Miranda: Hey there, friends. Welcome back to the show. You’re listening to Practically Happy Podcast. I’m your host, Miranda Anderson, and this is episode number 294. Today, we are in the middle of the Pass the Mic Summer Series. I’m so excited to introduce you to another amazing guest and friend of mine, Rachel Nielsen.

If you like listening to podcasts and you’re a mom, then you probably already know Rachel Nelson. She is the podcast host behind 3 in 30 Takeaways for Moms. This is a top motherhood podcast and she’s such a wonderful teacher.

 Let me give you a little bit of an overview.

Rachel is a mom of three. She lives in a tiny, beautiful town in central Idaho. Rachel’s one of the most open hearted, kind, and genuine people that I know. She loves to go deep and jump right in. And you’ll notice this if you listen to her show, 3 in 30 Takeaways for Moms.

She wants to give practical, applicable advice to moms going through lots of different things, some hard things. And the way that she approaches each of these subjects and different topics is with sensitivity and openness and kindness. Rachel is also the creator of the Flux of Gold journal, which is a beautiful three-year journal where you can record tiny highlights of each day in your life as a parent.

She also is the host of Self-Assured Motherhood, which is a program for moms who are feeling overwhelmed or burned out with motherhood. And she’ll share a little bit more about that in this episode, which is all about.

Being self-assured as a mom, even though today’s episode is about being a self-assured mom, it’s principles and values will be applicable to finding some self-assurance in any area of your life, whether it’s motherhood or whether it’s your career, whether it’s your relationship, you can use these same tips and apply them broadly, even though what we’re talking about today is specific to motherhood.

I hope that you enjoyed this episode and getting to know Rachel. Let’s get into it.

Hey there, Rachel. I’m so happy to have you here on this Pass the Mic series of Practically Happy.

Rachel: Oh, I’m doing so well. So here I am.

Miranda: You are the best, and I’m so excited for you to share some thoughts about what it is to be a self-assured mom.

What that even means and how you think people can foster that, as they are going through their journey and different seasons of motherhood.

Rachel: Yeah. So, this is the name of my nine-month long program for women. And I, worked on naming this for a long time and thought of a bunch of different iterations and what is it that I want to help women foster?

Naming is hard and I finally landed on this self-assured motherhood, and I really loved that. Title. I looked up the meaning of the words, of the roots of the words and the French word assurer, which I’m sure I’m pronouncing wrong. it means to reassure, calm, or protect, and I just thought how powerful that would be if we could all become women who can reassure, calm, and protect ourselves within our motherhood,

Hold on to ourselves within our motherhood. That way we can be this sturdy, settled, anchored place for our children. So many of us, I feel like, feel a little bit lost within motherhood. Especially early on. I felt that. Like I didn’t know who I was anymore. I felt unsettled. I felt a lot of mom guilt.

And just learning how to become self-assured. Somebody that was able to reassure, calm, and protect myself within this role has been life changing for me.

Miranda: I think that I understood my role as a mom as being very child focused when I began my motherhood, my motherhood process and even family planning.

And it was so much about what I must give and how I will protect and teach and care for and discipline and all these things outwardly to my children. And I think in the last few years, certainly I’ve learned That so much of mothering is me maintaining my own ability to manage my emotions, manage my expectations, parent myself in raising my tolerance of normal developmental behaviors and like not shifting and changing what my kids do, but shifting and changing myself so that I can be, like you said, that sturdy, open, loving place for my kids, however they show up.

To. Come and feel like they’re whole and welcomed and loved unconditionally.

Rachel: Yeah, I absolutely agree. I remember Brooke Snow did a podcast years ago, on being self-centered and how that was a good thing. We flipped that on his head, but just said, when you are centered, when you’re truly centered, you can give so much more of yourself and so much better, when you have that grounded feeling.

And so, I thought about Self-centered motherhood. I didn’t think that would really fly, bro. Doesn’t really sell

Miranda: the program.

Rachel: myself centered motherhood program? Exactly. But in some ways, that’s what it means. It’s not self-centered in a bad way. It’s self-centered in that you are extremely anchored in who you are.

You know who you are. You know the value. That you bring to others, to your children, to the world, and then you’re so much more settled, and you can be sturdy for them, and you can tolerate so much more, like you just mentioned, Miranda, because their behaviors don’t, you no longer see them as a reflection on your own worth, and so you can just be so much more.

