Homeopathy At Home with Melissa
I am a Registered Homeopath and Lactation Consultant who loves Jesus and believes in the power of prayer in healing and restoration. God designed our bodies to heal themselves. We interfere with the body’s abilities by introducing medications which stop the action our bodies were made to do - heal! Homeopathy comes in and stimulates the immune system to help the body remember how to heal itself. ALL people are welcomed here, no matter your beliefs! I discuss mostly homeopathy here, but also I bring an encouraging word from the Lord and touch on the topics of parenting, homeschooling, marriage, and nutrition. Welcome to my world! It’s a beautiful, healthy life!
Homeopathy At Home with Melissa
Transformative Stories of Health and Stewardship
Send a text to Melissa and she’ll answer it on the next episode.
Imagine navigating the complexities of family health and wellness with grace and purpose. That's exactly what Anna McLaughlin, a dedicated homeschool mom and entrepreneur, has managed to achieve. In our engaging conversation, Anna opens up about her journey of balancing life's many demands while nurturing her family's well-being. She shares her insights on health stewardship, inspired by the parable of the talents, and how viewing wellness as a continuous journey rather than a fixed destination can lead to a more fulfilling and less fear-driven approach. Her stories and experiences offer a heartfelt exploration of the challenges and triumphs on the path to holistic health.
Anna's personal anecdotes, including stories of her father's battle with cancer and her own experience with Graves' disease, reveal the transformative power of faith and lifestyle choices. These narratives challenge conventional medical perspectives and highlight the importance of stewardship over control. Through prayer, meditation, and embracing small, incremental changes, Anna advocates for a balanced approach to health. Her reflections on navigating fear, judgment, and the desire for control provide valuable lessons on reducing anxiety and promoting sustainable lifestyle changes.
We also dive into the specific challenges faced by busy moms, particularly those homeschooling, as they strive to manage their family's health while maintaining their own well-being. Drawing inspiration from James Clear's "Atomic Habits," Anna emphasizes the power of small, two-minute habits to build healthier routines. She shares practical advice on setting sustainable goals, establishing priorities, and embracing life's gifts, even in tough times. Anna's stories serve as a testament to the importance of finding beauty in the present moment and stewarding our lives in a way that inspires others.
Anna McLaughlin empowers Christian women entrepreneurs and homeschool mamas to uncover and live out their divine purpose. Connect with her if you're ready to *love* your life while making an eternal impact, both at home and beyond, even in the midst of the fullness of daily life.
You can find Anna on her podcast, She Considers a Field ... providing one-on-one coaching for women ready for that next level of transformation ... and living her own best life homeschooling her four children and singing along to 80s rock in the kitchen with her husband. Get started on your own next level of transformation with Anna's free guide, From Overwhelmed to Overcomer, here:
https://sheconsidersafield.com/overwhelmed-to-overcomer-optin-via-flodesk/
Instagram: @sheconsidersafield
Website: sheconsidersafield.com
Welcome back to Homeopathy at Home with Melissa. Hey Melissa, hey Bri. We're really excited. Tonight we have a little bit of a special conversation. We have Anna here with us to just discuss what it looks like to be good stewards of our health.
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm super excited for this conversation. Let me just introduce Anna. So Anna McLaughlin empowers Christian women, entrepreneurs and homeschool mamas to uncover and live out their divine purpose. Connect with her if you're ready to love your life while making an eternal impact both at home and beyond, even in the midst of the fullness of daily life. I am so excited to talk to you tonight because, look, all three of us sitting right here are moms, wives, homeschoolers, entrepreneurs. We all three work and we're all three stewarding our health. So what does that look like for you, anna, and tell us a little bit about you and your story.
Speaker 3:Yes, so I'm so glad to be here. First of all, you two are lovely and I've been so looking forward to this conversation. So when we talk about stewardship, that's something that's such a passion of mine, because I think it really reflects that this is not a destination that we necessarily are, that we're going to arrive at. There's no black and white, right and wrong. You did it or you didn't. It's a journey that we're all on, and so the goal is improvement day by day. The goal is to walk out the parable of the talents, where we invest what God has given us, which includes our bodies, which includes our minds, what God has given us, which includes our bodies, which includes our minds, and we daily endeavor to do a little bit better than the day before at taking care of this temple that he has invested in us for this time here on earth.
