She's Got It Together
She's Got It Together
Mom Burn Out With A Side of Homeschool chit chat with Dayna Abraham
In this episode, I chat with Dayna Abraham, founder of Calm the Chaos Parenting, about the all-too-real struggle of mom burnout. Dayna shares her personal journey from being a teacher to a mom dealing with her own child's challenges in school, which led her to start documenting her experiences online. We dive into what mom burnout really looks like, how it affects both parents and kids, and some practical ways to manage it.
Dayna offers some great insights on creating sustainable self-care practices, the importance of being open with your kids about your struggles, and how to work with your partner to lighten the load. We talk about outsourcing tasks when possible, simplifying routines, and giving ourselves permission to let some things go.
One of my favorite takeaways is Dayna's "parking lot" concept for worries - a way to acknowledge our concerns without letting them consume us daily. Whether you're in the thick of burnout or just feeling the pressure of mom life, this conversation is full of relatable moments and actionable advice to help you find some calm in the chaos.
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Here's to Getting it Together one day at a time,
Jessica & Samantha
And this is a great way to just build up sustainable habits, one minute at a time, and there's five different ones that you can add, so you can build up to a five-minute daily practice. And it doesn't have to be your morning routine, it doesn't have to be your evening wind down, it can literally be spread throughout your day. And so the first way is with our things we take care of in our head. So we've got to take care of our thoughts and we've got to take care of the stress that we're managing and we, let's be honest, try to take on too much. We try to do it all, and I always tell people if you try to do it all, you're going to do nothing. Well, so it's better if we can let things go. But that's so hard. That concept alone is so incredibly hard, especially for women who are so used to doing it all.
Speaker 3:Hi everyone, and welcome to a brand new episode of she's Got it Together. I'm your host, jessica.
Speaker 2:And I'm Samantha. Each week we peel back the curtain on what it really looks like to have it together.
Speaker 3:From the messy moments to the milestones we're here to share it all.
Speaker 2:So grab your favorite drink, get comfy and let's dive into today's topic.
Speaker 3:Are you stuck in a sea of chaos, completely overwhelmed and exhausted? Well, I have Dana Abraham here today and she is going to help us navigate these challenges. Welcome, dana, I'm so excited to have you here today. We are going to be talking about mom burnout and, before we get started, I'd really like to have you just kind of introduce yourself to the audience, give a little background, just so that you know how they know you're the expert in this particular topic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so hi everyone. I am Dana Abraham. I'm the founder of Calm the Chaos Parenting and I originally started out as a blog Lemon Lime Adventures, when I was in the throes of burnout. I feel like nothing like starting a blog, having a baby and homeschooling all your kids to really just like celebrate burnout Do it all, do it all, do it all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what really had happened is, you know, I like to say I was kind of born into chaos, grew up in chaos and then, when I became a teacher, my favorite kids were the kids that came with a paper trail behind them, the ones that all the other teachers had pretty much already dismissed. The kids knew it, they walked into the class, they already knew and I taught preschool.
Speaker 1:Then I had my own kids and when I had my first kid I thought I was going to be the world's best mom because I had this education background, because I had grown up and overcome so many hard things growing up. I thought I've got this. Someone's going to show up at my doorstep with balloons and a parade and a sign that says World's Best Mom. I thought I was going to win the prize. That did not happen. The farthest thing that happened, my oldest son was kicked out of his first preschool. I was the one that was.
Speaker 1:Every time I showed up at kindergarten, the teacher would say we need to have a talk. And then first grade he was getting like sent home early and by second grade he was suspended more days than he was actually in school. Yeah, things were getting really rough. And so there came a moment where he had had another meltdown at school. The teacher or the principal called you need to get here. I was nine months pregnant and drove 45 minutes to the school, walked in and they had everyone in line waiting for me, including the police.
Speaker 3:Oh boy.
