Susanna Peace Lovell - Interview Transcript
Valerie Arbeau [00:36] Welcome to ‘Special Needs Mom's Circle of Strength Podcast’ I am so excited that you're here and we have a special guest today. All my guests are special, but we have a really special guest today and we have Susanna Peace Lovell and I just love her name, just the fact that Peace is her middle name. I just have to say a little thing here. My mom always was saying to us when we were growing up. I just need peace in my soul and I never really understood why she would say something like that. But then as I became a mother, I understood exactly where she was going with that. So I love the fact that our guest, her middle name is Peace. So welcome, Peace.
Susanna Peace Lovell [1:15] Thank you. Hi, hi, hi. I'm so happy to be here and actually, you know, it's interesting when my parents gave me the middle name Peace. I have three sisters and a brother. My sister's middle names were Mercy, Grace, Faith and I'm Peace. So it's so interesting. We're all grown up now, but the Peace is really what I have needed the most in my life. It is crazy. And then when I got married, I am now divorced, but when I got married and I kept my married name, Lovell. Well, love, we know what that word means. And ell in Hebrew is God. So my name is Susanna, Peace, Love God. Come on.
Valerie Arbeau [1:58] Bring it. I love that. I love that.
Susanna Peace Lovell [1:59] That's it. That's all I got today. Right. I've got to live up to my name.
Valerie Arbeau [2:06] Oh and I think you do a beautiful job. So I just want to tell you a little bit about Susanna. Susanna is an advocate for disability families. She's a speaker, autism expert, author, certified professional life coach and Reiki practitioner. Susanna received her BA from UC Berkeley and is a certified professional life coach and advocate dedicated to the health and wellness of special needs families everywhere. Her own daughter, Arizona, has multiple challenges and diagnoses, including autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, anxiety and a myriad of food allergies. On her journey of navigating through the worry and heartbreak of raising a special needs child, Susanna found her true calling, her true life calling to help other parents find and realize joy and passion in their own lives. She provides one on one coaching, workshops and support groups for special needs families. Susanna lives in Los Angeles and her book, she wrote a book and it's called 'Your True Self is Enough, Lessons learned on My Journey, Parenting a Child with Autism' was released in January of this year. So again, welcome, Susanna. So great to have you here.
Susanna Peace Lovell [3:18] Thank you so much. Again, I'm so happy to be here. So happy.
Valerie Arbeau [3:22] Alright. So I always ask my guests, what's one unique thing about you?
Susanna Peace Lovell [3:27] One unique thing. Well, what's interesting is that I was raised in a mixed race household. So my father is Taiwanese and he's native Taiwanese and I very rarely run into anyone who's sort of native Taiwanese. So I think that's really unique. My mother is German and they met in the 1960s at UCLA and my dad was there to get his PhD and then head straight back to Taiwan. And my mother was there as an undergrad and they met on campus on a church group and they fell in love and they've been married for almost 54 years now.
Valerie Arbeau [4:08] Wow, that's amazing. Not too many families have that as well. 54 years.
Susanna Peace Lovell [4:14] Yeah, and I love them so much. They are my heart. So anyhow, that I think is kind of unique about me.
Valerie Arbeau [4:21] Totally. I love that. Did you get to grow up in Taiwan?
Susanna Peace Lovell [4:26] So I grew up here. I was born in Santa Monica, California and we lived really in Southern California for the majority of my life. And then I moved up north when I was going to UC Berkeley, but we did spend summer times in Taiwan and I've been to Taiwan multiple times. The majority of father's family is there. He is one of 13. My mom was an only child. So we just so much more just had more connection with the Taiwanese side. So it's fun. It's so fun. And the food is delicious. I mean, dumplings and noodles like delicious.
Valerie Arbeau [5:06] Well, thank you for sharing a little bit about your life there. So tell us a little bit about your special needs mom journey.
