Finding Balance in Motherhood: How to Manage Stress, Mom Brain and Faith with Hannah Keeley

Y'all, if you have been following me for any length of time, you probably know that I'm a mom. I've been married for going on 25 years. My children are aged 33 through 16. Yes, you can do the math and figure out that I had one before we got married. But the bottom line is we're a blended family of 5— 2 girls, 3 boys. My last one is entering his junior year of high school. But I have been a mother my entire adult life. I don't know adulting without being a parent. So that means that I have been not only the single mom but the mom at home the mom who worked, the mom who worked in the home, out of the home, um, the mom who has been the stepmom, the homeschool mom, the, the all the things. And now I'm almost on the, the verge. I'm on the verge of being in the empty nester situation. I've got 5 grandkids. People, children are my whole life. I'm so excited to bring on a guest today who is all about motherhood too, and ministering and teaching and encouraging moms of all seasons. But if you are stressed out, and if you're a mother you either are, were, or you're going to be stressed out just because people, we love them, but they're stressful. And I'm excited to talk to my guest today about motherhood, all the things, and particularly how to help you if motherhood is stressing you out. I want to welcome Ms. Hannah Keeley to the podcast today. Hi, Hannah, how are you?

I am so good. Thank you so much for having me on.

Well, listen, we had a little bit of back and forth conversation before we started recording, and I can already tell, girl, you are my people. You are my people. I'm so, I'm so excited for this conversation. I don't know what to do.

I love it.

Um, one of the things I have often said, and maybe it's a mistake, but maybe it's because there are women like you in the world who are doing it very well and I'm not needed. I, I have said many times, I just don't wanna be the mom person. I just don't wanna be the mom person. It was so easy for me to talk about motherhood, talk about kids, talk about the lessons I'm learning with my kids. And I was trying to make sure that I had. Broad enough appeal with all the things that I wanted to say. But here's what I know. Here's what, of course, you and I both know, that when people are looking for help, they can't go to the broad person. They're like, who is the person who talks about motherhood and what can they tell me so that I'm not stressed out? I am so curious to just get to know you in this episode. But I'd love for you to start with this. Why are you the mom person? Why are you the mom coach? How did you even end up donning yourself, or maybe someone else donned you as that, and launching into this sphere?

Well, I tell you what, I think when you master a territory, it's because you had to go through it the hard way. And I will tell you, when I had all the ideals about being a mom, like I was going to be the, you know, they would write sonnets about me and I was going to be the one who my children rose up and called me blessed. And got a few years down the road and girl, it was so hard. And I was a behavior therapist. And my own strategies were not working on me. I was going crazy. The house was cluttered. We were in debt up to our eyeballs, couldn't even pay. Like, it was like insufficient funds. Bam, bam, bam, bam. Like, yeah, thank you. I already don't have any money and now you just charge me $35. Like, it was that kind of life. But the worst thing was the depression, the anxiety. And it was one day that it all came to a head. I don't know if this has happened to you or people in your audience. But I had a mental breakdown in a pile of laundry. It was like a Lifetime movie. It was ugly crying where you can't discriminate between the snot and the tears. And I'm in this pile of laundry. Like, if the cameras had been rolling, it would have been some really good footage. But I was just like, "God Almighty, I know you did not create me for this kind of life." And I'm bawling and bawling, pleading God for help. And, uh, I, I wanted— I just needed help. I, I was at the end of my rope. And I remember hearing the Holy Spirit so clear, and he said, get up and fold your laundry. And I was like, anyone else up there? I, I, I, I wanted to—

Revelation. Can I get some major, major help? He's like, just, just fold your Fold the underwear, girl.

Yeah, I didn't want to do that. I wanted to hear like, I wanted it to be a story that I could tell from stage. Like, oh, then there was this knock at the door and I opened the door and this man was like, God told me to bring you a check for $75,000.

And woo!

You know, I wanted something like that. I didn't want to hear, get off my butt and fold laundry. And I'm sharing this with you and all the wonderful people who listen to you, not to tell you about me, but also to tell them about them. Like, tell you about you. Because the things that God tells us to do are usually the most counterintuitive things. Like, if we knew what to do, we'd do it.

Right.

So God's going to tell us something to do that we're like, "Mm, next." Like, "I don't want to do that." And so I realized at that point, there's a verse in Proverbs that said, "There's a way that seems right, and in the end there's death." I'm like, "All right, I've done everything that seems right to me." I'll just fold the laundry. And I think that experience starting that day and leading me to where I am today is why God's like, "Now go back into the wilderness now that you know the way and you know the booby traps and the pitfalls and link arms with other moms and walk them out of that." And yeah, I think it's the hard one wisdom, really, when you master a territory. Like, I want to hear from someone who's been there. Done that and they come out and they don't smell like smoke anymore. That's who I want to listen to.

So talk to me about what you're doing now. So, because we'll go back and get some of the goodies along the way, but that's your come-to-Jesus moment. That's why you are doing what you're doing. But for those who are listening and they're thinking in the back of their brain, oh yeah, when I get home, when I get out of the car, when I'm, you know, not at work watching YouTube like I shouldn't be, but anyway, uh, when they, when they get a chance to look you up, what are they going to find? What is it that you're doing now? And, um, how did the journey there lead you to the journey that you're in now?

