SEASONS: Learning to Embrace YOUR Motherhood with Leslie Bley

You love your kids. But does that mean you have to always like motherhood? Therapist Leslie Bley joins AllMomDoes host Julie Lyles Carr for a frank and encouraging conversation about understanding and embracing your individual capacity in motherhood, how to identify when it’s time to change things up so you can flourish, and how to move from feeling like motherhood is something that’s happening to you into a season that celebrates you and your kids for who God created you to be.

Interview Links:

•  Leslie Bley Counseling Website
• Leslie’s Enneagram Consulting Website
• AllMomDoes Episode 242: SEASONS: Julie Lyles Carr and Going from One to Two to Three Kids…and Beyond
• Leslie is teaching a webinar on Sunday 10/9 on Developmental Motherhood and how to support those who are finding motherhood exhausting and overwhelming. She’s offering 25% off the cost of $45 by entering code: allmomdoes – Click here for details and/or to sign up!

Transcription:

Julie Lyles Carr: You’re listening to the All Mom Does Podcast. I’m Julie Lyle’s Carr and we are in a series on seasons of life, and as my producer, Rebecca and I were putting this together, I knew there was someone that I absolutely had to have on. I wanted to have her on before, it just, we just haven’t gotten the timing to work out, but this is someone who has delved into a season that I think a lot of us think should be very instinctual, and yet it often isn’t. I cannot wait for you to meet my friend, my amazingly smart, witty, cool friend, Leslie Bly. Leslie, thanks so much for being on the show today. 

Leslie Bley: Well, I’m so excited to be here. Thank you. It’s gonna be fun. 

Julie Lyles Carr: The best. It’s gonna be so fun. I love how we met because you reached out to me via email. I can’t even remember how you might have heard of me, and you said, hey, I recently moved to the area and I wanna get to know people. Would you meet me for coffee? I was like, I already like this chick. This is like, so just, okay. And we met at Starbucks. I had to bring my twins with me, which was of course chaos. But you have twins, so that was very helpful. And we sat down, and I just fell in love. What, what inspired you to reach out in that way? Yeah, absolutely. 

Leslie Bley: I know you say it like it sounds easy, and I’m sure I was just desperate and shaky, and you know, overwhelmed in a new place. And I think what I did was I looked at churches locally to see if I could find women’s ministry leaders. Like someone who may be likeminded and may just be encouraging cuz I think I was in that place of feeling so new. So I would shake and make a phone call like, Oh, maybe this person will take time. And you know, you don’t expect to be called back, honestly, there’s so many churches here and they’re all big and here in Austin. But you called back, and it was just so meaningful that you would respond. And then we had a great first meet. It was wonderful. So, and here we are, six years later. It was six years ago, years later. Crazy. 

Julie Lyles Carr: And you were so incredible to come in that season where I was pastoring, and you just ministered to my women so beautifully and you’re just the best. And part of what is so, awesome about you is I tend to surround myself with friends who are therapists. I’d like to, I’d like to think it was because of the work I was involved in for so long, but honestly now Leslie, I’m like, no. I think that therapists are probably the only people who can handle friendships with me. 

Leslie Bley: Stop it. It probably just means your very wise. Right? You’re very transparent. 

Julie Lyles Carr: Why something like that. I know. That’s it. Yes. So, Leslie, you’ve done some incredible work in the professional counseling space. So tell listeners a little bit about yourself and your work and how you got into the profession that you’re in.

Leslie Bley: Yes. Well, I have been counseling as a licensed professional counselor for about 18 years. Six of those here in Austin. Before that, I was in St. Louis, Missouri for a long time, and married to Kevin. He’s a carpenter, and I’ve got twin 11-year-old, almost 12-year-old boys that we call Sons of Thunder. They are not quiet beings, very active kiddos. And you know, in my, you know, for fun, I look for time alone. So that’s, that’s what I do for fun, is I try to find some time by myself in the quiet. And some of the things I do in therapy are working with women, working with moms, working with couples, and particular the motherhood space as it relates to women. In their own identities, in their own story work, in their own emotional mapping. For whatever reason, for many of us, motherhood is what puts a lot of our emotionality on the map in a way that kind of gets our attention and is a, can be a struggle to notice while you’re parenting and just doing life and maybe you work also.

