Anne: [00:00:00] Hi, I am Anne, and I'm Helen. And welcome to Metaphysical Street Smarts. What is Metaphysical Street Smarts? Helen 

Helen: Physical is everything you can see with your human eye. You can see, touch, feel, taste as a human. Metaphysical. Is that what you cannot see? Wifi microwave energy. When you feel somebody staring at you, you can't really feel eyesight.

Helen: So metaphysical is that what you can't perceive with the human eye? Street smarts means let's take the woowoo, the energetic, the airy fairy, and add it to logic so that you can have a better experience of yourself. In this one. 

Anne: As always, we invite you to take what blesses you and leave the rest. We're so glad you're here.

Anne: Let's jump in. Hi, Helen. Welcome to another 

Helen: week of our podcast. I love it. So happy to be here with you [00:01:00] again. Hey, how's it been going this week? It's a good week, right? In summer Texas Heat. Woo. Makes me love and appreciate air conditioning. 

Anne: Kudos to air conditioning, whoever invented air conditioning.

Anne: Thank you. I dunno your name, but super grateful for you

Anne: and all the technology that went into it. How are your, how's your little garden doing? 

Helen: Ah, blooming baby. We love all the flowers. You know, we started off. Earlier this summer, um, I think I mentioned it when we talked about the garden. You know, there were just, the flowers that I planted from seed were growing.

Helen: We put a lot of milkweed in our garage over the winter, so we had the milkweed available, which I'm glad we see a few butterflies. We've seen caterpillars, but we didn't see a lot of butterflies and so. They were eating milkweed here, but flying to the people who buy flowers to landscape, and now we're back in the [00:02:00] game.

Helen: We'll have, we'll have 10 to 12, maybe 20 butterflies at a time in the garden. It's lovely. 

Anne: I think maybe milkweeds, I, I don't know what that is. That might be a Oh, that's what the Monarch southern thing. 

Helen: Butterflies eat. 

Anne: Oh, okay. Well, maybe I need to get some of that going here. 

Helen: Well, last year they were, there was people, science or the media, I don't even know who it would be.

Helen: Uh, but I heard through the grapevine that, hey, the monarchs are struggling. They're asking those entrusted to to plant more milkweed and yes, got a little carried away and now even have more and flowers for them for food. And I'm really glad because the numbers are going back up. I don't think they're endangered anymore.

Helen: We're getting out of that, that segment. And also we get to watch these monarch caterpillars and butterflies evolving. We had them all year, even in the winter. Which it never was true before. Wow. And I get to work on [00:03:00] my own personal, spiritual, freak out fear that I gotta save them all or suffer when there's not food or it's too cold for them.

Helen: I'm working on, yeah. Trusting mother nature and being at peace and content and fulfilled with what I can support and give, and not worrying about all the rest 

Anne: ongoing. Such a good reminder. Uh, for so many, for so many, yeah. We wanna save 'em all. And it makes it hard to save one. 

Helen: Right. And then sometimes we have, yeah.

Helen: Parsley growing. I let it go to, um, bloom bolt. I let it bolt for the swallow tails. It's very fun. Ooh. Yeah. We get a lot of butterflies. Literaries monarchs. Swallowtails. 

Anne: Wow. That's nice. I got my, I was landscaping our nature strip out front. This summer and it's looking pretty good, pretty fun. We've got our little fairy garden going and I have pollinator [00:04:00] wildflowers out there that are just getting ready to bloom.

Anne: So it's a fun 

Helen: time of year. It really is 

Anne: a, I'm a summer girl, so 

Helen: I don't know if you need this, a random, uh, thing. So when my. I'm trying to think if it was both sons. I think both sons. The elementary school, I volunteer there a lot. And second grade classes, there was probably like six or seven classes. In second grade, I would bring them the Monarch Caterpillars with just enough milkweed and I would set up this big container for each classroom where they would go into Chrysalis and then the kids could let them free so they could see them from Caterpillar to Chrysalis.

Helen: So. I was known as a butterfly lady. How fun is that? 

Anne: That's so fun. And it goes with your little cardigan or something that has butterfly wings, right? 

Helen: Oh, yes, I do. That was a gift from somebody when I opened it up in the back. It's butterfly wings. 

Anne: Yeah. I just, that's, that's image I have of you. I love it.

