The Modern Moms Roadmap to Balance Podcast

Episode 24: From Chaos to Calm: A Therapist's Take on Creating Work-Life Balance as a Mom with Special Guest Audrey Schoen, LMFT

• Kayla Nettleton • Episode 24

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Embracing the chaos of life while pursuing the delicate balance of motherhood and career – this is the journey Audrey Schoen, a seasoned marriage and family therapist, and I tackle in our latest conversation. As we share our personal stories, Audrey reveals the initial shock and subsequent adjustment to expecting twins, while I reflect on my own transition from a structured agency job to a life that equally honors my professional aspirations and the demands of parenting. This episode uncovers the reality of life’s unpredictability and offers a candid look at how we both learned to ride the waves with grace and equanimity.

Striking the right chord between work commitments and personal time can seem like an elusive art form, especially after welcoming children into the mix. In this heart-to-heart, Audrey and I examine the art of building buffer zones – those precious moments that allow for the unexpected without throwing our entire schedule out of whack. We discuss how flexibility in structuring our days, and being mindful of our choices, can lead to a harmony that accommodates both the immutable aspects of our routines and the urgent needs that family life can present. Listeners will walk away with actionable insights on how to weave their personal priorities into the fabric of their daily lives.

As we wrap up the episode, the focus shifts toward strategies for establishing boundaries and preventing burnout, particularly for entrepreneurs and professionals in the throes of navigating business and family life. Audrey doesn’t just talk the talk; she walks it by illustrating the services she offers to fellow therapists and those seeking guidance, fostering a network of support through audreylmft.com and balancedprivatepractice.com. Join us for this episode that promises a blend of professional wisdom, genuine experience sharing, and a blueprint for achieving a fulfilling life, both professionally and personally, with Audrey Schoon as our guiding light.

Helpful Links:

Websites:
https://www.audreylmft.com/
balancedprivatepractice.com

Social Links:
https://www.instagram.com/audreylmft/
https://www.tiktok.com/@audrey_out_loud

FB Group:
Balanced Practice Community for Therapists & Counselors

About the Podcast Host
Kayla Nettleton is a licensed therapist based in TX, business owner, mom of 3 kids and coach for therapists who want support and guidance in their journey in creating an aligned business model so that they can live the freedom based life they've always dreamed of without sacrificing their own needs.

In her private practice as a therapist Kayla specialize in helping women overcome anxiety, perfectionism and people pleasing tendencies so that they can lead a more fulfilled and authentically aligned life


Find Kayla on IG
@kaylanettleton_lcsw
@themodernmomsroadmaptobalance

Email: kayla@kaylanettleton.com

TX Residents can Schedule a Free 20 minute therapy consultation here.

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Speaker 1:

Hello everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. Today, our guest is Audrey Schoon. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist in Northern California with an exclusively online practice, working with adults and couples seeking to create a more connected and congruent life. She especially enjoys supporting entrepreneurs and spouses of law enforcement officers. She brings a real life even killed approach to counseling, coming alongside her clients as they shine light into the dark and challenging places in life. Audrey also provides business coaching support to therapists in private practice, seeking to find balance and to fight burnout by designing a private practice that supports the life they and their families deserve. Welcome, audrey. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and as the first question that I asked everybody, what is your definition of a balanced life?

Speaker 2:

So the what comes to mind for me is the word equanimity, and if you don't know what that means, it's essentially the ability to ride the waves and the ebbs and flows of life with, with an evenness, to come to life with an evenness, regardless of what life brings to you. And for me, balance isn't about like some perfect equation that I'm like perfectly balanced. It's just the ability to like ebb and flow and ride the waves of life and feel okay along the way.

Speaker 1:

And yeah, I love that.

Speaker 2:

I think.

Speaker 1:

What comes to mind is how we often can get so stuck or almost obsessed with trying to find balance that we're almost trying to be perfectionistic about the balance.

Speaker 2:

Guilty, I love your definition.