Speaker 3:As far as a little bit about me, I'm a homeschool mama, as you said. My kids are ages six to 12. And I've been in business for myself and with my husband since our kids were teeny tiny. So juggling these different plates in the air, trying to keep them from falling, has been something that we've been walking out to varying degrees of health and success over the years, but it's something that I've just found a lot of joy in and just committing to the process and being able to celebrate okay, we're better than we were last year. Okay, what can we do next? So I think that's what's going to be. So much fun about this conversation is it's like what can we do differently? And those tiny changes are really where the magic happens.
Speaker 2:I love it. I do that too, and so many aspects of life and business and homeschooling and being a mom and a wife and I mean, can't? I just feel like I can always improve, let's just keep learning and growing.
Speaker 1:I also love your perspective, what you're saying, because so much of at least my experience in the crunchy community, if you want to call it that at the beginning, can really be instigated by fear. So a lot of you know in our in the natural world we do give Western medicine or lots of different practices a hard time because it's fear-based. But I also saw a lot of that in this community as well when I first came in and at least in my heart there was a lot of anxiety and a lot of black holes and I love your encouragement to invest and steward these things rather than focusing on the fear what not to do but the focus on how can we better honor God with these things, make better choices, invest better in these areas.
Speaker 3:So I love that. It's very encouraging. Yes, yeah, it's, it's been helpful to me. And I resonate so much with what you said, brie, because I remember when I first started this walk I was, I was just weeks postpartum and I was feeling with our first baby so about 12 years ago and feeling so very sick because between her birth and all the pasta that everybody brings you when you're a new mom, my gluten sensitivity that I never knew about all of a sudden just exploded and so I felt just terrible with every bit of food that I ate.
Speaker 3:And then, as I was working with a chiropractor at the time, he started kind of going well, these foods aren't good for you, and these foods aren't good for you, and these foods aren't good for you. And so I went from eating Sonic hamburgers pretty much every night, because that's what I was craving when I was pregnant with my daughter that last trimester, to sitting on the couch and being postpartum with a newborn, my first baby, just crying and going. I don't know what to eat and I'm so hungry and so that fear of just everything's bad. And here's this perfect little baby and I don't want to break her.
Speaker 3:I think that the crunchy community does, does us. We do a disservice to ourselves, and then the community can kind of help foster this. At times where there can be this sense of fear of it's all bad, you know, and every time we wake up to something there can be that, that period of time where all of a sudden we go from zero to 60. And so for me balance has come. The most important thing I had to learn was my thoughts actually can be the most toxic thing in my environment. So I can't go all in from a place of fear, because then I've actually created an even worse situation for myself than if I just ate that Sonic hamburger.
Speaker 2:Exactly. You know, what I'm starting to realize and teach people and encourage people with is balancing. So I've been teaching for years let's get balanced. It's like that feels like a destination, let's get to that balance. And then we get there and then you just, you just bet you're balanced right. Homeopathy brings balance. Well, what I'm starting to realize this year is we're always balancing so, and I feel like for the rest of our lives we're going to be balancing.
Speaker 2:So I encouraged a client today that you know she was like there's every time I go backwards, because in the health and the healing journey there can be two steps forward, one step back and so every time she took a step back, she thought she did something wrong and she kept trying to figure out what am I doing wrong? What did I do different today that I didn't do yesterday? And so I encouraged her today with this balancing. There's where you know the back and forth is just okay, we're just going to be. You know, we're going to be doing this, and so instead of like this, you know where people are when they first come in we're just going to be like here, you know, and it's just, it's just okay to walk in that, and then the whole fear of eating bad things.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, I talk about that a lot too, that we just um, we the the worry over your health is just as detrimental as eating the doritos or the cheeseburger occasionally. Right, I mean there has to be. I mean, have it sometimes and just don't worry about it, Not every day, you know, don't let it be habit. So I don't like the fear, I don't like the fear on either side. Both sides can do that fear mongering.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's so true.
