30. "Suddenly I'm Vacuuming Inside The Freezer" - From 'Working Mom' To 'Mom' And Finding Purpose Outside Of Work, With Andrea (A Leap-In-Progress Update)

Today we’re BACK with Andrea Gomez Kerr - whose leap-in-progress is one that we’re tracking - and whose last episode ("I Just Gave My Two Weeks" - Ep. 19, April 5, 2023) quickly became one of the podcast’s most listened-to episodes.  Last time, Andrea shared that she had just quit her job and spoke really openly about Type-A-working-mom-burnout; cutting 40 percent of her family’s expenses; and a lot of the decisions (conscious and not) that landed her where she was.  Andrea is a mom of 3 young kids, the child of immigrants, and has financially supported herself since she was a teenager - so all this has been a very big change.

Today, in Ep. 30, and a few months into her leap, Andrea and I discuss:

• The identity crisis of leaving a job and how we often still feel like we’re on the hamster wheel - even when we don’t have to be  (and what to do about it);
• What happens when ANOTHER family member finds themselves suddenly leaping as well (and when can that be a good or not-so-good thing); and
• What it really means to be a ‘good mom’ and - as we make life changes - how  we navigate prioritizing ourselves alongside our kids (or spouses, or other roles we play in life, for that matter).
• Finally, we break down what a life leap really is (hint: it can be less drastic than you might think).  

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Transcript

30 - Andrea Gomez Kerr (2nd)

Andrea Gomez Kerr: [00:00:00] I just looked at him and I was like, I think we can do it.

I really think we can do it. This would be the time we can do it.

Life Leaps Podcast: Welcome to Life Leaps podcast here. Inspiring stories of ordinary people who made extraordinary life changes. What drove them, what almost held them back. Insights for the rest of us considering life leaps big or small, because hearing someone else do it reminds us that we can too.

Happy Wednesday, everyone today. We're back with Andrea Gomez Kerr. whose leaping progress is one that we're tracking. Our last conversation really struck a chord with listeners and quickly became one of the podcasts most listened to episodes. And that episode number 19, April 5th, I'll put a link in the show notes here. 

Andrea shared that she had literally just given her two weeks notice at her job and spoke really openly about type a working mom burnout. And what sometimes feels like the myth of having it all. How she [00:01:00] managed to cut 40% of her family's expenses when she quit and a lot of really relatable insights on how she ended up where she was 

 and what to do next. Andrew's a mom of three young kids, the child of immigrants, and has financially supported herself since she was a teenager. So all this is a very big change. Today. A few months into her leap. We'll hear how it's all going in. True raw Andrea forum. We discussed 

Number one, the identity crisis of leaving a job and how old habits die hard. We make life changes, but still feel like we're in the rat race. Even when we don't have to be, what do we do about it? Number two. What happens when another family member here Andrea's husband finds themselves suddenly leaping as well? and number three, what it really means to be a good mom. And as we make life changes, how do we prioritize ourselves alongside our kids or spouses or other roles we play in life for that matter. how do we [00:02:00] strike that balance? 

Finally, we break down what a life leap really is. 

And hint. It can be less drastic than you might think. 

when you last intercepted where I was in my leaping process, I was in shock and off I just pulled the bandaid off and I was like, I know I don't want this anymore, but what do I want?

Andrea Gomez Kerr: and so that period of time was not one of insecurity. I was really bolstered by how I was feeling. I knew when I wanted to leave that I was going to leave and I felt good about it. the first few weeks after that, it was almost like the seven stages of grief, right? you grieve the person that you were, you accept the fact that you're not that person anymore, and then you start to figure out what.

Who you are gonna be and what is life gonna look like without this person and that this person was me. I look back now and I'm, that person is a stranger to me. I don't know how I was, keeping all the plates spinning. I don't know [00:03:00] how I was doing it. 

 Before I was stressed and I was anxious and I was busy. Now I'm just productive and busy, but I am asleep by seven. And why? 

Life Leaps Podcast: Wait, 7:00 PM You're falling asleep at 7:00 

Andrea Gomez Kerr: PM Yeah,I'm telling you, I'm exhausted.

My friends laugh. They're like, okay. It's bizarre. And I think what this really stems from is I'm feeling this pressure, internal pressure, to add value to my role in this family. It used to be contributing financially. It used to be. keeping the ship afloat while my husband was traveling and also working.

And now if I'm not working, what is my value to this family? There's no reason why I shouldn't be cooking from scratch now cuz I'm home. I have quote the time to go to the grocery store. I have the time to experiment with food. I have the time to clean the house. I have the time to take my kids somewhere, so why am I not doing it?

So then I feel this internal pressure to do all those things. And the first few [00:04:00] weeks I was just hell bent on getting all this stuff done. oh, all of a sudden I'm. Vacuuming the inside of the freezer. Why am I doing this? And I think that, I think 

Life Leaps Podcast: we all have those vac, mine, I've never vacuumed the inside of my freezer.

