But we started doing these devotions. And my first thought was, reading it they had questions. And my first thought was, we're going to get into a fight. Like I immediately went to that and I was like, wait a minute, that's not the joy part of this. And yes, we probably will get on each other's nerves. Welcome to Take Heart, a podcast about creating space for connection, hope and joy as a mom to a child with disabilities or special needs.
We want you to feel connected and encouraged as we navigate this messy, emotional, and joy -filled life together. Hi, I'm Amy Brown, and welcome to season five of Take Heart. You're listening to episode 169. Before we get started, we have some changes coming up, and we want to make sure that you listen in next month, or you can subscribe to our newsletter so you can keep up with all the changes that are coming up. Our desire is to serve you well, so make sure that you stay connected. Okay.
Amy Brown: I'm here with Carrie and Sara, and we're going to talk about joy today. Last New Year's Eve, I went to a concert with my 24-year-old son, Evan, and my husband, David. And I stayed up past midnight, which I haven't done in a million years. You guys know I'm a girl that needs my sleep. I've actually, I'll admit it in public, been known to change the clock and lie to my kids that New Year's Eve had come. So that's how much I hate to stay up late. Anyway, I...never stay up late. And I texted my oldest two kids, Happy New Year, and they immediately assumed, not that I was having fun, that I've been kidnapped. So that's my reputation. So let's start there. At this concert, I just had the greatest time. And when the clock struck midnight, I will never forget, I can't stop thinking about how confetti balloons came down for 10 minutes. People were hugging and laughing and cheering and singing and it was such a happy, joyful moment.
And I can't stop thinking about that moment. Now, we all can't go to a concert every night to have joy. I mean, I paid for that for weeks, weeks, let me tell you. But I realized as I was thinking about that, that we can always have those big moments, but I seldom fully embrace joy. I'm not pessimistic. I'm not a half empty girl. But I think the responsibilities of caregiving often overshadow moments of happiness. I brace myself for the worst-case scenario and I neglect to savor the joy in the present.
As special needs parents, we are so good at over-functioning, over -thinking, over-doing, but we can't survive or thrive in that kind of mode. We have to have moments of joy and laughter and fun. And in the midst of our demanding lives, wonder, beauty, laughter and joy serve us well. And guess what? We're allowed to have fun on purpose. Not overthink it, not put it on social media. So anyway, I've been thinking a lot about that moment. and how happy it was.
And it made me think about the idea that practicing joy is a way to let go of control. I wanted to talk about that today. I wanted to talk about the things that get in the way of celebrating our joy. When I was in grad school, we were asked to do this little exercise where we said, what areas can I improve and what needs to be celebrated? Now I could list 16 pages of what I needed to improve, but I couldn't think of one thing I needed to celebrate, because it seemed like too big of a word, if that makes sense.
So today, I just want to talk about that, because I can't stop thinking about it. So Carrie and Sara, what do you think gets in the way of us celebrating or experiencing joy?
Carrie M Holt: Well, Amy, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head with just the idea of letting go of control. I was just talking to our counselor the other day about how
we have a hard time playing. You know, sometimes even when our kids are little, depending on your personality, you have a hard time stopping all the chores or feeling like you have the freedom to just sit down and play with your kids. I think you just have a hard time taking the, like laying aside all the things you have to do, especially if you kind of have a natural caregiver personality and then we're thrust into that role already, especially when it's moms. So that to -do list,is so long and then if you also tie your value and worth to getting things done and accomplishing things, you have to set that aside to play or rest and to have joy. And I think all those things are kind of linked together because I know Dan Allender talks a lot about how we need to play. There's rest in play with your spouse, and with your children. But again, I don't think so, at least I struggle having a hard time setting it aside because Maybe I don't feel like I deserve it or I just can't. All the things that I need to do feel like they have to take precedence.
Sara Clime: It's hard to find joy when everything you have to do is important. So when you have children who are, they have, they're medically complex or you have children who might be a detriment to themselves or to somebody else.
you are always on guard. And so you're always worrying and fearing, but you're always having to do something that is important. And so sometimes you can't even set those aside. So if those aren't, those aren't in play, then the what ifs, okay. So if I don't do this, then what will happen or what if this and what if that? And so I think sometimes for me, I have a hard time experiencing joy or finding joy because I'm so busy searching for it. And let me explain. So like I'm so busy chasing those moments of rest or those moments of play. Like you were talking about, Carrie, like, okay, so tomorrow I'm going to rest and I am going to have an hour where I can do this, this and this for myself. I'm going to go do this. Well, what do you need to do to get to that hour of taking a walk around the neighborhood?
Sometimes it's just that simple as I'm just going to an hour to do whatever I want to do. Well, you're so busy the day before trying to find and to search for those moments of joy or those moments of rest. You're not recognizing the joy. And then it's like, I'm working so hard to find the rest or so that I can recognize the joy that I'm missing the moments of joy in the present moment.
Amy: Are you saying that it's almost like joy's just right around the corner once I get everything checked off my list
Sara: Yeah, it's like, okay, so I'm going to experience joy just as soon as I get everything done. And if everything's done and it goes back to the control that goes back to trying to control it all. And so sometimes it's just taking a moment of, well, and I think it also goes back to accepting that our joy looks different from everybody else. Like I'm in a phase of my life where my friends are empty nesters, a lot of them are becoming empty nesters and. They're like, my gosh, my husband and I just picked up and we went here for the weekend like we don't pick up and go anywhere. I mean, you know, unless it's to the hospital, right? , but somebody is going back to get everything that should have been done just to pick up and go so.
And I love that for my friends. I love that for them, but I'm jealous. And I am like, I'm like, this is what my husband and I plan for it. This is what we thought our, this phase of life was going to look like for us. And so sometimes when those moments of joy, you're just like, wow, I can't do that. So it's, I'm so busy searching for it. So there's different ways, I guess, to search for joy. You're either trying to create it, which doesn't work. Instead of just taking a breath and being like, okay, this is my life and here are the moments of joy. My friends were, they were able to go away for the weekend. You know what? I had three doctors appointments and they all actually called the schedule. I didn't have to track anybody down and maybe that's joy for me. And does it kind of stink sometimes? Sure. But I think taking the time to recognize that joy is joy.
Amy: Right, right. That's important. And I want to point out here too, that if you've been in a long season of caregiver burnout or a really busy hospital, even in the hospital, your nervous system is not going to be calm enough to play or rest, honestly, until you can kind of ground yourself a little bit. So maybe like you said, Sara, it's just that taking that moment, grounding yourself, taking a deep breath and just noticing what is in front of us in the moment.
Sara: And I think that's super important
Amy: And I want to go back to something Carrie said, Carrie said, you feel like you don't deserve it. We have narratives around, around play, joy, delight that I think play a big part in how we experience those things. So what kind of narratives do you think are common around having joy or playing or delight?
Carrie: Well, I think one of the things is Like I mentioned, you feel like you don't deserve it or it's, you know, the whole work first, then play, you know, work always comes first before, you know, you have to eat your vegetables before you have your dessert. Well, why not eat the dessert first once in a while? I think also, at least for me personally, for the longest time, I just really struggled with everything needed to be in its place and perfect before I could enjoy life.
And then when Toby was in the ICU as a baby and it was just chaos for over two months if you wait for life to be calm, you're just never gonna live. You're never gonna find joy. I know these scriptures are probably fairly familiar, but I do think there's a lot of truth to Philippians 4. . Like don't be anxious about anything because I experienced that in the hospital. I tried every day to just...give all of those anxieties and the things I was trying to control over to the Lord. And then He started to show me different moments of joy where, you know, maybe it was Bruce and I could just laugh about something together that no one else would find funny, but it was actually kind of funny in the moment. Maybe it was a medical instance or don't know, something that happened with a doctor or maybe it was just, you just found a chuckle over something. But I think, I think the narrative at least for me is I don't deserve it or everything has to be in place before I can actually enjoy it.
Actually, we've been living this out right now because it's been taking a little bit of time for us to have this outdoor deck on our house. And Toby has been the best micromanager of the situation that you can possibly imagine and there's one major piece of it that's not done. It's just not stained yet. And he keeps asking me every day, when is that gonna happen? When is that gonna get done? And I said, well, Toby, but it's structurally sound and we bought furniture so we can go out and enjoy it even though it's not done. And I'm sure some of his...not his inability to recognize that we can enjoy things when they're not perfect and completed. It comes from me, but I'm trying to teach him that it's okay, we can go out and sit and we can enjoy the breeze and the weather and the birds and everything, even though, you know, it's not completely perfect yet.
