Listen to the conversation on the importance of having a healthy community and sisterhood, for women to have support and encouragement during several stages of life. Join in the conversation with Dr. Ana Lara and her very great friend, Marcy Wilkinson; on how they have grown together through challenging seasons of life. They share how doing life as friends, moms, wives, professionals and servants of God. Marcy shares her relationship and dedication with God and the importance of ministering to her family, and how to get ahead of problems before they happen. Learn more on how women can turn to God for guidance in their marriage, raising healthy children; overall in relationships and in life. We discuss the importance of mothers in their children’s lives and how to raise them through tough situations and having necessary conversations. During a time in the world where living a busy life is championed, women need to learn how to have realistic expectations, create balance and make themselves a priority in their health and wellness.
Podcast Episode 24 Transcript
Welcome to Physician Heal Thyself, the podcast empowering you to take a whole person approach to your well-being, spirit, soul, and body. Join me your host, Dr. Ana Lara, nature pathic, doctor, entrepreneur, and a servant of Jesus Christ. We are not just a body. We are spirit and soul. It’s time to integrate medicine and spirituality into our healing. Let’s get started. Welcome back to Physician Heal Self, the podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Alara. And today I have a very special, very special guest. I know I said that about everyone, but this guest is one of my best friends. We’ve known each other for a long time. She is also my assistant at the office and she is a sister in Christ. And I always tell people, talk to people about the importance of having a really good tribe of people that are there to support you during difficult times. And so joining me is my friend Marcy Wilkinson, and we’re going to talk today about the inside of being a woman in today’s time and the importance of women in the community and sisterhood. So welcome Amiga.
Thank you so much for having me, Dr. Laura and Sister Anna. I am happy to be here and happy that we can have this time to share the topics that we’ve discussed and look forward to this time together. Absolutely. I’m praying that other women, this message really reaches them because you and I have been doing life for a while and we met 24 years ago and it wasn’t always like we were consistently there, but we were there and it’s really been the last 5, 6, 7 years that we’ve gotten really, really close as friends.
And we’re hiking buddies. And so during Covid where a lot of people were home, you and I were on top of a mountain.
Yes. We were walking multiple times, sometimes twice a week, encountering rattlesnakes.
Yeah. Holy Spirit moments.
Holy Spirit moments.
We would talk about God and you would always bring up scripture. We just had these amazing times out there. Absolutely. On top of South Mountain, just enjoying nature, enjoying our conversations, talking about life. And so I know in previous episodes I’ve talked about the four pillars of health, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and managing stress. But other things make up our health and community is one of them. Absolutely. And as women, as moms and as wives and sisters and aunts to other people, friends, it’s really important that women take care of themselves. And I know you being at the office there with me, seeing the people that come through, I know you of all people in my life have really gotten to see and experience things that a lot of people close to me. You get to see the day-to-day when people come in for the first time, how they present and as they go through their healing journey, how much transformation goes through them.
Absolutely. Yeah. I feel very honored and privileged and I thank God because we get to spend that time together. I mean, I can’t think of anybody that I’ve had an opportunity such as ours to grow and see people transform and each other of course as well because you are such a great friend and I’m very grateful to God because I get to do life with you and see you in what the Lord has you, your purpose right now, what the Lord has you doing for not just for me, but for other people as well. And it’s incredible to see that miraculous work
The miraculous work, indeed.
And you have definitely been a pillar of light. Thank you. Someone who’s helped me so much in so many different ways as a friend.
Some things have happened in your life and in my life in the last years that they’re difficult times to go through. And I couldn’t have done it without you. We’re not going to cry. And likewise, absolutely. Yeah. But it’s really difficult. And I always encourage my patients, men or women, but I really encourage my patients to build that community, pray, to God that he brings you the right relationships, the right friendships, the right support. Because going through life alone is not what God wants for us at all.
No, absolutely not.
And I used to think that was, yeah, I got it. I can do it on my own. And I did get through it alone, but it’s the emotional support. So what does sisterhood look like for you? Marcy?