Speaker 1:

What I love your definition in that it's like an ebb and flow, it's a give and take.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm 100% guilty of like falling into that perfectionism trap where I'm like if I could just put the pieces of this puzzle perfectly together and it worked that way every single week, that would be amazing. And it's like, but that's not life, because kids get sick and then I have to move that thing so I can take care of that thing, and then, oh wait now to move that other thing, like, and that's just, that's what balance is, is the ability to respond to that stuff, not necessarily have it all on lock.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, because, like you said, things are going to happen yeah that are just out of our control.

Speaker 2:

Exactly Right. We got to have that buffer.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so you're a mom of twins. You're actually the first mom of twins I have had on the podcast.

Speaker 2:

Oh, exciting. Yeah, so my twins are five now. We are about halfway through our TK or pre K, depending on where you're from Transitional kindergarten years, so this is our first year of public school and it's been quite a ride, man. They were surprised. There's no twins in our family and this is my one and only pregnancy, and so twins were definitely a surprise.

Speaker 1:

Wow, yeah, what was that like for you to find out? I mean, I'm thinking of like myself, because I was, that was, I don't know why. That was always a fear. I have twins in my family, but there's not a lot of them. There was like one on, like, maybe my great, great grandparents side. But I was just terrified and I would ask the OBGNs or whoever was doing the ultrasounds. I would always ask them are you sure? Are you sure?

Speaker 2:

there is only one in there, right yeah? Oh my gosh, so funny story. I made the mistake of saying out loud if I meant to have to, they'll come at the same time.

Speaker 1:

I made that mistake.

Speaker 2:

And then it was a few days before my first ultrasound and I was in an agency at the time and I was at my job and I was like I don't feel, like I feel, I feel awful right now, and one of my coworkers looked at me and she said you're twin sick and I'm like you got to be kidding me. My ultrasound was the next day, right, so I showed up at the ultrasound and she says, oh well, yeah, that's why you're so sick.

Speaker 2:

And I was like you got there's two. And I was. I literally I was pissed. Oh my gosh. I was angry. I was so mad because I was like, no, I can't have my water birth and I can't have my doula, my midwife, and I can't like, I can't have all these things that I wanted for my pregnancy and my birth. And it changed the trajectory of all of my prenatal care, and so initially I was actually pretty upset about it because I knew what it meant, about what my trajectory could look like 50% C section rate, like common preterm birth, like there's just so many things more ultrasounds, more more OB visits. There was so much about it that I was like that's not what I hoped for. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

So it's hard, yeah, and and that's common in and of itself in terms of the anxiety around how we want our pregnancy experience to go and how moms, or you know, women want their births to go.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1:

So how did you get through cope with that anxiety?

Speaker 2:

It came in, it went. I think I mean for the first I want to say 18 weeks. For 15 weeks or so I was so sick that I was just in survival, like I was just trying to get through the day. Every day it was to 24 seven sick, like I was just nauseous 24 seven. I never threw up. Maybe that's, I don't know, maybe that's a good thing, but I kind of wished I would, so maybe I'd feel better.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I totally get what you mean Right.

Speaker 2:

So I think you know, for the first part it was just like when will this end, because it lasted so long. And then I got to enjoy it for a little bit, where I was like, okay, this is kind of cool, I get to enjoy being pregnant for a little bit. And then I got so big that it was like, oh okay, I just remember, so ready to be done. I think when I delivered at 36 weeks I was measuring 44. Weeks, Wow, yeah. So it was really big, Wow. But it was all belly. You couldn't from the back, you couldn't even tell I was pregnant.

Speaker 2:

I've been feeling, more, thinking oh must be nice, I know, it was just so much weight over the front of my body. Oh my gosh, yeah. So it was an up and a down. You know, I think it was hard. I think, being a therapist myself, I understood what I was going through. I understood that I was grieving certain aspects of the experience that I wanted, and I allowed myself to do that. I think it hit me really hard at the end when they said, okay, you're going pre-eclampsic and we're going to have to c-section you. That's when it really hit me hard and I was really, really upset. Everything went well, the procedure went well and the kids were good weights and didn't need any NICU or nursery or anything. So health-wise everything was good and I was thankful for that. But there was a process of grieving, like the birth that I had hoped for and the experience that I wanted for sure.

