momplex

Matt Cundill  0:01  
You may also like a show about the things you may also like things like momplex. A momplex is a blend of the words mom and complex, and it typically refers to a psychological or emotional pattern in which a person's relationship with their mother significantly influences their behavior, identity or emotional well being. Often it's a man who is overly influenced or dependent on their mother. But I have come to learn that mothers themselves can also have a momplex. It's where you place the role of mother and the idea of motherhood ahead of one's own personal well being. Scottie durrette sees it, knows it, and has lived it. She's in California and has been talking about it on our podcast Since 2021 How old were you when you first became a mom?

Scottie Durrett  0:55  
30 took me a second. Had to do the math there.

Matt Cundill  1:01  
And how many times have you become a mother? Three

Scottie Durrett  1:04  
Three humans. My oldest is 18, then I have a 16 year old and a 12 year old. So it's a good it's a good chunk of time. What is

Matt Cundill  1:14  
the breaking point for kids? I always find that when the third one comes along, you realize that you're outnumbered, and I'm not here to pin it on the third one. It's just life here. We're talking about,

Scottie Durrett  1:27  
well, the third one actually, when he came around, I knew deep down I wasn't going to kill them at that point. They weren't going to fall in the toilet, they weren't going to stick their finger in the socket. So all of that fear based moments had left me. My first one about wrecked me. I think going from zero to one was the most overwhelming, and then zero to two, they're 18 months apart. That caused some late night tears

Matt Cundill  2:03  
we feel we need to live for our kids. Is that a generational flaw that afflicts, you know, Gen X more than millennials? Or has that been around since the dawn of motherhood?

Scottie Durrett  2:12  
I believe it's been around since the dawn of motherhood. Based on the research I've done, the books I've read, there has to there's been an underlying thread that the female role is to become this vessel for life, expansion right back into the days when the Queen was trying to produce an heir, she had a very specific job, and if she didn't fulfill that job, she didn't fulfill her purpose in life. And you know, this was passed down. Gosh, what a blessing. How lucky are you that you get to become a mom? Not everybody gets this blessing. So then tapped into, wow, this is my job. There's shame attached to it, right? If I don't do it, well, then I haven't earned this gift that's been bestowed upon me. And I think there's been an interesting shift of independence that has come off with the Gen Xers, and now, you know the Gen Y, and later, there's beauty and independence and differences and going being the salmon, so to speak. And that's in contradiction of this long held belief that you must live for your kids, right? If you're not living for your kids. You must not love them. You must not be doing right by them. I think you want to live with them, not for them. I'm

Matt Cundill  3:27  
not sure what your experience was like with your mother, but I felt that with, you know, my neighborhood, my friends, my family, I saw a lot of the same thing, and that's the parents who just sort of drop us off at the rink, or just let us go play, you know, out until the sun went down. I think we have historical evidence of It's 10 o'clock. Do you know where your kids are imploring parents to at least participate a little bit? And we got away with that at some point. And, you know, we started to live more inside. We started to have more, you know, more television screens, we started to come together inside the home more than anything, and it feels like what you're talking about with momplex is more of a newer phenomenon than something that my parents and grandparents had

Scottie Durrett  4:13  
to deal with. I agree, and I know that my mom has had a hard time listening to my podcast because of it, and she has questioned a lot of our own history together. Wow, this isn't how I raised you. Were you unhappy? Did you not have a good childhood? That's not true. I had a great childhood, but as I've become a mom and really listened to how I was feeling physically right, exhausted, I just, I just thought there had to be a better way. I didn't want to keep waking up so exhausted and dreading the day just getting through the day. I thought that was unfair to my kids, and I also just didn't like the way I felt. And I think now, you know, with the roles of fathers, you know my dad, you. He was very traditional. He was the man that went out of the house and earned the money. So he came home. Kids were very much to be, maybe seen for a moment, but not heard. Now, I think there is an expectation that dads are very hands on in some cases, you know, dads are now able to take paternity leave when their babies are born. You know, I think there's been a shift in what's become more normal. I you know, I think it's going to take some time for it to catch on, but I now think there's going to be more of an acceptance of maybe one household looks different than the next door household, and that wasn't the way when I was growing up, but now maybe the mom's working full time and the dad is home. Maybe it's two dads. Maybe it's one mom. I think that's all starting to become more familiar, more seen. I

