Ok, BE HONEST...Do you take naps as a mom? This feels like a crazy and impossible concept, BUT I am going to set some of you FREE today! Haha
The struggle is REAL when it comes to feeling TIRED as a mom and it can also feel like there’s no “rest for the weary” when you are juggling ALL the things. In this episode, I want to tell you how I’ve learned that it is OK to REST. Let me validate your need for a break, and encourage you to intentionally carve out some rest time, for the health of your family!
I’m going to share with you 3 reasons WHY it is a great idea to take naps...or what I often call “Holy Spirit Pit Stops.” Even if you can’t sleep, RESTING IN GOD makes all the difference!
I’ll tell you how I implement daily rest in my home, EVEN as a crazy busy, work from home, homeschooling, mama of five! If I can do it, you can too!
LET’S STAY CONNECTED
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Michelle5Hiatt
Email: hello@nourishingmichelle.com
Full Episode Transcription:
0:03
Hey guys, so before we jump into today's episode, I've got to fill you in on something coming up, I wouldn't be a good friend if I didn't tell you about this game changer, or product that is about to go on massive sale. Now I am telling you this product has been a game changer for me as a mom, and when I think of motherhood, the one word that I think of is support like we all need more support, mentally, physically, emotionally and this product does all of it. It has been incredible for me I've had the best experience with it for the past three years, and that my friends is CBD oil.
0:36
Not just any CBD, you've really got to get a high quality, you've got to know what you're looking for, but the one that I use and trust for my family, the one that I feel really great about as far as just a great quality that actually really works, is about to go on sale there had the biggest sale of the year and I don't even have the details but all I can say is last year it was so massive, they were selling out literally the internet crashed, it's crazy, but I want you to know about it because it is something that you're already using. If it's something you've been interested in trying if you know somebody that uses it and loves it and just likes good deals.
1:07
You are going to want to know about this sale coming up, but the only way to know about it because I don't have the details just yet, is to join my email list and I promise you'll be the first to know as soon as I get the details.
1:19
Go to NourishingMichelle.com, enter your email in to be on the list and as soon as I have the details, I'll send it out to you. But, I'm telling you my favorite benefit is probably how it's helped with stress and for that reason, I mean, this product is for everybody. I wish, if I could give a bottle to every mom I know I would completely do that but I did not even realize how much anxiousness and stress that I had until I felt the difference with CBD oil.
1:47
You want to try this 60 day money back guarantee, just to experience it at the best price possible for the year, you can't go wrong. So give it a try, join the list, I'll let you know what's going on. If you want to learn more, I'll put a link in the show notes, you can watch some videos to educate yourself, I highly encourage you to do that but also don't hesitate to reach out if I can help you directly in any way. All right, can't wait to share with you more on today's episode.
2:17
Welcome back to The Nourishing Mompreneur Podcast, where we get encouraged and empowered as we pursue our greatest potential within the walls of our home. Hey Mama, my name is Michelle Hiatt, and I'm so thankful you're here. Do you feel like your life is good but something, in you feels unfulfilled? Do you feel stuck in the trenches of motherhood, exhausted and working so hard but feeling like you're getting nowhere? Do you have big dreams you hold in your heart, but you've been living small? Are you motivated for more, but don't have the clarity or the courage to do anything about it? Do you want to discover God's best and see if it's really possible to be an excellent wife, an intentional mother, and be successful in business, all for the glory of God? As a wife of 16 years, a homeschooling mom of five, and an entrepreneur, I know exactly how you feel. Every bit of it. I truly believe that the most important work you will ever do is within the walls of your home, and that there is purpose in every season. If you are a fellow business minded mama, with a heart for home and a love for Jesus, let's process this journey and grow together.
3:19
Okay, be honest. Do you take naps, as a mom? This feels like a crazy and impossible concept but I'm going to set some of you free today. So bear with me. Listen, when I was pregnant. I literally had to take a nap every day. I don't know what the deal was, but my first time I start, I pretty much turn into an infant myself every three hours, I need to eat, I just need sleep, I hit a wall in the afternoon, like I had to lay down. And I remember with my son, my oldest feeling so guilty about this. I felt as if. If I wasn't working or doing something that I was being lazy or a failure. And so that whole pregnancy I really wrestled a lot with this idea of rest, even though I know it was okay because I was pregnant and my body needed it. It was just a hard thing to feel okay with.
