Episode 122: How to Ask for What You Need in Any Relationship with Kerstin Kirchsteiger
/I don't know about you, but as a mom and a wife, I often get the message that I need simply need to stop being a martyr and ask for what I need if I want a more balanced or fulfilling life. Well, that advice always leaves me feeling a little like this guy:
Seriously, the biggest hurdle most of the moms and couples that I work run into is NOT that they don't ask for what they need, and it's NOT that they don't have a partner who is actively looking to support them (most of us do!); it's that they don't actually KNOW what they truly need in order to be able to ask for it.
And that is exactly the conversation I want to share with you today, along with my guest Kerstin Kirchsteiger. She is a Scientist turned Life & Leadership Coach. The emotional rollercoaster that motherhood took her on, led her to leave science and dive deep into the study of Emotional Intelligence. Her journey of motherhood and entrepreneurship made it clear that work-life integration is a topic most working, homeschooling moms struggle with. Leveraging her analytical nature combined with understanding for individualized solutions, she has created a system for moms to peel back the layers of obligations, expectations and guilt and build a life they're excited to get up for every day.
Here's a summary of our conversation:
How to balance the needs of the whole family
How to determine our personal needs and set boundaries
How to use Emotional Intelligence to create a family culture of support and get your family on board in sharing some of our load
Be sure to follow Kerstin on Instagram @kerstin_kirchsteiger and visit her website. She has wonderful podcast called Work-Life Flow Podcast that I recommend for you to listen, too (I was a guest awhile back!)!
Struggling to get out of the door with your kids? With Kerstin's 4 Visual Must-Have Checklists, your kids will feel empowered and get ready on their own.
TRANSCRIPT
Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic, overwhelmed. In one moment, you're nailing it and the next you're losing your cool. I want to help you find your way to the messy middle, to a place of balance. You see balance is a verb, not a state of being. It is a thing you do. Not a thing you are. It is an action, a process, a series of micro corrections that you make each and every day to keep yourself feeling centered. We are never truly balanced. We are engaged in the process of balancing.
Hello, I'm Dr. Laura Froyen and this is The Balanced Parent Podcast where overwhelmed, stressed out and disconnected parents go to find tools, mindset shifts and practices to help them stop yelling at the people they love and start connecting on a deeper level. All delivered with heaping doses of grace and compassion. Join me in conversations that will help you get clear on your goals and values and start showing up in your parenting, your relationships, your life with openhearted authenticity and balance. Let's go!
Laura: Hello, everybody. This is Dr. Laura Froyen and on this episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast, we're going to talk about a topic that is really important, how to ask for what you need in your relationships and in your life, so that you can have an easier life, a life that's more fulfilling and meaningful and intentional and supportive of you.
And this seems like a really simple thing. You know, it seems like something that we should just be able to do, and it's actually quite complicated. And so to help me with this conversation, I'm bringing in a friend and colleague Kerstin Kirchsteiger and she is going to help us figure this out for herself. So, Kerstin, welcome to the show. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do?
Kerstin: Yeah. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, who am I? I am Kerstin. I am a scientist who turned life and leadership coach because I got more and more interested in people like the higher I went in my education, the more I noticed, what is really missing, especially in science, is to know how to work with people like scientists are usually really good at solving problems doing experiments, but not so good at having conversations how to engage people.
So I got really interested in that, and I became a Jenna certified emotional intelligence practitioner. And this is what I'm bringing now to working moms, be it for their families. Like I am a huge proponent of Mom's, asking for what they need and bringing the family together as a team. So kind of stepping into a leadership position and, you know, managing the home in a way where empower others. And the other thing I do is I want to help or I'm helping scientists. Moms create better work cultures through there, taking on their own leadership training and emotional intelligence. So those are the things that I'm doing.
Laura: Very cool. Well, I know we have a lot of scientists, moms who listened to this podcast, which is super fun because we get to nerd out on, you know, lots of science. Things really did a child development, but I am really excited to have this kind of more broad conversation about asking for what we need in our relationships and our families. I love this idea of seeing our position as parents and the family as a leadership position, and how to kind of get our family working together as a team.
