How to Savor & Serve with Jennifer Louden

Welcome to Mama Goddess. I'm your host, Alexandra J. Johnson. This podcast is all about rocking your goddess life, creating vibrant health and celebrating motherhood and family life. It's about living an authentically awesome life. Let's have some fun. I'm Alexandra J. Johnson, and today we have an amazing guest, Jen Louden. And Jen is awesome. As you can see. She's gorgeous, she's amazing, and she is the self care queen. And I am so thrilled to be talking with Jen today because I think she is just the embodiment of play, fun, adventure, pleasure, self care, and savoring the good life. I've read most of her books. I love her. I love her spirit, I love her energy and welcome, Jen.

Let's just keep going on in this vein because that's a good thing. I like this. I like feeling this way. You know, I want to start off right by saying that I don't think I am, you know, the self care, pleasure, savoring queen, but it's something I'm always working on. And I am in some relationships and some domains more than others. And I just think that's, you know, I just want to call that out because I think it's so easy when we see someone who's published books or, you know, been on Oprah or whatever to think that, oh, man, they're just like floating through life. And if, if you said that to my family, they would just laugh uproariously at you. My mom was over last night. My mom has Alzheimer's and she's starting to get pretty confused. Bob was the playful one last night. My partner, Bob. Bob was the fun one. And I'm kind of like the dower. Something fell on her and she had these bruises and I'm the one who's worrying. And when are we going to get her into assisted living? And can I get that? Will she remember to put arnica on herself? And, you know, so I just think it's, you know, different. Like I'm playful with you because you made me feel great. You know, I'm playful with my dogs who are trying to get up the studio stairs right now. Yeah. Anyway, that's my little. My little preamble.

Well, that's awesome. And I will go on with the appreciation because that's one thing that I love about you too, is that you are so authentic with where you are on your journey and willing to, to just say, this is what I'm working on. You know, I'm not perfect. I don't have it figured out. But this is what I'm going for. And these are my struggles, and these are my. You know what my accomplishments. And I just love that about you.

I can't wait for the day that I'm perfect. I'm awaiting. I'm awaiting. And I hope it comes with a card in the mail, like my AARP card that they keep sending me. They send it, like, four days before you turn 50. Just you wait. Really Youngin. And they send it over and over, Even if you don't send them their damn $15, which I'm not about to send them their 15 DOL. So anyway, I hope I get the perfection card. I cannot wait. I hope it's really big and laminated calligraphy. I'm gonna frame it professionally. I'm gonna have it professionally framed, Spray or no expense. Anyway.

Oh, my gosh. That's great. Yeah. I think that's such a great thing, Perfection, too, because we all want to be perfect. Yeah.

What would that be like?

Wow. That would be bo. I mean, I say it would be boring, but I still would like to be perfect.

Yeah, I don't think it will be boring. I think it's just what we tell ourselves because we're never gonna get there. Oh, there's people there. So boring. We want to keep learning and growing. It's like, oh, no.

Really? No, that's awesome. Okay, so I would love to. I'd love to talk about savoring. I know you're savoring and serving is your big mission right now. So I want to start off with the saving. Can you just talk about what savor means for you and why that's important for us and how do we save a moa?

Yeah. So from a big part of my professional life, I was known as the comfort queen because I published these books about self care, starting with the woman's comfort book in 1992. And I started to really chafe at it probably. Probably 10 or 12 years ago, but it was really successful. I had a big content website, and, you know, I had licensed products and calendars and all of this. And it wasn't that the message wasn't important, but it was that I saw that sometimes women got stuck around self care, and I saw can't connect to icloud because of the problem with Genesis. My computer is talking to me. I can't make that stop. My assistant's coming here tomorrow, and she's going to unhook whatever that voice is. I've not been able to figure out.

How to unhook it.

So let's pretend. That voice just didn't say that. It's like the voice of shame coming in.

Hello, Dennifer here.

I was really becoming. I mean, I've always been someone who's very concerned about the world, as most of women are. And someone as a kid who, you know, read Silent Spring and was, you know, very. Would come home with, you know, what's wrong with the world? My dad would be like, ah, stop listening to that stuff, you know? So I wanted to bring the two together. And I really realized that it's always everything in our life right now has to be about wholeness. It's not the feminine. It's not feminism and the men's movement anymore. It's wholeness. It's bringing feminine, masculine together. It's not left and right. It's bringing conversations together. And you see so much division in the world. You're seeing it in Egypt right now where it's about. Or Syria or the Congo or our dysfunctional congress where it's division, division, division. You see it around the gun laws, trying to change the gun laws. Nobody's hearing each other. So I really realized whatever work I wanted to do, it needed to be the inner and the outer together. And the savor and serve was the. Was how it came together was this idea of if I can savor my life, if I can savor my gifts, if I can savor the beauty of this day, then I can find the best and most sustainable way to serve. And then that serving will also be savoring. Right? It's a scissor. Gizzy is the word from yoga, Right? It's a back and a forth. And it's interesting because in the interviews that I do with people on the Shiro's Journey, Shiro's Revolutionary school interviews that I'm doing for you all over in Theos. That's a theme that comes out over and over again. It is not about, I'm going to go out and save the world. That model never worked and it's dying, thank God. It's what brings me alive. And how close am I paying attention to that? Because I really believe it's very easy to override our inner guidance and our calls. And we can suffer for years because we're trying to be different than we are.

Right?

So that's my long, long, long, long answer to your question. Weird male computer voice in the midst.

Very interesting. Are you getting feedback?

I'm getting a little feedback. Do you want me to put my earphones in?

Sure. I can put some on. Too. Okay, so the savoring, I love that. Not saving the world because I know a lot of us, you know, we want to take care of ourselves, but we want to make a difference and we want to savor. So what's the shift that we need to make to actually savor? Because I feel like there's resistance for me, there's resistance for people that I work with and just the world to actually savor and relax and say life is good, right?