Anne: [00:05:00] Um, we, you wanna 

Helen: get into our cosmic nudge for this week? Yes, please. I do. I can't wait. That I love your cosmic nudge. 

Anne: This week's pretty fun for me. Um, last night actually, we, we did one of these and I just wanted to give a shout out to my friend Cassidy for getting our friends together to share PowerPoints over Zoom every now and then, our little high school and and college group of friends.

Anne: We live all over the country now and she's so great at organizing time for us to be together and we make PowerPoints on what we're. We've learned recently or what we're getting interested in and oh my gosh, that is so cool. Uh, she's, it's so, it's really cool. You would actually love it, I think. And, uh, we, we just connect.

Anne: And I just wanted, uh, to thank her publicly. She listens as well, and I, she's so good at recognizing people and bringing them together, and I just [00:06:00] appreciate that I get to be part of that. And, uh, so my cosmic nudge is just. To be like Cassidy, if you can, or find a Cassidy because it's a, it's a small thing that that takes organization and it takes motivation and it's very meaningful and.

Anne: Connecting in a world that can sometimes feel isolating. So I just, I'm saying it because Yes, please. More of that. I love it. 

Helen: I love that idea too. I don't know how to do a PowerPoint, but I love the idea of old friends sharing what they're learning and what's important to them. 

Anne: Yeah. All different, all different stages of life and, and it's just whatever.

Anne: I love it because it's not about like, what do I have of value that I can share with other people? It is a little bit that, but. When I'm listening to other people, when I'm listening to my friends, I'm not going, how are they going to make this enjoyable for me? I'm going, [00:07:00] I cannot wait to hear what they've been up to, and it's, and without fail, I learn something.

Anne: I definitely laugh so much and I just walk away. It is, that's how to throw all high vibes party, do it over zoom so everyone has their own food and, 

Helen: and that is my mind in person's 

Anne: good too, 

Helen: talking about what's interesting to people talking about. Sharing and connecting through things that are enjoyable.

Helen: That's very high vibe, right? 

Anne: Yeah. Mm-hmm. 

Helen: I love the creativity of sharing that too. I love it. When I was in art school, you know, I really thought it was amazing that you'd have however many students. 10 to 20 students and you'd get one assignment and then you'd see all these different takes on it. It's, it's kind of like that.

Helen: It's amazing and stretches the imagination and potentiality. I love that. 

Anne: Yeah, it's [00:08:00] totally that same idea and sometimes, sometimes, I mean, we are friends. We do have a lot in common. Sometimes our, our ideas are, where we take it is pretty similar, but there's always enough of a difference to make it funny that it's close, but nowhere close.

Anne: It's good. 

Helen: I love it. A unit, a unified field of diversity. Shared interests with differences 

Anne: completely. We've got shared experiences. From totally different points of view. 

Helen: I love it. 

Anne: So fun. I've just been having this deep appreciation that, yes, I will continue to make friends throughout my life. There's something so special about being able to still be in my thirties and know that I have friends from when I was 15 that.

Anne: That I just get to take with me into all these different parts of my life. It's, I love it. Happy. Okay. Are we ready for our listener question forum this week? 

Helen: Absolutely, we are. What have we [00:09:00] got today? 

Anne: Beautiful. Yeah, so Mel asked her question. She said, I'm a new mom and I feel like I've totally lost myself in this new role and stage of life.

Anne: Does this go away or get better? How can I find myself again? 

Helen: Oh my gosh. I feel you, 

Anne: Mel. 

Helen: Earlier this month, I think it was this month, I got to go to lunch with a friend and see her. Beautiful four month old baby girl, little, an earth angel for sure. Gorgeous, gorgeous child. I was so fun holding her, looking at her, talking to her.

Helen: She just made so much eye contact, so expressive. It was amazing experience for me. And I think she said that too. And I. You know what I told her is, yeah, you're in the hard part. You're talking about a four month old. All you do is give, give, give. You're on 24 7 call. You do a lot of cleanup. Um, there's no real exchange that's mentally [00:10:00] stimulating.

Helen: You know, a smile is exciting. The baby's so cute. It's adorable. There's, there's those kind of things, but really for the intellect, it's a hard journey till the children get older. And it's, it's interesting because I'm remembering that with, with my particular friend, I wish I would've said to her, she's a successful business owner, and I know that when she started her business as an entrepreneur, she had a partner.

