Simple on Purpose | Intentional Living and Parenting

Dearest listeners, today is the finale episode where I share with you my experience of the podcast, answer your questions and sum up the takeaways I hope you have had from listening to the podcast.  Episode topics and related links the start of the blog My C-Section & The Feelings I Was Ashamed to Admit my two main goals with the podcast how the podcast has changed me How To Find Your Enneagram Type (and how it has changed my life) Enneagram 101 (what is it and what are the nine types) anchor words (Bless It and Release It came from Stef Gass) Making life adjustments  looking at decisions through the lens of our resources You Can Simplify Your Life Series our relationship with time Don’t wait for the Golden Years (seeing gold in the every day) growing through turning off the autopilot and taking an opposite action 175. What will your future be? More of the same? Or will you turn off the autopilot? 79. Six signs you are living your life on autopilot (and what to do about it) listening to your life Listening To Your Life Show Up For Your Life [series] What I hope listeners take away from the podcast (my wishes for you) It is ok to feel your feelings all episodes on feelings are in this playlist  if you can’t access that playlist, start here with 156. 3 things to know about feeling negative emotions everything is hard AND awesome 162. Think the best of me, or not. Allowing the hard and awesome in ourselves and in our lives. 207. Our judgements and assumptions of others (fundamental attribution bias and how it impacts our relationships) 201. Overcoming negative self-talk and to moving towards positive self-talk you are not alone 145. You aren’t alone mama, I go through that too 76. Why it matters what you think (limiting mindsets in motherhood) address conflict, rather than avoid it 139. Are you TOO comfortable? And what is it costing you? take care of yourself The Meeting Your Needs Series own your life I was a Mom Martyr, here’s how to tell if you are too and what to do about it Build a life based on your own definition of success, not everyone else’s definition small things matter 78. Small things that can change your whole life (the compound effect) enjoy your life When Did I Stop Enjoying My Kids? (and my journey back to enjoying them) 203. Being a mom who enjoys her life Enjoying the simple pleasures (why it is hard and how to do it) 163. Have fun with your kids, on purpose + reasons we don’t have fun Ways to stay connected Sign up for the Simple Saturdays email  Save the Spotify playlists, grouped by theme Email or DM me the topic you are looking for, I’m sure there is an episode on it and I will send it your way Of course, 1:1 coaching and counselling is available    Listener Faves This a list of episodes that listeners sent to me, as being their fave episode of the Simple on Purpose podcast The ‘mom martyr’ episode 67. Making motherhood harder than it needs to be (Mom Martyr) The most common search term, of late  When Did I Stop Enjoying My Kids? (and my journey back to enjoying them) Mindset for new moms  74. Show up for momlife with these empowering mindsets 73. How to deal with the emotional struggles of being a mom of babies and toddlers Letting go of our ego 162. Think the best of me, or not. Allowing the hard and awesome in ourselves and in our lives. Building a sense of capability vs a sense of control 115. A Controlling mom, or a capable mom? Hearing from moms of each enneagram type The Enneagram + Motherhood Series Various conversations around self-care The Meeting Your Needs Series Living on autopilot 139. Are you TOO comfortable? And what is it costing you? Framing your experience of motherhood 53. Change your motherhood experience by changing how you make memories Full transcript (unedited) 0:07 Hey, it’s Shawna, your nerdy girlfriend and counselor from simple on purpose.ca Welcome to the finale episode of Simple on purpose. Yes, I am retiring. But the podcast episodes, they’re all gonna stay here for you to use the archives. And all the different topics we’ve covered over the years are gonna stay here. But this is our retirement party episode, I want to sprinkle in some input from you listeners that you’ve sent in. I want to toast to what I’ve learned during the podcast, and I want to make some retirement wishes to send along with you. Yep, it’s the retirement speech you didn’t ask for but you’re gonna get it. And we’re going to start of course, with some twinkling flashback music, to where it all began. You’ve heard me share this, maybe I started blogging in 2011. After my first child was born by emergency C section, it was a difficult delivery was a difficult experience. And I felt like nobody really got what I went through because my circle of moms didn’t have that experience. I was feeling really overwhelmed with these emotions and what to do with them and who to talk to. And my postnatal nurse recommended I write about it. And that was dovetail blog dovetail blog was born from that place. It was a place I shared about motherhood on the regular. And then it shifted into the simple on purpose blog. In 2016, I made a new change and I had at home a two year old a four year old five year old and after consistent blogging for many years, I decided I needed to take it off my plate for a bit. And I was just going to send out a regular newsletter a bi weekly email called simple Saturdays. That was the birth of simple Saturdays that’s still happening that bi weekly email and I just love that place. Also, during this time, I had been listening to podcasts, some of those oh geez like the happy hour with Jamie Ivey cat Lee’s podcast, she had one about motherhood. And what about blogging? Jeff Goins was another voice that I was listening to a lot. These days, there’s, I don’t know, 1000s Millions. I don’t know how many podcasts there are. But those were some OG ones. And I was just soaking them up. I was loving them. I could just listen to them on the go and get that motivation, inspiration, interesting stories, interesting people. And I really fell in love with podcasts as a way to communicate and create a community. So in 2018, I started making an audio version of the simple Saturday’s email. If you go back to those first episodes of The Simple on purpose podcast, that’s what they are. They’re kind of recaps of the simple Saturday’s email, I realized that there were people like me who preferred to just listen on the go. And I really wanted to keep spreading the simple on purpose community. Quickly, I found that I had a chance to say things and I wanted to do more than just recap the simple letters email. So it turned into episodes about a single topic from there. That was six years ago. As the podcast has grown over the years, you listeners have helped it rank over the years in the past, in the top 20 for parenting podcast with Apple, Canada, and in the top seven need for self improvement podcasts with Apple, Canada. That felt like a huge win. One of my leading goals with the podcast was first and foremost that episodes be tight, a tight 2020 minutes or less. Because in my opinion, which is very biased unless you’re doing an entertainment podcast, and people are coming to you for entertainment. Unless you’re interviewing someone. Or maybe you’re human and you have just like four hours of research you want to share though I think it’s still way too long. I think it’s unnecessary to have such long episodes. I feel like 20 minutes is important. It forces me the podcaster and you the listener to come into this really efficient and focused time. I don’t want fluff. I don’t want chatter, usually unless you’re here to entertain me. So I just assumed other Altair would want the same. And I’ve heard that from many of your moms that you appreciate a quick episode. You’re listening to me on your drives on your walks while folding the neverending laundry while making dinner. To prepare for this episode, I emailed you guys I put it on Instagram, and I asked for your favorite episodes or questions that you had for me about the podcast. And first of all, thank you for all of your messages back. You guys have given me some really kind and supportive and sweet words. And I’ve been reading them all I might not email back just yet, but I’m reading them. And I want to thank you all for that I have shared on the podcast and I think this is something that anyone is a listener or a consumer of content on the other end. I think it’s helpful to understand that for someone who’s putting something out there it can feel really one sided sometimes to put out my stories and thoughts and ideas out into the interwebs it’s kind of like tossing a rock down a well and waiting for the plunk. You want to hear the plunk You want to know, the rock has reached the water, the plunk tells you it’s been received. So hearing back, hearing back from you has been the feedback that kept me feeling like I was on the right track, and I’m doing something of value for you. So I hope you feel my adoration of you listeners who have made this feel like a conversation. And let me know that I was helping you live more simple and more on purpose, which, of course, was my other goal in all of this, and I would anchor this idea with the word that I would say to myself over the years, and that word was freedom. It has been my mission to bring women freedom, it has been it still is it will be freedom from being overwhelmed by your motions, freedom from the autopilot, living freedom from the all or nothing thinking and the belief that you don’t actually have a choice, freedom from all of the checklists on who you should be and how your life should look and how your kids should act and what your husband to do. Freedom from all the clutter in your space in your brain and your life and freedom from all of these things so that you get to make choices you choose. You set your vision

Years ago I learned a simple tool that has improved all my relationships. This tool is about looking for the cues that others are giving us – and using those times to connect. They are called Bids For Connection, a Gottman term. I will outline what bids are, ways to respond, and how to simplify the process.  Before we jump in, 👉🏼 remember to stay connected through the Simple Saturdays email, 📧  you can sign up here.    Key points and related links What bids for connection are  Our marriage was struggling, here are 12 things that helped us heal and strengthen it When They Tell Me I’m Lucky to Have Him Why it’s worth paying attention to love languages and expectations in marriage Noticing different types of bids for connection in your partner, kids and friends Gottman’s list of type of bids  Three responses to bids for connection (turning towards, away, against) Gottman research on bids and relationship success Applying bids for connection to parenting  Recognizing your own bids for connection, and unmet needs Benefits of responding to bids for connection with empathy 85. When empathy is hard in marriage and friendships 84. How parenting with empathy can transform your relationship 207. Our judgements and assumptions of others (fundamental attribution bias and how it impacts our relationships) Starting simple by noticing and responding to bids for connection Using bids to connect through presence, not just problem-solving 16. When did I stop enjoying my kids? Knowing your vision and values. The best waffles ever. 203. Being a mom who enjoys her life Full transcript (unedited) 0:00 Hey friends, it’s Shawna, your nerdy girlfriend and counselor from simpler purpose.ca. Welcome to this and on purpose podcast or right away. Announcement, I mentioned probably in the emails, at least maybe on the podcast, I can’t remember that I will be wrapping up the podcast for the summer. And at this point, what I am deciding to do is actually retire the podcast, at least for the time being, I just shared this in the Patreon as well, because I’ll be shutting that down. The main reason is that I am taking on a new job and going to be working more hours there. So it’s a matter of me just juggling the hours that I do work because I do mainly kind of work school time hours. So I need to be very discerning on the work I choose to do. And I wanted to really choose the work that I really love the most. And for me, that’s a one to one clients. So I’m going to unpack this a lot more, I’m going to have a retirement party episode coming up, I’m going to ask for your input your feedback. So watch out for an email on that coming soon. If you are part of the simple Saturday’s email, you will get that, if not, I recommend signing up for that I will be continuing this simple Saturday’s email, I’ll put a link in the show notes on that. So in light of that, I want to get to the topic. And I’m actually really excited that this is one of the final topics that I’m sharing on the podcast, because to me, it is such a great tool. And it’s such a great practice to bring into our relationships. And I’ve been talking a lot about relationships in the Patreon this month in here on the podcast. And this is a tool that is from the goblins. If you’ve heard of the goblins, they are a couple of psychologists and researchers. They are a couple. And they are all so these things and they use study relationships mainly love relationships. And their training for therapists is so good. I’ve taken it. I’ve loved it. There’s so many practical tools and simple concepts. And this is one of them. It is called bids for connection bids for connection and I might just call them bids. While I’m talking about this. The first time I heard about bids for connection was at a time when we were at a really challenging time in our marriage. We had a lot of walls up a lot of resentment a lot of scorekeeping, a lot of fear a lot of pride. I’ve shared a bit on this on the on the blog, so I’ll make sure to link that in the show notes. But I was probably looking at things on connection or how to improve our communication or something noble, like how to get my husband to validate me more, I came across this article and explained what bids for connection are and how they can be a really basic way to improve your relationship and I text it to my husband. And at this time he was really used to being peppered with my hashtag advice. But this is something he actually read and reply to he said something like that was good. I agree. And for me at that time, it felt really pivotal because I had sent him lots of things in the past always didn’t get an answer. So this felt to me kind of like answered prayers level to have that response from him. A bit for connection is any attempt you make at engaging with another person. This can be verbal attempts, direct questions, or comments or even comments that aren’t necessarily directed at you. Like someone sitting beside you on the couch and muttering Oh, there’s never anything good on TV. They can be nonverbal attempts, facial expressions, body language, physical closeness. So they can be as simple as your kid saying, I hurt my finger, or your partner saying I read an interesting article today. Are your kids sitting down and just like big sigh your kids saying watch this, your partner saying something about the game last night, even if you don’t even know what the game was or who’s playing what these days. The purpose of the bed is to interact with you and ultimately connect with you. A bit might be saying play with me. Join me, help me, see me laugh with me, support me. problem solve with me. Enjoy me there’s different purposes that a bit can have the Kaufman’s have a little bit of a list, I’ll make sure to link that in the show notes. Bits of connection are important. First of all, we can just see right off the bat that they make someone feel seen and supported. And this is really a basis for safety in a relationship. In Gottman terms, they are important because they’re considered an experience of positive effect. And they use this metaphor of adding to the emotional bank have a relationship that our emotional bank needs more positive than negative experiences. And if we can fill our emotional bank proactively with positive experiences, then when we’re in a state of conflict, or something negative occurs, we aren’t going to run a deficit in that and obviously something to think about it’s easier to build up positive experiences when we are not in conflict. This is more something they studied more in love relationships but in My experience is that it applies to all relationships that we actually care about. I definitely see it in talking with my own family and my own kids. So we have someone offering a bid for connection. And there’s three responses we could have. One is turning towards so we’re engaging positively, we’re acknowledging the bid. Someone says something about nothing being on TV, and you might respond. I know, right? Like, I feel that way too, that I never find something I want to watch. Or your kids saying, I feel like an idiot today. And you might respond with like, Oh, that’s so tough. What’s happening. When we turn towards we’re telling the person they matter, even if the topic feels so mundane. We’re saying it’s important to me because you’re important to me. I even think of how we physically turn towards each other. So often, we don’t even look up and make eye contact, which is so crucial. So turn to words, turn your eyes toward someone turn your body towards someone. The Gottman approach their research by looking at what makes the difference between couples who stay together and couples who separate what, what equates to failure and what equates to success. And when it comes to bids for connection, couples that stay married, tune to one another 86% of the time. It’s like an A right? It’s not 100%, that’s for sure. But those in the studies who separated they turn towards each other only 33% of the time, because here’s the other two options, turning away or turning against. So turning away, it’s ignoring it’s not noticing and not responding, or responding in ways that actually say I’m not listening, which could be changing the subject. When we turn away, we’re sending the signal that their subject is not important, we’re not present with them, or their subject that they’re talking about. It’s just not worth our reaction, we might just change the subject altogether. So naturally, what a person takes away from that is, this isn’t important to you. I’m not important to you. turning against means we’re responding dismissively, negatively, we might have irritation, we might snap, we might give them a look, glare at them, blame them point out how we were right about something how they were wrong, we might criticize, we might condemn, I think of the example of a wife coming home and a husband or swap partners, whatever. One partner saying we did that garden in the back and the other partner says Why would you waste your time doing that that is turning against that is eroding that connection. I want to mention a couple of things here. The first is our responses don’t have to be over the top. That training video for the Gottman training, it was really interesting because it was a normal couple and they kind of put them in this lab that feels like a home. So if we’re supposed to imagine them being at home, and one of them is staring out the window and the other one’s just right in the other room. It’s all open watching TV. And the person looking out the window is saying something about what they see out there like oh, the clouds are rolling in something about the garden back home. And it’s actually the man staring at the TV and he made some comment back like, oh, rain will be good. And it wasn’t dismissive. It was just simply responsive. And she came and she sat on the couch beside him. And he said something similar about what w

We all make assumptions and judgments of others – but did you know there is a bias we have in our judgements? This bias shows up in all of our relationships and it can create an opposition and divide in places we actually want empathy and compassion.  In this episode we explore the Fundamental Attribution Bias, how it impacts our relationships and what to do about it.  As mentioned in the episode, you can find the Spotify playlists here, and sign up for Simple Saturdays here.  Key topics covered in this episode  The purpose of relationships, how this has shifted over generations Relationships and wellbeing: The Havard Adult Development Study  Making assumptions about others Filling in the blanks and mind-reading 199. Mindset traps to be aware of (cognitive distortions that might be holding you back in motherhood and life) Perception is a projection, how our judgements and assumptions can reflect our own struggles and opinions The Fundamental Attribution Bias How we judge the action of others vs how we judge: character or circumstance  The me vs them mentality (or Us vs Them) Examples of it in marriage 62. My husband put the groceries away wrong, he doesn’t care about me (love languages and expectations in marriage) Awareness and empathy 84. How parenting with empathy can transform your relationship 85. When empathy is hard in marriage and friendships Accepting the hard parts of ourselves 162. Think the best of me, or not. Allowing the hard and awesome in ourselves and in our lives. Getting 1:1 coaching support Book a session with Shawna here     FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited) Hey guys, it’s Shawna, your nerdy girlfriend and counselor from simple on purpose.ca Welcome to the simple on purpose podcast. I want to give you a heads up right away this podcast will retire for the summer. So just a heads up. Our summer starts at the end of June. I encourage you in those months to use the archives, we have over five years of episodes on all of the topics. So if you want to be intentional about listening to them, I suggest you use the Spotify playlists and define those, you can go to simple on purpose.ca and click listen. You’ll find the links to the playlist we’ve got them on different topics like habit change mom on purpose, life on purpose, minimalism emotions, they’re all there for you check them out. And this summer also follow along with a simple Saturday’s email. If you aren’t a subscriber, I definitely encourage you to join that that is just a really like, warm and cozy place that I love to be with you guys. It comes out every two weeks, so it’s not gonna overwhelm your inbox. And I like to share some simple and purposes, purpose thoughts, some posts you might like. And that’s actually where you guys gave me this nickname, your nerdy girlfriend. So it’s a really great space to be. I’ll link that in the show notes as well. Let’s get into today’s episode this month, we’re talking about relationships. What is the purpose of a relationship? Is it to support your survival, emotional support, to entertain you to find love to find connection. This has definitely changed over the years of purpose of a relationship, especially if you look in the context of a marriage. It used to be about survival for a woman to be under the care of a man that was the world that was the culture unfortunately, it still is in some places. But even friends and communities, there was a need for support and survival, there was a need to do things together. So it is a more modern concept that our relationships are there to entertain us to make us feel loved to feel connected and seen and valued for the better and the worst, right, and that’s a whole other topic. But we all know that we are a social species. And maybe some of us feel that it is definitely true, that relationships are important to us to our to our well being. studies have concluded this that supportive relationships are actually the number one predictor of well being in your life, it’s not money, it’s not your health or your job or how trendy your clothes are. It is people deep relationships. This is from the longest running study on the topic called that Harvard adult development study. If you have some people in your life, and it doesn’t need to be a lot that you feel like you can rely on who you support, and they support you that is the highest predictor of feeling well being in your life. Kind of crazy. So we know deep within us that we need relationships for many reasons. However, we run into obstacles just to be in the daily life of relationships with others, I want to talk about a common way that we create opposition in our relationships. And that is our assumptions. We fill in the blanks a lot. We fill in the blanks on what others are thinking we do this more often than we should probably we mind read. Have you ever mind read what your husband was thinking and decided he’s probably mad at, you know, just me, we fill in the blanks on what others are thinking, often what they’re thinking about us, they think I’m overreacting, they don’t think I’m good enough. They think I don’t know what I’m talking about. They know why I’m mad, and they just don’t want to admit it. And a lot can be said for what we’re projecting of ourselves and our own insecurities into this blank space. We also make assumptions about why they’re doing what they’re doing, what are their motives. And this is where I want to talk about the fundamental attribution bias, which is about this bias that we have when we look at what other people are doing, and what our brain makes it mean about them. Now, I don’t think this about people that don’t want to give an example, if you see somebody who doesn’t take the grocery cart back and you are someone who takes the grocery cart back, what are you thinking? Are they are they lazy? So I live in a town where the carts are free, you might live in a world where you gotta get that coin back. And you might come to different conclusions. But this can go the other way, right? So imagine you’re someone who never takes the cart back. And you see that person across the parking lot who is taking the cart back? What pops up for you? They’re probably judging me. Oh, they think they’re so great. We do this really quietly in the back of our minds. We look at other people’s actions, and we make assumptions about the type of person that they are. We’ve heard so often actions speak louder than words but we forget that any action can have a lot of circumstances, thoughts. feelings experiences conditions that express that action that lead up to that action. And I’m not talking about obvious situations where someone is causing harm or acting unethically in a morally, I’m talking more of that day to day stuff in our relationships, the things we judge in those around us. Relate relationships are one of the most common topics in counseling, because we know we need relationships. So when our close relationships feel off, our sense of stability feels off. Relationships, our deepest work, we live in relation to others, others are a mirror for us, a mirror for our own defenses, our triggers, our measuring sticks, our struggles, the things we rejected ourselves, our self judgment, perception is a projection, our experience of, well, anything but our experience of another person depends on us. So imagine we’re reading a book or watching a movie or someone said something, really anything, we all develop different meanings about the things because we are different, and we’ve had different experiences that shape, what meaning we give to things. Our perception is a projection of us of our own stories, our values, our cultural upbringing, our likes, our dislikes, our experiences, what we’re comfortable with what we’re not how we measure right and wrong. Here’s an example, if someone is very oppositional, but you grew up believing that it was noble and kind and diplomatic, to keep the peace, that oppositional person is going to trigger a lot in you, you’re going to have a lot of discomfort in judgment of the person. Or you will deny all those emotions and just wonder why it’s such a struggle to be around them. And imagine the opposite. If you grew up believing it was necessary to be oppositional that there are in justices in the world, someone has to take a stand. And if you care about something, you will say something, then they look at the person who seems to placate or seem apathetic, and that will trigger something in them. With a fundamental attribution bias, we make conclusions based on what we see in others. If a coworker is late to a meeting, we might assume that they’re disorganized. They’re disrespectful. We see the action and we make an assumption about who that person is their character, their motives. And maybe it’s true, like with most things, right, maybe sometimes they’re disorganized or disrespectful, maybe sometimes, but probably not all of the time. Like this is true for most things. But the most important part of all of this, the thing that I think can actually help us shift our perspectives on how we look at others make assumptions about them, Sidner judgments about them is the flip side. This bias has a flip side, which is when we do the thing. We attribute our actions to external circumstances, we justify it not by our character, but by what is happening to us. If we are late to a meeting, we have reasons right. Like, I had to get my kid off to school, I’m a mom, right? Or I had to print those meeting notes. The printer didn’t work. This bias is in almost every relationship from siblings to coworkers, to the lady at yoga to our kids to our partners. If my partner doesn’t want to talk about a subject, it’s because they’re scared to be vulnerable. They can’t handle their feelings like something’s wrong with them, right? Confirm this for me. But if I don’t want to talk about a subject, it’s because I’m not feeling safe. Right? Something else is the problem n

