Hey, hey, hey, So on this midweek mom chat, I am just going to answer questions because I asked, y'all, what do you want me to talk about? And a bunch of you all have questions, so let's just go through them question number one, and I get a lot of I get a lot of questions about this diet and exercise and when you allow yourself to splurge or eat out. Okay, So, as you guys know, I have been talking about a new system I've been doing this
year called Profile by Sanford. And also, as y'all know, I've struggled with different like eating disorders, nothing ever crazy, but like I struggled with like being believing a little bit here and there. Um. I call it exercise interrexia, where you work out a ton to try to burn off all the calories that you eight um. Every diet in the world from Adkins which just like no carbs too, juice, cleanses too, vegetarian too, which is a great lifestyle. Actually
pretty much try to eat vegetarian when I can. I eat meat too, but I just sometimes meat grosses me out. I just prefer the vegetarian lifestyle. But I've just done every fad diet that you could eat that cayenne pepper and like lemon and water juice cleans. I've done everything, diet pills, all the stuff. And I so once I got pregnant and had Sunny, I am really started to be my body differently, and I started realizing that my body is amazing, and then I'm getting to grow this
life inside of me. And I didn't want to focus on body image because what was what I was doing was so spiritual and as also y'all know people who
fought along with me on this journey. We tried to have a baby for like a year, and we went through miscarriages and stuff like that, and so like when I got pregnant, I was like, Okay, my body is amazing, Like I I really like I am so grateful for this opportunity, Like I do not want to be plagued by body image stuff and like miss this spiritual experience. So I really stopped dieting. And I had stopped writing before that because I just didn't want to just I
couldn't do it anymore. Like I found how yoga that actually really helped me, to be honest with you, how yoga started transforming my mind my life and my body, and I started. It was first exercise I found that I loved. So that's something I would encourage you to do, is find an exercise that you actually love to do, even if it's just walking, because if you're making yourself like get on a treadmill and run, and you hate getting on a treadmill and running, then it's going to
feel like work or torture. If you're making yourself go to the gym and do StairMaster and do eights and stuff and you hate it, then like it's gonna feel awful. So I would just find a way to move your body that you love. For me, it has been hard having since having Sunny to exercise just because my days are so jam packed, and I know all y'all's days are probably so jam packed, and it's so hard to find out to exercise, and when you do have a little bit of downtime, the last thing you want to
do is to go exercise. But what I'm doing is walking, and my husband and I love to go for a walk, So Michael and I will go we'll go for like four mile walks, And we went for a four mile walk the other day with Sunny and the sunshine, and that is really what I love and you can get a great workout. So but I've been doing Profile by Sanford,
which is this awesome company. I really really have enjoyed working with them because they taylor make a program for you based on your lifestyle and your goals and what is really achievable for you. Not like that's another thing, like I'm not trying to set myself out for failure this year. I don't want to have all these goals that I can't keep because there's there they're too hard for me to keep at this point in my life.
Like I know, right now in my life, I taking care of Sonny, keeping this house going, keeping all her needs met, keeping all my needs, Michael's needs met, running my podcast, running my business, which is just me and it's a lot like I am actually about to start trying to get to try to get a little help, try to try to have a part time someone help
me with social media and UM content creating. So if y'all act, if any of you guys are good at content creating and running websites and YouTube and UM editing videos, please email me. I'm looking for someone to help me a little bit part time in Nashville and take pictures anyway. But I like profile by Sandford because I went in there and I was like, listen, I and you get a coach every week. My coach is Colleen and she's awesome. I love her and we actually have like therapy sessions together.