Sara: I think sometimes it's like it's our our bodies narratives where when you I have found that when you go through trauma, especially recurring or ongoing trauma, you begin to fear joy or better yet, you don't trust it. So you begin to brace yourself for the hard things. And our bodies, our minds, they're remarkable. They are designed to protect us. So you burn yourself on a stove, your mind and your body remembers that. the next time you go to that stove, you're much more prone to not forget the oven mitt to avoid opening the door this one certain way, know? Same as if you're on the receiving end of demeaning comments or less than helpful suggestions, let's say at a school IEP meeting or certain physician’s office or even from a family member. Your body remembers those moments and that begins to protect you from those types of moments. So when you go into, when you go and you're at a holiday and you know that family member's going to be there,
You have your guard up, so you are protecting yourself. But those protections can easily become walls that are built so high that the good can't then penetrate it. So you walk into school with your armor on, or you walk into your family's Christmas with your armor on. And maybe in those instances, you don't need it. Maybe you do. That's always a possibility. But you're so busy lugging around this heavy armor that you don't just expecting the negative to happen that you don't even open yourself up to the moments of joy that can happen. And I am a pro at that. I love donning all the, you know, all the armor and getting ready to fight. But when you're so busy, ready to fight, it's like the analogy of when you're when you're so busy preparing yourself to fight, you have your fists up, they're closed, you're in a fighting stance.
Well, then you don't open your hands up to receive because you're so busy closing them off to pound somebody or in, you know, anticipating that. So for me, that's the narrative that I have. And I don't even know if that's necessarily a narrative as much as it's just habitual that when you have time and time and time again, it seems I would hope that I was the only one I know I'm not. But when you constantly have that whack-a-mole life where it's just like, okay, I think we're in an easy set, easy moment. I don't even think we even say that anymore as caregivers, but when things start to kind of flow, you feel like, okay, we're flowing, we're good. That's when something always inevitably comes up. So you learn to prepare for those, but you're not enjoying the easy moment either.
Carrie:- It's funny that you say that, Sara, because it makes me just think of like being cynical and a couple of weeks ago, I had an acquaintance reach out to me and just tell me that she was praying for me and I was having a good day and immediately guess what my thought was? no Lord, what's coming? What are you preparing me for? I don't want people praying for me. That means something. I know. seriously, mean, immediately your mind goes to the cynical. Like, and I think, like you said, it's self protection, but yeah.
Sara: I think once you recognize that, know, Amy, you mentioned your nervous system. And when I, when I first started to kind of learn about all of that, it really helped me recognize how to regulate my nervous system. And when, when you do that, then you do open yourself back up, it's easier. It's not easy. It's just easier to just be in the moment. And whether that's good or bad, because sometimes you need to be in both of them to understand, I think, it's kind of the yin yang. You have to get joy, you have to accept the bad and kind of lean into it too. But I think that's another episode.
Amy: Yeah, I, one of the things I thought about when you were talking, Sarah, is we've all had moments in our lives, we were having a great time, something was really great was happening. And then the next day, we got the phone call, or we had to go to the hospital and so those, our bodies remember those moments. And even though we've had so many joyful moments that didn't end that way, it's funny how your brain hooks onto that one. And so when you're starting to be joyful, you're thinking, I can't be too joyful because the last time I was this joyful, the bottom fell out the next day. You know, it's that kind of weird feeling that I think is a narrative is , I think it's your body that needs to relax before your mind can change. That nervous system work is really important.
I think another narrative we have is the expectation of what it should look like. Like your friends are empty nesters or my friends can do this. And we have this idea. Well, the big girls' weekend or everybody, you know, is out having fun on the beach and you know, you can't do that. We look at that expectation and think, well, I can't do that. I can't go do the things that other people do. So we have an expectation of what it should look like. I've been thinking a lot about the idea of joy being a way of being instead of a way of doing? Our first thought is let's go do something that's joyful. And that's okay. I mean, if going out and picking XYZ brings you joy, that's fine. But how do we make that a way of being in our life? Because we already do so many things. I don't know if that makes sense, but I've been thinking a lot about it.
Okay. Well, how do I think we can move past this and learn to embrace joy?
Sara: I think with us it is us as caregivers, but I think it goes for anybody too, but especially us that are in this constant state of stress have to be intentional with the mental redirects. So I have to be intentional in my search for joy and to just be still.
and just recognize that there is joy happening right now, or I'm just going to miss it. So yeah, for me, I have to, and I also have to assume best intentions. So when dealing with other humans, because I think sometimes we let others, I, there's always the, there's the saying that, know, don't let others steal your joy. But I don't think that that's necessarily the case all the time. I think we hand it to them. Like, we're just like, I've got too many things going on. have my loads too heavy. So you just take my joy and then whatever. But I have to assume best intentions. So I will even say to myself, like before, you know, earlier I was talking about the IEP meeting or a family member. If somebody's just kind of being a jerk or they don't, they're not understanding the situation, but man, they have a plethora of opinions. Before walking into those situations, I will just say, okay, past interactions do not dictate future ones. So like, if I had an interaction with a previous para at my son's school does not mean that this new para or even the same para is going to be the same way. She's allowed to have a bad day. Now, with that being said, that doesn't mean that I don't prepare or that I'm not. So I guess maybe sometimes your guard has to be up in those situations to a point, but it's like, okay, I have my armor.
It's here. I'm going to set it to the side and I can, I can put that puppy on real quick, but I don't necessarily need to be wearing it at the beginning of the conversation. If that makes sense.
Carrie: like you said, it's that mental redirect, but with adjusting your expectations of, and I know just me personally, I've been working through this a little bit with my counselor and doing EMDR therapy, because when you have those, they caught the neural pathways of trauma through your brain because of certain situations that's happened. EMDR therapy can help you to crack that. And so like, for instance, I have a lot of anxiety about traveling with our son and we're getting ready to go on a trip. And a lot of times I go in to the situation, just expecting, you know, TSA to treat us really poorly or whatever it is, because I've had these experiences iin the past and instead she's just been helping me to think through like what to say, to plan a little bit so it's gonna be a little bit easier and in the moment to have joy. I think too, one of the things I've just been realizing lately, I think especially because my oldest two kids are leaving the nest and one's almost completely out of the nest isI mean, they tell you this, know, moms and older stages tell you this, but I mean, the truth is life just keeps moving.
Time just keeps going. Your kids are gonna, you know, if you have more than one child, they're eventually gonna leave home. And I think sometimes we just take it for granted that that person's always gonna be there. And so learning to embrace joy is me just soaking in every single moment. I can't tell you how many times this past go year I've hugged my second son and he tolerates it thankfully, but I'll just, I just look at him and I say, I'm just so glad you're here and I'm sorry I'm giving you a hug again, but I know come summer, he's actually working at a summer camp this summer, but come summer you're going to be gone and then you're moving to college and you're going to be gone. And so I think when you start to maybe accept or understand a little bit how fleeting life can be, we can just find those little moments of joy moment by moment.
Sara: Yeah. I think it's important that we understand we don't always have to be on. Yeah. I don't always have to be TJ's mom and advocate and caregiver. Yes, I am always those things. So for example, we had a certain situation with a family member and years leading up to this blowout,
Blowout's not the right word. I know, right?
Amy I :don't want to be a blowout in this story, please.
Sara: Years leading up to this blowup with this family member, there were comments in, you know, this was a close family member and they should have at least understood what my son's diagnosis was. minimum. Like bare minimum. And this wasn't like a third cousin. This is a very close family member.So anyway, all of that to say, I didn't have to always be on and be the advocate. 10 years go by and it's, no, that's not what his diagnosis is about. This is what, he didn't understand that he might not always make eye contact or he doesn't always understand this or well, why is he doing this or blah, blah. So finally, I just got to the point where I was just like, you need to read up on it. Read up on it. If you care about him, read up on it. And that might sound rude to some people.
But I gave it my best go for a decade of this. And I finally thought, no, the best way to advocate for my son is not to have me dread Christmas. The best way to, I don't have to be on all the time. And so there comes a point where the other people need to do their own business. So I think sometimes in order for us to experience joy in all situations, just know that some people are kind of, they're going to be jerks.
There are morons out there. don't know how else I mean, I know this is definitely a nicer way to put it. But the truth is the truth. And it's not it's not my job to change other people. I can be kind, I can be nice, but sometimes the best way to be kind is to walk away. And I've had to do that. And I think that is one thing that we need to learn as caregivers, at least in my opinion, one of the most important things that I had to learn. I'm allowed to be Sara. I don't always have to be the advocate. I don't always have to be his caregiver. I can be at a Christmas party and be his mom. And then if the caregiving role needs to come in because something happens, sure. Why can't I just walk in and that one person out of there was, out of 40, but that one person, even though, yes, they should be different, they should know about my son. They should take the time to do that. They don't deserve my joy. They don't deserve that celebration at that moment. yeah, just not being on all the time is a way to.
Amy: So in some ways, you're saying that putting up boundaries around certain things is going to help us have joy, especially in a moment like that. And I can think I could see in a moment like that, you're walking in going, here we go again. Right. And you've got your armor on. And I think that's a good point that there are times that we get to tap out of things because we want to experience the moment with our families. And I think that's a really important point to make.
