March 31, 2025 • 32 mins
Anna MacArthur joins us to discuss her powerful new book "Hope for Moms: It's Tough Out There, But So Are You," offering wisdom for mothers who feel everyone else has parenting figured out while they're just trying to keep everyone alive.
• Examining how we often use children as "walking report cards" to validate our parenting
• Creating a "Yes, No, Maybe" system to prioritize what truly matters for your family
• Finding your authentic self beyond motherhood through Anna's "This Sounds Fun" list approach
• Understanding that self-care goes deeper than bubble baths—it's about valuing yourself as worthy
• Navigating transracial adoption with honesty about preparedness and growth
• Embracing new activities (like horseback riding at 48) that aren't for the family but just for you
• Recognizing that parenthood feels like "whack-a-mole" and how to stop comparing your behind-the-scenes to others' highlight reels
• Moving from survival mode to thriving as you approach the empty nest phase
Pick up Anna MacArthur's "Hope for Moms" wherever books are sold and follow her journey on Instagram.
Amazon link to purchase Anna's book:
Hope for Moms: It's Tough Out There, but So Are You: Anna McArthur: 9781643435602: Amazon.com: Books
We want to hear from you! Reach out to us on socials or at emptynestquestpod@gmail.com to share how our conversations are landing with you! xo-Melynda and Jennifer
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Empty Nest Quest, the podcast where we
redefine midlife and embracethe journey ahead.
Join your hosts, jennifer andMelinda, as we share inspiring
stories, helpful hints,entrepreneurial advice and tips
that will have you thriving notjust surviving, during this
transformative time of your life.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Whether you're approaching the empty nest phase
or already navigating it, we'rehere to support you every step
of the way.
Let's embark on this questtogether.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Okay, hey y'all, welcome to the empty nest quest.
I have my dear friend and nowpublished author, anna MacArthur
, with me today and we are goingto be talking about your new
book and all things parenting.
So Hope for Moms is Anna's book.
(00:52):
I've got many, many, manyJennifer and I read out of the
same copy, so half the pages aredog-eared.
We were doing the post-it notetabs and that started feeling
overwhelming because there werejust too many.
So, yeah, so I can't wait foreverybody to hear about your
book.
I thought about doing like a biothat I made up about you.
(01:13):
Do you want me to?
Sure, I can't wait.
I can't wait to hear whatyou're going to say.
Well, I was like going to getyour real bio off of your book
site.
Well, I was like going to getyour real bio off of your book
site.
And then I was like, but reallyso, this is who Anna is to me,
which is so egocentric.
But this is who Anna is to me.
She is my favorite pastor I'veever heard from a pulpit.
(01:37):
She literally spoke to my heartthe first time I ever heard you
preach at First Press 20something years ago.
Yes, and then we have becomegreat walking buddies, our legs
can't keep up with our mouths.
We run out.
(01:58):
We run out of steps, but I neverrun out of words.
So it's hard and we have justsupported each other kind of
from a distance, which has beenfun because we're not right in
each other's circle and so ithas felt.
I just want to encourage ourfriends out there to find people
like we found each other to besuper encouraging and supportive
(02:22):
just of you, and you don't haveto know your whole family deep,
deep, deep to know each other'shearts deep.
So Anna is that kind of personthat you can walk with any day
of the week or any years aheaddown the road, and she is going
to just impart wisdom and humor.
And I really think my favoritepart about you is you can we can
(02:43):
be in the depths of somethingso deep and you always have the
best like wit that just comesbusting through, cause I think
all things that are importantthat God wants to say to us are
said with a little touch ofhumor, so we can bear it.
So we can bear it.
That's how God talks to meanyway, cause I'm a lightweight
and that's the only way I cantake it.
(03:06):
So what would your journey tobecoming an author look like?
Speaker 3 (03:11):
So I started with blogging about eight years ago
and that was great because itgot me writing really regularly.
But that's such a small youhave 800 words or something and
it felt to me, especially as mykids got older, I wanted to be
careful about oversharing theirstories.
I wanted to say more about howI was dealing with those things
(03:35):
as a mom and less about thespecifics of theirs, and I
needed a bigger container, Ithink, than essays and articles
and blog posts, I think, thanessays and articles and blog
posts, which I loved doing.
But if I was going to talkabout race and adoption and
learning, disabilities and justthe curveballs that we've been
thrown, that needed more space.
I thought to be able to kind ofget to what was really
(03:58):
important and then also just tobe able to write about what it
felt like to me as a mom wholooked around and thought, oh my
gosh, everybody else knows whatthey're doing, everybody else
has their act together, theirfamily can find their shoes, um,
which I know isn't true.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
I know that's not true, but it looks like it is
like everybody else's kids lookreally all right and then the
moms like have on lipstick andstuff, right, yeah, yeah, I'm
with you and I would just kindof like look around and be like
is anybody else just getting um,just knocked sideways regularly
, um?
Speaker 3 (04:35):
and so I wrote the book in part thinking of myself
15, 20 years ago, what I wishsomebody had said to me not that
I would have been able to hearit necessarily, but I that I
would have been able to hear itnecessarily, but I hope I would
have been able to open up alittle bit to listen, to say
this is not, this isn't allabout you, anna.
I mean these, these littlepeople that you are raising,
(04:57):
have their own journeys and youget to be a part of it and
sometimes they'll need you as aguide, but they aren't walking
report cards, which I talk aboutin the book.
I think.
As somebody who went fromworking in the church to being a
stay-at-home mom, I really wasinsecure and looking for
validation that I was doing agood job and it was really
(05:19):
tempting for me to be like seethis one, this kid's doing okay.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Which is so wrong.
I think that's what we're alldoing, but I really think that's
how it starts.
Yeah, that's such a good,that's such a good way to that.
I mean, that's what I just loveabout how you speak, about how
you write it's, so you put itinto words that we're like oh my
gosh, yes, that's what I wasdoing.
Because that doing it, becausethat's what we did.
(05:46):
We went from receiving a reportcard yes, yes for our words, our
actions, the way we could fillout a piece of paper to go into.
If, if people went straightinto work, then they went into
kind of new report cards?
Right?
What's your performance?
Do you still deserve to be here?
Are you getting promoted,demoted and then you become a
mom?
Right, and we can't rely on ourkids for the feedback oh my
mean they're screaming andthrowing macaroni at us when
(06:07):
there's too much power.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
That should not be allowed they cannot be the CEO
of the house, please, no.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
So, yeah, that is such a great perspective and we
and I do think that we do thatat the beginning and I hope I
mean I know some people areprobably way, way wiser than
Anna and I but I do think thatis exactly what happened to me
at the beginning.
