Support the podcast

Facebook Group

Get the book: Mommy Needs a Moment: From Burnout to Empowerment

Alyssa is a storyteller living with her husband and two toddler boys in the remote countryside of Washington state. A millennial mom navigating the parenting challenges of today's demanding world, Alyssa brings her personal experiences, background in English and anthropology, and a unique blend of empathy and expertise to fellow mothers. Join her in exploring heavily researched tools to reduce burnout, reclaim overall well-being, and rediscover an empowered you.

Key Takeaways

• Importance of not losing yourself when caring for others, and pursuing your own goals/dreams
• Dangers of information overload and not trusting your intuition as a caregiver
• Value of being present and practicing "slow living" rather than constantly rushing
• Need for a community/village to support caregivers across different life stages
• Assessing your own mental health as a critical part of being an effective caregiver

Topics

Losing Yourself in Caregiving

• Alyssa's quote: "Find yourself again, have goals, hopes, dreams. It doesn't mean you're a bad mom or you don't care about your family. It means you love them enough not to lose yourself in the process."
• Importance of maintaining your identity and not sacrificing everything for caregiving roles
• Potential for resentment if you completely lose yourself

Information Overload and Intuition

• An overabundance of advice/information online can lead to analysis paralysis
• Often contradictory information from different sources
• It can cause you to second-guess your intuition about what's best for your child/loved one

Slow Living and Being Present

• Slow Living and Being Present
• Constant rushing and trying to "do it all" prevents you from being fully present
• Example of Alyssa stressing about finding a birthday cupcake rather than enjoying the moment
• Kids value presence over perfection
• Opportunities to involve kids and teach life skills when going slowly

Need for a Village

• Modern isolation and nuclear families deprive caregivers of a support system
• Value of interacting with people in different life stages for wisdom and perspective
• Creating neighborhoods/communities that bring different generations together

Assessing Mental Health

• Importance of evaluating your own mental health, which can be impacted by caregiving
• Alyssa's examples of postpartum depression and accident after burning out
• Kids will mirror your mental/emotional state as a model

Welcome, friends, back to another episode of Empower Her Wellness.

My guest today today is Alyssa, and Alyssa is the author of the book, Mommy Needs a Minute, from Burnout to Empowerment.

And when Alyssa first contacted me about being a guest, I thought, no.

You know, the book, is that really for me?

I'm not a mom of young kids anymore.

My kids are all grown and have grown kids of their own practically.

But she sent me a link.

And as I started reading, and I thought, wow, this is really applicable to anyone who is experiencing

some sort of burnout in their lives, whether you're a mom of young children, a caregiver, someone

who has a lot of responsibilities.

So I got a lot of great tidbits and information from this book.

And another thing I really liked about this book is that it's researched, and Alyssa references

psychologists and other experts in the field to help you lessen the feeling of burnout.

And it was just a it was just a really great book.

Alyssa is so down to earth, so much fun to talk to, and I think you're really gonna get a lot out of this episode.

Before we get started, we have a Facebook group.

Link is down below in the show notes.

And also, if you would like to support my endeavor with this podcast, if you get value from

this episode or any of the other episodes, I encourage you to click the support the podcast

link down below in the show notes as well. Okay, friends.

On to my conversation with Alyssa. Well, hey, Alyssa. Welcome to the podcast.

Thank you, Shelley. Thank you so much for having me.

I'm excited to be here.

Taking time out of your busy day and and full disclosure, this is the second time because apparently

something happened with the audio and the video last time.

So I doubly appreciate Alyssa doing this again with me.

Oh, no worries. It was a lovely conversation.

I'm excited to have it again.

So, Alyssa, you're the author of the book, Mommy Needs a Minute from Burnout to Empowerment,

which I read well, listened to actually the most of it.

And when I first saw the title, I was like, you know, I'm not a mom.

I, you know, don't know if this would really fit with with me personally, but as I started listening

to it, I found out it did.

Because a lot of what you talked about, I think, can pertain to not just moms, but caregivers

and women in general who are just feeling this, like, overwhelming sense of, I've got so much

to do, and I don't know how to do it, And who am I?

You know, basic questions in life.

I came across, were you given an an an interview, and I really loved what you said here.

So I'm gonna read it.

And I would love to to talk back.

Because I think this is maybe the reason that you you wrote the book.

You said find yourself again, have goals, hopes, and dreams.