Sara: Just like we wouldn't just like we can't just pick up and go somewhere for the weekend with our spouse, right? That just isn't our life. Well, it's not our life to stay in toxic relationships, be that friends, families, doctors, there there's so many in this in the era that we live in the age that we live in is that we can always I'm not saying to give up on people, but there comes a point where it's okay to say Okay, you're not in my inner circle. You're going to be on the outer circle. And the inner circle, the people who get to fuel my joy, they get to, they get to be a part of my celebration and my joy. And you're not it because you're trying to suck the life out of it. So I'm to put you out of this. My therapist said it's kind of relationships are like a target. You have the center bullseye, right? And those are the people who know everything about you. And then as you go out,
The closeness isn't, you know, you're as tight with people on those outer rings. So sometimes those people just need to go off the target. You're no longer playing the game. You're out people.
Amy: Yeah, I think that's a that's a really good point, because, you know, joy is not just like, let's go fly a kite and do fun things. It's like we have to prepare ourselves to enter into joy because of the lives that we have. And so putting up boundaries, I think is really important. So thanks for sharing that.
Okay, so I have a question. First of all, I'm a big fan of reflection and noticing because I think they're great tools to help us see the things we're missing that we could celebrate. So have you ever had this experience where someone asks you, what are your hobbies and you stare at them blankly because you have none? Or what do you do for fun? And you're like, hmm, I don't know. So that's where I think reflection and noticing are important. And so one of the things I do with my mentees is one of the first things we do is
And I learned this from Emily P Freeman, what makes your soul light up and what is soul draining? And I think those are good clues for, I really enjoy this thing and I got to do this thing and I didn't really realize this was something that brought me joy. Paying attention is important. So I asked my lovely co -hosts here to pay attention to their lives in the last several months. And I am going to ask them some questions to reflect. And I think these are important questions we can all do, but I'm going to start with this.
What were your moments of joy? Now I want to say that celebration can be a big party or a concert, but it can be really small. what, when you're looking back in the last several months, what were your moments of joy that you can name? And please, I hope you can name some. There's going to be a big pause.
Carrie: So just this past week, well, about two or three weeks ago, and this is going to sound like it's not joyful, but it is.My husband got into a car accident in our accessible van. And the joy piece of that was, first of all, me noticing that God knew that that was gonna happen and we had already been in progress to get a new accessible van. So that was one thing. And then obviously the biggest thing is that my husband was fine. But the irony too in that situation was, five minutes before the accident, he had just dropped Toby off somewhere. So he had not been in the vehicle. So to me, that was just like, okay, this is joyful because, you know, it was almost like it was the best scenario that could happen for an accident. And then as we were waiting, it was not my husband's fault. So as we were waiting for the insurance company to get back to us,
My husband kind of had a number in mind of what we thought the insurance company was going to give us. And I was praying for something specifically and God just did over and abundantly above what we could have asked or imagined in the situation. And so that was, I just, I, I got a little teary. Like, I just felt like God was giving me a hug. Like, I see you. I, I, I see your wants and desires and what's really, what you really need at this moment. And it's okay to ask for it and every once in a while I'm gonna give it to you. So it was just, it was such a beautiful thing.
Amy: What about you, Sara?
Sara: I love music. And so that's kind of as Amy, yours is nature that will always refresh your soul, right? Mine's music. And so I've been to a few concerts.
And the things that I've noticed is, so over the past few months, I went on one where we went to a destination that wasn't my favorite. It actually was more stressful, I think, in certain aspects, but it was so much fun. And then I went to another concert where I flew in to see a friend and it was the most relaxing.
The weather was perfect. Everything just kind of fell into place, right? But both of those moments, the locations were different locations. One was stressful. One wasn't as stressful. But the key to those were the relationships within and that it was just such a moment. And so just finding joy where even though I can't pick up and go for a girls weekend with my friends, I can't do that. I still was able to find just an evening or a weekend where ee had to move mountains to do it, but it still happened. And so I think part of the joy was just that I was able to do it. I went away with my sister for an evening and my sister and I made a concerted effort to be more present for each other. And, and I love that. I think that that's it. But one of the things I've noticed since you asked this question was just the little moments that happen every day. So my youngest son, TJ loves to bake and, and a friend of mine sent him these this pan for to make donuts, right? So every time he makes donuts, he wants me to take a picture of it and send it to this friend. So there's so much joy just right there, right, that I get to bake it with him, I get to help him with it, he gets to do something he loves. I get to be his hands and feet in certain situations where I think that's a joyful moment that I'm able to do that for him. But then he's like, will you send this to my friend?
She'll want to see my donuts. Well, of course, she wants to see your donuts. Of course, who doesn't want to see the donuts? But you know, like those moments where it's just constantly, where if you pay attention, and that's one of my biggest downfalls is I don't pay attention enough. And so I've tried to, and just to learn how to laugh. Like, you know, laugh in certain situations. know, Carrie, you had said, you know, right after she asked you that question, your first was when,Well, my husband was in a car accident. I think that that right there is so indicative of our lives as caregivers and moms to those with disabilities, special needs that we're like, well, when my husband had an accident, like, set all of that aside because there are so many, you know, God's love and joy and celebration, it's woven so much in every fabric of our life that it can be like, okay, yes, I know that that really stinks.
You didn't talk about how you had to get the rental and how all of that and there's tears and everything to do with that. But if that's what you focused on, you wouldn't recognize all the joy in those moments. And I think that that's the beauty of it.
Carrie: Can I share everyday moment too. Amy, when you asked this question, I started to think about just the patterns that we've established. My kids are still home. I'm still homeschooling. And probably in the last year, maybe even year and a half,We just have this pattern that every, of the kids are pretty fairly independent in their schoolwork because they're older or high school. But then we, at lunch, almost every day, we come back together and we'll play like a quick board game or there's a couple little small card games that don't take a lot of time. And joy for me is my daughter saying, hey mom, are you ready to play, you know, this game with me or Garrett, my other son will say, hey, are we gonna sit down? And what I realized is it's not the game, it's the eye contact, it's the time, it's the presence of being together in those moments that I'm really gonna miss when my second son goes off to college. But for now, is the beauty and the joy of just the presence of one another and seeing one another and having good conversations around the table.
Sara: Okay, so something that's kind of funny is my husband and I started doing daily devotion. So we bought this book, just real short and sweet. I mean, you're talking maybe just a few minutes. But we had to compromise on when to do the devotion. That was the hardest part is when we're to do it. And he's not a morning person. I am but you know, the first hour don't talk to me. That's my time. I and I'm for the moms that are sitting there being like, you get an hour to yourself in the morning. I wake up very early to do that. And it doesn't always work out, but I also have older children that like to sleep in. but we started doing these devotions. And my first thought was, I was reading it and they had questions. And my first thought was, we're going to get into a fight. Like I immediately went to that and I was like, wait a minute, that's not the joy part of this. The, the, the, yes, we probably will get on each other's nerves at some point.
He'll say something and I'm like, that's not right. Or he's going to be like, what are you talking about? I mean, so I, you know,, just the intentional time that you, like you said, Carrie, it's not about the game. It's not, it's about the devotion in this situation, but it's also about us sharing that time together and being intentional. Even if it's just three minutes in the morning for answering a simple question and just spending time together. We've stopped. We're looking at each other, nothing else is involved.
And we're speaking with each other, not to each other barking out comments or how was your day? Please keep it short because I've got stuff to do in this kind of situation.
Amy: Yeah. It's a small moments of connection. I just want to add this before I ask the last question and that is, know, Carrie's talking about her son's leaving and I have more than one child out of the house. And one of my moments of joy,that just delights me every time it happens. My oldest son Davis is a fourth-grade teacher in Chicago and he calls me on the way home from work. And I get to hear about all the shenanigans that went on in this fourth-grade class. And I will say when he left for college, I laid on his bed and bawled for like 30 straight minutes. I just couldn't imagine life without him. And I thought like, I had all these expectations, like he's never gonna see him and he's never gonna come to vacation. Well, he's still coming to vacation. Like I had all these ideas in my head.
of what I was losing. And I think that is a part of joy too. We think what are we losing? We don't have the friendships we wish we had. But Davis calling me not every day, but several days a week, just for the 20 minutes he's driving home is one of the biggest joys of my life because I get to hear about his life. And I think part of the reason he does that is because I listened when he was younger too. But that's just such a joyful thing for me to and also
Another thing I want to add real quick before I go to the last question is also the celebration that sometimes with our scanning the horizon for the next bad thing, we don't celebrate. Like, for example, my youngest who's getting ready to graduate from high school, she's not where she was a year ago. Thank the good Lord. But I forget to notice that because I'm always focused on the next problem she has grown and she has some better coping skills than she had a year ago. But I don't always recognize that.