Matt Cundill  5:47  
find it really interesting that your mom went to exactly the spot that a lot of your audience goes on your podcast, and that's to a position of guilt when you're just admitting some things about yourself and your childhood. She immediately began to feel guilty and saying, Hey, are you know, were you happy? Should I have done it differently? And then you're explaining, no, it's a different era. But her default position, and I think a lot of people have this is, is guilt at the immediate side of a sign of difference or perceived criticism, yeah,

Scottie Durrett  6:18  
it actually makes me have a push in my heart when you're talking about it. I think guilt is a constant companion for most and I think it's used as a measurement on how we should behave next right? So if you're feeling guilty, oh, something's wrong with me. I should change. I need to shift something. I'm not doing it well enough. I'm not doing it good enough. And we want that feeling to go away so quickly, rather than investigate the feeling. Where is this coming from? What am I missing here? What am I not seeing or feeling? And I think, you know, for the default, guilt has been kind of beat down on, you know, even the mom, gosh, you're so lucky that you're able to have a baby. There's so many women out there who are not able to have babies. So then, if you have a moment where you're not madly in love with being a mom, guilt just showers all over you, and then you start behaving to make that guilt go away, to prove to that imaginary person, I am good enough. I am worthy of it. I do appreciate it. And then the energy behind why you've become a mom has shifted completely. Why is

Matt Cundill  7:27  
there a push or a necessity to make it seem like we're doing all right? We're making it look easy. It's clear sailing. Look at me. Go. And instead of just saying, I just wanted to strangle the kid for about 10 seconds just to feel alive again,

Scottie Durrett  7:48  
people care about perception, right? And that happens in all areas of our life. There's a lot of chasing external validation, right? If someone comes up to me and says, Wow, you look great today, then you think, Oh, good. Then I Okay, then I'm happy with how I look, right? But what if nobody gives you a compliment? Does that then mean that you're not worthy of it? So I think a lot of times, especially as a parent, when you become a parent for the very first time, even though you've read all the baby books and attended all the classes, it is still a brand new human being that's never been here before, and you've never been a parent before. So while there might be manuals to follow, no manuals ever been written about you. So becoming a new parent really ignites a lot of insecurity, a lot of feeling anxious, a lot of guilt, a lot of self doubt, in order to make those very uncomfortable feelings go away very quickly, we look outside of ourselves in order to get permission that we're doing okay. And so then there's this real disconnection that, wait, what if I just trust myself? Right? We have to look out. So this idea of the kids are all dressed to the nines. We're eating organic, we're driving eco friendly cars. I'm, you know, beautiful sleep schedules all to make sure that people are approving of us, so that we feel good about us. It's a very natural human reaction. I spent a good 10 years in this zone, so it's no no shame there. That's a very normal human experience, right? So

Matt Cundill  9:22  
10 years of doing things that may or may not even level out your values, you just don't want to be accosted by driving a big gas guzzler, or maybe, you know, stopping at McDonald's on the way home and letting everybody know by posting it up on Instagram that you stopped at McDonald's and, you know, and maybe for three days straight even. So I can imagine if somebody, though did that for like, a long period of time, and, you know, kept it looking, you know, really clean and neat, that they might wind up deathly unhappy, and it would be un fun.

Scottie Durrett  9:53  
It was, I would say it hit me overnight, but it was a slow burn. You know, when you can look back and. Connect the dots. Hindsight always, but I call it my laundry basket epiphany. I had gotten my kids off to school that day after yelling at them and having a complete chaotic morning, very normal in our house, and I was starting up the trifecta, stay at home, mom duties, the cooking, the cleaning, the prepping, everything else, and I was walking through the hallway clutching one of those, you know, plastic target laundry baskets, you know, my just full of my kids dirty clothes, and I collapsed to the floor, and I didn't understand what was going on. I'm a very healthy, strong athlete. My body has always done what I've asked it to, and all of a sudden I could not get up off the floor, and it scared it scared me, but I was so in shock, it kind of froze me. And then I realized I had tears streaming down my face, and there was this voice that had been trying to talk to me for quite some time, and she was saying, girl, is this it? Is this it forever? Because I don't think this is what we signed up for. I don't think this is what was laid out to us when we were having those fantasies as a little girl with the white picket fence and the kids and the life and the future. And at that moment, I didn't have any answers. I just knew I couldn't stay there, and that was all I knew. And that really was the tipping point, the catalyst that got me up and just opening up my eyes to how I had been living. And that was really informative, really informative.

