Finding Balance: A Journey Through Motherhood, Yoga, and Self-Discovery with Gina

 Meet Gina, a yoga enthusiast turned mom entrepreneur, who decided to capture the reins of her life, balancing her roles seamlessly and inspiring many along her journey. Join us as we journey through Gina's life story, from her battle with postpartum depression her refuge in yoga, to the birth of Invitation Yoga & Events.

Gina's  isn't just about the struggle; it's about discovering the silver lining. After a sudden move due to water damage at her home and the usual trials of motherhood, she found her calming sanctuary in yoga. This path led her to create Invitation Yoga & Events, a mobile yoga practice designed to help women reconnect with themselves and create a supportive community. Be ready to dive into an enlightening chat about how you can find peace and self-discovery even in the most tumultuous times.

But it's not all yoga and balance. Gina also shares her exploration of Ayurveda and how it helped her identify her dominant dosha. We also discuss understanding our love languages and connecting with our inner selves. Ending on a high note, we reflect on the pros and cons of having a creative brain and how grounding practices can keep us present and mindful. It's easy to get lost in the hustle of everyday life, but let's take a moment to breathe with Gina, and get a fresh perspective on motherhood, yoga, and self-discovery.

Read the  about Ayurveda https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4719489/

Take the Dosha Quiz >>Here<<

Connect with Gina of  Invitation Yoga and Events 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

What's better than a regular happy hour? How about an ultimate happy hour for moms? Martini Mama's podcast is a weekly hangout for modern mamas to discuss mamahood, work-life balance, blended families and self-care. So whether you're looking for advice, community or a new bestie, you are in the right place. Cheers.

Speaker 2: 0:23

Hey guys, welcome back to Martini Mama's podcast. Y'all. I have my new favorite person in the house We've met in these local streets of San Antonio. Her name is Gina. She's about to get our mind and our body right. I am not lying. Let me get her on in here so y'all can enjoy what I be enjoying when I'm with her. Okay, hey, Gina.

Speaker 3: 0:49

Hey, rika, thanks for having me today.

Speaker 2: 0:53

Of course. Of course you know I wanted to. You know been trying to get you on for quite some time and I was like you know what, when we come back full strong, after you know the curator side of the house, you're gonna be the first person on, and so tell people about yourself.

Speaker 3: 1:09

So I am the founder and owner of a company called Invitation Yoga and Events, so I'm fully mobile. I don't have my own yoga studio, but what I do is I create fully customized mobile yoga and mindfulness experiences for private groups. So I go directly to people's homes and places of business and create essentially yoga parties to help people connect, learn more about themselves and relax, let go of some stress.

Speaker 2: 1:38

Mmm, okay, and so you, how is this working with, like, having kids and spouse and all of the things?

Speaker 3: 1:46

Yeah, it's a little bit of a balancing act, but I'm loving it for sure. So I'm a mom of two girls. My kids are nine and five and I started this, so I have a background in education. I taught middle school for over seven years.

Speaker 3: 2:05

Sixth and eighth grade English and social studies was my favorite thing to do, and then, after I had my oldest daughter, I took the year sabbatical and then my husband got promoted and I decided to stay home and then proceeded to homeschool my kiddos and just was home for a little while. And then I did love it and then just kind of felt after a while that I needed a change and needed to pour back into myself a little bit and get back into the community and express my leadership and my gifts in different ways. And so then I started my own business, and it's really been a blessing in terms of being able to create my own schedule and balance motherhood and career so that I can be there for all the special moments and also have something that lights me up. So I feel really lucky, good good.

Speaker 2: 2:57

I think that's one of the best things I love to hear is when we're doing something. That really lights us up. You know, yeah, for sure. All right, well, we don't get back to you, but you know what we like to do. We gotta get you in for this. Mom vibe check. All right, I'm ready, you ready? Y'all always say that, okay, which couple would you switch lives with? Are you ready? I'm ready? This is us Randall and Beth, luke and Lorelai from Gilmore Girls or Meredith and Derek from Grey's Anatomy.

Speaker 3: 3:36

Oh, luke and Lorelai Gilmore Girls was my favorite when I was growing up. It was funny. I was talking to a friend the other day and she was like you know, you've gotten older when you used to be able to relate to Rory and now you relate more to Lorelai Gilmore. So that's kind of where I'm at in life, but I love them. I love them, oh my goodness.