Speaker 1:So they marched me into past my son and into the principal's office and in that room the principal sat me down and said you have two choices you can let this officer take your son into custody or you can take him home and don't bring him back till you figure out what's wrong with him.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, that's horrible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was pretty rough for me, for my son, and we just, you know, we went through kind of all the things that you do. We got an IEP, we did all the things, but then it was just so evident that he wasn't going to get his needs met in that school and he didn't fit in a traditional school setting. And so I quit my job and I had the privilege to be able to do that but I quit my job, I stayed home with him and I was just determined to help him. One, not hate himself for not fitting in and two, not hate the world for not understanding him.
Speaker 1:And at that same time I looked online and everything was picture perfect. It was in like the heyday of Pinterest days. This was 10 years ago, and everything was perfect. And you Googled homeschool and all of this and everything was beautiful.
Speaker 1:And I was like I don't understand how I'm the only one who has no idea what I'm doing. And so I decided to start a blog just documenting the good and the bad and the ugly. And I started that and I think my daughter was three months old, my son was seven, and then I had another son who was five and, yeah, just kind of jumped in, so talk about, you know, really adding to the chaos myself as I was documenting and I definitely went into massive burnout as I was working through that and trying to help my son and, you know, trying to just kind of walk through things, and again, that was 10 years ago. I've gone through different versions of burnout throughout the years, but more than that, I've helped parents online now. Now I share what I do and what I did with my son and in our program we actually help parents who are going through burnout and don't realize they're going through burnout or how to recognize signs of burnout even in their kids, because it's way more prevalent than people talk about.
Speaker 3:I'm sure, I'm sure, yeah, no, that's really interesting because I actually did homeschool my two girls. It was during COVID. It was during COVID. But when I just, you know, when they pulled them out of school and everything else or close the schools, I discovered that my youngest, with a time would have been in first grade, second grade, first grade, she couldn't, she didn't know all her letters, she couldn't read obviously that all these things they've been pushing her along. So it was kind of a blessing in disguise because I was able to kind of bring home. You know, we started her from the basics again and moved her up, um, and I did homeschool her for two years.
Speaker 3:And my oldest, who at the time would have been in seventh grade, um, she was just the one year she really wanted to go back to school, you know, to be with her friends, and she did great homeschooling, she was super easy, you know she's, she was older, she, homeschooling, she was super easy, you know she's, she was older, she was, she just did well with that. And my youngest, she did okay. You know, it was a struggle, obviously, but I think that, having the opportunity, because I didn't know anything about homeschooling either, I mean it was just okay. You know, covid's here, I don't want you to die, let's just keep you home. I don't want you to die, let's just keep you home. So we just, you know, we just went with it. But yeah, I mean, fast forward now.
Speaker 3:You know my youngest she's. She's definitely never had any discipline issues. She's very high strung she's. She's ADHD, she's dyslexic, she's. She has a lot of learning challenges. So the traditional school didn't work for her either. So when we put her back in school because I could only homeschool so long, it was just there's my mom burnout. I was just like I can't, because I was still working. I was still working at Ultimate Bundles and I was running customer service and doing a million other things. But putting her back into school, we ended up putting her into a Catholic school, which we are not Catholic, I'll just say that. But we did do this and it was because of the class sizes and the, you know, direct attention she was going to get, and she's been there for two years now. But we did. You know, I mean that was a huge hurdle that we overcame. But yeah, I get where. You know, you're saying that your son just didn't fit in that traditional mold. I mean, I don't know how they can say that there is one.
Speaker 1:Well, I've come to find that none of my kids do. It's just taken longer for each kid. My 16-year-old just came home to homeschool and I'm not someone who loves homeschooling. I'll just put that out there.
Speaker 1:But my daughter is 10, the one that was three months old at the time. So she's 10 now and she spent an entire year being model student at school, except it was hard to get her to school. Her anxiety was so high. Getting her to school was really hard, and then we fought that tooth and nail with the school, with her, for a while. Then, finally, I just kind of leaned into what we teach parents around the world anyway, and so what we really realized is the school environment was so incredibly stressful for her and she was masking, which means covering up all of the pain, all of the difficulties at school, so they weren't seeing it, all of the difficulties at school, so they weren't seeing it.