It felt like my kids weresaying to the world whether or
not, um, I was doing a good jobloving them and caring for them
(06:41):
by every little noise they made,right?
I mean, I heard a story justrecently of of a mom who you
know had through this giantbirthday party for her little
one and then she got so upsetthat her daughter did, I mean,
like a one or a two year old.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
That and she didn't come out and like smile for the
camera and get excited and it'slike bless it, you know, and and
I get.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
The thing that broke my heart was, I feel, that mom's
heart.
She was trying to do the thingthat she wanted to look back at
and the photo albums and to forthe grandparents to see, like,
look at this life we're buildingfor ourselves, right, you know?
And but then forgetting,somehow we slip into a ravine or
something when we start goingdown, right that?
Speaker 3 (07:25):
track, and it's dangerous both ways.
If the kids are doing great,then you can end up really smug
and hard to be around, and ifthey're not doing great which
happens to every child at somepoint then it's that it was
something you did wrong, thatparents did wrong.
Somehow they didn't have theright manual, somehow they, you
(07:47):
know, missed something.
Um, so there's no outcome.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
that is good, right, if if that's for the ego of the
parent particularly right, right, okay, so I want to read y'all
a couple of quotes, just thatthere are so many, but a couple
of the ones um, early on in thebook you said essentially
parenting can feel like a gameof whack-a-mole and it can be
really isolating, and just bothof those.
(08:12):
You've got your one thing thatyou're trying to pound all the
whack-a-mole things and youcan't tell anybody because you,
you know, don't want to talk badabout what's going on in your
house, or maybe it's justself-serving, you don't want to
look bad, it's embarrassing andyou feel like everybody else
(08:35):
does know these things.
I loved the quote because thisspoke to me.
I can remember one particularsummer where jealousy and like
me, looking out, it was whenFacebook was kind of, the
pictures on Facebook were new.
Remember, facebook was words atfirst and then it was pictures.
And there was a summer whereAnna had surgery, we could not
go anywhere, we couldn't evenreally go to the pool, and it
(08:58):
and this quote, I loved it.
It says jealousy does not haveall the information.
Jealousy doesn't even usuallyhave our kids' best interests in
mind and I was like right,because I would look at
everybody going everywhere forthe summer and doing these
beautiful things with theirfamilies, and I thought, oh my
gosh, my kids are turning inpotatoes.
We're sitting in this house, wecan't go anywhere.
(09:19):
We can't even go to the pool,they can't even, you know.
And I just remember, likecaving in on myself that summer,
and at the end of the summer mysynopsis was okay, that's it.
We can never go a whole yearwithout going to the beach again
.
That was what I had to do.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
That's what you got out of it.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
The problem was we didn't have our beach vacation
and my wonderful husband waslike well, I think the beach is
always a great idea, but I thinkthere's something bigger at
play, right, right, especiallyif it's to document it so that
it can be shared too.
Well, it was more me thinkingthat's interesting, because I'm
(10:00):
sure somewhere underneath it wasalso that I didn't get to post
my picture.
But what it really was was thatbigger thing we do.
That, I think, is almostscarier than just wanting to
post the picture is.
I just saw everybody like inthis week of bliss, frolicking
on the beach with their kids,all happy sandcastles that never
caved in and no sunburns and nocrying fits.
(10:21):
You know, I saw the the like Isaw their pictures right and
made them into this one big longbeach trip that nobody has ever
had.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
No, we've all been to the beach with our families, we
know right, but it's like Ijust I think what I.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
I longed for some relief and, um, yeah, I think
that what I really was just.
But in in my mind I was likeand the only place we will get
that is at the beach.
And Johnny was like we can alsojust call a babysitter, honey,
it doesn't have right.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
And I think like there's stretches as a mom where
I've been content just sayingI'm just trying to keep
everybody alive, and meaningthat I mean when there's a lot
of toddlers, when there's, youknow, I just would think, okay,
my goal is, it seems like areasonable goal, but I mean it's
hard to keep it.
So I would think, okay, I'mgoing to keep everybody alive
this summer, and I felt likethat when they were toddlers and
(11:14):
then I felt like that againwhen they kind of started
driving as teenagers.
That's a different kind oftrying to keep them alive, but
both are.
That should be enough, I meanthat should be enough.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Well, can you speak to talk about the?
That makes me think of the partin the book and I can't
remember everything that you hada lot of things that piled up
and then you decided you weregoing to put the like yes, no,
maybe Can you talk about that?
That is so powerful, like if wecould just build in that
practice alone, right.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
So my husband had had knee surgery and the twins were
starting kindergarten and so hecouldn't drive.
He had had a mountain bikingaccident, so I had to really
kind of triage what isabsolutely important, and so it
was like, yes, we're going to dothese things.
Brian has to do physicaltherapy, elizabeth needed vision
therapy, everybody needed to goto school things.
Yes.
Then there was the no, whichwere things that were I knew in
(12:09):
the back of my mind, wereoptional, but I'd still been
making us do them, like mathnights at the school and big
birthday parties that I feltlike we needed to go to.
And then maybe were more thingsthat if we could get to them,
great, um.
And after his surgery then andhe was doing better I kind of
kept it in my mind as a way oflooking at how many more things
(12:32):
were optional in our lives thatI didn't think were optional,
cause I felt this sense ofobligation, um, and a sense of
maybe it was where we live, Idon't know this sense of, like
my kids aren't doing travel ballor, um, different things, that
I got much more comfortablesaying, yeah, that we, we just
can't pull that off, was kind ofwhere I would land A lot of
(12:55):
times we could have, but peoplewould have been in tears and we
wouldn't have seen each other asa family.
And you know there's there'sconsequences for the things that
we would pick or not pick.
So I try to still keep that inmind of what is absolutely
really.
It's about what your family'score values are, how you want to
spend your time as a family andwith each other.
(13:16):
It was the other thing that wasgood about it was I realized I
mean, my husband does so muchwithin our family with his work,
with our kids, and so when hewas hurt I was just like man,
this dishwasher is never gettingunloaded.
What is happening.
I was not expecting that pieceof it was that it really kind of
(13:36):
helped me realize how muchBrian does too.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
I do I.
I'm glad you mentioned that,because I think that's another
reason it's so nice for spousesto take time for themselves and
go kind of refresh away, even ifit's for an afternoon or just
one long day, you know.
But I mean I like to go awaylike on a trip.
Johnny is hard.
(14:00):
I love it when he does it forhimself, because it does.
It makes me appreciate him more.
It makes me see all that hedoes.
It's also nice to have space.
Yes, and there's actually allthis really great research about
what it does for a marriage foreach of you to go have your
time away and to kind of refresh, like the analogy of this
(14:22):
author, that I want to give themcredit but I can't remember who
I read it.
