Ep 47: Happy Birthday to the Podcast!

Welcome to The Mom on Purpose Podcast. I’m Lara Johnson, and I’m here to teach you how to get out of your funk, be in a better mood, claim more with your kids. Manage your home better, get your to-do list done and live your life on purpose with my proven method. This is possible for you, and I’ll show you how. You’re not alone anymore. We’re in this together. Hello and welcome to The Mom on Purpose Podcast. Today is a little bit different of a podcast episode because, while I’m recording this, I’m actually hiking out of the mountain, so hopefully, I’m not huffing and puffing as much. I’ve got a baby on my back. We’re about two and a half hours in, but I wanted to record this because, as I was thinking, you can hear me brushing against trees and stuff or him grabbing the trees. I’m not sure what’s happening back there, but as I was going and hiking, I realized we are almost at a year. So by the time this episode airs, this podcast will be a year old. And I just felt like that was so momentous as I was hiking today because I just reached this huge spot that I haven’t been able to hike to for almost two years because I can’t exercise or anything during pregnancies. And I definitely wasn’t up climbing mountains when I was pregnant. And then I’ve had a baby and been making sure my body is okay and dealing with all the postpartum stuff. So it just seemed really serendipitous that today I was able to actually reach it, and it is just momentous that it’s the podcast’s year mark. So I wanted to bring you along on this hike for just a few minutes and just to kind of review the things that I’ve learned over the last year because I always want to set the example for you and everything that I do because there is nothing special about me. And I say that with all the love in my heart because I do love myself, and I do know that I have amazing potential, and I do know that great things are going to happen. And I am completely human. I am still out of shape; like all of these things are so many things that, I think sometimes when we hear people on podcasts or think they have it all figured out, and I promise you that’s not the case. And if you go down to the show notes, you’ll see my Instagram that you can go to; on the show notes, you can see my Instagram. You can go there and see my journey over hiking, and you’ll see that it’s been a very long journey for me to get to this place. It doesn’t happen overnight. And so, as I was thinking about what I wanted to share for the year mark, I was thinking about my very first episode. It was the scariest episode I had ever recorded, and I didn’t know how to do it. I didn’t know how to talk to you; I didn’t know what to say, and the thing that stood out to me most, which is what’s on my mind today, is that we are celebrating, and I loved that episode. So if you’ve never listened to it, I would go back. I would recommend going back and listening to it because it is so fun to hear how far I’ve come and, like my comfortability in speaking to you and getting used to recording these podcast episodes. You can hear the babbling brook and all the wind blowing through the leaves. It’s amazing. So the biggest thing that I just wanted to share with you today is that you are celebrating. I don’t know what mountain you are climbing in your life today, but I will tell you, over this last year, there were so many mountains that I climbed, and to the outside world, they did not look like much, but to me and my heart, they were huge. So I wanted just to share a little bit about what some of those mountains were so that you can see it doesn’t have to be going to the peak of a mountain. Sometimes they are just huge obstacles that we’re crossing in our own lives. So, as I think back, obviously, the podcast was a big one for me. It was one that I had always known I was going to do, but it took me about three years before I really felt comfortable doing it, and even beyond that, I had never planned to do it during pregnancy, so that was another obstacle. Another mountain that I climbed is that, although I love, absolutely love, this baby, and I am so grateful that he is part of our family, he was not in the plans for last year. I’ll just put it that way. It definitely changed some of the things that we were planning on doing last year and this year because now we’re back to being on a baby schedule, and so that was another huge obstacle was not only just wrapping my mind around being pregnant again but how do I do this now with a business, with some challenges that were happening in our family with my kids, and that was really a huge mountain to overcome. The other mountain that I feel like I overcame last year was resting more than I ever had. I’ve had complicated pregnancies. When I was pregnant with my third, as I’ve probably mentioned before, my pelvis separated, and I had something called symphysis pubis dysfunction. It was horribly painful and completely debilitating, to the point where I was in severe pain all the time. I had a walker. It got worse after pregnancy, so I was in a wheelchair for a little bit after. I remember going through that and thinking, “Oh my gosh, how am I going to do this now with three kids and not being able to move?” So even one of the mountains that I feel like I was overcoming was that I had to stop doing a lot. The podcast was such a rewarding thing because I could sit still and do something, and so it ended up being the perfect time to do it. But I’m pretty sure one of the mountains I climbed last year was being comfortable watching the entire internet because I think I did. To the outside world, it might sound amazing. In reality, though, it was so hard because my family needed me, my children needed me. There were other things that I wanted to be doing, and I just had to be okay not doing those things and taking care of my body. Because of that, I am able to do what I’m doing right now, as I didn’t push myself to the point where I was in a wheelchair again. So that was another really big mountain that I climbed. Another mountain that I climbed this past year was starting to really embrace some of the challenges of my family. I’ve always known that I have very hard kids. I didn’t always understand why. I have found a lot of ways to work around it, despite not ever having a name for some of the challenges that we have. And it was really hard because things personally fell apart in a lot of ways. You know, with some of these challenges, one of the huge mountains that I had to climb was being okay with the fact that my children’s success and their path to success will always look different than neurotypical kids. That was hard. Not long ago, my kids got out of school, and it was our what they call “6th grade graduation.” This is in the state that we’re in. This is when they move on to middle school, or junior high, as it’s called here, and this graduation is something that my oldest has looked forward to for years. And because we had to pull him out of school for some of the challenges that he is facing right now, he missed the graduation. He hasn’t been to school in many months. And I will tell you that was one of the hardest things to watch on social media, everybody posting about their kids’ end of the year and the excitement around that and the huge accomplishment of these kids graduating elementary school. Knowing that my child may never go back to school at this point, we have no idea, and we may have to find alternative schooling options. And although I’m okay, you know that’s our reality, it still was hard. So I wanted to share that with you, and now you can hear the baby starting to be a little upset back there. So I want you just to take a moment today, take a deep breath, and find whatever mountain you like. Really give yourself a chance to celebrate whatever mountain that you’ve been climbing over this last year, because you are worth celebrating. Even if they aren’t mountains to the outside world, they are a mountain to you, and you have every right to be so proud of yourself. I am proud of you. I hope you know that. Until next time, have a great day. Thank you for listening. Please share, review, and subscribe to this podcast so that together we can live life on purpose.