Speaker 1:So I would love to hear about just your, so your story coming into this. What kind of led you you mentioned a little bit about your first baby what kind of led you into, I guess, the natural realm, but also what you do now?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yes, so what? My first, my first moment and having our first baby was kind of the moment of action where it was like, okay, we're going to do things differently now. But this question of what does it look like to steward our health started for me much younger, when I was in middle school. My father, who had always been very active, very vibrant, was diagnosed with, at the time, an incurable form of cancer and he went on a clinical trial and the result of that clinical trial was he did survive, but he was paralyzed by the chemo that saved his life. And so from that point on, there was this it was traumatic for our whole family because it was such a sudden before and after for us. And then, once he was paralyzed, he was on this runaway track of medical interventions that didn't stop until his passing, about 25 years later. And so from that and so from that, first I was like in this fear, hijack, trauma, response of, oh no, what if that really plagued me for decades, and so so that was kind of the first thing I needed to wrestle through. And then my path to the other side became this real curiosity where I had to go before the Lord and just say, ok, I will be done. And there's a. There's a place of curiosity here, and for me, that was really the place of healing to go. What can I do? There's much I can't, but what can I do to take care of myself? And so from there, it started just opening the door in my twenties and then into my thirties, as I was raising my children, of going.
Speaker 3:Oh, actually, the beautiful side of the holistic approach to health is this idea of what we do actually does matter. Are we resting, are we living a stressed out life? And for me, during that time period I was working as a corporate lawyer that time period I was working as a corporate lawyer, my first year in corporate law I developed an autoimmune disease called Graves' disease, which is a hyperthyroid condition, for those who don't know. And so I'd never had any issues, I'd never been on any medication and I kept saying to my practitioners what happened. Like could this be lifestyle? Is it possible that the crazy work hours and the toxic boyfriend and the McDonald's and the coffee five cups of coffee a day and the lack of sleep and the crazy market conditions because I came into work in 2008 when the housing market was crashing Is it possible that could have an effect? All but one said no, no, it's just coincidence, just coincidence.
Speaker 3:And then this one dinosaur endocrinologist that I worked with was, like you know, I've actually kind of seen the two things correlate more times than I can understand and that was all I needed. I was like, okay, the way I'm living matters so that was. And my daughter I had my daughter with. I didn't end up marrying the toxic boy, toxic boyfriend, praise Jesus for that.
Speaker 3:But a couple of years later I was married, had a baby, and so that experience of actually being able to get my Graves' disease to go into remission about six to 12 months later, by changing my lifestyle right, by getting in a healthier relationship, by changing my diet, was the first experience I had of feeling this sense of empowerment, of, oh, what I do makes a difference. And that, I think, is one beautiful thing about the holistic perspective is, with the, with a more allopathic view of medicine, it's just Russian roulette. Your genes are your genes and you can't control anything. And it created so much fear in me, especially given my background with my father anything. And it created so much fear in me, especially given my background with my father. And so once I found holistic medicine, it's like this. This I can believe in, because cause and effect is all around us, so why shouldn't it also be in the world of our bodies?
Speaker 2:That's so good, so true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had a big realization with my last baby that I think. So. I agree. Everything that you were saying is how I thought I believed until I was having this labor experience. I had a terrible hospital birth and then a home birth and then this time, very long story short, I was planning a home birth but we chose to be induced at a hospital and that part really doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:But one big part of that experience for me was I was in prayer, like meditative prayer almost, to try to just work through some of these fears I had and to help labor just move along. And I had this experience with God where I realized a lot of my, the way that I was using these tools I had in the crunchy community, crunchy world. All the things I had learned was to control this outcome. Like, if I do all of these things, I'm going to avoid all the things everybody around me is dealing with. And then if I, you know, if you make a mistake, what are people who are not crunchy going to think about me? Or, if somebody does, you know all the things.