Anyway, maybe that'll come backto me, but he talked about there
being like, if you put twomagnets in a drawer that are
like you know that attract theones that attract the opposites,
they will dull over timebecause they need separation to
keep their you know their charge.
(14:44):
Yes, thank you, yes, and I would.
And he was like we're like thattoo, and I was like, oh my gosh
, I just love a pic.
You know a good visual.
So I feel like, yes, it'sharder when it's something is
wrong, right, cause.
Then it's like you're having totake care of your spouse and
right, oh no, like you're havingto take care of your spouse and
(15:05):
right, oh no, they used to doall this.
So then there's all the weirdcaregiver right craziness that
comes in your head.
Okay, I do want to back up.
I just realized, when anna saidthe twins, that I did not at
the beginning say that, um, annais a mother of four, and then
your, your oldest, are what liketwo years apart.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
So my oldest are 15 months apart, so they were one
grade apart.
So they're now 22 and 24.
So they're out of college.
So we kind of have done emptynest with those folks.
They're out working in theworld.
And then we have twins that arenow they just turned 17 last
week that we adopted from thehospital in Charleston when they
were babies.
(15:45):
So they were preemie twins andwe kind of changed our family.
In a weekend we went from twoto four and I write about it in
the book, not as so much abouttheir story, because so much of
that I'm protective of, butabout how it shaped us and how
(16:05):
it changed us, because I thinkwe thought we were ready,
because it's a transracialadoption, because we saw
ourselves as progressive, thatwe were ready to have
African-American twin girls inour house.
But it gave us a new lens tolook at every situation that we
go to and having to kind of thehumbling part of realizing that
(16:28):
being progressive is not thesame as anti-racist, in that
there was some work that we hadto do and that was a hard thing
to write about in the bookbecause I you know, I well, it
was just vulnerable.
It's always hard to write aboutrace but it's always really
important to write about it andto talk about it.
(16:49):
And I think for me there wasone editor when I was kind of
shopping the book and figuringout who I was going to publish
with, and I say in the book wewere approved by social workers.
Everybody was excited we wereready to do this transracially.
But I know in hindsight thatprobably the first Black people
(17:11):
to spend the night in our houseshould not have been our
children.
That you know we didn't.
I hadn't even realized thatuntil we were deep in this this,
that I thought we had enoughdiversity in our lives and we
did not.
We've had to build it.
And one of the editors said Idon't know if you should really,
even just if you should writethat.
(17:33):
And I was kind of like, but whyam I writing this book then, if
I'm saying we had it allfigured out.
We had it all figured out, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Well, I think I think what you're doing is you're
putting yourself which is whatI've always loved about you you
put yourself, you're puttingyourself to speak into that
space that we're all that wetiptoe in.
And especially now, because weare trying to be such, I feel
like we're all trying to partlybe like compassionate and more
(18:07):
open-minded and be sensitive tothings we don't understand.
Someone else's lived experienceLike I'm in a training right
now for to become a Pilatesinstructor and I've been through
so many trainings to become aPilates instructor and I've been
through so many trainings andwhat is really fascinating is,
over the years, you know they'regetting more and more.
(18:27):
You know trauma, informed bodypositive, but not just body
positive, body like teach,teaching us to be
anti-discriminatory towards eachother, and that that is great.
And there is something thatlike, as we get into those
(18:48):
spaces, that then you startgetting nervous when you speak,
that you're going to try to saysomething, to reach across the
table lovingly and you're goingto actually harm Right, and then
people stop speaking at all.
Is what I'm seeing right now is,yes, there's virtual and
negative things and all that,and I and I hate that too but I
(19:12):
find what makes me sadder arethe people that I think really
do want to have engagingconversations and they're afraid
because they don't want to.
You know, they don't want toflip a table by accident, and so
I feel like when you said thatit is edgy to hear you say that,
but also to me again.
(19:35):
That's why I love how you speakand you write.
It's like, oh, and it justhelps us like take that quick
look in the mirror and be alittle more honest about where
we are with things.
Yeah, because it might not berace for somebody, it might be
something else, but that is likeooh, yes, I get it.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Yeah, yeah, when we were talking about spouses going
away, one of the things that Iwas trying to kind of navigate
as I was writing was aboutthere's so much talk about
self-care for moms, which isgreat and super important, but a
lot of that is like spa daysand bubble baths and girls trips
and all of that, and I kind ofhad a sense as I was writing
(20:18):
that all of that is wonderfulbut it will not fix if you are
not seeing yourself as valued,If you don't see yourself as
worthy of time and love andattention.
There aren't enough bubblebaths in the world to fix that.
And I think what makes menervous in the self-care talk is
(20:40):
you do this so that you cancare for the people in your life
which is important to be ableto be, to fill yourself up so
that you can care for the peoplein your life.
But also, what if we fillourselves up and take care of
ourselves because we are lovelyand wonderful people who are
worthy of that, not becausewe're someone's mom or someone's
(21:03):
wife or daughter, but because,you know, I, I've been with Anna
for 52 years and I know whatshe needs and, um, I guess the
sense of I don't have to justifyit because I have four kids who
all, who all, meet me.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Yes, but in the I would do, I agree, I thought you
know I agree a thousand percent.
That is like the soapbox I feellike I live on.
Actually, I will tell y'allthat in I think it's chapter 10,
there's a lot, you know, kindof emphasizes I am not my kids,
and yeah, that's kind of trickyright, Cause you're like, but
kind of am, I'm not, I think Iam right.
(21:43):
And then I love, because a lotof the work I do is about um
kind of founded on these threeprinciples that I think 100 line
up with, like the christianvalues that we're taught if we
grew up in a christian home.
But honestly I feel like myfriends that are from other
religious traditions grow upwith these same values that are.
But there is there is a yogasutra, which is just a yoga.
(22:09):
You know kind of a phrase in ayoga book that also talks about
these same things and I'm likewell, of course, but it but it
is about self-awareness and how,how.
But it's kind of like thereisn't a direct translation and
it's bigger than self-awareness.
It's about like how, how deeplycan you know yourself so that
(22:34):
you can live fully?
Right, and once you havefigured that out and you turn
kind of turn up the volume onliving fully, then you are
automatically serving and givinggraciously from a full cup, but
not you're not filling up, justso you can.
(22:55):
But there is like this it'sit's more than one prong and I
think we kind of talk about oneprong at a time.
It's like important to havethat relationship with yourself
so that you can keep andmaintain and develop your
relationship with God or orwhatever you want to call I mean
(23:16):
, that's the name I call, youknow my highest source, but you
so that you can have thatspiritual relationship and the
relationship with yourself,which are so interwoven, and
then also serve and love and bepart of community and family and
all the things.