Oh goodness. Well, today, um, I'm probably best known as America's number one mom coach. I have a university online called Mom Master University. We actually go— you know how people say, well, there's no school for this? Well, there, there is. And so we created it. There's an actual full-year certification program for Master Mom. Get your Master Mom certification. Um, we do boot camps. I'm always, um, I'm just looking for any way to get in front of moms and tell them, "Look, it's going to be all right. God's got you. There's a reason, there's a method to this madness, and you're going to come out on top. So I'm going to walk you through that." So that's what I'm doing today. It's my passion. And I truly believe that there is about to be such a global movement of moms to restore the family that it's going to shake this world. I just feel it.

I love it. You are, and we're gonna talk about this later because, you know, the road to what you're doing honestly is, I think what a lot of moms struggle with is finding their thing while they're pouring themselves out for everybody else's thing. I think it's really important that, like you said, I love what you said when we started that, you know, where you gain territory, that's where you show other people the way. But you mentioned booby traps along inside that territory. So I'm curious if you had to name, because I know there are many more than this, but if you had to name the top 3 booby traps where you're like, if I didn't teach, share, connect with, give my testimony about any other of the seasons with my children, what are the top 3 booby trap spots for yourself And what did you learn or what did you come out with from that situation?

Oh my goodness.

Okay.

This is so critical that moms need to know, because this is actually the source of stress. It's not how much is going on. It's not how crazy your life is. It's not, it's not your emotions. I can guarantee you that it comes down to like these 3 critical things. Number 1. Moms don't realize they have mom brain. So I have researched the mom brain. That's why no strategies were working with me. I was taught as a, as a behavioral therapist, typical strategies to work around emotional overwhelm and stress, anxiety, and they weren't working on me because I didn't realize my brain had literally changed. I mean, you can look at an MRI. Of a woman before and after she has a baby, and there are significant decreases in gray matter. Now, there's a reason behind that. I love to help moms know why this is going on, but I didn't know that my brain had changed. And the strategies that were working will not work anymore. So if you don't understand your brain and how it processes information when you become a mom, you're gonna always think you're not enough, you're deficient, you got ADHD, you can't focus. You have no willpower. You'll always think this because that's the way your brain processes. You just don't know it yet. So, so mom brain, absolutely. Number 2, I think one of the biggest pitfalls is that we don't realize our lives have now become routine divergent. So typical, like if you're not a mom, your life is pretty much routine typical. You get up at this time, you know when you're going to have a lunch break. I remember listening to this podcast one time, it was like how to get more done in your day. And I was listening to this person, and if I said the name, you know it. And he was like, "Here's my strategy. I go nose down for 45 minutes and I focus completely. And then I take a 15-minute break and I walk outside and I fill my heart with gratitude." And then I'm like, "Okay, stop." I literally turned it off. I'm like, "Okay." If I tried at that point in my life, if I tried to have 45 uninterrupted minutes, a kid's gonna be hanging out the— hanging off the roof. There's gonna be like some kind of broken glass on the floor. That, like, that's not an option. And so a big problem, what moms do is they, they need help, so they get these, um, programs and they get these and they do these retreats and they do these— read these books and they buy these, these, these things that they think are going to help them, but they're made by people who live a very routine, typical life. We try to do it and we're like, I, I failed from the very beginning. Think about all the budgeting apps, the diets, the workouts, the day planners. I swear I could fill a room with all the day planners I tried to buy, all for people who are very routine, typical. They have all the great testimonials. You wonder why they don't work. You try it, you can't do it. And so we have to understand our lives are not the same order as they were before. We are constantly interrupted. We can't, um, sit down for more than 2 minutes. We're always trying to like figure out what's, what's about to interrupt me, what's about, what's the emergency. So our brains change, our lives change. And number 3, and I think this is a big one too, we lose connection. Like physical, real connection with other people. We'll scroll all day, we'll feel connected to the people that we follow online, but, but because of the demands of our life, whether you're working in the home or out of the home, you lose that real connection with other moms that can actually bring you up instead of pull you down. Like, like, we, we can be connected with moms, but then we have to realize we're going to become like the moms we hang around. So the typical groups that we find ourselves part of are by default, not design. They're the people that are in our church or in our neighborhood or in their, you know, they're our kids' friends' parents that we meet up with on the soccer field or the, you know, dance recitals. And we don't choose these people. And so we're really put in these groups by default. And until we can like choose who we hang around and really get selective about that, we can't rise up. Like, we'll rise or fall to the level of the community we find ourselves in. And so when we get intentional about that— but what mom has time or resources to be intentional about that? We're trying to get dinner on the table.

Correct. Chicken for the 17— 70, 76 times. That's what we're trying to do.

Girl.

Get chicken on the table.

Yes. Just, just get some on the table.

So let me, let me work backwards with each of these things. I would love to know, like, because you have 7 kids that are currently 31 to 19. So you, you had a lot of them close together. When were you the loneliest in your journey?

I think I was the loneliest before I started serving other moms.

And when did that start?

I started around after my third child. That's when God called me. That's when I started figuring out what worked with my mom brain, with my mom life, how to practically apply the Word of God to get radical results. And those results were radical. Like my house started getting in order, my finances getting in order, and it was like only God. And then one day I was grocery shopping and I heard the Holy Spirit said, "Look around." And I looked around and there were all these moms doing the shopping cart shuffle. You know what I'm talking about, where you're just barely clinging on to that grocery cart and it looked like dead mom walking, like they were all just lifeless. And He said, "Get what I gave you." and give it and serve. And so I started just doing— this was before you could do really cool podcasts.

