Loving Your Journey Through Motherhood

Alright moms,

Let's be honest.

Do you feel like you have forgotten who you are since you became a mom?

I know I did.

It's really hard to make that transition into motherhood and remember who you were prior to becoming a mom.

So if that sounds like you,

This is the episode.

If you're dealing with any kind of self-doubt or dealing with lack of self-love or just can't remember who you were before becoming a mompreneur,

Then stay tuned for this episode.

Being a mompreneur comes with its own challenges of raising your family while managing your business.

Juggling play dates,

Board meetings,

And girls' night out can be overwhelming.

Momma Hustle provides you with actionable strategies from fellow expert mompreneurs to help you grow your business and manage your family,

All while keeping your sanity.

If you're an ambitious mompreneur or one in the making who is looking to turn your passion into a profitable business,

You're in the right place.

Here is your host,

New mama,

Multi-passionate business owner who knows the importance of having mentors and a strong network of support,

Stephanie Lopez Gilmore.

Stephanie's podcast guest is a self-love coach and meditation teacher who spends her time helping her clients transform their lives.

The company mantra is finding clarity and discovering yourself,

Which helps guide clients to find clarity and rediscovering who they really are and find their true purpose and passion in life.

Her company also helps provide life-changing tools to transform her clients' lives.

So let's welcome Angela Rose to the show.

Welcome back to another podcast episode of Momma Hustle.

This is your host,

Stephanie.

And today I'm here with Angela.

I am so excited to have her come in and talk a little bit about her business and how you can discover your life's purpose and the importance of discovering your life's purpose when it comes to both your business and when it comes to your overall wellbeing as being a mom,

Because that's sometimes we get lost in all those things.

So welcome to the show,

Angela.

It's great to have you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for having me.

Well,

Tell us a little bit about your business.

I know I kind of gave a little bit of an introduction.

They kind of know a little bit about you from your bio,

But tell us a little bit more details about your business.

Yeah.

So,

So I'm a mama of three boys.

And so my business is called Angela Rose,

LLC.

I incorporate all the tools that I've learned over the years.

Meditation,

I'm a massage therapist,

Yoga,

Coaching around helping my clients,

Helping you discover your wings and learn how to fly.

So it's really about remembering,

Remembering who you are.

I think when we are kids,

We,

We know who we are.

We're confident.

You know,

We,

We go and do the next fun thing.

And then there's a lot of noise like around middle school,

High school age,

There's a lot of noise in the world.

We want to fit in.

We forget our power that we are designed perfectly,

Wonderfully made for a purpose.

And we forget that we want to fit in.

We listen to all the outside noise.

I feel like as adults,

We start to kind of come back to ourselves.

You know,

In my life in particular,

What kind of led me up to all this was going through my own struggle.

You know,

I grew up,

I was in abusive relationships and had an eating disorder and was depressed,

Anxious.

And I was like,

You know,

I was a single mom with my first son at the time and we had nowhere to live.

I was ending abusive relationship and I was like,

Something has got to change if not me for him.

And so I just dove into all like the self-help world and slowly begin to discover like what my purpose is,

What,

What am I here to do besides have the role as a mom or work in nine to five,

What is going to bring me happiness?

So,

You know,

As a mom,

I think it's easy to get caught up in that role,

Get caught up in the role of what we think others want us to be.

So it's been a huge learning journey and I love sharing that with my people now.

Awesome.

So you mentioned that you dove into the self-help world and I definitely was there I would say,

Geez,

About five years ago where it was like all the self-help books as possible.

Is there a certain person that really inspired you or a group of people,

Whether it's listening to podcasts or even reading books that you found were really useful?

I first started out reading all of Dr.

Phil's books at the time it was,

I was a Dr.

Phil junkie.

I just started out and I was like,

It was like coming back to the relationship with myself and why was I attracting all of these unhealthy relationships?

And for me,

It was,

That was a love that I thought I deserved.

It was a lot of self-worth things that I was working on now,

Like leading people through meditations and,

And all the tools,

You know,

They can come back to who they are to get out of your head and back into your heart,

Back into your body.

But kind of going back to people that I follow.

So Abraham Hicks is a big one for the law of attraction.

Rachel Hollis,

I really admire her.

And actually there is Glennon Doyle.

She was just on a podcast with Brene Brown.