Susanna Peace Lovell [5:11] Yes. So, again, come from a big family. I've lots of siblings, etc. And I always wanted to be a mother. And I had this vision of what motherhood was going to look like. I had a vision of what my entire life was going to look like. And so I got married and three months later, I was pregnant and I was like, my plan is working. Everything is working exactly as I planned for it to work. And I wanted four kids of my own, four or five. And when my daughter was born. She just, you know, she just commanded so much attention from the beginning. And she was, she was loud. She cried a lot. And I just thought that that was a very healthy marker for her. I just thought how great, you know, babies got lungs, you know, they, we want to hear that cry. The thing is, though, she didn't stop crying. So it wasn't about like she's hungry or she needs a diaper change. It was just like almost as if, you know, the months sort of crawled on that she was in discomfort. And she was suffering in some kind of way. It was really heartbreaking to see her just not happy really in many moments. So for the first 18 months of her life, she really did cry almost all day long. And, and it turns out that, you know, during that 18 month period, I was taking her to all kinds of, you know, doctors appointments and what's going on why she so fussy. Oh collicky, gassy issues, you know, issues with digestion. That turned into understanding that she had lots of food allergies like pages and pages and pages of food allergies. I was breastfeeding her exclusively. And so I was, you know, I whittled my diet down to like very, very basic foods without flavor. You know, no seasonings, you know, no caffeine, no chocolate, no garlic, nothing that could potentially upset her little belly. And anyway, so I guess the first marker of a different kind of parenthood than I had originally envisioned for myself was this allergy child. And so I thought, okay, well, all right, got it. This is so challenging. And, okay, so I'm going to have the kid with allergies, you know, I'll figure it out. I know how to cook. I'm creative in the kitchen. And I was just making her special meals multiple times a day snacks, making sure that, you know, there wasn't any cross contamination because that is also a very big challenge with allergies and food allergies. And so after she was about a year and a half. At this point, she was covered head to toe in eczema, because that's how it showed up in her body. And so, as we understood more and more what she was allergic to more specifically, we were able to just whittle down the diet, even more. At that point, she was eating solid food. She was drinking non dairy milk. She was having Nutramigen , which was like a hypoallergenic formula. And so the eczema literally left her body as it started showing up on her body, you know, spot by spot. And so when she was 18 months old, I was like, whew. You know, now we can start. Now my parenting journey can start. And it was around that time that maybe a couple of months after that, one of my sisters who had three children of her own at that point was like, you know, Susanna, something is going on with Arizona. And I, you know, I think, you know, you kind of have mentioned that you think that she's stubborn and just not paying attention to you, but I think it's a little something more than that. And I was like, well, what? What? What is it? You know, tell me. And I, this mommy got instinct. You know, that little, that feeling we get as a mom. I was like, she's right. She's right. Something is different. Something is different. And so I was like, okay, well, what do I do? And she was an educator. She was a teacher. And I was like, you should have more answers than I do. What should I do? And she said, I'm not sure, but I think I would start with your pediatrician. And so I said, okay, let me do that. So I called my pediatrician right away. And he was like, nonsense, stop worrying. Your daughter walked at 12 months. You know, Arizona did that, she didn't crawl, but that's because she had allergies and was always scratching herself if we put her down on the floor to crawl. And there was like, there was like a response and a reason for everything as to why she didn't hit specific developmental markers. And anyhow, I just, I just knew in my gut feeling that that was not accurate that I mean, what I did feel was that nothing was wrong, right? And I felt that also something was different. So I had this awareness even way back then. And so I remembered calling my pediatrician back who kind of like poo pooed me off, you know, really. And I just, you know, tenaciously, you know, kept calling and to the point where I just like burst into tears. And I was like, doctor, there is something going on. Even if you don't think so, can I just have some piece of mind? Can you send…. I don't even know where to go. Can you send me somewhere that I can just, you know, check the developmental things. I didn't even have the language for it. And so finally sort of reluctantly sent me to a developmental pediatrician and, you know, back then, you know, which was 15….. This was when Arizona was maybe two. So this is like 15 and a half years ago. There was a very long waiting list. And I remember calling the office every day have there been any cancellations. I mean, just could not settle in my spirit. And so eventually started the journey with the developmental pediatrician. And after multiple visits and, you know, observations, Arizona did receive an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis. What they really sort of broke it down to was sensory processing disorder, dyspraxia, you know, all these words that I was like, I don't really know. But my doctor was so, this developmental pediatrician, Dr. Anshu Batra here in West LA was so loving and nurturing. And she literally was like, everything is going to be okay. And up until that point, I hadn't heard that from any other provider, the regional center, the psych who did the assessment there was just no bedside manner. And so I really felt like, okay, everything's going to be okay. And she's like, yeah, and you know, we have this diagnosis and now we can get services. And it was very much like, you know, sort of delivered in that way that I was able to receive in that moment. And then warrior mom kicked in, that is what happened. And now my daughter Arizona is 17, again she's well, she's almost 18 she'll be 18 this summer and she likes to remind me that she's almost a legal adult.