Matt Cundill  11:26  
I can see scenarios. In fact, I have seen scenarios where, you know, kids got to a certain age when they started to become a little bit more independent, they would disappear for the day. And, you know, after spending 10 years just making it perfect, they go off to do, you know, like, some really crazy stuff that doesn't seem to really align with the rest of the planet, you know, like, not really paying attention to, you know, to what's going you're taking up what? Oh, you're going to be doing that now. Okay, that's good. Somebody needed to go replace that time. And I'll say that one of the things that was apparent to me when I was raising three boys. There were twins, the next one came. A year and a half later, I spent my day talking to to one year olds and two year olds, and I wasn't communicating in my own language anymore.

Scottie Durrett  12:16  
Very true, yeah. And it, it can leave you feeling entertained in one energy and then bored and unfulfilled, and you don't know why. And I also noticed when I was at home speaking my kids language, new words, new thoughts, I was more concerned with nap schedules and poop schedules. My husband would then come home and we were on two different parallels, different days, different lives. It took a really long time for us to even come together in that one conversation, and that was really hard for us, right? All of a sudden, we had been a unit, and then a kid showed up, and then we were completely divided. Even though we wanted the same things, we were living two totally different lives, and there was a lot of frustration why we couldn't hop over easily from our map onto the other person's map, all in the while someone's pulling on your leg and needing attention and keeping you up at night. So you're dealing with physical exhaustion, mental exhaustion and confusion and loneliness, I think, yeah, so

Matt Cundill  13:17  
there's two things I'm going to unpack here. We'll start with the relationship piece. Your husband comes home. We'll call it five o'clock for fun, maybe even six o'clock, but he's now invaded your space. He's also speaking a completely different language from you that you haven't spoken all day because you've been working with younger children. So I'm sure I always thought the first hour was weird when you come together. So what's that like? And how do you break that up? Because you still got to put kids to bed. So I mean, it's a weird zone, and it's you've still got about two or three hours left between all of you. It's a

Scottie Durrett  13:54  
weird zone. And I would first say that I wish I had given myself a little more grace and given him a little more grace to understand that we were going through something we'd never been through before. I think he and I expected that we would just become parents, and it would fit right into our life seamlessly, and there would be no learning curve. When you become a parent, it's there's a massive learning curve, and this is just to bring one child into the mix. You know, if you're having twins, or maybe your child has special needs, or maybe it you become a mom in a completely different capacity, everything has energies and circumstances that have to be learned. And I never allowed us any space to do that. I just expected that we were supposed to just pick up and be totally okay, and I was really frustrated with him for a lot of the time, and we stopped communicating, we stopped speaking, and that is something that we now make a massive priority of, even if. Waking up 10 minutes before the kids and having a cup of coffee together before he goes off to his day, and I go off to my and we're just, hi, what do you have today? What's on your plate today? How are you? How'd you sleep last night? And just remembering that we have, you know, we've got somebody eye level with us in the house that wants to work with us, and just realizing that, you know, it does take effort, it will need to be attended to, just like the children.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  15:33  
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Matt Cundill  15:47  
slash apps. So you mentioned you were an athlete at one point. Did you play soccer? I

Scottie Durrett  15:51  
did. I played soccer all the way through college, d3 so

Matt Cundill  15:55  
I had a therapist who suggested to me, sometime in my 30s that you're really not going to be level headed and happy unless you can check the three boxes in your life, sleep, sex and exercise. So you've already let the exercise sort of wane away. The Sleep is toast. Yeah, it's it's toast. And then there's the sex part. And it does. I mean, the studies show that it takes a year and a half to get back onto a regular sex schedule after you have a kid, and of course, then you have one, then you have a number. Now you're three years you're completely out of the game and whatnot. So I just want to talk about the relationship piece for a second. What are some of the best things you can do, just to sort of manifest, you know, the relationship, and keep it on the rails, keep it sane and have that adult time. This

