Rachel is the author of Mom Enough and The Brave Art of Motherhood.
Her articles have been translated into over 25 languages, her site reaches millions of visitors per month and she has a robust, engaged Facebook community. Beyond that, she’s a mom to seven, and calls Nashville, Tennessee, her home.
457: Mom Enough
Rachel Marie Martin
Do you remember that you are enough?
Moms struggle with anxieties, insecurities, imperfections, and guilt.
How do we embrace our imperfections?
How do we deal with feelings of failure, loneliness?
Hunter talks to Rachel Marie Martin about her book, “Mom Enough,” full of love letters to struggling moms.
Mom Enough - Rachel Marie Martin [457]
Read the Transcript 🡮
*This is an auto-generated transcript*
[00:00:00] Rachel Marie Martin: Because I think that's what happens to us as moms. We're like, we got to do everything. We have to fix everything right now. And sometimes it's just taking a breath, seeing the good. And just choosing to do one thing.
[00:00:17] Hunter: You are listening to The Mindful Parenting Podcast, episode number 457. Today, we're talking about being mom enough with Rachel Marie Martin.
Welcome to The Mindful Parenting Podcast. Here, it's about becoming a less irritable, more joyful parent. At Mindful Parenting, we know that you cannot give what you do not have, and when you have calm and peace within, then you can give it to your children. I'm your host, Hunter Clarkfields. I help smart, thoughtful parents stay calm so they can have strong, connected relationships with their children.
I've been practicing mindfulness for over 25 years, I'm the creator of the Mindful Parenting course, and I'm the author of the international bestseller, Raising Good Humans, and now, Raising Good Humans Every Day, 50 Simple Ways to Press Pause, Stay Present and Connect with Your Kids. Hello there, welcome back to the Mindful Parenting podcast.
I'm really glad you're here. I'm so glad to talk to you about the things we need to talk about today, but listen, before we do, if you get some value from the podcast, I would love it. It would make such a difference if you could just help grow the show by telling one friend about it, and you can make a big difference to me and to the whole team who makes this podcast, and I hugely, hugely appreciate it.
I'm just a moment, I'm going to be sitting down with Rachel Marie Martin, founder of Finding Joy and author of Mom Enough and the Brave Art of Motherhood. Her articles have been translated into over 25 languages and her content has been featured in the Huffington Post, the Today Show, Motherly, Parents, Tiny Buddha, and so much more.
She speaks worldwide, encouraging moms and entrepreneurs to live each day with purpose and drive. Finding And I think this is a very poignant episode. You know, we're going to talk about this idea of enoughness. And for moms, we often really struggle with anxieties and insecurities and imperfections and guilt.
Right? So how can we embrace our imperfections? How, how can we deal with feelings of failure, of loneliness? And we're going to talk about these things. We're going to talk about Rachel and her book, Mom Enough, which is this lovely book with love letters to struggling moms. So if you have been struggling, this is the episode for you.
Join me at the table as I talk to Rachel Marie Martin.
Rachel, thank you so much for coming on the Mindful Parenting podcast. Thank you. I'm super glad to be here today. I'm glad you're here too, and I've really been enjoying your book, Mom Enough. I love, love, love the message. We're going to talk about this and I think it's so important, but I think probably pertinent to the whole conversation is of course, your own upbringing and how you were raised.
Do you mind telling and starting us off with a little bit about that? Oh, that's a very good question.
[00:03:30] Rachel Marie Martin: Interesting. I like that you started with that. Uh, I was raised in Minnesota, two parents. Uh, my mom was a working mom in the eighties. So I always look back at the 80s movies and like, that's my mom. She was one of those people that the big puffy shoulders and through power suits, all of that.
And it was an interesting upbringing because my parents were always busy too. They were church planters and they both worked and we had lots of extracurriculars. And I went to a private school and I just always remember being busy doing stuff and weekends were like that too, but it wasn't the type of busy where I was exhausted.
It was just the expectation of what my childhood was. And when I look back, I really see that, like, my mom was an influential person in kind of paving the road for women, even though I didn't know it as a child, I had no clue that's what it really was. Um, but it was, I had those moments where I remember thinking, My mom's at work.