Valerie Arbeau [12:20] Yes.
Susanna Peace Lovell [12:21] And I said, let me get a conservatorship in place for you. And, and she also reminded me that she can vote for the first time, which is kind of cool like she'll get to vote in the next presidential election. And that's something, you know, it's a milestone. I remember when I was able to vote for the first time. So maybe that's something that we can do together.
Valerie Arbeau [12:42] Yeah. Cool. Well, thank you so much for sharing your journey. I can hear you with regards to pediatricians sort of poo pooing you. And I'm sure that many can relate to that. But I love the fact that you recognized in your gut and having it affirmed by your sister that yes, something's different. So I love that you didn't say not quite right. Something is different because there's no right or wrong with our kids as we're raising them. They are who they are and we're to love them as they are. So I love that you chose to say something different. And I'm just curious with regards to your sister mentioning something. And the reason I'm going to ask you this is because I remember my husband and I lived in a different province. We're in Canada and we moved to a different province and our oldest has cerebral palsy. And we were part of a play group and majority of the children that were there were autistic. And I remember a conversation with some of the moms and their response to family members saying, hey, I think this might be something not quite sitting the way it should with your child. And quite a few of them were very offended. Some of them actually the relationships with their families kind of severed because somebody had been brave enough to broach the subject. So how is it for you?
Susanna Peace Lovell [13:57] Valerie, that is such a great question. And it's so common as we have been in this world. We have also been touched by family and friends where we're like, I think something's going on. How do I bring this up? Okay. So I was not, I felt like, you know, I wasn't offended by the conversation, I was more kind of like offended by, has everybody been talking about this? Like, all of my family been talking about this and they decided Sarah is the one who gets to be the messenger. Have there been like secret meetings behind my back of concern, you know, around Arizona's development? And turns out there really wasn't much of that at all. My family's pretty open and Sarah, you know, in her blunt way, which is a gift, in my opinion, was just like, yeah, I think I don't know what it is. I certainly can't diagnose anything. I'm just saying you should go get checked out. I remember having a conversation with my mother-in-law at the time, because then I started calling everybody, right? So then I started calling every family. I was like, did you think? Did you notice? Did you….. right? And my mother-in-law at the time, who has since passed, who was a big champion for Arizona, big cheerleader, I remember her saying to me, when I asked her, do you think there's something going on with Arizona? You know, my sister called me and she was like, oh, I've been waiting for this call. And I was like, and she meant it in such a nice, loving, you know, affirming way. And I was like, oh, my gosh, everybody had been talking about us. And I, this was one of the first of a million times in my life where I've had to be like, okay, this is not about me. This is absolutely not about me. This is about, okay, one step closer, you know, a little more nuggets of information in terms of how I can best support the daughter that I have. So, but again, I mean, not easy. I don't think it's easy to be on any side of that sense, you know, I've consulted many, many, many families and relatives in terms of how to broach that subject. And there's no sort of right way. There's no easy way. I know. And I had a friend who I recognized in their son, something was different. I remember just like literally praying about it. I was like, okay, I need an opening. I just need an opening, give me an opening. And an opening came. She started telling me about like, you know, speech therapy and I was like, oh, I'm in, you know what I mean. And she's one of my beautiful, amazing friends to this day. So, I just, yeah, I listen, life is tricky and I owe all the grace in the world to all of us who are trying to, you know, make it, make it through.
Valerie Arbeau [16:48] Yes. And every day, that's one of the things that I've learned, Susanna is every day is a gift. And we have to treat it as such. I'm a task orientated person and I've always been sort of, you know, forward thinking and planning and what's the next thing. And often I've not been present in the moment, but I do recall my husband has lost his father, lost him when he was 19 in a car accident that my husband actually happened to be in the car along with his mother. And I lost my father to cancer. And so since then, it's sort of been, you know what, each day is a gift because we don't know if we have tomorrow. So making the most of every day. And like you say, with grace, with grace and also recognizing that we're all on our unique journeys. And that was a thing for me as a special needs mom thinking, hmm, everybody else seems to have it a lot easier than me. But as I've grown and matured, I’ve recognized that all parents are on a unique journey with their children. All of us have challenges and trials and tribulations. And all of us have, dare I say, disappointments and times to grief.