4:17
I actually over the years, always tried to hide the fact that I rested and napped mainly during my pregnancies, or I would just make excuses because frankly I was embarrassed. I remember I was pregnant with baby number two and I hadn't told, we hadn't told our family yet but we were also getting ready to move. My mom came over every day, and she was helping me pack the house, meaning she basically did everything because I was useless I was just so tired and pregnant and I was trying to hide it. And so every day I was just like, could not wait for her to leave because as soon as she would leave I would just run and go crawl in bed because I didn't want her to think that I was lazy that I was napping and I was obviously trying to hide my pregnancy but just the sense of guilt and shame around napping around resting as a mom, but let's just talk about this for a minute.
5:04
So fast forward when I was pregnant with my third, I came across this homeschool blog series it was called A Day in the Life of a homeschool mom. It was so cool because basically what it was is it was all different homeschool moms in different seasons of life, some had newborns, like had just given birth, some had high schoolers. They each had different lives they lived in different areas they had different lifestyles, but they documented their day, day by day, and it was so encouraging to me and a lot of different ways. I don't know if you're a homeschool mom but you know that even though there's so much support and community. There's still a sense that you're alone in it you always wonder like, am I doing it right, what is everybody else doing what does this look like for other people? You know all these questions that you have but it was so cool to see what other people do is fascinating. But the one thing that absolutely blew my mind is that every single mom, every month, had a time of day where they rested. It was a time where they would put their feet up, read a book have some me time, maybe they would nap whatever it looked like but at some point midday, they took a rest, it wasn't just for the little kids. And this encouraged me so much, it validated that I wasn't a lazy mom for needing a break.
6:17
Growing up my example of a good woman was always seen and work, you basically just don't stop going there's some kind of badge of honor of hustling and never, never stopping and just work, work, work, work, and I definitely fall into that tendency as well, but we are not superhuman, we're not super moms yes, we're incredible but we don't have to literally live like we have a cape all the time and we have to be everything to everybody and we can't ever slow down and stop. It may work for some people and everybody's different, but I think for most all of us, it's not sustainable to not take breaks, and rest. And I don't honestly think that it's God's design for us to always be working. In fact, I know that to be true, how?
7:03
Well, when God created the earth. He rested. He designed for us to work six days and rest on the seventh. It's part of his design. In God's eye, there is value and rest. It's something he desires for us. It's for our benefit.
But there's also this unspoken pressure in society that a woman is valued for their work. It's so funny. I remember when my son was in kindergarten reading him a book we were reading about bees, and I was just laughing because with bees, the male, pretty much their entire sole purpose of existence is to mate and then they die like they just mate and die like that's, that's their whole purpose. And the women the working bees are the ones that do everything. And even now as we study different cultures, I like to give the kids a little bit of a worldview.
So we read some books where we study families that pretty pretty current like in the last 10-15 years, but different parts of the world- what their life is like, what they eat, what their week is like, what their work is like? And more often than not the women actually do more work than the men. Really interesting. Now, I'm not a feminist at all. I'm not saying anything. All I'm saying is this is what I'm seeing very often. There's just this pressure that's subtly ingrained and instilled from our experiences from society that woman and work are what creates value. There's a this is a whole nother conversation on identity but who we are, who God says we are is really where our value is held. It's not in the things that we do. Our work, it's just an overflow of who we are. And that's a journey that I've been on for a while now just understanding who I am focusing on the being and not the doing. All through my motherhood, I've taken the liberty to take naps and rest as needed. I still wrestle with it some, but I understand how important it is. And my kids understand this and they've been taught to respect this. It's just a part of our life. Everyone, everyone needs time to recharge so that we don't crash and burn. Especially you introverted Mama is like you've got to be extra intentional about protecting your peace in this area just saying.
I'm here to tell you that it is okay to validate your need for a break and to encourage you to take a break for the health of your family. Why? Why is this important? Well, okay, number one. It sets a good example for our kids. Rest is a reality of life. It's actually honoring to God, we just talked about that. Now I'm not giving you permission to be lazy. There's a big difference. If you haven't got the drift about this podcast. This is more of a working moms podcast, and I'll be the first one to give you some tough love in this area and push you for more. But there is a difference between resting for a purpose and being lazy.
Number two, it's going to help you be more productive. Last year, I listened to an audio book called High Performance habits by Brendon Burchard and I learned that the habits of high performance people because I know as a mom on this journey, like we if we're going to be juggling many things, motherhood, marriage, business, and all the other details that come along with that, we have to be really high performers. We've got to be intentional about our time we've got to have good time management. Understanding that rest is a Success Principle. It will actually help us be more productive. So this is really cool.