There's so many things always want to start at the animal level, right? We are animals and so we have to attend to the body. And what I notice is I'm getting ready to leave for a trip and a lot's going on this summer in my life. I'm getting married. And so I can get my nervous system into this really heightened place where it's literally impossible for me to savor. And I can say, oh, doesn't this green juice taste great? But I'm not actually savoring it. So our mutual friend Rick Hansen has wonderful brain based, contemplative based practices, one of which I'll give you right now, which is really use your senses for 5 to 10, 20 seconds, right? So it doesn't take very long. There's nothing you have to add to your to do list to take in the taste of the green juice or to take in this. You know, you have a big baby right now, so get to kiss those baby feet. Like don't just say, oh, is it Emerson Cute. With your mind, take in the aliveness of Emerson. Of course it's very easy with Emerson, but it's harder. So you've got it, you've got to start at the body level. You've got to keep and you've got to have mercy with yourself because when you're, when you're in that speeded up space, it's very. You don't have the capacity in your brain, right? Then you don't have the capacity in your nervous system. You're overriding being human. And that is absolutely the way most of us live most of the time. And that includes, I fall into it so many times a day. And I'll go into the house to have lunch. And Bob works at home too. And he'll be like, sit down to eat. Because he's the guy who makes himself the beautiful lunch. And it's plated, you know, it looks like something gourmet magazine and sips and he eats it and he reads this New Yorker and he tastes it and I'm the one Standing up, talking, eating the carrots and the hummus, right? Totally, yes. So first of all, just one takeaway. Everybody start at the animal level and don't judge yourself if it feels impossible. That's just your mind wanting to keep doing the same thing. Your nervous system is habituated to go and just use your senses. Taste something, smell something, see something, feel something and just linger there. Just put all your attention there. That's it. That will do a lot. And then the second thing I think we need to do to savor is to value it. We don't value being present, we don't value savor, we don't value our senses. We live in a very patriarchal world still. Whether you all believe it or not, and you think that women and men are equal and we're living in wholeness, it ain't true, right? And the patriarchal values are produce, drive, provide. There's lots of good in those masculine values, but they're over developed in our culture. So you are naturally going to buy that whether you buy it consciously or not unconsciously. It's like, oh my God, I should be a little busy, I should be a little productive, I should make more money, I should have a best selling book, right? I should say the world is just another version of that, right? It's I should go out there and do. Doing is important, but this is all about our development into mature species and everything coming in. You have integration, integration, integration. So you gotta start sometimes by doing like reclamation work of what is it like to value savoring? What are the actions I take that value savoring? Is it more white space in my calendar? Is it two or three hours a week, nothing scheduled. And I just ask myself, what do I want? What do I want? No creeping in of the to do list. Is it allowing yourself to arrive five minutes early for things? I've been working with this new trainer guy for some back issues and I swear to God, I have been five minutes late or one minute late to every single appointment for the whole first month we've been working together. He doesn't know me, so I could be chronically late and I'm like, really, buddy? I swear I'm not. It's just been this month. But I notice how it can creep in, right? These are all habits of doing one more thing.

Yes.

So first we animal body, second we value. And then third, I think we have to start to inhabit more of an interbeing place. That's another word for wholeness, right? Like how do we get out of the Separation myth. How do we get out of the myth that that doing is more important than being or that I'm going to affect change versus being the person who is the change? Like, how can you start playing with that? And we can talk about that for the rest of the interview. But just to see that idea, there's so much.

So I love that, and the senses, too, like, just slowing down. I just recently read a book, Come to your senses is the name of it all about that. And I've been practicing it, and it's challenging. I mean, I'm worrying about my dad. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna come to my senses. And every part of my habitual is like, you've gotta get something done. You do not have one minute to breathe. You know?

Right.

Seriously.

I find that with this training that I'm doing for this, I have a series of body patterns, movement patterns, that keep producing pain for me. And every time I go back to yoga or regular exercise, it just really exacerbates. So I'm having to do this very painstaking movement, which does not give you a nice body. Like, my butt's not going anywhere. My arms are still flapping in the wind, you know, so I'm not getting any payoff. I'm still in pain. And everything in me wants to put on the music and do the movements, right? Get through it and get payoff. And it's like, no, it's all very slow, you know? And it's all about retraining my body. And the only payoff is that maybe months from now, maybe sooner, I won't be in pain, which would be huge. But right now, it's like, I want tighter arms. So I watch that tendency in myself every single day, just in this one domain.

Yeah, it's so fascinating. And part of why I'm doing this conference is because I'm seeing how imbalanced I am, how imbalanced our culture is of not savoring, of not taking time for pleasure. We're just kind of going through the routine of, like, I got to do this, and I have a big long to do list and 500 things to get done, and just, like, relaxing and doing less. And it brings up for me so much of, like, I look at what I did in the day, you know, I'm like, what did I do today? You know? But I was relaxed and I was calm. And as you were talking about, my nervous system was, like, humming at a beautiful pace rather than, you know, sporadic. So can you talk about how we can Maybe simplify our days or what can we do to actually take the time to savor? Like what?

Well, I think it's a combination of having a practice. I feel like I fall down in this chair, so I'm just going to kind of keep sitting up. But it's a practice of learning to be aware of what you just so beautifully described. How do we fall into our patterns and the painfulness about watching this pattern? Because what we do as humans, which this falls into the same, same story, is we see the pattern and then we think, ah, now I'll be able to change it. And what we skip out of sheer pain, we don't want to feel that pain, is staying with that pattern. So I'll go back to my story, doing these exercises and I'm not getting fit and I'm not getting bached. I'm just trying to change the way my pelvis and my upper body are stabilized. And I want to be done with seeing my pattern of rushing through it. I want to stop. I want to be mindful and calm and enjoying it. That may never happen. But what I can say is I am staying aware of my pattern and I'm dropping my judgment about that pattern. So that is really tedious news for everybody. Listening wants a sexy five second, then you'll be done. But it's the truth. So it's becoming aware of that pattern. So how do you become aware of that pattern? Well, you have to have a practice that helps you be aware. Is it yoga? Is it meditation? Is it it, you know, a mindful slow walk outside after dinner in the summer? You know, what are you doing that allows you to just be aware of how your mind works? So you gotta find something. If you haven't found something yet, the world is full of an enthusiasm, full of ways to find it. Keep playing until you find one that helps you be aware. Second of all, you have to practice self mercy. You know, you have to practice dropping what Buddha called the second arrow. Right? The first arrow is, oh, shit, I'm running through my day again and I'm loving my to do list. And I'm like, I'm fondling my to do list, right? Yeah, you know. Oh, let me just stop. I just need to go over and put a few things on the list, right? I mean there's like. That comes up for me. I will be meditating and I will be like running what I want to put on my list when I get done. You know, it is. And why dopamine from that it's like we're like the rat with the lever.

Right.

So we have to have a self mercy practice go. Oh, right. I'm habituated to my to do list. There I am again, end of story.

Yeah.

Not I'm bad. Not I should change. Not. That's good, you know, nothing.

Yep.

And then I really just gotta give myself a plug here, which is my last book. The Life Organizer is a great book for asking yourself mindful questions and using your body and your heart brain, which is a 40,000 plus neurons we have in our heart to start to break some of these patterns. Right.