Scottie Durrett  16:46  
is going to sound really hard, especially for a mom who feels like she has no time. It's to really become very clear on your top three priorities. Let's start there, your health, your relationship health, your kids health, period, right? If you if you are focusing on those three things each day, and that's all you do. So the laundry doesn't happen every single day. So you go to McDonald's drive through so you let someone deliver you food. It's not going to be this way forever, but we have to always remember that the kids wouldn't be there without the relationship. And at one point, and this is so hard to think about, because you've got these little babies, they will grow up, and they will see a relationship being modeled to them, they will eventually leave the house, and then what you're left with this person that you haven't talked to. But something that was so helpful for me was when I was feeling at my lowest, when I was on no sleep, no food, three pots of coffee, feeling so insecure and lost in the world. I wasn't moving I wasn't seeing friends, I didn't have a job anymore. There was a huge identity shift. I still have my best friend and really kind of taking some deep breaths. It's okay to feel frustrated, it's okay to feel lonely, but to itch. Talk about that. I'm feeling frustrated today, and you're my scapegoat today. Let's talk about that. The more I've communicated, the easier it has been to communicate. Communication is like any kind of practice. If you want to go to the gym and hold a plank, you're not going to hold a plank for five minutes the first time. You're going to hold it for 10 minutes, 10 seconds, right? 10 seconds, right? Communications the same way. Just, Hey, honey, I've had a really, really hard day today. That's all you got to say. That just opens up so much there's a bridge that's already opening up a bridge, and the more you work on that every single day, the easier it gets. And then you realize, Wait, I do have somebody who's on my side here, and he you know, we can work on this together. But just like you want to nurture your kids sleep schedule, right? Like a mom is going to work so hard to make sure that kid is on the most amazing sleep schedule, has the best nutrients in their body and knows that they're loved every single day. Your relationship is the same way. So

Matt Cundill  19:00  
just back to the guilt part for just a second, because you mentioned this in that answer. And something else that came up, you know, from a therapist, is that as a parent, you need to put your own oxygen mask on first before putting the mask on of everybody else to help them. And that's wonderful advice. I think that's great. I mean, for, you know, $150 to get that, that's great. It's fantastic. But I also think a lot of moms don't know where to start. They don't know what the first thing is they need to do to put their own mask on.

Scottie Durrett  19:33  
First thing before you get out of bed, take 30 seconds and just do a body check. How are you feeling? How's your headache? Do you need more water? Did you sleep? Okay, too much Netflix last night, just kind of taking a scan, you know, almost as if your best friend is tapping you on the shoulder and saying, girl, how are you really checking in with yourself? First thing, and even though. Maybe you can't solve all the ailments in that moment. There's something about checking in on yourself that your subconscious mind, your soul, your physical and mental body, they're going to feel supported, and you're going to feel an injection of energy that's different, as if you just woke up on autopilot right away. And something that really helps me is I'll put a glass of water on my bedside table the night before, so when I wake up, the first thing I do is drink a glass of water, and I say, today is going to be a good day. And it just shifts. You've just it's almost like you've given yourself a hug, and then you can go handle whatever life is dishing out. And one of the shifts that helped me let go of this guilt right taking care of myself first means I'm taking time and energy away from taking care of my kids. I then realized, Wait, my kids are counting on me to be at my strongest to handle whatever they're going through. The only way I can do that is if I'm taking care of myself, they don't care if I'm working out or not working out. They care how I am when I'm with them, and I know that if I'm sleeping and drinking water and checking on myself, I'm going to have more patience and more energy to handle whatever curveball life is dishing out that day. It's a practice, but you'll get you'll love the ROI you will love the way you feel when something hits the fan that day and you're like, wait, I can do this. And you feel resilient, and you love the way you are with your kids. One

Matt Cundill  21:37  
of the things I ask people who want to start a podcast or who are just interested in media trivia question is, what is Netflix's biggest competition? Instagram, tik, Tok. People go there and think it, but the truth is, it's sleep. Oh, interesting, right? And I'm glad, I'm glad you mentioned that. I wonder if we should just not make it like a rule, just to find a way to get as much screens out of the bedroom as possible. I The big TV. I mean, I don't know why it's there. That has to go. I understand the phone. Sometimes I will reach for a phone for I like to play a dumb game before bed. Sometimes I might just be on it for a little bit, but I know it's not good, okay, but I do, I will stress it. Listening to audio at night is it's fine,

