Episode 204 with Lauren Gaines
Avoid the Hamster Wheel of Stress
SHOW NOTES:
Explore the wisdom of embracing every moment, even the tough ones, as opportunities for growth and resilience. Lauren shares the importance of slowing down and savoring life, and why we should avoid the hamster wheel of stress.
If you're looking for a mindset shift and practical tips for creating an unshakable sense of calm and well-being, this episode is a must-listen. Join us in this deep dive into the world of "Unshakable Kids" and gain insights that can transform your life. Check out more from Lauren Gaines at inspired-motherhood.com.
Purchase your copy of Unshakable Kids here >> https://amzn.to/402qSTL
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SHOW TRANSCRIPT:
204 LAUREN GAINES
Ginny Yurich That's the game here. You. Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Ginny Yurich. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside, and I have a new friend with me today. Lauren Gaines, author of Unshakable Kids. Welcome.
Lauren Gaines Thank you so much for having me. I'm so honored to talk with you today.
Ginny Yurich You have a book coming out and it'll be out by the time this podcast goes live. You are a writer teacher by their creator of Inspired Motherhood, a thriving community online for moms to find practical tools to trade spiritually and emotionally healthy kids. You have a master's degree in school psychology and experience teaching undergrad psychology. But right now, you're home with your three kids.
Lauren Gaines Yes.
Ginny Yurich Doing the mom thing. And you wrote a book which is so exciting. And it's really cool to read people's different experiences as they transition into motherhood, a minefield similar to yours, which is that when you became a mom, you were a little shocked.
Lauren Gaines Yes. Oh, for sure. Yeah.
Ginny Yurich So was I. I wonder. I think some people are not, but I.
Lauren Gaines Sure. I don't know. I don't know. I feel like a lot of my friends had a similar experience to me, I think. So my brother is nine years younger than me and he was a little baby. I was nine. He was the perfect baby. And my mom told me this is about how babies are. But I was just like, Oh, he's so sweet. He never cries. I get to like, hold him and feed him a bottle. And so I remember to my husband was like, Why do you want to have kids? And I was like, It's going to be fun. And I genuinely thought that, like, that was my response, you know? And it is fun. It is. But it was also like three weeks postpartum crying in our closet, being like, this is not fun. This is not what I thought this was going to be.
Ginny Yurich What an interesting experience to be nine because you would remember all of that. Yeah. To be nine and have this little baby brother. But as the sister, if he was easy, baby. But you're just getting like the little glint. You weren't up in the night.
Lauren Gaines Oh, no. I had no idea that my mom. Yeah, I had no idea my mom was getting up in the middle of the night. Like, I just didn't even think that was a thing, you know?
Ginny Yurich And maybe this is like, how the human race continues, is that you are nine, ten, 11, 12. I mean, I remember you love babies and you hold them for 15 minutes and they're so cute and they're so fun and they're so interactive, and then you give them back so you don't really know how much work it's going to be.
Lauren Gaines Yes. Yeah. My sister and I used to, like, fight over who could hold him because he was just so content and happy. So I think my view going into motherhood and especially like with Instagram and everything, you think it's going to be this amazing, lovely, easy like life fulfilling experience. And it is those things I don't want to like make it sound horrible if people don't have kids yet, but it's also hard. It can be hard and beautiful at the same time.
Ginny Yurich Right. Right. It is that for sure. So you said I had no idea motherhood would require so much of me. And I do think that that is a common sentiment and would require so much of you for like such a long period of time. Like, I just remember thinking, like, when are things going to get back to how I used to feel?
Lauren Gaines Yeah.
Ginny Yurich And they really that really doesn't happen. So you have to adjust. So that's kind of what you were doing as you were adjusting. So one of the things that you leaned on was your prior experience working in the schools and some of the books that you had read. So when you hit this point where you're like, okay, I need a little bit of help here, I need to go back to some of the things I learned. What were you digging into? Like you talk to textbooks. Were there books like parenting books, or was it more college materials that you had used?
Lauren Gaines Yeah, it was stuff that I had in grad school. I still had all my binders, So thanks, Mom, for saving all that and giving it to me from your basement. But I remember learning, like in counseling, you know, we took, like, counseling one on one. And a lot of people don't know. As a school psychologist, you do work with special education. So I did a lot of testing with special education, but I also did counseling. So within the special education realm, counseling, but also some general ed counseling. And I remember learning, we were like all nine of us. There were it was a very small grad program, went in this dark room and they learned taught us how to do systematic desensitization. So like where you tie in your face and let it go, you tighten your shoulders and let it go. And I was I remember feeling so relaxed in that moment. I'm like, I learned these things. I just never put them into practice. I knew how to, you know, keep my thoughts captive and how to do mental reframes, but I wasn't doing it. I thought that was always for people who had a diagnosis, you know, had a diagnosis of anxiety or depression. And then I realized, no, this isn't just for that. This is for me. Like, I need this. And this is something that I can teach my kids to from an early age to learn, okay, When my body feels to like, maybe I'm nervous about something, like, what am I thinking about? What thoughts are running through my. I had. And so there isn't like a specific book that I was like, This is it. But I just literally went through my old binders and was reading Human Development and like, okay, what about these feelings? What about these thoughts? And what can I do with them? Because before it was always like for someone else, and now it's looking at it for me.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm. One interesting thing that you could go back and grab those things and find what you needed for parenting.