Speaker 1:But it became really evident when she broke her arm and she sat in school for a whole day and didn't tell anybody. Oh my gosh, like it was so easy for me in a meeting to then be like you know, they're like oh, she raises her hand, she asks questions. I'm like does she ever ask questions when she has a problem? Does she ever ask questions when she doesn't understand? And they're like now that you mention it, I was like did she raise her hand and tell you that her arm didn't feel right, you know, and they were like no, she didn't. I can't believe. She sat there all day and it was broken in two places and needed surgery and that was.
Speaker 3:You almost think, though, though, that the teachers, they're just not in tune, because you can't tell me that she didn't have some painful expressions on her face at any point, she wasn't.
Speaker 1:No, my daughter would mask in front of anyone and then let go at home, and so many of our kids are doing it. I think it's a really good visual for what's happening with so many of our kids at school.
Speaker 1:And I know we weren't going to talk about school, but it leads to burnout for parents as well, because we're pushing, pushing, pushing our kids, we're pushing the school and we're thinking we must be doing something wrong. And I just want you to know that that's not the case Anyone listening if your kid's struggling, if you're struggling, it's not because you're doing something wrong. Like there are systems in place that are not working for many of us, especially after we went through two years of COVID and systems didn't change. After that, like you said, you got a huge insight into your kid. Well, nothing changed at schools because of the new insights. Nothing changed at schools when we realized that some kids actually thrived at home doing their schoolwork, you know, and some needed to be in a school setting for some things but at home for other things.
Speaker 1:And we could have really adapted the school system. But it's like I always tell people, it's like you know, when you have a canoe, it's easy to steer. One person tells the other person hey, put your oar in the water. But when you are steering like a big ocean liner, it takes hours to get it to change direction. And that's what's really happening when we think about the school system. And it's not the fault of teachers I was a teacher. It's not the fault even of administrators. It's a collective whole systemic problem.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, it's one that I just don't think anyone knows truly how to start to fix.
Speaker 1:No, and I think that even that the pressure, the worries we think about, like burnout being because we are doing too much at home or because maybe we're dealing with a sick kid or something like that Really it is all these pressures of the world expecting us, the moms, to kind of just keep carrying on and keep pushing through and keep putting on a pretty face and making sure that our kids are still going to church and going to school and going to their school events, and that our house is still organized and clean and we're still paying the bills on time. All those things are still expected of us. But the world has changed a lot and I think we're becoming more and more aware of all the things, pressures and unspoken demands that are being put on parents, especially moms.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, that's very, very true. All right, let's take a step back really quick. I want you to just kind of explain mom burnout as far as like what it is specifically.
Speaker 1:You can cut that out, right? Yeah, sorry, I'm getting over something, oh no good. So when I think of mom burnout, I think of our sensory systems and our body systems and our brain functions kind of shutting down, like we have hit our limit. And you know, we get told as parents especially moms that we've got to fill our cup. We've got to fill our cup, but my daughter made me these little I don't even know if you can see them, they're so tiny. These are little coffee mugs.
Speaker 3:Yeah, those are adorable yeah.
Speaker 1:I can fill this cup all day long and it's not going to do anything for me. It's too tiny, it doesn't have enough capacity to actually sustain me. And that's what mom burnout is is that you are past your capacity and it's just overflowing in all areas. And the way that the brain works, the way the body works, is that when you are in stress, your executive functioning skills go down, meaning your ability to remember, your ability to organize, your ability to literally function in everyday life, and then that adds more stress and it becomes this vicious cycle, adds more stress and it becomes this vicious cycle. So what happens is then moms will end up, and this can happen to all humans.
