#79 Episode Title: Navigating Burnout and Setting Boundaries: A Conversation with Lesley Canis

 #ParentingTeens #BurnoutRecovery #MomLife #SetBoundaries #SelfCare #MindfulParenting #TeenParenting #PodcastEpisode #ParentingAdvice #MentalHealth #Gratitude #EnergyAudit #LesleyCanis #CherylPodcast

In this enlightening episode of "Parenting Teens: Advice Redefined for Today's World," Cheryl sits down with Lesley Canis, a business mindset and sober living coach, to delve into the pervasive issue of burnout among mothers. Lesley shares her personal journey from burnout to clarity, offering invaluable insights into setting boundaries, eradicating mom guilt, and finding joy and purpose in everyday life. Discover how to audit your energy, make micro changes, and lead by example for your teens. This episode is a must-listen for any parent feeling overwhelmed and seeking a path to a more balanced and fulfilling life.

Cheryl
00:00 - 00:44
Thank you again for listening to parenting teens advice redefined for today's world I truly am grateful for the time that you take to put me in your ears put me on youtube And just continue to help yourself grow and have those relationships with yourself And with your team that you strive to have it's all possible and it's never too late If you are feeling exhausted, like you cannot get out of bed, like you just can't do one more chore, one more task, one more function, you could very well be suffering from burnout, which is just so prevalent in women right now.

Cheryl
00:45 - 01:21
And I talked to Leslie Canis, who is such an amazing coach and specialist in her field. And we talk about eradicating mom guilt. We talk about setting boundaries. We talk about how our teens are looking to us to set those boundaries. They might argue, they might not be happy, but you know what? You are now teaching them how to set boundaries for themselves. what better way to raise our teens than knowing that they can say no so they don't get to the point you're getting at right now and you're going to keep listening. You're not going to want to miss this one.

Cheryl
01:25 - 02:22
Welcome back to another episode of Parenting Teens, Advice Redefined for Today's World, the podcast where we get real about challenges of parenting teens. And let's be honest, navigating the emotional rollercoaster of our own lives at the same time. If you're a mom feeling drained, overwhelmed, and like you're barely keeping it together, today's episode is for you. My guest today is leslie canis a business mindset and sober living coach who specializes in helping ambitious women Especially moms break free from burnout and step into a life of clarity confidence and true success She also curates luxury retreats designed to help women reset reconnect and rediscover their potential We'll be talking about the mental load of motherhood, the pressures we face in relationships and careers, and why taking care of yourself isn't just nice, it's a necessity.

Cheryl
02:23 - 02:32
So grab a cup of coffee, or hide in the laundry room for a few minutes, and we are going to dive in. Welcome, Leslie. Hi Cheryl,

Lesley Guest
02:33 - 02:36
it's great to be here. What a lovely intro, thank you so much.

Cheryl
02:37 - 02:50
Oh, my pleasure. You've got so, so many good things to say about you. I don't know if I have enough time. So, Leslie, let's just start with how you got to where you are, why you're doing what you're doing, what's your mission here? Tell us all about you.

Lesley Guest
02:51 - 03:25
So, how I got to where I am is a bit of a You know, nobody goes in a straight line. They do not. Well, I was a teenage mum and I got married very young. My first husband was in the army. We had two children. We had a lovely marriage for about 10 years. And then that ended the pressures of army life and stuff. And I went off to university to do my degree in English. Primarily I worked in healthcare and mental health up until that point. and decided I did not want to go into nursing and shift work and continue that.

Lesley Guest
03:25 - 04:02
So I went and done my degree in English, left university, became a lecturer in English and did that for the next eight years and had another son and COVID hit, burnout hit me massively. I was working from home with my toddler at my feet. And I was expected to kind of keep up the same role, and I couldn't do it. I could not do it. And I felt like an absolute failure. It got to the point I couldn't open my laptop. But not just that, I think the burnout had been creeping for quite a while, and I talk about this quite a lot.

Lesley Guest
04:02 - 04:47
Burnout doesn't just boom, hit. It's a creep. It's a gradual creep. It starts off, I think, with exhaustion. real mental, emotional, physical, spiritual exhaustion on every level and it kind of rolls into this cynicism where you become just cynical about everything, but what's the point? I can't change anything anyway, why am I doing this? And that rolls into complete ineffectiveness. And that's where I was. I was completely ineffective. I was ineffective in my work. I was ineffective with my family. I had disconnected, depersonalized. I was just so disconnected from myself. I could not connect properly to my relationships around me and to the relationships that mattered.

Lesley Guest
04:48 - 05:36
And so I took voluntary redundancy, taught myself freelance writing. and disappeared down to the Caribbean for a year during COVID and lockdown. I just went on out of here. Went to Barbados for a year and just wrote, wrote for parenting spaces, wrote for traveling spaces. Did a lot of work with floaters travels. Kind of seen all the luxury travel side of things and then got married and we had twins. And I got heavily into kundalini yoga, which really helped me through my pregnancy. My postpartum, it was like magic. I was speaking to a woman a couple of weeks ago who says she has chamomile tea and lemon balm and that gets her through.