Speaker 1:And God like really broke me of. It turned from control to stewardship, where I'm not doing this anymore to try to play a game of chess where, like, I come out the end and I win the way that I want, or even my approach to people around me has changed and trying to be a person who pushes and throws, you know, wants everybody to do everything the way that I do it, because I remember that it's been a journey, like you said there's, so everybody else is also on a journey and not in the same place that I am, so stewarding. The knowledge that I have, that God has given me for my family, for the circle of influence I have, has changed a lot of the way that I've moved forward the past few years. So I love the word. Stewardship has been big in my life, so I love that. You sounds like that's a big part of your. I mean, would you call it a ministry or your?
Speaker 3:what you do. Currently, everything I do yeah, it's my mission, it's one of my core values is stewardship, because we all start in different places. And I love what you said, brie, because there can become almost this religious element to the crunchy lifestyle where it's like if I do this, then I will earn. Then I will earn what I want. I will earn this, you know, this health, this well being.
Speaker 3:And then the question on the on the flip side, is what did I do wrong? Right and okay, if something's going wrong, what was it? What did I do? And so one thing that's been really helpful for me is, first of all, to recognize we are limited and we're in a fallen world, so it's not going to be perfect. And then the other piece of that is just recognizing the in Romans 14. It's kind of become one of my anchor points because I can I can bend towards judgment, which is really just the flip side of fear. Right, if I, if you did something wrong, it protects me from having to risk the same story, and so it's out of fear that we push that on people.
Speaker 3:Oh, if you hadn't done x, y and z, then you wouldn't be dealing with da, dada-da-da-da-da-da, while there may be some truth. There is cause and effect that we face. The truth of the matter is we have limited. You know, whatever you eat, all is permissible. But also, like, what really matters is who are you fellowshipping with, right? But then he also says whatever you do, whether you eat or whether you drink, it's fine. What matters is what your master is calling you to. Your master is calling you to and he says he says it's the master's business whether you rise or fall, and you will rise because he is the one who basically covers you. I don't have the wording exactly right, but go look it up, it's so beautiful.
Speaker 3:And so we view everybody's differences, when we're in judgment, as a threat. Oh, they think, okay, iridescent light bulbs, we all need iridescent light bulbs because the other kind of light bulbs are bad for us. And oh, we need water filtration. And oh, we need to use this type of modality for healing and infrared sauna. And my husband at one point looked at me and said we're going to go broke if we do all of these things. We can't do them all.
Speaker 3:And so that, to me, was the beginning, cause I was trying to do all of them. Oh, what's another $10,000. This is going to lead to this result. This transformed so-and-so's life. I was always selling him on another tool that we had to have to fix the problems, cause I was sure that there was a solution out there somewhere. If we just put, if we just sacrificed enough right, which is is a religious, essentially that I was operating under, and when I go, okay, no, the Lord tells me what my next step is, and it's okay if someone else has something else. My job is to follow Him because I'm His servant. So remembering that has taken a lot of the pressure off to do more, perform better, and it's kept me out of that space of judgment like you're talking about, beth Dombkowski.
Speaker 2:I love that. So when I stepped into homeopathy, it was also out of fear and control. So because I what I found was going to the doctor, I never knew what, what to expect. I never, I never knew what was going to happen. So, going to the doctor or the dentist, so I had this lifelong fear of like when my mom would take me to the doctor or dentist as a, as a child, I would say, am I going to get a shot today? And that was my, that was just my biggest fear. And she would be like I don't know, or I don't think so, or whatever. And um, or if I was sick? Every time I was sick, I had strep throat. So I went to the doctor and I got a penicillin shot. If you've ever had one of those, that is the most awful, most painful shot that there is, and you know this was in the 70s. So I had a lot of fear around, not knowing what was going to happen to me at the doctor or the dentist. And then, when I found homeopathy, I felt like, ooh, I can control this, I can step into this and be in control. And um, and then that made me feel better for a short amount of time, because then came because I started using homeopathy.