So Glennon Doyle has that book on tamed.

I don't know if you've read it yet.

I haven't read it,

But she really talks a lot about unleashing,

Unleashing our wild woman and not apologizing.

I know for me,

A lot of my patterns were feeling bad.

Like I feel bad.

I feel like a bad person or a bad mom,

Or,

You know,

I should be doing this or I shouldn't be doing that.

And all that self judgment we put on ourselves,

Especially as moms,

You know,

So it's really recognizing a pattern that keeps us stuck.

I love it.

I was,

One of my friends just told me about,

And I have like a little meditation group and so we're looking to do a lot more about diving into body positivity and love.

And so she had mentioned to do one around the book of a body's not an apology and that's by Sonia Taylor.

And so I just started listening to that book and it's just like,

Oh my gosh.

Like I really,

I told my friend,

I was like,

I really need this book in my life due to the fact that I'm a mom to be,

And you know,

Your body's changing.

One minute you have like small abs and next thing you know,

You're like,

This belly is sticking out and there's like dark features that are all of a sudden on your body that you didn't have before.

You're like,

There's some great things.

Like I love my hair,

But why is there like this,

This weird line that's going from my belly button down?

Why is my belly button getting flatter to the point where it's about to be any,

You know,

I'll be instead of any.

So it was like all these things.

And I'm like,

I needed this book at this time because there was definitely real changes that are not just occurring at night and going away in the morning is like,

This is a permanent thing for the next couple of months.

And my body is not going to look the way it did before pregnancy.

Yes.

Oh my gosh.

I love that.

There's a quote that,

That I come back to all the time about body image.

You know,

It talks about,

You know,

Don't work out because you hate your body workout because you love your body.

And for me,

It's just been a whole body,

A self love journey.

I would say it is such a journey.

Yeah.

Even now,

Like aging,

You know,

The gray hairs coming in and can you,

Can we love ourselves just as we are without changing anything right now in this moment.

And so,

You know,

Every day I have a practice of when I'm doing my meditation and my morning routine of just noticing the thoughts that I'm having and coming back to,

You know,

Oh my gosh,

My,

My thighs are so big.

I don't like to wear jeans.

I don't like jeans at all.

I wear yoga pants all the time,

But it's like,

You know,

Then I placed my hands on my eyes and I just,

In my meditation,

Like,

Thank you for carrying me.

Thank you for leading me through my life and being my strength to keep me going.

And so it's a lot of mindset work for sure.

Definitely a journey.

I love the fact that you said your morning routine and I definitely had one and fallen out of it and I need to get back into it.

I think more recently I just been lazy with everything with the COVID-19.

I'm like,

Oh,

I don't need to wake up at five o'clock in the morning.

I need to,

But I'm getting out of that routine that I used to have.

So I'm curious to hear about your routine because I definitely know that it's a great way to start off the day.

And for a lot of moms that might be listening to this podcast,

We don't have a lot of time to ourselves,

Whether we're running our businesses and we have staff and it's like the moment we wake up or like rushing out the door,

Trying to get the kids ready,

Trying to put food on the table,

Whatever it may be.

We forget that I need that moment to myself.

And I find that the best times to do those are usually in the morning before the rest of the family wakes up because in the evening you're battling with trying to put the kids to sleep or your husband or whatever it may be,

Or your friends are calling you.

There's all these distractions or maybe YouTube and Netflix is more interesting than you focusing on yourself.

But in the morning when your mind is fresh and you don't just get into the routine of picking up your phone and looking,

Scrolling through social media,

It's a better time to do that.

So can you dive a little bit into your morning practice?

So if someone is looking to start that,

They can kind of have some guidance on what to do.

Yeah.

So several years ago,

If you were to ask me what my morning routine is,

Like I would've laughed.

Like I would say I'm not a morning person.

Now it's different because you know,

I learned through this journey that science says 80 to 90% of the thoughts we think of,

We think of every day.

So we're carrying all of those thoughts,

All of those beliefs that we tell ourselves,

All those stories we tell ourselves most that aren't true at all.

Those patterns of thought we carry 80 to 90% of those day to day.

So for me that was one thing that I rewiring of my brain and I knew I needed that if I wanted to feel happy.

So my morning routine is I chose a couple things.