Sisterhood for me means finding those individuals, those very special individuals that you do life with, that you grow with. We have had a couple of decades together. We’ve gone through several stages of life together. I mean, we met each other. You met me when I was just married. I was pregnant. You were pregnant and we were starting, or I was starting that phase of my life. And that’s when I met you. And I believe that it was very purposeful and intentional for the Lord to put us together. And as you mentioned earlier, throughout the years we’ve stayed in touch. And over the last couple of years, the Lord has really used our friendship, our sisterhood. And I do see you as a sister first and foremost. You are my sister in Christ and a sister. We literally have grown up together. We have. We’ve gone through different stages of life. We’re both married, we’re both professionals. We both have children, daughters for that.
And you have adult daughters now.
I have adult daughters, three of them.
We always talk about parenting and that sort of thing, the stages of where they’re going through. And you’ve been great at guiding me like this is going to happen and being the voice in our daughter’s lives so that they’re growing up and having a good relationship with God. And it’s not easy. Absolutely not this better than I do that when they become adults, they’re making choices for themselves and they’re young women. And I hope that they’re paying attention, that there’s no woman in their life that’s going to love them more than you, their mom.
Absolutely. That’s going to guide them in the right direction. There’s no one cheering them on more than Mom.
Correct.
And I’ve been told that I am, one of my God-given gifts is to be a chin lifter, which means that’s an encourager. And I really feel that that’s a call in my life to encourage others and encourage those around me. You know what I mean? And I have to encourage first and foremost myself and to be able to do that with others. And I really use my family as my ministry, as my target, because I really want them to be three daughters, that I have to be powerful, courageous, fearless, and I need to tell them that I need to encourage them to first and foremost have a relationship with their creator, Jesus Christ, and know the word so that they can go out into this world, which is a very scary place, especially nowadays, but be armed and be ready to face.
You’ve been very disciplined from the time I’ve known you. You’re very disciplined. A lot of people don’t know you really. I’m sure that even people at your church or people who’ve known you for many years, have no idea the precious gem that you are.
Thank you.
Yeah. I don’t think they see that, but God sees it. Absolutely. God sees you. He sees everything you’re doing, and he sees the discipline that you have every morning to have your Jesus time before you do anything else. And you’ve made that a priority throughout your life. And that’s something that I really admire about Marcy.
Thank you.
That you have the discipline to make Jesus the cornerstone.
Absolutely. Yeah. And of course that came with life experiences, hitting rock bottom and knowing that I have to have that relationship with Christ because I need to have that peace that guides me through my day. Otherwise, it’s chaotic, been there, and done that. The beginning years of motherhood for me were extremely difficult. And that’s where I kept hitting the wall and it’s like, okay, Lord, I need help. I need your help. I need your guidance. I need you to help me when I don’t know what to do with these three children, with all these things that come with your family in general.
In life in general with marriage. I’ve been happily married now for over 24 years. And again, Jesus is at the center of that marriage, that friendship, that relationship, that motherhood, everything, business. Everything. Everything.
We live in a time that that’s great. I mean for a lot of women out there to hear that you turn to God for that guidance, starting your day out with that, there’s a lot of women that don’t have God in their life. And so they turn to social media, these Facebook groups and ask questions and they should silence the noise around them and really make the effort to turn to God and get into the word. I find it, it’s difficult to get people who don’t believe in God to try to have that relationship. And you’ve gone through the stages where your girls have been teenagers and now are young adults.
It’s difficult to get them to do things that are good even for themselves. So can you imagine trying to help someone who doesn’t believe in God to have a relationship with them? But my 14-year-old daughter, she’s wise, she’s wise beyond her years. And she recently, a couple of weeks ago told me, I might’ve shared this with you already, but she said, you know, Mom, I know why so many young people have all of these issues. It’s because their family doesn’t have God in their life. She started to correlate gender identity and why young people are dating so young and being sexual so young. These are real conversations that we need to feel comfortable having with our daughters.