Lauren Gaines Yeah.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, because that's not really what they were. Marketing. Marketing is their I'm word, But it was for being a school psychologist, right? Not for like, you want to be a mom. Here's some information for you. But you were able to go back and pick out. Yeah. What a mom. She kept your binders?
Lauren Gaines Yeah, I mean, because truly, we all have unhelpful thoughts running through our heads. Whether you're a mom, you know, a police officer, doctor, whatever, it doesn't matter. You have thoughts running through your head. And so they're going to affect how you feel and the things that you do. And so it's so valuable if we can learn to kind of understand our mind and how powerful it is.
Ginny Yurich Right. Well, and even the physical part. So that was one of the things you talked about in the book is down regulating your nervous system. Can you tell us about what the vagus nerve is? And you were just talking about like some of those things that you were they clinch up and that go in just on a on a body level? How can we help ourselves and our kids feel better?
Lauren Gaines Yeah. So that is something I didn't really learn about in grad school. But my husband is an internal medicine physician and so it was so interesting how our worlds kind of clashed together and like, Kate crashed and it was like, Whoa, this is all connected, you know? And so he knew a lot more about this. And I actually was meeting with a functional doctor because I was having some digestion problems. And he told me, like, I think you might be addicted to stress. And I was like, What? Like, I just had no I was like, No, not because I thought I'm a mom. Like, how can I be addicted to stress? But my body was craving stimulation, my body was craving dopamine. And so he felt like sometimes my stomach would act in a negative way because it would still be giving me that dopamine rush in a bad way, you know? So we want to find that in a good way, not be activated from negative things. But yeah, so the vagus nerve runs from your head to your gut and when it is activated, it can calm your whole body. And so there are really easy things like deep breathing. I know. I mean, I learned that in grad school and I was just kind of always like deep breathing. Like, who really does that? That does it, like, really work. But it is amazing how you don't even realize, like, Wow, when was the last time I took a deep breath? Like when I actually did it, I was like, I do feel different. I'm never slowing down enough to actually do that. And so deep breathing is a way to activate that vagus nerve and just send the signals from your brain to your gut to kind of calm down. And when we get in those negative thoughts, spirals or panic, we do go into fight or flight and we're not thinking rationally. And that is when we spiraled out of go with our kids. And so if we can get ourselves back to that place of calm or peace, deep breathing is a way singing is actually a way to do it, too. So humming, singing, anything, the vagus nerve is like running here. So by your vocal cords it's going to activate it. And yeah, I noticed when I learned that singing did that, I was like my four year old sings all the time for no reason. Just like around the house singing. Like there has to be something to that because kids love to sing. I feel like they're. They're happy. Generally.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, they naturally sing, and a lot of times they just make stuff up.
Lauren Gaines Yeah, they're singing about nothing, you know? Or maybe they have a song, but the lyrics are totally wrong coming out of their mouth, but they're so joyful in doing it.
Ginny Yurich What I interesting thing, I think that it's good to explain the why because like you said, deep breathing, it just seems too simple.
Lauren Gaines Yeah.
Ginny Yurich So then sometimes we discount those things, but if you learn the Y, like you talk about this vagus nerve, the longest nerve in our bodies. Wow. Yeah. Superhighway from our brain to our gut and then back from our gut to our brain. And that it's pretty easy to stimulate it. I had a read in this book by an about ABS called 50 Ways to Walk that when you hum it increases your immune system. Yeah, something to do with nitric oxide and I don't totally know all the science behind it. She has it in her book 52 Ways to Walk, but the singing and the humming. So it's doing all sorts of things for us beyond helping us to feel calmer. It's also helping our immune system too. So what an interesting thing. Downregulate the nervous system. I think you have to know about those things because when you get in those rough spots, your first inclination is not to sing a song.
Lauren Gaines Yeah, exactly. And I think honestly, I think we're on the cusp of really understand. We're just learning some of this how it's all connected. And it's so fascinating because I think we don't fully understand how it is all connected and how our body. He works. And so if we can know, like a simple tool like that and I've taught my kids how to do deep breathing too, because when you're in that moment of panic, whether it is anxious thoughts or fear, it's so hard to just talk yourself out of it. You can try to say, Oh, I'm going to just think better thoughts. But like sometimes that doesn't work. The more you try to not think of the bad thought, the more it comes. And so if you can do something to totally switch the channel of your brain and bring it back to peace, like taking a deep breath and counting with that, then it switches your brain for you without you exerting all this mental energy. That might not work anyway.
Ginny Yurich Hmm. Yeah. What great tools both for us and, like you said, to teach our kids we can do them while we're doing. We can teach your kids or they're in a funk or they're struggling. We can help them to get out of it using these simple tools. I thought that part when the doctor said You're addicted to stress was super interesting. What a thing to say to someone I know.
Lauren Gaines I really I feel like you could be offended by it. And I wasn't, because I was just like, I mean, my first response was, No, I'm not. And then the more I thought about it, I was like, Maybe I am. And so the last whole part of my book kind of talks about, like our rhythms and routines and we can do all these things and try to create emotionally healthy kids. But if our homes are chaotic, if our schedules are chaotic, it's going to backfire. You know, it means nothing if you're like, take a deep breath once, but then we're constantly running around. And so I feel like even just writing this book and my own revelations, we've made a lot of family changes ourself because I realize that my life has always been go, go, go, do, do, do. I'm going to achieve or I want to do everything. Everything sounds exciting and like, yes, I'll do that. But then I realized there was getting to the point where like I was burning out and I wasn't giving my body time or my mind time to rest. And so it was really backfiring.