Speaker 1:This is just humans, psychology and biology. But what happens when we get to that stress point is that our sensory system gets on high alert. It's kind of like having a sunburn and then putting an itchy sweater on top of it. Like everything is just more bothersome the kid's talking, the kid's laughing, the kid's roughhousing, the noises outside, the touching, the feeling, you know. Like all of that becomes so much that our bodies can't handle it and then we end up blowing and losing our cool and then we think something's wrong with us because we did it, when it's really just your body letting off some of this steam and trying to regulate in some way, even if it's not the most accepted quote, unquote way to let off that steam.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely not a positive way, but it's just got to come out, I mean.
Speaker 1:I actually would even reframe that Like I would say that it's not seen as a positive way, but I would say that it's a neutral way, right? If we? I was steaming some vegetables last night for dinner and at some point the steam got to be too much in the lid and the lid started popping up and down and then, like, just flew off the top of the pot. It's going to happen at some point when our body, our brain, our sensory system, our nervous system can't hold all that we're trying to hold.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, yeah, I mean, unless we can find a bigger cup Right, yeah, yeah, I mean, unless we can find a bigger cup, somehow it's going to constantly overflow, like that, yeah, so okay, how do we prevent this? Like, what can we do to kind of help alleviate, because I don't think it's preventable, but I mean, how do we manage it?
Speaker 1:So I think some ways that we can is we have to reframe the way that we look at our own taking care of ourself, because for so long self-care has been seen as we go take bubble baths or we go away from our kids. But we need daily sustainable practices that are going to help our mindset, our mood, our body and even give our sensory system a break. Sorry, inside of my Calm the Chaos book, I talk about the five-minute energy plan, and this is a great way to just build up sustainable habits, one minute at a time, and there's five different ones that you can add so you can build up to a five-minute daily practice. And it doesn't have to be your morning routine, it doesn't have to be your evening wind down, it can literally be spread throughout your day. And so the first way is with our things we take care of in our head. So we've got to take care of our thoughts and we've got to take care of the stress that we're managing and we, let's be honest, try to take on too much. We try to do it all, and I always tell people, if you try to do it all, you're going to do nothing. Well, so it's better if we can let things go. But that's so hard. That concept alone is so incredibly hard, especially for women who are so used to doing it all. But we have to, you know, kind of get everything out of our head and then choose, like I'm only going to do this one thing. If all I did today was this one thing, and that might be rest today's a good day, and then really listening to our body when we're doing that too and really saying this is a priority. This is going to get me one step closer to what's most important to me and my family right now.
Speaker 1:The other thing is a daily practice of something for our mindset, and so that's why I said there's kind of two for your head. There's one to get the stuff out and get out of that overwhelm that we're constantly in, and the other one is for our mindset, because things are coming at us all day, every day, and so it is easy to get sucked into. I'm the only one, nobody cares about me, what does it matter, what's the point? And we start getting sucked in these negative thought cycles. So if, every day, we spent just one minute taking a big deep breath and just anchoring, I am enough. I am worthy. I'm worthy of taking five minutes a day for myself. Now my goal is that you can take more than five minutes a day for yourself, but I am worthy of this time. I'm worthy of this energy and finding something that really works for you to focus on.
Speaker 1:If you're in the throes of it and the thick of it, you might be practicing something I call an anchor. I talk more about that in my book too, but this is something that you're practicing ahead of time what you're going to tell yourself when your kids are fighting. So, let's say, your siblings always fight and then you start catastrophizing and thinking they're going to have the worst relationship ever. So in the morning, you can picture that. You can visualize that moment, that they're going to fight and you're going to stop, take a big deep breath and then remind yourself hmm, they're just having a hard time. And that way, when it happens later in the day, you are prepped and ready to go.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So that's one way yeah.
Speaker 3:Being prepared. I think that that's I mean that works with everything. Really, it's just prepared. It's such a basic thing, but nobody does it.