She's great. Um. I was like, listen, I've had a bad relationship with food in my past, and whereas like certain foods are bad, certain foods are good. You can't eat this, you can only eat this. You gotta work out diet diet, diet, diet, die diet diet, and I'm not trying to live that life. And she was like, I totally hear you. We don't do diets here. It's all about helping yourself just make healthy choices and come
up with good eating plans. They have amazing shakes that I love, so if you're ever starving or in a bind, I just make one of these shakes and they have tons of flavors like strawberry and the banana cream pie and it's great and like Quinn, it like gets that
um sweet tooth craving. And they just like go through each week meal plans and like talk about your cravings and what you want and come up with better options instead of eating a kitcat bar, eat a shake or make, um, what is that kind of putting with the the chiese seed puttings or have some oat milk or make I mean, just like they help you come up with plants, and then they also pre made food and bars and all sorts of stuff. I've really enjoyed it, so y'all check
them out. Profile by Stanford UM. I have a on my highlight reel on my um Instagram. I have a thing that says profile, So if you are wanting to follow along with my journey, check that out. But I really enjoyed that. And they're also encouraging me callings, encouraging me to exercise and just don't do anything I can't do, because I was like, I can't go four times a week. I can't, like at this point in my life, I just don't have the energy for it. I don't have
the time for it. I'm not gonna leave sunny. We have the pellets on bike and I've got to start doing that because I do love it. But I'm just tired and I'm not trying to make an excuse but I am tired at the end of the day, and I know everyone is tired at the end of the day that i haven't wanted to exercise. So I've just started walking and I've loved that, and I've started adding in yoga. I went to hot Yoga last week and
I'm trying to go once a week. Baby steps, baby steps back in And that's why I like Profile because Profile by Standford, the program, Profile by Sandford the program, because they just help me take help me, help me to take those baby steps, and they're not forcing me to like move at a pace that's too fast for me because right now I'm just working my way back into it. So I to answer your question, that was
a long roundabout way to get to your question. I allow myself to splourage and eat on anytime I want to. I do not want. I mean I want to on the daily eat healthy. But if I am craving something, I'm gonna go have it. Like I'm not I'm not going to live my life in deprivation. If there's another choice that does the trick, then that's healthy for me. I'm gonna go with that. But if I have to have a hot chocolate chip, cookie with ice cream. I'm not gonna say no, but I'm just gonna try to
be reasonable about it. Um, I don't know, so that's how I'm doing it. I just don't want to put any pressure on myself or make myself feel bad, because I think when you start making yourself feel bad, then you're not enjoying what you're doing. And if you're gonna go ahead and eat the kickcat or the chocolate chip cookie, you might as well enjoy it and not feel bad. You know. I just don't over eat. I really, That's
another thing. I used to overreach, binge and purge and all that, and like, I just do not overad anymore. Like when I'm full and full, I know I can have it again later, Like I don't have to eat the whole thing right now. UM relationships post baby, that's a great question. I mean, I think every relationship I have has changed post baby because my whole life has changed. I don't view life the same at all anymore. UM. Friendships. I used to be the friend that would if I
got invited, I would go. UM. I loved social events. My husband and I are really social and we love going out and being involved with the community and all sorts of off and we still love that. But like, I don't know, after having Sunny, I don't want to leave, Like I still get anxiety leaving her the babysitter. I have several babysitters in our night nurse Paula from Nashville baby Boss, you'll check her out, Um that I trust, But still like I like being the one with Sunny.
I like, I like being here and doing her routine with her and feeding her and playing with her and loving on her and having moments with her every day and putting her to sleep and giving her bath, Like I want to be that one to do that. And so I'm also like worried that you know, people don't other people are going to do it the way that I want to do it, or I don't know. I don't know. I just have that mama bird super protective vibea for her, which I think is normal and a
lot of most moms haven't, especially new moms. So I, UM don't want to leave her. So for me to go somewhere and do something, it has to really, it has to really. Um, I'm very selective now, let's put
it that way. He used to before I would go to lunch with friends all the time I was out and about doing everything, And now it's like, I'm not just gonna go have a casual lunch with a friend, Like if I haven't caught up with a friend in a long time and we need to catch up, or if there's something happening, if there's like a woman's group get together, that matters to me, Like I do prioritize that stuff because I do think it's important to keep
your girlfriends and your friendships up and you stay connected, Like you don't want to get totally on an island where you're just all by yourself if you can help it, um, but even just a phone call, like I'll have phone dates now with people more, and because when Sunday's napping, I'll just call people on the phone or you know,
just check it in that way, like you don't. I just every relationship has changed because Sunday is the priority she is, and like being here for her and being able to take care of her, and then I work all the other times. Like I'm literally it is nine o'clock right now and I'm recording podcast at night because I have literally recorded a podcast earlier today. I was editing a video, I was doing some brand stuff and
taking care of Sonny. And now it's nine o'clock and I'm just now having time to get to this, and I want to get to this, but it's like you just don't have any time. I don't have any extra time anymore. And if I do have extra time, I just want to spend it with Michael and Sunny. So and my relationship with Michael has changed because I mean, we're both tired, you know, like it's gotten deeper on it.