Speaker 2: 3:59

So like I was flipping the shows and I had put it off on my daughter, she was like look at that intro mom, this is so out. I was like this used to be the show girl. She could not appreciate it, she not cut, she could not. Okay, next question which cartoon would you say you would have your kids sit down and binge watch? Doug Ren and Stimpy or Daria?

Speaker 3: 4:33

Oh my gosh, daria, well okay, so with my kids it has to be Doug. I used to love Daria, though I went through a stage in middle school where I mean people tease me because I'm sunshine and butterflies, but in middle school I liked my combat boots. I thought Daria was hilarious. But yeah, for my kiddos probably Doug. Oh my goodness.

Speaker 2: 4:58

Those are good. That's it. So you got those two. That's a good one. I did it. You know we relayed, right, that was fun. Okay. So, gina, back to life as a mom and a boss, right? What really made you get into yoga?

Speaker 3: 5:17

So I had started it for the first time back when I was a teacher. So it was a. I was really passionate about my job. I loved it, I was a really hard worker, so I would get there at like six six 30 in the morning, wouldn't leave until like seven o'clock at night, because it was, it was a passion, it felt like a vocation to me, but it's also really exhausting, right Cause it takes a lot, it takes a lot out of you, it's emotional, and so I was just looking for a way to kind of pour back into myself and find balance.

Speaker 3: 5:53

And so I was in Glen Ellen, a suburb of Chicago at the time, and there was a studio that was just kind of down the street from my apartment and I decided, you know, after work, a couple of times a week, I'm going to go and I'm just going to develop a personal practice and I'm going to see what this is like. And my, my teacher's name was Marina. She was amazing, had just a really beautiful balance of yoga poses but also making it a little bit more introspective as well. So I felt like it felt really like self care, and that was the first time I started yoga.

Speaker 2: 6:31

And so you have your baby and you, like I, can't go back to school. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 6:38

You know it was just it was. It was tricky. You know I was, I was nursing, so that meant I was pumping, which meant that you know all the breaks that are built in during the day where you're supposed to be collaborating with other team members or planning your lessons or grading. I couldn't do that as easily anymore, so all that spare time disappeared. I was really leaning on my team and I just felt really divided, you know, like shoes and daycare, and you know I pick her up and I have to get dinner on the table and get her in bed, and there was just not enough hours in the day and I felt like I wasn't being the best teacher I could be, I wasn't being the best mom I could be, and I just really needed a change. And so at that point I decided to stay home for a little while and just kind of explore that element of other events.

Speaker 2: 7:28

Yeah, Did you experience like postpartum Depression?

Speaker 3: 7:35

Yeah, I did. I was like you know, it wasn't diagnosed at the time, but so I had for my well for both of them. But for my oldest one I had planned a natural birth. So I'm, my husband and I went to Bradley birth classes, which took like I think it was like 12 weeks of classes of you know how did, all the different methods for you know, pain management and all that, and I had this great, great vision of what I wanted. I switched practitioners to a midwifery and I had had high hopes and then she turned breach and we tried all the things to turn her. We did something called ECB in the hospital where they, the doctors and nurses, would try to manually turn her. She was too big and it wasn't happening and so they said I had to have C-section.

Speaker 3: 8:30

The recovery was really, really difficult. So that was hard. I felt like for months and months I just could not get up off the couch. So it was hard to go from somebody who was really go, go, go. I mean like as a teacher I was always on my feet, I was a leader in my school and working with other people to be had that sudden change just beyond the couch. It totally changed my life. It was really hard.

Speaker 2: 9:00

I think we don't talk about that enough, because we have these, we have these vibrant personalities, and then there's this shift After we have a baby, and it's like when they say you have a baby, it completely changes you, it does, it changes your mindset, it changes how you have to learn to push through. And I just think that's a good conversation. I always have Like look, I was a go-getter, had a baby, not so much. And so how did you find self again? Was that yoga?

Speaker 3: 9:35

I think it was a combination of things. I think in the beginning, when you first become a mom, your confidence is kind of like I don't know. For me, my confidence was low in the beginning. I was like I didn't even know. I literally don't even know how to get up off the couch. I mean, the first step was just like getting my hands back because my baby was colicky. It's like the moment I put her down she's screaming. And I was like, how do I feed myself? How do I do anything? And so I learned how to use baby carriers, I learned how to use the sling and the wrap and all the things, all of the things right, and I was like, oh, now I can make myself a sandwich. That was probably the first baby step.