Speaker 1:Yes, and um. And so there's lots of other things you can do in that little five minute energy plan. Even if it's just like texting a friend, um, if it's sending a little voice message to your aunt or to your mom, whatever, it is just something small to connect with other people, something that moves your body, something that takes care of your body. They can be really small things, but you just kind of hit on it of being prepared, the more that we can create plans for the worst storms can create plans for the worst storms and you're in it.
Speaker 1:If you're in burnout, you're in it, and your number one goal is creating safety for yourself and safety for your kids. And so what happens is that we start looking for solutions, because we, as women, are problem solvers. So we start looking for a routine that's going to fix this, or a rule for our kids that's going to fix this, or a new schedule that's going to fix this, or a new like beautiful chore chart that's going to give everybody else the chores. And we're not there yet. We've got to realize we are like in the eye of the storm and we've just got to hunker down and take care of ourselves and make sure that our kids are safe, then we can, step by step, get to what I call ahead of the moment planning, or family success planning.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, no, that's a really good point, because I think that is something that we all do, is we're just so focused on fixing whatever is broken and what we think is broken, that we're not truly taking care of the issue or letting the issue, you know, blow over. Whatever you need to before you dig into these big process changes. Yeah, that's a really good point. So, with the kids, you know, having a parent or a mom, you know, with the burnout, how does that affect them?
Speaker 3:I mean obviously you know we throw out some negative energy, but is you know like what? Is you know what are we doing to our children by not taking care of this issue?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, I don't want to add more stress on top of your already stressful situation.
Speaker 1:So I want to just acknowledge that you're in burnout and it's hard, and I think that you beating yourself up because you're in burnout, because what you want is you want your kids to learn from your modeling. So if you're listening to this and you're like, wow, this is me, this is me. I've been going too hard, too strong, too long and I am just I can't go any longer, I'm going to end up in the hospital, that's a negative effect, right? If you end up in the hospital, there's no one else to care for your kids. If there's no one else to be there for them, that's a big negative. And so what's better is if you can say hey guys, I've been really struggling, I've been pushing, I've been going, I've been doing too long and I think I'm making myself sick. And so when I yell at you, I need you to know it's not about you, and when I need a moment to myself, I need you to know it's not because I don't want to be around you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Again, like preparing. You know it's the same concept.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you're speaking it out, you're letting them know in on your world, because I think so many moms think that we have to be so strong for our kids and the more that we can not be as like this strong superhero figure to our kids, the more we actually are a hero to our kids, because they see that it's okay to make mistakes, they see that it's okay to have a bad day, they see that it's okay to have a bad month and still be loving and still be amazing and still be wonderful.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, that's a great point. I mean I do. I appreciate the fact that you don't want to put more negative on you know the mom with burnout, because that that doesn't fix anything at all. So now, if you have a partner at home, you know a dad or whatever, you know how, how can he assist, Like what? What can he do to help the situation a little bit? Is there anything, is it? Just leave me alone, Don't touch me, you know.
Speaker 1:No, I think I think we assume that our partners know what we need, when sometimes they don't. I think a lot of times partners and I'll actually say I see a lot on the mental load or being the default parent and all the stuff that you can't see, that especially stay-at-home moms take on the figuring out the groceries, the doing the laundry, the organizing the day or the week or the making sure that everything's in place for the kids' school. Those things go unseen by the partner sometimes. But as an ADHD adult, I'm going to just say something I've never said publicly I am that person that puts those extra default mental load on my partner because I struggle with those executive functionings. So we used to struggle a lot because he just assumed I knew what he needed for me to take the load off of him.
Speaker 1:And once we started talking about all the things that are going into his day that I don't even notice he's doing, or all the things that I'm doing that he doesn't notice I'm doing, and we start looking at what are all of the invisible, hidden, you know, burdens or tasks or demands on us in a week and now we can start dividing those up.