I think that we get bogged down a lot in guilt as parents, and I know you work specifically with moms. But you know, a lot of our listeners identify in various other ways, and so and I think it's kind of across the board. There's this idea that we have to kind of do it all and be it all. And I'm so we're thinking about Okay, so we've got a parent here who's feeling really overwhelmed, really rundown, like they are carrying the load of the whole family. What's the first step? How do we kind of get started on starting to share some of the load and moving out of that place of overwhelming doing it all?
Kerstin: But first I want to say that I totally identify with everything you said When I became a mom. It was the same. Like I we did heavily lean into attachment parenting. I felt the need to have a deep connection, and it was part of my healing that I had to do that which I realized later. But it was really I wanted to be there for my kids. I wanted to be everything I wanted to. I don't know, you know, create those deep relationships.
But I did it in a way of attachment parenting, where I did not take myself into account where I gave all the time the first few years. And like you said, I felt guilty that it was never enough. I felt crappy that with my first I went back to work and I was not there for him that I only saw him evenings, mornings and weekends.
So I think, overall, I think there is this huge guilt in motherhood. Whatever you do, because with my second kid, I was a stay at home Mom and I still felt guilty. I felt guilty that I couldn't do anything from us like I was like, Hey, I had a career going. I was a scientist and now I feel like I can't even get through my day kind of thing. So that's something that I want to start out with. I was totally there. I had no idea how to take care of myself in those early childhood years.
Laura: I think what you're saying resonates, probably with all of our listeners, This kind of just there's no way for moms to win. I think sometimes in our in our culture, in our society, no matter what we do, we're doing something wrong. We are hard on ourselves. The world is hard on ourselves and judges us. It's it's an incredibly difficult thing. And I know Dad's get it to It is heavy on moms.
Kerstin: Yeah, I totally think so. And maybe some of it itself 100% on ourselves. We want to be the perfect mom, and we want to get everything right. And we want to set our kids up for success. And then there's so much information overload that this is how you do it and this and that, and you're not doing it right if you do that.
So, yeah, I don't know. So now what? I, my own journey, was to, first, the very first thing that I did is I needed to get out of sleep deprivation. So what I did on Sundays, I started sleeping in, and I have my husband takeover the kids. So that was for me. And then I started doing self more self care, like yoga again. And I love the mountain bike. So as my kids got older, it really became easier. And actually, now I feel like I have to do it this way.
We also home school, so it's now our whole family dynamic has shifted, so we spend a lot of time at home and and it comes back to this kind of leadership. I see myself now as living my life as fully as I can so that my kids can see that a mom can live a full life. I'm also a big believer that they're not learning for life. They're not getting ready for life. They are living life already, and so we want to treat them like that. So having boundaries with my kids and setting expectations is something that I think is normal If we want to live together, we have to find a way how to do this in a respectful way, in a way where everybody feels like they're needs are met and and so I think oftentimes there's moms.
What we do is we think about kids needs we only think about them. Think about how to set them up for success. What do they need? Where do I want them to go to school, whatever. You know how to prep them. But what we really should do is first of all, create an environment where they can make choices.. And take on their own small decisions, right?
Laura: And responsibility for their lives, which they want and crave. You know, I just wanna jump in one of the things that you're speaking to, the figuring out how to balance the needs of the whole family and something that, for me as a social scientist that has always helped me, is Massa's hierarchy of needs and really coming to understand that most parents who are feeling really burnt out are prioritizing higher order needs of their children over their basic needs. So we have these at the bottom of this pyramid of hierarchy of needs.
There's these basic needs for sleep food, you know, physical shelter, warm, you know, safety. And they move up through and at the top. There is this kind of creative needs. You know, the need for purpose and all of those things and oftentimes, you know, when we are really hungry and we get up five times because our kid doesn't want the Red Cup and they want the blue Cup. And when we're doing that, we're putting our kids' creative needs for expression, self expression of I really want the Blue Cup today.
