Fat shaming and poor body image can become a cycle within families, but Suzie decided she wanted something different. In this member spotlight, a Balance365 member shares her secrets to success in the program, how her life changed and why she never wants to go back to diet culture.

Ever notice you weigh more on Monday morning? Lauren and Annie discuss common explanations for those annoying and sometimes anxiety-inducing weight fluctuations and what you can do about them - and why you may not even need to do anything. Learn to approach the scale Balance365 style, even on a Monday morning.

Birth experiences and choices vary widely from person to person. Jen, Annie and Lauren have all made different choices in the way they had their babies and in today's episode they invited Emily, the founder of The Good Birth Co, to share a very Balance365 aligned philosophy on birth that's a breath of fresh air. The messy middle - birthing edition.

After a decade of fearing carbs and engaging in constant dieting behavior, yoyoing between low carb and high sugar, Jen made the decision to leave diet culture behind and pursue balance. Entering the fitness industry was her awakening that she had to quit dieting. She knew she had to make a change for the sake of her kids. She wanted to support them and having a healthy relationship with food. Like research shows, food restriction leads to food preoccupation. Low carb diet led to preoccupations with carbs, even fear of carbs. But is low-carb eating even what it's cracked up to be?

Part of the allure of Keto is the fabled quick results, however the podcast interview with Amanda Howell shared that the weight loss was from glycogen and water and not actually fat. "Women have been conditioned to believe that that number on the scale is the most important thing," Jen explained. She shared how the preoccupation with the morning dehydration leads women to believe they are bloated when in fact they're not.

Sometimes bloating comes from Binging after the restriction of trying to live on a diet like Keto or low carb. The cravings that come during a restricted diet are natural, like a body gasping for air after holding their breath. This level of restriction can be particularly problematic for postpartum moms who are prone to running themselves into the ground in pursuit of postpartum weight loss, the faster the better. The stress of a restrictive diet can negatively impact their mental health. While she had risk factors for postpartum depression otherwise, Jen feels that her low carb way of eating contributed to her struggles. It's not just new moms that are affected.

Low intake with high output inevitably leads to exhaustion. Jen found that in moving towards a more balanced diet she was able to attain more personal bests in the gym and really start to enjoy exercise without feeling so exhausted.

A study done recently that compared the Keto diet to a non-Keto diet and it showed that the Keto diet actually increased total cholesterol, LDL and markers of inflammation, compared to the non Keto Diet. Regardless of science, people tend to rely on their personal experiences and often report that they feel better on a low-carb diet. The diet gets the credit where positive changes might just be due to generally making better food choices, drinking more water, and moving their bodies more. This is particularly true of people who had poor diet prior to exploring low-carb diets.

One of the challenges that come with being on a low-carb diet is that the food that is eaten can change the palate and can make food that's outside of the plan taste bad. Fat makes food tasty and low carb diet tend to contain a lot of it, making a shift from a high fat diet seem less flavorful. The other challenge people can have is when they add in the carbs but don't decrease the calories from other macros accordingly, leading to excess calories and weight gain which they attribute to the carbohydrates.

In making the decision to abandon diets, psychological work needs to take place as well to allow former dieter to be able to listen to their body again. Often a diet is an attempt to manage psychological pain and trauma by changing dieter's bodies. Without dealing with the underlying issue, lasting behavior change can be challenging.

With dieting success there's also the psychological boost of people who celebrate weight loss at any cost. The flip side of this is that during weight regain between diets, the lack of positive reinforcement can feel like rejection. The extent to which body hatred and diet culture have become connection points for women in their relationships means that removing connection points can lead to a feeling of being left out and not knowing what to discuss in social situations.

There is often temptation when walking away from diet culture to try this one more diet. The reality is that in moving away from diet culture so much mental space is being freed up that sticking to a diet can become very challenging and ultimately not very satisfying.

Self-love is a rebellious choice in a world consumed with self-hatred. In walking away from diet culture and restrictive low-carb eating, it's possible to build better relationships with food and each other, to experience food freedom from preoccupation and enjoy a little more balance.

The Keto diet is the diet that Balance365 Community asks the most questions about. That's why Amanda Howell, a highly educated nutrition expert joined Balance365 Life Radio to discuss what Keto is, what it isn't, what it can and can't do and if it lives up to all of the hype.

If you look at some of the research and the studies behind people's ability to keep weight off in the long term, it seems pretty gloomy. The good news is that Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, a Canadian doctor and expert in weight loss and obesity management, believes there's still good reason to be optimistic.

Following the explosive success of Embrace, The Documentary, Annie, Jen and Lauren interviewed Taryn Brumfitt on Balance365 Life Radio. Taryn shared with JAL her journey from photographer to prominent body positive advocate after a photograph that went viral amplified the innermost frustrations of women about how bodies are portrayed in the media. She went on to crowdfund and produce Embrace, The Documentary and is actively working to fund the companion version of the documentary for kids. More than just a feel-good movie, Embrace is making a real difference in the lives of the women who watch it.

DID YOU KNOW?

Women who have seen Embrace have much higher body appreciation and lower levels of body shame, self-objectification and dieting. They're also less likely to treat their body as an object to believe that they should be thin or to be ashamed of their bodies

Part of what comes from not being ashamed of one's body is being able to use it in a variety of different ways that might have seemed unreachable before. For example, Taryn recently completed a marathon, shaving an hour off her last time. She is an advocate for joyful movement and moving in a way that your body needs regardless of what it looks like. Exercise can be so helpful for reducing stress, bringing calm or building inner resolve to overcome hard things. "I've decided that I'm only going to get fitter and faster as I get older. That's my new challenge," Taryn explains.

DOES BODY POSITIVITY PROMOTE OBESITY?

This is something Taryn gets asked all the time and she says, "No, thank you for asking me because I love to deliver the answer. And that is we can't look after something that you don't love."

When Taryn's photograph went viral, she was inundated with thousands of emails. These weren't all necessarily positive; women were expressing their pain about hating their bodies. The need for a cultural shift became clear. Taryn had some tips on how we can contribute to a more body positive culture.

1. Re-frame toxic body talk when you hear it. For example, Taryn recommends, "when we hear our friends having a conversation about losing weight because they're going on a holiday and they want to look good in their bikini, we need to say, 'Hey, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Let's think about the fact that you're going on a holiday with your family or with your girlfriends and just go and experience that joy.'"
2. Share Embrace The Documentary with a friend and check out Embrace You, the 4-week course that Taryn offers. Read her book, Embrace Yourself.
3. Re-frame the conversations with our kids. "If your daughter comes to you and says, 'Mommy, do I look pretty in this dress?' you need to turn around and say, 'Oh, I just want to know what are you going to do in that dress?'" Taryn suggests.
4. Increase media literacy. Make sure your kids understand how companies market and what their motivations are. She suggests Celeste Barber as the antidote for toxic body messaging.
5. Model positive body image behavior for our kids. Taryn explains, "We are Kings and Queens to our kids and they are getting all of their information from us. Yes, from other places too. But the majority from us, they're sponges. They're looking at us."