Ginny Yurich And this started for you as a kid you were talking about in the book like you came from a family that was a high achievers, not that it was overly burdensome, but you grew up that way.
Lauren Gaines Yeah, my family did not force anything on me. They weren't like, you have to get, you know, straight A's. But my dad is an engineer, and so he would do like, math games with us all the time before like, oh, we solve this math problem and you can get dessert. And it was just like he made learning fun. But then it kind of became like almost an addiction to learn more, you know, and to do more and to excel in all those areas.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm. Yeah. So this kind of started to a degree when you were a kid. And then you take it on into your adult life. What do you think it was? Was it just physical things or was there other things? Were there other things that you had talked about with your doctor that caused him to say, I think you're addicted to stress because you said you were surprised by it?
Lauren Gaines I think I was telling him a bit about my life, you know, and I don't know that I went into stuff like in high school, my life was crazy. I would get up at five in the morning, go swimming before school, change in the locker room, go to class 8 hours, go back to the pool, swim another 2 hours, go left, go home and do my A.P. homework and go to bed at 930, exhausted and get up and do it all over again. And that was just like normal. And that was like swimming is something that's year round. So it wasn't just like for, you know, two months, it was year round. And so I think I he didn't know that. I think about me and I think too I was sharing I definitely have I have not been diagnosed with anxiety or anything like that, but I struggle with anxious thoughts. I worry and I think I'm a highly sensitive person. I haven't officially been diagnosed with that, but I can kind of diagnosed myself. I feel things deeply, and so I think he knew that and was like, I think all these like your body, again, is trying to catch up with that level of stress that you've had for so many years.
Ginny Yurich MM Yeah. Or and you don't really know a way to live differently. It's such an interesting thing about the swim team. I taught high school for a little bit and then there was an opening one year for like an assistant swim coach at the high school. And I had swam in the swim team and I was like really little. But I was like, Oh, you know, maybe that would be kind of cool. And so I went to go find out more about it, and it was just like, that wasn't it was like practice before school and practice after school. And I just remember thinking like, how are kids surviving this?
Lauren Gaines Yeah.
Ginny Yurich That's a good a 12 hour day.
Lauren Gaines Yeah.
Ginny Yurich It's like a 12 hour day of just the swimming school. And then, like you said, there's homework. So how does my thinking like, I can't do that. There's no way I'm doing that. How are these kids doing it? And I almost wonder if along the way they're depleting a little bit of their reserves because that's a lot.
Lauren Gaines I think, for sure. Yeah. I think of like this was like almost like when motherhood happened and it was a crash a bit for me because then in grad school I was so grateful that I got an assistantship, so they paid for me. You go to grad school, but that meant I had to work 20 hours a week. And so I would work at my assistantship. I would go to the practicum in school. Then I would take classes for 3 hours every night, Monday through Thursday. And so my life was so full then, too. Yeah. And then I married my husband when he was in med school. So our life was crazy, you know? And then after kids, I decided to stay home for a bit. So it was like my schedule really opened up for the first time in many, many years.
Ginny Yurich It's like the bottom drops out and you don't know what to do with that.
Lauren Gaines Yeah.
Ginny Yurich But the bottom drops out. But also you're in a grind of other type of work that maybe doesn't feel quite so fulfilling and is overwhelming in different ways. Yes. And is never ending too. And so get to have your decades. It's decades of this. Go, go, go. And what a big thing to have to relearn to try and slow down.
Lauren Gaines Yeah, but I think there's so much value in that. And so just reflecting on my own and I never knew that that was abnormal, which sounds really weird to say until I was writing this book.
Ginny Yurich Well, it's what everybody does. So I mean, that's how the strong team works, right? It's like what everyone is expected to come to the before school practice and the after school practice. And then there were meets. That was the other thing more. Yeah, it was like there were these practices and then it was there were several swim meets, maybe one or two a week on top of. I'm like, Well, how are people finding time? When are they doing their homework? When are they with their friends or their family? When are they eating Seriously?
Lauren Gaines Yeah, and the meats are long. They're like 3 to 4 hours. They're not like an hour meat. So yeah, yeah. And I think it is amazing, really, now that we're talking about this, looking back like, not that I know of, nobody really struggled with anxiety or, you know, not like today. Like I feel like kids today. So many kids are struggling and it was kind of the norm. And I'm not saying that it was right. I don't want that life or my kids, I guess unless and I never felt like I had to do it. Like I feel like my parents were like, if you want to stop, you can. It was not like I felt like they forced me to do this. I enjoyed it, actually, in the moment. My friends were my swim team, you know? Yeah. And so it was I don't want to paint it as, like, this horrible thing. I thought it was fun, but when I was doing.
Ginny Yurich Sure. Well, I just wish, you know, it's like you almost wish that because it's fun. So you don't want to quit, right? That's where your friends are. You like to compete, you like to swim. And you had a big experience, though, where you had to leave for a little bit. You had surgery for your back, but you like the environment. It's almost like you just wish that it would be structured different because, yeah, you can't really join in unless you commit to most of it. I'm sure that there's some leeway and you can skip here and there, but the commitment is what everyone's committing to and there's not an option for like, Hey, I'll just do the after school practice and not both or all this come to one with me and not all of them. And so I think that's a tricky part. It's like in order to have those friends and have those fun experiences, a competition, there's a tall order a lot asked of you.