Speaker 1:

I had a similar experience in terms of not having the birth experience that I wanted, even though I did have one. I didn't have twins, I had one, but my first. I was actually in the middle of, I had just started grad school actually I found out I was pregnant. I was not even in my home state. I was going to school in Michigan, so I was alone with no family, no family.

Speaker 1:

My boyfriend at the time was working in Oklahoma, so we were separated and that experience. So I was seeing a what are they called Midwife? Yes, there you go. A midwife, I can't remember. I'm in Texas, at least not where I am, because I'm in a rural area. They are more common in bigger cities.

Speaker 1:

So I had the expectation, and I had talked to my family, that it was probably the best decision to have the baby in Michigan. Well, it was like the last month of my pregnancy my mom called me and she was basically like I think you should have him here. I was like what? Yeah, I think you should have him here, and all I could think was you're the one who told me that I should have him in Michigan. Oh my gosh, I had this plan. I was also going to have a water birth, or at least the option. Right, I was going to have this nice room and a very supportive midwife and I had a really great relationship with her and that did not happen and although the experience for the most part was good, it was a good experience.

Speaker 1:

Luckily, I was able to get in with a doctor who made the experience really as good as it could be. I guess there were no complications. It was just luckily that my mom was a nurse who worked in the same clinic as him and he agreed to take me on because I was going to give birth in the next few weeks. So after I graduated, walked the stage, we drove to Texas from Michigan. Oh my gosh, and it was me and my boyfriend who drove from Michigan all the way down to Texas. He got to Texas on a Thursday and I had laying my son on that next Tuesday.

Speaker 2:

My goodness.

Speaker 1:

So I had one doctor's visit, so I met this doctor one time, and then the next time I saw him was when I gave birth.

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1:

So no relationship with him, and it was just like, okay, yep, here we go.

Speaker 2:

Oh, wow, wow, oh man.

Speaker 1:

That's crazy, yeah, so yeah, it's hard when you don't get to experience a birth that you want, whether that's because the choice was taken from you, unexpected events happened at the birth, or it just wasn't an option because of the area you live in. They're all really hard.

Speaker 2:

It is.

Speaker 2:

It is, and I think when you have twins too, like the common imagery, even the realistic imagery of what having a new baby in the home is like is nothing like what it's like to have two infants, and so even the moments that should become, and should be, enjoyable end up being really chaotic and difficult. If I'm nursing one baby and the other one's hungry, if I'm having to nurse them separately I almost always did them at the same time but then it becomes more of a logistical issue, rather than this nice bonding moment, right, and when one wakes up and the other one's sleeping, and then they trade, and then you never get a break because somebody's always awake. So there's all these things that happen when you have two infants. That makes what the experience so different that I think there was even a process of being like. This isn't what this is supposed to be like. For me, the first two years are hard. They're hard no matter what, and then you add a second infant and they get really hard and you're like, wow, okay, this is something else, man.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean I had to. So my middle child, she is, she's three, but she's gonna be four at the end of next month, at the end of the year. We're probably going to release this episode in March, so at the end of February my daughter will have turned four. Yes, but I had to wrangle her clothes on today because she refused. So I can only imagine having to wrangle two kids's clothes on and what that experience would be like. At the same time, it's chaos. I can picture it. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Some days they're just they kind of. There's a term in the twin world's, twin NATO, and I'm like yeah, that's spot on.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Oh man so it's been so.

Speaker 1:

You said they're five years old, now they're five Mm-hmm. How did you get to this point of? Well, now I look at balance as an Evan flow and going with that instead of and I know you mentioned you struggled with you struggle sometimes with not trying to come at this in too perfectionistic manner. How did you get to now? I feel like I can lead my balanced life and go with the flow.

Speaker 2:

It's definitely been a lot of trial and error. I mean, I kind of had this approach to life even before I had the kids, and so I had some foundation in this idea of, like I need to make sure that I fit in to my life, and so when I was working the agency job, 30 hours was considered full time. So I was full time at 30 hours and I blocked my schedule in a way that I made sure I got to the gym and I trained for my you know things I was doing as an athlete and I was able to incorporate my own stuff into my schedule in a way that worked. And luckily, I had a flexible work schedule, so I was able to flex my work schedule around the things that I enjoyed doing, and that was something I valued really highly in that job and one of the reasons I stayed for so long. And then, after I had the kids, your life is not your own anymore, so much Like your time is not yours in the same way, and so I realized very, very quickly I want to say within the first three months that I was going to need to put some supports in place to be able to leave the house by myself. And that's where it started, where I said I need predictable times where I know that on Monday, wednesday and Friday from noon to two or noon to one, I don't care, I get to leave by myself. And so I started with that.