It's everyone always says that, like it gets deeper, and it has gotten deeper because we now have something so much bigger than I don't know if I'm gonna say this right. It's not bigger than our love, like Michael and I still love each other so much, but like our love made a human and now we are fully in charge of this human's life right now. And it's like whoa, I think we both just we're just we feel driven to work harder in our careers. We feel driven to show up for Sunny all the time. Like
you just you're tired because you're NonStop doing stuff. And so it's like before, I mean, Michael and I would work, and then we'd have all the rest of the time to do whatever we want to want, you know, And now it's like we're working and he's on the road
in a musician. So when he goes on the road, he obviously doesn't get to be a sunny which I know he misses her, but he can kind of have a little um bit of and I guess not I wouldn't be it's not a little bit of just having that old lifestyle a little bit where you know, you can wake up when you want to wake up or need to wake up, not when the baby wakes you up and all that. But for the most part we are twenty pretty much just on an intense sunny schedule,
and it's great and it's amazing. And I would say everything has gotten harder in the sense that like you just are going, going, going, NonStop, and every second of your day is valuable. Whereas before I had a lot of time that I could just leisurely spin places and that's why I was super social. Now it's like I am not super social, but I'm grateful for the season
of my life right now because I love it. I love that no is my first response to things instead of yes, Like I love that I'm being selective and my time management has gotten so good. I mean, I unfortunately show up late now because getting out of the house with a kid, like I feel like I'm like
twenty minutes late everywhere I go just terrible. But like if she's napping and she's not up yet, and there's something happening, like a friends get together or somebody's having like a birthday party, like I'm gonna let her finish her nap because if she didn't finish her nap, she's gonna be crying and she's gonna be tired. I mean, you know, it's just like your priority has completely changed.
Or if she wakes up and I got a feed her, and like she's not taking her bottle, like I want to get the bottle down before we get in the car. And then when you get in the car, you gotta pack like seventeen thousand things to get out of the house. So everything has changed because it's like I said, it's like harder to leave, like it's much more of an ordeal. You gotta get a babysitter, you gotta pack up basically
your whole baby nursery. When you leave like all that stuff, but it is so fulfilling and it's made me just get the laser focused on what matters to me, and that for that, I'm grateful because I I definitely know what matters to me, Like when something comes up or I get an opportunity to do something, I know immediately if it's worth going to the trouble to get there with Sonny, or or to go into the trouble to get a babysitter to go, or if it's just not
going to happen for me right now. And so it's definitely allowed me to filter and prioritize what really matters. And at the end of the day, nothing matters more than her. It does matter to me to keep my self going, to keep my career growing going and growing, and to keep my life going and my friendships going on, my marriage going like that all matters to me. So there is balance. But um, I would say my relationships have changed just I just don't have all this time
to just be anywhere any time doing anything. I'm just not on my own schedule anymore. I'm on Sunday schedule, and so um it has to be a major hell yes for me to leave her, and so that's how it's all changed. But as far as like romance and stuff, Michael and I still have romance and we still love each other. I think when you're young and your twenties and you're working and you don't have any other responsibility, and it's a lot easier to have romance all the time.
But we prioritize each other and so you just prioritize it and you don't forget that you love each other and you know, make time for each other. It's not like, you know, you're not like just rolling around the bed twenty four hours a day maybe like you did in your early twenties or when you first were meeting without kids.
But it's still there and it's deeper, and I feel grateful for it because we're just we have a big focus, like we have big goals and we have a family, and it's like awesome to be in this family unit with someone and to be on somebody's team and we both I really have passion and a big purpose together and it's awesome. So I would say it's hard, but heart isn't bad. Heart is good, Like nothing worth doing is easy, and so it's hard, but like it's good hard.