Scottie Durrett  22:23  
yeah, it's not that blue light and the spiking. I mean, if we're gonna get into it, everybody has their own unique circadian rhythm, and you have cortisol drops and spikes. There is a specific bedtime that your body will fall asleep faster. And if we're on our phones during that window, we actually spike the cortisol up, and that's why, then you can't fall asleep till two, because you've woken yourself back up. I have found the only way for me to stay off my phone is to leave my phone out of the room. I just try to make it easier for myself, right? It's just remove the temptation. And then one thing that's really nice, when I wake up in the morning, I have my glass of water. I'm talking to myself. I have my own thoughts in my head first before I let someone else's thoughts in. And that's really that keeps your stress level lower as a mom. So when you walk into the kitchen and you realize your son left the milk on the counter all night long and all the lights on, you're not quite as activated as you would have been if you had picked up your phone right away, but that's from my own personal experience, so I'm

Matt Cundill  23:25  
nodding along and agreeing. And listen, my kids are in their 20s now, but there was a time when I started to get up early on a Saturday morning and go to Advanced yoga. It would be a 90 minute class, and it would be very early, and I'd be home at 930 and people say, Why do you get up early on a Saturday morning to go do that, and I said because there's absolutely no chance of anybody ruining my day until at least 930 and after that, I'm so zen. It really doesn't matter what happens after that. I love

Scottie Durrett  23:54  
it. You create your own Zen, and that's really empowering, especially as someone who's in demand with kids, family, clients, right? We always think we have to wait for our kids to get older or life to change, or this season to end before we can start to feel the way we want. It's the opposite. How can we learn how to create the Zen no matter how busy life is? You know? Then we have our formula, right? Yeah, I'm gonna

Matt Cundill  24:21  
say something fairly horrifying here. Okay, this has been a very horrifying interview. Actually, it is. I'm the worst. I'm I'm completely traumatized by this, but I just want to tell parents out there, if you're dealing with a 15 year old within 10 years, you're going to be speaking to your kids about not making the same mistakes that you made at 25 about taking care of yourself, you know, about getting enough sleep, about burning out, about life management and financial management and other stuff that comes in from the mistakes that you made when you were 25 that that's a short span.

Scottie Durrett  24:59  
It's a. Short span. And even more traumatizing is you have 75% of your face time with your kids when they're 18. 75% is done, which means that from 18 on, your face time with them is less and less and less. And so you're thinking you have these little pockets to instill these words of wisdom, and oh my gosh, let me give you all my lessons. I have found that my kids learn so much better from watching me than from what I say. And so if you are a mom, regardless of how old your kids are, if you're a parent, when you choose to start living a life where you're taking care of your zen, your health, your make you're learning from your mistakes. You're being vulnerable and picking yourself back up when you fall. If you're learning how to create your own inner peace and Zen, they are going to learn from that blueprint that you are, you are living. And then it takes the pressure off of you from having the perfect thing to say, from the perfect conversation. It's less about what we say and more about the energy behind it, and if they believe it, right? If you're sitting here saying, I want you to eat well and sleep well, and, you know, prioritize your health, but you're not, your kid's gonna say, I'm confused. I don't know how to do that, and I don't this is there's a distrust happening here. But if you're saying, I love you so much, and that's why I'm going on a walk right now for 60 minutes. Thank you for helping me do that. Thank you for helping mom reach her goals. They're gonna think this is amazing. Of course, my mom, she's out there enjoying nature. So it would be so normal and natural for me to also prioritize what brings me joy. So it's kind of, you know, the when we start living that example, the way that we would dream magic wand that your kids were feeling and living, they will learn that and it just it makes living with them so much more fun. When did you know you were burning out? Oh, gosh. Well, the things that used to make me happy no longer made me happy. Birthday celebrations, certain music adventures. I love sports. I love going to sporting events. I love concerts. And my husband would say, Let's go to that concert. And say, I'd rather stare at a wall than go to that concert. And I realized that's that's really uncharacteristic of me, and so it's less about comparing yourself to other people. It's more about comparing yourself to you, right? If there's certain things that are showing up and you're like, gosh, I used to love walking my dogs. I used to love cooking. I used to love napping in the sun, and those basic things are not bringing you joy anymore. It's a sign that your body has gone into it's in shut down mode to try and save itself truly, and that's a real key sign of burnout.