Anyway, okay, so my last question for you guys, I wanted this to be kind of a fun one. We'll see how we do is what is saving your life right now? Now it can be anything. It could be your favorite hand cream when you go to bed at night. It could be something super deep, but I think that's another way of noticing and by saving my life, it's making my life better. It's bringing me a little lightness to my soul. I will start because I'm going to tell you my very non-serious one, but is my air fryer. Now I'm just going to say this because I have to say this. I have cooked for 12-plus people around my table for years. I could leave this recording right now and go whip out a meal for 40 people. No problem. But if I have to make a meal for Dave and I, I don't know how to do it. I just, can't do it. I can't buy just one pound of something. So the air fryer is like a boundary line for me. It's quick.
It makes enough food for two people because our only one kid left at home and she works a lot. And we don't have six weeks of chili leftover or whatever I made. Nobody's going to eat. So I am in love with my air fryer. I'm just saying it. Okay, go ahead. What do you guys got? Who else got one? I have more, but we can do, we can go around.
Sara: Mine is intentionality. I have really tried to be so intentional. And so I have kind of, so I have,I recently have started to untie myself from obligations. And it's really hard because I love to be busy. I love doing things. I find a lot of self -worth in what I do for others. But I'm like, I don't have to do that laundry right now. I'm going to be very intentional, not do the load of laundry right now.
If that means that my son has to go to aquatic therapy and put on dirty clothes because I haven't put it in the bag, that's OK. And being intentional with not making myself feel guilty, we went, we're struggling with aquatic therapy. I'm just going to lay it out on the line. And he loves structure. And so if anything fallsout of the structure, even if I do something that makes more sense. like, why am I doing it that way? I'm going to do it this way. my word. I should have passed it by him. We should have had a complete dissertation about it. But I'm like, okay, so I sent him to aquatic therapy and we went to aquatic therapy. didn't send them. don't. would be so nice. Anyway, we go to aquatic therapy and it is, I mean, you're just, you're sweating. buckets because it's 180 degrees in there. Hot flashes, it's a thing right now. I'm miserable while I'm sitting there. We get done, I take him to the little corner, we chipper change his clothes, and I forgot underwear. We have to run errands. He's like, I can't run errands. I know this sounds so minor, but I'd be like, okay, I'm just going to avoid the situation where he's going to be all out of sorts while we go to the grocery store and everything. And I finally looked at them like, listen, so I can't say it here of what I told them, but I'm like, you're just going to live freely. I don't care. If you want to go buy underwear when we're at Walmart, you buy underwear at Walmart and then we can go change you in the store. Well, I'm not changing in the store. I'm like, I don't care about it. He just kept talking about it and talking about it. But I was very intentional with, was like, no, that's not convenient for me. And so I forgot his underwear.
That doesn't make me a bad mom. It doesn't make me a bad caregiver and he'll live like, and I know that sounds so small and it might not resonate with everybody, but those are even the small things from like, I immediately went to how, how could I forget that? We've been doing this two times a week, four months. Like how could I do that? How? my gosh, Sarah, that's just ridiculous. You need to, you need to do that earlier in the evening, you rushed it, like you go through this whole big narrative of why you suck as a mom to be quiet. And like that's where I went. And that's not what it was all about. And so for me, the intentionality of just saying, you know what? I forgot it. not the end of the world. Let's move on. And that is huge for me. I am not that kind of person. If my sister is listening to this, she'd be like, I do that all the time because that's just I would love to be like her. Like she's just like, OK.It didn't happen the way it was supposed to. Let's move on. but so I think intentionality for me is a good one. It's saving my life right now. Yeah.
Carrie: So for me, I think it's two things. One is remembering to breathe. It hit me several weeks ago. How many times I'm just holding my breath all the time, holding my breath and you don't realize you're doing it, but you are. And so remembering to breathe.
Actually, I'm gonna say three. Second one is my space outside. I did not have any idea how much adding this cover deck to our house would just be a place of peace and calm and relaxation. It's been wonderful.
And then the last thing spiritually for me, I've been doing the Bible Recap podcast, reading through the scripture and then listening to Tara Leigh Cobble do her Bible recap and I have one of her little journals and every day she talks about her gotcha. Where'd you see God in Scripture today? And it hasn't been, you know, I'm a couple days behind, but it's been a rhythm and a routine that just has helped me to see Christ in every day and that brings me joy. And it's just been a really beautiful thing. And I've learned a lot too at the same time, but it's just been beautiful to look and say, Where is God in this situation? And sometimes you find him in very unlikely places. Right.
Amy: I have two more I want to add since I just don't want to say air fryer. number two, I have this mantra of deciding once and that is saving my life. And what I mean by that is I decide one time about a certain area. For example,
I used to decide, I decided when my kids were all home in December, we're not doing therapies, anything. Because December's crazy enough. So, I always think I'm a one-woman self -improvement campaign. I can add one more thing, do one more thing. So an example of that would be, I'm deciding once that in December, we don't do anything extra so we can enjoy this season. Or there's a really busy time of travel. So I'm deciding once today that I am not going to be doing these
In the next six weeks, I cannot do anything at church extra or whatever. And that has really helped me because I always think I could do more. And I think it goes back to what you said, Sarah, that you could have gone, OK, I'm just going run home and get that underwear and then I'm going to. And that would have thrown your whole day off. So in some ways, this is an intentionality for me is deciding on something once. Sometimes in a really busy period, I'll decide these are only the emails I'm reading because I get a lot of people's, writers, emails and podcasts. These are only the podcast I'm going to listen to because I tend to just stack more on. that's one.
And then the third one is, you know, the last couple of years I've been in grad school, we've had the book. My house has gotten really disorganized and I'm very much a minimalist and everything's cluttered and drives me crazy. And I literally want to throw everything away and start from scratch. That's my attitude. But I joined, and this has been the most delightful life-giving thing for me, The Cozy Minimalist, Myquillyn Smith's Cozy Community.
And it's not very much money. And she has a new book called House Rules. her whole thing is you take what you have, like you shop your own house. You make your house beautiful with the least amount of stuff. And it's not like having to get an interior decorator. It has given me so much agency to go, huh? Like it's delightful. Her videos are short. It's very accessible. And so that has kind of been my little guilty pleasure of watching one of her videos and then going around my house and just making it.
look nicer than it does right now because that kind of drives me crazy clutter and it just really drains me. So that's been kind of a fun thing to do. And that could be something that you could say to yourself, well, that's not that important. It's just my house, right? Like there are way more important things to be doing that has brought me a lot of joy. So that is saving my life. So those are mine.
Do you have any more?
Sara: One of the things that I've learned is breath prayer. It helps me so much. And I think and it reminded me of it when you said Carrie just
Breathe that helps me. so one of my favorite scriptures is Daniel 3:18. And it's when King Nebuchadnezzar is taunting Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And he's like, well, who's going to save you now? And I'm throwing you in the fiery furnace. And he says, even if my Lord does, he's like, where's your Lord now? Like, even if he doesn't save me, I will never worship your idols.
That was a big paraphrase, by the way. But what I will do is I take that scripture and I will say, OK, so let's take the Walmart instance where the aquatic therapy where I forgot his interface. Like, even if I forget something important to my child, like, you you just breathe in. it's like, even if: breathe it in. We’ll be OK, and it'll let you know, even if you breathe in. to even if, then you breathe out God's what's important. know, like whatever the situation is, it can be something that mundane and then I will just take some breaths and I will do a breath prayer or be still, you know, be still and know that I am God. I will breathe in to be still and then know that I am God and I'll breathe out to that. So that's one thing I really like that's helping me. And I've been doing somatic exercises and that is just helping me learn how to regulate my nervous system.
Relaxing my muscles because, like Carrie, you said yyou hold your breath. My shoulders are up by my ears all the time. And so I was having back problems and all of this. And so just taking a few moments just to stretch. Like I don't have to go out for 40 minutes of cardio to feel like I have done good to my body. It's no longer that maybe it's just five minutes of stretching to make sure my nervous system is more regulated than it was whenever.
I got out of a certain situation. Yeah. Well, thank you ladies for sharing today. And as I'm listening to this, I'm thinking about something that Michele Cushatt said we interviewed her last summer. Or maybe it was last March. I'll link it. She said your well-being matters. And I can't stop thinking about that line, she said. And so yes, our well-being matters in lots of ways, but it matters here with amid our demanding lives that we find joy and laughter and ways to celebrate.
Amy: So if you're listening today, it might be helpful to ask those questions. Where were the small joys? What can I celebrate and what's saving my life? So thank you so much for listening to us this week. Are there emotions that you're trying to navigate and would like to hear us talk more about it? Was there something specific you'll be taking away from this week's episode? As always, we love your feedback and would love to hear from you. Please find us on Instagram at Take Art Special Moms, email us or leave us a comment on our website at takeartspecialmoms .com.