And if you have sons with your sons, because if we don’t have those conversations with our children, guess what? The world is having those conversations. The world is having them. And I’ve always told my daughters, I am responsible for you. I don’t have control and influence over the kids in your class. That is their parents’ responsibility. And because we don’t understand what their home life is like, there’s an influence there on you.
Correct.
So you need to know what’s true, what’s right, what’s wrong, and you need to have a relationship with God, not because you have a relationship with God, but because you want to have one, and that they genuinely want to have that relationship. And it’s important for young children especially to see the consequences of not having a relationship with God, and what that looks like in the real world. Absolutely. And it’s chaos. And she was able to just articulate that, and that’s what’s missing.
She said, these families, the family does not have God in their life. Now, I don’t claim to be a perfect Christian at all. Absolutely not.
No, absolutely not. But I’ll tell you, I couldn’t do life without having him in the front and center of my life. And so we have so many things that are influencing our children that we as moms need to be, and fathers, we need to be on board about being loud in our children’s minds.
Yes.
I’ve had a lot of people interview me over the years and when I was in my late twenties, someone I was helping this charter school get started and this person asked me, Anna, you grew up in South Phoenix. How did you get through all that and then go through college and stay out of trouble? You were not in drugs, you were not in gangs, you were not doing these things. What she was baffled like how?
Because she was teaching and the schools in that area. And so she wanted to understand that. And I said, wow, I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone ask me that mean I was 28. And I told her, it’s been God’s voice. My parents’ voices were louder in my mind than anyone else in the school neighborhood or community.
And for sure we are the parents, mothers especially. We are the biggest influence that our children have. So they are looking up to us. They are listening. They may not want to hear what we have to say all the time. Most of the time they don’t. But the thing is, the important thing to understand is that they are taking that in and they will take that on as they further their lives. They go out and they grow up because all children grow up. They grow up and then they will take what they learned from us into their adult years, into their motherhood, into their marriages. They will not forget. So that’s the biggest thing that we have to understand is that our kids, they are watching us like a hawk.
And they hear and see all the subtle things, our behaviors, and things we say, it does stay in their mind. Sometimes we have to repeat ourselves a couple of times, but that’s just the way they learn. I remember when my oldest daughter was nine years old and she danced. So everyone at the dance studio was doing certain things and I said, absolutely not. You’re not going to be part of that.
She wasn’t disrespectful at all. But I saw the look on her face. She was disappointed. And I remember getting down to eye level to her and saying, baby girl, you’re going to have to get used to this.
There will be times when you will not like my response, and you’re going to have to learn to trust me when I say no. Because there are things that you at your age do not comprehend. Correct. And it’s my job as your mother to keep you safe in many ways. So get used to it because there’s going to be days that you’re not going to like me, and I’m okay with that.
Right.
As a mom, you have to be okay with your child not liking you all the time. I find that to be a big problem, Marcie right now, is that we have these very soft moms that are not willing to say no to their child, to have the conversation and say No. I’ve also heard a lot of Christian circles, the perspective of men and women, and all that. And I have to always step back and say, ah, that’s not true for every woman. Every woman is not a soft and super coddle my kid and lets them do whatever. And here comes that to enforce we didn’t grow up that way. Latino culture is different.
Mothers in our culture have authority. We know that we are also the law. We’re not just some passive women just, okay, you can go do that. No, we correct. And as a matter of fact, a lot of Anglo and African-American friends say, man, I admire that about Hispanic culture, is that the mothers discipline their children. I don’t have to wait for Dad to get home to discipline them. However, I do turn to my husband and say, I had this conversation with our daughter. Please reinforce that that’s where that teamwork comes in. Absolutely correct. To reinforce on the drive here, I had, it came to my spirit about the prodigal Son.
And how a lot of people focus on the Son and not the father’s reaction. Correct. And how God is waiting for us to come home to Him. And that’s what parenting is.
Oh, totally.