When you think you need all the things and the dream home to be happy…. then you realize you need to shed the weight of ‘stuff’ and consumerism in order to find yourself and find peace. Renee Benes, of the Unstuffed Podcast, shares some of her story of downsizing, decluttering the closet and what it taught her about herself and her life.    In this episode, we talk about: Renee gave up her dream home to downsize and adopt minimalism The process of decluttering the closet, letting go of those clothes that no longer fit your identity or body How to navigate an appreciation of fashion with minimalism Capsule wardrobes, seasonal clothing, shopping  The influence of social media on us and how it impacts approaches to minimalism    This episode is a portion of our interview, the rest of the interview covers topics such as: Death and loss Raising kids Scarity and abundance  And even kid’s bday presents There is audio and video available for the rest of this fun interview!    👋🏽 Find Renee at the Unstuffed Podcast and on Instagram  ☕️ Join the Simple Saturdays Email 👯‍♀️ Be part of the Life on Purpose Community      Full Transcript Speaker 1 0:00  Welcome to the simple purpose Podcast. Today we have a very unique episode. This is a guest episode, which rarely happens. And the reason you’re hearing it here today is because I have recently started the Patreon the life on purpose community, and I would like to offer guest episodes in that community. So I wanted to make sure and share some of the year so you can meet Renee, who I’m talking with today. And here’s some of her story. Because I enjoy her story. You’ll hear me tell Renee, that I have followed her on Instagram for years. And I was really drawn to her content, because she was talking about the things I was interested in about saving money, but like just the real practical, like discomfort and stuff about saving money and shopping. And she was talking about becoming a minimalist and how it was changing her life. And she was very laid back about it. It wasn’t all curated, tablescapes and rose gold and just do these three things, and your life will be simplified, and it was really relatable. So Renee has a podcast called unstuffed. And she’s also an Instagram I’m gonna make sure to link are in the show notes. What you’re going to hear, hear, hear, hear, what you’re going to hear today is a mini version of a longer episode. There’s actually two more parts to this episode one is an audio podcast, and the other is a video and those will be available on Patreon coming soon. In this episode, though, we’re going to talk about downsizing, Rene’s experience with downsizing our home. We’re going to talk about closets and clothes and how consumerism and social media plays into all of these things about our lives and who we think we are. So I want to just jump right in. I hope you enjoy. Welcome Shawna Scafe 1:46 to the podcast. I’m so excited to have you here. Renee 1:49 Hi, Shawna. Yeah, Shawna Scafe 1:51 thanks for having me. Renee 1:52 I’m excited to sit down and chat. Yeah. Shawna Scafe 1:53 So I don’t often do well, I rarely ever do guest interviews. But I’ve been following you on Instagram, I was telling you earlier, I found you on Pinterest started following you on Instagram some years back. And when you reached out to me, as I absolutely like I’ve followed you for a while, I’m going to also be sharing some of this content in the Patreon only. So this was just really inspired timing as well, in my opinion, to be doing this interview with you. So aside from that, tell us who you are. What you do you know the basics. Yeah, well, thanks. Renee 2:27 I’m so glad first of all, that you still like me from the blog? Like thanks for hanging out. But um, yeah, I started my minimalist blog in 2017. After we had just downsized our house. We downsize our house by 2000 finished square feet, and just started practicing minimalism. And I did it in a way of like, hoping to be able to reconnect to myself, I felt like I had kind of gone through life just on autopilot and collected stuff on autopilot. Yeah. So going through the decluttering process for me was an internal and external just all around life transformation. Shawna Scafe 3:11 Yeah, and I know, I know some of your story from following you over the years, I know that you were in this huge home. And like you said earlier, there was just a lot of things happening all at once. That kind of prompted you to make a decision to downsize. Could you kind of in a nutshell, give me an idea of what that was like at that time. Renee 3:30 Yeah, it was like, so obnoxious in the sense that I felt like I had I got everything I ever wanted, everything I thought I should ever want. And it couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t happy. Like, everything just felt worse. It almost felt worse because I thought it would feel better and it didn’t you know, and I started to it talk about like how serendipitously I found, self help spiritual author Wayne Dyer. I didn’t know self help was a thing I didn’t read. I didn’t read after high school. But my marriage was struggling. You know, and my husband had been my best friend so to like, not have my best friend around but this roommate kind of person in my house. You know, it was so awful. So I had a friend say, Well, I’ve been going to the library a lot. And I thought, Well, okay, I heard about this, dude, wait, I’ll just go see what his books are. And they were life changing. And I think that’s how things happen. A lot of times those were just brought to the right message that we need. And it started to encourage me to seek more than stuff in my life to seek a deeper, more fulfilled life that wasn’t just reliant on external things or collecting the things we’re told we should want, you know? Shawna Scafe 4:58 Yeah, I don’t know if this is how you felt at the time. But it’s like we spent a lot of our 20s building up the life people showed us and told us and you know, we’re you go into winners, and this is what you buy, I think maybe you guys call it something different there. But you go in, you buy the things at the store that you think an adult would need. But then you come home and it just fills your home. And maybe it’s actually not really you like, what, what was that contrast, like to notice between, I have all this stuff. But this is actually who I want to be. So it was Renee 5:30 tough. It was a weird thing that was kind of like, I’m winging it, I hope this helped pave the road for me. But you’re right, like, our parents, you know, we’re born. And we, it’s what we’re supposed to do is listen to our elders, right? They taught us how to eat, they taught us how to walk, they taught us how to wipe our own butt, you know, things that we need. And so then we just kind of keep listening to the messages that were given from teachers and from parents and, you know, go to college, get the house, when are you going to have kids? And a lot of times nobody questions like, oh, but is this actually what I want? Or do I even have an option for these things? And then unfortunately, you know, I think a lot of people already accumulated the things like you said, and that’s where I started to hear a lot of stories from like the minimalists. Who got the climb the ladder at the six figure job, and we’re like, this isn’t, I don’t like this. I don’t want I want to be here. And so I, for me, it started in my closet. And I think you said you find a lot of peace and decluttering your closet as well as like I couldn’t. It’s so difficult to say like, Hey, figure out who you are. Who are you really what do you really want? That’s a big question. So my solution was, well, I’m gonna go on my closet. And I’ll start with the clothes I actually liked the most. So I picked out all the things that I always wanted to wear the most, you know, the, you know, the shirt that you’re like, I always feel cozy in the shirt. I love the way this shirt looks on me. These pants, oh my gosh, they’re my favorite. I picked out all those things. And basically got rid of the rest. Yeah, I kept a few pieces. But the rest was like, Okay, you’re gone. Shawna Scafe 7:23 Oh, wow. Renee 7:24 And that was kind of my stepping stone to figure it out. Me. Shawna Scafe 7:28 That is I think clothing is a great space to start. But you probably hear this often. How do you actually let go of the things that are, you know, maybe I was pregnant, and this fit me then and it won’t fit me right now. Or I used to have a job. And this is what I used to wear? Like, how did you give yourself permission to really let go of the things because we hold on to clothes for like, safety, like a security net? Or, like, I need options? Like, what did you notice going through and letting go of that stuff? Yeah, Renee 8:00 I in that moment. I think it was just such a deep emotional desire to figure out to figure out who I was to let go of it all to kind of start fresh. It was like I wanted to wipe the slate clean, and figure it out. And I think that’s such an important part of decluttering a lot of times is to, to I mean, not everybody everybody’s journey is different. No one’s no one’s is like mine. It’s mine. It’s weird, I feel like but to like, have a deeper idea of what you’re reaching for because it makes it so much easier to let go of those little things, you know, but you’re right, those those deeper topics. So for me in that moment, it was like, I just need to start fresh. It was really easy. But I remember talking to my aunt who it’s been maybe two years now since she retired, she sold her home. She girl just went crazy. She like she had a home that was very filled. She had a very large beautiful home that was filled with things and she would give me things and then she would do the things she does. If you don’t want this or if you’re when the kids are done give it back give it back to the setback. Yeah, but I don’t know what clicked in her. But she was like sold it all get rid of

Our relationship to ‘enough’ can show up in all the areas of our life. Whether we struggle with discomfort, self-worth, setting limits, or offering ourselves more – we all can consider how the concept of ‘enough’ and ‘sufficient’ can play out in our minds, hearts and lives.  Key topics in this episode, and related links for more information Enough exercise for this season TRX videos in my workout playlist of videos I used and loved Setting boundaries with our phone Intentional phone habits (episode and worksheets) Having a constant need for comfort Type 9, How the enneagram changed my life Times of parenting that are so difficult and what ‘enough’ looks like in those seasons Difficult parenting Asking what is ‘enough’ when decluttering Can A Minimalist Have a Full Kitchen? Til We Have Just Enough Stuff Struggling with moderation and knowing what is too much and what is too little  Hurdles for women really knowing what is enough, for themselves. Relying on external sources to compensate our ‘not-enoughness’ 186. Doing life with less (summer challenge) 192. Who are you when I’m not looking (internal vs external validation) Having a mindset of ‘not enough’  40. Does the ‘not-enough’ mindset show up in your momlife? (Scarcity/Abundance) You Can Simplify Your Life Series Looking at this through a faith lens   the BEMA episode on Genesis, Creation, Enough   Questions mentioned in this episode that you can use for reflection and journalling:  What relationship do I have with the terms ‘enough’ and ‘sufficient’? How skilled to I feel at gauging ‘enough’ for myself? Where does scarcity show up for me? Where do I struggle to feel like I am doing enough/am enough/have enouhg? How has being online made me feel like there is something about me or my life that isn’t enough? What does the world around me, seasons and nature, teach me about ‘enough’? Where do I feel like I have too much in my life? Where do I feel like I have too little in my life? Have there been times in my life when I felt a sense of ‘enough’? How do I act, in the different areas of my life, when I feel like there is not ‘enough’?   Looking for more? Follow along on Instagram Sign up for the Simple Saturdays email (twice a month!) Join the Life on Purpose Community  Book a session with Shawna    Full transcript (unedited) Hey friends, it’s Shawna, your nerdy girlfriend and counselor. Welcome to the simple on purpose podcast. So we’re coming into April. And this is a weird season. It’s like an in between season for me, because summer is not here, the Speaker 1 0:18 kids are still in school. But hockey is over which hockey took up for weeknights, and most weekends. So there’s a definite, like, calm period, I would say, the boys are playing more Xbox. But they also move their backboard out of the basement, which is really nice. So they’re out in the yard, shooting pucks, and I kind of get the basement back again, I can put the TRX up and I can do a TRX workout, which I really enjoy the TRX it’s something that you hang from the ceiling or a door and has these two straps that you can like adjust with handholds, and it’s a weight trainer, there’s some really great videos online that I like to do. And I always feel it after even if I’m doing like a really quick workout, like, even 20 minutes, it’s all my workouts are 20 minutes. It’s something that I really am enjoying, too, I think it’s really important to find a way to move that you enjoy. And really one of my goals is strength training. So I’m really happy to reclaim that my basement from hockey and many sticks. And I think, I don’t know, maybe this kind of nicely goes with the topic of the month, which is the theme of balance and moderation. It’s something I’m going to be actively talking about in the Patreon as well as we go through the month. So I want to talk more about the concept of enough. And with this topic, I have a lot of thoughts. It’s like walking through different rooms in one house. So I want to share some different ideas. And I’m going to approach it to be almost kind of meditative, like reading a bunch of daily bread pages, did you grow up with those little daily bread books or daily bread? My mom always had them in the bathroom. She had a lot of bugs in the bathroom, actually, which I find myself doing like my mother now. But a book in the bathroom, it kind of just keeps me from bringing the phone in, which I think is a good boundary. Anyways, the daily bread, they’re like these little books in each page, there’s one page for a day, and has little story, a little thought and then some scripture. So as I drafted up these notes for this episode, I kind of laughed at myself, because I thought it’s not a Reader’s Digest version. And it’s not like 10 points on something. It’s kind of a daily bread version of thoughts. So let’s just start with the first thought. And the first thought is me kind of first thinking about the concept of it enough, the first time I actually really thought about it as an adult. And there was that time in my life where I had my first two kids remember, they were 16 months apart. And it was really overwhelming probably the most overwhelming time of my life because I had a toddler and a baby. But this baby only wanted to sleep on me and was quite mad when she wasn’t sleeping on me. I felt really up against my personal limitations, one of them being a need for constant comfort. And at that time I had written on my chalkboard in my hallway, My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in your weakness. And man did I want power I wanted the power of God coming into my life and rescuing me. And I clung to this verse, My grace is sufficient. In some translations, it says My grace is enough. And that’s the part that stuck with me this concept that enough? Is a version of satisfied or sufficient. And I don’t think I let enough really be the same as satisfied because enough felt lacking somehow. There’s no extra buffer, there’s no security. But enough is sufficient. Isn’t it a sufficient amount? It’s what’s required? No more, no less. When I was decluttering, I would think about the word enough quite often. What’s enough forks for one house? What are enough pairs of tweezers? What are enough pairs of jeans? What’s enough bars of soap in the drawer? What’s enough cleaning products? And of course these are personal questions. There’s no one right answer. But it’s a question that we need to engage for ourselves in all areas of our life. What is enough? What’s enough hours of work? What’s enough hours of time online? What’s enough space in a home and how big should a closet be? What’s enough? What’s enough stuff in the cupboards? What’s enough food for me? What’s enough for drink? What’s enough shopping? And enough is that limit between too much and too little? How do we know we’ve crossed that line into too much or too little? And more importantly, how do we recalibrate, settle, rebalance into enough A lot of the women I work with struggle with moderation with knowing what is enough and remaining in what is enough. For lots of us, it’s either too much or too little also known as all or nothing. Too much shame and criticism too little love and grace, too much distraction, too little intention, too much stuff, too little of the right stuff. How skilled Are we at gauging what is enough for ourselves because the world doesn’t help us with this, the world tells us all of the time, we aren’t enough. We aren’t youthful enough, attractive enough, healthy enough tanned enough vacationed enough, our teeth aren’t brushed enough, they need that special toothbrush, we aren’t smart enough, intuitive enough. We aren’t gentle enough, we aren’t assertive enough. We are energetic enough. So we buy and accumulate a lot of stuff and products and content, so that we can finally be enough. I’ve got an interview coming up in the Patreon with Renee Ben is and she shared this sentiment about her Shopaholic times, where she said she was some something to the sentiment of I was buying all this stuff to feel like I was enough. But then I was just in a constant state of seeing all the ways I wasn’t enough. It’s a core issue. Its core fear that we all need to reckon to some extent. And my enough, what’s our default answer to that question? It’s no, because saying no, you’re not enough, that’s gonna protect us. Because if we’re not enough, we can figure out a way to be enough, and then we’ll be safe. I was looking in the bathroom the other day. And I noticed I have this shelf of lotions and potions that I thought were very necessary when I bought them online at midnight. But now I think they just confused my skin and make me feel like I am now in this lifelong contract with hyaluronic acid. And I can’t do life without it. It’s something I shared when we were doing the live with less challenge in the summer, there are these products that have become my baseline for living. Like I’m just not enough on my own. I need these. I need that daily coffee, I need that certain type of food, I need this beauty product just to be enough. When did I decide I needed these things? When was what I had and who I was not enough? I think what would my grandma’s say? What did her generation think was enough? Surely they did not have a row of skincare products for all the different components of their skin in areas of their face, they probably didn’t have five different types of socks, they probably didn’t have all the streaming services we know they didn’t. But here we are, with more and more options each year on the things we think we now need to make us enough they become a necessity of life. When I approach my life with this underlying thought that maybe I need these things, this puts me into a place of lack of not enough, I have eyes for that now, scarcity, we call it Where does scarcity, not enoughness show up for you? Where do you struggle to feel like you are doing enoug