Didn't know you could do that. That's impressive. But I think we all have those moments where we're like losing ourself in some crazy task just to feel like we're doing something and then we're like, wait, what am I doing? 

Andrea Gomez Kerr: what? Okay. I would say like the first few weeks of me being at home and not having my career, you would think I'd be just sitting by the pool eating bonbons.

No, I was manic. I was manic trying to do stuff at home to stay busy, to add value, to maybe prove to my husband that this was the right call. So I was constantly reminding him every day, gosh, if I was working, I wouldn't have been able to do. All these things that I did today. And I think at a certain point he looked at me and he said, I know we made the right call.

You don't have to prove [00:05:00] yourself. We made the right call. Wow. It's okay. Like it's fine. You don't have to go and do all this and burn out. You're gonna burn out at this pace, you're gonna burn out. And that's exactly what happened. I burned out from trying to do and be everything at once. Just to fill Andrea.

Emptiness of not working. Andrea, 

Life Leaps Podcast: you know what? It also sounds like to me you went from being super working mom, burning. All the cylinders and all the directions. I remember you saying, that you were driving like an hour or however long home with your kids from childcare school, whatever.

Yeah. Back to, back home. And you were like driving, one's crying, you're trying to stuff french fries to the other, and you're perfectionist at work. You're firing on all cylinders in your working life. And it seems to me that all you were doing at first, Was just changing the setting.

Like you were so used to running on that hamster wheel. You got home and you were like, what wheel am I gonna run on today? And you just took, it's like a conveyor belt, right? Like you just, you kept [00:06:00] spinning. 

Andrea Gomez Kerr: I just filled up the space with more work. That's all I knew. That's all I know. And now I'm starting to think, do I have anxiety?

Is this coming from a place of anxiousness? I don't know how to rest. I don't know how to be still, I don't know how to be introspective. I fill the empty space with more things to do, and I don't know what it truly feels like to be at rest and doing that is hard. Believe it or not, someone who is wired like me does not know how to do that.

We're constantly trying to find an identity in what we do day to day, and it stinks. But I will say that. There's been so much good change at home that it's helped me to pause. The first few weeks was like, man, it go. Then came a period of like pause and maybe just tackle two projects out of eight on any given day, like maybe all you today was [00:07:00] laundry and that was enough.

And I noticed that the pressure was me. It's not me, it's not my husband. He's not asking me to do all this. He's gone. He is flying, which is another update within itself. But I feel better. I'm much more at peace. I hung out with friends this past weekend. They're like, you just seem so calm in a way. And I'm like, yeah, because I'm free from, pardon me, the bullshit.

That I had been imposing on myself. So yeah, I am much calmer. I am much more at peace. I'm busier, but I'm not stressed. And that in itself is a big update for me. if you knew how I was, my parents are saying the same thing, my sisters are saying the same thing, I'm not flipping my lid. I just feel much more at peace as a human and not just as a mom, but Things that used to frazzle me, don't frazzle me anymore.

And, I'm not saying it's easy. I am tired and sometimes my bandwidth to tolerate things at the end of the day are really thin. I'm wiped out, but I'm not. I'm busy, but I'm not [00:08:00] stressed. Yeah, 

Life Leaps Podcast: Andrea, you know what I think is interesting? Okay, so the first few weeks you go again from being super working mom, and now you're just trying to be super house mom.

Like you turn your home into the workplace or something like you're basically just you're racing and running. It's old habits. Old habits die hard. yeah. And yeah. Okay. And I actually experienced that. I think it wrote like a blog post called Rat Race Brain. When I remember when I left my job a couple months ago and got on the airplane to fly with the, my family to Europe to move.

I remember thinking like the second I got on that plane, I was just gonna feel free and for days and days and weeks and weeks. And frankly, I hate to break it to you, but Munson, I'm still adjusting. You have to reprogram yourself. my mind is still racing, but it's no longer racing on, like wrapping up the things at my job, wrapping up, 

Andrea Gomez Kerr: Passing our pets off temporarily to friends, wrapping up our house, wrapping up our visa, whatever. It just moves on to other things if you don't watch it, if you're not careful with it. Yeah, totally. Okay. Totally. This entrepreneurial spirit doesn't end, I just don't wanna make a living out of it.

for [00:09:00] example, I could go to a dermatologist's office and just literally there for a skin check, and in my head I'm like, Ooh, I wonder if he can get more clients if he did this, or I wonder if there's a way that he could market himself this way. I'm, my, my brain fires that way, but now I don't feel this pressure to make a living on that.

 And that's a huge for me, you know.

Life Leaps Podcast: you've been working since you were 15, right? you and supporting yourself.

Okay. 

Andrea Gomez Kerr: Yeah. and then, journaling too. an update for you since we last spoke is my husband changed jobs. and that has introduced another factor of change here at home. The dynamic that I expected we would have with me not working has changed, but in a good way. So what happened is, what happened was, 

Life Leaps Podcast: what's still happening now is 

Andrea Gomez Kerr: tell me.

