Stress Management, Mindfulness, and Meditation with Josephine Atluri

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vandercamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hart Hunger. I'm a mother of three, a practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This is episode one hundred and fifty nine. Sarah and I will be interviewing Josephine at Laurie, who is a podcaster and writer and meditation teacher, and she talks about all sorts of wonderful things related to both her fertility, journey of becoming a mom of five, and how we can all keep ourselves calm and our stress under control in these difficult times. So, Sarah, how do you relieve stress these days? Well? I had all these answers, but your intro also reminded me that I feel like I should give a shout out to a book I just read okay, which was Carla Naumberg's How Not to Lose your We never curse on this podcast, so I'll just tell it out asterisk sahiit with your kids, so we'll keep this family friendly. By the way, did you all know in real life I curse a lot, but we'll jo on this but never do it on this podcast. Okay, So that tends to surprise people. And then anyway, I'm really digressing. It is such a good book and it is actually based on a lot of meditation techniques, including the very powerful technique of like noticing why you're doing something, kind of noticing your own reaction, noticing your own feelings, noticing what's going on around you. And it's fairly simplistic premise, but I actually found it incredibly powerful. So I am not saying that I am someone who loses it with my kids all the time. I feel like I probably do an average amount, but I still feel like her book really helped me to calm down in those situations where I might have chosen to yell or give out kind of a harsh ultimatum or something like that. So yeah, good recommendation. Then we should probably all check that out. There's a lot of read whatever the word is with our kids these days. Yeah, you had mentioned though, Josh giving you a night of right, like, Yes, that was amazing. I had to ask for it. You know, my husband is wonderful, but we have three kids and it's not always the easiest to put all three of them to bed, so neither of us typically wants to volunteer. But one night I just said, I cannot do this. I do not want to do this. Can you please just do it? I want to go in there. I want to go in our bedroom like lock the door and like finish binge reading Big Summer, which was great, by the way. And I did and it was great, I will admit. Genevieve then cried for me and I had to put her to bed, but it was it was actually up until that point, and that's a good level of minute exactly. It was actually really nice, and I will do it again. I don't know that I need like a specific like night every week. I know some people do that, but I do think that asking for it when I need it. He was completely fine with it, and then he asked for it. Actually over the weekend he had a headache and it was just like a cant and I was like, you know what, I feel like really good because you did this for me, and I'm happy to do this for you, and so I think we may do that a little bit more. Yeah, that's great. Now. I took a sort of evening, not so much a night off, but just I was having a really rough day. And then I, you know, we still had our sitter in after dinner for a little bit, and Michael was with Ruth at her softball game, and I said, you know, I really need to go for a run. I hadn't gotten one in and I was feeling rather flustered about a lot of stuff, and it was still ninety degrees. But I went on a trail run and it felt much better in the shade than it would have out on the street, and it was just what I needed. I came back in so much of a better mood than if I had spent that time trying to answer random emails, which I was going to do during an email triage time. As we discussed in the last episode, just recognizing that you're kind of going off the rails and having some sort of treat or coping mechanism that you have to get yourself back to a normal place instead of kind of wallowing in it, which is, you know, sometimes satisfying in its own twisted way, but probably not the healthiest thing long term. If I'm going to wallow in something, then I it's probably best for me to like journal about it, or like write out some words about it, or even like draw a diagram or something, because then I kind of get to enjoy the actual wallowing. But then I feel like the act of using my hands to do something prevents me from multitasking, and also just kind of, I don't know, it feels a little bit therapeutic. So that can be a way to acknowledge your crappy feelings but then also relieve them at the same time. One ideas well, well, there are more ideas, I'm sure f I'm Josephine in this segment to come Well, Sarah and I are delighted to welcome Josephine at Lori to the program. She is a podcaster, writer, meditation teacher, all sorts of wonderful things who's going to help us cope with our stress during this pandemic. So Josephine, thanks for coming on. Thank you so much for having me I'm so excited to have our conversation today. Yeah, So why don't you just quickly introduce yourself a little bit to our listeners. So I am a mother of five living out in Los Angeles and essentially I help people overcome adversity to find joy, and I do that through my meditation training, my infertility workshops, as well as my podcast, Responding to Life, where I chronicle my thirteen year journey creating my modern day family using non traditional methods of IVF, surrogacy, and international adoption. And so I took all those lessons learned and I'm trying to help other people who are in their journey to create their family wonderful. We're all about creating wonderful modern families on this podcast. So why don't we