It doesn't mean you're a bad mom or you don't care about your family.

It means you love them enough not to lose yourself in the process. So I loved that.

So tell us what what you mean when when you said that?

Was that the reason you you wrote the book for for women, moms?

Yes. I came across a lot of women who after raising children, it's like you give your your everything

to your kids and your family, and a lot of women, either if they choose to stay home or they

choose to go to work, whatever you've decided, everything comes second to that goal of being

a great mom for your kids, a great, a great worker for your boss, and it's really easy to lose

yourself in that in those roles because there's so many different roles, and it's easy to get

so swept up in the busyness that you forget to take time to be curious about who you are and

what you want and if you're making decisions based on what everybody tells you you should want

or what you actually authentically feel is good for you and your life.

And I feel like, for me, personally, I was getting to that spot in my life where I was feeling

very burnt out and overwhelmed and unfulfilled.

And I'm like, if I'm having these feelings, then there must be something along the way that

is disconnecting because if I'm authentically living who I am and passionately living my purpose,

I I shouldn't be feeling so burned out and exhausted and depressed and overwhelmed and just

kinda over life and lost all the time.

Well, you know, Alyssa, nowadays, we have the Internet that's just gonna give you all the information

you need to know what to do. Right? Yeah.

You talk about that in your book about how we have this overload of information, but it's not necessarily good for us.

So I'd like to talk about that a little bit.

And then also 1 of the things that you referenced in your book was the overload of information

and then also how we don't use our intuition, or we don't know that we we have this intuitive

nature about us, especially when it comes to kiddos and women just caregiving in general.

So does this overload of information, has that kinda tamped down our intuition?

I feel like human beings are naturally curious, and especially as a young mom, you're not given

a handbook or even, as an older woman, whatever season of life you're in, if you're thrown into

that caregiving role, you're often not given a handbook.

You're given some general guidelines of how to keep said person alive and you hope that you're not screwing it up.

And so a lot of women go, we we want to be we want to do it right, we want to do a good job,

we want to raise, or take care of the person we love well.

And so we go online and we look for all of the answers for every possible question we could have.

And the problem is that there's so many different articles and opinions and viewpoints, and

they're all backed by research, and they all are backed by science.

And, some of them that aren't so much backed by science also have a little bit of the fear factor

behind them, especially when it comes to topics like vaccinating or, proper ways to discipline your child.

And what we end up having is this fear stigma that if you don't choose the right method and

if you don't research it enough, you're going to screw up this huge job that you've been given.

And I think that in doing that, women become burned out on information.

We look and we look and we look, and the deeper you go into the rabbit hole, the longer and

longer it gets because the information never ends, and there's never just 1 conclusive answer

on how to do it right because the people we're raising are unique individual human beings and

you are a unique individual human being who not everything is going to fit with who you are

and not everything's gonna fit with what your child needs.

So I love that you mentioned that because, yes, I think we get information burnout, and then

we lose a big part of our intuition because instead of taking time to assess what we know about

our child, what we know about ourself, what has worked well for us in the past.

We're so scared of messing it up that instead we're just looking for somebody, anybody to tell

us that what we're doing is right or wrong so we can change.

Yeah. That's a good point.

And that brings me to a story you tell.

First of all, I love your husband from the book.

I don't know him personally, but I just love him.

So you you tell a story about how you were swaddling 1 of your children, and apparently, he didn't like it.

Your child didn't like it and and wasn't sleeping like you see on these Instagram videos of

I swaddled my child and, you know, she's asleep in 3 seconds.

And so your, your husband comes in and like starts unwrapping the baby and, and then things just change.

And he, you can help me remember, but he said something like he just wants his arms free or

he apparently doesn't like this or something.

So I just thought it was, like, you've had this hair and I remember Alyssa having these moments

with my kids, like, are you too hot? Are you too cold?

Have you had enough to eat? Why are you crying?

You know, just all these things.

And your husband just comes in and like, ah, he wants his arms loose. You know?

So I just thought that was such AAA great story for a couple of reasons.

First of all, he just sort of, like, knew.

Like, apparently, this baby's not happy, so let's unswaddle him.

And that's what I think is the amazing thing that can be very freeing about not having to follow

strict strict strategic advice, for absolutely every area of your parenting, especially when

if you try it, it's not working, having that that confidence in yourself to step back and be like, This isn't working. Why isn't this working?

