E249: How I Prioritize True Rest As A Busy Mom To Fix PMS Mood Swings & Keep Hormones Balanced

Have you ever caught yourself holding your breath and realizing you’ve been tense for hours without even noticing? That was me all the time, until I started paying attention to what my body was asking for, rather than what I thought I should be doing.

So, today, I’m talking about rest. The real kind. Not sleep (though most of us aren’t getting enough of that either), but the kind of rest that lets your shoulders drop, your breath slow down, and your spirit finally feel safe. The kind that most of us, busy moms, avoid, or feel guilty about, even though it can change our hormones more than any supplement, protocol, or perfect routine ever can.

You'll learn:

• The surprising moment I realized I wasn’t truly resting 
• Why your body can’t absorb minerals or balance hormones, if your mind never slows down
• Simple and doable rest practices I use that make a bigger difference than any self-care checklist

If you’ve been wondering why PMS hits harder on the weeks you push through, or why your mood settles on the days you finally slow down, this episode will make that pattern unmistakably clear. You’ll hear exactly how your body signals that it’s done running on adrenaline, why your hormones can’t reset without real rest, and what small shifts move the needle when nothing else does.

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Disclaimer: Nothing in this podcast is to be taken as medical advice, please take informed accountability and speak to your provider before making changes to your health routine.

This podcast is for women and moms to learn how to balance hormones naturally in motherhood, to have pain-free periods, increased fertility, to decrease PMS mood swings, and to increase energy without restrictive diet plans. You'll learn how to balance blood sugar, increase progesterone naturally, understand the root cause of estrogen dominance, irregular periods, PCOS, insulin resistance, hormonal acne, post birth-control syndrome, and conceive naturally. We use a pro-metabolic, whole food, root cause approach to functional women's health and focus on truly holistic health and mind-body connection.

If you listen to any of the following shows, we're sure you'll like ours too!
Pursuit of Wellness with Mari Llewellyn, Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark, Found My Fitness with Rhonda Patrick, Just Ingredients Podcast, Wellness Mama, The Dr Josh Axe Show, Are You Menstrual Podcast, The Model Health Show, Grounded Wellness By Primally Pure, Be Well By Kelly Leveque, The Freely Rooted Podcast with Kori Meloy, Simple Farmhouse Life with Lisa Bass

Transcript

[00:00:00] if you're the mama who is doing all the things for yourself, you're eating well, you're exercising, you have the health stuff down, but you're missing out on rest, not just sleep, then this could be the key thing that's keeping your hormones stuck.

[00:00:00] Hey friends, I'm so glad that you're here because today we are really going to talk about rest, and I don't just mean sleep. Sleep is so important. You're probably not getting enough because you're also like me and we have a lot of things to do, right? With that being said, there. It is a huge need for sleep, but there's also a huge need for rest, and rest is different than sleep.

And I think that it's something that we are called to, and I think it's something that most of us are so good at avoiding, so good at, resisting and have even. Had some pretty big preconceived ideas or, learned beliefs about rest, and some of those thoughts could be that rest is actually lazy or that all of our worth comes from our productivity.

And we also may be repressing some big emotions and some big feelings that we are scared of. And so if we take the time to rest, those things could come up and it could be [00:01:00] unpleasant. So instead we just. Really, push through, right power through, push through, keep the sparkle going for all the people around us until we can't anymore.

If this is starting to resonate with you, just try to settle in. maybe you're doing 18 things while you listen. That's also fine. I know you, I know myself. That would be me too. And. Just kind of like open up your heart. Ask the Lord to speak to you through this conversation today, because I think this is one that he wants me to have in that he has been really guiding me through.

 In the last several months, and it's something that we've been having a lot of conversations about with clients and in coaching, and it is really hitting hard for those of us who are burnout queens, for those of us who are the queens of getting all the things done and doing it pretty dang well until we hit that point.

Whether it's monthly, whether it's yearly, whether it's every other week, where we're just like. I [00:02:00] can't anymore because our cups are so dry and there's a few different layers to this that I'm going to get into. But let's just start with what am I even talking about when it comes to rest? And again, this is not a conversation about sleep, so sleep is just a side topic, but.

When I'm talking about rest, I am talking about being able to let some things go enough that you can stop what you're doing. You can stop the productivity for a little while and just feel some peace. So what I want you to do right now is think about what you're feeling in your body. , Stop wherever you are.