talk a little bit about that journey. And you always knew, I mean, going into this that it was going to require some extra steps, right, yes, So because of a pre existing condition on my husband's side, we knew right from the get go, and that's where we went to IVF. And you know, naively, we thought it would be an easier process because we started when I was much younger and I wasn't the one with the fertility issue at the time. Unfortunately that wasn't the case, and then life happened and we spent several years trying out IVF cycle after IVF cycle and them not working, and then several miscarriages. That made a shift into international adoption, which is actually how we started our family. So where did you wind up adopting the first set of children from? Then? We adopted from Kazakhstan, and we chose that program because it was much shorter relative to other programs that can take up to two to three years. And after doing multiple years of IVF, I just I didn't want to wait. I was so impatient to just start this family. And it was a shorter program, so, you know, because I think because it required us to live there for a month and that's pretty hard for people. So we were able to do that, and it was an interesting journey out there, I can imagine. So how many children did you wind up adopting then? Oh? Right, So our first son is the one that we adopted from Kazakhstan, and then I carried our next set of twins through IVF, and then our last set of twins a surrogate carried for us. And how did you go about making that decision? You know, so here you have three children and you're like, Okay, we want to make our family bigger and to go to the surrogac the option because we haven't really talked about that a whole lot on this program. So because of miscarriages that we had in the past, I lost twins at seventeen weeks and then that's why we pivoted to adoption, and then from adoption we thought, okay, let's give this one more try, and then I carried the twins, but it took a lot of doing it. Like I had to have the surgery to tie up my cervix, I had to be on bed rest, and it just wasn't feasible. And actually, through that IVF cycle, we were able to harvest so many embryos, so many good looking ones, and sitting on them really was so painful because after you've done this process, you've literally put blood, sweat, and tears into creating these embryos, and just having them sit there. Every year we get a reminder we wanted that big family, but I couldn't carry them. So it wasn't feasible to do surrogacy right away. It's just super expensive. Out of the three options, doing that one is the most expensive. And fortunately, after a couple of years, which is why there's a little bit of a gap between our last set and the middle set, we were able to entertain the idea and even though we could do it financially, we wanted to do it. It It was still like mentally getting over that hump of asking a stranger to help us on this process was really tough for me. So how did you wind up doing it? Did you go through an agency or it was somebody local? I mean, how does that work practically? Like, if you decide, okay, this is something I would like to look into, what are the steps you then go through? Well, there are fortunately many agencies now and the way we vetted an agency was through our infertility department. Like the group that we used for we knew we were going to use them again. They were the ones who helped us conceive our middle set of twins, and so we asked them like, have you worked with any agencies? Can you recommend them? Because I really wanted to take as much of the guest work out of process in terms of how facility knows how to work with an agency. You know, have they done that before? So we wanted someone that they've already used in the past, and they were able to recommend a great company to us. And so did they match you up with a woman who was nearby or for a way? I mean, I'm curious, like, were you able to be part of the pregnancy, like, I mean, how what was the what is that part? Like? So it's similar to adoption in that you get a like you get a dosier of the person that you're looking to pair up with, and in this case, it's the surrogate. And so you go through and there are a bunch of questions that you know, you can get a sense of what a person is like. It was kind of like reading college essays and so, you know, we found several people to interview and through that process we finally matched up with an amazing woman and we were so lucky to partner with her. And what was interesting, perhaps the most interesting part of this process, was that I learned what it felt like to be my husband in this whole process because I was just standing on the sidelines. I wanted to do so much and I wanted to be a part of the process, but there was only so much that I could do, only so much support that I could offer. I just had to watch from the sidelines. And that for me, being someone who's very you know I called myself before. I don't use labels anymore, but a control freak and just wanting to just be able to do everything for myself, it was super tough to just be be there on the side and watching it happen. It was different from adoption because that already happened, like our child was already born. I didn't have to sort of wait for that that you know, we just got a call and Okay, it's time to go. But here I had to hear about every little thing that you know, that I wasn't able to be a part of physically, and so that was mentally tough for sure. But then it all worked out. You gots are good. You gots a twins. You got a little naughty set of four year old twins. I was just gonna ask, how old are all your children now? Yep, So our son who we adopted is now thirteen, and then our middle set, the one that carried their eleven, and then we have the