Speaker 2:Before I learned about food and water and air and sun and all the other things, homeopathy was first for me, so that felt like a manageable amount of control. But then when I started learning about food and then I tried to change everything at one time and I was like oh, oh, we can't do this and we can't do that, we have to do this and we have to do that. And eventually I remember about around when I realized I have a lot of anxiety around this, I have a lot of anxiety around this, and when I recognize the anxiety that was happening in me, I literally had to take a step back and say this is not okay. And that was just the Lord. I mean, this was before Facebook. You know that I realized how much anxiety I had. But then when Facebook came on the scene, that brought me a lot of anxiety, because now I can see when everybody's sick, they're all placing it on Facebook, we're throwing up where we got a fever and I'm like, well, you know. And so the Lord took me through this beautiful journey from fear and control and and you know, trying to do everything at once and do too much to stewardship. I have never even thought about that until this conversation. So I love that and this is why I like to teach baby steps.
Speaker 2:So when somebody if you're listening now and you're just stepping into the natural health care world baby steps, you cannot change it all overnight, you can't even change it all in one year, don't even try it all in one year. Don't even try. Pick one thing, do that, do that one thing. Well, you feel good. Everybody in the family is good, you know, because, like when I changed um, now remember this was a long time ago, this isn't even good. I mean, we know this isn't even good now, but back then old milk was bad for you, so we were all drinking almond milk, right. So when I got rid of the junky store milk and replaced it with almond milk, the whole family was like this is terrible, you know. And so it took some time to get them used to drinking the almond milk, which now is absolutely not not the best thing. But either way, it's baby steps.
Speaker 2:So you just get your family settled into the new thing that you're doing and then you might have a list. You might have a list of things that you want to do, like all the things that you just listed, with infrared saunas and all the things homeopathy and supplements and herbs and vitamins and essential oils, and all the cleaning and your water and just make a list and then you just leave it there. Ask the Lord present, give the list to the Lord, what do you want me to do with this? And wait and wait on them and just take those baby steps, because trying to do it all at one time is going to drive you and your family crazy, and fear should never, ever lead us.
Speaker 2:But I'm just thankful for the process he took me through to show me how to steward my health without fear. And now that's what I get to encourage people with. That's what I get to encourage people with. And Brie I know Brie does too, you know, with her clients and then with all of our students. Just just let's, we're going to start using that, this word, brie, in class. Steward. Steward our health instead of you know, instead of being a fear about it. That's right.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's so good. Yeah, I think it's helpful to remember too this is something I have to keep coming back to again and again is that we know that, um, that bad, bad trees don't bear good fruit. So, whatever changes I'm making, if I'm making them from a place of like fear and oppression, as opposed to feeling like the spirit's really leading me, then what I'm going to create is more fear and oppression. Right, I've controlled the problem, but I haven't really healed the root of the problem.
Speaker 3:And so, even in our no matter how good the thing we might choose, is, if we choose it from a place of fear and the Lord blesses it, because for years, fear was really driving me, because I needed to heal from the trauma of my dad's illness. So much that I did was in reaction to, instead of from a place of accepting, how the Lord worked a lot of good through his story, as hard as it was. And then it wasn't until I'd reckoned with that in a deep enough way that I was able to go okay, for love of the life that God has given me. As a result of that love for my life, here are some shifts that I feel like he's calling me to make, these little tiny changes.
Speaker 1:Well and I love that the parable of the talents that you used before, where the ultimate goal is to present them before the Lord, to be pleasing to Him, not to make something of it for ourselves or for the people around us, and by default, we get to enjoy that right Like it's beneficial, but it's not the end game. So I think that's very important to keep in mind, and I think you mentioned this before we even started recording that to be able to. Well, maybe you can say that you said something about the end.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you go yeah, so. So the vision that's been very helpful and orienting for me in my life is to is to think about the end goal, you know, and at the end of the parable of the talents, the Lord says well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in little. I will set you over more. Enter into the joy of your master. And he says that to both the five talent and the two talent servant. And if you're not familiar with the story, go and read it. But really, the point was not how much were you given, but what did you do with what you had.