Speaker 3: 10:23

And then just slowly finding community, I did a lot of reading because I was doing a lot of baby holding and I learned about parenting in motherhood and got into what does it mean to be a respectful parent? What does it mean to help my babies develop a secure attachment? I learned a lot about attachment, parenting, and ended up building my own community. I was kind of early on the curve of my group of friends for having children, and so I felt a little bit isolated in that nobody else had kids, so I had to make my own tribe, if you will. And so we went through the process of creating a chapter through attachment, parenting international, and we had meetings to. They were almost like support group meetings for new moms. Honestly, we had topics like nursing, or what do I do if my baby doesn't sleep, or what do I do if my in-laws think everything I do is wrong, or you know Right, right, all of that.

Speaker 3: 11:29

So, and that was how I started to build community and, honestly, during that time of my life, it was difficult to do yoga. I mean, I had that practice prior to having kids and that was really integral and I did it a little bit through my pregnancies and then proceeded to step away a bit, because you know when your baby's eating every two hours and you've got, you know, 30 minutes in between, there's not a lot of time for that and you can try to sneak it in, but honestly, I really didn't at that time. You know, got back into it several years back. I was homeschooling, everything was fine, and then we had to leave our home. We had issues with mold and water damage in our house. That was really sudden and surprising, and it was such that we were working with insurance companies and we were told that we had to get out of the house and we were gone for nine months with just like the clothes on our back and enough clothes for everybody for seven days, stuffed in garbage bags, and that was it.

Speaker 2: 12:40

Oh my that is well so. It's so much there to like unpack because, like number one, you know a season moms, you know a listen to this and be like, you know how to just get up and you know, baby, it's like no motherhood does not come with a manual. Your first baby you were literally like trying to figure it out. You're like it's gotta be a way and I think when you are, it lets us know the importance of having community and tribe, especially when your friends are not. You know, on the same, like y'all steal my girls but your girl over here got a baby and so I need some girlfriends who gonna be with me to, you know, understand my struggles and pain. So communication kind of it differs, you know. And then you come through this like man, not only am, now I'm trying to find a way of life, normalcy, now we gotta go, and so how was that?

Speaker 3: 13:47

on the kids, it was rough, and so this is where I got back into yoga, right. So it was very difficult. We were in a hotel for several months. It was just a one room and we had just gotten two kittens. We like we didn't know. You know, like you never know when the rug's gonna get pulled out from under you. We had two brand new kittens. My kids were really young and we were just in this tiny hotel room. We were homeschooling, so it's not like I was bringing them to school every day. We were just us.

Speaker 3: 14:16

Husband was working a lot, trying to deal with everything with the house, I mean it was rough and then eventually moved into an apartment temporarily before we were able to come back home. But it was incredibly stressful. We saw an uptick in tantrums like never before because they didn't understand. You know, why don't we have our stuff? Why aren't we in our house? Why aren't we in our neighborhood? What about our friends? And you know you try to maintain a sense of normalcy as much as possible, but we were all really, really struggling and at some point in there I just talked to my husband and said you know, I really need to get back into my personal practice because I remembered how transformative it had been for me in the past, and I could feel that I needed it. I needed something for me, I needed to get back into it, and so he and it had been difficult.

Speaker 2: 15:11

Wait, wait, wait. What was that feeling. What was that feeling? Was it suffocating? Was it? What was the feeling?

Speaker 3: 15:17

You know that time was really full. It was a lot of anxiety of you know is are we gonna be okay? Where are we gonna end up? You know, am I ever gonna see? And you think you know, well, the stuff in your house is just stuff. But you know there are a lot of things that are sentimental photo albums, my dad's guitar you know, like things that aren't irreprinciable and it's just like that feeling of unknown.

Speaker 3: 15:49

I needed to ground. You know, I needed to really find calm in the midst of chaos. I needed to find stability so that I could be a parent that was strong and steady for my kids. You know it's hard to listen to tantrum after tantrum and screaming and you know meltdown. And to understand like hey, I get it, this is rough, but also like I'm dealing with it too, and so I could stay calm. But then I needed a way to refill my own cup so that I could continue to show up for my family.

Speaker 2: 16:27

Man, I think it's so important that you know, in those moments we have to go back to find the thing that grounds us and, you know, sometimes it is your faith and sometimes it is a matter of having practices in place. For you it was yoga. I think the thing is is when we don't take time to actually feel what we're feeling, you know, and we just try to push through without, like, without, without actually pouring back into ourselves, like you stay on the struggle bus so much longer and it's a transfer energy. The kids began to feel it. So you're down, they're feeling your energy of anxiety and everything, and I know I mean for me, I think mom set the tone in a house and so when mom is off, everything is off. I truly believe that.