four year old twin boys who are quite a pair, which let's pivot from there to you now have this lovely set of five children that have come to you in all sorts of ways, and you are now at home with them twenty four to seven, like the rest of us are. How have you been surviving the past few months? Has that been a challenging that's a good word for it. Yes, it has been really tough. I have to give my kids credit, all of them, for being so adaptable and just being so cooperative and helpful. I mean, let's I'm not going to sugarcoat it. There are definitely days when I'm you know, I'm in my bathroom crying, and then days when I'm feeling like I can just take on everything. I can bake that bread with my daughter, I can do crafts here, I can deal with my thirteen year old who's trying to do TikTok videos and my living or I mean, you know, you have ups and downs. But the benefit for me is that I've always been able to fall back on this meditation practice that I have, and so I like it myself too. The eye of a storm where everything around me is chaotic and swirling around, but in the middle there I am just trying to maintain calm just for myself, but also seeping that out into the children because they see, you know, how I'm handling things, and it's a model for them. Sorry, we are overdue for a quick break and then we will find out. Okay, we're back. I'm very curious, you know, going through the fertility struggles that you did, and I can imagine it must have been incredibly difficult. Is that when you sort of found meditation and mindfulness or how did you end up getting started with your practice and what did that journey look like for you. It's funny I'd never had I wish I had the benefit of meditation during this IVF process, during my fertility journey, but I didn't, And which is why I'm so passionate about helping other men and women right now during their journey and incorporating meditation and mindfulness into this practice because it's such it's such a good and helpful thing to having your toolkit. But so in terms of myself, you know, I got started on it because of a friend who you know. We were just talking and she said, you really should try it. I think you would really benefit from it. And I kept saying, which is what I hear from men of my new clients. No, you know what, I can't. I'm so type A. I cannot turn my mind off. I have like a million things going on in this head. There's absolutely no way I'll be able to meditate. And you know, she kept pushing. I finally tried an app many years back, and I was you know, it was great because I was able to try it out in a little baby steps, which is now how I teach it to other people. You know, meditation doesn't have to be this big thing where you turn off your mind, like I thought myself, and it doesn't have to be super long. It can be a matter of two minutes and just sitting there trying to practice breathing or using a mantra. And so that's how I got started, just this app. And then I started to see the benefits in my own life and I just had to get more. And that's when I, you know, entered into a teacher training program and then from there I started teaching meditation. And then I you know, I thought back on my life and that journey, and that's when I coupled the two together because I thought I really did wish I had this back then and being able to remain calm during your journey of trying to conceive and also during pregnancy can be so helpful. And then transitioning that into using that same idea in your motherhood as you're raising your children. You can always use that ability to tap into your intercom in all parts of that journey of yours. I think that, well, I'm very curious. I want to hear kind of how you do your work with clients, but I also just wanted to comment and hear if you had any notes on this. That we tend to need meditation and mindfulness the most when it's hardest to access in a way, you know, when you're kind of in the thick of things going on, and fertility is like, yeah, the ultimate like you cannot You feel like, Ei, there's a storm and you can't control any of it, and it seems like, you know, that's the last time that you want to go down that path, right because you're sort of too mired up in what's going on to think that that could possibly be helpful. But then at the same time that tends to be for some people when it can be the most beneficial, is that something you've seen or teach or yeah, absolutely so you can also liken it to the pandemic. Right, we're in the thick of things and everything is just so out of our control there it feels like nothing that we can do to sort of get us out of it. There's all that uncertainty, and it feels tough to think about trying something new, like trying out meditation when you don't know how. And but the benefit is is if you just sit there for a minute, you can instantly feel the difference. You're sitting here and you're doing a breathing technique. Say you're just breathing in slowly, counting for four seconds, holding your breath for four seconds, breathing out for four seconds, and holding your breath for four seconds. You'll notice, in just one cycle, how much better you feel because you weren't able to think about all of those other scary things, all of those other things you couldn't control, because you're focused on that breathing pattern. And imagine then if you're able to carry that on much further for a few more minutes, a few more cycles, and imagining how much more relieved you'll feel, how much more space you'll feel, how much less stress you'll feel. And so even though it can seem daunting to try and add something new into your toolkit, your self care toolkit, it really just takes a minute to see how that will benefit you. So give it a shot, just like you would try anything new. If you're trying to add