Like I was kind of the latchkey kid for a while. I, yeah. And I didn't, I didn't understand that that was part of who I was. And you know, the other cool thing about, um, my childhood is my dad was always really into tech and I remember him getting a computer, not at Best Buy, not at any place like that, but at somebody's house in the early eighties.
And we went in and this guy was selling Texas Instrument computers. in his kitchen. Like this, the top of the cabinets would have different, um, the sun's so shady. I know components, but that was the only place you could get it. And Minneapolis during that time was like, Apple was part of that. It was just this huge tech place.
So I grew up learning to love technology. And I think that love that That introduction to it helped paved the way, kind of the road to where I am now.
[00:05:28] Hunter: Okay, cool. Yeah. I mean, uh, you know, I, I've been thinking, I haven't thought about being a Lasky kid in a while, but the idea of like being, you know, I remember You know, it was just always after school, let myself in, I'm watching reruns, all that stuff.
Like, you know, I'm going wherever I want to go after school, it's fine. There's like a lot of freedom, which is really great, but, but yeah, I mean, I guess I, I guess we had that expectation in some way that, you know, obviously that moms are going to work and be busy and have their own lives. And in a way that maybe some people from our generation who maybe had parents who stay, I wonder if like how, you know, how that inserts itself into our kind of worldview, you know, whether you have a mom who works or whether you have a mom who doesn't.
Interesting.
[00:06:15] Rachel Marie Martin: You know, what's interesting about it is, is when I was 12, my parents kind of gathered all of us together and we're like, we have news. And my mom was pregnant. And so it was this surprise moment in our life. When I was 13, I had this new baby sister. And I can very clearly remember the months.
My mom was home when she came, when, like, because I grew up going to daycare, I grew up going to other places. And then when I was in seventh grade, all of a sudden my mom was home after school. And I can remember that, that interesting experience. I had never come home from school when my mom was there. So I had kind of got a glimpse into what that was like too.
And, uh, You know, that childhood part too of being, having such a younger sibling, uh, I've always, I'm always really grateful. Kept my parents very young, but it gave me this cool perspective too on, I guess the magic got to stay longer in my childhood because there was always my baby sister.
[00:07:13] Hunter: Hmm. Mm hmm.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Christmas was exciting for a lot longer. Because you got to have it be exciting through her. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. That's so cool. Okay. So in your new book, Mom Enough, you write letters to moms. I love the, the letter format offering support and inspiration. So I would love to hear about why.
[00:07:37] Rachel Marie Martin: So going back to my dad, uh, and teaching me about technology is I was, I would say that I was kind of like, to my kids, I tell them on OG in the internet.
So I try to be cool, but I, I was really an early adopter of being online and starting a blog and the letters were all letters that I had written on my website. to people over the last 13 years to moms. I would write these letters and it was the format that I could connect with them. And over the course of the, well, 13 years, people would always say to me, Hey, do you have those letters in a book so I can give them to my friend?
And I was like, well, I've got an ebook or I've got this. And then my new, my current publisher was like, you know, while you're writing this other books, I'm writing one right now. Uh, we would love to take those letters. Because there are people who are wanting them and publish them. And I was like, okay, it's like the author's dream.
Like, we want to publish a book that you've already written. So that whole process of writing is so intense. So that's what they are. They're letters that a lot of them went really viral or they got shared a lot. And they were letters. that I wrote from my own experience, um, and one of them was about failing and it started off with, I was just responding to a reader, and it was way back in the early blogspot days where there's a lot of anonymous, um, emails and, I, I wrote the letter and then I realized she was anonymous and a friend of mine's like, you know what?
It's not even specific. Just publish it. And it went, it went viral. But that reader, her name was Angel. She replied like, I really feel like that was written to me. And I've always kept that context or that concept in my head. Like you're not, you're writing to one mom every time you write. And that's, that's kind of, that's the way I write.
[00:09:30] Hunter: Tell us about this letter. What did she write to
[00:09:32] Rachel Marie Martin: you and what did you respond? Uh, I had written a post about like 10 things moms should do or whatever. One of these things, and it was this encouraging thing, and she said, I love your list. I love it, love it, love it, but I feel like I'm failing. And I was like, if she feels like she's failing and I feel like I'm failing, well, maybe I'll just write her back.
