The Importance of Slowing Down - for Us and Our Children With Emily

Emily De La Torre is a mom and therapist who has worked in private practice for over eight years! Now, she uses her online platform to talk about all things slow childhood, reclaiming childhood, and simple ways to scale back on all the noise in the parenting space.

As a parent, it can be incredibly overwhelming to hear all of the things you should or shouldn't be doing. And that's why I love Emily's approach! She focuses on the simple and actionable steps you can take to create more peace and clarity in the lives of you and your children!

In this episode, you'll get to know Emily and why she believes a slow childhood is essential to the mental health of parents and children alike. So let's get started!

The Importance of Slowing Down - for Us and Our Children With Emily

What Is Slow Childhood?

For obvious reasons, I had to start by asking Emily what slow childhood actually means... because I had no idea! She described it as an 80s childhood or a childhood that isn't complicated. In her words, this might look like "Access to independence, access to just being a kid and not being constantly inundated with stuff, messages, screens...". And when Emily shared this, I completely resonated with it! The amount of noise in our world can be incredibly overwhelming, especially for children.

As a parent, you might find that your childhood looked a lot different from the average childhood we see today. Emily is all about fostering an environment that allows children to have a childhood like we might've had. This might look like more time in nature and less time on screens, among lots of other things!

How You Can Eliminate Noise and Distractions

Now you might be wondering... "how the heck can I eliminate noise and distractions in such a crazy world?!" I was thinking the same thing, but Emily has lots of tips to share with us! For starters, Emily shared that therapy is a must for learning to simplify. Going to therapy allowed Emily to realize that she needed to slow down, and a big part of that was learning how to set healthy boundaries.

Emily shared that a major contributor to the noise in her life came from needing to say yes to everyone all the time! Learning to say no sometimes really helped Emily to minimize the amount of noise in her life. It can be incredibly challenging to say no to the people you care about, but these healthy boundaries are essential to slowing down!

Tips to Start Slowing Down

Emily's biggest tip for slowing down is to meet with a therapist. She shared that therapy is essential for helping us to see our blind spots or the pieces we might not notice in our story. Therapy helps us identify those blind spots, while also helping us rewrite and make sense of them. It also helps us to address the root of the issue, which is essential for learning to slow down. Along with therapy, Emily started reducing the amount of commitments she had in a week. This allowed her to prioritize herself and her family, which brought her lots more peace!

I hope you enjoyed hearing some of the wisdom that Emily had to share. To hear even more, make sure to listen to the full podcast episode!

Connect With Emily!

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mindful_madre/

Website: https://mindfulmadre.myflodesk.com/

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TRANSCRIPT

Alright, today, I have Emily with me. And I'm very excited to have this conversation, because so much of what I talk about is really about slowing down. And it's also what Emily talks about. And it's such an important, important important topic. So Emily, welcome to a healthy push podcast.

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, I'm super excited. So the work that you do is very interesting. It's very unique, you have very, like a unique approach to some very simple things that we all need. But can you just tell us a little bit about you and what it is that you do? Yeah,

so by trade, I'm a marriage and family therapist, and I'm a mental health counselor in Washington State. And so I've been in private practice for a little over eight years. And after had babies, I really scaled back my practice. And now I just see clients one day a week. And then I have now this on an online platform where I talk a lot about kind of reclaiming childhood, slow childhood natural learning, ways to simplify and scale back and just demystify, I think a lot of the noise that has accompany the parenting space, and just tone it down a little bit.

