Ep 20: Moms feeling overwhelm with Gina Fontaine, Author You are a Supermom!

Ep 20 Moms feeling overwhelm  Today I am speaking with Gina Fontaine, a mother of two, a personal trainer and the author of You are a Supermom.  Today she will be discussing a few things you can do to help with the overwhelm you may be feeling and wants provide you with tips to help you reclaim your superpower and thrive as a mom.  

0:00-Introduction

2:07-What lead you to write “You are a Supermom.”

6:15-What are you doing to help you accept this Supermom role

9:04-Modeling with your children 

10:55-Discussing moms and multitasking

18:00-Helping moms feel empowered to not have to do it all

21:50 How to calm ourselves when things are getting hard

24:00-Finding joy in your workouts

27:00-One minute wellness solutions

29:00-Becoming more present in your every day life

33:00-Shifting your mindset from being a mom is tough

35:57-Moms supporting moms

38:30-Getting over the vision of what life would be like as a mom

40:30-Letting your kids fall

42:30-Slowing down is the new fitness

Thank you for taking time out of the day to listen to our podcast, I hope you enjoyed hearing from Gina about how you can start to thrive as a mom.  Make sure to head to her MomsThriveTribe fb group as she will be hosting a launch party on Sept 21st from 8-10am (MST), you can also find her at her website www.ginafontaine.com and I will make sure to have all the links in our show notes.  

September 21st book will launch on Amazon and Barnes & Nobles 

You Are a Supermom (ginafontaine.com)

 at www.ginafontaine.com

FB group-MomsThriveTribe  to discuss the 5 pillars of well-being

You Tube-GinaFontaine 1 minute wellness solutions

Tiktok-@supermom_book

Thriving Mom’s Academy coming soon, reach out to Gina to find out more

 I also wanted to let you know that if you are a mom who is wanting to begin to start making healthier choices but are not sure where to start or don’t feel like you have the time.  I want to let you know that I offer a 5 day challenge that is free for you to get started on making small changes each day.  It provides you with a quick 5 minute movement or workout routine along with a 5 day meal plan with family friendly meals you all will enjoy.  Just head to formfitnaples.com/fitin5 to sign up. Go out and enjoy your day while practicing small healthy choices that will make lasting changes.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:09