But it's like we tend to getreal stuck, like one of them and
(23:37):
kind of we only go three levelsout of 100 levels deep or
something.
So I have all these like fancytherapeutic practices to help
people kind of figure out whatdo I like.
But I really love and I'm justgoing to keep it now and
Jennifer loved it too, sheunderlined it too and I came up
with a this sounds fun list andI love that because I'm always
(24:00):
working with my clients on thisand I was taught this in one of
my trainings.
But this list of we would wehad to come up with a hundred
things that we just liked to do,that just delighted us, but we
could not put.
So this lady that I trained withshe called it level one,
self-care, and level two,self-care.
Level one is like stuff thatalso is like good for you, right
(24:23):
?
So yoga, I couldn't put onthere.
Meditation, I couldn't put onthere.
I'm like, well, what am I goingto put?
But it was truly just made mego like, oh, I really love this
creamer in my coffee and Ireally love to like sit quietly
in the morning with no lights onto have my coffee.
And it was just these tinylittle delights that I started
(24:44):
and then it turned into oh,maybe I'd want to blah, blah,
blah, right, so I want to hearabout your this sounds fun list.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
It was um what I wrote it down is I'm so fun I
make lists.
That's how fun I am.
I'm like you know what I'mgoing to make a list, Um, but
you did it with a cute colormarker.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
I did, I did markers.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
Um so, and then it was a real head scratcher.
I mean, I was kind of walkingaround like what does sound fun
to me, which I would encouragepeople to kind of regularly
check in with themselves and askwhere they like to go on
vacation, what they like to eat,what sounds fun to them not
what their?
kids like to eat where theirkids want to go on vacation,
what sounds fun to their kids.
I mean we do all of thatbecause we're in this time of.
(25:26):
I mean they do need us.
That is part of what we do forour families.
But if we kind of get erased inthat and I was getting a little
bit erased my kids, watching mykids do their things had become
too much of a hobby for me.
So I made this list that soundsfun and I landed this.
(25:50):
Is it's so random, it's so notlike what a 48 year old or
however it was to be, like youknow what I'm going to do.
So I started taking horsebackriding.
I love it and it is so fun andI love it so much.
And my family is not invitedBecause what I said was okay,
I'm going to start doing this.
I found a barn.
I rode some as a kid and did iton vacation, but I am not a
horse woman.
And when I told that my familyI was going to do that, my
(26:12):
husband was like, oh, you know,we could go, we have friends who
have horses.
And my daughter Elizabeth said,oh, I've been wanting to do
that too.
And I was like this is not.
This is what they do, right?
This is something I've had toprotect as and it's in some ways
, I say it's ridiculous, but Ineed to stop saying that,
because what it is is purelydelightful.
Yeah, there is not.
(26:32):
I'm not doing it so thatthere's a there's a reason that
I can write down and say this iswhy I'm doing it.
I'm doing it because I find alot of delight in it.
Um, and so that's been my.
My thing in this era has beenthe same things.
That has always been yoga andgardening and reading and those
things, but adding in this kindof random thing to take up as my
(26:57):
kids are getting older.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Yes, and I do, and I love that.
It's something that feels new,because I do think that when we
do new things, it lets us know anew part of ourselves.
That when we do new things, itlets us know a new part of
ourselves and it is.
If you are a person I mean mostpeople I know that are
listening are in the empty nestphase.
But if you are still having ahard time finding what really
(27:20):
sings to your soul and whatwe're saying just sounds
ridiculous and you're like, ohmy gosh, you know, even if you
can find something new, that youpull your people along with you
just for like a one off, likeif you've never taken your
people bowling, just justsomething silly.
(27:40):
Everybody seeing each otherthrough different eyes is also
sometimes helpful.
That's why I think, like quirkydate nights are fun.
Like if you just and by quirkyI just mean quirky to you, like
we always go eat at a restaurant, we'll just take a picnic
somewhere and just look how Imean you might really love it
and you might be like you know,we're not sit on the ground
people, I can't even sitcrisscross applesauce, and it'll
turn into a laugh fest.
(28:01):
I mean I think it's just likeget out of our box.
But as moms, I do think it's soimportant, or just parents, I
mean, and caregivers, right.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
I mean we're at that where we're caring for kids and
as our parents age and it'sdifferent.
I think we're talking about howto kind of remain fully alive,
yes, and not just kind of fade,you know, as as we get a little
bit used up by the needs aroundus.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
That's such a good way to say it, and I just want
to say we, we are kind of in themiddle of a menopause series
right now, and that is what,when you really read the
research about women in our agegroup, that part of what feels
(28:54):
so maddening about reaching outfor help when, cause we don't
feel like ourselves, and we gomaybe to the doctor or to the
counselor or whoever and say Ijust don't feel like myself and
for a long time, and I just feltso bad for all the generations
before us that did this, withoutany social media talk of
(29:14):
menopause or perimenopause whichI think has been fantastic and
is that is that it's almost likewomen at our age start to feel
invisible.
And if you hear Jane Fonda talksabout this really openly.
There's somebody else I can'tremember who.
I listened to somebody else onthe podcast that I'm just really
(29:37):
not nailing the names today,speaking of brain fog and
perimenopause.
Here she is, but yeah, therewas someone else that was like
more of a celebrity type figurethat talked about how she was
seeing her friends at this agestart to feel like we're like
they're fading or disappearingand I was like what and I don't
(30:00):
know.
I just thought it wasinteresting to start hearing
women at this age talk aboutfeeling invisible and I love
that and there are so many waysto address that.
But the way we can address itourselves is is the way you're
talking about in your book to tojust kind of, especially if
you're in our phase.
I felt like reading your bookwas partly reflective and partly
(30:23):
still I'm experiment ofexperiencing it Right.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
Right, some of it's looking back on those, those
years of just focus on kids, butthen also okay.
So, as we are seeing the lightcoming, out of that.
How can we thrive?
And not just, we're not just insurvival mode anymore with
little kids, but how do we, howdo we thrive during this time?
Yeah, so yeah, I'm on a horse,hi, this is'm on a horse.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Actually, there's a really cute picture on her
Instagram of her on a horse inJamaica and I was like, johnny,
that's what I want to do.
I want to go where Anna.
I want to go where Anna is andbe on that horse.
He's like do I have to be likeher husband and be beside?
Speaker 3 (31:03):
you.
Oh my gosh.
He did not want to be on thathorse.
He's still not over it.
That was not his ideal plan.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
It was so great.
Well, y'all, we have barelyscratched the surface of this
amazing book and so I hopeyou'll go out and get your copy.
I will put it in our storiesfor the podcast and Instagram
and Facebook.
But again, it's hope for momsand I love the tagline.