Speaker 2:

And then I think when my kids were about six months old is when I started bringing in new private practice clients to my practice and I started really looking at my schedule again from that perspective of how do I put myself in there first and then I put the rest of life in after that. And there are some non-negotiables right, like if my childcare doesn't come until 9 am, then that's a hard line for me. I can't do anything for me until after 9 am because I don't have support for that. So then I have to put myself in between the nine and the two or the nine and the one or whatever the childcare hours are. I had to make sure I put myself in first, then I put my work hours in after that.

Speaker 2:

One of the ways that I do that now, now that they're in public school, is I don't see clients until 10 am, and even though I could see people as early as nine, I don't see anybody until 10 because I can drop my kids off before eight. I can go to the gym from eight to nine. I can then have my time to get ready and if my kid ends up sick or if someone needs to be taken to grandma's house because, for whatever reason, I have two hours of buffer time every morning where I can reschedule clients, I can make adjustments, I can respond to the needs of whatever's happening and it'll like yeah, I miss my workout, but that's a lot easier to move than work. And so I've built buffer times in, and it's again been a trial and error in the sense that where do I need them? How long do I need them to be? What does that mean about my life and either the supports or the schedule that I can have.

Speaker 1:

Mm-hmm, yeah, and I think one thing to highlight is figuring out for the listeners what works best for them. Yes, and being able to have this flexibility. I know not everyone has the luxury of being able to create their own hours. Correct, and you use that time schedule in yourself first, and I do the same thing. I don't see clients until 10 am, also Because my kids I don't want to be rushing to get back home by eight or nine to see someone.

Speaker 1:

And again, like you said, if a kid's sick, it gives me some time to drop them off somewhere, exactly so that they can be cared for and I can still continue to see clients if I want to. And I get to have slow mornings, because that's important for me. Yes, having a slow morning, being able to eat breakfast and do whatever it is that I wanna do in the morning before I really get into the day, because sometimes with the kids it is difficult to get dressed myself. Sometimes I try my best and I usually do, but sometimes I don't and I'm just like throw something on, and that's okay, because I'm gonna have time later to do what I need to do.

Speaker 2:

Exactly.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

And I realized that like it feels like a privilege to have the ability to do that, and it's also within this context of what are the non-negotiables Like when my kids have to be home, that's a non-negotiable time. So, even though I can flex my schedule during the day because I'm able to be self-employed, I still have these hard boundaries of time and every one of us has non-negotiable time limitations that we can look at from a reality lens and be like okay, what's this mean about where I fit? And then I need to be intentional about putting myself in, and then what supports do I need to get in order to make that possible? Absolutely, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And even pushing back a little bit too of the if you don't have your own business and you do work in a maybe a corporate setting or you work in a nine to five type job where you have the structured hours, most dates I want to say the whole US at least there are laws on having specific break times. Yeah, and using those. Take advantage of those. If you're not using them, it's time to take a look at why, and I totally understand that. There's a lot of societal pressure still to just work through your lunch, work through your breaks, and it's difficult to be the person to stand up and say no, I'm going to take my 15 minute break, no, I'm not going to be able to work for my lunch, or I'm going to have to leave this meeting now because I need to take my lunch. Exactly that's scary.

Speaker 1:

It is, but there are things in place that should offer you protection in that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I mean even speaking of societal pressure, like it makes me think about this concept that we're supposed to work like we don't have kids and that's just. You know. It puts so much pressure on us to pretend like that doesn't matter, that's not an impact or not an influence when we're at work, when the reality is that very much is, and predominantly for women, because the way that it impacts men and women it works so differently that women are the ones that get called when the kid is sick at school, even if both parents work right typically, and so as the mom, we tend to take more of the hits to our, our self, our schedule, our time, our ability to care for ourselves.