Everything I'm doing I want to do. And I said that to myself the other day. Like, I'm busier than I've ever been, and I'm more tired than i've ever been in My days are so jam packed, more than they've ever been. But everything I'm doing I love to do. I love getting to wake up and take care of Sunny. I love getting to wake up and do my podcast and work on brand deals that I love and like partner with different companies that I love, and collaborate with
people that I love. I love getting to dream with Michael and be a part of his career, and I love watching him work so hard to cheat his school. So I love what we're doing. I love my family. I love my friends. I love making time for them. Um, I love. I love my life. It's I'm tired more than I've ever been, but I love it and everything I'm doing has meaning to me, and that feels really, really good. What advice would you tell your twenty year old self? Be free, live it up, and do exactly
what you did. Like, I love how my twenty year old self did it. I would tell her to drop the anxiety, but I would tell myself that now at thirty six, like, try not to have anxiety because anxiety it doesn't give you anywhere, and worrying is a waste of time and what you worry about most likely will never happen. And there's so many things that can happen.
Nobody's exempt from stuff happening. There's so much fear in the world, but also there's so much love and joy in the world, and so we can't control what's gonna happen. Like I and that's what happened to me with Sonny in the beginning, her first three months of life, Like I was so and I still have anxiety, but I was so anxious about everything, so worried about everything that could happen to her, like anything that could go wrong. Finally,
I'm like, I just can't live like that. There's so many things that could go right, too, And if something is going to happen to any of us, it's going to probably happen, whether we're worried about it or not. And so why not enjoy the people in your life, Like I want to wake up every day and enjoy Sonny without a not in my stomach because I'm fearful
of what can happen in the world. I want to wake up every day and have peace in my stomach and be like, I'm gonna love the ship out of this child today because she is such a blessing to me. I love her little smile, her little laugh. I love watching her try to do new things, like today she's trying to learn how to crawl. I don't want to sit around and live with fear. I want to be in that moment and whatever comes our way, I will
lean on God and deal with it then. But I am not going to sit around and doomsday myself and miss my beautiful blessings in my life that I prayed so much for, and then I am so grateful to have because I'm sitting around worry about all this awful ship circulating in the world. I'm gonna deal with what I need to deal with when I need to deal with it, and until then, I'm not gonna I'm really try hard not to have anxiety. And that's what I have told my younger self. I would have said, you're
doing it you because I went for if. I still do like, I'm not scared to jump, I'm not scared to take a risk. I'm not scared to go all in. I'm not scared to fall flat on my face. I'm not scared to pick myself up. I'm always always good at following my heart. And when I get those nudges and that instinct and those big pushes inside of me that I feel like I gotta go somewhere and make a move and do it, and like this is the right direction. Even if I have no idea what I'm doing,
I will go for it. I always have, I always will, And I did that a lot of my twenties, and it was so great to end up doing the amazing race. A couple of times. I've been in a couple of record deals. I've gotten to travel the world, meet awesome people, get amazing experiences, and learn so much, had awesome jobs, and I just kind of learn so much and experience so much because I was never scared to take a risk. But I would say, what would I tell my twenty
year OLDSLF go for it. When you get opportunities, take them, take them now ever, abandoned the responsibilities that you have in your life. If you are a young mom, or if you are in a relationship, you know, like a marriage or something, and if it's not abusive, like, never abandon your responsibilities if you have, if you have big responsibilities, to take care of those responsibilities. But also when you get it an opportunity that works with your responsibilities, take
those opportunities. And if you don't have any responsibilities, fly a little bird, Fly fly fly. You have the rest of your life to be tied up in a job and be in a relationship and all that stuff is wonderful. But be free as long long as you feel like you want to be free if you can, because it's a beautiful thing to have that kind of freedom. A lot of people don't get the chance to be that free. A lot of people people don't get the chance to
follow their heart. I mean every I pray that everyone does get a chance to follow hard That's not what I mean. Everyone can follow their heart. But if you have a chance to be just wide open and free, be safe, be smart, but be adventurous, and go for it because this is there one life, and we never know how long we get, so go for it at
any phase of your life. I would continue on with this conversation by saying, wherever you are in your life, go for it, like you hear all these stories of people who are in all different types of situations and they make their dreams come true and they take a jump and they go for it. But like, live your life in a way that you feel excited to wake up every day and figure out how to do that. Like wherever you are, figure out how you can be excited to wake up every day. What makes you excited?