Lesley Guest
05:36 - 06:18
And I'm like, for me, it was the kundalini. It's absolutely magical, the space it creates in your mind and your body. And I think just taking that time to tap back into yourself is really important. did my kundalini yoga teacher training because I have to go all in once I'm into something. I have ADHD. I get hyper focused. I'm not just doing it. I'm doing everything about it. So the kundalini yoga and then I became a certified burnout consultant. corporate burnout consultant and have a particular interest in how this affects women, particularly mothers, mothers in leadership roles.

Lesley Guest
06:18 - 06:29
Any mum really who's working, but particularly mums at that level of job where, you know, it just it's affecting everything about

Speaker 4
06:29 - 06:29
them.

Lesley Guest
06:29 - 07:08
And I know that, you know, burnout hits women at a higher rate than it hits men. It hits us more often and in bigger numbers. And the reason for that is because we have so many other things on our plate. We're juggling so many plates. We have all the caring responsibilities, the household responsibilities, caring for elderly relatives, caring for our husband's elderly relatives. So we have all of this on our plates. Of course, we're a whole person, we don't switch off when we go to work, so hence why nurses burn out in greater numbers, teachers burn out in greater numbers, female-dominated fields, you see higher levels of burnout.

Lesley Guest
07:08 - 07:15
But again, these are fields where there's massive funding cuts every year and staff are doing more with less every year.

Cheryl
07:17 - 07:56
Oh, I I hear every word you say and Even just talking about yoga. I am a fellow yogi. I've been doing hot yoga for 20 plus years and I say yoga and red wine save lives in my world If I didn't do it, there would be a problem And it's not just the yoga. I know some people you know, tend to do yoga for the exercise. But I find that that is, you know, secondary to yoga. And, you know, I've got a friend who will say, I'm as, I'm as flexible as a metal desk. I can't do yoga.

Cheryl
07:56 - 08:17
And that's when you do yoga because it has nothing to do with your body or the pose or what you look like. I know when I go into a yoga class, I've gone in with, you know, partners before who have said, Oh, did you see that person or what they were wearing? Or, and I just, the second I'm in there, I'm in here, I'm

Lesley Guest
08:17 - 08:17
not

Cheryl
08:18 - 08:56
out there. And it's your opportunity, you know, when you're at the gym, or were you doing other things, there's a lot of outside, um, external input, whereas if you can really find the value of topping into yoga, It is all internal. It is all about you completely unplugging for an hour. It's an hour. And I know sometimes people are like, oh, I don't have an hour. But if you don't have an hour to do yoga, then you need to do it for two hours. So there's my plug for yoga, because I completely agree with you.

Lesley Guest
08:57 - 09:41
It's that tapping into your inner world, taking time to reconnect back inside of you. Because we live in a world optimized for stress. Everything we do is about pleasing this external world. Externally, everything's coming at us. And we're like, how can I be more successful? How can I do better? How can I gain more? And really, it's about tapping back into you and saying, what do I need? What's going on with me? And I found, actually, in Kundalini, we do quite, we do like, some of them are quite stressful poses, they're not really poses, they're more repetitive sort of actions, and it can become very tiring, and it's about creating this buildup of energy.

Lesley Guest
09:42 - 10:16
And after each kriya, in Kundalini, we sit with that energy, And when I first started teaching yoga, I used to think it's very difficult, because I thought, well, people are coming to my class expecting this flow, constant movement, and it's not like that. In fact, the space in between the kriyas is where we find the space for ourselves. It's where we tap back in. And that's so much more valuable than anything. You know, it's that time, that moment to sit and feel it in your body. Where is that energy resonating? Where is it flowing to?

Lesley Guest
10:16 - 10:19
What's it making you feel? You know, so it's that stillness.

Cheryl
10:20 - 10:51
Yeah. Well, they say the Shavasana pose and it is for me and not so much now, but used to be the hardest pose for me just to lay still and calm that monkey brain because I would find myself as soon as I laid down, I was going over, what am I going to make for dinner? What's on the grocery list? Oh, forgot to take the stuff out of the dry. So it's that real, Like you said tapping in and just kind of coming back to yourself and coming back to your breathing Is so vital, but it's not a yoga podcast.

Cheryl
10:51 - 11:23
It's definitely another podcast strategy But I want to talk about burnout and I want to talk about the actual word burnout like I find that You know, sometimes we come up with these buzzwords. Yes. And I get, I get concerned about these buzzwords because it almost feels like, oh, that's just the next thing. But when it comes to, you know, overwhelm or burnout or any of that, like, how do we define that for somebody? Like, even if we called it something else, like, what would that be?