So the last time we spoke, my husband was a chief pilot in a corporate flight department. So a company that had a flight department and he would have to fly at any [00:10:00] given time. He would have to, change his schedule at the last minute and then I would have to scramble to figure out how I could get childcare around that.

It's not a problem anymore. Because I'm not working. But he decided to transition to a role as a commercial airline pilot at Delta, and that was a huge, you may as well interview him yourself. He, that is a huge life change for him. A huge life leap. 

But now we're going through two separate life leaps together at the same time. Wow. Okay. What I mean by that is he was a big fish in a small pond. Now he's a small fish in a big pond. The schedule's gonna be much more predictable, which is gonna help us here at home, but he's gonna be flying a little more.

And the immediate term means he's not gonna be home. he's been gone three weeks now and he's not coming back three weeks straight. Oh wow. Day or two at home. Okay. To like rest and decompress and then get back into it. But this time, this last module of [00:11:00] training that he's in, he's gonna be gone for another week and a half, and he left two days ago.

And it's like the kids miss him. I miss him. But I have to really think about it and I did. Can two people leap at the same time? Can they? I don't know, but I think that in our case, I think that two people can leap at the same time if the moves that they're making are in service of each other. So what I mean by that is if one of my life goals is to.

Get out of the house more and travel more and be more adventurous. The fact that he is gonna be a commercial pilot and get some perks that allow for us to travel more as a family, that means that we're working together towards a larger goal. Okay. In order for him to do that and to take on this job, my role needed to change.

So my role needs to be now [00:12:00] being the lawn guy, the pool guy, right? The shopper, the cooker, the nanny. Like my role is impacted by his life lead, but it, we're working in concert with each other, so I don't feel resentful of his life goal. I'm working more, sometimes it's, I'm not, Gonna lie. It's been an adjustment for me because I feel like sometimes I'm just stuck at home.

Sometimes I feel trapped, sometimes I ache and long for an intelligent conversation, and that's goes away when I realize that the tradeoff is that I get to do X, Y, and z. I don't know if that 

makes 

Life Leaps Podcast: sense. I wanna unpack it all. Okay, so you quit your job.

You have several weeks of you going crazy manic in the house, Andrea, and your husband's like, don't burn out. You're like, yeah. Okay. Then you promptly go and burn [00:13:00] out from as so at that, There's this inflection when you're journaling and you're saying, look, yeah, I don't have to obsessively repeat the same patterns that I was doing at work that were burning me out.

I don't have to repeat them at home. That's very powerful. And I'm sure something you're still navigating, but so you take a step back somewhere in there. He has been applying for in the background and finally gets this. really career changing position, which before I the understood the context.

I was like, oh, he is just switching flying jobs. Okay. But I get what you're saying now in terms of he used to have this really crazy schedule. Now he's gone over to Delta, which ultimately will bring in better hours and be helpful.

But I think you mentioned before this call when we were briefly checking in, like for the next year. He's gonna have a lot lower pay after you just lost Oh yeah. You know your pay as well. Yeah. And then a very rigid schedule where you're gonna have to step in a lot more. Is that 

Andrea Gomez Kerr: what's going on?[00:14:00] 

Oh, absolutely. And the reason why it doesn't feel as chronological is because it happened at the same time. So I'm making this sleep and he is making the sleep and oh my gosh, it's crazy here. Did you know 

Life Leaps Podcast: when you left your job that he was gonna change his job to this lower paying, again, long-term good, but short-term, very difficult schedule and situation 

Andrea Gomez Kerr: horizon?

I think so. His. It's interesting. It was always on his mind. If I'm going to be a pilot, there's two ways I can go about it. I can be a commercial pilot or I can be a corporate pilot. And what stinks for him is that for a long time, the commercial pilot route wasn't available to him for a myriad of reasons.

One of them being. He needed a college degree, which he didn't have. so he made the best of his resources. He paid his way through flight school and he ultimately got into several different corporate flying positions, which he's been really successful at. And he's done just fine. But in the back of his head, it was always like, [00:15:00] could I go the commercial route?

What have I missed out on? he was really hard on himself about it, I think. And then some of the requirements. in the airline business we're done away with. Now you could apply for a position at Delta without that. Covid changed that, right? yeah. honestly, I think there's just been more demand for pilots and they can't fill those positions fast enough because so many pilots are retiring.

So if there was a time for him to apply, it would be now he got into flying late. This would be one of these things where if you wait a few years, this may not be an opportunity for you anymore. Like this would be the time to make that move and make that switch. You only have a certain number of years to fly before you have to retire.

Do it to age, and since he started late, like this would be the time to make that move. So long story short, yeah, it was always on his radar. but we knew that if he was gonna take that risk of going on to Delta making significantly less as a first [00:16:00] year pilot, we knew that it was gonna be tough regardless that first year.