And it's like a addiction. Like you said the dopamine. Like we.

It is an addiction, it is into.

Speed and like beta brainwave frequency. Right? I mean.

Yeah, yeah. I mean it is in the story. It is. So how again we have to work with it on the animal level and the brain body connection and we have to work on it with mercy. Because if we. And here, for those of you who are like Eris fairy, I care about self mercy. When you're beating yourself up, when you're speaking to yourself cruelly, when you're develop, when you're delivering the third, fifth and seventy thousandth arrow of you're so shitty, you should change. You're actually shutting down the higher functions of your brain. Study after study shows that you are habituating yourself towards less of what you want in your life and more of what you don't want. You're gonna not achieve the goals you want. You're not gonna savor life more through self cruelty. You're actually gonna turn away from savory because it requires you to feel and be present. And it's no fun to feel and be present when you're being cruel to yourself. It's like you know, being stuck in an elevator with a bully.

Yeah, that's very cool. I love that. And like you said, the airy fairy, you know, because even some people might be watching this and thinking, oh, self care, blah blah, blah. Like I do have 500 things that I need to get done and I want to do and I want to do all this before I die and I need to be go, go, go. So I think I love that of valuing savoring too.

Yeah. I mean really, if there's one thing I want people to take away from it, from this interview, is value it. Value it. Because really at the end of the day, not even the end of your life, not even the big deathbed scene, just the end of your day when you're laying in bed, what do you remember? Like, I don't remember getting off this call and going out and sitting in the sun with my daughter who' home from college on the back porch. You know, I'll remember a hug. I'll remember snuggling this morning with Bob in bed. I'll remember looking at Emerson when you showed him to me on Skype. I'm not gonna remember the things I tucked off my to do list. I'm not gonna remember calling the hairdresser on behalf of my mother in law. You know, I'm just, you know, I. But I really wanted to get that done before you called me. Right? You would have thought I was like gonna win the lottery if I got that call done.

But I'm not gonna remember that.

What I'm gonna remember are these moments that I really stopped it. And when you were showing me Emerson, that's what I was doing. I'm like, oh my God, like part of the back of my brain's going, let's get on with this interview, let's get it done. I got things to do. And the other part is like, oh my God, there's Emerson. And I wanna, like, I want. I mean, I consciously decide in those moments to savor seeing him and imagine touching him and what he smells like.

And yeah, it's such a beautiful practice. I totally do that with Emerson. When I'm waking up at night breastfeeding again for the fifth time, I'm like, oh my gosh, we've been doing this for nine months. And there's the part of my brain that, you know, I just wanted it to be done and I don't want to be doing it. And I want him to be sleeping through the night. And so for me, I have the practice of waking up and like, exactly that. Savoring him and appreciating. Like he's going to be not breastfeeding soon. You know, like there's a time where he's not going to want to be super close to me and cuddly. And so it's like such a beautiful practice to just let go of our mental stories and judgments and all the things that we want to just settle in and savor, right?

And then I think I want to just presence the fact that when the voice comes up that says, how long am I going to be doing this? And I remember Lily would breastfeed and I would be sweating and hot. You know, she got older, you know, it was like, ah. You know, it just wasn't the sweet, tender, you know, newborn thing anymore. And you know, it's not to judge that part. It's not to like try to push it away because it just will get louder and stronger. It's just say, oh, yeah. There's a part of me that thinks getting this done is a cool thing. It's a part of me that thinks hurrying get four more things done today before we leave on our trip is a great idea. That's just it. But I don't have to keep pushing the lever. And as if I don't push the lever as I choose to savoring that part of my brain, those neural pathways will get stronger. But it takes time. It's just like me in the training, you know, doing the roll up on the ball and the roll down on the ball. It's like, really? Yeah, really.

Okay, so savoring. We're savoring then.

We're savoring.

We're savoring. And I have a really important question.

About doing.

Because I know other people are going to have this and I have it. Like, if I'm just savoring my day and going slowly, like, am I actually going to get things done? Because there is part of me that wants to savor and do things and not get my to do list. But then it goes too far. Yeah, too far. And it's like, oh, wow, I've had that on my to do list for like a week. Maybe I should get that done. So how do we balance the savoring with being productive? Because being productive is cool too. What's your thoughts?

Yeah, yeah. We have to put food on the table. We have to diaper children. We have to keep the roof from falling down. We have to, you know, all the things. Yeah, well, I think it's a combination. It's a great question. And at the bottom, like the base level, it is, it's integration, wholeness. Again, let me just be a broken record, you know, it's do I have savoring and serving? Do I have being and doing? How do I know I do? And this is the key part. We gotta have a feedback system. We have to have a way, several ways. Not just leaving it up to ourselves. Because we are not reliable witnesses of our own lives, Right? No way. Nobody is. Nobody.

Nobody.

You think you are, right. Do you know this data that people who. Most people, it's like 3% of the population, I don't know if it's the US population or world population, actually can exist on less than six hours of sleep at night and not be impaired. Do you know how much Percentage of the US population thinks they can live on less than six hours of sleep. It's like, I don't know, it's like huge percentage of us. I can't remember the exact number. We think, oh, we're fine. Well, actually, when you're sleep impaired after two nights of not sleeping enough for you, it's the same as being functionally drunk, same as being legally drunk. Right. But you don't know it. And this is the same way we are about everything in our lives. We think we exercise, we think we're drinking our green juice, but do we have any way to actually check in? So you got to create and play with. Just like with an awareness or meditation practice. What are the systems that allow you to check? What's the balance for you? What's the feedback system? You know, again, I, you know, years ago, wrote this book just coming out in paperback in January because I wanted to. I was looking for feedback system. Right. Like, how do I know I'm being and doing. Because I know the being part of me gets overlooked. But for some people listening, the doing part gets overlooked.

Right.

We sink into fear, we sink into entropy. It's again, human. So I think the biggest reason that that happens is we try to do the wrong things and we try to do maths. We look at that, we look at the day unrealistically, and we don't look at the year realistically. You can get a lot done in a year. You can't get that much done in a day. So whatever system of checks and balances, you have to have to involve other people. They have to involve some kind of written record, some kind of of recorded record that can't be reliant on your memory. So, you know, a very simple example is a food diary, exercise diary. And they have to involve a community, the adequate, which is what philosopher Ken Wilber calls it. You might call it a mastermind group or a church group, or somebody who's with you in a particular domain or domains to help you track. It has been hugely important for me. And then, yeah, you have to pick. What am I really working on? What really matters to me. Because what I see happening so often is too much. It's either inhuman goals on an inhuman time frame and then there's no tracking mechanism in place.

