Cara Harvey 00:00:03 Welcome to the Purpose Driven Mom show here at A Purpose Driven Mom, we believe that it’s possible to manage your home, work on your personal goals, and grow and scale in online business. Most productivity tips out there tell you to hustle more and make you feel shame about not being motivated enough. And we’re here to dispel this myth. I’m Kara Harvey and I am on a mission to help work at home. Moms realize that they have the power to go after their dreams, take care of themselves, and manage their home without perfectionism, guilt, or having to sacrifice their sleep. If you’re ready to shift your thinking around productivity and get some practical tips to help you manage your mom life, toss your earbuds in while you fold the laundry. And let’s do this!

Cara Harvey 00:00:44 Welcome to the Purpose of Your Mom Show episode 479. Today, you’re going to get a little sneak peek into the purpose of our Mom club, and we’re going to be talking about a really important topic, which is rest moms. We need it right on Fridays in the Purpose Driven Mom Club, which is my group coaching program, I teach something specifically pulled from my program called Soar, which is what all club members get.

Cara Harvey 00:01:02 There is a module in there, unrest. And so I do an extended lesson and then we do some coaching. That extended lesson is really good this week. And I was like, let me pull this and put this on the podcast. So what you’re going to hear is me interacting with the club members. If you go to the YouTube or if you’re watching on YouTube, you can see all the slides and everything that I had prepared for that. But I talk specifically about this topic of rest, which is so important right now because we’re about to hit into the holiday season. We’re about to get so busy and so tired, and there’s never any time for us. If you want to check out show notes, there are two such podcasts for 79 and I hope you enjoyed this episode. And then do go do one thing, one thing today that is for you. Before I recorded this, I actually took some time because I was feeling really cranky and I read my book for a little bit and now I’m back, refreshed and ready to go.

Cara Harvey 00:01:44 And I want the same for you again. Show notes. The River at a purpose driven romcom that’s podcast 479. So we’re talking about rest today. Very excited to talk about this topic with us. Very tired people. I think that so often we don’t allow ourselves to have any chill or rest, and maybe you feel the same guilt. I grew up in a house where, like, I felt like I couldn’t sit still, like I had to be doing something or I would get in trouble. So now I see it. It’s funny. Like in my marriage, if I say I’m working, I could work all day long. My husband comes home for work. If I chose at that five minutes to like, be on the couch or read my book or whatever. I like jump up like I have to do something or my husband. I’ve talked about this because, like, he’ll start doing something around the house, right? Taking the trash out, whatever he’s doing. And I’ll immediately start howling.

Cara Harvey 00:02:31 He’s like, you know, you don’t have to do anything right. And I’m like, I know what you’re doing it. And I’ve had to work to recondition that thought process of, I don’t have to be doing all the time and I’m permitted to rest. Does anyone else you can drop in the chat if you’re like, yeah, yeah, James. Like that. Same like oftentimes I feel like we get so stuck in if we’re not moving, we’re not worthy. If we’re not doing and we’re not producing or we’re not performing, it’s not enough. But I will tell you a lesson I’ve learned this year. I mean, I’ve learned it before, but it was prevalent for me this year. Is this. We need to take a breath and we need to rest, or we will burn out and then we will not be recharged. And one of the things I did this week with my kids being back at school was I took a couple naps. I took two naps Monday, Tuesday, and I felt a little guilty for like an hour that I napped.

Cara Harvey 00:03:18 I feel, well, I’m still tired ish today, and I think part of that is also like I’m on the whole 30, so my body’s like trying to get its life together. I actually just spent the last 40 minutes working on my time book for September, and I feel excited because I’ve given myself time to recharge. This morning we had a slow morning. I read my book for a little bit before sitting in the office right last night. Same thing. When you give yourself time to recharge, you actually can come back, get more done and be more productive. Rest is productive. So I probably said everything I had on my slides, but I’m going to get all that out because we were talking about that. The struggle. Maybe you’ve been there too, where you tie your worth with how much you get done. If I don’t cross everything off my task list for the day I have failed. Have you have thought that or said that right? If I don’t get everything done, then I must have been lazy.