"It was not my soul's purpose to spend my life hating and being at war with myself...I refuse to talk about my cellulite or my wobbly tummy or my jiggly arms when there are children and men dying every three seconds from not having food." Taryn has issued a call to action to focus on gratitude and to put self-hatred in perspective by recognizing where there is privilege. She challenges women to consider what will be important to women at the end of their lives and to focus on those things. She explained how self-love might not feel like an achievable goal, but even neutrality is better than self-hatred and striving for neutrality is valid.

More than just focussing on gratitude, Taryn calls for women to enjoy the freedom that comes from accepting your body. "This is the joy of embracing your body. It's so powerful. It's not just about the body, it's about your life. Like it transcends everything. You're more confident, you're more loving, you have deeper connections with people. You don't buy into the rules. And when you don't buy into the rules, that's when you have this real, delicious is the only way I can describe it, sense of freedom and joy and magic in your life."

The Balance365 team is so excited about the upcoming Embrace documentary geared to kids that they are donating 10% of the next week's sales to help make this movie happen. You can make purchases in support of Embrace HERE.

In this solo episode, Balance365 Life co-founder Lauren Koski gives a comprehensive overview of binge eating from a psychological and physiological perspective. Tune in for practical tips and a no-guilt look at one of the most challenging habits to break!

What you'll hear in this episode:

• Lauren's experience with binge eating
• Reasons people binge
• What is reactive bingeing?
• The cycle of restriction induced bingeing
• How not to deal with bingeing
• All or nothing thinking and bingeing
• Scarcity mindset and binge eating
• The role of forgiveness, shame and guilt in binge eating
• How under eating can lead to a binge
• Troubleshooting your food intake to reduce the risk of a binge
• Sleep and binge eating
• Zooming out and how it helps reduce binges
• Self-compassion and seasons of life that naturally involve less sleep
• Physiological and psychological reasons people binge

Resources:

Learn more about Balance365 Life here

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, or Android so you never miss a new episode!

Visit us on Facebook| Follow us on Instagram| Check us out on Pinterest

Join our free Facebook group with over 40k women just like you!

Did you enjoy the podcast? Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Google Play! It helps us get in front of new listeners so we can keep making great content.

Annie: Welcome to Balance 365 Life Radio, a podcast that delivers honest conversations about food, fitness, weight, and wellness. I'm your host Annie Brees along with Jennifer Campbell and Lauren Koski. We are personal trainers, nutritionists and founders of Balance365. Together we coach thousands of women each day and are on a mission to help them feel healthy, happy, and confident in their bodies, on their own terms. Join us here every week as we discuss hot topics pertaining to our physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing with amazing guests. Enjoy.

Lauren: Hello. Hello. Today we are talking about why you may be bingeing and what to do about it. My name is Lauren Koski, one of the cofounders of Balance365 Life. And thank you so much for joining me for a solo episode today. And so I said we're going to be talking about binge eating today. And I used to be a binge eater. I was a secret binge eater. I was a weekend binge eater. Basically I was a "whenever my latest diet failed" binge eater. And so I know very well the feelings of shame and guilt that come with bingeing and with feeling just completely out of control around food. It's something that so many people are dealing with. And I see so many popular diet plans, basically all of them that set people up to binge later. And if you've seen our workshop, you'll know the story I'm about to tell because I talk about it there.

But back when I was a strict dieter, which I was a for about 10 years, I had a roommate who worked at Dairy Queen. And as you can imagine as a dieter, it was a nightmare for me to constantly avoid eating a freezer full of Dairy Queen. So my low point came one night when she came home and she went to get her favorite kind of blizzard that was in the freezer and they were all gone. And she asked me what happened and I told her that I went to get one from the back and the rest all fall, all over the floor and I had to throw them all away. And I don't know if she believed me, probably not because it was a lie and it was a horrible lie because there were four blizzards in there.

I ate them all in one sitting because I just could not resist that any longer. And I felt horribly, physically and mentally, but it was a horrible lie because if you've ever dropped anything out of a freezer when frozen, it doesn't spill all over the floor and you don't have to throw it away, right? But that's just what I came up with. I was mortified that I could not control myself around that ice cream and I ate all of it even though she shares it with me, she used to share it with me, but obviously it was hers. So that was about 10 years ago. And since then I've worked really hard on my relationship with food and myself and my body image. I'm a trained habit based nutrition coach now and it's been at least five or six years since I've really gone on a binge like that.

So let's take a minute and talk about why people binge in the first place. There are several reasons, including restriction, trauma, shame, guilt, stress, etc. Sometimes all of them. But what I'm going to cover today is reactive bingeing, which is really, really common. Before we get going though, I will do want to make one disclaimer. I am not qualified to treat binge eating disorder, which is a clinical eating disorder. And if you think you may have that, then please seek out qualified medical professionals. So I classify reactive or restriction based bingeing as a binge that happens after someone to physically restricts their food, either through intentional or unintentional means. And I'm sure most of you are familiar with what this looks like in real life. So let's say you go on a diet and this diet severely restricts your calories and you need to use willpower to stick with your plan.

Your willpower starts off strong and you do really well for a week, maybe a month, maybe even a few months. But along the way, your cravings increase and ultimately you find yourself face first and pizza or ice cream or chocolate or whatever that calorie-dense, delicious food is for you. And at first it feels amazing to eat that food because you've been craving it for so long, but you're soon filled with all of that shame and guilt and regret and you're feeling like a failure. And you also might notice that each time you diet or restrict your food, it takes a shorter and shorter amount of time before you lose control and overeat or binge. So we are going to talk about what to do about that. But first I want to go over what not to do because what not to do is exactly what I see most people doing and what most people end up doing.

And it's a totally logical response to binge eating. And that is to lay on the shame and guilt and then to restrict again, right? When I always did that after failing another diet, right? I would binge and then I would continue to eat everything that was off limits during my diet. I was already cheating on it, right? So I thought I'd just get it all out of my system, right? That all or nothing thinking. And then I'd start again on Monday or next week or after the holidays or whatever. And I would start fresh with a new diet, a new restrictive program. And I followed this cycle way too many times to count before I learned a better approach. So let's, that's what not to do. Now let's go over some realistic steps to get you out of this cycle and stopping binge eating.

So number one that I want to cover is to rip up your good food and bad food lists. We tend to have all or nothing approaches to weight loss and nutrition and in my experience, that is a quick way to a binge or to overeat. You have to remember there is no wagon to be on or off of. The cookie that you had after dinner doesn't mean that the vegetables you ate were any less nutritious or vice versa. When you realize that there aren't any foods that you need to be totally off limits it takes away that deprivation and that scarcity mindset, right? Anytime you want a particular food, you can choose to have it if you want. And when you start to truly allow yourself to eat without guilt, some of those really intense cravings will lessen simply from you knowing that there's no foods off limits anymore.

When you can't have something, it makes you want it more. So if you take those off limit foods and really allow them, some of that scarcity goes away just by doing that. So number two is when you binge or overeat, forgive yourself immediately. You're probably not gonna stop binge-eating totally overnight. So the most important thing you can do is to forgive yourself as soon as it happens and move on. I know it's easier said than done, but shame and guilt will only increase your desire to comfort and numb and overeat. Alright, so number three is going to be "Just say no to restrictive dieting." You have to remember that another diet is never going to be the answer with reactive binge-eating. Restriction is only going to perpetuate this cycle. We call it the Diet Cycle. So I urge you to stay as far away from dieting as possible.

And in fact, a history of yoyo dieting and restrictive eating is actually a risk factor for developing binge eating disorder. Number four is to make sure you're eating enough. Binge eating can be as much about physiology as it is about psychology. So your body needs energy to function and it gets its energy from the calories in the food that you eat. So even if you aren't following a specific diet, it's still really important to make sure you're eating enough to sustain you throughout the day. So when I really struggled with binge eating, a typical day of eating for me would look something like this. I would eat Special K cereal with skimmed milk for breakfast. I'd maybe have an apple a few hours later as a stack. For lunch I'd have a small dry salad with grilled chicken. And then I'd have another snack of low fat yogurt and broccoli with no butter, no nothing on it, just plain.

And then dinner was something like more grilled chicken and broccoli. And then as you might imagine, nights or weekends, I would binge eat everything delicious and high calories and high fat that I could find. And I would eat no absolutely no vegetables and nothing, basically no whole foods. It was just all as high calorie and high fat as I could find. And this might sound familiar to you right when you're on a diet like that, even though I wasn't on at that time a specific diet, I was still eating as little as possible and still those biological factors were still driving me to binge eat and overeat along with the psychology factors. So your body needs calories and if you're trying to eat as little as possible throughout the day, it will increase cravings for those quick energy sources. So if this is you like it was for me, try eating a larger breakfast and a larger lunch and I'm willing to bet that your cravings and your uncontrollable urges to eat those cookies or whatever it is for you will lessen dramatically just from doing that.

And number five, last but not least, don't underestimate the importance of sleep. Studies have shown that sleep deprivation is linked to excess cravings of less nutritious foods. I find this to be true for myself as well as for our clients. But a little caveat with that said, when you have kids, I know that sometimes it's just out of your control, right? When your baby keeps you up all night, just give yourself compassion and know that this is just a phase of your life. Prioritize sleep when you can and then realize that you're doing the best that you can do right now. So before I wrap this up, I do also want to mention that I'm definitely not saying that this has to be a choice between the restricting binge cycle or no change at all. There is a middle road and that is exactly what we do recommend, so the middle road is going to look like making smaller, sustainable changes that you can actually stick with and that won't cause you to binge later, right? Things like choosing one thing at a time to work on instead of trying to change your entire life and eating habits overnight, which is what you do when you go on a diet.

It's going to look like focusing on the process instead of only looking at the outcome that you are wanting and creating a smaller calorie deficit so that you don't activate those biological processes that begin when your body thinks you're starving, which again is exactly what happens on a diet. So I hope this has been helpful for you. I hope you are having a fantastic day and I hope you enjoyed this solo episode. Bye.

Annie: This episode is brought to you by the Balance365 program. If you're ready to say goodbye to quick fixes and false promises and yes to building healthy habits and a life you're 100% in love with, then check out Balance365.co to learn more.

Often women are socialized to present as if they need nothing from the world. While the spirit of independence is inspiring, the reality is that as humans we do need things and that isn't about weakness, it's about humanity. In today's episode, Jen and Annie talk to clinical social worker Mel Bosna to explore human needs and why they matter.

What you'll hear in this episode:

• How to begin identifying our needs and how to meet them in a healthy way
• Societal messages around women's needs
• Why it's not really noble to ignore your own needs
• Anti-dependency culture and what it means
• Uncommunicated needs and expectations
• Maslow's hierarchy of needs
• When we put unmet needs onto our body and our food
• Food, exercise and belonging
• Finding validation from within versus outsourcing that
• Getting needs met within a family system
• Motherhood and how we de-prioritize our basic needs ahead of the wants of others
• Getting comfortable with the discomfort of vocalizing our own needs
• The discomfort of trying to be someone you're not
• Getting curious about the kind of women we elevate and why
• The initial disruption that comes from laying down boundaries
• The habituation process as family acclimatize to everyone having needs
• Setting boundaries or choosing resentment
• How resilient relationships adjust to change
• Two dominant narratives around needs
• Coming to the realization that your happiness is worth the discomfort of others with meeting your needs
• Self-soothing after the discomfort of advocating for your needs
• Learning to advocate for your needs
• Learning to need without self-judgment
• Scheduling in time for family, self and relationship
• Shifting mindset from scarcity to abundance
• Role-modelling self care and examining the messaging we perpetuate when we don't advocate for our needs

Resources:

Mel Bosna's Website

Learn more about Balance365 Life here

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, or Android so you never miss a new episode!

Visit us on Facebook| Follow us on Instagram| Check us out on Pinterest

Join our free Facebook group with over 40k women just like you!

Did you enjoy the podcast? Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Google Play! It helps us get in front of new listeners so we can keep making great content.

Annie: Welcome to Balance 365 Life Radio, a podcast that delivers honest conversations about food, fitness, weight, and wellness. I'm your host Annie Brees along with Jennifer Campbell and Lauren Koski. We are personal trainers, nutritionists and founders of Balance365. Together we coach thousands of women each day and are on a mission to help them feel healthy, happy, and confident in their bodies, on their own terms. Join us here every week as we discuss hot topics pertaining to our physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing with amazing guests. Enjoy.

We live in a culture that often labels women who express their needs as needy or high maintenance. We praise women for being needless, for ignoring their own wishes and desires so everyone else around them can thrive. But denying your needs can ultimately leave you feeling resentful, misunderstood, or even downright angry.

Clinical social worker, feminist therapist and artist Mel Bosna understands that having needs doesn't make you needy, it makes you human. Mel is a licensed clinician in the state of Arizona and believes that our best chance at health involve both individual and societal changes and as a result, Mel aims to validate the broader context of what contributes to the stories we're living while supporting clients to change what's within their control to change. Mel feels that it's been a profound honor for her to support women.