Susanna Peace Lovell [17:53] Yes, yes, absolutely. Yes. And, you know, different visions, meaning different experiences than what the original vision was right? And I wanted three girls and I got seven boys, whatever it is. And actually that was my mother, she wanted five boys because she wanted to have like a basketball team and she ended up with four girls and one boy. And I was like, hahaha you know what I mean?
Valerie Arbeau [18:18] It's funny you say seven boys when we were growing up, we actually had a woman live about three or four houses down that ended up with seven boys looking for that girl. I had sense, I stopped at two. But I was an older mom. So I was never, ever going to have a basketball team. And interesting to say that you're four girls and a boy because that's us two. I'm the oldest of four girls, and we have an eight year gap and then we have my baby brother.
Susanna Peace Lovell [18:41] No way. We have three girls, a boy, then a nine year gap and another sister. She was definitely like we call her the caboose of the family, but definitely. She was unexpected. She was a surprise. Yeah.
Valerie Arbeau [18:59] Even my brother was, I remember thinking I was 12 when my mother announced she was pregnant. And I thought, gross.
Susanna Peace Lovell [19:06] Yes, I was too. I was 12 also cause my youngest sister was born when I was 13. So interesting. Wow! I love this. Yeah, but, but again, back to sort of being present and being in each moment. Really, absolutely, we are, I think we are reminded so often, especially now as we're older, more funerals are now in my life path. And I've attended two already this year. And it's, you know, it is sure one of those things where when Arizona is requesting something of me and I just don't have the band with and I'm just like exhausted. And I just want to like, you know, redirect her to do something else like actually, you know, right before this podcast, she wanted me to read something that she wrote. And I'm like, first of all, I can barely read her writing, right. Second of all, I knew it was going to be a long windy tale about some woe and friendship drama, whatever. And I just said, okay, yeah, let's, let's do that. I have 10 minutes and we sat on the couch and I read it. And I know that's a deposit of something.
Valerie Arbeau [20:12] Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And that is something that took me a while to learn. But I'm so glad that I understand that now and I'm being more present and more intentional about being present.
Susanna Peace Lovell [20:25] Yes. Yes. Right. That's right. Exactly.
Valerie Arbeau [20:28] All righty. So our next question, Susanna, how has your role as a parent of a child with special needs influenced your own personal aspirations and goals?
Susanna Peace Lovell [20:36] So I love this question. So I, well, initially, you know, as soon as I realized that, you know, I would need to spend more time and attention with Arizona in, you know, really addressing her specific needs across the board, you know, food allergies and, you know, therapies and her behavior stuff. She….. after autism, she was a couple years after that she was officially diagnosed with ADHD, which is often a common sort of side dish of autism. And, and then ultimately anxiety, generalized anxiety, which I believe really rules the roost here these days, especially as a teenager. And hormones, all of that contributing factors. So I feel like, you know, I honestly, I feel like if I had not had the daughter that I did, I think that I would be so much less present to life. I feel like I would have been, you know, in the trenches with a lot of the other parents that I see around here sort of caught up in like, well, which school are they going to get into and what about this and what are they wearing and what's their friend drama and you know, just kind of like keeping up with the Jones is, and I, you know, I have very much in me, you know, my Asian upbringing, which is, you know, I could very easily be a tiger mom, right. So I think that if I had a neurotypical child or children, I would have been super strict. I would have, you know, like I was raised. I would have been like, yeah, and we're taking piano lessons. uh huh. And you're going to get a 4.0. Uh huh. And this is where you're going to get into college. Right. So I think that I would have just, you know, reverted to what I knew, because I think that I'm pretty cool. And I think that I was raised well. And I'm a completely different person than my daughter. So raising Arizona has really opened my eyes into this world of acceptance of like, you know, like you mentioned earlier, just like this…. She is perfectly whole and complete exactly as she is like there's nothing to fix. There's nothing to fix. There's nothing broken. And for me, then to have the realization. Yeah. And so how can I lean into the wholeness of who is Arizona this perfectly intact soul on this earth, right. Who came in this body with this brain and came through me and so how can I help to support her in this world that might not understand how to support her. So, you know, I, I try to keep that in mind as much as possible. Like, I can't parent her the way that I was parented. It's not going to have the same effect. And, you know, I have trauma from being raised the way I was raised too, so it's not like there's no perfection. There's no all doing our best. And so anyway, I guess that was a very long winded way of saying that I have just learned how to lean into her. And also to honor myself for exactly who I am, so realizing as I'm advocating for her, aha moments of like, Oh, I can advocate for myself too. That's cool. That's new. That's a unique feeling. That's an unfamiliar feeling. So it's been such a beautiful and challenging journey both. And I'm, I'm just grateful I just feel like absolutely everything in my life, every circumstance, every up, every down every challenge is really for me. And so I, and by the way, trust me, I have so many dark days too. And I am so I'm such a hot mess most days, but in the moments of peace, I do feel like okay, there's something here for me. Really uncomfortable and I'm struggling and I'm miserable in this moment. And there's something here for me. So let me just be open to that. And attune to that. And that is the lens in which, you know, I continue to sort of, you know, walk in my life with Arizona. I believe it's just, it's this beautiful parallel journey that I never knew would be available to me.