And so I have a lot of empathy and I’m kind of drawn to women who are, just kind of discovering who they are during that season. Cuz I think a lot of identity questions and a lot of just who we are seems to come up during, especially the first few years of motherhood when you go, you literally have been kind of in the washing machine and then in the dryer. I mean you’re tumbling through, you know, so. Right? Well, some of us are. And I have really enjoyed, you know, the privilege of being involved in some women’s stories through that time and that chapter of life. 

Julie Lyles Carr: You know, in talking about seasons, this series that we’ve been in, I have to say that motherhood is the one that I feel like we can be very assumptive as a culture, as women, that motherhood is just something we’re gonna walk into. And yes, there’s gonna be some sleepless nights and there might be the episiotomy you weren’t planning on, and there may be some of these, these unknown factors that come along. But at its core, motherhood is the most natural, instinctual, primal thing that we can do. And to be frank, Leslie, for me, it really was, I mean, I was just one of those, first baby came along and I was like, I, I get it. I had the gear. And I don’t say that in any kind of ta-daaa. I say that from a place of it not even registering with me, the challenge that a lot of women can have finding this gear. So, A: if you’re a listener who’s like, motherhood was just, felt like the most natural thing I ever did. Great. That was a gift.  

Leslie Bley: Absolutely. It’s a gift.

Julie Lyles Carr: It’s a gift. Take it, receive it. Receive it, enjoy it, but don’t think it’s anything that you did because I’ve known amazing women, far more organized, far more on top of things than I am who, when it gets real at a girl’s dinner are like, man, this motherhood thing, I don’t know that I’m really built for it. What have you found in your practice, because this is something that I found fascinating about the work that you’re doing is this identification that you’ve had of women for whom motherhood is not coming easily. When did this first start registering with you? Like, hey, wait a minute, we may be making a lot of assumptions about women and their journeys into motherhood.

Leslie Bley: Yeah, I mean like a lot of things, it started with my own story. Having the twins as a, as my first experience. So going right in from zero to two, right? And being a little older, I was 36. I’d had all these years to anticipate, prepare, imagine what I would be like, especially as a Christian mom, and then not seeing that naturally occur, it was so distressing. And to be introduced to categories like postpartum anxiety or postpartum depression, or children who are neuro divergent and aren’t neurotypical. Just these categories I didn’t anticipate, didn’t expect, and they were being used in my care. And so I think it started with me just feeling like, Whoa, this is really different and am I allowed to tell somebody that I love my boys, but I don’t like motherhood? Is that something you can say? Are you allowed to say it at church? I mean, it was a lot of my own just navigating that feeling very alone in that navigation space and hoping that no mom ever walked that alone again.

Right? I don’t think any mom should be alone in any of her experiences of motherhood. Whether they are easy and natural and wonderful or you’re on the struggle bus, I don’t think you should be alone. And I kind of vowed at that point to, to really try to not, you know, if I came across a mom who was struggling that she shouldn’t struggle alone.

Julie Lyles Carr: Right. I can remember the sense in the room when I would have you come guest speak for the mother’s group that we had weekly when I was on staff at a local church, and you would come and you would just give permission for women in the room to say, do you love your kids, but not like motherhood? First of all, the number of hands that would go up was remarkable. The, the look of confusion on those who didn’t raise their hands was interesting. I was like, Oh, okay. So that’s, that isn’t area where women haven’t like connected the dots on this, so myself included, okay. And then the relief that I could feel come across the room as you began to say, it’s okay. Like it’s not, this isn’t always the most primal, instinctual thing and there are things we can talk about and ways that we can create tools to be able to, to navigate these seasons. I could just feel that relief. Have you found that women have been ashamed or afraid to be able to say out loud, Okay, love my kids, but man, some of the rest of this gig, I’m not sure about this. 