Speaker 2: 17:22

So, yeah, man, I'm like, yeah, like tantrum after tantrum. I got a toddler over here. I could imagine Okay.

Speaker 1: 17:32

Okay, yeah.

Speaker 2: 17:34

So now you are imitation yoga. I love that you have this like mobile aspect of it right, but I also love that you teach a practice to help women rediscover who they are. And I want you all to the principle a little bit. I want you to tell us about it.

Speaker 3: 18:00

Yeah. So I guess for me you know with my own personal experiences, yoga was so transformative for me and so I, in that regard, I wanted to. I wanted to give back and create experiences where women could feel safe, finding themselves and finding a practice that works for them. So I think what's really special about what I do is, you know, I'm a big purple. I love yoga studios. I have my own personal practice. I go to a yoga studio.

Speaker 3: 18:32

But you know, the way that yoga studios work is that they have a set schedule and it's you know, if you go at 9 am it's going to be fitness, if you go at 6 pm it's going to be restorative, it's not, and you have to go with what fits your schedule ultimately right. So it's not necessarily catered to what your specific needs are and it can also be kind of intimidating the first time you go into a yoga studio. I know a lot of people are right here all the time. You know I'm not flexible, I'm not bendy, I've never done it, I don't, I'm a super beginner, right, and they're very hesitant, and so I feel really blessed that I get to work with so many people who've actually never done yoga before.

Speaker 3: 19:15

I often am like a person's first experience with it, which I think is great because I get to design an experience for exactly what it is that they want and need. You know, if they want, if they're like hey, it's girls night, we just want to chill, we've had a really rough week, like we just want to relax and do that. If I'm working with a group of women who are deep into fitness and they're like we want to sweat, it's like okay, well, we can. You know we can do that too.

Speaker 3: 19:41

Yeah, but ultimately, when we're talking about the awesome of the yoga poses, I like to think of what I do is like choose your own adventure yoga, because I like to offer a lot of options, you know. So I like to make it accessible to everybody. You know, we're all different, or levels of experience are different or bodies are different, and yoga really is about sort of, you know, reclaiming. I want to say reclaiming like ownership of your body, right, like to be able to say, yes, that pose works for me. You're like no, that's not what I'm going to do right now, that doesn't work for me, and having that be okay.

Speaker 2: 20:19

Yes, I think that part right there is that having it be okay. I think sometimes, oftentimes, we compare our bodies and what we're doing to other people, but being able to come in and say you know what that pose don't work for me. Do you got another one? And someone who is leading the class not look at you like no, just try harder, but say, sure, I do. How about you try this and you know, and not feel bad or not feel ashamed or have someone give the snippy? Look like girl. You can't do that pose, you know. So I think that's important. But, child, when you said that you get newbies, I was over here thinking to myself Gina over here popping, popping cherries for yoga.

Speaker 3: 21:11

That's right. You know, I actually had a client say that to me. She was like you pop my yoga cherry. So I had to hire you back for this other experience. She's so funny, but no, I love it. I love it. Exactly what you said. You know, I have to give a shout out to my friend and mentor, mel Marie. Yoga Mel is who trained me. She's phenomenal. She's all about trauma sensitive yoga. She's all about adaptive therapeutic yoga. You're not going to see me teaching people to stand on their head.

Speaker 2: 21:45

I don't like being upside down.

Speaker 3: 21:48

You know, it's not about performance, right, it's about listening to your body, it's about showing up for yourself. It's about creating that community. You know, it's just kind of a different. It's a different vibe.

Speaker 2: 22:04

So I know we talked about beta, a little bit off-camera. Can you tell us a little bit about that practice?

Speaker 3: 22:12

So it's called Are you Beta, and it's a sister science of yoga. So we hear a lot about this in Western culture in like skincare products. So a lot of times if people have heard of this, it's like oh, my lotion is you know? I got it from a spa that says that they have items that are good for my skin in this capacity. But in the sister science of yoga, the idea is you want to come into balance. So I recently led an experience for women in business and we're delving a little bit deeper into this topic where the belief is that there's three different doshas is the term, which is pitta, vata or kapa, and these are three different like personality types almost, or they're based off of the elements.