My dad always says, you need to have something you're looking forward to at all times, whether that is just coming home and making a chocolate Danish because you love to cook and taking a bubble bath or whatever, or if it's taken along, we can get away and going camping and a park. I don't know, something that excites you that makes you feel excited and eager to be alive. Find something that you look forward to and find a reason to wake up every day that makes you excited. Um,
because that's this is our life. This is it, y'all were in it. You don't just want to get through it. You want to thrive and you want to be happy, and you want to enjoy it however you can, and there is a way to enjoy it at any circumstances, at any situation You're in there's something to have hope for and enjoy and find it. Find it, find your motivation to be alive every day. Um. Post part of anxiety, yep, I have had that terribly. I've had a really bad
post part of anxiety. The first like three to four months were really intense for me. I was weeping all the time, not to my stomach, constantly, fear um of what could go wrong. Overwhelming is of love that was so overwhelming it hurt me like like literally maybe physically feel ill and hurt, painful, like inside of me, like
feeling pain. Um. And I think that I'm just dealing with it in the way that I try to deal with everything and just hey, I let myself feel stuff because I think you've got to feel it, and I think you can't suppress stuff. So I let myself feel all my deep feelings. I let myself cry and UM. I talked to Laura hut List. She was on one of my podcasts, and she's done a lot of work on grief and crying. Tears are a way to get that grief that's locked up, grief and pain out of
your body. So I think if you can cry, cry and sob and beat a pillow and let it out and feel it all the way to the very bottom. And I do that. I'm really good at feeling stuff all the way to the bottom. And then once I've done that a few times and I'm I get I get tired of being at the b them, Like I get tired of that overwhelming feeling of it just sadness and like overwhelmingness, and it's like, Okay, I gotta make a move. I can't stay here anymore. I've let myself
feel it, So what are we gonna do now? And I just let myself take the next baby step and then the next baby step and then the next baby steps. The same thing I'm doing with like working out and eating well and getting back in shape. It's like, I'm not trying to get to Cindy Crawford's supermol supermodel status
today or ever. But what I am trying to do is take baby steps every day to just move towards the light, move towards improvement, move towards feeling good, move towards happiness, move towards peace, and move away from anxiety and move away from shame or like I have not shamed my body this whole pregnancy. Like I have had so much grace with the body, even though like it has been crazy to look at the changes, I always knew what a miracle, So like, I haven't had shame
with any of that. But with my anxiety, I've had so much anxiety, but I just baby step it. So it's like, Okay, for a while, I couldn't get out of it. It was very overwhelming and I had to feel it all the way to the bottom. Then I got to a point where I was done with feeling it on that heavy of a level. And so it's like, okay, let me let me work in some walks and some exercise just to like, like, let me go for a walk to try to just move some of this energy
out to breathe are to keep going. Let me listen to some podcasts that are encouraging. Let me talk to some friends who can give me some good advice. Let me realize that there's so much anxiety about that I can't it's almost not worth having anxiety because I can't have enough anxiety to eliminate all the anxiety that exists out there for things that can happen. So it's like I might as well give it up to God, if that makes any sense. So that's how I've been working
on that. Um finances of having a baby. I mean, you know, babies are there and stuff because you gotta get all that stuff, but you can also get there's a lot of stuff, but then there's also just like bare necessities that you need, like you need a crib of some sort. Um. There's a lot of bottles and all sorts of supplies. But then I mean they are expensive, but it's like you can people have babies on all
different types of budgets all the time. I think you just have to get intentional with your budgeting and like not, you know, you just can't. You just have to really be aware of where you're spending and what really matters. And it all just goes back to being intentional and like getting what you need and not anything extra. Don't go shopping. If you need money is tight, then don't spend it on stuff that you don't need. It's only spend it on stuff you need. And like, I don't know,
just I think intentional living comes full for us. So the baby and everything you do, including finances, it's like no, no longer am I going to just I don't know, like I saw anybody else done, because I don't want to spend seventy dollars every two just three weeks to get my nails done. It's not a priority to me. I'd rather put that money somewhere else. So it's just like figuring out where you can cut costs. You know
that you don't really need. Um. I kind of talked about romance e for baby and now Michael and I we're so sexy. Were getting bed and we put our mouthguards in and our socks and I sometimes I'll sleep in like my whole outfit the head on that day, like sweatpants and sweatshirt, and I'm like, oh my god, Okay, I gotta get I gotta get back to cute pajamas. And but you know what, it's great because I mean, I think we're in this scene together. We're a team,
and that is really sexy. If you ask me to have a partner who I was looking that this sounds creepy. I was watching Michael breathe last night because I was wide awake at like three in the morning. I couldn't my mind was racing. Of course I need to go to sleep. I'm so tired. But when I finally getting
I can't go to sleep. My mind's racing. And I was watching him breathe, and I was like, man, this man shows up for me every day, Like he lays next to me in bed every day, He comes home to me every day, He loves on sunny every day, He loves on me every day. He chooses me every day. Like I was like, here he is sleeping next to me. How many nights have we slept next together? And people take that for granted, but I'm like, here's the one who loves me, And it's like picking me every day,
and I'm picking him every day. And that is really like big. That is romantic, That is sexy, That is love, That is like commitment, and that it feels so good to have a partner who wants to be here and wants to show up and be in this and build a life with me. Like that, to me is so antic. And I'm so thankful for Michael that he is that kind of guy. And I'm I don't take it for granted.