Leslie Bley: Yeah. I mean, I think I, I hope at this point it’s gotten a little bit less taboo. I feel like women have, across the board, been writing more about their experience, been talking more about it. You obviously have made safe places for it to be talked about in your spheres, so I, I hope that the light is coming in, you know, on the dark areas. But I think we all at a deep, deep level, identity wise, we want to be good moms. We wanna be seen as good moms. We wanna feel at our core that we’re good. And I think when we talk about the hard things, especially if we talk about it in a place that doesn’t feel safe from judgment, I think it’s vulnerable. I think that that perception of, am I a good mom? Starts to feel more fragile when we talk about the hard stuff. And so I think that’s why there’s been gates around it or shut doors or, you know, we’ve hesitated to talk about it. And I, I do hear people like joke about it as though that’s kind of the only way to get to it. Is kind of make a joke. And I’m always listening to the, what’s underneath that? Are you getting support? You know, we can laugh about it, but we also wanna pay attention to it. 

Julie Lyles Carr: How, what are, what are the things you listen for? And not that you’re, not that if you run into Leslie at the grocery store, she’s completely psychoanalyzing you or anything like that. 

Leslie Bley: Oh, no, no, no. I’m too tired. 

Julie Lyles Carr: Yeah you’re off the clock at that point, , but what are some of the indicators that you find if a woman comes in and she just, she says, Leslie, I, I don’t know. I’m just feeling unsettled, or I’m, I’m exhausted, or, or whatever the thing is. What are some of the markers you’re looking for? Because there may be a listener out there going, well, I don’t know that I would say I don’t like, like being a mom, but I know that I’m not beaming and glowing like some of the people around me. So what are you listening for when a woman comes in and what helps you identify? If maybe there’s this nascent sense of, I, I don’t know if I like this thing. Yeah. 

Leslie Bley: I, yeah. I think I’m listening to, this is gonna sound silly cuz I’m not a doctor, so I say this with tongue in cheek, but I’m listening to their nervous system. So, the two words I hear the most are overwhelmed and exhausted, and those are two different parts of the nervous system, right? Overwhelmed is associated with hyper arousal, anxiety symptoms, lots of brain, you know, lots of flight of ideas, not sleeping very much, lots of worry, lots of anticipating problems, lots of not feeling any breathing, not feeling any calm, not being able to kind of rest your mind, right? So overwhelmed is like, you know, your brain is, and nervous system is on overdrive, and I’m listening for that. And that column of emotions like overwhelmed, but then I also hear exhausted. Well, that’s the other side of the nervous system. That’s hypo arousal, that’s, I can’t sleep enough, I wanna sleep all the time, I’m not moving, I’m not able to get my brain to come online, I can’t remember anything, I’m crying a lot, my body wants to shut down, you know? And so, now we all have access to lots of parts of the nervous system. And sometimes people have the first one, the rise, hyper arousal, and then they days later have hypo. So it’s not that we have one or the other, but oftentimes if you listen to your body, you do one more than the other. And we really need to be in a conversation with our nervous system. We need to be in a relationship with it. Because even if you love motherhood, but you’re not sleeping well, there’s still something to notice there. That you may need more care and support around for more flourishing.