What we didn't anticipate is that I could burn out so quickly at this new job that I was at where I would pull the bandaid off and then Keith would say, oh my gosh, what does this mean? If you do that, does that mean I can't apply at Delta? and I just looked at him and I was like, I think we can do it.

I really think we can do it. This would be the time we can do it. So 

Life Leaps Podcast: you guys were having this background convers. So during our last, yeah, you're in my last conversation when you were like, I am weeks out of leaving my job. Yeah. You guys were having these conversations behind the scenes. Like he had already been thinking about applying to this commercial job, which would've changed y'all's worlds and you left first, but then shortly thereafter he was like, Hey, wait.

That leap that I put in 

Andrea Gomez Kerr: for I think I'm gonna get it. I'm going, it's happening. Can we both still do this? Oh my gosh. Okay. okay. Oh, it sucks. Yeah, it sucks because it's scary. we were both going to be making way less, like I was gonna be going down to [00:17:00] zero after making a pretty high six figure job work.

I was going down to zero and he was going down to maybe I would say almost 40% less. Than what he was making, which is insane. But eventually, like you'll get back to where you were. So there's a lot of short-term suffering for long-term success. And that's what we keep reminding ourselves, we're paying our dues.

It's okay, we're resetting, we're bigger things later. It's fine, it's fine, it's fine. And I don't even think it was a sacrifice. I think it was just a decision to prioritize certain things. For us, it was prioritizing our family. So that I could be more present at home while he's accomplishing these goals.

I already knew I wanted to be home, and be a better mom. I knew that was important to me, so I knew I was gonna go do this. It just happens to be that now I'm doing this while he's flying more. So the timing actually worked out perfectly because if he had made this move to Delta and I [00:18:00] was still in the job that I was at, I would lose my mind.

I would lose mind. How could I do this? Right now, I'm taking my kids to national parks. Right now I'm making meals from scratch. I'm food prepping. I'm going to the grocery store. I'm taking care of them all summer. I'm taking them on play dates. I'm swimming with them in the pool. How could I be giving them this level of summer with him gone and me working?

So if you really think about it, I know on paper it looks like a terrible decision. 

Life Leaps Podcast: But no. Oh my gosh. I don't think, 

Andrea Gomez Kerr: and on paper it looks like a huge change. That's what's so crazy. yeah. But our family thinks it's crazy sometimes. Yeah. And I don't think, okay, I wanna ask you about that. Actually often doing that.

what does that look like? are you not worried? Are you not, my parents have asked are you sure That's a good call. how are you gonna pull this off? It's like, well, we saved, we saved to try and make this happen. So it. Luckily we saved. Had we not saved money, had we not cut expenses, had we not built up that [00:19:00] emergency fund, we wouldn't be able to pull this off.

So I would say to anyone who's making a life leap, even if you're not sure of what that life leap is going to be, start saving, start. squirrel away some money, start spending less so that when you are ready to make that leap, whatever it looks like, you at least have something. to help equip you to make a big move.

that's the only thing that's made it worthwhile here. Impossible. 

Life Leaps Podcast: Your life leap. Fund 

 I'll write that down. okay, so, all right. I'm getting a picture now 

 So 

Andrea Gomez Kerr: What concerns or fears either have y'all had to work through or have others, like you said, your parents put in your lap that you've had to answer to?

Life Leaps Podcast: Oh my 

Andrea Gomez Kerr: gosh. Concerns? besides the obvious financial one, I think it's balance, From a marriage perspective, I feel like a lot is on my [00:20:00] plate. It feels unbalanced. It feels like I'm taking one for the team, right? I had one moment, and this is actually a pretty funny anecdote, so I'd been trying to get ahold of my kids' doctor for something.

I don't even remember what it was about, but I had called several times and left voicemails, and I'm like, why aren't you guys getting back to me? I've sent messages. I'm following up again. da. Literally four or five times I've been following up with the doctor and they said, ma'am, we've left multiple voicemail messages on this particular number, and it was my husband's number.

So I called my husband and I said, oh boy. Hey, I look like a real a-hole because I've been following up with the doctors and they said they've called you several times and they've left you voicemails, so I have no leverage with them to be upset. And he said, why are they calling me? I said, they're calling you because you're a parent.

They're calling you because you are just as [00:21:00] responsible for this child as I am. So I need you to check voicemail. I know that your priority is work, but I can't possibly be the keeper of all the dentist appointments, therapies, doctors play dates, responsibilities for school, the pool guy, lawn groceries, like it felt to me.

Mm-hmm. And I know that sounds silly, but I felt like at that point I. Because I'm not working, I should be able to manage all of this. So that to me is something that I struggle with. My concern is that I feel like now that even though I'm not working, I have way more responsibility than I had before because before I could afford to delegate, I could have a nanny, I could have a no pair.