We guide him, we guide him, and if they turn away, we still pray for them that they’ll turn around and come home and that we’re there. We’re both loving. We have these boundaries. We have to get comfortable with telling our children no. Oh, absolutely. But we don’t see that. I mean, you saw these last weeks how I was distressed with the situation that happened where I’m just going to go there.
Okay, go there, girl.
Okay, we’re going to go there. So I should have known better than to respond to a post on Facebook. It’s a group mom and a group of moms asking for advice and so forth. And a mom asked for opinions. She said, my 2-year-old wants to wear a dress to go to a wedding. And she and the husband had a conflict there, as there should be. And so she was asking opinions, how do you approach it? How do you address it? Or should you just let him wear the dress? A lot of the moms were like, oh, just let him, it’s innocent. And I shared my opinion. And my opinion was if I had a son, I would not let him wear a dress to a wedding. And I know my husband would not be in agreement with him wearing a dress to a Wedding.
We would sit down and have a conversation, take him out to pick an outfit, and still give him the option to pick something that he enjoys wearing to a wedding. That’s not a dress my Friend.
The audience doesn’t know. But I got attacked from all directions. I was called an idiot. I was called a homophobe. I was hateful. I mean, it went on and on. You must not have a brain girl. I got brain cells, but I didn’t feed into all that. I just looked at the messages and I thought, wow, we have parents, we have moms that are not willing to say no to their child. For what reason? To be okay with everyone else. Do you know two-year-olds how unemotionally stable they are?
Oh wow. Do we know?
It doesn’t mean that they lack intelligence, but I remember when my daughter was two, she was a unicorn. Yeah, you could with unicorns, but you’re not a unicorn. And so I get that. The imagination, the creativity, the play like you’re playing with. If a boy plays with a baby doll, there’s nothing wrong with that. Absolutely not. But when you want to go out in public and dress as a girl, if the parent enables that, you’re opening the door to other things that you will not be able to say or you cannot say no to, or you won’t say no to. They don’t know any better. And it is our job as mothers, we hear a lot about, men being protectors and providers, but women, we’re protectors of life, we’re protectors of all life from the time they’re in our womb. And we need to stand up and protect life from the beginning stages of it throughout the life of that child and other children, not just my children. We are protectors of life too, more than anything because we carry life in our womb. We give life, and we know the price. Man, do we know the price? Yes, we do. Not just after the pregnancy, but the effects after.
Right. We’re going to talk about that in a little bit because these are things that not many women talk in the open. Right. So yeah, all of these women were just personally attacking me. Now, I didn’t come into that conversation to argue, be nasty, attack anyone personally, or make them feel bad for their choice. I was not derogatory to anyone. And anybody who knows you knows that. But they were to me, and it’s like tells me where they’re at in life.
Absolutely.
And this is the world that we live in.
I’m not going to back down from speaking the truth.
Correct.
And that comes with a level of boldness and courage because I know I’m going to get attacked. Now, someone else gave me a revelation after that happened and said, Anna, the fact that they attacked you, that aggressively is a sign that you need to be speaking into that you need to be speaking more because that’s what the enemy wants to do. Discourage you from speaking about don’t confuse your children with gender identity. They’re too young. They don’t understand that they’re not sexual. So we cannot even have a conversation that’s intelligent with a child.
And being a doctor. To add to that, what is the age typically that we start to see humans start to have that development, the larger capacity to understand and to have wisdom from the science perspective? What is that age?
It’s very interesting because right before a child goes through puberty, they’re actually able to understand a little bit more. Once they start going through puberty, all those changes in hormones and the brain, really cloud them emotionally. That’s what happens is the change in hormones. It makes them have a difficult time regulating their emotions. So that clouds their critical thinking. But a person is not fully able to be fully rational in their decision-making and their critical thinking process to they’re about in their mid-twenties.
Wow. That’s a long time.
It’s a long time. The prefrontal cortex is the last part of our brain that develops and it doesn’t develop to our fully developed into our mid-twenties. And now science is saying it’s probably being delayed even further.
That could be because of things like not sleeping enough, not having the right diet, too much tv, and too much stimulus to the brain at a very young age.