Hi, I'd like to welcome you to raising healthy humans. I am your host Courtney, a personal trainer and health coach and the founder of formfit. a community where I help busy moms move more. As a busy and sometimes overwhelmed mom of three myself, I understand that it can be difficult to find ways to live and raise Healthy Families. It is my goal to help provide you with the information and tactics you need to help raise healthy humans. Episode 20 moms feeling overwhelmed. Today I'm speaking with Gina Fontaine, a mother of two, a personal trainer and the author of you are a supermom. Today, she will be discussing a few things you can do to help with the overwhelm you may be feeling and wants to provide you with some tips to help you reclaim your superpower and thrive as a mom. I'm Gina Fontaine and I have been in the fitness profession for well since 1996. So a long time. And I have three children, they are ages 18 and 13 and 11. And I tell you, I was active through all of those pregnancies, I didn't really know what I was doing. Because 18 years ago, there wasn't a lot of research or knowledge out there about how to exercise during pregnancy. And I mean, I can even remember hearing things like Oh, don't exercise, you have the umbilical cord or get wrapped around the neck and neck that those kinds of things were still lingering when I had my first child and 2003. And so by the time I went through my second pregnancy, and it was kind of like my body fell apart a little bit more with each one, I decided, you know what, there's got to be a better way to treat a woman's body during pregnancy and after having a baby. And that's really when I started pursuing my own research. And I wrote a certification for fitness professionals called power pregnancy. And then then I started teaching that to a couple of school districts here in Colorado where I live. And so I work with the teachers and the staff and the school districts that happen to be pregnant. And that just to me, is where you can literally plant the seeds of physical activity for life by getting those mamas active during pregnancy. So it's just been very rewarding. And throughout that 25 year span of time I've worked in gyms, I've worked in rec centers, I've I've actually run fitness and wellness programs for Parks and Recreation departments here in Colorado. So I've been around a long time and most recently, I became an author. So I wrote a book that will be very applicable to moms lives. Yes. And that was one question I had for you. So what brought you to writing the book, you are a supermom? Yes. So funny enough, the the original title of this book was I am not a supermom. And I went through a very difficult time with my oldest, he very defiant behavior, had to make some very difficult decisions, extending him to juvenile detention to jail. He's just one of those kids that is not going to follow authority. And it really brought me to my knees. Because at the time, four years ago, I got divorced, and there's never a good time to get divorced. And my my kids, well, my oldest at the time was 13. And so he was you know, not only going through this family upheaval, but also teenage hormones and it was just the perfect blend of a storm that was way beyond my control. And I started writing the book during the pandemic. So in May of 2020, my my son attempted to take his life and God he's still with us. But you know, the the lockdown period was very, very challenging mental health wise and I just had to get a grip on what was going on. So I would just voice dictate my thoughts, my feelings, the story what had happened, and then I would come home and I started listening to it and just typing you know, transcribe while I'm listening. And a friend of mine looked at it and in the early drafts and she said, You know, this is going to help a lot of parents if you can After publishing this and my hope is by exposing my vulnerabilities, I will be able to speak to some of those moms who are out there just silently struggling because it's it's shameful when your kids are not doing the things that you expect and and desire for their life. My son dropped out of high school, he got a GED, that's I'm like a, you know, former straight A student and always did everything. So it was just baffling to me, how do you, you know, how do I parent this child and, and what it really came down to was learning that if I take care of myself, and keep myself calm, instead of freaking out at every single thing, everything around me starts to stabilize. And it's, it seems, you know, kind of magical or woowoo that okay, all you have to do, you're telling me gene, all I have to do is get calm, and my kids will obey me? Not necessarily. I think what I'm saying is that when you come from a calm platform, when there are disruptions, it's not like a panic, you know, go right to fight or flight. And I, I still, I still do, but but it you know, I'm just I'm learning to stabilize the platform instead of always, you know, we always get what you expect or what what filter or lens you're looking through. And so I realized, at a certain point, I was always looking for disaster, and that is your way to live your life. So when you start to look for, well, gratitude, I truly think gratitude is the way out of crisis. And that's the writing process really helped me become grateful that I went through the tough stuff and I didn't run away from it or do harmful or damaging things to myself that would have had long term detrimental effects on on my health and well being sewing. So as a supermom, what are you finding that you're doing to help