Cara Harvey 00:04:07 Right. And the thing I was talking to my friends about this week, because it’s against the first week of school, I’m like, it is a whirlwind. If anyone was there Monday planning when I like deleted TikTok off my phone dramatically, very dramatically. It’s been four days I’m alive. I’m fine. Right? But I said to my friends, I don’t understand. I have been going, going literally, except for those two hours. I took a nap all week doing stuff and I haven’t even had TikTok to distract me. You know, like, I really am doing so many things. It just feels a little bit like a whirlwind. And some seasons are like that, and I feel like we get to the end of the week, the end of the day, and we’re like, if I didn’t do everything on my list, I must be the problem, right? And rest right and I’m going to sleep like actually getting enough sleep. But then we’re also going to talk, resting during the day, during the week.

Cara Harvey 00:04:56 Not when we’re like sleeping. Like, I want to talk to you about that, too. But I also want to talk about how, like often we think for moms, the second I hit the my feet hit the floor to the second I go to bed. I need to be moving and we’re going to be real. There are some hours of my day that are like that. Okay. What I found with the kids being back to school from the 3:00 to like, pretty much bed, I’m like, I.

Cara Harvey 00:05:20 Don’t think I’ve sat down like, I mean, I did sit down.

Cara Harvey 00:05:22 Where we played a game as a family. We’ve done something, but I haven’t had like a minute of silence unless I’ve chosen to give it to myself. So I get that. But we don’t have to live that way if we don’t want to. And I know the schedule is full. Preaching the choir. I know you know. Right? But our minds are full. And if we don’t give ourselves space to sit, to process, to think, to exist, we are going to hit so much overwhelm and overload that we’re never going to be able to get anything actually done.

Cara Harvey 00:05:51 All right.

Cara Harvey 00:05:55 I want to invite you over to grab a $10 club pass today. The purpose of our your mom club has been around for almost five years now, and we know that sometimes it can be hard to commit to something like a membership, ongoing payments, and all of the times you feel like you have to show up. So this summer we came up with the club Pass, and we are continuing it into the fall. For just $10. You can join any of our calls. We have planning calls every Sunday during the week. We have accountability calls where you can get coaching, and a laser focused plan for what you want to work on. And we have a co-working, which has been incredible for our members, where you literally show up with the tasks you want to get done, and we are that little kick in your booty to get it done. We are going to hold your hand as you complete the task. For only $10. You can join any of the calls and check out the purpose of a mom club.

Cara Harvey 00:06:38 Go to a purpose driven club and grab your pass today and I hope to see you on a call.

Cara Harvey 00:06:47 I want you to start.

Cara Harvey 00:06:48 To.

Cara Harvey 00:06:48 Reframe as we go into the fall what rest actually means. Now pause. Because I’m talking right now. But I do want to talk sleep. It is really important you’re getting sleep. Our bodies need, our brains needed. My sister had a baby. gosh, two months ago now. So she’s been in newborn phase, and it reminded me of when I was a newborn phase with my kids and how you somehow exist on like two, three, four hours sleep. You know, Ron and I would do ships where, like, he would do four hours, and then I would do four hours and we’d rest in that way. I don’t know how we do it. I don’t know how we live that way. We get used to it. But like, it’s dangerous when you’re driving exhausted. It’s almost like there’s been studies of how it’s actually equivalent to driving with a couple drinks in you because your reflexes right are not there.

Cara Harvey 00:07:36 Things like that. You need to be sleeping. And I know that we have that thing, that bedtime revenge, bedtime procrastination. Right. We’re like, this is the only time I have. And I’ve had to challenge myself this week because I’m trying to get to bed earlier. This is the only time I’ve had to myself. I just want to scroll my phone. I just want to read my book. I just want to do something for me. But it’s not giving yourself what you need. So before we talk about, like, resting during your day. I want to talk a little bit about just the fact that you need to get some sleep. Okay. If you’re struggling with this, can I challenge you 15 minutes at a time? If you’re only getting five hours of sleep or less, even six like I have found for my body this summer, I’ve kind of like tested it because we’ve done a lot of like, no alarm deeds. I am a seven hour person. Let me think.