The most common question I get is “how do you balance motherhood, life and work?”. We are all seeking to have more balance in our daily lives and make sure we get everything done.  In this episode, I share my struggles with having a toddler and baby and looking for balance in my life. I share the common themes I hear from clients on the topic of balance. And I want to offer you different ways to define balance for yourself.  Main topics covered in this episode (and all the related links you might like): The Life on Purpose Community is open on Patreon Listen to a quick episode about what Patreon is and what to expect from the community Join the community here This month we are covering the topics of balance and moderation How our culture influences our definition of balance, and the societal expectations on moms, working moms and women in general How do you define balance? What has your culture told you about what balance looks like for a working mom? How does the workplace support working moms, working families?  203. Being a mom who enjoys her life The Meeting Your Needs Series 188. Motherhood & Social Media (how online communities impact your motherhood experience) 194. I stopped calling myself a lazy mom (addressing the overwhelm of motherhood) Hurdles to being a mom who has dreams and hobbies 126. The Joy of Being Mediocre (hobby without the hustle)   Both my personal experiences and working with moms tell me that we think others are finding balance but we aren’t We get the sense that others have found balance and ease in their life, we don’t see their struggles or inner critics.  145. You aren’t alone mama, I go through that too What I Learned While Searching for Balance in Motherhood 201. Overcoming negative self-talk and to moving towards positive self-talk   Reframing the definition of balance can bring a lot of freedom to a mom who is struggling to make vague or unattainable standards of balance in their life 189. Prioritizing the day: if everything matters nothing matters and how to apply this in motherhood 149. How to find what matters to you (uncovering your personal values) Know Where You Are Going (why vision setting matters + free LIVE YOUR VISION worksheets) 190. Planning the day: my weekly routines and rhythms for work, home and family 78. Small things that can change your whole life (the compound effect) 133. 4 simple habits that make my momlife better 175. What will your future be? More of the same? Or will you turn off the autopilot?   Looking for more? Follow along on Instagram Sign up for the Simple Saturdays email (twice a month!) Join the Life on Purpose Community  Book a session with Shawna      Full transcript (unedited) Speaker 1 0:00 Hey friends, it’s Shawna, your nerdy girlfriend counselor from simple purpose.ca. Welcome back. Welcome. If you’re new to the simple on purpose podcast, around here, we talk about ways to simplify your home, your heart, your life, and show up for your life on purpose. A lot of the conversations we have here on the podcast, are my aim at getting you to really step back and just kind of watch what’s happening for you get awareness about yourself in your life, and how you’re showing up so that you can turn off that autopilot, that reactive that default living that status quo, because if you’re here, you probably want something a little bit different. You want something more intentional. And so we try to talk about being intentional in how we’re showing up in how we’re parenting and in how we’re living our life. That’s the life on purpose Park. I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad you’re here. So we can keep talking about all of the simple on purpose topics. And speaking of simple on purpose, how is your spring break? Was it simple? Was it on purpose? Maybe sometimes, maybe not all the time. I took our two weeks off here in BC, I took our two weeks off of work pretty much for spring break. In the back of my mind, I actually thought I would have pockets of time to draft some episodes get ready for tax season. But my kids really wanted to hang out with me. It’s a surprise. Their friends went out of town though. So I was tagged back in to being an acceptable person to hang out with. We played Monopoly. If you’re on my Instagram, you saw that that was a days long event, because we do it in doses so that we preserve our relationships. We also reread the rules to monopoly. Did you know you can still collect rent and bid on property in jail. So we’ve totally changed our monopoly approach. We watched movies I mentioned I was hoping we would watch Harry Potter and we got up to movie six. So I’m proud of us. We had fires, we went out of town, we played mini golf into an arcade. So it felt like we did a lot. But we still had a lot of time just kind of hanging out at home, which is my favorite to have some downtime. Over the spring break though I did release an episode in the Patreon and if you’re like what is a Patreon? I don’t know what that is. That is an app that is where I hold our members community, the life on purpose community, that’s our members community. And you’ve probably heard me in the past talk about Facebook and Facebook and Instagram are really hard places to grow community and show up on so we’ve moved over to Patreon so that we can show up really intentionally. This is a place where people join on purpose, which means the conversation is also a lot more engaged. There is a bonus Patreon episode on losing yourself in motherhood. And there’s been some really valuable conversations. Following that episode, women sharing their insights, their own struggles, their own strategies. So if you’ve been thinking about joining the life on purpose community, I encourage you to check it out. It’s a really great way to be intentional with how and where you show up for online community, you get bonus episodes, I’m a little bit more in depth, I’m a lot more in depth, actually, I think and a lot more personal in those episodes. And ultimately, it’s just a great way to support the work of simple and purpose. So if you’re interested in that, check out the link in the show notes for the life on purpose community. As we move on this month, we’re talking about the topics of balance and moderation. And balance is the most requested topic that I get. It’s something I talk about with a lot of my clients, especially if they’re moms, or they have really demanding jobs. It’s something I get emails on. And questions are like, how do I balance working? And home? How do I not crash and burn? How do I make sure I’m doing all of the things I’m supposed to do in the day? Some interesting questions that come to my mind with this topic are what is evidence that you use to tell yourself you’re not balanced, that you’re not living a balanced life? And what does balance mean to you? How do you know if you’re more aligned? As I asked, What does balance mean to you? What comes up for you? What do you what sense do you get what visions do you get that life will look like when you have more balance? You noticed a theme here that when I talk about these issues that we are facing, I often talk about how our culture has influenced our concepts and assumption of these issues. And this is simply because our culture is the soil that we’re grown in. And if you consider all the cultures all over the world over all the ages, you sense that each each culture is producing very different values, different rules for living different rules for the people and the roles they play different words for things. I think emotions is a great example of how our culture teaches us different things. For example, in some cultures, emotion shouldn’t be repressed, should be hidden. In other cultures, emotion is an acceptable part of being human. And you can be passionate and you can express your emotions openly. So as we talk about balance, especially as moms and women, we need to consider how we are taught to define balance. A very North American way of defining balance, in my opinion, is finding the time and energy in a day to do all of the things we think we should be doing emphasis on this should. This is where our cultural influence plays a part. What should we be doing? I’ve talked about this many times, the societal expectations on moms and women. I’ll I’ll link some episodes in the show notes on that. I think most of us think that balance is living that ideal day, every day, where we have time for health, the meals are prepped socializing, we talked to friends, we’re connected with other people work where we show up engaged in productive family, where we are present with our kids and patient, community, sleep hobbies, checking with our partner exercise, reading a book, we live in a culture that tells us balance is living that ideal day every day. Also, we live in a culture that does not make balance easy for a woman and mum, the domestic duties are defaulted to the mum, we are expected to carry that mental load, manage the Google Calendar, get all the emails, and now we’re working and still doing all of the same domestic duties. I will say though, I think we’re seeing a shift in this, I think our generation and the one behind us, because your girl, here’s Gen X. So I think there’s two generations maybe three parenting right now, I think that we are on this shift where we are shifting what we grew up with, we are shifting the domestic norms. We are in this generation where both parents are working. And that’s maybe what we saw our moms doing in the 90s and stuff. But we’re having more conversations about it with our partners on how to share that workload. However, there’s still a lot of culture that clings to those traditional domestic roles. And if a if a mom is to work outside the home, they enter into a workforce that is set up for the working parent rather than the default parent. So moms are expected to be the default parent while working in jobs that offer no little supports for them to do that. Well,

There are seasons in life where we feel like we have lost ourselves, especially in motherhood. We might feel stuck and like we aren’t enjoying our lives. I want to talk to how we can move ‘away from pain’ or ‘towards pleasure’,  and some simple ways we can bring delight and passion into our daily lives.  In this episode, Shawna Scafe, Professional Counsellor and Coach speaks on: The language we use to talk about passionate living, desire, enjoying life, pleasure and callings What I have learned about ‘callings’ and dreams Times in life we feel stuck and how that can lead to lowered motivation Making decisions from a place of stress Two types of motivation: towards and away 177. Understanding what is motivating you (chasing vs avoiding) 201. Overcoming negative self-talk and to moving towards positive self-talk Book – Pure Pleasure: Why do Christians feel so bad about feeling good?  The way our culture, upbringing and our own assumptions impact how we enjoy our life The discomfort we might feel with giving ourselves permission to enjoy our lives, especially as moms and the guilt that comes up The way martyrdom holds us back from enjoying our life 67. Making motherhood harder than it needs to be (Mom Martyr) 138. Is momlife UNFUN? How to be a more FUN MOM, stop withholding fun from yourself Start with simple things  Show up for yourself in small ways Listening to yourself  Ideas on ways to delight in your life today   The Life on Purpose Community  In this episode, I talk about the upcoming post I will be sharing in the Patreon on the topic of How to Not Lose Yourself in Motherhood. If you would like access to this bonus content and join the Patreon community, head on over to Life on Purpose Community and join us there.  Full Transcript (unedited) 0:06 All right, this is Take three. Hey, friends. It’s Shawna, your nerdy girlfriend and counselor from simple on purpose.ca. Welcome to the simple on purpose podcast. See, that was easy. I don’t know why it takes me so long to do that sometimes. All right, so we’re getting ready here in BC. For spring break, we’re gonna have spring break with the kids home for two weeks. And I think we’re all excited about it, it felt like life has been really busy with extracurricular activities, hockey, all of that stuff in so we’re just going to hang out with family. Hopefully conor and I will get a night away, the kids will visit their grandparents just hang out around the house, I have the idea of making everyone watch the Harry Potter movies with me and going on family walks. But my kids have different ideas. They want to bike around with friends have sleepovers, and play video games. So hopefully we can do a bit of both. Today, I want to talk to you about how excited you feel about your life. And if you’re already thinking and not excited, and is that even an option. That’s okay, let’s talk about that, too. When I was thinking about this podcast episode, I wanted to call it something like living with more passion, or passionate living, I actually don’t have a title for it yet. So we’ll see what I choose. This is language that I use for myself. ‘ But it is interesting to think even of the word passion, if you look it up, the Latin root of that word means to endure, to suffer, undergo. But in our modern culture, we usually relate the word passion to things related to lust or being fired up, we think it’s really positive and energizing feeling in general, because I was thinking about other terms I could use. One was dreaming bigger with your life. But I think some people find the sense of dreaming bigger, childish, or even like pressure that where you are isn’t enough. Enjoying your life, which is a slogan, you’ve heard me say, this is your life, you should enjoy it. And even when I do say that, I know that it can sound maybe unattainable or out of reach, or like you’re doing it wrong, if you don’t enjoy your life, that is actually not the context I want you to hear it in. When I say that from a place of permission, that you can enjoy this, even the simplest little happinesses and pleasures that are available to you in your day. And hopefully we’ll unpack that more here. I thought about the term living with desire, but that can sometimes sound salacious. Or if you’re from a Christian background, those words can feel loaded with that caveat that our human desires can lead us astray from God’s desires for life. And I want to talk about that too. And one term you will not hear me saying is that you should live your calling. I think that using the term calling can actually set up some kind of criteria that we all have this calling, we all need to find it. And if we don’t find it, we won’t be happy, we won’t feel self actualized. And we better find it or we’re just going to miss it all together. And over the years, I’ve been a woman and talked to many women who asked this question, what is my calling, if I can just find it, then things will feel things with you easy. I’m going to link some blog posts that I’ve written about that topic in the past. Regardless of the term I’m going to use, I know the feeling I want to talk about it is that feeling of moving towards the good. One is the last time you were like really excited and energized about something that you just enjoy doing. That feeling towards the things that light you up pursuing things that are pleasurable, enjoyable, satisfying. Maybe it’s tackling ideas or projects or new routines that you feel committed to excited about, or at the very least curious about. This feeling is about doing things, pursuing things that make you feel alive in all of the best and self honoring ways. And people honoring ways. I think that just goes without saying. But all of this can feel like a huge leap, especially if you feel stuck, or you feel out of touch with yourself. I work with a lot of clients who feel stuck, stuck in their relationships stuck with making a decision stuck in a hard situation stuck with their feelings just stuck along the road of life. And when we feel stuck, we stopped seeing what’s possible, we see a limited number of options. For one part, we’re operating in a stress mode, which means we’re making choices from a different part of our brain. And our choices are often related to the sense that if we can just make the pain stop, then we’ll be okay. So we’re making choices from this kind of operating mode. We’re not making choices from that prefrontal cortex part of our brain that’s more curious, more open thinking long term. So our choices feel limited. And when our choices feel limited, there’s a part of us that feels that limitation on our lives. This sense it really moves us into a place of feeling helpless, feeling hopeless, and feeling unmotivated. What’s there to feel excited about? Have you ever found yourself here I know I have a few times, at least in my life. I’ve lost motivation. I’ve lost touch with who I was what I wanted, and I was just stuck. One situation definitely happened earlier in my 20s when I was newly married, but then again in motherhood, having kids becoming a mom shifting not just your identity and this new role motherhood, but it shifts how you spend your time, how you spend your money, how you spend your energy, how you dress, the clothes you put on your body, it changes where you go, where you spend your time, where, what facilities are available to you, you’re going to new places you never thought you’d go, it changes what you do. And in the Patreon, this month, I’m going to share on this I’m going to share an episode on how to not lose yourself in motherhood. Because from what I see what I experience, being a mom, and all that it takes from us and all that we give it, we often find that we’ve lost ourselves part of ourselves. So we’ve lost those parts of ourselves that is not mom. Along the way. We’ve tuned out those other parts, those parts that have some inner knowing, inner passion, eagerness, curiosity of what we want, and who we are. As I work with clients who feel stuck, we can talk about a lot of things, the patterns that we’re in, the beliefs we’re living from, we can process what’s hard, we can work on how we’re dealing with stress. And this is all really great at revealing some foundation for them. And once they feel ready, we can start talking about moving forward. There’s a shift when someone feels ready for this, there’s a shift in their whole body when we move from addressing the stuckness like you’re in the pit. And when we get out of the pit. So to speak, we feel ready to start that journey. It’s a very exciting time because we get to shift into a new way of approaching our lives our daily life. We shift our motivation, and I’m going to tell you about two types of motivation to pay attention to. If you’ve heard episode 177 that digs deep into these types of motivation. One is away motivation. Moving away from the things that hurt, avoiding the things that hurt and the other one is towards motivation, moving towards things that are enjoyable or pleasant. And away, motivation is very common, we naturally want to avoid pain. So we have that negativity bias scanning for potential danger. I know for me, it’s really easy to live my whole day in that away motivation. Avoid the bad avoid the danger, especially in motherhood, where I struggle with that need to control the chaos. I also think, towards motivation in a way motivation is interesting in the context of a faith lens to where some of us grew up with a very legalistic view on our faith. And our life had to be lived in a way to avoid sin. It can become very fear based it feels like a life of just sin management. Avoid the badness avoid the bad, avoid our badness like a bracing for the fight defense mode beyond guard, even talking about that I feel in my body. What about opening up our arms and moving towards what is good? That feels like living to me that feels more like life to me. I’m reading a book on this

I am going to stop spreading myself thin across the internet, and I am launching a member community in Patreon called the Life on Purpose Community. I chose this name because I want one of the overall goals of this community to be nurturing YOUR life on purpose. I want to encourage you to have passion in your life and enjoy your life.        In this episode I run through  What is a patreon? Building community and where those efforts are best spent The limits on public content vs private content Creating a space where content can be more unfiltered Being a content creator and having to decide where to spend your efforts Why I chose the name Life on Purpose Community  What exactly to expect in the Patreon If you are interested in the Patreon, learn more about it here.      Full transcript (unedited) 0:08 Hey friends it’s Shawna, your nerdy girlfriend a counselor from simple on purpose.ca Welcome to the simple on purpose Podcast. Today is just a quick episode where I want to come in and share with you about something that I Low-key mentioned the last episode and that is the life on purpose community Patreon. So I mentioned it in Episode 201 that I was having a follow up episode to that podcast in the Patreon and I realized I know it’s not something I shared officially about. So here we are, we’re gonna do that right now. First of all, a question I get often is what is a Patreon? Patreon is a term for the app or the website. It’s the program the program that is used to host a private members only community and many podcasters will talk about their Patreon. And often their Patreon is a place where you get extra podcast episodes that are private. So members in the Patreon can take a special URL from their Patreon group, add it to their podcast player and you can listen to the private Patreon episodes in whatever podcast player you use iTunes overcast Google podcasts. So Patreon is that platform. If you subscribe to someone’s Patreon, then you can view everything they share in the community, you can comment on things, you can watch any special videos that they have shared, any special trainings, downloads, you can be part of the chat there, get the private episodes, whatever they have in their Patreon community. So that’s what Patreon is, I am part of a couple of Patreon I, especially for their private podcast episodes. That’s something that I was drawn to for these specific podcasts I wanted the deeper content that they had. And I take that podcast URL, I put it in my apple podcasts. And I get those private podcast episodes in my normal podcast player. It’s great. As I’m talking about this, I think the first thing I want to talk about is community because to me, that’s why I’m here. Back in 2020, I was running the life on purpose Academy, it was a member community, it was a coaching community, I had monthly lessons and weekly coaching calls, it was a higher price point. And every week, many of the same women depending on who could make the call, they would come onto this call, they would share their struggles, their issues, their questions, they would share support with each other in the chat. And it was one of my favorite things that I have done. It was warm and intimate. And there was so much growth that happened there. 2:48 At the end of that year of running that community, I did close the program for one, the workload had become a bit unmanageable with the way I had set it up. And I was also heading back to school. However, since then, I knew I just kept coming back into my mind that I wanted to have a community again, you know those things that you know, you’re just gonna do them no matter what. It’s just a matter of when and not if, to me, that’s what creating a community is. Over the years, and one of the ways I actually tried to do that was the Facebook group. In the Facebook group, the simple on purpose community, I have shared a lot over the years I’ve shared tours of my closet, and my kitchen and live q&a is with all of your questions. If you go back into that group, you’re gonna see a lot of videos, a lot of photos, I was sharing Tuesday Tips and questions about setting your weekend intentions. But if you’ve been part of a Facebook group, if you’ve run a Facebook group, then you know that the group members don’t see all of the posts. Unless you specifically go into your Facebook group and change the notification settings, you’re not going to see those posts. So the group has almost 1000 people. But the amount of people who actually see my posts in that group is around 10% of the group, depending on the post, and then the amount of people who engage with that post commented on it is even less. I do also want to say I am grateful for the conversations we’ve had there. There’s been great stuff that’s been shared quite great questions that have been asked. We’ve done some great challenges together. We’ve talked about how we dress and doing a 30 for 30. We’ve talked about simplifying the summer and doing a summer of less. We’ve done a lot of fun things over there and I see you and I value that. However, I don’t want to break my back trying to find an algorithm and Facebook when there are other options to deepen community out there. So for a while now I knew I was going to have to leave that platform as a place where I build community and I want that place where we to build community to be someone, something that someone intentionally seeks out, if you’re on Facebook, you’re not there. With the purpose of joining in that specific community conversation, you’re there to just like scroll and catch up. But if you are a part of a Patreon, and you go open your Patreon app, or go to the Patreon website, you’re there specifically to be part and of that community and be engaged. The next thing I want to talk about is content content. The internet is full of content, ideas, tips, podcasts, videos, reels, you can get endless knowledge on any topic. And just to like, while this time we live in, I’m going to be 42 this year. So I’m always just amazed at how much knowledge we have like I didn’t get a smartphone till I was 26. And I was just mostly playing tap fish on it, not not much of substance. So you can go to my blog, simple on purpose, you can find over a decade’s worth of content. If you search the archives, you’re gonna find so much stuff, there’s posts on minimalism, intentional living worksheets on so many things life on purpose, family rhythms, simplifying your life, there’s just so much content over there. And here on the podcast, I share a lot of my thoughts were like over 200 episodes of me talking to there’s a lot of content. And then in the simple Saturdays, email, there is a lot of content. But you know, the interesting thing to me, that I pay attention to is that I have so much more to say, in my mind, there’s a limit on what you broadcast publicly for all of the internet. So having a Patreon, a members only community, to me, that represents a place where I can go deeper, where I can be a bit more unfiltered and what I share, I can share more in terms of what I’ve learned how I work, what I’m in the process of learning, where I can share more of my life, and my own journey as a woman, as a mom as a person. So if you’ve liked the blog, the podcast email, it’s about to get a whole lot richer and raw in that Patreon. A conversation about content also needs to consider the content creator because creating content takes energy and time and resources. And to me this Patreon represents a place where I can condense my efforts and focus my energy into one place. Rather than being a little bit everywhere Facebook group, email, blog, podcast Instagram, I can allow myself to put my energy into one intentional space. Especially now that I’ve been counseling for a while. And that is something that I am growing and enjoying and still want to make space and time for. I need to be intentional about where I spend my time I need to declutter my efforts and my energy and you know, me, I’m all about making things simpler and more intentional. Finally, I want to talk about the name the life on purpose community. I chose not to use the word Academy, which I had in the past, because to me, it’s not going to be that kind of school like setting as it wasn’t that 2020 program. And I chose life on purpose instead of simple on purpose. Because my hope for this community is to really tap into the living, like into the passion that we want to have in our lives into showing up for our lives into enjoying our lives, and into living on purpose. Yes, there’s still always work that we can do on how we limit ourselves, how we avoid our life, how we avoid emotions, and conflict. That’s all part of it. But I want this to also be a place where you get excited about life, where you feel like you can get more clear on what you want in your life. And I want to help nurture that. I want to help nurture a community of women who are excited about life about their lives. I’ll wrap up with what exactly you can expect in the life on purpose community. And right now I want to keep this community simple. I’ve got a few things that I’m going to focus in on. The first one is extra podcast episodes. And the thing that will be different about the Patreon episode is that I can expand so much more. With a simple on purpose podcast. Like I said, I do keep a limit on what I publicly broadcast and how deep I go with things. I restrict myself to the topic to the timeline of about 20 minutes. I am careful about taking a topic too deep or getting too personal. I just hope to allow myself more freedom to do those things in the Patreon. I also get requests for guest interviews and it’s something I’ve done maybe just a few times on the podcast. I will be sharing guest interviews in the Patreon and these are episodes where I’m also hoping to get your suggestions. If there’s someone you ever wanted to hear me talk with a guest you ever wished I would have brought on