Yep. So then the tracking is just tracking what is most important and then tracking it. I totally agree on the food journal. I have done that for like, like 15 years. Right. If I have some issues, I don't do it every day, but I'VE gone through phases. If I notice, I start wanting to eat whole bars of chocolate.

And what's an issue with that?

With eating a whole bar of chocolate?

Yeah. I don't understand. Oh, I may be in that phase right now.

What I've noticed is that I go to the chocolates because, you know, we're all about pleasure and savor. For me, I want to eat it as fast as I can. I'm not really savoring it. And I usually go, I only want chocolate when I feel tired or deflated. Otherwise, if I'm feeling good, I don't want chocolate. I notice that. If I notice that, I just want to have the bar of chocolate, but I never record it. So I do it for a week and I'm like, bring some awareness to it. I'm like, oh, I've been more tired and deflated. That's right.

So you're bringing that. Yes, exactly. It's a perfect example. And we can't track every area of our life. So what you want to do is you want to say, so where is this place between being and doing that? I'm not happy. And how can I start to investigate that again? There's no perfect way to do this. There's no, like, don't start going out there looking for the cookie cutter way and recording everything about your life. You'll just overwhelm yourself. But what's the being and doing place that keeps coming up for me? And it could be on the being side or the doing side. That's just not feeling right for me. Well, who can I talk to about that that might have some perspective? Is there a friend? Is there, you know, colleagues? Otherwise, I see that you have made progress in this. Like, how are you even assessing it? What's the interpretation that you're bringing to the being and doing? Like, get curious there first, and then, like, how would I start to have a different set of eyes and relationship and data? Because facts are our friends. When it comes to integration and being and doing, facts are our friends.

Right?

How much time am I really taking for vacation? How much time, how many days a week am I really unplugging? Do I have a Sabbath? Do I have a day of white space in which I just ask for myself? What? Ask myself, what do I want? Ask the couple important people in my life. What do you want? What do we want to do together? What would be recharging? Am I really doing that? Track it on your calendar. You. If there's a goal that really keeps coming up and coming Up. Maybe it's to write a short story or to put on a conference like this or to launch your blog and year after year it's not happening. Well, it's time. Is that really what I want or am I not doing it because I'm avoiding the real call? So I mean, we could go on and on here, but I think that gives people someplace to start.

Yeah, definitely. And I'm curious on just the maybe going a little bit more into the being and the doing. I think a lot of us are familiar with the doing, but can you just talk about what you mean for the being and how do we tap into the being? And like you said, there might be some people watching this who have got the being down, but I feel like most of us lean towards the doing.

Well, I think it's hard because really what we're talking about with being and with integration of being and doing is living in touch with our innate well being, with our Buddha nature, with our Christ consciousness, you know, whatever term works for those of you listening. And it's knowing that that is ever present and it gets obscured, right, with chocolate and caffeine and worry about my mom and worry about, you know, the state of the planet and the 20% of the polar ice caps that are left. And that's all very real, but it doesn't change my innate well being. So we want to create ways to tap into that, but we can't make them doing because then it just becomes another thing on our to do list. Oh, today's my seventh. And you know, we get so we have. It's this feeling about being that we have to be aware of before we can make time for being. And it's quite paradoxical, I guess, or ironic, I'm not sure which. But so I just want to say that like the bottom line that we're searching for is the felt embodied spiritual knowing. Whether you're, you know, it doesn't have to believe in a higher power or you can. That we are innate. Well being. And I think that's the deepest definition of savoring and serving because then there's no, there's no demarcation. There is out there to serve. It's all a flow. But that since that gets hovered over, what are the ways that I remember to take the leaves off the pile of me? You know, so is it, is it a Sabbath morning where nothing ever gets scheduled? Is it Friday night dinner with my family? Is it yoga class three times a week where the yoga doesn't matter? It's that I set the time aside to go and be someplace for other people. Community and commitments really help. That's a lot of people. It's yoga or a sangha, a meditation church. Because it's really hard to do this alone. And I really want a presence that being. I know I said this already, but we, in this culture of self help, love to make things all about us.

Right.

We've forgotten that the personal is political and the political is personal. We forgot the political part entirely. You know, that's something that happens out there. It is all interwoven. And so your inability, if there is one, to keep being alive in your life is because being is not something. It's very difficult to do anything alone. Right. Without community. And I don't think for many of us, I think community is really missing. I know it is for me. It's very hard for me to keep community going. I'm really amazed to see that how many people are canceling at the last minute coming to our wedding because they're too busy. It's been really hurtful. It's like, I would never do that to a friend. I just think, so loyal. I sat back on my calendar and I looked. Here's my little ramp. And I said, I can be there or I can't. Unless something. You know, some people have extraordinary circumstances, but that's different. So I think being is endangered. And so we need to find communities to be within being. And we have to avoid making it a should. At the same time, we make it a practice. How's that for a convoluted answer? Yeah.

I mean, that's awesome. And I love that too. Being with other people, how important that is. I think that's so. So, you know, we are too busy. We're too busy to do this. We're too busy to go see a friend. We're too busy. You know, yesterday I just had this exact thing. A woman had a baby the same time as me nine months ago. And I haven't seen her baby. We haven't seen babies. Like, we just haven't made it work. And I was like, I'm coming over on Tuesday. Like, I'm coming over. It's been too long. And I had tons of things to do on my to do list and whatever. And I went and I just enjoyed her baby. Enjoyed my baby. And just savored and appreciated. And I felt so good.

Yes. Because you allowed it. And you. And there's a way. There's a way that I think one of the skills that you're trying to bring forward in this conference is how do we develop a relationship with our own. With our own ecosystem, with our own tides.

Right.

Going in, coming out, and how do we trust that and listen for it? And it's really difficult to do it alone, really. We're social animals and we can judge ourselves so harshly when we think, I skipped my Sabbath again or I skipped my retreat day, or I didn't make time for the camping trip with the family this year, it's like, but who's holding it with you? I'm not saying stop trying, but just know that it's hard to do it alone and see what kind of support you can get around it.

Yeah. Very cool. And also, I love, as you were just talking about the being and the doing the being, like, when we are taking the yoga class or we are meditating, I noticed this. For me, like, there is a part of me which is a great part of me likes to check off meditation.