you be able to move through this, like you said, with not stressing over everything just moving through and accepting basically? Yeah, that's a that's a tough one. And I've learned to ask questions. And if you know, when something happens, and there's, you know, maybe there's vaping that was a big thing, always vaping inside, and I used to just go through his room and sweep out everything and throw him away. Well, guess what, they would just reappear the next day. And, and he perceived that as disrespect and it you know, once I could start asking him questions, like, what benefit are you receiving from this behavior? And he would tell me, it would calm me down and and I can only hope that being a health and wellness professional, I've planted seeds in him that one day on his own, he's gonna wake up and say, gosh, I can't run without coughing I need to cut this out. But as we know with behavior change, it's it's never if people don't do it for reasons outside themselves that it really it has to start from within. And you know, in terms of the the supermom, I you know, I use that term, and you know, with quotes around it, because the traditional supermom is what I'm encouraging moms to move away from that mom who's always giving her time away to everybody else and not taking care of her own needs. And letting it be okay to put yourself first and you know, filling that cup up so that you have more to give others and that to me is when you can live in your fullness and express and, and really be okay with your whole experience. The beautiful, the bad, the ugly, the challenges and just be okay with it. That to me is what makes us super moms in our own unique way. Because if there was ever a test it was 2020 and pandemic lockdown at home with your kids trying to a lot of us trying to work while doing it and keep our sanity while we're not having our social outlets. And so I in my belief, we what we just went through we're all super moms and I celebrate all moms and not nothing. You know, dads, I know you were in there too. It's just my my peer group. The women out there. I you know, honor and black All of you for the amazing things that you you did during this during this time. Yes, definitely a difficult year for everybody. Couple years, difficult couple of years. And one thing you had mentioned was the modeling with your son. And I think that's huge is stop putting it on your child or trying to feel like you have to control your child, focus on yourself and modeling it. And that should then turn to help them. And hopefully, they'll pick it up at some point. So you know, kids, well, kids are like they have little radars. And if you could just get up on the wrong side of the bed and I swear, sometimes leaving my kids were toddlers, they would just make sense that mom was a little bit off, and then they'd start throwing their tantrums. So yeah, and it's all about, you know, energy regulation, we frequency, the words we use, the, the gestures we make, they all have they emit frequencies. And, you know, we kind of push that out all around us. And it's, it's really all about staying in your heart. And you know, keeping this space, wide open and full of love. And that's, it's a tall order, especially when everything around you is kind of imploding and in chaos right. Now, you in your book, you have five ways to reclaim your superpower and thrive. Do you notice? Is there one that resonates? with you the most? Or do you notice something where moms, there's one that they just really struggle with? And maybe they're different? I don't know. Yeah, I think it is different for everybody. And basically, I, the five ways are five myths that I believe that we need to debunk and move in a different direction. Okay, so the one I think, Myth number two is moms are Master multitaskers. And while we might be like, you know, we can multitask like nobody's business isn't necessarily doing good things for us. And would it be better to, you know, have one task focused on it. And yeah, you get interruptions when there's kids around, but also making it clear, hey, mom's focusing on this for the next 15 minutes. Please don't setting those boundaries. Being a multitasker has so many inherent rewards, right? Like, you get you feel like you get more done, you know, I can remember when I had young young kids, and I'd have one in a baby carrier, and I'd be cooking dinner, I bet that was really safe having memories coming back, you know, off the stove. And I'd have another kid, you know, playing underneath my feet, and I and maybe I was listening to something I know on my iPod at the time. And it's so much information overload and the brain, we know from research, the brain can only focus on one meaningful task at a time. And if you want to test that theory, there's, there's a really interesting thing you can do where you you write two lines, and on one you write, I am a master multitasker. And then you go down and write 123 all the way to 20 times yourself, then go over to the other side, two lines, and right eye and then go down to the other line one, a down to the online two. And you're you are making your brain spell out something you go between spelling and counting. And if you give it a try, if you're listening, it's so interesting. When I did it, it was 22 seconds for the first task when I was focusing and it took me 43 seconds to do one second. So it really told me Okay, well, it feels productive to mountain to multitask, it's really not. And long term. It has, you know, extreme, extremely detrimental effects on our nervous system to you know, just kind of puts us