onto your self care regiment like a new facial mask, right, you have to give it a shot and see. And this can be as something as short as just a couple of minutes. So you work with clients now and you've actually built a business around this, including a podcast talking about some of these topics, but also working with individuals. What does it look like to do that? Like what does your are they group coaching sessions or how would someone work with you and what would that be like? Before all this, I was working at various studios and teaching classes in that way, and then I am also doing corporate sessions. So you know, my background is in management consulting way back in a former life, and so I knew very well the stress of working in a corporate environment and I thought I could definitely add some value in that regard in terms of not just showing meditation techniques but also showing them how they can utilize it as stress management tools outside of meditation, which is what's so great about meditation. You can take little pieces of it and utilize it throughout your day, whether you're at work or you're at home, and something like like we just did a breathing technique or doing a body scan or doing gratitudes. Those are all little pieces of meditation that you can just use throughout your day. And so that's what I would teach with corporate sessions, which I still do. Everything now is on Zoom and I'm able to teach classes that way, and then privately, I also do regular meditations or else now fertility specific ones, and those are tailored to you know, I speak to a client about where they at, where they are at in their journey, and then you know what their end goal is for how they want to feel during the meditation, and then we go through a private session that way, and I also offer them a recording that they can a personalized one that they can have with them on their phone. So when they're sitting during all these I remember sitting at all these appointments in the waiting room or you're just waiting for that ultrasound, you're lying in that bed. You want to hear someone's someone cheering you on, someone other than that voice in your head, which sometimes the voice in your head can be very negative, but someone cheering you on and offering you some port and encouragement. And that's what that personalized recording is because I thought I could have used that when I was doing this whole thing, especially now that they're limiting the number of people that can go with you to these appointments, so you don't have that so that you're in on your spouse necessarily with you holding your hand and wishing you luck and just offering you that shoulder. So that's why that recording came about. But there are various ways to do it, but pretty much virtual, which is great because now I can reach a lot more people. That's beautiful. I can imagine that in that position, it's very comforting and helpful to those people, So that's great. I have a maybe a personal questions, So do you have any exercises that are particularly helpful in a chaotic period at home with your kids, anything that calms everybody down or at least helps you calm down in the midst of chaos. So I like shifting our mindset using positivity techniques. And I used to do it before. I used to do it at bedtime with my older kids, and I will ask them what they're grateful for at the end of the day, and I'll also ask for their affirmation. And this was in part because of my older child, you know, he was not feeling so confident about himself, and we began to incorporate affirmations and then I trickled it down to the other kids, so they will all share something they're grateful for and then an affirmation of say, I am I am good at basketball and I so something that they're good at, but then also something you know, more deeper, so saying I am I am kind or I am courageous. And so that's become a routine that we have had at bedtime or else. Now at dinner time, I thought, you know, let's just do that around the table. And it was funny because I asked yesterday my four year old, I'm trying to get them to share their gratitude to see if you know, they can kind of grasp it. And I asked one of them, you know, what are you grateful for today? What are you happy about? This is how I pose it. And he said, I didn't have fun swimming today. And I said, well, we have to shift it to being positive. And he said, I am positive that I did not have fun swimming today. He's got you there. I have to say, he followed the rules. Funny, yeah, but you know that's that's how you know there's all this stuff happening, And especially with the older kids, I know that they know what's going on and in order to shift back into something that we can control. It's our mindset, our breath. And I'm teaching them that, you know, we even despite everything that's happening. You can't go to school, you can't play with your friends, we can't go here and there, we can still be thankful for something. There is always still something to be positive about and to you know, to recognize and that that instantly shifts your mindset towards this path of positivity versus going down that negative road. So that's what we practice at home. I love that. Yes, well, I was just going to ask. So our listeners have made it loud and clear that they love hearing a brief day in the life fronts, so we can just hear how you fit work and life together, and you can give us routines that are built into the day, but just kind of go through a day for us. Can I kind of make it like a week because it won't it won't be super long, just in that you know, there are three days in the week when I finally ask my babysitter to come back. So that's how I kind of manage things in that I know that there are three days in that week where I'll be able to just focus