If you're driving, just pause on this or do this in a little bit, just think about like, what are you feeling in your body? If you were to stop and think about it. Are your shoulders tight? Is your stomach tight? Do you have tension in your head? Do you have tension in your neck? Do you have tension in your back?

Where are you holding that tension and where would it feel [00:03:00] so good to have peace? Is it racing thoughts? Is it spiraling thoughts? Is it physical feelings of stress? whatever it is. Just identify that because rest is a really key part of finding peace where you are, regardless of your circumstances.

This is easy to say and it is possible. To find rest where you are, even when things are stressful around you. And especially in this holiday season, especially as women and moms, we are so good at making it happen for everyone, right? There's a lot of expectations, especially as a mom, like from your kids, that you're gonna make things fun and you're gonna do presents and you're going to, do all the parties and do all the things, and it can be a lot.

And then we come into. The end of the year and we think about the new year and what we want to change, and then maybe we pile even more on ourselves because we wanna change, you know, whatever things about our [00:04:00] lives so that we can feel happier, so that we can be better, prettier, smarter, better wives, better.

Whatever, all the things that we wanna be better at, right? And so then we piled these things on ourselves and it just continues this cycle of burnout because when we stop for a second, realize that we're not really content, or we're not really maybe as grateful as we want to be, it is just so easy to just make another list, start another program, create another plan, get another therapist.

I don't know what it is for you. But just that next thing, it's like, okay, well if I can just fix this one thing, then other things will fall into place if I can just do this next thing, and so if you have those type of thoughts often where you feel like you are just constantly thinking of the next thing, ready to go to the next thing, I would imagine that you're not getting enough sleep.

But I also would imagine that you're not getting rest. Rest is for your [00:05:00] spirit. For your emotions, for your mind, to be able to have a place to just be and be content with who you are in that moment. What does this actually look like? One of the questions that I got asked recently was like, what are some practical ways to incorporate rest throughout your day as a mom?

And this was in the context of supporting emotional stress and the nervous system. I will say my clients are amazing. Amazing people, amazing women, and they are really good at following action steps most of the time. And I will say the most unfollowed action step. Also, I'm guilty. I'm just a girl over here too.

But the most unfollowed action step that I give my clients is taking a few times throughout the day to just stop, to breathe, to put your feet up on the wall, to fill your cup for a few minutes. Five [00:06:00] minutes, twice a day is kind of like a goal that I have for my clients and almost without fail. And I'm smiling because I just so understand this.

I just love my girls. Almost without fail, if that's a step that I check in on, they're like, oh yeah, I haven't been doing that one. Or like, oh, I forgot about that one. Or like, I tried, but then I got busy, right? I tried, but then I got busy and it's just so common for us to have all of our worth or most of our worth tied up in our productivity and to feel like it's almost lazy to be able to rest.

So how do we change that? Because I don't think it's a problem of not having enough time to rest. I really don't. Girls, I'm right with you on being a busy lady. We all have our things that we're busy with. We all have our check boxes of the hats we wear. I'm not gonna tell you all my hats just to tell you that I'm the busiest because, I'm not.

I feel like that is just such a common thing. As women we're like, well, these are all the reasons that I'm busy and I, I [00:07:00] can't take care of myself as well as I want to. And that comes from a victim mindset to some extent. If you had asked me two years ago if I had a victim mindset, I would've been like, heck no.

I'm positive, I'm happy, I am. You know, I take responsibility for my own actions. But once I started to learn more about that victim mindset, I actually found that. I really did and still do have a victim mindset in a lot of ways. And it's just the mindset that things are happening to you that are out of your control and that you kind of just have to let it happen.

So for example, something like, I wanted to read a book for 10 minutes after lunch just to give myself a little break, a little breather, fill my cup a little. But I couldn't because my child did something to me. . He wouldn't take a nap. He spilled his milk. The kids were fighting like whatever it is.

Okay. All of that is true. Absolutely. But were they doing it to you? [00:08:00] Because when we. Take what's happening outside of us and we believe that it's happening to us instead of it's just happening. This really helps us hold onto that victim mindset of just believing again, like, Ugh, of course I can't have whatever because of my kids, or I can't do something that I want because I have , too many other things to do because everyone else is making too big of a mess, or whatever that looks like.