That's why we like power yoga. Right. Because we're burning some calories and getting a nice butt at the same time. Right? Yes. Only in America would Ashtanga or power yoga, flow yoga, become the number one yoga. It's like, really? Which is great. I mean, I did it for years. Hopefully someday I'll do it again. But, you know, all the other flavors of yoga and all the spiritual part of yoga and the moral part of yoga just kind of gets left behind. Yeah. And same thing with meditation. Yeah. Like, I love that sense of being able to click it off my list when I get off the cushion in the morning, and I just laugh at that. But it's that awareness and that playfulness, you know, to bring in the playful quality here that's so important. All of this.

We.

We can't get stern and dry, you know, down about the mouth about it. We just. That's. That's the sign to look for if that's what's happening around your being. We're. You're off track.

Yeah, totally. And then there's also the doing, like, while you're doing it, because I've noticed, too, there's the check. And then there's also while I'm doing it, I've been practicing, like, resting in it, you know, resting my nervous system. And as you're talking about actually savoring it rather than like, okay, I'm sitting on meditating for 15 to 30 minutes and I'm going to do it, but I'm not like, I can feel my body. Yeah. I'm like, what rest? Like that's what I'm. It's restorative, it's restful. So it's fascinating to watch.

Yeah, my very favorite moments, the most profound moments in meditation and in life are rest. And we can learn to rest in our innate well being no matter what. If, if Viktor Frankl could do it at Auschwitz, if some of the women, the stories that have come out of the Congo, if Eve Ensler can be joyful when she's going down to work with rape survivors in the Congo, for example. But also I'm thinking of women who have been raped. You know, we can do it too. And I think so often that's why the service part is so important. Because when we're connected, connected to something larger, whatever that is for us, it's a lot easier to drop some of our self importance around how much we have to get done.

So on this serving, I'm very interested because there's the savoring and we do what we need to do to stay plugged in and stay whole and complete and integrated and all of that. And currently I find in my journey now that there's a fair amount of integration that I need to do to kind of stay in that wholeness. Right.

Well, that is totally appropriate to where you are in your life. You've got a young baby and you know, you're still young and there is a development journey with this. So I mean, that sucks. Right on. It's where you're supposed to be.

And then so the serving though, because there's definitely a part of me that wants to serve and I am serving and I'm creating. I know a lot of people have this and I know a lot of moms have this too, that they're serving their child. But it's not enough because there are all of these issues in the world that there's this feeling that you need to be doing more and making more of an impact and making a difference rather than just raising your child. So can you speak a little bit on that, surveying in that way?

Well, I think there's so much there. One of them is our ego.

Right?

So we all want to be even sort of. We all wanted to write the vagina dialogue and start a camp in Congo for women. That's Eve's journey. And for whatever reason, our journeys are different and I don't know why, but here we are. And so we look at where we are and we look honestly at how can I serve life here now. And I think that the biggest thing that stops us is our story that it should be different or we should be different than who we are and how we are right now. And I think the reason it stops us is twofold. One, we think we have to go do something different than we are, so then we don't do what we're capable of doing right now. And Western women, you know, Dalai Lama famously said, are going to save the world. Well, I keep asking myself why he said that. I think one of the reasons he said that is we consume the most in the world. So if we can, like, be happier and more aware and awake and just change how we're consuming and how we then influence our sisters and our friends and our mothers and our grandmothers to consume, wow, even that would be gigantic. And I also have to say that parenting, like, having raised a child is pretty much like the most important thing that you're doing when you're doing it. And you don't want to, like, second guess that, and everybody gives lip service to that. But there's no very little societal support for the reality of how all consuming it is to do it well. And then I also want to say that the whole helicopter parenting thing, which just takes on a different. And attachment parenting, all the groovy forms, which were all very popular when I was raising Lily, you know, that can really tell you that you have to. That you can't have your own life and that you can't serve in other ways. And that's bullshit, too. So it's really unique to you. But you got to clear off the clutter of needing to do differently than you are from the very beginning. Where am I now? What am I capable of right now? And there's so much that's very, very humbling. And we don't like that. Like, the ego wants to start its own foundation, right? And the other thing I want to say is one of the most profound ways as Western women, besides consuming less we can serve, is by giving money. So if you're affluent and you want to give money, that's huge. Don't underestimate that. It's just not as sexy as starting your own foundation, right? Yeah, it's not as sexy as going on the service trip to Africa. The carbon footprint of you going to Africa, we don't need that. Right? Unless you. There's really a soul's call that you have to go to Africa, but just to go. So you can think that you're doing some kind of service so you can show up at the cocktail party. And I put myself. I almost went to India. I created this whole service trip for Lily and I. And then I realized I was only doing it so that we could have some kind of unique experience. And yeah, I could write about it and I could influence people that way, but it still was bullshit. So we gave the money to the organization center. We didn't go, wow. So I can totally. I speak from experience of my ego's desire to be cool and hip and Bono, or whatever his name is, I kind of want the kind of Bono.

Glasses.

Quite the same.

Nice.

Yeah. So money and our impact, we can all do that where we are now. And then. And then listening, really listening. What is your shero Skull? Maybe you're being called to have more community, you know, maybe you're being called to help other mothers slow down and be able to savor their life. Like you're being called. Well, right on. Listen to that. Don't second guess it.

Yes, yes. I love that. I love that where you are right now. Because a lot of times we get big picture and like these, you know, as you just beautifully described, and it's like, what is calling to me in my life and what lights me up, that's my practice. I'm serving the world. I'm serving my child, I'm serving my husband. I'm serving our business. Me staying plugged in and doing, like you said, what you felt like doing and not doing BS Right.

Not doing BS Right. And then really looking at the hard choices that we're often unwilling to make if we're off in the fantasy about going to Africa. So when we're off in that fantasy, I don't have to look at the fact that I just went to anthropology and spent through hundred dollars on clothes. You know, I mean, you know, I could. It's not that I won't use those clothes for a long time. I need them for some photo shoots and stuff. But maybe I didn't need the black and white skirt that cost $125. I could have given that $125 away. So it's hard to sit with those. It's harder to sit with those uncomfortable choices when we're off in the fantasy or when we're beating ourselves up for not doing enough.

Right, right.

Because then we're just. We're not here. We're like, oh, actually, I'm here. And we could not eat meat for this week. And that would. On the planet. I could not buy any more plastic toys. And that actually have an impact on the planet. We could give up one of our cars. Like, these are really hard choices. And then that is a huge service.

Yeah, I love that. And just as you're talking about, I'm just feeling, like, the simplicity of it, too. It's not a big, flashy. And it can be, but it's not a big, flashy, like, whoa, I. I am giving away 5 million cars or something. You know, whatever it is.

I'm starting Zipcar. I'm starting a new movement.