Cara Harvey 00:08:22 11. 12. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Yeah. Somewhere between 7 and 8 hours is what my body needs to sleep like. If I don’t set an alarm, my body will sleep for about 7 to 8 hours and then I can get up. Okay, you might need more. You might need less. But we should be trying to get that right. And if you’re not, I really recommend 15 minutes. 15 minutes. Like move it a little bit. I’m going to go to bed 15 minutes earlier so I can get myself a little more sleep. The thing that has helped me is the phone. So the other reason I gave TikTok up there was a few, but one was I was staying up too late scrolling and I’ve challenged myself all summer that like at 1015 my phone is away and I’m going to bed now. Look, I think I went to. I went to bed at ten last night. Like I am tired. Again, I’m doing some other things that are making me more tired.

Cara Harvey 00:09:06 But because I don’t have my phone to scroll, I don’t scroll on Facebook or Instagram like it’s just not the same for me. I’m kind of bored, so I’m like, I could read my book, but I’m kind of tired. I’m just going to go to bed and I’m getting more sleep. So putting myself to bed earlier, making myself get off my phone earlier. Like all those things really, really work. Okay, so yes, sleep is important. Let’s talk. Rest them. It’s not just that sleep is those things that help you reset mentally, emotionally, physically, so it doesn’t have to be taking a nap. Now, I love a good nap. But you know what’s interesting? I feel like I wake up from a nap and I’m like a starving gremlin. Like I’m like, I, what am I doing? I’m confused. What day is it like? I don’t always feel refreshed after a nap if it’s too long because my body’s not getting into that full REM cycle and out, it’s like jerking myself awake.

Cara Harvey 00:09:56 So I don’t love a good nap, but napping does count. We can’t always get that right. We can’t always get those naps. So I want you to start thinking about micro ruts. These five minute resets will restore and recharge you, and they’re just about pausing there, pausing your day to just stop and like, sit in your body, okay. It’s not lazy. It’s like your phone. How many times do you charge it every day? Do you let your phone sit on the charger? I charge my phone multiple times a day because my battery’s always draining, right? But I charge my phone. Why would I not charge myself? Okay. Your body needs it as well. So I want you to ask yourself, where is my rest going? Where am I giving away my time instead of resetting myself? Okay, where are you? The most drained. Ask yourself these questions. Is it? I get to the end of the night and I’m just exhausted. Is it when I sit down to do a specific task? Is it, you know, the energy of playing with the kids? Like, what is it? Okay.

Cara Harvey 00:10:54 And I want you to also challenge yourself to ask yourself, where do you over give without refueling? Where are you saying yes. As I did a session earlier this summer about how to say no, it is about boundaries. So it’s inside where we put that video. And I gave kind of a framework, right, of how to say no to things. Are you over giving in certain areas? Are you volunteering for too many things? Are you saying yes to too many things at work or at school or whatever it is? Those are the places where you might have to ask yourself, should I say yes? Or could I use this as a reset and a rest for me? I also want you to ask yourself and again, I shoot. Did it today, did it this week for myself right. What are the non rest habits that you’re doing. Are you scrolling your phone over and over again. Right. Because you may be thinking yeah I sit in I rest like I’m going through my phone.

Cara Harvey 00:11:46 Right. That’s not resting, friend. Right. That’s not recharging you. It’s probably making you more anxious. It’s retraining your dopamine to need more quick hits. It’s not actually resting. You now scroll your phone. I like to scroll my phone to. I don’t care if you scroll your phone, but if you’re scrolling your phone and you’re saying to yourself, I’m not giving myself any rest time where I’m not on my phone, there’s there’s a disconnect there, right? Is it those multitasking things? Like, I literally just left this message in the team thread because I was like, I feel like I’m doing a lot of things this week, but I’m ping pong, right? Like I’m just like all over the place. That doesn’t make me feel recharged. Am I saying yes to everything? Right? You may be giving your time away without even realizing you’re doing it right. You might be thinking, oh, I am doing some rest and I am doing some reset, but I’m not. So I really want you to ask yourself, is there time in my day? And if you’re not sure, you know me.