Which is why I think it's so important because people see, and this is what happens with me too, people see what you're doing now and all they see is the chasm between where they are. And your hair is cute, your makeup is cute, you've got a cute background, your kids are mostly launched. They're not problemless, but they have done some things that say, okay, you did an okay job. So if she is currently there with her 3 kids in the grocery store, I think it is important for a woman to hear when you started obeying God in the season you were in, what did it look like? What did it look like when he, when he said begin?

It, it was, it was hard. And here's the thing, everyone, when God tells you to do something our first reaction is always, okay, how? Like, how do I get this done? And I found in my walk with God, He will tell you the first step. And He said the first step, just put up a phone number and go live every Tuesday night and just coach. Just talk, help people, take calls. And literally it was like, all right, cheapest platform. What's free. And back then, there were— there was like, you couldn't go live on all these social media channels. We didn't have all that. It was literally like people would get their phones and call in, listen on their phones.

Listen, that's like a good old prayer call. People are still having prayer calls, okay?

Yes, it was a prayer call. It was a prayer call. And I would, I would prepare a message, and the message was very practical. I like to keep it very practical. Like, I'm not here to— for motivation or inspiration or information. I'm here for transformation. We're going be changed. And so every call was like, okay, here's what can change your life today. Here's how to take— here's how to practically apply it today. And then I would take questions. And there's this one day I got on there and there's one caller. Like, I might have like 7 or 10, or one person called in. And I had, I had worked on that message for a good hour, hour and a half. And I got so disgruntled. I was like, God, come on, like one person. And I was frustrated. And that was the typical, like, okay, it's time to take Hannah to the woodshed moment. And he's like, "Oh, oh, okay, I see, I see. You're too good for one person. I say go after the one, but you can't." And he told me, "Until you can serve one as if you're serving a million, you'll never serve a million." And that's what we— like, we want to see the big results. We're so in this culture of social media that we want to see the numbers and the likes and the follows. And we We forget that following God may look like serving 100% that one person that's in front of you right now, because I just believe that opens doors. When we show up, He said, "You've been faithful with a little, now I can give you much." We always want the much, but we got to be proven. We're promoted. We're not just placed there. We're promoted to God's abundance. So we have to serve there. And that, I mean, I learned a lesson that moment. It's like, no, you're just going to be obedient. You're just going to serve 100% that person in front of you. And that's, that's what it looked like. It looked like sometimes disappointment, because often when we're in this position—

because I want to ask you more about this connection— because often if you pick up the phone and you're doing the prayer call or you're going live or whatever, it does allow you to serve other women. And my question to you was, you know, kind of how did we get to addressing the connection in your life. And you said it started with you serving other women. I can totally see that. I'm curious though, what did it look like for you personally to form connection? Because there's a different connection when you're serving people. It definitely opens the doors to say, like, here I am, I'm willing to talk about my life. People can get to know you. But, you know, I figured Jesus had, uh, various circles. You know, he talked to his enemies, he talked to the 5,000, he talked to the 70, he talked to the 12, he took the 3 to the mountain, and he had one that he loved, you know, that laid his head on his chest. So you find it— because it's hard, like, when your kids are small and at the ages that your kids were when all this— when, when God kind of opened your eyes to this, um, it is hard to form connection. Your nap schedules don't align, you know, there may not be at the same schools You may live next to the people that are not necessarily in your real life. The people you go to church with don't live on your side of town. So what did it look like as God opened up your mind and your heart through your ministry for you to figure out how to find or keep connection in your life? Listen, if you're wondering what's the next best move financially, you are not the only one. Lots of people, including me, are out here trying figure out how we can be good stewards of our dollars. So that's why at the Sister Circle live event, I have asked some great voices in the space of money, honey, to come and talk to us about what to do. Budgeting, investing, debt and credit score management, and business finance 101. I want you to join me at the Sister Circle event, not just to increase your capacity to think about being a good steward and having an abundant mindset, but also to learn what to do. Let's be specific. We don't have to be out here in these streets just surviving and figuring out how to make it. We can thrive, and I'd love for you to thrive with me. While in-person tickets are no longer available, virtual tickets are. So go to thesistercircle.com/live right now so that you can be in the virtual room. You'll get access to the whole event, virtual replays, digital swag bags, and more. What are you waiting on? Go to thesistercircle.com/live today.

Well, it, it it did look like, like when you show up to serve, you, you do feel connected. You do feel that connection from other people. But the craziest thing about loneliness and how it showed up for me was I, I really made it intentional to enjoy my time with my kids. My, my older kids are like, you literally just had us so that you would have like playmates, didn't you? I was like, yes, of course. And, and I realized, like, I could be lonely for— not now, I'm not saying this because you shouldn't, like, need adult connection, but I so enjoyed the time with my children, like, actually playing, actually, like, learning together and growing together, and But, and they were not every day. Like, so there are some days I call my husband, I was like, if you want us, your children, alive and well, you should probably get home right now, okay? Because Mama's—

I'm walking out.