Yeah, I know, when I landed on your Instagram platform, like I'm sure many people do feel this sense of this is refreshing, this is something that I need. This resonates. This is just a really like, I'm like drawn to this. So I'm really excited. Let's just start with like, why what pulled you to get into this space of talking about slow childhood and slowing down? And and all of that I'm so curious. Yeah, it's funny,

actually, because that's not that's not a lot of the work I do in my therapy practice much at all, actually, I specialize in working with couples. And I work a lot with errors. And I work a lot with people who really are struggling with just their emotional connection and their marriage. And then, and then also business owners, but then there's the subsystem of this started to come over the last bit of time where I'm like, younger parents who have children under five, trying to figure out like, their parenting roles together, and all of the weight that that brings, you know, family culture, and their family of origin and their history and all that. And so actually, it was last year, I really started to scale back my own therapy practice, actually, in 2020, when COVID hit and then last year, I remember having a therapy session with my own therapist, and I was talking to her, I said, you know, I just we've been talking a lot about my love for early childhood development. And like, slow childhood, early childhood development is not really the term I like to use, because it just seems even clinical even that I just like to, like slow just like childhood and homeschool and homemaking and how I'm like in this very different role now, and I kind of want to start talking about it. But I don't know how, and maybe I'll transition out therapy, I'm not sure now that I'm gonna start homeschooling the girls. And, you know, maybe I opened up my Instagram, I'm not sure. And it just, I remember her saying something along the lines of like, well, you know, maybe just be curious about it and see what comes. And I'm really curiosity and I thought that's a good way to approach it. Like there's no end goal. There's nothing here that like I'm trying to push, it's just, you could just open this up and see if there's like a community out there or something that kind of like opens up other things that I'm interested in besides just like therapy. Yeah, and that's how it kind of started a year ago, just my I just had a private account with my 200 friends and family and then I just opened it up and started creating and sharing things that I thought were like, maybe people don't care that much, or maybe it feels really basic information. But obviously it just it just took off. And I it does I think resonate a lot with where we're at, in, in the culture and in society, but also just like I think on it on a parent's heart of just like all of the anxiety and stress that you feel of doing things well, and the pressure and the weight and it just kind of like okay, like we're all good. You know?

Yeah. I'm so glad that you said that because I think that's why so many people resonate with what you share is it's it's that we're all walking around with a lot of anxiety, a lot of overwhelm, feeling so much stress of I have so much. And it's all feels really complicated. And am I doing it right? And maybe it just doesn't feel right. And I know that's probably speaking from my own personal experience when I came across your page, but I know we've talked about this a little bit. We've mentioned slow childhood. I'm curious, can you help define what does that mean to you? Because I think for some people, they're like, Okay, so childhood, what the heck does that mean? They're

probably the closest way to probably describe it, I think is probably like an 80s. Childhood, like simple MySpace freedom, non complicated. Access to independence, access to just like, just being a kid and not being constantly inundated with stuff, messages, screens, like access. It's just like, the route the goodness of like, when I think back of like, my best childhood memories, it was like riding my bike all over the neighborhood and playing with the neighbor, kids and like, being free, I don't think it ever really involved my parents, which is weird. I mean, maybe it did a little bit, you know, but it was like, they weren't my main focus. It was just like being a kid. And my kids are still quite young. But we're transitioning more and more into that that role, but it's just buffering them from all of the noise is what I think of as a slow child as buffer. It's like you're creating this buffer. So they can be what they want to be and not be just told what they are, or it just the word inundation, like being inundated all the time with with stuff and noise.

Yeah, I mean, I think I feel as an adult, right, and I have a little one who's five. And I feel it right. And I know, and I can recognize, because I have this fully formed brain of, I am really overwhelmed and stressed. And obviously, that's sort of pouring out of me. And I'm, you know, my tolerance isn't quite there. And my patience isn't quite there, and I can recognize it. And I certainly don't have that understanding of why, like, it's not, you know, I think sometimes we can just go with being a parent is hard, and it's challenging and anything. It's partly that, but I think a big part of it is all this inundation of noise and stuff and things, and we have this constant going and doing and that, you know, kids, of course, can't help but pick up on that feel it start to live in that way. And maybe is baby like, I can't imagine. I mean, I can't imagine because I have to, for my daughter differences. It's just massive. Say like, I used to ride my bike all around, build forts claim treat, like my parents were nowhere in sight. And that is just not how many of our lives are structured now. So I think, you know, I love this slow childhood, I love bringing it back to the basics and simplifying, because they think in that brings us also as the parents closer to ourselves, more having more capacity, more calmness, more ability to actually care for kids. So I'm curious, I think we all so it's kind of two part, right? Like, the slow childhood is for your kid, but you also get so much from it. It's sort of like this glorious, I slow down, they can slow down, like, can we talk about that? Because I, I'm assuming that was part of it for you, right? Getting into this whole, like, feeling like, I have kids, and I'm feeling overwhelmed and stressed like, can we slow things down? Yeah,