You know, that's a self expression need. That's a higher order need. And we're putting that above our our basic needs for food and sustenance, you know? And so I like for me, the that hierarchy of needs really helps me understand Where do I need to have a boundary? Because if I haven't eaten all day, I'm not going to be a good mom. And so the boundary that needs to be honey bunch. Of course, if you want to Blue cup, you're welcome to go get your blue cup. I'm gonna sit down and eat this and once I've had a few bites of food and I feel my tummy is not rumbling so much that I'm happy to get you a cup so you can either wait or you can go get it yourself and and set the environment up for success.
So if if you're going to expect them to get their own cups. Put the cups down low so they can go get it. Put a small picture of water on the table table so they can fill it up. You know, use the environment as your helper. I mean, it's okay for us to be hungry and eat.
Kerstin: Yes, yes, absolutely. And, yeah, it can get go so deep. It goes as deep as, for example, when we used to go out, eat out which my family doesn't do a whole lot. But my kids never got kids plates like we usually used regular menu items, But then I would choose something that they would eat. And then I would eat that. And I stopped doing that. For example, I ordered my food. Now I'm not.
Laura: Food that you want to eat.
Kerstin: Exactly. Because my husband always ordered his food. He didn't. He didn't even think this way, right?
Laura: Of course not.
Kerstin: It's not against him. Nothing against him. He has all the right to eat his own food. But I had the same right, and I didn't. I didn't think that I was important enough for something, you know? So yeah, those things run really deep and we want to be, as I think, as women. Usually we are very good at giving. We are really, you know, it's I don't know. I think it's a trade that we have generally speaking that we give more easily and it fills us. I guess we have a stronger need for forgiving. But yeah, just like you said, the boundaries are super important and your kid is not going to be upset about a boundary like that. I mean, they might be in the moment, right? That depends on.
Laura: But it's not a damaging boundaries.
Kerstin: It's not damaging your relationship. And so what has helped my family a lot? Like you said, the environment we did a lot of and we still follow among the story principles. I think it's a philosophy, a philosophy, So we had our environment set up. Our home was always low shelves. They always could do their own things, and I think as moms or parents right now we have this idea of needing to help and needing to be there for our kids all the time, where, as I see them as more capable, I think we have to identify.
I mean, we have to identify the skills that they can learn and do by themselves, which in the beginning might be slow, right? We might need to help, and we might need to be there. But it's almost like a piggy bank you're saving up until they become more independent. I have now kids that are eight and five. My son started making pancakes if at night he loves to eat a smoothie. And in the beginning, it was always a mom.
Can you make a smoothie for me? And I'm like, Well, you know exactly how to use the blender. You know where to get the frozen fruit. You know where to get the yogurt. And so he does it himself now. So we really have to teach some skills and they're so proud of themselves.
Laura: They love it.
Kerstin: Three year old I started making checklists for packing because we do travel quite a lot or go camping. And so I used to be the one who did everything and I was like, No, it's so much on me. We didn't go camping as often as we wanted to because I was stressed out already days before.
Laura: Yeah.
Kerstin: Being able to get the things together or worrying about everybody's stuff. So I started making checklists and my daughter has been packing her own bag since three years old. So I put like visuals there. I put the numbers, how many for if we go a week or if we go a weekend and she's been doing it and she's beaming.
Laura: Yeah, they feel so good and so accomplished. And I think like they are an important part of the family. Everyone wants to feel included. Everyone wants to feel like there is a place for them in a family and creating that culture of in this family. We help each other out in this family. We've got each other's backs in this family. We, you know, it takes teamwork to make the dream work like That's just what we do here and it's beautiful. I think one of the things that lots of parents run into particularly moms is that there is this sense of it's just easier to just do it myself there. You know that, and I'm kind of curious what you think about that.
Kerstin: I think it's a short I'd give you like it's really short term, it's easier and faster.
Laura: And that's true, it is easier in the short term.
Kerstin: But long term you have to look at. I always ask my clients, like, What are the values? What are the things you want to kind of teach your kids right? Like, What is it you want to your life to look like and the values and what you want to share with your kids? Let's let's say like this. And so when we look at what we want our kids to become, uh, it is very, very different than when we look at today. This is where we are, right? Because right now it's not important for you right now. You want to get out of the door, so you're on time, for example.