I could have daycare, I could tell my husband, guess what, you're gonna do the grocery store shopping because I have calls until 8:00 PM And now I don't have, I don't have a [00:22:00] reason to do that. Now I am home and that is my job and I'm doing all these things. So yeah, there's, that's another 

Life Leaps Podcast: kind of pressure.

Yes. 

Andrea Gomez Kerr: And the distribution of responsibilities is a concern of mine. Like I know that he is, Stressed with training and he's learning something new and he's got flight manuals stacked all around the house and he's got a cockpit built in the basement and the focus is training. His primary focus is, how do I keep 300 people alive in the air going 400 miles an hour?

That is his one track mind, and I get it. But also I need him to be present at home. I need him to take on things at home too, because. I need to feel seen. I need to feel that he knows how hard it is to keep this shit afloat here at home. So that is a concern I have. It's not something we can't work through.

But the good thing is that when he is done flying, as soon [00:23:00] as it gets off that plane, he's home. He's not doing anything. So he can help me once he's home, but we just haven't seen what that looks like yet because he is not flying with the public until the first week of July. So this period we're in right now is a real transitional period of him training and him just trying to learn something new.

 So we'll find balance eventually. 

Life Leaps Podcast: I'm still say, I'm still curious because I think that this is, you've made in two really extreme forms, the transition from working mom of three young kids, two working parents, like you spoke a lot on that.

Obviously in our last. Episode cuz that was your experience. And now I feel like you're living, of course it's been a short time, but almost like on steroids, living this experience of a full-on stay-at-home mom because A, your kids are not in school, it's summer, so you are the full childcare and B unlike most, people who are co-parenting.

It [00:24:00] sounds like your partner, your husband's away A whole lot more, at least temporarily. And so you've gone into a really extreme version of what the other side quote unquote looks like. You know what I'm saying? 

Andrea Gomez Kerr: Oh yeah. I was thrown, there was no transition slowly into this, okay, I quit my job and three weeks later, school was over.

So I was just, I became a full-time cruise director. I am entertaining these kids left and right. I'm keeping them busy and. To be honest, like that's a whole nother conversation is like, why do we feel this pressure to entertain our kids all the time? Mm-hmm. Our parents were never, oh, they were literally like, here's a coloring book.

Go outside and play. Go do something. But what does this need to constantly be on for your children? I think they need to be creative. I think they need to be bored. I think that's important, but again, it goes back to how am I adding value at home now? How am I. Proving myself. It's [00:25:00] by being the mom of the year 

Life Leaps Podcast: and oh my gosh, you're trying to supermom it.

Andrea Gomez Kerr: Yep. And I'm, I need to get to a place that's sustainable instead of just channeling all my energy into the Grade A mom, just as I was a grade a career person, wow. I need to be okay with My B game. Yeah. 

Life Leaps Podcast: not even your B game, Andrea. I dunno why it has to be your B game.

I, I think that you need to be okay with being like a more holistic Human. Version of yourself. You know what I'm saying? what you're describing is not you need to be okay with being a flawed, sometimes tired, but doing her best person that doesn't have her version of a hundred percent best outcomes in every given moment.

Yeah. 

Andrea Gomez Kerr: Yeah. 

Life Leaps Podcast: You need to be okay with breathing 

Andrea Gomez Kerr: And that's where I'm at. I'm in this transition period of getting there. Okay. 

Life Leaps Podcast: I wanna hear then how. I mean for myself too. How do you get there? what do we do? How does, how do you [00:26:00] get there?

I think you've mentioned you've been journaling a lot and mm-hmm. When you and I briefly checked in should we cut this new episode? There's some updates. What can we share? I think you wrote to me in a message, you were like, I'm so ashamed I haven't figured it out, or, I'm so ashamed that I, I don't have it all figured out yet what I'm gonna do next.

And I was like, are you kidding me? It's been like 17 minutes. Why are you, but I feel like that was a little window into maybe where your head's at. you've identified the recalibrations that you'd like to make, which is a, yeah, not repeating the same patterns.

Of all cylinders at all times. You had it work, not repeating the same pattern at home, and instead creating a more balanced version of yourself, your household, your responsibilities. Things are temporarily on steroids at the moment. I get it. But sounds like in the next few months the dust will settle a bit and in the meantime you're still trying to figure out that calibration.

Like what does that look like and how are you endeavoring to get there? 

Andrea Gomez Kerr: I'm doing two things. One is I'm [00:27:00] saying no to a lot now. I've had to really prioritize things. where before while I was working, I would feel like I was overcompensating for that by saying yes to all the play dates to keep my kids busy and to make them feel like mommy's paying attention to them.

Let's go do this. Let's go do this. Let's go do this. now I'm saying no to a lot of things that, that I feel like are just super fluid to. The things that actually really are important, right? I, we don't have to go to every birthday party. We don't have to go to every playgroup. We don't have to go to.

you don't have to do three sports at once. so prioritizing, that's one thing I'm doing. The other thing is I'm actually carving out time for myself, which I know sounds impossible when you've got the kids at home. But I'm part of a community, called Move-In Breathe. It's a studio, it's a yoga studio, and then it's also a,gym owned by husband and wife here locally.

