EP:147 How To Stop Feeling Frantic and Rise Prepared With Early Morning Habit™ Star Alex Schauer
Jun 04, 2024Season 3
Ahna Fulmer
ABOUT THIS EPISODE:
What if the key to transforming your chaotic mornings was a simple shift in focus? Join us as we chat with Alex Schauer, a dynamic entrepreneur and mother of four, who reveals how an early morning habit transformed her life. Alex shares her journey from feeling overwhelmed by the demands of running a business and raising four boys to finding profound calm and renewal by prioritizing sleep and "being" over "doing." You'll learn how stopping evening snacks improved her rest, allowing her to start each day with a clearer mind and a stronger spiritual connection, ultimately boosting her productivity and overall well-being.
Revitalize your faith and fitness with a morning routine that does not sacrifice your sleep and does start each day with God's Word and a workout. Join the community today at www.earlymorninghabit.com
What if the key to transforming your chaotic mornings was a simple shift in focus? Join us as we chat with Alex Schauer, a dynamic entrepreneur and mother of four, who reveals how an early morning habit transformed her life. Alex shares her journey from feeling overwhelmed by the demands of running a business and raising four boys to finding profound calm and renewal by prioritizing sleep and "being" over "doing." You'll learn how stopping evening snacks improved her rest, allowing her to start each day with a clearer mind and a stronger spiritual connection, ultimately boosting her productivity and overall well-being.
Revitalize your faith and fitness with a morning routine that does not sacrifice your sleep and does start each day with God's Word and a workout. Join the community today at www.earlymorninghabit.com
Alex, it's so lovely to see you, so good to see you as always.
Speaker 2:
It's such an honor to have you here. I'm excited to hear about your experience and early morning habit. You had a unique one, which is really very unique, and we will dive into that. But I'm excited just to hear your perspective on how it renewed your morning, how it impacted your life in a very unique way. But first I would love to hear what was sort of the motivating factor to even joining early morning habit. What were you hoping to get out of it? And then, consequently, how or did early morning habit help get you there?
Speaker 1:
Mm-hmm. So the first time I heard you talk about rising in the morning and being not doing, I felt instantly, I would say, both excited about the potential of doing that and a little bit convicted, if that's a good way of saying it. But I would on a normal basis. You know, I have my business, my husband has a business. We have four boys now and our mornings are normally pretty chaotic. And if I got up early for any reason, it was to get extra work done before my kids got up. And then, you know, we're off to the races with getting ready for school and going to work and getting things done, and then after school activities with sports, and by the end of the day I'm just passing out and realizing like there is no um, real time to um. You know, and I kind of to me this actually is, it sounds selfish, but there was no time for me, there was none in that. That's okay To an extent. I love being a mom, I love what I get to do, but there was this yearning.
Speaker 1:
I think that what if I were just alone with God in the morning? I didn't feel the pressure, and actually I felt the pressure from the other side of what if I were just here to hear from God and to be with him, and then I could, you know, get my workout in, get ready for the day, and then the chaos starts. How would that make an impact on my um, on my day in my life? How would that make an impact on my um, on my day in my life? And I think that the it started out off as a question what could it be like? And that's what I think. I was just more intrigued than anything, and it's something that I haven't done, um before, just because my normal routine is so go, go, go, go go, and you know, the schedule and demands of my to-do list kind of always gave me a good excuse to never dive into being alone and spending time with the Lord like I knew I wanted to, and that was my main motivation to getting into the early morning habit.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and I loved your perspective, because we have a mix of people that come into the program, and I would actually say a fair number of them are the people that have never had a morning routine, have always wanted one but are not a morning person by nature. That was my story. So I always say if I can do it, anyone can do it. But you did have a morning routine. You would say you are a morning person by nature, and so I would love to hear how, then, this concept of starting your day being not doing did change your life, because you are incredibly productive. You're the woman that's already getting up early. What a lot of people would like to do, and a lot of us think that's like the end all be all to getting up early is getting more done. That's why I first started getting up early. So I would love to hear from your perspective how this concept of flipping around your morning routine so that you start it being instead of doing, how did that impact?
Speaker 2:
your morning and, ultimately, your life.
