The Importance of Taking Care of Yourself, Your Health, and Your Own Happiness When You’re a Mom with Heather Chauvin

It’s a pleasure to have Heather Chauvin back for a second interview on Jump Start Your Joy. She is the podcaster behind “Mom is In Control,” and she has just released a brand new book, “Dying to be a Good Mother.” She has been a social worker, and is the mom of three boys. She had been much like many of us: juggling life, family, health and happiness, and in doing so putting her own well being last in many cases. Heather was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer just one year after the birth of her youngest son. Being diagnosed with cancer forced Heather to take a hard look at her own self care, and how to place a priority on her own health, happiness and wellbeing. In battling through chemo, illness, and recovery she realized it was time to start living, not just for her family but for herself.

Heather’s brand new book is so very timely because many of us have been challenged by parenting in new ways during the pandemic. Our intrapersonal relationships have become more narrowly focused on our immediate family (if we are sheltering in place with them), and it means that we need to look at things in new ways. In her book, Heather offers tools and ideas on how to create a happier and more joyful environment for yourself and your family. 

Finding joy in the messy middle

Heather and I talked about finding joy in the messy middle, and I loved how she reflected on two things that I know to be true for myself, as well:

1. Joy is a choice. You need to show up and do the work for joy to show up as well.

“You have to fight for your joy. I had to fight for my joy. It’s a daily choice. You need to choose what you truly want and desire. And even though you’re in the messy middle, and it feels terrifying and scared, right? You’re terrified and scared. 

What are you going to choose? Are you going to feel proud of yourself when you back out of this?  It is a conscious, intentional decision. You do not just wake up in the morning and say, “Oh, I’m motivated. Oh, I’m inspired. Oh, joy is here today.” You got to seek that shit out. And it is an active practice.”

2. Showing yourself grace in all situations softens the situation and makes it easier to feel joy. There’s no point in beating yourself up over things not going as planned.

3. Taking a mindful approach to when you’re noticing that you are in the messy middle, personally, can help you reset and return to more centered place. Heather shares about her green, yellow, and red zones and how they fit into understanding your emotions.

Resources

Heather Chauvin’s website

Heather’s free video training series

Dying to be a Good Mother by Heather Chauvin

The Practice: Shipping Creative Work by Seth Godin

Heather’s first interview on Jump Start Your Joy

Transcript

Paula:  Welcome to the show, Heather Chauvin.

Heather:  I’m so excited to be here. Thank you.

Paula:  It’s a real treat. You answered this last time, but I like to ask people what their earliest sparks of joy were. What do you think of when that phrase comes up for you?

Heather:  Honestly, I don’t even remember what I said if you did ask me this. The first sparks of joy, I don’t think of a joyful childhood or things that bring me joy. Maybe because it’s closer, but just actively seeking out joy as an adult now is like being able to sit and drink a cup of coffee while watching my kids play and being able to feel the joy and the gratitude. That to me is just absolutely priceless. I feel like my relationship with joy has definitely changed over the years.

Paula:  I think it’s interesting. I’m also a mother, I have a 10-year-old, and there is something there about learning to appreciate what is joyful now, but also how once you become a mother it does change how you even see your own childhood in a way.

Heather:  I think you just cracked open a whole can of worms for me, and I’ll just be thinking about this all day around the evolution of joy. It does shift after motherhood and being able to redefine it for yourself.

Paula:  I’m getting goosebumps. It ties in so beautifully with your journey as well, and that’s kind of what your book is about. Would you like to share a little bit about that with us?

Heather:  Seven years ago, I was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, it was a rapid Burkitt’s lymphoma, it was these tumors growing in my abdomen. I just thought I was swollen. I remember neglecting myself to the point where joy could not even seep into my bones, I wouldn’t even allow it anywhere near me because I had the belief that I had to suffer and things needed to be hard in order for me to be perceived as a good mother in the world.

I was still running my business. It was very child focused. I have a social background. The pain point that I was solving for parents was children’s behavior. They would come to me, we would talk about the behavior, dissect the behavior, give tools and strategies. I put everything into my clients, I put everything into my mothering, I put everything into everybody else, and literally inside my body was deteriorating. Until it just kind of stopped on me and I went to the hospital, and they diagnosed me almost immediately with cancer. We didn’t know what kind.

There was a weird moment where they said, “Heather, based on your CT and your bloodwork and your age, we know you have cancer, we just don’t know what kind.” My first thought or reaction was, “I already knew this. I already knew I was sick.” It was like my intuition was trying to get my energy and attention the whole time, and yet there I was not able to stop and listen and trust myself.