Julie Lyles Carr: I can remember definitely the sense, and particularly I would say it was probably the most heightened when I had my I had my twins last. **There’s actually an episode, I’ll ask Rebecca to link to it in the show notes, where I talk about this whole season of, you know, what’s the most stressful going from one kid to two, two to three. And I’m like, listen, there was, even with the, the length of motherhood I had had, nothing had prepared me for twins. And so when I was someone like you, Leslie, who twins were first, I’m like, Bless your heart, cuz it kicked my hiney having the twins at the very end, and I already, had a whole lot of mothering chops at that point. But I can remember particularly after the twins were born, and I, their next older siblings were still toddlers, and they were babies, and I was also trying to prepare my oldest to go to college. And you know, it was, and I can remember saying the words, and I’m seeing it show up now in parlance surrounding motherhood a little bit more. But I would say to my husband, I am touched out. I mean, I would be so overstimulated just by the number of people who physically needed to touch me or for whom I was serving physically. And I would hit the end of the day completely wired in my head, but I, I was like, If one more person touches me, I just don’t know what I’m gonna do. And then that effect of, some of that was, it became very difficult. I, I would find that I was okay with the demands made by the kids, by the family, but if there was a hiccup, say with getting a car payment in and somebody on the phone was snippy with me about some mistake that had been made on a direct deposit or something, that’s when I would go to pieces like I, I would be okay within the context of home. So I would’ve told you, no, no, no. The mothering is going great, but it was just the one more straw, you know, from some outside influence. Do you find that can be true for women too, that the mothering can feel like it’s going well, but the, but that is as far as the capacity goes, do you find that sometimes to be?

Leslie Bley: Yes. You just said the magic word. I think so much of motherhood is about capacity and so, just like you just said, either your capacity is spent on the children and so marriage and or work and or friendships and or spiritual life feel like they’re getting leftovers and crumbs and you have lots of emotions about that. Or your capacity is really small for your mothering, you know, and you, and you’re able to do other things, and then you have feelings about that. Right? So capacity is very much informed by your nervous system, your level of attunement to yourself, your level of receiving attunement from, whether it’s the Lord or friends or spouse or family. I mean, support capacity seems to be such a key thing. And if we can notice our capacity without judging it, we have so much we can learn in terms of what do we do with that? How do we make decisions, right? Because how we treat trauma, sin, stress, and health issues are very different, but they can present the same, right? So I, I think I’m, I’m all about slowing down and noticing your capacity so you can make decisions about it.

Julie Lyles Carr: I think capacity is one of the places we are most at risk for comparison. And what I mean by that is I look at someone else who seems to be accomplishing doing da, da, da, da…. I then will often turn it inwardly and think, well, if I were more motivated, more organized, more on top of things without I, I miss it sometimes, Leslie, that God gives different people different measures of capacity.

Leslie Bley: That’s right. 

Julie Lyles Carr: And yet for some reason, I think capacity is a meritocracy instead of something that we get wired for. And of course, we can all learn greater endurance, greater patience, greater, those things are always available to us. The Holy Spirit can help us with that, but there is just the reality. It’s like when I watch the Tour de France, and there are these humans who are, are they humans? They just, I don’t know. They just have a pulse ox that they natively have been gifted that gives them an oxygen exchange rate that is just beyond your average human, and hopefully now in the Tour de France isn’t being chemically enhanced. But anyway, but still, you know, even, even back when it was being chemically enhanced, you’re still looking at an anomaly, if you will, within the human race of people who have that kind of oxygen exchange capacity. I’m starting to try to get kinder with myself about realizing that other people can have different levels of capacity. But here’s a question for you. How do we know when we might need to kick it into a higher gear, that maybe we’re getting a little mired in some of our own stuff, and then where is the place where we need to extend greater kindness to ourselves and go, this is the capacity I have and that’s the capacity someone else has. This has always been tricky ground for me, Leslie, because I sometimes left to my own, honestly, I would just wanna hole up in my room and just watch Netflix for days. Introverted me is like, I’m done with you people. And yet part of being a grown up is getting up and doing stuff sometimes when it doesn’t always feel the best. But the flip side of that is when we run ourselves into the ground. How do you help women understand when to push and when to pause? 