Speaker 1:
Well, and when you do the early morning habit, you realize the first thing that you actually start with is sleep, and so I can't say anything about the morning routine until I've said that sleep was the key to starting that. And let me also give the context of when I started the early morning habit. I was significantly pregnant.
Speaker 2:
I don't even know how to say that. She's amazing. She's amazing.
Speaker 1:
Very, very pregnant at the time. But I and I obviously wasn't sleeping well. You know, if you've ever had a child before, you know that those last that last you know couple of months, the sleeping is horrendous, Like how do you enter that? And I, you know, I tested the concepts that you have about sleep, you know, in the middle of probably the hardest time to sleep in my life, which is during pregnancy, and I stopped. One of the biggest things that I think helped was I stopped eating for the day. I think it was by seven o'clock on. That was my kind of schedule, and it may have been even earlier than that, but you know I've had a newborn now, so that was like 37. I was done eating for the day.
Speaker 1:
And that first night after I stopped that I so before I was like waking up, like in panic, feeling um, like I needed to throw up in the middle of the night and so, um, then that night I slept all through the night and woke up the next morning and I was like, oh, my word.
Speaker 1:
And so you couldn't get me to eat past six, 30 for any reason, because I was like, no cause, my sleep is protected. So I think the first thing for me. The first thing, the first major change for me to allow me to get to the place where I could wake up with some amount of calm was being able to first prioritize the sleep portion. So then I'm sleeping well at night, really pregnant and able to wake up the morning. It felt refreshed and that allowed me to go into my morning routine at a different pace and so I wasn't feeling the frantic. You know what happens when you wake up and you know like I didn't sleep enough last night, and so then I'm going to like I'm waking up now and it's going to make the rest of the day really hard because I'm going to have to paddle through all of that you like.
Speaker 2:
start your day as tired as you were when you went to bed.
Speaker 1:
Exactly, that's exactly the right way.
Speaker 1:
And then there is also the added anxiety that you know you didn't sleep well. So then all throughout the day, you realize the reason that you're not doing well or being as productive as you want it's all spent on this whole nighttime thing. So anyway, so that for me the sleep was kind of the first big shift to happen. The sleep was kind of the first big shift to happen. And so when I started sleeping well, then when I woke up to calm instead of a panic of I didn't sleep enough, then I was able to lean into what was there as far as the quiet of the morning and sitting down and not feeling and not allowing myself to go to my to-do list or to go to my phone or just check my email briefly, just to see what the day was going to be like. It was all just focused on you know, I'm going to, I'm here, I'm, I'm with you.
Speaker 1:
Lord, this is not about anything else. This is just about you and me right now, and I can allow other things to happen the rest of the day. And I think that, um, I think that the fear of I'm not going to get up and do the things that I need to do is that everything else isn't going to happen through the day like it should and actually the opposite happens. You know, whenever you and for me this was true when I, when I prioritize that first you know 30 minutes of my day to spend time with the Lord and get myself ready for the day, all of those things that I wasn't um, I didn't feel the panic the rest of the day.
Speaker 2:
And.
Speaker 1:
I don't, you know. I'm sure there's some scientific things that you could say about that, but for me it was just. I noticed when I woke up with calm, then the rest of the day could remain calm.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and it's an interesting concept that we talk about in the program and some of it you're alluding to.
Speaker 2:
But for those of you listening and watching, you know, one of the things we practice in this quiet time is something called emotionally intelligent gratitude cultural, but it's the idea that in this quiet you are actually addressing the biggest stressors on your mind.
Speaker 2:
You're acknowledging how it makes you feel and then I'm simplifying it drastically, but then you're covering those realities, those uncomfortable emotions, with gratitude and how that makes you feel. And when you then cover that with God's word and prayer, I mean it literally is transformational because it takes what feels like panic and it covers it with peace because you realize, oh no, these emotions are within my control and in fact I can actually flip the script on them and then cover that with the sovereignty of God's word and who we are because of him. It does, it really changes your day and it kind of creates this sort of unshakable foundation, regardless of your circumstances, which you also experienced. I didn't even try to transition that way, but that was a good transition. But you also experienced that in, you know, a poignant, and I was always past or to my due date.
Speaker 1:
And so I really anticipated that with our fourth son as well, because once you've experienced it one way, you think this is how it's all going to happen. Well, with our fourth son, Duke, I went into labor on my own, which was actually a prayer that I had.