I operated from this place of go, go, go, more, more, more, achieve, achieve, achieve, and being the “smart, intellectual, intelligent woman,” all the things, I hired help, I hired mentorship, I read the books, I listened to the YouTube videos, I listened to the podcasts, and it was hard work, hard work, if you want something you have to go for it, wake up early, if you have work after the kids go to bed then do that. No one was teaching you can be the mother you want to be and you can also go after your dreams, you don’t need to shove the whole cookie in your mouth all at once, let’s take little tiny bites.

So, I stopped, and I completely realigned how I was showing up in every aspect of my life. I am way healthier, more successful, happier, in alignment, and content than I’ve ever been in my entire life.

Paula:  That’s so amazing. There are so many pieces there. One, the intuition and trusting yourself and knowing that you were sick.

I recall a moment back when my son was born where they wanted to do a procedure on him right after he was born, and he’s a newborn, and I was like, “No. That’s not what’s needed here.” It took a lot of strength to vocalize that and to say that out loud, because I was also just out of labor. How have you found that you can lean into trusting that intuition? I feel like that’s a muscle that maybe we don’t all trust, know about, or have been taught to question, or something.

Heather:  It’s almost like you go into this other realm. We’re limitless in our potential and our bodies are very wise. Our bodies and our minds, our souls and our spirits, whatever you want to call it, that part of yourself that you can’t explain is very wise. For some reason, we disconnect ourselves from energy and disconnect ourselves from that voice, that knowing.

We do the same thing for our bodies, “Didn’t have time to eat or drink water today,” and the body is like, “Oh my gosh. Why are you doing this again? Now I’m going to go into survival mode, I’m going to try to shut you down, I’m going to give you a cold so that you can take a break.” Then we think, “I’m sick. I’ll rest for two days. Okay, I’m good again.” The body is like, “She’s doing it again. Let’s give her another cold, let’s give her something else to get her attention.”

We also have to remember that we are powerful. We do need to remember that it is our birthright to feel good. We do need to remember these things.

I’ve been reflecting on this a lot as a white woman living in a privileged culture when I say I have a birthright to feel good. Here’s my take on it. I have the opportunity to feel good if I really try. It’s going to be gritty and I’m going to piss some people off, but I have the opportunity to do that.

When I step into that space of, “I deserve to feel good. I’m done with the suffering and bullshit,” what do I do? I have my little machete and I’m cutting down the tall grass, and I’m blazing a trail for the women behind me. I’m raising three boys, so I’m not raising the next generation of women, but I’m raising boys who will understand what an empowered woman looks like. Then I’m also leading the way for maybe women who do not have the same opportunity that I do. Whatever it from the abundance, excess, or impacts that I can make with my message, with the money that I make, with my time, with my energy, with my voice, I can make a ripple effect for other people who maybe do not have the same opportunity as me right now to feel good.

We have to really rise above and show up. It is actually an act of courage to say, “No thank you, I’m not going to do that.” Deep down, when we get quiet, there is this inner wisdom and knowing. We have just been taught not to listen to it. Apparently, it is a courageous act to say, “One moment, sir. Let me go back.”

When I was diagnosed with cancer, I had to be a health advocate for myself. Not only did I go, “You have cancer. Wow. You kind of secretly already knew that,” but when the doctors were like, “We’re going to do this, this, this,” I asked for a second opinion. I was misdiagnosed the first time. I received feedback from female family members that would say to me, “Do not question your doctor.” I would look at them and say, “Thank you for sharing. I’m going to do it anyway.” I got push back. I even got professional push back. And I believe it saved my life. You need to be able to say, “Thank you. I value your professional opinion. What about this?” It’s a collaboration. You’re co-creating constantly.

Paula:  That’s super powerful. For listeners, I recently had Dr. Aimee Eyvazzadeh on, who is a fertility expert. She talked about the same thing, that women often just know deep in their bones what’s going on. She asks people, “What do you think is going on? Let’s do this together.” I think what you just said is finding that doctor and finding someone who will do that co-creation with you of stepping into the space and listening completely to what you have to say can truly be life changing. That’s the most important relationship if you have a diagnosis.

Heather:  I had that on my team, because I took a very integrative approach. Part of it was I had to surrender to western medicine. I drank the online kool-aid and did the wellness-based green juice smoothies, yoga, you manifested this somehow, the shame and all of that. Then I’m like, okay, but you are also living in a crisis state, you didn’t do the due diligence of actively trying to be proactive and live in a healthier thriving state. So, guess what? You don’t really get to choose right now because you’re knocking on death’s door.