Leslie Bley: Well, I don’t think you can do any of that if you aren’t connected to your body. If you don’t take the time to learn your own signals, and I mean signals of when you’re in stress, signals of when you’re in sin, signals of when you’re mad, you know, signals of when capacity is shortening. I, I, I don’t know how else we will find choices. Because my experience of life is that if I’m not slowing down and registering my own senses, like my own signals, life just starts happening to me. And that can mean days of Netflix, or it can mean overworking and workaholism. So when life is happening to me and I’m just kind of serving whatever’s in front of me, sort of unaware, I’m more at risk for hurting myself, you know, or others, honestly. Right. Like either by avoiding things I should be looking at or looking too much at something or looking at nothing. I mean, so I, I don’t know how, like, I don’t know how at our, in our culture’s pace, in, in our expectations of women, any of us are going to survive intact if we aren’t kind of connected to our body, this temple. We’re, we’re all taught as little kids, your body’s this temple. And usually that meant, so don’t do, don’t do, don’t do. I think of it, this is our temple, so get real into it, get real connected with it. Cherish it, understand it. It’s not just a shell holding you up, you know, it really is showing you what’s going on.

Julie Lyles Carr: Right, right. And I think there has been, at least for me, being raised in the church and the messaging we get as women in faith circles, you know, there’s this phrase that we’re hearing used, it’s been around for a while, but I’m hearing it more and more, and this is this, this phenomenon of feeling disembodied from your own body. That somehow there’s some kind of spiritual, you know, superiority if you can disconnect from how your body’s feeling. And, and I’ve had to even reflect on, for example, some of my childbirth experiences when I would be communicating directly to someone, this is what’s happening. And I would be told, no, no, no, no. All the way to delivering my own baby in the hospital, by the way, just as a, as a moniker I’m at. But it is interesting to me in a lot of spiritual circles that we spend a lot of time, particularly for women, getting us somewhat disconnected from our physical bodies. But to your point, this is, this is the vessel in which God chose to seat the soul and to breathe his breath. And so why we ignore the signals we’re being given, why we ignore the sense of of flesh coming up of on our neck when someone’s speaking to us in a certain way, or when we feel touched out, and why we somehow think that we’re supposed to ignore that signal or push it away instead of welcoming it as information about what’s going on. I think that we’ve got a lot of work to do on that in our faith circles to, yes, of course, be disciplined in our bodies and to recognize that we commit sins through our bodies at times. But to also cherish and appreciate what we’re being given in that way.

Leslie Bley: Oh, and I think, you know, for me, as someone who can be anxious, I may still decide, hey, this emotion, You know what? I don’t think you’re serving me today. I don’t think you’re here for a good reason. I am going to ask you to leave. It, it, it just because we’re gonna register our signals, it doesn’t mean that sometimes we don’t still then need to choose; you are not here to help, you are not here to serve me, but I’m glad I noticed to you, I see you. Thank you for telling me something, but what you’re telling me isn’t helpful today. I’m actually not gonna worry about that. I am gonna lay it down. So instead of just instinctually avoiding and numbing and pushing down, we get to make a choice with the emotion if we can kind of, you know, get to know it, greet it, and be like, you know what? I don’t think for me today, what you’re pointing out is, is not serving me, and I can choose that. I can choose to ignore it in a way or not let it have power. And then there are other things that I’m like, Oh, you’re really nagging at me. I really need to give you some attention. Okay. I, you’re telling me I’m sad. I think you’re right. You know, okay. So sometimes I may choose, I do need to lean into that and find a, to register that, you know? 