It's tough out there, but soare you.
Thank you so much, Anna.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
I love this.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
I could talk about you for like 10 episodes.
This is so much fun.
But y'all, thank you so muchfor joining us on the Empty Nest
Quest today and we will see younext time.
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Thank you for joining us on the Empty Nest Quest.
We hope today's episode broughtyou inspiration, insight and a
sense of community.
Remember, this is your time tothrive.
If you enjoyed the show, besure to subscribe, leave a
review and share it with friends.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Stay connected with us on YouTube and Instagram at
Empty Nest Quest Podcast formore resources and updates.
Until next time, keep embracingthe journey and thriving on
your empty nest quest.
Welcome to the Empty Nest Quest, the podcast where we
redefine midlife and embracethe journey ahead.
Join your hosts, jennifer andMelinda, as we share inspiring
stories, helpful hints,entrepreneurial advice and tips
that will have you thriving notjust surviving, during this
transformative time of your life.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Whether you're approaching the empty nest phase
or already navigating it, we'rehere to support you every step
of the way.
Let's embark on this questtogether.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Okay, hey y'all, welcome to the empty nest quest.
I have my dear friend and nowpublished author, anna MacArthur
, with me today and we are goingto be talking about your new
book and all things parenting.
So Hope for Moms is Anna's book.
(00:52):
I've got many, many, manyJennifer and I read out of the
same copy, so half the pages aredog-eared.
We were doing the post-it notetabs and that started feeling
overwhelming because there werejust too many.
So, yeah, so I can't wait foreverybody to hear about your
book.
I thought about doing like a biothat I made up about you.
(01:13):
Do you want me to?
Sure, I can't wait.
I can't wait to hear whatyou're going to say.
Well, I was like going to getyour real bio off of your book
site.
Well, I was like going to getyour real bio off of your book
site.
And then I was like, but reallyso, this is who Anna is to me,
which is so egocentric.
But this is who Anna is to me.
She is my favorite pastor I'veever heard from a pulpit.
(01:37):
She literally spoke to my heartthe first time I ever heard you
preach at First Press 20something years ago.
Yes, and then we have becomegreat walking buddies, our legs
can't keep up with our mouths.
We run out.
(01:58):
We run out of steps, but I neverrun out of words.
So it's hard and we have justsupported each other kind of
from a distance, which has beenfun because we're not right in
each other's circle and so ithas felt.
I just want to encourage ourfriends out there to find people
like we found each other to besuper encouraging and supportive
(02:22):
just of you, and you don't haveto know your whole family deep,
deep, deep to know each other'shearts deep.
So Anna is that kind of personthat you can walk with any day
of the week or any years aheaddown the road, and she is going
to just impart wisdom and humor.
And I really think my favoritepart about you is you can we can
(02:43):
be in the depths of somethingso deep and you always have the
best like wit that just comesbusting through, cause I think
all things that are importantthat God wants to say to us are
said with a little touch ofhumor, so we can bear it.
So we can bear it.
That's how God talks to meanyway, cause I'm a lightweight
and that's the only way I cantake it.
(03:06):
So what would your journey tobecoming an author look like?
Speaker 3 (03:11):
So I started with blogging about eight years ago
and that was great because itgot me writing really regularly.
But that's such a small youhave 800 words or something and
it felt to me, especially as mykids got older, I wanted to be
careful about oversharing theirstories.
I wanted to say more about howI was dealing with those things
(03:35):
as a mom and less about thespecifics of theirs, and I
needed a bigger container, Ithink, than essays and articles
and blog posts, I think, thanessays and articles and blog
posts, which I loved doing.
But if I was going to talkabout race and adoption and
learning, disabilities and justthe curveballs that we've been
thrown, that needed more space.
I thought to be able to kind ofget to what was really
(03:58):
important and then also just tobe able to write about what it
felt like to me as a mom wholooked around and thought, oh my
gosh, everybody else knows whatthey're doing, everybody else
has their act together, theirfamily can find their shoes, um,
which I know isn't true.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
I know that's not true, but it looks like it is
like everybody else's kids lookreally all right and then the
moms like have on lipstick andstuff, right, yeah, yeah, I'm
with you and I would just kindof like look around and be like
is anybody else just getting um,just knocked sideways regularly
, um?
Speaker 3 (04:35):
and so I wrote the book in part thinking of myself
15, 20 years ago, what I wishsomebody had said to me not that
I would have been able to hearit necessarily, but I that I
would have been able to hear itnecessarily, but I hope I would
have been able to open up alittle bit to listen, to say
this is not, this isn't allabout you, anna.
I mean these, these littlepeople that you are raising,
(04:57):
have their own journeys and youget to be a part of it and
sometimes they'll need you as aguide, but they aren't walking
report cards, which I talk aboutin the book.
I think.
As somebody who went fromworking in the church to being a
stay-at-home mom, I really wasinsecure and looking for
validation that I was doing agood job and it was really
(05:19):
tempting for me to be like seethis one, this kid's doing okay.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Which is so wrong.
I think that's what we're alldoing, but I really think that's
how it starts.
Yeah, that's such a good,that's such a good way to that.
I mean, that's what I just loveabout how you speak, about how
you write it's, so you put itinto words that we're like oh my
gosh, yes, that's what I wasdoing.
Because that doing it, becausethat's what we did.
(05:46):
We went from receiving a reportcard yes, yes for our words, our
actions, the way we could fillout a piece of paper to go into.
If, if people went straightinto work, then they went into
kind of new report cards?
Right?
What's your performance?
Do you still deserve to be here?
Are you getting promoted,demoted and then you become a
mom?
Right, and we can't rely on ourkids for the feedback oh my
mean they're screaming andthrowing macaroni at us when
(06:07):
there's too much power.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
That should not be allowed they cannot be the CEO
of the house, please, no.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
So, yeah, that is such a great perspective and we
and I do think that we do thatat the beginning and I hope I
mean I know some people areprobably way, way wiser than
Anna and I but I do think thatis exactly what happened to me
at the beginning.
It felt like my kids weresaying to the world whether or
not, um, I was doing a good jobloving them and caring for them
(06:41):
by every little noise they made,right?
I mean, I heard a story justrecently of of a mom who you
know had through this giantbirthday party for her little
one and then she got so upsetthat her daughter did, I mean,
like a one or a two year old.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
That and she didn't come out and like smile for the
camera and get excited and it'slike bless it, you know, and and
I get.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
The thing that broke my heart was, I feel, that mom's
heart.
She was trying to do the thingthat she wanted to look back at
and the photo albums and to forthe grandparents to see, like,
look at this life we're buildingfor ourselves, right, you know?
And but then forgetting,somehow we slip into a ravine or
something when we start goingdown, right that?