Negative self-talk can our work-life balance or ability to manage parenting challenges. In this episode, Shawna Scafe, Counsellor and Coach, discusses how to identify common cognitive distortions and challenge them to help rewire your self-talk to be more empowering and motivating.      This episode is a follow-up to the introduction on Cognitive Distortion (Episode 199). Listeners sent in examples of situations in their day where they struggle with positive self-talk. In each example, I point out what cognitive distortion might be at play and offer some questions to open up awareness of other ways to talk to yourself.  Topics and related links covered in this episode normalizing the struggle with self-talk how negative self talk impacts us, vs how positive self-talk impacts us three things to know about how our brain works when it comes to negative self-talk using CBT to reframe self-talk (and cautions about using it as an emotional bypass) 156. 3 things to know about feeling negative emotions Scenarios covered in this episode: The inability to feel good enough at work or at home – the inability to properly balance either to the point of feeling like you could possibly be proficient in both. Window of tolerance mentioned, you can hear more about it in the Meeting Your Needs series When you have many littles, don’t get enough sleep often and are sleepy grumpy during the day and can’t seem to shake it! 74. Show up for momlife with these empowering mindsets 73. How to deal with the emotional struggles of being a mom of babies and toddlers 162. Think the best of me, or not. Allowing the hard and awesome in ourselves and in our lives. When you work so hard to get everything done, just to start over again. And when you’re feeling annoyed at your family Byron Katie Hunt, Gather, Parent    Joining the NEW Patreon, the Life on Purpose Community! The scenarios covered in the follow-up Patreon Episode: When you just can’t get to that workout/assignment/project Walking into a room with confidence when insecurities seek to make you feel less than or unwelcome in a group setting. When I’m tired or sick – I find it difficult to not feel lazy when I want to rest. And though I know I should rest – it’s hard! When I’m procrastinating but have a work deadline looming Making it through long, cold winter days without much social interaction. It’s so cold that I literally go to work and come home. I’m a teacher and don’t have a ton of adult interaction during my days and I feel like the winter blues are getting the best of me. EPISODE TRANSCRIPT 0:06 Hey friends is Shawna your nerdy girlfriend and counselor from simple on purpose.ca Welcome to the Simple on Purpose Podcast. Guys. How is it March? How is where did February go? Okay, February felt like a blur of hockey. I’ve been setting up a new office to do some local sessions and getting that painted and all set up and I just look up and suddenly it’s March. Oh yeah, by the way, I had a kid turn 13 last month too. Isn’t that crazy? What’s also crazy is that means I’ve been sharing with you guys for almost 13 years because the very first thing I ever posted way back on a blog spot called duck tail blog was the story of my C section. And I had a lot of big feelings about it. A lot of disappointment and frustration and anger and and nurse had recommended that I write about it. That was the first blog post that really started this whole online community online relationship that we were able to develop and how it’s grown, how we’ve changed how we’ve grown together. And now we’re talking about things like cognitive distortions and motherhood and mindsets and just really keep digging in deeper and peeling off the layers and going deeper together, which I just I cherished so much, that you guys are on this journey with me and we can do it together. Alright, so this episode is a follow up to the one I did two episodes ago on cognitive distortions. The topic was brought up because I had a request to talk about positive self talk during the day, which made me think when we’re paying attention to our thoughts, we really have to notice the way that we filter our thoughts and the cognitive distortions we might have. So I’ve covered some of the main ones in that episode, like all or nothing thinking disqualifying the positive emotional reasoning, overgeneralization there were also some download wallpapers to get with that, as well. I’ll make sure to link that in the show notes. And this episode will be the follow up, I’m going to answer the scenarios the specific scenarios you submitted to me in the Facebook group. On the subject of times in your day that you feel you need some positive self talk, I’m going to give you a heads up right here that I am going to be launching a Patreon guys, I’ve thought about this for many years, actually, ever since we closed down the life on purpose Academy and 2021. I knew I wanted to bring a community back, and it’s going to be on Patreon. So I’m going to cover a handful of the sooner scenarios here and have an additional episode in the patreon to really keep digging into this. Alright, self talk, positive self talk, maybe you struggle with positive self talk, maybe you notice it in a lot of areas of your life. Maybe in certain areas where you feel a bit more shaky, or unsure. Maybe you notice you feel defeated about things. And often we struggle with negative self talk, when we’re feeling defeated when something’s not going quite right. It’s interesting, that negative self talk we use negative emotions to motivate ourselves. Specifically shame, criticism, self bullying. And the hard part is these negative emotions, they might be effective, but they’re not empowering, it is negative reinforcement. Avoid that negative feeling versus positive to seek out the positive a totally different approach, we can take totally different emotions that are driving us got an episode number 177. On that if you want to dig into, towards motivation and away motivation a little bit more. If you do struggle with negative self talk, I want you to know three things. The first one is isn’t your fault. And what I mean by that is you likely didn’t choose negative self talk on purpose with detention intention. Sorry, you didn’t decide. I would like to think poorly of myself, I would like to feel negative emotions here. As with most of our inner narratives, this was formed before you consciously knew it, our thoughts, our default thoughts, how we react, the main themes of our thoughts, they are handed down to us in a way we learn and then we adopt them. The same way we learn language, how we learn to call water, we learn how to think about ourselves, our abilities, our opportunities, who we are in the world who other people are in the world, we learn how to think we are programmed with cause effect event, meaning belief result, from our upbringing, from our culture, from our experiences. It’s like just the blueprint that we formed from observing and learning and that cause and effect that has taught us and then the more we think in a certain way, the more we think that way. Neurons that fire together wire together. And I like to think Have our thoughts as a path. When you think a thought you’re like, treading little trail through the woods, and the more you think it, the more that path gets worn down and hardened. And next thing, it’s like an eight lane freeway, and it’s your default thought you don’t even notice it happens, it happens so fast, without intention without conscious awareness even. And our brain does that to be efficient to save energy. That’s why we have habits. That’s why we have automatic thoughts to save energy. So you didn’t do it with intention on purpose likely. And the second thing I want you to know is that if you want to think positive, if you want to shift that, you have to do it on purpose. This is because our brain not only has this kind of blueprint that we’re thinking with, but it additionally has a negativity bias. I call it danger brain, our brain is looking for what could go wrong. It’s important, we need this actually, it’s a very important way that we have been kept safe over the generations. Because if we are aware of what’s negative, what’s the danger around us, that means we’re aware of the risks to our survival. So spot, the danger manage it survive. It’s very useful, right? Our brain is looking for problems, it’s looking for danger. And managing that. I often joke with my clients that we think our brain is just going to naturally make our lives better. But we have to be intentional with how we use that. It’s like having this great computer, it can do all these things. But whatever program it’s running is this result we’re going to get, and our brain really just have this program of running that is a negativity bias. It has a lot of assumptions and stories that we adopted from early on that have never been challenged. The program has never been revised to what we want it to be doing right now. I hope I’m not going all over the place and being too meta. If we seek to think more positively, we want to use positive emotion emotions to empower us to motivate us, then we need to program that in we need to revise our programming, and we need to practice it, which is the third thing. Our brains are neuro plastic, which means we can change our own minds. But it takes time and it takes effort which your brain won’t be excited to do. We can forge a new path for our thoughts, we can blaze a new path and we can keep treading down that path and hardening it and strengthening it. It will take practice but it is doable. What I would like to do for this episode is run through the scenarios that were shared with me. I want to talk about the cognitive distortions we likely have involved in this. And as we are working on changing our minds about what we think about ourselves in our lives, I don’t want to tell you what to think. You know what I

As a way to celebrate 200 episodes and 5 years together, I asked listeners for their questions on any topic. In this episode, I’m answering questions on the most important question to ask when decluttering, abundance vs scarcity mindsets, motherhood stages and seasons, and more from AMA (Ask Me Anything) questions Here are the questions that I answered in this episode, and related links to posts and episodes that you might like: DECLUTTERING 1. What is the most important thing to consider when trying to declutter as an Enneagram type 7? Enneagram 101 (what is it and what are the nine types) Enneagram + Motherhood Series 143. How to let go of IDENTITY CLUTTER 90. Declutter ‘what if I need it one day?’ items from your home with THIS shift 111. Decluttering decisions and guilt [Q+A] 110. Our relationship with stuff, and other decluttering questions MINDSETS 2. How to develop a positive mindset when dealing with a chronic illness or health worries of family members? 3. Did you always have an abundance mindset? If not, when did it change and how do you nurture it? (LISTEN) 40. Does the ‘not-enough’ mindset show up in your momlife? (Scarcity/Abundance) (READ) The ‘not-enough’ mindset (how to spot a scarcity mindset and shift it to an abundance mindset) 177. Understanding what is motivating you (chasing vs avoiding) SIMPLE ON PURPOSE 4. What has changed since starting the podcast? What is the purpose of the podcast now? 5. What is your main source of inspiration for your work? MOTHERHOOD 6. What’s something you’re loving about your family’s ages, stages and dynamics right now? 190. Planning the day: my weekly routines and rhythms for work, home and family 7. How can I best parent my middle child? 163. Have fun with your kids, on purpose + reasons we don’t have fun When Did I Stop Enjoying My Kids? (and my journey back to enjoying them) 8. How do I know if our family is meant for another baby? FUN AMA 9. What is your favourite book? Books mentioned: The Glass Castle, Outlander, The Nightingale 10. What are you manifesting right now? 11. What’s on your bucket list?     Working with Shawna, learn more here  The Simple Saturdays email, sign up here The Simple on Purpose Community, join here Instagram, come say hi!     Full transcript (unedited) 0:11 Welcome to the simple purpose Podcast. Today is our 200th episode. And for this episode, I wanted to make it really collaborative. So I went to Instagram and Facebook and email. And I asked for questions. I wanted this to be a q&a episode, where you are kind of opening it up and asking the things that have been on your mind, things you’ve wanted to ask me things you are interested in. So we’ve got a range of topics. We’ve got decluttering, and mindsets and motherhood, all my favorite topics. And I couldn’t get to everything. So if you don’t hear your question answered here, hopefully, I’m going to address it in an email in the Facebook group or in a future episode. Let’s just jump in. The first one is on decluttering, what is the most important thing to consider when trying to declutter, I’m a type seven, and this person is referencing the Enneagram, that they are a type seven on the Enneagram. For those who have never heard of it, the Enneagram is a self discovery tool. It addresses our strengths, our stress habits, and something that makes it different is it addresses our motives as well. It’s a tool that I use with clients who are interested, I have a lot of posts and episodes on it, I’ll make sure to link those. A type seven is someone who avoids negative feelings and pursues the things that make them feel good. So it’s going to look a little bit different for each person. But that type seven does has have the stereotype of being enthusiastic moving on to the next thing. And if you’re a type seven, you might get distracted and never finish when it comes to decluttering. So in terms of decluttering, an important focus for a type seven would be having a bit of a plan, like slowing down, writing out maybe three steps and finishing finishing type nines the type I am, they’re guilty of not finishing to, you know, getting stuff into a pile is one thing, getting it out the door and another I rely on my type three achiever husband to generate the movement on that. Overall, to answer this question, though, I want to distill it down and I spent a lot of time considering what would I distill it down to would be the most important thing when trying to declutter. And here’s what I came up with, at this point in my decluttering journey, I would ask, What would my life be like without this item. So like I said, I’ve had years of decluttering, helping people helping family. And I know that we keep things because we think our future selves will need it, or we’re going to sell it for money, or we’re going to do something with it. But that thing just becomes an obstruction of space and mental energy, we never get around to fixing it or listing it online, or we did and no one came to get it. And or we listed it and no one wanted to buy it for what we think it was worth, we think it’s worth more money, or we never use it, we never cook with it, we never wear it, we never read it, we just never make a use for it. But there it is in our space, reminding us that we should use it, sell it, fix it, whatever. Every time we open up the closet, go to the basement, pass that room where the stuff just is. It’s almost shouting at us, you should use me, you should take care of me you should sell me you aren’t doing the thing you should do. And in my opinion, that clutter causes a lot of emotional and mental drama, that could all go away if we just let it go. Instead, we’re letting it take up space, we’re paying money to store it in our homes to heat it to cool. And that space we could use for living? What would my life be like without this item? What would my space be like without this item? What would my closet feel like? What would my kitchen feel like without this item? I have a couple episodes that I think relate to this on identity clutter? And what if I need it one day, I’m going to link those in the show notes. They were a couple of questions on mindsets. And the first one is a two parter. One part of that is how to develop a positive mindset perspective when dealing with a chronic illness. Also how to not spiral into constant worry about health, health of family members during difficult times. I’m going to try and address both of these in one notion. And remember, these episodes are never a substitute for therapy. They are ideas you can try. When you get to sit and talk with a professional one on one, you get so much more insight and tools that fit with your life and your circumstances. So if you are struggling, or you simply want a new way of approaching things and thinking about things, I encourage you to talk to someone one on one with answering this question. The thing that stands out to me is that it is hard to think positively about an experience that you actually feel is negative. So trying to shift into positive thinking it will feel fake your brain won’t buy it your mouth might say it but your body won’t sink into it. And in these cases I encourage you to meet yourself where you are at meet yourself in the worry in the defeat and validate those emotions validate how you’re feeling. It is defeating to have a chronic illness. It is a lot to be worrying about loved ones, these are hard things to carry. And it’s important that you acknowledge them. Rather than trying to jump into a positive mindset. And not to say you can’t shift into a positive mindset, but you have to meet yourself where you are at first. Start neutral. You don’t have to like your chronic illness. You don’t have to love life and feel totally great and feel totally peaceful with the health of everyone and yourself. But what would it look like to shift just up one level from where you’re at right now? This is a question that I think we could spend a whole episode on. And these situations are really great to bring into counseling, especially if you have a counselor who works with act acceptance commitment therapy. The next question is, did you always have an abundance mindset? And if not, when did it change for you? And how do you nurture this? What is an abundance mindset? I’ve got an episode on that. I’m going to link it. The abundance mindset is the flip side of the scarcity mindset. So it’s scarcity versus abundance. Where scarcity says there is not enough time there is not enough friends, there’s not enough opportunities, not enough to go around. If someone else is good at something, then somehow that makes me less good. Versus abundance, where there is enough what’s meant for you will always be available. And if someone is really great at something, there’s room for you to be great too. And this question when I read it, did you always have an abundance mindset? It almost made me snort, laugh? Because No, I definitely had a scarcity mindset. When it came to my abilities, my looks to opportunities to money for sure. I had scarcity of time. And this time in my mind that of how this timeline of my life had to go. And when it changed was when actually I just learned what scarcity and abundance was. I shared this in the Related podcast episode, I had first heard this concept in relation to the story of Rachel and Leah in the Bible, who were sisters. One was beautiful. One was not one was praised and revered for her beauty. And because they’re sisters, there’s this comparison thing that naturally happens to siblings, unfortunately, who is and who is not if you are this than the other one is not. And it hit me as one of three girls in my family noticing the ways that I felt like I was not because they were. And that’s really when I learned about this mindset, and how do I nurture it? I feel like I view opportunities as something that are always going to come back again. If I say no to things that don’t work well fo