And this was early 2010s and that time when really the internet to me was a really giant glittery bow at that point. There wasn't as much. Uh, sharing. It was like people would say, you're so brave to share. And so I started writing a letter to her and I started it off with if you and I were sitting at Starbucks and we're having a conversation and you said you're, that she felt like she was failing.
I would say that, you know, I felt that same way, but you're really not. And it was about learning to see the things that really mattered, um, in life. All those times that are behind the doors, like that nobody knows about where you just. You powered through, or you come up with a solution, or you count to ten, or whatever it is, and those things that we just dismiss, like, oh, that's just what a mom does.
They're really, really these powerful moments, and I just encouraged her at the end to say, you know, to do, to just do one thing, because I think that's what happens to us as moms. We're like, we got to do everything. We have to fix everything right now, and sometimes it's just taking a breath. Being the good and just choosing to do one thing.
[00:11:05] Hunter: Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcasts right after this break.
I can remember that time maybe around 2010 was around when Mindful Mama Mentor started and I wrote about yelling at my kids. I learned about my temper and it was like, Oh my gosh, you said this thing that is happening in my life, you know, and that we can't say, you know, it's so shameful to talk about being angry.
It's so shameful to talk about, like, having a temper to be anything but the, the, um, you know, that completely nurturing, like, perfect or whatever mom, right? Have it all wrapped up and ready to go, and I felt very vulnerable sharing it, but it really was interesting to see. that people needed that to see that sense of like, yeah, you're not alone.
Like if you're yelling at your kids, you, and feeling like I'm a terrible parent, feeling like I'm failing and having that sense of, oh, oh no, you know, it's, it's not just me to have that feeling.
[00:12:22] Rachel Marie Martin: Yeah. I think the internet, as we have larger and larger circles of friends, I've discovered just with being online all these years is that more and more people feel alone.
Like it's, they've got this big group, but then they're so alone. Like, you know, around that time that you were talking about was when I wrote that, the failing letter and a lot of the letters and people would comment, you're so brave to share a picture of your messy sink. And cause that was what I used as the thumbnail on Facebook.
And I was like, you know, I've always told moms and women, like, if you were to come to my house and I apologize for the mess or whatever, even if it's perfect, if I apologize, then it puts the, on you, the presupposition that if I come over to your house, then, then you have to have it at a certain place. And so for me as being a writer, And, um, an advocate for moms, it was really about, let's, let's just breathe and realize this is normal.
Because when we think that it's not normal, that's when the alone part starts coming in.
[00:13:25] Hunter: So did you all struggle with issues of worthiness as moms?
[00:13:31] Rachel Marie Martin: Uh, yeah, yeah. I would say that all the letters, like even the title, Enough, um, it's me thinking, well, am I doing enough? Am I, am I good enough? Uh, am I, am I providing enough?
Am I showing up enough? And so I would struggle with these thoughts of like, I always wanted to take my kids to Disney World, but I didn't. And I remember once my oldest wrote a letter that on Mother's Day and it never said, you know, like, I wish we had gone to Disney World. It was like, it was. I love that you taught us to play cards at the lake and it was these really small things that mattered the most to my kids.
And once I was willing to like step back and see that in the scheme of life, those are the things that I remember from my own childhood. I mean, I'm telling, I told you even today a story about going into a, a someone's house by a computer. They're just these little moments and those are what matter. And that I'm, Seeing that helped me realize the value wasn't in all these externals that social media sometimes will tell us to do.
It was really, it's about that daily showing up and being their person.
[00:14:38] Hunter: Yeah, I think so. That daily showing up. I think though we, we tend to like, we see all these externals, right? Like we see that trip to Disney, we see so and so taking their kids to A lovely vacation. All the different things and it feels like there is a checkbox, right?
Like everybody's wearing the matching pajamas. Like should we be wearing the matching pajamas? Like what is, what are these checkboxes? So if those aren't the checkboxes, what are actually the real authentic checkboxes that, you know, if it is about showing up in daily life?
[00:15:13] Rachel Marie Martin: Uh, to me it's being their advocate.
That's a huge, a huge moment. My kids know that I will sit in a very tiny chair in a teacher's office if I have to and be their advocate. Uh, it's, it's really listening too. That's a checkbox that I, that I, I, I really value. It's the idea of authentic listening where I put down my phone or I, I stop, I pause the TV or whatever it is and I listen and I understand and I get to know them.