Oh yeah, yeah, I will be in the car with the car running when you— now there were those days, but I remember this one time I was walking, I was checking out the grocery store, and I had a baby in a backpack, and I had a toddler in the front of the shopping cart, and I had 5 kids around me. I, I must— I didn't think I looked unusual, but I did get some weird stares because I had, you know, all 7 kids. And this older woman was in line behind me, and she tapped me on the shoulder and she said, I know it can be hard right now, but appreciate these days. And I looked at her and I said, "Ma'am, I really do." Because I told my husband, I said, "I can live with being broke. I can live with having hard days. And I'll pay the price for all that. But I can't pay the price of regret." And I want every day to go to bed and say, "I don't regret." today. And I just see that I chose that every day. I don't want to live a day that I'm going to regret. And of course, you know, you regret when you lose your patience and yell at your kids, and you have those days. But those are the in-between moments when God meets you with His grace. But there is something about choosing Today I'm gonna, I'm gonna embrace fun. I'm gonna laugh at stuff. I'm gonna enjoy this. And when you make that choice, God will put you in situations where you can choose, I'm gonna scream or I'm gonna laugh. And that's when you choose the thing that will enrich your life, help your kids, and you live with no regrets. There's this one video that one of my kids was taken And I looked at that. I didn't even realize that one of my kids was filming. And this was years and years ago. And I had a little— my youngest was sitting in the kitchen sink. My husband would say, whenever they get crabby, you put them in water. Like, they were having a hard day. So I filled up the kitchen sink and put some bubbles in there and sat them in there. And I'm standing in front and the water is running because they wanted to play in it. And they figured out how to do that nozzle. You know, and she was shooting water at her sister in the kitchen, and her sister was screaming and dancing in the water. Water's getting all over the place. The dishes on the other side of the sink are stacked up like a Jenga puzzle, 3 feet high. And my daughter in the sink is laughing, and my daughter who was standing there with— it's getting soaked, water all over the floor— was laughing. And I was sitting there, I was standing there laughing too. And my— one of my kids was taking a bit. I'm about to cry thinking about it. And I— oh my gosh, I'm about to cry. And I stumbled upon that video years and years later, and I had this moment where I said thank you to my past self for not being so caught up in what things had to look like or be like that I forgot there was something joyful right in front of me that I could neglect, or I could embrace. And it was that moment where I said, yeah, thank you, because what I'm living today is based upon how you reacted to those moments yesterday. Girl, wait, how?

Okay, already I don't even try, people start crying. I'm sorry.

Lord Jesus is the Spirit of God.

But I think it's— there's so many things in there. Number one, you do have to think, what kind of experience do I want the memories that are made for my children? What do I want that to be? Because there is the before kids, neat, in order, on time, organized. And not that those things can't have a place in your home, but there's also the, I want my kids to remember that this was home. My mother would have said that. She said that a lot. She said, I never wanted our home to be so ready for guests that y'all could not be comfortable in your own home. One of my sons brought home a puppy. I have made it our whole, our whole family life with no dog. And I asked my husband 5 years ago, do you want to get them a dog? Because we had moved into a new house. Because if so, this is the time. Because right about the time that that youngest child is leaving, you know, I should be nearing the end of my dog time. Another adult kid will take it. Like, I don't, I don't want to be a dog mom.

Right.

And so here we are at the end, my son brings a dog home and of course he's a puppy. So he's running around the living room, they can't catch him. He jumped on the couch or whatever. And same thing, more recent, I'm giggling because I realize, number one, I didn't buy the most beautiful couch. I bought a Costco couch. So I don't really care that much. You know what I'm saying? I kind of bought something that if my grandchildren spit up on it or now if a dog jumps on it, it's not the end of the world. It wasn't my dream, dream, dream couch, right? And even if it was, it's all right. It's all right. So this idea of kind of living like the memories that you want to create. And what I also heard you say, because we were talking about connection, you talked about pouring out and how that created and met a need in you. And then you also talked about connection with your kids. And as you were talking, I was thinking, I mean, I do enjoy my kids. I thought about two things. One is the scripture that talks about where your treasure is, there your heart will be. If you invest in what you have, you can enjoy what you have. There are lots of moms who will say— in fact, I saw an Instagram video. I don't know if you've seen this, but it was a daughter asking her mother and her aunt about how much they enjoyed motherhood. And the mother and the aunt are both like, "Oh, we glad it's over. No, we didn't like y'all that much. Like, you were our kids, So we knew we took care of you. We're glad that you're doing well. But no, we were glad when y'all left. And I was thinking, you know, there are moms who, while they love their children, they don't really enjoy, you know. And so I think it might be a novel concept to talk about choosing to enjoy the people who you get to raise. And even though you don't get to fully choose their personality because they come baked in and hardwired with a lot of things, you do get to invest in people that will be a part of your life, hopefully, until the day you die. And then also might be taking care of you, who you're going to see at every holiday. Like, you get to kind of create this built-in, this built-in friendship. Um, so connection-wise, I, I'll say this, and then I want to move on to routine. Um, back when Yahoo Groups were a thing— so right now I have the Sister Circle, um, that is my version of pouring out. But before the Sister Circle, there was the Mom's Friendship Circle. It was a Yahoo group of women that we would see at church. We all had kids in the same season. And kind of what you're saying, I was like, can we just have us— like, I would have loved for y'all to live next door to me. I would have loved to come get a cup of sugar. But the people who are in my season and who are my acquaintance friends, we're not nearby. So can we just create a thing where we can have the conversations and where you can tell me when the library's having this thing and I can tell you when you know, this ticket is on sale and we can share recipes. And I did create some of my, I would say 1 or 2 of those women are very, very close, close friends. The remainder of those women are women who know my life. We have been in each other's worlds for 20, 25, 30 years because of the creation of something that I did to invest in them. And so just to double down on what you're saying, like, if you're looking for connection, Serve, but don't skip your children to find friends. And then I think that, you know, you can see how God will expand your heart as you do that. Okay, routine divergent. When you were talking about that, I was thinking about The One Thing by Gary Keller. I cried when I read that book because every business person says, read this book. And as I was reading it, I was like, how am I supposed to do that? He was like, shut this down, shut this down. You got to dedicate— it takes 10,000 hours to master something. And I was like, So are you saying I'm never going to master anything? Like, I can't, you know. So how did you— once you became aware of the concept of routine divergent, what did you do to bring yourself to a place of acceptance and success with the way your life works?