How we talk to ourselves matters. I was asked to share an episode on positive self-talk and want to open up with a review of the common mindset traps (cognitive distortions) we can have. By noticing these cognitive distortions we can better understand how we might be holding ourselves back and the impact our thinking can have on our lives and relationships. I will share the common cognitive distortions, what they are, and some examples that we might have in motherhood and life.      Topics in this episode and related links you might like: Habit tracking for the new year Habit Change, for Moms Playlist is right here) Positive self-talk consider what story and emotion are you operating from Why it matters what you think (limiting mindsets in motherhood) What are cognitive distortions The negative filter we see things through How cognitive distortions impact our assumptions and view of things  How they impact our behaviours, relationships and lives  Common cognitive distortions (wallpaper download form is below) All or Nothing  Our marriage was struggling, here are 12 things that helped us heal and strengthen it 162. Think the best of me, or not. Allowing the hard and awesome in ourselves and in our lives. Overgeneralization  158. MVP/ Do you typecast your kids? How labels impact our parenting and our children Catastrophizing Personalization Jumping to Conclusions Mindreading misFortune Telling  Emotional Reasoning Should Statements Discounting the Positive  Minimize the positive Focus on the negative How to handle cognitive distortions how to pay attention to your thoughts, challenge your thoughts, the power of noticing and naming    The cognitive distortion downloads/wallpapers, if you can’t see the sign up box then click here Download the wallpapers Wallpapers of common mindset traps   Subscribe + Download     Loading…   You have successfully joined our subscriber list. Head to this page to download your wallpapers     More links and resources: The Let’s Get More Time Summit, learn more or sign up here Working with Shawna, learn more here  The Simple Saturdays email, sign up here The Simple on Purpose Community, join here Instagram, come say hi!     FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited)   0:06 Hey friends, it’s Shawna, your nerdy girlfriend and counselor from simple on purpose.ca Welcome to simple on purpose podcast. And welcome to February. What was January like for you? I’m a hockey mom in Canada. So like most hockey moms and probably most sport moms,I spent most of the month Driving driving to different towns sitting in rinks. And always telling my kids pack more snacks pack more snacks, because I don’t want to buy food on the road. 0:32 And also in January, I’ve started to track my habits. Again, it’s something that I have done over the years. And I shared this in this simple Saturday’s email, if you get that, um, I was just sharing on this that I’m not necessarily adding a new habits this year. Well, that’s not true. I did add one habit to the habit tracker, and that was to get outside and not so much to make sure I’m getting outside every day, but to just kind of tracking, see what is happening already. Kind of like get the baseline info of what’s going on. So I’ve been tracking my habits using an app. And I hope to share an update on that in the future as I go through the months and just see how that goes. 1:10 Today’s episode is based on a request that I had. And I had a request I asked in the Facebook group for Hey, what do you want to hear this year on the podcast or this month or whatever. And someone mentioned positive self talk during the day, which got a lot of people saying yes, I would love to hear on that. So positive self talk. What I mean when I say that is how you talk to yourself during the day, you know, you talk to yourself a certain way like you can be mean to yourself you can be nice to yourself is the things you say to yourself. And those things really matter. The stories you have about you matter. 1:47 The way you view yourself matters, what you tell yourself about you matters, the things we think are true about us or not true about us, we perpetuate them. We feel them. We carry these stories. I talked about this a bit more in Episode 76 What you think matters. And if you have a lot of negative story, you’re gonna feel that in your body, you’re going to feel negative, you’ll be operating from places like shame and frustration and scarcity. Versus if you have a more positive story or even neutral, hey, let’s start neutral. We don’t have to feel like we’re the best. But neutral is good, too. You’re gonna feel more capable. Hopefully you’re going to feel more empowered. 2:28 It’s kind of like watering your garden with vinegar versus water. I don’t know if that’s a good example. Because I’m not a gardener. I don’t know what vinegar would do. I’m assuming it’s not going to be helpful. But it’s just hard to grow beautiful things. If you’re not taking care and watering and letting the sun shine on it is a great topic, I think because most clients that I work with, have some negative self talk in in their day, we all do. Don’t let my garden analogy make you feel defeated. We all have some vinegar, we all have some weeds. 2:59 With this request to talk about positive self talk. I took it to Facebook, and I asked for scenarios like where exactly do you need this? What’s going on for you. And I had so many great scenarios. I’m going to follow up in kind of a q&a style q&a q&a q&a style episode shortly on that. But one statement kind of stopped me in my tracks and made me realize I had to do an episode on this topic. The statement was this. I’ve realized how much I fall into the all or nothing mindset trap. I’ve realized I can address my thought patterns and use positive self talk more effectively, when there are certain mindsets I’m having, such as the all or nothing mindset. So I’d love to learn how to identify these types of mindset and ways to use self talk to speak to myself when I’m finding myself thinking these things. 3:47 And she mentioned the all or nothing thought trap. Such a great example all or nothing is that black and white thinking. It says I’m either 100% or I’m 0% I’m either a success or I’m a failure. I’ve yelled at my kids today, so I’m a bad mom. It’s no in between. I must eat perfectly. There’s no room for moderation. If I make a mistake at work. I’m a horrible employee. If I didn’t finish my to do list today, I failed at life. There’s all or nothing, no middle ground, no matter at moderation, no days off, no B pluses, there’s no middle ground. Good, Bad two categories. And I was kind of laughing as I was thinking about all or nothing thinking because I remember my husband saying to me, when we were first married. It’s either good, or it’s doom and gloom with you like there’s no in between. There’s no space for conflict or tension or us just not being what in my mind was ideal. And man, I’ll tell you marriage has been a journey. I’ll link some posts on that in the show notes. That all or nothing thinking is really invasive. You can probably notice already some areas you might have it in and I’m going to actually unpack all or nothing thinking as it pertains to our relationship with Time in the virtual summit called let’s get more time, I’m just one of many speakers in the summit. Registration is open now that it’s February. And that is happening the weekend of February 22. So I’ll link that in the show notes. It’s a free Summit. If you’re interested in that. 5:16 When you slow it down, and you think about some all or nothing mindsets you have, you can probably see how that thing you’re thinking isn’t helpful, and probably not true. If you miss a workout this week, should you just quit the whole thing? No, we should accommodate for missing a day sometimes. If you get stressed and yell at your kids, are you a bad mom? Is the whole day just a bad day? No, sometimes moms yell. And sometimes parts of our day are hard and some parts are great. There’s an episode that you might enjoy on that episode 160. To think the best of me, I talk a bit about marriage, but also about allowing that hard and awesome in our lives, and also how we talk to our kids about it. So I’ll put that in the show notes. 6:03 Those are examples of all or nothing thinking we can’t see the entire story, we can’t see what else could be true. And this is what a cognitive distortion does. It’s kind of like looking through a dirty windshield, we can kind of see where we’re going enough enough to make it. But we’re missing some things. Not everything is totally clear. A cognitive distortion is a term for patterns in our thinking that are not fully accurate and cause us some distress. So keep this in mind. We’re not talking about hope and trust and abundance and empowerment. We’re talking about the negative bias our brain has to spot the danger. When you spot the danger, you keep yourself safe. But that negativity bias leaves us with cognitive distortions which cause us some distress in some way. 6:47 If you’ve ever been to a therapist or counselor that uses cognitive behavioral therapy, you might have heard cognitive distortions, you might have even heard the all or nothing thinking cognitive distortions, a term from Aaron Beck. They’re also called mental blocks, thinking errors, cognitive biases, distorted thinking negative thoughts. In the past, I really like to call them thought traps. And in this episode, I want to run through the main ones, I’ll cover about eight of them all, there’s more. And I’m going to put them in a PDF. So you can just scroll through them after you don’t have to write anything down or try to remember everything we’re talking about. I want you to keep in mind how a cognitive distortion that I mentioned might show up for you. 7:27 But even more importantly, keep in mind how you act when you have that

What does it mean to live on purpose? This is a question I get from listeners who want to live intentionally but aren’t sure how to apply it to daily life (as a mom, because mom life has a lot of urgency and autopilot wrapped into it).  I want to unpack how I approach intentional living on a daily basis as well as the bigger picture.    This is a listener question: how do we live each day with intention and purpose?  We will cover what holds you back from intentional living and how to get started with simple steps. Main topics covered in this episode (and related links): Feeling unmotivated with life For the mom who is ‘waiting’ for life to happen 177. Understanding what is motivating you (chasing vs avoiding) Feeling swept up in routine and living on autopilot  79. Six signs you are living your life on autopilot (and what to do about it) Deciding you are ready to make a change and pursue intentional living The Making Change Challenge Decluttering the distractions, to make way for living intentionally 189. Prioritizing the day: if everything matters nothing matters and how to apply this in motherhood 161. Why having LESS matters, the benefits of decluttering and minimalism Intentional Phone Habits Series The Eisenhower matrix (important/non-important, urgent/non-urgent) can help you set daily focus  Looking out for all-or-nothing thinking when it comes to approaching life on purpose The power of small shifts done consistently, to help you shift into intentional living 78. Small things that can change your whole life (the compound effect) 133. 4 simple habits that make my momlife better Setting your intention starts with getting to know what you want your life to look like 176. When you don’t know what you want in life. Life on purpose for the non-dreamer Having a vision to be intentional towards, what this can look like and tools you can try Know Where You Are Going (why vision setting matters + free LIVE YOUR VISION worksheets) Deciding what your future holds, on purpose and not on autopilot 175. What will your future be? More of the same? Or will you turn off the autopilot? Having more fun with life on purpose 138. Is momlife UNFUN? How to be a more FUN MOM, stop withholding fun from yourself Knowing your values is key to feeling like you are living intentionally How to get that feeling (why values matter + free LIVE YOUR VALUES worksheet) 149. How to find what matters to you (uncovering your personal values) Aligning your action with your values 69. Will a simpler home bring me peace? Other tools you can use to help you live your life on purpose The Life on Purpose Workbook Life on Purpose Roadmap   As mentioned in this episode: The enneagram was referenced, here is a series on the Enneagram + Motherhood  Hygge was mentioned, here is a post called Hygge vs Minimalism The Spotify Playlists for all Simple on Purpose episodes right here.  The Let’s Get More Time Virtual Summit, registration opens in February  The Facebook group, a place for you to share thoughts and questions and support    Full Transcript 0:00 Hey friends, it’s Shawna, your nerdy girlfriend and counselor from simple on purpose.ca. Welcome back to 2024 with the simple on purpose podcast. 0:09 So it’s been a while I think my last episode was about a month ago. And I was in that winter break mode with the kids home and I took time off work. And it was really cozy and Heuga relaxing. We had lots of slow mornings, we had lots of stick and Puck that the kids were going to during the day and movies on the couch. 0:32 So coming back to the routine, the routine of school lunches, and after school drop offs and pickups and I tell you that like second shift for me that three to 8pm, maybe three to nine, by the time everyone’s in bed, it’s a lot of driving places and picking up and trying to make dinner, and sit with that restless feeling that I feel while all of this is going on. It’s quite a contrast for me. 1:00 I think my type nine comes out a lot in these kinds of moments. If you’ve heard me talk about the Enneagram, that self discovery tool that type nine is the peacemaker, but they’re also a little bit of a sloth, they really like to be slow, and conserve their energy. And so coming back into things, it really forces me to generate momentum and to generate motivation. And that can be really tough. It’s not something I think I’m naturally skilled at. 1:27 But here’s something that motivates me and gives me momentum is your feedback. You as the listeners, sending me messages on Instagram sharing in the Facebook group that really is like a motivator and fuel for me to keep going with the podcast. Because otherwise, what am I here for it to just talk into my computer and hope it gets out there and hope you guys like it. So thank you, thank you for sharing your feedback with me and bringing your thoughts and questions to the Facebook group so that we can keep talking about things and talk about them at a community level. That’s very, very important to me, that we have a community that we can bring these kinds of issues to and support one and other. And so if you’re in the Facebook group, I encourage you to keep engaged in there and keep going back to it and being connected with us. 2:15 Alright, so speaking of the Facebook group, I asked in the group, what topics you would like to hear on the podcast for 2024. And so today I’m going to share one of those suggestions. And the topic is how do I be more intentional in the day? 2:30 And I think I get this question in a lot of different ways. It’s a question that I work on a lot with clients, just like how am I feeling in my day? Do I feel like I’m swept up and distracted? Do I feel overwhelmed or bored. And my just feeling time, am I just going through the motions. And I know I’ve operated this way. So I know how it feels when you are operating in this mode, you tend to feel kind of unmotivated with your life and restless a little bit, you don’t have a lot of things that you clearly feel excited about or that light you up, things just feel like maintenance, like just getting through it. And when you’re in this mode, you start to get this sense, like maybe I’m doing it all wrong. 3:14 I have felt all of these things I could see, years back before I started this, just this Wake Up Call of how much complacency I had in my life. And I could see clearly I was going through the motions of motherhood of marriage of being a stay at home mom taking care of my body of all my relationships just on autopilot. 3:34 And there is this sense that if you can kind of be in this space, and reach out and say I’m still craving something more, I’m still craving that sense of purpose and passion. I still want to be present in my life. This might lead you to ask these questions. How do I get there? How do I live more intentionally? How do I feel like I’m living on purpose. So I want to give you some tips that have worked for me and things I discussed with my clients. 4:02 Now remember, I’m a counselor, I’m a coach, but this podcast is not a replacement for therapy. And also remember, I’m not here to give you a cookie cutter way of living your life, or a checklist on what is the right way to live your life. Not everything I say is going to work for you. This is all for ideas. 4:20 And that’s something that has really helped me hearing ideas because an idea is just a tool you can put in your toolbox. And it’s something you can go to if you want it’s totally up to you, you’re in charge. 4:32 Alright, so I think the very first step in intentional living is deciding kind of deciding it is time. And I want to do an episode on this on the future of the things that make us ready for change. But long story short. You need to decide it is time for change in order to actually make change. I mean, there’s some other factors here you need to work on. But Deciding it’s time is a really big step that you need to make. 5:04 And you’ve heard my story on this podcast like standing alone in my basement of clutter my basement of shame, and just crying with that realization of how complacent I was in my life. And there was some grief here, there was some shame. 5:19 But there was also this flipside of something could be different. I could empower myself, that sense that I’ve had enough of the autopilot. And the phrase that came to me at that time was, I want to be in the driver’s seat of my life. I, I was ready, I wanted that. 5:36 The next thing is to start letting go of the things that are distracting you. And I really like to use the Eisenhower matrix for this concept, because it puts things into four boxes. There are things that are urgent and important. There are things that are not urgent and important. And then vice versa. There’s things that are not important, but urgent. And then there’s things that are neither in or urgent or important. I’m sorry, if it’s confusing to say it out. I’ll try to link that in the show notes so you can get the visual. But it’s a really helpful concept because a lot of what distracts us are things that feel urgent, but they’re not important. Or the time sucks the time killers, they’re not urgent or important. 6:20 So knowing how we’re spending our time and our energy, are we spending it on what a lot of other people want of us? Are we spending it on things that are just filler, so get to know what those distractions are, I think decluttering your home is a really good metaphor for intentional living, because a big first step of that process is to get rid of the things that are not useful to you. Not useful or beautiful to you in some way. I’m going to talk about at the end of this episode, a virtual Summit coming up all about time called let’s get more time. 7:02 As I go into these next steps, what’s important here is to take off all or nothing thinking, don’t overcomplicate it, you don’t need it. For intentional living, you don’t need to quote unquote, find your calli

This is part 2 of the situations that can feel tough around the holidays. We explore how we deal with grief, family dynamics and clashes and ways we can take care of ourselves and look for ways to enjoy what is available to us. Tips from a counsellor to consider for the holiday season.      Main topics of this episode: Part 1 unpacked topics like anticipatory anxiety, routines, loneliness, overspending and transitions  196. When The Holidays Feel Hard (stress, anxiety, loneliness, overspending, transitions)- tips from a Counsellor Dealing with grief over the holidays When you need permission to grieve The 4 tasks of grieving Canadian Grief Support mygrief.ca Family dynamics Owning your own values  149. How to find what matters to you (uncovering your personal values) Family roles  8 common family roles 134. Do you typecast your kids? (Labels + how they impact our parenting and our kids) Boundaries help maintain a relationship vs barriers which block a relationship Knowing when to use each one Coping well, taking care of your capacity over the holidays  The Meeting Your Needs Series Bringing the fun with you, you are allowed to enjoy moments 162. Think the best of me, or not. Allowing the hard and awesome in ourselves and in our lives. Finding Joy In Your Every Day (#theperfectmomentsproject) 163. Have fun with your kids, on purpose + reasons we don’t have fun Five Tips to Make Your Christmas Simpler and More Enjoyable When Did I Stop Enjoying My Kids? (and my journey back to enjoying them) Sign up for the Simple Saturdays email here   FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited) 0:10 Hi, It is Shawna, your nerdy girlfriend counselor from simple on purpose.ca Welcome to the simple on purpose podcast. And I’m just going to jump right into it. This episode is a follow up to 196 When Christmas feels hard, in that we introduced the concepts of making one shift for yourself this Christmas in the US things that feel hard. And we talked about anticipatory anxiety that you might be feeling stressed around the lack of routine, the pressures that we feel on Christmas spending money, being alone at Christmas being in a time transition. So those were all really great intros in situations that were shared. And I’m going to pick up and continue on with the topics of grief, family dynamics and boundaries. So the topic of grief was shared in the scenarios that women shared about the things that feel hard at Christmas. So there are things that we are grieving, we might be grieving this deed of the world right now, we might be grieving, a loss of what we thought this year would be. Maybe we’re walking through a loss a loss of a person that you love, a loss of a relationship, a loss of a family, or friends system as you knew it. And if if someone has lost someone in the recent years, they’re going through these seasons of life without that person for the first time. If someone has had a divorce or changes in their family, even if it was wanted, they’re still left with this blank space that was once filled with familiar patterns and people and traditions they could rely on. And they know there are people grieving losses that happened over the past few years and didn’t really get a chance to mourn during COVID Things have gone unaddressed. And new griefs can trigger old griefs. I wanted to share an experience that I had with grief around Christmas time. A few Christmases ago, during COVID, my mom had what was suspected to be a mini stroke, and she already had dementia. So from this, she was put into the hospital and then moved into a care facility. But at that time when it first happened, and she was in the hospital, she couldn’t talk. She wasn’t very responsive. She had to be spoon fed, she was in a wheelchair. And this was such a dramatic contrast to where she had just been. I mean, my dad had taken care of her for years. And this incident had forced her into a care facility. It also meant because it was COVID, she had to be isolated for two weeks, no one could go in and see her. And there’s so much more I could share on this than I’m going to write here. But at that time, I thought my mom was dying. She has recovered from this and is in care and doing well. But at that time, it was Christmas time. I was supposed to be enjoying this time with my kids and grief felt like water rising and flooding over me. It felt like such a great sadness. It still is a great sadness in my life. And that’s the thing, grief doesn’t look at the calendar. It doesn’t wait for the holidays to be over. It doesn’t take a break during the holidays. Grief is something you carry with you like rocks in a backpack and over time, you acclimatized to it, it’s still there. It’s important to acknowledge and validate this, acknowledge that things feel hard. If you have the space and capacity for it, acknowledge what you’re missing, who you miss what you miss about them what you wish this could be right now and validate this. If it feels appropriate, do something to honor that person that you miss. One way I tried to honor my mom at Christmas time is to intentionally and with love and mindfulness admire all of the ornaments that she had given me over years, which I took for granted as a child. But each year there’s the date on the back. And as I hang them up, I look at the back I think about old I was and each ornament is represents a picture of who she saw me as over the years of my life. Each one I feel like has a bit of a story. And sometimes I will share that story out loud to the kids and to my husband. And that is a way that I feel like I bring her in to my Christmas and and carry it on through me for grief. There are different stages that we go through and those around us are grieving in different ways or at different stages. It can feel tricky to navigate our grief amidst the grief of others. My encouragement to you here if you feel like you’re in a period of grief at Christmas is to keep getting support from it. Like listen to podcasts. I’m sure there’s so many great ones. Read about it. If you feel like it could help you talk to someone. Get support calling a support line, talk to a therapist or a friend or go to a support group but get yourself some support. Grief doesn’t have to be gone through You’re alone even if it makes you feel alone. The next major category of scenarios that were shared with me were issues related to family dynamics. Some of the examples shared with me were in laws, expectations from in laws, communicating expectations within laws, feeling annoyed my family, but I don’t want to feel annoyed, the differences in personalities of the people around and those differences are usually inflamed by alcohol. We see there’s difficult people, there’s personality clashes, and they often become heightened at the holidays. One part of our pain is that we’re wishing the other people were acting differently, if they would be easier to get along with and be better communicators fill in the blanks, if they could just do this, then it would all be easier. And the other part of the pain is that mentally and emotionally, we start thinking things and feeling things and we don’t want to like the great example shared there is that scenario of I’m annoyed, but I don’t want to be annoyed. Because we don’t like how that feels in us. We don’t like who we are. In that situation. We don’t like how it makes us think and feel an act. And we just want it to feel better. If I can give a starting point to shift here. It would be acknowledging the facts of how you’re feeling like I do wish it were different. I do wish they would do this and act like this. And I do wish I would feel like this. And that isn’t happening. And that makes me feel what overwhelmed mad sets just start there. For family dynamics, I received this situation that I thought was wildly insightful. This is one that is big for me is how I revert into old mindsets around my family, especially when it comes to my appearances, like not wearing makeup when all my other family members do not buying into diet culture weight discussions, even though all my other family members do. Also feeling like my choices are not being accepted and being treated like a kid again. And the first thing I hear in this one is that you have values now that your family of origin might not share. And it is hard when we stack them up against the weight of the family capital T capital F no family. One way to think about this, that could help is the concept of owning your values. Right now your values are being challenged. And this is exactly when you need to back them up and feel empowered by them and put them into action in a loving way. For me, that would sound like okay, everyone’s on their journey, doing what feels genuinely right to them, even if I think it’s misguided. Because we don’t want to get into the space where we’re trying to convert others. We also don’t want to keep feeling like we have to buy what they’re selling. Of course, it would be easy if everyone thought the exact same but we all have agency and opinions. You can also consider that there might even be a situation where others feel a bit insecure. When they stack up their own values up against yours, the way you live might challenge them and that would make them feel uncomfortable. And the easiest way for us to feel like we are right is to find a way that someone opposing is wrong. I mean, we both do it to each other. Step back. Let others have their own journey focus on feeling empowered about yours. For many of these quote people scenarios. If we look at a big picture, we can see a lot of us reverting to the roles we play within the family system. As you gear up to spend time with the people that you clash with. Or just being back in your family in your old town in your own in your old home. It could be worth asking, what roles do I play? What roles do I give to others? What roles do I give to myself? Do you play the peacekeeper? Do you play t