And if you haven't had a chance to check out our book, you can find it at your favorite online retailers. And you can find the link to those retailers at our website. Thank you.
We want you to feel connected and encouraged as we navigate this messy, emotional, and joy -filled life together. Hi, I'm Amy Brown, and welcome to season five of Take Heart. You're listening to episode 169. Before we get started, we have some changes coming up, and we want to make sure that you listen in next month, or you can subscribe to our newsletter so you can keep up with all the changes that are coming up. Our desire is to serve you well, so make sure that you stay connected. Okay.
Amy Brown: I'm here with Carrie and Sara, and we're going to talk about joy today. Last New Year's Eve, I went to a concert with my 24-year-old son, Evan, and my husband, David. And I stayed up past midnight, which I haven't done in a million years. You guys know I'm a girl that needs my sleep. I've actually, I'll admit it in public, been known to change the clock and lie to my kids that New Year's Eve had come. So that's how much I hate to stay up late. Anyway, I...never stay up late. And I texted my oldest two kids, Happy New Year, and they immediately assumed, not that I was having fun, that I've been kidnapped. So that's my reputation. So let's start there. At this concert, I just had the greatest time. And when the clock struck midnight, I will never forget, I can't stop thinking about how confetti balloons came down for 10 minutes. People were hugging and laughing and cheering and singing and it was such a happy, joyful moment.
And I can't stop thinking about that moment. Now, we all can't go to a concert every night to have joy. I mean, I paid for that for weeks, weeks, let me tell you. But I realized as I was thinking about that, that we can always have those big moments, but I seldom fully embrace joy. I'm not pessimistic. I'm not a half empty girl. But I think the responsibilities of caregiving often overshadow moments of happiness. I brace myself for the worst-case scenario and I neglect to savor the joy in the present.
As special needs parents, we are so good at over-functioning, over -thinking, over-doing, but we can't survive or thrive in that kind of mode. We have to have moments of joy and laughter and fun. And in the midst of our demanding lives, wonder, beauty, laughter and joy serve us well. And guess what? We're allowed to have fun on purpose. Not overthink it, not put it on social media. So anyway, I've been thinking a lot about that moment. and how happy it was.
And it made me think about the idea that practicing joy is a way to let go of control. I wanted to talk about that today. I wanted to talk about the things that get in the way of celebrating our joy. When I was in grad school, we were asked to do this little exercise where we said, what areas can I improve and what needs to be celebrated? Now I could list 16 pages of what I needed to improve, but I couldn't think of one thing I needed to celebrate, because it seemed like too big of a word, if that makes sense.
So today, I just want to talk about that, because I can't stop thinking about it. So Carrie and Sara, what do you think gets in the way of us celebrating or experiencing joy?
Carrie M Holt: Well, Amy, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head with just the idea of letting go of control. I was just talking to our counselor the other day about how
we have a hard time playing. You know, sometimes even when our kids are little, depending on your personality, you have a hard time stopping all the chores or feeling like you have the freedom to just sit down and play with your kids. I think you just have a hard time taking the, like laying aside all the things you have to do, especially if you kind of have a natural caregiver personality and then we're thrust into that role already, especially when it's moms. So that to -do list,is so long and then if you also tie your value and worth to getting things done and accomplishing things, you have to set that aside to play or rest and to have joy. And I think all those things are kind of linked together because I know Dan Allender talks a lot about how we need to play. There's rest in play with your spouse, and with your children. But again, I don't think so, at least I struggle having a hard time setting it aside because Maybe I don't feel like I deserve it or I just can't. All the things that I need to do feel like they have to take precedence.
Sara Clime: It's hard to find joy when everything you have to do is important. So when you have children who are, they have, they're medically complex or you have children who might be a detriment to themselves or to somebody else.
you are always on guard. And so you're always worrying and fearing, but you're always having to do something that is important. And so sometimes you can't even set those aside. So if those aren't, those aren't in play, then the what ifs, okay. So if I don't do this, then what will happen or what if this and what if that? And so I think sometimes for me, I have a hard time experiencing joy or finding joy because I'm so busy searching for it. And let me explain. So like I'm so busy chasing those moments of rest or those moments of play. Like you were talking about, Carrie, like, okay, so tomorrow I'm going to rest and I am going to have an hour where I can do this, this and this for myself. I'm going to go do this. Well, what do you need to do to get to that hour of taking a walk around the neighborhood?
Sometimes it's just that simple as I'm just going to an hour to do whatever I want to do. Well, you're so busy the day before trying to find and to search for those moments of joy or those moments of rest. You're not recognizing the joy. And then it's like, I'm working so hard to find the rest or so that I can recognize the joy that I'm missing the moments of joy in the present moment.
Amy: Are you saying that it's almost like joy's just right around the corner once I get everything checked off my list
Sara: Yeah, it's like, okay, so I'm going to experience joy just as soon as I get everything done. And if everything's done and it goes back to the control that goes back to trying to control it all. And so sometimes it's just taking a moment of, well, and I think it also goes back to accepting that our joy looks different from everybody else. Like I'm in a phase of my life where my friends are empty nesters, a lot of them are becoming empty nesters and. They're like, my gosh, my husband and I just picked up and we went here for the weekend like we don't pick up and go anywhere. I mean, you know, unless it's to the hospital, right? , but somebody is going back to get everything that should have been done just to pick up and go so.
And I love that for my friends. I love that for them, but I'm jealous. And I am like, I'm like, this is what my husband and I plan for it. This is what we thought our, this phase of life was going to look like for us. And so sometimes when those moments of joy, you're just like, wow, I can't do that. So it's, I'm so busy searching for it. So there's different ways, I guess, to search for joy. You're either trying to create it, which doesn't work. Instead of just taking a breath and being like, okay, this is my life and here are the moments of joy. My friends were, they were able to go away for the weekend. You know what? I had three doctors appointments and they all actually called the schedule. I didn't have to track anybody down and maybe that's joy for me. And does it kind of stink sometimes? Sure. But I think taking the time to recognize that joy is joy.
Amy: Right, right. That's important. And I want to point out here too, that if you've been in a long season of caregiver burnout or a really busy hospital, even in the hospital, your nervous system is not going to be calm enough to play or rest, honestly, until you can kind of ground yourself a little bit. So maybe like you said, Sara, it's just that taking that moment, grounding yourself, taking a deep breath and just noticing what is in front of us in the moment.
Sara: And I think that's super important
Amy: And I want to go back to something Carrie said, Carrie said, you feel like you don't deserve it. We have narratives around, around play, joy, delight that I think play a big part in how we experience those things. So what kind of narratives do you think are common around having joy or playing or delight?
Carrie: Well, I think one of the things is Like I mentioned, you feel like you don't deserve it or it's, you know, the whole work first, then play, you know, work always comes first before, you know, you have to eat your vegetables before you have your dessert. Well, why not eat the dessert first once in a while? I think also, at least for me personally, for the longest time, I just really struggled with everything needed to be in its place and perfect before I could enjoy life.
And then when Toby was in the ICU as a baby and it was just chaos for over two months if you wait for life to be calm, you're just never gonna live. You're never gonna find joy. I know these scriptures are probably fairly familiar, but I do think there's a lot of truth to Philippians 4. . Like don't be anxious about anything because I experienced that in the hospital. I tried every day to just...give all of those anxieties and the things I was trying to control over to the Lord. And then He started to show me different moments of joy where, you know, maybe it was Bruce and I could just laugh about something together that no one else would find funny, but it was actually kind of funny in the moment. Maybe it was a medical instance or don't know, something that happened with a doctor or maybe it was just, you just found a chuckle over something. But I think, I think the narrative at least for me is I don't deserve it or everything has to be in place before I can actually enjoy it.
Actually, we've been living this out right now because it's been taking a little bit of time for us to have this outdoor deck on our house. And Toby has been the best micromanager of the situation that you can possibly imagine and there's one major piece of it that's not done. It's just not stained yet. And he keeps asking me every day, when is that gonna happen? When is that gonna get done? And I said, well, Toby, but it's structurally sound and we bought furniture so we can go out and enjoy it even though it's not done. And I'm sure some of his...not his inability to recognize that we can enjoy things when they're not perfect and completed. It comes from me, but I'm trying to teach him that it's okay, we can go out and sit and we can enjoy the breeze and the weather and the birds and everything, even though, you know, it's not completely perfect yet.