Speaker 3:And so exercise is a tricky one for me. It's not something that I get excited about, it's not something that I look forward to necessarily. I find it a little tricky to fit into my schedule at times because of that right, and so I've really needed to do a lot of work around. How can I love this effort? Because I know it's an important part of longevity. And so, for me, whenever I have a habit tracker and I'm happy to make that available to any of you who are listening and at the top it talks about why does this matter, why is this essential as a habit? And so for me it's being healthy enough and vibrant enough to get down on the floor and play with my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren. That's why I moved today is so that, in 50 years, being healthy enough and vibrant enough to get down on the floor and play with my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren, that's why I moved today is so that, in 50 years, I'm around and I'm investing in their lives. I'm helping lighten the load for my children and maybe even for my grandchildren when they have children, and able to be fully present for as long as God has me on earth.
Speaker 3:And I can't control whether that happens or not, you know but I can control the inputs that I do. I can control that I actually do the sit-ups and drink the water and get the rest and love my people and love my life. You know, live a life of gratitude and so having that end goal where I can say, at the end of my life, I used everything you gave me, that end goal where I can say, at the end of my life, I used everything you gave me, I moved my body, I loved the people that you put in my life. I lived a life of gratitude for the things that you gave me, no matter how hard some of them were to love at the time. You know, ultimately that actually is going to do far more for us as far as well-being than if we discovered the right.
Speaker 3:You know there's no right supplement necessarily. There are good ones. I mean, melissa, as you, you know, taught me when you and I had our conversation it's like balance is something that's really dependent on where are you right now. How can we bring you into proper balance? What depends? Where you are? And so far more important, that we get the foundational things in good order, and then there will be these things that then we add on Right, then we go from there.
Speaker 2:Um, what words of wisdom do you both have for busy, homeschooling or not? Moms, how can, how can they steward, how are you stewarding your family's health while you're so busy? How can they do it, you know? Do you have any, um, any ideas for for them? So that I love what you just said about taking care of yourself so that you can be present and be for your grandchildren I just did a reel the other day about that. Like moms, we have to take care of ourselves because you want to be there and be able to play with your grandchildren, right? So stop putting ourselves on the back burner with homeopathy. Nobody has to go on the back burner. You can help yourself and help the children Now. Then, yeah, like what you just said with exercise, that's another layer, right, we have to find the time or the motivation or the energy, or whatever, but we'd love to hear both of your thoughts on if words of wisdom for these mamas listening.
Speaker 1:You want to go first, Anna?
Speaker 3:I will go first. I have some thoughts on this. This is one of the things that I talk a lot about on my podcast. She Considers a Field because it is such a challenge to we tend to, especially as mamas who you know, whenever we're, whenever we're all hands on deck all the time, whenever the kids are kind of always around, I call it resistance training, because there will come a day when they're gone right, whether they're in activities or they're working or they've launched, and then we really can have a rhythm that can look the same most days.
Speaker 3:But at this point I always, when my kids were very small, every quiet time moment that I picked okay, I'll get up at 5.30 in the morning. Well then, the baby started getting up at 5.30 in the morning. Okay, I'll do it after I put the baby down at six. Well then, the toddler was awake, and so part of it, I think, is it's important that we focus on our efforts rather than the results, because we might think, well, I used to have, you know, I used to have 30 minutes with the Lord every day, and then we would be, and then we can be tempted to be in judgment if we don't pull that off. But the goal is, if we are women who are committed to sit down in our little quiet chair every day and be there for a minute or two minutes. The book Atomic Habits by James Clear. It talks about the habits that you form need to be two-minute habits. If we are women of commitment who will sit down and do that activity every day, even if it only lasts a minute or two, then ultimately we will become the woman who's able to do the 30 minutes and so on as the season permits. And so my first thing that I would suggest is look at your priorities. Get really clear on what are my priority relationships you know God, and then husband, and then children, and how are those doing? How am I doing in stewarding each of those? How is my health? Am I able to get rest? Do I give myself permission to nap? How's my mental health and my emotional state? And then look at one area that's feeling really challenged and pick something that will take two minutes to commit to and then keep track of it. That's it. Like I said, I'll send the link for it.