I think, yes, we talk a lot about like, wanting to enjoy our kids childhood. And I think it's actually quite hard when you are in a state of urgency and rush and this stuff, and appointments and this and that. And it's like, you know, we all operate that way, because in some way, you can't escape it in the world we live in, but in another form, it's the slow childhood allows you to actually enjoy your kids where you are, right? Like there's a squirrel. It's like, oh, you know, it goes so fast. You know, we always hear like, oh, childhood goes so fast. And I want to be able to look back and be like, Yeah, and I got to enjoy all of it with that. It didn't you know, it was there. Right? Like a we we actually enjoyed it together. Like we're doing things we all like we get to go be together or they just are off with their friends. And that's great for them. You know, it's, it's a way to just like, maybe it's selfish in some ways, but it's like, I feel like I should be able to enjoy their childhood too. I want to be able to do that with them. You know, and I don't want them to look back and know that of course there are times when I'm very stressed and overwhelmed as well but like I want them to overall look back and just feel like we have we had a good time together. And so that means things that we all like and it's not it's not always big stuff. Like we're not just going out to go do big stuff like things we like as like baking cookies together. We like going on little hikes together going to waterfront and going to have like dinner together as a family. Or just you know, a neighborhood walk with the sunset. I like things we just enjoy. All. We don't have to do big excessive things. And sometimes we do. Because you know that that happens too. But it's not a forefront of the week at all. It's the small anchors in the week week that really ground us and keep us in a good place as a family and keep everybody's cup pretty full.

Yeah. And not having the things right. I think things come into this so much to have we, I think sometimes get caught up, right, we have to do these big glorious things in order for our kids to be happy in order for them to have these good childhoods and all of that. And I think in that also comes like, they have to have things they have to have material things and they have to have all these, you know, things to keep them happy. And and it's just so much of I bring myself back to my childhood and raising my daughter and say, did I need all of that, right? There was so much that I didn't have but I felt like I had so much. And I feel myself as an adult, getting pulled back to my childhood, I want to get the heck into the woods. I want to like ride a bike again, I want to do all these things. And you know, maybe the things right aren't actually bringing the joy, the piece, the presence that we actually want. It's you know, and I feel like that's a lot of what we're yearning for and searching for. And just what you said, right, I feel like you really hit the nail on the head with I want to be present for it. And like, that's really the big part, right? Like I I want to be present, but I also want them to be present for their childhood. Yeah, and having all the things and that constant noise and distractions. And it's just so consuming. Yes,