So all of these things are impacting the way a human’s brain is developing throughout their life. So yeah, they’re not able to be rational thinkers. And this is why you could have the dumb idea of, let me pierce my tongue. And no offense if you pierce your tongue, but you’re like 18, I want to pierce my tongue because everyone else is piercing their tongue. And now you’re 30 and you’re like, what was I thinking?
I have a hole in my tongue and food gets stuck there. It’ll be gross. It stinks.
That’s the logical brain that kicked in and was not fully awakened at age 18. So we think we know. We know a lot.
What is our kids’ favorite word? Oh, I know, I know, I know,
I know.
And we just look at them like, no, you don’t. I still dunno some things, and that’s really it. When we grow older and more mature and our brain develops more and we have more life experiences, more knowledge, more wisdom that we’re gaining, we learn to be very humble and be like, I don’t know anything. Right, exactly. I know a lot, but I don’t know anything. We start to see how vast life is.
We learn to see the bigger picture, and we see that we’re just this little grain. And that’s the opposite of when we’re young, we’re on top of the world and I know it all, and I’m independent. And they’re not. Right. They really aren’t.
And that’s why it’s very important for us to be able to guide them properly, properly so that because it takes, what, 25 years for them to fully develop in their brain. And of course, we’re very blessed to be able to continue to carry on that relationship and that encouragement to our kids in their later years once they do start to adult.
I think that’s what I don’t believe in. Okay, I’m 18, I can move out. I think if anything, that’s a time that as parents, we need to help those adult children in that transition. It doesn’t mean you’re going to do everything for them. No, no, no. You let them do their thing. But if they feel comfortable turning to their parents for guidance, that’s the best advice that we can get is from our parents, not from your friend who’s 18. She doesn’t know anything. And that’s the other thing I tell you. I like talking to young people and saying, your friends around you. I’m not saying that they’re not able to be intelligent and have wisdom. They do. But it is not rooted in experience.
Correct.
Just yet. And there are people, though I’ve seen them in my office, an 18-year-old comes in and they have just lived so much.
They’ve experienced so much. They also have God in their life. So they have this wisdom that’s beyond their age, but still, their brain cannot be rational in some situations. But they are probably more grown than 40 and 50-year-olds.
So I saw that we were both that young person. We both were married young, and we were just levelheaded.
Were just serious. We’re not partying. We weren’t doing dumb things that everyone else was doing. We were just very level-minded. But even then, we can think, man, I was young. I could have waited. But yeah. So that’s the thing is right now, going back to the brain development of a child and the whole gender identity, an 8-year-old, a 10-year-old, a 12-year-old is not able to really identify that. I remember my oldest daughter being pretty young and bringing some of these issues home and talking about it. And I would tell her, how does that person know they’re gay? How do they know? How do they know what love is? What is love? And that’s what I would ask her. And I would have her think about that.
What is Love?
Love is not sex.
Correct.
That is an action. What is love? If you can learn to define what love is and what is the purpose of being in a relationship with another person, then you’re ready to date. Because to me, the purpose of dating is to work your way into marriage. And if you’re not thinking of getting married, you have no business dating. Correct. And you’re 12 and 13 years old, you have no business dating.
But see, I’m the mom that can have that conversation with my daughter. Absolutely. Yeah.
And then talk about the consequences of dating. Right. You don’t have the emotional maturity. Yeah. It’s extreme. It’s only important to have that.
And so you can observe relationships, observe people in the relationships, so you can learn about them before you get into one, but some others don’t have those relationships. It boggles my mind. Marcy, I have to take a deep breath here. When I hear mothers encouraging their daughters to, they’re 13, 14 years old, and they’re talking about putting them on birth control.
Yeah.
Making sure they’re using condoms. It’s like, so you’re saying, go have sex.
It’s okay. Yeah. It’s the norm.
Yeah.
The worldly norm. It’s okay. Go ahead.
Even my oldest daughter said, Mom, I heard these two moms whose son and daughter are dating. They said, oh, I hope they’re careful. And I’m like, oh. And my daughter said I could never imagine you having that conversation with another mom about me and a boy.