in that constant fight or flight type feeling when we're multitasking. Yes. And I still struggle with it. I will say that, you know, yeah, I wrote a book and I said, Let's debunk this myth. And I still have to remind myself shut off your notifications. You know, I'm might be on Facebook and then an email pops in. Don't leave it. You don't have to look at it. Because you know that that going back and forth between tasks, it just sort of waters down the experience of what we're trying to focus on. Yeah, and do you have recommendations of How we can work through some of those multitasking. Yes. And I think my big breakthrough came when I was writing and how, how I did it was, I gave myself a number. And I think I just saw it in an online writing group, they were encouraged to write 2000 words a day. And the first time I did it, I was like, Wow, that's a lot. And it just flowed. And I shared my goal with my kids, I tell, okay, mom sitting down, it takes me about 90 minutes to, to write these words. And so I want you to help hold me accountable. And that went on and on until, you know, finally, the book was complete. And I chose to make that a priority. And that's what I talked about it in my book, having three big tasks a day that it might be, I'm going to take care of things for back to school, and then I'm going to make these phone calls. And then I'm going to write a blog post for my website, and blacking it out. And being okay, like these, if these three things get done, it's been a hugely productive day, I think. We I used to make task lists that would have like, 20 things on them. And it's just, it feels really good as you're crossing them off. There's a lot of built in self gratification. But at the end of the day, I would just feel like, wow, I did way too much. So, yeah, I think for moms, we perpetually feel like we're not enough, right? Like, I lay in bed at night, Oh, I didn't get this done. Oh, I didn't do that. And when you pare it down to just three big tasks, it's, it's such an accomplishment, at the end of the day that, hey, I didn't, I didn't go and just, you know, spill out all over the place. And you know, it's it's all about energy management. Yeah. And you feel like you've accomplished something I noticed for myself, I'm the one that writes 20 different things. Because I'm a list maker, I love making lists. And then I have to mark through everything that I haven't done and write it on the next day. And that can be very discouraging. Yeah, see all that it didn't get accomplished. Even though in my calendar, like you had mentioned, the three tasks mind does have like your top three things you want to get done. And then everything else, but it mentally it's that, you know, feeling of that I didn't get everything else done. So to be able to just focus on three is a great idea. Yeah, right. Yeah. And it like everything else is bonus is the way I see it, you know, in those terms, and you even group them, which as I'm thinking of myself, like, two things I have are in regards to making phone calls, but you group them, like make phone calls. So that I like that as well. Because then you can feel like we're already doing this. So let's continue on this path. Let's make all the phone calls, doctor's appointments, dentist appointments, all those things get them dialed done. Before moving on to the next task, right? Yeah, it seems like I don't know my world, all the newsletters for school Come on Friday. And I would am inevitably find myself I'd be working on something. And then I had, you know, kids in three different schools, and then they'd be like, Oh, I better read this newsletter. And it's okay to put that off and say, You know what, that's a Sunday night read or, you know, just put it in a basket and say, I'll get to that later. Yeah. Now, with your book, when we think about all of us, all moms, we deal with this constant feeling that we have to do so much for everyone else. How can we become empowered to feel like we don't have to do everything for everyone being that people pleaser? And, you know, we've got to do it all. There's so many things, so many tasks for us as moms that we have to do for so many other people. How can we feel empowered to maybe not do it? All? Right, yeah. Yeah. And that it's so programmed, at least I know, I'm a perfectionist. I know. Many other I'll just say a recovering perfectionist, because I'm much more willing to let the house get messy than I ever was before. And my my big epiphany came when I became a single mother. overnight. It was like, Oh, you know what? I don't have time. To take care of all the tasks that I used to and letting it be okay that I don't mop the floor every week, it maybe is every two or three weeks, and it's okay to run a broom over it. And to be okay, with just accomplishing those three big tasks that you've you sat in front of yourself. It's, I also think that stress is a contributor to our perception. And so when we're under constant stress, and here's a an interesting fact, you may I'm going to ask a question. Do you know how long Courtney it takes for women to process stress hormones? Like we have a triggering event? There's a reaction, maybe we scream, or we throw our hands up in the air and, and yell, do you know how long it takes for the adrenaline and cortisol to process out of the body? So I'm going to say that I did have someone recently on in regards to Vegas nerve, and I'm not positive, these are the same, but I believe if I can remember, recollect, she said, 20 minutes that go round or no? 24 hours is what I learned. Oh, okay. You know, and that's like, you