I asked listeners to share the tough scenarios they expect to encounter during the holidays and Christmas. I will start with Part 1, going through the themes of scenarios and sharing an idea on a shift you can try to make this season, from a counsellor’s perspective.  The goal is to give you some tools on how to handle the reality that life can still be hard and things can feel tough, especially around this time of year.   The interview with Brandi Hofer of Colour Me Happy Community  On Youtube – Brandi Hofer Studios On the podcast – Colour Me Happy Community   Main topics covered in this episode: The expectations of Christmas/The Holidays vs the emotions we carry as humans 156. 3 things to know about feeling negative emotions Anticipatory anxiety, one way to deal with it 174. Christmas hygge ideas + understanding how the window of tolerance impacts your stress in motherhood Tough scenarios during the holidays, lack of routines 115. A Controlling mom, or a capable mom? Overspending to make the holidays FEEL good 141. When shopping isn’t making your life better (mindful and minimalist tips for shopping) Being alone or missing family during the holidays Times of transition during the holidays  67. Making motherhood harder than it needs to be (Mom Martyr) Simple Christmas (all posts here)   FULL TRANSCRIPT 0:10 Hey friends, it’s Shawna Scafe, your nerdy girlfriend and counsellor from simple on purpose.ca I thought I would add my last name in there because I never say it and you’re probably reading it and don’t really know how to pronounce it. So nice to meet you guys. My Instagram used to be Shawna Scafe. But the way it was written everyone thought it was Sean is cafe. And people were genuinely wondering where my cafe was. And that would be so dreamy to have a cafe so but I don’t, I don’t have a cafe. So I just changed my instagram name to simple on purpose. Anyways, here you are, you’re at the simple and purpose podcast. Welcome. And today has been a really busy day. This morning, I did an interview with brandy Hofer. She is a Canadian artist. She’s a muralist. She’s a portrait artist. She’s an educator, she’s a speaker, and I have followed her work for actually a lot of years now. And I just love her work. It’s so beautiful. It’s like a feast for the heart. It’s just so wonderful. And I recently had commented on one of her Instagram posts, and she wrote me right back, and she asked me to come on your podcast, which was so cool. On one hand to be asked, because I just admire her so much. And on the other hand to realize she had a podcast, I hadn’t missed that in the Instagram algorithm. So I said, Yes, I started listening to her podcast, it’s called Color Me happy, which is also the name of her book that I just ordered. I’m excited about it. Because the more you talk to her and the more you listen to her podcast, the more you see just how have a real deal. She is like genuine, honest, open and passionate, like you can feel her passion for what she does, and for empowering other women. So her podcast is about being a community for motherhood and art, you don’t have to be an artist to listen to it really like I listened to it. And it’s women talking about issues that women deal with in different areas of entrepreneurship and motherhood. So I’m gonna link her in the show notes, I recommend following her everywhere, and getting your book in follow your podcasts, especially because she’s Canadian. And we let just love fellow Canadians around here, don’t we? So then, after I did that, I went to put on my long johns, because there’s snow here today walk down to my kids school, because they’re all in the same school this year. And because they’re in the same school, I thought I should probably help out, I should be more involved. So I signed up to become a noon hour supervisor, which as I say it, I’m like, you could have done other things. But this is what we chose. Because I knew there was a little bit of a gap there that some more supervision was needed on one certain day of the week. It has come with some reluctance from my kids, for sure. And if I’m honest for me, too, but today, I went down first time went to learn the ropes. And the bonus of all of this is a couple of my besties work there. So I’m gonna get to see them more often. And I just hope it all outweighs the hard parts, right? hard enough. There’s going to be hard and awesome. Moving on to the issues of today. winter holidays coming up, whatever you’re celebrating, whatever background you have, whatever celebrations you partake in, at this time of year, it most likely involves some get togethers, some parties, family events, and all of that naturally comes with expectations, expectations on what it should look like, what it should feel like what you should be doing what you shouldn’t be doing. And in my young, 41 years of living and spending hours talking with people and hearing the things away on them. I know just enough to say that the holidays do not always feel good. They don’t always look like they should they don’t feel like they should. But we live in this culture where we’re fed that steady stream of Hallmark Christmas perfection everything works out and twinkly warm cheese commercials where families are laughing together in their sweaters and those stock photos of smiling couples sipping in their coffees in front of the fire. Like everything we’re bombarded with, it just doesn’t leave much permission to feel mad at Christmas, or lonely or sad or grief or disappointed overwhelmed, annoyed, anxious. These feelings still exist at this time of year. And my very wise supervisor has reminded me these feelings are often magnified this time of year. Here today, I wanted to offer you a place to talk about the reality that Christmas holidays whenever you’re celebrating does not always feel good. And I want to offer you a few ways to approach this season. What I did was I asked the Facebook group and I asked on Instagram for women to share topics that feel hard around this time of year. And I feel like there was such a range, really real and relatable situations that were shared. I would love to go in depth on each and every situation in you probably by accident I probably will but I’m going to touch on each one 5:00 For short, of course, we won’t solve all the situations in 120 minute podcast with some ideas in it. Or even in one Christmas, really, because this is years of history, relationships, roles, habits, coping and pain. And it takes a lot of time, a lot of intention, a lot of awareness, a lot of practice and work to reconcile these things. But that being said, my aim here is to offer you one simple shift one thing to focus on the season one different way to show up a different approach. And I’m going to just share ideas, I’m going to share ideas on things that could work in some of them might be a fit for you, some of them might not, maybe it’ll get you thinking about an alternative that could work for you. Because the goal here is to just try something, make one shift in the system. And really, we make that shift with us because we are the only ones in the system that we can intentionally make changes in. And ideally, if we start making shifts, maybe other shifts will happen in response over time. It’s always worth saying this episode is not a replacement for therapy. And I will let you know that I feel like these episodes are jam packed, it might take two parts, we’ll see I might do two episodes, they’re going to be jam packed, I’m going to try and load up the show notes to be a place where you can come and get a little bit of a bullet version of everything and additional resources, because so much of what we talk about here has been touched on other episodes that might be helpful for you. So stop by the show notes. If you want more. And you can always scroll down to the bottom of the show notes and read the full transcript as well. If you’d like to take your time with things, as we start this conversation about the things that feel hard at Christmas, I want to talk about what happens before the gathering or event or whatever even happens. And gearing up to the holidays, you might notice a lot of what’s called anticipatory anxiety, which is anxiety we get about that upcoming situation. And it might even be anxiety we feel about the anxiety we’re going to have, in my experience, a difficult part of anticipate anticipatory anxiety is that it changes how you show up now before the problem quote unquote problem has even happened. So it steals your presence and joy now, and then again later. A tip for you here is to pay attention. In the days and weeks leading up to whatever gathering or event, check how you’re feeling. How are you feeling right now? What are you thinking about? Are you worrying? Are you ruminating? Are you thinking about worst case scenario, if you can use worry, to make a plan that feels like it’s going to help you great, but if your worry is just keeping you stuck and suffering, that’s something to pay attention to. For me, I am usually not aware that I’m getting into the stage and tell I received some feedback from my husband that I’m on edge. 7:47 And if something is coming up, that is stressful for me, I have reduced capacity. I’m not fun to be around. And it will often take him pointing out to me, for me to even connect all of these dots and say, Oh, I’m not actually mad about what’s happening right here right now. That’s not the problem. But rather, the problem like underneath is the emotion of anxiety that I have. I’m feeling overwhelmed. We talked a lot about window of tolerance in the, in the past how much capacity we have to deal with something. And when I can say to myself, Okay, I’ve reduced capacity, because my capacity is being gobbled up by the anxiety of anticipating the anxiety. Everything’s irritating me, I have a short fuse, I’m being hard to be around, I am not being the person I want to be

A major hurdle that many of us moms to rest is the underlying belief that we need to ‘earn our rest’. In this episode, Professional Counsellor and mom of three unpacks how this belief impacts our abilities to rest well, our relationships and our coping habits.      This episode is in follow-up to Episode 194. I stopped calling myself a lazy mom  In this episode, we discuss topics such as: relaxation vs pseudo-rest, burnout opportunity costs, and how we insert ourselves into the equation 188. Motherhood & Instagram Culture (how online communities impact your motherhood experience) 189. Prioritizing the day: if everything matters nothing matters and how to apply this in motherhood the cultural views on motherhood, being lazy, and earning rest how we apply the logic of ‘earning rest’, seeking external validation, martyrdom 67. Making motherhood harder than it needs to be (Mom Martyr) 192. Who are you when I’m not looking (internal vs external validation) the escape hatch, dealing with our feelings 185. Emotional needs in motherhood (what they are and how to meet them) 142. What will change cost you? (Paying the status quo or investing in change) Show up for your life getting the cycle backwards between rest and hard work the Instagram post you all loved about rest the cycle of hyper-productivity then crashing meeting your needs the series is right here  Join the Simple Saturdays newsletter right here    FULL TRANSCRIPT 0:00 Hey friends, it’s Shawna, your nerdy girlfriend counselor from simple on purpose.ca. Welcome to the simple and purpose podcast. 0:17 So if you’re new here, welcome. I am Shawna, I am a mom of three kids in Canada, I am a counselor. And my aim is to equip you with tools and ideas and insights that help you live more simply and more intentionally, in all the areas of your life. 0:31 So this episode is a follow up to the last episode where I was unpacking that concept of asking yourself in moments where you are finding yourself with a desire to relax, am I being lazy? Or am I overwhelmed, because when we can differentiate between the two, we can handle it accordingly. 0:48 When we’re overwhelmed, we’ve maxed out we’ve reached capacity. And I’ve talked about that window of tolerance. That’s that range where we feel a sense of resource and ability to deal well with the day in all its demands. being overwhelmed takes us out of that window of tolerance. And we have this dilemma of actually being worn out and needing rest. But then that voice comes in that says, if you’re resting, you’re lazy, you should be doing this or that. 1:09 So in that moment, we have a choice, we can be lazy, or we can go and get more things done. One leads to guilt fueled pseudo arrest, the other leads to even more burnout. 1:20 A concept I’ve shared over the years is the concept of opportunity cost. And that is the acknowledgement that when we say yes to one thing, we say no to the other, and vice versa. 1:30 For example, if I say yes to a day of work, and all that comes with it, career advancement, maybe job satisfaction, a wage, etc, then I say no to maybe being a stay at home, parent, and all the stuff that would happen then if I was a stay at home parents, someone’s there to do chores, make meals, childcare, whatever, vice versa, there’s no wrong choice. I’m just saying these simple choices, we are weighing against our own values and goals have a cost on either side. 1:56 But as moms when it comes to the opportunity cost of rest. We live in a culture where we have put ourselves into the transaction. 2:04 We tell ourselves this math, if I say no to me, resting, I say yes to getting more stuff done. And since I live in a culture where busy is glorified, I should choose that. Or vice versa. If I say no to getting stuff done, I’m saying yes to me being a lazy mum. And since I live in a culture where being lazy is at worst a sin, or at least tacky or undignified. This is a generalization I’m making. 2:30 What is that going to lead us to in the decision we need to make there? Right? If the opportunity costs of me resting versus me doing always points towards one culturally acceptable choice? What are we going to be doing? We’re going to be saying no to ourselves, and yes to the expectations of ourselves to do more. 2:49 And those expectations feel necessary, don’t they? The expectations we have on ourselves as mom, it’s something that I talked about in a past episode, I’ll make sure to link it in the show notes. All in all, bad math, it’s costing us either way you spin it, it costs us, the person, the woman, the mom who’s denying herself rest. 3:07 So in order to reconcile the transaction, do we rest? Or do we do, we turn it into this formula, where we justify the choice with the criteria of ruining rest. 3:20 In working with mums, I feel like this isn’t a conscious formula. Like if I fold a basket of laundry, I give myself permission to read my book for 20 minutes. It’s more of a subconscious rule. We’ve adopted like a core belief that rest must be earned through working hard. 3:35 And there’s this framework we have are not too clear, though, on how to apply this logic, how to measure it and who decides the measurement? And how do we know when we’ve reached it? How do we know and we worked hard enough to earn that rest. You don’t really have that criteria is kind of vague. 3:49 But we’re applying the concept nonetheless, which I think can and did, for me at least translate into us becoming martyrs. Sometimes, if you’ve read my post about being a martyr, it’s one of the most read posts ever, I’m going to link that in the show notes. Because we might find ourselves in a situation where we need to prove our hard work to others in order for them to give us permission to rest. We can’t draw a line in the sand and tell ourselves well done self, you can rest and now we are looking to others to do it. It’s not their job, but we are looking to them to do it. 4:26 We are looking for that external validation. Someone needs to tell me I’ve earned this rest. And oh, if I’m an especially good murderer and a very hard worker, then they have to force me to rest. And I’m not going to do a good job of it. I’m going to still find a way to be productive while I rest. 4:43 It does create a whole other problem doesn’t it if it sets up this unhelpful dynamic and is in a relationship where we need that external validation. 4:51 So from this underlying rule that we might be living with that we need to earn rest, we have some outcomes. First, we aren’t too clear on how to apply it. So We look to others to apply it for us. And in order to do that, we need their validation. So now we need to express our experience to them, show them the evidence be the martyr. So then they have the information they need in order to validate us, oh, you should go rest. Now, that creates an unhelpful dynamic in any relationship. And we still haven’t actually rested. 5:20 How do you feel when you are not well rested? Not awesome, right? Like, that woman you missing out on rest and nourishment and restoration, she’s not feeling great. And when we don’t feel good, we start to think of ways we can just feel better. 5:36 We might not even be aware of it. But we might find ourselves reaching for the phone, or calling someone up to gossip or online shopping, just whatever feels better than how we’re feeling now. So from this whole system, we create another layer of problems where we have what I call the escape hatch, the escape hatch, those things we do some kind of secret indulgence that we turn to as a way to deal with how we’re feeling. And we’re not feeling great, because we’ve deprived ourselves of meeting our needs. Plus, we’re looking for this external validation Plus, we’re worn out, it’s just kind of like murky waters we’re swimming in and that escape hatch, that guilty pleasure, it’s different than coping like coping is going to help improve our lives, improve our situation. 6:22 But the escape hatch, it often costs us something in the long run, like these little ways, we’re trying to just get some enjoyment, scrolling on the phone heading to the pantry, alcohol, online, shopping all of it, it’s might not make our lives better in the long run and decrease a secondary problem, that now we want to change those habits. 6:41 The other month, I shared a story on Instagram that was so well loved. Code, lots of you press the little heart icon when you saw it. And it said this, I’m going to quote it. Instead of asking, have I worked hard enough to deserve rest? I’ve started asking, have I rested enough to do my most loving and meaningful work? That’s Nicola Jean Hobbs. 7:00 Because we do have it backwards, don’t we, if we think we need to work so hard exhaust ourselves to the point of being a husk of a person, and then we can rest we’ve got it backwards. 7:12 I know, as I say this, I’m just another voice on the internet telling moms they should rest. I mean, I have a whole series on this called meeting your needs. But if I could just offer you one mindset shift today, it would be to let go of the notion that rest has to be earned. And it’s probably one of the stickier harder ones to let go of, because it feels necessary. Even worse, it feels noble, it feels noble. So that threatens our personal sense of integrity to live in opposition to this made up rule. 7:45 But the rule doesn’t feel made up. Like let’s acknowledge that because it’s probably how we were raised, or how we learn to raise ourselves to meet the culture around us. 7:53 There’s another issue that I wanted to share that I find interesting, and that is with clients who have the experience where they’re so productive, getting all the things done, and then they hit a wall and crash. And to them, they use this as evidence that they have failed, they feel they should not have hit a wall. If they were doing it right, they would have maintained that level of productivity. 8:15 And in the most loving w