Valerie Arbeau [24:54] Wow, love that. Love that. All right. So something exciting happened for you recently and we mentioned it a little earlier that you have authored a book. So tell us about your book.
Susanna Peace Lovell [25:06] Yeah. So firstly, I, you know, writing to me has always been very therapeutic. I've kept a diary or journal, since I was 13 years old, and I recently turned 50 and I wanted to commemorate my 50th with some sort of milestone. So I, you know, I've been writing this memoir for roughly 10 years now like I started writing as, you know, sort of a cathartic process. I was like, you know, I've always written in journals and I've never written for an audience except for like blogging and articles and things like that. So I was like, let me work on this, but it was a long time coming because it was such an emotional right. And so I would get stuck and then I'd quit for like six months and then I'd start writing again and then as Arizona got older, I realized, you know, I had written so much information about my journey. I just wanted to be so raw and transparent, and as she got older, she was like, Mommy, I would not like certain things about me written to the public, you know, and so I honored her. I actually, I had an original title that had her name in it, but she didn't want her name in the book. So I couldn't have the title have her name in the title. So in the book she's just simply called A and I said, okay, well well, how about if we compromise. Would you be comfortable with this book being out there, if you could have something to say to the readers of the book. So she actually wrote the forward. She was interviewed on zoom and then just, you know, we just basically transcribed what she said. And one of the things that she said that she wants people to know is that “Your true self is enough.” So that, therefore, is the title and I felt like that was a great compromise and I whittled the book down tremendously and now it's memoir still yes but it's more anecdotal with a lot of ‘how to’ at the end of each chapter, you know, things that I know now that I wish I had known back then. So some learnings that I think could be helpful to other moms, you know, we all have different experiences, but maybe there's a nugget here or there that might be helpful.
Valerie Arbeau [27:18] No, I love that. I love that. And I have my own copy of your book which came yesterday. And I love how transparent you are in your book. And you started off with, you know, it sounded like a terrible pregnancy.
Susanna Peace Lovell [27:32] Yes. Yeah. It was miserable. I was suffering. I suffered greatly. Yes.
Valerie Arbeau [27:39] And on the flip side, I was blessed. We were seven years trying to get pregnant. So we had lots of fun trying but it was so very disappointing every month.
My monthly would arrive and it was just so disappointing and frustrating. At seven years, seven years that. So I can relate to Sarah in the Bible. And Hannah. Yes, so I was blessed with a great pregnancy and then our journey because we had a prolapse cord. So that's how our journey into the special needs world started. But in your book, you address mom guilt. I think that's something else that I'm going to have to address on a podcast because I think we all have it. And it's so can be so crippling to us because we feel like we've let somebody down. And I don't know about you if you did this but I did all of that analyzing what did I do? What didn't I do? What should I have done? What didn't? And all of this was going on and going on and going on. So it was a lot of mom guilt and then not being able to do what I wanted to be able to do with my child. Not to be able to give them what I wanted to give them. So mom guilt comes in many, many different ways. And yes, I think we can probably all relate. It was tough. It was tough.
Susanna Peace Lovell [28:55] Yes. Yes.
Valerie Arbeau [28:56] And another comment that I love in your book is we have to get comfortable with the uncomfortable.
Susanna Peace Lovell [29:02] By the way, I get to experience this every day. I get to practice this actually every day. I'm like, Oh my God, don't say anything. Don't throw it. You know, like, yes, it is. Oh, discomfort. Oh, it's so uncomfortable. It's so uncomfortable. And then transformation happens. So, yeah, that's a big, big, big, big lifelong learning for me for sure for the rest of my life for certain.