Yeah. No. Well, my daughters know that too. Thank you.
Yeah, I can. I do think you should wait. I do think you should wait to have sex until you get married. And that’s not to offend anyone who hasn’t done that.
Correct.
But if that wasn’t your story and you have a daughter or son, I think you should encourage them. I talked to my oldest daughter and other young people in my office about the soul ties, not just the physical effects, the emotional, mental, and psychological effects that it has on you by having sex outside of marriage, but the soul ties and how it affects people’s mental health for the rest of their life. And physically as well. Physically.
Yeah.
It does sadden me that my daughter, at such a young age, was the one talking to me about mom, these girls are talking about their body count. I’m like, what’s that? How many people they’ve had sex with? I’m like, oh Lord.
Yeah.
This is why I delayed having children.
It wasn’t like having a child. The process and raising that wasn’t the hard thing. I knew it was going to be difficult being a parent. You were able to think beyond, oh, I was very critical. Oh, lemme have a baby.
No, I knew. I understood very early on the responsibility of bringing a human to this world. And the influence they were going to have. I also believe that I couldn’t shelter them.
Correct.
I couldn’t keep them in a bubble. I know that the flip side of the coin is apparent and I want to shield my child from this. And I wanted to do that initially with my oldest. Oh, of course. The first five years I was very, I still want to do that with my daughter. I know. Well, my oldest daughter, there are times that, mom, can I just go back in the womb? I’m like, no, girl, you’re too big. But this is a 14-year-old that says, this is tough out here. And she was always such a soft and gentle, loving, cheerful, outgoing child. And then she has to face this in life. And I said, Nope, God put you in my care because this is my job to toughen you up and make you strong and resilient, to be able to face those situations in this world. Because if you’re too soft, everything is going to hurt your feelings. And we can’t have that.
As mothers, we have to remember that these children that were given to us, were entrusted to us for a reason and a purpose, and we have someone else to give account to. It’s the Lord.
Exactly.
Right.
That’s where my fear, the healthy fear. Exactly. The healthy fear, the reverence of we were entrusted with these children. And I always say, it is my responsibility. What happens to the soul of my two? Not others, not just your physical body, their soul. So I need life to be spoken into them and reality and
Truth. Correct.
And send them out to war. Equip them, arm them.
Absolutely.
And send them out there. And I really encourage women to start having these conversations. Everything has to be, it’s not even age-based. It has to be appropriate for your particular child.
Correct.
So when my oldest was able to handle at age nine, my youngest is something else. She just turned seven. But since she was like five and a half, she’s talking to me about, mom, do you know what the devil does and how he works and the demons do this? And this is how they try to influence people to do that.
Yeah. I’ve heard her. She is way beyond her age.
I know, and I bet you listened. I’m like, people won’t believe me if I don’t record this, but she has this wisdom that’s coming from where? From above. From above. So that’s my job, is to protect her from what the noise is out in the world so that she can continue to hear God’s voice and run with whatever her calling permission is.
Correct.
Correct. I like to share this with my audience because I remember, and I know this was led by God when I first became a mom and I held my daughter, I didn’t wait to go to a church to dedicate her. I dedicated my own daughter to God right then and there, she came out of my body and I said, God, this is your child.
Wow. What level of maturity it
Takes? I see you help me guide her. I don’t know, but you do. You help me guide her and keep her connected and keep her eyes on you. And so every day, sometimes all throughout the day, I would whisper into her ear, baby girl, remember where you came from. Remember why God sent you here. Remember who you are, who God created you to be. I would whisper this into her ear.
So if any moms are out there listening to this, they’re either pregnant or they just had a baby, or they have any children, whisper this to them while they sleep. I don’t even care what age they are. Remember where you came from.
Remember why you’re here, and remember how God designed you to be. Because they have to be reminded constantly. And even my oldest to this day, I will remind her, Hey, remember who you are. Don’t let the world deceive
You. Right. Because they will influence you and want to change you to appease them.