can have stress and not react to it. Right? Right. So you can have somebody cut you off in traffic, and just take a deep breath and say, okay, they're in a hurry, they got to get somewhere. Okay? I'm okay. And, and not have a reaction to it. And I used to be a ticking time bomb, just I would go off and I'd spout off at my kids multiple times a day. And then at the end of the day, I'd feel terrible. Because I wasn't calm, I wasn't centered, I wasn't the full expression of who I am as a happy, playful, joyful, Mom, I was too focused on Oh, there's so much to do. Because when you're a single parent, it's all on you. And it just felt like, Okay, I have to take a step back, and maybe take a bath in the middle of the afternoon. I mean, there was a period of time where I made that a daily ritual, just to kind of clear away the feeling of I got to do more. And the, the less I do I find, the more productive I am. It's very interesting, it took me a long time to really grasp that one. But there's a lot of truth to that. Are there things that we can do to really hone in I know, you said, make the list. But I'm trying to think like, if in that everyday life when something comes in, and it does create that reaction from us? Do you have any ideas or things that we might be able to do to help kind of calm ourselves quickly and move on to the next thing? Yes, I mean, deep breathing, that's, you know, you talked about the vagus nerve. And we, when we take a deep belly breath, that that stimulates the vagus nerve, and it sends a signal to the brain like, okay, we you're not in a threatening situation, you can calm down. Now, I know, from personal experience, sometimes you're so revved up that you can't even get in a big breath. And in those cases, getting up and doing big movements, like maybe just swinging your arms around your body or lifting your arms up and down, you have about a 10 second window when you have your stressor, and the release of the hormone. So in that 10 seconds. What can you do? Can you, you know, smile, smiling is a way to trick your body even even when you're angry. And you can put a smile on your face and say, Now how can I handle this situation with calm clarity and ease? And instead of getting angry screaming, and I lived in that world for so long? It just felt like I don't know how you get through the day without screaming at your kids. And then I would feel terrible at night dealing like, gosh, I'm not being a good mom. And in essence, I was never filling myself up perceiving I was as a fitness professional teaching classes and saying, Hey, I'm really active. I'm teaching two or three classes a day and seeing clients. But it's different when you're doing it for other people, then you're and I think my big awakening with that came really just a few months ago, I had knee surgery and tore my ACL and I was out for many weeks and it is like the first time that I put my own expertise and use it on my own body and I've been loving it. Yeah, it's really been great to receive For me, when you said that it made me think of these moms who are just going, you know, for ourselves, we're fitness professionals. So we are feeding into them during that time. But there are many moms where I feel like they come to class. They don't want to be there. They're doing it to check off that box. Like I've done it. I've done my workout for today. Okay, let's move on Next. Next box next box. What? How can we help them feel like it's something that they might want to enjoy doing for to fill them up to help fill them up? Yes. And I actually talked about that in my book about the shooting on yourself. And when exercises and should instead of I get to I get to exercise I get to move my body. I I steer away from the word workout because I feel it implies like more work who wants to do more work, like I want my exercise time to be playful, and fun. And so finding, finding your joy in there's so many options out there these days for, for women to choose and be in presence is huge. And I along with the big tasks. I mean, maybe exercise is one of your big tasks, because you're prioritizing it right now. What is the outcome you desire from that? Do you desire to just check it off the list? Because that's not a feeling so what's the feeling? Okay, the outcome is I'm I'm seeking joy, and how am I going to, to create joy, I might get outside, I might put on my favorite playlist of music that I love and listen to it while I'm moving my body. or listen to a great podcast and get you know, some inspiration time. And because that is something you you know, when you're exercising, that's not multitasking to listen to music. Now, when I do see people that are like listening to music, reading a book and watching TV, I question like is the body able to process and receive, when you have all those distractions going on, we have sort of an addiction to buisiness of keeping lots of balls in the air and it goes back to that master multitasking, look at me, I can do so much I can juggle and it it feeds into our ego of, you know, look at, look at what I accomplished, I did 20 things today. And we have to step away from that as moms for our health. And if there ever was a time on this planet, when health was our greatest wealth, it is right now like we we have got to for our children's sake, take good care of ourselves as mothers, because, you know, they're their kids for a short time. And you can either be a you know, stressed out monster mom, or you can be a calm and more empowered mom and I'm and you know what, in the process of change, there's a lot of like, yeah, I have