Speaker 3:I actually have a whole workbook called From Overwhelmed to Overcomer, where I take people through this process, where it says what are all the things that are out of order right now? And if you're anything like most of the women, I know that we feel like we have a long list. But once we put it all down on paper, there are some themes that show up. And a friend of mine has the most beautiful question. Whenever we're out of order in an area, the question she asks is why are you abandoning yourself? So I find that like that's oriented me so often, like with this exercise question, as I've been struggling to build rhythm around exercise why am I abandoning myself? This future dream is out there. Why am I letting it go in favor of lesser priorities? And so, yes, pick something little and just pick one thing, because faithfulness begets more faithfulness. Just like Melissa said, when you have that one thing that you've started to win at where you're like I'm getting in that 60 ounces of water a day, I'm doing it, and we start to feel like I'm a woman of my word.
Speaker 3:I set out to do this and I did it. I set out to do this and I did it. Then that compounds on itself. Same with our children. We need to help them love taking care of themselves. We need to help them see it as a gift that they give to themselves and help them just recognize the cause and effect of oh, it may feel fun to stay up late, but then I'm cranky the next day and my behavior's out of order. So I have consequences and I'm not able to enjoy time with my friends. Is it really worth it?
Speaker 3:And so we are trying to find that balance, at the age that our kids are of 12 and under, of giving them a little room to make decisions and then also helping them see, okay, what really happened, what's the full scope of this decision that we just made?
Speaker 3:And then we also have some expectations. Like you know, when you've got healthy things on your plate, it's a five-bite rule those little tiny things that we've implemented over time, but just tiny, tiny, little baby steps, because what we don't want is for them to do what I did when I went off to college, where the first thing that I did was buy a 12-pack of Diet Coke and ramen noodles because I wasn't allowed to eat that when I was home. Right, didn't take long for me to realize that didn't feel very good, but there's this sense of let us fall in love with the healthy freedoms, right, the permission to. So those are a few things I would suggest, but so simple, just like Melissa talks about, and I'm sure you all say it quite regularly on here. So simple, so little, and let the good crowd out the less ideal.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you for that. How about you Bree? Sustainable thing and maybe a couple areas.
Speaker 1:But, like when I started homeschooling, I really thought God asked me to homeschool and told me to homeschool because I was going to be really good at this and very quickly learned it was actually not because of that. So I I had to literally one. My first thing was a math curriculum for my oldest because he likes math. That was literally the only thing I committed to for one year. Now I eventually did add in reading books with him and stuff, but I only the weight was different because my commitment was only to that one thing. Then the next school year I added one other thing. The next school year, then the next school year, I added one other thing. The next school year I added one more kid, you know. And so I think that one thing and that felt big.
Speaker 1:But I would look at other people sometimes and I would suddenly start to be like I'm so behind, I'm never going to, my kids are going to be, they're never going to graduate and I had to rein it back in. What has God asked of me? And I would approach these prayerfully what do I? What is my thing? So that for me personally, if I'm the person who's like I'm going to go from waking up at seven to five 30, that is a bad idea. I would go from seven to six 30. That feels sustainable. I can do that long-term. I'm not going to wake up at five 30 for a whole. I'm going to do it for two weeks. Then I'm going to be so tired and go back to sleep until seven because that was a bad idea. So sustainable is my key when I make a change somewhere.
Speaker 1:Um, but I would say my I mean, maybe my biggest advice to any person is always something I've learned from my husband and Melissa, and Melissa boundaries, but meaning that our mentors told us to come up with pillars in our lives when we were first married and my husband's a pastor lives when we were first married and my husband's a pastor. So pillars are those things that our lives, our life, revolves around. They cannot be. They're like your big stones in the bottom of your jar. They have to be there, they're priorities and that is how you structure your life. So for us, it's our marriage, so date nights, getting out together, even if it's in our home date night, but that our world revolves around that His job is a big one because he is a pastor. So how? Our availability, everything I do, as I have a calling to ministry as well. So anything that interferes with that, I say no. It's by default, it's a no because that's already been decided. So that's been really helpful for me as a mom, the more it is tempting to let life just get out of control and start letting life happen to me.