Matt Cundill  27:45  
What concert did you turn down that you regret? Band of Horses. They're my favorite.

Scottie Durrett  27:53  
I look at your face, I know well, the

Matt Cundill  27:54  
fact that they're your favorite, and you turn them down, I know,

Scottie Durrett  27:58  
I know I love them, and I turn them down. I don't anymore, but I knew that was and I knew that music always brought me so much joy. And I realized, gosh, I haven't listened to music in a really long time, and it just showed me that I was numb, right? That things had started to shut down. Next two

Matt Cundill  28:18  
questions are not really for everyone. They're just going to be your personal ones. We talked about the sleep component, and when it comes to exercise, what's a great tip or something that we can do to get back into the mode of exercise? I'm going to assume maybe you didn't go out and join a soccer club, but maybe you took up running. What are some of the hacks that you have to get back exercising? I

Scottie Durrett  28:40  
would say start by walking. Walking is really easy. It's free. It doesn't matter what shoes you have, and it's the only exercise out there that also lowers your cortisol at the same time. So if you are a burned out, exhausted human being, walking isn't going to add stress to your body, and it's not going to be as hard to recover from it. Start there, start just 10 minutes a day. I promise you will feel better after a few days and say, I'm gonna go take the trash cans out, and then just walk around the block. That's all you have to do. And I think when we start there, then we tell our our brain starts learning. Wait, I can do this. There is time for this. And I love the way I feel, and it's not so much pressure on you physically, and it's not another task on that long to do list that isn't achievable. But you know, and don't put to, you know, go outside, listen to your favorite song, listen to that podcast, or just go walk your dogs. It's really, really healing. I would say, start there.

Matt Cundill  29:38  
On the relationship side. What are some of the things that really have worked for you? You mentioned the concert you didn't go to, but maybe they do work now. What is it? What works?

Scottie Durrett  29:48  
So my kids are older now, and this has been a little bit easier, but it's really talking to your partner first, letting them know that you miss them. We're not. Getting enough face time together. How can we do that together? How can we come up with a plan that makes sense for both of us? Maybe it's a date walk. Maybe it's you go to a movie with your kids and you sit in the row behind them and they sit in the row in front of you. Maybe it's you take a dinner date and you set up, you find a babysitter ahead of time, and they come every second Saturday. It's just little efforts, and I think again, it's about being flexible, because kids change. Life changes, schedules change, but realizing that that's a priority, right? Sleep is a priority. Your health is a priority. Your relationship health is a priority. Just like you said, sex, money, movement, you know, sleep, right? If we're making sure that those categories are healthy, whatever that looks like, if there's any effort put into that, it will make a huge difference. It doesn't have to be a super expensive dinner. You could just wait. Mom and Dad are gonna go sit outside and have a glass of wine together. We'll come back in if that's a date, that's a conversation. I

Matt Cundill  31:05  
never said money, but I should have

Scottie Durrett  31:09  
it's a stressor. That's all, yeah. Well,

Matt Cundill  31:11  
I mean, if there's one thing that will stress out any relationship, it's any any financial thing. So you're right, you're right to mention it. What's not on the job description of motherhood that nobody expects,

Scottie Durrett  31:21  
coaching through relationships, coaching through conversations, coaching through sports, and that's where we really can share what we've been through, doesn't you don't even have to be an athlete in that sense, right? But sometimes they need that non mom energy. It's not about a lesson, it's not about values, it's not about an ex, you know, core memory. This has just literally helped them through. Okay, give me the situation. Who are the players, what's happening? How do you want to approach this? It's really about coaching them through a situation where you're totally on their team and there's no personal agenda attached to it. It's hard to do, but that is a massive role.

Matt Cundill  32:05  
Help me with kids in vacation, because I see parents take the kids on vacation, but it doesn't look like the parents get a vacation sometimes, or the kids are bored on the parents vacation.