it is. And when you're talking about things, it's also the physical things, right? Today, you look at like an average playroom. And it's just like it or if you have know of somebody who has a playroom, sometimes it's just like kid stuff can overwhelm the entire house, or the entire playroom. What happens you still have kids who say, I don't want to do that, you know, or I want that they go to the store, right? Like, of course you go down the toy aisle and it's like, I want this I want that can we go like it's it's an it's a hungry ghost, that will never be satiated, no matter what we buy them. And I think that's really important to keep in mind, if you are embracing like a less is more lifestyle, because it's just like, you're never going to fill that you're never going to fill that cup enough to say like, Okay, we have all this stuff now. No, it's a constant need for more. And so to me, I think a lot about physical things and just being like, you know, how can we enjoy what we already have? Or reuse what we're already utilizing? And when we do have those events that come up like Christmas or birthdays, how can we how can we focus in a way that allows us to welcome new items in without feeling like it's getting excessive also. So like before every holiday, and before every birthday, I we go through the kids stuff, the girls and I and we go through it together of like, Hey, what are we going to donate? What could other kids utilize? How can we make space for our new things that we want to bring in, you know, like toys have a lifecycle. And some of them are like heirloom toys a class a while but a lot of them are just junk and they also lose the interest of the child. And so I think being consistent in that practice is helpful for so many reasons. One, it keeps your items to less than your home. But two, it instills a sense of like non attachment, and three well I guess many things three is a sense of gratitude for altruistic behavior you're providing to other people, like just as much as we get new things. I want you to be used to getting rid of things to know that this is like a normal a normal part of life and that's okay. Yeah. And also toys these days are just this is this comes back again to buffering and the slow childhood is just like, especially I look at the girls toys, because that's what where I'm at. I know what the boys have it to. Or in the gender neutral toys, but like the girls toys are just so even for my girls age, there's just like so mature looking very sexualized, very much older. It's hard though, you know, we we don't I think nobody really likes to talk about that that much. Because it is kind of uncomfortable because we probably all have some of that like oh, Barbies clothes or what is it today like Monster High or Bratz dolls or lol or something they they have a certain kinds of clothes and do certain things but if you really look at it, it's quite they're quite out there. I think little girls get influenced by that and there's a lot of research around that and so I do I don't have any of it in my house. I feel I feel like strange saying that because it's like exposure but I think that we have one Barbie and it's because the girl saw at a garage sale for 25 cents and I said okay, but maybe one day we will right now at these the younger ages it's just no no mineral is unnecessary. And it's not I don't want to analyze it all because I don't think it's like all bad but if you are bringing it into your home just being aware of what maybe accessories you allow to go with it like it's okay to get upset and say like, you know, this, these, you know, see through tights or maybe not. I'm just gonna check Bro this, but I'll keep these little parts and that's fine. That's I think is right like you're kind of censoring and buffering and making space for it. But it's one we don't think about those things that I think matters. And that's where it comes to reclaiming that slow childhood, you know, yeah,

hey, I think that is such an important piece. I like how you're mentioning also practice that we do have, okay, if we want to make space for more, than we're gonna donate sound. And that's a practice that we do in our home. And I'm just a very, let's keep it simple, don't like clutter, like we don't need a bunch of things. And it's funny, because we'll go to the store, and you know, we'll be picking something out for somebody's birthday party, you know, one of her friends birthdays, and she'll say, Can I get something? And she'll walk up and down the aisles countless times? And she's like, Mom, I can't pick something I don't know. And unlike, of course, you don't, there's just so much and none of it's really necessary. And, you know, I think when you slow things down and really show them, we we take what's necessary, we we don't need abundance, we can we can be happy and content and peaceful with the things that we have. And there are many times where I see her really struggling though, and she's like it, maybe I'll just get something else I'm like, okay, but it's nice when you when you slow things down, and then also see the effects that it has for you as a parent, because I think, of course, my community, a lot of people are struggling with anxiety disorders. A lot of parents too, who really then see my child starting to struggle with an anxiety disorder. And I think a lot of it really comes from this constant. Doing constant halving of things like never really slowing down and finding presents in the right now and, and simplifying things. So it's like kind of why I just want to talk about why don't we slow down? Like, why don't we just take it back to some of the basics and simplify things?