Um, I think the first thing I did was allow myself to not listen to the people whose lives were not like mine, who have these big rules. Here is how you must do things. The one thing, nope, scratch it, doesn't apply. The saying, chase after two rabbits, can't catch any, that one, nope, doesn't apply. Like, these people who have built these huge successful businesses will tell you, this is how you must do it. And they don't even understand the pace and the pattern of our lives. I have built a Forbes 5000 fastest growing business. I have, I have, you know, made the multimillions, not in a way that the gurus tell me to, because I embraced my pattern of my life. And here's the deal. It's like we are, we're juggling a lot of things. We're spinning a lot of plates. We— and, and we can't just spin one plate. What happens when a mom does that? Okay, from now on I'm just going to focus on— I'm gonna eat healthier and we're gonna get our family to eat healthier. Okay, all of a sudden your, your budget's gone to the toilet, your house is wrecked, and you're neglecting your kids. All right, now we're just going to homeschool. That is our— that is what we're doing. I'm focusing. That's my one thing. Okay. And now your kitchen, you don't have any groceries and you can't make dinner tonight. Your house is still a wreck. So we can't like— we can entertain those things and feel bad, or we can just shove them out of our life and embrace something that may not look like another person's way. There's a thousand ways to build a business. There's a thousand ways to build a family. And God's not like, oh, you're not doing it this one way. Well, pfft. I guess I don't have any other options for you. God's like, I got another, I got Plan B, I got Plan C, I got Plan D. And so all this, like, when I first started building a business and all these gurus are telling me what to do, I was beating myself up because I couldn't do it. I couldn't focus, I couldn't put in the time, and I couldn't put in my treasures. And I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna just, I'm just gonna go by the word of God and see if that helps me build a business. And all of a sudden, it's, you know, I'm able to retire my husband, I'm able to build significant wealth from home without neglecting my child and embracing the pattern of my life, which was constantly interrupted. Constantly. I couldn't even go to the bathroom without someone slipping a note under the door that says, "Mom, I need you." Mm-hmm.

Or fingers.

Yeah, yeah, the fingers. Usually it's like underneath so they can reach up under the door, right? Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom. Yeah, it's like, okay.

So I love, I love how— because, because you're right, and we are out there. I mean, I've done it too, where— and I'm, I'm trying to be really choicey because, you know, these programs all cost money. But if you buy a course or there's this coaching program, or you buy this person's book, and because you are trying to learn. I think the gift of motherhood is that we automatically, whether you have 1 kid or 7, you automatically have learned how to recognize that the season is shifting and do something different. It, it, it may not be pain-free, but you've learned how to like grow through these seasons, right? And how to look at your family and figure out what do they need, what do I need? That's the exact same thing that you bring to your personal growth or even the growth of a business. It's like, we've grown. This doesn't fit anymore. This doesn't work anymore. It's like when the seasons would change and you'd have to try on new clothes and you're doing the hand-me-down thing with all the bins. It's like you have to figure out what fits now. And I think that that's a superpower that we can develop. So yes to the courses and the books and all that, but then you pick what you need for the next season. You don't get to choose how each of your kids is wired completely, but you do get to observe and then dress accordingly. And I think that that's the gift that you get with business. See what you have available, but then dress accordingly. And then your superpower is in then telling other people what you've done. So the reason why everybody is out here with all of these, like, coaching programs is because they are telling you how to do what they know how to do through the lens that they learned how to do it. And so while anybody could be a coach, you may not be the kind of coach you wanna be unless you are learning from somebody who is in the vein that you are in. Which is why I think it's so great that you have a coaching program, you know, for life coaching and mom coaching, because there's somebody out there that would take a business coaching class just cuz they wanna be a coach, but that's not who they need to learn from. They need to learn from somebody who's doing what, you know, you're doing.

And I couldn't find it. I couldn't find it anywhere. That's why I had to create it because there was nothing designed around the mom brain. And there was nothing designed around the mom life. And I'm like, all right, well, I'll just make it up. And through the power of, you know, the wisdom that we seek from God, I was able— and my background in neuroscience and behavior therapy— able to create a program that works with the mom brain. Because I think a lot of moms feel shame. Like, they try to do these things, they try to do the budgeting apps and doesn't work, and they feel failure. I call it mom fatigue syndrome, where you try and you try and you try and you're like, what's the point? It's not going to work anyway. All the diets, all the— I remember this one woman, she came to me, she was— she weighed 380 pounds, and her— the bones in her ankle were starting to break underneath the pressure of her weight. And she had tried everything. She had tried the, the diet, she had tried hypnotherapy, she had tried injections, she had tried all these things. And she thought, I, I I'm either going to die this way or I'm going to have to have surgery. And I said, could you just try— just give me 6 months. Could you just give me 6 months? And her goal, like one of her dreams, was to be able to go shopping with her daughter because she couldn't walk around. And using strategies that worked with her mom brain, and worked with her life. She sent me a picture the other day of her and her daughter at the mall. She had lost 150 pounds. They're at the mall shopping, and she's like, "This— I've had this on my vision board for so long." And now she was at the mall shopping with her daughter. I'm saying the reason God gives you a desire is not to lead to disappointment. But to reveal your destiny. And when we do things His way, in a way without shame and condemnation, because we know He loves to accuse the brethren. Satan loves to tell you everything you're doing wrong and that you're not enough and you're failing. If we can turn a deaf ear to that and start listening to God who says, "Through me, you are enough. I've already decreed your success. I've already gone before you. My favor surrounds you like a shield. You're destined to be the top, not the bottom, the head, not the tail. You're supposed to walk in righteousness." Like, if we start tuning into that, our pattern, when we work with the way that he's created us, it will lead to victory. It always does.