But looking ahead, you want to have a kid that is capable of solving problems, a kid that is capable of negotiating that is not afraid to talk to adults and voice their opinion. You want a kid that is a critical thinker. You want a kid that has, you know, skills. Eventually it all comes back to mental health. You know, it's just so important because those are the things that make us feel valued. Those are the things that make us be.
You know, we are social creatures, some more than others, right? I mean, there's I mean, in my family, we have introverts and extroverts, and I know that I need more rest and more me time. But my kids are very extroverted, but we have found a way where we can make that happen. For example, so it's all about creating opportunities for everybody to be and hone into the person they are really?
Laura: Okay. So in that vein, I think that another thing that I hear from parents that especially again moms, where it's really hard to ask for what they need because they don't even know they've been cut off for so long, from even like the possibility of having needs, they pushed their needs to the side so long they don't. They don't even know what it is that they want and need. How do you go about getting kind of back in touch with that? Figuring out What is it that I need?
Kerstin: I think we're coming back to the Maslow Pyramid. Basically, in the beginning, you have to look at your basic needs because until your basic needs are not met, you can't really think about anything else that would create higher fulfilment, right? Like I said, for me, it was sleeping. I really needed to start sleeping. Food was not so much a problem.
She was not a problem for me. What was a problem for me was time to myself. Like I feel now with Covid, for example, towards the like year and a half in, I suddenly felt really, really burnt out because I think I'm doing a lot of things right. But being limited in the amount that I can be by myself has been weighing heavy on me. And then I've been noticing that. So for anybody who doesn't know what they need right now, I think it's just noticing how you feel noticing how in different situations, how when are you feeling like, really stable really come? And when are you feeling really triggered and and really noticing it?
Is there a certain pattern? Is there something I haven't slept well three nights in a row? I'm very much more I don't know easily triggered I, then single says, Flip my lead I just You know, I'm much more reactive. Can't be buffering others because with kids, we need a lot of buffering their emotions. And so when we don't have this capacity to buffer, then we start yelling. Then we start taking things away, right, which doesn't help anybody, right? And then we feel guilty about it.
Laura: Way, of course, because we just needed that extra layer anyway.
Kerstin: So start noticing when you feel good, like, have your cup of tea in the morning quietly before the kids get up. Does this fuel you? It's a five minute shower. Not enough, then it's not enough. Then you got to ask for more.
So noticing those different patterns that come up noticing your feelings, writing that down if you if you do, journal it is a wonderful way to discover that. Yeah, I think once you are starting to do it, you really can incorporated more easily because you see the positive effects of it, right? But yeah, often times I think sometimes you might even have to start by asking for a break, getting a little bit of a long time to even feel yourself again because I don't know I only have two kids, but sometimes their energy is so strong that it is really hard to feel myself right.
But it's really I I really need to be in tune with myself and take this time away to again reassess. How am I doing how you know And one of the stories that I have is I love mountain biking, like I said, But with my first kid, I went. I started going mountain biking after he was like a year old, and it is a sports that you usually go for 2 to 3 hours, and so I was working at the time. I only saw him mornings and evenings and weekends, and now suddenly I started taking out three hours of the weekend that I could see him and I couldn't sustain it.
I was like, This is I can't do it because I was feeling so guilty for not seeing him for the rest of the time. So I stopped. And now that my kids got older well, with my second kid, I actually found solutions to bring her on my bike like I had a seat and she was on my bike. Since I think a year and a half old.
Laura: That's awesome. So we can get creative.
Kerstin: You can. You can you can get creative to or I did, for example, another example would be the, uh, YMCA. They had Mom's work out in the park where we could bring the kids along.
Laura: Perfect.
Kerstin: So and and the cool thing that I started seeing when I started doing these things with my second one.
Laura: It's okay. It takes time to learn these things for yourselves. And that's why we're so glad to have resources like this podcast and yours where maybe people can learn and get a little bit of a shortcut so it doesn't take, you know, getting to the 2nd and 3rd kid to get it figured out. But it does take time.