So good question that has a lot to do with like your nervous system and how it's acclimated. Right, and the state in which you operate toward and so like, an example of this would be like, I, I used to be very gogogo. I have like rushed through life very fast. I built a business when I was 23. I got my bachelor's degree at 20, my masters at 23, built a business bought a house, just like boom, boom, boom, I remember in high school, I had three jobs. I was always like, go go go. And I never thought twice about it. Like why Why am I the way I am. And I just was that way. It wasn't until I got into therapy. And I started to realize I was operating in that form for me personally, because I grew up in a family of very large families of eight siblings. So there's a lot of chaos, there's a lot of busy. Oh, wow. I there, I was the second youngest. So the older kids had a lot of struggles, you know, my parents went through a lot with them. And I took on the role in the family of just just be a good girl, just like keep your head down, make good decisions, and keep going. And that's what I did. And then I got really good at that. And then all of a sudden it got out of control where like I started to be doing so much that that became a sense of worth of like, okay, I can I can accomplish this, I can accomplish this. And I'm good. And my parents love me and like they always do they always have They're wonderful. But it became in my mind that like that was a sense of goodness was on placement. And I remember right, you know, when I was about to before I had babies even I remember being in therapy and telling my therapist I I need to slow down and just don't know how. And I would tell my husband, I need to slow down. I just don't know how and he's like, what does that mean? What are you talking about because he was also an entrepreneur and we would just go neck and neck just boom, Boo Boo, build, build, build, hustle, hustle, hustle. And I just knew that it wasn't sustainable. Like this is not going to work. Something's happening here. And I have completely retrain my nervous system, how to find a state of peace in less and my safety in that that like I don't, I don't have to take on that opportunity. And it's not going to add to my worth, if I take on that opportunity. I already am worthy as I am. And that took like many years of retraining and like resettling the narrative in my body and in my mind that my worth is inherent and it's not in what I do and it's not what I achieve and there's nothing I can do or achieve that will increase my worth like I already am. And then now the practice has to just be maintained because I can easily get back into that if I'm not careful because it's a familiar part of my my body and my brain and how it works. So I have to be super intentional with how do I rest. How do I let my kids see me rest? How do I mix like honor my pace, and that trickles down a lot too. Are kids as well. So you know, if like you are quite anxious and you're quite gogogo like, of course they will be, you know, we have to do the work to figure out what the root Where's that coming from, and then to start to tackle it, and like rewrite that and sit in those uncomfortable practices of like, I'm going to sit here and not feel guilty that the house is a mess. And then watch the movie with the kids during quiet time and just sit and watch the movie. Without doing anything else, you know? Yeah, it's actually really hard. It's really weird. When you think about it's actually hard to sit and watch a movie without grabbing your phone, without getting up to go do something else or being distracted by something else that comes up? It's crazy.

Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is because then you think right back to your childhood. And you're like, No, I, I sat there all day long, just watching TV and was quite contented. Didn't have to get up didn't have to have something else to shift my focus to. But I think, you know, this, this nervous system stuff that you're talking about, right? It's a huge part of it. And I think so many of us are functioning in these states of I go, and I do because either this is what I've learned. This is a coping mechanism. This is how I can stay away from the not feeling. I don't have to feel anxious, if I just keep going and doing I don't have to actually look at this stuff, I can just sort of keep blowing by all of it. But constantly being in a state where you feel like your nervous system is activated. You see it, it translates it comes out in all these ways. And so being super intentional, right, honoring your pace, like these are all really good things because you do start to see when you make the shifts, yeah, it It definitely changes the dynamic in the house, it changes how your kids functions, it changes their moods. Like, it is just so crazy. But it is it's it's super hard, because I much like you, like go do achieve. And I had to look at that stuff and say, Okay, this isn't working, and why and how do I slow down and it is so dang uncomfortable. I think for many people, just because it's not the society, the culture that we live in, we're not a slow down society. So it's like, What do you mean, you're gonna slow down and we we work five days a week we work the majority of our days we constantly are going and achieving because we're told we have to we can't stop, you know? So it's, there's so many reasons why I think we all know, it's so important to slow down, but we don't do it. But do you have some insight? Because obviously, you've done this work? How do you actually start to slow down? Like, what the heck does that even look like? So there's

a few ways I think the most effective way is going to therapy. And I know I'm like always I'm biased because I'm a therapist, but I'm also a therapist who goes to therapy and my therapist was her therapist. So like, we believe in the process. The reason why is because I think it's very difficult to work with your your own blind spots within the context in which you're understanding them. Like from my own, it's very hard, I can't see my blind spots, I have to have a mirror reflecting back at me, like what's going on inside me. And to help rewrite and make sense of this. A lot of it comes down to like your inner child, right? And what what experiences we had in childhood that I want is just like was rest? Okay? Were you allowed to rest? What did rest look like? Was really lazy? Was it something you had to earn? Did you have to like you do this before you rest? You know, what, what is it? What did that look like? What's your relationship with rest look like and your relationship with just like, a certain inherent sense of worthiness? What did that look like? Kind of looking at those? There are? There are some good resources, you know, there's some books online, like, there's one, I think it's called to your inner child journal. And they're just like journal prompts. It's like an Amazon book, just to kind of get you to like, start to dig and unpack a little bit. Because I think it's very easy for people to say, Oh, I just want to slow down, what can I do to slow down. But in order to do what you need to do to slow down, it would be most effective to first address the root of why you're doing it in the first place. Because adding just a tool like okay, let's might, you know, let's practice mindfulness for five minutes a day is essentially the equivalent of adding a bandaid on an infection. It's because like a temporary thing, it's not sustainable. And often we don't want to look at well, what is this? We want to say, Okay, well, I just, you know, I want to look at the past, I want to let that go. And you're right, we never want to look at the past with the intention of staying there, but only as it influences the present moment and context in which we're at now. And that is important, because if you don't address it, it's like you're carrying Pandora's black box on your back and it's influencing all of your life and you're just like, well, I don't really know why. I don't know why I'm so snappy. I don't know why I constantly go go go I, it's just because everybody else is giving me all these things to do. No, there's something inside what's happening. And there's something within your experience. And so you have to be willing to look at what is this?

Yeah, that's like that. Can we can we just do the how to stuff, right? But I'm so like, it's just so good that you said, you know, in order to slow down, you really have to address the root cause I think a lot of us in any healing work that we're doing, we're just like, give us the how to give me the quick, simple things, right. And we all lean toward those meditation practices, the grounding the yoga, the exercise, and we're like, none of it's really working. And, and you know, that's a big part of why it's not is because you're not actually getting at the root and understanding why you're having certain actions and behaviors, why you're falling into these patterns and understanding that why really helps to unlock Oh, okay, now I understand what keeps getting me here. And ERate. It's not about you don't necessarily have to go back, right. But you have to understand how it's influencing your behavior. Now. I love that. That's so cool. So I similar to you, I work with a therapist and to work with a coach. My coach said something that was so dang good to me. She was like, Shannon, not doing for you is doing? And I was like, wait, what say that again? Yeah, it is like intentional practice for me to not do. And for me, I have to recognize that as this is a healthy action, this is something that's really supportive to me. And me just stopping and not doing anything. Oh, it's so hard. But it's I see, I can see like the benefits. I see. I'm more regulated. I'm not so snappy. I have more patience, all the things. Yeah, it's it's just crazy when you can actually get to the root and fix that stuff and then see, oh, this doesn't keep popping up. I don't have to it not that it never does. But it doesn't keep looking the way it's been looking.

Yeah, it doesn't keep looking the way it's been looking. And you're more aware of like what you're susceptible to, you know, like, I know, like something might come up like, oh, Emily, there's this great opportunity, would you like to present at this conference? And my initial reaction is like, Yes, I should do that, you know, and I have to really check myself along, say like, why am I? Why would I say yes? Whereas my from is this like, because I'm used to being a highly efficient person. And it's like, an ego thing of something that was a familiar experience of my history? Or do I genuinely want to, you know, is this people pleasing thing? Is it what is this like, genuinely wants to do this or not? And, and getting really good at your nose? You know, I know

asking yourself, I always say the simplest questions can give you so much insight. And if you really listen and pay attention, and I have to ask myself that so often do I actually want to do this? Is this important to me, and actually listening and honoring what comes up and not just doing just to do? So I'm curious, because I know, people are probably wondering, I want to slow down. I obviously want my kids to have this amazing childhood. I want them to have good memories. I want them to feel present for it. I want to feel present for their childhood. Can you share with us? Obviously, you've gotten like really into this throughout the past? You know, you're sure more before you started your platform. But what does it look like? Like? What did it start to look like when you started to take these actions and slow things down within your own home and family,