Speaker 3 (07:25):
track, and it's dangerous both ways.
If the kids are doing great,then you can end up really smug
and hard to be around, and ifthey're not doing great which
happens to every child at somepoint then it's that it was
something you did wrong, thatparents did wrong.
Somehow they didn't have theright manual, somehow they, you
(07:47):
know, missed something.
Um, so there's no outcome.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
that is good, right, if if that's for the ego of the
parent particularly right, right, okay, so I want to read y'all
a couple of quotes, just thatthere are so many, but a couple
of the ones um, early on in thebook you said essentially
parenting can feel like a gameof whack-a-mole and it can be
really isolating, and just bothof those.
(08:12):
You've got your one thing thatyou're trying to pound all the
whack-a-mole things and youcan't tell anybody because you,
you know, don't want to talk badabout what's going on in your
house, or maybe it's justself-serving, you don't want to
look bad, it's embarrassing andyou feel like everybody else
(08:35):
does know these things.
I loved the quote because thisspoke to me.
I can remember one particularsummer where jealousy and like
me, looking out, it was whenFacebook was kind of, the
pictures on Facebook were new.
Remember, facebook was words atfirst and then it was pictures.
And there was a summer whereAnna had surgery, we could not
go anywhere, we couldn't evenreally go to the pool, and it
(08:58):
and this quote, I loved it.
It says jealousy does not haveall the information.
Jealousy doesn't even usuallyhave our kids' best interests in
mind and I was like right,because I would look at
everybody going everywhere forthe summer and doing these
beautiful things with theirfamilies, and I thought, oh my
gosh, my kids are turning inpotatoes.
We're sitting in this house, wecan't go anywhere.
(09:19):
We can't even go to the pool,they can't even, you know.
And I just remember, likecaving in on myself that summer,
and at the end of the summer mysynopsis was okay, that's it.
We can never go a whole yearwithout going to the beach again
.
That was what I had to do.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
That's what you got out of it.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
The problem was we didn't have our beach vacation
and my wonderful husband waslike well, I think the beach is
always a great idea, but I thinkthere's something bigger at
play, right, right, especiallyif it's to document it so that
it can be shared too.
Well, it was more me thinkingthat's interesting, because I'm
(10:00):
sure somewhere underneath it wasalso that I didn't get to post
my picture.
But what it really was was thatbigger thing we do.
That, I think, is almostscarier than just wanting to
post the picture is.
I just saw everybody like inthis week of bliss, frolicking
on the beach with their kids,all happy sandcastles that never
caved in and no sunburns and nocrying fits.
(10:21):
You know, I saw the the like Isaw their pictures right and
made them into this one big longbeach trip that nobody has ever
had.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
No, we've all been to the beach with our families, we
know right, but it's like Ijust I think what I.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
I longed for some relief and, um, yeah, I think
that what I really was just.
But in in my mind I was likeand the only place we will get
that is at the beach.
And Johnny was like we can alsojust call a babysitter, honey,
it doesn't have right.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
And I think like there's stretches as a mom where
I've been content just sayingI'm just trying to keep
everybody alive, and meaningthat I mean when there's a lot
of toddlers, when there's, youknow, I just would think, okay,
my goal is, it seems like areasonable goal, but I mean it's
hard to keep it.
So I would think, okay, I'mgoing to keep everybody alive
this summer, and I felt likethat when they were toddlers and
(11:14):
then I felt like that againwhen they kind of started
driving as teenagers.
That's a different kind oftrying to keep them alive, but
both are.
That should be enough, I meanthat should be enough.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Well, can you speak to talk about the?
That makes me think of the partin the book and I can't
remember everything that you hada lot of things that piled up
and then you decided you weregoing to put the like yes, no,
maybe Can you talk about that?
That is so powerful, like if wecould just build in that
practice alone, right.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
So my husband had had knee surgery and the twins were
starting kindergarten and so hecouldn't drive.
He had had a mountain bikingaccident, so I had to really
kind of triage what isabsolutely important, and so it
was like, yes, we're going to dothese things.
Brian has to do physicaltherapy, elizabeth needed vision
therapy, everybody needed to goto school things.
Yes.
Then there was the no, whichwere things that were I knew in
(12:09):
the back of my mind, wereoptional, but I'd still been
making us do them, like mathnights at the school and big
birthday parties that I feltlike we needed to go to.
And then maybe were more thingsthat if we could get to them,
great, um.
And after his surgery then andhe was doing better I kind of
kept it in my mind as a way oflooking at how many more things
(12:32):
were optional in our lives thatI didn't think were optional,
cause I felt this sense ofobligation, um, and a sense of
maybe it was where we live, Idon't know this sense of, like
my kids aren't doing travel ballor, um, different things, that
I got much more comfortablesaying, yeah, that we, we just
can't pull that off, was kind ofwhere I would land A lot of
(12:55):
times we could have, but peoplewould have been in tears and we
wouldn't have seen each other asa family.
And you know there's there'sconsequences for the things that
we would pick or not pick.
So I try to still keep that inmind of what is absolutely
really.
It's about what your family'score values are, how you want to
spend your time as a family andwith each other.
(13:16):
It was the other thing that wasgood about it was I realized I
mean, my husband does so muchwithin our family with his work,
with our kids, and so when hewas hurt I was just like man,
this dishwasher is never gettingunloaded.
What is happening.
I was not expecting that pieceof it was that it really kind of
(13:36):
helped me realize how muchBrian does too.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
I do I.
I'm glad you mentioned that,because I think that's another
reason it's so nice for spousesto take time for themselves and
go kind of refresh away, even ifit's for an afternoon or just
one long day, you know.
But I mean I like to go awaylike on a trip.
Johnny is hard.
(14:00):
I love it when he does it forhimself, because it does.
It makes me appreciate him more.
It makes me see all that hedoes.
It's also nice to have space.
Yes, and there's actually allthis really great research about
what it does for a marriage foreach of you to go have your
time away and to kind of refresh, like the analogy of this
(14:22):
author, that I want to give themcredit but I can't remember who
I read it.
Anyway, maybe that'll come backto me, but he talked about there
being like, if you put twomagnets in a drawer that are
like you know that attract theones that attract the opposites,
they will dull over timebecause they need separation to
keep their you know their charge.
(14:44):
Yes, thank you, yes, and I would.
And he was like we're like thattoo, and I was like, oh my gosh
, I just love a pic.
You know a good visual.
So I feel like, yes, it'sharder when it's something is
wrong, right, cause.
Then it's like you're having totake care of your spouse and
right, oh no, like you're havingto take care of your spouse and
(15:05):
right, oh no, they used to doall this.
So then there's all the weirdcaregiver right craziness that
comes in your head.