When you just— I love, you know, the way my brain works. I'm like, this is— I see all the layers of how finding your own path and realizing that you are not the typical when you're in the stages of raising your kids and all that. And what that means can grow out of it, the business, the personal growth and all that. What did that mean for you in the rhythms at home? Like, because one of the biggest frustrations and one of the most stressful things is I can't get all of this in something. It all— it's always changing. I can't keep up. I tried this routine. It didn't work. So how did you find your way into the routine for dinner or the routine for laundry or I don't know, just the different things. If— can you give some examples of what it looked like for you to accept that and then experience success and not stress at home?

And I love the word routine because I truly believe, like, if you start establishing a routine around something that you want to accomplish, an area of your life you really want to get straightened out, when you can develop a routine— initially, the hardest habits to make are the ones that, that bless us the most. And that's that. Like, inside our university, we literally take one habit— we call them master habits— we focus on one habit a week, and we make it so simple. The first habit, like, if you get in our full-year program, the first habit is just laying out your clothes the night before. Now, you would think that's, that's no big thing. I like that. Like, that's a big deception. We think, like, the small things are not going to make a big difference, but they actually make the hugest difference because for a mom, we can actually execute it.

Are you naturally organized?

Am I naturally organized? I think it was unnatural at first. And I think now it's second nature because it's wired into my nervous system now from all the habits that I've stacked. You know, so we start with one and we stack another stack, and what happens is it gets hardwired now in the back of your brain. So that— so when you're starting a new thing, it's all here in the front of your brain, and it takes a lot of energy. Like, it was hard to learn how to tie your shoes the first time. Now hopefully it's not as hard. You can just do it because now it's encoded in the back of your brain and it becomes second nature. So that's why we, we leave moms only one habit or routine a week, and then we stack another one onto that to give it time to encode in the back of their brain. So now they're doing things like on autopilot. So this first thing, laying out clothes the night before, that one habit, we just ask 7 days, just do that. And all of a sudden what happens is you start your morning already ahead of the game. Your clothes are already there. You're not spending your brain energy, which results in decision fatigue because you burn up so much glucose in your brain. So we don't already start with decision fatigue. You have a decision that's already made and you feel like you're ahead of the game. Just that one little thing. And so that's like when you talk about the rhythms, I believe the rhythm is created and what we do intentionally that shows up eventually unintentionally, and that creates the rhythm we have. And now we have the bedtime routines and the, in the morning routines, and, and our kids start to expect that. We have a whole system inside of university about how to modify your children's behavior, how to do this, a system with helping them, and now they learn a certain stability of what the day is going to look like. Now, we embrace the chaos because our lives are never going to be without the chaos.

When we were talking about routines, I'm sorry because I know I keep interrupting you with my curiosity questions. Where did you get your routines from? Like, I finally got a library. Library was one of my dreams, and it's organized-ish, but I know where my mom books are. And I remember there was a season, and I homeschooled too, There was a season, oh my gosh, where I was just like, how in the world? And my mother's house was always clean. She always had dinner on the table. And I had to tell myself, we were at school all day. But anyway, I was like getting books and going to websites. And I wouldn't say that I was looking for a solution. I was looking for ideas. And so I pulled a little from here and a little from here, but I didn't— my mom just seemed to magically get it done. And I did not have the rhythms and routines baked in to do them automatically. It was so weird. I was like, my mom did a great job raising us. Why can't I figure this out? So where did, as you were learning routines, where did it come from? Did it come from your mom? Did you comb books? Like, you're a coach now, but what were you doing to get the information as you needed it?