Brendon did a ton of research. The book is all founded on research so you could check it out and learn some of those principles, but the world's largest study of productivity that has ever been done with over 2 million people participating found that the most productive people tended to take a break at 52 minutes. So every 52 minutes, they took a break and it almost didn't even matter how long that break was. Isn't that interesting? So how Brendan does is is whether he's on an airplane, whether he's at home, working wherever he's at when he sits down to work, he pulls out his phone and sets a timer for about 15 minutes. And once his butt hits the chair, he sets the timer and he will work with laser focus and then when that timer goes off, it doesn't matter if he's in the middle of an email or what he's doing. He stops he gets up he drink some water walks around. Maybe just three to five minutes. He does some like maybe vinyasa moves. I don't know I don't know yoga, but you know, just stretching. clearing your mind. It's not the time to get on social media and to like divert that way. It's the time to like, clear your mind and just stop to let yourself refresh.
How can we apply that in our lives? How can we apply that in motherhood? Good things to think about? Well, first of all, let me just say that this simple concept, it's going to take some discipline, that's for sure. But if you recharge throughout the day, you're going to have greater mental clarity greater physical vitality, you're gonna have greater stamina and your work. than if you just burn straight through. One of the things that I tell my kids is imagine, you know, the NASCAR race track, they have those cars that go really fast around the track and they stop periodically for pitstops they put new tires and I don't know I don't follow any of the racing so I could be you know, getting it all wrong, but they're not stopping because the cars broke down. They're stopping to prevent an accident. They're stopping to keep the car going at that capacity at that high high performance capacity. And this is what we need as people we need to just take those pitstops so that we can keep going at a high capacity to be the best we can be to be all that we're called to be before we crash and burn and there actually is a problem. So how I teach my kids this is a lot of times with homeschool. I made sure that the older ones had a watch, they have a watch on the wrist and I'll tell them a lot of times like when you do math, just set the timer for 30 minutes give it your 100% Best Focus, do all that you can do and once the timer goes off, stop, take a break, quit you're done. Like whatever that looks like because they tend to be unfocused or get distracted and do one subject or do things too long sometimes and then their brain is fried and they're frustrated and it just causes problems and I would rather them have quality over quantity. And we all have a threshold of focus.
We all have a threshold of like, we just have a limit like we cannot push through that. And our children do too. So be mindful of the clock as you're working with your kids, teaching your kids, they're doing their chores, whatever. Ask them to set the clock and give 100% effort, 100% focus, undistracted and then when that timer goes off, it's done. Like let it rest.
You'll get higher higher performance out of them. You'll actually teach them good habits for success in life when you do it that way. Sorry, I have to throw that in there, because you know everything about life. These are principles. This applies to motherhood, to business, I just hope that you understand that. This is connected when you're home and you're working and you're maybe you're teaching your kids or whatever you're doing, it's all connected because the principles that drive us in success, in life, are the same principles that are going to work in all areas of life.
Okay, so number three. The reason why this is so important to learn to rest is because it's going to set up to be the best version of ourselves to be the woman that we desire to be to be a woman we can be proud of and who makes God proud. There are always reasons why you can't rest I'm sure you've already thought of like a million excuses, and you're like thinking you're rolling your eyes and you're like what the heck is she talking about this? Yeah, that sounds nice. Sounds easy, but that's like not even possible, but listen, this is where you have to like dig deep and step up as the entrepreneur, the manager of your home that you are and understand that everything is figure-out-able. That's the mindset we have to have when there's a problem with our kids or in our business. We do what we have to do to find a solution.
Listen, you are worth figuring out, you are worth figuring out how to refresh. So take the time, be a problem solver, figure it out, where there's a will there's a way and I know I'm confident that you can do it. If you are feeling burnt out more days than not, if you are feeling frazzled and irritable and just exhausted. This is important. So what if you can't nap or sleep? What if you're not a sleeper? Well, what should you do?
This is what you should do anyways because I've actually learned the last couple months to to just dig into this. This way of resting more than anything. Learn to take Holy Spirit pitstops that's what I call it. It's just a time to rest in Him. Your soul needs refreshing more than even your body. You are pouring out more than you know. So let God fill you again. Before you begin, what would be like the second shift of the day? I think as moms we take shifts or like the first shift, then take a break. Then there's the second shift the dinnertime, bedtime shift and then take a minute to relax and then there's the evening shift like wrap up and and all that kind of thing but it is important.
Resting in God makes all the difference. I found myself at the end of 2020 so exhausted so burned out from all the work and I thought that in January it was going to be a time for me. Meantime, I was going to rest refresh, take some time to sleep more and just just take it easy. But God was like No, baby. This is my time and I'm going to teach you to rest and me and I have learned how much my soul needs rest. My spirit needs rest. And I'm learning. I'm learning to rest in Him, and to find that secret place more quickly. Because that is the key that is the key to sustaining me and just helping me live the best life that I can and overcome whatever comes my way.