Helen: They worked so hard in the beginning. So if you take a new business, you work so hard and you don't reap the benefit yet. And I believe motherhood is just like that in the front ears. All you do is. Give, give, give, give. And then eventually it starts getting fun. Your child is interactive. Um, and it can be as fun as just like what you're saying with your, your Zoom get togethers looking at what do other people perceive?

Helen: How do they see this? What [00:11:00] are we sharing? What am I interested in, what do I dislike, hearing about, and not getting into. If you were to grow that relationship with a growing child in the same way. It's always fun, right? Um, and yes, the beginning isn't, you know, it's just giving, giving, giving. I remember one of my husband's friends, his wife called me and I didn't really know her yet, and she called me just, you know, a new mom, a mom of a newborn.

Helen: She was exhausted, breastfeeding, tired, and she says. This is not what I was expecting. Like all this kid does is take from me. Is this gonna get better? And I'm thinking, oh my gosh, I don't even know her. And I feel like saying Man up already. But I didn't. I was kind and I said, yeah, you're in the hard part and I promise it gets better.

Helen: This child will start smiling at you, will start interacting and then you'll be up in the one of the best adventures of your life. [00:12:00] And it, I just validated for her. That's all it is in the beginning is you work hard, you give, give, give. And that's true of a college education, of a business, of a, um, a new relationship, building a house, remodeling a house.

Helen: There's the hard part in the beginning where you build the strong foundation and from that strong foundation, two things happen. One, you set. The, the foundation for a beautiful opportunity to evolve and grow and give and receive at higher and stronger levels. And two, you build stamina as a mother or as a father.

Helen: As a parent, you build stamina for giving without attachment. You know, nobody's gonna remember how many gazillion diapers you changed or cleaned up, or. You know, played mindless games or peekaboo with, right. And yet that, I [00:13:00] don't think there's another experience in the world like that giving to an infant.

Helen: And I will honestly say that's not my favorite stage of being a mom, not the infants. I love age three. And then truly I loved when we were older and we could play games together that were intellectually stimulating. And I loved learning about kids. I loved, uh, you know, showing them many things of the world.

Helen: And so a couple of things there. Not everybody enjoys. Each age doesn't matter. You don't have to enjoy all of it. You just have to keep showing up and remembering. Who do you wanna be? How do you wanna experience yourself in this? So if you're mom of a newborn, if you're mom of a 1-year-old, 2-year-old, 2-year-old, that's challenging.

Helen: I think terrible twos are at a, started about 15 months now, maybe earlier, because the kids are coming in wired so differently. And yet, if you can keep going back to who do I [00:14:00] wanna be in this? That will help you. And what I wanna say to you, Mel, is that you have not lost yourself. And this is what I did say to my friend, oh, you haven't lost yourself.

Helen: It's just not about you right now. And when it is about you again, you will be right there even better, even more amazing than you were before you gave birth. Right. So like when you build a new business, if you're an entrepreneur, it's not about vacations and bonuses yet. You gotta build it first. And if you are remodeling a house, it's not about luxury and ease and quiet.

Helen: It's about mess and chaos. And if you can get through that part, then you get the luxury and the beauty that you get to enjoy. And when you're planning a vacation, it is not about rest and relaxation while you're planning. It's about organizing, choosing, paying, um, booking planning. And then when you get on vacation, if you've done that end well, you get to really enjoy your [00:15:00] trip.

Helen: So it's just another cycle in life. Like anything else. And so moms of young ones, mothers of many young children, mothers of newborns, you aren't lost. It's just not your turn to shine individually yet, and yet it will come again. And the more you invest in learning about children, the psychology, the different stages and ages, and what works with the different personalities, the more your capacity to be creative, to give and receive and love and joy and fun and playfulness, and of course, keeping them safe and seriousness too.

Helen: You get all of it is the most. Magnificent, expansive experience on earth. And yes, there are many parts that aren't fun and you feel lost or neglected or ignored, and yet it does come back to being your turn. Often 

Anne: it's such a forging in the fire. It's, uh, [00:16:00] it's just all at once. It, it changes. Everything changes.

Anne: And, uh. I feel you, and I totally agree you. My youngest is three, so I'm not totally back to myself. I have a lot of support and, uh, I think I'm a little, I feel a little bit more like myself than I thought I would at this point, which is really nice. Um, yeah, we just, we get changed and we are ourselves just having gone through.