So I would say if you're wanting to find that morning routine,

Choose one or two things that would excite you or so for me it's walking on my treadmill and I know not everyone loves walking on their treadmill,

But I know if I don't walk every day or move my body and I'm a walker,

I'm not a runner,

I know like my mindset just isn't there.

You know,

I tend to feel more tired and just not as positive.

That is my non-negotiable like every morning I just set out to walk a mile.

If I walk more great,

If I don't that's fine.

And then I choose something to listen to,

Whether that's this podcast or something inspirational to reset my mind to how I want to feel.

So I focus on how I want to feel.

So after that I'll take a shower,

You know,

Because I'm usually sweaty even just walking and I will sit down,

Have my cup of coffee,

I use my card deck.

I used to use other people's card deck,

But now I created my own so I use my card deck and I focus and this is what I help my clients with too.

So I'll share this with you.

I focus on how I want to feel.

So I feel that if we don't set the intention for the day,

The day will have intentions for us and we get lost in the day.

We get lost in the busyness,

The hamster wheel of life,

The doing.

So it's important for me to have that focus and you can do this with your kids.

I do this with my boys sometimes as we're flying out of the door in the morning,

We get in the car,

We breathe,

You know,

I practice that breath work.

So I'll share that with you too here,

But it's really focusing on how you want to feel.

Even if that is the one thing that you do every morning,

Even before you get out of bed,

Just ask yourself,

How do I want to feel?

Because I think we get lost in providing for everyone else,

Our kids,

Our employers,

Or if you're a business owner,

We forget of how we even feel like how things feel to us.

So and usually to me,

It's simple.

I want to feel calm if I'm feeling anxious or I want to feel empowered or confident.

So and I noticed when we set those intentions,

It's like planting a seed and as your day grows,

You'll start to unfold.

And the more practice you have with this,

Of doing this every day,

The easier it gets to do,

You know,

The more you'll start seeing kind of that outcome of feeling that way.

But to me,

That's been huge,

A life changer,

Just very,

Very simple things.

And I'll share this too.

You know,

I talk a lot about in my program,

It's shift one degree.

It's like,

If you can imagine,

Sometimes we think transformation is like this huge thing,

Like,

I'm gonna lose 50 pounds or 20 pounds,

Even 10 pounds is huge,

Or I want a better relationship or a better car or business.

But we forget that,

You know,

Right here where we are,

If we just shift that one small degree.

And that is asking yourself how you want to feel in the morning by next year.

You know,

I'm in Wisconsin,

And it's kind of cold by next year,

I'll be in Bali,

You know,

Because if we're looking on a map,

One degree,

That's,

That's huge in the in the long term.

So just keeping that mindset of,

You know,

These little small baby steps of that shift is huge in the long term.

That's definitely I practice that,

Or I teach that a lot in my coaching practices,

Whether it's through my health coaching or through business coaching is that I can give you a ton of different things.

But realistically,

You're going to focus on if you have five things in front of you,

And you only did three,

You're going to focus on the fact that you didn't complete the final two,

Versus if you focus on one thing,

And you do it really,

Really well,

Which is actually a whole book about it.

But if you focus on one thing for that week or for that day,

And you do it really well,

Then you really feel that sense of accomplishment.

And I'm,

As I say that I'm looking at my computer screen with like the 20 something windows that I have open.

And then just thinking to myself,

Look at all this distraction that you have,

Or you're toggling back and forth and back and forth.

But that's how our mind works all the time is that it's toggling back and forth versus really laser focusing on,

Okay,

The biggest thing that I need to focus on today is to get this task done.

And if you start that morning routine,

Like you were talking about,

And you start to nudge away at it,

As soon as you finish with that morning routine,

You'll be surprised that you'll actually get that thing done a lot sooner than you expect it.

I mean,

Within maybe an hour of you waking up or after you do your morning routine,

Or at least by midday,

If not by the end of the day.

So something that you thought was going to take a week to get done can really be done a lot sooner just by focusing on,

Okay,

I'm not going to let these other things distract me.

I'm just going to continue to chip away at this until this gets completed.

Yeah,

Completely.

And when you,

When you talk about focus,

That brings me to like the breath work and meditation that I know you practice as well.

And it's like,

So when things do come up,

When it's like,

We're looking at those 25 tabs that are open or,

You know,

The to do list of,

Oh my gosh,

I still have like that overwhelm.