Kerstin: It does take time, and it's okay.
Laura: It's okay, but it takes time.
Kerstin: And so with my second kid, what I learned through all these things that I was doing is that I was a better mom. I was feeling better, but also I suddenly saw her doing push ups or doing like, you know, because she saw me in the park taking care of my body. And so this is now how I see myself care. I see myself care as not time only that I spend for myself. But I see it as an as an investment in health as an investment in my my body. My, you know, my wellness and the kids pick up on it.
Laura: Yeah, absolutely.
Kerstin: And so for people who are from moms or parents who think that they don't have the time, I really want them to reassess all the things they do and get clear on the values. Like, for example, we like I said, We homeschool so we don't We don't do a lot of extra curriculum because I don't want to be the driver. I just don't and this is where we live. We need to drive our kids everywhere. There's hardly anything we can do, a walking distance or biking distance. So we have a rule that they have to choose.
They can choose one extra curricula and we do family meetings. So then we would say, like where can we go? There's these different things. My my daughter just sorry ballet, and so we we went to three different studios. Everything had a pro in the car. And then she had tests. Not to try and classes. And at each of them. And then I asked her. So which one did you like best? Where do you want to go?. And and luckily, she chose the cheapest one. But also it is convenient for us because it's not too far away, and it's once a week. And so I'm able to do that. I'm able and willing to do that.
Laura: So I just wanna highlight some pieces of what you're this example that you just shared because it's so beautiful. You identified your needs and concerns and worked with your daughter to figure out how to get her needs and wants met, and yours met and and engaged her in a process of self reflection and figuring out what option was going to best meet her needs. What a skill set for a kid to have. I mean, she's five. Is that right?
Kerstin: She’s five and a half.
Laura: Yeah. What a skill set for a five year old to have. I mean, these kids are if we're doing this on a regular basis, modeling it ourselves and then engaging them in the process of being really discerning in the like this idea that, hey, we've got a chance here to do what really fills us up what lights up, which feels good. Let's make a very intentional decision about where we take ballet classes. This is a kid who's going to have no trouble choosing between college and tech school or, you know, an apprenticeship or you know which college to go to a major like these are big decisions that she will be so well prepared for. It's a beautiful approach.
Kerstin: And it gives our family the opportunity to be intentional, right? Really one. So we are actually, we have a situation right now. We're really struggling. You are invited to a birthday party at a theme park, but it means that we have to get our tickets to the theme park. And it was not on our plan. Now my daughter really wants to go because it's one of her best friends from the Today Coop that she goes.
So we have been discussing like we didn't want to get like a day ticket is almost like an annual pass. And so we have been all these discussions we have had. And so we like. Look, guys, this is not really where we wanted to put our money. We wanted to get museum passes. We wanted to do different things. Also, because the brother, the big Brother, he doesn't like roller coasters. So if we go to the same park, he's gonna be bored. And so anyways, so we've been telling her that there is this option of getting both of my kids.
There's the option of getting an annual pass for all the family members. But it would spend so much money that we could have used for something else. Or there is the option to only go for that day. And, yeah, it's gonna be an expensive day. But then the rest of the money we can put towards the things that we wanted to do And so my 8.5 year old, he was like, Yeah, it's kind of fun to go there, but I think one day would be enough.
So those are all options, right? We don't have. We don't have to field our kids and they're all that I get. The more you can, you can present problems like this, and they are really creative, like our kids can come up with a really good solutions that we often don't even think about because we are adults. We have so much. I don't know if you can say so much, but we have more experiences, right. We predict things in a certain way, depending on our past, right on our past experiences.
So we our predictions, oftentimes look very different than the prediction a kid will make. So, whatever I think whenever you can, you can have those conversations of money, time, energy. You want to spend what you are willing to spend as a parent, where they want to put their energy, money and time and then find solutions that work for everybody because they will never live in isolation. They will always have to negotiate. They will always have to find solutions that work for more than one person.