If we. Get stuck in those beliefs over and over again. It is so easy for us to feel out of control of how we show up because we are out of control of how we take care of ourselves. We're going back to this aspect of just practical ways to rest throughout the day. We have to start with a belief that we are deserving of rest.

The Bible says. Come to me, all of you who are weary and heavy laden, and if you are listening to this podcast and you are a mom and your [00:09:00] hormones are a mess, I can only imagine that you could relate to feeling weary and heavy laden, right? And he says, I will give you rest. You are worthy of that rest because you are a child of God and he loves you and it doesn't matter.

What other things you've gotten done that day. It doesn't matter if you've been productive when he says you who are weary and heavy laden. Something that he showed me lately is that so much of what I feel heavily burdened by is something that I've put on myself. It's loads that I'm carrying that he didn't ask me to carry.

They're loads that I just wanted to carry because I didn't want things to be done a way that I didn't like. Honestly, that's probably every load that I carry is the ones that I'm like, well, I don't want someone else to do it, or I don't wanna trust God with this because it might happen in a way. I don't like it.

Identifying that belief for me is like, [00:10:00] okay, if I'm the one putting these burdens on myself, then I have the radical responsibility to change what I'm putting on myself. If it's not. Serving me because if it's not serving me well, it's probably not serving my family well either. We all can just deeply understand that as the mom, you are the temperature gauge for your household.

You're the thermostat. And if you are a hot freaking mess because you're putting too much on yourself because you don't believe you're worthy of rest, because you think all of your worth is tied up in your productivity, your family is going to see that. You're not gonna be able to hide it, not for a, not for a very long anyway.

for me it's about two seconds. My husband will walk in the door and I'll try to pretend I'm fine and he just looks at my face and he is like. Am I in trouble? , Oh my gosh, I hate that question because it makes me, I just feel bad. when he asks that question like, am I in trouble? And I'm like, [00:11:00] okay, first of all, I'm gonna try to really change that dynamic of someone being in trouble because I'm upset.

But it's funny, it's a funny example of , you know, something just happened. Everything was fine, something just happened. He showed up. I got irritated. Two seconds before he got home and he walks in and he can just smell it i'm sure he opens a garage door and he is like, oh, yep.

Okay. With that being said, when we are in this like constant state of stress because we're putting too much on ourselves, our families are going to feel it. If you're listening, if you've already, I hope you haven't turned this off, if this is you, so , give me a minute, because I understand the concept of , what do you mean I'm putting this on myself?

I have to do all these things. There are so many things that absolutely, yes, are your responsibility as a mom. It is a lot to be a mom in such a beautiful way and sometimes also such a hard way. I am here to support you in that. I understand that I do a ton [00:12:00] at my house. I do. I also have a great husband who also does a ton.

I also have kids who are learning responsibility and they do quite a bit for their ages too, and I am still doing a lot, so this is not a conversation about get a housekeeper and never cook for yourself. Like, no, I'm doing all those things too. With that being said, the belief system that everything is on you.

Is a victim mindset because you are choosing to believe. Now, how many times has it been placed in your mind by the enemy? How many times have you been taught this behavior? There is a lot that comes from the outside, but you still hold onto the beliefs you hold onto, and you're choosing to believe that everything is on you because.

Someone else is not gonna help you because you don't trust them to do things well, because you believe that you're, you know, you're the only one who can do it, or you're the only one who will do it. Those beliefs are still within a victim mindset, and they're keeping you from rest and rest. Just [00:13:00] having a little bit of peace here and there, having a moment to fall asleep next to your toddler and know that everything is gonna be.

Okay. If you took a break for 30 minutes or to just leave something that you like, quote unquote should do and call your friend and just chill for a minute, or to lay down and put your feet up on the wall for five minutes. Breathe, reset your mind and be able to move on into your day better than if you just ran around frantically for those five minutes, like throwing laundry in the washer or whatever it was that you're doing.

Something that I have really learned in the last, I'll say, six months of a season that has been pretty hard is that I cannot do everything. I've had to learn some humility. I've had to take a step back from some things that I wanted to do, some that I didn't want to do, but I thought I should, and. I've had to realize that I cannot be everything for [00:14:00] everyone, even within my own household because I am not God.