Do you ever find yourself trying to rest or relax and get this nagging voice telling you that you are being lazy? As moms, this can be a nightly experience, when we finally get the kids down and would like to unwind. Instead, our R&R gets hijacked by this notion that if we aren’t doing chores, hobbies, exercise, etc then we are being lazy.  But, odds are you are NOT a lazy mom, rather you are overwhelmed.      In this episode we cover some of these topics (and related links you might like): The original blog post When I realized I wasn’t a lazy mom, I was just overwhelmed Naming our experience The power of naming our emotions (how affect labelling can improve your emotional intelligence) Societal expectations on moms 188. Motherhood & Instagram Culture (how online communities impact your motherhood experience) Self-definition (limiting identities) 76. Why it matters what you think (limiting mindsets in motherhood) Three ways we are exhausted during the day Physical exhaustion Emotional exhaustion, mirror neurons, our kids’ emotions 117. Emotional Intelligence 101 (and by Enneagram Type) 119. Tolerating tough emotions in our kids (and ourselves) 113. Why you aren’t thriving in motherhood (stress and surviving) Mental exhaustion, mental load, decision fatigue 144. How to lighten the mental load of DECISION FATIGUE The counter-argument of ‘just be more organized’ 11 Things That Make My MomLife Simpler 133. 4 simple habits that make my momlife better How do we handle this voice telling us that we are lazy Window of tolerance understanding how the window of tolerance impacts your stress in motherhood 153. How to move from ambivalent to ambitious (making change takes more than just willpower) Knowing when you are overwhelmed and when you are feeling lazy 180. Self-care, self-comfort, self-love & what we have learned from our mothers 129. Does your ‘to-do list’ overwhelm you? Expectation overwhelm and how to handle it. Get the wallpapers for the Beautiful Words Episode right here  All of the Simple Christmas posts are right here    FULL TRANSCRIPT 0:00 Hey it’s Shawna, you’re near to go find a counselor from simple on purpose.ca. Welcome to the Simplon purpose podcast. 0:17 So it’s December guys we made it is December. And today when I’m recording this, it’s snowing in BC, which I know what’s going to make it beautiful here, except I have to drive out of town for a hockey tournament. So That’s never fun to be driving through these kinds of conditions. But hey, that’s the life of a Canadian parent with a kid in winter sports, traveling through all the conditions, bringing all the snacks and the vitamins and the gear is just like a whole thing, isn’t it? 0:42 So we’re in December, many of us are thinking about Christmas planning for it, whatever you’re celebrating, we’re thinking about it. And I do like to share content that is seasonally relevant. And often I would share a lot of posts about Christmas. But I’ve shared so much in the past that I’m not going to rehash all of it. Again, I’m just going to lead you to the archives of all of the posts all of the episodes about all of the things when it comes to simplifying Christmas, and having your Christmas be intentional and purposeful in something that you just show up for and enjoy. So stop by the link in the show notes for a little landing page for all of that. 1:19 I’m going to talk about a well loved post that I shared a few years back called I stopped calling myself a lazy mom. And when I wrote it, I was writing it from that experience of feeling like I was momming hard all day long, three small kids. 1:34 Just reminder, my kids now are 12,11, and nine. So when they were all at home, they were all like close in age and it was like hot, hot and heavy situation. So I would be home with all these kids momming hard and then at the end of the night, you get them to bed, you sit on the couch, and suddenly, when you should be kind of like feeling like Oh yeah, I’m like come check out. What happens instead is this feeling of being flooded with the expectation that I should be doing something I shouldn’t be doing something I should be maybe meal prepping a freezer meal or folding this perpetual basket of laundry on my couch. Or I should take up a hobby because I haven’t been creative enough and use my brain in those ways. Or I should definitely exercise goodness knows I’m overdue or calling a friend catching up whatever felt was necessary to be more balanced and more productive as a woman in the world. That feeling that should do that expectation contrasted with the desire to just sit on the couch with my husband and my little bowl of ketchup chips, and enjoy something interesting on TV together. 2:46 And the contrast matters here because we have two camps on one camp is who I should be I should be productive. I should be doing all these things. And the other camp is who I am currently being which is lazy, being lazy, 3:01 lazy and complacent. Man, that is a word I used against myself for years. And when I boil it down to where I got that self definition from it was really due to the fact that I was not a morning person. It was kind of this determining factor, this default result that if you hate mornings, you’re lazy. If you want to sleep in you are lazy. 3:26 So what do we do when we give ourselves any kind of identity, we inadvertently and sometimes inadvertently perpetuate that identity. And I’m going to link to an episode on that in the shownotes. 3:38 So this post about stopping calling myself a lazy mom, it came at a time where I had this big aha moment that maybe I wasn’t who I thought I was, at least not in all of the areas of my life. I might be lazy at some things. But I didn’t feel like I was lazy at all of the things. after all. We were eating meals of food that I made, we were wearing clean clothes that I put through the wash. We were generally getting the dishes done most of the time. And that made me think if it wasn’t entirely true in all of the areas of my life. Maybe it’s not even true. Maybe I wasn’t lazy. 4:15 So on one of these nights when we got the kids to bed, and I’m just sitting on the couch beside that emotional support basket of laundry scrolling on Pinterest, instead of cleaning the kitchen, I came across an article and the article open with this line. Are you really lazy or Are you overwhelmed? And you know in the last episode when I talked about the power of naming things, how it feels validating informative, that’s how I felt right then validated. Overwhelmed. That was the word for it. I wasn’t lazy. I was overwhelmed. 4:46 And of course I was overwhelmed. I had three small kids, and every single day was like a circus that was on fire and I was just trying very, very hard to lead it well. The amount of physical energy emotional energy and mental energy it takes to be A mom is underrated. And I know a huge factor in that is two things. One, the expectations we put on ourselves with how we approach modern parenting. And the other factor is that we live in a more isolated manner than the generations before us. But until we address those factors, we just need to acknowledge how exhausting it can be. 5:22 It’s physically draining, let’s talk about that we might not be sleeping through the night, we’re always on alert watching for our kids. We’re gonna pair this with the reality that we don’t often feed ourselves, well. We’re not being physical in the ways that entered, that energize us. It is physically draining, 5:39 it’s emotionally draining, thinking of all of the people and their feelings and your feelings about their feelings and your own feelings and feelings about your feelings. And what do we do with all these feelings? And how are we carrying these feelings and processing these feelings? It is a lot. Dealing with feelings takes energy, we can spend that energy trying to avoid the feeling and resist the feeling and stay in that state of resistance. Or we can expend the energy being reactive with our feelings. Often as moms with small kids, we are in a stress response, we’re operating from a stress response to that takes a lot of energy. I mean, there’s so much science around burnout, that operating in that chronic stress response will burn us out. 6:22 And the feelings of others like that’s our emotional experience. How about the feelings of others? Because we’re picking up on that we’re absorbing that? Have you ever been to a very tense, also social situation? Like it’s tense, you can feel the tension in the room, and then you leave and you like, get in your car and you’re like, Oh, what am I feeling like, I feel this weird buzzing inside of me. That’s because we pick up on the emotions of others, we have something called mirror neurons in our brains, and they are reading all of the cues around us of what others might be feeling. And we’re picking up and we’re mirroring that back. 6:55 And the feelings of others I find as a mum, that my kids feelings can be one of the most overwhelming parts of motherhood, I mean, it might be a part of being maternal and being wired to be in tune with your kids emotions. But we’re just wired naturally to pick up on the emotions of others. And if we aren’t clear and confident about what to do with other people’s emotions, it can feel like we’re just swept away in all of it. 7:21 And finally, the mentally draining part we’ve heard about the term mental load, right? That is the amount of burden in your brain. As the family manager, you have the calendars, the inventories, the preferences, who likes what, what needs to go where, and when, and how it all has to get done. It’s this running list in our heads of all of the things and it’s like this mental swirl of clutter. And as we just go about our day, fielding questions about icicles and meals and who gets to do what and where did the shoe go? And what’s for dinner? And what do we do now? We fatigue, we get decision fatigu

Words are incredibly powerful, they can communicate exactly what you are thinking, feeling, wanting, needing, in sometimes as little as a single sentence. But that only works when we understand ourselves and have the vocabulary necessary to name our lives. Join me today as I talk about nine beautiful words from other cultures that capture the heart of simple and intentional living and discuss how they can influence your life.     Naming our experience  The power of naming our emotions (how affect labelling can improve your emotional intelligence) 117. Emotional Intelligence 101 (and by Enneagram Type) The Facebook Community Group  Hygge Hygge vs Minimalism Three ways to bring hygge into your daily life 174. Christmas hygge ideas + understanding how the window of tolerance impacts your stress in motherhood 30 Ways to Hygge When It Is Cold Outside   Lagom 164. How I am finding balance in my life this year 189. Prioritizing the day: if everything matters nothing matters and how to apply this in motherhood   Sisu 11. The Finnish Way (sisu) + Do we need so much pantry space? 49. Facing change and uncertainty with a growth mindset 139. Are you TOO comfortable? And what is it costing you? 15 Practical Tips for Moms to GET STUFF DONE   Kaizen 78. Small things that can change your whole life (the compound effect) 11 Things That Make My MomLife Simpler 133. 4 simple habits that make my momlife better 150. A new approach to habit change: routine and habit refinement 3. Brain dump, kid’s clothes storage, minimum baseline to change habits. 175. What will your future be? More of the same? Or will you turn off the autopilot?   Meraki 192. Who are you when I’m not looking (internal vs external validation) For the mom who is ‘waiting’ for life to happen 176. When you don’t know what you want in life. Life on purpose for the non-dreamer Hurdles to being a mom who has dreams and hobbies 191. Are you idling on your goals or moving them forward (passive action vs massive action) 163. Have fun with your kids, on purpose + reasons we don’t have fun   Simple Christmas, and The On Purpose workbooks The Simple Christmas Planner All the Simple Christmas posts Life on Purpose Academy All of the On Purpose Workbooks   Sign up for the the Simple Saturdays email (a fun email, twice a month) 📱GET THE WALLPAPER downloads for the words discussed in this episode   FULL TRANSCRIPT  0:10 Hey friends, it’s Shawna, your nerdy girlfriend and counselor from simple on purpose.ca. Welcome to the simple on purpose podcast. 0:18 So welcome new friends, old friends, this is a podcast for anyone looking to be more intentional with how they’re living. And we talk about ways that you can declutter the home, the heart, the life, in order to make space to get rid of the distractions and the clutter and make space for the important things, the things that matter to you. 0:37 And to let you know who I am, if you’re new here, I’m Shawna. I am a Canadian. And I am a mom of three as well as a counselor. And I’ve been blogging for about a decade at simple on purpose, where we talk about decluttering intentional living and motherhood and I offer coaching and counseling services. Online. I’m an online counselor if you are looking for an online counselor coach. 0:59 Alright, so today I want to share some of my favorite words with you. And these are not English words. But these are words that you might have seen floating around the internet, and maybe you haven’t heard some of them. They are words that I’ve picked up through the years. And I’ve probably shared about some of them, and I’ve just pondered on them. And I’m sharing these specific words, there’s going to be nine of them for two reasons. 1:20 The first reason is that they are words that embody a lot of the concepts, we talked about your finding balance, being mindful, the simple pleasures of life and really building up a life based on meaningful things, things that are meaningful to you. And I also chose them because they give a name, they give a name, to something that sometimes can be intangible, to an emotion or an experience that can be hard to name. 1:46 And as a counselor, I know that naming things has so much value, you might have heard it said name it detainment, this is also called effect labeling. I’ve made a recent blog post about it, I’ll make sure to link it in the show notes. But naming something naming an emotion naming an experience. It’s a core skill that we can all use. Because when we name something, we can categorize it, we can give it meaning, naming an emotion is so important for our well being. 2:17 And any time that I have named an emotion and there are times where I couldn’t actually pinpoint it. And someone else looking into my life, my best friend, my husband, my own Wonderful Counselor, when they were able to offer what that emotion could be. And we could name it. I was like relief, like, oh, yeah, that’s, that’s what I’m feeling. And with clients, and in the blog posts that I’ll share, I use this analogy of how important it is to name our emotions. 2:43 So let’s use an example. Let’s imagine that you have some symptoms that like, maybe a weird pain in your stomach, it’s achy, it’s hot, it’s grumbly. But you don’t know what it is, you don’t know what’s causing it, you don’t know what to do about it. How is that experience for you? It’s probably a nerving, you’d feel uncomfortable with all those sensations you’re having your brain might be spinning, or you might just try to ignore it. Or you might just start running around doing all the things you can think of to just make it go away. And that’s what it can be like when we don’t name our emotion. We just have all these uncomfortable sensations in our bodies, they can feel overwhelming, they can feel wrong, they definitely feel uncomfortable. 3:27 Now contrast that to an a situation where you notice you’ve got a runny nose, sore throat and you’re coughing, maybe your eyes are watering. You could go to the doctor for some help. Or you could just tell yourself, I have a cold, like this is a cold and just naming it you know what’s happening, you have relief, like, Okay, I know what I’m feeling I know what to expect. You don’t have to panic, you know how to deal with a cold, when you can name something, you know what you’re dealing with. And ideally, you know, what tools to use or what you need to do about it. Okay, little counseling moment over. If you have questions or thoughts on that, please bring them into the Facebook group. And I’m always happy to talk more about that. 4:12 Now on to beautiful words that embody a simple living and inspire mindfulness. The first one, you’ve heard me talk all about it. Let’s just have a recap. It is Hygge (hue-gah). If you read it, it looks like the word hyg. And hygge is a Danish word. And it doesn’t have that direct English translation, but it embodies this sense of coziness, comfort, connectedness, and it’s more than just a word, right? It’s a cultural concept that really fills up that experience of warmth and contentment, intimacy quality, especially with your loved ones. 4:50 And I’ve written a lot about this in the past. One of my most popular posts ever is hygge versus minimalism because they are a bit different. Some of my favorite hygge Moments of late are sitting around with my family at the end of the day when everyone’s finally home from all their activities. And we’re kind of in the kitchen living room zone. And maybe there’s music playing, and I’ve turned some of the lights down, because I’m hoping people will start getting tired. And we’re just chatting is just slow and quiet, and easy. Easy, as you know, I do want to get the kids to bed, but they don’t want to. 5:25 Another moment that I really love lately is being at a restaurant booth with my besties. And it’s a rare experience that we finally all get to one place. And we’re at this little booth, and it’s got his little candle, and then we’ve got the menus, but we’re too busy just catching up to even look at the menus. And that’s just a real hygge moment. 5:44 Another favorite one that happens for me a lot is that time of night where we spend time with each of our kids. And usually we play cards with them. So we’re sitting on their beds, and they’re bundled up in the blanket, and I’ve got the cards dealt out. And they’ve turned their twinkle lights on and they’re like bedside light on and it’s just like, the lights are down. It’s just this cute little moment. So that’s that’s the feeling that you get from hygge, I do have a list of 30 ways to Heuga in cold weather, I’ll make sure to link that in the show notes. It’s a great way to bring some coziness into your winter. 6:18 The next word is fika. This is a Swedish word. And it is about taking a break to enjoy a coffee and a treat with a friend. And just appreciating the moment appreciating the conversations. And this is actually one of my hobbies. My hobby is to fika, my husband will even buy me a little treat. And I don’t really have a sweet tooth, but he’ll bring it home and he’ll say this is for your fika. And so I make a point to do that. Because just all about slowing down and just being with your people. And just like that simple pleasure that you can get in that moment. 6:49 The next word and other Swedish word is lagom. And that kind of roughly translates to just the right amount or sufficient. And it embodies this idea of balance, moderation, just having the right amount of things. It’s often used to describe a lifestyle or attitude that it’s avoiding extremes, right? It’s not about extremes, it’s about contentment, it’s about just enough. And that kind of harmony and balance, whether it’s about work or relationships or just your personal well being and this is something that’s ingrained in Swedish culture. It really reflects that value of moderation and collective welfare. 7:27 I think this is a word a lot of us struggle with, especially in North American c

We live in an audience-performer culture it is hard to know which decisions we are making for ourselves and which ones we are making for others. What you buy differently, how would you spend your time differently, how would you be differently without feeling like the world is watching?     In this episode: The song that started it all: “Who Are You When I’m Not Looking” by Blake Shelton  How hard it can be to ‘play’ as an adult 126. The Joy of Being Mediocre (hobby without the hustle) Doing things for an outcome Fashion, identity, and societal influences  Simple style posts (capsule wardrobes, 30for30 challenge, dressing your age) Spending habits The Audience-Performer culture of social media  Influencers in the wild (article on it here) What is sacred vs what is for sharing online Our lives as content, for external validation and approval  Being part of society, while also being ourselves 188. Motherhood & Instagram Culture (How Online Communities Impact Your Motherhood Experience) Being valuable and fitting in Learning self-definition through the reflection of others Moving from external validation to internal validation   134. Do you typecast your kids? (Labels + how they impact our parenting and our kids) Women and beauty standards of our culture  What does it mean to be a woman when no one is looking? Making decisions that are true to you and your passions and preferences, how to get started in small ways Validating the little things for yourself    Connect! Make sure to share your thoughts and questions in the Simple on Purpose community facebook group! What would you like to hear about when it comes to the topic of Simple Living? Sign up for the the Simple Saturdays email (a fun email, twice a month)     Full transcript (unedited) 0:10 Hey friends, it’s Shawna, your nerdy girlfriend and counselor from simple on purpose.ca. Welcome to the simpler purpose podcast. Around here we talk about ways to simplify your home, your heart and your life. So my aim is to help us all slow down, quiet the noise, remove the distractions and just look up for a minute at your life and consider what you want to keep and what you want to let go of. 0:35 So this week, I’m a little under the weather, I took a sick day yesterday. And that actually worked out well because one of my kids needed a soul care day. So we took it slow together, we each took turns having a hot salty bath with a TV show on the iPad and warm drinks. We did some brain dumping on paper, you know, get out all those stressful thoughts and feelings inside, listen to music went and bought vitamins. It was a it was kind of a beautiful day, even though I didn’t feel great. And I think hot, salty baths, match that with a coffee and an Advil, boom, this is this is why I’m here right now, I can make some progress over the next four hours of my day. And then I’m probably going to move on to burgers and a hot toddy. Because I’m pretty sure that’s the cure for a cold. And I should be good by tomorrow. I’m sure of it, I’m sure of it. 1:25 So today I want to talk to you about a concept that has just been rattling around in the back of my brain for years now. And it’s a notion that I like to hold up to the different areas of my life. And just consider how it shows up in these different areas. So I think about it often. And I wanted to share it here because I think it might be interesting to you maybe even helpful for you too. And I’m going to share this concept by sharing some quick stories. I promise they’re all gonna end up going in the same direction. But it’s a little bit of circle time vibes right now. So go get a pillow and a coffee meet me on the circle rug. 2:02 On a cold Canadian day in February, almost 13 years ago, I was in early labor with my first child. My husband was driving us to the hospital in the hospitals over an hour away. We have to drive out of town to deliver babies. And this Blake Shelton song came on. It’s a country song and it’s called Who are you when I’m not looking? And my husband was singing it out loud. You know, he’s keeping up the vibes like he does, which is one of the reasons I married him. And I think I even snapped a picture of him just bundled up in the cold weather driving our little SUV totally chill, while I’m over there sweating bullets about going into labor. 2:39 And then as the hours went on, and the Labor said in, I was asking him to distract me. And so he was singing the song to distract me. And this song, it became our first child’s anthem, mostly against his will. He’s not into this song. We played it for him recently. He did not really like it. But I just love the idea of this song. The lyrics are, who are you when I’m not around, when the doors locked and the shades are down. And this idea of asking someone who they are without an audience, it’s a really interesting notion. To contrast the private person we are versus the performative person we are. 3:16 I remember about five years later, after delivering my first and playing Lego with my kids. And my sister was over with her kids. And I was building like a Lego house or something. And she was like, I just don’t get it. Like how do I just sit here and play Lego. And we laughed both the both of us laughed at this idea that we’re so outcome based. And we just need to know the expectations and it’s just hard to think of something to make for the sake of making it and then you destroy it. And nobody ever sees the outcome. 3:46 I think about how we show who we are to the world in how we dress. And I don’t think I well I know that for most of my life, I didn’t really care how I dressed. I did enjoy however thinking I had this hippie vibe. And though we shopped at the thrift store a lot for necessity, I took that as a chance to express myself through foil blouses and peach colored dresses and just you know really embrace that retro side of me. And for much of my life style seemed like inconsequential or something that other people did. Moving out into the workplace. For the first time out of university I worked in a very male dominated industry. And to me professionalism in that industry meant loose khakis, ill fitting polo top and some sensible black shoes. The heavier the better. 4:37 And you probably have heard me share this story in the past that my little sister basically had a fashion intervention with me took me shopping, and made me try on all these new things I never would have tried on and it felt like this whole new door opened. And I could think of how I wanted to express myself as an adult woman. I could choose things that I really loved things that actually felt like me. 4:57 So over the years you’ve heard me share a lot about mom’s 30 for 30, challengers and capsule wardrobes. And over the years, I’ve tried to curate a closet of clothes that I love and feel like me. But I still struggle with that scarcity mindset that maybe it’s not right or it’s not enough, or it’s already dated. And I really am trying to balance this acknowledgement that I’m someone who enjoys clothes, trying new things, even if they’re thrifted and Hami downs, while also acknowledging that I’m someone who values sustainability, and financial responsibility. So it’s important to me to shop mindfully when it comes to clothes. But one of the hardest things is to be mindful of teasing out what I actually like, versus what society tells me will make me irrelevant. 5:42 I read a post from Rachael Cruz, and she wrote, how to love your life, not theirs. I’m pretty sure that book is called. And she asked if nobody ever saw this purchase, would you buy it? Would you buy this thing? If nobody ever saw it? Would you just buy it for you? Or are you buying it for other people to observe it on you? It’s such a good question. Especially in this current culture, we live in this outfit of the day Instagram, fashion blogger, where it’s just normal to share your clothes with the Internet. In fact, it’s it’s a whole industry, right? We have fashion bloggers and influencers who just get free clothes just to post pictures of them wearing them. And then they go into some ever growing closet never to be worn again. 6:26 And do you ever have this situation it feels vulnerable to share this, but I will wear you put an outfit together and you’re like, Oh, I think this looks great. I think this looks so cute. Should I Instagram this? Like, I think this in the back of my mind, I don’t Instagram it very rarely. But the fact that this question even flashes into my brain, I think it’s really just a product of this audience, performer culture that we now live in. 6:51 There’s a young teen in my life, and one time I was sitting beside them, and they opened up their photo app to show me something. And the photo role was 95%, selfies, the same face pose but with different clothes, maybe different hair, different background, and on and man, I think the Lord that I was not a teenager with the internet and a cell phone, because I cannot imagine that what that would have done to me to see myself reflected constantly and feel like I had to share that and put myself up for evaluation, and measure myself through comments and likes. 7:26 It reminds me of that account on Instagram called influencers in the wild, where it’s people taking videos of other people who are taking selfies and videos of themselves, often in very socially inappropriate ways. And it really is about making a mockery of this culture we now have where people are doing ridiculous things, for content of themselves, all that content to just be put on a stage for evaluation, entertainment, and affirmation. 7:55 And we’re just in this audience performer culture so deep, we no longer can really be in a place where our lives are not content. I mean, you can be in your own home wrapped up in blankets in your bed in the dark, sharing content. You can totally unplug go out into a cabin in the woods. But you can record all these reels and upload them