And they've encouraged me to bring the kids in with me when I work out. Oh wow. So at first, there's no way I can't do that. I don't wanna turn that place into [00:28:00] Childcare Central. But they're so big on community that it felt like if I'm gonna go take care of myself at all, and they're allowing me to bring my kids in, I'll try it.

So that's what I've been doing is I'm bringing my kids with me to the gym. And the first few times it was stressful. I was like, please be quiet. Please sit in this room. Oh my gosh, don't make a sound. Please don't get in their way. Don't pick up that weight, don't do that. But really it was my anxiety. They were fine.

They were just sitting there on the floor on their little tablets. And even everyone around me was like, Andrea, your kids are so behave. Just let them sit there. Just let them sit there. And so I had to learn that yeah, they're gonna be okay for an hour and I'm not gonna be robbed of an hour to myself just because my kids are there.

I'm not gonna use my kids as an excuse for, I don't go into the gym. wow. Self-care and saying, no, the two things I'm doing, stop doing things that you feel like you're obligated to do. And the other is, Prioritize yourself. You matter more than your kids. And that [00:29:00] is hard for us to say because we've all seen our parents be martyrs and everything they do has been around us.

And we admire selflessness as equality, especially in my culture, being a selfless mom. 

Life Leaps Podcast: And I'm undoing a lot of that programming to say, I need to be good. I need to be. Feeling good before, I'm good to everyone else around me. So yeah,I'm learning to work in the selfcare, but my yoga teacher in my trainer would say that I'm horrible at that because I don't typically take as many yoga classes and meditative, calm, quiet time.

Andrea Gomez Kerr: I'm usually like in the gym just working out, like working off that. Anxious energy and they're, they keep encouraging me to take the yoga classes, keep going to the yoga classes. You don't always have to work out at, maximum speed. So that's gonna be something I need to work on is mm-hmm.

Life Leaps Podcast: style down your nervous system instead of revving it up. Yeah. Wait, Andrea, you just said something that [00:30:00] I can't just like move on from, you just said I have to be good before I can be good to everyone else. And that you. Might even have rationally understood that before. I don't know, but mm-hmm.

You're doing a lot of D and reprogramming Yeah. To actually live that. Yeah. Tell me more. what, cause I think that is something that, that is such a part of the mommy culture and. You mentioned your culture. I know your family is Colombian. I know you're also because I am as well Southern, but even if, and maybe those are like their own little exaggerated versions of that.

But I would say it's also an extremely universal thing that each just has its own little cultural twang to it, right? Mm-hmm. And I had a conversation the other day about someone who was talking about working out. And she said she's a mom. And she said something like, yeah, we really should make time to do this [00:31:00] because then it makes us better mommies.

And I was like, first of all, let's not say mommies our kid. I just, I don't know. I'm joking. But then second of all, I was just like, I, and I sort of nodded and then I paused and I was like, but you know what, Let's also just do this cuz it makes us feel good and better us.

And like it may also be true that it makes us a better mom and parent and all that things, but I feel like all too often we're justifying it for that reason. Like there us can't just be the ends. Like the mom can't just be the end of it. The reason it has to be like, what do I do for me has to be a means to an end anyway,

 it resonated with me and I think that hits a nerve. 

Andrea Gomez Kerr: Yeah. I wanna be someone who just happens to have kids. I wanna be someone that is interested in this, and this. I'm a person that likes to hike. Oh. But I also have kids. I wanna be someone that.

My life does not revolve around my children. And I know that sounds terrible. I want to be someone that my kids remember as being a nurturing mom, but [00:32:00] a mom that felt good in her own skin. And what I mean by that is I want my kids to see me work out. I want my kids to know that I had a successful career.

I want my kids to know my friends. I want my kids to have experiences and travel with me. I don't know that I wanna be remembered as a mom who put herself last. That doesn't feel good. Yeah. When my grandmother passed away, I. Very recently. Sorry. The first thing that everyone said in our family was like, she put herself last.

She was so selfless. Everything was about her kids, and it's true. It's true, right? I get it. And it was a different time she was married to my grandfather. She had 10 children and everything she did had to be about all the kids. I get that. But before she did that, she went to school and she [00:33:00] had an opportunity to study.

And all those dreams that she had,kind of went to the wayside when she had children. Her children became her primary focus and that era of her life ended and she was very proud of that. She took very much pride in her family. But the other dreams went away. I understand that's how it had to be, and that was how culture was at the time and where it was happening, and the way her life had panned out.

It made it possible that she could take care of all the children and the children at one point were helping each other, and that's how life was. My mom inherited that. My mom inherited that as one of 10 children. She married my dad and had three kids and did not want to work all through our childhood.