And sometimes I, I can see it reflected in my older kids, that practice of listening. My, uh, one son has a girlfriend and he said, well, mom, I've got this list on my phone of things that she's loved because I listened to her. And then I remember how you would write stuff down. So I just started writing it in the notepad app on the phone.
And I thought, okay, that's so cool is active listening.
[00:16:08] Hunter: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I mean, that's a huge piece in Mindful Parenting, like this idea of like that mindfulness attitude of being curious and listening. And you know, our kids are always there. They want to be seen and heard, right? But we, it's hard for us to see and hear them because we're filled with like these, uh, these shoulds in some ways, right?
These, these external expectations of what it should look like or what it should be or what they should be doing or. The sports they should be playing, the grades they should be getting, the things they should be interested in, rather than maybe being, you know, like who, wondering, who are you? Like, get that really curious place.
[00:16:51] Rachel Marie Martin: Right. You know, I was thinking like the same son, what taught me a really good lesson once is sometimes they just need for us just to be there and not speaking all the time. And I was driving him to school and he was like, Mom, I just need it quiet. And here I was like, got out and talking and he says, Mom, cause the time to school is where I prep for going into school.
And he goes, I love you, but I really, can we just have it quiet? And it took me a second cause part of me felt like that, Oh, that offense. Like, Oh, I was just, you know, I was trying to, I was like, how could you say that? And I realized, you know, he's totally right. When I used to work outside the house. I would just listen to music or listen to something.
I would just need it quiet. And that, well, that's been a lesson that I've learned too, especially as I've gotten into being teenagers, is, It's okay for them to have that space. And I don't need to be constantly asking and questioning. It's, it's a little bit more of that give and take. And this is my son, Caleb.
He, he really, that taught me a lesson of sometimes it's that listening to him saying, I just need a moment to breathe before I walk into a crazy high school.
[00:18:05] Hunter: Yeah, sometimes it's funny how hard that can be sometimes. I think that we're. Uh, I can relate completely like my, to my daughter, if she gets overstimulated and she's like, can we just turn everything off and, and if I'm in a like slightly stressed or dysregulated place, like it's, I'm so like, I want to like listen to the, to a podcast.
I want to listen to the radio and to play a thing. And it's interesting to notice like, Oh, after how many years of meditation and all these different things, it's, it's hard. It's hard sometimes to just be still and to honor that. That place. And I think also with our kids sometimes, like, there's an insecurity there, right?
Like, what you're describing requires, like, a, a great sense of, um, enoughness, I guess, that you can say, like, in ourselves, right? To be able to say, okay, I'm enough as I am. I don't need to be poking them and checking them and, you know, and, and like, always checking on Who I am or who I am to them, with them, and all that kind of like, uh, evaluation, I guess, looking for that, uh, you know, um, validation from them, right?
[00:19:18] Rachel Marie Martin: Right. Right. Because I, you know, with these kids, I, I, they live in such a world of so much noise and so much information and so much, uh, Like, in a way that we didn't. At least I didn't. I, I think about even their grades. Um, my kids have the Skyword app. And I could go in right now and I could see everything.
And I've had to learn that as they get older, I'm not doing them a service if I'm always like, Hey, what about that history assignment? Or what about that AP class? Because I need them to take that responsibility. Like when I was in high school, my, my parents would get maybe a midterm grade, maybe a grade at the end of the quarter.
And it was up to me to fix it. I had to take ownership of it. So I've really had to learn not only just giving them that kind of space, but also if I check the grades, knowing, you know what? No, I'm just going to give them time or if there is time for me to say, would you like me to email the teacher or do you want to take care of it?
And releasing that kind of, that, that kind of like letting go moment for them. Because otherwise, I mean, I mean, I could see where their location is too. So it's giving them the freedom to, to, to make mistakes knowing that I'm going to be their advocate there to help them stand back up. I know in some
[00:20:39] Hunter: ways it's much better for them to make some mistakes.
Yes. Pre 18, right? Right. That's the time to fail a class, like, don't let them have the reins then and then figure it out and learn from the mistakes then and not when it actually counts so much. Um, in your book, you offer some pieces of advice to struggling moms. I'd love to hear, like, for a mom who's really struggling with parenting, with enoughness, with overwhelm, what are some things you say to her?