on getting work done because on those other three days, then I can focus on the kiddos because my husband's working from home, and you know, we don't have help. So in the on the days where it's just me and my husband, if there's something that is happening, for example, this interview, we will make sure to tag team out. You know, I'm really lucky to have a partner that's supportive of my work, and we're supportive of each other. So we just make sure that our calendar is aligned and we tag team out. And the older kids are at a point where they can also help out with the little ones, so I'll pull in a favor and like right now, my daughter's watching the kiddos. So in terms of just a regular day. You know, I wake up and I'll do a morning meditation. You know, I do them at the book ends of my day. If you meditate a couple of minutes when you first wake up, you're kind of setting the tone for your day into how you want it to flow. You're setting an attention for how you want it to be. And then I corral the kiddo's and we get you know, breakfast done. Right now there's there is in school and they're all done with their virtual summer camps. So now it's kind of a free for all, and I'm not really pushing anyone, but I'm really more focused on the little kids. So I'll alternate between doing a craft, doing a puzzle with them, and then being okay that they're going to watch TV while I hop on my computer and do catch up on all the emails that I have to and not beat myself up. We are on screen time here. That's no judgment coming from any of them. Well, you know, you had to. That was one of the lessons learned of this pandemic. You just have to learn to let some things go, which actually has been one of the life lessons that I've learned throughout this whole journey was this idea of letting go of control, and you know, we're all learning it during this pandemic. Things are definitely not the way they were before all of this, and it's okay. You know, I've learned that it's okay if the house is a total mess, nobody's coming over. So you know, then that's pretty much how it happens. Like I'm alternating between myself watching the kiddos, my husband or else screen time watching the kiddos and doing squeezing in work, and then then we have family dinner, and then while my husband is putting the kids to sleep, that's when I squeeze in my evening meditation. So, like I said, bookends, you know, you're transitioning from one part of your day into the next part, and you always need something to help you you shift into that next phase. And it helps sort of, you know, meditation helps to clean the slate, which is why it's great to use and clutch moments when you're feeling overwhelmed, because it's like hitting that reset button. And so that's what you're doing with this evening meditation. You're resetting to a new mindset. And then in the evening, it's time to hang out with the older kids because I really didn't have time during the day, and we usually are watching a movie. I feel like we've watched every movie that exists, and we've gotten really creative. With board games. There are a bunch that you can do virtually that make it more interesting, like we played Clue like the actual board game, but it's also fun to do it on the little device app. And then and then I put everyone to sleep, I ask for the gratitude affirmations, and then I'm usually the last one to go to sleep because I try to squeeze in just a little bit more work before I go to sleep, because I love it when the house is quiet. So that's that's the only time that happens. Because I'm not a morning person, I will not wake up earlier than I really need to, but I will stay up in order to get a few more things done. But I have been working on my sleep, trying to make sure that I get at least seven just it's always good. Sleep is good, sleep is own, part seven is good, sleep is good, and seven is a good good well, so we always end with our love of the week. We can go first, so you can think about it if you would, like Sarah, you have your setup, right, yeah, right, She's always a good one on this, Yes, well mine this time is just that I've been doing since the pandemic started a little bit more tracking of habits because I think there's something about our monotony that you kind of get lost or like what day is it. So I've been doing a monthly habit tracker with these cute little dots to like show what I'm doing. And as we're recording this, we're near the end of July and I'm just like, really, of course, not every day is filled in, and that's okay, but it's just been a fun ritual and I think I'll probably make a new one for August. So monthly fin is something. So I have a little boy who sounds something like your twin boys, Josephine the high energy very you know, go go go. He's on a lot of camp YouTube this summer because it's the one thing that will keep him entertained, like sitting there watching YouTube videos. I'm saying camp YouTube ironically, And the other day, you know, he started to communicate a little bit more by drawing things and so the other day he was forced off the computer and he drew a picture of a broken heart because he had been forced off the computer. And then, you know, we talked about various things and you know, played, and then he came back with this, which is the heart mended together. I'm showing you guys the picture, so you know, sometimes when we can't talk about things, we can draw about them. And so I'm enjoying the drawings about our mental emotion state. Oh I love that. I love little kid drawings. That's that's so sweet. And I like how you mended it back together together lesson right there. Yeah, absolutely well, I love doing this and sharing you know, our love of the week. That's so great. Mine would be I have on Saturday my very first fertility workshop, a