Podcast Episode 339: Why Finding Balance Isn’t 50/50—and What It Really Looks Like Transcripts

Please note: Transcripts for the No Guilt Mom Podcast were created using AI. As a result, there may be some minor errors.

I think this is such a great metaphor for parenting. A lot of our parenting in our mom life, right now we’re trying to open the damn pickle jar and we’re trying to do it harder, trying to do it with more force. Maybe it’s losing our temper with our kids or being firmer on things. When really our lives can be so much easier if we just change the strategy.

Welcome to the No Guilt Mom podcast. I’m your host JoAnn Crohn joined here by the lovely Brie Tucker. Yo, yo,

As we’ve been seeing for the past episodes we’ve been doing, if you guys want to give Bri some ideas about what she can say or even like just have Brie give you like a shout out and the pleasure of hearing your work live on a podcast is always wonderful. So tell Brie to say something, go join our podcast group. You can do it in there. It is on Facebook and we have a link for you right in the show notes. And that’s also where you get to talk with us. So it’s a really great thing. It’s really great thing.

Today, we are talking about a subject that I think a lot of moms struggle with. It is how to find that balance in your life. How to find that balance between the things you have to do as a mom and the things you want to do. Or maybe it’s a balance between your work life and your home life. Wherever it is, we are gonna give you our strategy today and how to do that. Starting with a little story about a pickle jar.

And we’re going to get into that pickle jar right after this. So let’s get on with the show.

You want mom life to be easier. That’s our goal too. Our mission is to raise more self-sufficient and independent kids. We’re going to have fun doing it. We’re going to help you delegate and step back. Each episode, we’ll tackle strategies for positive discipline, making our kids more responsible and making our lives better in the process. Welcome to the No Guilt Mom podcast.

And…gonna start with the fact that I love the pickle jar. The pickle jar has popped up in my life, pickles in general, the pickle theme has popped up in my life a lot. So I have to say when you brought this analogy to the table, I was enthusiastic about it, was I not? I was like, yeah!

Yes, were. Pickles. Pickles. Yeah. Pickles. I love pickles too. My favorite are in the refrigerated section, there’s the Klausen pickles because they’re cold and they’re crunchy. It has to be the refrigerated pickles.

So my thing about pickles is the theoretical side of pickles. Because I like pickles. can’t stand my gosh. So to me, a pickle represents a challenge, something that’s sour and nasty in my life. It’s one of our mutual friends, Jen is the one who got me started on, we call difficult things pickles. But at the same time, for Christmas, I gave her an emotional support pickle.

But what?

Eh!was like a crocheted pickle that you hold when you’re stressed out. So you hold the thing that that is like sour and difficult.

funny because I see pickles as like something delicious that I want to get to and I want to eat. So it’s interesting that you are only interested in theoretical pickles, which I…

Like I didn’t even know that there was a dimension for theoretical pickles, but there are. Pickles can represent things and in my life they do.

Yes. Well, we were talking about the pickle jar because I mean, I think the jars in general, we’ve all had this experience about trying to open a jar while in the kitchen and that thing will just not budge. Like your hand will start cramping. You’ll get like those red grooves in your palm and like nothing you do will open that pickle jar until I don’t know if it happens like this for you, Bri, but like all of a sudden, like I have this, all this pain in my hand. And then I’m like, wait a minute, like,

I need to be running it under hot water. That seems like the most pain-free option available to me. Then I run it under hot water and it comes off. It comes off all because of a change in strategy. I think this is such a great metaphor for parenting because a lot of our parenting and our mom life, right now we’re trying to open the damn pickle jar and we’re just trying to do it harder, trying to do it with more force.

Maybe it’s like losing our temper with our kids or being firmer on things, like all of that advice, when really our lives can be so much easier if we just change the strategy and do it in a different way. And so that’s what this episode is all about today is changing your strategy and doing it in a different way.

We are going to give you the, the seedy little secrets on how to make things work for you and to find that. And I, and I have mixed feelings about this word to find that balance that you need. Because so if you’ve listened to this podcast before, you know that we have a coaching program and we call it balance. And when we were trying to think of a name, we were like, what is something that we’re all looking for? And we’re like, balance. This program will bring you balance.

And it’s funny because we’ve had conversations about it and we’re like, balance is both. It’s like a pickle. Balance is both a real thing that we crave because it’s delicious and amazing and awesome. The Joanne side. Yes. Yeah. And it’s theoretical because in some cases, like you’re never really going to find a completely 50-50 balance of things, but you’re going to find the balance.