So, I did an integrative approach. I remember having this naturopath who specialized in oncology and we worked with the other team and all of that. Every time I’d walk into her office, it was a different energy. There was a space of hope and possibility, “What feels good to you? What is your capacity?” Kind of shifting the conversation.

When you do this with your children as well, you’re giving them their power back. That’s what this is about. You are wise, you know what you need, and how can we do this together. That’s how you make magic happen. You’re also taking a lot of the internal pressure off yourself of “I need to know everything.” It’s like, no, I’m willing to show up for you, we’ll figure this out together, but I don’t need to do the work for you necessarily.

Paula:  I love that you’ve tied those two things together. It’s like a relearning for both ourselves, as a mother or if someone is in healthcare and seeking health, or it’s also the same thing when we look at how we interact with children. It’s reteaching us to trust ourselves and it’s showing them that it’s okay, we don’t have to do it just one way.

Heather:  I also have real resistance to labels. I talk about this in our book, around labeling our children and also ourselves. It’s the “I am” statement. “I am a rebel, I don’t listen to anybody.” Great. But there’s a shadow side to that, too. If you’re trying to blaze your own path, you have to do that, but sometimes you’re getting so stuck in your own way and people are like, “I’m just going to sit over here waiting for you to show up. I can see where you’re getting stuck,” and you’re like, “Nope.”

I used to be that way and I had to surrender a little bit, because we have to keep the good, but we also have to be very mindful of the shadow sides. When it comes to parenting, I see a lot of times we’re seeking that diagnosis, we’re seeking that label. And what? What are you going to do after you get a diagnosis of what’s going on with your child’s behavior? Coming from the social work world, great, now you have a diagnosis, now you have a treatment plan, you can play the system, but your child still doesn’t know how to feel in control of their big emotions and you’re reacting. What are you going to do about that?

We talk about the zones, the red, green, yellow zones of regulation.

Paula:  Could you talk through what those are and how they play out in your life or how you use them?

Heather:  Yes. There is so much shame in motherhood, too, and judgment. What I’ve found is of course we are our own worst critics and the shame and the judgment is typically coming really strong from within, even though we may be judged or we are judged outwardly, too.

Even just reflecting on mistakes or when we do something that we’re not proud of, a simple, “I’m sorry. Let me try again,” can go a long way with our children. I cannot recall once my parents saying that to me. They came from a different time, “Do as I say, not as I do,” all of that, “I’m the authority,” or whatever. Everyone’s parenting is different.

When we explode or when we are yelling or when we’re doing these things, we are in our red zone. When we’re feeling great, we’re in our green zone. Then there’s this messy middle, which is called yellow. What I hear from people a lot is, “I go from green to red,” or, “My child goes from green to red.” The answer is, no, they don’t, there is a yellow, you just have to be mindful of it. I truly believe this is where self-awareness comes in, this is where living mindfully and intentionally and emotional intelligence starts to come in.

When I’m about to lose my mind and I can only talk about myself, sometimes my yellow zone is a few days. You’re starting to fall off the habits, you wait too long to eat, you’re procrastinating, you’re rushing out the door. You have to be mindful of these things, but also watching how your body is physically reacting. Sometimes you’re getting sweaty palms. Sometimes your stomach feels like the volcano is about to erupt. It’s been interesting to watch myself over the years of how I’m going to the next level, because what used to drive me insane with my children no longer triggers me at all.

Now it’s kind of a language that we use in our house where my husband will say, “I’m pretty close to red,” which means, “Don’t talk to me.” Or, I’m just having an off day, or I’m feeling good, or I’m kind of in the yellow zone. Your children will use that, too. My clients and even just people who listen to my podcast or have read the book will say things to me like, “It’s a communication now.” From small children who say, “Mom, I’m in my yellow zone,” or, “Mom, I’m in my red zone.”

People often are trying to solve problems in the red zone, which you can’t. If you’ve ever done this with a child or a partner and you’re like, “Let’s talk about money,” and the partner goes from green to red, that is your cue, “I see you’re not ready to have this conversation. We’ll try again tomorrow.” I’ve shown this to parents many times when they’re trying to communicate.

I always say you have to live in alignment with how you want to feel. If you want to feel connected to another human, you’re not going to argue with them. “Well, I don’t like confrontation.” I never have confrontation. I’ve had to have uncomfortable conversations, but I don’t wait until it has gone to the red zone. I’m like, “There’s something that needs to be talked about. Let’s talk about it today. This came up.” It’s in a gentle, loving way. There’s no stickiness about it.