Julie Lyles Carr: Absolutely. You know, through the course of the pandemic, I think there was also a spotlight that went on women, because now everybody’s in this season was trying to work from home and educate kids from home and all those things. And one of the things that began to pop up in a lot of the vernacular, that I had a revelation myself and then was so glad that this began to be discussed, was the mental load that many women today, particularly here in the US carry when it comes to not only doing whatever their professional job is, but also all the other things that go with running a house, having kids, keeping ’em educated, keeping ’em clothed. Just the constant to-do-list that runs in many women’s brains all the time. And I wonder sometimes, Leslie, if that experience, coupled with things like feeling disembodied, not having vocabulary and tools to understand the emotions and the effects of those emotions that we’re feeling, on top of this mental load that women are carry today, I think it’s something like 85% of women, 85 to 90% are still doing the bulk of childcare, home management, all the things while also working full time. If you look at all of that, do you feel like you’re encountering women who are saying, I’m not loving motherhood. This season of motherhood is so hard. But is it truly natively that, or is it the phenomenon? Is it the ecosystem that we have around women today? How do you discern that when you have clients coming to you going, hey, I’ve heard you talk about it’s okay to not like motherhood. I’m there, but it feels like there could be a lot of layers and complexions on this as we really look at some of the factors that make up that experience.

Leslie Bley: Yeah. I think it’s a complicated question, honestly, because I think typically, we all need validation in the places that we are struggling. But, and, and I think, you know, validation is a, is a gift to normalize the pain we’re in, right. Nor we, we don’t wanna feel like we’re crazy, you know? Right. And so validation’s really helpful. But sometimes the culture is so loud around something that it invites a label that ends up actually doing us a disservice. It actually puts us in such a victim corner that we’re carrying a heavier load instead of, validation is meant to bring a lighter load. It’s meant to be like, Okay, so you are carrying this. Okay, that’s really hard. Are there some things we can do with it? Right? I’m always trying to help moms with what can you let go of? Meaning literally, you have to say, I’m, It’s okay if the dishes look like that for two and a half days. It’s okay if it’ll help me get some sleep and not keep me spinning. That’s okay. What can you say to your spouse if you are married, this is something I need you to do. And if it doesn’t happen, then it doesn’t happen. Then Johnny doesn’t get to do baseball. Cause I’m, it’s in your, I’m putting it on your column, you know? And you’re, I’m, and I’m going to also give up rights to the outcome because I’m, I really need that kind of help. It’s on you. And if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. And I’m going to regulate through that. So what can you let go of? What can you get help with? Is it time to get a Hello Fresh meal once or twice? What do you need this month? Do you need a house cleaner once? What can you get help with and what can you do with less resentment? Is there anything that would help you enjoy this task a little bit more so that we’re not building this narrative of resentment? And what can you be proud of that you’re great at? You are great at running the kids’ schedules, you are great at making sure they’re clothed. Are you enjoy, you know, are you able to take pride in any of it? So to me, the culture can speak so loudly and label-y into things that sometimes it then truncates even the joy we might take in clothing our kids or cooking. However, we do need the validation around struggle so that we’re lighter and can make some decisions in it, that, that maybe do matter to your stress and do matter to your mental load. I don’t, Is that answering your question? 

Julie Lyles Carr: Yes. And I think it’s huge. I, I wanna restate it because I really want the listener to get it, that it is important to acknowledge the challenges that women have today. I think that’s very important. But to just stop there, that stop on the train station is not gonna do us any good. That’s just a centrifuge of exhaustion and not getting any further. So I love that you marry yes, validation for the challenges that women face today, and the empowering tools of saying, Ask for help, decide what the standard’s gonna be, and then just cut it there. And you said something really important I wanna focus on. It’s so important for me to hear it, is disconnecting or getting myself out of the middle of the results of something that I do ask someone else to take on. That is so huge. I, for me, that’s one of the toughest ones because it’s so hard. I don’t wanna be responsible for it anymore, but I feel responsible for it and I do sometimes feel like I’m gonna be judged for the result of it. I even laugh, you know, we’ve always had our kids help with the yard work and we turn it over to them at a certain point. And there are times that I’m sure the HOA drives by and thinks, , what happened? . . But you know what, Leslie, I don’t wanna be out there on the reg now, dealing with the shrubbery. And so I have to detach myself, I have to detach myself from some of the results. That is such a practicum in terms of helping us both acknowledge and move forward from that. Now, help me in this way. Let’s say that I’m in a small group, and all I’ve ever wanted is to be a mom and I’m getting to do it, and my husband and I have made adjustments so that I can focus primarily on that. And then there’s another mom sitting in my group, and she just doesn’t seem to get it, and bless her heart. And doesn’t she know that scripture says that, you know, women are supposed to take care of their families, and this is supposed to be this high calling and on and on. What do we do in that scenario? How do we love each other well and help each other well, without allowing some of that messaging attitude, judgment to creep in. How do we love each other well; however we’re experiencing our seasons of motherhood? 