According to me, yes. theoretical that works for you. And sometimes balance, there’s things in there that you’re trying to balance that are nasty and prickly, like parenting the challenges. And you’re trying to balance that with the good times. we can help you with that. There is a way to find that theoretical and real balance.

Well, my friend Ruth says balance doesn’t exist. True. I agree that the 50-50 balance really doesn’t exist, but the balance that you want in your life can exist because it’s not about doing everything equally. It’s about doing something in a way that makes you happy and feels confident and gives you energy. Our balance program, four years running now, tons of success stories. We’ll post those in the comments as well.

What we have in our balance program is something called the Lotus Award. It’s named after the lotus flower. And this is important because what we’re going to tell you today, it’s all based on the lotus flower, guys. Because if you think of a lotus, it’s like this gorgeous flower, which by the way, only blooms five days a year. Don’t know if you do that, Brie. On all of my lotus research, only blooms five days a year.

think maybe I have heard that before, but I still feel like it’s new knowledge. Yes. And have that where somebody says something and you’re like, I feel like I’ve heard it, but at the same time, I’m blown away by the fact you just said.

All the

I’m not alone! Alright then.

So you picture this beautiful lotus floating in water, but actually it is not floating in water. It is attached to the ground underneath the water and it has a really, really strong root system. And so that’s where we’re gonna start here with this whole balance framework is before you can start thinking about a different strategy, you really have to know where you’re starting from. You have to know your challenges. You have to know your trigger.

To be honest, right? Like I think that’s here too. Sometimes we’re not honest about those triggers. Yeah.

Like I was talking to a friend of mine the other night and he was saying how he and his son really butt heads about some things. And he said, well, I think the times we butt heads is when my son ends up being the most like me and we’ll fight and we’ll like argue and then he’ll do something to his little brother. And the thing he does to his little brother is basically call his little brother stupid and like says he doesn’t know anything. And that really triggers my friend.

because his older brother did the same thing to him. And knowing that, going in with that, you realize that it’s less a situation about your kid and less of what your kid needs to do and more about your own personal reaction to it. And when you know that, you then know the next step because the next step isn’t fixing your kid’s behavior. It’s really healing that part of yourself. Yeah.

Like you just said, it’s all about acknowledging it in a way that’s productive. So, and I’m saying this in a tongue in cheek way because you know my daughter is a mini me. My 16 year old daughter is definitely a mini me in the terms of like her energy that she puts out, a lot of her attitude like.

It cracks my husband up because we will literally say the same thing at the same time sometimes. And he just looks back and forth at both of us and just shakes his head. He’s like, my God, it’s in stereo. It’s in stereo. But I have a tendency to tell my daughter when she is pushing my buttons the way that you were talking about, these sayings, I mean, that’s triggering me. I have a tendency to look at her and go, listen, Missy, there isn’t room for two of us at the same time. And I came first. the good news is she knows that I’m.

joking, but she also knows that’s my point of I’m getting triggered. And normally, at least after that, I’ll follow up with like whatever it was that she’s doing or saying that I’m like, what you just said or dead reminds me so much of XYZ. And it does like help with both of us moving forward again. Sorry, we went on a stage.

No, it isn’t. You’re a fight with your triggers. You will fight back right away. I am a flee with my triggers. So like my daughter does the exact same thing to me. And it’s funny because the other night we just like to argue and we like to put ourselves on this hill and we will die on this hill even if it is something so inconsequential. And I know this. And so I will start talking to her about something and she’ll come up with a rebuttal and I will start being like, okay.

and I start leaving the room and my husband just decided to mention this dynamic and I was pushing past him through the doorway because it was in her room. She says something and I’m like, okay, and I’m heading out the door. My husband’s like, you know, both of you like to argue about that. I’m like, excuse me. Because I am ugly and I don’t want to get into that situation. I need that time to think about what I really want.

just leave the room.

That’s what I was going to say. Both methods are valid. I know that you’re probably going like, how is that helping me find balance, you guys? Because if you don’t know what’s triggering you, then you can never find that balance because you’re going to constantly be slipping all the time. Ding, ding, ding. Yep.

and you’re gonna blame yourself for it, but knowing your triggers is such an important part. And the next parts of the framework are controlling what you feel, what you say, what you hear, and what you see. And we’re gonna get into that right after this. So we mentioned before that the lotus flower is connected under the water to the earth, and you’re noticing your triggers in that way. Now there’s five petals on our.

lotus flower because we get to make the decisions about what we have on our lotus flower. Hey, I love our lotus flower.