Lauren Gaines Oh, when I think that this is the norm for sports today, not just swimming. And it's so sad to me that that it's like that, that kids can't just have fun competing, that it's become this like you need to dedicate your life to the sport by age nine. Like, what is that? I'm just not sure that that's if we want to be emotionally healthy, you know, and our bodies need breasts, like we know that our bodies need time to rest and to clean itself and all of that. And so how do we fit that in in a culture that's telling us, go, go, go, do, do, do? And so because of this, my husband actually got a different job. So now he he's to have to work weekends and be on call. And we were just like, this really changes our life of we don't want to live like that anymore. And this is the first year we're homeschooling our kids. And I'm not saying homeschooling is the only answer, but I feel like it really just showed us we want a different way for our kids and we have the train, you know, it's never too late. I think I wrote that in the book because sometimes you feel like if you read all these statistics about the brain or about emotional health and you're like, Well, it's too late. I messed up. I didn't do it. It's never too late. It's never too late to change.
Ginny Yurich You were talking about how we have new nerve cells. It was a cool thing. Every single day our brain has new something. I wrote it down. This is a problem. I always say this with my notes. I write things down and I know where that was. Oh, every morning when you wake up, new baby nerve cells have been born where you were sleeping better. They're at your disposal. Yes. You can always grow and change. And it's just an interesting thing to look back on a childhood that that is actually a very normal childhood. Right, Lauren? Like, we want to excel at school. We want to play a sport or to the sports, take up a lot of time and we can take that really overloaded schedule into our adult life because that's what feels normal. And so it's just something to think about with our kids, right? Which is how are we structuring? Because like you said, your parents weren't even really pushing it.
Lauren Gaines Yeah.
Ginny Yurich It's just the way that. Things were structured.
Lauren Gaines Yeah we we started summer swim team that's out started seem like summer fun swim team and then it was like, whoa, like, you're actually kind of good at this. And so then it was like, okay, well, do you want to keep doing it? And my parents did ask, and I will say so in the spring you were supposed to mean is like winter. So spring is lighter for swimming, but you're still supposed to be training every day. My mom was good about like, if you don't want to go, don't go. And so she would fight with the coach every spring about like they might not come every day and they'd be like, No, they have to. And I do think my mom advocated for us. I don't want to paint it as like it was this horrible thing.
Ginny Yurich Well, yeah. And then you are you're painting it as like, my parents didn't push it. It was just kind of like the way things were. Yeah. And so it's interesting to see how that translated then into your adult life, because you sort of feel like I remember I tell people that like I remember when I was finally done with college and all I had was a job and just feeling like super weird about that because for so long you have homework and sports and school. Oh yeah. And then you have job and then all of a sudden, like you just have the job and you're like, Well, this is weird. It's only 8 hours or 9 hours.
Lauren Gaines I was just talking with a friend this week and she's like, Oh, this is like, you need to post this all over Instagram. Don't be afraid of the white space. Because I was saying, Wow, we're getting through this curriculum really fast with my kids, and my kids are similar to me and that they want to constantly learn, they want to be stimulated, they want to achieve. And that's not a bad thing, you know, I don't want to squash that in them, but I also want them to learn balance. And yeah, so it's okay to have for them to have white space, like we don't need to fill it right away. Just let it be and see what's going to work best. Because I'm a person, I'm really excited like, oh, horseback riding, that's a lot. Let's do it. But then pretty soon we're doing something every night and we're back to that crazy schedule where we're never being together and we're never just like we're in that overstimulated world. When was the last time we were just still and not having a podcast playing in the background or, you know, we're our brains crave this constant stimulation and that's a dangerous thing to get into, I think.
Ginny Yurich And I think that can lead to some extra exhaustion. That's one of the things that you talk about in your book, is dealing with exhaustion and being exhausted emotionally and physically, and then how that sort of shows up in the way that we react. Okay. So one of the things that you talk about, it was interesting. Well, I didn't know that you were homeschooling, so I think this adds a little extra twist to it is if you're working on homemaking and making your home have a certain atmosphere. That's tricky, though, in everyone's home and you're trying to juggle all of that. But one of the things that you talk about then is clutter. That clutter affects our wellbeing and I can have a really negative impact. So that was one of the things that you did to help yourself, help your mental health with your aunt, right?
Lauren Gaines Yes. Yes. So she came because writing the book like left not a lot of space or time for cleaning up. Right. And people give me things like, oh, I have books, puzzles. I'm like, Great, we'll take it. And then pretty soon I'm like, Why did I do that? Our house is overwhelmed with stuff. And so it's so if you're not naturally good at it, I don't I like order, but I'm not naturally good at it. And so and probably because truthfully, I never learned it as a kid. I just didn't have I was so busy with everything else that I didn't learn how to organize well. And some people just have that natural gift for it. So I would encourage you, if it's not something that comes naturally to you, find someone who is good at it and see if they'll come help you. And we went room by room like drawer by drawer, closet by closet, and just went through and was like, okay, do we need this? Do we not? And I truthfully feel this is a process. It's not like a once in a done thing because right now my living room does not look great. But it's so true that when there's just stuff everywhere, it adds a mental load to your mind and you don't even realize that you're not maybe even consciously thinking about it, but when you see stuff everywhere, it just over. There's been studies on this that it's not great for your mental health. And so I feel like that's an easy way. Again, we can be teaching our kids how to express their feelings and how to understand their thoughts. But we also want to create an atmosphere that's going to help them build those healthy brain connections. And and part of that is creating a space where they can learn and grow. And yes, homeschooling is a hard because the kids are home all day, but they can learn they can learn some of these skills so that then as an adult, they're good at organizing. So yeah, I feel like this is something easy and maybe not easy because actual keeping it organized and clean is hard, but it's not rocket scientist. It's something that we can do to make the home and. Fear better for our families.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm. I like what you said. If, like, it's not. If it doesn't come naturally to you, find someone who it does come a little more naturally for. And I do think that people who I think that people who like to organize, like, really like to organize.