Lesley Guest
11:24 - 11:57
So the WHO defines burnout as chronic untreated workplace stress. And if we're thinking of it in terms of employers, we have to take it from the WHO's definition, chronic untreated workplace stress. However, you don't go to work and switch off. You don't go to work and no longer be mum. And I know I've got five kids. We'll come back to that later. But we don't go to work and turn off. And all of that's forgotten. You are a whole person in the workplace. And actually, I was speaking to the director of the CIPD here in the UK.

Lesley Guest
11:58 - 12:43
That's the Chartered Institute for Personnel Development. And my takeaway from speaking to her was that workplaces need to start seeing employees holistically. They need to start thinking about more flexible working options, more, you know, options that are better suited to the employees that they have at the moment, but also the ones coming up. And in relation to teams, sorry, I digress, but in relation to teams, you know, our teams are coming up and expecting a very different workplace from what we have experienced. They expect hybrid working, they expect remote working, they expect flexible working. And, you know, they're, the cohort of employees that's coming through next.

Lesley Guest
12:43 - 13:22
Workplaces really have to take that into account. But in terms of burnout, you're right, it absolutely is a buzzword. Everybody's burnt out. Everyone is burnt out. But real, true burnout isn't about you're fine on Monday and you're exhausted on Friday. It doesn't work like that. You are exhausted from the moment you open your eyes in the morning, on a Monday to the minute you close your eyes at night on a Sunday, you're exhausted emotionally, you have no energy emotionally to give to anyone, you're exhausted physically. Sometimes that might be that you just cannot get out of bed, you're exhausted spiritually.

Lesley Guest
13:22 - 13:30
When I say spiritually, I'm not talking about the kind of, you have no faith in God here, I'm talking about you have no purpose.

Speaker 3
13:31 - 13:31
Your

Lesley Guest
13:31 - 14:13
purpose is gone, your joy is gone and I think that's possibly the most important part because one of the main ways that we can find to recover from burnout is finding our purpose, tuning back into our purpose, finding what lights us up and doing more of it. Because burnout isn't about, oh, I'm so busy. I've got the kids, I've got work, I'm running a business, I'm organizing retreats, I'm being the chauffeur, they've got their extracurricular activities, I've got teenagers, I've got babies. It's not about the busyness. It's about doing things that aren't aligned with who you are or what you want or how you want to be living.

Lesley Guest
14:14 - 14:51
It's pleasing this external world and not paying any attention to yourself. What's right for you? What's right for your inner world? And so it's this exhaustion and the exhaustion leads to cynicism. So someone who was maybe once a really hardworking employee, really positive, really go get them, you know, try in the hardest, might just start to say things like, well, what's the point? There's no point. We're making no difference anyway. I don't see the point in doing this. And I had certainly crossed that line. I was like, there is absolutely no point. Because at one point, I thought the whole education system should just be dismantled.

Lesley Guest
14:52 - 15:30
Because what's even the point? I was so far into cynicism. That's what it was. And then the last part, where you become completely ineffective. You're no longer connected in your relationships. your relationship with your spouse might be suffering. You find that you can't be present and grounded and connected to your children. You don't find joy in anything anymore. And really, burnout goes through those phases. It's not just a case of, I'm so busy this week, I'm so burnt out. And this is how we are starting to use it. It's becoming more and more commonly used, but that's what real burnout is.

Lesley Guest
15:31 - 16:02
Burnout is completely, you are completely depleted in every way. And in fact, a woman I was speaking to yesterday, a psychotherapist who works with teens, she was saying when her burnout hit, it was her son's second birthday, and she'll never forget it because she could not get out of bed. She said, my body felt like a bag of sand. It was the worst feeling I've ever felt in my life, and I knew at that point I could not continue living the way I was. And that burnout really is a wake-up call. It's not the end.

Lesley Guest
16:03 - 16:40
It might feel like your world is crashing down because everything that you've built is now no longer serving you and you cannot go on like that, you can't go back to that corporate job, you cannot go back to the roles that you had before, but burnout's really a wake-up call to start looking inward and coming back to your purpose and getting back in alignment. So it can be, you know, if you frame it and if you're not so devastated about losing the corporate job and the money and stuff, if you frame it in terms of this is a chance for me to find out how to live for me.

Lesley Guest
16:40 - 16:41
Yeah.

Cheryl
16:41 - 16:48
Can you, as you describe burnout, my brain is going, that sounds an awful lot like depression.

Lesley Guest
16:49 - 16:49
Yes.

Cheryl
16:50 - 16:52
So is it one and the same or

Lesley Guest
16:52 - 17:41
is there? No, they're not the same. They're not the same, although they do have similar symptoms, but they are not the same. So depression can come on very quickly. It can be triggered by an event such as grief, a breakup, things like that. So depression isn't quite the same as burnout. Burnout is something that's been slow, gradually creeping. And although they do have similar symptoms, they're not exactly the same thing. So where depression may be due to a lack of serotonin and SSRIs may help you, Burnout, that's not going to, you know, a lack of serotonin isn't what's causing your burnout.