Scottie Durrett  32:18  
That's great. I think it's really important for a parent to be realistic about their kids ages. Yes, your kid is five. You've been dying to go to England. Oh my gosh, they can roll their own suitcase. Finally, is this the right time for y'all to go to England? Are they really going to make it through the long museum tours. Are they really gonna like the bangers in mash? Right? It's really about, what is the energy of the family? What do we want out of the vacation? Truly, we want to take a break from life. We want to, you know, throw our to do lists out the window for a few days. Everybody, kids included. How can we have the most aligned energy and have the most unity as a family. Truly, that's what we ultimately probably all want. So it's going into it realistically. You know, if you have a four year old and a six year old asking them to fly on the plane for 15 hours, it's going to be rough. So as long as you're mentally prepared for that, maybe traveling is so important to you, great, but it's gonna be rough. So how can you set yourself and your kids up to get through that without completely melting down before the trip is even started? You know? And I think there's adjustments that you can make based on conversations you can have ahead of time. You know, guys, we're going to this really nice resort in Hawaii. Mom and Dad also want a vacation, so guess what? We're putting you guys in surf school, and you're gonna love it, and we're gonna go lay on the chairs for three hours, right? It's kind of really making sure that y'all are going about this as a team, and it's not the mom's responsibility to create the perfect vacation for everybody else but herself that isn't in the job description, that is a choice. And so if you want the vacation to be something where you don't need a vacation from the vacation, think about that when you're planning it. Do I really want seven activities a day? Maybe we just want one? Yes, maybe we do want the breakfast buffet included. Can we afford that. Really think about how this is going to be an experience for everybody. And the more I have found that I include my kids in these conversations, and you can include them a lot younger than you realize. The easier it is, the more y'all work together as a team and let them know why you want to go on the vacation mom needs some naps, they will love knowing how they can help mom have a nap if that's what she wants. I'm gonna do a podcast on this, by the way. Well, I'm

Matt Cundill  34:47  
glad you mentioned the podcast, because you've been doing it since 2021 Yes. Why did you start this podcast?

Scottie Durrett  34:56  
I needed it. I was lonely. Yeah, and I was confused. I felt really stuck as a mom, and I was tired of feeling tired all the time. And so I was on a journey to try and get back to myself again, and I wanted to share that journey with other moms, because I felt like if I had heard another mom's journey, it probably would have helped me. And so I figure if I'm going through this, there's another mom going through it, too. And if we can share things that have been hard and how we've gotten ourselves out of it, it really could help another mom not have to live in the heart for so long. What's

Matt Cundill  35:34  
been the legacy of the podcast to you? I always tell people when you start a podcast, you think you're going to be defining things about yourself, but it winds up defining things about you that you had no idea. So what are the things about you that you had no idea about yourself? That's come from the podcast. I'm very

Scottie Durrett  35:53  
comfortable talking about things. I'm not afraid to be vulnerable. I believe that the more honest we are about how we're truly feeling, the less scary those feelings are. And it's made me a better mom, 100% it's made me enjoy motherhood more. I thought it was for me, and now I'm realizing this has nothing to do with me. It's about my kids. It's about other moms. It's about creating energy shifts in motherhood altogether. I think for the longest time, I thought that the more tired I was, the better mom I was. And now I realize, gosh, the better I feel, the better mom I am. What can one expect when they work with you? I am no fluff. I am not going to sugar coat things, because your time is way too precious, and I want to help you achieve everything you want as quickly and as sustainably as possible. So working with me, it's going to require empowered action. It's going to require a real honest look at choices that we're making and how we're choosing to show up every single day, but it's a real deep dive under the hood in a really safe space, I am not judgmental. I love every single mom out there, and I know that her heart is driving her to create the best life for her kids, and I just want to help her do that. But it is not there's no magic one click button. It's an awareness experience where you can understand who you are, what your values are and how you can live that with your kids.

Speaker 1  37:23  
My thanks to Scottie Durrette for joining me. She can be reached through her website, Scottie durrette.com all the connection points are also on our episode page at You may also like.net subscribe or follow to Scottie podcast, momplex, with Scottie durrette, you can find it wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Evan serminsky, edited by Aiden glassy, and it's built with love by everyone at the sound off media company you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai