Danielle Gohr is the host of the Catch This Mama podcast. She learned to stop running and own her mom life. In this episode, she shares some of the lessons she's learned along the way. Show Notes: Chanelle: Hello and welcome to the moms who know podcast I’m you host and I’m joined today by Danie Gohr from the Catch This Mama podcast. It’s a great podcast. Danie is a lot of fun and brings a lot of energy and positivity to the show. I’m excited for this chat. To start off with, I love the name Catch This Mama. Can we start off there and tell us a little about your family and your backstory?   Danie: I’m a mom to 3 girls, married to a saint. I’m so blessed. I’ve had the opportunity to be home with them this past year. Life is wonderful but it wasn’t always wonderful. I lived with a lot of turmoil at a rough age. I thought my life was pretty great, on the outside I appeared to have it all together. I would have plan B before I really gave plan A a chance. The reality was I was a runner. If times got tough I would just run. Catch this mama is about how I need to stop running. I lost my job and had been sulking and my husband came in and said, “I’m proud of you regardless.” I was an emotional wreck. It was at that moment that I felt unlovable that I had to face it all. My parents were both addicts: alcohol and drugs. I never wanted to face that. I suffered from an eating disorder (orthorexia). I had that perfect mindset. I thought that even if I was feeling things that I would be using it as a crutch. I had been a runner until I couldn’t run anymore     Chanelle: there is so much in there I want to unpack. When you were in that phase of your life, would you identify with running from your reality? Did you know?   Danie: Id didn’t know. I pushed the feelings of what was really going on out of the way and not facing the obstacles.   Chanelle: it took that really hard time tot stop and assess your life. We just go, we just run without thinking of where we’re running to. It takes introspection to realize where you want to be headed.   Danie: When you fall, it helps to have someone. I had my husband there and he helped me understand that it didn’t define who I was. It makes me want to extend grace.   Chanelle: I think that’s a big reason why we go through things, so we can help other people who are going through those same things. Let’s talk about what you did to stop running. It’s one thing to realize what we’re doing, but getting over it and changing our thought patterns is a whole different story. How did you do it?   Danie: people always want change, but they don’t always want to change. It took a lot of research and studying. The idea of woundology: when we have experiences in our lives where things happen to us, it would be so easy, and what most people do is to blame external factors for your wounds and you’re never able to heal. At the point where you can say, it’s not everybody else, you say, What could I do differently? How could I approach this situation or do better? Not being the victim   Chanelle: that’s huge. I try to teach that to my children. You can only control yourselves, as moms we probably teach some version of that to our kids. And yet somehow, it’s easy to step into this victim role. This isn’t fair! But we don’t have control over that   Danie: that’s why I love reading these golden books, old books, as I read these with my children, I think I could apply this into my own life. It comes down to simple things, we make it too complex.   Chanelle: You are always learning! I think that is so key, if you always have your antennae up for learning experiences. There are so many ways to learn and to have new insights if we are open to it. I love it that you are learning from reading to your children. I’m not thinking that there’s a message in it for me when I’m reading a children’s book. I love it that you’re staying curious when you’re reading to your kids. That’s awesome!   Danie: I feel like, John Maxwell. I was listening to his conference, and he talked about how people start learning as they get older. You have to make that conscious effort to continue to learn and to be empathic toward others.   Chanelle: empathy is a huge part of it, as well as learning. One of the things that really stands out in your backstory is that you’ve had a lot of struggles. I’m curious to know how this has affected you and how you’ve seen personal growth through all this struggles.   Danie: I’d say at a young age, I never established a strong base of who I was. It wasn’t until later in life until I felt comfortable until I was comfortable in my own skin. I was kind of able to figure out what was important in life. I finally have figured out that as long as we’re able to struggle towards one another we’re going to be okay   Chanelle: I love that. that’s what builds a good marriage. Anything that you go through can bring you closer or further away. Not just from your spouse, but from yourself, who you really are. That struggle together can also be struggling together with God, if we’re doing our struggles the right way, it’s going to bring us close to our spouse, ourselves, and God. How have these struggles affected you as a mom?   Danie: I think that establishing keep crying out to know the will of god without realizing it’s knitted into the fabric of our being. Your experiences will shape who you are. If you can use your experiences to be of service to somebody else, you’ll always be ok.   Chanelle: What are you doing right now with your kids because of the experiences you’ve had. With young kids, how do your struggles influence your motherhood now?   Danie: with my 5 year old, she’s made comments. They know without knowing. What I’m trying to do right now is help her understand that her curly hair doesn’t define her. Help her to know that that’s not the most important thing.   Chanelle: I hear you really broadening her view. I think if we can help our kids understand and see that. One of the things I really admire about you is that you really wanted to be a stay at home mom, even though it took a while to get there. What did it feel like?   Danie: my mom was always a working mom. I always felt the tug, I never wanted to go work on Monday. It never got easier, I just got used to it. That transition was what I need to do, and it doesn’t; mean that I won’t go back, but for that season it was what made the most sense. In 2017 I quit everything so that I could make sure I did that gut check and have an intentional life. Let’s build on that after I’ve created a strong foundation.   Chanelle: my word was simplify. So I went through kind of a similar process, spending the time asking why I’m doing each thing. It’s so easy to get caught up in things that don’t matter. Tell us why you were interested in starting a podcast and some of the lessons   Danie: I’ve always casually blogged, but I saw this wave of podcasts. Moms are busy and podcasts are a way I was able to nourish my soul, so I knew that that was a route I wanted to go. I didn’t know what I was going to podcast about, I just had a feeling that this was where I was supposed to go. Once I launched it, it just kind of took off. I’ve grown from having my guests on; it’s been so eye opening. Having that insatiable thirst to keep learning is why I continue to keep doing it.     Chanelle: that is how I feel, totally. I felt like this is what I’m supposed to do. I want to make sure my listeners know that Danie has a great podcast you can go to for inspiration. She always ends her podcasts with a quote, so Danie, I’m going to put you on the spot and ask for your favorite quote.   Danie: “Just be still and know” I’m the person that needs to say hold on a second, slow down, be still and know, and that there is someone way bigger than me out there.   Chanelle: Danie, thank you so much for being on the show! Thank you everyone for listening to Moms Who Know!

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