Lesley Guest
17:41 - 17:51
The food that you're living, the life that you're living is what's causing your burnout. And that might be what's causing your depression, to be fair. But they're not categorized the same. They're not treated the same. Yeah,

Cheryl
17:52 - 18:14
I really wanted to point that out because it starts to sound like that. And then people might be, you know, calling in their own diagnosis. And that's not what we're looking for here. Now, I know you said you talked about COVID and that had a big impact. However, we don't have to go through COVID in order to

Lesley Guest
18:15 - 18:16
struggle with burnout,

Speaker 3
18:16 - 18:16
correct?

Lesley Guest
18:17 - 18:52
Absolutely not. And actually, in hindsight, my burnout had been creeping for a long time. A long time. COVID was just a catalyst because it put you in a pressure cooker. But any event at work, might cause that. So it doesn't have to be COVID. It could be anything at work that might cause that. It might just be that you've just done too much for too long and you literally cannot open that laptop anymore. You are cooked. And yeah, mine had definitely been creeping for a long time. I'd been exhausted for a long time and I had been cynical for a long time.

Lesley Guest
18:53 - 19:36
And it wasn't from being rushed off my feet. Believe it or not, it was from the stagnation. I felt like I was standing still. I felt like there was no upward mobility. There was no purpose to me being there. I felt disconnected from the job. I didn't feel that the curriculum we were delivering was fit for purpose for the society we were sending our students out into. Students weren't engaging the way I would have liked, and I felt that I didn't have the capacity or the tools to pull them back in, because I didn't have any belief in what we were teaching at that point.

Lesley Guest
19:37 - 20:07
And so, it was this kind of standing still, but it was a college, it had the same school holidays as my children, it worked around my family, and it was good money. So, for me, I felt like I was stuck, felt like I'll never get anything else. that the wage is this good where I get this many holidays a year to spend with the kids. And so to me, I felt like I was stuck because it was giving me the best work-life balance that I could get. But actually, it wasn't. It was a toxic environment.

Lesley Guest
20:07 - 20:18
There was cultural bullying. It was a do list with more every year attitude. Supervisions were used as criticism rather than supportive environments.

Cheryl
20:22 - 21:15
You know, it brings me back to, I spent over 25 years in special education with teenagers and the last 10 years, anyone in education will know that it's very, very different. And as a special education head of department, I had a huge number of kids I was responsible for and staff. And I spent 90% of my time in protective equipment, trying to keep people safe from kids who really had some very significant needs. And we talk about the wrong programming and the wrong training or no training and staffing and budget cuts. About, I don't know, in 2020, actually in COVID, everything kind of shut down and I relocated.

Cheryl
21:15 - 22:04
I got a job in a private school where there was an eighth of the number of students. And, you know, I was there for a year and I thought, oh, my gosh, this is like a trip to Hawaii. And like, there's there's none of the, you know, those kind of needs. But after about a year, that's where my burnout came in, because I am all about crisis management. Jumping in getting it done being able to manage that sort of thing debrief get the staff back Like that was just my jam. Nobody nobody wants to see kids struggle like that, but I was the person I was the person that could do it and after a year I was like I have no purpose here Yeah, no, I I'm just filling out paperwork and I'm supporting kids but not in the significant way.

Cheryl
22:04 - 22:42
I was doing it before and that was my passion I just Loved being able to you know, help kids get through that and help their parents get through it So after a year, it's exactly what you're describing. It's like what's the point, you know, and and I knew Because I spent 25 years waking up five minutes before my alarm at five every single never had to rely on the alarm. And then after a year of that. snooze snooze snooze And you know always the first one in the building and always the last one to leave was now like oh Maybe I can leave a bit early.

Cheryl
22:42 - 23:10
Maybe I can hide in my office a little longer It just got to that word and that's exactly what it was I was not feeling like I was serving my purpose anymore and so I I left the private school to do this and to do coaching and to help parents, but But I didn't, you know, yes, COVID shut us down. And yes, it was difficult. There was no connections there. But that's when you said you're not living your person, like, that's exactly what it was exactly what it was.

Lesley Guest
23:11 - 24:03
So as well, so tend to find that whatever coping strategies you have, excuse me, you tend to find that when you are hit and burn out, whatever coping strategies that you have to get through it, the more burnt out you become, the more you start using those strategies. So adaptive coping strategies become maladaptive. You know, whether that's running, you might have been running five miles a day, now you're running 10 miles a day just to feel okay. You might usually have one coffee a day, now you're having three coffees a day. In my case, it was wine, which is why I went Sober Mum, which is why I went Sober Mum, because the red wine for me was a treat, and then it became a coping strategy, then it became a maladaptive coping strategy, and then I was like, oh, wait a minute, this is too much.

Lesley Guest
24:06 - 24:13
So, yeah, and when you're experiencing burnout, and women particularly, there's a high increase in alcohol usage.