But when you’ve waited too long, which is fine, we’ve all waited too long, and that person goes to the red zone, I just never try to solve problems in the red. I say, “Let’s have this conversation tomorrow.” Or if it’s a small child and you’re not talking to them about that, you’re not trying to teach them about tying their shoes when they’re in the middle of a tantrum.

We have to stick with it. I find we’re so reactionary as humans. Especially as women and moms, we’re not living proactive lives, we’re living reactive lives, and then we’re blaming our children for our red zones.

It’s a different lifestyle. My whole brand is built off of motherhood and I do not identify with the current motherhood culture at all. When I go to a child’s activity – pre-COVID when you could actually do that – and a woman is trying to connect with me, she has children and I have children, she’s like, “You must be so busy.” She’s trying to connect with me through exhaustion and red zone activities, “You must be so busy.” I’m like I can’t even connect with you on that level. There is another way, come over to my other side.

Paula:  Recognizing when someone else is trying to connect with you on calling it the red zone or anything that’s even controversial or that water cooler talk about how bad is it at this workplace, there is a mindful of redirecting that. I love that that’s not a place that you are wanting to connect with people and that you can mindfully then redirect, I’m imagining because I’ve had people say that, too, with a business and a kid and all of that, “Oh, you must be so busy.” They kind of want to hear the shock story of how bad it is or something. I’m like, “My life is very full.”

Heather:  Not busy. It’s full by choice.

Paula:  Yes. All of it by choice. That’s an interesting thing, too. I wonder if some folks aren’t really seeing where they’ve had a choice in all the decisions that have led them to, frankly, their own red zone. Right? Where is the accountability and ownership in what you’re doing and how you can bring back off of red?

I also see that the red, yellow, green is a really lovely way of naming things for a family, especially if people are still quarantining or in a space where things are hard right now. This is a nice of way of saying, “I’m in the red.” That doesn’t mean about you, the other person. It means that’s where I am, so I just need a little space.

Heather:  And let’s just be very transparent around all of the articles that I’m seeing about how unsustainable this pandemic has been for women, and working women, and mothers. People are like, “Oh, now more than ever women are extra stressed.” It’s like no, we’ve always been stressed, but now there is extra pressure, whether you’re corporate, business owners, whatever that looks like, if you are living in a state of survival mode.

There’s a little triangle that I talk about in the book, and it’s on my TEDx too; survival, momentum, thrival, and then this creative abundance state. If almost every aspect of your life – your money, your time, your energy, your health, your relationships, your work, your mentality – are living in a state of survival mode, you are always feeling like never enough. When a pandemic hits and you’re like, “crap, I lost my job,” or, “crap, I’m not getting clients,” what is your financial state, are you pulling your emergency fund out? No, because you don’t have one.

We realize how unsustainable our lives are. I’m going to be honest, because when this started I was actually very grateful for cancer, because it was a reminder to me that I’ve been here before. When COVID started and the pandemic was going down, I had a little bit of déjà vu of I’ve had this feeling before.

It’s been almost six years of getting my shit together, six years of looking at every area of my life that was no longer sustainable, trying to seal those energy leaks, and really giving myself permission to step into who do I want to be, how do I want to feel, what do I want my financial situation to look like, how do I want my business to be structured, how do I want to parent, what’s the connection that I want. Getting all of my ducks in a row and doing the work for six years, I could sit back as a breadwinner and say, “We’re okay. We’re going to be okay. Everything is figure-out-able, but we have also prepared for this.”

It was fascinating to see how unsustainable women are, one, being treated, and two, living their lives and not taking responsibility. I walk that fine line between saying not taking responsibility and those opportunities not being granted to them. I say to people what you do have control over, please try to control.

It’s going to make you incredibly uncomfortable to say, “Nope, I don’t have the capacity to do extra work just because you are uncomfortable.” We have to stop people-pleasing. We have to look at our fears and say, “I’m terrified I’m going to lose my job if I say no to this, but it’s not in my job description.”

Regardless of if you have children or not, you deserve to feel good. You do not need to overcompensate because you have nobody to go home to. You deserve to get a good night’s sleep. We have to really implement those boundaries and take a stand for how we want to feel.