Lauren Gaines Oh, yes, they do. I think they get like a high off of it. Yeah.
Ginny Yurich Like your aunt probably liked it.
Lauren Gaines Yeah. Oh, yeah, she did. She did. She thought it was fun. Whereas, like, I thought it was nice, the outcome. I didn't really think it was fun in the. So Yeah.
Ginny Yurich But like, they like it and. Yeah. People. Yes. Because the people I've known in my life that are really organized and just do such a good job at that they talk about it like lights them up. So I, I actually think I mean that is a really good idea. It's mutually beneficial. Yeah. To find someone who, you know, might come and help or at least give you a little bit of direction. And I think it's such an important thing to say. Lauren It's like you talk about homemaking and hospitality. They may not come naturally to us. You get some help. I think that's really, really good advice because the clutter can really impact how we feel and really can take a lot of our time away from us.
Lauren Gaines Oh, again, I mean, I get so stressed out if I lose a paper or there's something, you know, a library book, it's like if there was a system in place where this is where the library books go, then we're not going to spend all that time worrying about it or losing our temper because we can't find it. And so if we can create a system and again, like I said, that might not come naturally to us. So if we can have someone help us who is good at creating those systems, trial and error, you know, see what works for your fear and what works for one might not work for you, but I think we need to be willing to try and to ask for help because why not get help from someone else who's good at it?
Ginny Yurich Yeah, a library book. That's it's a funny thing. I feel like library books have caused stress, like, since my childhood. I Oh, even at the school library, Like, where is it? Where I put it? But our library now and I think a lot of libraries have switched. Like there are no fees.
Lauren Gaines I know there are. Which seems kind of like them. Why is there a due date? I don't get that.
Ginny Yurich But you just get like an email all the time. Now they're calling.
Lauren Gaines Yeah, I think.
Ginny Yurich You always does book, but at least you don't have to pay anything. So I'm like, Oh, that's kind of life changing. I really love that. See? Yeah. A lot of beautiful information in this book about your home. Your home is an atmosphere and how to set it up, like you say. And this is a really interesting thing. And it's true. You say when you step foot in someone else's home or in your own home, you feel, yeah, that atmosphere like, you know, is there joy here, Is there tension here? And I had a friend who opened her home to, like college students. Maybe she I guess she must've lived like, maybe in a college town. I don't know. They open their home to college students on a regular basis. And she said people flocked there and it was like a small home. They didn't have a ton of space. But she said it's because they she knew they felt welcome and they felt at home. So what are some of the things that you try to do to create that atmosphere in your home for your kids or for your friends?
Lauren Gaines Yeah, it's so true. I mean, you can just tell. And I do think that I feel is part of that. I don't want to completely ignore that, but I also don't I don't spend that much money on home decor. It's just not something that I get that high off of. I know people love it and that's great, but I think having a home where they're greeted with a smile, where there's a space for them where you feel like and it's not like you need to make this gourmet meal, right? But even just having a drink available or a little sec, it can be something out of a bag, not something you make yourself, but just meeting those basic needs of I'm paying attention to you. I think another thing I write about a lot in the book that I am really guilty of is looking at the phone instead of looking in someone's eyes. And we've lost the art of eye contact. And so I think when people come into your home and don't see you like scrolling right away, but you greeting them and I try, I do. I'm not always successful at doing this, but when my husband comes home, I think that he feels welcome when it's like, Hey, you're here. Like, welcome back. You know, instead of just like there are days where I've been like, Oh, I can't do this anymore. Like, I'm going upstairs. You deal with them. And it's just it sets a different tone, you know, for the evening when just that initial greeting, that initial welcome. And it doesn't need to be fancy, it doesn't need to cost a lot of money. But I think just listening to other people, looking them in the eye and making them feel welcome is such a such a key thing.
Ginny Yurich You have a very friendly face, too.
Lauren Gaines So my coach in college was like, you were the only person I've seen who smiles while they're crying. I think I was crying after a race and I was like, which I guess is good. You know that I have a joyful spirit. But there are times I try to tell my husband that something's really bothering me, and he's like, It took him a few years to realize, like, I can't really tell how bad it is because you seem like happy when you're talking about it.
Ginny Yurich But I think you have a really friendly face that's so interesting. I love it, though, just by the way that we greet people. It's a big deal and that can be a really easy change and something that even for our own kids, like the way that we. Greet them when they come in the room. Yeah, that type of thing. What about this thought of I'll be happy when it's just something that you talk about in the book, like. And I do think I especially think at the beginning of motherhood. I was sort of there, Right. I think because I thought things would change to be more controlled eventually. And then it took a while to learn that, like, this is just how things are and you have to accept it. But I think that a lot of us fall into that. Well, I'll be happy when I'm not changing diapers. I'll be happy when I'm sleeping through the night. I'll be happy, you know, when it may be. I'm putting my kids on the school bus. I'll be happy when this, that or the other thing. I get a raise. But can you talk about, like, why that really steals from our life? Why that isn't the best way to go?