And the automatic conclusion isn't that it's my fault it's not working.

It could just be that this advice might be great for other families and it might not look well

for us and that's okay.

It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you or your family And that's something I really

appreciated and still appreciate about my husband.

I'm very much like, well, the research says and the book says and this is what we're doing and

sometimes he'll just he'll just laugh a little bit and be like, well, but babe, it's it's not working.

So it doesn't matter how great the book is or how much research you've done or how backed up

of these these things that you're trying to teach are.

If it's not working for our boys, then then it's it's not worth very much to us, which sounds

so logical when you say it out loud.

Yeah.

But as a young mom who is in the throes of sleep deprivation and all all the hormones and feeling

overwhelmed, it's like, don't tell me that my book is my lifeline. Leave me alone.

Yeah. How how will I know to exist with taking care of my kids if I don't have book or social

media to tell me how to do it? Right?

So I remember my first, my daughter, gosh, she was colicky.

Like, she every every night, I just knew it was coming.

Like, every night for 4 hours, she would just cry and scream, and and I did all the things.

We didn't have Instagram back then or social media. We had Doctor.

Spock and I can't remember the name of his book, but, so I tried everything, Alyssa, with this,

with this kit, everything I was at my wit's end and I was crying and I was tired and I was breastfeeding

and I was, you know, blah blah blah blah.

And, my husband come just comes in.

Her dad takes her, lays her on his chest.

He lays down on the couch and they both fall asleep.

I'm just like,

how do you do that?

How do you do stomp in the other room?

Like, how do y'all do that?

So, you know, he I think he just sort of knew and he wasn't stressed out and he was really super

chill and had, you know, was just like, she probably is tired of being held and swaddled and

trying to be fed and just leave her alone. You know? Yeah.

So he would just fall asleep.

She'd fall asleep on his chest when he would come in from from work.

How how do we how do we know how to raise our kids or take care of our person if how do what

how do we use our intuition?

What have what have you found to be to be useful for you when you're raising your your little ones?

Well, I think a big part of it is assessing your own mental health because I do think that,

especially postpartum, you have a lot of hormonal changes going on and it's really easy to mistake

intuition with postpartum depression, anxiety, other things that can come from just the sheer

emotional and physical stress of having a baby and bringing another person into the world.

So first, I think it's important to assess your own mental health.

I know that I had really severe postpartum depression with my firstborn and I didn't know that it was postpartum depression.

It wasn't really talked about.

I didn't talk about it with anyone because I was so scared of the stigma that I was a terrible

mom and someone was gonna take my baby away because I was having these feelings.

But I was so scared that my son was going to die if I put him down, which was a very irrational

fear, that we just carried him around, my husband and I, 247, around the clock, around our jobs, around everything.

For the 1st 3 months of his life until my husband was like, okay, this you're okay. He's okay.

We're gonna we're gonna try and put him down for just 20 minutes for a nap and, so I think it's

important that was obviously not to an intuition based.

That was just, a lot of fear.

And so it's important, I think, to take time to assess your own mental health.

And then it's important to spend time getting to know your child, and your child will tell you

so many incredible things, just in small movements and facial expressions and the way they interact

and react to certain situations.

I think the problem is that a lot of times we're so busy on our phones googling, and researching

the best things to do for our kids, the best ways to play, the best foods to feed them, that

we miss actually getting to know them in those early stages when they are telling us a lot of things.

I like that. You know, it's it's your child's over here going, I need this.

You're like, I'll be quiet.

I gotta let me Google it.

Let me Google and see what you need.

You don't know what you need.

But Google knows what you need.

And I like how you said assessing your mental health and those irrational fears.

Thank you for sharing that, first of all, because I understand how we are judged so harshly

sometimes for having, like, these these thoughts.

I mean, I have I am so glad social media wasn't around when my kids were here, when they were young.

Instead, I I told this this story, and the first time we chatted was I had a my daughter's great

grandmother advice of tying her to a potty chair to learn to train her to because she would

carry her potty chair around, and then she'd sit in it in the living room or the kitchen or wherever.

And she was here this week and I told her that story and she laughed.

But, you know, so I didn't have the internet, but I had, you know, great grandma telling me

how to raise my kiddos.

But, so, yeah, so assessing your mental health, I'm so glad you said that.