Leslie Bley: I mean, I go back to a little bit of the the range that I’m always looking for and listening to is, survival to flourish, right? So survival at the low end, right? I’m just getting through and flourishing. I’m enjoying my life, my calling. I’m seeing the fruit of who I am in some ways in my life, right? That’s more flourishing. So I meet women every day who are flourishing somewhere different. Some are flourishing more at home, and some are flourishing more with a work and home balance. And I just am looking for flourishing. And so what I want for my friends, I have friends that are at home, I have friends that are at work. What I want for them is that they both experience some flourishing, however that goes. And I don’t feel like it’s my job to know what makes them flourish or not, or to judge what makes them flourish or not, but I’m here for it. I’m here for, how’s it going? How can you flourish more if you are say, at home and it feels like you’re experiencing a lot of the heaviness of mundane and, is anything important? Is anything sacred? Am I having any impact that feels embodied? And I have friends who are struggling and juggling the work life balance, and I’m like, Okay, for you, what does flourishing look like? How do you feel it at home? How do you feel it at work? And let’s be honest, everybody’s a full-time mom. That is never off your mind, ever. But some women flourish when more is being juggled and some don’t. And I think that goes back to capacity, and you talked about this earlier. They’re kind of being this very personal, very unique level of capacity for things. And I just, other than the author and creator of our bodies and personalities, I do not feel like I know how to judge a person’s capacity, right? And so I’m here to just be a part of what helps you flourish and, and honestly, I come across women who maybe they should consider working. And I come across women, Julie, where I’m like, maybe you should consider quitting. Because flourishing may be very stunted in whatever they’re doing or not doing. So I, I hear it from all the sides. There are many women who I have said, please consider working less. And there are women, I have said, please consider using your calling in some applications.

Julie Lyles Carr: Right, right. I think that giving room for all of us to be able to express the kind of moms and women that God created us to be and to get it off the track of thinking, it has to look like the other women in our moms small group, or the other women right in our office, or the other women in our playgroup, to really give each other the room to flourish, I think is such a beautiful word. Leslie, thank you so much, Leslie Bley, you’re just the best. Where can listeners find out more about you and connect with you, particularly those in the Austin area, if they’re like, you know what? I think I might need to go talk to Leslie. Where can they find you?

Leslie Bley: Yeah, locally. If you are looking for therapy and you’re in Texas, I am just at lesliebleycounseling.com, and if you’re outside of the state and you’re someone who’s interested in personality and life coaching, I, I’m an enneagram consultant, meaning I’m just sort of coaching from the sidelines of personality. And that’s enneagramconsultant.com, and that’s for anybody cuz it’s, it’s not under the same licensure parameters as my therapy. 

Julie Lyles Carr: Right. All right. I’ll ask Rebecca to get that in the show notes. Be sure and check out those show notes where you can see highlights and links to a lot of the things that we’ve talked about today. And also, if this episode has helped you, I would love for you to share it with a couple of your friends, because one of the greatest thank-yous you can give us to our team for the podcast is to share the things that have helped you and impacted you. Leslie. Again, you’re just the best. I’m so glad that you reached six years ago and said, hey, I need some friends. Because I count myself very fortunate to have you as a friend. Love you much, and thanks again. 

Leslie Bley: Thank you.