Speaker 1:When I go back to the basics, like, okay, all of these things as my kids get older, there's much more to do. More kids, more stuff, more ministry, more school, I go back to well, is it interfering with my five pillars? Well, then I say no, even this work that I've started doing. My first commitment was to ministry my marriage, homeschooling my children, making sure we still Sabbath as a family. So I give what I can give to work and that's it. So it takes out, and this is why I feel like it's been helpful. Practically it takes out decision fatigue, like I don't have to overthink if something's presented to me, does it fit in here? No, I say no, and I've seen the fruit of that pay off and it is like I can give the best to what God has asked of me. So that is different. Not everybody has the same priorities and I've become okay with that. The past I mean probably since I've had kids it's been more empowering, but I think that's all.
Speaker 2:I love it. So you can obviously all see why I love Bree so much. I mean what, like you know, bree's taught me a lot too. So but I love what you were talking about with the boundaries. You know how women, a lot of women, don't know how to say no, and it's because, well, some women, maybe it's because we're afraid of what they'll think of us if we say no, but some or maybe not just some women, maybe some situations and then other situations it's because we want to help, we want to, we want to do all the things and we want to help all the people, and so my piece of advice for all of you busy mamas trying to steward your family's health well is to ask the Lord, and I mean ask him about every single thing, right, you know, I love what you said, bree, where decision fatigue. So if it doesn't fit in here, because you already have that laid out, you and you and Kyle have already laid that out you know what those pillars are, you know what that, where that box is, and you know what can fit in it and what can't. But not everybody has done that. I know that. I have not done that.
Speaker 2:So if, if something comes up that I want to do what. There's something coming up next month that I want to do really bad, and but I'm waiting on the Lord. I really I'm just waiting and people keep asking me Melissa, are you coming? Are you coming? I'm like I don't know yet. Well, we've got to. I mean people, people have said we've got a place for you where we saved a spot for you and you can, you can, stay with us, and I'm like I'm wait.
Speaker 2:I have to hear from him. I have to hear that that it's okay that he wants me to do this, because I don't want to waste time and I don't want to waste money and um, and I don't want, and that really, really that's it. I don't want to waste time and money. I know it's going to be good, but is it? Is it what's best, and so that's? You know that's. The other thing is there's a difference between what's good and what's best. So you have to ask the Lord, you just have to, and I mean it could be the tiniest little thing. Like you know, do I take Melissa and Bree's next gateway class. Ask the Lord, I'm not kidding, I mean, don't you know, every time you say yes to something, you're saying no to something else or your family, and so you have to weigh that. This has been a great conversation, so inspiring.
Speaker 1:I feel great. Thank you, ladies.
Speaker 2:Anna, thank you so much for just being here. Was there anything else on your heart that you wanted to share today?
Speaker 3:Oh, I mean, I'm just going to offer this, like, wherever you are today, love, love that place. You know, love that place, no matter how hard it is, no matter how you know how much you're struggling. We have to. We have to find the gift today in order for us to move into a more beautiful tomorrow. It's like it's not until we've unlocked the gift and it doesn't always happen this way, but at best, at my best moments with the Lord, when I have mined the gift from the current season, that's how we steward well, because then it's never wasted right To go. I will love every day you give me, even the hard, because, if nothing else, this is going to be your testimony one day to encourage someone else. So just find that way to love it today one day, to encourage someone else, so just just find that way to love it today.
Speaker 2:So good, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being with us today, anna, and so you guys. If you look in the show notes, you should, or the yeah, the description of this video. If you're watching the video or the show notes of the podcast, you'll find more information about Anna and how to find her, and we just thank you all for tuning in and we just pray that you will steward your family's health well and use what he's given you and use it wisely. So thanks for being here, Thank you.