Sara: I think sometimes it's like it's our our bodies narratives where when you I have found that when you go through trauma, especially recurring or ongoing trauma, you begin to fear joy or better yet, you don't trust it. So you begin to brace yourself for the hard things. And our bodies, our minds, they're remarkable. They are designed to protect us. So you burn yourself on a stove, your mind and your body remembers that. the next time you go to that stove, you're much more prone to not forget the oven mitt to avoid opening the door this one certain way, know? Same as if you're on the receiving end of demeaning comments or less than helpful suggestions, let's say at a school IEP meeting or certain physician’s office or even from a family member. Your body remembers those moments and that begins to protect you from those types of moments. So when you go into, when you go and you're at a holiday and you know that family member's going to be there,
You have your guard up, so you are protecting yourself. But those protections can easily become walls that are built so high that the good can't then penetrate it. So you walk into school with your armor on, or you walk into your family's Christmas with your armor on. And maybe in those instances, you don't need it. Maybe you do. That's always a possibility. But you're so busy lugging around this heavy armor that you don't just expecting the negative to happen that you don't even open yourself up to the moments of joy that can happen. And I am a pro at that. I love donning all the, you know, all the armor and getting ready to fight. But when you're so busy, ready to fight, it's like the analogy of when you're when you're so busy preparing yourself to fight, you have your fists up, they're closed, you're in a fighting stance.
Well, then you don't open your hands up to receive because you're so busy closing them off to pound somebody or in, you know, anticipating that. So for me, that's the narrative that I have. And I don't even know if that's necessarily a narrative as much as it's just habitual that when you have time and time and time again, it seems I would hope that I was the only one I know I'm not. But when you constantly have that whack-a-mole life where it's just like, okay, I think we're in an easy set, easy moment. I don't even think we even say that anymore as caregivers, but when things start to kind of flow, you feel like, okay, we're flowing, we're good. That's when something always inevitably comes up. So you learn to prepare for those, but you're not enjoying the easy moment either.
Carrie:- It's funny that you say that, Sara, because it makes me just think of like being cynical and a couple of weeks ago, I had an acquaintance reach out to me and just tell me that she was praying for me and I was having a good day and immediately guess what my thought was? no Lord, what's coming? What are you preparing me for? I don't want people praying for me. That means something. I know. seriously, mean, immediately your mind goes to the cynical. Like, and I think, like you said, it's self protection, but yeah.
Sara: I think once you recognize that, know, Amy, you mentioned your nervous system. And when I, when I first started to kind of learn about all of that, it really helped me recognize how to regulate my nervous system. And when, when you do that, then you do open yourself back up, it's easier. It's not easy. It's just easier to just be in the moment. And whether that's good or bad, because sometimes you need to be in both of them to understand, I think, it's kind of the yin yang. You have to get joy, you have to accept the bad and kind of lean into it too. But I think that's another episode.
Amy: Yeah, I, one of the things I thought about when you were talking, Sarah, is we've all had moments in our lives, we were having a great time, something was really great was happening. And then the next day, we got the phone call, or we had to go to the hospital and so those, our bodies remember those moments. And even though we've had so many joyful moments that didn't end that way, it's funny how your brain hooks onto that one. And so when you're starting to be joyful, you're thinking, I can't be too joyful because the last time I was this joyful, the bottom fell out the next day. You know, it's that kind of weird feeling that I think is a narrative is , I think it's your body that needs to relax before your mind can change. That nervous system work is really important.
I think another narrative we have is the expectation of what it should look like. Like your friends are empty nesters or my friends can do this. And we have this idea. Well, the big girls' weekend or everybody, you know, is out having fun on the beach and you know, you can't do that. We look at that expectation and think, well, I can't do that. I can't go do the things that other people do. So we have an expectation of what it should look like. I've been thinking a lot about the idea of joy being a way of being instead of a way of doing? Our first thought is let's go do something that's joyful. And that's okay. I mean, if going out and picking XYZ brings you joy, that's fine. But how do we make that a way of being in our life? Because we already do so many things. I don't know if that makes sense, but I've been thinking a lot about it.
Okay. Well, how do I think we can move past this and learn to embrace joy?
Sara: I think with us it is us as caregivers, but I think it goes for anybody too, but especially us that are in this constant state of stress have to be intentional with the mental redirects. So I have to be intentional in my search for joy and to just be still.
and just recognize that there is joy happening right now, or I'm just going to miss it. So yeah, for me, I have to, and I also have to assume best intentions. So when dealing with other humans, because I think sometimes we let others, I, there's always the, there's the saying that, know, don't let others steal your joy. But I don't think that that's necessarily the case all the time. I think we hand it to them. Like, we're just like, I've got too many things going on. have my loads too heavy. So you just take my joy and then whatever. But I have to assume best intentions. So I will even say to myself, like before, you know, earlier I was talking about the IEP meeting or a family member. If somebody's just kind of being a jerk or they don't, they're not understanding the situation, but man, they have a plethora of opinions. Before walking into those situations, I will just say, okay, past interactions do not dictate future ones. So like, if I had an interaction with a previous para at my son's school does not mean that this new para or even the same para is going to be the same way. She's allowed to have a bad day. Now, with that being said, that doesn't mean that I don't prepare or that I'm not. So I guess maybe sometimes your guard has to be up in those situations to a point, but it's like, okay, I have my armor.
It's here. I'm going to set it to the side and I can, I can put that puppy on real quick, but I don't necessarily need to be wearing it at the beginning of the conversation. If that makes sense.
Carrie: like you said, it's that mental redirect, but with adjusting your expectations of, and I know just me personally, I've been working through this a little bit with my counselor and doing EMDR therapy, because when you have those, they caught the neural pathways of trauma through your brain because of certain situations that's happened. EMDR therapy can help you to crack that. And so like, for instance, I have a lot of anxiety about traveling with our son and we're getting ready to go on a trip. And a lot of times I go in to the situation, just expecting, you know, TSA to treat us really poorly or whatever it is, because I've had these experiences iin the past and instead she's just been helping me to think through like what to say, to plan a little bit so it's gonna be a little bit easier and in the moment to have joy. I think too, one of the things I've just been realizing lately, I think especially because my oldest two kids are leaving the nest and one's almost completely out of the nest isI mean, they tell you this, know, moms and older stages tell you this, but I mean, the truth is life just keeps moving.
Time just keeps going. Your kids are gonna, you know, if you have more than one child, they're eventually gonna leave home. And I think sometimes we just take it for granted that that person's always gonna be there. And so learning to embrace joy is me just soaking in every single moment. I can't tell you how many times this past go year I've hugged my second son and he tolerates it thankfully, but I'll just, I just look at him and I say, I'm just so glad you're here and I'm sorry I'm giving you a hug again, but I know come summer, he's actually working at a summer camp this summer, but come summer you're going to be gone and then you're moving to college and you're going to be gone. And so I think when you start to maybe accept or understand a little bit how fleeting life can be, we can just find those little moments of joy moment by moment.
Sara: Yeah. I think it's important that we understand we don't always have to be on. Yeah. I don't always have to be TJ's mom and advocate and caregiver. Yes, I am always those things. So for example, we had a certain situation with a family member and years leading up to this blowout,
Blowout's not the right word. I know, right?
Amy I :don't want to be a blowout in this story, please.
Sara: Years leading up to this blowup with this family member, there were comments in, you know, this was a close family member and they should have at least understood what my son's diagnosis was. minimum. Like bare minimum. And this wasn't like a third cousin. This is a very close family member.So anyway, all of that to say, I didn't have to always be on and be the advocate. 10 years go by and it's, no, that's not what his diagnosis is about. This is what, he didn't understand that he might not always make eye contact or he doesn't always understand this or well, why is he doing this or blah, blah. So finally, I just got to the point where I was just like, you need to read up on it. Read up on it. If you care about him, read up on it. And that might sound rude to some people.
But I gave it my best go for a decade of this. And I finally thought, no, the best way to advocate for my son is not to have me dread Christmas. The best way to, I don't have to be on all the time. And so there comes a point where the other people need to do their own business. So I think sometimes in order for us to experience joy in all situations, just know that some people are kind of, they're going to be jerks.
There are morons out there. don't know how else I mean, I know this is definitely a nicer way to put it. But the truth is the truth. And it's not it's not my job to change other people. I can be kind, I can be nice, but sometimes the best way to be kind is to walk away. And I've had to do that. And I think that is one thing that we need to learn as caregivers, at least in my opinion, one of the most important things that I had to learn. I'm allowed to be Sara. I don't always have to be the advocate. I don't always have to be his caregiver. I can be at a Christmas party and be his mom. And then if the caregiving role needs to come in because something happens, sure. Why can't I just walk in and that one person out of there was, out of 40, but that one person, even though, yes, they should be different, they should know about my son. They should take the time to do that. They don't deserve my joy. They don't deserve that celebration at that moment. yeah, just not being on all the time is a way to.
Amy: So in some ways, you're saying that putting up boundaries around certain things is going to help us have joy, especially in a moment like that. And I can think I could see in a moment like that, you're walking in going, here we go again. Right. And you've got your armor on. And I think that's a good point that there are times that we get to tap out of things because we want to experience the moment with our families. And I think that's a really important point to make.