I started to look at my commitments in a week and hack away the things that were not that I was doing for other people because I wanted to please them. So like I one thing I remember I was on a community board. And I didn't really like it. And but I just kept doing I felt obligated, I was asked specifically me to be in this position by somebody I had a really good relationship with, I just kept doing it. And it was like, you know, I'm going to let this person down. But this is it's not, it's not serving me anymore as taking away from it's not adding value to my life. And I think that, you know, it's good to do things. For other people. It's really important to do altruistic behaviors. And that's good and important. But sometimes you need to scale way back like to ground zero before you can add in again, because especially if you're somebody who's susceptible to overscheduling and that's kind of what I did is I I put out that community board I scaled my practice way back I'd very successful private practice. I had a few clinicians working for me and some of them started to go practice in their own practices. And then 2020 came there's a lot of transition in mental health and I decided I want to scale back this and I don't want to hire other clinicians anymore. I just want to do my own As I did have my sister working for me, she's also a therapist. My sister was working for me for about a year. And then eventually, she also transitioned to fully her own private practice when when she could get things up and running enough. And so at that point was a criminal goal decision of like, are you going to keep doing this and keep going because you can or not. And it was another thing of like, I don't really enjoy having group practice anymore. I like doing my own little thing. So I cut back the practice. And I cut way down to like one day a week when I was doing full time before cut out that community board. And then just I think just was started to be very intentional about what I sign my kids up for. And what we're what we're going to do, I try to stay with this rule of no more than like one extracurricular during a time in terms in terms of like sports, or music or things like that. So my daughter has been in gymnastics for almost two years. And that's kind of interesting. But I also figure well, she's a homeschooler. So like, we are in CO a co op. And so like, that's different. It's just not going to, you know, like an institution every day. So a lot of it was just starting first with just the scheduling, scheduling the scaling back, that's the biggest thing. How do I how do I reduce and get clear and the other hard part that was like saying no to family obligations, couple times, you know, there's like, my family will do like a Christmas party, oh, gosh, people are gonna hear this. I'll do like a Christmas party. And it's been wonderful. But like, a couple years, I just just like, you know, my extended family, like my aunts and uncles, like, I just don't really want to go, my kids are in a hard time, I know, they're not going to enjoy it, it's going to overlap our nap. Like, it's just, it's a no for me, and my mom was like, super disappointed. It's like, I just, I can't, I'm not going to sacrifice anymore. These these experiences were like, our whole day is gonna get shot and thrown off. And I know it sounds silly. But like, those younger years, anybody who knows you're trying to protect that schedule, just so ferociously, because it will throw everything off. And all of a sudden, it could be thrown off for like three months, and you're like, what just happened? And so in some ways, like little babies really helped at that time. But yeah, scaling back with the scheduling was really the first thing of like, I'm going to ruthlessly edit before I decide to re add things in. And now I really do feel good. Like, I know how to discern if I'm in a better state of discerning what's going to really fill me up and bring me a sense of joy versus am I just being nice, I don't want to do that anymore. I want to be kind. That's what Brene Brown says, you know, like, I'd rather be kind than nice, like kind is, I want to do this. And that's huge. And nice as like, I'm doing this because you want me to I can only do you know, all of us can only do so much of that before it's just exasperates us, right?

I think a lot of it goes back to that. Right? Does it add value to my life? Is this? You know, is this something that actually was important to me? And it's it's oftentimes hard to say no, and to set those boundaries, but it's so freeing once you start doing that, and seeing Gosh, this feels way better? This feels way better than that. I think, you know, you mentioned something important right with the kids activities. And I think with the culture that we live in, you feel a lot of this pressure of like, well my kid needs to be doing activities and needs to be a part of this and a part of that and gosh, my daughter, you know, we had the discussion because I know I I know from my childhood I know from my experiences but you know we had that conversation I said you can pick one thing and I really want you to try different things but we're gonna pick one thing and if you decide it's not for you, okay, then we'll look at something else but this idea of my kid has to be doing all the things trying all the sports all the activities, all the instruments, oh my gosh, I know how overwhelming it is for me as an adult and then you can imagine for a child trying to navigate all of that how overwhelming that is for them and their nervous systems and and talk about right going back to the root of why you struggle with some of the things that you do I try to look at it from that lens to raising my daughter of is this something that she's going to have to go back to and figure out later in life and I'd much rather her maybe be upset because she's not doing you know, gymnastics and 10 other things but you know really being the person with the thought and tension behind it and helping her to navigate how can you actually feel good about life and what you're doing and not feel overwhelmed and stressed? Yeah, that's