Together they are learning how to walk away, claim new life, root into new ground, speak the unspeakable, own the narrative, change the script and to say enough to the shame and the lies that have haunted them for too long. On today's episode, Mel offers amazing insight on how to begin identifying our needs and how to meet them in a healthy way.

Mel acknowledges that honoring and communicating our needs can leave many of us feeling vulnerable, but encourages us to acknowledge the discomfort as an opportunity for new growth. As always, if you want to continue the discussion from today's episode, we invite you to join our free Facebook group, Healthy Habits Happy Moms. Enjoy!

Jen, we have a special guest, like a VIP guest with us today. Are you so stoked?

Jen: I am.

Annie: Yeah. Mel, how are you? Welcome to Balance365 Life Radio.

Mel: I am so thrilled to be here. Thank you for having me.

Annie: We are so happy that you're here. You've been around our community for a

while. Like you go, you go way back.

Mel: Beginning.

Annie: How did you, how did you find, well, it probably was Healthy Habits Happy Moms.

Mel: Yeah.

Annie: -at the time, how did you find us? Or how did we find you or do you remember that?

Mel: To be clear, I really don't. I, I think I probably found you as like a recommended group on Facebook, which I'm no longer on, but-

Annie: Thanks, Facebook.

Mel: No, I stumbled across it and having worked in the eating disorder recovery field for quite awhile, I was always looking for resources that were balanced and appropriate to send people to. And so I just kind of fell into the group. I really enjoyed it for the season that I was involved and have just loved cheerleading, watching, you know, what you guys are doing, it's been really great.

Annie: Well, we appreciate it. Do you want to take just a quick second to explain to our audience about your work, what you do?

Mel: Sure. I am a clinical social worker in private practice in Scottsdale, Arizona. I've been in private practice now for about seven years, but prior to that I'd worked at a number of different facilities. So I did inpatient eating disorder work for about four years, specialize in body image work, sexuality, trauma, our relationship with food and spirituality and one another. From there I was the director of a group home for girls who'd been sex trafficked, was only there for about a year. Loved the population. The agency wasn't a great fit for me.

And then I started having kids and you know, reevaluated my career at that point. And so I've been in private practice since then and really specialize with things that fall under the umbrella of women's issues. So I do a lot of complex trauma, attachment, parenting, sexuality, relationship issues, lots of codependency work and really just trying to empower women to discover who they want to be and to, yeah, just give themselves permission to find their own path, ways of meeting their own needs.

Mel: And as they do that, it's just compounding, right. All the growth and freedom and vitality within their families and communities. So I definitely look at things from a specific social work perspective. I like to challenge systems. I like to dismantle them, I like to see, yeah, I just like to see people experience a lot more freedom. So-

Annie: Right on and you're just, you're a good human and like a powerful, powerful woman.

Mel: I definitely feel my power. That's good.

Jen: You also are very, you're very creative, Mel. You have, you're an amazing photographer.

Mel: Yes. That's kind of been a side project that I fell into. I never set out to, um, be a photographer. It's kind of funny that that word still doesn't roll off my tongue very naturally, but finding ways to integrate art within my activism and healing spaces has been really profound and healing for me, on both a personal and a professional level. So I do have a passion project where I photograph women who are telling their own stories so you can find that work on Melbosna.com. Women getting to share their stories with the hope of just kind of reducing the fear that often comes from just not knowing or understanding one another.

Annie: Yeah, it's beautiful. Circling back to something you said when you were telling us about your work was you mentioned women acknowledging their needs, getting their needs met. And that's what we wanted to bring you on to talk to us about today because you and Jen had a little private conversation in the Instagram dm's which so frequently happens with, Jennifer, which I love and adore.

That's how we get a lot of our podcast guests is that this, there's this concept and I really identify this, so I'm so excited to see what you have to say on it is, women are taught to be needless, that I always kind of attribute it to, and I know this wasn't her intention and I'm not pointing the finger, but this like kind of this Beyonce attitude, this like, "I don't need anyone. I'm too cool to care. Like I can do it myself."

And like, and as a result, I often struggle for asking for help or even really being very clear on what, what do I need? Like what am I feeling? What do I need? And again, the messages is that we shouldn't be needy. Or if we're needy that we're high maintenance. And I think you'd probably want to, argue against that, right? That having needs does not make you high maintenance. Right?

Mel: Right. Having needs makes you human. And so our rejection of our needs is actually a rejection of our own humanity and it makes it very difficult then to be a healthy human, are good human if we're rejecting such a core part of ourself. And there are so many different messages that we are raised with about having needs. So whether that's, you know, "Don't be dependent on anyone to meet your needs" like you were just referencing, kind of the anti dependency spirit, right?

Like I don't need nobody or where we get those messages that say, that it's like good to be needless, that it's noble to be needless. Don't be aware of having needs or if you are aware that you should sacrifice them and that there's an honor in that. And women particularly are rewarded for being self sacrificial in that way, but it's not really sacrifice in a holy way. It's actually neglectful and it's destructive.

Jen: Yeah. That's more where I identify with the word needless, where Annie thinks of Beyonce. And I think of like being subservient and quiet and small and being rewarded for that and feeling loved and validated as a woman because I don't take up space and I

don't need anything.

Mel: Right.

Jen: I find that, I suppose they're both destructive in their own way, but I find that concept of womanhood more destructive than the Beyonce analogy. But I don't know if I've ever lived the Beyonce, perhaps that's why I find it more destructive and that's definitely my background is if anyone who's followed me for any amount of time, I've had a big breakthrough blog post about five years ago called The Selfish Mom in which I wrote about my transformation of, from just serving my partner and my children to kind of stepping out in the world and going, "Hey, wait a moment like this, this doesn't feel very good and I have needs and you four have to make space for those needs in our life." And just how inconvenient I felt and how uncomfortable I was. But, that went, I mean, millions of people have read that blog post now and I think it resonated with a lot of women. So, that's more my experience of wanting to be needless.

Mel: Well, I think deep down, we know that we have needs, but we're not taught, again, how to recognize them or meet them appropriately. And so what I see happening is that because we don't know how to steward them or meet them in appropriate ways, that it will always come out sideways in our life. And so whether that's displacement through putting our needs onto other people around us with the expectation that they're just going to meet them on their own, or be able to read them or anticipate what our needs are or displacement onto other areas in our life that are inappropriate, that are illegitimate, expecting that to fulfill our needs.

So, you know, at a very base level, we all, humans all have the needs for, you know, safety, shelter, food, water, stability, community, family, right? Like relationship, belonging. But above that, like if we look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs right above that, then we look at our needs for worth, for identity, for romance and sexual, you know, fulfillment or connection and self actualization and purpose and these other needs that, again, are, they're valid and human.