Speaker 1:

And if that is the case, it's really important. I'm sorry if you can hear my cough drop. It's really important to be able to set boundaries, and I feel like boundaries is starting to become like this journey where like, oh, I don't want to talk about it, but they're so important and they're going to be. A way that you can gain some of this time back for yourself and be able to schedule yourself. First is by having these boundaries, and what I mean by that is having conversations with your partner. If you're the one who's predominantly called, how can y'all maybe take turns or like who's the parent on call?

Speaker 2:

Yeah or so for my husband and I.

Speaker 1:

It he knows his job is just so much easier for him to leave. But daycare calls me. But we already have the conversation that if I don't answer the phone they're going to call him and then he'll deal with it. So I'm not here looking at my phone and worried oh my gosh, daycare is calling. What does this mean? Because I know they're going to call him and he's going to be able to do it because we've already had that conversation.

Speaker 2:

Exactly Right.

Speaker 2:

Well, when my husband was working in law enforcement, right, he couldn't get called right, and so that meant something about how I needed to structure my life and the expectations I could have about my time.

Speaker 2:

He's since left that job and he's much more available now, and so when that happened, we had a conversation where I was like okay, that means you're now first in line, you know, and the school hasn't quite got the memo yet, but I just don't answer now, right, because they know who to call next.

Speaker 2:

I just simply don't answer. He gets called next and he takes care of it because I'm in session or I'm with clients or I'm in a meeting or something. And so we had that conversation, and we had that conversation the first time because it just wasn't realistic for him to respond, because who knows where he was going to be, what he was going to be doing? And so, again, like, the circumstances of life can change, and those are opportunities to look at what changes now can I make that are aligned with those circumstance, changes that can maybe either even the playing field or respond to whatever needs are happening in the moment, and that's that ebb and flow. That's part of that ebb and flow is like oh, the needs of our family and the circumstances of our family have changed. We need to renegotiate this.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. And how were you able to get? I know you said a little bit about this is how you approached life, but how did you get to the point where you were finally leaned into scheduling yourself first? Because I know from talking to other women who have their own businesses this is a tricky subject because they feel like I can't schedule myself first because I have to just make living. I have to just see clients when they're available and maybe they're available when I'm trying to schedule myself first. How did you get through that?

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, I mean, I think I was much more flexible in the beginning in terms of, like, putting my clients first, because I was afraid of getting enough, of getting enough work and earning enough money. And I had to really take a hard look at that at a certain point in the process because at the time my husband was working both in law enforcement and as a reservist and it was killing him literally, physically killing him, and I had to really confront the fact that my flexibility and my fees, my flexibility and my schedule, the way that I was running my practice, was not conducive to supporting him getting out of the reserves and being more able to take care of himself better. So I made changes at that point and I think that's that was one of the pivotal points for me where I had to say, like, if I'm going to run this business the way that I would want, like a client, to run their life, what do I need to do?

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And so I started you know, really blocking my time better and clients adapted and they adjusted. I changed my fee structure, clients adapted and adjusted and I had to be okay with the fact that, like, some people might not like this and that was my, this is my boundary. You might not like this, I understand that, and this is what I need to be okay, and this is what my family needs to be well. So this is what's going to happen and if that's not okay with you, that's fine. You know, but this is what I need to do. And so I got really unapologetic about making sure that I was okay first, probably because I did struggle with a lot of postpartum issues anxiety, depression and I realized that if I was going to be a good mom which made me irritable and reactive and and not a good mom like I didn't like the mom that I was or the person that I was, and I realized that in order to be a good mom, I had to take care of myself that it became a non-negotiable.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And so at that point it was just okay. Well, if that's the case, then what needs to change? And I'm just going to, I'm going to take what comes with that. And I will also say it was a privilege because my husband's income was enough for us to live off of. I could take those risks, but I also worked with a lot of other moms who don't have that same privilege and have also been able to slowly implement changes with lower risk to be able to get to that place. So it's not that it can't be done, it just has to be done differently.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And it can be scary. I'm not going to lie, because I did the same thing too, in terms of we were living in a. We needed both incomes to survive or not to survive but to sustain our lifestyle. There we go, yes, Not to survive but to sustain our lifestyle. But just even speaking to that point, that is often where our mind goes. Where our brain turns to is if I am not and it completely showed up there, right If I can't make this much money, or if I don't get this income, we're going to die.