And she was very selfless. She was very selfless and she worked so hard to take care of us. She worked at a preschool so that she could earn money, but also be near [00:34:00] us when we were in school, like wow, everything. And it's an admirable quality, but also I can't help but think, what did my mom miss out on?

Did my mom get to go do all the things she wanted to do? What happens now that we're grown? She should be like living her best life, right? Because she wasn't able to, and maybe she was living her best life taking care of us. Maybe if you asked her biggest dreams were to have three successful, happy children, and that was it.

I don't know, But I think that. I want more. I want to have a family, but I also know that this is my one life to go be happy and have a fruitful marriage and family. But also I wanna go experience things. And I don't know that being selfless is something that I want for myself. Maybe that's selfish, but it's a undoing of everything that I knew as being my mom's child and everything that my mom knew as being my grandmother's child.

So that's hard. That's [00:35:00] really hard. 

Life Leaps Podcast: You, thank you for unpacking that. And I just wanna say to reflect back for a second, you're allowed to have your truth, right? Like you're allowed maybe your mom and your grandma or a thousand percent fulfilled. Maybe they did all the things maybe. I dunno, right? But like even if that's the case, which.

I find that hard to believe because nobody's a thousand percent fulfilled. So that was an exaggeration. even if they were, you get to say, that's not me. You get to say, that's not what I want. And you get to say, that's not my truth and a version of the life that I wanna 

Andrea Gomez Kerr: lead. yeah.

But they both had very honorable lives. my mom is a saint. She's always here for us and she's always available, and I want to inherit that quality too. I want my kids to run to me the way I run to my mom, like I did not feel well yesterday. I was really miserable and I was not feeling good. I had a [00:36:00] fever and the first person I called was my mom, and she came running over.

She was here in 10 minutes, and that's a quality that I hope I can still retain. I think that. She's very nurturing. She's devoted her entire lives to us, and she continues to do that even as we are adults. And I wanna be my mom. I wanna be like my mom in that way. I also know that because my mom was a certain way, there are certain things that she had to go through that I don't wanna go through, you know?

So anyway, it's just, it's tough. It gets into the cultural upbringing. It gets into, demands of what we think we need to be because our moms are a certain way because my grandmother's a certain way, and they never imposed that on me. They never did. They've always 

Life Leaps Podcast: wanted absorb it. Mm-hmm. We absorb it.

We absorb it. 

Andrea Gomez Kerr: It's modeling. It's really modeling that is passed down, 

Life Leaps Podcast: So how do you think that? This is informing the moves that [00:37:00] you're making now and have been making because I remember when we last spoke you were like, look, I've always financially provided for myself.

That was how I provided value. It was also a strong source of pride for me that I had this really strong career was able to financially contribute so stronglyLike many of us, that was a source of pride, a source of identity. It just went into overdrive at certain points.

Yeah. And became tough having, you had three kids under the age of three at one point, and it just came to be too much combined with, of course, the job you went to, which wasn't right. And so now you've taken this massive step back where you are fully available in many ways that you weren't before to your kids.

But now you're doing that dance of now. Okay. I felt I was too unavailable before, but now is there this fear of swinging too far in the opposite direction and Yeah, 

Andrea Gomez Kerr: absolutely. [00:38:00] Absolutely. I still feel like I can relate more to working moms. Than stay at home moms that have just been stay-at-home moms.

I feel like there's maybe a group of us that were former career people and now work from the home, haven't found those people yet. 

Life Leaps Podcast: you're still fresh, but I, 

Andrea Gomez Kerr: yeah, I'm just, I'm getting to know a lot of the parents that were in my kids' class. like their kids are in my kids' class and they're all lovely people.

I'm just trying to find my footing socially with like-minded moms that maybe have big dreams and aspirations or maybe, can daydream with me and maybe have experienced these same feelings. And I'm not saying they're not there, it's just that now I have the time to go find them. Mm. Um, I, yeah, I.

Feel better where I'm at compared to when you and I last spoke. Okay. I [00:39:00] do think that there is some equilibrium between just centering my entire life around my kids and just having a good time with them and being present with them. I think that's possible, but I'm a firm believer that not everything in our lives should be centered around the kids.

The kids should also fit into our lives and our landscape. I know you can relate to that. Being in Europe now, people take their kids to restaurants at eight o'clock, nine o'clock at night. Parents are getting together in playgrounds and bringing the kids, and it's very much, it's not child focused here and marital.

Everything has to revolve around the kids. 

Life Leaps Podcast: It's interesting. What, it's interesting that you say that because yeah, I was at a playground, a birthday party, for a three year old girl. I. Two days ago. It was Saturday night and one of Luca's little friends was turning three, my son's friend was turning three, and it was like, I don't know, 9:30 PM And it was still light here [00:40:00] because it's summer and Yeah.

Spain, I don't know. And all these kids are still in the park and they're running around and the parents are drinking beer and listening to music and hanging out. And I was talking to one of them and, It was a group of expats, but also some people from Spain. And just, a good mix.