Mel: And we all have them, whether we acknowledge that we have them or not. And so if they're not met appropriately, which most of us don't grow up learning how to meet them appropriately, they will inevitably come out sideways. And so in my work with women, I have seen it most problematic when women displace their needs for belonging, acceptance, worth identity, I see them displace that onto food or onto their bodies as a way of trying to meet that need and fulfill it, which will never happen appropriately because food was never meant to fulfill our identity.

Jen: There's, another thing too, and inside of this idea that we can meet our needs with food or a body size, you have whole communities that have risen up to support these pursuits. And so what happens is you, you find, you feel as if you, you can find a place to belong if you, too, participate in this, whether it's these food rules or becoming this body size.

And that can feel really good, especially for somebody who might actually feel pretty lonely or has been experiencing rejection, or has struggled with just fitting into this culture that does seem to be consumed with food. So it can feel really good initially. And you hear a lot of people, I think, they defend their diets, or they defend, you know, what they're doing, what their goal is because they still have the warm and fuzzies perhaps.

Mel: That meets the need. It actually does meet the need. And so it's really hard to walk away from something that's meeting the need, even if it's also costing, you.

Jen: Right.

Mel: In the process. And so, I mean, I don't think anybody's crazy or stupid for engaging in those types of behaviors because they are, they are actually meeting a need, but it's not meeting it the way that it's designed to be met, if that makes sense. And so because of, because it's an illegitimate way to meet the need, there are all these, like, negative consequences or costs in the process, right? And it's so fluid. So you have to maintain a destructive habit in order to continue to belong or feel accepted or valued.

Jen: Right, right.

Annie: On a personal note, I found that a lot of the needs that I've been trying to meet, I've been trying to meet them from the outside in versus inside out, if that makes sense. You know, like I was trying to outsource my confidence or put my confidence in my self worth in the hands of other people. Like if my peers like my work, if my husband thinks I'm attractive, if my girlfriends like my outfit, if they think I'm funny, if they think I'm smart then like, you know, then I feel seen or I feel worthy or I feel good enough but it doesn't, it's not super sustainable because then I felt like I was forever reliant on this like applause or this like, "Hey, you like me, right? Like, I'm still doing a good enough job, right? Like, hey, like I'm okay, right? Did I do a good job?

Jen: If you like me then I can like me.

Annie: Instead of just like checking in with myself. Like, in fact, I've shared many times, Mel, you are actually one of the reasons I started going to therapy because you're like, maybe you need to talk to someone about that.

Jen: Maybe just stop messaging me on Instagram.

Annie: It was on Instagram.

Jen: Mel set a boundary.

Annie: And it was wonderful, but one of the things she said was like, "Well, what's your experience? What do you think?" And I'm like, "Well, they liked it so it was good enough." And she's like, "Uh uh. No, you didn't answer the question." And so turning inward or reflecting inward before trying to like outsource all that has been a lot, a lot of work, but it feels like I'm on the right path.

Mel: Mmhmmm. It is an inside job and there's both power and grief related to that. Right? Like it's, we still want to have that validation or affirmation given to us from others because again, as women, that's what we've been taught is the path forward, right? As long as we're needless, as long as we're pleasing to others, accommodating others, meeting other people's needs for what, for how we should act or what we should look like, then we think that we can provide ourselves with that type of security.

So it can feel really scary to start elevating our own voice, right? And our own validation, it can feel really scary initially because it's just such a unfamiliar pattern for us. But it is rewarding, like you're talking about, to feel so firmly rooted in knowing who we are and also how to meet our needs.

Mel: So then it's not dependent on all these other people around us. When we know how to appropriately meet our needs, then we're not just outsourcing them and then scared or powerless with, like, whether or not other people are going to be able to come along and validate, support, fulfill what it is that we're looking for. I see a lot of women do this within their own family, again, because they don't know how to meet their needs. They'll just place their need for validation, for worth, for fulfillment onto their kids or onto their partner.

Again, such a, such a vulnerability for their own growth as well as like a huge responsibility for their kids then to have to grow up with making mom happy, making sure mom's okay, making sure mom feels good about herself and so again, the more that we can learn appropriately how to validate and meet our own needs so they're not coming out sideways in our marriages and our parenting or communities, just the healthier the whole system functions.

Mel: So it's taken a lot of work. I mean, from, also from a personal place. Like I didn't grow up aware of what my needs were or how to meet them. I am the daughter of a pastor and his wife and I love my parents so much, but both within the spiritual community I grew up with as well as the traditional family system I grew up with, I just was completely clueless and I just thought that my husband was going to know how to meet my needs when I got married at 24 and so this process for me of identifying what my needs actually are and taking ownership of them and then learning how to ask for support at times with meeting them, has been bumpy. It's been sold with a lot of trial and error. But the more that I've taken risk with owning what those needs are and learning how to nurture them and steward them, again, the healthier I have felt and the healthier my family system functions.

Jen: I'm circling back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. This is quite common. I see this and with women I talked to is that, they are making sure or they are the facilitators or the supporter of members of their family reaching higher levels when their baseline is not even being met. And so sometimes I have to, really, it's hard, right? Cause everybody's operating from their own level of awareness. And you know, when I see a woman post, one happened in our community that she couldn't afford pelvic floor physiotherapy after paying all of her children's sports fees for the year.

And something like that just breaks my heart, although I can't say I haven't been there right where you are so low on the to do list that your children are participating in multiple extra curricular activities before your own basic health care can be tended to. And what we talk about in Balance365, actually in our program is this, if you are a member of a family, this is a family job to sit down and make sure everybody's needs are being met. And that is so uncomfortable for so many women, me included. So I was wondering if you can help us in, sharing with our audience how a woman can get started there, what that's going to feel like.

Mel: Sure. That's such a great question, Jen. I'm glad you asked it. I think one of the first things that I would, um, encourage anybody who's curious about this process is to start exploring what makes them feel so uncomfortable to begin with, right? And perhaps that's through journaling. Perhaps that's through talking with like, a good friend or your Facebook group.

But really just starting to, to evaluate what is it that feels so risky about having needs and prioritizing them and when we bump up against our discomfort or that vulnerability, that's a prime opportunity always for new ground to take place in our life. And so again, we have been taught to avoid discomfort, I think culturally, on a societal level. Like we see it as like risky and just maintain the status quo. But again, that's always where new ground takes place.

Mel: And so if we can get comfortable being uncomfortable, right? Like embracing, like, this feels really risky for me to take up space. Why? What messages have I received about taking up space? And whether that's with my physical body or the fact that I need a nap or I'm hungry right now, or I want a vacation away from my family. Or like, I need new clothes or I haven't bought new underwear and you know, so my clients haven't bought new underwear in two years.

Jen: Right.