I was, well, I would actually, I have a strategy on problem solving. So if there's a problem in how we're running things, how my family's operating, how the kids are doing, like whatever, I always think there's a system that's missing. So if there's a problem, a system's missing. And then I think what we lack is our own problem-solving ability. The mom brain is actually brilliant at problem solving, but we always are consuming so much information, like immediately we'll go to Google, right? Or we're searching for what is the answer to this instead of sitting for a minute without anything, any interruption, piece of paper, a pen, and saying, if a system is missing, thank you, God, that you're giving me that system right now. And you listen and you think about yourself and your own rhythm and your own family and you create a system. And so, like, okay, as simple as these socks are all over the place, nothing matches, and I have a literal laundry basket, and I don't feel like sitting with a laundry basket and sorting socks. Okay, it's simple like that. That's just a tiny example. So I'm like, all right, what is the system that's missing? What if when we take off our socks, we put a safety pin on them and threw them in the laundry? Okay, I know that seems like Little tiny things. But it's where you look at what you're living with and the problems you have, and you say there is a simple solution that can create a system that will prevent the problems. So when we had, like, if, if our children were misbehaving and we didn't have consistent, like, how do we, how do we punish, how do we reward, how do we do this? I sat and created a system where every night it was super simple because I don't have You don't have 30 minutes to say, "Let's talk about your behavior today, honey." Like, you don't have time for that. And so, we had a simple system where we had 10 goals. 5 were character and 5 are performance. And so, it's like, okay, were you— did you get along with your brothers and sisters? Check. Okay, did you obey your mom? Check. Okay, so we have 5 of those. Okay, did you clean up your room? Did you do the zone in your home? Check. And so now, it's like, all right, 10 or above, you get a sticker. Less than that, sorry, you don't. Like something simple like that. Zoning my home. That's one thing that when you get in our university, you divide your home into 4 zones and you're not trying to declutter and clean everything. You're like, today, this week, it's just the kitchen and I'm just going to declutter one thing. What would it be? Maybe the food organizers. Maybe I get all that out and just trash the things I can't find a lid for. But we, I think we overcomplicate things. Instead of creating a simple system that will help make it run smoother. Businesses do it. And I think that the most successful business in the world should be the business of family and home. So get the system that will support what you need and what your children need. I think we're great at doing that. We just don't give ourselves an opportunity to.

I think, um, I— some people are overwhelmed by looking around. I, I loved getting ideas from other people, but here's Here's the thing. It's kind of what we were saying earlier. Their ideas worked for them. And then, and my husband would say this all the time. He would say, you keep trying stuff that works for everybody else and it doesn't work for us. So even if I keep an Aqua Notes, my community knows this. I have an Aqua Notes stuck to the shower wall and it has a waterless paper and a waterproof paper and a waterproof pen because the greatest ideas come to me in the shower. There is this permission that we have to give ourselves to— it's like eating catfish. You take what you need and throw away the things that you don't. And then realize that once you even take what worked for somebody else, you're still going to have to craft it for your family and giving yourself the room to do it your way. But I love what you said about sitting down and figuring out, do you have a solution? Because often I think we go first to look at other people's solutions when often if we would just pause for just a second and think, what could I do? The solution, you have one. You just haven't given yourself permission to think that you do. So that's really great. It's really great. Okay. We are working ourselves backwards from the 3 most important things. We've talked about connection, routines, and now mom brain, and you sprinkle that throughout. And I know that we talked about kind of what it is and that your brain changes, but how for you, Did understanding the changes in your brain make the difference in how you walked through your years of child rearing? How does it help you now with all these adult children that still need you?

Right. Still talk every single day with all of them. Mercy. It gave me so much mercy. So for example, one of the greatest changes of the mom brain is the change of prioritization system. So. Your brain is always after your survival, so it's going to make sure you're surviving, right? But the mom brain, no, it's not your survival, it's your children's survival. So we have this filtering system that works with our brain where we're filtering out all the things around us that are not potential threats so that we can focus. When you become a mom, that is— that filtering system decreases rapidly because now you're having to tune into all the things around you because they could be potential threats to your children. Your brain just does that. It's like, have you ever been on your phone and, and it like gets janky and things don't load up? And then one of my kids will say, Mom, give me your phone. And then they're like, holy— Mom, how many apps do you have open? You know, and she's like, close, close, close, close. Okay, swipe, swipe, swipe. 20 minutes later, right? And that's the way your mom brain is now. It's like your brain has all the apps open because it's subconsciously filtering the environment for any threats that could come against her children. So that's why they're like, why can't I focus? Why am I always distracted? Your brain is now allowing that to make sure you're prepared to keep your kids alive. And so it helps you say, maybe I'm not— maybe I don't have ADHD. Maybe I'm not distracted. Maybe I— maybe it's not that I can't focus. Maybe it's just my brain is subconsciously focusing on the things that I need to be aware of. We call it mother's intuition. It's like your kid came home, come home from school and you're like, they're just a little off. And your husband's like, they seem fine to me. And I was like, no, I just think they're a little off. You know, it's grabbing your toddler before they run out in traffic.

Yeah. And it's, it's, it's, it's a crazy, because what I don't think people miss, even as you're describing it, is that it truly is a superpower. So we are lamenting the things that we lose, but we're not paying attention to what we got. As a result.

Yes, it's actually a superpower. And so yes, you're going to be highly distracted. Yes, you're going to start things and you're not going to finish it. But now you have this new level, this new sensing level where you're taking care of your children in a subconscious way that you don't even realize you're doing. And so we have this, this lack of filtering system, and we can get down on ourselves or we can celebrate it and just learn how to work with it. That's why so many programs fail moms is because they're not designed to work with the mom brain. So learn how to work with the mom brain, learn how to work with the unavoidable distraction. And another thing, like, a mom doesn't take care of themselves. And again, it's, it's unintentional because the brain is like, your children must come first. Like, you're always problem solving for your children. And when people are like, you need to take care of yourself, you know that old example that people always use for self-care? Like, when you're in an airplane and the mask dropped down, put it on yourself. Okay, if that actually happened and you had a plane full of mamas with little kids, you'd have passed out mamas up and down that row because every mom would put on their child first because that's how our brain operates. That's why we come to a stop and that hand comes out to break the child.

You don't even try.