This one’s gorgeous.

Gorgeous. The first pedal represents know your triggers, knowing where you’re starting with. The next three pedals represent basically your senses, what you feel in terms of your stress response, what you say and hear in terms of your communication style, and what you see in terms of what do you see in your future, what do you want for your future. And so let’s start with that first one, Bri, what you feel because

The is real. What?

once I’m never stressed. Stop it people. I’m making veins pop out of my forehead right now because I am like, am the queen of stress.

When you

Well, it’s funny because we were stressed about a tech situation that was happening yesterday in our business. Basically, if you guys are a part of our balance program, you basically got a renewal notice that said your balance would be renewed in the next 24 days, in the next 10 days. You got a renewal notice every single day of the week. And we’re like, what is this? And I was so, so angry about it and stressed and Breeze here being like, I don’t know what to do right now. You’re so stressed. I feel like I have to match.

distress but I don’t like

You guys and podcast land that was the exact conversation it was I was like, are you okay? She’s like, why do you keep asking? I’m like because I I’ll just be I’m trying to match your stress level and I’m like, I freaking out man. That’s a good thing. was trying to come up to it. But I was stressed out in it in a different way. You were stressed out in a frustrated but we’ll find a solution way. Bri just wanted to kill somebody.

It was typical reaction. like, honestly, like thinking in an evolutionary, like standing, our ancestors, when they were faced with a stressor, it was usually something that they could run away from. It was something visible that they could see. was like a tiger stalking them through the grass and they would run and they would get all their adrenaline and all their cortisol and then they’d like have a celebration when they were saved by the members of their village and they like made the tiger go away.

There was a clear ending there, right?

It was a clear ending and the stress in our world doesn’t have so much of a clear ending. That email inbox is always going to keep refilling.

headlines are going to keep coming in. The calls from the school are going to keep coming in. Like at the stressors, they don’t stop. They don’t stop. I don’t know either. think I made it up. think it was part of another song. Welcome to Bree’s Peri Menopause ADHD episode, guys.

Don’t stop!

Yeah. Well, so when you talk about stress, the object is not to have no stress because that’s not going to happen. That’s not possible.

That’s that imaginary balance that we think exists, but it doesn’t.

The object is to know the ways you could release your stress. And we like to think of it in terms of mind, body, unicorn, where the first part, the mind, is processing those emotions. Now, Bre, like you and I were raised in a way where we weren’t taught how to process our emotions as kids.

It was like, you’re making too big a deal out of things or like, you did this, therefore you’re grounded for a week. Like no one taught us to process emotions at all.

Like I feel like our generation was, was, I really loved these guys, dumb dads, have a dumb dads podcast and they do the, they do these like really great videos where they show parenting through the ages. And it’s just like, then these, so like where you and I grew up for the most part, it’s constantly just a note on the counter. Like love you left some hot pockets in the freezer. I’ll be home by tomorrow morning. Like we were just told to like, like I feel like.

Although I love my parents, mom and dad, I know you listen to the podcast and I love you dearly. I still feel like when I was in like third or fourth grade, I was just shoved out there with a key wrapped around my neck and told good luck. Walked to and yeah.

Handle it on your own. Figure it all out. Handle it. Yeah. Well, research has, I don’t want to say improved, but the amount of research and the amount of like delving into these things, like we have a bigger resource library now. We know that people, especially kids, need help processing emotions. And so with us, we need a way to process our emotions too, which is where part of the mind comes in.

In our balance community, we recommend journaling and we teach you exactly how to express those feelings in the Happy Mom Summit coming up. My session, which guys, your Happy Mom Summit ticket’s free by the way. We’re going to put the waiting list right down there in the show notes. But my session is all about mind, body, unicorn and how to process those emotions. So make sure you catch that one. But we talk about something in Balanced too called our Bob. And our Bob is that voice in our head that tells us we’re a piece of crap. We don’t know what we’re talking about. No one respects us.

And that’s the thing that really, really gets under our skin and tends to increase the amount of stress in our lives. But knowing it exists and knowing that it is coming down on you, that is a really great thing to know and to learn. So in addition to knowing what’s going on in your mind, also taking out the stress with your body and something that we talk a lot about on the podcast is your unicorn time doing something that is good for you. So those are the things to add.

Go!in terms of how you feel to affect how you feel.