a Yeah, I think extracurriculars are good as long as they don't infringe on their own structure time their space to be a kid but also think about it in this way is like if you know we think about we help sometimes hold our kids who much higher standard than we hold ourselves, right? It's like okay, let's say you work at a job nine to five. Do you want to come home and go do another sport yourself? What do you do adult soccer which but then after that, go home and do your homework. And then after But like, you might get your 30 minutes of video game and then wake up again at the crack of dawn and go do it again. But when do you actually get space to be a human being, you know, to just think breathe, be creative have rest have, like, you can't We can't even think clearly when we're constantly going, you're just doing that you don't get time and space for like, critical thought you're just operating, you know,

pilot. Right?

Autopilot. Yeah,

I remember. Yeah. And that's so much I've, you know, it's it's really slowing down enough to recognize you're on autopilot, and just doing and going. And you I feel like I am much more in tune. And I think this is probably why I get really frustrated sometimes with other parents or, you know, school systems and structures that we have is that they're not putting themselves in that shoe of the 5678 year olds, you know, all the way up that is trying to just get by, right, just trying to they're like, I have school, and I have activities, and I have homework, and then I'm supposed to like, have fun. And it's like, goodness, gracious. You know, no wonder why so many kids and parents are struggling with anxiety and, and overwhelm. So I'm so curious, Emily, I know, when I came across your page, I was just like, oh my gosh, this is so good. You share just that. It's so many basic things in simple things and thinks things that you probably post and think everyone knows this or like, you know, but people don't. And you share so many good, just helpful basic insights and tips and different ways of looking at things. And if people really want to slow down, you give a lot of tangible like, you know, here's some even TV shows that are more helpful and healthy for your child to be watching than, you know others. And here's some different ways you could structure things in your home. And all of it is just so so good. So if people want to find you connect with you learn more about like, how do I slow down? And how do I slow down and enjoy my child's childhood and make all these really present amazing memories? Where can they find you and connect with you?

Yeah, well, thank you so much. First of all for saying that I appreciate it. Yeah, I'm on Instagram. That's like the platform I hang out on mindful underscore, Monterey. I don't have any other social media. I don't have Tik Tok. I've nothing like that. I just I do have Facebook, but it's like for my own little family. So mindful Madre mindful, underscore madre. And then I also have a course that was released here in the fall, if you feel like you are struggling to find a healthy, sustainable pace for your family. It's called The Family reset a family centered approach to tackle overwhelm and reclaim joy. And that's also linked on my Instagram page. Yeah, we go through all these things, right? Like how do you how do you nourish yourself as a parent? How do you delegate effectively? How do you really scale back and slow down? How do you keep your family connected in this kind of culture and just approach your family life in the way that you want to, like, Get clear on your priorities and your core values and actually do it? Not just, you know, think about how great those thoughts are, but how to implement things and really good at going and solidified for your family culture that you're building now. So I think that's, that's, that's where I'm at these days. So

good. I can't recommend Emily's page enough. And just I appreciate the work that you're doing. And I know you're probably right, so surprised by how many people just resonate and want to be a part of this community. And it's something I think we're all sort of searching for. And I think you do a really good job too of not trying to sell people on this like it has to look this way you have to homeschool you have to homestead you have to, you know, slowing down can look so many different ways. And it doesn't have to look any way in particular. But here are some ideas and things that might work for you and just try them. So I just love the work you do obviously and appreciate you coming on this has been such a good conversation.

Thank you so much, and I appreciate it.

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