Right.

I'm actually going to start where I am. And, you know, some of the stories of women who have, you know, done profound change in the world, that is always their story. It is never big and flashy at the beginning. It's small step after small step. It's lots of resistance and often periods of being lost and then and listening and following moment by moment what's in front of them. And, you know, for sister Helen, who wrote Dead Man Walking, has this had this huge impact on the death penalty movement. It started with. After she started really listening to what she was called to. It started with pen pal, with one guy on death row. Okay. How many of us would think I would have wasted time to write a letter to a guy on death row? What's that gonna do to serv. So it's totally a boondoggle. It's totally a waste of time to think about Big. But again, don't blame yourself, because we've never been more connected than we are right now. Big comes in. In your computer and your iPhone and your conversations and your TV every single day. Oh, my God, look what's happening in Egypt. Oh, my God, I've got to do something. So you just have to start to have some awareness and go, all right, that's happening. Egypt. I don't live in Egypt. I could retweet some of those tweets about Egypt, but then I need to move on to, what can I do here? I can turn off the lights. I can turn down the heat. I can write a check. I can spend some time with my journal about what's calling to me. I can listen with compassionate care to my friend who's suffering. That's a lot.

Yeah. Very cool. That's amazing. I. I mean, that's. I love what you said, too, the listening to your life. Yeah. I mean, if we're going to listen to our life, we need to slow.

Down, we need to savor.

We need to be in the space that we're receptive to actually listen to our lives.

To be here. You have to be present to win. You have to be present to have a calling. You have to Be present to serve. You have to be present to savor. And we are not built to be present. Our minds are built to be anticipating and rehearsing the future. It's just like such a freaky thing that nature did to us. But it's how we survived out there, right on the veldt. We weren't walking around going, oh, look, look, it's a beautiful. Oh, it's so beautiful. Look at the. Look at the grass. Oh, I love the sun. We were looking. What's wrong with this picture? Is there a pair of ears in that grass? Oh, wait, what did I do the last time I saw that pair of ears in the grass? Oh, I ran like hell. Okay? I rehearsed in running like hell. I'm not seeing the ears yet, but if I can see the ears, I'll what to do. That's what we're doing now.

Right?

But now we know that we're doing it, which we didn't. When we know, you know, 100,000 years ago. So now we can do something different.

Yes. Oh, man. We got an adventure on our hands.

Yeah, we do. What a time to be human. What a time to be human. It's a time of incredible breakdown, incredible crisis. You know, we're looking at the very possible end of our species. We've never had such greed. We've never had so much power and resources in the hands of so few people. Even during the beginning of the Industrial Revolution just didn't have the scale. And we feel so powerless. But that's just a story we tell ourselves. It really isn't. We don't have to die as a species. We don't have to let the bad guys win. I really know that all the way through. And it really starts with conversations like this and going, oh, right, I'm at it. I matter. And living my life with integrity and care and connectedness and pleasure. It all matters as long as I'm really paying attention.

Yeah, and then you just enjoy the process too more, you know, like there's making a difference and serving the world and you're not enjoying it.

Rather than that becomes, you know, it's the old model of service, the murder model of service. It's why people don't serve. If you spend any time with people who are really joyfully doing what they need to do, they will all tell you this. Every single one of them, hands down, will say, this is the most fun I've ever had. I can't believe I get to do this. I mean, these are people who are working with people on death row. These are people who are working with children who are starving. I mean, these are people. Not anything about it is sexy. Right. There are flies in their nose. There's shit, human shit around their ankles. And they're like, oh my God, I'm so alive and I'm so joyful and I get to do this. So. So. And if you feel that way about raising your kid or you feel that way about starting a food co op in your neighborhood, or, you know, starting a dinner night where one night a week you make dinner for four other families, another night everyone goes over and gets dinner and even takes it home. You know, we used to do that when Lily was little. You know, all those little things that. That's it right there.

Yeah, Yeah. I love what you're just saying too, like, not judging. Not judging what it is that lights you up, where you find your joy and where you want to serve. Because I know so many people that I talk to and work with too. Like, there's. Well, I shouldn't want to serve that people because, you know, this population. Because this population really needs it, you know, and it's like, well, that's. Don't judge it, you know, like, own where you feel called to serve.

Yeah. And also it's impossible to judge it until you've been in action. So. And it often comes up who you need to serve so that you can make enough money so that you can take. Take care of yourself. And we live in an economic system right now, which isn't working, but we're still in that economic system, so we can work to create a new economic system. And some of us are willing to go into the gift economy 100% right now, and some of us are in more position to do that than others. But if you're not, and you're like, I've got to make my piece of the pie to pay my mortgage and to put some savings aside for my kids to go to college. That's what you got to do how responsibly you can do it with as least damage as possible, you know.

Great.

Those are great questions to be asking versus just going, well, this is what I got to do. Right. You know the guy who invented Lunchables, which is now a billion dollar a year industry, his own daughter doesn't feed them to her kids. And what he says when he's, well, someone was going to invent them. So that's not the state of denial we want to be in about who we serve and what we do. But we Also don't want to pretend that we're not human beings who have to take care of ourselves within a system right now, which is grossly unf. And the cost of living in the west is ridiculous. My Insurance premiums are $630 a month for my daughter and myself. Wow. It's insane.

Yes. Wow. So I'm very interested. You were just talking about the. I just totally lost my brain, my train of thought.

It was that insurance claim. It got you going. Oh, my God. I have this to look forward to as I get older. Jesus.

I have moments, more of those moments now that I'm a little ed. Talking about the sleep deprivation. What was I saying?

I remember that.

It was really good. I was going to ask you a really good question. Let me see, what else? So you're talking about the insurance.

Yeah. Just listening to the way that we're called.

I think I got it.

Yeah.

Good. Especially with this personal development and with the West. This there is, I feel as you were just talking about the money, there's like this drive you just. Because you can make millions. Like, you need to make millions. You need to be famous, you need to be beautiful while you're doing it. And you need to have your dream house. It's like, really? I mean, what's wrong with renting? And what if I just make enough, you know? So there's like, can you just talk about that?