Cheryl
24:15 - 24:51
And you know, I feel like when we start those Adaptive strategies and they become maladaptive. I think a part of that cycle. I don't know if you agree with me, but then it becomes You feel guilty because now the strategy is not working And it just piles up. Oh, here's this Stigma of a mom and so i'll run more but that's as soon as I get home the same it just clicks right back in so You know, how do I how do I get out of this? And I know you talked about you ran away to the caribbean Yes, and I love that but not an option for everybody.

Cheryl
24:51 - 25:10
Oh So, what do you think? What can we say to moms who are like, let's let's actually take it on a journey I'm starting to feel this burnout. I'm starting to feel exactly what leslie is describing here What do I do first second third like what does that look like for me as a mom feeling that way

Lesley Guest
25:11 - 25:49
So first of all, you have to look at where you've got energy leaks and where you've got energy gains. I have an audit that I send to clients, which is completely free. It's like a journal, but it's an audit of your energy. Where am I expending energy that is depleting me? And where am I spending energy that makes me feel good? Because as moms, and working moms, we're usually very busy and we don't notice. We just go through the motions quite often. And so identifying your energy leaks, your energy gains, this is a great place to start.

Lesley Guest
25:50 - 26:26
And if you are starting to feel that exhaustion and cynicism, this is an amazing tool to get you really looking at what is using your energy. What is depleting you? What is stealing your life force? It might be that your kids have got 10 extracurricular activities and you're like, well, I can't stop them because they're the kids and I would feel so guilty. No. No. They are going to be good if they've got a happy mum. So you might just have to pull back and lessen that a little bit. Maybe not forever, but for now.

Lesley Guest
26:26 - 27:05
Yeah. because you can do anything, but you can't do everything, especially not all at once. So it might be that you're running from one side of town to another three times a day, trying to keep up with all of this to be a good mum. It might be that your work just drains you from the minute you get there to the minute you leave, in which case it might be time to rethink your career. But it's really about the first step, is about looking at your energy leaks and your energy gains. What's depleting you? Where do you feel happy?

Lesley Guest
27:06 - 27:37
And then moving on from that, it can be baby steps. Because again, jumping careers or leaving your job isn't always an option. So it can be baby steps, like saying, I might need to pull back at work a little bit. Maybe not my hours, but I might need to pull back in terms of how much I'm doing. And that might look like saying no. And for women, we find this very difficult. We never, very rarely, say no without explaining ourselves. But it's important to note that no is an entire sentence that needs no explanation. It is a sound way.

Lesley Guest
27:38 - 28:11
No. Or, you know, delegating a task to someone else who might be better at it than you are and who takes less time to do it and who actually enjoys it. You might be releasing a bit of control if you own your own business and saying, you know what? My social media manager's probably better at content than me. I'm going to stop trying to do everything. I'm running a hamster wheel here. It might just be about pulling back a little bit. Another amazing way to help with burnout is to find a way to move your body joyfully every day.

Lesley Guest
28:11 - 28:47
For me, that's yoga. For me, that is yoga. I cannot get through my day without it. It creates space. It sets my intention for the day. It gives me time to be grateful. And that's another thing. When you're in this kind of burnout cynicism, there is a tend to be, to find it difficult to be grateful for things. And there is a tendency to fall into victim mode. I'm sorry, but there really is. And it's not your fault. You do play a part in it, but it's not your fault. an accumulation of circumstances, but it's not your fault.

Lesley Guest
28:47 - 29:29
However, we do all play a part in it. And sometimes when we're in that complete cynicism phase and we're just like, you know, we can fall into victim mode, that's really common. And I find it difficult to find gratitude. So yoga for me gives me that time in the morning to find my gratitude in the day and to set my intention for the day. So you know what? My family are all healthy. My kids are all healthy. I'm healthy, and that's enough for today. I'm grateful that that's enough for today. Tomorrow it might be my kids are thriving, and I'm able to take them to their extracurricular activities, and I'm able to do that.

Lesley Guest
29:30 - 30:09
And everybody's healthy. You know, and the graduates will grow the more you practice it. And I know it sounds so simple, but it's things that we don't take time to do. Now, I try and wake up early in the morning to do yoga before my kids. However, I have two-year-old twins, so they're always up at the crack of dawn with me and do yoga with me. And actually, I see the benefit of it in them. They kind of feed off my energy as well, so it has a calming effect on them as well, which I'm really grateful for, I'm really grateful to be able to do that and for the effect it has on them.

Lesley Guest
30:09 - 30:43
And so, you know, quite often moms will be like, I'm too busy, I'm too busy, I don't have time, I can never get it done before the kids wake up. And, you know, do it with them. It gives them permission then as well to take that time in the day for themselves. And that may be a habit that they'll have growing up. I think journaling, the burnout audit is one way to journal. you know, you identify your leaks each day and your gains each day. So that's one great way to journal. Another great way to journal is to sit and look at what does your ideal life look like?