Lauren Gaines Yes. And it is so easy. Like, even though I know this trap, it's so easy to fall into because it just I have an automatic thought, like, I'll be happy when I'm not woken up. I love sleep, so I want 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep, which is basically impossible with kids. And so it's like, I'll be happy when I can finally sleep, but it just delays our happiness. And really, the goal line keeps moving because I thought certain things like, I'll be happy. My first daughter was born when my husband was a resident and so his hours were crazy. There were many times where he was on night shift and I was home alone with a crying baby at 2 a.m. and it was like, okay, I'll be happy when this is over. Like when you get a real job, when you're not resident is a real job, but when you're not a resident anymore. Yeah. And then he got a job and I was like, Not anymore happy. And it was like, okay, well now I'll be happy when. And so it just again delays happiness. And I was listening to your podcast with Joy about practicing presents. It was so good and I think it's so true. Like we, we just don't enjoy the messiness of life and it's never, it's never going to be perfect, right? And I think we see even if we tell ourselves, okay, Instagram is a highlight reel, it's not like real life. It's still hard to look at it and not wish that vacation looks so nice or I wish I could just do that or I wish I had this and it's just no way to live again. We're delaying happiness and there's something to enjoy. I believe in every moment, even in the hard we can find something good. I think it's sad that we may not. I don't want to say waste those early days of motherhood, but I feel like they're hard for a reason. They were as they prepare us for later parts of motherhood. And thankfully with my third child, I was able to enjoy getting up at night like I really had a shift in a mental perspective of like, Wow, this is short. You know, it was only like for like four months and then it was over. And I know some kids are longer and shorter, whatever, who sleep through the night, but it really isn't that long in the perspective of your life. And I knew it was my last child, so I was like, This is so sweet that the house is quiet, that I'm here being able to nurture and hold my child. And I guess I did feel sad that I didn't feel that way the first time around. But I don't want to beat myself up for missing out. Maybe because that's the way to live either. I think it was like, okay, I have this revelation now, so what can I do to keep it moving forward?
Ginny Yurich I mean, that first time, you know, the first kid in your up in the night, like, what is this? And you just don't have that perspective of knowing that it will end at some point. And for some I mean, some of our kids didn't sleep through the night for a very, very long time. And that can be really overwhelming to think ahead. But I like what you say about being in the moment, and maybe there's a reason to it. It's like maybe there's a reason. If we're up at night when they're little, it forces us to slow down a little bit during the day and it maybe forces us to try and take a nap and try and rest. And because our bodies need that and there's kind of reasons for the different seasons.
Lauren Gaines I think it does growth as a person. I really think it increases our patients. I think it gives us perspective. And I almost feel like it's like a rite of passage. You know, you kind of feel like people have like birth stories and it's like their war stories of like, look what I did, you know, to bring this child into the world. And I think kind of the early phases of motherhood are like that, too. And it's I mean, there's a reason they use sleep deprivation as like a form of torture, right? Like it really does something. Do you do sleep in two hour increments? So that is going to nap like in from a physical standpoint, that is going to make you more irritable and less patient. But I think we can learn those hard seasons. That's where we grow. That's where we gain resilience and grit and determination. And I think if we look at it from that perspective of like, what can I learn in this season? Not that just say, I also talk to my book about toxic positivity and we don't want to say like ignore the hard and like everything's great and it's really not, you know, that's not going to help. I'm not saying we do that, but I think if we can find something good to. Hold on to in the hard wasn't acknowledging. This is hard. Mm hmm. It's just going to make our experience better. And I think we'll grow as a person.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm. It's interesting, too, because you do forge a lot of friendships in those years, and I think that those hard things bond you together in ways that other things don't. And so a lot of times if you develop friendships when you have toddlers and babies, those friendships definitely stand the test of time. I've noticed that in my life, more so even than other friendships do, because you walk through these hard years together and you commiserate together and you help each other in practical ways. So there are things that come out of it that are good for a life and good for happiness. And I was just talking to Joe Winger, who wrote this book called Old Fashioned on Purpose, that's coming out in September, same month as yours. And she was talking about this concept called problem creep, which is so interesting that when we lack problems, basically our brain just creates new ones.
Lauren Gaines Why does our brain do that?
Ginny Yurich Like, our brains are a little bit set to be dissatisfied. And from what I read, the point is, is that we are inclined to grow, but that if you eliminate all the problems from your life, your brain would just take the smaller things, like maybe nuances or things that are irritations and it would turn those into big problems. And so I like that you talk about this. I'll be happy when because it doesn't actually work. Yeah, you do have to just choose to say, look, this is where I'm at. So you wrote research shows that the act of savoring or slowing down and enjoying a moment boosts our happiness and well-being. That's it. Accepting, savor and slow down. So you talk about some ideas of things that you could slow down and enjoy, things that you could savor that maybe we normally would hurry through. So what are some examples of those?