Cara Harvey 00:12:37 I love a good time. Inventory. Go through your day. You don’t have to do anything formal, but just pay attention. One of the things the reasons when Monday I gave TikTok, I went over to my settings on my phone. I’m gonna check real quick again, and I wanted to look at my screen time because I was like, well, maybe I can like go through and I can see where I’m giving away my time. Okay. My screen time just from taking TikTok off my phone. And it’s not a full week, right is down 12% from last week. Isn’t that wild from last week? It is down 12%. I mean, that’s amazing. Okay, I’m still using my phone. I think it’s got me on like way too many hours on my phone. But I’m, I’m I was giving away my reset time before bed. I was giving away the time with my kids, the time I wanted to recharge myself to social media. Again. I’m not saying I’m never going to put it back on my phone, but that’s that’s a marked change.

Cara Harvey 00:13:33 So I want you to really ask yourself, just go through how many times a day and I think there is a thing on your phone where it’s like, pick up, right? Like how many times? Yes, pickups. So I had 156 is my daily average for my pickups on my phone. Wow. Right. Like that’s kind of crazy. And I want to start looking into more of this data to see what last week looked like first this week if you’re going to your phone to reset. You’re not actually resetting anything. You’re just still working your brain. Part of resetting is also letting your brain shut down for a time period. So how can you create pockets of rest inside your routine? Five minutes friends, you do not have to do it a ton. So another thing I started doing this week was meditating. And if you’ve, you know, been around for a bit on Sunday planning, you’ve seen that I’ve tried. I keep pushing meditation. It was a 2025 goal. I have pushed it week after week after week that I was going to do it.

Cara Harvey 00:14:26 I found a 10 minute to 15 minute app on my workout app that has a 21 day unstressed meditation, and I was like, I’m just going to try it. And so I’ve been doing it. It’s been a couple of days now. It doesn’t take that much time. It, you know, I’m still getting into the practice. I don’t love it. It’s still whatever. But do you know what it is? It’s time that I’m getting to just sit and exist. Think about it. When was the last time you let yourself sit and exist? I found that it wasn’t a while for me, and so I started this practice where because it’s the back of the school season before I pick my kids up. That’s my goal. I haven’t done it. What is today? Friday. So the past four days, two of them. I did it at night and two of them, I did it after school. But my goal is when I shut down work for the day to do this ten 15 minutes of meditation to just ground myself before I go pick my kids up.

Cara Harvey 00:15:14 So I’m like in a better mood and I’m like, reset for them. But even before you get up, you know, do your big yawn, your big stretch and just take a couple minutes to do some of that breathing right in for four, hold for four, out for four. Like really like do that triangle breathing to just get yourself grounded. Going outside, stretching even. I’ve been walking in the mornings outside and I’ve been like listening to something and I just ran out of my audiobook hours. But I said to myself in my head this morning, Maybe I’ll just go quiet. Like maybe I will just walk without the stimulation. Because what I’m also realizing I’m doing is constant stimulation. Oh, I’m cooking dinner. I want to have a podcast. I’m trying to get things done, or I take a walk and I’m taking listening to my book. All those are great things. But I’m going to challenge myself. And you. Can you find one of those pockets a week where you don’t have any noise? When you’re sitting in the silence, where you’re just letting yourself refresh, even just laying down in your bed alone for five minutes.

Cara Harvey 00:16:14 Like can help just to give you time to sit there getting sunlight, going outside. The amount of vitamin D we are all lacking as a society is huge because we’re not outside, right? So taking a little bit of time, I’ve also been doing stretching before bed and it’s allowing me to refresh and reset myself. And again, the phone, we know it. We love it. We’re addicted to it. Put it down. Right. Ask yourself, what is more important to me in this moment? Is it checking what’s happening in other people’s lives? We’re going to be real, right? Call myself out. Is it finding out what other people are doing? Or is it preventing myself from getting so burnt out and giving myself a little bit of a rest. To do something I would like to do. Okay. You could read your book. You could sit. I know also, I just want to say this. It’s really hard sometimes to find that time when everyone’s home again. My kids are home today, so there’s just constant stimulation.