Speaker 3
30:43 - 30:45
That's my favorite.

Lesley Guest
30:45 - 31:18
No one has an ideal life and it takes you a long time as an adult to realize that everyone has a problem in their life. Nobody has an ideal life. You can't aspire for your next-door neighbour who looks like she's got the perfect marriage and she makes everything look so easy. She just might not be burnt out. She might have more headspace and that's why it looks easy. But I mean, what does your ideal life look like? And I don't mean in terms of the big house and the flashy cars. I mean, when you wake up in the morning, what do you do?

Lesley Guest
31:19 - 31:45
What makes you feel good when you first get up in the morning? When do you want to wake up in the morning? What time do you want to wake up in the morning? What do you want to do? Do you want to sit and drink a coffee in silence and watch the sunrise? I love doing that. I love doing it. And watch the sunrise. Do you want to get a workout done before the kids get up? Do you want to wake everybody up at the same time and enjoy all that energy and family time in the morning?

Lesley Guest
31:45 - 32:18
Does that light you up? by sitting right down and getting really intentional about what does your ideal day look like? And how can you make that happen? And then you can go on to the bigger steps of what does your ideal life look like? How present do you want to be with your kids? How much time do you want to be at home? Now, I love my children, each and every one of them, and I have no mum guilt at all because my oldest is 25 and I'm beyond it. Mum guilt does nothing. It does nothing for anyone.

Lesley Guest
32:18 - 32:20
It gives your kids a stick to beat you with.

Speaker 3
32:21 - 32:22
It

Lesley Guest
32:22 - 32:53
gets your own guilt onto them and makes them victims. And then you start kind of pandering. I mean, it does nothing. And all it does is rob you of being present with your children. I have no time for that. I have no mum guilt. They're all fine. I do the best I can with the tools I have. And when I know better, I do better. And I'm kind to myself. So, you know, Sorry, I went off on a wee tangent there, but for me, I have no mum guilt when I say this, I like working.

Lesley Guest
32:54 - 33:22
I love being at home with my kids, but I enjoy working and having that time away from them. And I know my babies are only two, and oh my God, sure. But honestly, I need that time in the day for me, and I make no apology for it. at all, have no mum guilt over it, and they actually benefit from the socialising that they get when they're at nursery, and I see that in them, and they enjoy it. So, you know, does your life look like you want to be home all day, every day with your kids?

Lesley Guest
33:22 - 33:54
If it does, how do you make that happen? Does your life look like you want to be with your kids half the time and work half the time? If it does, how do you make that happen? But you have to do the, where are my energy leaks, where are my gains, pouring back into yourself, What does your ideal day look like? Working through that, just building purpose and joy back into your day gradually until you get to the big, you know, the big decisions about work and where you live and, you know, it's little steps first.

Lesley Guest
33:54 - 34:27
And actually I did do this massive thing and it did seem to be quite on a whim and everyone was looking at me like I was batshit crazy. But I had been journaling for a long time before I did it. I had been looking at where I was grateful, where I had energy leaks, where I had gains. I had been looking at what I wanted my ideal life to look like. And I break it down into emotionally, spiritually, mentally, health-wise. What did I want it to look like? I didn't want to keep drinking the amount that I was drinking.

Lesley Guest
34:28 - 35:13
I had started off as one glass of wine after work to hand me the bottle. kids are in bed, hand me that bottle. Give me a straw. And it was from Saturday night to Saturday and Wednesday night to Saturday, Monday, Wednesday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And then all of a sudden you're hungover more than you're, you know, not. So I did not want to be doing that anymore. I smoked at the time. I did not want to be smoking anymore. I was, not moving my body at the time, I wanted to be fitter. And all of this, I had to really look at me before I started looking at what I wanted with my kids, because I had to get myself on a path where I was able to then pour back into them.

Lesley Guest
35:13 - 35:18
So what did I need for me first? And sometimes you do have to prioritise your

Cheryl
35:19 - 36:17
Yeah, the gratitude, you know I do it every morning and sometimes it's I'm grateful for a world You know if there was world peace, right? I'm grateful for you know, all the big things the trips here and and some mornings It's I'm just grateful that I have this coffee in my hand and I'm just and when you wake up in the morning I've actually started doing it at night too because I find that my brain starts now looking for things to write down and So as I go through my day and something great happens, I don't just like let it fly by anymore now It's like oh i'm gonna write that down tonight and your brain starts looking for things to be grateful for and You know things can get really tough and I listened to um a motivational coach his name's david bear and he Really says he says, you know You want more you want this you want that but you really you always have enough

Speaker 3
36:18 - 36:18
Mm-hmm.

Cheryl
36:19 - 36:56
If you're sitting here and you're on a computer or you're on your phone or you're drinking your coffee you had enough Yeah, so you will always have enough you can desire more and that's great That's vision boards and dreaming and imagination a manifestation all of those things But if you can sit there and with everything falling apart can say but I have enough Right at this moment. I have enough and for some reason it just makes my whole body go. Oh Yeah, really? And when we're setting, you know, we were talking about the mom guilt, and I can't take you to all the activities.