It's a huge, huge shadow. Nobody talks about it. I love talking about. Thank you for asking me. In the self help community, spiritual development has been equated, has become equated with making five, six, seven figures a year. It's bullshit. And it is a nasty, nasty disease that has proliferated thanks to the Internet. And every time I see it, I just, I unsubscribe, I run away. I won't recommend those people's work. And I really find it particularly disgusting when it's tied to the feminine. When it's tied to the divine feminine. To bring the feminine back, bringing balance back. It's like, really gotta be kidding me. So first of all, we just have to be aware that of course we want that. I mean, I want that. Who doesn't want to make a lot of money? How much fun would it be to write a check to $10,000 to some wonderful cause? How much, how much fun would it be to, you know, I don't know, all the things that we can dream about doing, right? I mean, fun, fun, fun. It's the way our culture works. So we just have to like love our ourselves and not get snared in that dream. Because that we know, logically, all the Studies show after $75,000 a year, we are not any happier. Right. So we can tell ourselves that. I like to tell myself that story. That's very helpful. And then we can look at all the places that we get hooked and try to unhook, edit them out of our lives. And then we can start to have a different story with our friends. And if we have a public platform. With a public platform, like you're doing.

Right.

What is the story of. Enough. How do I share that publicly? To create a different mythos and to. You know. And I really want to say that I know there's some spiritual teachers who have been sucked into this, who I really, really appreciate. And I think they've done it because they overserved when they were younger. This is kind of peering behind this story to some people that I know personally. And they overserved. They didn't save enough. They didn't take care of themselves. And now they're like, oh, someone came along and promised me that I could make some money, and I really need to make money. So I don't mean to, like, you know, cast stones, for one, or, you know, be overly harsh, but I just. It makes. It scares me because we're the leaders who are trying to bring about a different world. And if we're really saying one thing, like this is about spirituality and wholeness, but we're really selling a different bill of goods. It's deeply screwy for people's psyches.

Yeah, totally. Yeah. Because there's the balance, too, that, you know, as you were saying, you want to make. You know, you want to it, and you do want to give, and it's awesome. I mean, if you have. You're making a million dollars. Like, who's gonna say no to that? You know? But then there's this, like, if you're not making a million dollars, you're not spiritual enough. You're not doing it right.

Yeah.

You're not.

Law of attraction. You're not being positive enough. Oh, my God, it's such bullshit. Excuse me for cursing everyone. And, you know, I made the decision 12 years ago to downsize my life. We lived in Montecito. We moved up here. I'm a much smaller house. You know, I drive a very dated, scarred Honda. And there's certainly moments when people come to visit me when I look around and go, oh, God, I wonder if they think I'm not successful. So we're all prey to the shadow of it. You know, it's just, you know, I'm lucky to live with the man who spent his life working in the nonprofit world and who just laughs at me, you know, because he just, you know, like, we're so lucky to have a Western lifestyle. So it's good to have those perspectives in that community that says, oh, shut up.

I've attempted going for wealth numerous times.

It doesn't work, does it?

I mean, for some people, it works, but I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna. I'm gonna be a millionaire, whatever. And every time I do it, I'm like, I don't give a shit. I don't care. Like, I want my basic needs. I want to create. I want to just do what I want do. And I stop listening, as you were saying, stop listening to my life and my call, and I start chasing whatever. So I'm with you. I'm just like some people. It may work, but I find that I savor less, I enjoy less. I am trying to be something rather than just being and creating and serving who I'm supposed to serve and whatever.

All I know this song with Oprah. What I know is that if I am not listening, listening to myself and living true to myself, and it's very nitty gritty, and it's very humbling, you know, it's not glory. I'm deeply unhappy. And the regrets that I have in my life are the times that I didn't and the embarrassments in my life, even if they're not public embarrassments at the time I tried to do, whether it's involved money or fame or not, it could be in other domains as well. When I overrode that sense of this is right for me. So I think that's another way that we can serve is by sharing these stories and really getting into the. Into the details with our friends. You know, I mean, talking about how much money we make, talking about, you know, how much we spend, how much debt we have, and really beginning to. I think that the 2008, you know, global meltdown helps some people do that more. And we see countries like Iceland that completely, completely renovated their whole way of talking about money and making money. And then we see countries like us that just kind of went, oh, we'll let the rest of you just suffer, but we'll take care of our own over here, Wall street and big banks. So I think it's important for us to have those conversations like we are having now.

Yeah, totally. And then also being teachers or more in the public and sharing our experience. Like, just saying, like you said, you downsize and like that. Not like it's the next cool thing to do, but it's just like, you know, I. This is what calls to me.

And I didn't want a big mortgage. I didn't want a big mortgage anymore. I have a very small mortgage. I didn't want a big yard anymore. I didn't want to live in Montecito with all the values that came. Oh, you live in Montecito? Oh. I started to feel like I had to keep up with my neighbors. You know, it's just, oh, God, gotta get away from this. I'm sure a different person could have lived there and not gotten sucked into it, but that's not who I was then. Right. I really, you know, I wanted. I wanted. And I also, I think from a creative and from a spiritual, you know, anyone who has a creative or spiritual bent, you know, I didn't want my work to be determined by the size of my mortgage or my monthly net, you know, so, you know, the weather's not as good here. I did miss the weather. I did trade that way. And some really dear friends that I don't get to see very often. So there is a price. There is a price, you know, And I think so often as humans, we're not willing to pay the price, and that's where we get stuck. Mm.

Yeah. And being. It's courageous. You know, I've kind of been feeling into it personally, just with what is my call. Like, what? And I know I've known since I was 18. I've been journaling about it. I've been on my path. You know, I've made a couple, like, veers of as we were talking about. I'm going to try to do this, but no, it always comes back. And it's a simple life. Like, it's not glamorous. And as you were saying, the ego, like, I want it to be much more glamorous. You know, it's like, no, I don't. My heart, my soul does not. So I think it's such an important thing for me. And I know the women that I talk to, and I'm sure people listening to this, there's going to be a good number that are like, ah, yes, I resonate with that.

Right. And the ego is whatever you want to call it, whatever parts of ourselves. I mean, there's so many different ways to relate to this, but there's always going to be parts of ourselves that want something that's bigger or sexier or that appear that gets outside approval. And that outside approval for some people is making a lot of money or being famous. For other people, it's their parents or it's having an advanced degree or you know, C suite, you know, whatever it is. That's for most of us. There's always going to be some kind of tension in all of us. That is the human journey. And again, integration is how skillfully do we work with it? How awake do we are? How awake are we to it? Not. Not that it goes away. And that is the fallacy of bad self help and bad coaching. I'm gonna make it go away and won't have to suffer this anymore. That, my friends, is more bullshit. It's always there. It changes its flavor, changes how much it bugs you, how much it hooks you. And then you go home for Christmas, right? Or you have a baby and you start to want to provide for them or your friend gets a million dollar book deal or what. And so that's our job. It's not gonna go away. It's just gonna keep evolving.