Sara: Just like we wouldn't just like we can't just pick up and go somewhere for the weekend with our spouse, right? That just isn't our life. Well, it's not our life to stay in toxic relationships, be that friends, families, doctors, there there's so many in this in the era that we live in the age that we live in is that we can always I'm not saying to give up on people, but there comes a point where it's okay to say Okay, you're not in my inner circle. You're going to be on the outer circle. And the inner circle, the people who get to fuel my joy, they get to, they get to be a part of my celebration and my joy. And you're not it because you're trying to suck the life out of it. So I'm to put you out of this. My therapist said it's kind of relationships are like a target. You have the center bullseye, right? And those are the people who know everything about you. And then as you go out,
The closeness isn't, you know, you're as tight with people on those outer rings. So sometimes those people just need to go off the target. You're no longer playing the game. You're out people.
Amy: Yeah, I think that's a that's a really good point, because, you know, joy is not just like, let's go fly a kite and do fun things. It's like we have to prepare ourselves to enter into joy because of the lives that we have. And so putting up boundaries, I think is really important. So thanks for sharing that.
Okay, so I have a question. First of all, I'm a big fan of reflection and noticing because I think they're great tools to help us see the things we're missing that we could celebrate. So have you ever had this experience where someone asks you, what are your hobbies and you stare at them blankly because you have none? Or what do you do for fun? And you're like, hmm, I don't know. So that's where I think reflection and noticing are important. And so one of the things I do with my mentees is one of the first things we do is
And I learned this from Emily P Freeman, what makes your soul light up and what is soul draining? And I think those are good clues for, I really enjoy this thing and I got to do this thing and I didn't really realize this was something that brought me joy. Paying attention is important. So I asked my lovely co -hosts here to pay attention to their lives in the last several months. And I am going to ask them some questions to reflect. And I think these are important questions we can all do, but I'm going to start with this.
What were your moments of joy? Now I want to say that celebration can be a big party or a concert, but it can be really small. what, when you're looking back in the last several months, what were your moments of joy that you can name? And please, I hope you can name some. There's going to be a big pause.
Carrie: So just this past week, well, about two or three weeks ago, and this is going to sound like it's not joyful, but it is.My husband got into a car accident in our accessible van. And the joy piece of that was, first of all, me noticing that God knew that that was gonna happen and we had already been in progress to get a new accessible van. So that was one thing. And then obviously the biggest thing is that my husband was fine. But the irony too in that situation was, five minutes before the accident, he had just dropped Toby off somewhere. So he had not been in the vehicle. So to me, that was just like, okay, this is joyful because, you know, it was almost like it was the best scenario that could happen for an accident. And then as we were waiting, it was not my husband's fault. So as we were waiting for the insurance company to get back to us,
My husband kind of had a number in mind of what we thought the insurance company was going to give us. And I was praying for something specifically and God just did over and abundantly above what we could have asked or imagined in the situation. And so that was, I just, I, I got a little teary. Like, I just felt like God was giving me a hug. Like, I see you. I, I, I see your wants and desires and what's really, what you really need at this moment. And it's okay to ask for it and every once in a while I'm gonna give it to you. So it was just, it was such a beautiful thing.
Amy: What about you, Sara?
Sara: I love music. And so that's kind of as Amy, yours is nature that will always refresh your soul, right? Mine's music. And so I've been to a few concerts.
And the things that I've noticed is, so over the past few months, I went on one where we went to a destination that wasn't my favorite. It actually was more stressful, I think, in certain aspects, but it was so much fun. And then I went to another concert where I flew in to see a friend and it was the most relaxing.
The weather was perfect. Everything just kind of fell into place, right? But both of those moments, the locations were different locations. One was stressful. One wasn't as stressful. But the key to those were the relationships within and that it was just such a moment. And so just finding joy where even though I can't pick up and go for a girls weekend with my friends, I can't do that. I still was able to find just an evening or a weekend where ee had to move mountains to do it, but it still happened. And so I think part of the joy was just that I was able to do it. I went away with my sister for an evening and my sister and I made a concerted effort to be more present for each other. And, and I love that. I think that that's it. But one of the things I've noticed since you asked this question was just the little moments that happen every day. So my youngest son, TJ loves to bake and, and a friend of mine sent him these this pan for to make donuts, right? So every time he makes donuts, he wants me to take a picture of it and send it to this friend. So there's so much joy just right there, right, that I get to bake it with him, I get to help him with it, he gets to do something he loves. I get to be his hands and feet in certain situations where I think that's a joyful moment that I'm able to do that for him. But then he's like, will you send this to my friend?
She'll want to see my donuts. Well, of course, she wants to see your donuts. Of course, who doesn't want to see the donuts? But you know, like those moments where it's just constantly, where if you pay attention, and that's one of my biggest downfalls is I don't pay attention enough. And so I've tried to, and just to learn how to laugh. Like, you know, laugh in certain situations. know, Carrie, you had said, you know, right after she asked you that question, your first was when,Well, my husband was in a car accident. I think that that right there is so indicative of our lives as caregivers and moms to those with disabilities, special needs that we're like, well, when my husband had an accident, like, set all of that aside because there are so many, you know, God's love and joy and celebration, it's woven so much in every fabric of our life that it can be like, okay, yes, I know that that really stinks.
You didn't talk about how you had to get the rental and how all of that and there's tears and everything to do with that. But if that's what you focused on, you wouldn't recognize all the joy in those moments. And I think that that's the beauty of it.
Carrie: Can I share everyday moment too. Amy, when you asked this question, I started to think about just the patterns that we've established. My kids are still home. I'm still homeschooling. And probably in the last year, maybe even year and a half,We just have this pattern that every, of the kids are pretty fairly independent in their schoolwork because they're older or high school. But then we, at lunch, almost every day, we come back together and we'll play like a quick board game or there's a couple little small card games that don't take a lot of time. And joy for me is my daughter saying, hey mom, are you ready to play, you know, this game with me or Garrett, my other son will say, hey, are we gonna sit down? And what I realized is it's not the game, it's the eye contact, it's the time, it's the presence of being together in those moments that I'm really gonna miss when my second son goes off to college. But for now, is the beauty and the joy of just the presence of one another and seeing one another and having good conversations around the table.
Sara: Okay, so something that's kind of funny is my husband and I started doing daily devotion. So we bought this book, just real short and sweet. I mean, you're talking maybe just a few minutes. But we had to compromise on when to do the devotion. That was the hardest part is when we're to do it. And he's not a morning person. I am but you know, the first hour don't talk to me. That's my time. I and I'm for the moms that are sitting there being like, you get an hour to yourself in the morning. I wake up very early to do that. And it doesn't always work out, but I also have older children that like to sleep in. but we started doing these devotions. And my first thought was, I was reading it and they had questions. And my first thought was, we're going to get into a fight. Like I immediately went to that and I was like, wait a minute, that's not the joy part of this. The, the, the, yes, we probably will get on each other's nerves at some point.
He'll say something and I'm like, that's not right. Or he's going to be like, what are you talking about? I mean, so I, you know,, just the intentional time that you, like you said, Carrie, it's not about the game. It's not, it's about the devotion in this situation, but it's also about us sharing that time together and being intentional. Even if it's just three minutes in the morning for answering a simple question and just spending time together. We've stopped. We're looking at each other, nothing else is involved.
And we're speaking with each other, not to each other barking out comments or how was your day? Please keep it short because I've got stuff to do in this kind of situation.
Amy: Yeah. It's a small moments of connection. I just want to add this before I ask the last question and that is, know, Carrie's talking about her son's leaving and I have more than one child out of the house. And one of my moments of joy,that just delights me every time it happens. My oldest son Davis is a fourth-grade teacher in Chicago and he calls me on the way home from work. And I get to hear about all the shenanigans that went on in this fourth-grade class. And I will say when he left for college, I laid on his bed and bawled for like 30 straight minutes. I just couldn't imagine life without him. And I thought like, I had all these expectations, like he's never gonna see him and he's never gonna come to vacation. Well, he's still coming to vacation. Like I had all these ideas in my head.
of what I was losing. And I think that is a part of joy too. We think what are we losing? We don't have the friendships we wish we had. But Davis calling me not every day, but several days a week, just for the 20 minutes he's driving home is one of the biggest joys of my life because I get to hear about his life. And I think part of the reason he does that is because I listened when he was younger too. But that's just such a joyful thing for me to and also
Another thing I want to add real quick before I go to the last question is also the celebration that sometimes with our scanning the horizon for the next bad thing, we don't celebrate. Like, for example, my youngest who's getting ready to graduate from high school, she's not where she was a year ago. Thank the good Lord. But I forget to notice that because I'm always focused on the next problem she has grown and she has some better coping skills than she had a year ago. But I don't always recognize that.