Steadier for them through those behaviors, because you’re showing up for them instead of selfishly for yourself. So, in a way you become less self-centered in the bad way of self-centered you become less selfish the more Self-assured you become because you’re not thinking about Oh, what are my, how are my kids making me look?

Or what does this mean about my parenting that they’re acting this way? Because you already know that you’re good. You already know that you’re a good mom and a good person, and that’s how you’re showing up in those relationships. Absolutely.

Miranda: And know that you’re good without having to have good mean perfect.

I, laugh sometimes when my kids tell me that I’m not doing a very good job as a mom, that I wholeheartedly agree. I’ll say, oh, you are right. I’m never a perfect mom. I’m not, I’m not even that good sometimes, but that’s okay because I’m trying my best and I love you so much, like it’s, it, when you take the load off, even of what good looks like that good can be.

your best even if your best is 50 percent because you’re tired and you’re hungry and you’re sore and you’re also human and I think just like that the allowance for humanness within relationships is Really important. So important. Absolutely. So how do you help what would you tell someone who’s I don’t even know what that looks like.

How would I begin finding who I am within my motherhood or what is self-assured in my motherhood look like right now if they’re not feeling it, if they’re feeling like they’re doing a lot of struggling with parenting or they’re not really loving being a mom or feeling like they’re not doing as good of a job as they wish they would.

Rachel: Yeah, it does seem like a nebulous concept to think I want to be more self-assured, but how? How do I even start on that process? And I’ve really broken it down into nine principles of self-assured motherhood in my program, but the very first one is That I would offer to all your listeners today is voice your values.

That’s the first thing we do in my program. because if you can articulate what matters most to you uniquely and start to build your life around and make decisions around those values, you just feel so much more strengthened. And so much more of a sense of who you are going forward and like working through these other eight principles.

I feel like it’s the most. transformative principle that I can teach women is, what matters most to you? And so again, that can sound kind of nebulous. It’s you can look up a list of a hundred values, like Brené Brown’s 100 values. And at first, when you look at it, it’s a little bit overwhelming cause you’re like all this matters.

Honesty, service, connection, adventure, thrift, faith. Like it all matters. And I really must push women and say, yeah, it all matters, but not all of it matters equally to you. And if you can get honest with yourself and say those things don’t matter as much to me as these other things.

Maybe I’ve always thought that thrift should matter a lot to me, but it really doesn’t. And what does is creativity. That’s the thing that lights me up or what does is service. That’s another one that you might think I should really value service, but deep down, I know that I do not love it as much as I love adventure.

And so, you stop. Shooting on yourself in a way like I should want this and that and you just start to own what you actually do Love and want in your life And that’s when you can really start making decisions for your family life for the activities you sign your kids up for and you let Go of some of the guilt around the things that you actually don’t value as much as other Aspects of living and it’s okay

Miranda: Yeah, absolutely.

I love the idea of values and values alignment. In fact, it’s one of the first things that I do with all my one-on-one coaching clients as well as like, how do you feel about, do you feel like you have a pretty good grasp on what matters most to you and could you articulate that?

And if not, then I run them through a values exercise, which is so enlightening for people because, a lot of times I think we know. What we care about, but we haven’t. How many of you have taken the time to specifically look through what are my options and what does a value even mean, and how do I make decisions based on it?

The other thing that happens is that you can get really clear on the things that you think matter to you, but you don’t know how to then make decisions from that place, or how to use that to, Move forward. So once women have an idea of what some of their values are, how does that inform how they show up as moms?

Rachel: Yeah, so if you realize that one of your core values is adventure and so Let’s say you’re a stay-at-home mom and you realize I really value adventure but we’re not getting much of that in our day-to-day life. So, it’s no wonder that I’m feeling Unfulfilled and snappy and not like myself. And so, I’m going to start planning a weekly adventure That just sounds fun for me.

And I’m going to bring my kids along and I’m accepting the fact that there’s going to be pushback. There’s going to be tantrums. kids will be kids, but we’re going to be filling my adventure bucket. I’m starting to build a motherhood that fits me.

That makes me feel like me. One of my top values is contribution. when I was a stay-at-home mom to two littles, I knew, I’d been taught my whole life that this was the most important thing I could be doing, and I knew that I was contributing and that, I was loving these little kids.

Beautiful souls. And that did feel meaningful to me, but I felt so lost because I didn’t feel a sense of contribution outside of myself or outside of my home. once I figured out that’s what was missing for me, I started to volunteer with an organization called power of moms, that did, education for mothers I started volunteering editing their Website and it just filled me up so much that it blessed my motherhood as a result once you get a handle on your values, you can ask yourself how much of my time Day to day or week to week is actually worth Spent on activities that match these values because if it’s not much, no wonder I feel unfulfilled or I don’t feel like myself.