That's so awesome because I think that that is, you know, like, and I being the perfectionist and wanting it to all be perfect. I never get hooked in anything.

No, you never. Of course not. You look very hook free.

So I think that's a great reminder that we. These hooks, I love that they change flavor because I definitely have hooks that change flavor and it's not that big of a deal. And I can laugh at them. And there's some. And I'm like, that's not so funny.

I know you're like three weeks later or six months later. Like you could see me earlier in the video. I get hooked about people who have canceled on the wedding, right? And Bob and Lillian and I were in the kitchen last night and I'm like. And Bob comes and puts his arm around me and he looks at like is your mom's very sensitive and they're being really sweet to me. But it's also like, I'm like, I'm done, I'm done. But let me just tell you, my idea of friendship is right? So we just, we get a watch. We get to watch. Oh, I'm on my soapbox, huh? What's that about?

Yeah.

Oh, I'm really in resentment. I'm really having a lot of internal dialogue about how they screwed me over. You know, whatever your thing is. Mine is belonging envy. And I think those are my two big ones. Like I don't belong. And so Then I know I'm hooked or I'm envious of someone and I know I'm hooked.

Huh. Interesting.

Yeah.

I just had a hook right before our phone call. The. My husband.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There is just. That's what intimate partnerships are so good for.

And it's been a long time. We've, like, we haven't had, I mean, miraculously having a nine month old. We haven't had that many, you know, kind of hooks. And it's been. And it was just really funny. I'm like, I have an interview.

You know, I got something to do. I am important. Oh, that's a great sign of a hook, right? I'm important. I've got things to do. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I used to really get into that in my 30s. Oh, my God. Little Miss Importance. Yeah. Importance. Yeah. So getting to know our hooks, I mean, that's a lifetime practice right there. Yeah.

And I think it's. I love how you just bring the lightness to it, but then also the need, if you want, if you're inspired to have the consistency and the persistence and the awareness and the willingness to keep exploring for a lifetime that it's not like, oh, I'm gonna work on this for a month and I'm done. I'm gonna be rich and famous and hot and gorgeous and a guru and.

Yeah. And my butt is gonna be really.

So I love that you just bring like, it's. It is. Brian and I were talking about it the other day, like, we have things that like, oh, when we're done with this and this and this, then everything will be good. And it's like, wait, wait a minute. This is life.

This is it. Yeah. Yeah. That's the greatest effect of our culture right now. I mean, getting somewhere. Right? That's why there's so many self help books on the bestseller list that promise, you know, if you just don't eat gluten ever again, you'll be there.

Yeah.

Right. Yeah. Well, maybe. Yeah, maybe you will heal that gut and maybe you will lose that belly that you have. That's great. But, you know, there's still going to be the bread bath.

Yeah. Oh, so cool. Okay, so anything else that you want to share on, savoring on pleasure, on enjoyment, Anything else that you think that.

We need to hear? Oh, you know, long ago I wrote a book which is now called Comfort for Busy Women. In it, there's a character called the Comfort Queen, who I was then named for a long time. She's never named. It was always a character. In the book. And she's the voice of my wise self, you know, oh, that voice is going to come again. That kind of wry, wise, loving, but no bullshit voice. It's my favorite part for this interview is obviously bullshit. And tap into that voice for yourself the next time that you're in love with your to do list, the next time you're the rat with the dopamine lever, Tap into that voice the next time that you think that savoring pleasure, your senses, being with your baby, being with your lover, eating the first strawberries of the season, the raspberries, the blueberries, all those berries. Doesn't matter that it's not important or that you're giving it. Your mind is savoring, but your body's not savoring. Just ask that older, wiser part of yourself. One friend of mine thinks of it as her sort of grandmother, like her grandmother self talking back to her at her current age. You can put it however you want and ask that self, what should I do right now? Now? How should I be right now? That's a great way to give yourself that awareness we've been talking about through this whole interview. And tap into something that can kind of jar you out of that hyper alertness and hyperarousal.

Yeah, yeah, I love that too. With you bringing it back to the beginning, what you're saying of, like, so savoring, like, taking the moment to ask that higher yourself. And then savoring, like, your time with your daughter. And like, what are we really going to love and savor and miss, like, as we get older, you know, it's like, what you're dead?

What are you gonna miss? I used to have a friend who was a psychic who could talk to dead people. And she told me once what they come from the other side to talk to whoever's here. Talking, using her as a medium. And they always talk about missing their bodies, and they always talk about if they could just reach out and touch that person. And then it's just so incredibly painful. I think about that all the time now. I just want to reach out and touch Lily again when she's Emerson's age. If I could go back and touch my dad again. He's been gone for almost six years. I would give anything just to hug him one more time and smell him. You know, smell him when I was a kid and he would come in from Gulf and wash his hands with lava soap and smell of his sweat from the hot Florida sun. Like to have that again. So that's what we're that's what it means to be human.

Oh, beautiful tears in my eyes.

Yeah, me too. Thanks, Kat.

Super sweet. Yeah. And I think it's a beautiful note to end on, too. Just really taking the time that, you know, like, we're not gonna be here. That's, like, for me, I'm kind of like, I'm not gonna be here forever. Like, why do I want to rush it? Like, why can't I just slow down and enjoy it? And my son's already nine months. You know, he's going to be walking and talking and running, and I'm going to have those same things, like, oh, I want to touch it.

So there's great benefits of getting older. Your butt may be really saggy, but you really get that. Yeah.

Totally cares about her. But anyway, I mean, it's so weird.

Like, trying to care about it. Honestly, I like to have a really out of shape right now. But that's okay. I care about being strong more than anything else.

I mean, of course we like a butt, but I mean, and I used to do fitness competitions. I was very interested in my physique. But now I'm like, seriously, like, who gives it? I mean, really, it's not that big of a deal. Like, I can touch, I can hug. Like, those senses are most important than my booty. But it is nice to have.

Yeah. On that note, don't squeeze somebody's booty.

Squeeze it up. Well, thank you so much. Please tell us where we find more about you and your work and connect with you.

Yeah. Jenniferlouden.com Everything's there. I've got lots of events this fall that you can touch me and squeeze me and maybe not squeeze my butt. And lots of free goodies that you can pick up if you sign up there. So, yeah, come on over. Good blog posts, videos.

Yes. And she's awesome and she's hilarious and just, as you all know, super authentic. And you will get the real deal with Jeff. So thank you so much for sharing your rhythm. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Mama Goddess. Sending you lots of love and blessings. If you'd like to connect more, go to mamagoddess.com until next time, keep rocking it and have an awesome day.