Cheryl
36:57 - 37:32
You know, if we put a different lens on Our teenagers are watching us so And not very often. Are they listening to us, but they are watching us all the time And even though it feels Challenging to say listen, we gotta we gotta cut the hockey or we gotta cut the Tennis or I gotta get the neighbor to do carpooling or all of that So teens are watching you set these boundaries so they might be on the other end of that But now they're saying hmm Maybe I can say no.

Lesley Guest
37:33 - 37:33
Maybe

Cheryl
37:33 - 38:12
I can set a boundary with my friends. Maybe I don't have to do all the social things. We are always setting examples for our kids. And what better way to teach our, and I'm not being gender biased, but teach our young, girls to say no that's that's not for me and even if it takes forever for them to actually figure it out they do learn and they do see it and they do see you ask for permission, ask for space, ask for, and they might not say, hey, mom, you set a boundary. That's really cool, because I didn't want to go to my friends anyway.

Cheryl
38:12 - 38:21
That's not how it's going to go. But you are still, they are learning intrinsically how to hold their power, hold their

Lesley Guest
38:21 - 38:21
own

Cheryl
38:21 - 38:25
boundary. And what better way to raise young women

Lesley Guest
38:26 - 38:59
into this world? I cannot agree more. I think gentle parenting is ridiculous. I think this whole... I'm sorry but no, absolutely not. You know what, no. Kids don't know enough about the world yet to be able to make the case. They're looking to you for guidance. They're looking to you for how to do this. They're looking to you, and see when they become teenagers, they're looking to you for a boundary. They're like, please, somebody stop me because my emotions are going crazy. My hormones are going crazy. I have no idea what I'm doing. I want to go to this party.

Lesley Guest
38:59 - 39:42
I want to go to that party. I'm on social media all day long. Somebody stop me. They need a boundary. And if you're no means no, you don't have to be a harsh, harsh parent. If you're no means no, You don't have to be a severe disciplinarian. Your no means no, your yes means yes, and your children are aware of that. This whole gentle parenting, I saw a social media site, a gentle parenting Facebook page, And it just is full of exhausted parents who don't like their children. No wonder you've created little terrors. They are running the show and they can't run the show because their children, their babies, they have no idea how to run the show.

Lesley Guest
39:43 - 39:59
And that's not about being disrespectful to your kids. Show your kids respect. Teach your kids respect by showing them respect. But you have to sometimes say, absolutely not. I don't need to give you my reasons right now. I'm not a lawyer,

Cheryl
40:00 - 40:01
I'm not up for negotiation.

Lesley Guest
40:01 - 40:15
I actually say that to my children, I do not negotiate on safety, I do not negotiate on hygiene, I do not negotiate on being mean or unkind. You know, there are some non-negotiables

Cheryl
40:16 - 40:16
and

Lesley Guest
40:16 - 40:43
they know it, they absolutely know it. I've got a seven year old who gets up every morning, goes to the bathroom, brushes his teeth and comes and says good morning afterwards. And that's something that I've done on purpose because I want him to have a habit And I know it's just a micro habit, like getting up in the morning and brushing your teeth, but he gets up every day, goes straight to the bathroom, brushes his teeth before he comes and says good morning. Because if anything happens, he's ready to face the day with his teeth done and a clean face.

Lesley Guest
40:44 - 41:14
He is building a habit that as he becomes a teenager and they want to sit about in their pajamas all day and be awake all night and sleep all day, he's going to get up and go and brush his teeth because it's going to feel horrible for him not to. ingrained in him. It's ingrained in him now. You know, and it's just these little micro habits. And I hear so many parents say, oh, I couldn't get him to brush his teeth this morning, so we just didn't. I'm like, no, we do not negotiate on hygiene in life.

Lesley Guest
41:14 - 41:16
You are brushing your teeth.

Cheryl
41:17 - 41:31
You don't have to like your kids. You love them, but they're not your friends. They're not Your friends go get some your own friends. Your kids have their own friends You are there to position yourself as a leader and

Lesley Guest
41:32 - 41:32
it

Cheryl
41:32 - 42:02
doesn't have to be like you said a mean unkind angry leader leaders lead from below leaders push our kids up sure, you know Push our staff up whoever you're leading, but that's that's a really good leader Where you say less? And when you start negotiating, you become like a ping pong table. Yes, because I said so, why'd you say so? Because I said so, because you said so. It never goes, it

Lesley Guest
42:03 - 42:30
does not end well. Mom doesn't really mean that. So what's going to happen now is I'm going to have a tantrum and mom doesn't want me to have a tantrum. She can't really be bothered with me when I start getting annoying like that. So she's just going to say yes anyway to get rid of me. And that is a horrible message to get sent to your kids. Your no has to mean no, and your yes has to mean yes. Your no does have to mean no, and you have to stand firm on what you say, because they will try and push you, and they will try and get their own way.