[00:21:13] Rachel Marie Martin: Um. Well, there's a couple of things. First, I always say, well, you're really enough, and there's a chance that, ignoring from my own thinking, that immediately she will, she'll start to hear, well, I, what about this? And all that kind of chatter, uh, well, you don't know about this or just this, and, and it's taking the breath or the pause, I always call it a pause, a moment of just, you know,
Just taking a breath and silencing that chatter and recognizing and it's the reframe of it and starting to see the things that actually do make a difference.
[00:21:38] Rachel Marie Martin: You know what? The track, everybody's track record that's listening now for getting through a bad day is 100%. We, we just do. We keep on going. We keep on trying. And if you're struggling with that enoughness part, for me, a lot of it was discipline of realizing, and we all know it, social media is the highlight reel, but really realizing that it's great that it's the highlight reel because we want to see those good moments.
We want to like, celebrate our friends. We want to have that, but it doesn't mean that it's an expectation or a ruler that we have to do everything. We can look at Elf on the Shelf or The Christmas Pajamas or all those different things that we're talking about and decide, you know what, that's awesome for my friend, but it's not what's right for my family right now.
Maybe it will be another time, but not right now. My family needs this. And the more we can at least move it from being an expectation, a to do list of what everybody says and realize it's about our own stories, about our own relationships, about understanding our kids. and doing what's best for them. That kind of nurturing that, that base, it allows freedom to love what our friends get to do, but it also allows us to start really to love our own stories in the midst.
[00:23:07] Hunter: Yeah, just this, uh, self, self awareness. I'm kind of hearing this awareness of, you know, what do I have? Can we look at what we have rather than what we don't have? Can we see that, you know, what we are doing rather than what we're not doing? Doing, you know,
stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcasts right after this break.
[00:23:37] Rachel Marie Martin: Yeah. Yeah. I think that is a lot of it, it's being aware or, and being okay with the season you're in, you know, all, uh, moms will write to me like, oh, I just can't, and I, I can't do that, or I can't imagine, and I, I, I have to remind them sometimes, you know, my youngest is 14, so. You can't compare your, like, having a toddler.
That's, that's a crazy time of life. I remember, like, you are keeping a human alive at that moment. Don't run in the street. Don't touch the stove. Don't put your finger in the light socket. And it's exhausting. And I think, like, we all try to reach this hypothetical balance, but for me, it's really balancing.
It's never, ever going to be, it's like laundry. It's never done. Never. And if you're looking for that balance, please. It's just, that's just not going to happen. Rather, it's this ebb and flow and give and take, and sometimes you have to work really hard in one space, and it means saying no in another space, but knowing that that's okay for this season.
[00:24:38] Hunter: Are you, uh, struggling? Are you a recovered perfectionist? Did you pick that up on me?
[00:24:44] Rachel Marie Martin: Yes. It really is. I, um, yes. I, I still have those moments where there, there are certain things, but I would say, I'm a procrastinating perfectionist, which is a really terrible combination sometimes because I can, when you procrastinate, I mean, um, but yeah, the perfectionist part, um, I definitely have that part where I, I'm aware of it now.
And like you said, a lot of it's about awareness. I think over the last 10 years, especially as being a writer. It allowed me to have the introspection to become aware. Like, why am I doing it that way? Why does that bother me? Or all of that. And that to me, that's going back to that moment of stillness or that pause, instead of just being on super fast movement all the time, I, it was stopping and asking myself, well, Why do I do that?
Why do I drive that same way home? And being okay with not only listening to others, but listening to my own self. Like, oh, that's why.
[00:25:46] Hunter: And that awareness in some ways, like, as we start to notice our patterns or notice our thoughts about things, it's like, Just noticing in itself is a pattern interrupter, right?
We're not in it, we're observing it then. We're seeing, oh, I'm having the thought that, you know, I should have, you know, made fancy cookies for the family. Whatever, I should have, I should have had the, the photo album for 2023 done already or I should have, whatever it is, right? Um, and just kind of noticing those thoughts helps us to, helps us to kind of get a little bit of distance from them.