Okay, I do want to back up.
I just realized, when anna saidthe twins, that I did not at
the beginning say that, um, annais a mother of four, and then
your, your oldest, are what liketwo years apart.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
So my oldest are 15 months apart, so they were one
grade apart.
So they're now 22 and 24.
So they're out of college.
So we kind of have done emptynest with those folks.
They're out working in theworld.
And then we have twins that arenow they just turned 17 last
week that we adopted from thehospital in Charleston when they
were babies.
(15:45):
So they were preemie twins andwe kind of changed our family.
In a weekend we went from twoto four and I write about it in
the book, not as so much abouttheir story, because so much of
that I'm protective of, butabout how it shaped us and how
(16:05):
it changed us, because I thinkwe thought we were ready,
because it's a transracialadoption, because we saw
ourselves as progressive, thatwe were ready to have
African-American twin girls inour house.
But it gave us a new lens tolook at every situation that we
go to and having to kind of thehumbling part of realizing that
(16:28):
being progressive is not thesame as anti-racist, in that
there was some work that we hadto do and that was a hard thing
to write about in the bookbecause I you know, I well, it
was just vulnerable.
It's always hard to write aboutrace but it's always really
important to write about it andto talk about it.
(16:49):
And I think for me there wasone editor when I was kind of
shopping the book and figuringout who I was going to publish
with, and I say in the book wewere approved by social workers.
Everybody was excited we wereready to do this transracially.
But I know in hindsight thatprobably the first Black people
(17:11):
to spend the night in our houseshould not have been our
children.
That you know we didn't.
I hadn't even realized thatuntil we were deep in this this,
that I thought we had enoughdiversity in our lives and we
did not.
We've had to build it.
And one of the editors said Idon't know if you should really,
even just if you should writethat.
(17:33):
And I was kind of like, but whyam I writing this book then, if
I'm saying we had it allfigured out.
We had it all figured out, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Well, I think I think what you're doing is you're
putting yourself which is whatI've always loved about you you
put yourself, you're puttingyourself to speak into that
space that we're all that wetiptoe in.
And especially now, because weare trying to be such, I feel
like we're all trying to partlybe like compassionate and more
(18:07):
open-minded and be sensitive tothings we don't understand.
Someone else's lived experienceLike I'm in a training right
now for to become a Pilatesinstructor and I've been through
so many trainings to become aPilates instructor and I've been
through so many trainings andwhat is really fascinating is,
over the years, you know they'regetting more and more.
(18:27):
You know trauma, informed bodypositive, but not just body
positive, body like teach,teaching us to be
anti-discriminatory towards eachother, and that that is great.
And there is something thatlike, as we get into those
(18:48):
spaces, that then you startgetting nervous when you speak,
that you're going to try to saysomething, to reach across the
table lovingly and you're goingto actually harm Right, and then
people stop speaking at all.
Is what I'm seeing right now is,yes, there's virtual and
negative things and all that,and I and I hate that too but I
(19:12):
find what makes me sadder arethe people that I think really
do want to have engagingconversations and they're afraid
because they don't want to.
You know, they don't want toflip a table by accident, and so
I feel like when you said thatit is edgy to hear you say that,
but also to me again.
(19:35):
That's why I love how you speakand you write.
It's like, oh, and it justhelps us like take that quick
look in the mirror and be alittle more honest about where
we are with things.
Yeah, because it might not berace for somebody, it might be
something else, but that is likeooh, yes, I get it.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Yeah, yeah, when we were talking about spouses going
away, one of the things that Iwas trying to kind of navigate
as I was writing was aboutthere's so much talk about
self-care for moms, which isgreat and super important, but a
lot of that is like spa daysand bubble baths and girls trips
and all of that, and I kind ofhad a sense as I was writing
(20:18):
that all of that is wonderfulbut it will not fix if you are
not seeing yourself as valued,If you don't see yourself as
worthy of time and love andattention.
There aren't enough bubblebaths in the world to fix that.
And I think what makes menervous in the self-care talk is
(20:40):
you do this so that you cancare for the people in your life
which is important to be ableto be, to fill yourself up so
that you can care for the peoplein your life.
But also, what if we fillourselves up and take care of
ourselves because we are lovelyand wonderful people who are
worthy of that, not becausewe're someone's mom or someone's
(21:03):
wife or daughter, but because,you know, I, I've been with Anna
for 52 years and I know whatshe needs and, um, I guess the
sense of I don't have to justifyit because I have four kids who
all, who all, meet me.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Yes, but in the I would do, I agree, I thought you
know I agree a thousand percent.
That is like the soapbox I feellike I live on.
Actually, I will tell y'allthat in I think it's chapter 10,
there's a lot, you know, kindof emphasizes I am not my kids,
and yeah, that's kind of trickyright, Cause you're like, but
kind of am, I'm not, I think Iam right.
(21:43):
And then I love, because a lotof the work I do is about um
kind of founded on these threeprinciples that I think 100 line
up with, like the christianvalues that we're taught if we
grew up in a christian home.
But honestly I feel like myfriends that are from other
religious traditions grow upwith these same values that are.
But there is there is a yogasutra, which is just a yoga.
(22:09):
You know kind of a phrase in ayoga book that also talks about
these same things and I'm likewell, of course, but it but it
is about self-awareness and how,how.
But it's kind of like thereisn't a direct translation and
it's bigger than self-awareness.
It's about like how, how deeplycan you know yourself so that
(22:34):
you can live fully?
Right, and once you havefigured that out and you turn
kind of turn up the volume onliving fully, then you are
automatically serving and givinggraciously from a full cup, but
not you're not filling up, justso you can.
(22:55):
But there is like this it'sit's more than one prong and I
think we kind of talk about oneprong at a time.
It's like important to havethat relationship with yourself
so that you can keep andmaintain and develop your
relationship with God or orwhatever you want to call I mean
(23:16):
, that's the name I call, youknow my highest source, but you
so that you can have thatspiritual relationship and the
relationship with yourself,which are so interwoven, and
then also serve and love and bepart of community and family and
all the things.
But it's like we tend to getreal stuck, like one of them and
(23:37):
kind of we only go three levelsout of 100 levels deep or
something.
So I have all these like fancytherapeutic practices to help
people kind of figure out whatdo I like.
But I really love and I'm justgoing to keep it now and
Jennifer loved it too, sheunderlined it too and I came up
with a this sounds fun list andI love that because I'm always
(24:00):
working with my clients on thisand I was taught this in one of
my trainings.
But this list of we would wehad to come up with a hundred
things that we just liked to do,that just delighted us, but we
could not put.
So this lady that I trained withshe called it level one,
self-care, and level two,self-care.