Speaker 1:And I wouldn't say equally, I would say, divide them up based on each person's uniqueness. So, like I said, like laundry for me is very, very hard, I don't remember to put it in, I don't remember to take it out, I don't remember to fold it, like I just don't remember. And so, for me, if my husband is like, if I know my husband is going to magically take and it's not magically, I know that but when the laundry is overflowing, the laundry is going to make it down to the basement, it's going to get washed, it's going to get dried and it's going to get brought back upstairs. I can then fold it and I can then put it away. I have no problems with those things because they're right in my face.
Speaker 3:No problems, easy to do.
Speaker 1:So we have started leaning into some of those things. I would also go to my partner and there are things that we started kind of outsourcing and I know not everyone has the privilege to do this, but we started outsourcing. We do not clean the poop in our backyard. I know that is the strangest thing in the world.
Speaker 3:No, you know what? I've seen, the company that does this, and it cracked me up years ago when I saw it. But hey, look at this, there's a use.
Speaker 1:It saves me and my husband so much mental energy to not have to think about the dog poop every day. So that's one thing. We do have someone that comes and does like the deep clean, because neither one of us have the energy or the mental capacity to do that, Because we're running a company and raising three kids that are neurodivergent and I'm neurodivergent myself, and so I know that I need those supports. So that is a way that your partner can help is you can say hey, I know you don't have the capacity, I know I don't have the capacity. What can we sacrifice so that we could get someone to come and clean up the dog poo? What could we sacrifice so that someone can come and do the pick up our laundry twice a week, Because that happens too. Like there are so many services out there now and there are so many people that want to help with these like daily things you can also talk to your partner about. Hey, I know you really like home-cooked meals every single week, every single night, but like I just don't have the energy to prep the food shop or to shop for the food to prep. Well, let's back up. I don't have the mental energy to think of the meals and meal plan, then go shop for the food, then put all the food away, then prep the food and then make the food and then make sure that everyone in the house has the stuff that they need. I either A need help, or we need a meal service, or we need to come up with.
Speaker 1:What we did in our house is we had days, theme days. Every Tuesday is taco Tuesday. Every Friday is pizza Friday. Like every Monday was no thought. Every Monday was spaghetti and meatballs, Every Wednesday was chicken and vegetables. Like we just came up with the thing that we knew everyone would eat. We worked on it with the family and then there was no thought. It just was like this is what we have, so no matter who is up for cooking, like I don't have to be the one that cook, and we also let go of a lot of have-tos. So I am like if I got to choose, I'd be the crunchiest person in the world. We would compost all our food, we would recycle everything and we would reuse absolutely everything. We wouldn't throw anything away. But I don't have the capacity for that right now, and when I was in burnout I definitely didn't have capacity, so paper plates came out. Taking out came out. It's just a season it can always change.
Speaker 1:You have to allow yourself these. Word retrieval is hard for me with ADHD, so I'm trying to think like concessions. You have to allow yourself these like oops plans or hey, I can get away with this right now because of the season I'm in, and I think the more that we can talk to our partner about that, the more we ourselves can let go of that, the more you're going to be able to get out of this stage.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely yeah. I mean it's the little things a lot of times you know the little things that you can offload. I mean, I guess laundry is not necessarily little and neither is meal cooking, but in the grand scheme of things you know those are things that are daily, repetitive, and there's people or services that will do it. So if yeah if you have the means, for sure. I mean, I've had a house cleaner, you know, on and off for a couple of years. We don't have it right now, and boy do I miss it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we don't have it right now either. And so I walked into my downstairs and our luggage is still out from when we got back last Wednesday and my kitchen is full of dishes from cooking last night, and I just took a deep breath and at first wanted to get really stressed out about it, and then I was like no, we're focusing on other things right now and that is what we have to allow ourselves to do to get out of a difficult place.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, definitely need to give ourselves grace, that's. I mean without doing that, you know we're going to just keep circling this crazy eye of the storm and never, never make any headway. Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say if you remove things from your schedule, if you are feeling like you're in burnout and you've removed things from your schedule, I would say you could probably remove the same amount again and still you haven't removed enough.