Lauren Gaines Yeah, I mean, something as simple as a shower. Like those moments are precious when you're a mom and it's like, Oh no, what are the kids? If you're doing it when the kids are awake, you're like, What are they getting into? But a good hot shower where you're just enjoying the moment of quiet and you're letting the warmth hate. Your body is so good. I feel like you just like totally. I mean, I love that not everyone, my love that, but also eating. We rush meals, we quick, quick. We're not sick, not even sitting. We're standing at the counter, shoving it in our mouth. And then it's like I didn't even enjoy all the wonderful flavors that were in that dish. And so I'm trying to teach this to my kids, too, because they like to eat on the go and they want to just quick eat and get up from the table. And I think there's something about sitting down together and just enjoying the meal. And I think in Europe they do this really well where they don't like the the table is just a communion, you know, where they sit and enjoy. And it's not like a rush and like, let me quick leave And waiters don't tell you, okay, it's time to go now. You're allowed to sit there as long as you want. And I think there's something about that. There's something about sitting and enjoying the company and enjoying the meal. Obviously we can't do that for every single meal. That's just not practical when you have small kids or even older kids. But I think if you could choose one thing a day, whether it's a meal, a shower, a walk outside, I'm always tempted to like listen to something when I'm outside. But one day I was like, okay, Lauren, stop. Like, just listen to the sounds around you. And I was amazed at how many birds I heard. Like, we live by a pretty big highway and you can hear a lot of traffic noise so that I'm always like, Oh, I can hear the cars in the tracks. But there was so many sounds of nature. I just don't pay attention to it. And I think when we force ourselves to pause, we're amazed at what we find.
Ginny Yurich And birdsong, I think, is one of those things that really makes us feel good.
Lauren Gaines Yeah.
Ginny Yurich And in the morning especially, I think I read, I think it's in this 50 ways to Walk by ABS once again, where she talks about how it carries further in the morning. For some reason they don't really know why and it does a lot for us. So yeah, to turn things off, I think your story is really inspiring more because you have gone from this person that is trying to maximize every moment, whether you know, whether we think that or not. And I think a lot of us have that right. We're trying to maximize every moment to a person who has become just a little bit more relaxed in life and a little more relaxed in being present and being a mom and being in this season. That's a big change to have made. And I think a lot of people will find hope in that that you were able to make those changes. I'm sure that it's a work in process, but I think that's kind of what we all want, right? Like we want to be in a spot where we're okay to take a step back and just be present with our kids and and know that that's enough. Talk to us a little bit because I didn't know you were homeschooling. One of the things that you talked in this book about was feeling overwhelmed about getting the kids ready for school. So this must be a recent change for you. Oh.
Lauren Gaines Yes, for sure. Yeah. So this is the first year we're doing it. They're actually going to do a hybrid homeschool where they go two days, and then the other three days they're home. But yeah, initially my daughter went to a private school, and so we really loved the school, and they were moving buildings for her first grade year, which was going to be really close to our house. But her kindergarten year, they were still in their old building and it was about like 25, 30 minutes away. And so they said, if you wait until first grade to enroll her, there might not be a spot because like the last two years, all the kindergartners stayed. And so we kind of were like, what do we do? We really loved the school. And so we made the decision to send her in kindergarten. And it was so hard because we had to be out of the house by 730 in the morning with I had a six month old baby. And so it was like, and thank God that baby is super. Go with the flow. Unlike my older kids. Like she's just like, happy anywhere, slept anywhere and like, how your brother was. Yes, exactly. I don't know. Maybe it's something about that third. He was the third child. I don't know. That third child, hopefully. Is that relaxed and go with the flow. But it was really tough. It was like, I don't know how I'm gonna do this. And I felt like I was dreading it. Really. Dread was the word for the morning, and my husband talked to me and like, realized like, no, there has to be another way. And we looked at like, is there a bus? Like we brainstormed all the solutions. But the thing that changed was my mindset and I was able to look forward to the time. And I can't tell you my kids ended up loving that ride, which I know sounds crazy. And I think if something isn't working well, we need to give ourselves permission to stop or to pivot. Like I don't think we should always be like, Oh, I have to push through and force this if it's just not working. But my daughter is thriving in the school, and it was kind of like we wanted to give it a real shot. And so I tried to change my mind about it instead of waking up every morning being like, Oh, today's going to be horrible. I'm like, okay, what can we do today in the car? And we laugh together. We sang songs. I mean, it became this bonding moment for us as a family. And it was I think so often when we're faced with a struggle, we want to just kind of give up or be like, I can't do that. That's too much. But I think again, we need to use discernment and not push something that's that's just clearly not working, but give ourselves space to sit in that uncomfortable for a bit and see if there is something that can change or that we can grow and learn from. Because it ended up being an amazing experience for our family.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm. It's an interesting thing because we have been in times in our life, and a lot of times as parents where there is there is no solution, There's no like, this person is traveling for work and this all these different things are going on and there's no solution. But I love that because the solution is not necessarily changing the circumstance. It's trying to find a different way to do it or to change your mindset, and that really can make all the difference. So here it was. Okay, but now you started homeschooling and this is happening simultaneously with your book launch.
Lauren Gaines Oh, I know. I was like this. Who decided this? Learn to start homeschooling for the first time ever, a larger book at the same time. Not maybe that that part of me that wants the stress, right? No, but it just seemed like the best thing for our family. Like we really I always kind of thought about homeschooling, but I was like, I don't know. I felt like like I document in the book. I felt overwhelmed in early motherhood and I was like, I don't know how I could do that. And maybe I had to walk through what I did in early motherhood to get to the point now where, like, I don't and granted, we're like a weekend, so I can't really say, but I don't feel that overwhelmed by it, you know, And there will be days, I am sure, where I do, but it just felt like the right fit for our family, too. I really want to avoid that hamster wheel of stress and like, go, go, go, do, do, do. And my oldest is ten. So she's getting to that point where there's after school activities and different interests that she has. And I think that's wonderful to explore, but I don't want her to be gone for 8 hours and then gone for another 2 hours that night. Like that just doesn't I don't want that life. And so I kind of felt like homeschooling would give us that freedom that that we were looking for.