Anne: S years and years of, of fully giving ourselves to this experience and, and being all in on it. So I am confident that when, at least for me, when I'm out of this, I'm gonna like that. I put in the effort that I'm trying to put in as much as I can. It's a practice. I can be grateful that I did. Yeah. And yeah.

Anne: 'cause some days I'm better at it than others. [00:17:00] 

Helen: You know, and I would say the same thing. I always say get clarity. Define your, mm-hmm. What's your target as the mom of a newborn? What's your target of, um, as a mom of a 1-year-old, what's your target of Anne like, you two boys of different ages, different personalities.

Helen: What's your target? Mm-hmm. What's your target when they're, you know, elementary school? What's your target as a mom when they're teenagers? Because if you define that, you're not losing yourself. You're showing up powerly for a very small amount of time in your life and you're choosing how you're experiencing it.

Helen: It's very powerful. Yeah, I was blessed. You know, in a weird way. Um, both my boys are fertility babies. I had to take Ched. I was lucky it was only clod to get pregnant. And then of course there was some early miscarriages too, and I just, it was so real to me that I might not be able to get pregnant and carry a child to term.

Helen: That I [00:18:00] just never had a lot of struggles, many moms have. I never, I just thought it was such a miracle I had children that I never suffered over the price of things or the sleepless nights, or I just knew the opposite was not having them. And so that shifted my perspective right there to one of always gratitude.

Helen: Even when I was exhausted and couldn't think straight and overwhelmed, any of it, I still thought it was better than not having kids. And so even though it was before I understood things like the what, why, how, and my youngest son was already two, so my eldest son was already six when I first read Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Helen: That changed my life 'cause it taught me how to think. I was already doing it to some degree, but all I had was, this is hard, but it's better than not having, than not being a mom. I had a soul calling to be a mom. It's what I wanted. I would've been so heartbroken if I was. Unable to, well, I would've adopted and that would've been a [00:19:00] different journey.

Helen: Um mm-hmm. But again, it's all about perspective. And you get to choose your perspective. If you get in clarity, hey. Infants being sleep deprived, having to do this. Like I have so much awe, wonder, compassion for how all the moms did during COVID with little people. You know, I had friends who were teachers, so I got that perspective.

Helen: But there are moms who had preschool and elementary kids during COVID, like I can't imagine how hard that was with mask. And you know, kids aren't getting the facial expressions. The teachers are overwhelmed. That to me was mind blowing. And so again, I go back to whatever you're in, whatever challenge you're in, you wanna stay in awareness of who you are and be the one defining your target, your end in mind, your what to find why.

Helen: Then lay out the logical, realistic [00:20:00] steps of how you're gonna do it, and then define your success so that the end of these stages or these hard years, or these big challenges, you can know that you are this amazing person who is in choice and hit your target. That's when you fully embody yourself, even when it's not about you for a while, 

Anne: and that does not require any of us to do that perfectly.

Anne: Or constantly, it's that, that 

Helen: aiming and that clarity, what's a what's perfect there? How can anything be perfect on this planet where everything is always changing? The perfection is just being in the experience. Yeah. Without the judgment of perfection. Right. You get to, yeah. Mm-hmm. What'd you say? That just being alive is the reward.

Helen: Just living is the reward. I forget how you worded it, but it was really good. 

Anne: I think I said the journey is the reward, the journey or something. Yeah, that I get to do [00:21:00] it. That's crazy. I mean, mine, uh, the same, I spent five years. Trying to have kids and gave up and, and then boom. And I, uh, I still struggle.

Anne: I, I still struggle sometimes to remember like that that's, you know, the alternative is not having them, and that's not, obviously not anything I would trade. But, you know, it's still hard. A challenge. Yeah. It's inherently difficult to prioritize people other than yourself, myself. So you're doing great. You know, we're all doing great.

Helen: It's the way we define. And so I don't know that people ever think this way if they don't slow down enough to ask. It seems to me that in our culture, I don't know if this has always been, but I noticed working with people that they, they perceive that if you feel bad, [00:22:00] like if you feel. I don't know.

Helen: Neglected, challenged, exhausted, overwhelmed, sad, uh, any of these things, it means something's wrong. Mm-hmm. And I think, hmm. Feeling bad is not wrong. It doesn't mean something's broken or not working. It just means you're in the challenge of choosing love anyway. And every time humans are challenged, we have, we have two choices.