fertility mindfulness one, and I'm super pumped about it. You know, we're going to go over the basics of using mindfulness and meditation and how to incorporate it into your fertility journey. And I'm just really excited to be able to connect with women and you know, offer them some guidance on how they can use this to help them get through all the ups and downs of of look can be a really tomorrow, Justine, this is great. Why don't you tell our listeners how they can find you so if they're interested in your offerings. Your workshops were recorded, you know, meditation sessions. How how can our listeners find you? My website is j A T. L u r I j at luriy dot com and on there you'll see some free video meditations that you can try. My episodes of Responding to Life podcast are also on there, and you can hear in further detail about my thirteen year journey trying to create my family. And there are also a bunch of articles on you know, apps that you can use for meditation and different techniques that you can use for breathing. And also on there you'll find a sign up for a free meditation that I do every Wednesday at one thirty pm PST. I'm doing it until the end of August, so be sure to check that out and it teaches you in just fifteen minutes a new way for meditating, especially if you've never tried. So that's great. And on Instagram you can find me at Josephine r at luri wonderful. Well, thank you so much for joining us as Josephine, we really appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. This is so much fun. Thank you. Have a wonderful day. All right, well, we are back with a question that's sort of about stress. I know a lot of people are experiencing a lot of different forms of stress over the past few months. This listener writes how she can stay motivated at work during this time. She's a senior director of marketing and she has three kids, nine, six, and two. She's always been very ambitious, but has felt unmotivated over the past couple of months as she's been working from home since mid March. Like most people, she says she's enjoying this time at home and the flexibility she has and when she has meeting free time, which is she's usually about four to six hours of meetings a day, so the other maybe two to four hours that she would have normally been working. She says, I want to hang out with my kids, get stuff done around the house, or something else I enjoy, like working out, reading or going for a walk. I do not feel like doing anything proactive for work during this time, such as working ahead of O in projects or networking. I keep going back and forth thinking maybe I should just give myself a break. But you know that's is that fine in a long career or what is this feeling? This current state does last for a long time. She says, I'm the main breadwinner, so i cannot lose my job. I'm not worried about that currently, but what about in six months? So do we have any tips on how to think about this challenge. I can't be the only one feeling this way. What do you think, Sarah? Yeah, well, I mean my first instinct is you absolutely should be allowed to give yourself a break during this time. And I'm sure you are not the only one giving yourself a break during this time. You've also been at your company. It sounds like, well, at least you've risen to a pretty high position. So the idea that in six months you're going to lose your job from not doing like the extra stuff you used to do before seems unlikely to me. I mean, if you're even worried about that at all, you could always check in with some you know, one of your superiors and just ask how they feel like you're doing. And you may feel very much like, oh, they feel like I'm doing great under the circumstances. And I think personally that it's okay to, you know, do a find job at your real job as long as you're getting what's expected of you done and put your passion elsewhere, especially at this time, as long as you're meeting expectations. So maybe your passion projects will be job aligned, Like maybe you'll decide, oh, I want to start like a women's online support group, or you know, I just made that up, but like something sort of tangential to like your actual like making widgets part of your job. Or maybe you will find some other passion project, like you know, a podcast or a new hobby, or just becoming closer with your family. If that's how you want to spend your time, that's okay too. So I I just mostly want to give you a hug and say I think you're probably doing Yeah. I think if she also puts that energy into sort of other things for six months, she may find herself quite renewed at the end of it. I mean she's worried. She's saying, you know, I could do this for six months, but what happens at the end of it. I don't think you're suddenly going to discover that you want to, you know, spend your life decorating your house like this is not You didn't become the director of marketing at a huge company by feeling that way, and I don't think that's suddenly going to come up for you. But you know, if you are feeling like there's a lot going on right now, you just want to sort of let it go for a little bit. You'll probably come back to your work in six months with a fresh sense of ideas that have been honed as you've been you know, installing the new paint job in your house and it'll feel great. So yeah, I'm not so worried about it either. We all go through these dips and we come back. Sometimes you just need to let go for a little bit and not worry about it, and then you find yourself on fire afterwards. Well, this has been best of both worlds. We've been talking about talking about dealing with stress and meditation and other such great topics. We'll be back next week with more on making work and life fit together. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.