Cara Harvey 00:17:11 Constant noise. I talk, I have to talk to my husband. This morning I said, I’m going to go for a walk and my son loves to do it. He might want to go. There I go. Nope. You and me go for a walk after dinner. Right. Like I’m taking my walk now. Have those conversations. Create those boundaries. Sit in your car. Do not underestimate. I will go run an errand and come if I’m alone. And I’ll come back for my errand. And I will just sit in my car. But I have to challenge myself to not pick up my phone. I’ll just sit there and just have a couple of minutes to myself because we have to find it.

Cara Harvey 00:17:41 I want to take a quick pause and invite you to get my brand new reading tracker and planner. One of the cool things we’re doing here at APM is monthly. I’ll be coming up with a new printable to help you with your goals, and I’m a huge reader, so I made this for myself and thought, let’s put it together for our audience.

Cara Harvey 00:17:55 If you go to a purpose driven romcom tracker, you can grab this using the code Pod ten and get it for only $10. This printable reading tracker has challenges, trackers, goal setting, and some fun gamification to make your goals a little bit more achievable and a lot more fun. Again, go to a purpose driven romcom reading tracker and use the Code Pod ten to get it for only $10. Only for podcast listeners of the Purpose Driven Mom show.

Cara Harvey 00:18:25 Use your alarm on your phone, your timers for some rest breaks. Put them. If you know that you’re the most stressed out or you want to reset before pick up or whatever it is, put an alarm in your phone that says five minute rest and reminds you to stop. And this is a conversation we’ve had a few times on in club calls is I love my job. I love what I’m doing. I can’t stop working when I’m in a groove. Sometimes you have to, okay, I have a job that I love. I could work my job every minute of the day and still never be done, because I keep coming up with ideas and things I want to do and things like that.

Cara Harvey 00:18:57 I have to set boundaries to stop. Okay? Asking yourself, thinking through like, what would it look like for me today? When you get up, just take that five minutes in the morning and say to yourself, what do I how do I want to reset myself today or the day before? Again, the boundaries of saying not now to non-urgent requests. Listen, I’m a hand raiser. I was at my Girl Scout leader meeting Sunday and they needed somebody to do something. I have to literally sit on my hands because they were like, well, someone has to do it. And it was a position I used to have, and it’s not hard. It’s four meetings a year. I was like sitting there. I felt my arm like starting to go up and I was like, no, I will wait, I will wait. I’m not doing it right. And I, you know, I talked about this when I talked about that boundaries class. But the other thing that we need to remember is when we’re saying yes to everything, we’re not giving other the people the opportunity to say yes either.

Cara Harvey 00:19:48 So if you continue to volunteer like so I did not volunteer for this position. Right. And one of the other leaders, you have to be 14 to like have this little role and go to these meetings was like, you know what, let me text my daughter. She’s 17, maybe she wants to do it. And this girl gets to go now and do it right by saying yes to everything. You’re not giving other people time to say yes either. And just like we talk about microwave minute, can you create yourself a little rest menu so you don’t have to think about it? Our goal is always, how can I think about things now so I don’t have to think about things later? Create a rest menu for yourself that has short and doable things of what this could look like. Maybe it is a quick nap. Maybe it is doing something fun. I have all these coloring books I inherited and I’m like, do I want to start coloring? You know, like doing a little recharge or a craft or silence or listening to the music you want to listen to? It could also, yes, it could it be a TV show or something? I don’t I share this, I don’t get to watch a lot of TV in my house unless everyone’s gone.