days where I blow up and say, calculate, but it's not every day, it's maybe every couple weeks or longer. So you know, I encourage moms to be gentle with themselves and know that change. Rarely is something where you just snap your fingers and say, Okay, today I'm a new new person, and I'm going to be mindful and present. I'm going to try the best that I can to be present with each task as it comes up today. And when I'm mindful, I can say oh, wow, I my breathing is shallow what's going on here and stop myself and say Oh, yeah, yeah, cuz because here I go again, I'm doing too much. And step outside and it's kind of like pushing the refresh button and saying, okay, I don't it's not a one thing I say and quote in my book, nothing's worth losing my peace of mind for and, you know, operating from peace is power. Yeah. I noticed that you also an aside here have Is it one minute workouts that you promote? Or one minute movement? Yeah, one minute wellness solutions, and it may not be even movement, it could be like I love having flowers around the house. It might just be I'm gonna, you know, stare at the bouquet. Maybe rearrange the flowers make it an arrangement I like it brings me joy. I love flowers. It might be I'm going to put some essential oils or an incense stick on in the living room and I'm just going to sit for one minute and just breathe that in. Or if I'm at work, and I'm sitting in my office chair every 30 minutes, I'm going to get up and do one minute of squats and just go letting it be, you know, movement is something that's just integrated and flows into your day. Because it's, it's unrealistic as moms with so much responsibility to drive over to the gym, get all sweaty, come back home, to change your clothes, take a shower, like if you can just kind of sprinkle activity throughout the day, it all counts. And, and I really truly think it, it, it's not so much how hard you work. We've we've programmed Unfortunately, this idea that no pain, no gain, and that's so 1970s and 80s, we need to get past that. And, and really, you know, start by saying, I'm so happy and grateful that I get to move my body today I get to not I have to go to the gym, and don't want to do and then it it just becomes another stressor another thing in your life. And the truth is, you're not going to stick with it. If it's something that that doesn't bring you joy, right? Well, and making it small movements throughout the day, make it more practical, like you said, and then also allowing for you to actually be able to get it done and stick with it longer. And I liked how you said even just wellness, one minute wellness, because what as you were saying, you know, rearranging the flowers, and the essential doing the essential oils, it made me think that's just bringing yourself back into present. And I think as moms we're constantly, you know, you talk about the anxiety is thinking about the future, and depression is thinking about the past and we are stuck, I feel that many of us as moms are stuck in one or the other. And really just doing that one minute of wellness will bring us back to more of a present state. Yeah, absolutely. And that's, you know, the opposite of multitasking, what we were talking about before is his presence. And so you know, stay present. And, and also I had a mom chime in and said that she felt like mindfulness was a privilege. And I can totally see that. Like if you have young kids, and it's just like, I don't want to hear about mindfulness because you don't know my life. There's kids scurrying underneath me and I, my suggestion was, so be present to your tendency to multitask and be okay with it, like have empathy for yourself and know that this is a challenging season of motherhood. And can you just be in love with the way that you're doing things presently today and have an awareness that things could shift when I'm ready, when I see that it's useful and valuable to do that, right. And hopefully, it won't be some type of health crisis that that becomes the motivator that comes along before that, where you can start to see again, when I operate from a platform of peace. My my list of things to do whittles down and and then what I do do is is with potency and power and and the the small tasks or the big tasks that I choose to do have a lot more power in the world. Because you're present, right? Yeah. Well, that's the way she's looking at it. You know, she's, it's how she's looking at it, because I immediately thought, why not just sit down with your children. And you know, like, even just say she let's let's be quiet for just one minute and see, we used to always do the silent game, we played the silent game, like when we were at our wits end. when they were little we could do this. And they thought it was fun. And we would just say, you know, oh, silent game. And it was always like when we were in the car and everybody was going crazy. We do that. And it was like just a minute of peace where they just gave us a minute of peace because everybody was trying to be who could be silent the longest. So it's I think it's a lot of just thinking about how how you think about that mindfulness. Absolutely. And shifting your mindset is one of my pillars and it's synonymous with Myth number three is how many times a day do you hear being mom is tough. We may have even said it already in our interview, that when you tell yourself it's tough, you will find evidence to support that. Life is tough. When life is easy, and I tell a story about I love to run around the stairs at Red Rocks amphitheater. Wherever great outdoor venue for concerts, and