Mel: And they're like buying their kids, like, whatever their needs are on a regular basis. So whatever that is, to be able to just say, what is uncomfortable about taking up space here? We just start with looking at the messages that women have heard and the stories they tell themselves. And the behaviors don't change if the story doesn't change.

Jen: Mhmm, I think sometimes, you know, for me, I've had to look at the way, what type of woman I've glorified and what type of woman has been glorified within my family and my community or socially, right? So, members of my family, me included, we have glorified the woman who does it all. The woman who wants to be with our kids 24/7 and so I was trying to make myself into a woman who I have seen glorified, not into the woman who I actually am. And that's like square peg, round hole. It doesn't fit very well and it doesn't feel very good when you're trying to squeeze yourself into being something who you aren't.

Mel: Right. Right. So I what I love about that, it's just the questioning, right? Of what's the story I've been given about what it is to be a woman, a mother, a partner and does the story serve me?

Jen: Right? And the other thing you, a lot of women, have to eventually look at is who have they judged before? Right. So, in my story as I went about trying to be this woman, I was very judgmental to other women who weren't doing that same thing. I was very judgmental towards women who were being more fearless than me, setting boundaries in their family. I think I was maybe maybe resentful towards these women. Jealous? I don't know what it was, but they just weren't fitting into my narrow view of the way women should be which in the end ultimately made it even harder for me to kind of let go of this because I had a lot invested. My ego was totally invested in this way of living. So yeah.

Mel: Yeah. It can make it hard when we're invested in a particular narrative, and I'm just going to say this cause I think it might be something that your community bumps up against. It's also really hard when those around us are also invested in this narrative. And so when a woman decides that they are going to start validating and honoring the needs that she has and her children, her partner, her, again, the community at large isn't used to her having needs. There is a disruption that can follow that initially, which is why we need the support and validation of others as well as we do find this new narrative. So I tell people it's kind of like a baby mobile. If you can picture one above a crib, right when you add or take away any part of that baby mobile, right? Like say it's a bunch of teddy bears.

Mel: There is an immediate disruption to it, right? Like where it moves around and it feels like chaos and it's unsettling and uncomfortable for every part of that mobile, but eventually it habituates. It finds a new norm.

And so for women who are learning, again, how to start to take up more space and ownership of what needs they do have, there is often that initial disruption where where their kids, their partner again, maybe like, "Hey, I don't know. I don't know that I like that you're leaving right now. Right? Or that you're going to go lay down right now or that you're readjusting the budget to buy your underwear when I was planning on getting a new, like, game boy or something."

Like there's that initial disruption as everyone's finding like this new norm of what this woman's needs look like within the family system, but it will habituate. And so if we can get comfortable with that initial discomfort or disruption, we can trust that it is what's healthy and good for everyone involved.

Annie: This is so hitting home right now because, this probably isn't going to come as a shocker, but I pride myself on being like strong. Like no, I'll just do it myself. Everything from like opening the pickle jar to, like, pushing a car out of the driveway if the battery's dead, like no, like I don't want to ask for your help and if you offer your help, I'm probably going to be even annoyed that you even offered help. And like, I'll just do it myself. And one of the things that I've accepted as I've grown older is I actually am a crier, but I have associated this whatever is behind the tears as weakness. That's like the story that I've told myself is that it's weak and it's something to be ashamed of.

And watching the most interesting part has been watching other people respond to me crying cause it's kind of like "Is she okay. Like what? Okay, I don't know what to do with her right now that she's crying." And I'm like, it might not, it might be joy. It might be sadness, it might be I was just embarrassed or it could be so many things, but it has been, like, interesting to be like, "I know what I'm doing and I'm comfortable. But watching your discomfort is interesting for lack of a better word,"

Mel: Right, right. Well, it's unfamiliar for others it sounds like to see you show emotion, like part of your vulnerability. They're not used to that. And so, I mean, that's what I'm hearing at least.

Annie: Absolutely. No, absolutely. That's spot on.

Mel: Are you okay? Versus somebody like me or Jen who maybe cries regularly because of the narratives that we've shared about ourselves to other people. But yeah, they will adjust to your kind of new expression of your emotion the more that you practice it.

Jen: In my experience, resilient relationships do adjust, right? So I decided to go back to work after my first son and somehow during my maternity leave there, an assumption had been made by my partner that I wasn't going back to work without a discussion happening and his life got pretty good while I was on maternity leave. It was very Flintstones for lack of a better word.

And I have no judgment to anybody who has a lifestyle that is more traditional of father works and mom stays home and does the household stuff that is, if that brings you joy, I'm so happy that you're in that role. But I wanted to go back to work and I remember when I told my partner that that would be happening and how our life would have to adjust his jaw just hit the floor. Like he was just, you know, in his head I could see the wheels turning.

Jen: He doesn't, you know, get to go to the gym every day that, you know, all these things, supper on the table at six o'clock, all of these things, he realized it would cause him more work. It was just life would become more physically demanding. And, you know, and that was kind of the reality for me of going back to work was that my life was about to get better and everybody else's lives were going to get harder. And it was very difficult for me to step forward into that and say, "But I'm worth it. My happiness inside this family is worth it. I have made so many sacrifices for all of you. You will make sacrifices for me."

And coming to the realization that that's actually how healthy relationships go, right? There's a give and take. And I think myself and a lot of women feel that there's, after a time, as Brene Brown says, you can set boundaries or you can feel resentful. You can, or it's choose discomfort or choose resentment. It's one or the other. And over time, a lot of women become extremely resentful because they're not able to move into that discomfort and, and say, "Hey, what about me over here?" You know, and you're waiting for someone to do it for you. I think a lot of us also have kind of this white knight complex, like there's some kind of, someone's coming to save us, but there isn't, nobody is nobody's meeting our needs, right. Until we ask for them to be met.

Mel: Right, right. Yeah. I see that a lot too. Again, going back to kind of this two dominant narratives, one is, you know, again, somebody's gonna come along and and save me or meet my needs. I see lots of women who are just crossing their fingers, hoping that someone's going to notice, like, what they need and just naturally meet it and that either leads again to like total neglect or resentment or that other narrative like that Annie had shared where I'm not going to be dependent on anybody to meet my needs. I'll just meet them all on my own and neither is a true picture of health. Part of our work is practicing curiosity again with like, "Where do I fall on that spectrum, right?" And so the work that each woman has has more to do with the personal narrative that she has about what it means to be a woman and what she's afraid of.

Mel: So if she's afraid of asking for help, right, like being dependent or intimate with somebody, then her work is going to be more about the vulnerability of needing someone else to help meet a need. If her work has been, or I'm sorry, if her narrative, has been largely resting on this idea that I'm not supposed to have needs or allowed to have needs, then it's moving into a space of validation and ownership of them. Recognizing that either way brings about that, like, that discomfort and vulnerability and lack of familiarity. It will be disruptive on a personal and relational basis, but it's worth it. I guess I'm curious to hear from both of you, you know, like what you feel like you've gained through risking owning your need, sharing your needs, doing this work yourself, what's come out of it?