[00:26:31] Rachel Marie Martin: Yeah, the noticing is a powerful tool. I like to teach my kids that aspect too of noticing, stepping back, noticing your response, noticing how you interact with the world. And my daughter Grace, uh, for a couple of years, she's married now. Um, before when she was in high school, she worked at Starbucks. And she said, Mom, I always try to be super nice to the person, especially during the holidays if they're cranky at me, because they don't, I don't know their story, but I know that if I can be nice, then maybe I can be something good in their day.
And just was such a profound moment. My kids teach me all the time of noticing and noticing that her immediate response, she says, cause I want to be cranky. I want to respond back with what I'm getting because I'm, I'm just giving them a latte, but I, I really believe that that act of noticing is something that we all can teach our kids.
Um, and it's just kind of seeing others, seeing outside of our own sphere, noticing others, and then noticing our own patterns.
[00:27:40] Hunter: Speaking of perfection and this idea of, you know, you write about embracing our imperfections, and for me, one of my biggest challenges, one of my biggest imperfections for sure was, was my temper, was my, my anger that arose, and that would, for part of, Part of my process was like I had to come to terms with it in a sense of like that this is this temper, this anger is within me and it's actually okay that I have this anger.
I had to actually kind of like say yes to it in a weird way to help to dissipate it. Um, and to help to learn from and to deal with it and to, to, to be able to have a, a different relationship with it. And it, it has really changed that among other things has, has really changed my relationship with this imperfection and just peace about, um, Allowing, allowing space for it kind of has helped it to be something that is less a problem.
It's less something I have to fight against and it's made it smaller and more manageable. I'm wondering for you, how do you talk to moms about embracing our imperfections and appreciating maybe our strengths, I guess, as well?
[00:29:00] Rachel Marie Martin: I love what you said about, I think the longer you fight something or you try to hide from it, the bigger it becomes.
So like with you with the anger, like looking at it and recognizing it. For me, I was really reactive. I knew that. And I, I, I, the more I tried to push it down, the bigger it became. And it was almost understanding, you know what, that is, I, I'd have this tendency to react. And, uh, I've, I was encouraged moms to Look at the things that we struggle with or the imperfections and to ask yourself, is it really an imperfection like for me?
I grew up where people would say you're so overly sensitive stop being so overly sensitive and I took it as a negative thing but then I ended up writing an article called the gift of being overly sensitive because I Realized the part of me that I would fight was the part of me that allowed me to write And so for me to change it meant that It was me no longer honoring who I am.
And so a lot of it might be even looking at, is it really an imperfection or is it something it's just part of, part of our character? The other thing is just being aware. Like I also know that I tend to be rather impatient. So this holiday season, I decided this last one that I was going to be patient.
Like I was going to let myself learn patience. And I've, I remind myself of it over and over again, like one time I was at Hobby Lobby and I chose the wrong line, which I, which normally, like what, yes, like you can just feel it. So I remember like being in the wrong line and then it was clearly wrong and the one next to me opens up and this mom behind me with a very rambunctious toddler offers me it.
And I heard in my head, this is your season of learning patience. So, I looked and I said, no, no, you take it, even though I can feel it. I said, you should have it, you have a toddler. And she paid and left and I'm still waiting. But I think it's doing sometimes, it's that, it's like, for me, I had to actually experience that heart and go, and then I started wondering, well, why am I feeling this?
Like, I'm just going to go home. Like there was, so it was like actually instead of denying it, it was allowing me to understand it a little bit.
[00:31:22] Hunter: That's interesting. Almost like it's to me that your story reminds me of this, uh, the idea of, you know, in teaching, when teaching mindfulness, people are very restless.
They can't sit still. I can't sit still. And, and the advice is, You know, what I encourage people to do is sit there and die of restlessness, you know, like, right. So just like give yourself up, like surrender or die of restlessness. And you know, of course, then you don't, you don't die in the line of impatience.
You don't die of restlessness, right. But you just understand the power of that energy in your body in a whole new way.
[00:32:01] Rachel Marie Martin: Oh, it's, it, you know, the more, actually what's interesting about that little, my impatience experiment is. It's been illuminated how quickly I do get impatient and knowing it has. It's, again, an act of noticing.
All of a sudden, I'm like, I don't want that, but I didn't, I wasn't aware of how my body was responding. Like, when I would get impatient in the line, Mark would start racing, I'd get frustrated, I'd get agitated, and I actually had to experience it to maybe understand it. So then I could say, you know what, I don't, I don't need to be this way.