And you spoke up to that because if we don't start talking about that, if we and and getting

that out there, I mean, there's always gonna be people who'll be like, you know, you decide

to have that kid is not like having a Goldfish, you just can't give it back and, you know, just

useless, useless crap like that.

You know, but I, when Steve first came home, I had this irrational fear of going to sleep because

I was afraid I'd die in my sleep.

I don't know where that came from.

I've never dealt with that anxiety in my life, but it was this, Alyssa, if I die in my sleep,

who's gonna take care of Steve?

So I I'm glad you said that because for new mamas, for caregivers out there, looking at the

reason the the the thing behind or the reason behind that you're having this fear and how to

help you alleviate that because it is irrational.

I'm not gonna die in my sleep.

There's nothing wrong with me.

Just like, you know, your kiddo is is is fine. You know?

So what did you do to to help with your mental health during during those times?

You talk about how you just ran yourself into the ground.

Like, you literally made yourself sick trying to be all the things.

I think that a lot of a lot of women, experience this this pull when you have a baby.

You're a mom, but you were also were somebody before you were a mom.

And you also have hopes and dreams and aspirations outside of being a mom, but it's hard to balance them all.

It's hard to know what parts of yourself need to be put on hold for a while or rediscovered

or reevaluated and what parts need to stay to be an authentic mom and authentic version of yourself.

And I think what happens a lot of the time is we run ourselves ragged trying to live 2 lives,

the life we were living before we had our baby and the life we have now with our baby.

And that's what I was doing.

I was wasn't planning on having children.

I had, I was in the middle of completing my master's degree.

I was very career oriented, ended up getting unexpectedly pregnant after the middle of my master's

degree, and then unexpectedly pregnant a couple months in the middle of my master's degree,

and then unexpectedly pregnant a couple months, after my first son was born. Yeah.

And, yes, it was and it was a lot, and it was a lot of hormone and physical changes as well

as just social changes of, oh, this is not the degree I was working toward was very high stress,

very, not geared very well for family life, and I was happy with that because I wasn't planning on having a family.

And when I have my family, it was like I had to reevaluate and reassess all of my priorities.

So I worked full time from home and I also had my babies at home with me.

I was pregnant with my second born when, my first born was got really sick.

He got a nasty cold, and I was exhausted and sleep deprived and pregnant and sick.

And I was walking walking down our cement stairs out front, and I just fainted while I was carrying

him and fell just face

for him. How scary.

It it was. He fell he fell on his head, hit the concrete, and, I fell on my belly, and like

I said, I was pregnant at the time.

I rushed him to the hospital. Yes.

I had a had a bad experience at the hospital, which kind of exasperated those feelings of inadequacy

and what am I doing.

And the doctor at our hospital told us that, chances were very high that he wasn't going to live.

They were going to do brain surgery, at a pediatric hospital in a bigger city, so he was airlifted

there and I accompanied him.

And I as you can imagine, the mom guilt and the exhaustion and the stress.

And when we got there, the leading pediatric doctor ended up taking another scan of his brain,

and they were like, we can't explain it. The bleeding stopped.

They kept him for observation for 2 days, and he is a healthy, happy 4 or 3 and a half year

old, hitting all his milestones. And it's Thank goodness. Yes.

And when it was an incredible an incredible wake up call for what am I doing that I'm living

a life that I'm so exhausted that my body physically is just shutting down and I'm so mentally and emotionally tapped out.

So that was the breaking point where I started to assess my own mental health and my own choices

that had led to this place.

And it's 1 of the big things I looked at was, slow living mentality, that philosophy of the

more experiences you have, the less you actually experience.

The more you're trying to get out of life, the less you get out of life because you're so exhausted

and distracted that you're not fully present for the things that you're experiencing.

And so I started to assess my mental health from that standpoint of, I what are my tendencies? I have perfectionist tendencies.

I have over cheating tendencies, and I'm applying all of this to motherhood.

And I think the crazy thing about motherhood, I would believe caregiving in general is it opens

up your eyes to all of these unaddressed mental health struggles that you might have had for

a long time, but it's not until somebody else is watching you and you're realizing they're learning

to interact with the world based on how they're watching me interact with it that you're like,

I gotta get some of these under under control.

Yeah. Yeah. Because you tell a story in your book about your your son's, being upset because

he thought he wasn't doing something right, and he was just a toddler.

But you had said that he was just, you know, mimicking what he was seeing or or learning in

in the household, and you just kinda had to take a a step back. And

Yes. And that's what I think is so interesting about being a mom or a caregiver.

