't hear you in those elements and talk about, when it's passed, how they could do that in another way.
00:19:43.538 --> 00:19:45.586
It's what we call in practice the uno reverse.
00:19:45.586 --> 00:19:59.948
So, hey, would you like an uno reverse where they have an opportunity to go back to that moment, to be able to do it in a way that they may have kind of been a little bit better for everybody, including themselves, and we don't tell them you should do this.
00:19:59.948 --> 00:20:03.809
In that moment we say, hey, how could have we dealt with that in another way?
00:20:03.809 --> 00:20:13.470
And so holding up boundaries for children allows that emotion to be released from their body, and that's also sometimes really good too.
00:20:14.480 --> 00:20:17.410
I can tell you a story with my son when he was at a supermarket.
00:20:17.410 --> 00:20:20.108
He wanted this particular toy and I refused.
00:20:20.108 --> 00:20:21.265
I was like I'm not doing that.
00:20:21.265 --> 00:20:26.867
It was like an explosion in the supermarket, completely and utterly inconvenient.
00:20:26.867 --> 00:20:33.073
And I said I knew what was going on in his life and I knew that it had nothing to do with that toy.
00:20:33.073 --> 00:20:37.788
And so I said I'm right here with you, I've got you, but I'm not getting you that toy.
00:20:37.788 --> 00:20:42.300
And I had to move him to a part of the supermarket where you know we were both obviously really safe.
00:20:42.300 --> 00:20:53.083
And I said I'm not getting it for you, you but I'm happy to sit with you here with whatever you've got going on, but I'm right here with you, I've got you, I can handle your big feelings, but I'm not getting you that toy.
00:20:53.083 --> 00:20:56.054
And it was about 45 minutes of him breaking down.
00:20:56.094 --> 00:21:05.688
And I've had many situations like this, especially after the transition, of him just having to release everything that he had in his body because I knew it wasn't about the toy.
00:21:05.688 --> 00:21:16.247
He had so much going on that he just needed that element of a boundary to be able to say, oh, okay, and his behavior changed, his entire being changed.
00:21:16.247 --> 00:21:18.251
It's like he almost just said to me.
00:21:18.251 --> 00:21:21.912
Thank you, thank you for letting me release that from my body Now.
00:21:21.912 --> 00:21:33.527
Most people wouldn't have the patience to do that in a supermarket, but my example is just showing you that it's coming up because it needs to be released, so let it, let it, let it, let it out.
00:21:35.010 --> 00:21:35.251
Right.
00:21:35.251 --> 00:21:39.311
So I have three kids and, like what we were saying, they're different.
00:21:39.311 --> 00:21:43.193
So I have one who, when he starts to get upset, he will.
00:21:43.193 --> 00:21:44.940
He has learned to remove himself.
00:21:44.940 --> 00:21:55.133
He will go to his room, he'll listen to music, he'll calm down until he is ready to reintroduce himself to everyone in the household.
00:21:55.133 --> 00:22:00.085
I have one child who has all the emotions.
00:22:00.085 --> 00:22:09.823
He feels the good and the bad at just huge amounts, and when he feels them, he lets them out in huge amounts too.
00:22:09.823 --> 00:22:16.362
So, like, how do you deal with all these different flying ways that they process through?
00:22:16.904 --> 00:22:25.090
There's a really good book called Raising Resilient and Compassionate Children by Lael Stone and Marion Rose, and it is really about sitting in that with them.
00:22:25.090 --> 00:22:29.143
Sometimes kids, especially in a sibling dynamic there's so much rivalry.
00:22:29.143 --> 00:22:32.971
That happens with siblings is that they don't feel seen, heard and validated.
00:22:32.971 --> 00:22:47.308
So you need to give them both an opportunity in those elements, especially if it's starting for them fighting, taking them away and just saying, hey, I want to know what happened, tell me from your perspective, and rather than saying you're wrong, you're this, you're that, that is their perspective.
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