Annie: Oh, this isn't how the interview works, Mel. You know, one of the things that has come up, and this is kind of in the grand scheme of things that maybe doesn't feel really big, but I have spent so many birthdays and holidays and Mother's Days praying that my husband will get the gift I want, treat me the way I want, like do the thing that I want. And it's not even necessarily what I want. Not even necessarily like this big extravagant like party or anything. It's just I just, like you said, I want him to read my mind. Right. And what I've done since kind of doing this emotional work in the last couple of years is just flat out said like, this is what I would like.

Mel: Yeah.

Annie: And he's happy to do that. Like he's happy to fill those needs, assuming that he can make it, whatever happened. And oftentimes it's usually like, I just want to control the day. I just want to come and go as I please lay in the hammock, take a nap, go get a workout, have lunch with my girlfriends, whatever. It's nothing usually extravagant, but that's so much easier for me to just say what I want and like hopefully help assist, implement that if needed. And instead of the alternative, which was this like pouty, like "He didn't get mother's Day right. Like, that's not even the book I wanted. Or like he thinks I like that color? Like what was he thinking?"

Jen: It actually takes far more energy, I think to be that, to just ask for what you need then to have all these thoughts racing all the time and disappointments and resentments growing.

Annie: But then there's this, and I don't, I don't know. What do you, what do you think of this? There's this like, you know, okay. Just say, like, flowers. Like he got me, I wanted flowers and I kept asking for flowers and now he got me flowers and he only got me flowers because I asked for flowers, so he didn't really want to get me flowers, you know? And then there's this, like, he just got them because I asked them for them. Does that, do you know what that is? Jen's giving me a look like "What are you talking about? "

Mel: I do. I do.

Annie: Because I want the flowers because it's an expression of your love and how much you care about me, not just because I asked you to get flowers. Does that make sense?

Mel: Yes, it does. I relate actually to this very specific example of yours. So I remember years back, my husband would bring me flowers on our anniversary and maybe Valentine's Day. Great. Right? Like those are the two days of the year that we would expect it. And so it wasn't very special. And I know every relationship is different. Every, yeah. But just speaking from my, and then not only will he not bring flowers on those outside of those particular days, he would bring me ugly flowers.

Jen: Carnations.

Mel: Yes. It would be like flowers that I would be like, "Ugh! Again!" like Annie said, "Does he not know me? Like at all?" Right? Like I would personalize it and so they would be like flowers that just didn't meet my need, right? And so I had to start learning how to advocate for my need. And there is an element to this process that, again, takes some of the surprise out of it, right? Like, like you were saying, Annie, like, you want, you want them to intuit, right? You want to feel surprised or wooed or whatever it is by it, but the need didn't get met.

So if I was just going to wait until he intuited I wanted flowers, or intuited which flowers I like versus, you know, don't like, and then I would feel like a total B, by the way, like, for being upset about the ugly flowers. In the back of my head, I hear that shame voice, that inner critic that said, "You should just be grateful that you got flowers. Do you know how many women would like to get flowers? You should just be grateful."

Mel: And so that should voice would weigh in, which would be invalidating of the need that I had as well. And so I started just, like, taking pictures off of Pinterest and sending them to him. "These are the types of flowers that I like." Right? And now it's like when I notice that maybe I haven't had flowers in a while, I might say, "Hey babe, sometime in the next like three weeks, can you bring some flowers home? It would mean a lot."

Right? And is it lacking maybe in that element of surprise I wish was there? Sure. But does my need get met? Yes. And they're really beautiful flowers, right? It's showing up for myself and then he gets to feel like a hero because he's able to support, maybe hero's the wrong word, but he's in alignment. Right. He's getting to show up for me as well because I've showed him how to appropriately-.

Annie: Yeah. That's, yeah. That's a great example. I love that.

Mel: Well, you know.

Annie: What about you? How has it changed since you-

Jen: Are you looking at me?

Annie: Yeah. Since you started showing up for yourself?

Jen: I would just say I feel more like I'm living a life I'm supposed to live. I'm the woman I'm supposed to be and I'm in alignment with myself. I'm living a life aligned with my values. I feel I've changed the trajectory of my children's future in their own relationships because I'm showing up as a woman who, I'm normalizing a woman who asks for her needs to be met.

Actually, early on when it did feel very uncomfortable for me and I wanted to hide and not do it I would do it for my children. So I have three boys and my husband also grew up with three boys and there was a very traditional model in their household and that just became their normal and my husband's normal and he wanted that normal to continue.

Jen: So, these are just, you know, bringing this awareness to my children, I think, that women have needs, women take up space, moms take up space. The other, this is so small but it felt profound for me. My children had all had breakfast and exited the breakfast area.

I was sitting down with my toast and coffee and my oldest son came back in for second breakfast and asked me for my toast and I was like, "I have not even eaten yet this morning and you are asking me for my toast, like I get to eat. Now it is my turn to eat. And if you would like to feed yourself again, you are welcome to go make yourself some toast." And it was just, it was just a moment for me to go, "Um, no, like I'm setting a boundary here with my child to say like, I'm taking care of me right now and I get to meet my needs before I meet your second breakfast needs."

Jen: And this was just stuff I couldn't do before. I really was just a "Yes, yes sir" kind of lady. And yeah, so it's kind of those small moments, but also the big moments, in fact that I, even when I first started this business, I thought, I felt so called to start it. And then I thought I could run this business between the hours of nap time and my husband at work. And I realized at one point I was trying to, I was trying to create not just a business, but a movement and a community that did not disrupt anyone else's lives. Do you know?

And I was just run ragged because I was trying to do this without interrupting anybody. So, and now today it's like, "Hold on, I do need help at with, you know, running this country, it is going to disrupt people's lives. Just like everybody, you know, just like soccer disrupts our lives and my husband's career has disrupted our lives. So, those are big things for me. But I, they just feel so normal for me now. It feels so expected. Like of course, like, that was crazy that I would think like that. Like of course my needs need to be met.

Mel: Right.

Annie: Mel, if you had a couple of takeaways, one or two takeaways, because what I imagine is, women are listening to the three of us talk about like, "Oh yeah, like, maybe I want to do that too," or "I should do that" or "That's a great idea." Or "I know I need to ask for this Xyz." I imagine some of them are, maybe can have the courage to like have a conversation with their partner, a friend, a mom and dad, whoever they're expressing needs with and then almost like hiding under the covers.