I mean, sometimes we get on each other's nerves, no doubt, but I don't take it for granted that he picks me every day and I don't know something about the fact last night that he and just clicked in my head, like he sleeps in bed next to me every day, like he that's where he comes home to, Like this is his home like me, I'm his home and he's mine. And we've just decided to choose each other. And that's really a big decision and it's a choice you make
every single day. And we've been making that for ever, like we've been i mean married almost six years now. It's awesome. It's so cool and just remembering to be grateful for those kind of things, like you don't have to throw each otherverything. It's a wall every day and that's fun. Yeah, so we had that in our life of course, so what other waves of it, Yes, but like we have like okay, a deep bond and I don't know, I just think that that's really really cool
and really beautiful and really special. Like I'm so thankful. Um, someone's so nice to me, how amazing you are and how you're killing the mom game. Oh that's that's my best friend, Katie. Katie, aren't you nice to me? Hey, Katie Araby, you're killing the mom game. You know what we're all killing the mom game. We're trying as hard as we can and we're doing the best we can, and we're making it work, and we're evolving as we go.
That's all we can do. And give ourselves grace and love and just try to be the best you can every single day, and choose, choose, take moments of pause, Like if you feel stressed or frustrated, let yourself feel what you need to feel, but like take a minute before reacting and trying to respond, and love always to yourself as well. That would someone said, working on mom guilt and self care. Um, I think for self care. I think I'm gonna wrap up on this one, you guys,
because um, I'm tired. I'm gonna get bed. It's moments start with self care. Okay, this would be my self care. Like I am gonna go get in bed. I gotta pump um and then Michael and I are gonna watch a little Netflix and go to bed. Even just like I took a bath tonight when sunny want to sleep. I took a bath like twenty minutes and I just like let myself relax. I think if you can just find a tiny little moment to give yourself care, self self care and something that I want to encourage you guys.
I interviewed Mary Mary Lawlessly today. Her podcast is coming out Monday. It's so good. She is a big time fashion blogger. Her blog is called Happily Gray, and she was talking about how she and her husband just put on praise music in the morning when they're getting ready um for work, and listen to it together and how that's just set the tone for her day. So, even if you don't have a whole lot of time for
self care, like to do something that takes time. If you're in a commute or you're driving, put on praise music, put on an inspirational podcast, put on a book on tape that lifts you up. Do something in tandem with something else. So like if you have to commute to get somewhere, put on something that you can hear that goes all over your body, that changes your mood, that calms you down, that makes you think about something bigger
than yourself, that higher power, your bigger purpose. Um. So, whether it's like listening like I said, listening to book on type of podcast, praise music when you're driving to work or on your lunch break or I don't know any anywhere, Just like when you're getting ready for work, making an intentional choice to stop the noise of the day that's gonna just keep rolling and rolling and rolling, and you're gonna get lost in that, like a train on a track, like you're just gonna get rolled over.
But instead, put some intentional breaks in your day where you're putting something else in your mind that reminds you to connect with yourself and love yourself, and then in turn that will allow you to love others and be a better person and be kinder person, because we're all really good people in our hearts. Just the way it is, we all started off really pure and innocent, and we're all really good people when we're trying the best we can, and we just gotta remember to give ourselves a break
and then to give others a break too. I love y'all. Good night,