Anyway, okay, so my last question for you guys, I wanted this to be kind of a fun one. We'll see how we do is what is saving your life right now? Now it can be anything. It could be your favorite hand cream when you go to bed at night. It could be something super deep, but I think that's another way of noticing and by saving my life, it's making my life better. It's bringing me a little lightness to my soul. I will start because I'm going to tell you my very non-serious one, but is my air fryer. Now I'm just going to say this because I have to say this. I have cooked for 12-plus people around my table for years. I could leave this recording right now and go whip out a meal for 40 people. No problem. But if I have to make a meal for Dave and I, I don't know how to do it. I just, can't do it. I can't buy just one pound of something. So the air fryer is like a boundary line for me. It's quick.
It makes enough food for two people because our only one kid left at home and she works a lot. And we don't have six weeks of chili leftover or whatever I made. Nobody's going to eat. So I am in love with my air fryer. I'm just saying it. Okay, go ahead. What do you guys got? Who else got one? I have more, but we can do, we can go around.
Sara: Mine is intentionality. I have really tried to be so intentional. And so I have kind of, so I have,I recently have started to untie myself from obligations. And it's really hard because I love to be busy. I love doing things. I find a lot of self -worth in what I do for others. But I'm like, I don't have to do that laundry right now. I'm going to be very intentional, not do the load of laundry right now.
If that means that my son has to go to aquatic therapy and put on dirty clothes because I haven't put it in the bag, that's OK. And being intentional with not making myself feel guilty, we went, we're struggling with aquatic therapy. I'm just going to lay it out on the line. And he loves structure. And so if anything fallsout of the structure, even if I do something that makes more sense. like, why am I doing it that way? I'm going to do it this way. my word. I should have passed it by him. We should have had a complete dissertation about it. But I'm like, okay, so I sent him to aquatic therapy and we went to aquatic therapy. didn't send them. don't. would be so nice. Anyway, we go to aquatic therapy and it is, I mean, you're just, you're sweating. buckets because it's 180 degrees in there. Hot flashes, it's a thing right now. I'm miserable while I'm sitting there. We get done, I take him to the little corner, we chipper change his clothes, and I forgot underwear. We have to run errands. He's like, I can't run errands. I know this sounds so minor, but I'd be like, okay, I'm just going to avoid the situation where he's going to be all out of sorts while we go to the grocery store and everything. And I finally looked at them like, listen, so I can't say it here of what I told them, but I'm like, you're just going to live freely. I don't care. If you want to go buy underwear when we're at Walmart, you buy underwear at Walmart and then we can go change you in the store. Well, I'm not changing in the store. I'm like, I don't care about it. He just kept talking about it and talking about it. But I was very intentional with, was like, no, that's not convenient for me. And so I forgot his underwear.
That doesn't make me a bad mom. It doesn't make me a bad caregiver and he'll live like, and I know that sounds so small and it might not resonate with everybody, but those are even the small things from like, I immediately went to how, how could I forget that? We've been doing this two times a week, four months. Like how could I do that? How? my gosh, Sarah, that's just ridiculous. You need to, you need to do that earlier in the evening, you rushed it, like you go through this whole big narrative of why you suck as a mom to be quiet. And like that's where I went. And that's not what it was all about. And so for me, the intentionality of just saying, you know what? I forgot it. not the end of the world. Let's move on. And that is huge for me. I am not that kind of person. If my sister is listening to this, she'd be like, I do that all the time because that's just I would love to be like her. Like she's just like, OK.It didn't happen the way it was supposed to. Let's move on. but so I think intentionality for me is a good one. It's saving my life right now. Yeah.
Carrie: So for me, I think it's two things. One is remembering to breathe. It hit me several weeks ago. How many times I'm just holding my breath all the time, holding my breath and you don't realize you're doing it, but you are. And so remembering to breathe.
Actually, I'm gonna say three. Second one is my space outside. I did not have any idea how much adding this cover deck to our house would just be a place of peace and calm and relaxation. It's been wonderful.
And then the last thing spiritually for me, I've been doing the Bible Recap podcast, reading through the scripture and then listening to Tara Leigh Cobble do her Bible recap and I have one of her little journals and every day she talks about her gotcha. Where'd you see God in Scripture today? And it hasn't been, you know, I'm a couple days behind, but it's been a rhythm and a routine that just has helped me to see Christ in every day and that brings me joy. And it's just been a really beautiful thing. And I've learned a lot too at the same time, but it's just been beautiful to look and say, Where is God in this situation? And sometimes you find him in very unlikely places. Right.
Amy: I have two more I want to add since I just don't want to say air fryer. number two, I have this mantra of deciding once and that is saving my life. And what I mean by that is I decide one time about a certain area. For example,
I used to decide, I decided when my kids were all home in December, we're not doing therapies, anything. Because December's crazy enough. So, I always think I'm a one-woman self -improvement campaign. I can add one more thing, do one more thing. So an example of that would be, I'm deciding once that in December, we don't do anything extra so we can enjoy this season. Or there's a really busy time of travel. So I'm deciding once today that I am not going to be doing these
In the next six weeks, I cannot do anything at church extra or whatever. And that has really helped me because I always think I could do more. And I think it goes back to what you said, Sarah, that you could have gone, OK, I'm just going run home and get that underwear and then I'm going to. And that would have thrown your whole day off. So in some ways, this is an intentionality for me is deciding on something once. Sometimes in a really busy period, I'll decide these are only the emails I'm reading because I get a lot of people's, writers, emails and podcasts. These are only the podcast I'm going to listen to because I tend to just stack more on. that's one.
And then the third one is, you know, the last couple of years I've been in grad school, we've had the book. My house has gotten really disorganized and I'm very much a minimalist and everything's cluttered and drives me crazy. And I literally want to throw everything away and start from scratch. That's my attitude. But I joined, and this has been the most delightful life-giving thing for me, The Cozy Minimalist, Myquillyn Smith's Cozy Community.
And it's not very much money. And she has a new book called House Rules. her whole thing is you take what you have, like you shop your own house. You make your house beautiful with the least amount of stuff. And it's not like having to get an interior decorator. It has given me so much agency to go, huh? Like it's delightful. Her videos are short. It's very accessible. And so that has kind of been my little guilty pleasure of watching one of her videos and then going around my house and just making it.
look nicer than it does right now because that kind of drives me crazy clutter and it just really drains me. So that's been kind of a fun thing to do. And that could be something that you could say to yourself, well, that's not that important. It's just my house, right? Like there are way more important things to be doing that has brought me a lot of joy. So that is saving my life. So those are mine.
Do you have any more?
Sara: One of the things that I've learned is breath prayer. It helps me so much. And I think and it reminded me of it when you said Carrie just
Breathe that helps me. so one of my favorite scriptures is Daniel 3:18. And it's when King Nebuchadnezzar is taunting Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And he's like, well, who's going to save you now? And I'm throwing you in the fiery furnace. And he says, even if my Lord does, he's like, where's your Lord now? Like, even if he doesn't save me, I will never worship your idols.
That was a big paraphrase, by the way. But what I will do is I take that scripture and I will say, OK, so let's take the Walmart instance where the aquatic therapy where I forgot his interface. Like, even if I forget something important to my child, like, you you just breathe in. it's like, even if: breathe it in. We’ll be OK, and it'll let you know, even if you breathe in. to even if, then you breathe out God's what's important. know, like whatever the situation is, it can be something that mundane and then I will just take some breaths and I will do a breath prayer or be still, you know, be still and know that I am God. I will breathe in to be still and then know that I am God and I'll breathe out to that. So that's one thing I really like that's helping me. And I've been doing somatic exercises and that is just helping me learn how to regulate my nervous system.
Relaxing my muscles because, like Carrie, you said yyou hold your breath. My shoulders are up by my ears all the time. And so I was having back problems and all of this. And so just taking a few moments just to stretch. Like I don't have to go out for 40 minutes of cardio to feel like I have done good to my body. It's no longer that maybe it's just five minutes of stretching to make sure my nervous system is more regulated than it was whenever.
I got out of a certain situation. Yeah. Well, thank you ladies for sharing today. And as I'm listening to this, I'm thinking about something that Michele Cushatt said we interviewed her last summer. Or maybe it was last March. I'll link it. She said your well-being matters. And I can't stop thinking about that line, she said. And so yes, our well-being matters in lots of ways, but it matters here with amid our demanding lives that we find joy and laughter and ways to celebrate.
Amy: So if you're listening today, it might be helpful to ask those questions. Where were the small joys? What can I celebrate and what's saving my life? So thank you so much for listening to us this week. Are there emotions that you're trying to navigate and would like to hear us talk more about it? Was there something specific you'll be taking away from this week's episode? As always, we love your feedback and would love to hear from you. Please find us on Instagram at Take Art Special Moms, email us or leave us a comment on our website at takeartspecialmoms .com.
And if you haven't had a chance to check out our book, you can find it at your favorite online retailers. And you can find the link to those retailers at our website. Thank you.