You have a mirror into how other people are are seeing you.

You wanna see how you're acting, how you're teaching modeling for your children to act, look

at how they're interacting with themselves, how they talk about themselves, how they're learning to talk about others.

I think 1 of the biggest ways it's hard to model healthy mental health practice is we don't

take the time to actually exercise our mental health. It is an exercise.

It your brain is something you need to exercise just like any other part of your body.

Your healthy healthy thoughts, positive mantras, taking time to get to know yourself on a deeper level.

Those are all things that contribute to your mental health that we don't take the time to do because we don't. I shouldn't say we.

I can only speak for myself, but, I, at least, I didn't see it as a valuable return on investment,

because I couldn't physically see the results of it, but I promise if you wanna exercise anything,

that is the 1 thing you can exercise that will transform your life.

I want people to realize too that, you know, moms are caregivers of children.

We you are you are caring for those kiddos, and I definitely see moms as caregivers, you know,

not in the sense of caregiving for a sick person, but you are definitely caring for the the

life, physical, mental, emotional, all the things for these kids.

So I I don't know how well prepared we are for these things.

You know, we, we go into having children being told, oh, you know, this is, this is what, what women do.

And, of course, it's a biological urge too.

Like, we you know, some of us, I did.

I had a very strong like, I couldn't explain him.

Like, where is this coming from?

I want a baby, but a strong biological urge as well for having children.

And when Steve came home, just this just this innate thing of, I'm going to be his caregiver,

and I don't need to evaluate that.

It's just what I'm going to do.

So I think a lot of it's just like us naturally.

We were born most of us were, like, born.

Although I've had some women say, I have never wanted a baby.

I don't know where that comes from in you, but I've never wanted a baby. You know?

So, but for the majority of us, it's, it's an innate thing, but we're not really very well prepared.

I was just, you know, like probably like you, you can read all the books before you have a baby,

but you don't know till you, like, actually have that kiddo in your arms. You know?

And and I can read all things about caregiving, but I don't actually know until my person comes home.

And now you're like, what the hell do I do?

So we're not very well prepared in the beginning, I don't think, anyway.

No. I don't think so either.

And I think a lot of the things that we are told, can be a little bit miss misleading a little bit.

We because you'll see on social media the incredible moms who just 3 months and they they got their their bodies back.

And the house is the house is clean, and they have a great organizational system and the baby's

sleeping well and they're homeschooling their 3 other kids and life is beautiful and relaxed

and you can do it too.

And I think a big part of it, that might be true for some women, it might not be your reality.

I think a big part of it is, like, we talked about, that unique you need to apply a unique approach

to your own life and your own family, and finding what works really well for you.

Some moms I know get so stressed keeping a regimented schedule is the worst thing you could do for them.

And other moms are a mess without that regimented schedule and I think that we don't prepare

women well for caregiving, because we're told things like it's such a beautiful time, it'll it's so fulfilling.

I was told numerous times that, well, after you give birth, you'll wanna do it all over again.

You're just gonna forget all of the pain and let you know

who the same way. It is not true, people. It's not true. Not true. No.

You remember all that pain.

That phantom pain will haunt you.

I hey. It's been almost 40 years, and I can still remember it, Melissa. So Yeah.

In fact, I'm gonna go, like, in the corner and cry now.

Shelley can be a testament for this.

But, yes, it's it's so it's these expectations that we have, and I think mentally when you have

these expectations of what it'll look like, and just sleep when the baby sleeps, and relax when the baby relaxes.

And I was like, well, no.

I still I still have a job and I still have a house that I need to pee clean and food I need

to cook and I'm running on 2 hours of sleep and I love the advice that or this picture that

you painted for me that I'm just going to nap around the house all day and sleep when the baby sleeps. That's great.

But for a lot of women, it's it's not our reality.

Many women go back to work when their babies are only 4 to 6 weeks old.

Many many of us work from home.

It's I think that a big part of why we're underprepared is our the expectations aren't realistic

and then when we get there it feels like we've at least for me, it felt like I was so old this

lie or this illusion of what motherhood should be.

And I felt like it was my fault that mother that motherhood wasn't looking the way it I was

told it was supposed to.

I was doing something wrong because my experience wasn't what I was told I should be experiencing.

So I hear this, you know, I see these things like everyone has 24 hours in the day.

