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Podcast Episode

The Love Patterns Your Kids Are Copying From You (Whether You Know It or Not)

Growing Pains··6 August 2026·54 min

About this episode

Every self-help book tells you to love yourself first before you can be loved by anyone else. Yana Fry, founder of the Academy of Love, says that advice is a trap, and she has watched it keep high-achieving women stuck in the same loop for years. Her own work traces back to a single moment at age 8: her parents' divorce, a dog-eared relationship book, and a promise she made herself in a notebook. In this episode, she unpacks the archetype framework built from that promise, nine patterns that explain why some of us repeat the same relationship over and over, and why kids pick up on all of it long before they have the words for it. Yana gets unusually honest too: a panic attack in the middle of the Namibian desert that decided something for her before she'd consciously decided it herself, a confession about what her own date nights actually look like lately, and a story from her late 20s she doesn't tell often, the moment she says was quietly driving everything before she understood why. Your kids are watching how you love. This episode is about what they're actually learning.What You'll Take AwayWhy "love yourself first" might be the worst advice a high achiever can followWhat decided itself in her body during a panic attack in the middle of the desert, before her mind caught upWhat her own date nights actually look like these days, and why she's not hiding itThe moment in her late 20s she rarely talks about, and the wound it revealedThe nine patterns that explain why you keep ending up in the same relationship, romantic or otherwiseWhat her toddler is already absorbing about love, without a single word being saidThe one thing she hopes her daughter never has to unlearn About Yana FryYana Fry is an internationally recognized speaker, transformational coach, and founder of the Academy of Love. She built a nine-archetype framework for identifying love patterns after her own upheaval: a marriage at 22, a cancer diagnosis three months later, a divorce, and a full rebuild of her life from there. She now lives in Singapore, is 17 years into an intercultural marriage, and works primarily with high-achieving women untangling how they love, parent, and lead.Find out which love pattern your kids are learning from you. Sign up for Yana's masterclass here.Chapters00:00 — Meet Yana Fry01:15 — How her definition of love has shifted over the years04:55 — Healing old patterns, choosing motherhood12:40 — Parenting without projection22:00 — Why self-love is hard for high-achieving women24:35 — The nine love archetypes27:20 — Building self-care and connection into real life38:15 — Teaching the next generation what healthy love looks like48:40 — Quick-fire advice51:55 — Host takeawaysConnect with Growing PainsGrowing Pains is HoneyKids Asia's podcast for the conversations you want to have after the kids go to bed.YouTube: @growingpains.honeykidsInstagram: @honeykidsasiaWebsite: honeykidsasia.comHit subscribe so you don't miss an episode. If this one resonated, share it with a parent who needs it.Growing Pains is produced in partnership with Poddster, Singapore's podcast studio.#YanaFry #GrowingPains #HoneyKidsAsia #ConsciousLove #SelfLove #LoveArchetypes #ParentingAndLove #HighAchievingWomen #RelationshipAdvice #FatherWound #AcademyOfLove #ConsciousParenting #SingaporeMoms #PersonalDevelopment #HealthyRelationships