Lesley Guest
42:30 - 43:03
But again, see, as teenagers, if you do that when they're grown up, you're setting the standard for how you're going to be with them as teenagers. And it is, as we say in Scotland, you're making a rod for your own back, because, you know, that kind of where they'll still comply when they're younger, and if they grow into that habit as they grow older, that's not to say they're not gonna try and push the boundaries, of course they are. But as, you know, if they've got no respect for you as teenagers, if your word holds no weight, how do you pull them back from the brink?

Lesley Guest
43:03 - 43:06
And how do they trust you? And how do they trust you to do that?

Cheryl
43:07 - 43:39
Right, like I think that's so, that's huge. Oh, she wavered on this. She wavered on that. Where's the trust? Where's the solid foundation, you know, where I can build from is I think is so important. Lissy, can we just talk about if you could give moms one piece of advice, they feel stuck, they feel exhausted, unsure how to move forward. If you could just wave a magic wand and just say, just do this, what would you say? If

Lesley Guest
43:39 - 44:22
you're completely stuck, and feeling completely overwhelmed and helpless and just don't know how to move forward, the first thing I would say is start auditing your energy. Stop trying to wake up every day and go, I'll do this, that will move me forward. I'll do that, that will move me forward. I'll have this idea that will move me forward. I'll do more, then I'll feel better eventually. Stop. Wake up every day, do an energy audit. And when you have done that for a week or two weeks, and you identified where your leaks and your drains are, make micro changes to start getting more gains and less leaks.

Lesley Guest
44:23 - 44:48
And just take it slowly, be kind to yourself, start talking to yourself nicely. Kind to yourself, give yourself permission to be kind to yourself. And I think that's the biggest thing, be kind to yourself. The mom guilt, it's doing you no favors, it's doing your kids no favors. It is probably the worst thing in the world. Dads don't have

Speaker 3
44:48 - 44:49
it.

Lesley Guest
44:50 - 45:26
And it really is, it comes from this place that you love that baby and you love those kids so much that nothing you do will ever be good enough for them because the amount of love that you have for them, your actions can never match what you feel. And that's always going to be there. That's never going to go away. So stop beating yourself up. You can only do the best you can with the tools you have at the time. And when you know better, you do better. When you learn, teach. I think that was Maya Angelou who said that, actually.

Lesley Guest
45:26 - 45:55
When you learn, teach. When you learn more, you can then teach that to your kids. And the first thing that you have to do is be kind to yourself. And when you learn how to be kind to yourself, you then by proxy, teach your kids how to be kind to themselves. Having boundaries and making time for you and pouring into yourself, making yourself a priority, your kids will see that and they'll do that as they get older. Yeah. Leslie, where

Cheryl
45:55 - 46:01
can people find you? Where can they work with you? Tell us all about Leslie's contact.

Lesley Guest
46:01 - 46:38
So you can find me on LinkedIn. Leslie Karras. You can find my group on Facebook, Uprising. It's called The Uprising on Facebook. And you can find my podcast on Spotify and YouTube. It's called Uprising, the burnout podcast for women. I have a website cam and co-office yoga but that's for my corporate yoga that I do so I'm mostly focused on that at the moment um and the babies but I am doing some coaching and I have the burnout audit which is free and people can apply to work with me one-on-one.

Cheryl
46:39 - 46:47
Beautiful well we'll put all of that in the show notes so nobody can miss it and have to memorize it. Leslie thank you so much this has been very enlightening.

Lesley Guest
46:47 - 46:51
Oh thank you um yes I will speak to you soon

Cheryl
46:53 - 47:34
Thank you for listening to another episode. I hope you loved this one as much as I did. And I just wanted to share something with you because, you know, parenting teens is not just about managing these challenges that we talk about on all the episodes. It's also about evolving alongside them. And I'm Cheryl, and not only the host of this podcast, but I'm also the creator of Insight to Impact, coaching and consulting. And I help you moms of teens reconnect with your true selves, so you can lead with purpose, you can parent with clarity, you can create stronger, more meaningful relationships with your kids.

Cheryl
47:35 - 48:08
Because here's the truth. The transformation starts with you. Together, we will break free from the stress and overwhelm. We will rediscover your power. We will create the life and the family dynamic you always dreamed of. If you're ready to start this journey, let's do it. You might just not recognize your life in the next 90 days. It all starts with a call. There's no pitch. There's no pressure. Just a call to see if I can help. We'll talk about your goals. We'll talk about what's making you feel stuck and what might be getting in your way.

Cheryl
48:09 - 48:26
and everything you need to connect with me is in the show notes. Again, I'm Cheryl. Thank you so much for joining me here on Parenting Teens, advice redefined for today's complex world and the creator of Insight to Impact Coaching and Consulting. Have a great day.