What’s a unicorn example? Like, cause we talk about unicorn time, which comes from Eve Roske. We love Eve’s work. We’ve had her on the podcast a couple of times. So it’s fantastic. But what’s something that you enjoy doing for your unicorn? Cause I think sometimes people think that bubble baths can count and I don’t want it to count.

actually made part of my unicorn my work life too. So like the podcast is a unicorn time. Speaking to people and helping people is my unicorn time. Delving into all the stuff about psychology, it’s my unicorn time. I basically turn unicorn time into a career and then I have to find more unicorn time. So it’s a problem too.

You’re like, so I found my unicorn time and then I turned it into a job. So with that being said, I would say that probably I don’t admit it freely, but this podcast is probably my unicorn time. And you know why I don’t admit it freely? Bob. Bob tells me that for those of you guys who don’t know, I do a lot of the producing on the podcast episode. So I can’t be excited about it because I’m not perfect at it.

It was…

Which we already said perfection, as in the epitome, doesn’t always exist. And I don’t think I’m ever, and I’ll be honest with you, I don’t think perfection exists for me on the podcast. Because even if we were the number one podcast in the world, I would still be like, yeah, but our sound was off that day. like, I don’t do a good enough job with X, Y, Z. I don’t know, you know me. I’ll find some.

It’s always like the goalpost keeps moving too because we just got like, guys, if you’ve been listening to No Guilt Mom podcast forever, or if you’re brand new, welcome if you’re brand new. We just had a huge amount of new people join us here at the No Guilt Mom podcast. Something like numbers of downloads like we’ve been dreaming and even seeing those numbers, we’re like, yeah, well, we could do better here. It’s nothing about reaching the goal ever. It’s nothing about that. It’s always in our heads.

Right. And I think that’s a big thing to just to, for us to articulate while we do feel like we’re pretty good at practicing the things that we say, it’s still a struggle. It’s still a struggle. We still have to stop and think about it. I don’t know when it’ll become second nature. I don’t know if it ever will be complete second nature where I don’t even think about anything. I don’t ever pause and go, okay, I need to brief, brief structure this, but it has become easier and easier over time. So easy that it isn’t hard.

And it also is easier to communicate to others as well, which is part of the reason you get in and you do all this work and you look at what you’re thinking and you look at how your Bob affects you. And so that’s the next step of our framework is what you say and what you hear. And we’ll get into that right after this. So we went over the first two pedals is knowing your triggers, knowing where you’re starting from, and then looking at how you feel in terms of stress levels and really managing that stress.

The third part is what you say and what you hear. I mean, those are two different things. my God. Two different things, right? Right. And one affects the other. More so, I think like the hearing affects what you say more than the saying affects what you hear. Because so many of us are in this like wheel that goes around and around where we hear, for example, our kids say something and we interpret it in our mind to mean something.

and then that’s what we say. Now, what we wanna focus on is what we’re interpreting that thing we hear to mean. And I’ll give you an example. In our Balance Community today, I talked about this on my Joe with Joe, which is like the 15 minute talk show I do every morning for our Balance Members. I love it. And we’re talking about a child who can’t appreciate the good things in life. This is how the parent presented it. And I think we can all relate to that. Having that kid who has all these good things going for them and then that kid

tends to harp on that one little negative thing. And you think that that negative thing is like, means the kid is like full of negativity and you’re doing a bad job and they’re not grateful for all the things that you’re doing for them. Like I’ve felt that way before. Have you felt that way before, Brie, about your kids?

yeah.

That’s exactly where I went with that,

Interesting. Very interesting. Knowing that about yourself, would you be able to like switch the tables and be like after your 10 minutes and be like, okay, I need you now and like tell me.

Exactly. And I think that a lot of times we are preset to go to that judgment, that snap judgment, because we live in a culture where we have to do things quickly. We have to make lot of snap decisions in our daily life. I mean, let’s just take driving for an example. There’s a lot of snap decisions you have to make while you’re doing that. So our brain is used to having to process information very quickly and come up with a response very quickly. But you’re right. Pause.

yeah. So I think that’s a great example. I felt the same with my kids. mean, like I remember you telling me all the time about how you have to bribe your kids to hang out with you. My kids are reaching the ages. I’m feeling it now. I’m feeling it. Yeah. Because like I immediately like, I’m like, they don’t want me. They don’t want me. And then I go cry in my room. Like I am processing through that right now and trying to figure out, okay, what am I going to do now that they need their space? Like I have all this time open.

you take a moment to think about the situation, all of those maybes pop up. You yourself can become a Libra and immediately look at all of the options that could be out there. Libra. I feel like I am literally a walking scale all the time. I’m always like, well, I could do this or I could do this or this could be it.