And I've been told by a few different people, I'm not even gonna name all the people, but that is a theme that has been coming up for me multiple times, , over the last several months, is people saying like, Leisha, you're not God, because I'm trying to control everything I can. And you know what that leads to?

It leads to exhaustion. It leads to burnout. It leads to your mood being a mess. It leads to just losing all your fun. And it is not necessary to try to control everything because the truth is we do not have control over as many things as we want to have control over. And so being able to release some control to release some beliefs that you are a victim to X, Y, Z.

Allow space to have rest I think humility is a part of this, but being willing to let go of the belief [00:15:00] that productivity is your worth. That you are, because , as women, as little girls, we are praised for being productive. Like, oh, good job you, Clean your room. Oh, good job. You got your homework done. Oh, good job. You know, like whatever it is, right? And those are, I think that's all very well-meaning. But I think that as women especially, we really latch onto that. I think men do too, but really latch onto that praise for productivity. And that is the easiest thing to praise someone for because it's like, oh, it's something obvious that you did, and.

Productivity is so freaking helpful. It's so helpful. And it's not a bad thing, but if your worth is based on your productivity, when your husband comes home at the end of the day and he's like, how was your day? And you're like, oh, it is good. Like, I did this and I did this, and I did this, and I did this.

And , you feel like you're on top of the world because you got so much done. Or he comes home , and he's like, how's your day? And you're like, Ugh. I like so many things to do. I didn't get them done, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. so and so. Was crying. You just think of [00:16:00] all of the reasons that things aren't good and it a lot of times is tied to not being able to get things done, at least for me.

And so this deep desire for productivity. A lot of times comes from us, like basing our worth and productivity, even basing our, the amount of how good our day was on what we got done and you know, girls making those lists and then like writing a couple things down that you already did so you could check 'em off.

I might have done that recently necessarily, but I definitely have done it because it just feels so good. Just check those little boxes and then you can be like, look at this, look at all the shiny things that I got done today. I feel good about myself, but what is also true is that resting, taking a breath, taking a moment to shift your mindset is so important for so many aspects of your health.

It's important for your nervous system. It's important for your, adrenal glands. It's important for your minerals to get a [00:17:00] little break from just being in fight or flight mode all the time. You can burn through minerals really fast that way, and they see , my girls doing that all the time.

and it's important for your hormones because your hormones are directly looking for signals of safety. And if you're running around all day, like your hair is on fire, chasing the kids around, cleaning the house, taking them a million places, cooking, dinner, all of the things that we're all doing. And you're doing it from a place of victim mindset, you're doing it from a place of productivity is my only sense of worth.

And you're doing it from a place of maybe obligation versus desire that can really make a difference in how much peace you have.

So the reason I've been hitting the mindset part of this so hard in this conversation is the practical tips that I can give you to rest, to have rest in your day. As a busy mom who's doing all the things, they only apply. If you can change your mindset enough to believe that you are worthy of rest, that [00:18:00] you have worth.

Far more than your productivity and outside of your productivity and that you are called to rest, and that it matters for your body and for your mind, and for the people around you so that you can be less burned out, and so you can be more present and joyful and all the things that we want, and that will affect your PMS, but it'll affect your every day as well.

So how do we switch those beliefs? Number one. You have to know that they're there, right? So I'm hoping that this conversation has helped you uncover some of those, and then I would absolutely recommend that you take those beliefs to the Lord and you pray through them, and you journal through them, and you ask him where did they come from?

Where did I learn that my productivity was my worth? Where did I learn that? It feels best? To be a victim of my circumstances, so I don't have to take responsibility for the things that I don't like about my life. Where did I learn these things that I'm stuck in, that I don't want to be stuck in, and how do I change those?

 what [00:19:00] is the truth? And asking him to tell you what that truth is, going to scripture and looking for that truth that you are loved, that you are valued, that your worth is so much more than your productivity. Because when we're able to let those things go a little bit. We can set plans and boundaries that allow for rest.

What that looks like for me from a practical perspective is number one, getting to the point where I'm like, I can't do all of this anymore. It's taken a lot for me to get there and realizing. My worth is outside of my productivity. My children love me whether or not the house is perfect or whether or not dinner is on time, or whether or not they got to do all the things they wanted to do.