Like, "Oh my God, I can't, like, I can't believe I just did that." And like having this, like, "Okay, I asked for it, but then actually maybe I asked for a nap, but now I'm going to actually go take the nap. Or I asked for a night out with the girls, or a night off from cooking or whatever it is." But then actually following through on it, like there's a different, there's a difference between expressing it and then actually allowing yourself to-

Mel: Yeah.

Annie: do the thing. What would you, how do you recommend women navigate that discomfort of actually taking action on their needs?

Mel: Right. I think that's a really wonderful and important question. So, again, the story that we tell ourselves about who we are and whether or not we're allowed to have needs and whether or not we're allowed to receive, not just give, but to truly receive. We get to change that story. And so if something feels, like, so uncomfortable, distressing, intolerable. I had a friend who, who could hardly lay on a massage table. She felt so guilty, right, for being there, right, for that whole hour. We have to change the story.

And so starting to soothe that discomfort, that shame, we want to expose it. Again, like Jen was saying earlier, asking ourselves, "What are the messages I have for myself about taking up space or having this need or receiving without always giving and how do I change that message?"

And so for me, in my own work and the work that I do with, you know, my clients, it really is continuing to deepen into the fact that I have nothing to prove. I have nothing to earn. I have nothing to lose, but I am allowed to be human, which means that I'm allowed to have needs and that's holy and it's good and that practice of receiving it and taking up space has everything to do with the story that I tell myself and then the behaviors that I practice. And so if we want to see the behaviors in our life change, we have to always be critical then of what is the story. Does that make sense?

Annie: Yeah, I'm just, like, in a trance that's, like I think I'm going to need to put that little clip right there on some sort of mantra meditation that I listen to every morning. Yeah, that's just, that's a really beautiful message and I really hope that your words and your stories and our stories give women permission that they're, you know, maybe needing to express their needs with whoever in their life.

Mel: I hope so too. I hope that this inspires people to take more risk and to lean into that discomfort and, to accept that disruption is a healthy, vital part of our growth. And like Jen and you and both spoken to, healthy relationships around us will adjust, they will adapt, they will want to affirm even in the discomfort of that new pattern. And it's part of what teaches us, again, who's healthy and safe around us because if people don't allow for that growth, like us being human, right? Like having needs. If there's not an allowance for that, then, again, that's an opportunity to to be critical or curious about the types of relationships and communities that we're part of. So yeah, I hope this does inspire people to be curious and self validating, take some more risk.

Annie: Absolutely. It's beautiful. It's really inspiring. It's very encouraging and optimistic. Very optimistic message too.

Mel: Yeah. Well, thanks for having me on.

Annie: Yeah. Thank you. Jen, anything to add before we wrap up?

Jen: I just, I actually was, Mel, as you were talking, I wanted to, just on a very practical, baseline level, how we kind of have figured this out in my marriage is that, I think in some marriages you get in these patterns of, like, give, like, a "me, me, me" or it can feel like that in some ways. Like it's this person or this person rather than this person and this person. And, we, in our marriage we had a real scarcity issue around time, energy, money, and once we've been able to just flip our mindset to one of abundance, I'm sorry if this is getting too woowee here for everybody to understand that everyone's needs can be met.

Jen: Like they can, we have the time, we have the energy and how we actually make that happen is we had a marriage counselor once that said, "Every family should have three things you need. You need time connecting with each other time connecting as a family and you need time connecting with yourself." And we now sit down with our calendars and as unsexy as this is, we schedule those in. Are we hitting those three things? And of course sometimes we go through seasons where it's more about the kids, like soccer season, for example, which is right now, but then we, we have to keep in mind too, we have to rotate priorities back to that balance of hitting those three things.

And sometimes a season of our life might be more about connecting with self or connecting as a couple. But, it's just keeping those three things in mind all the time and actually doing the unsexy things of sitting down for the calendar and making sure that's getting scheduled in. And once we started doing that, we saw there is time, we can meet everyone's needs. It doesn't have to be this tug of war. It doesn't have to feel that way.

And I think when partners initially approach that conversation, you know, based on different relationship patterns, they may have been in prior, it can feel like that. But I, you know, I think it's a family conversation and how, you know, how do we do this for everybody, right?

Mel: Well, I would agree there is a real practical element to this as well, in terms of, I don't know, I don't know anybody whose needs are met 100% of the time, right?Like I don't every day like feel 100%.

Jen: Right.

Mel: And that takes intentionality and ongoing curiosity or evaluation for me to know what needs to prioritize on my own. So for instance, I may have a need to hang out with my girlfriends, to get some exercise, right. To have some alone time, to, you know, like, to do a project and so I'm regularly assessing with the time that I have, with the resources that are available, what need do I prioritize and meet the most today or this week or this month. Right. And so there are seasons where my alone time is the most precious need for me to protect.

Mel: And so that may mean that I structure then my schedule around having alone time, which may mean that I exercise alone, right? Or that I, when I finally have time to go out, I go out alone versus other times where maybe I need to sleep more or I need time with my girls more, whatever it may be that that self awareness is key.

And again, we're often discouraged as my men to be that self aware because we're so focused on our children or our careers or the other relationships we have in our life. So learning how to prioritize, again, just practical, it's a habit. . Nut it will make women, I really believe that it's going to make one and less fatigued, less resentful, less discouraged, less alone when they're able to be curious and attend to the needs that they have. So it's worth it.

Jen: Yes, totally. It's worth it.

Annie: Alright, Mel. We're going to wrap up. But we'd love to have you back some time. I know that there's other topics you specialize on that I just, I would love to pick your brain on. And, think you're just such-

Jen: I think we've both tried to solicit you for therapy.

Mel: No comment.

Annie: This is how we get therapy, Jen. We just keep asking her on our podcast.

Jen: I remember, I asked, I told Annie one time, I asked Mel to be my online therapist.

Annie: I did too.

Jen: Yeah. And then Annie was like, I did too.

Mel: I had to turn you both down.

Annie: Well there should be. Yeah, there you were very ethical in it.

Mel: You guys are my friends, you know.

Annie: Yeah, you know, there's boundaries and ethics and you know, state laws that we tried to disregard, but you honored your boundaries and you're like, "No, you need to go talk to someone about this." And we both did and it's both been great. So thank you for pointing our heads in the right direction.

But, we would love to have you back, because I think there's even an element here about how, what you talked about earlier and how some of these needs can come out sideways, that I think we could dive in deeper and how this need for belonging and acceptance can come out as, you know, diet and exercise disordered behaviors even. So, thank you so much for your time. This was wonderful.

Jen: Thank you, Mel.

Annie: So great to talk to you. Alright, we'll talk soon.

Jen: Bye.

Annie: This episode is brought to you by the Balance365 program. If you're ready to say goodbye to quick fixes and false promises and yes to building healthy habits and a life year 100% in love with then checkout Balance365.co to learn more.