You don't even try. And what you're saying is, I will happily go through this windshield and die but you will stay alive. That's how our brain operates. So we're always, always— we're like constantly have this great imagination too, but we imagine the worst-case scenarios. So the mom brain— people are like, why am I like picturing me accidentally throwing my child out of the window, or them falling out of their crib and cracking their head, or, or someone, you know, kidnapping them? Because the mom brain is always thinking of the worst-case scenario so it can subconsciously prepare for that. So it's not that something's wrong with you. It's your brain is doing what it's designed to do. There's this one time when my husband and I had watched this movie about alien abduction. Okay? We go to bed. He rolls over and goes to sleep. Girl, it is 3:45 in the morning, and my brain is like, all right, in case aliens invade my home, I, I'll grab the baby first. I'll put them down my shirt. I'll tie my shirt. I'll put a kid on my back. I'll throw the rope ladder. Okay, my husband's on his own. Like, I'm literally devising an escape route for an alien abduction. And for the outsider, it looks crazy, but for the mom, we are always problem solving for potential risk. Think about, okay, if I collide, if I am carrying off this bridge into the water? How am I going to get all the kids out? Like, we're always doing that. But if we could just switch and think, okay, now that I have imagined the worst-case scenario, I have to give myself time and energy intentionally to imagine a best-case scenario too, just so we can balance out that stress. But like I said, no programs are designed to work with the intuitive nature of the mom brain. Once we understand that, we win.

Let me tag this on to this discussion as we wrap up. Okay, so I don't know how old you are, but I'm gonna guess in this based on the ages of your kids. Mom brain takes on a whole nother light when we talk— start talking about perimenopause and menopause. Um, do the same principles that allowed you to give yourself mercy once you understood your brain. Do they work in that season too? Talk to me about how that applies to the things that we experience when we're in that season.

You know, that season, and I'm 56 right now, and I think I am, I don't keep track.

Right. After you turned 50, we celebrated, we moved on.

I literally, I was on the phone the other day with our payment processor for the business. And he asked me when my birthday was and I told him, and my husband's like, What's a Chipotle?

What?

I'm like, what? I, what? I don't— like, that's the mom brain. But here's the good news and bad news. The bad news is all the longitudinal studies of the mom brain, it doesn't go back. Like, you have it once, you have it for the rest of your life. So now you're talking about menopause and the mom brain, double whammy. Right? We can do a whole nother episode on that, baby. And that, yeah, we'll just do a menopause-specific. But again, the grace that comes in of like, okay, I am not meant to have this period be a challenge to me. So there's every single morning I speak over myself, He renews my youth like the eagles. I'm just speaking youth over myself. I'm speaking ability, strength, wisdom over myself. And so I think when we start to go into menopause intentionally and we're not just like, oh, well, this is the chapter, it can be a brilliant chapter if we know how to walk through it. I've had to do so much new learning about what my body is doing, what it's telling me. I have to change how I eat. I have to change how I exercise. I have to change the supplements I'm taking. We can be intentional about this, or we can say, well, it's just, it just is what it is. No, it's not. It's what you make it. So it doesn't have to be a recipe for disaster. It can be a great season. I'm having more fun now. It's a great season.

I love it. So I know that we have talked a lot about mom brain, routines, connection. And then you've mentioned, um, of course the The Mom's University where you walk women through, it's a year-long program, right? It's 12 months worth of material. And then of course there's all the things. Y'all, if you want to know more about Hannah Keeley, you can find her at Hannah Keeley everywhere. She's got her YouTube channel and her website and Instagram. And I encourage you to check her out. But I also want you to get something that Hannah has set aside for you, and it's the Mom Brain Survival Guide. It's a free PDF. You can find that at chrystalevanshurst.com/mombrain. But I have been to her website— by the way, your website is great, it's great.

Oh, thank you.

That website and be over here, it's really great. And, and just explore what the options are. There's a blog, there's a YouTube channel. And so I remember, particularly when my kids were young, just being hungry for somebody to show me things. And my mom was great, and I would call her a lot, but my mom had never homeschooled her kids. And my mom had 4 kids, I had 5, and there were some semblances, but my children were different. And so there was— as much as I had gotten from my mom, there was always a need for me to continue to grow in mothering my children, being married to my husband, living in my house, um, living through the seasons of homeschooling. And there were other things that I needed There are resources out there to help you. And Hannah Keeley, not only is she a resource, but she has created resources so that you don't have to figure all these things out alone. So I want to encourage you to check her out, grab that mom brain PDF. Um, Hannah, if there was one thing that you would say to a mom who's listening today and kind of at her wit's end, maybe she just had her laundry room breakdown, mental breakdown moment. Um,, and all of this is helpful, but she's kind of, you know, in the thick of it feeling like she's at the bottom of the pit and is like, this is great, but I just don't even know what I'm supposed— I just, I, I don't even feel like I have the energy, the capacity, the time, the bandwidth to absorb a course or PDF or whatever. And she just needed to right now hear some encouragement from you. What would you say to her?

I would say to her what I wish someone had said to me. When I was at my worst moments. And it's, "This is just a chapter. I know it feels like it's your life, and it's not even a chapter. It's a page in a chapter. This page is going to turn. It's not going to always be like this. And don't confuse a bad moment with a bad life. It's just a stage. Every storm has to run out of rain. Every night has to run out of dark." It doesn't stay this way. There is something here where you can take a deep breath, dig down deep because you got the power of God in you. May not feel like it, but you do. And let's get back up and get to it. You got this.

Love it. Love it. Love it.

Love it.

Thank you so much for being with me. Hope y'all enjoyed her. I know you did. And, um, check her out. You will be blessed. I am 100% sure of it. Thanks for joining me here.

Thank you so much, it's been great.