Level one is like stuff thatalso is like good for you, right
(24:23):
?
So yoga, I couldn't put onthere.
Meditation, I couldn't put onthere.
I'm like, well, what am I goingto put?
But it was truly just made mego like, oh, I really love this
creamer in my coffee and Ireally love to like sit quietly
in the morning with no lights onto have my coffee.
And it was just these tinylittle delights that I started
(24:44):
and then it turned into oh,maybe I'd want to blah, blah,
blah, right, so I want to hearabout your this sounds fun list.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
It was um what I wrote it down is I'm so fun I
make lists.
That's how fun I am.
I'm like you know what I'mgoing to make a list, Um, but
you did it with a cute colormarker.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
I did, I did markers.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
Um so, and then it was a real head scratcher.
I mean, I was kind of walkingaround like what does sound fun
to me, which I would encouragepeople to kind of regularly
check in with themselves and askwhere they like to go on
vacation, what they like to eat,what sounds fun to them not
what their?
kids like to eat where theirkids want to go on vacation,
what sounds fun to their kids.
I mean we do all of thatbecause we're in this time of.
(25:26):
I mean they do need us.
That is part of what we do forour families.
But if we kind of get erased inthat and I was getting a little
bit erased my kids, watching mykids do their things had become
too much of a hobby for me.
So I made this list that soundsfun and I landed this.
(25:50):
Is it's so random, it's so notlike what a 48 year old or
however it was to be, like youknow what I'm going to do.
So I started taking horsebackriding.
I love it and it is so fun andI love it so much.
And my family is not invitedBecause what I said was okay,
I'm going to start doing this.
I found a barn.
I rode some as a kid and did iton vacation, but I am not a
horse woman.
And when I told that my familyI was going to do that, my
(26:12):
husband was like, oh, you know,we could go, we have friends who
have horses.
And my daughter Elizabeth said,oh, I've been wanting to do
that too.
And I was like this is not.
This is what they do, right?
This is something I've had toprotect as and it's in some ways
, I say it's ridiculous, but Ineed to stop saying that,
because what it is is purelydelightful.
Yeah, there is not.
(26:32):
I'm not doing it so thatthere's a there's a reason that
I can write down and say this iswhy I'm doing it.
I'm doing it because I find alot of delight in it.
Um, and so that's been my.
My thing in this era has beenthe same things.
That has always been yoga andgardening and reading and those
things, but adding in this kindof random thing to take up as my
(26:57):
kids are getting older.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Yes, and I do, and I love that.
It's something that feels new,because I do think that when we
do new things, it lets us know anew part of ourselves.
That when we do new things, itlets us know a new part of
ourselves and it is.
If you are a person I mean mostpeople I know that are
listening are in the empty nestphase.
But if you are still having ahard time finding what really
(27:20):
sings to your soul and whatwe're saying just sounds
ridiculous and you're like, ohmy gosh, you know, even if you
can find something new, that youpull your people along with you
just for like a one off, likeif you've never taken your
people bowling, just justsomething silly.
(27:40):
Everybody seeing each otherthrough different eyes is also
sometimes helpful.
That's why I think, like quirkydate nights are fun.
Like if you just and by quirkyI just mean quirky to you, like
we always go eat at a restaurant, we'll just take a picnic
somewhere and just look how Imean you might really love it
and you might be like you know,we're not sit on the ground
people, I can't even sitcrisscross applesauce, and it'll
turn into a laugh fest.
(28:01):
I mean I think it's just likeget out of our box.
But as moms, I do think it's soimportant, or just parents, I
mean, and caregivers, right.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
I mean we're at that where we're caring for kids and
as our parents age and it'sdifferent.
I think we're talking about howto kind of remain fully alive,
yes, and not just kind of fade,you know, as as we get a little
bit used up by the needs aroundus.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
That's such a good way to say it, and I just want
to say we, we are kind of in themiddle of a menopause series
right now, and that is what,when you really read the
research about women in our agegroup, that part of what feels
(28:54):
so maddening about reaching outfor help when, cause we don't
feel like ourselves, and we gomaybe to the doctor or to the
counselor or whoever and say Ijust don't feel like myself and
for a long time, and I just feltso bad for all the generations
before us that did this, withoutany social media talk of
(29:14):
menopause or perimenopause whichI think has been fantastic and
is that is that it's almost likewomen at our age start to feel
invisible.
And if you hear Jane Fonda talksabout this really openly.
There's somebody else I can'tremember who.
I listened to somebody else onthe podcast that I'm just really
(29:37):
not nailing the names today,speaking of brain fog and
perimenopause.
Here she is, but yeah, therewas someone else that was like
more of a celebrity type figurethat talked about how she was
seeing her friends at this agestart to feel like we're like
they're fading or disappearingand I was like what and I don't
(30:00):
know.
I just thought it wasinteresting to start hearing
women at this age talk aboutfeeling invisible and I love
that and there are so many waysto address that.
But the way we can address itourselves is is the way you're
talking about in your book to tojust kind of, especially if
you're in our phase.
I felt like reading your bookwas partly reflective and partly
(30:23):
still I'm experiment ofexperiencing it Right.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
Right, some of it's looking back on those, those
years of just focus on kids, butthen also okay.
So, as we are seeing the lightcoming, out of that.
How can we thrive?
And not just, we're not just insurvival mode anymore with
little kids, but how do we, howdo we thrive during this time?
Yeah, so yeah, I'm on a horse,hi, this is'm on a horse.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Actually, there's a really cute picture on her
Instagram of her on a horse inJamaica and I was like, johnny,
that's what I want to do.
I want to go where Anna.
I want to go where Anna is andbe on that horse.
He's like do I have to be likeher husband and be beside?
Speaker 3 (31:03):
you.
Oh my gosh.
He did not want to be on thathorse.
He's still not over it.
That was not his ideal plan.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
It was so great.
Well, y'all, we have barelyscratched the surface of this
amazing book and so I hopeyou'll go out and get your copy.
I will put it in our storiesfor the podcast and Instagram
and Facebook.
But again, it's hope for momsand I love the tagline.
It's tough out there, but soare you.
Thank you so much, Anna.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
I love this.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
I could talk about you for like 10 episodes.
This is so much fun.
But y'all, thank you so muchfor joining us on the Empty Nest
Quest today and we will see younext time.
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Thank you for joining us on the Empty Nest Quest.
We hope today's episode broughtyou inspiration, insight and a
sense of community.
Remember, this is your time tothrive.
If you enjoyed the show, besure to subscribe, leave a
review and share it with friends.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Stay connected with us on YouTube and Instagram at
Empty Nest Quest Podcast formore resources and updates.
Until next time, keep embracingthe journey and thriving on
your empty nest quest.
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