And yes, sometimes we take turns. Sometimes one person take the front stage kind of right. We're more. We're putting more energy and one person and on the other, and it's a conversation that we're having with our kids. Like sometimes my kids don't want to go outdoors. But we do. And then we say, Well, today, this is what we're going to do because we really need it. And whenever they are outdoors, they actually they love it, right, And you just can't imagine it. And we do a little bit of visualization with them sometimes.
Like when they're really, really I don't wanna go. Then we're like, remember how last time you didn't want to go in, and once you were at the park, you were hanging from trees. You were meeting at a friends, so So those things can help, right? But it absolutely you can say, Hey, today, this is what we do because this is what we need as parents.
Laura: Okay.
Kerstin: There's nothing, there's no harm in that. Because other days your kids take the front stage.
Laura: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's really important and impactful for our kids to see us as humans to have needs and that it's okay for us to get the Met.
Kerstin: Yeah. I mean, imagine you had a kid that would always be the one. That's right. They would always you know, I mean, it's gonna be impossible for them to get along with anybody.
Laura: Well, I think a lot of us grew up, I think, with parents who and mom's, especially who just kind of laid themselves on the altar of motherhood and were martyrs for us. And I never asked for anything and did it all and and did it with a smile on their face. And then I think that's why lots of us experience so much guilt. And of course, they did it because they are loving and wonderful mothers.
They are beautiful, and there's no nothing negative about them. But one of the reasons why I can ask for time to myself so easily is because my mom did that for me. I have very specific memories of her, very playfully saying she would use this, that she was going to Australia because, you know, the eighty's and yeah, you didn't do long distance phone calls. And so if you needed something, you had this under a postcard so she would pretend she was in Australia and we couldn't talk to her.
She would do this while she was reading a magazine or while she was paying bills so she could concentrate. But she really firmly set this very playful boundary of like, I am unavailable right now. You may not talk to me. And if you do talk to me, I will ignore you like it was. And it was playful and loving and kind. And it absolutely gave me permission to do the same with my kid because I never felt ignored by her or abandoned by her. I just got to see her enjoying reading a magazine like she worked so hard in our family. She deserves a chance to lay on the couch and read a magazine.
We all do. Okay, so last question. Because I am. We're wrapping up here. I always end up going much longer than I intend to, but I know that many of us. So I have been so fortunate that I have a partner who is willing to step into the arena with me on some of these things. Who is willing to see me as a whole person who is worthy of of time and rest and space and getting my needs met? Um, that's not the case for many moms who are married to men. We grow up in patriarchy, and women are affected by it and men are two very negative to their own detriment. So for women who are maybe working with a partner who is awakening to the idea that no women are allowed to have time off, women are allowed to have needs. Do you have any tips for? For those folks?
Kerstin: Yeah, that's a tough one, because it is definitely very, very extended. So I think there is a rise in men who want to be more present.
Laura: Of course.
Kerstin: I think there is a lot of the problem that I see is that these men still don't have the networks and the support that they need. I think there's growing support around it, but it is still a vulnerable topic for them, I think.
Laura: Just as an example. So I have a folks that I know who are in really high up positions and some big tech companies, and two of them are married to each other. And they had a baby over this past year, and the mom was encouraged to take her time in her leave, and the dad works at a company that has great paternity leave.
But, it was communicated to him under under like the radar that if you take that leave, you will be completely off track for promotions. And it's really frowned upon for for men to use their paternity leave. And so, for a man who wants to be present, wants to take that. Leave it. There is this cultural pressure, you know what with work, culture pressure but broader cultural pressure here in the US that it's really hard for them.
Kerstin: Yeah, it is. I think it is getting better. And from the corporate standpoint, what we're seeing is that right now it's an era after, like the Covid shut down, a lot of people reassess their lives and their jobs that companies who want to keep their valuable employees, they really need to invest. So employees are not looking for merely transactional thing.
I get my time and you give me money. They are looking for meaning they're looking for being part of the mission. They're looking to be valued, and so at the moment is a really good time to reassess. If you're in a job like that, they're pretty like that to to look for other companies that have better policies that are really actually not only on paper, but live policies. So that that's one thing on the corporate side.