Beyonce has 24 hours in the day.

Well, Beyonce has a village.

She has a chef, a nanny, a chauffeur, whatever.

Well, you know, good kudos to her. Good for her. Yeah.

I don't begrudge for those things.

But then that applies us to to us mere mortals that, Alyssa, you have 24 hours in a day just

like Beyonce does, so why can't you get your shit done? She can.

Yeah.

And then she produces albums and all that, but she's got a village.

And so several years ago, Hillary Clinton, you know, was talking about takes a village, and

she was practically, you know, laughed off the face of the earth. But it's so true.

We we, historically, we have lived in in clans.

You know, I remember as a kiddo, all the drymans lived on the same road practically, and we

had neighbors and we all just, like, shared the garden.

And I'd go to my neighbor's house or my grandma's house, and I just felt like I had all this

these, you know, safety nets around me even though I was the generation that, yeah, I drink

out of a water hose and we were locked out of the house.

But I don't go to grandma's, you know. Yeah.

So and my mom probably knew that.

But we don't I don't know that we really have that built.

I mean, we have friends. Right?

But how do you how do we I I think 1 of the things that we can really do, and I know this we'll

get back on the subject of its ability in a second, but 1 of the things I think that we can

really do is to read books like yours.

Because if we can make a change within ourselves, then we can make a help make a change out into the bigger world.

Because it's like, you know, 1 1 person I read your book.

Now we're gonna tell a bunch of people about your book and to read your book and and how you

can help start that process, taking care of yourself and your littles and your person if you're a caregiver. Does that make sense?

Do you do you understand what I'm trying to say, Melissa?

Yes. I think that's the that's the problem.

A lot of people look and they're like, it's such a huge systemic problem.

What am I going to do?

So you turn and do nothing.

But the reality is our culture and our society is made up of individuals who are making individual

choices every day, and you can be countercultural, you can say I'm not choosing to live like

this anymore and it's incredible how other people meet that stepping out in that courage can

encourage other people to then be like, no, actually this isn't authentic version of myself either.

I don't like living my life this way either.

And you're right, this changes changes start on a personal level and the individual individuals

are what make up the entire body of society.

So I wanna go back to something you talked about earlier because I was gonna I remembered this

story, and then III forgot, went on to something else.

When you talked about slow living So there's a story in the book about where you and your kiddos

are at the zoo, I think.

And you've gotta get cupcakes. Was it the zoo?

So you're like, the celebrations where you're like, oh, I've got to find a cupcake place before it closes.

So you're like on the phone frantically looking for cupcakes.

And then you don't really enjoy the full experience that you're having with your kiddos at the moment.

So you're so fixated on having this perfect cupcake celebration. Was it a birthday? I can't remember.

Yep. It was my birthday.

So you're so fixated on having this perfect birthday celebration.

And so I love what you said about slow living.

So now you talk about when you do something, that's all you do.

Yes. And I think it's so easy to say, and it's really hard to live, because naturally, there's

so many things calling on our attention and so it's easy to be like, I'm just gonna multitask.

I'm just gonna answer this email while I'm making dinner and I'm just going to, check my phone

while they're sitting down to eat and I'm just going to clean clean while while they're doing this.

And I think we miss out on being fully present with that and we also miss out on incredible

opportunities to teach our kids how to be contributing members of the family unit.

When I'm distractedly trying to entertain them or I'm trying to do my phone and I'm also trying

to, let's say, vacuum, I miss out on an opportunity like, no. We're fully present.

We are all vacuuming together. We're taking turns.

I'm teaching you how to do it.

The boy my toddlers think the vacuum is the coolest thing right now.

And admit we miss out on those cool teachable moments and same with, like, oh, I am fully focused

on the dishes and I'm taking 5 extra minutes for my son to wash his own little plastic cup and his own little plate.

And we practice and we practice, and it's easier to practice when you're able to be fully present

in the moment instead of viewing your children as an inconvenience that are like, I'm trying

to get this done, and you're in the way.

So I wonder if your kid would be like, I remember when I was 3 years old and I didn't have that perfect cupcake. Yeah.

You know? Exactly. It's I Do they

even gotta, like, care? You know, probably not.

And that's the thing. A lot of research shows that kids kids care about how you show up.

A lot of times they don't care about how what it looks like, how perfect it is.

You're, as the mom, the only 1 who's going to remember the imperfect things you didn't pull off that day.