And one of them made this joke. She was like, in Spain, And actually she's Polish, so she was saying in Europe generally, but also in Spain. She was like, we don't have to escape from our kids as much because we just take them with us and they live their lives and we live ours. And it's just accepted and expected.

 The point is, yes. I hear you. And I think that, so part of your leap now, and it sounds like this has been in the back, on your mind for a long time, but.

Part of your leap now is calibrating that balance. How do I make myself more available to them and shrink a lot of the outside things that were stressing me? But not make them my whole world to the point where [00:41:00] maybe it's not healthy for you. It's not even necessarily great for them to feel like they're the center of everything all the time.

And regardless, it's just not what you wanna do. So how do you find that sweet spot? And my guess is Bill. Spend our whole lives trying to do it. But is that sort of part of your task right now? 

Andrea Gomez Kerr: I think this is a period of transitions. Finding that equilibrium, figuring out what our life is gonna look like in the next few weeks, next few months.

getting my kids to adjust to me being around all the time. Also getting them used to the fact that daddy may be away for a little bit, and that's really hard. they're really, they're feeling it, they didn't get to have him at Father's Day yesterday, and it's like, oh, I hate them.

But what they don't see yet is that Daddy's gonna do big things with them. Daddy's gonna take them to Ireland. Daddy's gonna, make it possible for us to go have all these life experiences and. he's gonna be more present when he's at home, so that I find comfort in that. I will say that [00:42:00] I was hesitant on even giving an update because it felt like, do I, have I made enough of a leap and I'm learning to be okay with that.

The fact that a leap may not necessarily be a giant leap, it may be a series of small hops. Towards a better life. And that's where I'm at, is I'm not struggling to give someone something to talk about. Now I'm okay with the tiny little steps in the right direction. And the fact that I'm able to do that is a leap within itself that I've made enough of a transition in what I thought I was and who I thought I was to this new version of me.

And that is my leap. Love. So I feel good. 

Life Leaps Podcast: I love it. Okay. Andrea, I can't believe you struggle. You didn't know whether to share, cuz this is all still big and amazing stuff and I'm so thankful that you shared. And okay, Looking forward then. the next time [00:43:00] that I hear from you, I am gonna ask how it's going with.

Finding the sweet spot balance between First of all, just within yourself, right? Like not just staying on the hamster wheel from work to home to whatever. Cuz you're used to being on a hamster wheel and now you're gonna recreate the wheel wherever you go. So how is rat race, Andrea going? 

 And then also how do you be present for your kids? And let them be more, a bigger part of your world maybe than they were able to be while you were working full-time. But strike that balance where you are cultivating a lot of other things alongside that, that, makes you feel like a whole version of you.

Andrea Gomez Kerr: Yeah. And I'm working towards excited to give you that update when I'm there. 

Life Leaps Podcast: Do you have any. Final reflections, things that you wish you had even known a few months ago, things that you hope you know, a few months from now, 

Andrea Gomez Kerr: Yeah. I think I've been listening to a lot of your podcasts your episodes and they're really inspiring and they're, in a way, for [00:44:00] someone like me, it's very easy to feel like, oh my gosh. I'm not doing enough with my life if I'm not abandoning my life and starting a goat farm, or I, is the departure from my status quo big enough to where I feel like I'm making big strides in my life and I.

I would say sometimes if you can do little tweaks, if you can make little tweaks in your life and you position yourself to make those tweaks, that is enough of a leap. You can make small jumps to get to where you wanna be. It doesn't have to be a huge, drastic move. but I consider your podcast important because it is inspiring to know that other people have done really hard things.

And it makes me feel like I can do hard things. Other people are doing hard things. It may not be the level that I'm prepared to take. It may not be the same move that I would wanna make, but it is inspiring to hear [00:45:00] other people take a departure from their status quo. So I hope people keep listening in and learning something.

About each of these individuals and maybe someone like me to show them that they can make small, tiny tweaks to their status quo to be happier 

Life Leaps Podcast: in general. I love it. And I had an interview last week or two weeks ago where, it was another update of leap in progress, Lilia r who quoted Tony Robbins and said, we often overestimate what we can do in a year, but we underestimate what we can do in a decade.

Yeah. And to your point, I think step by step, my friend. Yeah. Recalibrating your compass is a huge huge task and a leap. And then you just gotta take a bunch of little steps to get there from, from there on. So 

Andrea Gomez Kerr: not everything has to be drastic. That's my last thought is not everything has to be a 180,I love it.

So yeah, it's a [00:46:00] process. 

Life Leaps Podcast: Thank you all for being here. We're a brand new podcast, so if you enjoyed it, go ahead and follow rate and review us in your podcast app so that we can know what you liked and others can find us. It would mean a lot. Last but not least, we'll keep you posted on brand new episodes each week when you follow us on Facebook or Instagram at you.

Guested it life leaps podcast. Till next time.