Laura: But I think that that applies a little bit to the in the home too. I think that, you know, the men that I've spoken to on the podcast are hungry for that at home, too. The shared meaning shared purpose in the home, not being, you know, someone who just, you know, helps out with the kids, but having a real stake holder position, which men have been blocked out at times in the home to.
So I think that there is wisdom there for us And, you know, like, we can't do this without you, you know? You know, the what is it that you want? What do you want your home in your life to look like and really coming together in this? Like, Look, we're in this for hopefully for the long haul, right? This is We chose each other. We chose these kids. It's they ended, you know? And we get to choose now, moving forward what we wanted to look like.
Kerstin: Yeah, I think you're totally on point here. I think there is a lot of us not letting them or whenever I do like some of those questions on social media, I get a lot of they don't do it right. You have to redo it. So I think moms have to rethink priorities. Kind of like what does that mean? For example, for us, chores are still a huge friction point, and I always invite my people to go through each person and make their own list of what they know needs to be done on a daily basis on a weekly basis on a monthly basis and then rate important. How important is this to me?
And how likely am I or how willing am I to do this tour, for example, because again you give them choices, you empower each person. And then if if there is a huge discrepancy, if there's like something that nobody wants to do, think maybe can be outsource and can we do less of it, or can we outsource? Or can we make an agreement that we want one time? You do it another time I do it and then really rethinking what does done mean? What does done look like? I do that with my kids like when they clean up their rooms. I say, What does done look like? So they tell me where. Nothing on the on the floor, for example, right. And things put into copies. Or so again I think it is. And I think it comes back to to us, trying to help, to be everything and partly a little bit of control.
Laura: Yeah.
Kerstin: If we don't have control over anything, at least let me have control over the house. And I think we need to reframe that We need to get control over our lives and important that people like people over over things. For example, like Do I need to have beautiful, sparkly kitchen every day? I don't write like I need to be fed. I need to be for me. Connection time with my kids is more important than fighting over who does the dishes, for example, and I have caught myself rearranging the dishwasher because I can fit more things. And now I stopped doing. I'm like, What am I wasting time on this right? It's done. It's done.
I don't need to rearrange, but yeah, I think it's just trusting our partners that they can be there and a lot of conversations. I'm coming back to those family meetings. Usually we do. My husband and I, we do meetings and it's all you know. We don't They don't look very official anymore. But the kids usually we sit down, but it's really kind of keeping the communication going. Oftentimes, men don't even know what's going on. Like if you have kids in school, all the school communication, everything that's needed for that. If it goes to your inbox, it's below their radar. They have no idea how much work you put in for school.
Laura: That's why we have a family email address, that our schools don't have access to our individual email addresses. And we both have the family email address loaded onto our phones so that neither of us can claim to be off the radar with those things. For sure, you know, I think to the like, I love this idea of these ongoing conversations, you know, and approaching things from a team. So, you know, in our house, we recognize that we both have needs. I have, you know, a need for walk and yoga, and I do a live class every Sunday at 9:30 you know? And so we and my husband, um, in the summer and fall in spring as a golfer and in the winter he ice fishes. And so those things take a long time.
Four hours, usually for for both of them. And so we sit down and talk about Okay, So when are you gonna? Here's the weekend. When are we gonna make sure you get your ice fishing in? Do you want to take the kids with you to go ice fishing or they staying home with me this week? Because sometimes he wants to go by himself or with a buddy, you know, and sometimes he wants to take the kids, and that's fine. You know, I love it when he takes the kids, because then I get three hours by myself in my house and and welcome them home with hot chocolate.
I'm the hero, you know, But yeah, I mean, I it's the ongoing conversation and the in the sense of like your needs matter to me my life. Let's make sure you get them met and and I assume the very best of you I know that my needs matter to you and that you're going to do everything in your power to make sure they're met as opposed to this Kind of like, I have to scrape and fight tooth and nail to get my needs. Met this assuming Like you love me.