It's,

It's that focus of coming back home to yourself,

Dropping your breath,

You know,

Coming back,

You know,

Dropping your breath,

Lean,

You know,

Doing that meditation,

All the things I love to share and talk about,

You know,

Really make a huge difference as far as how,

How the rest of your day will go,

That outcome of your day.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Let me ask you,

Now you have,

You said you have three boys,

Correct?

Do you,

Do they practice the breath work and the meditation?

Because I have a little one on the way.

I don't know if it's a boy or girl was waiting for birth to figure out what it is.

But I practice meditation a lot.

I host a lot of meditation circles.

Even this week I just had the three guided meditations and I would love to incorporate that practice for my,

My child so that they understand the importance of slowing down and being mindful and being calm.

They felt like a lot of times kids are labeled as like ADHD or they're labeled with anxiety and all these other things when really it's like,

It's,

It's something that we can focus on and reduce as much as possible just by bringing back awareness into the mind and the body and giving that space so that we can calm down.

So I'm just curious,

Do you practice it with your kids and if so,

How did you incorporate it into that?

Yeah.

So,

You know,

It's funny,

I will bring when I was teaching online class or in-person classes,

Meditation,

My meditation circles,

I would bring my boys with and we,

You know,

We practice yoga and sometimes they're into it,

Sometimes they're not.

But what the biggest thing that I've learned with,

With kiddos and I used to teach kids classes and they love it and it's great,

But when we practice it ourselves,

They pick up on it.

So I'll just give you a quick little story.

I was downstairs in my basement and I came back upstairs and my youngest,

He's nine and he was telling his cousin who's also nine,

You know,

They were trying to figure something out and he's like,

Well,

How does,

How does,

How does that make you feel?

And you know,

Just using the language.

And I noticed my 11 year old saying to my nine year old when my nine year old was scared,

You are safe right where you are.

And you know,

So it's like these mantras that I tell them,

They,

They pick up on that and they pick up on how we take care of ourselves.

They just do it.

It's so,

So fun to see that.

I think sometimes I think that they're not absorbing any of this.

You know,

I have lots of clients that love it and they're not getting anything of it.

And then I hear them say little things like that.

And I was like,

Yes,

That's a tool that I didn't have growing up.

You know,

Back then this is,

This is new,

Kind of new,

You know,

The self awareness,

Self care is,

You know,

My parents,

I had anxiety growing up.

So when I was anxious,

You know,

I didn't know how to cope with that.

I didn't know how to work through that.

And so to be able to share the tools with my kids through me practicing it myself,

They just absorb it,

You know,

And that becomes their tool.

So when they're scared or anxious or,

Or stressed,

You know,

I'll hear them say little things to each other and it's like,

Yes,

They're,

They're picking up on it,

You know,

That's really awesome.

Cause I know my dog who's here with us is listening to the podcast and not watching it.

She's sitting on my lap right now.

But every time I do a meditation,

Especially when I had my new moon circles and I have like 20 spin ladies over at my house,

She loves to be right there or what my husband and I are now going through hypnobirthing classes.

She loves to be like right there by the side.

And it's so cute because she'll do like,

When I say like take a deep breath in and out,

She'll go,

She'll take a deep breath in and she sighs out and she's relaxed.

And then the moment we're done with the meditation,

She usually typically goes wherever she is.

I should be asleep during the whole time to the point where she starts snoring and then she'll leave off and go someplace.

And I noticed that it's,

The baby will be like a lot calmer.

Right now I'm not feeling a lot of the movements when we,

When I do a meditation and then we start to kind of be more active later on.

So I'm hoping that the baby's actually picking up on a lot of that,

You know,

The baby is at the point that it can actually hear.

So I'm hoping that it's picking up on the meditations that I'm doing quite frequently and hearing my voice and,

And calming down.

But that's lovely that your,

That your kids are utilizing some of the tips and the techniques that you use for your clients and then picking it up and they're utilizing those verbiage so that they really are understanding.

I mean,

When I hear someone repeat something,

It's like they truly do understand what it is that you are saying and then just go in one ear and write out the other.

Yeah.

And everything,

So I,

I believe really everything's energy.

So the pregnancy,

You know,

I,

I really truly feel that baby is just feeling it with you,

You know,

Like your dog.