there's 220 stairs from bottom to top. And there was one day where I just, it's killer, you know, you're running up, and it's it. And there's a lot of people that exercise there. And I just said, You know what, today, this is easy. I'm going to experiment with this as easy. And every time I would feel my body clench up, I would just, Oh, that's right, this is easy, I am going to take a deep breath. And you know what I cut, like, several seconds of my time even doing that by by saying, you know, I'm not, I'm not going to grind through this, I'm going to be gentle with myself. And I feel like, women are so hard on ourselves. And I still have a very strong inner critic, and I hear that voice. And it's, you have to remind yourself, like, those are just thoughts. They're, they're not real. It's it's not who you are. And I, you know, that's still something that I, I work with every day, like, okay, there's a lot going on right now. But I'm going to choose to see the bright light, I'm going to choose to stay grateful, instead of so tough, or what's the for a long time, it was people would always say the struggle is real. Yeah, yeah. That was such a big phrase for so long. And it's like, well, does it? Does it have to be a struggle? Or can you, you know, kind of choose to step out of the fishing line that's got you all tied up and say, Oh, it was just because I was all tangled up that everything felt tough now that I'm separating myself from that and shifting my perspective. It everything looks easier now. And is there anything that we can do as mom supporting other moms to help with this feeling empowered and feeling we're all in this together supporting one another? Right? I, you know, it really does take a village, they say, it takes a village to raise your kids and my family is 1000 miles away from me. And it I've never had the luxury of having siblings and grandparents, you know, help with with child childcare. And I, you know, I think asking for help, and that for me, when I became a single mom and was going through the whole divorce process and was a fledgling business owner didn't have any income, I had to step out of my ego and ask for help. And it was in a credible way when I did ask for help, just the help even from strangers that that came in, you know, because a friend shared with their network that you know, this mom is going through a hard time. Like we need to support each other to help ease that load. And to be vulnerable and you don't have to share what's going on but you know, even just saying I am having a really tough time. And I love the group concept. I have a Facebook group called moms thrive tribe and I really encourage women to feel like this is a safe place for you can just, you know, get on and say I am really struggling with being a parent today. I don't like this at all and and parenting camp sock. Like I hate to say it but there are days when I you know as a child, I dreamed I had these, you know, glorious dreams of being a mommy and how wonderful it would be. And then the reality struck and I was like, wow, okay, I and I even more so I need to keep my vibration up. So that these these tough, tantrum bouts or kid running away and not knowing where they are for several days, so that I can get through these stressful challenges with, it's never easy to go through things like that. But it's there's, you know, the hard way and the harder way. And so I'm going to choose to make it easier than make it harder. Well, and also changing our expectations of ourselves. Because as, as you were saying that I was thinking of, you know, just these, these visions that we have when we think about having children and then once they're here, just one being crafts or something and then as you're doing the craft with them or whatever, the mass and the chaos that you know, and it's like, this isn't the way I imagined it to be. So just trying to let go of all of that. Right and I somebody that I don't know who said it to me but it was You don't necessarily get the kids that you want, but you do get the children that you need, like their personalities. I mean, my oldest, pushed me so far out of my comfort zone and really stretched my, my patients muscle. And so we're just there to kind of guide support, have their back and celebrate their uniqueness. You know, because in my ideal world, I, my son would have gone to college, and that didn't happen, but now he's living on his own in an apartment. And he did that just happened a few days ago. And he he's doing it Yeah. And and I, I celebrate his success, I vote his victory. And that's, I think, the most helpful thing that I can do and letting our kids fall like, you know, for instance, he got his debit card in the mail, didn't sign it, and I saw it laying on the table at his apartment. Hey, I think you really need to sign up. And yeah, you're always nagging at me. And I know that when I nag. He's just gonna ignore it. Yeah, so that may be a hard lesson, he has to learn that, you know, he loses his card. And somebody picks it up. that's a that's a tough lesson. Yeah. So yeah, it's I wish I had let my kids fall more when they were toddlers, because I and that was my mother. So she, I'm the youngest of 10. Children. That's an incredibly interesting, fun fact. And I can remember her telling me, you need to just let your kids fall and, and not shock them with your, you know, panic, or just let them be with it, let it go. And I wish that I had done that more when they were younger. Because the the mistakes they make when they get older, are so much bigger and have much more severe consequences.