Speaker 3: 23:10

So pitta people, they're like that's my fire, like really fiery people. Vata is air and ether, so like spacey, and then I mean, hey, that's me, I can say it, they're where the dreamers right. And then kapa is their earth, their earth elements, earth and water, and so you can take there's certain quizzes that you can take to figure out what your dominant dosha is, and the whole foundation of our Ayurveda science is that you want to come into balance. So everybody has these elements inside of them in some capacity, and you can see this through internal and external traits. But the claim is that optimal health comes when there's a balance among these different types, and so you can do that through the foods you eat, the things that you consume, the types of exercise that you partake in, and so in that way it's really a lifestyle more than just a yoga practice, and that's why I call it a sister science.

Speaker 2: 24:33

Yeah, Okay, so which one am I? Which one do you think I'm gonna be?

Speaker 3: 24:38

All right. Well, I think I would guess that you are mostly pitta. I would say maybe, so you can be what's called a by-dosha, where you're like kind of two things. I would say you might be pitta kapa would be my guess, but I'd say you're mostly pitta.

Speaker 2: 24:56

Okay, here we go. Here we go right. Okay, okay, it says it manifests itself in my metabolism. I'm like please do, because I'm your girl trying to drop a couple of pounds. Okay, I'm like so interested in this, what would be a good place to take a quiz?

Speaker 3: 25:21

You know I'll send you over a link and so you can share the link. And I have a quiz that I developed as well, based off of the studies that I've read. It's really interesting. I mean people. I have some friends who are scientists and psychologists and I was telling them about it and they were like, raise an eyebrows at me and they immediately one of my friends. She immediately hopped on PubMed because she's got all the access and she was like, oh my gosh, gina, look at this. And she sends me over this article about all the brain research behind. I was like I'm telling you, but you know it's important too not to over identify. You know I look at it a little bit. You know, when I was doing the workshop, I was talking with the women there about love languages as well. If you're familiar with the five love languages.

Speaker 2: 26:11

You know I love some love languages. You know, that's my thing, girl.

Speaker 3: 26:14

Yeah, and you know, it kind of reminds me of that in terms of, like, you know, everybody's got this dominant love language, but you really need people to speak all of them to you right, like before you have a dominant doshha.

Speaker 3: 26:26

It might be out of balance in some way but, like there's a little bit of all of them in us, you know so, but I do think it's really really interesting just in terms of knowing yourself. So for me, I'm mostly Vata, so Vata's are really like creative types, and that can be beneficial. Right Is thinking about what I do, like I plan these unique mindfulness experiences. I have to have this creative brain, so I'm constantly thinking of different new ways to bring yoga and mindfulness to completely different people who want new and innovative things. So that benefits me. The flip side can be, you know, spacey, head in the clouds, like always thinking about other things and having trouble staying present in the moment. So that's why, for me, knowing that about myself having a foundation in prayer, in meditation, in really grounding practices where I am very mindful and practicing in the moment, that's really important for me, Cause I can get kind of lost in my head sometimes.

Speaker 2: 27:31

Me too, me too, and I see why you say it's a little bit of us in a minute. And I think, especially as a creative, it gets very hard not to be spacey, especially when you're a big dreamer and I am. I dream a lot. I was just telling my husband about that. He was just like and you need to write it down, cause I will sit there and have it all in my head. And so my next question really is blockages. Right, I think sometimes there are blockages in our body that really don't allow us to feel.

Speaker 2: 28:07

What we need to feel Is that something that you deal with in your mindfulness sessions.

Speaker 3: 28:16

Yeah, I mean it's interesting that you bring that up, because I was taught that from a Vedic perspective, from an ancient Indian perspective where yoga is rooted, the belief there is that depression is a problem with Prana, which is energy moving through the body, and so, from a yoga perspective, how you deal with that is through channeling the breath and through asana or yoga practices. It's all movement of energy throughout the body, and so a lot of people feel like if they're having blockages, it's really a matter of getting back into the body and moving the energy through, and the breath is a great channel for that, and that is something that I do teach is different breathwork practices.

Speaker 2: 29:12

Now, is there a way to associate emotional feelings with different sensory or pains in the body?

Speaker 3: 29:24

Yeah. So I guess I would say, if you're talking like you know, when you say the word blockages and emotions and parts in the body, immediately my brain goes to chakras, so the energy points in the body, and there are yoga poses that are associated with those. So you know, if you're talking about, you know you have, let's say, you're going through a heartache, you know you're struggling in relationship. There's a heart chakra, a heart energy center. So, from a yoga perspective, from asana, from the poses, what would you do? You do heart openers right. So you're opening your chest, you're spiraling your heart toward the ceiling, you're flying your arms behind your back and leading with your chest, and it's really about bringing intention and energy to those places where you can really feel it. So absolutely yes.