Speaker 2:

It's.

Speaker 1:

It's a it's a visceral survival threat response yes yes, and I'm, I'm, I'm so glad that I had that sip of the tongue, because it was just a very great example of that is where our mind goes is we're going to die Something, is we're physically going to be harmed, when that's not the case and we have to figure it out.

Speaker 2:

We often stop there, like we have that response and we just stop there and we get frozen in that and like, okay, nevermind, I can't do that, right, we don't take it one step further of like but would I die, really? Like, let me actually put some numbers to that, let me figure out what that looks like on paper Once we do that. I love bringing the data into stuff where I'm like, yeah, but really, let's look at the numbers. When we look at the numbers, it's like actually no. Like when my husband left his job, we looked at the numbers and we thought, okay, how much can we? What's the minimum we can maintain our base level lifestyle on without any of the frills? And we realized that we could bring in enough. We're getting by for a few months, but we could bring in enough to make that possible for him.

Speaker 2:

But we didn't know until we did the numbers.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and it's. It can seem easier in the moment to avoid those numbers, but you will feel so much better once you actually see the reality. Yes, because then you finally can look at what are my options Exactly.

Speaker 2:

Right, it becomes what's possible, rather than I can't do that, right, and what's possible might not be quite what you imagined, but it's still like. You then get to decide okay, this is what's possible, and I either don't do or don't like that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and if you don't like it, then you have the opportunity to see different ways of shifting those things.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 1:

But you can't make those decisions until you know exactly what those numbers are. For you, yeah, and for me, in terms of being able to finally what is it? Finally scheduling myself. First, it took me just being on the edge of burnout and because I was pushing myself like working all of the time.

Speaker 1:

Because when you have your own business, it's so easy to find yourself working all of the time because there are really, unless you set these clear boundaries, there are literally no boundaries and no one's holding you accountable or checking in of, are you okay? And for me, I hide things really easily, so I'm not going to seem. Only my husband will be able to pick up on things, but on the outside you're not going to see that I'm struggling. And so it took me, right at burnout, knocking at my door, to finally recognize I need to slow down, because I can't sustain this level of quote unquote hustle, right, yeah. And when I finally did slow down give myself the chance to slow down my productivity actually increased because I was giving myself time to rest so that when I was working I was doing so much better than just pushing through.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I've had the same experience and I think it's important to highlight this that just because you have this quote figured out, this whole balance, ebb and flow thing doesn't mean you can't get cut, sucked back into the hustle trap. Right, I've done that. I've been through cycles of that. Like that. It's cyclical for me. I will get really good in this place of like ebb and flow and balance and I have time to slow down and take care of myself, and then something new will come.

Speaker 2:

This happened when I started the second business. This happened this happened a few times in my life where something new enters the space that I created and I get so excited about it that I dive head first in and then it consumes everything again and then I have to pull back out again, and so I think the other piece of this is like, don't judge yourself if you find that you get out of balance again, because that there's a cyclical or natural like ebb and flow, even to that, where sometimes we have to be reminded why I hold these boundaries. Like I just tell myself, I just needed a reminder why I did it that way to begin with, because now I'm remembering what that felt like when I didn't.

Speaker 1:

Just only yeah, absolutely yes. I really enjoy going on Midday walks and when I choose to skip those, I really feel it later in the day, or when I don't do it midday and I'm almost going to skip it and I'll do it like later in the day. It's a reminder. Oh, this is why I do this, because it feels so good to move my body and get outside, because I am mostly in my house Other than dropping off the kids. Sometimes I won't go outside unless I'm doing that midday walk. Same. I'm figuring out what those, what it is that you need for yourself and for your own body, because we're all different is going to be key here in building that for yourself.