Speaker 1:
I wanted to go into labor on my own because I felt that before, and so I was like I'd like to be able to do that. Well, at 37 weeks I did. I went into labor on my own the day after the Superbowl and, um, I didn't even think it was true labor. I thought that I was having Braxton Hicks, and so I was telling my husband I'm fine, we're going to make it through. About three o'clock in the afternoon he's like I don't think that you're fine, I think that we should go into the hospital.
Speaker 1:
So we did, and um long you know portion of that story short when we finally did deliver Duke, he was born with a true knot in his umbilical cord, which I had never actually heard of before, but it's.
Speaker 1:
It is actually a knot in the umbilical cord which I had never actually heard of before, but it is actually a knot in the umbilical cord. And it was also wrapped around his neck twice, and so when he was born he was not breathing, and so there were. I've gone back and talked to the nurses since and they told me there were six minutes between when he was delivered and the moment when they intubated him and he was able to breathe on his own. So obviously the scariest six minutes of my life, um, I often go back there at my head and just thank God that it happened the way that it did and in the way that, um, he was able to breathe after those six minutes and they were able to take him into their care and do an amazing job helping him recover. And you know, obviously I believe in prayer and believe that God helped him recover very quickly. But so he was in the, he went, was whisked off right away to the NICU. What I haven't said so far is I also tested positive for COVID and so and you have a newborn every mom is groaning, like every mom who has been in that position is just like oh, girl, oh it was, it was awful and I mean you
Speaker 1:
know you have one, a child, in the NICU and then they tell you because you are positive with COVID, then you are in an isolation room. He is isolated from you. You cannot see him because it is a danger to the other children in the NICU, which I honor all of those children. So I didn't want them to get sick either. But it did mean that for the next four days I was in an isolation room in the hospital without my son, which is just not something I ever really want to go back to ever again.
Speaker 1:
It was awful and we're two months out now he's doing really well. But in that moment there were a lot of questions on his recovery and there were a lot of questions on um. You know there was. There was just a lot on, you know, the bonding that's supposed to happen.
Speaker 2:
The very beginning and and people can't come in and see you and be with you and comfort you, you know you're truly alone, which most of us don't really experience, right right so.
Speaker 1:
So they did allow my husband to come and get milk that I had pumped for our son. So that was the time that I would see him. He would come, get the milk, take it to Duke, and then I would. They would FaceTime me to let me know that he was drinking the milk that I had just pumped for him. And that was the extent of my my stay, so there's a lot of time that I'm all by myself. The nurses aren't coming in as frequently, to be honest, because they have to garb up every time they're coming in.
Speaker 1:
So they're like just tell us everything that you need and we'll just come in the one time to check on you and bring you everything you need. So there was a lot of alone time is what I mean by going into those details. And I think I had well, at that point I had a choice I could sit and I could probably watch a movie, or I could be on social media and scroll, and I think, because of everything I'd been learning from the early morning habit, I decided that none of that was right for me, but that I needed to commit that time to prayer and think this is my time to be with the Lord. And so I brought up my app and prayed worship music and listened oh it makes me cry. And prayed worship music and listened oh it makes me cry. And read the Bible and just thought this is my time with him and he can be my comfort.
Speaker 1:
And, to be honest, when I talk about it now, I think I don't know how I did that. Like at the moment, I don't know how, looking back, I was able to have the peace that I had and the confidence that everything was going to be okay, and even being separated from my son and not knowing how he was doing and developing all those things. I don't, physically, in my own strength, know how I did that, because I don't think that I did. I believe that God carried me through those four days and when I first signed up for the early morning habit, you were even telling me I don't know why you're doing this Because, like I tell people not to do this, like whenever they're, like in moments, yeah, I literally tell people there's certain seasons that maybe you don't want to sign up.
Speaker 2:
And she was in the one and she was like girl, I'm doing it. Yeah, I was like I need to do it.
Speaker 1:
I just felt so adamant that I needed it and that.