Ginny Yurich It gives a little bit of that white space. Yeah, because that is what happens. Your kids hit those years. Ten, 11 and hours are teenagers and there is a lot going on. And so you do lose a lot of your white space. And I just really liked reading her story and reminding myself that sometimes when we have those really busy childhoods, that translates into in adulthood that has this pressure associated with it, that we should continue to be busy. And so it's just an interesting thought about how as a society, I'm not even talking about your story in particular because like like we talked about this is how. All the kids are doing it.
Lauren Gaines Yeah, they're.
Ginny Yurich All having these sports and they're all having all these extracurricular things. And then we get to adulthood and sort of the bottom drops out. It's bizarre, isn't it?
Lauren Gaines And it is weird because they're good things. You know, like, my daughter does gymnastics and she likes piano. And so, like, these are good things for her to learn. And she wants to do a cooking camp this summer. And I'm like, That's great. But pretty soon you can sign up for every single camp and you're like, Whoa. Like there's a threshold where, like, now it's not good anymore, you know, now it's too much. And so I think I think it's wise as a family to really sit down and look at like, what do we want our life to look like, You know, in five, in ten years, what do we want our kids to learn from us and to know from us that we're not explicitly saying, because there's a lot that's learned just from routines and rhythms and like, you know, like my parents never told me, you need to do this, but it was kind of like, this is what our family does. That's what was like being told that wasn't really being spoken out loud. And so I think we need to look and not in fear in not like, oh my gosh, I'm ruining my kids, but look at it and be like, what do I want my kids to know? Like, what do I value for them and my spouse? You know, what do we value as parents and that we want our kids to have? And then it's hard. It took time for us to get to this point to be able to make the lifestyle changes that we wanted to make. But I think having a plan in place to do that because it's your life and so you get to decide what you want to do with it.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm. Yeah, I love that. Your platform, it's called Inspired Motherhood, because it is inspiring to see that you have been able to make substantial changes, really, really big changes from your own childhood to the start of your parenting to where you're at now that you have been able to take a step back and make those intentional choices. And so that is really inspiring. And I love the thing about Don't be afraid of the white space, because I do think we are a little afraid of that, both from the standpoint of having kids that are bored and fussing, but also from a standpoint of falling behind our kids falling behind or feeling like we're falling behind from the other people in our neighborhood and that type of thing. So, so many great things. Unshakable kids, three keys to raising spiritually strong and emotionally healthy children. Then you also have a website inspire dash motherhood dot com. What can people find there?
Lauren Gaines Yeah so I try to get out an article like once a week, but that is sometimes touch and go with launching a book but a kind of more of the same. Not all you know I don't The book and the information in the book is new so it's not on the my website, but talking about the pressures of parenting and talking about the best tools for parenting from a psychological perspective and what can we do as parents to be healthy, but also what can we do to teach our kids? Because I feel like I loved our conversation, but there's so much more of what we can do to teach our kids their thoughts. That was a huge thing for one of my kids didn't even realize that their thoughts were influencing their feelings. And so talking about things like that practically, what can we do to teach our kids to understand that they have 70,000 thoughts running through their head every day and what to do with those.
Ginny Yurich And what to do with their emotions and the emotions fester. Yeah, a lot of practical information. I like that. You said they who called you Miss Melodramatic Lauren, your dad?
Lauren Gaines Oh, yeah. Yeah, my dad and my brother. That was my name. Because I was. I was like the kid. Like I said, I think I'm a highly sensitive person who would go from 0 to 60 right away and be very dramatic in my emotions. And I feel things deeply. So I think to something that's so important for us as parents and for our kids is understand ourselves, understand who we are and our personality and what makes us tick and what makes us anxious and not necessary. I mean, you know, of course I do think we can change that, but just understanding gives perspective of like why that happened, why I just lost my temper is because I'm feeling overwhelmed or I have too many things on my plate. I think it gives us perspective to understand what's going on around us when we know who we are and what makes us tick.
Ginny Yurich And then how our thoughts can influence our lives. And it's cool because you're doing it for yourself, but you're also doing it for your kids. Negative thoughts, negative words, and a really fantastic information for parents. So, Lauren. Way to go. Way to go on it. And your parents both. It's so cool. It's a cool cover. Unshakable kids. It's got this key on the front of it and it will be out by the time this podcast airs. We always end our podcast with the same question. What is a favorite outdoor memory from your childhood?
Lauren Gaines Oh man, definitely going to my known as, which is so cool now I know and it is so live. That's my grandmother and so my kids get this same experience she has. A lot of land. And so we would just go and it was always like, you need to bring an extra pair of clothes when you didn't earn it, because I would go with my cousins and we would just get so dirty and messy and just like running up and down the field and in the mud. And it was just and now that my kids get to experience that too, I just love it. It's so cool.
Ginny Yurich Oh, how neat. How neat to have a same experience as your kids at school and that your cousins were there. That's really bonding. Yeah, well, I love it. Lauren, Huge. Congrats on your new book. Thank you so much for coming on today and spending this time with us.
Lauren Gaines Thank you so much for having me.