Speaker 2: 30:25

Hmm, like my see, spacey, mine is just going just listening to you talk, boy, okay, I know for you, you know, yoga is not just a matter of practice, it has truly become a lifestyle for you, and they say your gift will make way from you, and so you have such a beautiful gift that you share with so many just moms, but women in general that just need a different, like you said, safe space, no matter their level, their experience. You know their class, social class in the world, and so I love that you always have something for everybody. You know it's like the doggy and such and such yoga, and we're doing mindfulness and the boss yoga, where it's just like for the, you know, for entrepreneurs and career working women, and then the moms, and so it's truly always a space for you and that's what I love, and so thank you for that, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 2: 31:34

Okay before we get off here, tell the people how they can stay connected with you, what you have coming up in a near future and all of the things.

Speaker 3: 31:44

Yeah, absolutely so. My website is invitationyogacom, so that's an easy way to kind of jump on and see some examples. So I have all my past public experiences up there and with the shop tab, so people can kind of see all the different things that I have done in the past. And then there's examples of how you put together a very unique private event as well up there. You can also find me on Instagram at invitationyoga. That's a good way to keep up with what I'm doing in upcoming events.

Speaker 2: 32:17

Okay, one last question. Well, I have two.

Speaker 1: 32:20

I have two.

Speaker 2: 32:20

There you go, cause I always like to end with one, but I know that locally we have access to you. Are you thinking about a virtual community, maybe like a YouTube channel, you know, where they can wake up and do yoga with you for like 15, 20 minutes to start their day?

Speaker 3: 32:42

Yeah, I think that'd be amazing and that's definitely something where I see the business growing in that regard, because I think, you know, having yoga become a part of people's lives is something that I definitely want to help facilitate. So, you know, the main focus is the special events but, you know, in between those, having a way for people to be able to cultivate a home practice, I think would be really awesome.

Speaker 2: 33:13

Yeah, yeah, okay. So this is one question that I always like to end with, and that is what is one lesson that your mom didn't teach you? You had to learn on your own in motherhood.

Speaker 3: 33:29

Ooh, that my mom did oh gosh, that's not where I thought you were going with that question. That's so funny, Cause my mom taught me all the things. Let me see you know, I think I think no mom wants to tell their own kid how difficult motherhood can be sometimes.

Speaker 2: 33:48

Right.

Speaker 3: 33:50

Like, obviously, all the moms, I love my kids, every mom loves their kids and, you know, nobody tells you that. It can be really hard sometimes and I think that nobody's gonna. It sounds like nobody's coming for you. You know that ultimately you've got to advocate for your. It's true, right, you've got to advocate for your own needs, because it is very easy as a parent who takes care of the house and takes care of the kids and, you know, takes care of the meals and is the wife and all that you know people like being taken care of and so they're not gonna. No one's coming to say, well, what do you need? You should take a break.

Speaker 3: 34:31

You know, I think I was waiting for a long time for someone to say, look how hard you're working, like, why don't you go just take a breath, take some time for you? That person's not coming. That person has to be you. I truly believe it. You know you got to love yourself and pour into yourself as much as you do for other people, and you know I felt so guilty for so long doing that and the moment that I shifted that in my heart and said you know what I matter too.

Speaker 3: 34:59

I need this. I need self-care for me, I need to start being better about showing up for myself. And I said things like you know, I've had a long day, I'm gonna go for a little walk right now, or, you know, I'm headed to yoga or I'm going out with the girls. I expected there to be a lot of pushback of like, hey, wait a minute, but what? And you know what? There wasn't, there was not. I expected there to be so much black and guilt and there wasn't. A bit of it. It was okay, have a great time. And I was like why did I not do this sooner? Why, you know? Yes, so much of that guilt is self-imposed, it is. I wish that I would have figured that out sooner, I guess.

Speaker 2: 35:43

Oh, that's a good one. I mean you're absolutely right. I mean, you're absolutely right. Well, that is the end of today's show. I hope you enjoyed it. If we're not connected on Instagram, which is my favorite place to hang out, be sure to stop by and say hi at Martini Mama's podcast. Also, if you haven't done so, please follow rate and review, because higher ratings and higher reviews mean more dope moms can find us and I keep bringing you fresh mom content. That matters Until next Thursday. Be blessed.