I can choose a different path. Yeah, yeah, I love it.
[00:32:40] Hunter: It's so wonderful to talk to you. I mean, the book, Mom Enough of the Letters, is so wonderful. It's such a great gift book. And I'm just thinking about, like, for anyone who's thinking about sort of ending in this idea of like, for anybody who's kind of in a really tough day or just having, just Feeling so, like, stuck in it, feeling that, that those miserable moments that we have of being a mom, you know, that are, are definitely there, what would, what advice or what would you say to that person?
[00:33:14] Rachel Marie Martin: Well, you're not alone. I think motherhood can, I mean, sometimes it's the simplest thing, someone dumping out Legos that you've just cleaned, that I remember thinking, why am I so frustrated over this? Um, but you're not alone. It's, we're, we're only human. And I think that's part of it is we forget that our own human qualities of it.
In that only in forgetting it, it's when the perfectionism comes in. Like if I was just better or perfect, I wouldn't have responded that way. Or I'd have the perfect chart or I'd have all this stuff. So I just really would want to, I mean, you're not alone. And in those moments of overwhelm, a lot of times it's about just doing the simplest thing, maybe.
Going on a walk, changing, changing the perspective a little bit, just cleaning one thing, cleaning the counter, doing the dishes, reading a book, and it's not doing everything, and being okay with that. Doing the one thing, and knowing that you will get through, you'll get through that day, and when you have a good day, um, I've always told moms, when you have a great day, circle it in big red on your calendar, like a circle, and write good day, because you're gonna have a really bad day where you're gonna forget that you've had good days, and if you can remember that there are good days too, it helps it all.
[00:34:36] Hunter: Oh my God, that's really, really beautiful. Um, well, it's been such a pleasure to talk to you, Rachel. I really enjoyed it. Uh, Rachel's new book is Mom Enough, available anywhere books are sold. And if people want to continue this conversation, where can they find you?
[00:34:55] Rachel Marie Martin: Well, most people find me on Facebook. My Facebook page is, uh, Finding Joy Blog.
And My website is findingjoy. net. So those are the two places most people find me.
[00:35:06] Hunter: Thank you so much for taking the time today for sharing your story, your, your perspective with us. I really appreciate the, your thoughts and all of that. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
[00:35:23] Rachel Marie Martin: Well, thank you for having me. It was an honor to talk with you today.
[00:35:32] Hunter: Hey, I hope you appreciated this episode. I really loved talking to Rachel and I think it's such an important conversation. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Right? Right? I know. Listen, if you enjoyed the episode, please tell screenshot, share it with them, tell a friend about it. And if it meant something to you, tell them that.
That would be, make a huge, huge difference, maybe for your friend too. So that would be great. And hey, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for listening. I hope that you have all the ease and the peace and the moments of rest that you need this week and next week and forever, ever after. I wish I could sprinkle magic fairy dust to make that happen for you.
You know what? Even if we're not going to make it happen through magical spirit fairy dust, we can practice it. We can practice all those things, right? Like what we practice grows stronger. So practice the things you want daily, right? Practice peace, practice ease, practice joy, remind yourself. And um, yeah, and I hope this episode reminded you.
So thank you. Thank you for listening. I'm so glad to connect. I will be back again, of course. I'll be back to talk to you again next week. Take care, my friend. Namaste.
I'd say definitely do it. It's really helpful. It will change your relationship with your kids for the better. It will help you communicate better. And just, I'd say communicate better as a person, as a wife, as a spouse. It's been really a positive influence in our lives. So definitely do it. I'd say definitely do it.
It's so worth it. The money really is inconsequential for you. You get so much benefit from being a better parent to your children and feeling like you're connecting more with them and not feeling like you're yelling all the time or you're like, why isn't this working? I would say definitely do it. It's so, so worth it.
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Were you frustrated by parenting? Do you listen to the experts and try all the tips and strategies, but you're just not seeing the results that you want? Or are you lost as to where to start? Does it all seem so overwhelming with too much to learn? Are you yearning for community people who get it, who also don't want to threaten and punish to create cooperation?
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[00:39:09] Hunter: Go to mindfulparentingcourses. org MindfulParentingCourse.
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