And so, it just gives you a more concrete way to figure out why you’re feeling a bit lost in your role.

Miranda: I think that’s an interesting example of like feeling more whole in your motherhood when you found something that mattered to you outside of your kids. That feels paradoxical, I think, for a lot of moms, particularly young moms who still, to do really anything for themselves, need either the help of their partner or some additional childcare.

And, again, a lot of the kind of work that I have done with women one on one is helping them realize and reclaim their ability to be whole people even within their role of moms. And sometimes that means like your example of being adventurous, that’s, one of my core values has been my whole life.

I love travel. I love going on adventures. I love going on little experiences. Around town even or a little weekend trip. And I have two kids now that my kids are a little older. I used to just haul them everywhere and it didn’t really stop me. Like we, we went on road trips, and we traveled, and we went on hikes and like we did it all together and now my kids are old enough where they, can decide they want to stay home.

And two of my three stay home 90 percent of the time. And so, my fulfilling my own need for adventure now mostly happens outside of parenting, that I leave them home and I have had to get over, feeling bad that they’re missing out because they don’t feel like they’re missing out. They’re not that they don’t value adventure the same way I do.

So, I can go on a hike and have a great time by myself or with girlfriends or with Dave and my kids can stay home and have a great time doing things that they want to do. And that’s okay. And it doesn’t mean anything about me as a mom or about our family. And it’s been nice to get to a place where I’m like, I can, my kids can value things that are different than the things I value.

And That’s okay. That means that we might not do everything together, but also that’s an, that’s a natural progression as your kids get older is that you’re probably not going to do everything together. And that’s also, a place to come to acceptance.

Rachel: And it takes a lot of emotional maturity to get to that point.

That’s a perfect example, Miranda, of being self-assured of knowing, it’s okay for me to do this on my own. It’s okay that my kids don’t want to do it. But it doesn’t mean anything about our relationship because I think a lot of us can get our feelings hurt when our kids don’t love what we love or don’t want to be with us 24 seven.

And there’s a grief process as our kids get older and they really start to differentiate themselves of I thought I would have a teenager that would love to hike with me. And I had these visions of us like summiting, Peaks together and my kid doesn’t want to come with me. What’s wrong with him?

What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with our relationship? When really what you just said is true. Miranda, nothing is wrong with either of you. They value something different than you do, and that’s okay. And it takes a self-assured person to not take it personally when their kids start to find their own way, become their own person, independent of you.

Miranda: Yeah. When do you think is the right time for moms or parents, women to start developing this idea of self-assurance within their motherhood?

Rachel: I think the sooner the better for sure. But I do think that these principles are universal, that if you’re just hearing this and you’re a grandma, like that can still, it can still benefit your life so much to figure out your values and how you want to live move forward.

Even if for 65 years, you’ve never thought about this. It’s never too late to start to become more of yourself. And I’d also say it’s never too early either. And a brand-new mom, I wish I would have figured this out when Noah was a baby. I, or before, I wish I would have known going into motherhood, what I valued and made some concrete plans around how I was going to work that into my motherhood experience.

I also don’t beat myself up for the fact that I didn’t. No, that and didn’t have that foundation. It just means those first few years were tough for me and I found my way to therapy and that’s where I started doing some of this work of Uncovering who I am and what it means to be What it means to be me as a mom within my motherhood I don’t know if there’s never a wrong time to do this kind of work.

Yeah,

Miranda: I think you’re right just I think the better I identity, the more kind of differentiated we are as individuals before any relationships or roles, that we choose in our adulthood, like partnership or marriage or parenthood better off we are. And it’s hard because we don’t get a lot of those messages.

We’re often taught to give ourselves over. Completely to these different relationships, and I don’t know that anyone benefits from that.

Rachel: Yeah,

Miranda: no.

Rachel: I From

Miranda: being absorbed into a relationship, rather than supported and mutually

Rachel: benefiting. Yeah, I absolutely agree. I don’t think, I don’t think anybody is blessed by being absorbed into someone else’s Into not being able to maintain their selfhood.

It within a relationship with others, whether that’s a marriage or a friendship or motherhood. And so yeah, if you can the more work you can do to figure yourself out the better all your relationships are going to be, but I also recognize that it’s not again. It seems nebulous It’s not super straightforward I’m interested in asking you, Miranda, what and I’d be happy to share what I do too, but you mentioned that you, like you said, I lead women through a values exercise.