Speaker 2:

I'm right there with you. I like to like to call them experiments. I like to experiment with my schedule. When I make changes to it, I remind myself like this isn't permanent. I get to decide if this is working or not and I get to change it again if I want to. And so everything that I try is just an experiment and I see how I like it and if it's working or not. And you know, even with clients that I work with who have again full time jobs and more structure, we still do the same experiments with this idea and see how that feels, what comes up for you. Let's experiment with this way of taking care of yourself, see how that feels, what comes up for you. And so I think we all have room to run these little experiments and follow the guide of our body and our well-being to tell us like that's working.

Speaker 2:

No, that doesn't quite work. And there are some things that I want that don't work for my family. I'm a I would love to be able to go on my computer at like 10 o'clock at night and spend an hour writing or, you know, doing work related. Like that's when I feel really creative and when I write, but I can't, because it doesn't work for my kids. You know, my kids are late to bed and I sleep in, in, we all sleep together and so, okay, right now that time belongs to them and I miss that. But I know that it doesn't work to have that right now, and that's fine and that's okay and I'm just like it's that experiment, see how it goes, make a decision, move on to the next thing. I'll have that back eventually, that's okay.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and being able to give yourself that self compassion, that, instead of feeding yourself up about it, thinking I should be doing this because that's only going to cause you more pain when it's it's not possible in this moment. This, you know, these moments in time, this, however, maybe a year or less for some people, maybe it's just a few months there are times when you're not going to be able to do something that you want because of whatever is going on in that season of time for you. Exactly, yeah, and we also bed share, so I really resonate with that yes.

Speaker 1:

Because there are times when I'm thinking because we're we're in bed early, yeah, but our youngest, if I get up, he senses it and will wake up. So if I try and sneak out of the bed, it really just causes me more harm than anything, because that I'm anxious. Oh, did I hear him? Is that him? Is he awake? And I can't really concentrate.

Speaker 2:

So it's almost why bother, because I'm just going to be frustrated, yeah Right, and then and then, if they wake up when you're not there, then they get more anxious about you leaving when they, after they, fall asleep, and so it's even harder to get them to sleep. I went, we went through that whole thing, and so I guess I'm just going to bed at seven or eight. That's fine.

Speaker 1:

I guess podcasts have become podcasts, have become my best friend, because I was like well, I or audio books and podcasts, because I'm not tired at eight 30. So I'll probably not actually fall asleep until, unless I'm really really exhausted for some reason. Right, I won't probably fall asleep until 930 1030. And I am not about to just lay there in bed, you know, twiddling my thumbs. Exactly, podcasts and audio books is something that I do frequently.

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh, my audible library. I have read, I have read, quote read more books since my kids were born than in the entirety of the rest of my life before.

Speaker 1:

For exactly. Yeah, yes, and that was another thing that I had to come to terms with, because I absolutely love reading physical books and I couldn't do that while laying, because then my arm would get tired, like trying to hold it like this, you know, you know, and arms get all cramped up and tired. So I had to give into the audio books. But it'll do, and it's just a what is it? What's the word? An adjustment for now. For now, be back to reading, no time.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, yep, it's just for now.

Speaker 1:

But we are getting close to the end of time. If someone is thinking that they want to work with you, they're really feeling your energy and think, oh, I really want to work with Andre. How, what, what? First, what do you offer to the different people who might be listening? Yeah, and what's the best way to get in contact with you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, sure. So for my therapy practice I'm licensed in California and Texas. I'm able to see clients that are physically located in both California and Texas and I just, I adore working with the anxious, high achieving perfectionist. I mean, it takes one to know one, right, yeah, but that's just my sweet spot. And and love, love, love working with those clients and I offer both. I offer counseling, I offer brain spotting, which is a really exciting thing. And then you can go to my website, audreylmftcom. You can find me there and reach out, and if I'm not the one to help you, I'm happy to help direct you to someone who can, because it's really important to me to make sure that you get connected to somebody. And then for therapists and private practice and I've helped other helping professionals in private practice as well For coaching, I have a Facebook group and I have a website. So if you want to go to the website, balanced private practicecom, you can find information about me, what I offer, what I do and the different ways that you can work with me Awesome.

Speaker 1:

Well, thank you so much for joining us, audrey, and I look forward to keeping connected.

Speaker 2:

Wonderful. Thank you so much, Kayla. This is great. Yes, we'll see you. Bye-bye.