When we think about the motivation we have to take action, we can sometimes take action that is more passive. The type of action that feels productive but doesn’t quite move us in a forward direction. This concept from Brooke Castillo contrasts passive action and massive action.  In this episode, I discuss topics such as: How simplifying the home leads to an aim for intentional living living intentionally and overcoming complacency self-motivation and limiting beliefs the concept of passive action vs massive action the discomfort of taking action The upcoming workshop on motivation can be found right here at the Life on Purpose Academy  Related episodes you might like 140. Give your discomfort a purpose #uncomfortableonpurpose 139. Are you TOO comfortable? And what is it costing you? 175. What will your future be? More of the same? Or will you turn off the autopilot? Two Months In To The #onesmallhabit Challenge Sign up for the the Simple Saturdays email (a fun email, twice a month)   Full Transcript (unedited) 0:11 Hey friends, it’s Shawna, your nerdy Brooklyn counselor from simple americans.ca. Welcome to the simple on purpose podcast. If you’re new here, welcome. I’m Shawna, I’m a mom of three. And the whole aim of this podcast is to just be a time for us to take a minute, slow down. Take a breath. I know sometimes I just hear that word breath. And it reminds me to take a breath. And my aim is to help you to stop and take stock of what feels like too much. What maybe it feels like not enough. Where are we on autopilot? What is distracting us? And most importantly, what do we want? What do you want? And I aim to help you move forward with all of these questions, I aim to help you simplify and it might start with decluttering, your home, a drawer or a closet. And we’re quickly going to see as I did that, decluttering it helps us to declutter ourselves, if decluttering our space helps us to declutter ourselves. And as we do that, we’re also inspired to declutter our lives. And so I often say, I’m here to help you simplify your home, your heart and your life. But all of that clearing that space so that we can fill it with something different so that we can fill our homes, ourselves, our hearts, our lives, our days, with what matters to us. And that’s the life on purpose part. So I’m just want to acknowledge that this recording is different. I’m in a hotel right now. And right before I was leaving, yesterday morning, I was searching that was everywhere for this special little adapter that I needed. So I could plug in my microphone, my usual microphone to the computer that I was bringing the laptop. I couldn’t find it anywhere. It’s such a mystery to me where it has gone. So when I do finally find is going to be somewhere probably ridiculous. Like a kid’s duffel bag in the basement or an old like, bin of wrapping paper or something i I’m just it’s a mystery of where I could put it anyways, I’m in a hotel right now I’m at a conference, I’m at a counseling conference, and learning some great things, meeting some great people. Anyways, here we are on a Friday night together in a hotel. 2:15 And I am also going to say it’s been a long day for me my brain. It’s Monday, it’s been a long day, and seven o’clock. And I thought yeah, maybe I can just push this episode back a week. But I needed to tell you about the motivation workshop I’m holding on Friday. And I needed to get this done so that it could be edited this weekend. So I need to get it done tonight. So I had to motivate myself. I had to use all my own tools to get this done. Do all of my motivation tricks. Here we we talk a lot about being on autopilot, and about moving into living intentionally living on purpose. And I think sometimes about who I was pre life on purpose, pretty simple on purpose. And just how complacent I was how reactive I was. I was living in a house that had a lot of stuffs. And I didn’t really question it, I just kept accumulating it. And when I felt like it had lived its season, it went to the basement or stuffed into an already stuffed closet. Like it didn’t even occur to me to be clutter for the most part. But I also noticed this complacency, this autopilot in my relationships. My parenting, it was really reactive and fear based. My marriage probably the same because I was reactive and fear based. And I just was living with a lot of like the weight over me of all the things I should be doing in my life. I think I was at that stage where I was aware that there was things I should be doing, but I wasn’t doing them. A lot of like, I should be fit, I should play with my kids more I should bake from scratch. I should organize my whole house, I should be a better friend, I should have a better marriage. Like I knew all of the things I should be doing. Why am I not doing them? How do I do them? That was my question. How do I do the things I know I shouldn’t be doing but I’m not doing? And my answer was well find out how other people are doing this because I see them out there. They’re running. They’re getting up early. They’re drinking smoothies and protein shakes, they figured it out. So I don’t most of us do and we know we want to make a change. I flip on Pinterest or YouTube. For me it was Pinterest especially, and motivation. That was the search term I would put into Pinterest many times over the years, especially when I was at the beginning stages of living life on purpose, so to speak, because I had this contrast of all of the things I shouldn’t be doing could be doing. And me my lack of motivation. How unmotivated I was. I was really on Pinterest a lot and we had this cultural messaging It was this like era where you’re getting up and doing things like morning pages like I, that’s when you get up and you just start writing. And it’s supposed to be, I don’t know, really relieving or something I don’t really actually know, people are getting up early to exercise. I tried doing that, too, turns out, two of my least favorite things to do get up early and exercise. So stacking them together was just like a double hurdle for me, in showcasing how little motivation I had. This was an era where decluttering was just starting to become a big thing. This was a self help season of kale juice and bullet journals and positive affirmations. And so we really had this cultural messaging at least on Pinterest, that we should have this great big checklist of everything we should be doing. Get up early morning pages, devotion, green smoothie exercise, put your laundry through all before your kids even got up, right. And I think all of those things have value for short. But in my mind, I needed to be all of these things. And every day that I woke up without meeting this checklist, it just confirmed how unmotivated I was. I constantly called myself lazy and viewed myself as undisciplined. Eventually, I would have some perspective on this and stop calling myself lazy, I would understand that I was actually just quite overwhelmed. I wrote a post on that a few years back. And a lot of people at that time reached out to me to thank me for it because I think it was probably a post that we needed in response to the Pinterest productivity culture of the day. So I was operating a lot with these limiting beliefs I had about myself being lazy and undisciplined. And so again, turn back to Pinterest, find the hacks for willpower, find the hacks for discipline, because if I had more willpower, I would fill in the blank. Usually it was get up earlier, for some reason for most of my life, I thought that was the gold standard on like, quote unquote, humans who have their life together. If I was more motivated, I would fill in the blank. I asked this question on Instagram the other day. And if you’re following me on Instagram, thank you, I love sharing that space with you. But man, Instagram can be frustrating, because I’ll post something. And sometimes like, three people comment, and sometimes like 30 people comment, I just don’t know, it’s so tough to know if that’s a place I should stay. Because it’s so sporadic for me anyways, there were a few comments, I had to sleep back, if I was more motivated, I would get up earlier, clean my baseboards get outside, you notice the theme here though, these are all very active things. No one said, pin more pins about motivation. Listen to another TED Talk, talk to my friends about the things I want to do that I’m not doing. And so I want to talk about that difference between the types of action that we can take. And this is concept I heard years back from Brooke Castillo, and I still find myself taking stock of it in my own life. And this is a concept of massive action and passive action, the two types of action that we can be taking. So passive action is when we are doing things that feel productive, but they aren’t actually moving the needle so to speak, they aren’t actually producing results, so to speak. For me in my life, passive action would look like reading books on decluttering. And don’t get me wrong. This was valuable, helpful and necessary for me to get motivated. But eventually, I had to put down the book and open a drawer and start decluttering. It looks like pinning all the ideas I had for organization and Pinterest me the Pinterest version of me. If you look at my pin board, oops, she’s living life. She’s productive. She’s the best parent, she’s got all the fitness routines, or home is organized with the beautiful containers and the labels as Pinterest me, it’s not really. But that was action that I was taking to make all those pins to put those boards together. That was passive action. And Pinterest is great. It’s got all of the ideas. But it is the ID all like I can’t actually do all of those things and do all of those things. I need to decide what works in my actual life. Turns out I hate the canting things into smaller containers. But I was pinning all of these ideas. Eventually I’m going to have to decide h

This is part two of a two-part series about planning your day. If you haven’t listened to part one (episode 189), I highly recommend you do so and then come right back to listen to this one. Join me as I guide you through a typical day in my life as a work-from-home mom. I discuss how I use time-blocking, rhythms and answer your questions .   In this episode I discuss:  My typical weekday  My weekly rhythms for work, home and family Time-blocking  How the changing seasons also change my days Family life, priorities and routines Answering some questions I’ve been asked about planning my days Exercise, laundry, meal prep, groceries, planning the week Derailed plans    All the fun links you might enjoy  Family rhythms (setting your own, and worksheets) Family Rhythms + free worksheet Planning the week with your partner What happened in my marriage when we started weekly calendar meetings Exercise for wellbeing 184. Movement as self-care (exercise for wellbeing, not weight loss) Establishing a chore routine 61. How we introduced chores to our kids (Saturday Morning Chores) Creating your own simple cleaning routines Homemaker, on Purpose (the guidebook) Working on your sense of capability 115. A Controlling mom, or a capable mom? 170. Planning the Day (reactive vs proactive, tools and approaches I use) 129. Does your ‘to-do list’ overwhelm you? Expectation overwhelm and how to handle it.   Sign up for the the Simple Saturdays email (a fun email, twice a month)   Upcoming workshops and coaching: The Oct 13 group coaching session The Oct 27 workshop on motivation Full transcript (with timestamps) 0:00 Hey friends, it’s Shawna, your nerdy girlfriend and counselor from simple on purpose.ca. Welcome to the simple and purpose podcast. 0:16 This episode is part two, actually. So I would encourage you to go back to the previous episode and listen to that first. These episodes are on planning my day planning my week and the first episode I talked about applying that concept of if everything matters, nothing matters. And I think that’s just really a good foundation to have in the back of your mind when you’re thinking about filling your day, and how you’re going to fill your day. So I encourage you to go back and listen to that. 0:42 Let’s talk about my typical day, which is a question you guys have asked me. I kind of like hearing on other people’s days, I don’t know, I they used to do that Instagram challenge, like a day in the life or I forget what it’s called, like one hour every? I don’t know. Anyways, I thought it was really interesting. I like to peek in on how other people were spending their time. So I’m going to talk about my day and then answer a bunch of questions that you guys have sent in. 1:09 So my typical day, week day, I’m going to wake up around 720. And I have a timer for the Internet and like the Internet app on my phone. So the kids can’t turn the TV or iPad on until seven because they were waking up really early just to watch TV. So they are watching a little bit of TV by the time I’m up. And I get up, we all kind of get ready, the kids leave. Generally, they’re all over the door by 830. And then I can eat breakfast, make a coffee and get started on my workday. 1:38 So I spend my day working, I break for lunch in lunchtime. I like to like go out in the kitchen, listen to a podcast, maybe go outside, if the weather’s nice, maybe go for a 10 minute walk, go back to work. And you know, because I’m working from home, I can do things like throw the laundry through, get the meat out of the freezer, because we’re always forgetting to build a meat out army, do a quick living room tidy when the kids are heading out the door. And I head back to work. 2:04 So the kids come home between three and 330. Actually, my oldest usually comes on first. So we actually get about like 10 or 15 minutes to just catch up and talk. And that’s actually a really special time of my day. 2:18 When they get home, I aim to be in the kitchen because they’re unpacking their bags or eating a snack. They do a chore in that area. And then they’re gonna head out and probably play their screen time, their further time limit for the day. 2:31 So when they’re coming home, I just want to hang out in the kitchen, I will tidy up the kitchen, usually one of them has to do dishes. So I’ll reload the dishwasher. I eat a snack too, because I need a break I need to eat. And I also just want to be available. You know how kids when they come home, they just held it together all day they’re exhausted and sometimes just being there that presents whether or not they come to you for anything, it’s just I think it’s comforting. 2:58 So they’re heading out after about half an hour and they’re hanging out with their friends going to meet up with their friends, whatever, or they’re doing their screen time. And suddenly, I’m alone in the kitchen again. So I try not to go on Instagram, I really try not to go on Instagram, whenever I find myself alone in the kitchen, which is usually from the hours of 330 to I don’t know, they’re in bed. If I have a little bit of work left to do like session notes or drafting up a podcast, I’m just going to pull up the computer in the kitchen, like bring the laptop into the kitchen and just to be around them if they need me. But you know they have screens they don’t need me. So that’s that anyways, and then we get ready for whoever has activities that night. 3:40 We’re going to get packed up and get a bunch of snacks and water and all those things together. I was asked recently on Instagram, how I simplify our family life. And that’s one thing that has helped us is limiting each kid to one extracurricular activity because times three kids that’s just a lot of activities right? So two of them were in hockey actually which hockey’s a lifestyle guys like hockey’s a lifestyle commitment. You have to be all in as a family it takes over everything weekends. So we limit it one extracurricular each person. 4:15 The afternoon like four o’clock on I’m shuttling people to the places. I start making dinner depending on what it is I just couldn’t like let it simmer on the stove or whatever. In generally I start dinner early, regardless of activities happening in the evening. Because foods just a priority for me, especially being gluten free. It’s hard to get excited about food. So it’s something I have spent a lot more effort on, especially in the recent years. We get the farm box for some of the years so that is something that I try to enjoy and use well and I’m googling recipes and trying different things. So Dinner, dinner is a big deal to me and probably my husband the kids generally are disappointed in whatever I make but I’m enjoying So, in this is recent, right? I think I shared in the last episode that some seasons it was toast on eggs and I would look on Instagram and wonder how are these moms roasting chickens and making biscuits with toddlers? Cue the episode I just did on Instagram culture because I definitely had warped expectations, thinking I could do all of the things all of the time that other moms with toddlers, were making these beautiful, elaborate homemade meals. Geez, no way it was toast on eggs or I don’t even remember waffles, right? We talked about the waffles. 5:36 Anyways, so dinner now I’ve got time about space got energy for it. And sometimes I will put in an air pod and just listen to a show or a podcast while I’m making dinner, enjoying that process. And I’ll be in the kitchen doing dishes you guys are asking me when I get cleaning done. Kitchen is just like as we go along through the evening. And then we aim to eat dinner together between six and 630. When everyone’s home from all the places eat dinner, someone has to have a shower, people are making lunches. And then we will aim to get the kids into their beds by eight. 6:09 One thing that we do in our house is we spend time with each of our kids at night, we’ll play a card game generally with them. Or sometimes we were doing like hurdles or wordles or spot the difference on the iPad. So we’re spending that time and it’s like 845. By the time we’ve gone through all three kids between the two of us. And it is a lot of time. But it’s a ritual for us. And I think that our kids really rely on that. And maybe I rely on that to that touch base in that connect, to have that consistent time where no matter what the day was like, I know that my parents are gonna show up here and they’re gonna ask me how I’m feeling and what I need help with. And you know, whether they want to just like pop quiz us on all the Space Jam characters, or ask us why the rules seem different for boys and girls, both of those questions. My kids have asked me at nighttime, it’s just a really meaningful thing for me to just be there as a parent for any of that. 7:09 So bedtimes 845. And then, if my husband’s working in the morning, we’re both going to head to bed. I mentioned in the last episode that over the recent years, I’ve come to priorities, prioritize sleep in a big way, and my life feels so much better for it. 7:24 So that’s my typical week day. Doesn’t really sound exciting. My weekdays are seasonal when it’s not hockey season. I generally have a weekend. And our routines are Friday night treat. And movie Saturday is for church chores. And then an outing and Sunday is church and chill. 7:43 I was asked how often I spend time planning out my week. And this was something that used to be a very intentional thing to sit and plan the week, when all of the kids were at home, Connor and I would have weekly calendar meetings together when he had his set off. And that was when we would plan, look at the calendar, who’s doing what who was to go where and making sure that we could put in time for the things we wanted to get done that week. 8:06 Nowadays, I do look at my calendar often. And I think about what’s happening and what I want to happen. And maybe I’ll schedule things in