What does that look like for you? How do you teach women to find their values?

Miranda: Yeah, I think there’s a couple key highlights of it. One of them will be a, an audit of the things that they most enjoy in their lives. What lights them up, what brings just that feeling of like vibrance. And I like to say where your soul sings, like everyone can usually think of and maybe it’s not recent.

For some of the women I work with, it maybe has been years since they’ve. been doing or engaged in something that really lights them up. And so we can do an audit of what are some of the things that you know that you love or that you remember loving, and then looking at the why and what are the pieces of that and what are the values we can extract from those experiences and then see if they lay over and apply to Different parts of life or how we can bring some of those same values and feelings into experiences that are maybe more either the same experience or an experience that might be more appropriate for this season of life that they’re in.

And then another one is simple but using a values deck. To go through and do almost I always prep them by saying, this is going to feel like you’re at the eye doctor. Where they say, which is better? or B. or C. B or C, B or C. And we go through values and it’s like, when you must weigh them out, because I agree with what you said about this Brené Brown list, you almost feel like a terrible person saying, I don’t value bravery.

I don’t value courage. I don’t value honesty. I’m like I do. Yeah, but I’m value. My core values are creativity, intention, and adventure. And I can see those play out in so many ways in my life. And so, you back those up against, any of these other values and I’ll say I think they all matter, but this one matter more to me.

So being able to do that. And a lot of people say, this is so interesting because I’ve never had to choose. Between two things that looked that important, but the truth is that we all choose between two things that look and feel important every single day of our lives, and we don’t realize that we’re making those choices.

And when we have the information behind Oh, therefore I prefer to go on a walk with my friend rather than go to, go to work. Lagoon with a friend or whatever like there we all make these choices that are based on values and when they’re aligned our lives feel good and when they’re not aligned when we’re making choices that are you know, based on things that we don’t value as much, then we feel friction and tension.

And we feel like we’re not very satisfied.

Rachel: I love those values decks, Miranda, that you mentioned there. So, if someone’s totally unfamiliar, you can buy them online. I have a favorite one. I think it’s called the live, your values deck, and it has beautiful illustrations on each card, but each card has A word which is a value and so it’s very tactile where you can sort them into piles and you can sort them any way that you want, but the way that I direct women to do it is make three piles.

One is matters to me. One. Okay. So, the, let’s say the far-right is doesn’t matter as much to me. Matters to me and then matters most to me. And so, you’ll notice in the wording there, even the like throwaway pile is, doesn’t matter as much to me. And so, you’re not saying like thrift doesn’t matter, chuck it in the trash or honesty doesn’t matter.

We all know these things matter but doesn’t matter as much to me. Then you have your middle pile matters to me. And then you. Your top pile matters most to me, and you must, you’re going to have to narrow, you go through it many times to get it down to like your top three to five, because you’re right, Miranda, that if you say that it all matters, then nothing matters.

Like you’re not focusing. So as hard as it is to get down to three to five, once you have your three to five, you can make decisions based on those. You can build your life around those. Whereas if you say I have 47. Like, how do you build a life around that? How do you even remember those day to day to make decisions?

And so, it can’t be practical. Yeah. So that’s how I, why I push women to come on, give it a try. Like you try to name it, try to articulate it. This is not going on your tombstone. So, choose three to five and then try them on for a while and you can always adjust them. In fact, you will adjust them.

I feel like, you have a first draft where you pick the three to five and then over time, you’re like that’s not quite it. There’s, it’s a slight iteration of that. Or this word resonates like, what’s the difference between integrity and honesty and which one does, my soul.

Resonate with more as my value. And so, you just get clearer and clearer on who you are and how you want to articulate that. And even if you never tell another person what your three to five values are, it’s just so helpful for you to know. And so, you can start to use it as a lens in the way that you look at the world.

Miranda: And I also want to add that we change over time. I’ve read a lot of different things about values. I studied it a lot this last year with my master’s degree, like values are foundational to people, to businesses, to families. And there’s a few kinds of things floating out there that talk about how these core values stay the same, even as your life changes.

And in my experience, that isn’t, True. Like I feel yes, there are some through lines. Absolutely. But I’m a different person than I was 10 years ago. And there are things about my values that have changed. For example, I never, ever would have said that I valued stability until the last five years.