My husband also loves me, even if he comes home and there's dishes in the sink. Knowing that, is I think a good, just like, I think we all know that, but if we just really take a second to realize, you know what, . Everyone knows that I'm a person except for I think that [00:20:00] maybe I'm not a person and I can just do more than everyone else.

Being able to just take that weight off and say, okay, what would it look like to let something go? What would be something that could be let go. First of all, ask yourself like what would feel. Really good today to be able to rest. Do I need a nap? Do I need 10 minutes to take a walk and just breathe?

Do I need a few minutes to go in the other room and spend a few minutes praying and leaning into the word? Because he does say, come to me and I will give you rest. And so that is one of the best ways to rest for our spirits. And just asking yourself, what does that look like? I'm not talking about a spa day.

I'm for that, but I'm not, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm just talking about little ways you can build rest into your day. Number one is just the belief that it's valuable and that it's valuable for you and it's valuable for the people around you. And then asking , what do you want that to look like?

It can be so simple, like just saying, you know what? As soon as my son wakes up from nap, this is my example for today. It'd feel [00:21:00] really good to me to go outside and I'm going to prioritize that because that gives me peace in my spirit to be outside. And I really value fun as well. I want to be a fun mom and it's really easy to not be a fun mom, to be honest, but if I'm prioritizing taking my child outside, pushing him on the swing, being silly with him and laughing that is rest, that's a soothing balm to my soul.

Into my spirit, and also I may need some time by myself. So another example from today is I was feeling really tired. We had a really short night of sleep last night, the night before last, whatever. Still catching up from it, and I know that it's gonna be okay if some of the things on my list don't get done.

And so I fell asleep for 20 minutes putting my son down for a nap. And that was rest that I needed, that was physical rest that I needed. But I also I just know that it's going to be okay sometimes, if not everything gets done. I've been able to let go of that a little bit. [00:22:00] Are there things that I would still like to do at the end of my day?

Mostly every day. Yes. And I don't know that that ever goes away, even if I hadn't taken the 20 minute nap, , like, yes, you might have gotten 20 minutes more of things done, but. In the grand scheme of your day, would that have actually been enough to satisfy your desire to check all the boxes?

Probably not. And then you're also burned out. So instead I can come from a place of rest, I can see things a little bit more clearly and see that the laundry that I could have been doing that 20 minutes can be done in 10 if I just ask my kids to help me. And if I take them outside and fill their little cups a little bit first and fill my cup.

We're gonna be able to knock that out, and it's going to feel better at the end of the day than me just running around doing everything, trying to keep them out of my way and doing it from a place of exhaustion and burnout instead of a place of a little bit of more peace in my spirit where I can see things more clearly and do things better.

I [00:23:00] think that that's why rest is so important is because it gives us a little bit more clarity in what we're doing. So even though this is, I've leaned so much more into the emotions, the mindset today, this is so key in being able to heal your minerals, being able to heal your hormones, because these mental patterns that we keep ourselves in and we just keep ourselves running and running and running, it is absolutely the cause of our symptoms.

And is it also estrogen dominance? Yes. But why is it also minerals depleted? Yes. But why is it also our blood sugar? Disaster. Yes. But why? Because you're running yourself ragged and you don't have time to feed yourself lunch because of the list that you're keeping in your head and the heavy burden that you're placing on yourself.

And so this is a piece of it, and this is what it's like when we're coaching together, especially my one-on-one clients, I feel like so much of the time. We're definitely going through physical things. We're going through lab work, we're looking at action steps. We're looking at the why physically, but we're getting into [00:24:00] this mindset.

We're getting into this emotional stuff that it's like, you can't see this for yourself, but I can see this. You have , everything in your life. You've got the boxes checked and. We can't tell with how you feel. We can't tell with your labs because your body and your brain do not know they have everything they need because you don't know it in your spirit.

And you are still just like running yourself ragged to keep everything together and perfect when it's never going to be together and perfect. And you don't have the control to make that happen, but you somehow believe that you do. And you're like, just once Thanksgiving's over, just once Christmas is over.

Just once the kids are back in school. Then I will rest, then I will exercise, then I will go to bed early, whatever it is, but you're not going to, because the mindset has to change first. I hope this has been encouraging to you. I love you. I am praying for you as this holiday season happens, that you can find a little bit of rest here and there.

And when you do, if you wanna [00:25:00] tell me about it, send us a text, send me an email. I'd love to hear from you, and I'll see you next week.