Cara Harvey 00:20:43 So sometimes for me, resting and recharging is like getting some time to watch the show I want to watch. But I don’t make it always that. Because if it’s always just watching TV, I’m not getting to like the other things. So you add that in, but maybe it’s like, I’m going to get this tea and I’m going to sit outside. I’m also just another side note about phone. You remember when we didn’t have phones and you would go to a restaurant and someone would, like, go to the bathroom that you were having a restaurant, like date like dinner date with or whatever. And you’d have to like, sit there. And now what do we do? We pick up our phones, we go right to stimulation. So one of the things I’m telling myself to do, it was really hard to do this the other day is if I’m with somebody and they go to the bathroom, or if I’m by myself or I’m waiting. Like yesterday I was waiting for people to come for a meeting.

Cara Harvey 00:21:25 I don’t pick up my phone, I just sit. And it’s so uncomfortable and awkward feeling in my body and I do not enjoy it, but it’s what’s needed. I’m trying to retrain my body to not need constant stimulation so that I can, like, get off this yes burnout cycle and I encourage you to do the same. I want you to rest without guilt. It makes you a better mom, a better person, right? Not a selfish person. If you’re like, I like I said, I went for a 35 40 minute walk this morning, I went alone, my husband was home with the kids. I don’t feel bad about it. I did that so that I can have the energy to get through my day and be there for my kids. And when you model the rest for like you doing it, your kids see that as well. They don’t have to get into the like. They always have to be doing something and I can’t remember exactly what it was. But my daughter said something this summer that made me realize that I wasn’t modeling rest well.

Cara Harvey 00:22:14 Something along the lines of like, oh, I’ll go do it right now. Or like, you know, I swear I’m going to do something. And I was like, no, I don’t want you to feel the same way. I feel that I’m retraining of like, feeling on edge, like you must like I want you to be able to have nothing. Days and example is today. While there’s so much that has to get done. My house is kind of a mess. Like everyone should be doing something. My kids have had their first week of school. Their nervous systems are raised. They really could also use a recharge so they have nothing. I have this call today. I have book club in a couple hours. Then I have work computer stuff I have to get done. They don’t have any playdates plans, they have nothing. And I know that they could really just use the day to chill. And if that if chill looks like in front of the TV. My daughter was playing Legos, reading a book.

Cara Harvey 00:22:57 My oh my God. I say, I’ll have to. If I take a picture, I’ll share. He took all my yarn this morning and he made a laser maze in his new bedroom. So there are no lasers shooting and tired from, like, telling me this kid’s not gifted. He’s like, let me make a laser maze. So there’s like a laser maze all through his bedroom. I let them also just do what they wanted to do, because our kids need to know that it’s okay to not be doing activities and things all the time. And we’re the the maker of the schedule, right? But as I always say, permission granted. Not that you need it, you deserve the rest and you should take it. So what I want you to do now is look at the rest of today and tomorrow, and I want you to pick one intentional rest moment that you’re going to add to your day. It could be just five minutes. Don’t feel like I’m saying you have to revamp everything.

Cara Harvey 00:23:40 What is five minutes to 15 that you can do for you? Maybe we’ll add that into weekly planning. You know how we do like your appointments and then your habits and then your projects and then your learning. Feel like I want to start adding in like and five minutes of rest, like, where is it going to go for you? Okay. I want you to think of one thing you might say no to this week. Whether it’s the phone, whether it’s another commitment, whether it’s somebody saying, you know, coming into your space at work, those things, and then give yourself a rest. Menu. Five ideas that will refuel you so that you don’t have to think about it. And you can just kind of pull those when you’re ready for them.

Cara Harvey 00:24:16 Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Purpose Driven Moms show. If this episode served you in any way, we would really appreciate it if you headed over to wherever you listen to podcast, hit that five star and leave a review and a rating that’s home where moms can find us and we can grow our community.

Cara Harvey 00:24:30 If you had a tip or an Make sure you come over and tag me at a Purpose Driven Mom on Instagram and share it with your friends. The best way for us to get this message out there of less hustle and less shame and more intentionality, is for you to share it with people you know need to hear it. Thanks for listening. We appreciate you and I can’t wait to connect with you more outside of the podcast.