So I'll just give you a behind the scenes look a few tips. Again, you've got to figure it out. You've got to do you know your personality, you know your kid personality. You know where you live, you know what you need, you've got to figure these things out because nobody knows better than you, so figure it out. But do trust your instincts and see what works for everybody.
I'll give you a little bit of how I do it kind of behind the scenes. But first thing is just make sure that before you go rest of the kids are situated you want to make sure that they're safe, that they have proper instructions, just like anything if you're going to implement a rest time, even if it's just for you, mom, like there's going to be a training period. You've got to set those boundaries as expectation. So there's going to be some grace needed. There's going to be a little bit of time to implement this, okay, but make sure that everybody's safe. They know what to do. They've got all that they need so that you're not interrupted and it doesn't like the gate the whole purpose. But I will tell you, you know my kids are amazing. They take care of each other they are accustomed to hate mommy to break Mommy's gonna go rest for 30 minutes. They know what to do, but just this week, I'll tell you what happened. I laid down I said kids, Mom's got to rest for 30 minutes. It's around four o'clock. I'm like I gotta lay down for 30 minutes before I do dinner. I was just my brain was fried. So I went and lay down and pretty soon I heard my daughter screaming. And you know, as a mom when they're crying and whining or when they're like hurt and it was a hurt scream. They were all playing outside together again, safe property. They're all fenced in. They know they know the drill like we got this thing down over here in the Hyatt Household.
It's all right, we're resting and thriving and doing all the things but anyhow, she came in and she was screaming, but immediately I knew I heard within within seconds. I was right there holding her taking care of her. She just got stung by a bee. So here's the point.
Here's the point because I know a lot of you guys are going to start feeling guilty and you're gonna like, well, what if my kids aren't safe or what if something happens? What do they get hurt? Listen, this is not about checking out as a mother. This is about filling up as a mother. It's not about neglecting your children. There's a big difference. It's about setting yourself up to be the best that you can be. There's wisdom and being intentional about your rest and well being.
If you're running to the bathroom to lock the door. You're running to the closet to hide out out of like desperation. Then stop all that crazy and do this intentionally. If you want to avoid the evening meltdowns, and I'm not talking about your kids I'm talking about with you. It's okay, your kids are going to be okay my daughter. This doesn't happen, which is a perfect example that I'm sharing this today because the kids are always like nothing ever happened when I rest. But this week it did, my daughter got stung by a bee but I was right there. That's the point. I'm home. I'm there for my kids. They know that and I know that and nothing was lost. Nothing was neglected by the fact that I was laying down to rest for a minute. It was all okay. So go to your room. Lock the door. If you have to. Yes, I said just lock it. Turn on some background noise I really recommend just put on some worship music just put on some worship music and rest.
Close your eyes and be still let yourself drift off to sleep or just let God do whatever he wants to do in your heart. You don't even have to sleep but just let your mind relax and be free. You don't have to work for your rest. You are worthy of refreshing so just be at peace. God wants to lead us beside still waters and to restore our soul. Your job is just to position yourself to posture your heart to receive receive His love my friend. God loves you so very much.
So my challenge for you this week is to take some Holy Spirit pitstops this week and just try it just like anything like I said it's gonna feel a little awkward a little uncomfortable. might even seem impossible, but I promise it will be worth that. I promise it's possible. You just have to be intentional about it. If I can do it with five kids, you can do it too.
Lord, I just pray for the mom listening that you would reveal to her her need to rest and give her the wisdom on how to implement this and nd to prioritize this in her home. Help her to understand that her well being her soul being is so important and that is honoring to you when she rest. Not just rest but rest in you God teach her this, show her this. Reveal your love through this. She positioned herself to be still and to receive. Just pour out an abundance of your love into her heart, Lord. Work in her in the areas that she needs work in, do the things that only you can do God she surrenders her heart and she is just resting in your presence. I bless you today mama. We'll talk again soon.
Hey Mama real quick, before you run off and do all the things, if you found value in today's conversation it would mean the world to me if you left a review on my podcast. I know you know how precious time is. The biggest thing that you can give me for taking the time to share on this podcast is to leave a written review. This helps me on my mission to encourage and empower others who are pursuing their greatest potential from home.
Head over to iTunes and scroll down to the bottom of The Nourishing Mompreneur Podcasts to rate and leave a super quick review to let me know what spoke to your heart. AND if you're feeling a little extra today, take a screenshot of today's episode and tag me on social. I value your time so much and appreciate you connecting with me, find me at NourishingMichelle.com/connect
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