Like, it’s crazy. It’s crazy. It just, it’s the circle of life. Do it together,

I can’t keep my own tune if I hear other tunes. It’s like I’m not a practice singer. I can only do it in my head if I hear other things. Oh, I’ll go off key so fast. I’m not practiced in that. Yes, but we hope that by listening to this, we gave you some ideas about how to implement some more balance in your life based on where you’re coming from, what you feel in your body for stress, what you are hearing.

I have found that with my kids, the best way for me to communicate with them is to be vulnerable and to let them know what my thought process is telling me. So to say to them like, in that scenario, all right, I feel like you’re saying that you don’t appreciate the league that you’re in and the people that you’re around and that you don’t think that your team is good. Is that right? And then normally I will get something back from them as like, no, or kind of.

what you are saying and what you are seeing for your future and also how to protect that. So let us know and come talk with us in the No Get Mom podcast group that we have going on Facebook. Come on over and until next time remember the best mom’s a happy mom. Take care of you. We’ll talk to you later.

Right? And then we can dig down deeper, but you have to be vulnerable and throw out there what is actually happening in your head.

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or to safely say, kinda, yeah. I kinda feel like that, right?

Exactly. So then like, what’s, what’s the next.

True that, you wait, you snooze, you lose. It’s a saying for a reason. Like what?

Exactly.

was afraid you were going to ask that. don’t want to share mine right now because-

Next I don’t want to share my b-hag right now. I’ll be honest with you. I’m like, I’ll share it in the balance group, but I’m not ready for podcast. Full of vulnerability.

Again, we rolled through this every once in a while. I told you there was an episode a while ago, very quite while ago, because it was over the summer where I shared that someone that I knew from when I was in college. My college boyfriend’s little brother messaged me and said he listens to the podcast. I was like, oh my God, that’s so sweet. Then the other day my mom was like, oh, your aunt was saying that she didn’t hear you talk much on this one episode. I’m like, I forgot. Oh, I had a migraine.

And I was like, yeah. It was really easy. As soon as my mom said what episode it was, I’m like, yeah, I had a migraine that day. So I didn’t talk about it. Joanne had to carry it.

There’s things that I am happy to like that that are coming keep listening Brie has like a story bubbling I’m like a volcano getting ready to erupt I have like things that are right here that I’m about ready to just like we’re gonna do a whole episode about this

This is like the most important pedal. The last one because of it. Yeah. Sorry, I’m interrupting.

I do. Again, people. Hello, my ADHD baby. Hello, perimenopause. Brie is really struggling right now.

And I appreciate it. No. Because then I’m like, I’m not doing a good job masking. It’s coming out. No.

It isn’t. It’s so much more than that.

No, can’t. can’t even. I’ve told you this before. The perspective that I carry into this is the been divorced and remarried now and my husband and I bringing in things that we learned from our first marriage. And one of which is being extremely straightforward. And so like an example of something I have to tell my husband and this will kind of blow your, and this is a big, it’s a boundary thing that he thought he was doing right, but he was

completely getting it backwards because he was doing somebody else’s boundary. So my example here real quick, I hope, is that when I get really emotional and I’m overwhelmed and there’s just too much going on and I’m kind of getting into my anxiety depression, my husband will often say, okay, it sounds like you have a lot going on and he’ll like they go in the other room, he’ll give me space. And I have told him,

like on a couple of occasions, like, I appreciate the space, anything over 10 minutes, I need you to come and get me. And he’s like, why? I’m like, because anything over 10 minutes, my brain turns into now I’m calm and now you don’t want me. I’ve become too much. I’m too overwhelming. And you’re not here because you don’t like me. And he’s like, no, I was just trying to give you space. Like my first wife would like, and I’m like, no, I’m telling you right now, I need hugs.

I need you to come up and hug me and be there physically.” And he was like, okay, I have to remind him of that boundary a lot that like I go from fight to come in and be here with me. Otherwise it causes like days worth of hurt and upset and holding things in and not communicating.

I on that. don’t think I’ve ever said that to him. actually, next time I see him, I will tell him that I am working on that. am working on because in my mind, he shouldn’t have to figure out what I want. I should be able to communicate it. So that is a goal that I have is to work on communicating better and letting him know when I need him with me.

And remember, the best mom’s a happy mom. Take care of you. I’ll talk to you later. Thanks for stopping by.

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