Helen: We can one, evolve into more strength and more goodness through the challenge. Or we can give up and quit trying. I mean, that's it, right? Those are the two choices. So every single challenge on earth invites you. Are you gonna cave and give into fear and self pity, or are you gonna expand and amaze yourself with your potentiality that you're evolving into?

Helen: That's it's all you got. 

Anne: There you go. Easy. 

Helen: And so even if maybe we give up for a day or two, we always come back and try some more. 

Anne: Right. It's [00:23:00] okay. It's okay to not be on all the time. 

Helen: Yeah. Right. Or when people talk about being a perfect mother, I'm like, really? I don't think your kids would do well. They wanna see that being human means there is no perfection.

Anne: Oh, well you and I, I mean, you and I have talked so much about this. They need to see my kids got me for a reason. Probably more than one reason, and I'm confident that one of those reasons is they need to see how feeling feelings that I don't wanna feel how I go from that and come into choice and what I, what I do want to experience.

Anne: In those feelings and receiving those messages and choosing something new, they got me for a reason. So, yes, would I like to give them sunshine and rainbows all the time? Yeah, I really would. But that's not gonna help them. 

Helen: No. You know, as athletes, they need to learn. It's not gonna give them what they need.

Helen: Losing a game as much as winning how to show up in the win or the loss [00:24:00] in school, they have to learn how to be the ones who acce it and the ones who struggle. 

Anne: Mm-hmm. You 

Helen: know, that's true. Human hood is all the diversity in contrast, 

Anne: and hopefully they, they do get to experience that in the. Zero to 18 timeframe because it's easier to learn in that time.

Anne: It's a lot more effective and it's more, there's more, it's quicker. So I'm just a, I'm just a catalyst for them getting to choose very differently than I hopely, so. Right. 

Helen: And to have different guidance, I think. And so a shout out and great admiration and compassion to all you mothers with little people, it's, it's something, isn't it?

Helen: Mm-hmm. It's something. Alright, well, do you have a question you wanna ask? What would be the same as, as what I spoke, you know, um, Mel, I would say just write it out. What do you wanna be? I, I don't think I caught the age. Is it a newborn? You know, what do you wanna be as a [00:25:00] mom of a newborn? Because then you're not losing yourself.

Helen: Then you're defining, I want this. I wanna have a sense of humor. Mm-hmm. Even when I'm sleep deprived and overwhelmed, I wanna love bigger than, than my irritation at The Endless Cleaning. Seems like there's so much cleaning in those first years. It changes when they're older. Only the first year of cleaning.

Helen: Right. And cooking and everything else. And so, if you can define, here I am in this challenge. This is what it looks like. There are gonna be periods of sleep and nons sleep. And there's gonna be repetition that's not intellectually stimulating. Who do I wanna be in this? That's where you, you don't lose yourself.

Helen: You partner with yourself to build this foundation that's of service to you in the big picture of your life. 

Anne: I wrote down a, a question that I'm gonna bring up in a cosmic nudge in a future episode when we have more time. Okay. Sounds good. I do wanna get more, I do wanna get even more into this, so. [00:26:00] Okay.

Anne: Next week, bring it week after. I've already got next week set up. Okay.

Anne: Alright. Well thank you so much everyone. Thanks for being here and thank you, Helen, as always. It's a pleasure and so grateful. 

Helen: Yes, me too. All right, everybody. Have a good week. Thank you. 

Anne: We'll see you next time. Bye. That's all for today. We'll be back next Thursday with our next episode. You can subscribe if you'd like to get new episodes when they drop.

Anne: And reviewing and sharing the pod will help others find our community. We love getting your questions at hello@metaphysicalstreetsmarts.com and enjoy connecting with you on Instagram or wherever you've found us at Metaphysical Street Smarts. You can leave comments or questions there, which may be featured on our rapid fire segment.

Anne: For information on upcoming events and consults with Helen, please visit Helen Rays. Dot com. That's [00:27:00] H-E-L-E-N-R-A-C z.com. 

Helen: We invite you to re-listen. Join us on our next episode, send us questions because it is our intent to support you at this tumultuous time on Earth into the best experience of you.

Anne: Thanks for being here. Until next time, stay grounded.