Yeah.

But your child just knows that you were either present or you weren't present.

You they my 2 year old doesn't care that I was looking googling for cupcakes.

All he saw was that I was on my phone the whole the whole day.

And you weren't paying attention?

Yeah. And you weren't paying attention, and they don't and that translates in their mind, when they get older.

What do you what habits do you think they're going to have?

What do you think they're going to view as important?

If I tell them family time is important, but I'm on my phone the whole time we're spending time together, how is that?

What message is that conveying?

Yeah. I had a I did a interview with a doctor Alice Rizzi.

She's a psychologist out in Queens, and she talks about mindfulness.

So I think that's really important because she talked about using mindfulness to to find those

values and and what you really who you want to be, what you wanna do, how you wanna be it and do it.

And we can really only find that in the mindful moments.

So I loved how you said, you know, just taking your son, giving him those, you know, 5 extra

minutes to to wash his dishes and and just be him just being totally mindful and present in that moment.

And what a great gift for him because I remember being hurried as a child.

My mom was like, on this strict routine. Okay. It's 9:0:5.

You've got 2 minutes to you know? Chop chop.

And I have a lot of tendencies of scheduling.

Like, if I got my routine, Alyssa, I'm really trying hard not to, especially with Steve now.

You just never know, but it's a hard thing when you've had all this stuff ingrained in you,

so I totally get that.

But, anyway, so what a great gift you're giving your boys and being able to do that.

I hope so. I think with everything in life it's that balance of, like, we take our time when

we can and when in the great scheme of life this isn't something to stress and worry and hurry over.

And then also knowing that there are other people whose time is also important and their schedule

is impacted by our schedule.

And so if we say we're gonna be somewhere at a certain time, if we say we're gonna do something

at a certain time, we make a commitment to ourselves and to other people that we honor that commitment.

So I think it's a little bit like like with everything in life, that balance of of like yes

we don't always need to be rushed.

Life isn't a race to rush through.

On the flip side, we also have to be considerate that there are other people running the race

with us and sometimes they need us to show up when we said we were gonna show up.

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I love that. Good point.

How can we help people understand how to support caregivers, you know, or, moms with with young

children so that, you know, we're not feeling so alone.

You know, 1 of the 1 of the best things that I've heard with other people that I've talked to

is don't don't ask, just do.

When my mom died, I'll never forget this.

When my mom died, I opened the door and there was, like, grocery bags full of toilet paper and

paper towels and toothpaste and just things, like, you wouldn't think about. Like, everyone brought food.

We had so much food.

But they brought toilet paper and paper towels and things like that. They didn't ask.

I don't even know who it was.

They just left it on the doorstep.

So just doing and and not asking, and I think your friends will know, Alyssa, how to support you.

Yes. I think, and I would say the other big part is when we talk about taking a village, there's

so many different generations within that village, people in different seasons of life that

communicate and live and work all together, and I think a lot of times in our more individualistic

nuclear family model, we miss out on that wisdom from multiple generations, we miss out on the

different seasons of life from great aunties and grandmas and and neighbors who are in a different season of life.

I think even my generation too will will kind of write certain people off because of age differences

or they're not in the same season of life as me, and I think that's 1 of the biggest disservices

you can do to your children and to yourself is not, embracing the village concept of having

other trusted adults who are in different seasons of life around because if you're only interacting

with women who are in the same season of life as you or men who are in the same season of life

as you, the problem is we're all burned out and we're all overwhelmed and we're all exhausted

and I can offer a listening ear but I can't offer the same level of support as my elderly neighbor

who lives across the street who's retired and is happy to come over and have a cup of tea with

me when the day is long and hard. Yeah.

And, you know, things little things like that.

Or she'll get the advice that you get from somebody who's already raised for 4 boys or the advice

you would get from a great aunt or the perspective you would get from a friend who's in their

forties who never had children.

Those those different perspectives are invaluable, and I think it's not only important for you.

It's also important for your children to have safe, trusted adults who can they can also go

to, when they might not always want to go to you with things as they get older.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's so important.

And, you know, 1 of the things that happens, especially in social media, is our algorithms get

trained to just put in front of us what we want put in front of us, so we don't always see those other things.

So it's really important to get off social media and start, you know, interacting with people in other seasons. I totally love that.

I listen to an NPR. Yes. I'm an NPR junkie.