And that was evidenced in our lives by, we moved over 13 times in the first 15 years of marriage. I was always up for the move. I was excited about it. I liked changing cities. I like changing houses. Like even in Richmond, we’ve lived in three different houses, even though we’ve only lived here for six years.

Like that need for constant change, what felt like adventure now has I love adventure, but I don’t want to move. I want to stay in my house. I want to stay in my neighborhood. I want my roots to go deep. I want to have a regular schedule. I want to know what’s coming up in ways that I didn’t for the first part of my life.

I think that it’s part season, it’s part age, it’s part the age of my kids. It’s part just going through. To, I’m like, just, I just feel like I’m at a different stage than I have been at before. And it’s okay that the way that I want to live is going to shift and to accommodate what feels good right now.

Yeah. And allowing people to be open to that. Like maybe something that you used to really value, you don’t anymore and that’s okay.

Rachel: I absolutely agree. And I also think that the way that the value comes into play in your life changes, whereas when you were younger. Maybe adventure meant to you, like traveling the world moving a ton and all those things, which I know you still do now, but also the traveling the world part, you still do now, right?

, but also, adventure has come to mean to you trying a new bakery or restaurant in your neighborhood or right. Like those, and they’re just as meaningful. Like you, you iterate depending on your season, what these values mean to you. My. The way that I lived out contribution as a mom with young kids as the primary stay at home parent is very different than the way that I live out my value for contribution now that both of my kids are in school and I can work a lot more, but just having that as a basis, knowing that it can and will shift and change.

But knowing yourself deeply, I think, is so powerful in becoming a happier, more fulfilled person and mother. That’s really what I try to bring to women in my program.

Miranda: Absolutely. In these last couple of minutes, I want to ask you two questions. One, that sounds like a big question, but if you could give a quick tip for moms who are getting to know themselves, but a lot of the things that they feel like they want to do involve also managing and grappling with mom guilt.

And then second, just before we go, I want you to tell people about your program.

Rachel: Yeah. I, mom guilt is a big barrier for a lot of us. And I would say, if I just had to make it quick a quick tip, I would say start with this values exercise. And, Name, name your three to five for right now. And when that mom guilt comes up, look at your values and ask yourself, like if you’re feeling mom guilt because your kids aren’t involved in all the different activities, ask yourself does this, this activity align with my values?

And if not, I can let it go without guilt. If it does, and it’s something I want to pursue, then I can move forward with that change and our family and our schedule. But guilt itself is not productive unless it like motivates us to do something different. If it’s just something that’s dragging you down, knowing your values can just give you the sort of the courage and the self-confidence to say, What I offer my family is enough.

I offer them this, and the rest of that I don’t value it as much, and it’s fine for me to let it go. I can’t be everything. Just like we were talking about with the hundred Brené Brown values, there’s no way that any one of us can embody all 100 of those. And yet sometimes we’re made to feel that we should be able to.

And so just getting confident with, yeah, I’m not good at those things. I don’t really value those things. And I’m no longer going to feel guilty about it because I know. What I do value and what I do offer my family. And so, practicing that inner voice of saying like good for her, not for me. I’m not going to compare myself with other people that have different values and strengths than I do.

I am going to lean into. What I offer my family. Absolutely.

Miranda: Yeah. I love that.

Rachel: And then as far as my program, so my program, it starts every fall, so it’ll open for enrollment again in September. And like I mentioned, it’s nine months long. We focus on a different principle of self-assured motherhood each month for nine months.

And like I said, our first month is all about values and I actually have a sneak peek if people listening are interested in getting the values worksheets that I give to the women in my program they can sign up to get those now, get those as a download and work through some of the handouts about values and then that’ll give them a taste to see if they might be interested in joining the forum.

Program in the fall. And so that is at 3in30podcast.com/values If you want to get that that worksheet downloads.

Miranda: That’s great. That’s huge value just right up front. I recommend anyone who’s listening, who hasn’t gone through values exercise recently to please go ahead and download that and just work through it on your own and then tune in of course to three and 30 whenever you have a chance to listen every week.

Rachel: Yes. Thank you so much, Miranda. And I love your show and your podcast. It’s one of my, one of the only shows that I listen to pretty much every episode of. So, it’s been an honor for me to be on here today. Thanks for passing the mic to me.

Miranda: I really appreciate Rachel sharing her wisdom and kindness with us today.

I hope that you will go and visit That link and download the worksheet she’s prepared for you and tune in to three and 30 takeaways for moms every week wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. I’ll catch you again next week as I pass the mic to another guest here at Practically Happy. I hope a wonderful week talk to you later.