Of course you want my needs met. I mean, if we that's what we signed up for when we got you know, if we're married and we took vows, you know, vowed to meet each other's needs, you know, to help each other have a full and fulfilling life. I know you're committed to that and and coming from that place of like, Oh, honey, I know you love me so much, and I know you've been seeing me struggling, and part of the thing I think I really need is I need a chance to go for a walk every morning. So how can we make sure that it's gonna happen? You know, what can you take on in the morning so I can get that walk in? They'll figure it, they'll figure it out.
Kerstin: Yeah, And I think also it was something that I started with and I incorporated, and I got really good at, You know, like now I need my time and I'm going. Or on Sundays I go ride my bike But I noticed that my husband had actually the same issues. He had the same. He was like, I need to work. And then I and then I'm there for my kids because he wants to be. He wants, like, this quality time. And he was seeking those deep connections as well. But he felt like he didn't have the right to go.
And I'm like, No, like we plan our schedule. We put the kids two days pro two day school program on there. We put their extracurriculars. So now what do you want to do? And so we made it happen. But it really had to come from me to say Don't forget about yourself. Like like now I I created a space for me. But now I see that you're not doing it and it's just, you know, it's okay. Now we have to drive to pick up because we reduced to one car. We have to drive to pick up my husband from soccer, and my kids have to come.
Laura: and they get to see their dad playing soccer. That's awesome.
Kerstin: Yes, but also, like, you know, it's It's like it's part of this. Usually we drive the kids, but now you have to come along because we have to do that. So it's again. It's it's part of living together. It's balancing time. And another thing that I wanted to say if it's not so much self care that you need. But if you're looking to get back into a profession or whatever passion project you have, it was like a really defining point in our marriage was when my husband saw me talk about the business idea like before.
I started this to a friend and he had never you know, he had never witnessed those conversations. And he saw me so engaged and so, you know, energized. He was like, Wow, I didn't even realize how much this meant to you. And this was, you know, it was because we were living on one income. We were doing well, but But still I wanted to do something outside of being Mom.
Laura: Yeah.
Kerstin: I wanted to be more again and do something impactful. It was really a defining moment because it connected us so much more because in the whole, getting through the days, we didn't have those conversations. We had conversations about yoga, we had conversations about. And when I was asking him, what should I do? What could I do? He never picked up on it. He you know, he was like, What do you want to do? But then when he witnessed that conversation with my friend, he was like, You're seriously engaged. You're seriously energized by this. It was amazing to see you like this.
I hadn't seen you like this in so long. And when we think about it this way, it really is. You know, the kids are with us for a period of time, but our partners are gonna stay supposedly right. Suppose yeah. So I think we have to make sure that we have enough conversations about ourselves in our marriage that we have enough about our goals. And and really, our life has shifted so much with homeschooling with me running a business.
It has shifted so much with him working from home now and being more flexible that we see much more, many more opportunities. We think much more outside of the box right now and create our own thing. And I want people to know it is possible. Like, don't let yourself be boxed in by other people or what other people expect from you. Go after what? You want the need. And you have the right to do that.
Laura: The divine right and responsibility to do that too. Yeah, absolutely. Kerstin, thank you so much for this conversation. I really enjoyed talking about this with you, and I think it will be so helpful. why don't you make sure everybody knows where to go and find you? Of course, your links will be in the show notes. But I'm just, you know, folks can hear it out loud.
Kerstin: I really enjoyed our conversation to really, really important for people to hear.
Laura: I think I agree.
Kerstin: Yeah, they can find me under casting dot com and the checklists that I mentioned forward slash checklists. That's a freebie that I have. There's four. There's four checklist that we use. And then there's editable talk that you can use to make your own because I don't know your needs, your activities, what I used to have? Yeah, you mentioned the work, like flow podcast. That's where people can listen. That's it for now, I think.
Laura: Well, thank you so much for being here with us and for all that you do. It's beautiful.
Kerstin: Thank you.
Okay, so thanks for listening today. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and if it was helpful, leave me a review that really helps others find the podcast and join us in this really important work of creating a parenthood that we don't have to escape from and creating a childhood for our kids that they don't have to recover from.
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All right. That's it for me today. I hope that you keep taking really good care of your kids and your family and each other and most importantly of yourself. And just to remember, balance is a verb and you're already doing it. You've got this!