I listened to an NPR, little thing.

I don't remember which show it was on the other day, and they talked about there's this village

out in Portland, Oregon that they built, and there are 28 apartments for senior citizens.

I don't know the age that they deem senior citizens, and then family homes.

So the woman was 92 years old that they interviewed, and she said, I, you know, I did have kids.

I don't have a family, but here, I can be around children who I love to be around, and I can

call 5 or 6 people if I need to go to the doctor.

So they created this village, which back in the day, we didn't create.

We just it just, like, was a thing that that happened.

Like I said, you know, Dryman Dryman Road. We all lived there.

Yeah.

You know? So I would I don't, you know, I don't have all the answers for that, but I would love

to see us, you know, get back to what you're talking about of having these neighborhoods of

people we can just, we feel comfortable.

You know, there's a book called The Geography of Nowhere that it's a great book.

I read it in my master's program, but it talks about how how after World War 2 and the GI Bill,

they encouraged people to go build, houses out in the suburbs, you know, with the garage the

car the garage for the cars. You pull your blinds. You go in.

You shut your garage door, and you never see your neighbors.

And they really feel that that was the beginning of the end of these little neighborhoods that

people lived in in the cities and things like that.

They really started us on the path of isolation.

It's so true. When I remember when I first moved in with my, then boyfriend, now husband, and

he he lived in an apartment.

And he came home from work and I'd already gotten off of work and I was making muffins.

He's like, you're making muffins for me? And I said, no.

I'm I'm gonna go bring them to the neighbors cause I just moved in.

I'm gonna introduce myself and bring some muffins.

And he he kind of, like, laughs at me and he's like, okay. Good luck with that.

I go and I knocked on all the doors. Nobody answered.

Even if people were home, they didn't answer. Everyone kept to themselves.

To this day, I still don't know any of the people who lived in the apartment building with us.

And I came back and I remember my boyfriend at the time just laughing, laughing at me and be like, oh, don't worry.

I'll eat all of those. But it was such

a Oh, you could make me some muffins.

It was such a poignant reminder of, like, all the way, just I have always been teased that I

have a little bit of an old soul and I my boyfriend was laughing at me.

He was like, you're the only person I've I've ever met who would even think of doing something like that. Oh.

Whereas, I feel like that used to be very commonplace. Oh, yeah.

Somebody moved in, you brought you brought them something to eat.

You welcomed them to the neighborhood, and I think we've lost a lot of even the thought of connecting

with other people in that way.

And I also think social media can contribute to that by giving us this false sense of connection and community.

And it might be really good for some people.

You might have really authentic relationships online. That's wonderful.

A lot of studies show that, online just isn't the same as in person communication.

It doesn't stimulate the same parts of the brain. Yep.

And I think that, by giving ourselves this false sense of community, we miss out on building

a true, real, authentic community.

And it's not until we hit really hard times that we realize how alone we can make our own lives.

-So, no, lots of lots of big problems, you know, that are gonna take a lot of solutions on a

really large level, but I, you know, I think the the the fine point the 1 of the main points

I took from your book is to take a moment to to look at yourself, you know, create those goals

and those plans for yourself, and just be present in the moment.

And once you change yourself, then that radiate radiates out to rest of the world, I e, you

writing a book for everyone else to help them through this process and me doing a podcast for whatever reason.

So well, I know your kiddos are probably gonna be awake in a little bit, so I'm gonna let you go, Alyssa. Great conversation again.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate really, really appreciate you coming on early and and doing this.

Grab grab the book, and I'll put a link down below.

Mommy Needs a Minute From Burnout to Empowerment.

And, what parting words do you have for our our listeners, Alyssa?

Oh, just thank you so much for having me and, never feel bad about needing to take a minute for yourself.

We all we all do it. We all need it.

It doesn't mean that you're a bad mom.

It doesn't mean that you're a bad mom if you had a rough day, if you're overstimulated, overwhelmed.

I'm right there with you.

I feel like taking that time to parent from a place of authenticity, really helps reduce a lot

of that external pressure and internal pressure and stress that we put on ourselves and these

expectations that we just can't meet.

So, just if anything, if you could start parenting from an authentic place of who you are and

knowing and confidence knowing who you are, it can truly transform your parenting and your outlook and your life.

Great words to end this conversation on.

Thank you so much, Alyssa. I really appreciate it.

Yes. Thank thank you.