Valerie Arbeau [29:29] Absolutely. I totally agree. And I have had to experience this on a daily basis as well. As things happen in your children's lives, in your life. And it's like, really? Why is this happening to me right now? Why are we going through this as a family? And so being comfortable with the uncomfortable. And I think the other thing is Brendan Bouchard is somebody that I spend a little bit of time listening to. And I remember him saying, Why are you surprised? Because life is going to be uncomfortable. And so I just love how he sort of, you know, asked the question, Why are you surprised? Because there's things we know that are coming, but we act like we're really surprised. And so that being comfortable with the uncomfortable, we shouldn't be surprised that we need to be comfortable with the uncomfortable because there is always going to be uncomfortable, as you say, every day, every day.
Susanna Peace Lovell [30:21] Yes, right, right. Yes, chapters and layers.
Valerie Arbeau [30:26] Absolutely, absolutely. And it sounds like you've had, you know, as I was going through your book, your fair share of trials along this journey, but I love that you're sticking with it. And it sounds like you are kicking butt.
Susanna Peace Lovell [30:38] Ooo wee. And you know what, I have to remind myself sometimes of that to acknowledge myself. I don't do that. That goes hand in hand with mom guilt too. We just don't acknowledge ourselves enough. We don't, you know practice self compassion enough. We are so hard on ourselves. We would never be this hard on our girlfriends, right? Never, right? So it's, yeah, it's what a journey, but yes, yes, yes, beautiful.
Valerie Arbeau [31:10] All right. So before we wrap up, I just want to know how can our audience get a copy of your book.
Susanna Peace Lovell [31:16] So my book is actually available on Amazon. You can just type in my name, the name of the book 'Your True Self is Enough' but I think probably the best thing to do is just go to my website because I have absolutely everything on my website, all the information. You might need to find resources and support. I have an online course that I offer at self paced. It's about life management for special needs families creating a life of thriving, right. And then I also have some handbooks that I wrote ‘My Seven Top Tips for Self Care as a Special Needs Parent’ That's downloadable, PDF format. If you want me to send you a hard copy, I’'m so happy to do that. And more information about my book is on my website as well and my website address is my full name, Susannapeacelovell.com. And I'm going to spell it quickly to S U S A N N A P E A C E L O V E L L.COM. There's a contact form there if you want to get in touch with me. I always respond to emails and I just want everyone to know that, you know, we are not alone in this journey.
Valerie Arbeau [32:32] Awesome. Love that. Thank you so much. Thank you. So check the show notes. I will have the link to the website in the show notes as well. So before we conclude our conversation, Susanna, and it has been a pleasure. I'd love to hear some words of encouragement from you two other moms who are raising kids with special needs. What message would you like to share with them to offer them inspiration and hope?
Susanna Peace Lovell [32:54] Yeah, I think one of my favorite mantras in this lifetime that I lean into daily is find your joy. And what I mean by that is just finding your joy in whatever way joy can show up for you that day. And I often will check in with myself, like, what does joy look like for me today? What does it look like within the next hour? What does it look like within the next moments? Sometimes it's writing in my journal. Sometimes it's moving my body in nature. Actually, one of your podcasts I was listening to was talking about emotions, needing to use motion, right, to get feelings out. I do that when I have so much anxiety. I just can't sit still. So, yeah, it's different every day, but just it's available to us every day, every day, every day.
Valerie Arbeau [33:43] I love that. And I love the fact that you're telling us to or reminding us to look for it, because it's not just going to come on a silver platter. There's no butler, nice looking butler come in with a silver platter with joy on it. But I look for it. Got to look for it. And again, being intentional because we have to make sure we take the time to schedule it in. And I'm going to say schedule it in. And I'm just reinforcing that because our days can just flow. And we just run from one thing to another. We're putting out fires. We're reacting. We have to be intentional about stopping. And this is what I tell my clients all the time. You have to schedule in some time for you. And in that time for you, as what you're saying, I'm going to add in. Find your joy. Find your joy.
Susanna Peace Lovell [34:26] Seek it out. Seek it out Yes, beautiful. So true. I agree wholeheartedly.
Valerie Arbeau {34:32] All right. Well, again, Susanna, it has been a pleasure. Thank you so much for spending time with me and our audience. And I just want to remind our audience to Live with Intention and Embrace the Journey.