Speaker 1:We're so used to going, doing and have tos that this is very uncomfortable, but if you pause and slow down for a week, a month, maybe even six months, in the long run you are going to be so much further ahead and you are going to be in such a better headspace, in such a better health place for your body, for your kids, a place for your body, for your kids and for your job. All the things are going to get so much easier. If you do take the time, it's going to take a little longer than you think it's going to take. I need people to know that, and when I coach women on this, I look at their list and I'm like but still, look at what you got on there. Do we really need the house completely clean for the birthday party on Saturday? I don't think you do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's funny you say that one, because that's one of those things that it's like if it's a room that no one's going to be in, I'm not touching it. I don't have time. I've just made the birthday cake or I've decorated it or whatever. Now I'm putting decorations up and all of that. I'm going to clean the common areas and, of course, the bathroom, but I'm not worrying about my whole house.
Speaker 1:Well and now that you're talking about worrying, I think that one last thing that's kind of coming to me is that morning thought time that you do. That's a place to brain dump your worries and then let it go. I like this concept of a parking lot, because some of us are so afraid to let go of our worries that like, but what will happen if I let go of these worries and I don't think about these things Like we are? Our brains get addicted to worrying.
Speaker 3:I don't think we know we're worrying. Honestly, we do it so often. It's just we do it so often that we're just like.
Speaker 1:But if you're thinking about something like where's my son going to go to college, right, and your kid is five, and hey, they may be 16, 17. But if there is nothing you can do about it right now, today, this is not a worry you need to have on your plate today. Put it in the parking lot, and that alone has helped so many parents get out of. Burnout is because they stop focusing on all the worries of all the things in all the areas and they go. Wait a second. There's something I can do about this today, so I'll put this on today's pile. Everything else goes in the not today, friend.
Speaker 3:Yeah, gosh, that's. That's a amazing thought on that, because I mean, I thinking about that right now for my 15 year old with college, or you know how financially like, how are we going to afford it? Do we have enough in our college fund? You know, like, are we, are we donating? Or you know putting enough in there and things like that. But yeah, you're right, we can't do anything about it now. So for that one.
Speaker 1:That's a great example. It's not going to help you to worry about it every day. What you can do about it is set up a meeting with your partner or with your bank and say hey, I've been having these thoughts and I'm wondering if there's anything we can do today that's going to make sure we have enough in there for when they go to school. Yeah, Boom done. It's a one day thing instead of it being every day for years. Yeah, that's and then doing nothing about it.
Speaker 3:Right, right. Well, that's kind of you know why we've gotten to this point is like oh my gosh, are we doing enough? We've never talked to you. You know, it's that daily, I don't know. I've got a bucket of daily worries, I guess, and I just go through every one every morning it's like habit and then do nothing. But yeah, you're right If we actually, but what if you?
Speaker 1:just said no, I'm not even going to pull you out. But you know what, today it's a Saturday, I've got some capacity and I'm going to do some research on finances for college, so I'm going to pull that one out of the bucket and today's the day I'm focusing on that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's such a simple concept and it's something that is so hard to do.
Speaker 1:It is so hard yeah.
Speaker 3:Wow. Well, this was a great conversation and I would love for you to share where you know listeners can find you. I'm sure that they're going to want to reach out and get some more great information on this. So just you know, let us know where can we find you?
Speaker 1:Well, you can find me everywhere, at Calm the Chaos Parenting, and so that is on social channels, and I have our. We have our own podcast. And then you can also grab the book Calm the Chaos a fail-proof roadmap for parenting even the most challenging kids, and the whole first half of the book is really about you, and so it's going to help with that burnout. It's going to help with those worries, those fears and setting up those habits that will help you handle any of the stress that comes your way. And if you do get any of those things or check me out there, please reach out and let me know what resonated. I love hearing from people who have heard me on other podcasts or people who have checked out our services and things like that. So please reach out and say hello.
Speaker 3:So, wow, thank you again for being here.
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