Speaker 1:
but I didn't know why I needed it until I was in that room, and then I realized that I had been conditioning myself already to be able to be in that room and be isolated, um, and I knew what to do with the isolation. And there's, um, you know, when you have so many children in your house and you have so many things going on in your life all the time, it's, it's easy to find a lot of comfort in the noise, and for me it was the first time that I had ever had to be silent for that long. And so although if I could have gone back and changed the situation, I probably would have to be able to see Duke, but I wouldn't trade the time that I had with the Lord for anything, because that I feel like those were the moments that I am holding onto, and I've held onto for the last two months, as we've watched him develop so well and we're so grateful. But, um, I think that there's a lot of um fear that can come in from a traumatic situation, and I haven't faced that a traumatic situation. And I haven't faced that and I believe that it's because I know that in those moments of isolation, that God was protecting me and caring for me better than anyone else could have done in that situation.
Speaker 1:
But I don't know if I would have done that you know, as a knee jerk reaction if I hadn't been preparing myself before. But I had already clicked off my phone from so many distractions because I wanted to take early morning habits seriously. I wanted to make sure that when I woke up in the morning that the first thing I could get was the Bible. You know that there weren't options for me to go to social media or anything else that I could just focus on on the Lord. So I had already prepared myself and I didn't even know it.
Speaker 2:
It's so beautiful I literally have goosebumps. You mentioned something that I think is really powerful that, as women, we often find comfort in the noise. That, as women, we often find comfort in the noise. And it's ironic because you know the noise, whether it be actual or subliminal. Noise is something that we don't even realize. Half the time is surrounding us. You know the social messaging, the, you know the noise of our children, but there's just constant noise, and you know you made such a great point in that what we don't even realize is the freedom and the joy and the peace to be found in the silence.
Speaker 2:
And I think this is where one of my favorite things about hearing feedback from women from early morning habit is how, when you have structure in that silence, it revitalizes your life. The problem is we don't know what to do with the silence, and so we just end up feeling fearful, shameful, guilty, anxious, because there's not intention. We just don't know what to do, and so I love your example of learning from that structure and then using it as a tool to equip you in a really difficult situation and to be able to come out of it saying I was able to be still and be at peace. I mean that that's worth about just any dollar to have that. It's really, really meaningful. What would you say if you could give one word to generally how you felt, whether it was your morning or you before early morning habit as compared to post early morning habit or now? If you could say from this to this, what words would you use?
Speaker 1:
I would say frantic was before, because I always felt like I was waking up behind. You know, I was never um. I never woke up and thought, oh, I have all this time. No, I have to get the boys up and get them dressed and do all the morning things that were my routine, um and um. And you know, now we're at the place where we're sleeping better because of her two months um into a newborn and he's sleeping better. So, as I start start to re-implement early morning habit, I think that the word that I would use is let me think about that for a second. It's a good question and there are a lot of words that are coming to my mind.
Speaker 2:
Right, now, nothing like getting put on the spot. Welcome to the podcast, right.
Speaker 1:
Um, I think I went from frantic to the only word that's coming to my mind right now. So I'm going to go with. It is prepared. Hmm, um, I think that you know, at the beginning of the year, I told my husband I want to feel like I'm ahead. I don't want to feel like. I'm on things anymore and you know the to-do lists are still there and all of those kinds of things, but I feel better equipped to tackle them right now. I'm not starting the morning behind, yeah.
Speaker 2:
Which is so beautiful because ultimately, what you're saying is and this is the key with early morning habit is it's not like your day has changed, necessarily. It's not like your to-do list has changed, but really what's changed is your perspective. It's the way that you're starting your day and it shines a completely different light and just by changing your perspective, makes you feel prepared for anything Like bring it on, Even though there's no certainty for the day. Your perspective has changed. So that's such a beautiful. I love that. I love that For those of you listening and watching, we would love to have you join us.
Speaker 2:
When you sign up and join the community, you meet amazing members, stars like Alex Schauer, who have had such an incredible and impactful experience and sharing. It is such an honor for me to hear. It always makes me choke up when I hear these amazing, amazing stories. If you click on the link in the show notes, it is going to be Alex's referral link. She gets a small thank you commission for anyone that signs up through her link. If her story is resonating with you and you sign up, please use her link. You can go to earlymorninghabitcom and we would love to rise with you. Alex. Such an honor to have you. You're a blessing to me.
Speaker 1:
So glad to be here and so thankful that you took the time to do Early Morning Habit. It's meant more than I can say.