Paula:  Yes. It’s interesting because we have parallels. Obviously, not exactly the same. I went through my own thing in 2010 where the birth of my son was way too long, and I was diagnosed with PTSD afterward. I feel like exactly what you said, in a very different way clearly, but that I had to figure all that stuff out. This, meaning the pandemic, probably has not been as hard for me in many ways because I already had, like you said, filled those gaps of where can I actually put my energy in a way that feels good.

I get to talk about joy every week, too, but how can we align our lives in a way that we’re not just giving away all of our energy, especially when we’re working the third or the fourth shift right now, whether that be at home and then as a breadwinner and as the person helping kids with their schoolwork and then doing homework. The whole thing is too much and it’s unsustainable, so we have to acknowledge that, but also ask others for help and let it not be acceptable that all the odd jobs and all the other weird little things that don’t get done in a home fall to us. Everybody lives here.

Heather:  Expectations. My husband works at home with me, within my company, and it’s been like that for a few years. He has the capacity to help the kids with the education. I always say what would I do if that was not available? I may have hired somebody or I may have said, “Guess what? You get a year off of education and we’re doing unschooling, no expectations,” or, we have the option to keep the kids home or send them in to school, “You have to go to school. I’m sorry. Mom has to work.”

Here’s the thing. There’s this perfectionism that comes out of I’m doing it wrong. My house is not perfectly clean, I just make sure it’s half decent behind what you can see right now.

Paula:  Hence my screen.

Heather:  Exactly. Rising the kids to show up. When you have a 16-year-old and they don’t know how to do laundry yet or make themselves a sandwich, I’m sorry buddy, you’re going to be really hungry. We want to raise calm, confident, independent children, and yet they don’t always know how to wipe their own ass because we are overcompensating.

Paula:  Very well stated. This is a great time for everyone to have that ability to say, “Why don’t you try this?” There are no rights and wrongs in how you make a peanut butter sandwich.

Heather:  And here we are overcompensating in the middle of a pandemic like the pandemic is our problem, meaning like we caused this. We didn’t cause it, but we’re going to take it all on. It’s like I didn’t do this. How about we just drop all of the balls and sit with our discomfort of why we picked them all up in the first place?

Paula:  That is so good. Yes.

Heather:  My children are loved and they are fed. I have literally said, “Do you feel loved today?” They are like, “Yes.” Okay. I didn’t yell. We’re good. You’re safe? Good.

Paula:  I love the idea of letting the balls drop and then maybe some of them didn’t ever need to be in the air anyway. There’s a whole bunch of stuff I’d bet we’re doing that if we just let it go everyone is still fine. I love that idea of what are the priorities for right now. I named them for myself, which is kindness, I want structure, and I want a little bit of cleanliness.

I love that you brought up the messy middle, because season six here on the podcast is all about how we find joy in the messy middle, which is where we’re at right now. I don’t know if you want to share some thoughts about that or in the space of the yellow zone. Maybe the better question here is even more contextual, which is how do we find our way back into green if we’ve been in yellow? I feel like that’s kind of a similar thing of where is joy, it’s probably more in the green zone.

Heather:  I agree with you that joy is in the green zone, but I almost feel like joy is the goal.

I was watching an interview the other day, and I’m paraphrasing here, but it was with Seth Godin about his new book, which I actually have right here, it’s called The Practice. He was explaining this metaphor. You’re on the national swim team and your coach is just drilling you, telling you your little flutter kicks suck and that you’re not good enough, you have to tweak here, do this, do this, and do this. So, you’re in the messy middle. You’re like, “Nothing is ever good enough for this coach. I hate this person. I’m done.”

You’re pushing yourself and you’re constantly one degree better and you’re like, “Yeah. Go. I’ve got it. Get that medal,” or whatever. Okay. You’re at a local public pool the next day. A child is drowning in the deep end. What do you do? You are going to jump in and probably save that child even quicker than any average person because of the training that you did in your swim team. You’re not sitting there doubting yourself, you just go into rescue mode and you make it happen.

That is what joy is for me. You have to fight for your joy. I had to fight for my joy. It’s a daily choice. Just this day, today, this morning, I decided I was going to be a hero and wake up at 5:00 in the morning. I did not wake up at 5:00 in the morning, I kept hitting snooze. I’m not perfect all the time, believe it or not. Then I wake up and I knew I had to work on this speech because at the end of the month I’m doing a speech competition. Today I was like, “Why did you do this, Heather? Why did you commit to this process? I’m out.” Then I’m like, “You can’t be out, because these people have already advertised and your face is all over the place. You have to do this, you have to show up.” I’m like, “I’m scared it’s not going to be good enough.”