Absolutely. What would you like, I know there are so many topics about being women and moms that we can really get into, but what is something that you would want our audience to our moms out there? What would you want them to learn from you, hear from you?
Well, as a young mother, I had my first daughter when I was 21 years old, and shortly after I had two more. One thing that I would tell my younger mother self is enjoy the process. Don’t rush to be in a different stage of life. Just enjoy every process. And because I get to interact and engage with a lot of women, a lot of young mothers, that’s one thing that I do share with them is I tell them these beginning years are very tough. We’re going around sleepless and deprived of energy and whatnot because we’re just giving so much that we have to remember to enjoy the process, to enjoy the season. That being in motherhood brings. I’m very blessed because I was able to spend time with my children. I have a career that has allowed me to be present in my daughter’s lives and in my husband’s lives. And I’m very grateful for that. I don’t take that for granted, but because of that experience, I’m able to share that with other women and friends and mothers, especially the brand-new ones who are struggling. They’re not sleeping. They have to try to figure out their child.
It’s very tough. It’s very challenging. But enjoy the process.
Enjoy the process. It goes by quickly. One of the things that I want women to listen in to this is don’t aim for perfection.
No, it’s not going to happen. I think women have too many expectations of what their family life should look like. It has to be perfect and a certain way. And oftentimes, women are burned out because they overcommit to things that are not a priority.
Correct.
Simplify things and make time for yourself. Because if you don’t take time to take care of your physical, your mental health, your children are going to feel the consequences of that. Your children deserve to have healthy moms, moms who are present. So I always tell people, sto cale down the things that don’t matter.
Learn how to say no.
Learn how to say no. And here’s the other thing that I have recovered of this, but early on in my twenties, I’m glad I recovered from that early on before I became a mom because oftentimes I was volunteering myself to things before I was even asked. And so I still find myself moments that I’m like, oh, I want to do it. And it’s like, no, put your hand down. You already have a plate full of responsibilities. Make yourself a priority. It’s not selfish.
It’s not selfish to take care of you. If a mom is healthy, she’s going to be able to raise a healthier family. Correct. And you’re going to have the energy to do that because it can get very mentally exhaustive for a lot of moms, especially early on. So make sure you’re sleeping, sleep. That’s the only way you can have a sound mind.
Yeah. I find that more women have a hard time sleeping than men do. And there’s a lot of physiology behind why that is. When you become a mom, why do you wake up a lot, why you can’t sleep? But if you don’t take care of it now, when you get to menopause, when you get to the older stages of life, you will suffer from great insomnia. So you’ll never recover from that. And we need to teach our children those healthy behaviors by doing it ourselves. They need to see us eating healthy. They need to see us exercising, managing our stress, sleeping well,
Taking care of ourselves. So I want to thank you for joining me in this conversation, on how important it is to have a community and to have good friends with that you can have real conversations. You can be completely vulnerable. You’re my it girl, and you’re mine. Yeah, absolutely. And I know we’re going to continue to have a lot of great experiences, how God is going to use us to reach out to other women and help them. But to our audience, I want to thank you for joining us on this conversation and the importance of having a community of sisterhood and taking care of yourselves women. Because if we’re not healthy, we’re not well, we can’t raise healthy children. And if you haven’t accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, let me tell you, that’s your Google. That is your Facebook mom chat group. You should be turning to God for parenting advice because this world is very, very chaotic.
And so we’ll continue to have these conversations on the different stages of womanhood and what to expect, because there’s a lot of young women, they’re maybe in their twenties and thirties. They have no idea what their fifties and sixties and seventies will look like if they don’t take care of themselves. So stay tuned for that episode in the future. And I just want to thank you for joining us in this conversation. And as always, be blessed. Thank you for listening to Physician Heal Thyself, the podcast. If you like what you’ve heard, please like, share and subscribe, help this message, and reach more people who may need to hear it. Leave your comments. I want to know what you think. If you’re interested in learning more about Raices, visit our website. Until next time, be blessed.