I know when I'm,

When we're doing things,

My,

My,

I have a cat and so she comes out and you know,

Lays with us or it's just in the area and you know,

It's even just like,

You know,

We can think about it as walking into a room and you know,

If someone's in a bad or good mood,

Oh,

They're not doing so well.

Or it,

There's some tension here or,

You know,

It's really also picking up on the feeling,

You know,

With your gut.

Yeah.

So,

And I could talk forever about that,

But I love,

I love it.

I definitely love it.

So let's get back to,

Cause I know your,

Your big thing and,

And your business is to talk about the,

The person's life's purpose.

And that I feel is really important when it comes to business and when it comes to just being a mom.

I mean,

A lot of times,

Again,

As you mentioned,

When we were kids,

We know who we want to be.

We have this strong sense of self and then somewhere along the line,

Whether it is through school,

Family members,

Or even now with social media,

Trying to aspire to be someone else.

And I,

I see that a lot,

Especially as a business owner,

It's always like,

Oh,

I need to strive to be like this person.

You know,

I love this social media page.

Let me,

How do they get this many following and how can I get like that or this podcast person,

I want to emulate that person.

And we tend to lose our own sense of self no matter as much as we practice this.

A lot of times we,

We forget who we are.

And then as a business owner and as a mom,

We aren't really doing a good service to ourselves first and foremost or to others,

Whether that is our clientele or our family.

So can you talk a little bit or give some tips that you would typically give out to your clients about helping them discover their life's purpose?

And again,

Talking about why it's so important to understand who they are as an individual.

Yeah.

So what comes up for me when you talk about that is that we,

I think all of us to some degree feel we're either too much or not enough.

That comes from my own personal struggle growing through that.

And so I feel when we can get,

When we can peel back those layers,

We all have our design,

You know,

We all have our purpose within us right now.

We all have the answers within us.

Anything that's possible for L I'll just share a little story with you.

So when I was younger,

I found out I had,

You know,

Native American culture in our bloodline and I felt so proud of that.

I create,

I made like this thick kind of Indian leather headband with beads on the side and I don't know how old I was,

Maybe eight or nine,

10 maybe.

And I remember going to the grocery store with my dad and just wearing this Indian headband just so proudly.

I think I even wore it to school.

Yeah,

I was probably in about fifth grade then my,

My sister and some friends just kind of were like,

You're just such a dork.

At that time I was just feeling passionate about,

I remember thinking like everybody should just be who they are.

You know,

They should just express it however they want to express it.

And then as we go through life,

The outside noise really affected me.

I wanted to fit in and I didn't want to be a dorky.

I wanted to be cool and pretty and all these things.

This whole journey,

It taught me that it's okay to be who you are.

It's safe to be who you are.

Sometimes we feel it's not safe.

So what I do is I just create that safe and sacred space for you to discover who you are.

So what that looks like a lot of,

I work a lot with breath work meditation because when we take the time to pause even if it's just for a minute or if we're in that situation where we're feeling frustrated or overwhelmed,

Feeling these negative self-talk that comes up or as a mom when we're like,

I should be doing this because that's,

I feel like all shoulds are a story.

So if I'm telling myself I should do this as a mom,

What I'm really saying is I'm not a good mom if I don't do these things or you know,

I'm not worthy.

So it's really dissecting,

Just peeling back the onion layer of what are all these stories that first that you're telling yourself and it's just being real and laying it out because then we don't give it power,

You know?

And then it's finding clarity.

So it's,

You know,

I would ask you when you were a kid,

You know,

If right now you're not feeling,

You just live in life and you're not knowing what your purpose is,

I would ask what in your childhood,

What felt good to you?

What were you doing?

What were you thinking?

You know,

Wearing that Indian headband,

I remember feeling at least,

Maybe I didn't think it,

But I was feeling like everyone should feel so empowered in themselves.

And then it's like,

That was my message.

Like that I think is part of my purpose.

I lost that to come back home to it,

To come back home to that message of we're here for a reason.

You're here for a reason.

I think our blissed out life comes when we remember our purpose and when we can align with that.

And yeah,

There's so much beauty in that.

So I think it's becoming aware of where you're at,

What stories you're telling yourself,

Going back to finding what passions fuel you.

Like what did you love doing as a kid?

It's remembering who you are and then working through being still of taking that pause of doing a breath work,

Doing a message.