As I’m sitting there in front of my computer pretending that I have writer’s block and I can’t do this and whatever, in my head I was like, “I’m done with your pity party. Show up. You need to choose what you truly want and desire. Even though you’re in the messy middle and it feels terrifying and you’re scared, what are you going to choose? Are you going to feel proud of yourself when you back out of this? No. So, show up.”

Then I said, “Okay, Heather, you’re going to put on the timer for 20 minutes. You have 20 minutes to pretend that you can do this.” And I showed up. Guess what? The floodgates opened and those 20 minutes were done.

I’m telling you right now, you have to choose. It is a moment conscious intentional decision. You do not just wake up in the morning and say, “I’m motived. I’m inspired. Joy is here today.” You have to seek that shit out and it is an active practice.

Paula:  I fully agree. Amen there. The cornerstone quote that has bubbled up, and actually that kind of sits at the base of the show, is all about joy being a choice and that we must keep choosing it, and it’s by Henri Nouwen.

I think it is so true. I love the idea of just saying, “I’m going to set this timer and for 20 minutes we’re going to pretend that is who we are and that we can do this.” Because it is a process. There have definitely been many things in the recent past, even today probably, that I don’t really want to do that, but I do really want to do that. I think sitting with that discomfort and making the choice that aligns with joy is the way out or is the way to find joy in the messy middle, for sure. Thank you.

Heather:  And then having grace with yourself when you don’t wake up at 5:00, you kind of broke that promise to yourself, I just find the recovery period is so much quicker when you’re like, “Okay, that didn’t happen today, but 10 years ago you would never catch me out of bed before Noon and I would have been lethargic all day and depressed,” and whatever or wherever you were. It’s looking at evidence of how you are actually progressing, because if you’re growing, it is not comfortable.

Paula:  Yes. Would you like to share how it is that you work with people, if somebody wants to find you? Also, of course, where can we find your amazing book?

Heather:  Yes. HeatherChauvin.com is where you’ll find everything, coaching and book.

I truly it’s about giving yourself permission to want what you want. Dying to Be a Good Mother is a prescriptive memoir, and what that means is it’s my story, and it’s not just my cancer story, I didn’t want it to be a cancer story, but it comes together about how we’re dying to be good in the world and how we can live to feel in alignment. There’s some strategy to take the next steps and to learn about how to manage your energy and not your time, like the zones that we talked about. I’m very active on Instagram as well, and on my podcast, Mom is in Control.

Paula:  I love it. I will link up to all of them. Thank you so much. Let’s close this out with the last question that I ask everyone. What are three ways that you can think of to jump start in your life, in the world, or in other people’s lives?

Heather:  Instead of telling people, “I don’t have time,” say, “I don’t have the capacity for that right now, but thank you.” Pen and paper, write down ‘wouldn’t it be nice,’ and then give yourself five minutes to just write down everything that your soul is craving. Number three, lock yourself in the car or the bathroom and buy yourself some headphones or ear plugs. Ear plugs are a secret parenting strategy to help you calm down your nervous system so that you can be more present and not so triggered, and just give yourself that silent space.

Paula:  I love it very much. I especially like that writing prompt. Thank you very much. Thanks so much for being on, Heather. It has been such a treat to get to catch up again.

Heather:  Thank you, Paula.

Paula:  Heather, thank you again so much for being on the show this week. Congratulations on your brand new book. If you want to find out more about this episode and some of the links of the things that Heather and I talked about, you can find the show notes over on the website at JumpStartYourJoy.com/episode281.

You can also find Heather on Instagram, where she is celebrating the launch of her new book. She does have a free training course, and the link to that is also in the episode notes. While you’re on the website, be sure and check out my book as well, all about finding joy in the messy middle. You’ll find that at JumpStartYourJoy.com, there’s a link right at the top of the website that says book, or you can look for it on Amazon.

For the next episode, I’m going to be doing a solocast. After that, there are several really amazing conversations lined up to share with you over the next couple of months.

I will be talking to Erica Courdae, a diversity, equity, and inclusion specialist.

I’ll also be talking to Lauren Artress, the founder of Veriditas, and she is the founder of the modern labyrinth movement. It was a real joy to get to speak to her about labyrinths and how she found her way to making that her life’s work.

I’m also going to be talking to Andrea Owen about her brand new book that is coming out as well.

Last but not least, I’ll be talking to Sonya Renee Taylor about the body is not an apology. It’s going to be so good. I hope you will come back for each and every one of those conversations. Until then, I hope that your day is filled with so much joy.